Summary Of Ordinary Men By Christopher R. Browning

Ordinary Men is a book written by Christopher R. Browning. The book follows the Nazi lives of German soldiers and the killing processes of the Jews in Poland. The Holocaust was a hallmark of World War II. Many groups of people were targeted by the Nazis, but the most famous group were the Jews. The Jews were the main target of Hitler’s agenda of making Europe an Arian continent. When many people think of Nazis, they think of Germans who willingly joined Hitler’s forces and wanted to kill all Jews. What Browning shows in this book is that not all Nazis wanted to kill Jews. In fact, some did not even have a choice. Hitler choose a group to target, and they were the Jews. Many people had a hatred for the Jews. In fact, Hitler had enough

Therefore, the battalion was created. Germany needed all the man power it could get. They especially needed a lot of man power in killing all the Jews. This is where the Reserve Police Battalion 101 came into place. Not fit for defending their country, but fit for destroying every Jew in sight. This is what the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, had in mind for how to go about with killing the Jews. Himmler was a ruthless man, in fact, he was one of Hitler’s right-handed men. Himmler was responsible for dividing the whole “police army” into two smaller branches. The Security Police branch oversaw the Secret State Police or notoriously known as the Gestapo. They also oversaw the Criminal Police which, dealt with political enemies. This one branch was all led by Reinhard Heydrich. The second branch of the “police army” was the Order Police. They were led and overseen by Kurt Daluege. Daluege’s responsibilities were to oversee the municipal police, rural police, and then community police. What both branches had in common is that their responsibility was to execute the Jews on order. The major players in the Reserve Police Battalion 101 were Major

Most of the material in the book was a review for me considering I have known a lot about World War II since I was in fifth grade. The facts on the Jewish killings was not news to me. In fact, since I am Jewish, I have dwelled deeper into the subject. I did learn about Major Trapp and Gnade. Major Trapp’s story was interesting to me. Gnade’s story was the usual sadistic Jew killer who was always drunk. This to me, was almost every Nazi. The reason Major Trapp stood out to me the most was him giving his men the opportunity to sustain from massacring Jews. To me, this gave me hope in the sense that there were “good Nazis” out there. What made me lost hope quickly in Major Trapp being good was that he still followed his orders. Even though he said his men did not have to participate in the killings, it seemed as if he just pitied his forces. If he was truly good, he would have empathized or at least sympathized with his men. The fact that he said that orders are orders told me that this gesture was not in favor of the Jews. He only did it for his men’s sake, not the Jews. What the author did good in telling Trapp’s story was how he not only described Trapp’s emotions during the massacre, but followed the men who had to carry out the killings. Overall, I would not change the book. It was written clearly. The first seven chapters were a little slow but the story started to pick up there. It switched focus from the Jews