Ordinary Men

.
Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland / by Christopher Browning

The Holocaust of over 6 million was perpetrated not by a collection of self-deluded madmen nor elite "super" soldiers, but groups (usually 9-15) of average guys, or ‘Ordinary Men’. Active in handling the physical extermination procedures, these reserve battalions, or ordnungspolizei, quite literally enacted the final solution, adhering to the perfunctory details of executing men, women, children, infants, etc.; even as many themselves had families far removed from the horror. So Why? While its not easy to pin down, Browning’s account of the Josefow (Poland) camp gives a good deposition. A chronologue as scrupulous in detail as it is shocking in revelation, it admonishes the full array of influences involved in the process.

As with any operation of Nazi design, mass-murder genocide was a multifarious undertaking (read: organized), involving issues pertaining to the psychology of initial resolve, the group dynamic and hierarchy as well as ultimatums driving things forward. For some, the necessary ‘removal’ of Europe’s racial inferiors was a mere pre-requisite for the Reich's proliferation, a Machiavellian answer to a long-standing problem of socio-economic equanimity. Others weighed the cost of ostracision and coalesced while still more assented out of a need for survival (the threat of personal ‘removal’ always loomed). There were conscientious objectors, members whose sympathy lay with their victims or those with convictions preventing their participation, even as it led to their deaths.
The magnitude of the Holocaust and its legacy is most often viewed from the victim’s perspective. What comes to mind concerning the executors of the act generally concerns those at the top, even as those people—Hitler, Goebbels, Eichmann, Himmler, Heydrich, etc.—were so far removed that little concern involved the middle men. To the Nazi heads, camp administrators were a means to an end and as expendable—to some degree—as the victims themselves. This is an important, tediously constructed chronicle detailing 'the details' of one of history’s most chilling events.