Reserve Police Battalion 101: The Normalization Of Brutality

In Christopher Browning’s book, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland tells the story of Battalion 101, a group of 500 policemen in their 30’s and 40’s who were sent into Poland to participate in a ‘special action’ without being told exactly what they are doing. Overtime they realized their mission is to Kill Jews and racially purify Europe. Most of the killing during this period of mass murder took place in Poland. Battalion 101 together with other Order Police battalions contributed to the manpower needed to carry out this enormous task. Browning comments that these men all went through their developmental period before the Nazis came into power. These were men who had known political standards and moral norms other than those of the Nazis. Most men came from Hamburg; one of the least ‘nazified’ cities in Germany and the majority came from a social class that had been anti-Nazi in its political culture. In seems this would not seem to have been a very promising group from which to recruit mass murderers on behalf on the Nazi vision of a racial utopia free of Jews. However, their actions helps us understand not only what they did to make the Holocaust happen, but also how they were transformed psychologically from the ordinary men into active participants in the most horrific offence in human history. In doing so, it aims on the human capacity for extreme evil and leaves this subject matter with the shock of knowledge and the

My understanding of the inhumane event of the Holocaust was deeply strengthened for the past few days from reading Maus (Art Spiegelman) and Night (Elie Wiesel). I soon after quickly grasp how Adolf Hitler’s plan of genociding more than six million Jews off the planet was America’s worst history. Many German soldiers were following orders of removing all Jews, but their tactics of killing them were dreadful. Germans soldiers were able to cremate the victim, murder them, Jews died from harsh conditions, eventually growing weak, or even a bullet to the head of Jews ranging from all ages. During this event, Jews were held up in largely overcrowded concentration camps; such as Buna in the novel Night.

In Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 And The Final Solution Christopher Browning systematically searches through historical records to trace the actions of the Nazi police Battalion 101. This battalion consisted of older, middle-aged men who joined the to avoid conscription and the front-line, by all means these men were normal and respectable however, during the Final Solution they were turned into hardened killers. Browning evaluates the factors that these men experienced and attempts to understand how these men were so easily turned from family men into the war machine that Hitler and Himmler used them for.

Over 70 years ago, one of, if not the, darkest and most evil events in human history began. Starting in 1941 and ending in 1945, up to about 11 million people (including 6 million Jews), who were deemed 'sub-human' by the Nazi regime of Germany, were systematically rounded up and exterminated by various means. These means included but were not limited to gas chambers, deliberate starving, and mass shootings carried out by paramilitary groups affiliated with the Nazis and SS (Schutzstaffel), such as the Einsatzgruppen. The holocaust is one of the best documented events in history. Despite this, many people choose to deny the holocaust. I will be disproving many of the arguments used by holocaust deniers.

When the Holocaust is mentioned, the first thing people think of is usually the concentration camps or Hitler. Most people forget about the other tragic events that occurred outside of the camps. More importantly, they usually identify they blame the wrong people who had committed these crimes. The Einsatzgruppen had operated in the territories and areas owned by the Germans. These Killing Squads were told to murder people and had done so willingly. They had found the most brutal ways to torture and murder the Jews of Eastern Europe and Asia.

The Holocaust was an event that took place during the late 1930s and early 1940s. The Holocaust was carried out by the German Gestapo, its sole purpose was to exterminate all “inferior”races of people. After the Germans’ defeat and the discovery of the concentration camps, the officials that ran these camps were put on trial for their crimes against humanity. However, some of these war criminals ran from their trials and are now being found in their later years. Their age, however, does not change what they had done in their younger years. Though many believe these men should be left alone, these men should be persecuted for what they did to those many innocent people during WWII.

After the horrors of the Holocaust came to light, the international community came together to create a new set of standards concerning a specific kind of crime against humanity. Prior to WWII, violence existed and people were murdered in cold blood, but nothing as systematic and

During the Holocaust the Nazi German, Adolf Hitler, murdered five to six million Jews becoming the most well-known genocide to ever take place. The Holocaust was also known as the war against the Jews. The German’s were targeting the Jews because they believed that they were “Christ-killers” and it was against the German’s beliefs. Therefore, the only solution to this problem was make the Jew’s go extinct. Adolf Hitler and the German’s were sure that the Jewish community deserved disaster because they did not view their beliefs as correct, so the Jews were put into concentration camps and death camps throughout Germany. In reality the Jews did nothing to deserve this type of cruelty from the Nazi’s except simply just being a Jew. Adolf Hitler, and the rest of the Nazi Germans, blamed their cruelty and unjustness towards the Jews by “accusing the Jews of demonic powers”. In the concentration and death camps the Jews were not treated like human beings because the Nazis did not view them as human beings, but as a waste, literally. It is believed that one of the main goals of the camps were to turn the Jews into feces. Even far away from the concentration camps, throughout the entirety of Germany the Jews were viewed as inhumane. The use of propaganda in the streets and in newspapers had painted a picture of how barbaric and devilish the Jewish community was. Throughout the twelve devastating and catastrophic years there were millions of reasons for the Jews to abandon their morals and find a new community that would accept them for who they truly are. Rather than just surrendering their beliefs they believe that the Holocaust was an opportunity to learn and

In the Holocaust millions of Jews lost their lives because of simply who they were. Many however hid and survived this dark event in history. It was the year 1933 and WW11 roared on, some saw it as a war against countries but eventually everything dark and ugly came to the light. Adolf Hitler was the chancellor of Germany and had obtained great popularity with the German people. While beginning to attack nations he was also trying to destroy all Jews in a horrific mass genocide. Creating concentration camps and taking all that the Jews owned he began to round up these human beings as if they were cattle. The stories account for them as being kidnapped at midnight to being tricked into going to their death thinking they were going for a

When Adolf Hitler was appointed to office in Germany in January of 1933, the citizens of the country had no idea what was in store for them. “The Holocaust” was a mass extinction of several minority groups by the Nazi regime who believed they were the superior race (Introduction, n.d. par 1). The races and groups of people that were targeted during The Holocaust were Jewish people, Roma (gypsies), Polish people, Russian people, disabled people, homosexuals, and many other races and groups of people (Introduction, n.d. par 2). Over nine million people died during the Holocaust, causing it to be known as a mass extinction (Introduction, n.d., par 3). Those who were not killed were tortured in horrendous and inhumane ways. The memory of those

This quote said by Meyer Gottlieb perfectly describes the crimes that occurred during the Holocaust, the mass murder of Jews. The high death toll was directly caused by guns, cruel treatment, and harsh conditions. Yet, all these things would never have been instituted if there hadn’t been an underlying foundation of hate towards the Jews. This hate allowed Hitler to pass laws that took away the natural rights, rights that we are all born with, of the Jews. Their rights to proper nourishment, proper housing, the right of dignity and respect, and just and favorable conditions of work were all taken from

Six million men, women, and children were murdered from 1939-1945. An attempted eradication of the Jewish people has left a permanent scar on the hearts of many. A scar that travels through time and generations, a scar that many would say is the single worst crime in human history. Genocide, mass murder and ethnic cleansing are not terms that can be associated solely with Jews. Systematic executions of ethnic, religious and racial groups have been ubiquitous throughout history. While there is no denying that the holocaust was particularly heinous, dark period in human history, I believe there have been other events in world history that parallel in motivation, magnitude, or both.

The Declaration of Independence declares “all men are created equal are endowed with certain unalienable rights,” and yet people ignore the fact that police officers treat colored people differently, and unjustly. Racist police brutality disparities continues to be one of the most prevalent, and yet insignificant racial discriminatory act. If police officers are hired to ensure people’s safety and security, to serve and protect, why is it that they continue to harm, and brutalize the people they are protecting? In spite of all the laws that are place to end racial discrimination, people of color continue to be mistreated, discriminated against, and placed into a low societal status, especially by our police officers, because people believe that colored people are the cause of any and all problems.

The legacy the Second World War is often inundated in a series of disparagements, condemnations, and outright disgust against the perpetrators of the industrial scale mass-murder that was the Holocaust. This provides both positive and negative outcomes for those who seek to study the Holocaust and understand it from all angles. The demonization of key Nazi luminaries like Hitler and Himmler are highly appropriate given their ruthless and inhumane actions against European Jewry, ethnic minorities, their own German citizenry, and an international global standard of morality. Their reputations for inhumanity are well–deserved. Nonetheless,

Kitty Hart-Moxon recalls, “Arrival in Auschwitz is a defining moment in your life. The doors open, you are thrown out, greeted by barking dogs, screaming figures with whips, a stench of burning flesh and a glow of fire” (Harding). Hart-Moxon’s vivid memories of violence stayed with her a lifetime. If a person was fortunate to survive the agony of the Holocaust, one was left battered, broken, and in most cases asking why. Although the Jews, political dissidents, homosexuals, and other groups targeted by the Nazis will never get their lives back, they can gain some solace from identifying the perpetrators of the Holocaust and using that knowledge to ensure it never happens again. Many people share the burden of the crimes committed during the Holocaust, yet the three groups that can be allotted the most blame are top SS officers who planned the mass exterminations, the citizens of Germany who voted for and supported Hitler, and minor SS officers who carried out day-to-day duties.