Ordinary men

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    "There are no extraordinary men... just extraordinary circumstances that ordinary men are faced to deal with" (William Halsey). The same can be said about volatile men. This is the quote Christopher R. Browning thought of when he named this book. The men of the 101st battalion were rarely faced with decisions. Even if it had been proposed by Trapp the morning of Jozefow that "any of the older men who did not feel up to the task that lay before them could step out" (Browning, chapter 7, pg. 57), he

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    evil, they are dehumanized. This is dangerous, as it doesn’t allow us to obtain wisdom, perspective, and empathy for those involved. Ordinary Men allows an opportunity to see these events from the eyes of the perpetrators and their journey that led to what seems to people today as ruthless, unscrupulous murder. When in fact these people were literally ordinary men who were introduced to unordinary circumstances which caused them to abandon their humanity. If we discredit these people as inhuman we

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    Ordinary Men Book Review

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    Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher R. Browning is an insightful book that provides information as to how ordinary people may be susceptible to committing heinous, evil acts. Browning explains this through analyzing judicial interrogations, which occurred in the 1960’s, of about 125 men of the Reserve Police Battalion 101 (Browning, pg. xviii). The Reserve Police Battalion 101 was a unit of the German Order Police formed in Hamburg, Germany,

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    Human behavior demonstrates that people will conform to others as well as obey others with authority. As shown in the book, “Ordinary Men”, and in the Milgram experiment, these factors will greatly affect what people will do. When one sees others doing something that they might be against, it is still highly probable that they will follow the trend due to conformity. Likewise, if an authoritative figure orders one to do something that they are against, they will still obey due to obedience. During

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    revolution. The boys adore The Commandant because they think he's teaching them to be men, specifically warrior-men, but he's really teaching them to be murderers, thieves, rapists and torturers who wrap their bloodlust and greed in ideology that seems half-understood when it's comprehensible at all. The movie does a solid job of showing how quickly a child's moral compass can be knocked off-axis, how men like The Commandant can bask in the adoration of immature

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    (1978), and Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers (2000). Browning is best known for his publication of his book, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. Ordinary Men admired all around the world by many individuals and gives a detailed story about the reserve police battalion during the 1940s. In Christopher Browning’s book, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, he explains to us all about his study of German Order

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    Ordinary Men Christopher Browning describes how the Reserve Police Battalion 101, like the rest of German society, was immersed in a flood of racist and anti-Semitic propaganda. Browning describes how the Order Police provided indoctrination both in basic training and as an ongoing practice within each unit. Many of the members were not prepared for the killing of Jews. The author examines the reasons some of the police members did not shoot. The physiological effect of isolation, rejection, and

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    many cases, this was achieved. Germany hoped to create lands free of Jews; judenfrei. German blood was perceived as pure, creating the need to cleanse the nation of the unkempt, parasitic Jews (Browning 44, 152). Ordinary Men by the historian and author, Christopher Browning, follows the men of the German Reserve Police Battalion 101 as they work towards this goal of extermination The story leads readers through these men’s first experiences “clearing” the area of the Jewish population, to these events

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    Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning I. Ordinary Men is the disconcerting examination of how a typical unit of middle-aged reserve policemen became active participants in the slaughter of tens of thousands of Polish Jews. Reserve Police Battalion 101 was made up of approximately 500 men most from working and lower-middle-class neighborhoods in Hamburg Germany. They were police reservists, not trained in combat, some of whom worked with and had been friendly with Jews before the war.

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    work which explores this question is ‘Ordinary Men’ by Christopher Browning, in which he investigates particularly the Reserve Police Battalion, which was active from 6th May 1940. This was a Nazi German paramilitary formation of Ordnungspolizei (Order Police), who were commanded by, and were serving under the control of the SS by law. Of these men, several were from Hamburg and many were ‘Reserve’ policemen as they were too old to join the army. The others were from a wide range of occupational

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