Ordinary Men
The arguments that Christopher Browning emphasizes in Ordinary Men are based on his beliefs about the Holocaust. His argument touches base on the idea that regular citizens of Germany could commit such horrible acts without being coerced into doing so. He examines the side of the Reserve Police Battalion 101 and tries to figure out just why these gentlemen participated in the mass shootings and deportations of the Holocaust. In fact should these "gentlemen" even be called gentlemen enlight of the acts they committed upon other men?
The men that Browning writes on were simply ordinary men from various places in Germany. They were mainly middle to lower class men which made of most of the population therefore proving that this was not a secretive issue. The group was made up of both citizens and career policemen. These men had been born into the early beginnings of Nazism but were probably not entrenched into the political ideology that so many of the Germans had been brainwashed into believing. Major Wilhelm Trapp, a career policeman and World War I veteran headed the battalion. Trapp joined the Nazi party in 1932, but never became an officer in the SS. His two captains, Hoffmann and Wohlauf, were both trained SS officers whom carried out the orders of Trapp or relayed them down to the lower command. The reserve lieutenants, all seven of them, were drafted into the Order Police because they were ordinary men. They were middle class, educated, and thriving in their regular lives. The thing was that hardly any of these men were in the SS. About five of these reserve lieutenants were in the Nazi party but none were members of the SS. Of the remaining officers twenty-two were Party members, but none were members of the SS. Some of the battalion were blue-collar workers also. Less than half were lower-class workers and the remaining two percent were middle-class but not greatly successful. "Most of these men were raw recruits with no previous experience in
The men that Browning writes on were simply ordinary men from various places in Germany. They were mainly middle to lower class men which made of most of the population therefore proving that this was not a secretive issue. The group was made up of both citizens and career policemen. These men had been born into the early beginnings of Nazism but were probably not entrenched into the political ideology that so many of the Germans had been brainwashed into believing. Major Wilhelm Trapp, a career policeman and World War I veteran headed the battalion. Trapp joined the Nazi party in 1932, but never became an officer in the SS. His two captains, Hoffmann and Wohlauf, were both trained SS officers whom carried out the orders of Trapp or relayed them down to the lower command. The reserve lieutenants, all seven of them, were drafted into the Order Police because they were ordinary men. They were middle class, educated, and thriving in their regular lives. The thing was that hardly any of these men were in the SS. About five of these reserve lieutenants were in the Nazi party but none were members of the SS. Of the remaining officers twenty-two were Party members, but none were members of the SS. Some of the battalion were blue-collar workers also. Less than half were lower-class workers and the remaining two percent were middle-class but not greatly successful. "Most of these men were raw recruits with no previous experience in