Ordinary Men

The obvious question to tackle is how could ordinary men commit such inhumane crimes, and how could the system imposing such orders upon these men survive. The answer to this question isn’t so obvious, of course. A great majority of the officers and policemen committing these murders showed in one way or another that the actions they were committing were ones they weren’t proud of. And yet the system continued. One case I found to be illuminating was when Browning describes that a “self-important captain may have been trying to impress his new bride by showing her he was master over the life and death of Polish Jewry. The men clearly thought the latter, and their reaction was uniformly one of indignation and outrage that a woman was brought to witness the terrible things they were doing. The men of the First Company, if not their captain, could still feel shame,” (93). This reveals that the man in charge of the company did not reflect the same opinions and feelings towards the killings. The authority figure was one who saw this as an opportunity to exert his control and power over others, and to use the killings to impress another human being. The men felt shame and didn’t want outsiders to be aware of what they were doing. But it only takes a few leaders to be able to have control over a great number of men. The killing of the Jews didn't require the approval of each individual involved to continue. However, though the men in the above example gave knew their actions to be wrong and had feelings of shame, they still committed them. This can in some part be attributed to wanting to obey those who had authority over them, but also what allowed them to continue killing was psychological. Strategies of killing changed as time went on, and different methods of murder placed different levels of trauma or stress upon the men. Browning says “Their direct participation in the killing was not only less personal but more finite. Habituation played a role as well,” (85). The more they were conditioned to accept the horrors that happening around them and that they were themselves committing, the less likely it was that anyone would voice loud protest against the orders they were receiving.