"Ordinary Men" brought back many vivid depictions of the cruelties carried out during the final solution, such as Stielburg's Schindler's List. After this reading I have a hard time imagining that what Browining is describing is mere ordinary 'sane' men. It is inconceivable to me that a completely mellow husband could systematically slaughter children, women, and old men without the slightest remorse or casuistic reasoning. I think much of Browning's notion of 'ordinary' stems from demographic factors. He seems to ignore the issue that there are homicidal maniacs and sadists who live unnoticed in our communities. Maybe this possibility is too disturbing to consider or would delving into an entirely different discussion. But at some level there is a certain percentage of any population that could experience the psychopathic upbringing to appear normal, but house extremely troubled morals. It is important to remember that not everyone would keep his or her moral ground if the state would fall apart.
Given this, I feel that if the sheer number of such psychopaths in Nazi Germany is indeed surprising. This maybe could be an indicator of the general state of German society during the time. Perhaps the depressive and threatening setting was the ideal raising conditions for a psychopathic population?
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