The psychosis that is Nazi Germany is the product of a country being fueled with the idea that they are absolutely better than everyone else. With a militaristic agenda it becomes easier for someone of that culture to look down on anyone and not hold back when the target is given. It's interesting that it is perceived to be appalling to kill innocent jews, and not always to kill the man running at them with a gun. The agenda was to take out the enemy, defenseless or not, they were the same threat in the end, determined by Hitler's agenda.
"The batallion had participated in the direct shooting deaths of at least 38,000 Jews” (Browning, Chapter 15, Page 142). I struggle with the fact that these were “ordinary men” the same way Browning does. If the German’s can be led so easily to become cold-blooded killers, then Browning is suggesting it could happen to anybody else under similar circumstances. The fact that the information is out here is the only thing that we can find comforting, because there is no hope in this tragic truth. You have to be able to acknowledge the hatred and intent when it's there and defy it, if you believe in the equality of man. The sad truth is we do not live in a world where people consider themselves equals. For every oppressor there is the struggle for equality, and that is a constant struggle.
There is a quote from the first season of the Wire about the war on drugs, when Detective McNulty says, "it's not a war... wars end." The same goes for the war on racism, terrorism or any hate based culture. We have to continue to defy it, and learn from the mistakes that were made that led to such aggression in the past, but is there really anything we can do to totally prevent it from happening?
"The batallion had participated in the direct shooting deaths of at least 38,000 Jews” (Browning, Chapter 15, Page 142). I struggle with the fact that these were “ordinary men” the same way Browning does. If the German’s can be led so easily to become cold-blooded killers, then Browning is suggesting it could happen to anybody else under similar circumstances. The fact that the information is out here is the only thing that we can find comforting, because there is no hope in this tragic truth. You have to be able to acknowledge the hatred and intent when it's there and defy it, if you believe in the equality of man. The sad truth is we do not live in a world where people consider themselves equals. For every oppressor there is the struggle for equality, and that is a constant struggle.
There is a quote from the first season of the Wire about the war on drugs, when Detective McNulty says, "it's not a war... wars end." The same goes for the war on racism, terrorism or any hate based culture. We have to continue to defy it, and learn from the mistakes that were made that led to such aggression in the past, but is there really anything we can do to totally prevent it from happening?
I too struggle with the idea that the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 were "ordinary men", but I'm coming to accept these men were actually pretty ordinary. As Browning noted in the chapters of last week's reading, "The majority of them held typical Hamburg working-class jobs: dock workers and truck drivers..."(47) The fact that these middle-aged, working-class men were able to become mass murderers is incredibly shocking and hard to believe, but I don't think anyone could have predicted the events and circumstances of the Holocaust that led to the battalions participation in shooting 38,000 unarmed Jews. Though the thought is extremely frightening, I think under the authoritarian circumstances unique to the Holocaust most anyone is capable of actions they would not expect to do in any ordinary circumstances. Based on this idea, the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 were just a group of “ordinary men” under incredibly unique and horrifying circumstances unique to those under the Third Reich.
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