Special Presentation: "Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland"

“Ordinary Men” is the true story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police, which was responsible for mass killings and roundups of Jews for deportation to Nazi death camps in occupied Poland.
World-renowned Holocaust Historian Christopher Browning shares the shocking account of how a unit of average middle-aged Germans became the cold-blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews, and how themes in Ordinary Men continue to resonate today.
Browning argues that most of the men of RPB 101 were not fanatical Nazis but, rather, ordinary middle-aged, working-class men. These men committed atrocities out of a mixture of motives, including the group dynamics of conformity, deference to authority, role adaptation, and the altering of moral norms to justify their actions.
While this book discusses a specific Reserve Unit during World War II, Browning’s larger argument is that most people succumb to the pressures of a group setting and take action they would never do of their own volition.

[@lacklanruusse1760]

4:09 she stops talking

[@hektorfrisch4547]

As a German and through my own experience, I think the specific German thing of the Holocaust is not the Jew hatred or Racism but that German culture teaches the people to obey (political) orders and rules of the German society and don't question them and if you do your are considered an outsider. That's surely a feature in all human communities but in some cultures like in Germany it's especially pronounced and consent is key to the German society. It's considered rude in Germany to not participate in a group or in an idea of a big group. That is what let the Germans to bystand and execute and not resist to all the crimes and atrocities a small Antisemitic group around Hitler or later the Nazi-government ordered them to do. In fact most of them enthuastically cheered for Hitler because they wanted to be in the group of consent. And after the war they either forgot about their actions or they said that they just followed the orders and rules of some murderous Nazi killers. Even today only few Germans understand this. Jew hatred plays a role in the Holocaust but it's not the main factor.

[@geraldhunt8263]

It is human nature that is not particular just to Germans. Any group of people could have done it. Everyone wants to be part of the group the herd, it is a survival mechanism that can lead to people doing atrocious things. The willingness of people to shun the Unvaccinated is a present-day example of peer pressure, mob mentality, and fealty to the group above all else.

[@hektorfrisch4547]

@@geraldhunt8263 I think it's easier with a certain people to radicalize a society. Germans are more obedient people than the French or Italians for example. We had the migrant crisis in Germany in 2015 and opponents of the so called "refugee" immigration were insulted as Nazis in Germany by the media. The people would not dare to openly speak about the "refugees" which were in fact mostly wealthier young muslim men. This is easier in Germany than in a country like France where the people tend to mistrust the government and media more.

[@johnbaugh2437]

It’s why genocide will always occur. Once a government promotes it, people invariably follow along and create a logic to make it palatable or even heroic.

[@jackies56tbird]

It is happening now in the U.S. anyone not a Liberal or a Democrat is a sub-human. Just watch Pelosi, Maxine and the media

[@jackies56tbird]

I am 1/2 way through this book now. Incredible. He is a great author and teacher

[@couchman-sw6jy]

Very very interesting. The three criticisms by Goldhagen seemed a bit silly, though he did have valid points in and of themselves. Seems like he was eager to confirm the hypothesis he started with, and didn’t want to accept anyone but an eager killer would commit such atrocities. Just from Browning’s lecture, I can tell he was as careful as Goldhagen accused him of not being. Great work, Chris!

[@beheadingbuddha4256]

Starts at 4:09

[@pierrevandyk9242]

Oh the Australian police is well on its way for second prize...

[@LateNightRewrites]

Absolutely, the pandemic opened a lot of eyes to how easily this happens, and galvanized many officers' lack of care when enforcing mass rights violations

[@jackies56tbird]

I have a question. Married to a USMC Vietnam Vet, do you think they are wanting to be treated like 'victims' ? I ask this because my husband is VERY upset many times about what he HAD to do in Vietnam

[@crosscountryman5642]

Yes, PTSD is real and can be transmitted to generations of a Vet's family. The effects of WARs in Amerika, I would contend, go back in many families to previous WARS to the beginnings of Amerikañ culture!

[@jackies56tbird]

Reading this book I definitely learned something new. I thought only the Einsatzgruppen did this.

[@johndoe6298]

Are you kidding? There was barely a part of Germany's military-security apparatus that wasn't involved in Nazi criminality. Police Battalion 101 was only one of multiple police battalions deployed into occupied territories to conduct these types of actions. Mass shootings also involved the regular military (Wehrmacht), various units of the SS and local auxiliaries. Even though the Einsatzgruppen were specifically organised and tasked with this kind of thing in mind, the German High Command soon realised that they needed far more people to carry it out. The Einsatzgruppen were only the thin end of the wedge and were effectively the A-Team of genocide, but the slew of police and military units made up the B-Team.

[@fatalconceit3362]

@@johndoe6298 The fact that most of the killing was perpetrated by the military-security apparatus makes it difficult to determine what proportion was motivated by antisemitism (ideological or personal) and what proportion was motivated by other motives such as carrying out orders, observing the Nazi law, peer pressure, convenience, greed, and what Browning calls, "being outside the community of human obligation". I attended Baby Yar's 80 year anniversary in Kyiv a few year's ago and asked this question to Jonathan Littel, the author of "The Kindly Ones". He gave me a surprising answer.

[@robertburatt5981]

The american soldiers in Vietnam, it seems to me, were put in a similar position as were the German's who were told to punish Serbians--on absolutist terms. I see parallel. In the american case, they were not likely told it was a "sin" not to kill Vietnamese; no, in the american case, utility was/is, a sufficient reason, and their killing of the Vietnamese was justified by not knowing who were the "friendly" Vietnamese and who were not--including unarmed elderly, children, and females! This comparison comes too close to home to be ignored about american society--and that was more than 50 years ago; how much farther down the road to committing genocide has american society come and how enlarged has its scope become ?

[@khuberist]

Just another of Browning's opinion pieces. Light on evidence and heavy on hubris and paltering.

[@tembry6886]

Didn't Stalin say, when asked if he would agree to a tribunal, "I do not care as long as ALL are found Guilty and all are hanged!"

[@crosscountryman5642]

Heard of this work through Jordan Peterson video, which now seeing this critique compels me to read this book! This dialectic and polemic logically leads me to draw the inference, that applies to the Left, which appear to be highly fascistic and totalitarian in character and proclivities. We in Amerika supposedly could never go to this extreme in actions, except the evidence of the burnings and violence in general committed by BLM and antifa particularly at Charlottesville, VA, and Portland and Seattle would prove the opposite! This work by Browning is a must-read for those with a Social Psychology background! Both Leftists groups even wore identifiable uniforms with black shirts, pants, and masks which served to give them anonymity and cohesion as groups!

[@pkdick1]

How many people have the left killed in the US, say in the last 25 years? How many have the right killed? The number one terrorist threat in the US is currently homegrown right wing terrorism: suggestible, group think types, easily taken in by extreme right wing ideology. Charlottesville, which you mention, was a rally heavily attended by Neo Nazi elements, people who believe in the same Nazi ideology that Browning discusses. But hey, focus on an anti-fascist group that fights what Browning is discussing: Antifa.

[@xanbex8324]

American soldiers might have some insights into torture and murder. The irony fails to escape me. Vietnam? Iraq? Afghanistan? Laos ? Anyone?

[@johnnicolaou554]

the victors have leaway

[@roostercogburn1943]

Eye for an eye

[@lyndakalesnick3146]

No way to excuse this,how dare you compare our American forces to these monsters.

[@xanbex8324]

@@lyndakalesnick3146 Well you obviously do not know the history of 'the good old USA". If you have the stomach perhaps I could recommend Nick Terse's book...' Kill Anything That Moves '. A wonderful book on the American- Vietnamese 'conflict'. Incredibly well documented and sourced with 55 pages of U.S. Government material. Check it out I dare you!

[@xanbex8324]

@@roostercogburn1943 ?