History of the Holocaust Ordinary men By Christopher Browning Josefou o Who are these men Middle class or working class these are not rich people These men are middle aged they ve lived before the Nazi takeover These people are not soldiers they don t have military experience because they didn t fight in the first WW These men are actually policemen reason for being a police is to not get deployed to the eastern front These men come from Hamburg o Hamburg a city with a very large working class these people before Nazis came to power were supporters of social communist party not Nazi o What are some of the things these men do Shootings roundups guarding transport trains that take Jews to camps massacre shootings Jew hunt where they hunt down Jews o Career after a while the shootings became routine volunteer authority conformity cowardice power peer pressure to shoot the most defenseless people Possible fear of ostracism o Author figured out your not going to be punished if you don t shoot o Mercy killing strange moral stories people tell themselves as if this is a merciful act if someone shoots mother they shoot the child so they think child will not survive without her o Propaganda that this shooting is somehow right racism Jew enemy o Brutalization of war o They didn t initially hate the Jews because they weren t anti sematic o Do these men feel guilty Goes along with routine the killing becomes depersonalized you don t think about it it becomes a job o Some of the guys got sick from killing Some men would get drunk after and end up killing the wrong person Some also drank before to make it easier A lot of men became alcoholics after the war o You don t look at people in the face o Trapp commanding officer in Unit he is older and they thought of him as weak because he would give orders and run off he didn t witness killings he knew everything was wrong but still gave the order he would hysterically cry as he gave orders Also a sense where you don t want to be seen as a coward you need strength and have to carry out orders without emotions o Hoffman had physical symptoms seems to get sick at suspicious times that could be an expression of guilt or an act to avoid everything or physical effect of what he s doing etc o Why do more men not take the option to step out o How things become routine How does their job change over time First part was Josefou as they go on they get more experience and training in how to kill people they switch off killing so you get breaks and share work with people you would also get cigarette breaks their not being paired up with their victims o The Hiwis do more of the shooting so the police are more removed because other people who are not German are doing the shooting Now they start to guard trains so they again feel more removed o Sense of pride in photographs o How does Christopher Browning know this Interviews Used Interviews from wartime trials in the 60 s He read all the transcripts Does it matter that this is how he retrieved his information They admit what they did But would the interviews be different in different settings o They reveal a lot about themselves in interview Did they enjoy this Some did one lieutenant brought his wife to a shooting to show off A lot of men thought this was not right because she is not doing anything this is not something to brag about in a sense could be a sign of guilt o In 1932 the Germans thought they would win the war They did not expect to be on trial o The officers set a tone for their units o Overtime the vast majority of men in these units are willing to participate Criticisms of Ordinary men o Criticism from a man named Daniel Goldhog he pointed out all sources Browning used were from the Nazi trial and if you use testimony s of Jewish survivors they would tell a different version of these events you would get a lot more emphasis on how the shooters behaved during killings and the cruelty they carried out