Christopher L. Bennett

Introduction to Historical Thinking

Ordinary Men: A Mystery

Christopher R. Browning=s Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland is, in a sense, a mystery story. In his ongoing research into Hitler=s Final Solution (Browning has written at least two other books on the subject), the author discovered interrogation records of some two hundred members of the battalion, a source which he found an Aunusually rich collection of testimonies... [with] a >feel= of candor and frankness conspicuously absent from the exculpatory, alibi-laden, and mendacious testimony so often encountered in such court records@ (Browning, p. xvii). Though the men of RPB 101 clearly played an integral role in the mass murder of Polish Jews, their background and composition seemed inconsistent with those of hardened Nazi killers. Most were not Party members, most were too old to have been raised with Nazi values, and Athe majority came from a social class that had been anti-Nazi in its political culture@ (ibid., p. 48). The detailed testimony of the battalion members provided rich evidence for the study of this paradox. As Browning says, ANever before had I encountered the issue of choice... so openly discussed.... [or] seen the monstrous deeds of the Holocaust so starkly juxtaposed with the human faces of the killers@ (ibid., p. xvi).

Browning acknowledges from the start that the interrogations, conducted more than two decades after the events, are a flawed source. Aside from the distortions of memory, there is the near-certainty that many of the men lied to conceal their guilt or repressed their memories of horrific events. The scope of the source is also limited by the prosecutorial focus of the interrogators. Browning=s reliance on these sources has been criticized by fellow Holocaust scholar Daniel Jonah Goldhagen. In his article AThe Evil of Banality,@ Goldhagen stresses the likelihood of dishonesty in the testimonies, claiming that it casts profound doubt on their validity. He contends that Browning Aconsistently presents self-exculpating assertions as fact, without letting the reader know that they could be questioned@ (Goldhagen, p. 50).

Goldhagen=s claim that Browning Adoes not discuss the criteria by which he assesses the veracity and the importance of such evidence@ (ibid.) is somewhat valid. Browning does appear to have sought verification whenever possible, if not from external sources than at least from multiple interrogations; yet further discussion of his selection process could have been valuable. But Browning admits in his preface that his choices among conflicting reports involved many judgment calls, and that A[o]ther historians looking at the same materials would retell these events in somewhat different ways@ (Browning, p. xix). Far from being an assertion of fact, the narrative is merely an attempt to reconstruct events as well as possible from available evidence. Such a procedure is only as good as the evidence on which it is based, but it avoids the pitfalls of guesswork and distorting bias. This is illustrated by the issue of testimony from Holocaust survivors. Goldhagen criticizes Browning for avoiding such sources, saying, ABecause Browning does not use the testimony of survivors in constructing the portrait of this battalion, essentially discounting its value, he accepts as fact the Germans= sanitized and prettified accounts of their handiwork@ (Goldhagen, p. 52; italics added). Yet Browning explains this choice in his preface, stating that the recollections of Jewish survivors cannot provide much information about the psychology and experiences of an itinerant killing unit with whom they would have had mere hours of contact (Browning, pp. xvii-xviii). Browning=s goal is not to establish that the Holocaust was brutal; he treats this as a given. Rather, his goal is to investigate this specific battalion in an attempt to understand their descent into brutality. The testimony of survivors may be morally more legitimate, but they simply cannot provide much data on this matter. Browning=s choice of sources is more pragmatic than polemical.

This is consistent with the overall feel of Ordinary Men. The bulk of the narrative is a detailed, matter-of-fact chronicle of the unit=s activities in Poland, including mass shootings, brutal deportations and systematic Ahunts@ of surviving Jews. The horrific details are presented with clinical thoroughness and little commentary. Browning describes how the men of the battalion, initially repulsed by their murderous duties, became gradually hardened to the tasks. It was a subtle transormation, one which the men themselves were probably unaware of at the time. This subtlety makes the narrative challenging for the reader, and perhaps easy to misinterpret. In Goldhagen=s view, Browning=s purpose is to assert that these men were Areluctant killers@ and Ainwardly opposed to the mass murder of Jews@ (Goldhagen, pp. 51-52), and that this argument is contradicted by the tales of brutality he tells, such as the AJew hunts@ which became routine in the later phase of the war. Here, Goldhagen appears to misread the narrative. What Browning depicts is not a group of men whose reluctance to kill remained consistent throughout their service, but quite the opposite: a group of men who, with few apparent exceptions, steadily lost their reluctance to kill as the body count mounted. Investigating this transformation is the ultimate purpose of Ordinary Men.

Browning largely reserves analysis until his reconstruction of events is complete. In his analysis, he considers many possible explanations for these common men=s transformation into uncommonly brutal killers. Although he asserts that Athe historian who attempts to >explain= [human behavior] ... is indulging in a certain arrogance@ (Browning, p. 188), he draws the conclusion that a synergy of many factors probably led the men to this extreme. One key factor he proposes is the intrinsic human drive to accede to authority, even when its orders conflict with individual values. Browning bases this on scientific evidence, specifically psychological studies conducted by Stanley Milgram, rather than on speculative philosophy. He acknowledges the imperfect analogy between Milgram=s controlled studies and the reality of Nazi atrocities, but persuasively delineates the strong parallels, and grounds the argument at a very primal level by citing the evolutionary and social pressures toward obedience as adduced by Milgram. Browning proposes an additional, related factor, that of the powerful incentive to conform with one=s group. This drive was heightened among soldiers in enemy territory, who had no other source of social support than their comrades and would thus have been very reluctant to risk alienation and ostracism. Though this point is credibly presented, Browning fails to offer the same kind of solid, scientific foundation that the Milgram experiment provides for the issue of authority.

Goldhagen interprets this latter point as the conclusion of Browning=s thesis, characterizing it dismissively as Apeer pressure.@ AThe social psychological conditions, the objective and keenly felt pressures of the group, the fear of being held in contempt by one=s comrades: these were what turned these men into killers, in Browning=s view, and kept them at it@ (Goldhagen, p. 50). Yet the issue of conformity is merely one part of Browning=s broader, synergistic argument. The desire for group conformity was combined, he asserts, with the dehumanization of the enemy which is inherent in war, as discussed by John Dower in War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York, 1986). As Browning describes it, AWar, a struggle between >our people= and >the enemy,= creates a polarized world in which >the enemy= is easily objectified and removed from the community of human obligation@ (ibid., p. 162). Although the Jews were noncombatants, pervasive Nazi propaganda defining Jews as fundamentally separate and despicable dovetailed with this process, so that the policemen came to see them as outside Athe community of human obligation.@ Thus they obeyed their orders to kill Jews rather than facing rejection by the group which defined that community for them.

On the point of propaganda, Browning sees it as a piece of the overall equation, but downplays its impact, demonstrating that surviving propaganda materials contain no explicit calls for the murder of Jews. Here, his insight into human nature may fall short. A subtle, subliminal theme of dehumanization could effectively infiltrate a mind that would be repelled by more blatant and murderous propaganda. To a large extent, Browning=s thesis is that the potency of evil comes from its subtlety, more from gradual corruption than overt terrorization. On this issue, he seems to miss his own point.

If Browning gives little space to the question of anti-Semitism within the battalion, it is explicitly because his sources skirt the issue. Browning is mostly reluctant to speculate or to go beyond the limits of his sources. Goldhagen=s position seems to be that this limits the book itself, keeping it silent on the deeper moral and emotional issues of the Holocaust, skirting the condemnation of that which must be condemned.

Yet perhaps this is the book=s strength. The Holocaust evokes deep and justified passions. Thus, a cool, dispassionate analysis is an invaluable contribution to Holocaust literature. A historical and psychological phenomenon of this magnitude must be understood clearly, and even the most legitimate of passions can impair judgment. Browning recognizes this, saying, ANot trying to understand the perpetrators in human terms would make impossible... any history of Holocaust perpetrators that sought to go beyond one-dimensional caricature@ (ibid., p. xx). To this end, Browning maintains a highly scientific approach, merely reporting the evidence and his findings derived from it rather than claiming moral certitude. Goldhagen criticizes Browning for failing to acknowledge the emotional content of these events, for instance rebuking ABrowning=s frequent use of the nondescript term >shooters,= instead of the more accurately descriptive and morally appropriate >killers=@ (Goldhagen, p. 51). Goldhagen=s agenda is evidently to condemn the guilty, to highlight the evils of the Holocaust. Browning disappoints him by failing to embrace this agenda. But Browning=s purpose is to investigate a mystery: how did a group of ordinary citizens become a unit of brutal mass-murderers? While Goldhagen casts himself as prosecutor, Browning seeks simply to be a detective, gathering testimonies and evidence and doing his best to reconstruct the crime. Even the most horrific crimes require such a methodical, disinterested approach to their investigation if they are to be solved beyond a reasonable doubt. Christopher Browning does not, in fact, claim to have solved the mystery of Ordinary Men. But he credibly presents himself as an expert witness, providing testimony which he hopes will help the historical community and the general public in their ongoing deliberations about the century=s greatest crime.

Bibliography

Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, Second Edition (New York: HarperCollins, 1998)

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, AThe Evil of Banality,@ The New Republic (July 13 & 20, 1992), pp. 49-52)

Back