Comparing Night And Fog, Ordinary Men

Christopher Browning, Daniel Goldhagen, and the creators of Night and Fog toyed with the question of who is responsible for the Holocaust. The 1956 short film Night and Fog presents real images and clips from the Holocaust that make viewers question the motivations and ideology of the Nazis during World War II. In Ordinary Men, Browning explains his theory that any ordinary man could have committed the crimes, and the responsibility of the Holocaust should be placed on the higher authorities instilling beliefs in their followers. Goldhagen counters Browning’s approach by suggesting that the German culture as a whole left room for the Nazi ideology to grow because it mirrored traits the Germans wanted in their government. After analyzing Night and Fog, Ordinary Men, and discussing excerpts from Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners, it is clear that no one is responsible for the Holocaust, but those who took part in performing, supporting, and not stopping the crimes that the Nazi’s committed are at fault.
Night and Fog is a French documentary that displays disturbing black-and-white video footage of the genocide and color images of the camps years after. The film shows clips of possessions collected from the Jews, such as shoes, hair, and gold teeth; the daily …show more content…
Browning clarified the blurred lines of the Nazi party by giving each officer a personality and sharing their feelings on what the higher authorities asked of them to do. His goal was to make readers understand the pressures that the Nazi’s were under when following orders, and implying that this same fate could happen to any ordinary person. Ordinary Men suggests that the higher authorities were responsible by forcing their men to commit the crimes and believe in an extreme nationalist ideology that would ultimately justify killing innocent