Ordinary Men Reserve Police Battalion 101 Summary

The 1992 book Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, written by Christopher R. Browning, seeks to understand the police officers behind the blitzkrieg against Polish Jews during the German military offensive of 1942. Rather than focus on the liquidation of major ghettos in Warsaw and in Lodz, this study focuses on the smaller towns and villages that included significant Jewish populations in Central Poland. By examining indictments and judgements from legal documents obtained from the Central Agency for the State Administration of Justice in Ludwigsburg, Browning is able to illustrate the roles played by the individuals comprising Police Battalion 101 in the destruction of Polish Jewry. Browning offers a multilayered approach by examining the psychology of the police …show more content…
But truly, Browning’s study, entitled Ordinary Men helps to understand. The study seeks to understand how the individuals in Police Battalion 101 were capable of participating in the destruction of Polish Jewry. To answer this historical question, Browning uses the judicial testimonies of the men who served. He asserts that these testimonies contain “unusually vivid and detailed testimony [that] stands in stark contrast to the formulaic and transparently dishonest testimony so often encountered” (pg.210). Because of their accuracy, these documents allowed Browning to “probe issues in a way that is not possible from the records of other cases” (pg.210). The methodology that Browning chooses - studying the men by dissecting and examining their psychologies - allows the reader to peak into the minds of the members of Police Battalion 101 and understand how the vast majority of these individuals become willing executioners of the Final Solution to the Jewish