Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Ordinary Men, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Freedom of Choice
Peer Pressure, Conformity, and Acceptance
Normalization of Violence
Nationalism, War, and Ethnic Cleansing
Summary
Analysis
Shortly before deportations resume in the northern Lublin district, Reserve Police Battalion 101 becomes involved in more mass shootings. The first takes place in Serokomla, a village not far from Kock. In September 1942, Lieutenant Brand’s platoon of First Company rounds up all the Jews in nearby areas and brings them into the village. A few days later, the same platoon joins other units from First Company under Captain Wohlauf and the First Platoon of Third Company outside of town. Wohlauf sends men with machine guns up into some nearby hills and other vantage points, he sends a few more men to cordon off the area, and the rest of First Company goes into town to collect the Jews. Wohlauf doesn’t initially explain the true nature of their orders, but Sergeant Keller states that it is obvious that the Jews will be killed.
The men have learned to recognize when they’re going to be ordered to kill Jews even before the orders are explicitly stated. Still, most of them no longer feel any horror at this knowledge—they recognize that it’s going to happen and now it’s just part of the job. However, it’s still important to keep in mind that there are men who still actively choose not to take part, either by asking to be excused or by evading being chosen for a firing squad. In fact, because the men have become so good at figuring out when a mass execution is about to occur, they have even more time to make up their minds whether to participate in the killing or get out of it.
Themes
About 200 to 300 Jews are rounded up in town before Wohlauf orders the men to bring them to some nearby gravel pits to be shot. Without the help of Hiwis, the policemen carry out the shooting the way they did in Józefów, matching up individual shooters with their victims and shooting about 20 or 30 Jews at a time. As the pile of corpses in the pit grows, subsequent groups have to look down on their dead friends and family before being shot themselves. Some of the men complain of Wohlauf’s absence because he spends the day hanging out with Polish police in town. The shooting ends at about 3:00 in the afternoon. The men leave without burying the bodies and enjoy a special ration of alcohol back at their barracks.
During the massacre in Józefów, the men were careful to try to bring the people they were murdering to parts of the forest where they wouldn’t have to see the bodies of people they knew. Now, the men have no problem making their victims see the bodies of the ones who were shot before. In the beginning, then, the men wanted to save their victims all the psychological distress that they could. Now, the men have no problem causing immense psychological pain. There might also be practical reasons for not concerning themselves with their victims’ feelings—the whole process of rounding up and executing them only takes a few hours instead of nearly a whole day, in part because the men save time by not finding new execution sites for each round of victims (this and there are fewer victims this time).
Themes
Three days after the Serokomla massacre, one of the battalion’s men is ambushed and killed near Talcyn on his way back to his barracks. Trapp sends word that the office in Lublin has ordered a retaliation shooting of 200 people in Talcyn. The same units that conducted the massacre at Serokomla meet once again to carry out these orders (everyone except Wohlauf, who briefly returns to Germany). Trapp and Hagen are present to lead the men. Working in conjunction with the mayor, Trapp selects only the poorest citizens to be shot and the men carry out orders; 78 Poles are killed. When they stop for lunch on their way back to the barracks, however, Trapp calls and says they must kill more people to meet the quota. Instead of killing Poles, Trapp orders the men to shoot Jews from the Kock ghetto.
During the war, if civilians in an occupied territory killed a German soldier or policeman then the Germans would retaliate by killing large numbers of people from the same village as the perpetrators. Trapp’s decisions and demeanor here are a far cry from what he was like at Józefów. He doesn’t mind killing the Poles because, in this instance, he feels totally justified in seeing the Poles as an enemy—after all, they killed one of his men. However, he only chooses the most “disposable” citizens of Talcyn and then chooses to make up the rest of his quota (and then some) by ordering the men to kill Jews, who are not part of the group that killed the policeman. Ostensibly, he made this choice to maintain good relations with the Polish natives, which shows that he values Jewish lives less than Polish lives, even though he has more legitimate grounds to consider the Poles (at least in this village) his enemies. On the other hand, this is a strategic move that lessens the likelihood of Poles from Talcyn deciding to retaliate.
Themes
In Kock, Jews are mercilessly rounded up and those who can’t walk to the shooting site are killed on the spot. One policeman takes advantage of the confusion to simply walk around and avoid shooting, since the massacre is distasteful to him. The captured Jews are led to a walled courtyard and Lieutenant Brand gives orders for them to be shot in groups of 30. Trapp sends word to Lublin that three bandits, 78 Poles, and 180 Jews are killed in this retaliation shooting. It’s clear that Trapp, who cried throughout the massacre at Józefów and didn’t like the idea of killing random Poles, has no qualms shooting even more Jews than is necessary to meet his quota.
Browning particularly notes one man who chooses to walk through the ghetto without shooting because he doesn’t like the violence. This is an important reminder that not all of the men were hardened killers, even though the majority were. It is noteworthy that the man still tries to make himself look busy by walking through the ghetto instead of just sitting somewhere and watching. By walking around, he can appear busy and people will be less likely to accuse him of doing nothing. Trapp has successfully put enough psychological distance between himself and what he’s asking others to do that he no longer recognizes the human cost of his orders.
Themes
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Trapp may have reconciled himself to the violence, but Buchmann evidently has not. After the Józefów massacre, Buchmann tells Trapp that he won’t take part in any Jewish actions and asks for a transfer back to Hamburg, but Trapp can’t get him one immediately. Instead, Trapp does what he can to protect Buchmann and spare him participation in the violence. Sergeant Grund, Buchmann’s deputy, helps in this by indicating when the men are assigned to Jewish actions so that Buchmann can stay out of it. However, since the Talcyn shooting didn’t start out as a Jewish action, Buchmann is there for it, and he is extremely indignant about Trapp’s orders. Kammer berates some of Buchmann’s men who say they don’t want to shoot either but he lets them step out—as long as there are enough willing shooters, it is easier not to make trouble over those who aren’t willing.
Although there are a lot of men who keep themselves out of the firing squads, Buchmann is the only man who consistently verbalizes both his own unwillingness to be a part of the violence and criticism of the violence itself. In this, Buchmann makes himself a radical nonconformist within the battalion. His words and actions inspire others to stand up and demand to be excused from the violence, as well. It’s also noteworthy that Kammer excuses them even though he clearly doesn’t want to (shown by how he berates them beforehand instead of simply letting them off). Throughout the battalion’s time in Poland, this is the worst the men can justifiably expect from their commanders if they don’t want to shoot. They might get insulted, but they don’t face heavy punishments for not wanting to kill unarmed civilians. This is because their commanders are unwilling to create more problems for themselves by harassing the minority of men who don’t want to participate.
Themes
