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
Pretrial and courtroom testimonies by the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 must be read with caution—hesitancy to incriminate themselves and comrades, 25 years of memory distortion, and psychological defenses like repression and projection all influence these testimonies. An ideal example of the testimonies’ unreliability is seen in the way the men discuss German-Polish-Jewish relations. The men portray German-Polish and German-Jewish relations as “extremely exculpatory” and Polish-Jewish relations as “extremely damning.” For example, the men imply that banditry was a huge problem in Poland and so their primary occupation there was to deal with the Polish bandits, not to be violent towards Jews. Others try to portray German-Polish relations as downright friendly. Probst contradicts this by highlighting how willing the policemen were to shoot Poles for inadequate reasons and the fact that sexual relationships between the Battalion’s soldiers and Polish women were banned.
During their interrogations, the men have to make another choice—to be honest about their actions and behavior or twist the truth to make themselves look better. This makes them unreliable narrators of their own stories. Still, Browning frequently uses Probst’s testimony to highlight what he thinks the truth probably is. In many ways, Probst does seem to be more of a realist and more willing to be honest about the men’s activities in Poland. The ban on sexual relationships between the German men and Polish women can be traced to the Nazi-supported belief in the Germans as some sort of master race. In other words, whether the men admit it or not, they followed policies that made Poles their inferiors. This would make it difficult for there to be truly “friendly” relations.
Themes
During their time in Poland, the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 exhibited a growing callousness towards Polish lives that is somewhat similar to their callousness towards the Jews. For example, Trapp was so reluctant to ruin German-Polish relations in Talcyn during the reprisal killing that he only selected the poorest members of the town to execute and then killed Jews to make the rest of his quota. In 1943, however, Hoppner’s men went ahead and killed 12 to 15 elderly Poles even after learning it was unnecessary to do so. Afterwards, they went to the theater in a nearby town.
As the war went on, the men seemed to believe that Poles were their enemy, as well. They didn’t necessarily think that Poles were as disposable as Jews, but their attitudes were heading that way in 1943. Coincidentally, this is around the same time that the number of people joining the Polish resistance began to swell as the tide of war turned against the Germans. This meant that there may have been justification for seeing Poles as enemies instead of friends, but it does not absolve the men for indiscriminately killing Poles, as Hoppner’s men did.
Themes
One omission in the testimonies involves the German attitude towards the Jews, which is understandable because—from a legal standpoint—it is important for the men not to admit to racial hatred. Additionally, the men don’t want to admit that the Nazi ideologies of the 1930s and 1940s made sense to them at the time. This would have been shameful to admit in the 1960s, when the political culture was so at odds with what it was before. Hoffmann, who was active in the Nazi Party since his childhood, simply denied agreeing with Nazi ideologies. Drucker, however, admitted that he felt an aversion to the Jews, but not a downright hatred of them. Some of the men discussed the anti-Semitism of others. For example, many accused Grund (Buchmann’s deputy) of being a real Nazi that few people liked.
Most of the men seem to vilify Grund for being a real Nazi. Earlier, they said similar things about Gnade, particularly when it came to discussing Gnade’s behavior at deportations and executions. By doing this, the men distance themselves from Nazi ideologies. They believe if they show a horror at what others believe, then nobody will think they harbored some of the same thoughts. In German law, admitting to racial hatred in connection with killing is likely to get them an automatic guilty verdict, which is another reason the men want to distance themselves from anti-Semitism as much as possible in their testimonies. It is also possible that the men really weren’t anti-Semitic in the 1940s, or maybe they were but have changed their mindset over 20 years. The question of whether the men were genuinely anti-Semitic is one that Browning simply cannot definitively answer.
Themes
In their testimonies, the men display a range of attitudes towards Jews—some comment on how dirty the Jews were compared to the Poles while others apparently consider the Jews victims wearing rags and starving. Similarly, some men describe the Jews at the shooting sites as nearly complicit in their own deaths by being so passive; others describe the silence of the Jews as dignified. For the most part, the Jews they killed are anonymous, but the men do have clear memories of the times they met Jews from Germany. The fact that they remember them so clearly shows that the experience was shocking to them at the time. Another exception is their attitudes about Jews who worked for them. Some men claim to have helped these Jews, including saving a kitchen worker’s family. Other men, however, had no problem eventually killing the Jews who worked for them.
These varying attitudes towards the Jews testify to how many men effectively dehumanized the Jews in their minds. A lot of the men simply couldn’t connect with their Jewish victims on a human level and saw them as degraded animals, unwilling to fight even to save their own lives. Other men, however, recognized the Jews as human. It is not clear if this belief was limited to the men who refused to shoot or if such men participated in the killing. The Jews with whom the men spent a lot of time and who personally helped them engendered sympathy from more of the men, but even then, a number of men had no problem shooting people they knew. The men, then, can be broken up into two groups: those who saw the Jews as human beings, and those who dehumanized the Jews to the point where they didn’t mind killing even people they personally know.
Themes
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In contrast, the Germans frequently portray Polish attitudes towards Jews as totally hostile. This might be because they naturally had more contact with Poles who supported the Final Solution by helping them find Jews hiding in the forest or even trying to get favors from the Germans by acting enthusiastically anti-Semitic. On the other hand, Poles who were helping the Jews obviously avoided interacting with the policemen. The men might also have been projecting their own anti-Semitism onto the Poles—unwilling to portray themselves or their comrades as anti-Semitic, the men found psychological relief in placing as much blame as possible on the Poles.
It is very likely that the men projected their own anti-Semitism onto the Poles. This not only alleviates their own sense of guilt for their beliefs, but also helps eliminate anti-Semitism as a possible motivator behind their own choice to participate in killing Polish Jews. There is no doubt about their guilt in actually killing people, but the motives behind their choices are important. As Browning pointed out earlier, if the men admit to or clearly reveal their own anti-Semitism, then they will effectively destroy any chance they have of being found innocent during their trials.
Themes
The men’s accusations of Polish anti-Semitism begins with Józefów. Some men claim that the mayor gave them all schnapps and others describe Poles zealously trying to flush the Jews out of their homes and then bringing even more Jews to the marketplace all afternoon. Hoffmann claims to remember a pair of Polish students giving him vodka and saying that, while they didn’t like the way Hitler treats them, they were thankful to finally be getting rid of the Jews. Virtually none of the men omit that Poles played a big role in helping the battalion find Jews in the forest during the judenjagd. In fact, many of the “hunts” were instigated by Poles with tips about hidden Jews, according to Probst. Probst is also the only man who confesses that Polish families who helped hide Jews were routinely executed.
It is a well-documented fact that local people in Nazi-occupied countries frequently turned Jews or people who were hiding Jews over to the Germans. However, this was, at least in some cases, a form of self-protection. In their minds (and probably in reality), helping the Germans in any way would save tipsters from being victimized like the Jews. Furthermore, the Poles became nearly as habituated to violence as the German units in Poland. The Poles might not have been responsible for mass executions, but they frequently witnessed them. They listened to the shooting during ghetto clearings, and Germans remember seeing Poles watch from the rooftops during the Erntefest.
Themes
The policemen provide numerous examples of Polish complicity in German crimes against Jews. One policeman remembers a group of Poles trying to out a Jew who was dressed in disguise and others remember Poles keeping Jews prisoner (and beating them) until the Germans arrived to collect them. On the other hand, Bentheim remembers offering a Polish policeman the opportunity to shoot some Jews but the policeman adamantly refused. Unfortunately, these descriptions of Polish complicity are all too true. The story of the Holocaust, after all, is one with too many victims and not nearly enough heroes. The German policemen’s portrayals of these relationships are, nevertheless, distorted. They leave out how many Poles tried to help their Jewish neighbors, and how the Germans punished them for it. It is Browning’s belief that the Germans’ comments about the Poles say more about themselves than the Polish people.
The men undoubtedly do have ample reason to believe that many Poles were just as anti-Semitic as the Nazis. However, the reader must still remember Browning’s earlier point that the men naturally have more experience working with Poles who are turning Jews in than with Poles who are trying to help save Jews. Bentheim’s story about the Polish policeman who wouldn’t shoot the Jews is notable because it contradicts the image of all Poles as violently anti-Semitic. In Browning’s opinion, when the Germans describe Polish attitudes towards Jews, there is a good chance they’re actually describing their own attitudes towards the Jews because they are looking to both alleviate their own guilt and to distance themselves from racial hatred. This, however, still doesn’t mean that a lot of Poles weren’t anti-Semitic. As usual, it is important to remember that many Poles were probably willing to sell out or victimize Jews to save their own lives, not out of racial hatred. These contradicting possibilities further highlight how difficult Browning’s job as a historian and a writer is—there simply is no easy answer here, and even all of the material evidence Browning has at his disposal to try to find an answer is problematic and unreliable.
Themes
