Ordinary Men: Chapter 6 Summary & Analysis

At some point in the summer of 1941, Himmler tells Globocnik about Hitler’s plan to murder all the European Jews and puts Globocnik in charge of overseeing the extermination of the Jews in Poland’s General Government. There are so many Jews in the General Government area, however, that they decide that they must find a new method of killing them that won’t be as psychologically damaging to German soldiers and policemen as shooting them. This leads to the creation of extermination camps with gas chambers that require little manpower. One camp, Bełzec, is in Globocnik’s district and gassing there begins in March 1942. Globocnik creates two more extermination camps (Sobibór and Treblinka), but he struggles to get enough manpower to run everything. He also needs far more men to help clear ghettos and round up the General Government’s 2,000,000 Jews.

The mass murder campaign against Jews in Poland is dubbed Operation Reinhard to commemorate Reinhard Heydrich who died in Czechoslovakia. Globocnik sets up a special staff to help coordinate the mass killings, deportations, and extermination camps. Additionally, he can use men from the SS, Gestapo, and the Order Police to help carry his plans out. Three battalions of Order Police are stationed in the district of Lublin (including Reserve Police Battalion 101) and they are the largest pool of manpower at Globocnik’s disposal. Additionally, Globocnik gets permission from Himmler to recruit Ukrainian, Latvian, and Lithuanian prisoners of war to help. These units are called Hilfswillige, or Hiwis for short. This is the second largest pool of manpower Globocnik can use.

The mass murders begin in March 1942 when 90 percent of the Lublin ghetto is killed, and 11,000 to 12,000 more Jews are sent to extermination camps from nearby towns. The gas chambers at Sobibór begin operating in May. By June 18, about 100,000 Jews from the Lublin district and about 65,000 from neighboring areas have been gassed to death at Sobibór and Bełzec. At the same time, more Jews are being brought in from Germany and other countries. The transports and extermination camp murders halt for about 20 days due to a shortage of rolling stock, and during this lull, Reserve Police Battalion 101 arrives in the Lublin district.

On June 20, 1942, district officials tell the men in the battalion they will help with a special action in Poland. According to Browning, there is no reason to believe that any of the men know what their orders actually entail and they likely believe that they will just be carrying out guard duty. Upon arrival, the battalion sets up headquarters in Biłgoraj and the units spread out to nearby towns. During the lull in gassings at the camps, the battalion helps move Jews from smaller areas to larger ones that will make it easier to move them to camps when killings resume. However, Globocnik loses patience with this and decides to use firing squads to kill the Jews. He selects Reserve Police Battalion 101 to do this.