Ordinary Men

Ordinary Men

by

Christopher Browning

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Ordinary Men makes teaching easy.
Adolf Hitler is the chancellor of Germany during World War II. During the time that Ordinary Men describes, Hitler develops and begins to implement the Final Solution, a plan to eliminate the Jewish population of Europe using systematic mass shootings and death camps. Although Himmler does much of the planning and paperwork for the Final Solution, Hitler was the primary instigator of the unmitigated violence against European Jews.
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Adolf Hitler Character Timeline in Ordinary Men

The timeline below shows where the character Adolf Hitler appears in Ordinary Men. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 3: The Order Police and the Final Solution: Russia 1941
Nationalism, War, and Ethnic Cleansing Theme Icon
...Order Police actively participates in the Final Solution for the first time. During preparations for Hitler’s planned invasion of Russia, special units of the SS called the Einsatzgruppen are formed, mostly... (full context)
Chapter 4: The Order Police and the Final Solution: Deportation
Nationalism, War, and Ethnic Cleansing Theme Icon
...Order Police involvement in the mass murders of Jews in Russia begins to wind down, Hitler and Heydrich give Daluege a new assignment: the Order Police must guard deportation trains from... (full context)
Chapter 5: Reserve Police Battalion 101
Nationalism, War, and Ethnic Cleansing Theme Icon
...months later, the battalion begins to carry out resettlement actions as part of Himmler and Hitler’s plan to repopulate large areas of Poland with “pure” Germans. The battalion contributes to this... (full context)
Chapter 6: Arrival in Poland
Normalization of Violence Theme Icon
Nationalism, War, and Ethnic Cleansing Theme Icon
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... (full context)
Chapter 17: Germans, Poles, and Jews
Normalization of Violence Theme Icon
Nationalism, War, and Ethnic Cleansing Theme Icon
...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... (full context)
Chapter 18: Ordinary Men
Nationalism, War, and Ethnic Cleansing Theme Icon
...of boring and would likely have sent the readers to sleep. Even in material about Hitler’s vision of a judenfrei Europe, the scant attention paid directly to the reserve police seems... (full context)