Christopher Browning is a distinguished historian of the horror of the Nazi holacaust against the Jews during World War II, His book on Reserve Police Battalion 101 is a microcosmic examination of how ordinary men responded to the Hitler's regime's insane plan to kill all of the Jews in
Europe.
The book focuses on the Reserve Police Battalion 101 made up of lower middle class men from Hamburg. These men were typical Germans in their views toward Jewry and the Nazi propaganda drummed into their heads. Most of the soldiers were long married, had some level of education and managed to avoid frontline service. These men were not in the military elite and most prefered civilian life back home in Hamburg.
These approximately 500 soldiers particpated in several shooting of Jews in Polish villages; transportation of the Jews to death camps and Jew hunts in which the hapless Semites would be captured. They are responsible for the shooting of 6,500 Jews at Jozefow and Lomazy; 35,000
at Majdanek and Poniatowa and placing Jews on trains to Treblinka. In all they participated in the deaths of 83,000 Jewish men, women and children.
The vast majority of the German soldiers took part in the murders. Some were reluctant to engage in this murderous enterprise by they were in the minority. Among reasons given for the odious and criminal behavior of the men in Reserve Police Batallion 101 are according to Browning:
1. Peer pressure of their comrades in arms. These were men in hostile territory who did not want to be accused of letting their buddies down.
2. Obedience to orders from higher authorities.
3. Fears of their or their family's punishment if orders were not obeyed.
4. A belief that the Jews were not Aryan human beings and were responsible for the killing of German women and children.
Browning claims each person's motivations are a mystery to the rest of us and we can never say beyond extrapolation what led these men to commit such abhorrent deads of cruelty and murder.
Browning has included a long appendix in which he responds to the criticisms on his work made by Dr. Daniel Goldhagen. Goldhagen believes that Germany was pervaded by antisemetic culture making the entire nation into Hitler's willing executioners. Browning contrarily argues that antisemitism was not limited to Germany. Browning states that German authoritarianism, conformity with the social group and Nazi propaganda all played a role in turning regular individuals into mass killers. He is cautionary on the power for harm which can be inflicted by authoritarian states on their citizens.
Browning's book is a classic of holocaust literature and is essential in any study of the gruesome and heartbreaking study.

Another brick from the the Professors' classroom. I got to page 148, which was quite a feat, believe you me. But important it is. I don't deny that, and true too.

Here's a token of the Professor's clear narrative style: "The portrayal of German-Polish and German-Jewish relations in these testimonies is extraordinarily exculpatory; in contrast, the portrayal of Polish-Jewish relations is extraordinarily damning. If we begin by examining the first two relationships as described by the former policemen, we can better see the asymmetry and distortion involved in their account of the third." Of the third! The third what? Do you know what he's taking about anymore?

Please, give me a break, mister. I believe the Lord gives gifts and talents to every one of His creatures. You can pick to be a bullfighter, a fireman, or a professor. But pick right.

This book, which follows step by step the itinerary of a battalion of German security police in the East during WWII, is a scary confirmation of Hannah Arendt's theory on the "banality of evil" that emerged after Eichmann's trial in 1961. It shows how perfectly average people, representing a cross-section of a developped country's society, when placed in certain circumstances, are able to perform the most gruesome and crual acts of barbary in an efficient and non-committal way against innocent populations. It is a depressing book, all the more so as almost none of these perpetrators suffered any consequence after the war. They went on to live their banal and mediocre lives as ordinary people, until the 1960's when some of them were tried and suffered very light sentences.

Very well-done and insightful study on ordinary Germans in the Holocaust and Browning's overall thesis extends to "ordinary men" in many circumstances.

This book (as described by previous reviewers and the product description) details what the men in the Nazi Reserve Police Battalion 101 went through, specifically during the SS Invasion of Poland.

Browning describes in detail the process of dehumanizing the Jews, and writes at length on the style of execution that the Germans refined and perfected in Poland, prior to the widespread use of gas chambers: the person to be killed forced to lie down flat on their face, and then shot at a particular spot in their neck. The accounts of these executions is not just gratuitous violence -- graphic gore for the sake of shock or horror -- but rather, demonstrates that over time, the police officers involved in the executions worked to make the process of mass killing more humane (an idea that was at the root of the gas chambers, as ironic as that seems). It also serves to drive home the point that after so many hundreds of people were shot, the officers were able to completely dehumanize the people they were killing.

What is unique about this book is that it is not just another historical account; the author takes into consideration what the Nazis themselves had to go through, psychologically and emotionally, in order to carry out their orders. Many other historians have analyzed historical events during WWII while still demonizing the Nazi forces ~ but Browning shows us that the troops really were Ordinary Men, and these men suffered tremendous emotional tolls as a result.

And herein lies the Truth that makes this book so chilling: any one of us could have found ourselves in the very same position, carrying out the very same orders, as the German troops in WWII.

Browning describes the various social conditions and governmental policies that effected how the Nazis were able to so completely dehumanize their enemy and rationalize their own involvement -- in part, because the men were assuaged of their sense of responsibility for their actions, and also in part due to the tremendous number of times that the actions had to be carried out. Repetition bred a sense of normalcy.

In the Afterword, Browning addresses another author who has critiqued Browning's work -- Daniel Jonah Goldhagen -- whose work I feel compelled to mention since it directly relates to this book.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is studying modern history, sociology / psychology, or WWII, but keep in mind that it is extremely graphic and very, very hard to read -- not because of the language used, but because of the events that Browning so meticulously describes.

This book (as described by previous reviewers and the product description) details what the men in the Nazi Reserve Police Battalion 101 went through, specifically during the SS Invasion of Poland.

Browning describes in detail the process of dehumanizing the Jews, and writes at length on the style of execution that the Germans refined and perfected in Poland, prior to the widespread use of gas chambers: the person to be killed forced to lie down flat on their face, and then shot at a particular spot in their neck. The accounts of these executions is not just gratuitous violence -- graphic gore for the sake of shock or horror -- but rather, demonstrates that over time, the police officers involved in the executions worked to make the process of mass killing more humane (an idea that was at the root of the gas chambers, as ironic as that seems). It also serves to drive home the point that after so many hundreds of people were shot, the officers were able to completely dehumanize the people they were killing.

What is unique about this book is that it is not just another historical account; the author takes into consideration what the Nazis themselves had to go through, psychologically and emotionally, in order to carry out their orders. Many other historians have analyzed historical events during WWII while still demonizing the Nazi forces ~ but Browning shows us that the troops really were Ordinary Men, and these men suffered tremendous emotional tolls as a result.

And herein lies the Truth that makes this book so chilling: any one of us could have found ourselves in the very same position, carrying out the very same orders, as the German troops in WWII.

Browning describes the various social conditions and governmental policies that effected how the Nazis were able to so completely dehumanize their enemy and rationalize their own involvement -- in part, because the men were assuaged of their sense of responsibility for their actions, and also in part due to the tremendous number of times that the actions had to be carried out. Repetition bred a sense of normalcy.

In the Afterword, Browning addresses another author who has critiqued Browning's work -- Daniel Jonah Goldhagen -- whose work I feel compelled to mention since it directly relates to this book.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is studying modern history, sociology / psychology, or WWII, but keep in mind that it is extremely graphic and very, very hard to read -- not because of the language used, but because of the events that Browning so meticulously describes.

This book (as described by previous reviewers and the product description) details what the men in the Nazi Reserve Police Battalion 101 went through, specifically during the SS Invasion of Poland.

What is unique about this book is that it is not just another historical account; the author takes into consideration what the Nazis themselves had to go through, psychologically and emotionally, in order to carry out their orders. Many other historians have analyzed historical events during WWII while still demonizing the Nazi forces ~ but Browning shows us that the troops really were Ordinary Men, and these men suffered tremendous emotional tolls as a result.

And herein lies the Truth that makes this book so chilling: any one of us could have found ourselves in the very same position, carrying out the very same orders, as the German troops in WWII.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is studying modern history, sociology / psychology, or WWII, but keep in mind that it is extremely graphic and very, very hard to read -- not because of the language used, but because of the events that Browning so meticulously describes.

In one of the most shocking books that I have ever read, Christopher Browning follows the evolution of a german reserve police batallion during the second world war, battalion which is involved in making several districts in poland "judenfrei" - free of jewish people. The book follows the psychological evolution of the members of the battalion from "ordinary men" to ... masacre machines.

This book will leave you questioning whether or not you, too, would obey commands to murder your fellow man. The path that the men from police battalion 101 took from normal citizen to dehumanizing murderer is a shocking one -- the same man who lost his lunch at the thought of killing innocent Jews became the most eager to participate at the close of the book. Browning also broaches the subject of what happens when a battalion-member says 'no' to the killing -- veritably nothing (he is scoffed at for being weak, perhaps, or sent home in 'shame'). I also agree with Browning's approach to this subject, in that he did not teleologically examine the Holocaust and attempt to say that the Germans were heading in that direction for the past, say, 1,000 years. I have not read Hitler's Willing Executioners, but from a prior review it seems that Goldhagen adopts the teleological explanation, which does not place the proper emphasis on the uniqueness of Nazism and the time period in which it arose. In other words, lots of factors (political, economic, social) contributed to the Holocaust...it wasn't merely a Hitler+Germany summation. Therefore, I feel that the prior reviewer's criticisms in this area were unjustified. I would also like to reiterate a point that another reviewer made, in that Browning does an exceptional job portraying the men in the battalion as multi-dimensional and real, which makes the book even more disturbing. This book is powerful, well written, and thought provoking, guaranteed to spark intelligent conversation about the role that obedience to authority and "ordinary men" played in the Holocaust.

Marina Kushner
Author
The Truth About Caffeine: How Companies That Promote It Deceive Us and What We Can Do about It

This complete study of an ordinary security unit which perpetrated a shocking attrocity give the reader dark insights into the minds of the murderers who perpetrated Hitler's nightmare upon Jews and others. No pack of nazi fanatics or even anti-semites. Not a group of habitual criminals like Dirlewanger's gang. Just oridnary men who one day murdered thousands of men women and children while sending others to the death camp of Treblinka.

Shocking. Depressing to read but necessary.

Most shocking to me was what these men testifed was the reaction of the Polish population. Many actually thanked them for doing it or baught drinks for them.

"Ordinary Men" chronicles the rise and fall of Reserve Police Battalion 101, one of several units that took part in the Final Solution to the Jewish Question while in Poland. During the course of their stay, they were responsible for the shooting of 38,000 Jews, while also deporting 45,200 to the Treblinka Concentration Camp. The book argues that the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101, and other units like it, were comprised of ordinary men. It begs the question: How did ordinary men become the cold-blooded killers of the Holocaust?
Author Christopher R. Browning does a tremendous job of covering the ground. He also presents a strong case that these people were indeed ordinary men, who came from ordinary backgrounds, only to end up being transformed into the murderers of thousands. However, the book also stresses that some of the men, including several officers, could not be considered "ordinary," as they were trained in Hitler's Nazi organizations from youth. Browning also does something nearly impossible: He humanizes these people without excusing their horrendous actions. Their defense that "they were just following orders" just doesn't fit the bill, as some refused to take part in the actions, and asked to be relieved. If a few men could get themselves relieved from doing the killings, why did so many more not? That is the main question the book gives.
"Ordinary Men" is an extraordinary book that chronicles just one unit that took part in the murder of innocent Jews, while also presenting a good case of how ordinary men can become killers. I highly recommend this book to all students of the Holocaust.
Grade: A+

"Ordinary Men" chronicles the rise and fall of Reserve Police Battalion 101, one of several units that took part in the Final Solution to the Jewish Question while in Poland. During the course of their stay, they were responsible for the shooting of 38,000 Jews, while also deporting 45,200 to the Treblinka Concentration Camp. The book argues that the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101, and other units like it, were comprised of ordinary men. It begs the question: How did ordinary men become the cold-blooded killers of the Holocaust?
Author Christopher R. Browning does a tremendous job of covering the ground. He also presents a strong case that these people were indeed ordinary men, who came from ordinary backgrounds, only to end up being transformed into the murderers of thousands. However, the book also stresses that some of the men, including several officers, could not be considered "ordinary," as they were trained in Hitler's Nazi organizations from youth. Browning also does something nearly impossible: He humanizes these people without excusing their horrendous actions. Their defense that "they were just following orders" just doesn't fit the bill, as some refused to take part in the actions, and asked to be relieved. If a few men could get themselves relieved from doing the killings, why did so many more not? That is the main question the book gives.
"Ordinary Men" is an extraordinary book that chronicles just one unit that took part in the murder of innocent Jews, while also presenting a good case of how ordinary men can become killers. I highly recommend this book to all students of the Holocaust.
Grade: A+

Rather than try offer a magazine style critique on the book, I'll simply recommend, fellow reader, that you get it. I'll assume that, like me, you are interested in learning about this aspect of WW2 history. I found it to be the best (non-contemporary) book I have read on the subject.

Rather than try offer a critique on the book, I'll simply reccomend you buy it and read it. It is the best (non contempory) book I have read on the Holocaust.

Browning's book is interesting and is truly a very important work that should be ready by everyone. In describing Battalion 101 he shows how ordinary men became killers. He also shows how men would shirk duty or attempt to avoid taking part in mass murders. All of this makes for a very interesting read. However, some of the interest is lost because parts of the book can be dry or stats heavy. Still, that should not dissuade anyone from reading this book.

Christopher Browning's _Ordinary Men_ deserves the acclaim it has generated during the years since its publication. It is a lucid, probing, and careful account of how a group of Order Police from Hamburg were transformed, in the course of only days, into committed perpetrators of genocide. Contrary to a common assumption, even within the field of Holocaust studies, Browning's book does _not_ provide an overall explanation of what motivated Holocaust perpetrators. Rather, the focus on Battalion 101 and its very particular history allows Browning to exclude or minimize a number of the factors most often cited in work on perpetrator motivation and, in essence, to see what is left. For Browning, what especially is left are certain forces toward group cohesion--what he puts under the rubric of "conformity"--that emerge as most central in his explanation (although not to the exclusion of other factors, particularly the brutalization of war itself, German military culture, careerism, racism, and more).

What remains unknown is the degree to which Browning's findings for Battalion 101 are generalizable. That is, this particular case has enabled him to hightlight an explanatory dimension that we might otherwise have overlooked. But whether what Browning calls "conformity" plays an overriding role in other contexts of Holocaust killing--or in mass murder more generally--requires far more study than this volume provides. To its enduring credit, it has inspired key work in that direction, some of which complements its own findings and some of which does not.

By the way, the Amazon review is incorrect in saying that this book is based on Browning's own interviews. It is entirely based on court records and desposition, not any interviews Browning conducted personally.

The recent version of this book has an Afterword by the author which is a specific rebuttal of Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners, which was based on much of the same research material used by Browning. I think Goldhagen's book is now generally accepted as sensationalist, highly selective and deeply flawed but Browning's criticism of Goldhagen's misinterpretation of the both the source material and Browning's work do a pretty thorough demolition of Goldhagen's thesis, if one were still needed.

This slim book is, in Browning's normal fashion, meticulously researched and lucidly, if somewhat drily, written and was/is a benchmark piece of work in understanding what enabled 'ordinary' Germans, in the context of their times, to carry out multiple acts of mass murder.

I would particularly agree with the comments of one reviewer that despite Browning's research and analysis, no one Great Answer emerges: the gap in our understanding is closed but not altogether eliminated. As more research of high quality emerges on the Nazi era, many issues have become more complex rather than less.

In terms of related reading which attempts to address similar issues I would also recommend David Cesarani's excellent recent biography of Adolf Eichmann and Richard Rhodes' somewhat patchy (by his high standards) study on the Einsatzgruppen, 'Masters of Death'. In terms on Browning's own work on the broader topic of the Final Solution, 'The Origins of the Final solution' is highly recommended.

This is definitely a book that will make you question your own ability to stand up for the right thing. We all agree that the Holocaust is one of the darkest points in recent history. What's amazing (and demonstrated in this book) is that it doesn't take a group of racist sociopaths to cause such a horrible catastrophe. Everyday people like you and me, under the right circumstances, can be influenced to murder innocent people.

This book has a lot of history. Not the history that you read in your high school history book, but history about specific groups in Germany during the second World War. It follows specific people and specific orders. Browning does an excellent job summarizing a lot of research (he went through old military records, court transcripts, news articles, personal interviews, etc.).

To be fair, you might also consider buying "Hitler's Willing Executioners" by Daniel Goldhagen. Both authors cover basically the same thing with two VERY different interpretations. In a nutshell, while Browning believes the German guards were (for the most part...with a few exceptions) average citizens who were following orders (and didn't hate Jews enough to do what they did), Goldhagen argues that the Holocaust was the result of a deep rooted racist attitude held by all Germans. I don't want to bias you with my opinion, and I truly believe that it would be good to read both books and form your own opinion. However, if you are trying to pick between the two, Browning's "Ordinary Men" makes a lot more sense, and is probably a more accurate description of what happened.

For you psychology majors out there, if you want real-life proof of the experiments by Philip Zimbardo (the prison study) and Stanley Milgram (administering lethal shocks because the orders of an authority figure), this book will make you a believer.

The power of "Ordinary Men" is its ability to convey the magnitude of the Holocaust by recounting the activities of a single battalion of German policemen stationed in eastern Poland in 1942-43. Browning keeps his focus on the atrocities committed by this 500-man battalion, without straying to discuss related parties or neighboring geographies. Far from creating a myopic study, this focus serves to underscore the breadth of the Nazis' extermination program during the Second World War. The key strengths of the book are Browning's careful research of German judicial archives from the 1960s, as well as his balanced interpretation of the battalion's crimes and of humanity's capacity for committing organized mass murder. The main shortcoming is that the author's analysis is saved almost entirely for the last chapter, rather than accompanying the relevant passages. This creates a dichotomy which is only a minor drawback to an otherwise extraordinary historical work.

Browning asserts an interesting thesis regarding the Einsatzgruppen; these were the death squads who adminstered conquered lands and carried out the final solution in places where they could or did not ship the jews to camps. He establishes the backround of a particular Police Battalion.

These individuals were not hardened Nazi's nor fanatical SS; nor were they even that keen on gunning down Jews. The argument that Browning makes is that anti-semitism was created in these individuals by killing jews. In order to cope with murdering, they became anti-semetic. When their commander announced their first action, he was in tears and offered an exception to whomever did not want to do this. Soldiers cried, looked the other way when some jews tried to escape, establishing a character that challenges our assumptions.

As time went on, the soldiers became used to this, and would have to joke around with each other while shooting jews. There were some instances of drunken debauchery that will break your heart as well: instances of cruelty that boggles the mind.

I picked thi up for a dollar at my local bookswap and found this to be a very interesting read.

One of the things that I remember about this particular dark period of history is what my father used to say about it. He felt, and stated, that the thing that was most upsetting was not what happened. But, that the people who did it, "were just like us."

This book shows us the monsters of the Holocaust were truly just like us. This is a book about being a team player. It is about consensus and doing just a little more for the unit. In other words, it is entirely applicable today.

The moral lesson of this book is clear. Today we are pressured to do things that we know are a little wrong in order to get along. Doing something that is a little wrong is only a matter of degree.

I work in an industry where one of the interview questions is, "are you willing to do things, required of you in this job, that may, or do, violate your own sense of ethics or morality." I work here; so you know how I answered.

This is a very disturbing book if you read it and in any way relate to the many police officers that it is about. These reserve police are a true cross section of society and reflect a culture and value system very similar to our own.

I thought this piece contains some material that should be seen by everyone, but then there was a lot of stuff that could have been left out. It was amazing to see how normal men turn into cold-hearted killing machines. Unfortunately, the book containted too many number and statistics which really took away from it. The book didn't do that well focusing on the main topic either, because it went off on many different tangents. I would recommend this book to be read though, because it is hard to believe that you or I could have a terrible amount of potential to murder people like the men in 101 did, and this book helps to shed light on the dark side of humanity.

I have a large collection of books on WWII and the Holocaust. When we talk about people it pays to remember the culture in which they were brought up and the beliefs they held. There were brutal ghettos in Germany (especially Frankfort) long before the war.

There were also people in all the countries of the Reich that helped Jews despite the danger that sometimes killed them as well. They helped physically, which is easier to document, but also (and probably more important) by "misinterpreting", losing and delaying orders. Slowing the process where they could. Many of them will never be known, but their influence could be profound. This DOES NOT EXCUSE THE FIRST GROUP. But just as the terrorists of today, upbringing and religion in combination once again create unspeakable horrors.

So, my friend in Ontario, it is not IF such things can happen. The have and are, all over the world. And it is many times harder to fight cowards in masks who hide in the dark and rejoice in the suicide bombing that will send the bomber to heaven. Look at the records of the Japanese suicide pilots and the damage they caused beyond any "normal" attack while they died for the Emporer. Strongly held belief creates people who act far beyond what we may TRULY understand.

Although our world has seen many events occur which defy explanation and simply boggle the mind, thus far none has matched the Holocaust in the intensity and sheer damage that it caused the world and more significantly the Jewish population of Europe. Yet, to this day who should be blamed for the Holocaust has still been an open question, yes it was Hitler's plan and original idea, but was he the only one behind it? All along it was the idea that the Jews had been the downfall of the German empire and something has to be done about them. A large factor in these ideas was the use of Einzatsgruppen and Police detachments behind the Army Front in clearing out and containing the Jewish populations in Ghettos or simply to eliminate them. Who these men were and what they represented is what Christopher R. Browning discusses in his book "Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland." We are shown what kind of men comprised this unit, Party members, members of the SS, which social class did they come from, working or privileged upper higher classes, and so on. The first killings are examined and how individuals reacted to them. None of the members of Police Battalion 101 had any idea that their first shooting of unarmed Jews was to take place, thus when asked by the commander of the Battalion those who wish to step out can, and they will be assigned other jobs, at first one man stepped out and was immediately berated by his commanding officer. After Trapp (the commander of the battalion) "had taken Schmike (the man who stepped out) under his protection, some ten or twelve other men stepped forward as well. They turned in their rifles and were told to await a further assignment from the major (pg. 57)." Later on even more men would step out or at least be asked to be excused after they had shot five or six people while others simply milled about at different junctures of the area trying to avoid being asked to be part of the shooting squads. No one was punished, which goes to show that the Germans did have a choice in taking part in the Holocaust or being left out. Another large part of the job that Police Battalion 101 did was to have Jews board trains which would take them to concentration or death camps, they would have tens of thousands sent to their death. Eventually as the battalion partook in a larger number of operations to round up and execute Jews they would grow more and more accustomed to it and at times would even joke about it. The last job that the Police Battalion had was to form hunting units to hunt down Jews who had run away and hid in the forests or elsewhere in the country side, these actions would have hundreds of casualties on the Jewish side while rarely would the Germans encounter opposition from Partisan type units. A helping hand was given to the Germans in their executions by groups like Ukrainians and Latvians, they would get thoroughly drunk and start to shoot carelessly and widely usually wounding the Jews and then shooting more and more victims on top of those wounded without administering any `mercy shots.' Although the Poles were not used in these kinds of units many did help the Germans by showing them where Jews were hiding out, the Germans would write how they often `betrayed' the Jews to them, whereas I doubt the Poles thought the same way about the Jews. While `betraying' might be used when talking of a friend or family member, the Poles saw Jews as neither. After we are taken through all the actions of Police Battalion 101 we are presented with the question of what could have made them do something like this? Although some would say it was the battlefield position they found themselves in, this is incorrect. Those who participated saw mostly no battlefield experience, they were mostly older men who would not see service in the German Wehrmacht and were used for rear area security. The book is an excellent introduction and analysis to help us understand why those in the Police Battalion took actions against the Jews, and at the same time see that those who did not want to or could not, for whatever reason, were not punished but adopted for other work.

When the Second World War ended in Europe in May of 1945, some six million Jews had been killed in what the Nazis termed the Final Solution. In its barbarity, the Final Solution is unprecedented in this the history of Western civilization. However, some 50 years after the war, the question still remains: what type of person could carry out this genocide? Christopher R. Browning delves into this aspect of the Holocaust in Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland.

Like many other such battalions, Police Battalion 101 was organized for the purpose of policing and pacifying territories captured by the advancing German during the early years of the war in the east. Their role in Hitler's quest for new Lebensraum for the German people was significant. They were, however, a non-combat unit. For this reason, the unit was mostly comprised of men in their forties and those unfit for combat duty.

Browning classifies the men of Police Battalion 101 as being ordinary: he points out that most were conscripted white-collar types from Hamburg and Luxembourg, who, unlike the SS and other German units, were not overtly indoctrinated with Nazi ideology. But, as the reader eventually discovers, regardless of individual variances in belief, the involvement of the majority of Police Battalion 101 in the Final Solution is undeniable.

By mid-1942, Police Battalion 101 was stationed in Lublin District in central Poland. Over the course of the next 12 months they would participate in a series of massacres, deportations, and a lengthy "Jew hunt." The profound psychological transformation that the men of the unit underwent while undertaking these operations is startling.

Some men initially refused to participate in the first killings, with dissension being the norm and, later, an accepted fact even among the officers of the unit. Yet in time most would become willing participants.

By November 1943, the once reluctant Police Battalion 101 would conduct, without hesitation or remorse, massacres at Majdanek and Pontiawa that, in total, took over 30,000 lives.

The majority of the details about the Battalion come from trials held in Germany in the 1960s. Many accounts and testimonies by former unit members were recorded at the time, but Browning admits that their information is limited. He reminds the reader that some 20 years after the fact the participants were in a situation where those testifying could downplay their role by intentionally being ambiguous or forgetful.

"Quite simply," states Browning in the preface to Ordinary Men, "some men deliberately lied, for they feared the judicial consequences of telling the truth as they remembered it. Not only repression and distortion but conscious mendacity shaped the accounts of the witnesses."

Taking this into consideration, Browning's ability to fashion a clear, accurate and consistent account of the horrific conduct of Police Battalion 101 is excellent. Deciphering the ambiguities and willful contradictions made by the testifiers, the author successfully presents the story critically and objectively. The end result is a work that is essential to understanding the perplexing conduct of those supposedly "ordinary men" who participated in the Final Solution.