Ordinary Men Reserve Police Battalion Term Paper

(Browning 168-169) He points to Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiments where some subjects proved so amenable to authority that they were willing to repeatedly shock and possibly kill other people if an authoritative figure ordered them to do so, while refusing if a less authoritative figure gave the same orders. (Browning, 167) Browning suggests that there is an element of calculation and free will here that goes against the notion of the soldier as the mindless vessel of Nazi terrorism.

Browning believed that situational factors be assessed in tandem with psychological factors. (Browning, 186) Though Browning is dismissive of the notion of purely situational factors, he seems to appreciate the significance of situational factors in the gradual transformation of the individual. Whereas the purely situational explanation characterizes these Nazi soldiers as shallow brutes, incapable of the recognizing the larger consequences of their actions, Browning characterizes these soldiers as thoughtful, mature individuals, who are decent because they intend to be and cruel because they intend to be.

Of all of the literature and research involving the Holocaust and the men who executed it, Browning chooses an interesting idea to settle on: Primo Levi's "Gray Zone." (Browning, 186) Levi coined the term to describe the innumerable shades of culpability present in the space between the victim and the perpetrator. (Browning, 187) for example, even Holocaust victims could incur culpability as evidenced by the participation of some Jews in the execution of their fellow prisoners, some doing so merely to prolong their lives. (Browning, 187) Browning includes the "Gray Zone" because it allows him to identify the tiny variations in culpability which become so significant with a topic such as the Holocaust.

Browning's Synthesis

In his critical evaluation, Browning presents strong arguments and evidence from a variety of scholars.He does not need to conduct his own experiments or craft his own theory on human frailty. Instead, he relies on a tremendous fluency with the existing theories and studies of Nazi brutality. Because of his fluency with prior scholarship and his unique expertise on this subject, Browning is able to extract the elements of these theories which speak most to the dilemma of the Reservist Battalion. The result is a nuanced, yet complete synthesis of prior scholarship in the context of the Reserve Battalion 101:

"Here we come full circle to the mutually intensifying effects of war and racism noted by John Dower, in conjunction with the insidious effects of constant propaganda and indoctrination. Pervasive racism and the resulting exclusion of the Jewish victims from any common ground with the perpetrators made it all the easier for the majority of the policemen to conform to the norms of their immediate community (the battalion) and their society at large (Nazi Germany).

Conclusion

Although Browning is painstaking in his presentation of the various theories explaining the development of soldiers into mass murderers, he seems to understand the process as being much simpler than we would expect. Perhaps it is unnecessary, and naive even, to seek out exotic explanations and theories to remind us of what we already know. Browning's book is provocative because it reminds us of how close we are to utter savagery. Humans not only have a capacity for cruelty, it comes somewhat naturally. That we are able to suppress these instincts, to the point where we are genuinely surprised when these instincts reappear, is a credit to our capacity for altruism and self-restraint.

References

Browning, C. (1990),….....