learntoquestion ltq discussions

Reading:

Excerpt from Christopher Browning’s book, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, chapter 1 (pages 1-2) and chapter 7 (pages 55-70).

Reading Christopher Browning’s text on the Józefów massacre—a chapter of his book, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, one of the most brilliant and horrifying books ever written about the Nazi era--it is impossible not to wonder: what happened there? I don’t know about you, but I find his account and the reality of what happened there to be profoundly and deeply disturbing.

Here’s what I want you first to address in this post. Why did these men do what they did? Why did some men participate and some men choose not to? What were the real repercussions if you chose not to participate? Why didn’t more of the men do that? What seemed to be “going through their heads”? What do you make of Major Tripp’s views and actions? Why were these actions—these massacres by teams that served as “einsatzgruppen”—special killing squads—so problematic for the Nazis in the short-term and in the long term?

Then, consider this. At the end of the Second World War, a psychologist named Theodor Adorno argued that there was a "Fascist Personality Type" that was prone to genocide. According to Adorno, it made folks feel good to know that this behavior was "just the way Germans are."

Then, in 1961 Stanley Milgram did what became his classic experiment on obedience and taught us about the power of the situation and how ordinary people are willing to obey authority. We will be looking at this experiment next week.

Since Milgram did his research, we have learned a lot about obedience and the potential for people to change their behavior through the power of the situation. Philip Zimbardo did a classic study at Stanford University in which students took on the role of guards and prisoners - with rather frightening results. Other researchers, like Mike Fatouros studied how someone goes on to become a torturer by a systematic psychological process. Lastly, other theorists, like Irving Janis, argue that we go into something called "Groupthink" where we are unable to make rational decisions because of our loss of perspective of the greater world.

Browning, along with these psychologists, have helped us to understand the question of this rather dark side of human behavior. But as a student last year asked, in response to this article: So what? She felt that Browning's article, in trying to make us understand the origins of their behavior, was asking us to have some sympathy for the perpetrators in the unit.

So, here is that question. So what? What does it mean for us if the answer is that "the power of the situation was so strong that individuals lose the ability to make rational, humane decisions”? Does this in some way lessen the horrible nature of their crimes? Does it mean that the perpetrators are in some way less responsible?

In your response, be certain to make specific reference to what you saw with the Einsatzgruppen, from Browning, and from his findings in this chapter from his ground-breaking book. This is perhaps one of the most thought-provoking and essential readings and posts we will have all year.

I think these men did what they did because they were following orders and chose to kill and participate. I think some men participated in the killings whilst others didn’t because the men who chose to participate in the killings didn’t care about the people they were killing and some even continued to kill Jews throughout the entire day. The real repercussions if someone chose not to participate in the killings were being shunned upon by the other men and by higher command. Otherwise, there weren’t any other repercussions that one would face if one opted to not participate in the killing. I think that more men didn’t decide to do that because they were sheep who follow the herd and don’t question orders.

It means that if some sort of situation arises similar to this, then ordinary people like these policemen will have no problem killing others because they are easily manipulated and in a system that respects obedience to authority. No, I don’t think that the excuse that “the power of the situation was so strong that individuals lose the ability to make rational, humane decisions” does in any way lessen the horrible nature of their crimes because they are the ones who chose to make those decisions. There were individuals that opted out at the very beginning because they understood that they were going to kill Jews. Therefore, unless these other men were totally ignorant (which they very well might have been), there is no reason why they should have not known what they were doing when they were given orders to round up and then kill the Jews. Again, this doesn’t mean that the perpetrators are any less responsible for the killings because it's all about choice in this instance and they chose to kill.

Personally, I believe these men did what they did, and made the decision to or not to kill based off of their pride. If you didn’t have the ‘guts’ to kill Jews, people who were deemed as less than, and constantly compared to vermin and rodents, that was something to be ashamed of. As Christopher Browning said in his book in chapter seven, some men also didn’t realize the gravity of the task they were assigned, some didn’t even realize it until they had already taken a life. Obviously, I would never hold respect for any member of the Nazi party, especially ones who hold higher positions of power, but I can’t help but appreciate how Tripp allowed some of the soldiers to be relocated to a different position, instead of partaking in the massacre. As true as it is to believe that all Nazi’s should be punished and face repercussions for the greater cause they participated in, it is also true that some soldiers only became soldiers to ensure the safety of themselves and their families. For that reason, I appreciate Tripp giving the soldiers the option to not shoot the Jews of Józefów. The actions and events that took place here also did hold a drastic affect on the Nazi’s, even though they were the perpertrators. In class on Wednesday, (5/10) we watched one specific clip which showed one of the more powerful Nazi’s witnessing a mass shooting, and how sick he got when brains of a Jew who had been murdered got onto him. This man is still the definition of evil, but even though he is the one directing these massacres, he too was affected by it, definitely short-term, and maybe even long term. A similar thing is mentioned through a testimony in Browning’s book; one man noted how after killing several Jews, he ran into the forest, got sick, and sat alone by himself for several hours-he faced a long term punishment as a result of his actions.

For me, reading Browning’s chapters were somewhat difficult, because I almost felt bad for the soldiers who were ordered to do the mass killings. But the thing is, Tripp offered the soldiers a way out, and some people just chose not to take him up on that. Although they might not have personally decided to receive this task, they personally chose if they wanted to take part in it. I think if we say that the perpetrators are somehow less responsible due to the power imbalance, we make it easier to say that the Nazi Regime was enabled by a few people in government, when in reality, it was enabled by a whole country, by several countries. Yes there was a power imbalance, but no, that does not lesson the crimes and brutality committed by every single Nazi and soldier within Germany.

I think there is a difference between the men who decided to participate in the executions of the Jewish people and the men who did not, like Trapp. I think that the men who participated were just following orders and were scared that there would be repercussions, but also because they enjoyed killing masses of people. There were some accounts of soldiers opting out of executions after they saw where they had to kill the victim, or after doing it one time. The real repercussions if you did not participate in the executions were being seen as less than compared to the other soldiers and looked down on by people in higher command. Many soldiers probably continued on with the executions because they felt no remorse for the people they were killing. I don’t think I can really say what was ¨going through their heads¨, but it was probably something along the lines of not caring about the consequences, because there weren't any. I think Major Trapp was a better man than his comrades because he gave the men he captured a choice in regards to if they had to participate in the hard labor, even though there was some backlash from the other soldiers, like Hoffman. I think Major Trapp´s views and actions are quite notable, considering the guilt he felt after watching so many people die. He also tried to console the other soldiers after a long day of executions, but this does not make up for the fact that he was still part of the situation. These massacres were so problematic for the Nazis in the short term because quite a few men needed to be excused from the killings after only a day or so, and overall many of the soldiers believed these actions were so horrific that they could not partake. In the long term, the actions affected the Nazis by scarring them with severe PTSD and making it easier to kill more people because once they had already started they became more inhumane and did not get affected by these killings.

I believe that the psychological reasoning behind the soldier´s actions can somewhat attest to the claim that the severity of the situation caused them to act so irrationally. However, this claim in no way excuses or lessens the horrible nature of their crimes because of what was seen in the Browning reading. Trapp and other soldiers did not want to partake in the executions, and many soldiers had to stop because it was too much on their mental health. This also does not excuse the perpetrators because there is evidence supporting the claim that not all soldiers were affected this way, or were even forced to do it. Obviously I will never be able to experience or even come close to understanding what each soldier felt in this situation, but in my opinion there is no evidence that can completely excuse or lessen the nature of these soldiers' crimes.

I believe that the men who carried out their orders to kill the Jew are responsible regardless of if they weren’t able to make rational decisions. At least to me it isn’t even a debate on whether or not I should kill a person. If not killing a person means I may get beat up I would rather get beaten up. These men, though not all, were given the option to not follow through with the orders with no repercussions. Twelve decided to leave, so it's not like they were being scared to the point of not being able to make a decision. As we discussed in class that people tend to follow the majority or others when it comes to making decisions, there was a big enough group, maybe not in proportion, for those who were conflicted on going against orders to join and not feel intimidated. This would mean that the remaining soldier didn’t mind killing defenseless women and children. The men being ordered to do the killings were German men, this means at any point they can go anywhere, in or out of the country without being harassed or assaulted because of their religion or ethnicity. They could have walked away from this situation with only those other men and officers knowing what they did.

“the power of the situation was so strong that individuals lose the ability to make rational, humane decisions” is just an excuse. They didn’t have a gun to their head, they weren’t even threatened. They were promised other assignments to do instead. On page 59 many soldiers denied shooting or witnessing the shooting of the Jews. By saying they lost the ability to make rational humane decisions is just redirecting the blame to the higher ups. They too are still to blame, but they had the option of not following it.

We can’t fully know why these men did what they did but we can use this reading, which includes primary accounts, to better understand and infer their reasons. First of all, it feels unfair to make excuses for these men because at the end of the day they ended the lives of countless innocent people. This reading does remind me however of the complicated nature of humans, by explaining stories of people involved in the Jozefow Massacre who were reluctant to participate. Even the man in charge, Major Trapp, was distraught by the situation. He gave the policemen, who were supposed to murder jewish elders, women, and children, the option to not participate in the actual killing, but to help with organizing and supervising. Some men took him up on this offer, others requested to be reassigned after the killings began, and some didn’t at all. Major Tripp tried to ease the feelings around the “assignment” by reminding them all how it came from higher up and it was their (unfortunate) duty to carry it out. Trapp was also reported as very distraught over the situation, avoiding the killing site completely and crying often, however these truths do not justify the fact that Major Tripp was a part of the Nazi party who organized the Jozefow Massacre. Even if he may have felt deeply guilty during and after the massacre, he remained alive while these jewish citizens died. Similarly, the accounts, which come from the men who were doing the actual killing, tell of their unease with the situation. Some who chose not to participate at all and some who killed first then decided it was too much for them. These accounts may give us a level of ‘comfort’ by showing us these men were not solely hate filled indivisuals happy to murder countless people. However this comfort is short lived when we realize their actions speak louder than words. These special killing squads became so problematic for the Nazis because the people they were made up of became traumatized. The close range and inhumane nature of the killings caused the men doing the shooting great distress. They grew insensitive to death and murder and would begin to loose their minds. The use of bullets, which cost money, and the phsycological effects on Nazi soldiers made this form of extermination inefficient for the Nazis.

This passage somewhat causes sympathy for people who killed other innocent people. I think that even though many seemed to feel guilty about what they did it does not make them any less responsible. Those who chose not to participate at all remind us that some people were decent. I think overall it is easier for people to believe there is a "Fascist Personality Type" because then at least there are criteria, or indicators, of who is dangerous and who is not. After reading accounts and explanations like this it is scarier to think about the willingness of “normal” people to kill others solely based on the orders of an authority.

Although there were definitely Nazis who took pleasure in murdering Jews and others they deemd to be lower than them, from Browning’s book, it seems like many of them genuinely did not want to be doing that. This is in no way to say that their feelings about what they did made it any better, nor does it excuse them from responsibility, but it does go to show the way people’s morals can be compromised to such an extent as this. Although some actually did not participate in the killings, if the findings from Milgram’s experiments apply in this situation, those who did likely did so either out of fear of repercussions, or just because they felt like they had no choice.

I don’t believe that Major Trapp’s views and actions should be praised or seen as heroic in any way (by normal standards, not being eager to mass murder an entire population is the lowest possible bar), but I also think that the fact that he tried his best to allow people to have the choice to not have to participate in the killing is important to note. I don’t think it necessarily makes him a good person, but it does set him apart from Nazis who followed orders without any resistance, or who actively supported the orders. It is interesting that no one accepted his offer to not have to kill anyone before the killing actually began, because it shows how ready they were to carry out their tasks, even when they had the opportunity not to.

I don’t know what the official consequences would have been for not participating in the killings, but from Browning’s book, it doesn’t seem like the soldiers who were able to avoid killing people faced any repercussions, although for some of them, they were reassigned by Trapp, so it wasn’t as if they were technically going against orders. Again, I don’t know if there were any actual consequences, but even if they were, I highly doubt that they were a worse option than killing people. It seems more likely that the soldiers thought that they didn’t really have a choice, and that they had signed up to carry out the orders of their superiors, just as the subjects of Milgram’s experiments felt like they had no choice but to obey the psychologist’s directions. This killing was presumably traumatic for the Nazis (Himmler became sick just from being too close to the bodies of the people killed by the Einsatzgruppen), but I feel I must acknowledge that their trauma does not come anywhere close to the amount of trauma experienced by the people they were killing, or attempting to kill. The Nazis were able to create a less traumatic (or, more precisely, less direct) way of murdering people, but this only allowed the Nazis to kill more easily and to feel less resposible and guilty about the atrocities they were committing– they only lessened their own trauma.

As I said before, I strongly believe that the soldiers’ loss of rationality in this situation does not lessen the nature of their crimes, nor does it excuse them from responsibility, but I do realize that killing another person is inherently traumatizing for almost everyone, and they did not want to be killing people. No matter what, if they made the active decision to follow through with their orders, their actions are completely inexcusable, and should be treated as such, regardless of their personal feelings on their task.

Major Trapp was clearly disturbed by the orders he had received to kill the Jews in the town who weren’t taken to a work camp. I found Trapp’s story surprising because I haven’t spent much time thinking about the fact that some Nazis had such an aversion to the work they were doing. Although Trapp felt guilty and gave his men the option to opt out, this did nothing about the fact that the order was still carried out. This raises the question of why all of the other men chose to participate. They probably had a fear of later repercussions because they didn’t know what could happen in the future, even if Trapp said there were no consequences. As one policeman described, the only actual “consequence” he faced was being shamed and called a “weakling.” Some policemen might not have wanted to be looked upon with disgust or emasculated. The pressure of the situation and the psychological obligation people have to follow orders may have played a small role in those who decided to shoot. However, if some people can choose not to, everyone else can as well and the choice still remains.

There is no way to lessen the nature of the crimes that the einsatzgruppen committed. One part of the chapter that I found horrifying was when Browning described how many policemen were paired face to face with Jewish people that they would kill. I thought about Milgram’s experiment with all its variations, and how the percentage of “teachers” who administered shocks to the very end decreased significantly when they themselves tied up the “learners” or physically saw them during the experiment. The einsatzgruppen’s crimes were on such an extreme scale and it is shocking that policemen and soldiers who were face to face with their victims, watching as their “brains and bones blew everywhere,” could continue to carry out such unspeakable horrors. Many admitted that it was hard to watch, but the brutality continued. Browning said that “the reality of what [the soldiers] were about to do…had probably not sunk in.” I feel like if one was given orders to shoot an entire town dead, the reality would hit pretty strongly right away. “Groupthink” and the “power of the situation” argument can be used to explain the psychological reason why we feel obligated to follow commands, but it does not lessen the atrocity of these crimes or make perpetrators any less responsible.

The power an authority figure has over someone of a lower class/rank is one that is very confusing to understand. The Jozefow massacre is no exception to this confusion. In 1942, German soldiers, by order of their “higher-ups,” were forced to conduct the killing of over a thousand Jewish women and children to be massacred execution-style. Christopher Browning’s book, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, details this situation, focusing on the “choice” soldiers were given. A choice of obedience vs. refusal. At first, when any soldier refused to participate, they were faced with the anger of Captain Hoffman; however, this changed once the soldiers arrived at Jozefow. If the men wanted to, they were permitted to ask certain commanders to be reassigned, and in most cases, this request was granted. One soldier even remembers simply walking away from his station after the sickening feeling in his stomach only continued to grow after each kill, eventually taking up a new post without really anyone noticing. And yet many men stayed; they saw it as their job to stay and obey the orders given to them. Maybe out of fear of embarrassment or opposition, many who stayed could claim they feared the repercussions. However, as Browning details, many who chose to refuse to continue killing didn’t face much backlash and, instead of facing punishment, were told to simply take a cigarette break or reassign themselves. Major Tripp, a leading officer who wasn’t so sure of the morality of the entire situation and shook heavily with tears in his eyes upon explaining the order, even offered a way out for most of the men who wanted one. So this leaves us with the puzzling question of why any soldier would choose to stay, why make the active decision to murder innocent women and children when it seems they could’ve so easily declined the assignment? This power dynamic was studied in a research project called the Milgram experiment carried out in 1961. In a test of moral obligation and obedience, test subjects were experimented on to see how long they(the teacher) would go injuring a test subject(the learner) under the authority of a psychologist. And horrifically, it was discovered that 65 percent of the subjects continued to inflict shocks to the learners right up to the 450-volt level (a level marked with mysterious three X’s) all because they were told by psychologists that they “had to keep going” and that “they(the psychologists) would take responsibility for any harm done.” This study explains why so many soldiers at Jozefow continued for as long as they did; they felt the pressure of satisfying their “teacher.” They feared the consequences associated with disappointing a superior. These massacres were so problematic for the Nazis in the short term because it didn’t take long before soldiers would request reassignment, meaning more and more soldiers would have to be brought in to complete the task. They were problematic long-term because the memory of these events abused and traumatized the soldiers, with the scarred memory of shooting innocent lives ingrained in their minds. When an individual holds an arbitrary power standard over another, it’s not that the lower-ranked person loses the ability to make humane decisions; instead, it’s more so about the power dynamic of pressure placed on someone to impress that superior, creating these situations where people go to extreme lengths to demonstrate themselves as meritorious. However, no matter how “strong” of a situation or pressured a person feels, this will never lessen the crime of murder. Perpetrators aren’t less responsible just because they were told to do the things they did; if one man tells another to murder someone, that makes both men equally guilty of the murder; the man told to do it isn’t exempt from blame just because it wasn’t his idea. In the same way, these Einsatzgruppen battalions are in no way excused from the responsibility of the heinous crimes they committed.

The very idea that people are even capable of committing the atrocities that occurred during the Holocaust is terrifying. To think that people were able to carry out actions that they knew would directly lead to people’s deaths is terrifying. However, what’s even more terrifying, are the people who actually, directly, killed Jews without any real reason, like members of einsatzgruppen. How were people just capable of murder?

Unable to deal with the idea that people were willing to just become murderers, citizens became comforted by Theodore Adorno’s idea of a “Fascist Personality Type.” Attributing something to genetics makes it far less terrifying because then it’s an isolated scenario. It’s easier to believe that those people did those terrible things because there was something actually wrong with them. That belief removes the fear of wondering what you yourself are capable of. It’s easier to believe: it’s genetic, so there’s no possibility that I could have done that.

However, the reality is, people without murderous tendencies became murderers during the Holocaust. Christopher Browning explores this idea by explaining the actions and thoughts of the “ordinary men” in Reserve Battalion 101 who were forced to exterminate an entire town by just shooting Jews. When they were given this task, something unusual happened. Their leader, Trapp, offered them an out. Anyone who didn’t want to participate was given the opportunity to take on another assignment. The men hesitated. Here is where the psychology of the ordinary Nazi soldier comes into play. Even though Trapp gave them that out, they didn’t trust it. They feared the implications that would come if they took the out. They feared being seen as less of a soldier or less of a man. They feared being seen as weak. Clearly, none of these things have anything to do with the victims of the holocaust. Those soldiers were thinking about self preservation.

Schmike, the first man to step away, was given the reaction that each of those soldiers feared. Since the “broke rank” which is disrespectful, the other leader Hoffman began to berate him, but he was stopped by Trapp. In these types of situations, men are more afraid of what will happen if they don’t protect their soldier status; they’re not even thinking about the act they’re about to commit. It’s clear they weren’t thinking at that moment, because later on many more men try to opt out.The men who stepped away, they actually took a moment and thought about the act they would commit.

The only reason that these ordinary men were given any mercy at all was because of Major Tripp. Tripp spent the day crying, and he did not dare to go anywhere near the forest when the killings were happening. One soldier remarks, “he allegedly could not bear the sight. We men were upset about that and said we couldn’t bear it either.” None of the men wanted to do this. So much so that they got angry because Tripp got to act “weak,” but they felt like they couldn’t.

Even if “the power of the situation was so strong that individuals lose the ability to make rational, humane decisions,” these men are not excused from what they did. They put their fear of being seen as weak above the lives of Jewish people. They all knew they were doing something wrong, but they chose to continue.