Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland is a book that tells the story of the members of German Reserve Police Battalion 101. This battalion, consisting of approximately 500 men, massacred and deported more than 80,000 Jews in and around the Lublin district of Poland. Their participation in the massacres began in July 1942 and ended in November 1943. The book raises several issues surrounding the choice to kill defenseless people: how ordinary German men became mass murderers; how not all of the massacres were committed by members of the SS; and how men voluntary chose to continue their participation in the killing assignments despite opportunities to stop. All the men in Battalion 101 had the option to exempt themselves from the killings on numerous occasions. Ultimately, Browning writes, the Holocaust took place because ôat the most basic level individual human beings killed other human beings in large numbers over an extended period of timeö (xvii).
Thousands of German men, other than the secret police, killed Jews during this period. No one in Reserve Police Battalion 101 was a member of the SS. Many reserve police battalions participated in the genocide throughout Poland. These battalions were composed of ordinary German men in their 30s and 40s. They had not been chosen for the job because they were considered suitable for the task of slaughtering thousands of people by reason of their personalities, backgrounds or allegiance to the regime. In many ways, these ordinary men would have seemed unfit for the job. Browning provides biographical profiles on the members of Reserve Police Battalion 101. This information shows that the members of Reserve Police Battalion 101 were similar to other males in the German population. Originally, these police units were assigned normal policing duties in Germany and their conquered countries. Battalion members found themselves part of...