The slaughters of the Holocaust were perhaps the most brutal event in modern history. Some of the actions were so cold and calculated that it is nearly impossible to conceive of such actions being commited by normal human beings. However in reality those who commited the attrocities in Poland were in fact representative of a large nation. The men of Police Batallion 101 were not a bunch of sadistic psychopaths. In fact many of them had normal lives with jobs and families prior to 1941.
It is clear from the readings that the men were given an opportunity to back out before the first massacre and could certainly lay out in most cases even without being officially excused. Most still chose to participate but many did seem disturbed emotionally by the events which occured. Trapp himself seems to have been disturbed deeply by having to give the order. Goldhagen would have us believe that this could simply be attributed to this being their first time doing somethign like this and that they were not genuinely concerned for those who they were slaughtering. However Goldhagen does not seem receptive to any explanation other than willful decisions primarily taken because of anti-semitism. Something I did learn about Goldhagen from reading biographical information is that Goldhagen's own father was a holocaust survivor and that he has always been quick to hold everyone strictly accountable for their actions.
To me it seems far more likely that a series of societal and psychological factors unique to being part of a military environment in Nazi Germany caused these men to commit the acts described. Police Batallion 101 was comprised of ordinary Germans. It's highly unlikely that they would have acted this way left to their own devices without being incouraged by the military command structure and a sort of pack mentality. While it would appear taht they did become more comfortable with the slaughters and more eager to participate, it is highly doubtful that any of them would have come to the conclusion this needed to be done and then carry it out without it coming down the chain of command.
The pack mentality in the military cannot be overstated either. When you have a large group of people in a command type structure reinforcing each other dissent is an exceptional not a normal action. It is highly likely that their first reaction was to obey orders and that they simply reinforced each other and they were able to defer responsiblity both to command and each other. It's only natural to look for evil men, and to think that they were somehow unique, but they were not. As an "ordinary man" I can't imagine doing something like this and I'd like to think I'd resist despite what those around me were doing and I was being told to do. However reading about the events of Nazi Germany I can also be grateful that I live in a sane society where it is nearly universally acknowledged that such brutality is wrong and that I will likely never be in such a position..
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I enjoyed your analysis about the sheer brutalisty of Trapp's battalion. I agree that they mave have conducted the most brutal acts recorded in human history, and it is interesting to try and understand the motives that moved these men to act. The debate between Goldhagen and Browning carries an extreme amount of relevance in studying this historical tragedy. It has everything to do with the pscche off the German people, and therefore a meter to judge humanity by. The human race, hopefully, will never descend to depths these men visited, but as history students it is fascinating to obseve their actions and their motives.
ReplyDeleteI think you raise a great point in discussing the idea of pack mentality. I also think back to the point Matt brought up in class: that perhaps the extraordinary men really were those who refused and perhaps most ordinary men would indeed have done the same thing. I agree with you in saying that I would like to believe that I would refuse to participate in such actions but perhaps had I been born and raised as a man in Germany in the first half of the twentieth century, I may well have acted the same way. To me, the idea of the perpetrators of te Holocaust as ordinary men is much more horrifying that the idea of the perpetrators as ordinary Germans.
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