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Ordinary Men By Christopher Browning

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Stephanie Herrick Ordinary Men Analysis HST 369 February 22, 2017 Many men avoided WWII by joining the Order Police. These ‘policemen’ were sent to Poland, or the Soviet side of Poland to maintain order. There were thousands of men who were not wanting to enlist into the military to be on the front lines, thus deciding to join the police. The policemen had two ‘decrees’ to keep up with, it was described in the book Ordinary Men written by Christopher Browning, the commissar order; which involved for on-the-spot execution of any communist suspect of being an anti-German. The other one is Barbarossa decree that allowed the German soldiers to shoot any Soviet civilian without getting into any legal trouble. Many Jews and Bolsheviks were the enemy …show more content…

At first only one man stepped up, many were scared for fear because they were refusing to do their job. Captain Hoffmann was furious about this because one of his men broke ranks. Trapp had to step in to protect this officer because he did not want to kill. With the protection from Trapp a couple more min stepped forward. This fear that many men had stayed with them. Even during the shootings some men would fall out talking to their commanders asking for reassignment. One officer Captain Wohlauf was approached by two men, “They pleaded that they too were fathers with children and could not continue. Wohlauf curtly refused them, indicating that they could lie down alongside their victims.” This is the fear that the men faced everyday about not executing their orders. Also that their comrades would treat them different to if they chose not to participate in the …show more content…

While others were not wanting to be assigned to killings. After the day’s events many of the men would return to the barracks and drank heavily. Ten to about 20 percent of the men found ways out of the killings, for the other men who didn’t they became desensitize, and eventually started to like it. The police battalion was involved in actions that included ghetto clearing, deportations, and other shootings every day. Seeing destruction everyday changes the perspective of the policemen. Especially when propaganda about dehumanizing these people were being pushed down their throats every

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