An Essential Book for Understanding the Holocaust

books:


	• Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Christopher R. Browning Harper Perennial, 1993 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 54 reviews view larger image
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An Essential Book for Understanding the Holocaust

If I were given the impossible task of sellecting three essential books to help one understand the holocaust, "Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalian 101 and the Final Solution in Poland" would be on the list. If there is any doubt in ones mind that the holocaust did or could occur, or more importantly, be repeated, this book will dispell that doubt. No other book, among the scores I've read on this subject, explains the forces within a fascist state which can turn a civilization in upon itself. The reader will see and understand clearly that the average man can be compelled by the political forces around him to revert to savagery for savagery's sake. If the purpose of civilization is to elevate the human condition...here in these pages you will discover the antithesis of civilization. And you will begin to understand how it could have happened....and how it could happen again.

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Unsettling and frightening...

If you still are amazed that the holocaust ever happened, reading this book will help to provide some answers. Some of the details are a bit boring, but the basic purpose for the book is well defined. Frightening to realize that just about "anyone" can be coerced to do "anything."

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An astonishingly personal view of war criminals.

Christopher Browning tackles the challenge of getting inside of the minds of the men who carried out the worst war crimes of the last century--maybe of all humanity. He paints an intimate picture of the 101st Reserve Police Battalion as they struggle to come to terms with the reality of the Final Solution as it happens. The study reveals that these men were not monsters, as we would like to believe them to be, but "ordinary men" who found themselves in an extraordinary situation. Browning's argument is largely based on recorded testimony from the Neuremberg Trials. Using this testimony he discovers that these men are not driven to kill with an animal rage born of unnatural hatred for Jews, but rather by the pressures of society. This is not to say that anti-semitism was not a factor, or that the crimes commited were somehow less heonous because they were not done out of irrational hate, just that these people were not extraordinary. This idea is frightening because it suggests that the Holocaust was not a product of mass insanity, it was a basic failure in human nature. Browning backs the theory with anectdotal information about the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 on their mission of destruction, and a psychological study on the pressures to conform to peers and recognized authorities. Ordinary Men achieves its purpose with masterful skill. It is an historical work which transcends its field to provide insight not only into an historical debate, but simple human nature. One can not begin to understand the Holocust without first reading this book.

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Unsettling and frightening...

No punishment was ever given to anyone who chose not to participate in the mass killings. The question this book attempts to solve is, "Why did Germans who were opposed to killing end up killing?" The book is powerful when describing events and questioning actions, but boring when it is not.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, page 9, 10, 11

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recommendations

National Socialism, the Holocaust, the War in the East, and Misc.
Should Be Required Reading
Books related to Fascism
World War Two Classics
World War, 1939-1945

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