Ordinary Men as Holocaust Perpetrators: A Reappraisal After Twenty-five Years

Christopher R. Browning, Frank Porter Graham Professor of History Emeritus, UNC Chapel Hill
Dr. Browning reflects on his book Ordinary Men and developments in Holocaust history twenty-five years after its publication. It is the story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police, which was responsible for mass shootings and roundups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi death camps in 1942. It argues that most of the men of RPB 101 were not fanatical Nazis but ordinary middle-aged men who committed these atrocities out of the group dynamics of conformity, deference to authority, role adaptation, and the altering of moral norms to justify their actions. While the book discusses a specific unit, its general argument is that most people are susceptible to the pressure of a group setting and committing actions they would never do of their own volition.