About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherHarperCollins

ISBN-100062303023

ISBN-139780062303028

eBay Product ID (ePID)227597752

Product Key Features

Book TitleOrdinary Men : Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland

Number of Pages384 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year2017

TopicWomen, Holocaust, Europe / Germany, Military / World War II, Europe / Western, Genocide & War Crimes, Political Process / Political Parties, Europe / Poland, Jewish

FeaturesRevised

IllustratorYes

GenrePolitical Science, History

AuthorChristopher R. Browning

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.9 in

Item Weight0.4 Oz

Item Length8 in

Item Width5.3 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

LCCN2017-446215

Dewey Edition21

Reviews"A staggering and important book, a book that manages without polemic to communicate at least an intimation of the unthinkable." -- Chicago Tribune "Helps us understand, better than we did before, not only what they did to make the Holocaust happen but also how they were transformed psychologically from the ordinary men of [the] title into active participants in the most monstrous crime in human history." -- New York Times Book Review "It is the care with which Browning examines the evidence, as well as the soberness of his conclusions, that gives this work such power and impact." -- Kirkus Reviews "A remarkable--and singularly chilling--glimpse of human behavior. . .This meticulously researched book...represents a major contribution to the literature of the Holocaust." -- Newsweek, A staggering and important book, a book that manages without polemic to communicate at least an intimation of the unthinkable.

Dewey Decimal940.5/318

Edition DescriptionRevised edition

Synopsis"A remarkable--and singularly chilling--glimpse of human behavior. . .This meticulously researched book...represents a major contribution to the literature of the Holocaust."-- Newsweek Christopher R. Browning's shocking account of how a unit of average middle-aged Germans became the cold-blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews--now with a new afterword and additional photographs. Ordinary Men is the true story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police, which was responsible for mass shootings as well as round-ups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi death camps in Poland in 1942. Browning argues that most of the men of RPB 101 were not fanatical Nazis but, rather, ordinary middle-aged, working-class men who committed these atrocities out of a mixture of motives, including the group dynamics of conformity, deference to authority, role adaptation, and the altering of moral norms to justify their actions. Very quickly three groups emerged within the battalion: a core of eager killers, a plurality who carried out their duties reliably but without initiative, and a small minority who evaded participation in the acts of killing without diminishing the murderous efficiency of the battalion whatsoever.While this book discusses a specific Reserve Unit during WWII, the general argument Browning makes is that most people succumb to the pressures of a group setting and commit actions they would never do of their own volition. Ordinary Men is a powerful, chilling, and important work with themes and arguments that continue to resonate today., In March 1942, approximately 75 to 80 percent of all victims of the Holocaust were still alive. Eleven months later, 75 to 80 percent were dead -- the result, according to Christopher R. Browning, of "a short, intense wave of mass murder" centered in Poland. One German unit of just over 450 men, Reserve Police Battalion 101, was responsible for the shooting of 39,000 Polish Jews and the deportation of 44,000 more to the Treblinka death camp over a period of 16 months. In this chilling and stunningly powerful work, Browning describes how a group of average men became the cold-blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews. Drawing on a judicial interrogation of 210 members of the Battalion in the 1960's, he paints a portrait of the soldiers who took so many lives and comes to a disturbing conclusion about the universality of such barbarity in our world.Christopher R. Browning is a professor of history at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. He is a contributor to Yad Vashem's official twenty-four volume history of the Holocaust and the author of three books on the subject."A remarkable -- and singularly chilling -- glimpse of human behavior ... This meticulously researched book ... represents a major contribution to the literature of the Holocaust." -- Andrew Nagorski, Newsweek

LC Classification NumberD804.3.B77 2017

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by wilheff-95
Aug 11, 2022
got away from technical naming of officers and places and then got into the story for why I read it.
almost unbelivable story and how most men became num to what they were ordered to do.
Verified purchase: YesCondition: Pre-owned
by sic_5321
May 23, 2024
Great speed
Great speed
Verified purchase: YesCondition: Pre-owned
by lunamariez
May 29, 2024
Good book
Good book.
Verified purchase: YesCondition: Pre-owned