Ordinary Men

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by Christopher R. Browning


  31. Burger judgment, 20.

  32. Georg W., HW 1731-32.

  33. Brustin-Berenstein, table 10, lists only one November shooting in Łuków, of 200 Jews. The testimony of the policemen indicates that there were two. The Bürger judgment, 20-21, confirms two Łuków shootings, on November 11 and 14, each with 500 victims—a rare case in which a German court estimates casualties higher than do other sources.

  34. The one key exception was Buchmann, who claimed in the 1960s (Heinz B., HW 822, 824, 3942, 4417) that no unit under his command shot Jews, that after Józefów he had witnessed no other Jewish action except the ghetto clearing in Radzyń, where he was stationed but given no duties, and indeed that he had returned to Hamburg on November 4, one week before the first Łuków shooting. In view of the very clear memory and testimony of various staff members, some of whom had been with him in Radzyń and Łuków for some time and knew him well, it seems that Buchmann either unconsciously repressed the incident or intentionally concealed it from the interrogators.

  35. Heinrich H., G 456.

  36. Heinrich H., G 455-56; Hans Pz., HW 3525.

  37. Hans S., G 328; Ernst S., G 330; Paul F., HW 2242.

  38. Heinrich H., G 456-57; Hans Pz., HW 3525; Henry J., G 411-12.

  39. Hans S., G 330; Ernst S., G 334-335; Paul F., HW 2243.

  40. Henry J., G 413-14.

  41. Heinz B., HW 648, 824-25, 2438, 2441, 4417.

  13. THE STRANGE HEALTH OF CAPTAIN HOFFMANN

  1. Hoffmann’s “complaint” of May 3, 1943, HW 509.

  2. Bruno G., HW 2026.

  3. Erwin H., HW 1168; Martin D., HW 1602; August W., HW 2043.

  4. Alfred S., HW 298; Erwin H., HW 1169; Martin D., HW 1602; Peter C., HW 1865; August W., HW 2043-44.

  5. Martin D., HW 1602; August W., HW 2043-44.

  6. August W., HW 2045.

  7. Erwin H., HW 1169; Wilhelm J., HW 1323; Georg L., HW 1427; Friederick V., HW 1542; Martin D., HW 1603; Peter C., HW 1865; Bruno G., HW 2025; August W., HW 2044-45.

  8. Martin D., HW 1605.

  9. Friederick V., HW 1542.

  10. Martin D., HW 1605-6.

  11. Alfred S., HW 299; Georg L., HW 1428; Martin D., HW 1603; Bruno G., HW 2025-26; August W., HW 2045, 3305-6.

  12. Amandus M., HW 1631-32.

  13. Friederick V., HW 1592.

  14. August W., HW 2045.

  15. Hoffmann’s “complaint” of May 3, 1943, HW 513: Wolfgang Hoffmann, HW 2304, 2925.

  16. Friederick V., HW 1541; Martin D., HW 1605-6, 3212-13, 3319; Erwin N., HW 1693-94, 3319-20; Wilhelm K., HW 1776, 3345-49; Bruno G., HW 2030-31, 3301, 3347; Bruno R., HW 2086; Erwin H., HW 1167.

  17. Hoffmann letter of January 30, 1943, HW 523-24.

  18. Trapp letter of February 23, 1943, HW 509-10.

  19. Hoffmann “complaint” of May 3, 1943, HW 509-15.

  20. Rheindorf to police president of Hamburg, July 2, 1943, HW 538-39.

  21. Wolfgang Hoffmann, HW 788-89.

  14. THE “JEW HUNT”

  1. YVA, TR-10/970 (Staatsanwaltschaft Hamburg, 147 Js 8/75, indictment of Arpad Wigand):81-92. See also Christopher R. Browning, “Genocide and Public Health: German Doctors and Polish Jews, 1939-41,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 3, no. 1 (1988): 21-36.

  2. YVA, TR-10/970 (Staatsanwaltschaft Hamburg 147 Js 8/75, indictment of Arpad Wigand):92-99; Ferdinand H., HW 3257-58; Diensttagebuch, 456.

  3. YVA, TR-10/542 (Staatsanwaltschaft Augsburg, 7 Js 653/53, indictment of Günther Waltz).

  4. Heinrich S., HW 1573.

  5. Kurt D., HW 1623.

  6. Arthurs., HW 1164.

  7. Georg L., HW 1429; Friedrich B., HW 1552; Paul H., HW 1653; Johannes R., HW 1812; Bruno G., HW 2030; August W., HW 2048; Heinrich E., HW 2177; Heinrich B., HW 2206; Hans K., HW 2261-62; Wilhelm K., HW 2379; Anton B., HW 2708; Ernst Hr., HW 2731; Martin D., HW 3213; Walter L., G 192; Friedrich P., G 247; Hugo S., G 474; Alfred K., G 580.

  8. Erwin G., HW 4400.

  9. Paul H., HW 1653.

  10. Georg L., HW 1428-30.

  11. Peter Ö., HW 1794; Otto H., HW 2227; Hans K., HW 2261.

  12. Alfred S., HW 302.

  13. Heinrich H., HW 975-76; Rudolf B., HW 408; Heinrich E., HW 2178; Hans K., HW 2261; Karl S., G 664.

  14. Rudolf B., HW 403; Franz G., HW 1192.

  15. Wilhelm K., HW 1774, 2379; Bruno G., HW 2033-34.

  16. Alfred S., HW 300-301.

  17. Martin D., HW 1600; Erwin N., HW 3321-22.

  18. Friedrich Bm., HW 2101; Hans K., HW 2263-64.

  19. Friedrich Bm., HW 2102.

  20. For First Company, see Arthur S., HW 1164; Max F., HW 1531; Friedrich Bm., HW 2101; Heinrich E., HW 2175; Hans K., HW 2262-66; Hans Pz., HW 3256; Friedrich B., HW 3531; Alfred K., G 580; Ernst R., G 612; Karl S., G 663. For Second Company, see Rudolf B., HW 403, 407-8; Adolf B., HW 442-43; Max D., HW 1346; Heinrich S., HW 1573; Erwin G., HW 1641-42; Peter Ö., HW 1743-44; Wilhelm G., HW 2153-56; Helmuth H., HW 2207; Otto H., HW 2206-7; Walter Z., HW 2267-68; Georg K., HW 2639-40, 3344-45; Anton B., HW 2708-11; Ernst Hr., HW 2731; August Z., HW 3066-67, G 286; Richard Cm., HW 3545; Walter N., HW 3553; Wolfgang H., HW 3563-64; Paul M., HW 3935; Hermann Bg., G 100-111; Gustav M., G 169; Walter L., G 192; Friedrich P., G 248. For Third Company, see Karl E., HW 897; Walter F., HW 903; Martin D., HW 1600-1601, 1609, 3321; Erwin N., HW 1689, 1693-95; Richard M., HW 1890; Bruno P., HW 1916, 1924-25; Arthur R., HW 1938-39; Bruno G., HW 2030-34; August W., HW 2046-48, 3304; Alfred S., HW 2067; Friedrich S., HW 2072-73; Herbert R., HW 2111-12.

  21. Erwin N., HW 1693.

  22. Bruno P., HW 1917.

  23. Hans Kl., HW 3565.

  24. Wolfgang H., HW 3564.

  25. Lucia B., G 598.

  26. Ernst Hn., G 511.

  27. Adolf B., HW 2532.

  28. Heinrich B., HW 3615.

  29. Walter Z, HW 2629.

  30. Otto-Julius S., HW 4577-78.

  31. Adolf B., HW 442-43.

  32. Gustav M., G 169. Another policeman (Hero B., HW 890) also ascribed his being picked only once for a Jewish action to his reputation as politically unreliable and quarrelsome.

  33. Heinrich F., G 445-46.

  34. Hugo S., G 474.

  35. Bruno P., HW 1925.

  36. Arthur R., HW 1938-39.

  37. Martin D., HW 3213.

  38. Henry J., G 415.

  39. Friedrich P., G 248.

  40. YVA, 0-53/121 II w (May 1943); 0-53/122 X I (June 1943); 0-53/122 X II (July and August 1943); 0-53/123 Y I (September and October 1943).

  41. YVA, 0-53/115/2-170, 673-725. See also YVA, TR-10/970 (Staatsanwaltschaft Hamburg, 147 Js 8/75, indictment of Arpad Wigand): 103-7.

  42. ZStL, Ord. 410, 994-96, 498, 500-501 (weekly reports of Fifth Company Reserve Police Battalion 133, Police Regiment 24, November 7-December 12, 1942).

  15. THE LAST MASSACRES: “HARVEST FESTIVAL”

  1. Krüger decree of October 28, 1942, in Faschismus—Ghetto—Massenmord (Berlin, 1960), 342-44.

  2. Karl E., HW 896.

  3. Jakob A., HW 1064.

  4. Excerpts from memoirs of Feiga Cytryn and J. Stein, in ZStL, 8 AR-Z 236/60 (hereafter KdS Radzyń case), 1:6-7.

  5. Testimony of Lea Charuzi, KdS Radzyń case, volume of miscellaneous testimony, 30.

  6. Johannes R., HW 1811; Karl M., HW 2660; Wilhelm K., G 106-8.

  7. Testimony of Rywka Katz, KdS Radzyń case, volume of miscellaneous testimony, 18.

  8. For further German accounts, see Herbert F., HW 1389; August Z., G 287-89. For Jewish accounts, see Berl C., HW 1094; Rywka G., HW 1113-14; and KdS Radzyń case, Moshe Feigenbaum, 1:4-5; Liowa Fried-mann, 1:10; volume of miscellaneous testimony, Feigenbaum, 6: Rywka G., 24; Moshe Brezniak, 18; Mortka Lazar, 28. For the participation of Trawniki personnel, see ZStL, II 208 AR 643/71 (Staatsanwaltschaft Hamburg, 147 Js 43/69, indictment of Karl Streibel; hereafter Trawniki indict-ment):104.

  9. There is confusion in the testimony as to the destinations of the ea
rly and late May deportations. I have followed Brustin-Berenstein, table 10.

  10. Trawniki indictment, 104; Jakob A., HW 1063.

  11. Memo of May 21, 1963, HW 1348; Arthur S., HW 1165; Otto-Julius S., HW 1955; Friedrich Bm., HW 2105; Heinrich E., HW 2161; Joseph P., HW 2756; Otto I., HW 3522; Ernst Hn., G 505.

  12. Herbert R., HW 2112; Karl G., HW 2201; Ernst Hr., HW 2715.

  13. Georg L., HW 1430; Erwin G., HW 1644; Friedrich B., HW 3143. BDC, files of Friedrich B., Hermann F., Erwin G., Ernst Hr., Erwin N., Ernst R., and Walter Z.

  14. Heinrich H., HW 973; Bruno D., HW 1880.

  15. Rudolf B., HW 409.

  16. Himmler Aktenvermerk, October 2, 1942, Hoffmann/Wohlauf indictment, 320-22.

  17. Trawniki indictment, 104-6.

  18. For Erntefest, see Helge Grabitz and Wolfgang Scheffler, Letzte Spuren: Ghetto Warschau—SS-Arbeitslager Trawniki—Aktion Erntefest (Berlin, 1988), 262-72, 328-34; Jozef Marszalek, Majdanek: The Concentration Camp in Lublin (Warsaw, 1986), 130-34; ZStL, 208 AR-Z 268/59 (Staatsanwaltschaft Wiesbaden, 8 Js 1145/60, indictment of Lothar Hoffmann and Hermann Worthoff, KdS Lublin case):316-31, 617-35, 645-51; Trawniki indictment, 159-97; YVA, TR-10/1172 (Landgericht Düsseldorf, judgment against Hachmann et al.; hereafter Majdanek judgment):456-87.

  19. Werner W. (KdO liaison to SSPF Lublin), HW 600-601.

  20. Majdanek judgment, 459; Marszalek, 130; Grabitz and Scheffler, 328-29.

  21. Majdanek judgment, 459; Werner W., HW 601-2.

  22. Helmuth H., HW 2206.

  23. Rudolf B., HW 409-10; Herbert F., HW 1392; Martin D., HW 1610.

  24. For the number of Jews shot at Majdanek on November 3, 1943, see ZStL, II 208 AR-Z 74/60 (Staatsanwaltschaft Hamburg, 141 Js 573, indictment of August Birmes):126-29; Majdanek judgment, 456-57, 471.

  25. Rudolf B., HW 410; Herbert F., HW 1392; Martin D., HW 1610; Paul H., HW 1655; Bruno R., HW 1856; Bruno P., HW 1928; Otto H., HW 2229; Wilhelm Kl., G 109.

  26. Fritz B., HW 804-5; Otto H., HW 2228-29.

  27. Heinrich Bl., HW 467-68.

  28. ZStL, 208 AR-Z 268/59 (Staatsanwaltschaft Wiesbaden, 8 Js 1145/60, indictment of Lothar Hoffmann and Hermann Worthoff, KdS Lublin case):633-35.

  29. Heinrich Bl., HW 468; Alfred L., HW 1354; Martin D., HW 1610; Bruno R., HW 1856; Wilhelm Kl., G 109.

  30. Alfred L., HW 1354; Johannes L., HW 1444; Bruno R., HW 1856; Bruno P., HW 1928.

  31. Martin D., HW 1611-13.

  32. Wilhelm Gb., HW 2155.

  33. Karl E., HW 900.

  34. Johannes L., HW 1445; Eduard D., HW 433-34.

  35. Wilhelm K., HW 1777-78.

  16. AFTERMATH

  1. Wolfgang Hoffmann, HW 768; Kurt D., HW 1224.

  2. Heinrich Bl., HW 469.

  3. Wolfgang Hoffmann, HW 790, 2922-24.

  4. Heinz B., HW 649, 825; Arthur K., HW 61.

  17. GERMANS, POLES, AND JEWS

  1. Wolfgang Hoffmann, HW 780.

  2. Heinz B., HW 826.

  3. Bruno P., HW 1919.

  4. Lucia B., G 597.

  5. Wolfgang Hoffmann, HW 2299.

  6. Walter H., G 602.

  7. Bruno P., HW 1925-26.

  8. Wolfgang Hoffmann, HW 2921.

  9. Kurt D., HW 2886-87.

  10. Alfred K., G 582; Ernst R., G 608, 612d; Georg S., G 635.

  11. Hermann Bn., HW 3067, 3214-15, 3512, 3515; Rudolf B. and Alfred B., HW 3514.

  12. Erwin G., HW 2503; Alfred B., HW 2520.

  13. August Z., HW 3368.

  14. Erwin G., HW 1640, 2504; Conrad M., HW 2682; Anton B., HW 2710; Kurt D., HW 4338; Hermann Bg., G 101.

  15. Bruno D., HW 1876; Anton B., HW 4347; Kurt D., HW 4337; Wilhelm Gb., HW 2149.

  16. Rudolf G., HW 2491.

  17. Ernst Hd., HW 3088-89.

  18. Georg W., HW 1733.

  19. Gerhard K., HW 3083.

  20. Friedrich Bm., HW 2097.

  21. Karl G., HW 2200.

  22. Erwin N., HW 1690.

  23. Friedrich Bm., HW 2103; Hellmut S., G 652.

  24. Hans K., HW 2265.

  25. Friedrich P., G 247; Wilhelm K., G 517-18; Walter N., HW 3354.

  26. Oskar P., HW 1742.

  27. Wilhelm J., HW 1322; Friederick V., HW 1540; Emil S., HW 1737; Ernst Hr., HW 2717.

  28. Wolfgang Hoffmann, HW 2294.

  29. Rudolf B., HW 407; Friedrich B., HW 1592; Martin D., HW 1609; Heinrich E., HW 2171; Georg K., HW 2640; August Z., G 285; Karl S., G 663.

  30. Gustav M., G 169.

  31. Bruno P., HW 1924.

  32. Bruno P., HW 1918-19.

  33. Wilhelm J., HW 1324.

  34. Friedrich Bm., HW 2104; Anton B., HW 2709-10; August Z., HW 3367, G 286.

  35. Bruno G., HW 3301; Hans K., HW 2265.

  36. August Z., HW 3365, 3367.

  37. Anton B., HW 2710-11.

  18. ORDINARY MEN

  1. John W. Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York, 1986), especially 3-15 (“Patterns of a Race War”) and 33-73 (“War Hates and War Crimes”).

  2. The Polish name for the town is Bydgoszéz. Ethnic Germans living there were killed in the first days of the war, and in the following month the occupying Germans carried out particularly intensive executions and expulsions. See Krausnick and Wilhelm, 55-65; Tadeuz Esman and Wlodjimierz Jastrzebski, Pierwsje Miesiac Okupacji Hitlerowkiej w Bydgoszćz (Bydgoszćz, 1967).

  3. As for overt encouragement, after machine-gunning Japanese soldiers in the water for more than an hour, the commander of the submarine Wahoo was awarded both the Navy Cross and the Army Distinguished Service Cross. Dower, 330, n. 94.

  4. Dower, 11.

  5. Both Richard Rubenstein, The Cunning of History (New York, 1978), and Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust (Ithaca, 1989), have elaborated on the implications of Hilberg’s work in this regard. In Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York, 1965), Hannah Arendt presented Eichmann as the “banal bureaucrat,” a small cog in the bureaucratic machine. While Eichmann is not in fact the best example of the “banal bureaucrat,” the concept is still valid for understanding many Holocaust perpetrators. Hilberg and others have certainly documented the extent to which ordinary bureaucrats, performing functions vital to the mass murder program in exactly the same routine way they performed the rest of their professional duties, made the Holocaust possible. The evil was not banal; the perpetrators most certainly were. It was precisely this gap “between the unspeakable horror of the deeds and the undeniable ludicrousness of the man who perpetrated them” (54) that Arendt tried to bridge with her notion of the “banality of evil.”

  6. Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm, unpublished manuscript.

  7. Bettina Birn, Die Höheren SS- und Polizeiführer (Düsseldorf, 1986), 363-64; ZStL, II 208 AR-Z 74/60 (Staatsanwaltschaft Hamburg, 141 Js 573/60, indictment of Birmes):62-65.

  8. Sereny, 83-88.

  9. T.W. Adorno et al., The Authoritarian Personality (New York, 1950), 1-10.

  10. Adorno et al., 222-279.

  11. Bauman, 153.

  12. John M. Steiner, “The SS Yesterday and Today: A Sociopsychological View,” in Survivors, Victims, and Perpetrators: Essays on the Nazi Holocaust, ed. Joel E. Dimsdale (Washington, 1980), 431-34, 443.

  13. Ervin Staub, The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence (Cambridge, 1989), 18, 128-41.

  14. Staub, 26, 126. Staub includes one Vietnam veteran’s story that parallels the experience of the policemen of Reserve Battalion 101 who felt initial distress at Józefów but soon became accustomed to the killing: “Flying over a group of civilians in a helicopter, he was ordered to fire at them, an order he did not obey. The helicopter circled over the area and again he was ordered to fire, which again he did not do. The officer in charge then threatened him with court-martial, which led him to fire the next time around. He vomited, felt profoundly distressed. The veteran reported that in a fairly short time firing at civilians became like an experienc
e at a target-shooting gallery, and he began to enjoy it” (134).

  15. Bauman, 166-68.

  16. Craig Haney, Curtis Banks, and Philip Zimbardo, “Interpersonal Dynamics in a Simulated Prison,” International Journal of Criminology and Penology 1 (1983)69-97.

  17. Haney, Banks, and Zimbardo, “The Stanford Prison Experiment: Slide show and audio cassette.”

  18. Gustav M., 169-70; Heinz B., HW 2439-40.

  19. Herbert Jäger, Verbrechen unter totalitärer Herrschaft (Frankfurt, 1982), 81-82, 95-122, 158-60.

  20. Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View (New York, 1974), 1. For reactions to Milgram’s experiments, see Arthur G. Miller, The Obedience Experiments: A Case Study of Controversy in the Social Sciences (New York, 1986).

  21. Milgram, 13-26.

  22. Milgram, 32-43, 55-72, 93-97, 113-22.

  23. Milgram, 135-47.

  24. Milgram, 148-52.

  25. Milgram, 7, 177.

  26. Milgram, 9, 176-77.

  27. Milgram, 113-15.

  28. Stanley Milgram, “Group Pressure and Action Against a Person,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 9 (1964): 137-43.

  29. Milgram, Obedience to Authority, 142.

  30. Milgram, Obedience to Authority, 177.

  31. Bernd Wegner, Hitlers Politische Soldaten: Die Waffen-SS 1939-1945 (Paderborn, 1982); Krausnick and Wilhelm.

  32. BA, R 19/467 (RFSS and chief of German police directives of October 27, 1942, and April 6, 1943, signed by Winkelmann).

  33. BA, R 19/308 (guidelines for training of police battalions, January 23, 1940).

  34. BA, R 19/308 (guidelines for training police reserves employed in the Schutzpolizei of the Reich and the communities, March 6, 1940).

  35. BA, R 19/308 (training of Order Police formations and Reserve Police on precinct duty, December 20, 1940).

  36. BA, R 19/308 (six-day officer education plan).

  37. BA, R 19/308 (staff plan for National Socialist instruction, January 14, 1941).

  38. BA, R 19/308 (guidelines for carrying out ideological training of the Order Police in wartime, June 2, 1940).

  39. YVA, 0-53/121 W I (KdO, Police Regiment 25, December 17, 1942, Christmas/New Year’s greetings and recognitions, signed Peter).

 

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