Drawing on psychology, sociology, and lots of direct testimony, Browning explains how the need of individuals to conform to group expectations can result in horrendous acts of evil. The often personal glimpses demonstrate the slow and methodical change in Nazi policy towards Jewish civilians, as the German leadership shifted towards the Final Solution. In fact, if he was like many administrators I have known, he might have had an actual written policy manual, which he fastidiously devised and insisted on following to the letter.

Combined with the personal accounts of battalion members, it is easy to see the slow progression of anti-Jewish doctrine, as well as the frequently unmentioned nuances of its executioners, the most revealing of which — the lack of disciplinary action for those who refused to take part in the massacres and "Jew hunts" -- reveals a great deal about the make-up of the actual perpetrators.

In essence this is for want of a better description, Professor Browning's view and response to a professional spat with Daniel Goldhagen, author of Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust where each interpret different aspects of RPB101's sources and seem to have done this for many years since both books were published in the 1990s. Christopher Robert Browning recently retired as Frank Porter Graham Professor of History at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. It takes as its basis the detailed records of one squad from the Nazis' extermination groups and explores in detail its composition, its actions, andthe methods by which it was trained to perform acts of genocide on an industrial scale. In addition, there is very much a Christian self-help on manhood vibe under some of these biographies, which can get a bit frustrating because it very much feels forced a lot of the time.

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Browning analizza i verbali degli interrogatori postbellici di 210 uomini che avevano fatto parte del Battaglione 101: 500 poliziotti riservisti (uomini comuni per l’appunto, come dice il titolo della sua ricerca storica), che fra il 13 luglio 1942 e il 5 novembre 1943 assassinarono una per una circa 38. Christopher Robert Browning (born May 22, 1944) is an American historian and is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). Browning’s conclusions were strongly criticised by Daniel Goldhagen, author of “Hitler’s Willing Executioners”, a book I haven’t read. Non solo “assassini da tavolino”, ma esecutori materiali, gente che dovette letteralmente immergersi nel sangue delle vittime uccise a bruciapelo.

While Browning's book was apparently a serious academic volley in the world of Holocaust studies, it strikes me as very measured and commonsense. From Radzyń 6,000 prisoners, then from Łuków (7,000), Końskowola (2,000 coupled with the massacre at the hospital), Komarówka, Tomaszów; all those unable to move or attempting to flee were shot on the spot. I think if you're going to begin with the premise of "ordinary men" you need to show these men as ordinary. The documentary also includes the full recording of an execution of Jews in Eastern Europe, an extraordinary find since filming and recording the executions was strictly prohibited. As an aside, before my Dad died, I was talking to one of the aides in his nursing home who came from Argentina.Battalion 101 "evacuated" 36,972 Poles in one action, over half of the targeted number of 58,628 in the new German district of Warthegau (the total was 630,000 by the war's end, with two-thirds of the victims being murdered), [23] but also committed murders among civilians according to postwar testimonies of at least one of its former members.