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

Narrated by:
Kevin Gallagher

Unabridged Audiobook

Ratings
Book
49
Narrator
11
Release Date
April 2020
Duration
10 hours 1 minute
Summary
“A remarkable—and singularly chilling—glimpse of human behavior. . .This meticulously researched book...represents a major contribution to the literature of the Holocaust.'—Newsweek 


Now available in audio for the first time, 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.  

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
Reviews
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Anonymous

What a gruelling experience! I am unsure as to whether my overall preconceived views have been altered significantly. Sometimes 'less is more' . I rest my case and my spectacles - old Cornish saying !

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Courtney M.

Narrator is wonderful.

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Thomas M.

Fantastic!

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Jeremy Fisher

This is why truely good men are so rare. They have to be willing to ostracize themselves to do what is right.

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Anonymous

As opposed to the hateful garbage some people write regarding this horrible time, this book is trying to understand what happened and why instead of giving simple answers. Which in turn reduces the odds of a repeat. All this while conveying the horrors in a way that will leave you shaken. The world needs more of Mr. Browning. Thank you. The narration is extraordinarily.

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