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Chapter 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Ordinary Men, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Freedom of Choice
Peer Pressure, Conformity, and Acceptance
Normalization of Violence
Nationalism, War, and Ethnic Cleansing
Summary
Analysis
To explain how a group of middle-aged police officers end up receiving orders to shoot over 1,000 Jews, Browning must first provide some background on the Order Police and its role in the Nazis’ plans to kill all European Jews. The Order Police has its roots in the period following the First World War, a time when—because of a provision in the Treaty of Versailles (which ended WWI)—Germany could not have a standing army larger than 100,000 men. After the establishment of the Nazi regime in 1933, a police unit of 56,000 men receives military training in a covert attempt to re-arm Germany, and in 1935, when Hitler begins building the German army in open defiance of the Treaty of Versailles, that police unit becomes part of the regular army. It is in this unit that many future German officers begin their military careers.
The Treaty of Versailles effectively ended World War I, but it included some heavy penalties for Germany in retaliation for their actions during the war. Among these was the clause that Germany couldn’t create another large army. The anger over this clause in particular contributed to Germany’s willingness to launch into another war—they hoped that if they could successfully assert themselves through war, then they could regain some of the land and other things they lost after WWI.
Themes
When Heinrich Himmler becomes chief of the German police in 1936, he establishes two new police branches: the Security Police (led by Reinhard Heydrich, which includes the Criminal Police for nonpolitical crimes and the Gestapo for political crimes) and the Order Police (led by Kurt Daluege, which includes city and municipal police, rural police, and police for small towns). When World War II begins in September 1939, the Order Police includes 131,000 men, many of whom enlisted in the Order Police with the understanding that this would make them ineligible for military conscription. However, many of their units are absorbed into the army anyway as the war gets underway.
Part of the appeal of joining the Order Police was the belief that those who joined would avoid being conscripted into the military, so it is ironic that so many of those same young men were then essentially handed over to the military when the war began. This also illustrates that the Order Police was seen as something of a refuge for people who didn’t want to find themselves perpetrating any kind of violence in a war—cold-blooded killers didn’t sign up for the Order Police, men who wanted to avoid violence and bloodshed did.
Themes
Although the Order Police wasn’t initially created for military use, Germany’s early success in World War II meant that the Order Police became an increasingly important source of manpower; many members of the Order Police are grouped into battalions and deployed to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Norway, and the Netherlands. In central Poland—an area called the General Government—the Order Police form regiments and supervise the Polish police. This is where Reserve Police Battalion 101 is stationed in 1942-1943.
The General Government area in Poland is extremely important because it is home to a large Jewish population and several of Poland’s major cities, and also because hundreds of thousands of Poles and Jews are resettled there after being driven from their homes in Western Poland. The General Government is also where Himmler and Hitler begin carrying out their infamous Final Solution at extermination camps like Auschwitz and Treblinka. Being stationed in the General Government in 1942 (the beginning of the deadliest period of the Holocaust, as Browning points out in the opening pages) means that the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 will be witness to—and, indeed, take part in—some of the worst crimes against the Jews in the entire Holocaust.
Themes
The normal chain of command for the Order Police runs up to its head, Kurt Daluege, in Berlin. However, another chain of command—for any operations involving the Order Police working with the SS—runs up to Himmler. Himmler selects a “crony” of his—Odilo Globocnik, known for corruption and brutality—to oversee the Lublin district of the General Government, which is Reserve Police Battalion 101’s district. This means that Order Police units in this area can receive orders from Daluege, from Himmler, or from Globocnik. This last chain of command will be central to implementing the Final Solution, the plan to exterminate all of Europe’s Jews.
The first indication that Reserve Battalion 101 will have to commit barbarous violence is that Himmler selects a notoriously brutal man to head up the district office of the General Government in the area where Reserve Battalion 101 is stationed. Globocnik will be more than willing to deliver orders for mass executions, violent round ups, and brutal deportation processes, which makes it easier for Himmler to get him to help with extermination the Polish Jews as part of the Final Solution.
Themes
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