Lieutenant Walter Hoppner Character Analysis in Ordinary Men

Lieutenant Walter Hoppner (an alias) is an Alte Kämpfer and the commander of the Second Platoon in the Third Company (under Captain Hoffmann) of Reserve Police Battalion 101. Hoppner is one of the few men who was not a policeman before the war (he was a tea importer), which means he had little to no experience enforcing laws or using any amount of violence in his pre-war life. This makes it all the more surprising that Hoppner reportedly becomes extremely enthusiastic about the judenjagd and encourages his men to all shoot any Jews they find even if they don’t want to. Furthermore, some of Hoppner’s men report that over time he seemed to take real pleasure in shooting people himself. Hoppner is a prime example of Browning’s conclusion that even the most ordinary men can become so habituated to violence that they develop a real zeal for it.

Lieutenant Walter Hoppner Character Timeline in Ordinary Men

The timeline below shows where the character Lieutenant Walter Hoppner appears in Ordinary Men. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

Nationalism, War, and Ethnic Cleansing Theme Icon

...education and career success as civilians: Hartwig Gnade, Paul Brand, Heinz Buchmann, Oscar Peters, Walter Hoppner, Hans Scheer, and Kurt Drucker. Five of them are Nazis, but none belong to the... (full context)

Peer Pressure, Conformity, and Acceptance Theme Icon

...enough to get the men out of violent actions, they have to blatantly refuse. Lieutenant Hoppner soon earns himself a reputation as a judenjagd enthusiast and tries to make all of... (full context)

...police fire during a judenjagd in 1943; in the final year of the war Gnade, Hoppner, and Peters die in action, and Drucker is injured and sent back to Germany. Trapp... (full context)

...execute and then killed Jews to make the rest of his quota. In 1943, however, Hoppner’s men went ahead and killed 12 to 15 elderly Poles even after learning it was... (full context)

...is that the men didn’t know they wouldn’t face deadly consequences, especially when NCOs like Hoppner insulted nonshooters. Even this doesn’t hold true for Reserve Police Battalion 101—from the beginning, Trapp... (full context)