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Sergeant Hans Keller
The name Otto-Julius Schimke is an alias for the one man who immediately accepted Major Wilhelm Trapp’s offer to be excused from Reserve Police Battalion 101’s first ordered mass execution in Józefów. Schimke risks his reputation and social standing within the battalion by being the first man to opt out of being part of the shooting squads, which not only makes him very brave but also indicates his deep sense of right and wrong and unwillingness to compromise his values just to conform to the group. After the massacre at Józefów, Schimke is never made to participate in the executions of unarmed Jewish men, women, children, and the elderly, making his story the perfect example of how officers typically respected the individual choice not to participate in violence, thus leaving the freedom of choice open to all battalion members throughout their time in Poland.
Otto-Julius Schimke Quotes in Ordinary Men
The Ordinary Men quotes below are all either spoken by Otto-Julius Schimke or refer to Otto-Julius Schimke. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 7
Quotes
After explaining the battalion’s murderous assignment, he made his extraordinary offer: any of the older men who did not feel up to the task that lay before them could step out. Trapp paused, and after some moments one man from Third Company, Otto-Julius Schimke, stepped forward. Captain Hoffmann, who had arrived in Józefów directly from Zakrzów with the Third Platoon of Third Company and had not been part of the officers’ meetings in Biłgoraj the day before, was furious that one of his men had been the first to break ranks. Hoffmann began to berate Schimke, but Trapp cut him off. After he had taken Schimke under his protection, some ten or twelve other men stepped forward as well. They turned in their rifles and were told to await a further assignment from the major.
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Otto-Julius Schimke Quotes in Ordinary Men
The Ordinary Men quotes below are all either spoken by Otto-Julius Schimke or refer to Otto-Julius Schimke. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 7
Quotes
After explaining the battalion’s murderous assignment, he made his extraordinary offer: any of the older men who did not feel up to the task that lay before them could step out. Trapp paused, and after some moments one man from Third Company, Otto-Julius Schimke, stepped forward. Captain Hoffmann, who had arrived in Józefów directly from Zakrzów with the Third Platoon of Third Company and had not been part of the officers’ meetings in Biłgoraj the day before, was furious that one of his men had been the first to break ranks. Hoffmann began to berate Schimke, but Trapp cut him off. After he had taken Schimke under his protection, some ten or twelve other men stepped forward as well. They turned in their rifles and were told to await a further assignment from the major.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
