Sergeant Heinrich Steinmetz Character Analysis

Christopher Browning uses “Sergeant Heinrich Steinmetz” as an alias for the commander of the Third Platoon of Reserve Police Battalion 101’s Second Company. Virtually nothing about Steinmetz’s personal life is known, either during or after World War II, but Browning does confirm that Steinmetz played a very important role in the violence and murders that Reserve Police Battalion 101 committed during their tenure in Poland. During the action at Józefów, Steinmetz repeats Major Trapp’s offer that any man who doesn’t think he can endure shooting innocent men and women can be excused from doing so. Even though nobody steps forward, Steinmetz’s offer reveals his personal concern for his men’s psychological wellbeing and respect for the precedent Major Trapp set. Not only does Steinmetz lead groups of shooting squads all day at Józefów, but after that day’s massacre he leads Second Company’s Third Platoon in several deportations, ghetto clearings, judenjagd, and other mass murders. His feelings and thoughts on all of this violence are never truly addressed, possibly because he simply followed orders and didn’t really distinguish himself as either particularly sadistic (like Lieutenant Gnade) or particularly repulsed by the violence (like Lieutenant Buchmann). After the war, Steinmetz is one of the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 who is indicted for war crimes in the 1960s, but due to his failing health he isn’t included in the guilty verdict. Still, Browning concludes that Steinmetz was morally guilty in choosing to take part in the mass executions and violence against innocent men, women, and children because he chose to do it even though the freedom to refuse was always there.