Of The Police Battalion 101 example essay topic

Society's Influence on Morals The atrocities of the Holocaust have prompted much inquiry by researchers to understand how humans can behave so cruelly toward their fellowman. Theories have been formed that cite the men of Battalion 101 as "exceptions" or men with "faulty personalities", when, in fact, they were ordinary men. The people who attempted to perform a genocide were the same people as you and me with the only difference being the environment in which they worked. The behavior of the men in Battalion 101 was not abnormal human behavior, rather, their actions are testament to the premise that when humans are exposed to certain environmental and psychological conditions, extreme brutality is highly apt to occur. The members of the Police Battalion 101 had the same ideas and influences as the rest of the German citizens. Because of the racist teachings produced by the German government, the entire German society was uniform under the belief that they were the master race.

The German were taught that anyone different from their own kind (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant) needed to be removed from their society in order for it to prosper. The Police Battalion men shared the same beliefs as everyone else, but they had to perform the dirty work of killing approximately 83,000 Jews. Christopher Browning states in his book, Ordinary Men, that, .".. the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101, like most of the German society, was immersed in a deluge of racist and anti-Semitic propaganda" (Browning 184). Unless placed in the Battalion men's situation, one can not fathom how a population of people can so evilly turn against another.

People in every culture are susceptible to the ideas and beliefs brought upon them by propaganda. Whenever an idea is accepted as the 'norm', people will find a way to justify it and follow it despite the evil implications it might entail. Humans have faced these situations throughout the last two centuries numerous times. For example, the American slave trading was totally acceptable to the southerners because the blacks were perceived to be lesser human beings. The slave owners did not mind controlling and abusing a slave like it was an animal since in their mind the slave was comparable to an animal. This was true in Germany with the only difference being that the Anti-Semitics thought the Jews should be eliminated.

A more recent example would be the American's attitudes toward the Russians during the Cold War. Children we retaught that the Russians were evil and while the Russian children were being taught the same ideas about the Americans. Propaganda was used by our government to make us believe that we were the good side while they were the bad side. Before anyone had time to sit back and think about the situation rationally, our entire society hated the Communists.

The same situation applied for the German citizens except, their attitudes illustrated the effectiveness of propaganda even when it has the evilest of implications. It must be understood that the men who transported or participated in the killings of 83,000 Jews were not selected as men who were thought to be capable of acting inhuman. They were ordinary men in their 30's and 40's who were too old to fight in the war but they were still capable of carrying out orders. Before the war, the men worked as businessmen, truck drivers, medical workers, and even teachers who came from middle to lower class backgrounds. Itis difficult to imagine an individual, such as a teacher, who dedicated his life to the enhancement of a child's education and well-being, participated and tolerated the killing of thousands of children. But it is true that the same men, who the Jewish society trusted as workers and professionals, willfully tried to kill them off.

The political environment which surrounded the Police Battalion made their vicious job less difficult. But those men who did not wish to partake in the killings could be given a different assignment. In fact, a minority did walk a way from the slaughters, but the remaining 80% to 90% carried out their orders. Reich, in his summary of Ordinary men, suggests that, "For many, the pressure to conform to a group, and not to seem like cowards, played a major role in their continuing to shoot" (Reich 1 B). If a minority group differs from majority group that has the same beliefs, they are looked upon with shame and disdain.

If a soldier were to disagree with their orders, they were the object of ridicule and scrutiny. It is much easier for a person to follow the beliefs of their society or else they will stand out. An example of the fear to follow your beliefs if they differ from the norm, is an account from Tim O'Brien's true story titled, "On The Rainy River". After being drafted for the Vietnam War, he wanted to flee to Canada to avoid being sent to the war. O'Brien recalls before he was about to swim to the shores of Canada that "My conscience told me to run, but some irrational and powerful force was resisting, like a weight pushing me toward the war" (O'Brien 54). Like some members of the Police Battalion, O'Brien wanted to follow his conscience and leave the situation, but instead he chose to go to the war and follow the 'norm' where he would be like everyone else.

Following the views that your particular society accepts is much easier than standing out and practicing the opposite. For the Battalion men, responsible decision making was hindered among the wartime chaos. Many soldiers found their task to be psychologically burdening until they found ways to overcome their uneasiness. Killing Jews even became a routine chore for the Battalion men. Eventually, one kill was the same as the next so it really did not have an affect on the shooters. After the Battalion men got adjusted to the initial shock of the extreme gore and disgust from shooting Jews at point blank range, their job was habitual.

Their job even became fun when the police could participate in "Jew hunt" (Browning 123) which was exactly what the name implies. Jews who managed to escape from their camps were hunted by the police who would shoot them for target practice. Browning quotes an officer named Adolph Bittner as saying " 'In summary one could perhaps say that in small [hunts], when not so many shooters were needed, there were always enough volunteers available' " (128). The "Jew Hunts" represent the extreme desensitizing that the war causes. When victims, like the Jews, are dehumanized, the aggressor can feel less disturbed by ending its life. The Jews were numbered and gathered like a herd of sheep going to a slaughterhouse (Jacobs).

For the Battalion 101 group, it was much easier to kill with the mentality that their victims were less significant and even detrimental to the human race. The men who transported the Jews to the death camps felt at ease because they were not doing the actual killings. Even the men who directed the Jews into the gas chambers did not feel responsible because they were not doing the actual killings first hand. Reich concludes that, "Each of these factors helped the policemen feel that they were not violating, or violating only because it was necessary, their moral codes" (Reich 1 D).

When choices are presented that are morally burdening, it is human nature to find ways to rationalize their decisions. For many of the Police Battalion 101, rationalization for their brutal actions occurred repeatedly. Despite the evil propaganda that was spread about the Jews, there are examples of how ordinary people took it upon themselves to help the desperate Jews hide from the Germans. Among the brutal wartime chaos, certain groups of people rose above the mainstream beliefs of their society to show that human courage and morality can prevail when all odds are against them. In his book, Conscience and Courage, Eva Fogelman terms these types of people as "moral rescuers" (161). These are people who follow their own conscience despite the pressures from their surroundings to do what they believe is morally correct.

Fogelman states in his book that, "Their values were self sustaining, not dependent on the approval of others. To them, what mattered most was behaving in a way that maintained their integrity" (162). In both Le Chambon, France and Denmark, accounts have been made of groups of people following their consciences and doing what necessary to save another person's life. The civilians living in the small town of Le Chambon successfully hid over 5,000 Jews from the Germans. Their heroic effort to save the Jews' lives is a perfect example of how the human conscience is capable of making morally correct decisions even during a time of war. In the movie, "Weapons of the Spirit", the effort put forth by the Chambonais was not a town endeavor but an individual undertaking by each individual family.

The families were only acting on what they believed was the morally correct thing to do. This example is similar to the Danish people who found it their patriotic duty to save their own people from the wrath of the Germans. In her magazine article titled, "Dallas Honors a Righteous Nation", Rachel Amado Bort nick tells of the Danish effort to save the Jews. The Danish did not separate the Jews in their minds from the rest of the Danes. It was never taught or led by example that the Jews were different from the rest of the Danish community, therefore, children were never exposed to the Anti-Semitism that the German children were exposed. InBortnick's article, Mr. Petersen explains that " 'What we did for the Jews wasn't any different than what we would have done if the Germans had decided they were going to deport all postmen or people who wore glasses or who had red hair'".

This mentality was obviously on the opposite end of the spectrum from the citizens of Germany. In Browning's book, Ervin Staub made the assertion that " 'cruelty is social in its origin much more than it is '... most people 'slip' into the roles society provides them... ". (167). Evil ideas and beliefs are molded onto a person by their surroundings rather than inherent in their personalities. With such a strong influence on our behavior, propaganda can lead a society to think and belief the unimaginable.

The men of Police Battalion 101 are a testament to the idea that people are capable of not only thinking the unimaginable, but they can act upon it.

Bibliography

Bortnick, Rachel Amado. "Dallas Honors a Righteous Nation". Dallas Jewish Life Nov. 1993.
Browning, Christopher R. Ordinary Men. New York: Aaron Asher Books / Harper Collins Publishers, Inc., 1993.
Fogelman, Eva. Conscience and Courage. New York: Anchor Books Doubleday, 1994.
Jacobs, Mike. Speech to Class. Dallas, 31 Mar. 1997.
Reich, Walter. "The Men Who Pulled the Triggers". The New York Times 12 Apr. 1992.
Weapons of the Spirit. Writ. /Dir. Pierre Sauvage. The Friends of Le Chambon. 1988.