OCR Document

Understanding Evil: Week 3 Readings

Klee, Dressen, and Riess, “The Good Old Days”

From The Good Old Days: The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders (Konecky & Konecky, 1991)

Foreword

This is a horrible book to read, and yet one that should be read - not in order to revive old enmities (after all, it has been compiled by Germans and published in Germany), but in order that we do not forget the most somber lesson of the Second World War: the fragility of civilization, and the ease and speed with which, in certain circumstances, barbarism can break through that thin crust and even, if backed by power and sanctified by doctrine, be accepted as the norm. …

The particular significance of this book is that in it the facts are recorded not by Jewish survivors but by German witnesses: men who, by chance, or in the course of duty, or out of curiosity, observed the events as they occurred and made a record, sometimes a photographic record, of them. Such records were strictly forbidden at the time - the SS did not want any evidence of its work to survive - and one witness at least, SS-Untersturmfuhrer Max Tiiubner, got into serious trouble for taking photographs… ‘such photographs, in the wrong hands, could pose 'the gravest risks to the security of the Reich'.

The verbal and written records come from various sources: post-war interrogations, contemporary official documents, but also - and psychologically perhaps the most revealing - private diaries and letters in which SS men describe, for their wives, children and mistresses, their exploits in the Judenaktionen. …

The 'Final Solution' was carried out in overlapping stages of progressive rationalization. At first, the victims were rounded up by mobile Einsatzkommandos and killed mainly by shooting; later they were transported to fixed concentration camps, to be worked to death and gassed. The Einsatzkommandos were organized in four Einsatzgruppen and operated closely behind the advancing German armies, but under distinct SS command. The army commanders had no jurisdiction over them, and were happy to leave such dirty work to them. The SS, in their turn, were happy to pass much of it on to the natives, under their direction. This occurred especially in the Baltic states, where the natives sought revenge against the 'Jewish Bolshevism' from which the German armies had liberated them. Later, when the fixed extermination camps had been completed, the Jews of all occupied Europe were brought to them in the trains organized by Adolf Eichmann. But the change from mobile to fixed killing centres, from shooting to gas, was not sudden or complete: shooting continued to the end, whereas the gas chambers were destroyed when the prospect of a German retreat threatened to reveal their existence to the enemy. …

How did the ordinary Germans look upon these grisly killings which they carried out or watched? At first there was some apprehension: if the war should be lost, it was said, surely there would be a heavy price to pay. But that stage soon passed: the war was not going to be lost - indeed, it seemed, it had already been won. …

One means of achieving these results was to devolve all the nastiest and most degrading jobs on to 'inferior' races 'in order to preserve the psychic balance of our own people'. That meant using Poles, Balts, Ukrainians, and of course Jews, who were going to be killed anyway. Another was to discover 'a better method of killing'. 'Better' meant tidier, cheaper, quicker, applicable to ever greater numbers, and, above all, less distressing to the executioners. The answer found was gas.

The shift from shooting to gas leads us into the very centre of Hitler's personal policy, 'The Fuhrer's Chancellery', where a special department known as T4 had organized the ‘Euthansia Programme’, the killing by gas, at installations in Germany, of the insane and incurably ill. … The method adopted was, first, by mobile gas vans, then by fixed gas chambers in a remote part of the 'General Government' of Poland. …

The Jews were pushed into the van; the driver started up the engine; as he drove, the poisonous fumes were discharged into the van; and when he reached his destination, which was the burial dump, all the Jews were already dead. … But others found inconveniences in it. The screams of the slowly suffocated Jews in the closed van behind him disconcerted the driver, and those who had to unload the bodies, with distorted faces and covered with excrement, complained that it was 'no pretty business'. So the method was abandoned. The fixed gas chambers, on the other hand, were a dreadful success. They too were the work of T4 experts… they avoided all the disadvantages of older systems. They were more rational, more economic, less public - no survivors' stories (because there were no survivors), no horrible photographs to endanger the security of the Reich - and also less harrowing, or degrading, to the Herrenmenschen, who could parade with their riding-whips (a coveted status symbol) and leave the nastiest jobs to the Affenmenschen, 'the ape-men', the expendable Jews.

They were also positively useful: useful to the industrialists who could exploit the labour of those on the waiting-list for death, useful to the SS doctors, who could experiment on such vile bodies, alive or dead. …

Introduction

'Those were the Days' ('Schone Zeiten') was a caption in the photograph album belonging to the last commandant of Treblinka [Kurt Franz]. Underneath the heading were pictures of the extermination camp where at least 700,000 people were sent to the gas chambers. … What kind of men were these who accepted murder as their daily work? They were perfectly ordinary people, with one difference: they could act as members of the ‘master race'. They decided whether a person lived or died, they had power. Hitherto undreamt-of chances for promotion revealed themselves. There were pay bonuses, extra leave and privileges such as alcohol and cigarettes. And at all times a sense of power, for the state was happy to remove all sense of personal responsibility from them. …

Of course, there were isolated protests from the Wehrmacht, the armed forces. … The Oberbefehlshaber Ost - commander of the eastern territories - deplored the free rein given to pathological and bestial instincts. Executioners suffered breakdowns, a number committed suicide (in some units gas vans were used for the executions in order to spare the executioners, a method which further increased the torment of the victims). There were even members of the SS and police who refused to carry out orders to murder. Despite all the propaganda, they did not see Jews as vermin but as fellow human beings, and could not shoot defenseless, innocent people. As a result they were branded cowards or weaklings and on Himmler's orders were transferred to other units or replaced. Contrary to the myth nobody was shot or sent to a concentration camp for refusing to murder Jews. …

Not everybody who is given a say in this book is a 'perpetrator' in the strictly judicial sense of the word. Many were only small cogs in the overall murder machinery, for example people who assisted in transporting the victims or cordoning off the execution areas. … To say nothing of those who gawped at the murder of the Jews out of curiosity or watched stunned. But they were all, like it or not, accessories. …

‘The brutalization … of precious German manpower’: The occupation of Poland

Notes of Eastern Territories Commander, Johannes Blaskowitz:

It is wholly misguided to slaughter some 10,000 Jews and Poles as is happening at the moment. Such methods will eradicate neither Polish nationalism nor the Jews from the mass of the population. On the contrary, the way in which the slaughter is being carried out is extremely damaging, complicates the problems and makes them a great deal more dangerous than they would be if dealt with by a well-considered and decisive policy. The effects are:

(a) It is hard to imagine there can be more effective material in the entire world than that which is being delivered into the hands of enemy propaganda. The foreign broadcasts have hitherto covered only a tiny fraction of what has actually occurred. We have to face the fact that outcry from overseas is continuously on the increase causing very great political damage, particularly since the atrocities did indeed take place and cannot be disproved in any way.

(b) The acts of violence carried out in public against Jews are arousing in religious Poles not only the deepest disgust but also a great sense of pity for the Jewish population, while formerly the Poles' attitude towards the Jews was fairly hostile. Very soon we will reach a point where our arch enemies in the Eastern Territories - the Pole and the Jew with the backing of the Catholic Church – will be united in their hatred against their German torturers.

(c) The effects on the role of the Wehrmacht need hardly be mentioned. It is forced to watch these crimes without being able to do anything. It has irreparably lost a considerable amount of respect especially among the Polish population.

(d) The worst damage, however, affecting Germans, which has developed as a result of the current circumstances, is the tremendous brutalization and moral depravity which is spreading rapidly among precious German manpower like an epidemic.

If high-ranking SS and police officials demand and openly praise acts of violence and brutality, before long people who commit acts of violence will predominate alone. It is surprising how quickly such people join forces with those of weak character in order, as is currently happening in Poland, to give rein to their bestial and pathological instincts. It would still just be possible to keep them in check. They clearly feel they are being given official authorization and that they are thus justified to commit any kind of cruel act.

The only way to ward off this epidemic is to make those that are guilty and their followers answerable to the military authorities and to justice as quickly as possible. . . .

‘Each time a victim was beaten to death they started to clap”: Progroms in Kaunas and elsewhere in Luthuania

'Initially difficult to set a pogrom in motion': Report by head of Einsatzgruppe A:

[Within] a few hours of our entering the city, local anti-Semitic elements were induced to engage in pogroms against the Jews, despite the extremely difficult conditions. In accordance with orders the security police were bent on solving the Jewish question with extreme firmness using all the ways and means at its disposal. It was thought a good idea for the security police not to be seen to be involved, at least not immediately, in these unusually tough measures, which were also bound to attract attention in German circles. The impression had to be created that the local population itself had taken the first steps of its own accord as a natural reaction to decades of oppression by the Jews and the more recent terror exerted by the Communists. …

'Cheers and laughter' Mass murder in Kovno: Report of an Oberst:

… While I was traveling through the town I went past a petrol station that was surrounded by a dense crowd of people. There was a large number of women in the crowd and they had lifted up their children or stood them on chairs or boxes so that they could see better. At first I thought this must be a victory celebration or some type of sporting event because of the cheering, clapping and laughter that kept breaking out. However, when inquired what was happening I was told that the 'Death-dealer of Kovno' was at work and that this was where collaborators and traitors were finally meted out their rightful punishment! When I stepped closer, however, I became witness to probably the most frightful event that I had seen during the course of two world wars.

On the concrete forecourt of the petrol station a blond man of medium height, aged about twenty-five, stood leaning on a wooden club, resting. The club was as thick as his arm and came up to his chest. At his feet lay about fifteen to twenty dead or dying people. Water flowed continuously from a hose washing blood away into the drainage gully. Just a few steps behind this man some twenty men, guarded by armed civilians, stood waiting for their cruel execution in silent submission. In response to a cursory wave the next man stepped forward silently and was then beaten to death with the wooden club in the most bestial manner, each blow accompanied by enthusiastic shouts from the audience. …

It was, however, explained to me that they were apparently a spontaneous action on the part of the Lithuanian population in retaliation against the collaborators and traitors of the recently ended Russian occupation. …

Report of a sergeant-major from 562nd Bakers' Company:

... I think it must have been one day after we had arrived in Kovno that I was informed by a driver in my unit that Jews were being beaten to death in a nearby square. Upon hearing this I went to the said square. … In the square I saw civilians, some in shirtsleeves, others wearing other types of clothing, beating other civilians to death with iron bars. I was not able to tell whether the victims were Jews. Someone, however, remarked at the time that these were the Jews who had swindled the Lithuanians before the Germans had arrived. I heard from some soldiers standing near by, whom I questioned, that the victims were being beaten to satisfy a personal desire for vengeance.…

I watched as a group of offenders were beaten to death and then had to look away because I could not watch any longer. These actions seemed extremely cruel and brutal. A great many German soldiers as well as Lithuanians watched these people being beaten to death. The soldiers did not express assent or disapprobation for what was happening. They did not interfere one way or the other. The Lithuanian civilians could be heard shouting out their approval and goading the men on. …

Report of a further member of 562nd Bakers' Company:

… Naturally I asked who the men doing the beating were. Apparently they were Latvian [sic] freedom fighters. I could not comprehend this. The people who were making sure no one entered the square were wearing armbands and carried carbines. At no time were any shots fired. Standing round the square were members of the Wehrmacht, like me. We could not believe what was happening and after some time we went away. I could only watch the incident up to when the next group of people were beaten to death. Then I had to leave the square because I could not watch any more. My friends left with me.

Report of a medical orderly:

… The bodies were thrown into a large crater that had a diameter of 15 m and was, I should think, about 3-4 metres deep. Each layer of bodies was covered with chloride of lime. People used to say that the next group of Jews always had to throw the last lot to be shot into the crater and cover them with sand. I only went up to this crater once but couldn't see any bodies because everything was covered with sand. …

On this occasion a Jewish woman of about thirty ran across my path. She had been shot through both cheeks and the wounds had swollen up considerably. Seeing the red cross on my armband she begged me for a bandage, which I wanted to give her. I was just busy getting the pack of dressings I'd brought with me out of my jacket when an SS or SD guard with a rifle came up to me and told me to make myself scarce, saying that the Jewess had no further need of a pack of dressings. The Jewish woman was then pushed back by the uniformed German.

I was very shaken by this experience and told my colleagues about it - they were shaken too. It would have been pointless and dangerous for me to have disobeyed the SS man - they were very ruthless. He threatened to shoot me down if I didn't get on my way. During my visits to the fort I estimate I saw at least 2,000 people of different ages, both male and female, who were all destined to be shot and indeed certainly were. The people in the pictures are only a small proportion of those shot.

'If they get their revenge, we're in for a hard time'

A driver's statement:

The firing squad, which was made up often men, positioned itself at the side of the path, about six to eight metres in front of the group. After this, as far as I recall, the group was shot by the firing squad after the order was given. The shots were fired simultaneously so that the men fell into the pit behind them at the same time. … From our vantage point we could see into the pit and were therefore able to confirm that the (approximately) 400 Jews who had been shot the previous day were also in there. … After about one hundred Jews had been shot, other Jews had to sprinkle sand over their bodies. After the entire group had been executed the firing-squad put their rifles to one side.

This gave me an opportunity to talk to one of them. I asked him whether he could really do such a thing just like that, and pointed out that the Jews had done nothing to him. To this he answered, 'Yes - after what we've gone through under the domination of Russian Jewish Commissars, after the Russians invaded Lithuania, we no longer find it difficult.' During the course of our conversation he told me that he had been suspected of spying by the Russians. He had been arrested and had been thrown in and out of various GPU prisons, although he was in no way guilty. He told me he had only been a lorry-driver and had never harmed a soul. … He went on to tell me that a Jewish Commissar had broken into a flat, tied up a man and raped his wife before the man's very eyes. Afterwards the Commissar had literally butchered the wife to death, cut out her heart, fried it in a pan and had then proceeded to eat it. …

At the time I said: 'May God grant us victory because if they get their revenge, we're in for a hard time.'

Co-driver's statement:

… The leader of the Lithuanians spoke good German and we went up to him and asked what was going on, saying that this was a downright disgrace. He explained to us that he had once been a teacher at a German school in Konigsberg. For this the 'Bolsheviks' had torn out his fingernails. … Why they were now shooting these Jews, if indeed this Lithuanian's story corresponded with the truth, which I found highly improbable, and whether these particular Jews 'were the ones who had been involved in that action, he did not tell us. …

I would also like to say that we all said to one another what on earth would happen if we lost the war and had to pay for all this. …

‘Pushed to their psychological limits’: Members of the Einsatzgruppen on the stresses and strains of killing

Problems during mass shootings: 'If the victims didn't do as they were told…’

Affidavit of Otto Ohlendorf, Head of Einsatzgruppe D:

… When the German army advanced into Russia I was the commander of Einsatzgruppe D in the southern sector and during the year that it was under my command it liquidated about 90,000 men, women, and children. The majority of those liquidated were Jews but there were also some Communist officials amongst them. … In Einsatzgruppe D I never sanctioned shootings by individuals. I always gave orders for several people to shoot simultaneously, in order to avoid any individual having to take direct, personal responsibility.

Gustave Fix, member of Sonderkommando 6:

I would also like to mention that as a result of the considerable psychological pressures, there were numerous men who were no longer capable of conducting executions and who thus had to be replaced by other men. On the other hand, there were others who could not get enough of them and often reported to these executions voluntarily.

Tatigkeits- und Lagebericht, No. 1, 31 July 1941:

All the men coped with the tough physical stress well. No less considerable were the extreme psychological demands made on them by the large number of liquidations. The morale and self-possession of the men was kept up by personally reminding them constantly of the political necessity [of what they were doing].

Statement of Schutzpolizist Togel, member of Einsatzkommando 10a:

… The victims - several hundred, or even a thousand, men and women - were transported in trucks. I cannot recall whether there were any children. These people were made to lie or kneel about a hundred metres from the well in a depression which had been hollowed out by the rain and remove their outer garments there. They were lined up ten at a time at the side of the well and were then shot by a ten-man execution squad, which included myself. When they were shot the people fell forwards into the well. Sometimes they were so frightened that they jumped in alive. The firing-squad was switched a great many times. Because of the psychological pressures to which I too was exposed during the shooting I can no longer say today, try as I might, how many times I stood by the hole and how many times I was relieved from that duty.

Obviously these shootings did not proceed in the calm manner in which one can discuss them today. The women screamed and wept and so did the men. Sometimes people tried to escape. … The execution area was a terrible sight. The ground round the well was covered in blood; there were also bits of brain on the ground which the victims had to step in when they were brought over. …

Something I still remember clearly about this execution is that afterwards the SD people got drunk, so they must have received a special ration of schnapps. We Schutzpolizisten did not receive anything and I remember that we were very angry about that. …

Statement of teleprinter engineer Kiebach, Einsatzgruppe C:

In Rovno I had to participate in the first shooting. . . . Each member of the firing-squad had to shoot one person. We were instructed to aim at the head from a distance of about ten metres. I can no longer say today who gave the order to fire. At any rate it was a staff officer. There were a number of staff officers present at the shooting. The order to fire was 'Ready to shoot, aim, fire!' The people who had been shot then fell into the grave. I myself was detailed to the firing-squad; however, I only managed to shoot about five times. I began to feel unwell, I felt as though I was in a dream. Afterwards I was laughed at because I couldn't shoot any more. … It was obvious that I was in no state to go on shooting. The nervous strain was too great for me. When I am asked whether I was reprimanded for my refusal, I have to say that this was not the case.

Statement of Kurt Werner, member of Sonderkommando 4a:

… The marksmen stood behind theJews and killed them with a shot in the neck. I still recall today the complete terror of the Jews when they first caught sight of the bodies as they reached the top edge of the ravine. Many Jews cried out in terror. It's almost impossible to imagine what nerves of steel it took to carry out that dirty work down there. It was horrible. I had to spend the whole morning down in the ravine. For some of the time I had to shoot continuously. … Afterwards we were taken back to our quarters. That evening we were given alcohol- (schnapps) again.

'A new and better method of killing had to be found': Gas Vans

Statement by August Becker, Ph.D., Gas-Van Inspector:

…I had been working as a specialist in the gassing processes involved in exterminating the mentally sick in the mental asylums and sanatoriums. Since this action had been suspended a short time before - I do not know why [gassings were suspended: the murders continued by means of drugs - Ed.] … Himmler wanted to deploy people who had become available as a result of the suspension of the euthanasia programme, and who, like me, were specialists in extermination by gassing, for the large-scale gassing operations in the East which were just beginning. The reason for this was that the men in charge of the Einsatzgruppen in the East were increasingly complaining that the firing squads could not cope with the psychological and moral stress of the mass shootings indefinitely. I know that a number of members of these squads were themselves committed to mental asylums and for this reason a new and better method of killing had to be found. … When in December 1941 I was transferred to Rauff's department he explained the situation to me, saying that the psychological and moral stress on the firing squads was no longer bearable and that therefore the gassing programme had been started. …

SS-Standartenfuhrer Walter Rauff:

I cannot say whether I had misgivings about the use of gas-vans. What was uppermost in my mind at the time was that the shootings were a great strain on the men involved and that this strain would be removed by the use of the gas-vans.

Statement of Wilhelm Findeisen:

… One of the officers said to me, 'Findeisen, shoot these people in the neck.' I refused to do this as did the other men. The girl must have been about eighteen or nineteen. The officer shot the people himself as the others refused. He swore at us and said we were cowards, but apart from that he did not do anything else. …

'Quite happy to take part in shootings': Forced to obey orders - the myth

A police official from Neu-Sandez Grenzpolizeikommissariat:

Members of the Grenzpolizeikommissariat were, with a few exceptions, quite happy to take part in shootings of Jews. They had a ball! Obviously they can't say that today! Nobody failed to turn up … I want to repeat that people today give a false impression when they say that the actions against the Jews were carried out unwillingly. There was great hatred against the Jews; it was revenge, and they wanted money and gold. Don't let's kid ourselves, there was always something up for grabs during the Jewish actions. Everywhere you went there was always something for the taking. The poor Jews were brought in, the rich Jews were fetched and their homes were scoured.

Auxiliary policeman from Einsatzkommando Stalino:

It was made clear to us that we could refuse to obey an order to participate in the Sonderaktionen ['special actions'] without adverse consequences.

A member of Third Squadron Mounted Police, section III, on executions of Jews in Hrubieszow:

… The Jews were unloaded within the barracks compound behind the prison camp, where the Russian prisoners of war were held, and were to be shot close by to where we were. As I was absolutely opposed to this action, I went and stood behind the lorry in which the Jews had been brought. I did not think I had to take part in the shooting. However, Meister Kozar found me standing there and ordered me to take part in the execution as had been previously planned. I refused, because I had no desire to shoot defenseless people. I had no wish to become a murderer. I said this to Kozar and he did not press me further to carry out this order. …

I did not experience any disadvantage as a result of refusing to be involved in the shooting. Although I said to Kozar that he could send me to the front or anywhere else but that I would not shoot any defenseless Jews, there were no such consequences. How many Jews were shot I do not know.

A member of Third Police Battalion 307 on an execution in Brest-Litovsk:

I too was to have been detailed to an execution squad. I received this order either from Leutnant Kayser or from the platoon sergeant, Zugwachtmeister Steffens. I was very disturbed by the sight of the execution areas. I therefore refused to take part in the execution. Nothing happened to me as a result of my refusal. No disciplinary measures were taken; there were no court-martial proceedings against me because of this.

A police reservist (First Reserve Police Battalion 69) on his refusal to take part in cordon duty during a Jewish action:

In the few weeks when I was in Vinnitsa one of these executions took place there. … For this reason I and some of the other men went to see our sarge, Raderschatt, and asked to be released from having to take part in this action. Although Raderschatt made some scathing remark about my request, he nevertheless gave his permission. Instead I had to do an extra guard duty. I was naturally only too happy to do this swap. Afterwards I did not experience any negative consequences whatsoever as a result.

A police Oberwachtmeister from Police Battalion 322:

Sometimes some of the men refused to participate in shootings. I myself refused a few times. None of my superiors took any action against me and the same applied to other people who refused to carry out orders. We were just assigned different duties. We were not threatened with any kind of punishment, certainly not where the executions were concerned.

An SS-ScharfOhrer and Kriminal-Assistent from Kolomea Grenzpolizeikommissariat:

The only answer I can give to the question what could I have done to be released from taking part in such actions is: there was nothing I could do. During the actions I kept as much in the background as possible, far away from the shootings. There was nothing else I could do. I did not ask Leideritz to be released from certain duties and be given guard duties instead. The reason I did not say to Leideritz that I could not take part in these things was that I was afraid that Leideritz and others would think I was a coward. I was worried that I would be affected adversely in some way in the future if I allowed myself to be seen as being too weak. I did not want Leideritz or other people to get the impression that I was not as hard as an SS-Mann ought to have been. …

I carried out orders not because I was afraid I would be punished by death if I didn't. I knew of no case and still know of no case today where one of us was sentenced to death because he did not want to take part in the execution of Jews. … I thought that I ought not to say anything to Leideritz because I did not want to be seen in a bad light, and I thought that if I asked him to release me from having to take part in the executions it would be over for me as far as he was concerned and my chances of promotion would be spoilt or I would not be promoted at all. That is what I thought at the time and that is why I did not say anything to Leideritz.

A police reservist from Third Police Battalion 91:

… Ahrens requested twenty volunteers for an execution that had been planned. No one responded. Ahrens repeated his request. Only after he had asked a further time did the first hands go up timidly. He did not however get his twenty, so Ahrens said, 'Since we're not getting anywhere I'll have to pick them myself.' Whereupon he walked along the ranks of the assembled company and picked out people at his own discretion. When he got to me I tried to make myself inconspicuous because I wished to avoid under any circumstances taking part in the execution squad. Ahrens could see that immediately. He asked my name, which I gave him. He then detailed me for the execution squad. Without hesitation I asked whether he would allow me to be excused from taking part as I could not shoot defenseless people. …

Ahrens called me a coward and a sissy and the like. He reprimanded me for unsoldierly conduct etc. It was only when Meister Neubauer whispered something to him, which I could not catch, that he declared he was prepared to release me from execution-squad duty, but he ordered me to stand guard right by the hole (mass grave) in order to harden me up. I did not try to go against this order. Ahrens was probably just trying to show me that a soldier has to do everything he is ordered to do. Finally he said scornfully, 'He is not even worthy of that kind of duty,' by which he wanted to emphasize my uselessness for 'tough action'.

A Kriminalsekretar to the Commander of the Security Police and SD in Riga:

Question: Could you say what disciplinary measures would have probably been taken against Security Police and SD men who refused to take part in shootings of Jews or the planning or running of such operations, or who refused to order such shootings against the will of the Estonia Sicherheitspolizei and SD commander?

Answer: Not a lot. I never knew of such a case at the KdS in Estonia.

An SS-Hauptscharfuhrer and Kriminalangestellter:

When the executions of the Jewish population started in an organized way, people in our branch were saying that no one was obliged to take part in a shooting if he could not reconcile it with his conscience. Allegedly there was an order by Reichsfuhrer SS Himmler to the effect that no one could be forced to participate in a shooting. …

Raschwitz was already pretty drunk. He ordered me to go to the grave and to shoot Jews there with my pistol. I, however, refused to comply with this order. I gave no reason but just said that I would not do It. Raschwitz then hurled some abuse at me. I still remember the expression he used: 'You Austrian swine.' Apart from that he also, as I recall it, used the word 'coward' and other terms of abuse. He then sent me back to the lorries. Apart from that Raschwitz did not do anything else. At any rate I was not taken to any further shootings and was left in peace.

A member of Einsatzgruppe A:

… After the first wave of shootings it emerged that the men, particularly the officers, could not cope with the demands made on them. Many abandoned themselves to alcohol, many suffered nervous breakdowns and psychological illnesses; for example we had suicides and there were cases where some men cracked up and shot wildly around them and completely lost control. When this happened Himmler issued an order stating that any man who no longer felt able to take the psychological stresses should report to his superior officer. These men were to be released from their current duties and would be detailed for other work back home. As I recall, Himmler even had a convalescent home set up close to Berlin for such cases. This order was issued in writing; I read and filed it myself. …

SS-Obersturmfuhrer Albert Hartl:

Question: As we know, during the Nuremberg trial, amongst other things, you testified that Einsatzgruppenfuhrer Thomas expressly gave the order that people who were either too weak or who could not reconcile themselves for reasons of conscience to take part in shooting should be sent back to Germany or be redeployed fur other duties. Please describe what happened and the context in which it happened.

Answer: SS-Gruppenftihrer Thomas was a doctor by profession; he was very preoccupied with the psychological repercussions of the Einsatz on his people. From my conversations with him I know that these effects took many different forms. There were people whose participation awakened in them the most evil sadistic impulses. For example, the head of one firing squad made several hundred Jews of all ages, male and female, strip naked and run through a field into a wood. He then had them mown down with machine-gun fire. He even photographed the whole proceedings. Without Thomas's knowledge these pictures fell into the hands of Army Group and they were delivered to him by the liaison officer. The Einsatze also had the reverse effect on some of the SS men detailed to the firing-squads. These men were overcome with uncontrollable fits of crying and suffered health breakdowns. … It also happened that one member of the Einsatzgruppe who had participated in mass shootings one night suddenly succumbed to a type of mental derangement and began to shoot wildly about him, killing and wounding several men.

On one occasion Thomas asked me whether I would be prepared to take over command of a firing-squad. I replied that this was completely out of the question. Thomas answered that in his view no man should be forced to do this extremely difficult job, which brought with it enormous psychological conflicts and that he had given very clear instructions to this effect. From my position as head of Abteilung I (Staffing) I also know that a number of SS officers and men were sent back to serve at home on account of their great weakness. …

Question: Was it possible to refuse to take part in a shooting in Einsatzgruppe C?

Answer: In my experience it depended very much on the mentality of the individual commanders of a particular Einsatzgruppe. Thomas was, as I said, a doctor. Some of the individual Einsatzgruppe heads were lawyers, like Dr Stahlecker, some were academics, like Professor Dr Six, who I think lives in either Heidelberg or Darmstadt, or some were economists like Ohlendorf. Some of them were very ambitious and they wanted to report the highest possible shooting figures to Berlin; then there were others who sabotaged the order to shoot as far as possible when the true significance of their squad assignment became clear to them, in order to report back from the Einsatz after a shorter time. An example of the latter type was Brigadeftihrer Schultz, who, as he told me himself, was against these mass shootings and thus very soon gave up the command of his Einsatzkommando, which if I remember correctly was stationed in the Lemberg [Lvov] area. As far as I know, he did not suffer any serious consequences as a result. It was, however, clear that as a general rule such people could not expect to be promoted in the foreseeable future. …

I do not know of any case where the commanding officer of a Kommando . . . was sent to a concentration camp or sentenced to death. At worst he would find his promotion blocked or he would be given a punishment transfer. … In my experience, amongst the lower ranks there was not so much an objective necessity to obey orders, more of a subjective one.

To the Comrades from Troop Welfare:

Vinnitsa, the town on the edge of the Bug,

is famed throughout the world.

Nobody could hear its name without terror.

Through murder and sadism at the hands of the Jews

the Ukrainian land was tainted.

These vile deeds were allowed to go on completely unhindered

as even the most courageous were afraid-

the same could have happened to us.

But he who has seen this pest with his own eyes

stands firm for ever more.

And then you came, comrades of one blood,

brought with you German, holy goodness,

the fearless will to live.

You brought cheer, good spirits in the most difficult of times,

how full you make our hearts.

We saw two worlds

and will allow only one to hold sway,

this we have sworn to the Fuhrer;

a peace which our sword protects,

a peace which serves our people.

A war correspondent on the 'unfortunate' murderers:

… As a journalist what interests me are the people who had to carry out such an action and I had the opportunity to study these people closely. The reason … is that I saw SD personnel weeping because they could not cope mentally with what was going on. Then again I encountered others who kept a score-sheet of how many people they had sent to their death. During the course of long conversations I learned that they had been ordered to join this firing-squad and that there was nothing left for them but suicide, and that some indeed had already committed suicide. They said that if they refused they themselves would have been shot or sent to the Sonderkommandos, where their days would be numbered. Death was certain for them, they said, and they would not survive the war since such afflicted people would never be permitted to return to the homeland. I spoke for a long time with these unfortunate people. …

Who today can determine which were those who wept as they carried out their duties and which the ones who kept a score-sheet? …

‘Practical work for our Fuhrer’: Daily life during the Holocaust

Dear Herr Lieutenant-General Querner,

… We men of the new Germany have to be very tough with ourselves even when we are forced by circumstances to be separated from our families for quite a long time. This is the case right now. We have to settle up with the war criminals once and for all so that we can build a more beautiful Germany for our children and our children's children. We're certainly not being idle here: three or four Actions a week. First gypsies then Jews, partisans and other such riff-raff. …

I do not know whether you too, Herr Lieutenant-General, saw such frightful Jewish types in Poland. I thank my lucky stars that I've now seen this mixed race for what it is. Then if life is kind to me I'll have something to pass on to my children. Sick with venereal disease, cripples and idiots were the norm. Materialists to the last in spite of everything. Everyone of them without exception said things like, 'Sei'mer Spezialisten, werd'n sie uns schiess'n nicht' ['We're specialists, you're not going to shoot us, are you?']. These were not human beings but ape people. …

Heil Hitler

Jacob, Meister der Gendarmerie

Letters of SS-Obersturmfuhrer Karl Kretschmer

Sunday, 27 September 1942

My dear Soska,

… How I'd like to be with you all. What you see here makes you either brutal or sentimental. …

As I said, I am in a very gloomy mood. I must pull myself out of it. the sight of the dead (including women and children) is not very cheering. But we are fighting this war for the survival or non-survival of our people. You back home, thank God, do not feel the full force of that. The bomb attacks have, however, shown what the enemy has in store for us if he has enough power. You are aware of it everywhere you go along the front. My comrades are literally fighting for the existence of our people. The enemy would do the same. … There is no room for pity of any kind. You women and children back home could not expect any mercy or pity if the enemy got the upper hand. …

O.U., 19 October 1942

Dear Mutti, dear children,

… We have to eat and drink well because of the nature of our work, as I have described to you in detail. Otherwise we would crack up. Your papa will be very careful and strike the right balance. It's not very pleasant stuff. … After all, fate permitting we Germans are the people of the future. The future depends on how we bring up our children and their understanding that all those who were killed in battle did not die in vain. So teach Dagi that she must study hard and always obey her parents and her teachers. Only a person who has himself firmly under control can judge or rule over others. …

If it weren't for the stupid thoughts about what we are doing in this country, the Einsatz here would be wonderful, since it has put me in a position where I can support you all very well. Since, as I already wrote to you, I consider the last Einsatz to be justified and indeed approve of the consequences it had, the phrase: 'stupid thoughts' is not strictly accurate. Rather it is a weakness not to be able to stand the sight of dead people; the best way of overcoming it is to it more often. Then it becomes a habit. … For the more one thinks about the whole business the more one comes to the conclusion that it's the only thing we can do to safeguard unconditionally the security of our people and our future. I do not therefore want to think and write about it any further. I would only make your heart heavy needlessly. We men here at the front will win through. Our faith in the Fuhrer fulfils us and gives us the strength to carry out our difficult and thankless task. For everywhere we go we are looked upon with some degree of suspicion. That should not however divert us from the knowledge that what we are doing is necessary. …

You deserve my best wishes

and all my love

Your Papa

Goldhagen, “Hitler’s Willing Executioners” (Vintage, 1996)

Police Battallion 101 was divided into a battalion staff and three companies, with a total strength, if a gradually changing membership, of about five hundred men. The Battalion was led by Major Trapp. ...

Who were the men of Police Battalion 101? ... Since the men did not choose to join an institution known to be devoted to mass slaughter, the purpose here is not to seek the elements of their backgrounds that might explain their participation. Rather, assessing their backgrounds allows us to gauge how representative the men of Police Battalion 101 were of other Germans, and whether or not the conclusions drawn about them might also apply to their countrymen.

Police Battalion 101 was manned overwhelmingly by reservists, by men who were called to duty between 1939 and 1941, men who were not yet in any military or security institution, the men least likely to be martial in spirit and temperament. Of the 550 men who are known to have served in Police Battalion 101 during its genocidal stay in Poland, the birthdays of 519 are known. Their age profile was extremely old for a military or police institution. Their mean age, when their genocidal killing began, was 36.5 years old. Only 42 of them were younger than thirty, a measly 8.1 percent. That they were older is significant. They were not the impressionable, malleable , eighteen-year-olds that armies love to mold according to the institution's specified needs. These were mature men who had life experience, who had families and children. The overwhelming majority of them had reached adulthood before the Nazis ascended to power. They had known other political dispensations, had lived in other ideological climates. They were not wide-eyed youngsters ready to believe whatever they were told.

Social class, according to occupation, can be determined for 291 (52.9 percent) of the members of Police Battalion 101.9 They were distributed widely among all of the occupational groups in Germany, except for those forming the elite. Following a variant of the standard occupational classification system for Germany of this era, German society is divided according to a tripartite scheme of lower class, lower middle class, and elite. The elite formed a tiny upper crust in the society of less than 3 percent, with the overwhelming bulk of the people being divided between the lower and lower middle classes. Each class is further subdivided into occupational subgroups. The table below gives the occupational breakdown for Germany as a whole and for Police Battalion 101.

Compared to the German population as a whole, the men of Police Battalion 101 came more from the lower middle class and less from the lower class. This imbalance was due mainly to the unit's shortage, on the one hand, of unskilled workers compared to the general population, and its overabundance, on the other, of lower and intermediate employees from business and the government. Within the lower middle strata, the battalion was particularly lacking in farmers, which is not surprising, since the battalion was raised primarily from an urban environment. Its representatives of the elite, all nine of them, were in virtually identical proportion (3.1 percent) to that existing in the general population. All in all, the differences between the occupational profiles of Police Battalion 101 and Germany as a whole were not of great significance. ...

The most important characteristic of the battalion's men for assessing their actions and the degree to which they were, as a group, representative of German society-that is, ordinary Germans-is their degree of Nazification. This can be appraised by looking at their institutional affiliation, which, if imprecise, is the best indicator of Nazification beyond the degree to which most Germans were generally Nazified (particularly on the independent dimension of antisemitism). In short, how many men in Police Battalion 101 were members of the Nazi Party and of the SS? Of the 550 men, 179 were Party members, composing 32.5 percent of the battalion, which was not much greater than the national average. Seventeen of the Party members were also in the SS. An additional 4 were SS men who were not Party members. So, in sum, only 21, but 3.8 percent of the men, mainly reservists, were in the SS - a tiny percentage - which, though higher than the national average, is of no great significance for understanding this battalion's actions.

Occupational Subgroup

% of Germany

% of PB 101

Lower Class

54.6

35.1

Unskilled Workers

37.3

22.0

Skilled Workers

17.3

13.1

Lower Middle Class

42.6

61.9

Craftsmen

9.6

7.6

Nonacademic Professionals

1.8

3.1

Employees

12.4

22.7

Civil Servants

5.2

20.3

Merchants

6.0

7.6

Farmers

7.7

0.7

Elite Class

2.8

3.1

Managers

0.5

0.3

Higher Civil Servants

0.5

0.3

Academic Porfessionals

1.0

0.3

University Students

0.5

0

Entrepreneurs

0.3

2.1

The major issue here, anyway, is not the percentage of these men who were Nazified according to institutional affiliation in comparison to the national average, and therefore how representative a sample these men form in this respect. It is those who had no Nazi or SS affiliation who are analytically the most significant people, because they (and the thousands like them in other police battalions) provide insight into the likely conduct of other ordinary Germans, had they too been asked to become genocidal killers. In this battalion, 379 men had no affiliation whatsoever with the major Nazi institutions. And it cannot even be concluded that Nazi Party membership meant for each person a higher degree of ideological Nazification than that which existed in the general populace, because many non-ideological reasons induced people to join the Party. ... Moreover, at the time of Police Battalion 101’s major killings, about seven million Germans could boast of membership in the Party, over 20 percent of the adult male German population. Being a meber of the Party was a rather ordinary distinction in Germany. Being a Nazi was "ordinary" in Germany. Thus, the most remarkable and significant fact is that 96 percent of these men were not in the SS, the association of the true believers. As a group, the men of Police Battalion 101 were not an unusually Nazified lot for German society. Overwhelmingly, they consisted of ordinary Germans - of both kinds - those who were in the Party and, especially, those who were not. ...

The men of Police Battalion IOI came predominantly from Hamburg and the surrounding region. ... Since the Hamburg region of Germany was overwhelmingly Evangelical Protestant, so too most of them must have been. ...

The relatively advanced age of these men is of significance. Many of them headed families and had children. Unfortunately, the data on their family status are partial and difficult to interpret. There are data on the marital status of only ninety-six of them. All but one, 99 percent, of them had wives. Almost three-quarters of them, seventy-two of the ninety-eight for whom data exist, had children at the time of the killings. ...

In forming this battalion, the Order Police drew on an ordinary population, distinguished chiefly by its advanced age and its status of not being enrolled in military service. Some of the men had been previously declared unfit for duty because of age or physical infirmities. In so doing, the regime was employing men who were among the least fit able-bodied men that it could find (both physically and by disposition) for staffing its roving police battalion. The men's advanced age brought with it longer histories of personal independence as adults, knowledge of other political orders, and the experience derived from having and heading families. ...

The Order Police filled out Police Battalion 101 with an inauspicious group. It nevertheless made little effort to hone these men, through physical or ideological training, into men bearing a more soldierly and Nazi attitude. In chorus, the men testify to the perfunctory nature of their training. Some men were drafted but weeks or days ahead of the beginning of the battalion's killing life, and were thrown directly into the genocidal fray. ...

The first order to kill Jews was communicated to the battalion's commander, Major Trapp, some short time before the operation's designated day. ...

Trapp's address to his men included general instructions for the conduct of the operation. The assembled Germans-whether they had learned on that morning or the night before about the phase in their lives that they were then initiating-understood that they were embarking on a momentous undertaking, not some routine police operation. They received explicit orders to shoot the most helpless Jews - the old, the young, and the sick, women and children - but not men capable of doing work, who would be spared. Did these ordinary Germans want to do it? Did any of them mutter to themselves, as men, including those in uniform, often do when they receive onerous, disagreeable, or unpalatable orders, that they wished they were elsewhere? If they had, then the continuation of Trapp's address was for them a godsend. Their beloved commander, their "Papa" Trapp, gave them a way out, at least initially to the older battalion men. He made a remarkable offer: "As the conclusion of his address, the major put the question to the older battalion members of whether there were among them those who did not feel up to the task. At first no one had the courage to come forward. I was then the first to step forward and stated that I was one of those who was not fit for the task. Only then did others come forward. We were then about ten to twelve men, who were kept at the major's disposal."

Those who were a party to the scene must have felt some uncertainty. The Germans were at the staging ground for the wholesale slaughter of a community. They were entering a new moral world. Who among them had ever imagined, say, three years before, that he would be standing in eastern Poland with such a charge, to kill all the women and children he would find? Yet the Fuhrer had ordered the killing, the killing of these Jews. And now their commander was giving at least some of them the option not to kill. He was a genuine man who was, by all accounts, solicitous of them. Some of the men stepped forward. If they were hesitant, however, their uncertainty must have been further intensified by Captain Hoffmann's reaction. The man who first took advantage of Trapp's offer continues: "In this connection, I remember that the chief of my company, Hoffmann, became very agitated at my having stepped forward. I remember that he said something to the effect: 'This fellow ought to be shot!' But Major Trapp cut him off. . . .”. Hoffmann, who was to prove himself a zealous, if fainthearted killer, was publicly silenced and put in his place by Trapp. Trapp's way was to be the battalion's way. That was unequivocal. The men who had stepped forward were all excused from the killing operation. Yet it must be noted, as it was undoubtedly noted by the assembled men, that Hoffmann's willingness to object so openly and vociferously to the acceptance of Trapp's offer was publicly to call into question a superior order. It was hardly the picture of obedience.

Another man, Alois Weber, agrees that Trapp made the offer to excuse those who did not want to kill, yet he maintains that the offer was made not just to the older men but to the entire battalion: "Trapp's request was not intended as a trap. It did not require much courage to step forward.” ... Finally, Weber indicts himself by admitting that he did not choose to avoid becoming a genocidal killer of Jews even though he knew that he had that option and saw others who chose not to contribute in this way to genocide. ...

When dawn arrived, the Germans began rounding up the Jews from the ghetto of Jozefow. They combed through the ghetto in small groups, generally of two or three, driving Jews from their homes. The men of Third Company had received, directly from their company commander, the same instructions as the others, "that during the evacuation, the old and the sick as well as infants and small children and Jews, who put up resistance, are to be shot on the spot." The Germans were incredibly brutal, carrying out with abandon their orders not to bother transporting the non-ambulatory to the roundup point and instead to kill them on the spot. ... When the Germans' work was completed, Jewish corpses lay strewn throughout the ghetto, as one of the Germans put it, in the "front yards, doorways, and streets all the way to the market square." A member of Third Company describes the handiwork: ". . . as I walked through the Jewish district during the evacuation, I saw dead old people and infants. I also know that during the evacuation all patients of a Jewish hospital were shot by the troops combing the district."

It is easy to read these two sentences, shudder for a moment, and continue on. But consider how intense the psychological pressure not to slaughter such people would have been had these men indeed been opposed to the slaughter, had they indeed not seen the Jews as deserving this fate. They had just heard from their commander that he was willing to excuse those who wanted to demur. Instead of accepting his offer, they chose to walk into a hospital, a house of healing, and to shoot the sick, who must have been cowering, begging, and screaming for mercy. They killed babies. None of the Germans has seen fit to recount details of such killings. In all probability, a killer either shot a baby in its mother's arms, and perhaps the mother for good measure, or, as was sometimes the habit during these years, held it at arm's length by the leg, shooting it with a pistol. Perhaps the mother looked on in horror. The tiny corpse was then dropped like so much trash and left to rot. A life extinguished. The horror of killing just one baby, or of taking part in the massacre of the Jewish hospital patients, let alone all of the other killing that was then or later that day to occur, ought to have induced those who saw Jews as part of the human family to investigate whether Trapp's offer might yet be taken up by them as well. As far as it is known, none did. ...

New assignments were given to the men, and so they were set to begin the systematic slaughter. ...

The men of First Company, who were initially assigned to shoot the Jews, were joined around noon by members of Second Company because Major Trapp anticipated that they would not otherwise finish the slaughter before nightfall. The actual killing duties ended up being shared by more of the battalion than Trapp had originally planned. The exact manner of transport and procedure of execution differed a bit from unit to unit and also evolved during the course of the day. The platoons of First Company, to focus on it, had broken down into killing squads of about eight. The initial procedure was some variation on the following. A squad would approach the group of Jews who had just arrived, from which each member would choose his victim - a man, a woman, or a child. The Jews and Germans would then walk in parallel single file so that each killer moved in step with his victim, until they reached a clearing for the killing where they would position themselves and await the firing order from their squad leader.

The walk into the woods afforded each perpetrator an opportunity for reflection. Walking side by side with his victim, he was able to imbue the human form beside him with the projections of his mind. Some of the Germans, of course, had children walking beside them. It is highly likely that, back in Germany, these men had previously walked through woods with their own children by their sides, marching gaily and inquisitively along. With what thoughts and emotions did each of these men march, gazing sidelong at the form of, say, an eight- or twelve-year-old girl, who to the unideologized mind would have looked like any other girl? In these moments, each killer had a personalized, face-to-face relationship to his victim, to his little girl. Did he see a little girl, and ask himself why he was about to kill this little, delicate human being who, if seen as a little girl by him, would normally have received his compassion, protection, and nurturance? Or did he see a Jew, a young one, but a Jew nonetheless? Did he wonder incredulously what could possibly justify his blowing a vulnerable little girl's brains out? Or did he understand the reasonableness of the order, the necessity of nipping the believed-in Jewish blight in the bud? The "Jew-child," after all, was mother to the Jew.

The killing itself was a gruesome affair. After the walk through the woods, each of the Germans had to raise his gun to the back of the head, now face down on the ground, that had bobbed along beside him, pull the trigger, and watch the person, sometimes a little girl, twitch and then move no more. The Germans had to remain hardened to the crying of the victims, to the crying of women, to the whimpering of children. At such close range, the Germans often became spattered with human gore. In the words of one man, "the

supplementary shot struck the skull with such force that the entire back of the skull was torn off and blood, bone splinters, and brain matter soiled the marksmen." Sergeant Anton Bentheim indicates that this was not an isolated episode, but rather the general condition: “The executioners were gruesomely soiled with blood, brain matter, and bone splinters. It stuck to their clothes." ...

In this personalized, individual manner, each of the men who took part in the shooting generally killed between five and ten Jews, most of whom were elderly, women, and children. ... In total, between the wild slaughter in the ghetto itself and the methodical executions in the woods, the Germans killed that day somewhere over 1,200 Jews, perhaps a few hundred more. ...

One killer describes a vivid memory from that day: “I would like to mention now that only women and children were there. They were largely women and children around twelve years old. . . . Next to me was the Policeman Koch. . . . He had to shoot a small boy of perhaps twelve years. We had been expressly told that we should hold the gun's barrel eight inches from the head. Koch had apparently not done this, because while leaving the execution site, the other comrades laughed at me, because pieces of the child's brains had spattered onto my sidearm and had stuck there. I first asked, why are you laughing, whereupon Koch, pointing to the brains on my sidearm, said: That's from mine, he has stopped twitching. He said this in an obviously boastful tone.” ...

Not surprisingly, a,few of the killers felt the need to excuse themselves from the killing or take a breather during its course. One squad Sergeant Ernst Hergert, reports that within his platoon two to five men asked to be exempted from the killing after these men had already begun, because they found it too burdensome to shoot women and children. The men were excused by him or by their lieutenant and given either guard or transport duties for the duration of the killing. Two other sergeants, Bentheim and Arthur Kammer, also excused a few men under their command. A third sergeant, Heinrich Steinmetz, explicitly told his men before the killings that they did not have to kill. “I would like also to mention that before the beginning of the execution, Sergeant Steinmetz said to the members of the platoon that those who did not feel up to the upcoming task could come forward. No one, to be sure, exempted himself.” Significantly, these men had already participated in the brutal ghetto clearing, so by the time of his offer they had had the opportunity to confront the gruesome reality of the genocidal enterprise. Yet not even one of them took up the ready offer to avoid further killing at the time.

Browning, “Ordinary Men” (HarperCollins, 1992)

In mid-March 1942 some 75 to 80 percent of all victims of the Holocaust were still alive, while 20 to 25 percent had perished. A mere eleven months later, in mid-February 1943, the percentages were exactly the reverse. …

Ultimately, the Holocaust took place because at the most basic level individual human beings killed other human beings in large numbers over an extended period of time. …

In 1938 and 1939, the Order Police expanded rapidly as the increasing threat of war gave prospective recruits a further inducement. If they enlisted in the Order Police, the new young policemen were exempted from conscription into the army. Moreover, because the police battalions - like U.S. National Guard units - were organized regionally, they seemed to offer the guarantee of completing one's alternative to regular military service not only more safely but closer to home. …

The Order Police had scarcely been taken into account in prewar mobilization plans, and little thought had been given to its possible wartime use, but Germany's military success and rapid expansion quickly created the need for more occupation forces behind the lines. …

Unlike so many of the Nazi killing units, whose membership can only be partially reconstructed, Reserve Police Battalion 101’s roster was available to the investigators. As most of the men came from Hamburg and many still lived there at the time of the investigation, I was able to study the interrogations of 210 men from a unit consisting of slightly less than 500 when it was sent at full strength to Poland in June 1942. This collection of interrogations provided a representative sample for statistical answers to questions about age, Party and 55 membership, and social background. …

Reserve Police Battalion 101 was now composed of men without any experience of German occupation methods in eastern Europe, or for that matter - with the exception of the very oldest who were World War I veterans - any kind of military service. The battalion consisted of 11 officers, 5 administrative officials, and 486 noncommissioned officers and men. …

[Ages] ranged from thirty-three to forty-eight. Five were Party members, but none belonged to the SS. … Of the thirty-two noncommissioned officers on whom we have information, twenty-two were party members and seven were in the SS. They ranged in age from twenty-seven to forty years old; their average age was thirty-three and a half. They were not reservists but rather prewar recruits to the police.

Of the rank and file, the vast majority were from the Hamburg area. About 63 percent were of working-class background, but few were skilled laborers. The majority of them held typical Hamburg working-class jobs: dock workers and truck drivers were most numerous, but there were also many warehouse and construction workers, machine operators, seamen, and waiters. About 35 percent were lower-middle-class, virtually all of them white-collar workers. Three-quarters were in sales of some sort; the other one-quarter performed various office jobs, in both the government and private sector. … The average age of the men was thirty-nine; over half were between thirty-seven and forty-two, a group considered too old for the army but most heavily conscripted for reserve police duty after September 1939. … By virtue of their age, of course, all went through their formative period in the pre-Nazi era. These were men who had known political standards and moral norms other than those of the Nazis. Most came from Hamburg, by reputation one of the least nazified cities in Germany, and the majority came from a social class that had been anti-Nazi in its political culture. These men would not seem to have been a very promising group from which to recruit mass murderers on behalf of the Nazi vision of a racial utopia free of Jews. …

In the very early hours of July 13, 1942, the men Reserve Police Battalion 101 were roused from their bunks in the large brick school building that served as their barracks in the Polish town of Bilgoraj. They were middle-aged family men of working- and lower-middle-class background from the city of Hamburg. Considered too old to be of use to the German army, they had been drafted instead into the Order Police. Most were raw recruits with no previous experience in German occupied territory. They had arrived in Poland less than three weeks earlier. … They were headed for their first major action, though the men had not yet been told what to expect. … The men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 climbed down from their trucks and assembled in a half-circle around their commander, Major Wilhelm Trapp, a fifty-three-year-old career policeman affectionately known by his men as "Papa Trapp." The time had come for Trapp to address the men and inform them of the assignment the battalion had received.

Pale and nervous, with choking voice and tears in his eyes, Trapp visibly fought to control himself as he spoke. The battalion, he said plaintively, had to perform a frightfully unpleasant task. This assignment was not to his liking, indeed it was highly regrettable, but the orders came from the highest authorities. If it would make their task any easier, the men should remember that in Germany the bombs were falling on women and children. …

There were Jews village of Jozefow who were involved with the partisans, he explained according to two others. The battalion had now been ordered to round up these Jews. The male Jews of working age were to be separated and taken to a work camp. The remaining Jews - the women, children, and elderly - were to be shot on the spot by the battalion. Having explained what awaited his men, Trapp then made an extraordinary offer: if any of the older men among them did not feel up to the task that lay before him, he could step out. …

[Lieutenant] Buchmann, then thirty-eight years old, … learning of the imminent massacre, made clear to [First Lieutenant[ Hagen that as a Hamburg businessman and reserve lieutenant, he “would in no case participate in such an action, in which defenseless women and children are shot.” He asked for another assignment. Hagen arranged for Buchmann to be in charge of the escort for the male "work Jews" who were to be selected out and taken to Lublin. …

After explaining the battalion's murderous assignment, [Trapp] 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-Luius Schimke, stepped forward. Captain Hoffmann, who had arrived in Jozefow directly from Zakrzow with the Third Platoon of Third Company and had not been part of the officers' meetings in Bilgoraj 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. …

Two platoons of Third Company were to surround the village. The men were explicitly ordered to shoot anyone trying to escape. The remaining men were to round up the Jews and take them to the marketplace. Those too sick or frail to walk to the marketplace, as well as infants and anyone offering resistance or attempting to hide, were to be shot on the spot. …

As one policeman bitterly commented, “Major Trapp was never there. Instead he remained in Jozefow because he allegedly could not bear the sight. We men were upset about that and said we couldn't bear it either."

Indeed, Trapp's distress as a secret to no one. At the marketplace one policeman remembered hearing Trapp say, "Oh, God, why did I have to be given these orders," as he put his hand on his heart. Another policeman witnessed him at the schoolhouse. "Today I can still see exactly before my eyes Major Trapp there in the room pacing back and forth with his hands behind his back. He made a downcast impression and spoke to me. He said something like, 'Man, … such jobs don't suit me. But orders are orders.'" Another man remembered vividly "how Trapp, finally alone in our room, sat on a stool and wept bitterly. The tears really flowed." …

One policeman was emphatic "that among the Jews shot in our section of town there were no infants or small children. I would like to say that almost tacitly everyone refrained from shooting infants and small children." … Another policeman likewise noted "that tacitly the shooting of infants and small children was avoided by almost all the men involved…”

One … policeman … recalled: “I believe that at this point all officers of the battalion were present, especially our battalion physician, Dr. Schoenfelder. He n had to explain to us precisely how we had to shoot in order to induce the immediate death of the victim. I remember exactly that for this demonstration he drew or outlined the contour of a human body, at least from the shoulders upward, and then indicated precisely the point on which the fixed bayonet was to be placed as an aiming guide. …

When the first truckload of thirty-five to forty Jews arrived, an equal number of policemen came forward and, face to face, were paired off with their victims. Led by Kammer, the policemen and Jews marched down the forest path. They turned off into the woods at a point indicated by Captain Wohlauf, who busied himself throughout the day selecting the execution sites. Kammer then ordered the Jews to lie down in a row. The policemen stepped up behind them. placed their bayonets on the backbone above the shoulder blades as earlier instructed, and on Kammer's orders fired in unison. …

Except for a midday break, the shooting proceeded without interruption until nightfall. At some point in the afternoon, someone "organized" a supply of alcohol for the shooters.”

But when the men of First Company were summoned to the marketplace, instructed in giving a "neck shot," and sent to the woods to kill Jews, some of them tried to make up for the opportunity they had missed earlier. One policeman approached First Sergeant Kammer, whom he knew well. He confessed that the task was "repugnant" to him and asked for a different assignment. Kammer obliged, assigning him to guard duty on the edge of the forest, where he remained throughout the day. Several other policemen who knew Kammer well were given guard duty along the truck route. After shooting for some time, another group of policemen approached Kammer and said they could not continue. He released them from the firing squad and reassigned them to accompany the trucks. Two policemen made the mistake of approaching Captain (and SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer) Wohlauf instead of Kammer. They pleaded that they too were fathers with children and could not continue. Wohlauf curtly refused them, indicating that they could lie down alongside the victims. At the midday pause, however, Kammer relieved not only these two men but a number of other older men as well. They were sent back to the marketplace, accompanied by a noncommissioned officer who reported to Trapp. Trapp dismissed them from further duty and permitted them to return early to the barracks in Bilgoraj.

Some policemen who did not request to be released from the firing squads sought other ways to evade. Noncommissioned officers armed with submachine guns had to be assigned to give so-called mercy shots “because both from the excitement as well as intentionally” [Browning’s italics] individual policemen "shot past" their victims. …

“During the execution word spread that anyone who could not take it any longer could report." He went on to note, "I myself took part in some ten shootings, in which I had to shoot men and women. I simply could not shoot at people anymore, which became apparent to my sergeant, Hergert, because at the end I repeatedly shot past. For this reason he relieved me. Other comrades were also relieved sooner or later, because they simply could no longer continue.” …

“It was in no way the case that those who did not want to or could not carry out the shooting of human beings with their own hands could not keep themselves out of this task. No strict control was being carried out here. I therefore remained by the arriving trucks and kept myself busy at the arrival point. In any case I gave my activity such an appearance. It could not be avoided that one or another of my comrades noticed that I was not going to the executions to fire away at the victims. They showered me with remarks such as "shithead" and "weakling" to express their disgust. But I suffered no consequences for my actions. I must mention here that I was not the only one who kept himself out of participating in the executions.” …

Walter Niehaus, a former Reemtsma cigarette sales representative, was paired with an elderly woman for the first round. “After I had shot the elderly woman, I went to Toni [Anton] Bentheim [his sergeant] and told him that I was not able to carry out further executions. I did not have to participate in the shooting anymore. … my nerves were totally finished from this one shooting."

Georg Kageler, a thirty-seven-year-old tailor, made it through the first round before encountering difficulty. "After I had carried out the first shooting and at the unloading point was allotted a mother with daughter as victims for the next shooting, I began a conversation with them and learned that they were Germans from Kassel, and I took the decision not to participate further in the executions. The entire business was now so repugnant to me that I returned to my platoon leader and told him that I was still sick and asked for my release." Kageler was sent to guard the marketplace. …

Franz Kastenbaum … suddenly appeared uninvited at the office of the Hamburg state prosecutor investigating Reserve Police Battalion 101. He told how he had been a member of a firing squad of seven or eight men that had taken its victims into the woods and shot them in the neck at point-blank range. This procedure had been repeated until the fourth victim. “The shooting of the men was so repugnant to me that I missed the fourth man. It was simply no longer possible for me to aim accurately. I suddenly felt nauseous and ran away from the shooting site. I have expressed myself incorrectly just now. It was not that I could no longer aim accurately, rather that the fourth time I intentionally missed. I then ran into the woods, vomited, and sat down against a tree. To make sure that no one was nearby, I called loudly into the woods, because I wanted to be alone. Today I can say that my nerves were totally finished. I think that I remained alone in the woods for some two to three hours.”…

Before the policemen climbed into their trucks and left Jozefow, a ten-year-old girl appeared, bleeding from the head. She was brought to Trapp, who took her in his arms and said, "You shall remain alive."

When the men arrived at the barracks in Bilgoraj, they were depressed, angered, embittered, and shaken. They ate little but drank heavily. Generous quantities of alcohol were provided, and many of the policemen got quite drunk. Major Trapp made the rounds, trying to console and reassure them, and again placing the responsibility on higher authorities. … By silent consensus within Reserve Police Battalion 101, the Jozefow massacre was simply not discussed. "The entire matter was a taboo." But repression during waking hours could not stop the nightmares. During the first night back from Jozefow, one policeman awoke firing his gun into the ceiling of the barracks. …

While the number of those who evaded or dropped out was thus not insignificant, it must not obscure the corollary that at least 80 percent of those called upon to shoot continued to do so until 1,500 Jews from Jozefow had been killed. …

The two men who explained their refusal to take part in the greatest detail both emphasized the fact that they were freer to act as they did because they had no careerist ambitions. One policeman accepted the possible disadvantages of his course of action "because I was not a career policeman and also did not want to become one, but rather an independent skilled craftsman, and I had my business back home. … thus it was of no consequence that my police career would not prosper." …

“In no case can I remember that anyone was forced to continue participating in the executions when he declared that he was no longer able to. As far as group and platoon actions were concerned, here I must honestly admit that with these smaller executions there were always some comrades who found it easier to shoot Jews than did others, so that the respective commando leaders never had difficulty finding suitable shooters.”

“I must emphasize that from the first days I left no doubt among my comrades that I disapproved of these measures and never volunteered for them. Thus, on one of the first searches for Jews, one of my comrades clubbed a Jewish woman in my presence, and I hit him in the face. A report was made, and in that way my attitude became known to my superiors. I was never officially punished. But anyone who knows how the system works knows that outside official punishment there h the possibility for chicanery that more than makes up for punishment. Thus I was assigned Sunday duties and special watches.”

Mayer, “They thought they were free: The Germans” (Univ. Chicago Press, 1955)

Foreword to the 1966 reprint:

… As "things" changed, on the whole for the worse, and the postwar world became the prewar world, and disarmament became rearmament, there arose a modestly circumscribed sentiment that it might be profitable to find out what it was that had made "the Germans" act as badly as they did.

Dreadful deeds like Auschwitz had been done before in human history, though never on so hideously handsome a scale. But they had not been done before in an advanced Christian society like-well, like ours. If we would keep such deeds from ever being done again, at least in advanced Christian societies, it might be worth digging a little deeper than the shallow grave so hurriedly dug at Nuremberg. After the heat of the long moment had gone down, it was equally difficult to cling to the pleasurable doctrine that the Germans were by nature the enemies of mankind and to cling to the still more pleasurable doctrine that it was possible for one ( or two or three) madmen to make and unmake the history of the world. …

The "German problem" moves in and out of focus as the twentieth century continues to produce - at an always accelerating tempo - more history than it can consume. Korea is forgotten, and Hungary, Cyprus, and Suez are the new sensations; Hungary, Cyprus, and Suez slide into sudden oblivion, and we are all agog at Tibet and the Congo; Tibet and the Congo vanish before we have time to find them on the map (or to find a map that has them) and Cuba explodes; Cuba subsides to something combining a simmer and a snarl, and Vietnam and Rhodesia (or is it Southern Rhodesia?) seize us. Ghana, Guiana, Guinea. Crisis is our diet, served up as exotic dishes, and dishes ever. more exotic, before we are able to swallow (let alone digest) those that were just before us. Remember the "Lebanon crisis" of 1958, in which the United States was deeply involved? Of course not. Who would, these days? Who could? And why? …

Foreword to the 1955 edition:

As an American, I was repelled by the rise of National Socialism in Germany. As an American of German descent, I was ashamed. As a Jew, I was stricken. As a newspaperman, I was fascinated.

It was the newspaperman's fascination that prevailed-or at least predominated-and left me dissatisfied with every analysis of Nazism. I wanted to see this monstrous man, the Nazi. I wanted to talk to him and to listen to him. I wanted to try to understand him. We were both men, he and I. In rejecting the Nazi doctrine of racial superiority, I had to concede that what he had been I might be; what led him along the course he took might lead me. …

In 1935 I spent a month in Berlin trying to obtain a series of meetings with Adolf Hitler. My friend and teacher, William E. Dodd, then American Ambassador to Germany, did what he could to help me, but without success. Then I traveled in Nazi Germany for an American magazine. I saw the German people, people I had known when I visited Germany as a boy, and for the first time realized that Nazism was a mass movement and not the tyranny of a diabolical few over helpless millions. Then I wondered if Adolf Hitler was, after all, the Nazi I wanted to see. By the time the war was over I had identified my man: the average German.

I wanted to go to Germany again and get to know this literate, bourgeois, "Western" man like myself to whom something had happened that had not (or at least not yet) happened to me and my fellow-countrymen. It was seven years after the war before I went. Enough time had passed so that an American non-Nazi might talk with a German Nazi, and not so much time that the events of 1933-45, and especially the inner feeling that attended those events, would have been forgotten by the man I sought.

I never found the average German, because there is no average German. But I found ten Germans sufficiently different from one another in background, character, intellect, and temperament to represent, among them, some millions or tens of millions of Germans and sufficiently like unto one another to have been Nazis. It wasn't easy to find them, still less to know them. I brought with me one asset: I really wanted to know them. And another, acquired in my long association with the American Friends Service Committee: I really believed that there was "that of God" in every one of them.

My faith found that of God in my ten Nazi friends. My newspaper training found that of something else in them, too. They were each of them a most marvelous mixture of good and bad impulses, their lives a marvelous mixture of good and bad acts. I liked them. I couldn't help it. Again and again, as I sat or walked with one or another of my ten friends, I was overcome by the same sensation that had got in the way of my newspaper reporting in Chicago years before. I liked Al Capone. I liked the way he treated his mother. He treated her better than I treated mine.

I found - and find - it hard to judge my Nazi friends. But I confess that I would rather judge them than myself. In my own case I am always aware of the provocations and handicaps that excuse, or at least explain, my own bad acts. I am always aware of my good intentions, my good reasons for doing bad things. I should not like to die tonight, because some of the things that I had to do today, things that look very bad for me, I had to do in order to do something very good tomorrow that would more than compensate for today's bad behavior. But my Nazi friends did die tonight; the book of their Nazi lives is closed, without their having been able to do the good they mayor may not have meant to do, the good that might have wiped out the bad they did.

By easy extension, I would rather judge Germans than Americans. Now I see a little better how Nazism overcame Germany-not by attack from without or by subversion from within, but with a whoop and a holler. … I felt - and feel - that it was not German Man that I had met, but Man. He happened to be in Germany under certain conditions. He might be here, under certain conditions. He might, under certain conditions, be I. …

Kronenberg

November 9, 1938 [The date of Kristalnacht - “the night of broken glass” – the night when Jewish synagogues and businesses were vandalized and burned throughout Germany]

In 1930, when Party uniforms were forbidden, the Party paraded quietly in white shirts, and, when the Fuhrer spoke in Kronenberg in 1932, forty thousand people crowded quietly into a super-circus tent on the Town Meadow to hear him. (Nazi open-air meetings were forbidden.) That was the day that a Swastika Bag was run up on the Castle; in England or France it might have been taken for a college-boy prank, but in Kronenberg the culprit, who proudly admitted his guilt, was heavily fined.

Kronenberg went quietly Nazi, and so it was. In the March, 1933, elections, the NSDAP, the National Socialist German Workers Party, had a two-thirds majority, and th