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Christopher R. BrowningOrdinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
Christopher R. BrowningNonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1992A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 10-12
Chapter 10 Summary: “The August Deportations to Treblinka”
When members of Battalion 101 arrive in Parczew on August 19, only two days after the Łomazy massacre, “the main street [is] already paved with Jewish gravestones” (89). Along with a unit of Hiwis, they drive 3,000 Jews to the nearby railway station that day and round up the remaining 2,000 several days later. The deportations are “relatively uneventful” for the policemen, with “little shooting” and none of the Hiwis’ “usual drunkenness and brutality” (90). They do not know exactly where the Jews are being taken but are aware that the “deportations mean the path of death” (90). However, having been “[s]pared direct participation in the killing,” they are not “disturbed by this awareness” because, for them, “[o]ut of sight [is] truly out of mind” (90). The deportation of 11,000 Jews from Miȩdzyrzec on August 25-26 is to be “[f]ar more memorable for Reserve Police Battalion 101” (90).
Captain Wohlauf had “several career difficulties” prior to his time in Battalion 101, with commanding officers commenting that he “requir[ed] strict supervision” or “lacked all discipline and was much too impressed with himself” (91). However, in Battalion 101, Trapp quickly recommended him for promotion, commenting that he endeavors to act on Nazi principles and is “ready at any time without reservation to go the limit for the National Socialist state” (92). The policemen see him as “quite pretentious” and refer to him disparagingly as “the little Rommel,” although his platoon commander considers him to be “upright and genuine” and “not a prominent anti-Semite” (92).
On their way out of town, Battalion 101’s convoy of trucks stops to collect Wohlauf at his private residence. He is accompanied by “his young bride—four months pregnant, with a military coat draped over her shoulders and a peaked military cap on her head” (91). This may be because “the pretentious and self-important captain […] [is] trying to impress his new bride by showing her he [is] master over the life and death of Polish Jewry” (93). This is certainly what the men believe, and “their reaction [is] uniformly one of indignation and outrage that a woman [has been] brought to witness the terrible things they [are] doing” (92-93). Unlike their captain, they can “still feel shame” (93).
As they arrive at Miȩdzyrzec, the policemen “hear shooting and screaming, as the Hiwis and Security Police [have] begun the roundup” (93). They encounter “a Security Police officer already quite drunk, despite the early hour,” and it is “soon apparent that the Hiwis [are] also drunk” (93). They are shooting “so often and so wildly that the policemen frequently [have] to take cover to avoid being hit” (93). The streets are already littered with corpses. They join the roundup, helping to drive thousands of Jews into the marketplace, where there is much “beating and shooting” (93). Wohlauf’s wife “watch[es] the events at close range” (93).
Along with the Hiwis and Security Police, the men of Battalion 101 drive thousands of Jews to the railway station, shooting those who cannot keep up until “[c]orpses [line] the street to the train station” (94). In a “final horror,” the Jews are forced in great numbers into cramped railway carriages with “riding whips and guns” (94). The “ferocity of the Miȩdzyrzec deportation” (94) becomes apparent when one realizes that during two months of Warsaw deportations, 2 percent of Jews to be deported were “killed on the spot” (95), while nearly 9 percent—960 out of 11,000—are killed at Miȩdzyrzec. The addition of deportation from Lublin, on top of deportations from Warsaw and Radom, “prove[s] too much for the capacity of the extermination camp,” and “the overburdened killing machinery [breaks] down” (95), halting deportations.
Chapter 11 Summary: “Late-September Shootings”
Before deportations resume, Battalion 101 are “involved in several more mass shootings” (97), the first in the village of Serokomla near Kock. Before the operation, Captain Wohlauf says “nothing about shooting,” referring only to “resettlement” (98). However, after the 200-300 Jews of Serokomla have been gathered, he “‘suddenly’ declares that all the Jews [are] to be shot” (98). Groups of Jews are marched to gravel pits outside the town and met by equal numbers of policemen so that “each policeman once again face[s] the individual Jew he [is] to shoot” (99). Without his new bride present to impress, Captain Wohlauf has “no desire to be present at the killing” (99) and remains in town. After the killing, the men have an afternoon meal in Kock and are “given special rations of alcohol” (100).
Three days later, Sergeant Jobst of First Company takes part in an operation to capture a member of the Polish resistance but is ambushed and killed on his journey back to Kock. Major Trapp receives orders that 200 villagers are to be shot in retaliation. He is “personally in charge” (101) of the operation and makes a selection of local men to be shot. Wishing to avoid alienating the local population, he makes the selection “in consultation with the Polish mayor” and selects only men who are “strangers and temporary residents” or those “without sufficient means of existence” (101). Seventy-eight Polish men are shot, all of them, as one policeman will later note, “the poorest of the poor” (101).
The men are in the middle of lunch when they learn that they have more killing to do. In order to meet his “retaliation quota of 200 […] without further aggravating relations with the local population” (101), Trapp has decided to shoot Jews from the Kock ghetto. Jews are gathered at random, “regardless of age or sex” (101), and are “shot by noncommissioned officers equipped with submachine guns” (102). Trapp immediately reports that “3 ‘bandits,’ 78 Polish ‘accomplices,’ and 180 Jews [have] been executed in retaliation, and that it seems that Trapp, “who had wept through the massacre at Józefów and still shie[s] away from the indiscriminate slaughter of Poles no longer [has] any inhibitions about shooting more than enough Jews to meet his quota” (102).
However, while Trapp is “reconciling himself to his role in the murder of Polish Jewry, Lieutenant Buchmann [is] not,” and informs the Major that “without a direct personal order he [will] not take part in Jewish actions” (102) and wishes to be transferred. He has the advantage of knowing Trapp personally, so believes that Trapp will not be “indignant” (102) about his position. Trapp does not organize an immediate transfer but “protect[s] [Buchmann] and accommodate[s] his request not to participate in Jewish actions” (102).
Buchmann is “indignant about how the Jews [are] treated and openly expresse[s] these views at every opportunity,” with “mixed reactions from his men” (103). Some make “disparaging remarks” about him but others follow his example and tell the company first sergeant, Kammer, “that they [are] neither able nor willing to take part in such actions anymore” (103). Kammer calls them “shitheads” who are “good for nothing” but does not report them and mostly “free[s] them from participating in further Jewish actions” (103). Because there is “no shortage of men willing to do the murderous job at hand,” it is “much easier to accommodate Buchmann and the men who [emulate] him than to make trouble over them” (103).
Chapter 12 Summary: “The Deportations Resume”
Between early October and early November, “the activities of Reserve Police Battalion 101 intensif[y] greatly,” and “one action follow[s] another in unremitting succession as tens of thousands of Jews [are] deported” (105). Mixed in with these deportations are “occasional shootings to liquidate those Jews who had successfully evaded the ghetto clearing by hiding or had been deliberately left behind” (107). After six weeks, they have “helped to deport more than 27,000 Jews […] and [have] killed perhaps 1,000 more” (107).
After this, “simultaneous deportations [are] carried out from the two transit ghettos at Łuków and Miȩdzyrzec by First and Second Companies respectively” (107). Lieutenant Gnade sets up company headquarters in Miȩdzyrzec, known to the men “by the apt German nickname Menschenschreck, or ‘human horror’” (107). During a deportation, “Gnade and others [use] their whips on the assembled Jews to enforce quiet” and “some [die] from the beatings” (108). When Jews are led out of “the cellar prison of Security Police headquarters,” they are “covered with excrement and clearly [have] not been fed in days” (108). Gnade introduces “one further step in the deportation procedure—the ‘strip search’” (109). Gnade’s first sergeant will later confess that the lieutenant “gave [him] the impression that the entire business afforded him a great deal of pleasure” (108).
First Company are simultaneously deporting Jews in Łuków although Wohlauf is no longer in command, his “relations with Trapp [having] deteriorated” (110) in part because Trapp did not approve of him taking his wife to witness the early deportations. First Company is involved in at least one of two final shootings of Jews who had hidden during the ghetto clearances. Without Trapp to protect him, Buchmann “and virtually every available man on the battalion staff—clerks, communications men, and drivers who had hitherto avoided direct participation in mass executions—suddenly [find] themselves pressed into service by the local Security Police” (111).
Members of “an entertainment unit […] of musicians and performers […] [ask], indeed even emphatically [beg], to be allowed to participate in the execution of the Jews” (112). They make up the bulk of the firing squad while Buchmann stands nearby “with several SS Officers” (112). Although Buchmann follows orders from superior SS officers to organize the mass shooting, when subordinates request to be excused, he allows it. Some time later, his “numerous requests for a recall to Hamburg” (113) are granted.
Chapters 10-12 Analysis
When the men of Battalion 101 are assigned to manage the deportations of Jews from Parczew, they are once again distanced from the killing. They are aware that “deportations mean the path of death,” but because they are spared “direct participation in the killing,” they are not “disturbed by this awareness” (90). As Browning observes, for the men, “[o]ut of sight [is] truly out of mind” (90). The deportations from Miȩdzyrzec are far more directly violent. The Hiwis and Security Police are once again drunk and engaging in abuse and murder, and “riding whips and guns” (94) are used to force the Jews into railway carriages. Along with other units, the policemen themselves shoot so many Jews on the march that “[c]orpses [line] the street to the train station” (94). This loss of distance between murderer and victim gets worse when the extermination camps’ “overburdened killing machinery [breaks] down” (95), halting deportations so that the Battalion once again has to be “involved in several […] mass shootings” (97). These are organized so that “each policeman once again face[s] the individual Jew he [is] to shoot” (99), making it impossible for them to deny the reality of their actions, and making it harder to dehumanize the victims. In recognition of this, the men are “given special rations of alcohol” (100) as a means of instilling some psychological distance.
The chapters also contain insights into several of the book’s key characters. Despite a poor service record and complaints that he “lacked all discipline and was much too impressed with himself” (91), Captain Wohlauf was recommended for promotion by Trapp, who said the younger man was “ready at any time without reservation to go the limit for the National Socialist state” (92). The policemen have a less sympathetic view, considering him “quite pretentious” and mocking him with the name “the little Rommel” (92). Their view of him worsens when “the pretentious and self-important captain” brings his wife to witness the deportations, probably because he is “trying to impress his new bride by showing her he [is] master over the life and death of Polish Jewry” (93). Still able to “feel shame” (93), the men react with “indignation and outrage that a woman [has been] brought to witness the terrible things they [are] doing” (92-93), an attitude quite in contrast with Wohlauf’s own seeming pride in his command. It appears that the men have not entirely dehumanized their victims and still feel ashamed that they are seen abusing them. When his wife is not present during the shootings, Wohlauf seemingly has “no desire to be present at the killing” (99) and remains in town, suggesting that, although he may be proud of his position when the killing is at a distance, the actual physical action of mass murder still disgusts him.
Trapp’s views regarding the murders appear to change in these chapters. When he is ordered to kill 200 villagers in retaliation for partisan activities and realizes he is a long way from fulfilling his quota, he orders the men to gather Jews from the Kock ghetto “regardless of age or sex” (101). Afterwards, he is quick to report that “3 ‘bandits,’ 78 Polish ‘accomplices,’ and 180 Jews [have] been executed” (102). This is an important turning point in his development, as it suggests that “the man who had wept through the massacre at Józefów and still shie[s] away from the indiscriminate slaughter of Poles no longer [has] any inhibitions about shooting more than enough Jews to meet his quota” (102). It is not clear whether his immersion in the anti-Semitism of his society, or the gradual dehumanization of either the victims or, indeed, Trapp himself, is responsible for this transformation.
Gnade’s transformation continues in an even more extreme manner when he sets up a command base in Miȩdzyrzec for further deportations. He continues his abusive, humiliating behavior, using “whips on the assembled Jews,” and keeping prisoners in conditions so bad that when they are marched to the deportation trains, they are “covered with excrement and clearly [have] not been fed in days” (108). Gnade even introduces “one further step in the deportation procedure—the ‘strip search’” (109). Gnade’s behavior is one of the starkest examples of anti-Semitic actions in the book and functions as both an expression of the dehumanization of the Jews and a means of dehumanizing them. That Gnade’s first sergeant will later confess that Gnade “gave [him] the impression that the entire business afforded [Gnade] a great deal of pleasure” (108) suggests that Gnade is himself dehumanized by his own beliefs, losing any real sense of morality or human fellow-feeling.
While others are becoming increasingly comfortable with mass murder, Buchmann remains “indignant about how the Jews [are] treated and openly expresse[s] these views at every opportunity” (103). He tells Trapp that he wishes to be transferred and that “without a direct personal order he [will] not take part in Jewish actions” (102). Despite his apparent move towards finding the murder of Jews more acceptable, Trapp “protect[s] [Buchmann] and accommodate[s] his request not to participate in Jewish actions” (102). Buchmann’s objections receive “mixed reactions from his men,” with some making “disparaging remarks” (103) and others asking to also be excused. First Sergeant Kammer calls these men “shitheads” who are “good for nothing” but does not report them and mostly “free[s] them from participating in further Jewish actions” (103). This highlights the role of conformity and the unofficial consequences of refusing to shoot, but also demonstrates once again that there are no official punishments for such refusal. Buchmann’s position is tested when he finds himself in a similar role to Trapp: commanding a unit ordered to carry out a mass shooting. With Trapp himself being absent and unable to protect Buchmann, the lieutenant gives way to pressure and follows orders from superior SS officers and organizes the shooting. However, like Trapp, when subordinates ask to be relieved or assigned other duties, he allows them to go.
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