Guilt and Choice

Are these people really ordinary men? This is the question that most baffled me whilst reading the account of Reserve Police Battalion 101’s actions in 1942.

These men were ordinary- around 80% came from a working-class background which is clearly not the socio-economic group known for its instinctive affiliation with the Nazi regime. Were they ordinary after the summer of 1942? Of course not.

Strikingly, the massacre at Jesefow is the one most remembered by all the men interrogated and used in Browning’s study. This is true despite that the absolute numbers of Jews that were murdered as a direct consequence of Battalion 101’s actions actually took place after their overseeing of the Miedzyrzec deportation. This point, and is superbly explained by Browning, to the primal human nature which guided these men in their actions. The most guilt was felt after having actually shot the victims with their own hand. At Lomazy, “the personal tie between the victim and killer was severed” as most of the killings had been completed by the Hiwis. Such “depersonalization of the killing process” led the men into a knowingly-naïve sense of not having been involved in an action with morally-shattering consequences, much like a child convincing himself that he did not do anything wrong with the usual excuse of ‘technicality’. (85)

More evidence for the knowingly-naïve rationalization of those involved was the question of choice. At Josefow, the men had been given a clear way out and their decision of not to take it was essentially their own responsibility to bear with respect to their morality. Hence, at Lomazy “those who shot did not have to live with the clear awareness that what they had done had been unavoidable” since no clear statement of an option to be reassigned was given by their commander. (86)

However, despite the numbers of people who dodged orders to shoot at Josefow, “at least 80% of those called upon to shoot continued to do so until 1500 Jews from Josefow had been killed.” (74) Among the various excuses for their actions the most striking feature is the complete lack of reference to belief in anti-Semitic principles, even at the time. (73) On top of this the most cited personal reason for stopping the shooting was “sheer physical revulsion” and not “ethical or political principles.” (74) Consequently, one must conclude that the basic human instinct for justifying currently-obvious actions of pure guilt by way of being consciously naïve and therefore ‘technically’ guilt-free, is at the bottom of these men’s attempts to come to terms with their own conscience.

This is as far as they are “ordinary.” But in the absolute form (universally) they will never be just that.