There is no doubt that what the death squads did in Ordinary Men was wrong. Most things that happened in the Holocaust were morally abhorrent. As Browning states, it is an era of too few heroes, and way too many perpetrators. Towards the end of the book, this issue of punishment is brought up, more than twenty years after these men’s crimes, they are brought to trial. There is a sentiment that they were not punished enough for their crimes, but how can you fairly punish men you shared responsibility for 38,000 deaths and the perpetuation of a genocide?
I think that two decades after the end of the Holocaust, the focus should have been on the best way to rebuild society; to mend bridges and look towards the next era. Bringing these men to trial seemed useless and revenge oriented to me. I’m not trying to lessen their crimes; I do believe that they committed atrocious acts and failed to provide moral guidance and individual thought at a point in history when it was most necessary. But how does it benefit anybody to punish these men twenty-five years after their crimes towards society were committed? Were their lives and freedom a detriment to the current society, or did prosecuting them reopen old wounds that were mending and further the suffering caused by the Holocaust? I fail to see the productivity of prosecuting these men so far past the date of their crimes, when they have already rehabilitated and reentered society, and I believe, no longer posed a real threat to society.
The experiments that were discussed towards the end of the book, Zimbardo’s prison and Milton’s electro-shock experiments also bring into question the capacity of the average human for resistance to destructive instruction. I believe that the role of punishment in society is to rid of threats to society; but these experiments seem to show us that under the right conditions, we almost all have the capacity to become threats to society. It’s the outliers who have a capacity to tell your leader that you have an issue with completing the task at hand. How do we, as a global community, address this and work to stop current and prevent future mass human rights abuses from occurring?
If anything the prosecution would have given the holocaust its needed closure. The prosecution would have shown society doesn't tolerate those who take part in genocide. However, the reluctance to punish the officers only proves how easy it is to get away with murder.
ReplyDeleteI believe the officers after the holocaust pose an equal or greater threat than they did before. While it may seem they have 'reentered' society, they are the same ordinary men who become mass-murders. Having already murdered thousands with no punishment, they have a greater likelihood of falling under the cast of authoritarian rule, which Milgram states is a "deeply ingrained behavior tendency" (p.171).
I think that whether/how much these men should be punished goes back to the question of how responsible they are for their actions. It is definitely important to understand whether these men were simply put in a very tough position and did what any ordinary person would do (which in my opinion would warrant a less harsh punishment) or whether they held just as much responsibility as the regime that perpetrated these crimes.
ReplyDeleteI think that Browning was making a point that while these men were not the typical Nazis in many respects, it is impossible to tell if anyone placed in that position would do that. By the fact that some 10-20% of the police force did not participate demonstrates that people in that position could choose an alternative. I think he mentions this because it is really very difficult to tell what someone would have done under that scenario unless they actually experienced it. However, given the scale of these crimes, I think that it is surprising how few of them were actually punished.