Most people know about the genocide committed by the Nazi state during WWII. Most people also know about the concentration camps and gas chambers that linger as the primary frightening visual of the mass murder. Some people are even likely aware of the general danger that many people faced in Nazi-controlled Europe by simply leaving their home to get some groceries.
But this book illuminates another key element about the sheer volume of genocide in WWII that is often missing from the general public perception. And it’s perhaps the most frightening aspect of the entire evil enterprise: the shooting squads (often, formally, the “police battalions” or “reserve police battalions”). These battalions roamed from city to city, village to village, dragging families out of their homes, lining them up beside mass graves dug into the nearby woods, and executing them. 10, 15 or 20 at a time, for hours on end. Often face-to-face. Men and women alike – and sometimes children, as well. Until thousands of Jews (or other “undesirable” persons) were completely exterminated. Sometimes a handful of men were left behind to fill in the mass graves containing their families and friends with dirt to contain the stench.
It’s perhaps believable that some Nazi soldiers or party members in different posts during the war may have been unaware (or willfully ignorant) of the extent of the genocide. But, these men of the shooting squads could certainly not claim any such ignorance. So, what factors came together to enable and even encourage such horror? Browning does an excellent job giving the non-historian a crash course in the details of these actions. He then takes it to the next psychological level in contemplating how the human mind processes trauma, how community dynamics influence behavior, and how the presence of so-called authority legitimizes previously unimaginable circumstances. Browning uses a rich pool of primary sources, from police interrogations, to private war-time diaries, Nazi publications and later scientific studies of human psychology to ask how “ordinary men” from all walks of German life could conspire to extinguish millions of lives in a span of only a few years during WWII.
WWII experts may find nothing they didn’t already know here. For the rest of us, this book makes the gruesome horrors of WWII real to us in a way that most other books, statistics, TV or movies never could.