s of the men of Police Battalion 101 are, on the one hand, the men’s incessant volunteering to kill and, on the other, the failure of the men to avail themselves of the opportunities to avoid killing.” While Browning believes that these men where ‘ordinary’ men Goldhagen’s assertions on these matter seem quite able to show that at least in some examples these men where proud of their doings.“ The opportunities given to the men to avoid killing have already been touched up upon. In addition to the en who chose not to kill, the recalcitrant lieutenant served as a powerful example to the entire battalion that the men could refuse to kill without suffering tangible hardships. Furthermore, from the battalion commander down to its non-commissioned officers, those in command positions showed understanding for the disinclination that their subordinates might have had in performing their unsavory tasks. As one of the men puts it when discussing Trapp’s initial offer, ‘it did not take special courage for someone to step forward’.” It is of my belief that these ‘ordinary’ men were of a combination of both Browning and Goldhagen’s views. I do believe that a country can have underlining anti-Semitism and though it might not be obvious, it is part of their heritage. My main comparison is of the African Americans in the United States. There was a large part of American history devoted to the denial of blacks as citizens, denial to vote, denial that they are human. There was a time when signs were posted, like the ones in Germany, to ban blacks from a neighborhood. Then what about the lynching and the photographs in the American archives were people are smiling or the use of these photographs as postcards to send to family members who were unable to ‘enjoy’ such a ‘wonderful occasion’ as killing a race of people. Today those events do not happen b...
