Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland

Lieutenant Buchmann is perhaps the most outspoken opponent of the battalion’s orders. At the massacre at Józefów, he insists that he will “in no case participate in such an action, in which defenseless women and children are shot” (56). He later declares that “short of a direct personal order from Trapp, he [will] not take part in Jewish actions” (76) and requests a transfer that he will eventually receive. Importantly, before he is transferred out of the battalion, he is outspoken about his objections and remains “indignant about how the Jews [are] treated and openly expresse[s] these views at every opportunity” (103). This receives “mixed reactions from his men” (103). Some make “disparaging remarks” (103) but others respect the stand he is making and follow his example in asking to be excused from such actions. Despite his objections, Buchmann’s position is by no means absolute. When Trapp is absent during an operation, Buchmann is ordered by superior SS officers to organize a firing squad. Like Trapp, he gives in to pressure and obeys his orders although, again like Trapp, he provides his subordinates with the option to refuse to participate.

At the other end of the spectrum to Buchmann is Hartwig Gnade, another lieutenant. During an early deportation operation, Gnade’s unit delivers Jews to Minsk as ordered, but once they learn that the Jews are to be shot, Gnade, “[n]ot wanting to be involved” (43), leads the men out of the town, rather than staying in the barracks.

This reluctance does not last long, however, and he quickly begins to show a “streak of sadism” (82), regularly abusing and humiliating his captives, brutally dehumanizing them and, in the process, being dehumanized himself. During one operation, he chooses “some twenty to twenty-five elderly Jews […] with full beards” and makes them undress and “crawl on the ground in the area before the grave” (82-83) while he “scream[s] to those around” to get clubs until they “vigorously beat the Jews” (83). When he takes command of a company at Miȩdzyrzec, this behavior continues, as he uses “whips on the assembled Jews,” keeps 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), and even introduces “one further step in the deportation procedure—the ‘strip search’” (109).

In a clear reflection of how much Gnade is corrupted and dehumanized by his own behavior, his first sergeant will later remark that Gnade “gave [the sergeant] the impression that the entire business afforded him a great deal of pleasure” (108). Like many of the men, Gnade drinks heavily, quickly “degenerat[ing] into a ‘drunkard’” (82) while in Poland. However, while many drink to block out the guilt and horror they feel about their actions, Gnade’s drinking seems primarily to encourage him to greater excesses of drunken violence and cruelty. Although the men are largely careful not to denounce their former comrades in their testimonies, Gnade is one of the few accused of open anti-Semitism and of being “a Nazi by conviction” (82).

Wohlauf is a young captain and a member of the SS. Although he has a poor service record and had received complaints that he “lacked all discipline and was much too impressed with himself” (91), Trapp quickly recommends him for promotion, claiming that he is “ready at any time without reservation to go the limit for the National Socialist state” (92). Although one fellow officer described him as “not a prominent anti-Semite” (92), it is readily apparent that Wohlauf sees Jews as expendable and as opportunities to show off his own power. The “pretentious and self-important captain” brings his wife to watch a deportation operation he is commanding, most likely because he is “trying to impress his new bride by showing her he [is] master over the life and death of Polish Jewry” (93). His men, who already see him as “quite pretentious” and mock him with the name “the little Rommel” (92), respond with “indignation and outrage that a woman [has been] brought to witness the terrible things they [are] doing” (92-93). In this contrast, we see how many of the men, mostly raised prior to Nazi-ideology-dominated society, are still able to “feel shame” (93) about their murderous actions, unlike their captain, who is so callous to the lives of Jewish people that he is interested only in his own sense of power and ability to show off his authority.