Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers

by Christopher R. Browning

Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers focuses on controversial issues in current Holocaust scholarship. How did Nazi Jewish policy evolve during the first years of the war? When did the Nazi regime cross the historic watershed from population expulsion and decimation ("ethnic cleansing") to total and systematic extermination? How did Nazi authorities attempt to reconcile policies of expulsion and extermination with the wartime urge to exploit Jewish labor? How were Jewish workers impacted? What role did local authorities play in shaping Nazi policy? What more can we learn about the mindset and behavior of the local perpetrators? Using new evidence, this book attempts to shed light on these important questions. Christopher R. Browning is the Frank Porter Graham Professor of History at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He is the author of The Path to Genocide (Cambridge University Press 1992) and Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, which received the Jewish National Book Award.

Genres: History, Holocaust, Nonfiction, European History, World War II

185 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Christopher Robert Browning recently retired as Frank Porter Graham Professor of History at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. He is the author of numerous books on Nazism and the Holocaust, and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Reviews

[Michael Lewyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short book, unlike many books on the Holocaust, is based on internal Nazi documents, and tries to give readers a feel for how Nazi policy both evolved at the top and was implemented at the bottom.

The beginning of the book seeks to answer the question: when did the Nazis settle upon genocide? The 1939-40 documents analyzed by Browning suggest that Nazis envisioned expelling Jews to Magadascar or the remotest reaches of Eastern Europe; by contrast, sometime in 1941 Hitler and Himmler apparently agreed on mass extermination.

Then Browning seeks to address the question of how much leeway local authorities had to avoid these policies; often, local commanders were more interested in exploiting Jewish labor than in extermination. Browning concludes that local authorities could drag their feet, but could not successfully resist clear orders from above.

The last essays focus on the role of individual German police battalions who participated in killing squads. Browning concludes that the majority of these men were not ideologically motivated to murder Jews- but that typically a few were, and the rest just followed orders and could even avoid participation themselves as long as they did not interfere with the murder going on around them.

[Caren · Rating 5 out of 5]

The intensity of Browning's essays requires slow and careful consideration by the reader, otherwise their details can become overwhelming. As a leading Holocaust scholar, he focuses here on questions raised: about the decision-making of the Final Solution - its timing and implementation; about the controversial use of Jewish labour - "destruction through labor"[sic] or massacres to implement the "destruction of labor"[sic]; about the roles played by local authorities in the extermination of Jews; and about the behaviour and ideology of the "ordinary men" who participated in the deaths of millions of Jews throughout Europe.

In each of these areas, Browning reveals the controversies that surround the research launched by Holocaust scholars, then carefully details his conclusions and supports them with meticulous evidence and witness testimony. Most fascinating to me were his views on the Final Solution being officially conceived and planned for in the years before many historians attribute its conception to the Wannsee Conference in 1942.

So very impressive!

[Len Rudner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of Christopher Browning’s 1999 Trevelyan lectures belongs on a special shelf, alongside Hilberg’s “Destruction of the European Jews,” Kershaw’s two-volume biography of Hitler, and his own 1992 consideration of Police Battalion 101, “Ordinary Men.” Browning’s analyses of the centrality of genocide to the Nazi project, the manner in which labour demands occasionally delayed but never seriously impeded the work of mass murder and, of course, the manner in which ordinary men could be radicalized to commit mass murder retain their currency. Most valuable (to me) is Browning’s well-reasoned argument for placing the decision for the genocide of European Jewry in the fall of 1941, rather than in June 1941 (Operation Barbarossa) or January 1942 (Wansee Conference). This underlines the gradual manner in which radicalization from both above and below led to the Final Solution.

[Outmane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short, concise, but rich in informations. It serves as a basic introduction to the Holocaust and the persecution of the Jews. The author focuses on the evolution of the Nazi policy that eventually led to the final solution and the diversity of the decisions taken locally.

[Tammy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good discussion on the policies and practices that embodied the Jewish Question.

[Schopfi · Rating 5 out of 5]

six lectures, surrounding topics such as decision making, motiv structures, social dynamics and spaces for free choice, exploring the murder of millions of jews in europe as a complex process involving society(s) as a whole. important to counteract the (still existing) ingrained narratives surrounding the holocaust (centralized decision-making by hitler, executed exclusively by SS...) and replace them with a more nuanced and socially relevant reading of those events.

[Drake McCrary · Rating 2 out of 5]

The focus of this book is so narrow that it makes it difficult to engage with the content. It's almost as if Browning wrote it to have a conversation with himself.