EUH 2030 (01-6)

Important Dates:
*Monday, December 1: Discussion and Quiz on Ordinary Men
*Wednesday and Friday, December 3 and 5: Final Lectures and Essay Preparation
*Wednesday, December 10, 9.45 AM: FINAL ESSAY.
BRING A BLUE BOOK. DO NOT WRITE ANYTHING IN OR ON THE BLUE BOOK.

FINAL ESSAY QUESTIONS

You will choose to address ONE of the following four questions. You should plan to write for at
least an hour.
Bring a blue book. You are also encouraged to bring the first paragraph of your essay,
handwritten or typed on a separate sheet of paper. Nothing other than your name and section
number should be included on that piece of paper. You must turn in the full sheet of paper with
your exam.
1. In Ordinary Men, Christopher Browning argues that a “group of normal middle-aged German
men became mass murderers” (p. 37). Do you find Browning’s argument convincing for the case
of Reserve Battalion 101, for Nazi Germany, and for World War II more generally? In your
answer, you should consider the general narrative that Browning offers, as well as the evidence
and theories he draws upon to illuminate his account. Students are also encouraged to draw upon
lecture notes and readings from Sources of the West.

2. To understand the Holocaust, survivor Primo Levi offered the notion of “The Grey Zone.”
Here, he argued that it was impossible simply to divide those involved into “victims and
persecutors” (p. 186). Is this a helpful notion for understanding the Holocaust and the events of
World War II more generally in a sophisticated and analytical fashion? What are its virtues?
What are its shortcomings? Does this framework pose any dangers? In your answer, you should
draw primarily upon Ordinary Men, but also on lecture notes and readings from Sources of the
West.

3. When they went to war, twentieth-century soldiers faced a number of threats. Among
these were the challenges of dehumanization and the loss of faith. These issues presented
challenges to soldiers in World War I, the Spanish Civil War, and the Holocaust. How
have twentieth-century writers addressed these human challenges of war? Were the wars
of the first half of the twentieth century fully destructive to the human spirit? Or were
writers and soldiers able to find hope for the future in unexpected places? Discuss these
questions with regard to the works by selected World War I poets, Spanish Civil War
writer George Orwell, and World War II historian Christopher Browning. In your answer,
you should account for the various challenges that each war presented.

4. We have discussed the twentieth century as a very ideological century, when the ideas of
Communism and Fascism exerted a strong grip on Europe as they threatened the democratic
tradition. In fact, it has been argued that fascism brought Europe into World War II and the
Holocaust. What role did ideology play in the wars and genocides of the 1930s and 1940s? If so,
was it simply the concern of politicians and military leaders? Or did it trickle down to the lives of
common soldiers? In your answer, you should draw upon the selections in Sources of the West,
and you must also discuss Homage to Catalonia and Ordinary Men. You may come up with
different answers for different writers and different wars.
Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men
Reading Guide and Study Sheet. THESE QUESTIONS WILL HELP YOU WITH THE
BOOK, THE QUIZ, AND THE FINAL ESSAY.
To Read: Preface, Chapters 1, 5-18
To Omit: Chapters 2-4, Afterword.

Preface:
1. What sorts of documents did Browning have available for his study? (P. xvii)

Chapter One:
2. Describe, briefly, the members of Reserve Battalion 101
3. What offer did Wilhelm Trapp give to his men?

Chapter Five:
4. Describe the battalion commander.
5. Describe the “rank and file” of the battalion (pp. 47-48).

Chapter Six:
6. Which country was “ground zero” for the mass murder campaign against the Jews?
7. Describe the “special action” for which the battalion received orders on June 20, 1942.

Chapter Seven:
8. Describe the initial reaction of Trapp and the men to their orders at Josefow.
9. Describe some of the ways that the battalion members sought to evade their orders.
10. Describe the response of the men after the Jozefow action. .

Chapter Eight:
11. Approximately how many men from the 500-member battalion took advantage of Trapp’s
initial offer to excuse themselves from duty?
12. What are some of the explanations offered by Browning for this small number?
13. On pp. 76-77, Browning notes two changes introduced to the Battalion to ease their work.
What are these?
14. Who are the Trawnikis?

Chapter Nine:
15. What happens to the members of the Battalion when killing gets less personal? (P. 85)

Chapter Ten:
16. Whom did Captain Wohlauf bring to the battle front? Why? (Pp. 90-93).

Chapter Eleven:
17. How did Trapp’s attitudes to killing change during the second half of 1942? (P. 102)

Chapter Twelve:
18. What sorts of “entertainment” did the Order Police enjoy on the front? Describe the
“entertainment unit.” (P. 112).

Chapter Thirteen:
19. What sorts of afflictions did Captain Hoffmann have?

Chapter Fourteen:
20. Describe the “Jew Hunt.” What sorts of challenges did it pose to the Battalion?

Chapter Fifteen:
21. Describe the “Harvest Festival.”
22. Why did Jews resist at this point in the struggle? (P. 137).

Chapter Seventeen:
23. How did the Battalion members deal with antisemitism in their postwar testimony? (Pp. 150-
53).

Chapter Eighteen:
24. What percentage of the Battalion did NOT become killers? (P. 159)
25. What two factors evident in the Milgram experiments does Browning find evident in the
Police Battalion and its behavior?
26. What is Primo Levi’s notion of the “grey zone” and how does it help us understand the
Battalion?