Police Battalion 101

For large dressions, those who would not fling off were not compelled. Even officers' attempts to force individual nonshooters to kill could be refuse (171).

Certainly, most of the members of the battalion participated, but the f modus operandi that some of the men did defy the forces of propaganda, dehumanization of the Jews, conformity, fear of ostracism, and so on, indicates that not "every unriv totallyed" was heretoforely a murderer or that at that placefore it can be said that " whatsoever hotshot" would be a murderer under those circumstances.

However, even of every single person in the battalion threw himself eagerly into every killing spree, this in no way "absolves" the killers, no matter what the forces were which were lined up to lead them to kill. How are the automatic killers to be assessed morally compared to those who blockd or outright refused? Are not the latter proof that an individual can indeed conduct up against tremendous forces in order to not act cold-bloodedely? Indeed, they are such(prenominal) proof.

This does not mean that one should judge or condemn those who did kill, whether eagerly or not. Truly, one cannot know what one will do under such circumstances. Nevertheless, the fact that some did behave humanely, did refuse or evade orders, refused to volunteer, braved peer pressure and ostracism, acted according to their consciences instead of their self-preservation and need to be accepted by their colleagues--these facts all

indicate, again, that some were able to overcome those circumstances.

Browning, Christopher R. Ordinary Men. New York: HarperPerennial, 1998.

The working by Browning and Frankl make the issue of good and vile far more complicated than perhaps most population would like it to be. All Nazis are supposed to be inhuman cruel beasts, but these books introduce gray areas where such a stereotype is not always accepted, or is not true to the extent which prevails in such a stereotype.

Viktor Frankl, in Man's depend for Meaning, examines the relationship between human condition and the human apparitional dimension of emancipation and meaning.

Relevant to Browning's study is Frankl's discussion of the responsibleness of the individual to recognize his or her freedom of choice, despite the conditioning circumstances which prevail, and to take action based on that freedom which will transcend that conditioning. By basing his book and his logotherapy on the experiences he endured in a concentration camp, Frankl makes it possible for the reader to turn around that an individual can be free under any conditions. If Frankl and other camp victims can do it, then anybody can. Frankl writes: " mankind kindness can be found in all groups, even those which as a whole it would be cushy to condemn" (107). Here Frankl is suggesting that there are good and ruffianly men in every social group. Just as there were individuals who quickly chose to surrender to the conditioning and cooperate with the Nazis in order to advance their own personal agenda, so were there Nazis who, despite their own social conditioning, showed kindness to the camp victims. Frankl's saddle is that, like physiological conditioning, social conditioning cannot be used as an excuse for one's action or lack of action, or for one's use of freedom or decision to not act in freedom. In both cases, the meaning of one's life is primed(p) by individual responsibility and cho
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