By definition an atrocity is explained as an extremely wicked or cruel act that typically involves physical violence or injury. Unfortunately, atrocities have become a common occurrence throughout history when looking at major wars. With the definition in mind, it is easy to acknowledge that World War II involved many atrocities. A few examples include, Adolf Hitler’s plan for Germany to exterminate Jews and Japan’s ruthless massacre of Chinese soldiers and civilians. Why do things like this happen? How do things like this happen? People want to think that the perpetrators are unlike regular people. They want to believe that they are savages or sadists that seek a cruel thrill for murdering innocent people. In reality, they really aren’t. They started off as normal people, but they were all somehow persuaded into thinking what they were doing was right. There seem to be two common themes of how these atrocities occurred, one being the respect for military discipline and authority that soldiers had and the second being the ability to adapt or conform to the cruel behaviors that they were ordered to take part in.
To begin, Christopher Browning gives his intake about the atrocity committed by “Reserve Police Battalion101” of Nazi Germany. The Battalion was made up of middle-aged family men of the working and lower class who were considered too old to be drafted into the German army, so instead they were drafted into the Order Police. They were all regular civilians with no prior military experience. Since they were all older, they actually knew of a period of time before the Nazi party took over in Germany. Browning stresses,
“These were men who had known political standards and moral norms other than those of the Nazis. Most came from Hamburg, by reputation one of the least nazified cities in Germany, and the majority came from a social class that had been anti-Nazi in its political culture. These would not seem to have been a very promising group from which to recruit mass murderers on behalf on the Nazi vision of a racial utopia free of Jews” (Browning, 1992).
After the policemen of Reserve Battalion 101 received their training, they were sent on orders to “racially purify” the territories in Poland, which meant they were to rid the area of Jews. Their missions mostly consisted of transporting the Jews to camps and keeping guard of the camps. It wasn’t until July 13, 1942, a few years after the men were drafted into the Order Police, where they received disgustingly unpleasant orders from their commander, Major Trapp. He addressed the battalion and informed them these orders are coming from the highest authorities in Germany. Major Trapp stated that the Jews instigated the American boycott that had damaged Germany and that there were Jews in the city of Józefów who were involved in it. Major Trapp hesitantly relayed the orders to Reserve Battalion 101 to round up the Jews in this town. The male Jews of working age were to be separated and taken to a work camp, while all other remaining Jews including women and children were to be shot on the spot. Major Trapp offered to let any of his men step out of this mission. Only 13 of 500 took him up on this offer. The rest participated, but they didn’t like it and some of them eventually asked to be relieved of their duties. The murders didn’t stop in Józefów for Reserve Battalion 101 though. In fact, their orders at Józefów basically normalized them to the task of murder. They conformed and adapted to this behavior of killing Jews and continued with it. This led to them going on Jew hunts where they brutally killed Jews hiding in the woods and the Harvest Festival Massacre which was the single largest German killing operation against the Jews in the entire war.
How could so many “normal” working class men conform to this behavior where they brutally murdered thousands of Jews? I believe it has to deal with two factors. Respect for authority and having the ability to conform and adapt to cruel behavior. Respect for authority can be related to an experiment conducted by Stanley Milgram. In short, he had participants send shockwaves to other “participants” in a separate room for answering a question wrong. What the participants that were administering the shocks didn’t know was that nobody was really getting shocked and the “participant” in the other room was actually one of Milgram’s confederates and he was faking his screams. Each time Milgram’s confederate would get an answer wrong, the real participant was ordered by the exam administer to send a higher frequency shockwave. This can be directly related to Reserve Police Battalion 101. On page 58 of “Ordinary Men” a quote from a policeman who had a conversation with Major Trapp about their orders for Józefów said, “Today I can still see exactly before my eyes Major Trapp there in the room pacing back and forth with his hands behind his back. He made a downcast impression and spoke to me. He said something like, ‘Man, … such jobs don’t suit me. But orders are orders.’” If Major Trapp really wanted to, he could have refused to give these orders to Reserve Battalion 101 and suffer the consequences, but he didn’t because “orders are orders.” He gave the orders because they came from a higher authority than him and he felt it was his duty to follow those orders.
Another atrocity that occurred during World War II was Japan’s ruthless massacre of Chinese soldiers and civilians, particularly the attack at Nanking. Iris Chang’s book “The Rape Of Nanking” offers some insight. During this atrocity, Japanese troops had taken over Nanking, a Chinese city. With over a half a million Chinese civilians and over ninety thousand Chinese troops in the city, the Japanese army captured them all. The Japanese soldiers convinced the Chinese soldiers into surrendering and giving up their arms. With about 15,000 Chinese soldiers captured, the Japanese received orders to kill the prisoners. They completed these orders.
Since most of the Chinese soldiers were either killed or being held captive, there was virtually no one left to protect the civilians of Nanking. The Japanese soldiers received orders from headquarters that read “KILL ALL CAPTIVES” (Chang, 1997). They also completed these orders. This is where the nightmare began for Nanking. Women were brutally raped, tortured, and killed by Japanese soldiers even though the army outlawed rape. Chang (1997) explains, “…rape remained so deeply embedded in Japanese military culture that no one took the rule seriously.” Here is another example of soldiers having respect for military discipline and authority. The soldiers were so disciplined to their specific military culture that even though rape of enemy women was clearly outlawed, they made it a point to rape basically every woman they encountered in Nanking.
It is disgusting to think about, but who can say of us would have acted differently from these men. They were so brainwashed by their respect for military discipline and authority that they literally didn’t know any better because this was all they knew.