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For most, Jozefow was the first occasion wherein these men had to kill and the procedure devolved into such a gruesome catastrophe that it forever altered the perpetrators. After such an indoctrination it is easy to understand that future endeavors of the like seemed easier to perform, both in method and conscience. After murdering for almost a full calendar day, the men retired to the barracks without speaking a word of what had just transpired and plunged quickly into the act of psychological repression. After successfully hiding the magnitude of their participation at Jozefow, subsequent killings in and around Serokomla became routine. In stark contrast to the somber mood after their first killings, the event in Serokomla was treated by most as just another day of work. Regardless of the fact that “bodies of dead Jews were simply left lying in the gravel pits,” the men seemed unfazed as they “stopped in Kock, where they had an afternoon meal.”<ref>Browning, 100.</ref>
[[File:101 poles to cattle trains circa 1941.jpg|thumbnail|250px300px|Members of the 101 marching Polish Jews to cattle trains for deportation, 1941.]]
Repression apparently worked towards desensitization in the immediate aftermath; however, long term psychological consequences were not to be avoided. The men suffered what we today refer to as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which manifests in various forms including physical symptoms, nightmares, and outright psychosis. Commander of the HSSPF Central Division, Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski was diagnosed with an “‘incapacitating illness’” and also suffered from “‘visions in connection with the shootings of the Jews…and from other difficult experiences in the east.’”<ref>Browning, 25.</ref>
Browning provides examples such as these as a means by which the reader can equate PTSD and other psychological ramifications to modern, non-Fascist societies, thereby magnifying his position that most men of the 101st were in fact ordinary and common to us all. For example, American veterans of the Vietnam “conflict” still exhibit symptoms of PTSD more than four decades after experiencing combat and killing. Like the Hamburg men in Poland, the Americans in Southeast Asia became killers of varying degrees; eager, obedient, and empathetic. The becoming of an identity costs the individual the previous assumed identity he once held, thereby producing an essentially new person at the expense of the old. For example, Lieutenant Buchmann was once the owner of a lumber yard in Hamburg, Germany prior to 1939. Once drafted into the Order Police he was no longer capable of defining himself as a civilian as he was forced to become a militant operative. Major Wilhelm Trapp was once a decorated and honorable soldier, yet in 1942 it was ordered that he become the leader of a squad that murdered innocent and helpless civilians. Perhaps some of the tears he shed that day in Jozefow were a sign of mourning for the loss of his identity and the picture he painted of the actions of an honorable soldier.
== Different Types of Killers ==
At the conclusion of World War I, Germany was effectively in a state of reconstruction. National morale was at its lowest and hunger and poverty were widespread and in some instances, devastating. The triumph of the Nazi Party and the ensuing war rejuvenated German national spirit. In the eyes of many civilians, this was to due Adolph Hitler and his minions, thus prompting those in society who benefitted from the Nazi regime to succumb to the preponderance of ideological propaganda. As is posited by Browning, “more Germans voted Nazi for reasons other than anti-Semitism.”<ref>Browning, 198.</ref>However, after being conscripted and exposed to the ultimate mission of the Party, some of the reservists from Hamburg became something other than Nazi supporters. After learning the true nature of the battalion’s mission in Jozefow, Heinz Buchmann stated he “‘would in no case participate in such an action, in which defenseless women and children are shot.’”<ref>Browning, 56.</ref>He was in the vast minority of men who did not shoot, whereas some who did kill once were then unable to continue, as is evidenced by the recollection of a policeman who had “‘become so sick that I [he] simply couldn’t anymore.’”<ref>Browning, 67.</ref>
In contrast to men that became both pysically and mentally ill due to killing another human being, a small percentage of men devolved into sadists. For instance, while rounding up Jews to be killed in Lomazy, Lieutenant Gnade forced the elderly Jewish men to “‘crawl on the ground in the area before the grave’” and forced his non-commissioned officers to retrieve clubs and beat the victims before they were killed.<ref>Browning, 83.</ref>Prior to this, Gnade had been so loathsome at the prospect of having to witness the actions taken against the prisoners he and his men assisted in deporting, he took a midnight train from Minsk back to Hamburg so as to avoid witnessing their execution. This is but one example Browning utilizes to support his thesis that the men of the 101st were not eager to assume the role of unfeeling murderers, but rather they had to become killers.
== Conclusion ==
[[File:jozefowmemorial.jpg|thumbnail|300px|Memorial to the victoms of Jozefow.]]
Reservists in Police Battalion 101 were ordinary citizens before they became killers for the Reich. They were initiated into the world of murder via the most horrific means imaginable, resulting in a stoic resolution for most to continue with their duties. The primary subgroup of killers was comprised of men who “did whatever they were asked to do, without ever risking the onus of confronting authority.”<ref>Browning, 215.</ref> Nor did these men wish to suffer the detrimental judgment of their peers who confused courage with conformity. Men such as Buchmann, who refused to kill without sound justification, became courageous, whereas men akin to Gnade became sadistic and unfortunately were used as models of stereotypical Germans during the Nazi era. The men of the 101st who were killers, on any level, had to become killers through self-enacted psychological manipulation and other numbing agents such as alcohol, as “‘such a life was intolerable sober.’”<ref>Browning, 82.</ref>Conversely, those who did not kill became something contrary to Nazi ideology; they became courageous, as it takes some modicum of valor to adhere to one’s innate humanity and fundamental moral code under such inhumane and immoral circumstances.
==References==
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[[Category:Wikis]] [[Category:World War II]] [[Category:Holocaust]] [[Category:German History]] [[Category:Polish History]] [[Category:Military History]]
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