230. The Siege of Budapest

This book by Christopher R. Browning examines the actions of Reserve Police Battalion 101, a unit of the German Order Police, during World War II. The battalion was responsible for mass shootings and round-ups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi death camps in Poland in 1942. Browning argues that the men of this unit were not fanatical Nazis but ordinary middle-aged, working-class men who committed these atrocities due to group dynamics of conformity, deference to authority, role adaptation, and the altering of moral norms. The book is based on postwar interrogations of former members of the battalion and provides a detailed and chilling glimpse into how ordinary men were transformed into active participants in the Holocaust.

In this book, Goldhagen challenges common myths about the Holocaust, arguing that tens of thousands of ordinary Germans were actively involved in the extermination of European Jewry. He posits that a climate of 'eliminationist anti-Semitism' in German society made Hitler's genocidal goals possible. The book draws on unused archival materials, including the testimony of the killers themselves, to illustrate how ordinary Germans willingly participated in the persecution and murder of Jews during the Holocaust.