Christopher Browning

Christopher R. Browning (born May 22, 1944) is an American historian of the Holocaust.

Related Topics:
May 22 - 1944 - American - Historian - The Holocaust

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Browning received his bachelorate from Oberlin College in 1966 and his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1975. He taught at Pacific Lutheran University from 1974 to 1999, eventually becoming a Distinguished Professor. In 1999 he moved to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to accept an appointment as Frank Porter Graham Professor of History.

Related Topics:
Oberlin College - 1966 - University of Wisconsin - 1975 - Pacific Lutheran University - 1974 - 1999 - University of North Carolina

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He is best known for his 1992 book Ordinary men which was a study of German Ordnungspolizei (Order Police) Reserve Unit 101, which was used to massacre and round up Jews for deportation to the death camps in Poland in 1942. The essential argument of the book, which was much influenced by the experiments of Stanley Milgram was that the men of Unit 101 were not demons or Nazi fanatics, but, as the title suggests, ordinary middle-aged men of working-class background from Hamburg, who were drafted but found unfit for military duty. The men were ordered to round up Jews, and, if there was not enough room for them on the trains, to take them out and to shoot them. The commander of the unit gave his men the choice of opting out of this duty if they found it too unpleasant; the majority choose to opt in. Browning argued that the reason why the men of Unit 101 killed was due to peer pressure more than any sort of blood-lust. The clear implication of the book is that if most people, regardless of their nationality, were forced into a group and given the choice between killing and belonging to the group and not killing and not belonging will choose the former.

Related Topics:
Ordnungspolizei - Poland - 1942 - Stanley Milgram - Hamburg

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ordinary Men achieved much acclaim, but was denounced by Daniel Goldhagen for missing what Goldhagen considered the importance of German culture for causing the Holocaust. Goldhagen's 1996 Hitler's Willing Executioners was largely written to rebut Browning's book but attracted largely negative remarks from contemporary Holocaust historians for the quality of its scholarship.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

At the 2000 libel trial of Deborah Lipstadt, who was sued by David Irving, Browning was one of the leading witnesses for Lipstadt.

Related Topics:
Deborah Lipstadt - David Irving

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Browning is a functionalist in regards to the origins of the Holocaust debate. Browning is a self-proclaimed "moderate Funtionalist", meaning that he believes Adolf Hitler had a role in causing the Holocaust, but that the majority of the initiative for the Holocaust came from below. Browning has argued that the Final Solution was result of the "cumulative radicalization" (to use Hans Mommsen's phrase) of the German state, especially when faced with the self-imposed "problem" of the 3 million Jews of mostly Polish nationality whom the Nazis had forced into ghettos between 1939-1941 with the intention of having them and the Jews resident in the Third Reich expelled somewhere further from Germany when a destination was selected. Browning has been able to establish that the phrase "Final Solution to the Jewish Question", which was first used in 1939, meant until 1941, a "territorial solution". Owing to the military developments of World War II and to turf wars within the German bureaucracy, expulsion lost its viability such that by 1941, members of the German bureaucracy were willing to countenance the utter destruction of that population.

Related Topics:
Functionalist - Adolf Hitler - Final Solution - Hans Mommsen - Ghettos - 1939 - 1941 - Germany - World War II

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Browning divides the officials of the Government-General of Poland into two factions. One, whom Browning calls the "Productionists", favoured using the Jews of the ghettos as ready source of slave labour to help with the war effort. The other faction, whom Browning calls the "Attritionists", favoured simply letting the Jews of the ghettos starve and die of diseases. At the same time, there were struggles between the SS and Hans Frank, the Governor-General of Poland. The SS favored the "Lublin Plan" of creating a "Jewish Reservation" in the Lublin, Poland area in which all of the Jews of Greater Germany, Poland and the former Czechoslovakia were to be expelled into. Frank was opposed to the "Lublin Plan", not because of any humane reasons, but rather under the grounds that the SS were "dumping" Jews into his territory.

Related Topics:
SS - Lublin - Poland - Germany - Czechoslovakia

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~