World War 2 History - Essay Example

World War II History Even though the world has witnessed numerous creepy events which jam the mind and leave everyone agape, none of them near the memories of the brutality of the Eastern facade and Pacific drama of World War II. The world remains dumbfounded by the atrocities and viciousness imposed not only on the military but also civilians. The biggest obscurity that remains is who should bear the culpability of the Holocaust. Millions of questions fizz out of the World War II brutality, but unfortunately, neither satisfactory answer has ever been reached nor is there any in the near future. The answers to evolving questions still remain oblivious with many wondering about the motives and the driving force behind the Holocaust. However, through their stories, Christopher Browning, Sledge Barrow, and Gerald Linderman try to explore some of the drivers of such brutalities witnessed with “ordinary men” of Reserve Police Battalion 101 during World War II. Browning attempts to shed light on the outrageous behavior of “ordinary men” of Reserve Police Battalion 101 in the period of German invasion of Poland. On the other hand, Sledge explores the physical and psychological tortures that the United States marine went through in their bid to survive during offensive action in Peleliu and Okinawa, which was also reflected by Linderman. All these men crafted literature on the experiences of ordinary men during the war, which compelled them to execute horrific and baffling actions. The main role of Reserve Police Battalion 101 in Poland was to clear ghetto and to extradite the Jews to rear regions by train. According to Browning, most of the members of this group were neither Nazis nor trained for war (3–4). Interestingly, the men turned out to be one of the most efficient executioners of innocent civilians. Jozefow, Poland, marks the group’s initial murder stage, which became a future plan for successive murder operations. The Battalion commander, Major Wilhelm Trap, came up with a solution for those who could not accomplish the task of killing their victims by relieving them of their duty. However, only a few members bought his idea of the reprieve offer. It beats logic and exposes extreme meanness when ordinary men were matched one-on-one with their victims, which presented the murders as more individual. The men felt resentment and depression from the killing when they later retreated into their camps (Barrow 69). The commanders of the men resorted to making alcohol accessible, perhaps, to frozen the feelings and experience and also to help the men to cope. Browning further argues that some of the members of Reserve Police Battalion 101 requested to quit when the executions began, while others seemed to enjoy their role (70). The idea of taking lives is quite a traumatizing experience. Apparently, those who were leaving were so withdrawn to pull the trigger with their weapons, and more so, on a face-to-face execution basis of their victims. As the battalions participated in numerous operations to capture and exterminate the Jews, they became more oriented to killing and would even derive pleasure from killing their victims (Browning 127). In spite of the reluctance to shoot their Jew victims, it did not make any better their callous capture and delivery of the Jew captives to their murder sites. Browning argues that "Spared direct participation in the killing, the men...seemed scarcely to have been disturbed" (Browning 90). Quite a large number of the battalions took part in organized murders in their attempt to “cleanse” Poland. The successive executions were based on the plan developed in Jozefow, when the very first executions were made efficiently and effectively by the ordinary men. In the later killings, the Jews were led to the forest, ordered to lie down and then gunned on their necks. Because of their involvement in countless shootings of the Jews, the men became so murder-oriented that they even became efficient in dispelling the killings from their minds as they perfected their mandate: killing the Jews. The repeated killings, most certainly, eliminated the human side of the battalion men, leaving them to act as numb creatures. Further, the Police Battalion also hunted down the Jews who were hiding in the forest and other places for their lives. The hunting process was, indeed, distinct from extraditions and organized carnages. Browning argues that "each individual policeman once again had a considerable degree of choice" (Browning 27). The hunting turned into a kind of a game where murder became more of an individual affair as the men encountered their victims one-on-one. A couple of the battalion members were more than motivated to participate in the killings, which leaves one questioning whether any pinch of humanity really existed in them. This is evident when a policeman appeared when Lieutenant Brand and his family were having breakfast. Responding to an order by the Lieutenant, he says he has not taken his breakfast, which he goes ahead to clarify as not having murdered any Jews (Browning 127). One of the most common theories that explain what motivated the killings stemmed from the fact that the Jews were responsible for the miseries of the Germans and the collapse of the German empire. As the entire German community, the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 were completely absorbed in racism inundation and anti-semantic fallacy. Clearly, the indoctrination resources administered to the men were not suitable for them. They were precisely intended for the SS or frontline divisions. The inhuman behavior of the ordinary men was most likely fueled by the notion of racial supremacy over the Jews and kinship. On the other hand, Sledge’s experience and the Pacific theater present a distinct scenario. Sledge says that he became part of the Marines because he was "prompted by a deep feeling of uneasiness that the war might be over before [he] could get overseas into combat..." (5). The defense strategy of the Japanese came into force after devastating banzai incrimination of Guadalcanal and Spain. The defense strategy was aimed at keeping away the Americans from invading the Japanese mainland. The Marines did not just encounter merciless Japanese military – they also had to endure an intimidating jungle. The harsh jungle together with many cruel opponents drove the Marines off the humanity. The environment to which they were exposed separated them from reality. They walked immersed in mud and decaying corpses. The Marines had to lose their touch with human feelings in order to cope with the intimidating situation. Sledge explores his experience of the environment the Marines went through. “The shovel skidded into the rotting abdomen with a squishing sound” (Sledge 302). Sledge explains how the marines built feelings of vengeance upon bumping on bodies of decaying fellow marines. The death of Marine members sparked hatred for the Japanese soldiers, both dead and disabled. The Marines went as far as urinating on the mouths of dead and brutally injured Japanese soldiers. According to Gerald Linderman, American soldiers anticipated that the Japanese military would fight in line with the known convention. To their disbelief, the Japanese methodically executed injured soldiers and tormented detainees to death. They “generally treated captured Filipino and U.S. soldiers horrendously” (Chickering, Forster, and Greiner 26). However, Linderman fails to acknowledge the stereotype that had long existed with the white Americans, meaning to dehumanize the Japanese not only in the warfare but in the American society. Linderman exposes the brutal nature of Marine commander, Paul Moore, Jr. who presented to him a dead young Japanese soldier (Linderman 15). One of the most vivid differences between the German and the Japanese brutalities is that the Germans tended to act undercover. They managed to feign their pain in extraditing their victims to the east and separating them from the Germans. With the Japanese soldiers, they executed their victims in public. Their atrocities would be covered in the newspapers and met with cheers at home. The German atrocities were tied to the regeneration, enlightenment and conventional democratic philosophy. On the other hand, the Japanese traditions were racist and aimed at rallying support for the country. Their perception was that other races and cultures beside the Japanese were inferior. Arguably, it is easy to carry out any malicious harm to people who are categorized as subhuman. They are viewed as not worth a life. Dehumanizing the enemy helps to cast away guilt and culpability. Morality does not preach on how to butcher fellow human beings and holds that all cultures and people are equal. Works Cited Browning, Christopher R. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. New York: HarperCollins, cop., 1993. Print. Chickering, Roger, Stig Forster, and Bernd Greiner. A World at Total War: Global Conflict and the Politics of Destruction, 1937-1945 Ed. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Print. Linderman, Gerald F. The World within War: America's Combat Experience in World War II. London: Harvard University Press, 1999. Print. Sledge, E. B. With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa. Presidio Press, 2007. Print. Read More