Audio only
Ordinary Men
Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in PolandBy Christopher R. BrowningNarrated by Kevin GallagherLength9h 59m
About this audiobook
“A remarkable—and singularly chilling—glimpse of human behavior. . .This meticulously researched book...represents a major contribution to the literature of the Holocaust."—Newsweek
Now available in audio for the first time, Christopher R. Browning’s shocking account of how a unit of average middle-aged Germans became the cold-blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews—now with a new afterword and additional photographs.
Ordinary Men is the true story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police, which was responsible for mass shootings as well as round-ups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi death camps in Poland in 1942. Browning argues that most of the men of RPB 101 were not fanatical Nazis but, rather, ordinary middle-aged, working-class men who committed these atrocities out of a mixture of motives, including the group dynamics of conformity, deference to authority, role adaptation, and the altering of moral norms to justify their actions. Very quickly three groups emerged within the battalion: a core of eager killers, a plurality who carried out their duties reliably but without initiative, and a small minority who evaded participation in the acts of killing without diminishing the murderous efficiency of the battalion whatsoever.
While this book discusses a specific Reserve Unit during WWII, the general argument Browning makes is that most people succumb to the pressures of a group setting and commit actions they would never do of their own volition.
Ordinary Men is a powerful, chilling, and important work with themes and arguments that continue to resonate today.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 4.3 (34.2K)
Includes Goodreads, Amazon, LibraryThing, StoryGraph
GenreHistory, Psychology
Length9 hrs 59 mins
Narrated byKevin Gallagher
FormatAudiobook
Publish dateApr 7, 2020
LanguageEnglish
A Brief History of IntelligenceMax S. Bennett12h 18m4.6 (6.6K)$29 · $0.00
The Daughter of AuschwitzTova Friedman, Malcolm Brabant7h 54m4.6 (16.7K)$26 · $0.00
Lily's PromiseLily Ebert, Dov Forman8h 54m4.6 (16.1K)$29 · $0.00
On Democracies and Death CultsDouglas Murray10h 38m4.6 (6.5K)$29 · $0.00
Across the RiverKent Babb11h 40m4.6 (927)$29 · $0.00
Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir - Israel, Palestine and BeyondJohn Lyons12h 37m4.6 (1.4K)$33 · $0.00
BeyondStephen Walker15h 39m4.6 (3.2K)$33 · $0.00
Kings and PawnsHoward Bryant10h 9m4.6 (678)$29 · $0.00
No EscapeNury Turkel9h 30m4.6 (809)$28 · $0.00
Jubal Stone: U.S. Marshal: Blood Trail To Hell: A Western Adventure NovelCasey Nash3h 42m4.6 (3.2K)$18 · $0.00
Fall and RiseMitchell Zuckoff17h 23m4.6 (9.8K)$40 · $0.00
The SurvivorJosef Lewkowicz, Michael Calvin9h 22m4.6 (2.5K)$29 · $0.00
Always FaithfulThomas Schueman, Zainullah Zaki12h 12m4.6 (977)$29 · $0.00
The State of Society in France Before the Revolution of 1789 (Annotated)Alexis de Tocqueville17h 25m4.6 (1.2K)$2 · $0.00
All the Gallant MenDonald Stratton, Ken Gire5h 55m4.6 (11.8K)$24 · $0.00
Saint Joan (Annotated)George Bernard Shaw6h 20m4.6 (1.2K)$1.20 · $0.00
Medgar and MyrlieJoy-Ann Reid10h 52m4.5 (27.8K)$29 · $0.00
The History of the Peloponnesian War (Annotated)Thucydides24h 3m4.6 (1.1K)$2 · $0.00
Where the Birds Never SingJack Sacco10h 31m4.6 (3.8K)$29 · $0.00
Serviceman J: The Untold Story of an NZSAS SoldierJamie Pennell5h 51m4.6 (452)$24 · $0.00
What to Make of a LifeJim Collins13h 31m4.4 (794)$33 · $0.00
Braving the TruthRachel Held Evans11h 31m4.7 (359)$29 · $0.00
Level UpRob Dial7h 42m4.6 (3.3K)$26 · $0.00
As a JewSarah Hurwitz8h 36m4.6 (1.2K)$26 · $0.00
Saint Joan (Annotated)George Bernard Shaw6h 20m4.6 (1.2K)$1.20 · $0.00
Burn the HaystackJennie Young, PhD9h 30m4.6 (543)$29 · $0.00
Woman and the New Race (Annotated)Margaret Sanger6h 30m4.6 (1K)$1.99 · $0.00
Good InsideBecky Kennedy9h 55m4.5 (59.3K)$29 · $0.00
The Mis-Education of the NegroCarter Godwin Woodson5h 4m4.5 (29.4K)$1.20 · $0.00
Du Bois: EssaysW.E.B. Du Bois6h 22m4.6 (1.5K)$1 · $0.00
The North American Indian (Illustrated Edition)Edward S. Curtis, Frederick Webb Hodge5h 59m4.6 (1.4K)$2 · $0.00
Valley of the BirdtailAndrew Stobo Sniderman, Douglas Sanderson10h 1m4.6 (2.4K)$29 · $0.00
Lies My Therapist Told MeGreg E. Gifford9h 3m4.6 (503)$29 · $0.00
Disturbed in Their NestsAlephonsion Deng, Judy A. Bernstein11h 22m4.6 (595)$23 · $0.00
No Name in the StreetJames Baldwin5h4.5 (8.5K)$20 · $0.00
Narrative of the Life of Frederick DouglassFrederick Douglass4h 13m4.5 (309.9K)$1.20 · $0.00
Magic SeasonWade Rouse6h 41m4.6 (855)$24 · $0.00
Consent Laid BareChanel Contos7h 11m4.5 (1.7K)$24 · $0.00
The Big RevealSasha Velour6h 15m4.5 (2.1K)$24 · $0.00
EssaysGeorge Orwell26h 38m4.5 (8.4K)$4 · $0.00
You may also like
WannseePeter Longerich4h 41m4.1 (482)$15
Come On, Man!Joe Concha7h 46m4.5 (1.1K)$26 · $0.00
The HolocaustDan Stone10h4.3 (1.5K)$29 · $0.00
Same River, TwiceSofi Oksanen6h 29m4.4 (1.5K)$24 · $0.00
1920Eric Burns12h 41m3.9 (1.1K)$23
The Rape of NankingIris Chang8h 4m4.4 (98.8K)$17
End of a Berlin DiaryWilliam L. Shirer15h 15m4.3 (814)$23
No Treason (Complete Edition)Lysander Spooner3h 52m4.3 (3.9K)$1.99 · $0.00
American MidnightAdam Hochschild15h 6m4.3 (6.6K)$33 · $0.00
The German WarNicholas Stargardt24h 12m4.4 (4.6K)$30
The Big LieDinesh D’Souza9h 30m4.0 (8.1K)$20
Lies My Liberal Teacher Told MeWilfred Reilly9h 28m4.2 (1.1K)$29 · $0.00
The Kindly OnesJonathan Littell39h 7m4.0 (19.3K)$53 · $0.00
In the Midst of Civilized EuropeJeffrey Veidlinger14h 45m4.4 (444)$33 · $0.00
The Rising SunJohn Toland41h 5m4.5 (22.4K)$30
Hitler's FuriesWendy Lower8h 24m4.0 (19.7K)$26 · $0.00
Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Volume 13, Nuremburg 14 November 1945-1 October 1946Various29h 33m$2.30
The Nuremberg Trials: Complete Tribunal Proceedings (V. 12)International Military Tribunal28h 54m$1.99
Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Volume 10, Nuremburg 14 November 1945-1 October 1946Various31h 31m$2.30
The Nuremberg Trials: Complete Tribunal Proceedings (V. 18)International Military Tribunal27h 32m$1.99 · $0.00