Stefan Kühl

Ordinary Organisations

Why Normal Men Carried Out the Holocaust

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

During the Holocaust, 99 percent of all Jewish killings were carried out by members of state organizations. In this groundbreaking book, Stefan Kühl offers a new analysis of the integral role that membership in organizations played in facilitating the annihilation of European Jews under the Nazis.

Drawing on the well-researched case of the mass killings of Jews by a Hamburg reserve police battalion, Kühl shows how ordinary men from ordinary professions were induced to carry out massacres. It may have been that coercion, money, identification with the end goal, the enjoyment of brutality, or the expectations of their comrades impelled the members of the police battalion to join the police units and participate in ghetto liquidations, deportations, and mass shootings. But ultimately, argues Kühl, the question of immediate motives, or indeed whether members carried out tasks with enthusiasm or reluctance, is of secondary importance. The crucial factor in explaining what theydid was the integration of individuals into an organizational framework that prompted them to perform their roles.

This book makes a major contribution to our understanding of the Holocaust by demonstrating the fundamental role played by organizations in persuading ordinary Germans to participate in the annihilation of the Jews. It will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of organizations, violence, and modern German history, as well as for anyone interested in genocide and the Holocaust.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Polity / Wiley & Sons
• Artikelnr. des Verlages: 1A509502900
• 1. Auflage
• Seitenzahl: 300
• Erscheinungstermin: 7. November 2016
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 228mm x 154mm x 27mm
• Gewicht: 509g
• ISBN-13: 9781509502905
• ISBN-10: 1509502904
• Artikelnr.: 45083181

Autorenporträt

Stefan Kühl is Professor of Sociology at the University of Bielefeld.

Inhaltsangabe

Introduction page 1
1 Beyond "Ordinary Men" and "Ordinary Germans" 18
1.1 The failure of easy answers 21
1.2 From the search for motives to the presentation of motives 31
1.3 The motivation of organization members 36
2 Identification with the Goal 44
2.1 The formation of an antisemitic fictional consensus 46
2.2 How ideological indoctrination secured an antisemitic fictional
consensus 52
2.3 From "impassive acceptance" to "active participation" 55
3 Coercion 58
3.1 Forced recruitment and barriers to exit 61
3.2 Avoiding the membership issue in coercive organizations 65
3.3 The limits of leeway 68
3.4 The freedom in coercion 71
4 Comradeship 74
4.1 The pressure of comradeship and the formation of informal norms 75
4.2 Levels in the formation of comradeship 78
4.3 How are comradeship norms enforced? 81
4.4 Mobilizing comradeship by granting leeway 85
5 Money 88
5.1 The function of regular remuneration for the battalion members 89
5.2 Legalized enrichment through the dispossession of the Jewish population
91
5.3 Enrichment beyond official forms of remuneration and reward 95
5.4 The functionality of misappropriation 99
6 The Attractiveness of Activities 102
6.1 Inhibitions against killing and organizational strategies for
overcoming them 104
6.2 The production of motives: dehumanizing the victims 108
6.3 An organizational culture of brutality 111
7 The Generalization of Motives 114
7.1 The different ways of presenting personal engagement 115
7.2 Managing one's self-presentation 120
7.3 The separation between goals and motives 124
8 From Killers to Perpetrators 129
8.1 The legalization of the state's use of violence 135
8.2 Using violence in the gray zones of legality 139
8.3 The shift in the concept of law under the Nazis 148
8.4 Facilitating killing by legalizing it 152
9 The Normality and Abnormality of Organizations 153
9.1 Beyond the notion of "abnormal organizations" 155
9.2 The expansion of zones of indifference in organizations 159
9.3 Understanding organizations: conclusions 167
Appendix: The Sociological Approach and Empirical Basis 169
Archives 179
Notes 181
References 258
Index 306

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* Introduction
* 1. Beyond "ordinary men" and "ordinary Germans"
* 1.1. The failure of easy answers
* 1.2. From the search for motives to the presentation of motives
* 1.3. The motivation of organization members
* 2. Identification with the goal
* 2.1. The formation of an antisemitic fictional consensus
* 2.2. How ideological indoctrination secured an antisemitic fictional consensus
* 2.3. From "impassive acceptance" to "active participation"
* 3. Coercion
* 3.1. Forced recruitment and barriers to exit
* 3.2. Avoiding the membership issue in coercive organizations
* 3.3. The limits of leeway
* 3.4. The freedom in coercion
* 4. Comradeship
* 4.1. The pressure of comradeship and the formation of informal norms
* 4.2. Levels in the formation of comradeship
* 4.3. How are comradeship norms enforced?
* 4.4. Mobilizing comradeship by granting leeway
* 5. Money
* 5.1. The function of regular remuneration for the battalion members
* 5.2. Legalized enrichment through the dispossession of the Jewish population
* 5.3. Enrichment beyond official forms of remuneration and reward
* 5.4. The functionality of misappropriation
* 6. The attractiveness of activities
* 6.1. Inhibitions against killing and organizational strategies for overcoming them
* 6.2. The production of motives: Dehumanizing the victims
* 6.3. An organizational culture of brutality
* 7. The generalization of motives
* 7.1. The different ways of portraying personal engagement
* 7.2. Managing one's self-presentation
* 7.3. The separation between goals and motives
* 8. From killers to perpetrators
* 8.1. The legalization of the state's use of violence
* 8.2. Using violence in the gray zones of legality
* 8.3. The shift in the concept of law under the Nazis
* 8.4. Facilitating killing by legalizing it
* 9. The normality and abnormality of organizations
* 9.1. Beyond the notion of "abnormal organizations"
* 9.2. The expansion of zones of indifference in organizations
* 9.3. Understanding organizations: Conclusions
* Appendix: The sociological approach and empirical basis
* Archives
* Notes
* Literature
* Index

Rezensionen

"In this masterly researched and subtly conceptualized in-depth analysis of the infamous Police Battalion 101, Stefan Kühl shows hauntingly how the 'normality' of constraints, enrichment, comradeship, routine, and legality enabled Nazi perpetrators to achieve the ultimate abnormality. Ordinary Organizations will soon be considered as one of the key inquiries into the Holocaust."
Thomas Kühne, Clark University

"An extremely interesting book, engaging with theoretical approaches to understanding the Holocaust. Kühl makes a strong case for the explanatory power of organizational sociology in understanding how 'ordinary men' could be brought to engage in acts of killing without seeing themselves as perpetrators. A controversial and stimulating read."
Mary Fulbrook, University College London