Were the Perpetrators of Genocide “Ordinary Men” or “Real Nazis”? Results from Fifteen Hundred Biographies

An analysis of the largest such sample yet assembled, this article surveys the biographies of 1,581 men and women involved in Nazi genocide. The quantitative study of these perpetrators suggests that they resemble “Real Nazis” more than they do “Ordinary Germans.” Most of the Sudeten Germans, the women, and the foreign ethnic-Germans who were recruited only after the Wehrmacht “liberated” their countries did seem relatively “ordinary.” But among the remaining ninety percent of the sample, two-thirds were long-term Nazis, a third had been prewar extremists, and “careers” In violence were common. Perpetrators came disproportionately from “core Nazi constituencies.” The more committed Nazis were of higher rank and longer experience—bringing the pressures of hierarchy and comradeship to bear on newer recruits. Previous scholars have shown how the Nazi movement was “radicalized” into genocide; biographies of its participants illustrate the social processes, institutional cultures, and power relations involved.