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Near the end of the reading, Browning reveals how perplexed he is by these seemingly normal people and how they became killers. He revealed that the vast majority of “soldiers” in Police Battalion 101 had the opportunity to escape having to systematically murdering the Jews in the ghetto of Northern Poland described in the reading, they even saw men step out of line and be excused from their orders. So they were not coerced by unbreakable orders. Neither were they indoctrinated, as they were older men, or hiding behind a desk, using that as an excuse. Browning brings up that the motivation was perhaps anti Semitism, though very few of the perpetrators spoke of it at all. Browning suggests that this could have either been because it was not the reason the slaughter happened, or that it was so “pervasive” that it never even entered their minds. Despite this suggestion, Browning leaves these men’s reasons obscure in the end, leaving the reader to decide for himself. Though it is suggested that one cannot judge these Germans for their actions in our current state of mind, I will anyway because I do not believe these people deserve the benefit of the doubt. These men who committed these atrocities, those who ended the life of even one innocent person, are arguably some of the most reprehensible and vile humans to have ever existed. I may even give those who killed one person and couldn’t take it anymore the benefit of the doubt, but those who stood there all day, firing away at women, children and the elderly stooped to a level of humanity that I cannot even fathom. To me this event could possibly represent a complete lack of character on the parts of these men, yet I cannot believe that these everyday men just happened to coincidently lack character in astonishing degrees. Rather I believe the statement made by this reading is one about human nature, that the unthinking man (as Browning brings up mildly), one without a credo, standards of grandeur, or the ability or will to question authority, is a weapon of mass destruction, especially when in the hands of a madman. The reason these men became killers is nihilism, the lack of caring, of feeling, and most dangerously the refusal to question what one is asked to do. Some may claim this is not true, as these men became psychologically disturbed and were deeply affected by their actions. Yet they still acted, they refused to say no and refused to stop after killing so many. If they did care, they did not care enough to stop doing anything, even though there were very minor repercussions for doing so. Acting mindlessly, without care or mercy, for a cause one clearly does not agree with (as Browning spoke of the weeping and reluctance of the men to obey orders) is the greatest definition of nihilism I have ever seen. So Nietzsche’s greatest fear was realized in Hitler’s triumph of his will and creation of his version of the ubermench. While Hitler may have created his own value and system of morals, he created a generation of German nihilists in doing so.