Ordinary Organisations

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