Ordinary Organisations

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

• Introduction page 11 Beyond “Ordinary Men” and “Ordinary Germans” 181.1 The failure of easy answers 211.2 From the search for motives to the presentation of motives 311.3 The motivation of organization members 362 Identification with the Goal 442.1 The formation of an antisemitic fictional consensus 462.2 How ideological indoctrination secured an antisemitic fictional consensus 522.3 From “impassive acceptance” to “active participation” 553 Coercion 583.1 Forced recruitment and barriers to exit 613.2 Avoiding the membership issue in coercive organizations 653.3 The limits of leeway 683.4 The freedom in coercion 714 Comradeship 744.1 The pressure of comradeship and the formation of informal norms 754.2 Levels in the formation of comradeship 784.3 How are comradeship norms enforced? 814.4 Mobilizing comradeship by granting leeway 855 Money 885.1 The function of regular remuneration for the battalion members 895.2 Legalized enrichment through the dispossession of the Jewish population 915.3 Enrichment beyond official forms of remuneration and reward 955.4 The functionality of misappropriation 996 The Attractiveness of Activities 1026.1 Inhibitions against killing and organizational strategies for overcoming them 1046.2 The production of motives: dehumanizing the victims 1086.3 An organizational culture of brutality 1117 The Generalization of Motives 1147.1 The different ways of presenting personal engagement 1157.2 Managing one’s self-presentation 1207.3 The separation between goals and motives 1248 From Killers to Perpetrators 1298.1 The legalization of the state’s use of violence 1358.2 Using violence in the gray zones of legality 1398.3 The shift in the concept of law under the Nazis 1488.4 Facilitating killing by legalizing it 1529 The Normality and Abnormality of Organizations 1539.1 Beyond the notion of “abnormal organizations” 1559.2 The expansion of zones of indifference in organizations 1599.3 Understanding organizations: conclusions 167Appendix: The Sociological Approach and Empirical Basis 169Archives 179Notes 181References 258Index 306

�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