Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland

Major Trapp is a “fifty-three-year-old career policeman” (2) and the commanding officer of Reserve Police Battalion 101. Browning presents him as an essentially decent but arguably weak man, affectionately known by his men as “Papa Trapp” (2). Although “technically qualif[ying] as an ‘old Party fighter,’ or Alter Kämpfer,” he has “never been taken into the SS” and is “clearly not considered SS material” (45).He also clearly does not approve of the orders he has been given and has to “visibly [fight] to control himself” as he passes them on to the men “with choking voice and tears in his eyes” (2).

As the orders are carried out, he refuses to “witness the executions” (57) because he cannot “bear the sight” and policemen remember seeing him “weeping like a child” and asking “Oh, God, why did I have to be given these orders?” (58). Despite this, he still carries out his duties, framing it as a matter in which he has no choice because “the order came from the highest authorities” (2) and “orders are orders” (58).

However, while he does not feel that he has a choice, he ensures that his men do, making them the “extraordinary offer” that anyone who “did not feel up to the task that lay before him […] could step out” (2) and protecting those, like Lieutenant Buchmann, who refuse to kill Jews.