One from four; on what Jäckel, Hilberg and Goldhagen have in common and what is unique about Christopher Browning

Contends that both the functionalist Raul Hilberg, who focuses on the role of Nazi bureaucracy in the Holocaust, and the intentionalist Eberhard Jäckel, who focuses on the role of Hitler's ideology, did not actually study the nature of Nazi perpetrators. They claim that the perpetrators were not antisemites, but carried out their murderous acts in order to receive benefits or rewards. Their views are teleological, as is that of Daniel Goldhagen, who argues that the Holocaust was the result of a build-up of antisemitism among Germans from the 19th century on. Christopher Browning's "Ordinary Men" (1992), however, is not teleological. Browning contends that most of the members of Reserve Police Battalion 101 participated in the genocide simply because soldiers who refused to carry out brutal tasks were considered cowardly.