Overy, Richard. Ordinary Men, Extraordinary Circumstances

Richard Overy’s paper gives an overview of the debates, over the past five decades, between social psychologists and historians about the applicability of the findings of the Milgram Experiment to the question of culpability in the Holocaust. According to Overy, the debate is centred on the question of individual responsibility within the group, the possibility of defiance of authority, and the social and cultural context in which the perpetrator commits the acts. What Overy concludes is that it is important to avoid generalisation when it comes to the application of Milgram’s results on the culpability of Nazi perpetrators and that “situation and disposition are not mutually exclusive” (528).

Overy, Richard. “Ordinary Men, Extraordinary Circumstances: Historians, Social Psychology, and the Holocaust”. Journal of Social Sciences 70.3 (2014). pp. 515-530.