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==== Life Before the 101 ====
Heinz Buchmann,*, the proprietor of a lumber business in Hamburg, was drafted into the order police in 1939.<ref> Browning, 56.Browning changed the names of some of the reservists and denoted such changes by an asterisk. This format will be maintained in this essay.</ref>He did not volunteer for service in the battalion nor did he have aspirations to become an officer. He was selected for officer training as he was well educated and considered middle-class, as opposed to the 63 percent of the battalion who were deemed working-class.<ref>Browning, 47.</ref> This middle-aged group of civilians had jobs, homes, families, and friends. Their societal participation was conducted in relative anonymity as they undertook no exceptional acts; they were average men. Though he was ranked in the middle-class, Buchmann was no different. Browning clearly notes that Buchmann was described as a “‘typical civilian’ who had no desire to be a soldier.”<ref>Browning, 103.</ref> This became evident in the summer of 1940 when he asked to be discharged after serving as a driver in Poland less than a year after the German invasion on September 1, 1939.
By utilizing the timeframe noticeably provided by Browning, it can be extrapolated that Buchmann witnessed a great amount of violence and carnage that was incompatible with his moral composition. It is illogical to conclude that Buchmann wanted to be discharged if he was innately inclined to kill. His discharge was summarily denied, thereby placing him in a situation where he had to become either a killer or one courageous enough to adhere to his humanity as the Order Police, Einsatzgruppen, or any other killing squad was not an environment conducive to stagnation. Men such as Buchmann were the exceptions, whereas 80-90 percent of the battalion committed murder. Without employing their own forms of psychological tools, they may not have possessed the ability to kill. One method utilized as a form of rationalization was to deflect the act of execution onto a higher authority.
