Browsing by Author "Ciardelli, Jennifer"

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    Ordinary Soldiers: A Study in Ethics, Law and Leadership
    (Department of History: Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 2014) Beorn, Waitman; Frey, David S.; Prescott, Jody; Skidmore, Gretchen; Ciardelli, Jennifer
    Commanders often confront complex situations in which the imperatives of leadership intertwine with considerations of personal and professional ethics and the law. Using the case study of one Wehrmacht battalion—1st Battalion, 691st Infantry Regiment—on the eastern front in World War II, this lesson examines the chain of events that led to the mass killings of Jewish civilians in the battalion’s area of operations (AO) in October 1941. These events, when considered within the context of the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC), provide a platform for today’s military professionals to think critically about their obligations as members of the military. The aim of this study is to provide military personnel an opportunity to weave understandings of ethics and law into their own developing leadership styles and to understand how, in the context of a particular war and particular military culture, protected civilians were transformed into military targets.
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    Ordinary Soldiers: A Study in Ethics, Law and Leadership
    (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2014) Frey, David S.; Beorn, Waitman; Ciardelli, Jennifer; Skidmore, Gretchen; Prescott, Jody
    IT IS OFTEN CHALLENGING TO FIND A CASE STUDY FOR A LESSON in military leadership and ethics involving the law of armed conflict (LOAC) for which the facts and documentation are sufficient to appeal to ethicists, historians, and lawyers. It is likewise challenging to find such a case study in which company-grade officers are unequivocally presented with an illegal order by a field-grade commander and demonstrate dramatically different responses to the same order in the same situational context. Finally, it is difficult to find these circumstances in the context of regular units, composed of ordinary soldiers, going about their military duties. The experiences of the 1st Battalion, 691st Infantry Regiment, of the German Wehrmacht (armed forces), performing rear-area security duties in the first week of October 1941 in occupied Belarus, meet these stringent requirements.