Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (93 page)

19
On the total number of Jews killed (19,655), see Brandon, “First Wave.” For the “Hundreds of Jews . . . running down the street,” see
Verbrechen der Wehrmacht
, 99. On the nationality of the prisoners, see Himka, “Ethnicity,” 8.

20
The idea of double collaboration as biographical self-cleansing is advanced in Gross,
Neighbors.
For examples from Estonia, Ukraine, and Belarus of double collaboration, see Weiss-Wendt,
Estonians
, 115-119;
Dubno: sefer zikaron
, 698-701; Rein, “Local Collaborators,” 394; Brakel,
Unter Rotem Stern
, 304; Musial,
Mythos
, 266; and Mironowicz,
Białoruś
, 160. See also Snyder, “West Volhynian Jews.” A systematic study of double collaboration would be worthwhile.

21
This is the closest that I would come to an Arendtian argument about alienation. Arendt’s follower Jan Gross makes a similar argument about the privatization of violence in his study of the first Soviet occupation,
Revolution from Abroad.
But then in his studies of the consequences of two occupations,
Neighbors
and
Fear
, he shifts away from sociology and toward ethics, as if Poles should have remembered themselves when German occupation was added to Soviet, or Soviet to German. In my view the logical move would have been to press forward with the Arendtian argument, but claiming that the overlap of both “totalitarian” powers plays the historical role that Arendt assigned to modernity. This is not quite what Gross claims (although he makes gestures in this direction in
Upiorna dekada
and in a few passages in both
Neighbors
and
Fear
). But I do think it follows from his occupation studies as a whole, if they are read as studies of human behavior (rather than of Polish ethics). This line of argument is pursued in the Conclusion.

22
Westermann, “Ideological Soldiers,” 46 (30% and 66%).

23
Compare Gerlach, “Nazi Decision,” 476.

24
Longerich,
Himmler
, 551; Kay,
Exploitation
, 106. On Uman, see USHMM-SBU 4/1747/19-20.

25
Matthäus, “Controlled Escalation,” 225; Gerlach,
Kalkulierte Morde
, 555; Kershaw,
Fateful Choices
, 456, 458. Cüppers, in
Wegbereiter
, develops the argument about the crucial early role of the Waffen-SS.

26
Kay,
Exploitation
, 107; Browning, “Nazi Decision,” 474. Pohl notes that the reinforcements came first to Ukraine; see
Herrschaft
, 152. He specifies early August as the time when Einsatzgruppe C understood that women and children were to be killed; see “Schauplatz,” 140.

27
Mallmann,
Einsatzgruppen
, 97.

28
Pohl, “Schauplatz,” 142; Kruglov, “Jewish Losses,” 274-275;
Verbrechen der Wehrmacht
, 135
.

29
Kruglov, “Jewish Losses,” 275.

30
Ruß, “Massaker,” 494, 503, 505; Berkhoff, “Records,” 294; Pohl, “Schauplatz,” 147.

31
Berkhoff,
Harvest
, 65-67, at 65; FVA 3267.

32
Darmstadt testimony, 29 April 1968, IfZ(M), Gd 01.54/78/1762.

33
Ruß, “Massaker,” 486; Berkhoff,
Harvest
, 68. On Sara, see Ehrenburg,
Black Book
, Borodyansky-Knysh testimony. On the valuables, see Dean, “Jewish Property,” 86. On the people “already bloody,” see “Stenogramma,” 24 April 1946, TsDAVO, 166/3/245/118. On the bones and ash and sand, see Klee,
Gott mit uns
, 136.

34
Darmstadt testimony, 29 April 1968, IfZ(M), Gd 01.54/78/1764-1765; Berkhoff, “Records,” 304.

35
Prusin, “SiPo/SD,” 7-9; Rubenstein,
Unknown
, 57. Romanowsky makes the point about the rotation of official enemies in “Nazi Occupation,” 240.

36
Rubenstein,
Unknown
, 54, 57, 61; Prusin, “SiPo/SD,” 7-9.

37
On Kharkiv, see Pohl, “Schauplatz,” 148; and
Verbrechen der Wehrmacht
, 179. On Kiev, see Prusin, “SiPo/SD,” 10.

38
Gerlach,
Kalkulierte Morde
, 544, 567. Nebe was a member of the resistance to Hitler in 1944.

39
Megargee,
Annihilation
, 99.

40
Quotation and figures are from Gerlach,
Kalkulierte Morde
, 588, 585; see also Ingrao, “Violence,” 231.

41
For the “sea of blood,” see Gerlach,
Kalkulierte Morde
, 182. For “thus must be destroyed,” see
Verbrechen
, 138.

42
This was an argument of the previous chapter.

43
The Soviet rationale was a classic one. First, the NKVD “established” that Germany had hundreds of spies among the Volga Germans. Then, the NKVD argued that the entire population was guilty, since none of the Volga Germans had reported all of this espionage to the proper authorities. In a particularly refined move, the NKVD used the presence of swastikas in German households as evidence of Nazi collaboration. In fact, the Soviets had themselves distributed those swastikas, in 1939, when Moscow and Berlin were allies, and a friendly visit from Hitler was expected. By the end of 1942, the Soviets had resettled some nine hundred thousand Germans, the vast majority of the German population in the Soviet Union. The Soviets deported some eighty-nine thousand Finns, most of them to Siberia. On Stalin, see Polian,
Against Their Will
, 134. On Hitler, see Longerich,
Unwritten Order
, 75; Gerlach,
Krieg
, 96; Gerlach, “Wannsee,” 763; Pinkus, “Deportation,” 456-458; Mazower,
Hitler’s Empire
, 370; and Friedlander,
Extermination
, 239, 263-264.

44
Quotation: Lukacs,
Last European War
, 154; see also Friedlander,
Extermination
, 268.

45
Angrick,
Riga
, 133-150.

46
Chełmno is discussed in Chapter 8. The connection is made by Kershaw,
Fateful Choices
, 462; see also Kershaw,
Hitler
, 66. Mazower emphasizes the centrality of the Wartheland in
Hitler’s Empire
, for example at 191. I am excluding in this judgment Jews killed in the “euthanasia” program.

47
Himmler and Globocnik will be discussed at greater length in Chapter 8.

48
Megargee,
Annihilation
, 115.

49
Arguing from the periphery, from Belarus and Ukraine to Berlin, Gerlach and Pohl each make a case for the importance of food supplies in the extermination of the Jews. Aly and Heim, arguing forward from the logic of prewar planning, present a kind of negative explanation for the Holocaust: the Jews were already regarded as harmful in future designs and as useless consumers of present necessities. Hitler certainly undertook the war against the Soviet Union on the understanding that food supplies could thereby be secured during the war and for future wars. It is certainly true that the Hunger Plan, real supply difficulties for the Wehrmacht, and the perceived need to satisfy German civilians mattered a great deal on the eastern front generally. The concern for food made it easier for officers to endorse killing Jews. As the war continued, the economic argument about Jewish labor would be countered by the economic argument about the food Jews would eat. I agree that food played a much greater role in the process than it might appear from English-language literature on the Holocaust. But I do not believe that food (or any other economic consideration) can explain the timing or the precise content of Hitler’s policy as conveyed in December 1941. It was an ideological expression and political resolution of pressing problems arising from a failed colonial war. It was also a choice.

50
Quotation: Edele, “States,” 374.

51
On the 3 January meeting of Hitler with the Japanese ambassador, see Hauner,
Axis Strategy
, 384. See also Lukacs,
Last European War
, 143.

52
Krebs, “Japan,” 547-554.

53
German propaganda was making the case explicitly; see Herf,
Jewish Enemy
, 100, 128. Compare Gerlach, “Wannsee.” The recent scholarly emphasis upon Himmler and December has much to do with Gerlach’s work and with the publication of Witte,
Dienstkalendar
, and Longerich,
Himmler.
Himmler was the crucial executor of a policy for which Hitler was responsible.

54
Quoted and discussed, for example, in Longerich,
Unwritten Order
, 95; Gerlach,
Krieg
, 123; Gerlach, “Wannsee,” 783, 790; Kershaw,
Fateful Choices
, 466; Tooze,
Wages of Destruction
, 504; and Mazower,
Hitler’s Empire
, 376 (for the Frank quotation as well). As Friedländer points out in a persuasive passage, this was one of a cluster of such statements; see
Extermination
, 281.

55
On Hitler (“common front”), see Herf,
Jewish Enemy
, 132. On Goebbels, see Pohl,
Verfolgung
, 82.

56
Madajczyk, “Generalplan Ost,” 17; Mazower,
Hitler’s Empire
, 198.

57
Compare Browning, “Nazi Decision”; and Gerlach, “Wannsee.” See also Kershaw,
Fateful Choices
, 433.

58
See Kroener, “Frozen Blitzkrieg,” 140, 148.

59
See Gerlach,
Kalkulierte Morde
, 582, for quotation and interpretation.

60
On Serbia, see Manoschek,
Serbien
, 79, 107, 186-197; and Evans,
Third Reich at War
, 237, 259. The blame for the death of the Jews, in this conception, did not rest on the Germans. If the United States was a Jewish state, went the Nazi reasoning, its leaders must have understood that Hitler was keeping alive the Jews of Europe as hostages. If the United States entered the war, it followed, Washington was responsible for the death of these hostages. Of course, no one in the United States actually reasoned in this way, and the American entry into the war had little if anything to do with European or American Jews. See Longerich,
Unwritten Order
, 55; Friedländer,
Extermination
, 265, 281; Arad,
Soviet Union
, 139; and Gerlach, “Wannsee.”

61
That such camouflage was felt to be necessary is a telling sign, since it reveals the Nazis’ supposition that someone else might read their documents, which would happen only if they lost the war. Stalinists and Stalin himself had no such difficulties writing, signing, and filing direct orders to kill large numbers of people.

62
Birn, “Anti-Partisan Warfare,” 289.

63
For the count, see Brandon, “The First Wave.”

64
Deletant, “Transnistria,” 157-165; Pohl,
Verfolgung
, 78-79; Hilberg,
Destruction
(vol. I), 810.

65
Deletant, “Transnistria,” 172; Pohl,
Verfolgung
, 79. See also Case,
Between States.

66
Pohl, “Schauplatz,” 153, 162. The gas chambers are the subject of Chapter 8.

67
Pohl counts thirty-seven thousand auxiliary policemen active in July 1942 in the Reichskommissariat Ukraine; see “Hilfskräfte,” 210.

68
These Volhynian communities are treated in greater detail in Spector,
Volhynian Jews
, and Snyder, “West Volhynian Jews,” 77-84. The fate of Galician Jews, discussed in Chapter 8, was different; see Pohl,
Ostgalizien
, and Sandkühler,
Galizien.

69
Arad, in
Soviet Union
at 521 and 524, counts 1,561,000-1,628,000 murdered Jews in the lands annexed by the USSR, as well as 946,000-996,000 Jews of the prewar Soviet Union. See also Snyder, “West Volhynian Jews,” 85-89.

70
Grynberg,
Życie
, 602; Spektor, “Żydzi wołyńscy,” 477; Snyder, “West Volhynian Jews,” 91-96; Pohl, “Schauplatz,” 158-162.

71
For the Judenrat negotiations, see letters of 8 and 10 May 1942, DAR 22/1/10=USHMM RG-31.017M-2. See also Grynberg,
Życie
, 588; Spektor, “Żydzi wołyńscy,” 477; and Snyder, “West Volhynian Jews,” 91-96.

72
ŻIH 301/1982; ŻIH 301/5657;
Sefer Lutsk
, “Calendar of Pain, Resistance and Destruction”; Grynberg,
Życie
, 584-586, quotation at 586.