Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews (121 page)

542

Notes to pages 306–314

directed against the USA would now even be counter-productive, because they only

demonstrated the lack of effectiveness of German propaganda hitherto; on the other

hand the German leadership could not bring itself to expose the terrible realization of the

‘prophecy’ with an offensive propaganda campaign going beyond general hints.

5. Dienstkalender, ed. Witte et al., 294. According to Gerlach (‘Wannsee-Konferenz’, 22 and 27), the term ‘partisan’ should be taken to mean that in view of the now imminent war on

two fronts Hitler had fallen into a ‘kind of fortress-continental-Europe mentality’, and saw the European Jews in general as dangerous enemies in his own hinterland. As far as one

can tell, however, there is no evidence for the use of the term ‘partisan’ to describe the European Jews in Hitler’s otherwise stereotypical anti-Semitic diatribes. On the other hand the idea that the Jews in the occupied Soviet territories were generally partisans or helpers of partisans and must therefore be removed was so widespread among the Germans even

by the end of 1941 that Hitler’s statement seems quite clear.

6. See Gerlach, ‘Wannsee-Konferenz’. However, Gerlach does not explain why Himmler,

whom he takes to have been present during Hitler’s address on 12 December, himself

left no notes about the ‘fundamental decision’, but—as one of those chiefly responsible

for the murder of the Jews—was only informed by Hitler about that decision six days

later. Similarly it seems questionable whether one can really, with Gerlach, draw such

extensive conclusions from the fact that during these days a series of discussions was

held by people who played a leading role in the ‘Final Solution’, but about the contents of which we have no detailed information (pp. 23–4).

7. PAA, Inland IIg 177, conference minutes. Published in Longerich, Ermordung, 83 ff. For an English translation see Noakes and Pridham, eds, Nazism, iii. 535–41.

8. Trial of Eichmann, vii. 879 (text written by Heydrich and Müller); IfZ G 01 (trial

transcript, German version), session of 24 July: in fact the terms used at the conference were ‘killing’, ‘elimination’, and ‘annihilation’

9. See n. 7.

10. On the issue of forced labour at this point see Longerich, Politik, 476 ff. The details will be examined in the following chapter.

11. Zhitomir City Archive, P 1151-1-137. I am most grateful to Wendy Lower for allowing me to have a copy of this document.

12. Diensttagebuch, ed. Präg and Jacobmeyer, 457–8.

13. Ibid., 16 Dec. 1941.

14. Cf. especially Cornelia Essner, Die ‘Nürnberger Gesetze’ oder die Verwaltung des

Rassenwahns (Paderborn, 2002), 410 ff.; Jeremy Noakes, ‘The Development of Nazi

Policy towards the German-Jewish Mischlinge 1933–1945’, LBIY 34 (1989), 291–354; John

A. S. Grenville, ‘Die “Endlösung” und die “Judenmischlinge” in Dritten Reich’, in

Ursula Büttner, ed., Das Unrechtsregime, vol. ii: Verfolgung—Exil—Belasteter Neube-

ginn (Hamburg, 1996), 91–122.

17.

The Beginning of the Extermination Policy on a European Scale in 1942

1. In a narrow sense the expression ‘extermination through work’ refers to the delivery,

agreed between Justice Minister Thierack and Himmler, of judicial prisoners to the SS.

(See Goebbels’s note about conversation with Thierack, 15 Sept. 1942 (Nuremberg

Notes to pages 314–317

543

Document (ND) 682-PS) and Thierack’s file note about his conversation with Himm-

ler, 18 Sept. 1942 (ND 654-PS); cf. Hermann Kaienburg, ‘Zwangsarbeiter an der “Straße

der SS” ’, 1999, 11 (1996), 13–39, 14.) Here the term is used in a broader sense.

2. EM 86.

3. Cf. Karl-Heinz Roth, ‘ “Generalplan Ost”—“Gesamtplan Ost” ’, in Mechthild Rössler

and Sabine Schleiermacher, eds, Der ‘Generalplan Ost’. Hauptlinien der nationalsozia-

listischen Planung und Vernichtungspolitik (Berlin, 1995), 73 ff.; BAB, NS 19/2065.

4. Cf. Hermann Kaienburg, Vernichtung durch Arbeit. Der Fall Neuengamme (Bonn,

1990), 144 ff.

5. Jan Erik Schulte, Zwangsarbeit und Vernichtung. Das Wirtschaftsimperium der SS.

Oswald Pohl und das SS-Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt, 1933–1945 (Paderborn,

2001), 334 ff.

6. See pp. 247 f.

7. Schulte, Zwangsarbeit, 351 ff.; Christian Streit, Keine Kameraden. Die Wehrmacht und

die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941–1945 (Stuttgart, 1978), 212–13.

8. Ibid. 204.

9. Individual cases in Walter Naasner, Neue Machtzentren in der deutschen Kriegs-

wirtschaft, 1942–1945 (Boppard, 1994), 300 ff.

10. Himler’s decision on amalgamation presumably coincided with a meeting on 10 Jan.

1942. See Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42, ed. Peter Witte et al. (Ham-

burg, 1999), 105; the corresponding order from Pohl was passed on 19 Jan. 1942 (NO

495); further details in Schulte, Zwangsarbeit, 357.

11. Schulte, Zwangsarbeit, 343 ff.

12. BAB, NS 19/2065; cf. Roth, ‘Generalplan Ost’, 74–5.

13. 129-R, IMT xxxviii. 362 ff.; cf. Naasner, Machtzentren, 269.

14. 129-R, IMT xxxviii. 365 ff.; Naasner, Machtzentren, 269; Roth, ‘Generalplan Ost’, 77.

15. Hermann Kaienburg, ‘Zwangsarbeit: KZ und Wirtschaft im Zweiten Weltkrieg’, in

W. Benz et al., Die Ort des Terrors. Gechichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentra-

tionslager, vol. i: Die Organisation des Terrors (Munich, 2005), 229 ff.; and Mark

Spoerer, Zwangsarbeit unter dem Hakenkreuz. Ausländische Zivilarbeiter, Kriegsgefan-

gene und Häftlinge im Deutschen Reich und im besetzten Europa, 1939–1945 (Stuttgart

and Munich, 2001), 183 ff. Spoerer refers to the fact that it was also advantageous from

the point of view of industry to deploy forced labourers, as companies were dependent

on armaments commissions for capital preservation or growth.

16. Kaienburg, Vernichtung, 145, 314 ff.; Naasner, Machtzentren, 274 ff.

17. Falk Pingel, Häftlinge unter NS-Herrschaft (Hamburg, 1978), 118. Naasner similarly

establishes the ‘irreconcilability of the SS economy with the fundamental requirements

of economic planning’ (Machtzentren, 274).

18. On the forced labour of concentration camp inmates see, apart from the literature

already mentioned, Reiner Fröbe, ‘Der Arbeitseinsatz von KZ-Häftlingen und die

Perspektive der Industrie’, in ‘Deutsche Wirtschaft’. Zwangsarbeit von KZ-Häftlingen

für Industrie und Behörden (Hamburg, 1991), 33–78, also in Ulrich Herbert, ed., Europa

und der ‘Reichseinsatz’. Ausländische Zivilarbeiter, Kriegsgefangene und KZ-Häftlinge in

Deutschland 1938–1945 (Essen, 1991), 351–74; the essays in the collection Hermann

Kaienburg, ed., Konzentrationslager und deutsche Wirtschaft (Opladen, 1996); Bernd

544

Notes to pages 317–318

C. Wagner, IG Auschwitz. Zwangsarbeit und Vernichtung von Häftlingen des Lagers

Monowitz 1941–1945 (Munich, 2000).

19. Naasner, Machtzentren, 300–1. Fröbe, ‘Arbeiteinsatz’, 34, indicates that concentration camp inmates were used predominantly for building work throughout the whole of

1942, some in the erection of industrial plant, but not generally in production.

20. Berenstein

et al., eds, Faschismus-Ghetto-Massenmord. Dokumentation über

Ausrottung und Widerstand der Juden in Polen während des zweiten Weltkrieges

(Frankfurt a. M., 1962), 268. On this decision and its effects see in particular Michael

Thad Allan, The Business of Genocide: The SS, Slave Labor and the Concentration

Camps (Chapel Hill, NC, 2002), 148 ff.; and Schulte, Zwangsarbeit, 361. A day before,

Himmler had already telephoned Heydrich to give him the task of putting ‘Jews in the

Kl.s’. See Dienstkalender ed. Witte et al., 25 Jan. 1942, p. 326. The decision to deport

Jews to the concentration camps and use them as slave labourers may have been made

in the course of a meeting that Himmler held on 14/15 January with the heads of the

SS-Hauptämter. A few days after that conference Pohl issued an order in Himmler’s

name to set up the Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt (ND NO 495). On 17 Jan.

1942 the following telegram was sent by the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern

Territories (Rosenberg) to Reichskommissar Lohse, which clearly indicates a funda-

mental change in the question of the preservation of Jewish workers: ‘The Economic

Leadership Staff East have issued instructions that Jewish skilled industrial and craft

workers are to be retained for work, since they are of great value to the war economy

in individual instances. Their retention must be ensured through negotiation with the

local offices of the Reichsführer SS’ (BAB, R 92/1157). See Wolfgang Scheffler, ‘Das

Schicksal der in die baltischen Staaten deportierten deutschen, österreichischen

und tschechoslovakischen Juden 1941–1945. Ein historischer Überblick’, in Wolfgang

Scheffler and Diana Schulle, Buch der Erinnerung. Die ins Baltikum deportierten

deutschen, österreichischen und tschechoslovakischen Juden 1941–1945 (Munich,

2003), i. 6. Finally, we should bear in mind that only a few days after this meeting,

on 20 Jan. 1942, at the Wannsee Conference, Heydrich made his remarks about

the columns of Jewish slave labourers who were to be taken to the East for

‘road-building’.

21. See p. 325.

22. ZSt, Doc. USSR 401, quoted in Peter Klein, Die Einsatzgruppen in der besetzten

Sowjetunion 1941/42 (Berlin, 1997), 410–11. This might be the letter that Wislicency

mentioned in an interrogation: according to this, in the summer of 1942 he had seen an

instruction from Himmler to Heydrich. In this letter the complete extermination of the

Jews on Hitler’s orders was ordered; only those Jews who were fit for work were to be

excluded from the extermination and placed in concentration camps (Trial of Eich-

mann, Doc. 856).

23. Reference to this in dispatch from the Reich Labour Minister, 27 March: IMT xxxvii.

493, L-061.

24. Wolf Gruner, Der geschlossene Arbeitseinsatz deutscher Juden. Zur Zwangsarbeit

als Element der Verfolgung 1938–1943 (Berlin, 1997), 291 ff.; H. G. Adler, Der verwal-

tete Mensch. Studien zur Deportation der Juden aus Deutschland (Tübingen, 1974),

216 ff.

Notes to pages 318–321

545

25. Elke Fröhlich, ed., Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil II: Diktate 1941–1945,

vol. iv, bearbeitet von Elke Fröhlich (Munich, 1995), entry 30 May 1942, p. 405;

cf. Gruner, Arbeitseinsatz, 298 ff.

26. See p. 324.

27. Sybille Steinbacher, ‘Musterstadt’ Auschwitz. Germanisierungspolitik und Judenmord in Ostoberschlesien (Munich, 2000), 276–7.

28. Cf. Kaienburg, ‘Jüdischer Arbeitslager an der “Strasse der SS” ’, Zeitschrift für Sozialgeschichte des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts 11 (1996), 13–39. On the Galician section of

DG IV: Thomas Sandkühler, Die ‘Endlösung’ in Galizien. Der Judenmord in Ostpolen

(Bonn, 1996), 141 ff.; Dieter Pohl, Nationalsozialistische Judenvefolgung in Ostgalizien

(Munich, 1996), 167 ff., 338 ff.

29. Kaienburg, ‘Jüdische Arbeitslager’, 26; Pohl, Ostgalizien, 338 ff.

30. Kaienburg, Jüdische Arbeitslager’, 37.

31. See below, p. 341.

32. ‘But the Jew will not exterminate the European nations, but will be the victim of his own attack’ (Max Domarus, Hitler. Reden 1932 bis 1945, vol. iv (Wiesbaden, 1973), 1821).

33. ‘We are clear about the fact that the war can only end either with the extermination of the Aryan peoples, or with the disappearance of Jewry from Europe’ (Domarus, Hitler.

Reden, iv. 1828–9).

34. ‘my prophecy will be fulfilled not with the destruction of Aryan humanity through this war but rather with the extermination of the Jews’. See VB, 26 Feb. 1942 and Domarus,

Hitler. Reden, iv. 1844.

35. ND PS 1063, printed in Peter Longerich, Die Ermordung der europäischen Juden

(Munich, 1989), 165–6. See also guidelines on the technical implementation of the

evacuation of Jews to the General Government (undated, presumably January 1942),

IfZ, Erlass-Sammlung Gestapo Würzburg, printed in Adler, Verwaltete Mensch, 191–2.

On the deportations from the Reich see ibid. for Germany Ino Arndt and Heinz

Boberach, in W. Benz, ed., Dimension des Völkermords. Die Zahl der jüdischen Opfer

des Nationalsozialismus (Munich, 1996), 23–65; for Austria Jonny Moser, pp. 67–94, for

Czechoslovakia, Eva Schmidt-Harman, pp. 353–80; Henry Friedländer: ‘The Deport-

ation of the German Jews: Post-War German trials of Nazi Criminals’, LBYB 29 (1984),

201–26.

36. Besprechungsprotokoll of 9 Mar. 1943, Eichmann, Doc. 119, printed in Longerich.

Ermordung, 167–8.

37. See the schedule in Peter Longerich, Die Politik der Vernichtung. Eine Gesamtdarstel-

lung der nationalsozialistischen Judenverfolgung (Munich, 1998), 485–6, based on the

information of the International Tracing Service in Arolsen and various individual

sources; Alfred Gottwaldt and Diana Schulle, Die ‘Judendeportationen’ aus dem

deutschen Reich 1941–1945. Eine kommentierte Chronologie (Wiesbaden, 2005), 182 ff.

An activity report by the agent for the Four-Year Plan, traffic group, mentions 37 special trains of Jews, or only 16 more than can be individually identified (R 26 IV/v., 47; see

Christian Gerlach, ‘The Wannsee Conference, the Fate of the German Jews, and Hitler’s

Decision in Principle to Exterminate all European Jews’, Journal of Modern History 70

(1998), 40).

38. Gottwaldt and Schulle, Judendeportationen, 167 ff.

546

Notes to pages 321–324