Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews by Peter Longerich (booksvooks TXT) 📕

How widespread this practice was—whether it is true

that the Wehrmacht was generally a participant in the genocide and acting on the

pretext of a war against partisans or of collective reprisals—cannot be established

with certainty on the basis of research carried out so far. 200 There is significant evidence that, as the conduct of the war by the military became increasingly brutal

overall, there was less and less differentiation between different sections of the

population. 201

Although there is considerable evidence to suggest that the Eastern Army was

implicated in the annihilation of the Jewish civilian population—right down to

large-scale ‘cleansing operations’—it would in my view be inaccurate and in-

appropriate simply to align the Wehrmacht with the death squads of the Police

and the SS without further differentiation. It is much more important to stress

precisely the distinctive functions of the Police and the SS on the one hand as

bodies inflicting terror and aiming at the annihilation of the Jews and the

Wehrmacht on the other as a military organization. At the same time, however,

it is vital not to lose sight of the functional interplay of these different remits

within the context of the war of annihilation. The basis for the division of

functions between the Wehrmacht and the SS/Police is of particular importance

here: as a matter of principle the military left the mass murder of Communists and

Jews to Himmler’s forces. This distinction in principle still pertained even if it was

treated very flexibly in practice. Thus, just as formations of the SS and Police could

be used for front-line duties, Wehrmacht units and military agencies frequently

participated in, and even helped organize, the ‘cleansing operations’ behind the

front line.

In any discussion of how to assess the role of the Wehrmacht in the murder of

the European Jews it is important not to underestimate the fact that the division

of responsibilities in principle was much more significant than the participation of

Extension of Shootings to Whole Jewish Population

247

individual Wehrmacht units in specific ‘operations’ whose extent is sometimes

difficult to ascertain. However, because the Wehrmacht leadership declared itself

satisfied with the basic principles of the ideological war and permitted a second

war against the civilian population behind its front line, it too, bears the respon-

sibility for implementing the Holocaust.

The Fate of Jewish and Non-Jewish Prisoners of War

From the very earliest stages, the policies for annihilating the Jewish population of

the Soviet Union particularly affected the Jewish soldiers of the Red Army. They

were amongst those groups of prisoners who were separated out in the camps and

liquidated as a matter of course. The relevant orders from the Reichsführer SS

have been preserved. In Deployment Order no. 8 from 17 July 1941 Heydrich

instructed the commanders of the Security Police in the General Government and

the Gestapo in East Prussia to detach special Einsatzkommandos to comb the

prisoner-of-war camps in those areas. 202 These commandos were to conduct a

‘political monitoring of all inmates’ and separate out certain groups of prisoners,

including state and Party functionaries, Red Army commissars, leading economic

figures, ‘members of the intelligentsia’, ‘agitators’, and, quite specifically, ‘all Jews’.

Heydrich had already come to an agreement with the Prisoner of War Depart-

ment of the Armed Forces High Command about separating out the different

groups of prisoners that were mentioned in the annex to Deployment Order no. 8.

The whole tenor of these guidelines is marked by the conception of an ideological

war of annihilation; they oblige the commandants of the prisoner-of-war camps to

work closely with the Einsatzkommandos. The commandants are enjoined in

these guidelines to overcome any doubts they might have about international or

criminal law or any human considerations: the campaign in the East, they claim,

demands ‘special measures that must be carried out free of bureaucratic and

administrative influence by those willing to accept responsibility’. 203 Neither here nor in any other order from the Armed Forces or Army High Commands

is it specifically laid down that the Jewish prisoners were to be handed over to the

Einsatzkommandos; however, the guidelines were formulated such that the camp

commandants were to leave the choice to the commandos. 204

This order was supplemented by Deployment Orders no. 9, dated 21 July, and

no. 14, of 29 October 1941, which instructed the rest of the State Police

headquarters in the Reich and the Einsatzgruppen in the occupied Eastern areas

to detach Sonderkommandos to search the prisoner-of-war camps. 205 Even before such explicit permission had been given, the Einsatzgruppen in the occupied

Eastern areas had already filtered prisoners out of the camps in large numbers,

which would not have been possible without the cooperation of the camp

commandants. 206

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Mass Executions in Occupied Soviet Zones, 1941

The commandos reported the prisoners selected in this way by name to the

Reich Security Head Office, which usually ordered their execution ‘as inconspicu-

ously as possible’. 207 The prisoners screened out within the Reich were executed in concentration camps, by far the majority in a so-called ‘Genickschussanlage’, an

apparatus for shooting people in the back of the neck disguised as a height-

measurement stadiometer. Within the occupied Eastern areas the Einsatzgruppen

had the right to decide which prisoners would be killed, and the executions were

performed by members of the Einsatzgruppen or police battalions. 208 There were many occasions, however, on which a prisoner who had already been selected was

killed by the guard detail itself. 209 On the other hand, however, there is a whole series of examples that demonstrates how the camp commandants attempted to

limit or even prevent the activities of the Einsatzkommandos. 210

The total number of prisoners ‘screened’ and liquidated in this manner is

unknown. Alfred Streim suggests 140,000 victims as a minimum, but estimates

that the true total is ‘considerably higher’. 211 According to the reports of individual screening operations that have been preserved, amongst what were probably

hundreds of thousands of victims of these ‘operations’212 there was a large proportion of Jews. The chronological ‘high point’ for these operations was the

second half of 1941, when the number of captured Red Army members was at its

highest and when the policy of ‘labour deployment’ had not yet been conceived.

From September 1941 onwards, there were also special ‘prisoner of war assess-

ment commissions’ from the Ministry for the East that screened the camps

alongside the commandos from the Security Police. These commissions did not

merely attempt to