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

of the role of the police in the murder of the

European Jews, but is indispensable for an understanding of the organizational history of the Order Police; see in particular Part II: Georg Tessin, Die Stäbe und Truppeneinheiten der Ordnungspolizei, 5–19, to which the current section of the present study is heavily indebted.

38. See BAB, R 19/97, a lecture by Kurt Daluege at the meeting of the commanders and

inspectors of the Order Police, 1 to 4 Feb. 1942, and the unused manuscript by Daluege,

‘Der Winterkampf der Ordnungspolizei im Osten’ (BAB, R 19/382). On individual

units, see Longerich, Politik, 308–9.

39. Ibid.

40. This was the ‘increased police protection’, made up of men born between 1901 and 1909, authorized at a level of 95,000 at the start of the war (BAB, R 19/382, address by

Daluege, 16 Jan. 1941). At the beginning of 1940, of the 64,872 police reservists called up, there were only 8,513 in the battalions (OS, 500-5-26a, address by Daluege, 19 Jan. 1940).

At the start of 1942 this figure was only 7,325 from a total of 117,525 reservists called up (BAB, NS 19/335, lecture by Daluege at the meeting, 1–4 Feb. 1942). The overall strength

of all the battalions was just over 60,000 (BAB, NS 19/335, memo from the Chief of the

Order Police, 20 Aug. 1940).

41. The volunteers from the so-called ‘26,000-man-campaign’ were taken from those born

between 1918 and 1920 (applicants to join the police) or 1905 and 1912 (employment as

patrolmen) (Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv (BHSt.A), Reichsstatthalter Epp, decrees of

the RFSS of 11 Oct. 1939 and 31 Oct. 1939; decree of the Reich Minister of the Interior of 25 Oct. 1939). Volunteers were deployed in a total of 31 battalions, which means (not

Notes to pages 186–187

497

counting the officers and NCOs) some 400–50 volunteers per battalion, or only half of

the 26,000 recruited (cf. NS 19/395, memo from the Chief of the Order Police of 20 Aug.

1940).

42. See Tessin, Stäbe, 14. According to the Chief of the Order Police, Daluege, only one in four of the applicants fulfilled the police criteria: of the 160,000 applications made in the context of the ‘26,000-man-campaign’ at the beginning of 1940, 51,000 had been

enrolled to date, of whom ‘7,100 born between 1905 and 1912 and roughly 6,000 from

between 1918 and 1920 were enrolled as fit for police duty’ (OS, 500-5-26a, address by

Daluege, 19 Jan. 1940).

43. BAB, NS 6/821, decree of the Party Chancellery, A 28/41 from 4 June 1941 concerning

the political assessment of recruits to the SS Police Division and the Police Battalions.

As a result, the commanders of the Police Training Battalion sought political assess-

ment of their recruits from the NSDAP district leaders.

44. See above, pp. 44 ff.

45. See Browning, Ordinary Men; Goldhagen, Executioners. On the Goldhagen debate, see

Introduction, n. 18.

46. Bernd Wegner, Hitlers Politische Soldaten: Die Waffen SS 1933–1945 Leitbild, Struktur und Funktion einer nationalsozialistischen Elite, 4th edn (Paderborn, 1982), 142 and 49 ff.

47. Leaflet signed by Himmler, September 1938: StA Munich, PolDir. 8466.

48. See above, p. 45.

49. National Archives Washington DC (NA), T 175 R 6, 15 Apr. 1937 and decree of 5 June

1937.

50. BHSt.A, Reichsstatthalter Epp, 366, Richtlinien für die Durchführung der weltanschau-

lichen Schulung der Ordnungspolizei während der Kriegszeit.

51. Wegner, Soldaten, 110 ff. On the ideological indoctrination of the Order Police, see also Jürgen Matthäus, ‘Antisemitism as an Offer: The Ideological Indoctrination of the SS

and Police Corps during the Holocaust, Lessons and Legacies’ in Dagmar Herzog ed.,

Lessons and Legacies, vii: The Holocaust in International Perspective (Evanston, 2006),

116–28.

52. See Yehoshua Büchler, ‘Kommandostab Reichsführer SS: Himmlers Personal Murder

Brigades in 1941’, HGS 1/1 (1986), 13–14; Martin Cüppers, Wegbereiter der Shoah. Die

Waffen SS, der Kommandostab Reichsführer SS und die Judenvernichtung 1939–1945

(Darmstadt, 2005), 64 ff.

53. BAB, NS 19/3508, SS-Leadership Office, 24 Apr. 1941 and 6 May 1941.

54. For details, see Cüppers, Wegbereiter, 33 ff.

55. BAB, NS 19/3508, order by Himmler of 17 June, effective from 21 June 1941.

56. BAM, M 806 (copies from the Military Archive in Prague), actual strength at the end of July 1941.

57. Ohlendorf spoke in his testimony at the main trial (Case 9, IfZ, MB 19, German

transcript, roll 13, pp. 484 ff., esp. p. 525) of a ‘special order’ that read, ‘that over and above the general tasks of the Security Police and the SD, the Einsatzgruppen and

Einsatzkommandos had the additional responsibility of keeping the rearguard clear by

killing Jews, Roma, Communist functionaries, active Communists and all persons who

might endanger the troops’. At his interrogation on 24 April 1947 (NOU2890) and in his

testimony at the Trial of the Major War Criminals he also always spoke of ‘Jews’ and

498

Notes to pages 187–188

‘Communists’ and other groups in one breath when describing the designated victims.

Cf. Ogorreck, Einsatzgruppen, 49 ff.

58. Paul Blobel, Sk 4a. IfZ MB 19, roll 14, pp. 746 ff. (esp. 752); Walter Blume, Sk 7a, (ibid., roll 15, pp. 208 ff. (esp. 218); see also NO 4145, interrogation on 29 June 1947); Gustav Nosske, Einsatzkommando 12, and Martin Sandberger, Sk 1a. IfZ MB 19, roll 15,

pp. 596 ff. (esp. pp. 610 ff.).

59. IfZ, MB 19, roll 14, pp. 139 ff. (esp. pp. 168–9, 170, 177 ff., 191 ff.).

60. IfZ, MB 19, roll 13, pp. 314 ff.

61. Judgement of the District Court in Ulm of 29 Aug. 1958 See Irene Sagel-Grande et al., Justiz und NS-Verbrechen. Sammlung deutscher Strafurteile wegen nationalsozialistischer Tötungsverbrechen, 22 vols (Amsterdam, 1968–81), xv, no. 465. See also Kraus-

nick’s report for the Auschwitz Trial (published as Krausnick, ‘The Persecution of the

Jews’, in Buchheim et al., Anatomy, 1–74 and his expert witness statement in the trial

against Kroeger (Zentralstelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen zur Aufklärung national-

sozialistischer Verbrechen (ZSt), 204 AR 1258/66, p. 23, transcript of the main proceed-

ings, pp. 97–8); the second expert witness, Seraphim, challenged this version, however.

There was a similar confrontation between the two expert witnesses in the Darmstadt

trial of Sonderkommando 4a (Judgement of the District Court in Darmstadt, 19 Nov.

1968, ZSt, 204 AR-Z 269/60); the court took Krausnick’s line, as did the Hanover

District Court in the trial of Einsatzgruppe 2 (ZSt, II 207 ARZ 18/58, judgement of 14

Oct. 1971), and rejected Seraphim’s view ‘that an order to annihilate the Jews had