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

case have been made between 7 and 14

December (‘Wannsee-Konferenz’, 24). In my view, however, the ‘decision’ plainly

refers to Germany’s declaration of war upon the United States, as a result of which

the German policy pursued hitherto of keeping the USA out of the war with ‘reprisals’

against the German Jews and with propaganda deliberately directed at the ‘Jewish

warmongers’ around Roosevelt, had been superseded. Any further anti-Semitic threats

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