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Authors: Timothy Snyder

Bloodlands (89 page)

69
Bartoszewski,
Warszawski pierścień
, 64-65; Dunin-Wąsowicz, “Akcja,” 24.
70
Pietrzykowski, “Akcja,” 113-115; Jankowski, “Akcja,” 65-66. On the brothel for Germans, see Pietrzykowski,
Akcja AB
, 77-78.
71
Pietrzykowski, “Akcja,” 114-115.
72
See, for example, Pankowicz, “Akcja,” 44. On “We can’t tell . . . ,” see Cienciala,
Crime
, 182.
73
On all three men, see Pietrzykowski, “Akcja,” 117-118.
74
Dunin-Wąsowicz, “Akcja,” 22-25; Bauer,
Dowbor
, 217, 241;
Crime of Katyń
, 33;
Zagłada polskich elit
, 73.
75
Zagłada polskich elit
, 77.
76
On Himmler and the transports, see Bartoszewski,
Warszawski pierścień
, 59, 60, 123-125. For further details on the transports, see
Zagłada polskich elit
, 69; Seidel,
Besatzungspolitik in Polen.
On Bach-Zelewski and the execution site, see Dwork,
Auschwitz
, 166, 177. On IG Farben, see Tooze,
Wages of Destruction
, 443.
77
On collectivization, see Report of 25 November 1941, SPP 3/1/1/1/1; also Shumuk,
Perezhyte
, 17.
78
On the Ukrainians targeted, see HI 210/14/7912. These operations were part of a series of June 1941 deportation actions that were then organized throughout the newly annexed regions of the Soviet Union, from the Baltics to Romania. On the 11,328 and 22,353 Polish citizens, see Hryciuk, “Victims,” 191, 193. See also Olaru-Cemirtan, “Züge.”
79
On the bombing, see Jolluck,
Exile
, 16. Quotation: Gross,
Children’s Eyes
, 52.
80
Some 292,513 Polish citizens were deported in four waves, along with thousands more individually or in smaller actions. See
Deportacje obywateli
, 29; and Hryciuk, “Victims,” 175. Of the deportees, some 57.5 percent were counted by the Soviets as Poles, 21.9 percent as Jews, 10.4 percent as Ukrainians, and 7.6 percent as Belarusians; see Hryciuk, “Victims,” 195. For overall counts I rely on Hryciuk, “Victims,” 175; and Autuchiewicz, “Stan,” 23. See also Gurianov, “Obzor,” 205.
81
Czapski,
Na nieludzkiej ziemi
, 68.
82
King James Bible, Matthew 5:37; Koestler,
Darkness at Noon
, 249. Czapski’s meeting with Reikhman took place on 3 February 1942; see
Crimes of Katyń
, 90.
83
Czapski,
Na nieludzkiej ziemi
, 120, 141-143, 148.
84
Czapski,
Na nieludzkiej ziemi
, 149.
85
On Frank, see Longerich,
Unwritten Order
, 47. On the NKVD, see Kołakowski,
NKWD
, 74. On Hitler, see Mańkowski, “Ausserordentliche,” 7. Compare Aly,
Architects
, 151.
CHAPTER 5: THE ECONOMICS OF APOCALYPSE
1
This is not an intellectual history, and I can permit myself only the briefest of remarks about these complex issues. As individuals, Hitler and Stalin embodied different forms of the early-nineteenth-century German response to the Enlightenment: Hitler the tragic romantic hero who must bear the burden of leading a flawed nation, Stalin the Hegelian world spirit that reveals reason in history and dictates it to others. A more complete comparison, as Christopher Clark has suggested, would account for
different views of time. The Nazi and Soviet regimes both rejected the basic Enlightened assumption that time was moving forward on its own, bringing knowledge and thus progress. Each was instead racing ahead to a point that was supposed to be in the past. Marxism was indeed a scheme of progress, but Lenin had leapt ahead of Marx’s predictions to make a revolution in a backward country, while the more industrial countries defied Marx’s predictions by not having socialist revolutions at all. The Soviets under Stalin were thus hastening, in the 1930s, so that the homeland of socialism could defend itself from the imperialist world. The Nazis were in an even greater hurry toward an even more fantastic vision. They imagined a cataclysm that would destroy the Soviet Union, remake eastern Europe, and restore German greatness and purity. Hitler was anxious to make the Germany of his dreams in his own lifetime, one that he feared would be short. An introduction to attempts to bind discussions of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union within intellectual history is Bracher,
Zeit der Ideologien.
2
This is a recasting of the argument developed in Chapters 1-3. For “Garden of Eden” (16 July 1941), see Mulligan,
Illusion
, 8.
3
Compare Goulder, “Internal Colonialism”; and Viola, “Selbstkolonisierung.”
4
Britain is more an external factor in this study than a subject of inquiry; but there is a case to be made for the importance of individuals in history here as well. See Lukacs,
Hitler and Stalin
; and Lukacs,
Five Days in London.
See also Isaiah Berlin’s essay “Winston Churchill in 1940” in
Personal Impressions
, 1-23.
5
See the Preface; also Streit,
Keine Kameraden
, 26-27. Oil was necessary for both industry and agriculture. Here, too, Germany was dependent upon imports, and true autarky seemed to require the conquest of the Soviet Caucasus and its oil fields.
6
Consult Tooze,
Wages of Destruction
, 409, 424, 429, 452. For the “most autarkic state in the world,” see Kennedy,
Aufstieg
, 341. On the oil reserves, see Eichholtz,
Krieg um Öl
, 8, 15, passim. Compare Hildebrand,
Weltreich
, 657-658. The German military was convinced that Soviet resources were needed to fight the war; see Kay,
Exploitation
, 27, 37, 40, and “immense riches” at 212.
7
On Germany’s naval capacity, see Weinberg,
World at Arms
, 118; also Tooze,
Wages of Destruction
, 397-399; and Evans,
Third Reich at War
, 143-146. Quotation: Mazower,
Hitler’s Empire
, 133. Alan Milward long ago drew attention to the significance of the assumption of a rapid victory; see
German Economy
, 40-41.
8
On Generalplan Ost, see Madajczyk, “Generalplan,” 12-13, also 64-66; Aly,
Architects
, 258; Kay,
Exploitation
, 100-101, 216; Wasser,
Himmlers Raumplannung
, 51-52; Aly,
Architects
, 258; Tooze,
Wages of Destruction
, 466-467; Rutherford,
Prelude
, 217; Mazower,
Hitler’s Empire
, 206, 210; and Longerich,
Himmler
, 597-599.
9
On Himmler, see Longerich,
Himmler
, 599. On Hitler, see Kershaw,
Hitler
, 651. See also Tooze,
Wages of Destruction
, 469.
10
Hitler’s proclamation of 31 January 1941 is cited after Tooze,
Wages of Destruction
, 465. The final form of the Final Solution is the subject of the next chapter. Evans argues that Hitler needed to begin the war against the Soviet Union before the war
against Britain was over because German citizens would have opposed a new war; see
Third Reich at War
, 162.
11
Deutschösterreichische Tageszeitung
, 3 March 1933; Kershaw,
Fateful Choices
, 267. On the percentage cited, see Kay,
Exploitation
, 56, 143.
12
Quotations: Kay,
Exploitation
, 211, 50, 40. See also Tooze,
Wages of Destruction
, 469; and Kershaw,
Hitler
, 650.
13
Quotation: Gerlach,
Kalkulierte Morde
, 342. The institutional apparati are clarified in Kay,
Exploitation
, 17-18, 148.
14
Kay,
Exploitation
, 138, 162-163.
15
On the “extinction of . . . a great part of the population,” see
Verbrechen der Wehrmacht
, 65. The long quotation is in Kay,
Exploitation
, 133; see also Gerlach,
Kalkulierte Morde
, 52-56. Given the settlement patterns of Soviet Jews, these “superfluous people” included not only Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, and Balts but at least three quarters of the Soviet Jewish population as well.
16
Kay,
Exploitation
, 164. In June, Hitler confirmed Göring’s overall responsibility for economic planning.
17
Hauner,
Axis Strategy
, 378-383.
18
Hitler’s capacity for improvisation makes it difficult to speak of strategy in the conventional sense. In my view the dispute between those who argue for a continental and a world strategy is most easily resolved thus: Hitler and his commanders agreed that a conquered Soviet Union was needed to pursue the war, whatever form it took. Hitler had in mind a war of continents and believed that it would come. Winning that world war required an earlier victory in the continental war.
19
On the neutrality pact, see Weinberg,
World at Arms
, 167-169; and Hasegawa,
Racing
, 13-14.
20
Burleigh,
Third Reich
, 484, 487.
21
On the Japanese wavering, see Weinberg,
World at Arms
, 253. On “for the time being,” see Hasegawa,
Racing
, 13. On the reaffirmation, see Krebs, “Japan,” 554. On the oft-forgotten Italian role, see Schlemmer,
Italianer.
22
Quotations: Römer,
Kommissarbefehl
, 204. Regarding Hitler’s quotation, see Kershaw,
Hitler
, 566. See also Pohl,
Herrschaft
, 64; and Bartov,
Hitler’s Army
, 16.
23
On the use of civilians as human shields, see the order of 13 May 1941, text in
Verbrechen der Wehrmacht
, 46. See also Bartov,
Hitler’s Army
, 71; Pohl,
Herrschaft
, 71, and discussion of women in uniform at 205; Römer,
Kommissarbefehl
, 228, also 551; and Gerlach,
Kalkulierte Morde
, 774.
24
Gerlach,
Kalkulierte Morde
, 244, 266; Bartov,
Eastern Front
, 132.
25
Verbrechen der Wehrmacht
, 344; Pohl,
Herrschaft
, 185; Gerlach,
Kalkulierte Morde
, 266.
26
Quotation: Arnold, “Eroberung,” 46.
27
Compare Edele, “States,” 171. The problem of feeding German soldiers without reducing food rations is examined in Tooze,
Wages of Destruction.
28
Gerlach,
Kalkulierte Morde
, 798. As Tooze has pointed out, Germans were indeed willing to make economic sacrifices for the war effort; see
Wages of Destruction.
29
Streit,
Keine Kameraden
, 143, 153. On Walther von Reichenau (28 September), see Arnold, “Eroberung,” 35.
30
Streit,
Keine Kameraden
, 143, 153. Compare Kay,
Exploitation
, 2.
31
See Keegan,
Face of Battle
, 73; Gerlach,
Kalkulierte Morde
, 51; Förster, “German Army,” 22; and
Verbrechen der Wehrmacht
, 288.
32
Arnold, “Eroberung,” 27-33.
33
On Kiev, see Berkhoff,
Harvest
, 170-186, maximum death total (56,400) at 184; also Arnold, “Eroberung,” 34. On Kharkiv, see Pohl,
Herrschaft
, 192;
Verbrechen der Wehrmacht
, at 328, gives a minimum of 11,918.
34
Kay,
Exploitation
, 181, 186.
35
Wagner was in 1944 one of the plotters against Hitler. See
Verbrechen der Wehrmacht
, at 193 and 311, for quotations. One million is the estimate usually given in the Western literature; see, for example, Kirschenbaum,
Siege
; and Salisbury,
900 Days
. The Soviet estimate is 632,000; see
Verbrechen der Wehrmacht
, 308. On food and fuel, see Simmons,
Leningrad
, 23.
36
Gerlach,
Krieg
, 36; Salisbury,
900 Days
, 508-509; Simmons,
Leningrad
, xxi; Kirschenbaum,
Siege
, 1.
37
Głębocki, “Pierwszy,” 179-189.
38
Simmons,
Leningrad
, 51.
39
The diary is on display at the State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg in the exhibition “Leningrad in the Years of the Great Patriotic War.”
40
On the numbers cited, see
Verbrechen der Wehrmacht
, 209. On the projected number of prisoners, see Gerlach,
Kalkulierte Morde
, 783.
41
Bartov,
Hitler’s Army
, 87; Polian, “Violence,” 123; Overmans, “Kriegsgefangenpolitik,” 800-801. See also Merridale,
Ivan’s War
, 28; and Braithwaite,
Moscow
, 165.
42
Berkhoff,
Harvest
, 94-96; Gerlach,
Kalkulierte Morde
, 845-857. For a general perspective on the treatment of prisoners of war, see the superb Keegan,
Face of Battle
, 49-51.
43
Polian, “Violence,” 121. Datner estimates 200,000-250,000; see
Zbrodnie
, 379.
44
Overmans, “Kriegsgefangenpolitik,” 805; Gerlach,
Krieg
, 24.
45
On “comrades,” see Dugas,
Vycherknutye
, 30.
46
On the chain of authority, see Streim,
Behandlung
, 7. Quotation: Pohl,
Herrschaft
, 219; also Gerlach,
Kalkulierte Morde
, 801. See also Overmans, “Kriegsgefangenpolitik,” 808. On cannibalism, see Shumejko, “Atanasyan,” 174; and Hartmann, “Massenvernichtung,” 124.
47
On ration cuts, see Megargee,
Annihilation
, 119. For “pure hell,” see
Ich werde es nie vergessen
, 178. On Minsk, see
Verbrechen der Wehrmacht
, 227-229; Gerlach,
Kalkulierte Morde
, 768, 856; Gerlach,
Krieg
, 51; Polian, “Violence,” 121; Overmans, “Kriegsgefangenpolitik,” 807; and Beluga,
Prestupleniya
, 199. On Bobruisk, see Pohl,
Herrschaft, 224. On Homel, see Pohl,
Herrschaft
, 224; and Dugas,
Sovetskie Voennoplennye
, 125. On Mahileu, see Pohl,
Herrschaft
, 224-225. On Molodechno, see Gerlach,
Krieg
, 34; and Magargee,
Annihilation
, 90; also Bartov,
Hitler’s Army
, 79.

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