Heinrich Himmler : A Life (159 page)

151
. Gustavo Corni and Horst Gies,
Brot—Butter—Kanonen. Die Ernährungswirtschaft in Deutschland unter der Diktatur Hitlers
(Berlin, 1997), 184 f. and 194.

152
. BAK, NL 1094, I 65a, so-called Darré Diary, edited by Hanns Deetjen. It is clear from the preface that in 1969 Deetjen prepared excerpts from the original diary.

153
. Ibid.

154
. Ibid. 25 December 1937 and 3 January 1938.

155
. BAK, NL 1094, I 10, Darré to Himmler, 8 February 1938.

156
. However, Himmler dismissed Darré ‘subject to the Führer’s approval’ (ibid. Himmler to Darré, 28 February, confirmation by Darré of 1 March 1938).

157
. BAK, NL 1094, I 10.

158
. Ibid. note concerning a phone-call from the Reich Peasant Leader from Berchtesgaden, 28 February 1938.

159
. Himmler had already secured approval on 2 March 1938 (BAB, BDC, SS-O Darré, note of 5 March 1938). He informed Darré of this decision only on 26 April 1938 (ibid. letter of 26 April 1938).

160
. Pohl was prompted to make this ‘bold suggestion’ when the Finance Minister rejected an increase in the subsidy paid to RuSHA (BAB, BDC, SS-O Pohl, 30 March 1938). On the reorganization of the Indoctrination department see Himmler’s order of 1 August 1938 (NS 2/86).

161
. On his resignation see Heinemann,
‘Rasse’
, 112 f.; Uwe Mai, ‘
Rasse und Raum’. Agrarpolitik, Sozial- und Raumplanung im NS-Staat
(Paderborn, etc., 2002), 114 ff.; Kaienburg,
Wirtschaft
, 268 ff.; Bramwell,
Blood
, 133. On Pancke’s appointment see BAB, BDC, SS-O Pancke, overview of service record.

162
. BAB, BDC, SS-O Darré, Darré to Himmler, 6 July 1938.

163
. BAK, NL 1094, 65a, entries for 17 April and 8 and 25 December 1937, 9 and 13 January, and 28 February 1938.

164
. See the private correspondence between the two in BAK, NL 1094, I 58, and Darré’s letter to Himmler of 6 July 1938 (BAB, BDC, SS-O Darré).

165
. On the South Tyrol question see Conrad F. Latour,
Südtirol und die Achse Berlin–Rom 1938–1945
(Stuttgart, 1962); Leopold Steurer,
Südtirol zwischen Rom und Berlin 1919–1939
(Vienna, etc., 1980); Karl Stuhlpfarrer,
Umsiedlung Südtirol 1939–1940
(Vienna, etc., 1985).

166
. Stuhlpfarrer,
Umsiedlung
, 53. It is clear from Likus’s (SS liason officer with the Foreign Ministry) note of 4 April 1939 that Himmler had already received the commission at this point; this is also the source of the 30,000 figure (BAB, NS 19/2070).

167
. Stuhlpfarrer,
Umsiedlung
, 54. In his letter to Himmler of 14 April 1939, however, Hofer still appears uncertain as to whether South Tyrol is to be finally given up for ever (BAB, NS 19/2070).

168
. BAB, NS 19/2070, memorandum of 30 May 1939; Stuhlpfarrer,
Umsiedlung
, 63 ff.

169
. BAB, NS 19/2070, Himmler’s note on the meeting. Wolff produced more detailed minutes and Greifelt another version (ibid.). On the German side, Lorenz, Behrends, Bohle, state secretary von Weizsäcker, and other representatives of the Foreign Ministry took part. See Stuhlpfarrer,
Umsiedlung
, 68 ff.

170
. BAB, NS 19/2070, memorandum concerning the German–Italian negotiations on the question of the resettlement of the South Tyroleans (with a detailed chronology), 9 December 1939.

171
. Stuhlpfarrer,
Umsiedlung
, 86 ff.; on the agreements reached on 21 October 1939 see ibid. 148 ff.

172
. On the results of the negotiations see ibid. 97 ff. The deadline of three months for the Reich Germans was to start from the date at which the resettlement agencies had been established.

173
. Liaison office with RuSHA in Prague, 18 April 1939, concerning the takeover of the Land Office ‘on political grounds’ in accordance with the agreement between the head of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office and the head of the SS Security Main Office. Pancke had proposed the takeover of the Land Office in a letter to Heydrich of 31 March 1939; Pancke referred to the recent ‘abrupt takeover and securing of the Lithuanian and Jewish farms in Memel’. Pancke justified the SS acquiring responsibility as follows: ‘Since in my view the settlement problem, particularly outside the old frontiers of the Reich, is primarily a political one, in my view it can only be dealt with by a political organization, in other words the SS, and not by ministerial agencies, which hitherto have generally demonstrated their unsuitability for carrying out political tasks.’ On the takeover of the Land Office and its work under Gottberg see Schulte,
Zwangsarbeit
, 168 ff., Heinemann, ‘
Rasse’
, 131 ff., and Kaienburg,
Wirtschaft
, 313 ff.

174
. Heinemann,
‘Rasse’
, 139.

175
. BAB, NS 2/164, Gottberg to Himmler, 12 July 1939; see Heinemann,
‘Rasse’
, 144.

176
. That is clear from the speeches Hermann Reischle gave in the spring (BAB, BDC, SS-O Reischle). Reischle wanted to settle around 150,000 German peasant families on the land and to drive around the same number of Czechs into the towns of the Protectorate. Half of all the independent peasant farms should be given to Germans.

177
. For example Pancke to Himmler, 15 April 1939 (BAB, NS 2/138); see Heinemann,
‘Rasse’
, 132 f.

178
. BAB, NS 2/139, 11 August 1939. See also NS 2/138, letter from Darré of 17 May 1939, in which he objects to the SS taking over responsibility for settlement. On the Darré–Gottberg conflict and his dismissal see Heinemann,
‘Rasse’
, 146 ff., and Kaienburg, W
irtschaft
, 327 ff.

179
. BAB, NS 2/139, Pancke, report on the inspection of the Prague Land Office, November 1939.

180
. BAB, NS 2/139, Gottberg to Reich Minister of the Interior, 9 August 1939.

181
. Darré complained to Himmler about it on 20 September 1939 (BAB, NS 2/55); on the German Settlement Association (Deutsche Ansiedlungsgesellschaft) see in detail Kaienburg,
Wirtschaft
, 288 ff.

182
. Heinemann,
‘Rasse’
, 148.

183
. Ibid. 150; Kaienburg,
Wirtschaft
, 332.

184
. BAB,BDC, SS-O Jansen, letter of 27 August 1939.

185
. Ibid. Personnel Main Office (Schmitt) to Eicke, 18 January 1940. It states that Jansen expressed a wish to Himmler ‘to spend some time at the front attached to a high-level staff in order to gain impressions he can use later in his writings’. Jansen’s service with the Death’s Head division is documented in a note of 21 August 1940.

186
. BAB, BDC, SS-O Jansen.

1
. NARA, T 580/150/225, Ahnenerbe to Himmler, 9 September 1939. Among other things the brief study compared ‘the chain of fortifications against the Hungarians […] with the building of our West Wall’.

2
. See in particular Wildt,
Generation
, 419–580.

3
. Ibid. 421 f.

4
. Thus, in his Reichstag speech of 1 September 1939 Hitler declared: ‘Last night, for the first time the Polish army opened fire on our territory. Now, since 5.45 we have been returning fire’ (Hitler,
Reden und Proklamationen
[Domarus], ii.1312 ff., quotation 1315).

5
. IfZ, ZS 573, interrogation of Emanuel Schaefer, the former head of the Stapo office, on 13 June 1952, by the Cologne public prosecutor.

6
. Jürgen Runzheimer, ‘Die Grenzzwischenfälle am Abend vor dem deutschen Angriffauf Polen’, in Wolfgang Benz and Hermann Graml (eds),
Sommer 1939. Die Großmächte und der Europäische Krieg
(Stuttgart, 1979), 107–47; see also id., ‘Der Überfall auf den Sender Gleiwitz im Jahre 1939’,
Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte
, 10 (1962), 408–26;Höhne,
Orden
, 240 ff.; doc. PS-2751, statement by Naujock, 19 November 1945, in
IMT
, vol. 31, pp. 90 ff.

7
. Rolf Michaelis,
Die Geschichte der SS-Heimwehr Danzig 1939
(Rodgau, 1990); Dieter Schenk,
Die Post von Danzig. Geschichte eines deutschen Justizmords
(Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1995).

8
. Schellenberg,
Memoirs
, 71 ff.

9
. Wegner,
Politische Soldaten
, 302.

10
. BAB, NS 19/4005, published in Himmler,
Geheimreden
, 25 ff., here 31; see Wegner,
Politische Soldaten
, 127.

11
. Wegner,
Politische Soldaten
, 126; for further details see Otto Weidinger,
Division Das Reich. Der Weg der 2. SS-Panzer-Division ‘Das Reich’. Die Geschichte der Stammdivision der Waffen-SS
(Osnabrück, 1967), vol. 1:
1934–1939
, 139 ff. and 274 ff.

12
. Wegner,
Politische Soldaten
, 126; Weidinger,
Das Reich
, i. 320 ff.

13
. Sydnor,
Soldaten
, 33 ff.

14
. Wegner,
Politische Soldaten
, 124 f.; Sydnor,
Soldaten
, 37 ff.

15
. Wegner,
Politische Soldaten
, 126 f.; Friedrich Husemann,
Die guten Glaubens waren. Geschichte der SS-Polizeidivision (4. SS-Polizei-Panzer-Grenadier-Division)
, vol. 1:
1939–1942
(Osnabrück, 1971), 17 f.

16
. Wegner,
Politische Soldaten
, 127 f.

17
. For literature on the war against Poland and on the first phase of occupation see Dieter Pohl,
Von der ‘Judenpolitik’ zum Judenmord. Der Distrikt Lublin des Generalgouvernements 1939–1944
(Frankfurt a. M., etc., 1993); Jansen und Weckbecker,
‘Selbstschutz’
; Horst Rohde, ‘Hitlers erster “Blitzkrieg” und seine Auswirkungen auf Nordosteuropa’, in Klaus A. Maier
et al
.,
Die Errichtung der Hegemonie auf dem europäischen Kontinent
(Stuttgart, 1979), 79–156; Czes
ó
aw Madajczyk,
Die Okkupationspolitik Nazideutschlands in Polen 1939–1945
(Cologne, 1988); Krausnick, ‘Einsatzgruppen’, 32 ff.

18
.
Akten zur deutschen auswärtigen Politik 1938–1945. Aus dem Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes
, Series D:
1937–1941
, vol. 7:
Die letzten Wochen vor Kriegsausbruch
(Baden-Baden, 1967), no. 193; Winfried Baumgart, ‘Zur Ansprache Hitlers vor den Führern derWehrmacht am 22.8.1939: eine quellenkritische Untersuchung’,
Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte
, 16 (1968), 120–49.

19
. Krausnick, ‘Einsatzgruppen’, 44; Alexander B. Rossino,
Hitler Strikes Poland: Blitzkrieg, Ideology, and Atrocity
(Lawrence, Kan., 2003), 66 and 259.

20
. BAB, R 58/825, 8 September 1941.

21
. Ibid. 16 October 1941.

22
. Jansen and Weckbecker,
‘Selbstschutz’
, 27 ff.; W
ó
odzimierz Jastrzeębski,
Der Bromberger Blutsonntag. Legende und Wirklichkeit
(Posen, 1990).

23
. Krausnick, ‘Einsatzgruppen’, 33 ff. There is a detailed account of the leadership in Rossino,
Hitler
, 29 ff.

24
. Helmut Krausnick, ‘Hitler und die Morde in Polen. Ein Beitrag zum Konflikt zwischen Heer und SS um die Verwaltung der besetzten Gebiete’,
Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte
, 11/2 (1963), 196–209, here 207.