Heinrich Himmler : A Life (160 page)

25
. Dorothee Weitbrecht, ‘Ermächtigung zur Vernichtung. Die Einsatzgruppen in Polen im Herbst 1939’, in Klaus-Peter Mallmann and Bogdan Musial (eds),
Genesis des Genozids. Polen 1939–1941
(Darmstadt, 2004), 57–70, here 57; Dan Michman, ‘Why Did Heydrich Write the “Schnellbrief”? A Remark on the Reason and on its Significance’,
Yad Vashem Studies
, 32 (2004), 433–47, here 439 f.

26
. Weitbrecht, ‘Ermächtigung’, 59 ff.

27
. IfZ, NO 2285, Himmler to the heads of the civil administration with the Army High Commands, 26 September 1939. The decisive conference must have taken place between 3 and 7 September 1939 (Jansen and Weckbecker,
‘Selbstschutz’
, 48, which is based on Berger’s Nuremberg statement: IfZ, MB 30, 3838 ff.). On 7 October 1939 Himmler issued ‘provisional guidelines for the organization of the “Self-Defence” in Poland’, quoted in Jansen and Weckbecker,
‘Selbstschutz’
, 52 f., on the basis of documents in the Zentrale Stelle Ludwigsburg.

28
. On the figures see Jansen and Weckbecker,
‘Selbstschutz’
, 35.

29
. On the role of the Selbstschutz see, in particular, ibid. 111 ff. On the participation of the Wehrmacht in the murders see Joachim Böhler,
Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg. Die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939
(Frankfurt a. M., 2006), and id., ‘“Tragische Verstrickung” oder Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg? Die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939’, in Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Bogdan Musial (eds),
Genesis des Genozids. Polen 1939–1941
(Darmstadt, 2004), 36–57. On the Einsatzgruppen see Rossino,
Hitler
, 88 ff., and id., ‘Nazi Anti-Jewish Policy during the Polish Campaign: The Case of the Einsatzgruppe von Woyrsch’,
German Studies Review
, 24/1 (2001), 35–53. The role of the order police and the Waffen-SS has been investigated by Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers in the volume edited by Mallmann and Musial,
Genesis des Genozids
.

30
. For examples see Rossino,
Hitler
, 90 f. and 99.

31
. Ibid. 88 ff.

32
. Christopher R. Browning,
Die Entfesselung der ‘Endlösung’. Nationalsozialistische Judenpolitik 1939–1942
(Berlin, 2006), 56 f.; Böhler, ‘“Verstrickung”’, 45 ff.; id.,
Auftakt
, 216 ff.

33
. IfZ, NOKW 1006. On von Woyrsch see his SS-O file in BAB, BDC.

34
. Krausnick, ‘Einsatzgruppen’, 41, and Böhler,
Auftakt
, 210 ff.

35
. Quoted from Krausnick, ‘Einsatzgruppen’, 57. The hostage-taking was in the end done not by the Einsatzgruppe but by the Wehrmacht.

36
. Jansen und Weckbecker,
‘Selbstschutz’
, 154 ff.

37
. Ibid. 96 ff. and 154.

38
. Ibid. 154 ff. and 212 ff. In autumn 1939 German units also shot people in the Warthegau who came from the same target groups as in Danzig–West Prussia, though in smaller numbers (ibid. 156 and 224 ff.). Units that were based in the Polish territories which bordered East Prussia, in eastern Upper Silesia, and in the central and eastern Polish territories also carried out murders (ibid. 156 f. and 228 f.).

39
. Volker Riess,
Die Anfänge der Vernichtung ‘lebensunwerten Lebens’ in den Reichsgauen Danzig-Westpreußen und Wartheland 1939/40
(Frankfurt a. M., etc., 1995), 173 ff.

40
. Jansen and Weckbecker,
‘Selbstschutz’
, 49 ff. and 64 ff.

41
. See above pp. 325 f.

42
. BAB, BDC, SS-O Alvensleben, Himmler to Heydrich, 26 March 1940.

43
. This is Riess’s assessment in
Anfänge
, 355.

44
. Ibid. 243 ff.

45
. Ibid. 290 ff.

46
. Ibid. 321 ff.; Mathias Beer, ‘Die Entwicklung der Gaswagen beim Mord an den Juden’,
Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte
, 35/3 (1987), 403–17, here 404 ff.; Eugen Kogon, Hermann Langbein, and Adalbert Rückerl (eds),
Nationalsozialistische Massentötungen durch Giftgas. Eine Dokumentation
(Frankfurt a. M.,
1986), 62 ff.; Ernst Klee,
‘Euthanasie’ im NS-Staat. Die ‘Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens’
(Frankfurt a. M., 1983), 105 ff.

47
. Riess,
Anfänge
, 222 ff.; see esp. Heike Bernhardt,
Anstaltspsychiatrie und “Euthanasie” in Pommern 1933–1945. Die Krankenmorde an Kindern und Erwachsenen am Beispiel der Landesheilanstalt Ueckermünde
(Frankfurt a. M., 1994).

48
. Riess,
Anfänge
, 104 ff., 131, 135 f., 168, 256, and 334.

49
. Ibid. 188 and 288 f.

50
. See above p. 324.

51
. Richard Breitman considers a note by Himmler dated 5 December 1939 as ‘the earliest evidence for the plan for a kind of death factory which used poison gas to kill and crematoria to dispose of the corpses’. The note, concerning a conversation with Oswald Pohl, reads: ‘Crematorium—delousing installation’ (BAB, NS 19/1449; Richard Breitman,
Der Architekt der ‘Endlösung’. Himmler und die Vernichtung der europäischen Juden
(Paderborn, 1996), 130 f.). In fact, however, it was not until 1942 that installations were built in which killing with poison gas was combined with the burning of the corpses in crematoria. If Himmler had already had such a plan in December 1939, for which in fact there is no further evidence, then in that case he was not pursuing it very thoroughly.

52
. Note by Lieut.-Col. Lahousen, printed in Helmuth Groscurth,
Tagebücher eines Abwehroffiziers 1938–1940. Mit weiteren Dokumenten zur Militäropposition gegen Hitler
, ed. Helmut Krausnick and Harold C. Deutsch with Hildegard von Kotze (Stuttgart, 1970), 357 ff.

53
. Printed in Müller,
Heer
, Annex no. 45.

54
. On this see ibid. 422 ff.

55
. On resistance by and protests from the army see in detail Krausnick, ‘Einsatzgruppen’, 80 ff.

56
. Meeting between the chief of the general staff of the Wehrmacht commander in the recently established military district of Danzig and von Alvensleben, the Selbstschutz commander responsible for the West Prussian district, on 13 October 1939, in Jansen and Weckbecker,
‘Selbstschutz’,
175.

57
. Quoted in Groscurth,
Tagebücher
, 409 ff.

58
. Jansen and Weckbecker,
‘Selbstschutz’
,146 and 193 ff.

59
. Complaint from the military district commander in the Warthegau, General Petzel, to the Commander of the Reserve Army, dated 23 November 1939, doc. D-419, in
IMT
, vol. 35, p.88.

60
. IfZ, NO 3011, Commander-in Chief East, notes for the Commander-in-Chief East’s interview with the Commander-in-Chief of the army, 15 February 1940. They contain a long list of assaults and record Ulex’s statement of his views of 2 February 1940.

61
. Müller,
Heer
, 437 ff.; Blaskowitz’s notes for an interview with the Commander-in-Chief of the army 6 February 1940, printed in Ernst Klee, Willi Dressen,
and Volker Riess (eds),
‘Schöne Zeiten’. Judenmord aus der Sicht der Täter und Gaffer
(Frankfurt a. M., 1988), 14 ff.

62
. The responsibilities were defined in the RuSHA order of 2 September 1939 (BAB, NS 2/157). The following tasks were envisaged: securing the offices of the Western March Association (Westmarkverein) insofar as they had been involved in matters to do with land; closing down the money and credit institutes and the agricultural cooperatives; establishing contact with the leaders of the German ethnic groups in order to ‘register: (a) Jewish property, (b) the state forests and estates […], (c) church property, (d) large private estates, (e) agricultural land in the hands of banks’. See also BAB, BDC, SS-O Brehm, Brehm report of 7 October 1940: ‘After the invasion of Poland the head of the Settlement Main Office in the Race and Settlement Main Office, SS Oberführer von Gottberg, gave me, as commander of an Einsatzgruppe, the task of getting hold of all documents concerned with Poland’s land reform and undertaking the preparatory work for the establishment of a land office.’ The Einsatzgruppen of RuSHA officially began their work on 11 September 1939 (NS 2/55, Pancke to RFSS, 11 September 1939). For a thorough account of the discussions see Heinemann,
‘Rasse’
, 201 ff.

63
. BAB, NS 2/61, draft of a report for the office of the RKF. Head of the RuS-Advice section B, Theodor Henschel. It stated further that the consultation ‘had the task of preparing for the Germanization of ethnically alien landed property and asserting the interests of the SS in the property that became available [ . . . ] Those involved in the discussions were forbidden to intervene actively on their own initiative, which meant that they had to maintain close contact with the Einsatzgruppen of the security police [ . . . ] Property in Jewish hands and large Polish farms (over 25 ha in size) were reported to the security police so that the owners could be arrested and, after the farms had become vacant as a result of their owners’ arrest, they were assigned to the head of the civilian administration to be looked after by his agricultural department.’ See also NS 2/60, Advice A, Report no. 13, 21 October 1939, and Himmler to Pancke, 28 November 1939.

64
. See the material in BAB, NS 2/55. The Settlement Office discovered that the Agriculture Ministry had drafted 56 tenants of landed estates in order to deploy them to farm estates in Posen formerly belonging to the Polish state. Moreover, it was suspected that the Ministry was trying to resuscitate the ‘old Prussian Settlement Commission founded in 1886’ (minute of 11 September 1939 and Pancke to Himmler of the same date).

65
. Details in Madajczyk,
Okkupationspolitik
, 391.

66
. USHMM, Acc. 1999.A.0092, 16 October 1939.

67
. Doc. PS-686, in
IMT
, vol. 26, pp. 255 f. On the background see Stuhlpfarrer,
Umsiedlung
, 247 ff. The edict was based on the draft of a Führer edict concerning the organization of the South Tyrolean resettlement programme,
which Lammers had sent to Himmler on 12 August 1939. Himmler made some alterations. See BAB, R 43 II/1412.

68
. Stuhlpfarrer,
Umsiedlung
, 253. Material in BAB, R 43 II/1412.

69
. IfZ, NG 1759, Darré to Lammers, 4 October 1939.

70
. IfZ, NG 1759.

71
. This is clear from the letter to Göring of 27 October 1939 (ibid.).

72
. Ibid. 27 October 1939.

1
. BAB, R 58/241, edict of 1 November 1939. On the establishment of the police and its relationship with the administration see Gerhard Eisenblätter, ‘Grundlinien der Politikdes Reichs gegenüber dem Generalgouvernement, 1939–1945’, unpublished doctoral dissertation, Frankfurt University (1969), 131 ff.

2
. In June 1940, for example, Himmler was able successfully to insist that Frank’s state secretary, Bühler, was not Krüger’s superior (ibid. 143).

3
. Martin Broszat,
Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik 1939–1945
(Stuttgart, 1961), 81.

4
. For details on the order police in the General Government see Eisenblätter, ‘Grundlinien’, 136 f.

5
. BAB, R 75/3b; published in
Faschismus, Ghetto, Massenmord. Dokumentation über Ausrottung und Widerstand der Juden in Polen während des 2. Weltkrieges
, published by the Jewish Historical Institute Warsaw, selected, edited, and introduced by Tatiana Berenstein, Artur Eisenbach,
et al
. (Frankfurt a. M., 1962), 42 f.; on the role of the HSSPF in this context see Birn,
Die Höheren SS- und Polizeiführer
, 158.

6
. Madajczyk,
Okkupationspolitik
, 187.