Heinrich Himmler : A Life (161 page)

7
. Michael Foedrowitz, ‘Auf der Suche nach einer besatzungspolitischen Konzeption. Der Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD im General-gouvernement’, in Gerhard Paul and Klaus-Michael Mallmann (eds),
Die Gestapo im Zweiten Weltkrieg. ‘Heimatfront’ und besetztes Europa
(Darmstadt, 2000), 340–61, esp. 340 ff.

8
. Decree Concerning the Introduction of German Penal Law of 6 June 1940, in
RGBl
1940 I, 84. On this see also Broszat,
Polenpolitik
, 142 ff.

9
. Decree Concerning Penal Measures against Poles and in the Incorporated Eastern Territories of 4 December 1941, in
RGBl
1941 I, 759.

10
. Christopher R. Browning, ‘Die nationalsozialistische Umsiedlungspolitik und die Suche nach einer “Lösung der Judenfrage” 1939–1941’, in id.,
Der Weg zur ‘Endlösung’. Entscheidungen und Täter
(Bonn, 1998), 13–36; and Pohl,
Lublin
, 22.

11
. BAB, R 58/825, 15 September 1939.

12
.
Faschismus, Ghetto, Massenmord
, 37 ff.; IfZ, PS-3363.

13
. Minutes of the conversation between Heydrich and von Brauchitsch, printed in Groscurth,
Tagebücher
, 361 f.

14
. BAB, R 58/825, Meeting of departmental heads of 29 September, minutes of 1 October 1939. Correspondingly, the exceptional regulation referred to in the express letter of 21 September that no preparations for deportations were to be carried out in the area of Einsatzgruppe I was cancelled (YV, 053/87, Eichmann minute of 29 September 1939).

15
. Alfred Rosenberg,
Das politische Tagebuch Alfred Rosenbergs aus den Jahren 1934/1935 und 1939/1940
, ed. Hans-Günther Seraphim (Munich, 1964), 81.

16
. See Longerich,
Politik
, 255. Hitler himself mentioned it on 26 September to the Swedish industrialist Dahlerus (Andreas Hillgruber (ed.),
Staatsmänner und Diplomaten bei Hitler. Vertrauliche Aufzeichnungen über Unterredungen mit Vertretern des Auslandes
, vol. 1:
1939–1941
(Frankfurt a. M., 1967), 29 f.) and on 1 October explained to the Italian Foreign Minister the idea of an ‘ethnic reorganization’ in the east (
ADAP
, Series D, vol. 7, no. 176, Minutes of 2 October 1939). The German press was also informed confidentially about these plans and there was soon speculation about such a ‘reservation’ in the international press. (Vertrauliche Information [Information from the Propaganda Ministry], 9 October 1941, published in Jürgen Hagemann,
Die Presselenkung im Dritten Reich
(Bonn, 1970), 145). On 6 October Hitler announced in his Reichstag speech, that ‘after the collapse of the Polish state’ the ‘most important task’ was ‘a reorganization of the ethnic situation, that is to say a resettlement of the nations’. In the course of the creation of this new order ‘the attempt’ must be made ‘to sort out and regulate the Jewish problem’ (
Verhandlungen des Reichstages. Stenographische Berichte
, vol. 460 (Berlin 1939), 51 ff.).

17
. YV, 053/87 (Gestapo files from Mährisch-Ostrau); on Eichmann’s further activities in this period see in detail Longerich,
Politik
, 256 ff. For literature on the deportations in autumn 1939 see Miroslav Kárny, ‘Nisko in der Geschichte der Endlösung’,
Judaica Bohemiae
, 23 (1987), 69–84; Seev Goshen, ‘Eichmann und die Nisko-Aktion im Oktober 1939. Eine Fallstudie zur NSJudenpolitik in der letzten Etappe vor der “Endlösung”’,
Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte
, 29/1 (1981), 74–96; Jonny Moser, ‘Nisko: The First Experiment in Deportation’,
Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual
, 2/1 (1985), 1–30; Seev Goshen, ‘Nisko. Ein Ausnahmefall unter den Judenlagern der SS’,
Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte
, 40/1 (1992), 95–106; Hans Günter Adler,
Der verwaltete Mensch. Studien zur Deportation der Juden aus Deutschland
(Tübingen, 1974), 125 ff.; Browning, ‘Umsiedlungspolitik’; Safrian,
Eichmann-Männer
, 68 ff. There is further material in the volume of conference proceedings edited by Ludmila Nesládková,
The Case Nisko in the History of the Final Solution of the Jewish Problem in Commemoration of the 55th Anniversary of the First Deportation of Jews in Europe
(Ostrava, 1995).

18
. YV, 053/87, note by Günther 11 October 1939. Eichmann also referred to this ‘commission from the Führer’ during his visit to Becker, the ‘special
representative for Jewish questions’, on Bürckel’s staff; he mentioned that the Jews still living in Vienna would be expelled in ‘3 to 4 years at the latest’ (Gerhard Botz,
Wohnungspolitik und Judendeportation in Wien 1938. Zur Funktion des Antisemitismus als Ersatz nationalsozialistischer Sozialpolitik
(Vienna and Salzburg, 1975), 105).

19
. YV, 053/87, note of 6 October 1939.

20
. Ibid. telegrams from SD Main Office to Stapo branch office in MährischOstrau, 13 October 1939, and reply from SD Danube, 16 October 1939.

21
. The meeting in the Stapo branch office in Mährisch-Ostrau on 9 October was concerned with details involving the construction of the barracks (ibid. Dannecker minute, 11 October 1939).

22
. Ibid. minute of the central office in Vienna, 17 October 1939. Gauleiter Bürckel, who had been informed by a member of his staff about the recent conversation with Eichmann, declared that he was ‘more than happy [ . . . ] that the planned resettlement of Jews into barracks did not need to take place because the cost per head for building the barracks alone would come to 300 Reich marks’.

23
. See Safrian,
Eichmann-Männer
, 77 ff. On the carrying out of the deportations see Goshen, ‘Eichmann’, 86; on Vienna see Rosenkranz,
Verfolgung,
215 ff.; on the deportation from Mährisch-Ostrau see Kárny, ‘Nisko’, 96 ff., and Luká Pr
ř
ibyl, ‘Das Schicksal des dritten Transports aus dem Protektorat nach Nisko’, in
Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente
(2000), 297–342.

24
. YV, 053/87, note of the Gestapo branch office in Mährisch-Ostrau, 21 October 1939. In a letter to Bürckel of 9 November 1939 Himmler once more made it clear that he had ‘banned the deportation of the Jews for the time being because of technical difficulties’ (Botz,
Wohnungspolitik
, 196, and doc. PS-3398, in
IMT
, vol. 32, pp. 255 ff.).

25
. Thus, at the end of October the RSHA informed SD-Oberabschnitt Vienna that it was quite conceivable that ‘individual transports of Jews from Vienna’ might be included (YV, 053/86, SD-Danube to Stapo branch office in Mährisch-Ostrau, 28 October 1939). On 1 November 1939 the HSSPF East, Krüger, also referred to existing plans for ‘a particularly large concentration of Jews’ (Werner Präg and Wolfgang Jacobmeyer (eds),
Das Diensttagebuch des deutschen Generalgouverneurs in Polen 1939–1945
(Stuttgart, 1975), 56).

26
. Heinemann,
‘Rasse’
, 214. On the demarcation of responsibilities and on cooperation see BAB, NS 2/139, letter from RKF, Himmler, 15 February 1940, and IfZ, PS-2207, containing order of the RFSS re: Cooperation of the RFSS’s agencies with the Main Trustee Office East, 10 November 1939.

27
. Heinemann,
‘Rasse’
, 191; Stuhlpfarrer,
Umsiedlung
, 251.

28
. BAB, NS 2/60.

29
. Ibid. also 11 October 1939, note to the same distribution list re: Accommodating the Volhynian Germans. Further instructions issued on this day to the heads of the SS Main Offices are in the same file.

30
. Ibid. note.

31
. BAB, R 75/3b, published in
Faschismus, Ghetto, Massenmord
, 42 f.

32
. Minutes in
Biuletyn Glównej Komisji Badania Zbrodni Niemieckich w Polsce
, 12, doc.no.3. See also Krüger’s report to a meeting of the district administrators (Landräte) of Cracow district on the same day (Präg and Jacobmeyer (eds),
Diensttagebuch
).

33
. Circular of the HSSPF Warthegau, Koppe, 12 November 1939, printed in
Faschismus, Ghetto, Massenmord
, 43 ff.

34
. Heydrich to the HSSPF Cracow, Breslau, Posen, and Danzig and telexes of 28 November 1939 re: details of the short-range plan, in
Biuletyn Glównej Komisji Badania Zbrodni Niemieckich w Polsce
, 12, Docs. 4 and 5. Although the long-range plan has not yet been discovered there exists an undated and unsigned draft, which presumably was composed by Department III of the RSHA (BAB, R 69/1146, ed. Karl Heinz Roth in
1999
, 11 (1997), 50–71).

35
. BAB, R 75/3b, final report, Koppe, 26 January 1940, printed in
Faschismus, Ghetto, Massenmord
, 48.

36
. BAB, R 75/3b, HSSPF Koppe to RSHA, Posen, 18 December 1939, published in
Biuletyn Glównej Komisji Badania Zbrodni Niemieckich w Polsce
, 12, doc. 8.

37
. BAB, R 58/276, also printed in
Biuletyn Glównej Komisji Badania Zbrodni Niemieckich w Polsce
, 12, doc. 9; the letter referred to the official meeting of 19 December 1939.

38
. Götz Aly,
‘Endlösung’. Völkerverschiebung und der Mord an den europäischen Juden
(Frankfurt a. M., 1995), 73 f., quoting Archivum Glównej Komisji Badania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu Warschau, UWZ, P 197. On these plans see also Frank’s comments of 19 January 1940 (Präg and Jacobmeyer (eds),
Diensttagebuch)
.

39
. Aly,
‘Endlösung’,
77, 81 f., and 89.

40
. Details in Longerich,
Politik
, 266 f.

41
. BAB, R 113/10, printed in
Mitteilungen der Dokumentationsstelle zur NS-Sozialpolitik
, 1 (1985), 45 ff., with an introduction by Karl Heinz Roth and supplementary documents. The document has survived in another version as an annex to a message from the OKW of 8 March 1940 and is also dated February (Rolf-Dieter Müller,
Hitlers Ostkrieg und die deutsche Siedlungspolitik. Die Zusammenarbeit von Wehrmacht, Wirtschaft und SS
(Frankfurt a. M., 1991), 130 ff.). RuSHA specifically welcomed the memorandum of the Office for Racial Politics of the NSDAP concerning the ‘Treatment of the Population in the Former Polish Territories’, which went beyond the ‘basic planning’—among other things, it proposed deporting all Jews and over 5 million Poles from the annexed territories and Germanizing the remaining population, estimated to be 1.3 million (R 49/75, Hecht/Wetzel-Memorandum, 25 November 1939); Heinemann,
‘Rasse’
, 192 f.

42
. BAB, R 58/1032, Meeting of 30 January 1940 in the RSHA, published in
Faschismus, Ghetto, Massenmord
, 50 ff. On the modifications to the deportation plans see Browning,
Entfesselung
, 91 ff.

43
. In addition to the 80,000 people who were expelled as part of the first short-range plan, the following population movements took place: between 10 February and 15 March 1940, as part of the so-called intermediate plan, 40,128 Jews and Poles were deported from the annexed territories to the General Government (ibid. 104 ff.). Between April 1940 and January 1941 the second short-range plan came into effect in a revised version with the deportation of 130,000 Poles and 3,500 Jews to the General Government. In the course of the ‘Cholm Action’ 30,275 ethnic Germans from the area round Cholm and Lublin were settled in the Warthegau and 28,265 Poles were deported from there to the General Government (Aly,
‘Endlösung’
, 157). Furthermore, during the so-called Saybusch Action between September 1940 and January 1941 a total of 18,000 Poles were driven out of the eponymous district in Upper Silesia and their farms were taken over by settlers from Galicia (Sybille Steinbacher,
‘Musterstadt’ Auschwitz. Germanisierungspolitik und Judenmord in Ostoberschlesien
(Munich, 2000), 133 f.).

44
. See below p. 581 f.

45
. According to the report of the Main Department I of the RKF of 28 January 1941, by 16 January 1941 a total of 307,958 people had been ‘evacuated’ (BAB, R 49/3127, resettlement and evacuation in the incorporated territories during 1941, 28 January 1941). According to Himmler’s interview with Hitler on 20 February 1943, 366,000 people had been deported by the end of 1942 (R 43 II/1411).

46
. After a meeting with Himmler on 7 November 1939 department head Pancke noted: ‘Hofmann should consider how one can assess the racial characteristics of large masses of the German and Polish populations of the eastern territories. The Reichsführer-SS wants to use the Clan Office [Sippenamt] in the RuS-Main Office to integrate the RuS-Main Office into his Reich Commissariat so that, as a result, the whole deployment of people in the eastern territories can be controlled and the right decisions can be taken. As a result of the integration of the Settlement Office and the Clan Office into the Reich Commissariat the RuS-Main Office will acquire an absolutely decisive influence on the settlement of the eastern territories’ (BAB, NS 2/139). On 16 December 1939 Himmler assigned to Hofmann, the head of the Clan Office, the job of taking over the responsibilities of the head of the Race Office in addition to his own (BDC, SS-O Hofmann). See Heinemann,
‘Rasse’
, 194 f.