Heinrich Himmler : A Life (169 page)

96
. EM 88; see also NS 33/22, telex from HSSPF South, 5 September 1941.

97
. EM 106.

98
. On the Babi Yar massacre see Krausnick, ‘Einsatzgruppen’, 189 f.; Hartmut Rüss, ‘Wer war verantwortlich für das Massaker von Babij Jar?’,
Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen
, 57/2 (1998), 483–508; Erhard Roy Wiehn (ed.),
Die Schoáh von Babij Jar. Das Massaker deutscher Sonderkommandos an der jüdischen Bevölkerung von Kiew 1941 fünfzig Jahre danach zum Gedenken
(Konstanz, 1991); Klaus Jochen Arnold, ‘Die Eroberung und Behandlung der Stadt Kiew durch die Wehrmacht im September 1941. Zur Radikalisierung der Besatzungspolitik’,
Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen
, 58/1 (1999), 23–63.

99
. On Einsatzgruppe C see Dieter Pohl, ‘Schauplatz Ukraine. Der Massenmord an den Juden im Militärverwaltungsgebiet und im Reichskommissariat 1941–1943’, in
Ausbeutung, Vernichtung, Öffentlichkeit. Neue Studien zur nationalsozialistischen Lagerpolitik
, ed. Norbert Frei, Sybille Steinbacher, and Bernd C. Wagner for the Institut für Zeitgeschichte (Munich, 2000), 135–73; Pohl, ‘Die Einsatzgruppe C 1941/42’, in Peter Klein (ed.),
Die Einsatzgruppen in der besetzten Sowjetunion 1941/42. Die Tätigkeits- und Lageberichte des Chefs der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD
(Berlin, 1997), 71–87. On the individual units there is the following information: Einsatzkommando 5 shot all inhabitants of one place, including women and children, for the first time in the middle of
September and then continued this practice (EM 119 of 20 October 1940: Bogusslaw, Uman, Cybulow, and others). In the Shitomir area Kommando 4a had been shooting women in large numbers, and very soon after children as well, from the beginning of August (ZStL, judgment of the regional court at Darmstadt, 29 November 1968). Police battalion 45, which belonged to the police regiment South began shooting Jews indiscriminately at the end of July/beginning of August (ZStL, II 204 AR-Z 1251/65, indictment and judgment). The commander, Besser, stated he had been acting in accordance with an order from the commander of the police regiment South, who in issuing the command had in turn referred to a general command from Himmler to liquidate (ibid. indictment). It can be verified that police battalion 314, also part of police regiment South, had been shooting women and children since 22 July (ZStL, 204 AR-Z 1251/65 D, note at the end of the file by the Bavarian State Criminal Police, 19 December 1977. In addition BAB, NS 33/22, telex from HSSPF South, 21, 24, und 27 August with reports of shootings carried out by battalion 314).

100
.
Dienstkalender
.

101
. Ibid.; on this journey see also in particular Gerlach,
Morde
, 571 ff.

102
. Klaus Hesse, ‘“ … Gefangenenlager, Exekution,… Irrenanstalt …”. Walter Frentz’ Reise nach Minsk im Gefolge Heinrich Himmlers im August 1941’, in Hans Georg Hiller von Gaertringen (ed.),
Das Auge des Dritten Reiches. Hitlers Kameramann und Fotograf Walter Frentz
(Munich and Berlin, 2006), 176–94.

103
. Paul D., testimony of 8 January 1963, ZStl 208 AR-Z 203/59, red file, ZProt. II, vol. 3, Quoted after Riess,
Anfänge
, 275 f. Riess rightly rejects all assertions as unproven that Himmler felt ill at this shooting and that this personal experience was responsible for the introduction of gassing vehicles in the east.

104
. ZStL, 201 AR-Z 76/59, 8 October 1971, vol. 11, pp. 7605 ff.

105
. Gerlach,
Morde
, 572 f. According to Gerlach the relevant testimony of von dem Bach-Zelewski provides no evidence that Himmler alluded to the murder of all Jews in his speech.

106
.
Dienstkalender
, 15 August 1941.

107
. Ibid.; BAB, BDC, SS-O Pflaum, letter to Himmler of 11 July 1941 and Pflaum’s note of 25 August 1941.

108
. BAB, R 6/23, Himmler to Rosenberg, 19 August 1941, also Rosenberg to Lammers, 23 August 1941.

109
. Heinemann,
‘Rasse’
, 420 f.

110
.
Dienstkalender
.

111
. OA Moscow, 1323-1-53, and BAB, R 43 II/684a, Lammers to Rosenberg re Himmler’s spheres of responsibility, 6 September 1941.

112
. In a discussion on 22 October Himmler and Lammers agreed for the time being not to approach Hitler concerning this matter, though in Lammers’s view that would be necessary if the matter were to be pursued (BAB, R 43 II/396,
Heydrich to Lammers, 18 September 1941, and also Lammers’s note of 23 October 1941, published in
Deutsche Politik im ‘Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren’ unter Reinhard Heydrich 1941–1942. Eine Dokumentation
, ed. Miroslav Kárny’, Jaroslava Milotová, und Margita Kárná (Berlin, 1997), 82 ff. and 132; see also
Dienstkalender
, 22 October 1941. On 14 and 15 October Rosenberg complained again about SS and police attempts to extend their powers in the Soviet territories (BAB, R 43 II/684a, Lammers’s notes of 23 and 28 October 1941). The consequence was the discussion between Himmler and Rosenberg of 15 November 1941, about which Himmler informed Lammers on 25 November 1941 (see below p. 538).

113
. BAB, NS 19/1734.

114
. BAB, R 6/9, note from HSSPF Ostland, 17 February 1942.

115
.
Dienstkalender
.

116
. Ibid.

117
. Ibid.; PRO, HW 16/32, Himmler to HSSPF Koppe, Posen.

118
.
Dienstkalender
and also BAB, NS 19/3957, itinerary on which Cherson is noted.

119
. ZStL, 213AR 1898/66, indictment of 8 March 1966. See also IfZ, NOKW 3233, report on the activity of Sonderkommando 11a in Nikolajev, 18–31 August 1941; cf. Angrick,
Besatzungspolitik
, 241 ff.

120
.
Dienstkalender
, 4. October 1941; what Himmler said emerges from a post-war testimony of the former head of Einsatzkommando 11a, Paul Zapp, who reports on it.

121
. StAnw München, 118 Ks 268, indictment of 8 March 1966; BAM, RH 2011/488, report on the activity of Sonderkommando 11a in Cherson, 22 August to 10 September 1941. See Angrick,
Besatzungspolitik
, 251 ff.

122
. BAB, R 6/34a, published in Werner Koeppen,
Herbst 1941 im ‘Führerhauptquartier’. Berichte Werner Koeppens an seinen Minister Alfred Rosenberg
, ed. and with a commentary by Martin Vogt (Koblenz, 2002), 59.

123
.
Dienstkalender
.

124
. Ibid.

125
. Ibid.; Christian Gerlach, ‘Failure of Plans for an SS Extermination Camp in Mogilev, Belorussia’,
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
, 11/1 (1997), 60–78.

126
.
Dienstkalender
.

127
. Ibid.

128
. Hitler,
Monologe
, 25 October 1941.

129
. BAB, R 6/9, joint instruction from Himmler und Rosenberg, 19 November 1941.

130
. BAB, R 43 II/684a.

131
. BAB, NS 19/3885, note on the file from Himmler, 15 November 1941; R 6/9, note from Rosenberg, 19 November 1941. On the meeting with Hitler, attended also by Bouhler, see
Dienstkalender
. See also Piper,
Rosenberg
, 587. Three days previously Himmler had also, though unsuccessfully, tried to get
himself acknowledged by the party as having sole responsibility for the ‘consolidation of the German nation’. He was, however, obliged to make do with an ‘Office for National Identity (
Volkstum
)’ (
Dienstkalender
, 13 November 1941).

132
. BAB, NS 19/4010, published in Himmler,
Geheimreden
, 162 ff., quotation 169.

133
. BAB, NS 19/4014, published in Himmler,
Geheimreden
, 203.

1
. The hypothesis that as early as the summer of 1941 the regime had taken a fundamental decision systematically to murder all European Jews and had drawn up relevant plans is no longer tenable, however (details can be found in Longerich,
Politik
, 421 ff.) Thus Richard Breitman’s thesis that at the end of August, a few weeks after Heydrich’s ‘authorization’ by Göring, Himmler had approved a completed ‘plan’ by Heydrich for the murder of the European Jews by gassing rests on an error: the entry in the diary kept by Himmler’s private secretaries for 26 August 1941, on which Breitman’s argument is based, in fact refers to the approval of a ‘travel plan’ by Heydrich, who intended to fly to Norway (Breitman,
Architekt
, 262 and 272;
Dienstkalender
, 26 August 1941). In addition, the testimony of the Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss that some time in ‘summer 1941’ he had been summoned to Himmler and told in confidence that Hitler had ‘ordered the final solution to the Jewish question’ and that he, Himmler, had identified Auschwitz for this, cannot be quite accurate, as the ‘existing annihilation locations in the east’, of which, according to Höss’s recollection, Himmler spoke, at this point did not yet exist. If this interview took place at all a date of 1942 appears more plausible, the more so because in his post-war testimonies Höss frequently confused these two years (Rudolf Höss,
Kommandant in Auschwitz. Autobiographische Aufzeichnungen
, with an introduction and commentary by Martin Broszat (Stuttgart, 1958), 157 ff.; see also his corroborating statement of 14 April 1946 in
IMT
, vol. 11, pp. 438–66).

2
. Longerich,
Politik
, 427.

3
. Wolf Gruner draws attention to this: ‘Von der Kollektivausweisung zur Deportation der Juden aus Deutschland (1938–1945). Neue Perspektiven und Dokumente’,
Beiträge zur Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus
, 20 (2004), 21–62, at 48. On the sources see the details in the
Dienstkalender
, 2 and 4 September 1941. The editors point to the fact that Koppe’s letter of 10 September is not preserved but that what it refers to can be reconstructed from the record of correspondence kept by the Personal Staff.

4
. Otto Bräutigam, ‘Aus dem Kriegstagebuch des Diplomaten Otto Bräutigam’, with an introduction and commentary by H. D. Heilmann,
Beiträge zur nationalsozialistischen Gesundheits und Sozialpolitik
, 4 (1989), 123–87, 14 September
1941. Bräutigam was Rosenberg’s liaison with the Wehrmacht High Command.

5
.
Dienstkalender
. The author of this suggestion, Carltheo Zeitschel, had already formulated it in August (CDJC, V-821.8.41, published in Klarsfeld,
Vichy
, 367). Zeitschel informed Dannecker, the Gestapo officer for Jewish matters in Paris, about the meeting of Himmler and Abetz on 8 October (CDJC, V-16; published in Serge Klarsfeld,
Die Endlösung der Judenfrage in Frankreich
(Paris 1977), 25).

6
.
Dienstkalender
;
ADAP
, Series D, vol. 13, 2, no. 327, 16 September 1941.

7
. BAB, NS 19/2655, published in Longerich,
Ermordung
, 157.

8
. BAB, R 6/34, Koeppen-Aufzeichnungen, 21 September 1941, published in Koeppen,
Herbst 1941
, 34 f. Koeppen had this information from the diplomat Gustav Adolf Steengracht, who belonged to Ribbentrop’s Personal Staff. It is possible that at this point Steengracht was not yet aware of Hitler’s decision to deport the Jews.

9
. Goebbels gave the instruction that if correspondents asked questions they should be told that the Jews were being sent to the east ‘to work’ (NS 18 alt/622, minutes of the propaganda conference, 23 October 1941). On the details see Longerich,
Davon
, 182 f.

10
. See for example the
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
of 20 October 1941, which published a UPI report on 18 October about the deportations from the Rhineland and Berlin. The
New York Times
had already carried a report on 18 October 1941 with further details about the situation of the Berlin Jews. On 22 October the
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
, on the basis of a UPI report of 20 October, wrote that the deportations were continuing and that a total of 20,000 people were affected.