Heinrich Himmler : A Life (170 page)

11
. Longerich,
Politik
, 427 ff.

12
. Longerich,
Davon
, 199 f.

13
. On 4 October Heydrich spoke of the ‘plan to resettle all Jews outside Europe’, referring on 6 October to a statement ‘from the highest level’ that ‘Jewry’ had ‘to disappear from Europe once and for all’ (BAB, NS 19/1734, at a meeting with representatives from the Ministry for the East and also CDJC, I 28, published in Klarsfeld,
Vichy
, 369 f., letter to the army Quartermaster-General). See also Longerich,
Befehl
, 188 ff.

14
. Manoschek,
‘Serbien’
, 43 ff.

15
. Ahlrich Meyer, ‘“ . . . daß französische Verhältnisse anders sind als polnische”. Die Bekämpfung des Widerstands durch die deutsche Militärverwaltung in Frankreich 1941’, in Guus Meershoek
et al
.,
Repression und Kriegsverbrechen. Die Bekämpfung von Widerstands- und Partisanenbewegungen gegen die deutsche Besatzung in West und Südosteuropa
(Berlin and Göttingen, 1997), 43–91; Weber,
Sicherheit
, 59 ff.;
Die Okkupationspolitik des deutschen Faschismus in Dänemark und Norwegen (1940–1945),
documents selected and with an introduction by Fritz Petrick (Berlin and Heidelberg, 1992), 33.

16
. Bohn,
Reichskommissariat
, 92 f. and 95 f., based on documents in the Norwegian state archive.

17
. Meershoek, ‘Machtentfaltung’, 391.

18
. Communist uprising in the occupied territories, 16 September 1941, published in
Kriegstagebuch des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht
, vol. 1, doc. no.101. On 28 September Keitel modified the order: now hostages from nationalist and democratic-bourgeois circles could be shot (doc. PS-1590, in
IMT
, vol. 27, pp. 373 f.).

19
. Brandes,
Tschechen
, i. 207 ff.

20
. Peter Klein, ‘Die Rolle der Vernichtungslager Kulmhof (Che
ó
mno), Belzec (Be
ó
żec) und Auschwitz-Birkenau in den frühen Deportationsvorbereitungen’, in Dittmar Dahlmann (ed.),
Lager, Zwangsarbeit, Vertreibung und Deportation. Dimensionen der Massenverbrechen in der Sowjetunion und in Deutschland 1933 bis 1945
(Essen, 1999),459–81, on 473.

21
. A record of this meeting was made by Hitler’s army adjutant Gerhard Engel: IfZ, ED 53/1, the so-called Engel Diary, which are in fact handwritten notes by Engel from the post-war period, presumably based on contemporary notes, 2 November 1941; in Gerhard Engel,
Heeresadjutant bei Hitler 1938–1943. Aufzeichnungen des Majors Engel
, ed. and with a commentary by Hildegard von Kotze (Stuttgart, 1975), 111, wrongly dated (2 October 1941) and at two points wrongly transcribed. Because of the incorrect transcription Engel’s report has up to now been rejected in all the research literature, as Himmler was demonstrably not in the headquarters on 2 October. An entry in the
Dienstkalender
for 2 November does, however, confirm a meeting between Himmler and Hitler on 2 November 1941. Heydrich, Jodl, and Keitel were also present.

22
. See below p.663.

23
. Manoschek,
‘Serbien’
, 55 ff.

24
. Ulrich Herbert, ‘Die deutsche Militärverwaltung in Paris und die Deportation derfranzösischen Juden’, in Christian Jansen (ed.),
Von der Aufgabe der Freiheit
.
Politische Verantwortung und bürgerliche Gesellschaft im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Festschrift für Hans Mommsen zum 5. November 1995
(Berlin, 1995), 427–50, at 437 ff.

25
. BAB, NS 19/2655 11 October 1941, and also Himmler’s reply of 22 October 1941.

26
. Ibid. Uebelhoer to Himmler, 4 and 9 October 1941, Heydrich to Himmler,8 October 1941, Himmler to Uebelhoer and Greiser, 10 and 11 October 1941; further material on the matter can be found in the same file.

27
. Ibid. 4 October 1941.

28
. This emerges from a letter from Greiser to Himmler of 1 May 1942, in which he informed him that the ‘special treatment operation approved by you in consultation with the Chief of the Reich Security Main Office, SS Obergruppenführer Heydrich, for around 100,000 Jews in my Gau’ could be ‘completed
in the next 2 to 3 months’ (
Faschismus
,
Ghetto, Massenmord
, 278). Evidence that there was a target of 100,000 Jews, ‘incapable of work’ and thus to be murdered, can also be found in another document of January 1942: see YVA, 051/13b, communications interception report by the Research Office of 16 January 1942. See also Klein, ‘Rolle’, 474.

29
. BAB, 19/2655, Heydrich to Himmler, 8 October 1941.

30
. BAB, R 6/34 a, reports by Werner Koeppen, Rosenberg’s permanent deputy at Hitler’s HQ, published in
Herbst 1941
. According to Hitler, the Jews were not to be deported first to the General Government but sent ‘on to the east right away’; he admitted that through lack of transport this was not possible at that time.

31
. YVA, M 58/23 (copy from the State Central Archive, Prague, 114-2-56), published in
Deutsche Politik im ‘Protektorat’
, doc. no.29.

32
. By this Heydrich may well have meant camps for civilian prisoners such as existed, for example, in Minsk and Mogilew (cf. Gerlach, ‘Failure’, 62).

33
. Präg und Jacobmeyer (eds),
Diensttagebuch
, 14 October 1941.

34
. At the meeting in Lublin on 17 October the Third Ordinance Concerning Residence Restrictions in the General Government was discussed, in which the death penalty was introduced for anyone leaving the ghetto (ibid. esp. 427 f. The ordinance was backdated to 15 October, see
Faschismus, Ghetto, Massenmord
, 128 f.). At the government meeting on 20 October in Cracow the Distict Governor Otto Wächter explained that, ‘in the end a radical solution to the Jewish question is unavoidable, and that at that point no allowances—for example for interests linked to particular craftsmen—could be made (IfZ, MA 120, shortened version in Präg und Jacobmeyer (ed.),
Diensttagebuch
, 436). At the 21 October meeting in Lemberg Eberhard Westerkamp, head of the Main Department for Administration of the Interior in the government of the General Government, demanded that the ‘isolation of the Jews from the rest of the population’ should be carried out ‘quickly and as thoroughly as possible’. Westerkamp also referred to the fact, however, that a ‘decree from the government forbids the creation of new ghettos, as it is hoped that in the near future the Jews will be deported from the General Government’, even though a few days before this Rosenberg had described this ‘hope’ as illusory (MA 120, shortened version in Präg und Jacobmeyer (ed.),
Diensttagebuch
, 436). See also statements made by Jost Walbaum, the head of the Health Main Office in the government of the General Government, at a conference of doctors that took place in Bad Krynica between 13 and 16 October: ‘There are only two paths: either we condemn the Jews to starve to death in the ghetto or we shoot them’ (ZStL, Poland 98, conference report).

35
. Dieter Pohl,
Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung in Ostgalizien 1941–1944. Organisation und Durchführung eines staatlichen Massenverbrechen
(Vienna, 1996), 140 ff. An ‘intelligentsia operation’ typical of this phase took place in Stanislau on 3 August, when 600 men were shot (IfZ, Gm 08.08, 5 Ks 4/65, judgment of the
regional court of Münster, 31 May 1968). On these first murders see also Thomas Sandkühler,
‘Endlösung’ in Galizien. Der Judenmord in Ostpolen und die Rettungsinitiativen von Berthold Beitz 1941–1944
(Bonn, 1996), 148 ff.

36
. For details see Pohl,
Ostgalizien
, 138 ff.

37
.
Dienstkalender
.

38
. BAB, BDC, SS-O Globocnik, letter to Himmler of 1 October 1941. See also Pohl,
Lublin
, 101.

39
. This view is also taken by the editors of the
Dienstkalender
, 233, note 35. The fact that a decisive ‘breakthrough’ was achieved is made clear by a letter that a colleague of Globocnik, Hauptsturmführer Hellmuth Müller, sent on 15 October 1941 to Hofmann, the head of RuSHA, which reflects the state of affairs before the decisive meeting between Himmler and Globocnik two days previously (Globocnik went first to Berlin on 14 October, see
Dienstkalender
). Müller stated that Globocnik regarded ‘the political circumstances in the GG in principle as a transitional phase’; he saw ‘the gradual cleansing of the whole GG and Poland from Jews as necessary for the purpose of providing security etc. in the eastern territories’, and was ‘full of extensive and good plans in connection with this, the implementation of which was hampered merely by the limits to his authority in these matters imposed by his present post’. After Globocnik’s journey to the Reich, however, this was to change fundamentally (BAB, BDC, SS-O Globocnik).

40
. ZStL, 208 AR-Z 252/59, vol. 6, p. 1179, testimony of Stanislaw Kozak on the beginning of building work (1 November), published in
Nationalsozialistische Massentötungen
, 152 f.; Michael Tregenza, ‘Belzec Death Camp’,
Wiener Library Bulletin
, 30 (1977), 8–25, confirms this date.

41
. Pohl,
Lublin
, 101 and 105 f.

42
.
Dienstkalender
, 20 October 1941. The editors quote from a declaration from Mach of 26 March 1942 before the Slovakian State Council from which one can infer the German offer.

43
. Klein, ‘Rolle’, 478, has already pointed this out. There are indications, though they are uncorroborated, that the building of Sobibor was already being prepared at the end of 1941 (ZStL, doc. 643, 71-4-442, testimony of the Polish railway worker Piwonski from 1975); cf. Jules Schelvis,
Vernichtungslager Sobibór
(Berlin, 1998), 37; Browning,
Entfesselung
, 525. Whether the building-works described were actually planned as an extermination camp cannot be established beyond doubt.

44
. These instructions were reconstructed on the basis of witness testimony, see Beer, ‘Entwicklung’, 407; regional court in Munich, judgment against Karl Wolff, 30 September1964, published in
Justiz und NS-Verbrechen
, vol. 20, no. 580, here pp. 434 ff.;
Dienstkalender
, 15 August 1941.

45
. Gerlach,
Morde
, 648; PRO, HW 16/32, 16 and 18 August 1941.

46
. Beer, ‘Entwicklung’, 408; ‘Die Ermordung psychisch kranker Menschen in der Sowjetunion. Dokumentation’, compiled and translated by Angelika
Ebbinghaus and Gerd Preissler,
Beiträge zur nationalsozialistischen Gesundheitsund Sozialpolitik
, 1 (1985), 75–107, on 83 ff.; Gerlach,
Morde
, 648.

47
. Beer, ‘Entwicklung’, 408; ‘Ermordung’, 88 ff.; ZStL, 202 ARZ 152/159, testimony of Widmann, 11 January 1960, 33 ff. In addition, see the testimony of Georg Frentzel, 27 August 1970, and also Alexander N. Stepanow (at that time consultant in charge of the psychiatric hospital in Mogilew), 20 July 1944, both in a file (Central investigation 9 in the investigative files of the GDR Ministry of State Security) that I read in 1997 at the Department of Public Prosecutions in Munich.

48
. Before Christmas 1941 further vehicles were driven from Berlin to Riga to Einsatzgruppe A; see Beer, ‘Entwicklung’, 413. On Sonderkommando 4a (Einsatzgruppe C) see ibid. 412. On Einsatzkommando 8 (Einsatzgruppe B) see Department of Public Prosecutions in Munich, central investigation 9 in the investigative files of the GDR Ministry of State Security, testimony of Otto Matonoga, 8–9 June 1945, to Soviet investigators. According to the testimony of a witness, Einsatzgruppe D used a gas van at the end of 1941; see Beer, ‘Entwicklung’, 413; regional court in Munich, 119 c Js 1/69, judgment; testimony of Jeckeln of 21 December 1945 (published in Wilhelm, ‘Einsatzgruppe A’, 548).

49
. Alfred Gottwaldt and Diana Schulle,
Die ‘Judendeportationen’ aus dem Deutschen Reich 1941–1945. Eine kommentierte Chronologie
(Wiesbaden, 2005), 52 ff. Among the older research publications on the deportations from Germany, in addition to the indispensable study by Adler,
Mensch
, see in particular the contributions of Ino Arndt and Heinz Boberach on the Third Reich, of Ino Arndt on Luxembourg, of Jonny Moser on Austria, and of Eva Schmidt-Hartmann on Czechoslovakia, which are all in the volume edited by Wolfgang Benz,
Dimension des Völkermords. Die Zahl der jüdischen Opfer des Nationalsozialismus
(Munich, 1991). On the deportations to Riga see above all Buch der Erinnerung.
Die ins Baltikum deportierten deutschen, österreichischen und tschechoslowakischen Juden
, ed. Wolfgang Scheffler and Diana Schulle, 2 vols. (Munich, 2003); Gottwaldt and Schulle,
‘Judendeportationen’
, 110 ff. On the deportation of the Gypsies of the Burgenland see Zimmermann,
Rassenutopie
, 223 ff.