Heinrich Himmler : A Life (171 page)

50
.
Nationalsozialistische Massentötungen
, 110 ff.

51
. Regional court in Bonn, judgment of 23 July 1965, published in
Justiz und NSVerbrechen
, vol. 21, no. 594;
Nationalsozialistische Massentötungen
, 110 ff.

52
. IfZ, NO 365, also published in Helmut Krausnick, ‘Judenverfolgung’, in Hans Buchheim
et al.
,
Anatomie des SS-Staates,
7th edn. (Munich, 1999), 545–678, here 649 f.

53
. Andrej Angrick and Peter Klein,
Die ‘Endlösung’ in Riga. Ausbeutung und Vernichtung 1941–1944
(Darmstadt, 2006), 338 ff.

54
. See above p. 547.

55
. Patricia Heberer, ‘Eine Kontinuität der Tötungsoperationen. T4-Täter und die “Aktion Reinhardt”’, in Bogdan Musial (ed.),
‘Aktion Reinhardt’. Der Völk-
ermord an den Juden im Generalgouvernement 1941–1944
(Osnabrück, 2004), 285–308, at 295. The
Dienstkalender
for 14 December 1941 provides evidence of the meeting between Himmler and Brack, the word ‘euthanasia’ being noted in the entry. See also Brack’s letter to Himmler, 23 June 1942, in which he declares himself willing to provide more staff and reminds Himmler of their earlier agreement (BAB, NS 19/1583).

56
. Jean-Claude Pressac,
Die Krematorien von Auschwitz. Die Technik des Massenmordes
(Munich and Zurich, 1994), 19.

57
. Stanislaw Klodzinski, ‘Die erste Vergasung von Häftlingen und Kriegsgefangenen im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz’, in
Die Auschwitz-Hefte
, ed. Hamburg Institute for Social Research (Weinheim and Basel, 1987), i. 261–75; Danuta Czech,
Kalendariumder Ereignisse im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-Birkenau 1939–1945
(Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1989), 115 ff.; Jerzy Brandhuber, ‘Die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz’,
Hefte von Auschwitz
, 4 (1961), 5–46, and Wojciech Barcz, ‘Die erste Vergasung’, in Hans G. Adler,
Auschwitz: Zeugnisse und Berichte
, 2nd edn. (Cologne and Frankfurt a. M., 1979), 17 f.

58
. See Browning,
Entfesselung
, 13; Steinbacher,
‘Musterstadt’
, 276 f.

59
. See Aly,
‘Endlösung’
, 342 ff.; Gerlach, ‘Failure’.

60
. Himmler expressed this intention in his letter to Greiser of 18 September 1941 (see above p. 542 f.).

61
. This can be inferred from a note that Goebbels made about a discussion with Heydrich on 17 November (
Tagebücher Goebbels
, 18 November 1941).

62
. This is clear from Leibrandt’s message to Lohse of 4 December 1941, according to which Heydrich now intended to construct this camp near Pleskow (YIVO, Occ E 3–35, published in Gertrude Schneider,
Journey into Terror: Story of the Riga Ghetto
, new extended edn. (Newport, Conn., and London, 2001), 130).

63
. IfZ, Fb 101/29, Jäger-Bericht. See Wolfgang Scheffler, ‘Massenmord in Kowno’, in
Buch der Erinnerung. Die ins Baltikum deportierten deutschen, österreichischen und tschechoslowakischen Juden
, ed. Scheffler and Diana Schulle, vol. 1 (Munich, 2003), 83–190.

64
. Gerald Fleming,
Hitler und die Endlösung. ‘Es ist des Führers Wunsch . . . ’
(Wiesbaden and Munich, 1982), 87 ff.; EM 151 of 5 January 1942.

65
. Testimony of 15 December 1945 to Soviet investigators, published in Wilhelm, ‘Einsatzgruppe A’, 566 f.

66
. Published in
Dienstkalender
. The time was 13.30.

67
. Angrick und Klein,
‘Endlösung’
, 239 ff. The Jews arriving in the next 22 transports were as a rule brought to the Riga ghetto or to the two camps in Salaspils and Junfernhof. There were presumably two exceptions: the majority of the passengers on a transport of 19 January 1942 and a further 500 Jews from a transport at the end of January were evidently shot immediately after arrival.

68
.
Dienstkalender
, 30 November and 4 December 1941; PRO, HW 16/32, telegrams from Himmler to Jeckeln, 1 and 4 December 1941.

69
. Hitler,
Monologe
, 25 October 1941.

70
. Draft of speech, cited in Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm,
Rassenpolitik und Kriegführung. Sicherheitspolizei und Wehrmacht in Polen und in der Sowjetunion 1939–1942
(Passau, 1991), 131 f., after PAA, Pol XIII, 25, VAA-Berichte; cf. notes by a press reporter, published in Hagemann,
Presselenkung
, 146.

71
. Breitman,
Architekt
, 288 f.; BAB, R 43 II/684a, Brandt to Lammers, forwarding Himmler’s notes for the file on the discussion, 25 November 1941.

72
.
Dienstkalender
; Hitler,
Reden und Proklamationen
[Domarus], ii. 1794 ff.

73
.
Tagebücher Goebbels
, 13 December 1941.

74
. As Christian Gerlach argues, ‘Die Wannsee-Konferenz, das Schicksal der deutschen Juden und Hitlers politische Grundentscheidung, alle Juden Europas zu ermorden’,
Werkstatt Geschichte
, 6/18 (1997), 7–44.

75
.
Dienstkalender
. According to Gerlach, ‘Wannsee-Konferenz’, 22 and 27, the expression ‘partisan’ refers to all European Jews; on the basis of his ‘policy decision’ of 12 December to murder the European Jews Hitler, he maintains, had therefore instructed Himmler in his new task. There is not sufficient evidence for this thesis: the contemporary use of the expression ‘partisan’ does not support it, nor does the casual manner in which this point is mentioned in Himmler’s list of things to discuss.

1
. For all these dates see
Dienstkalender.

2
. PAA, Inland IIg 177, Heydrich to Luther, 29 November 1941; the meeting on 8 December 1941 was cancelled. On the Wannsee conference see Gerlach, ‘Wannsee-Konferenz’; Eberhard Jäckel, ‘On the Purpose of the Wannsee Conference’, in James S. Pacy (ed.),
Perspectives on the Holocaust: Essays in Honor of Raul Hilberg
(Boulder, Colo., etc., 1995), 39–50; Peter Klein,
Die Wannsee-Konferenz vom 20. Januar 1942. Analyse und Dokumentation
(Berlin, [1995]); Peter Longerich,
Die Wannsee-Konferenz vom 20. Januar 1942. Planung und Beginn des Genozids an den europäischen Juden
, public lecture delivered at the Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz on 19 January 1998, with the addition of an annotated select bibliography on the Wannsee conference and the beginning of the genocide of the European Jews, with a facsimile of the conference minutes (Berlin, 1998); Kurt Pätzold and Erika Schwarz,
Tagesordnung: Judenmord. Die Wannsee-Konferenz am 20. Januar 1942. Eine Dokumentation zur Organisation der ‘Endlösung’
, 3rd edn. (Berlin, 1992); Safrian,
Eichmann-Männer
, 171 ff.

3
. See in particular Cornelia Essner,
Die ‘Nürnberger Gesetze’ oder die Verwaltung des Rassenwahns 1933–1945
(Paderborn, etc., 2002), 410 ff.; Jeremy Noakes, ‘The Development of Nazi Policy towards the German-Jewish “Mischlinge”, 1933–1945’,
Leo Baeck Institute Year Book
, 34 (1989), 291–354; John A. S. Grenville, ‘Die “Endlösung” und die “Judenmischlinge” im Dritten Reich’,
in
Das Unrechtsregime. Internationale Forschung über den Nationalsozialismus
, ed. Ursula Büttner assisted by Werner Johe and Angelika Voss, vol. 2:
Verfolgung, Exil, belasteter Neubeginn
(Hamburg, 1986), 91–121.

4
. PAA, Inland IIg 177, conference minutes.

5
. Ibid. copy no. 16 of the minutes, published in Longerich, ed.,
Ermordung
, 83 ff.

6
. That at this stage deportation to the occupied Soviet territories really was still a serious option is shown not only by the forced-labour projects developed at the same time (which will be discussed in the next chapter) but is made clear also by the fact that on 12 January, only a few days before the Wannsee conference, the HSSPF Ukraine instructed the general commissars in Brest, Shitomir, Nikolajev, Dnjepropetrovsk, und Kiev to begin immediately to construct ghettos, so that ‘in the course of 1942 Jews from the old Reich’ could ‘be accommodated’ (Staatsarchiv Shitomir, P 1151-1-137). I am grateful to Wendy Lower for making me aware of this document.

7
. Präg and Jacobmeyer (eds),
Diensttagebuch
, 16 December 1941.

8
. ‘We cannot shoot these 3.5 million Jews, nor can we poison them’ (ibid.).

9
. PAA, Inland IIg 177, copy of the minutes no. 16, published in Longerich (ed.),
Ermordung
, 83 ff.

10
. Cf. Kaienburg,
‘Vernichtung’
, 144 ff.; Schulte,
Zwangsarbeit
, 332 ff.

11
. Schulte,
Zwangsarbeit
, 334 ff.

12
. Ibid. 351 ff.; Christian Streit,
Keine Kameraden. Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941–1945
(Bonn, 1997), 212 f.

13
. Schulte,
Zwangsarbeit
, 208 f.

14
. IfZ, NI 11086; Schulte,
Zwangsarbeit
, 209 f. On the Buna plant see Wagner,
IG Auschwitz
; Gottfried Plumpe,
Die I.G. Farbenindustrie AG. Wirtschaft, Technik und Politik 1904–1945
(Berlin, 1990), 382 ff.

15
. Schulte,
Zwangsarbeit
, 211; Hans Mommsen and Manfred Grieger,
Das Volkswagenwerk und seine Arbeiter im Dritten Reich
(Düsseldorf, 1996), 496 ff.; Hitler’s order is published in Klaus-Jörg Siegfried (ed.),
Rüstungsproduktion und Zwangsarbeit im Volkswagenwerk 1939–1945. Eine Dokumentation
(Frankfurt a. M., 1986), 61.

16
. BAB, NS 19/2065; see also Schulte,
Zwangsarbeit
, 343 f.

17
.
Faschismus, Ghetto, Massenmord
, 268. On this decision and its consequences see in particular Allen,
Business
, 48 ff., and also Schulte,
Zwangsarbeit
, 361. The day before this Himmler had given Heydrich the task of getting ‘Jews into the concentration camps’ (
Dienstkalender
, 25 January 1942). The decision to deport Jews en masse to the concentration camps and use them as slave labour was probably made at Himmler’s meeting with the heads of the SS Main Offices on 14–15 January. A few days after this conference Pohl issued the order in Himmler’s name to expand the Business and Administration Main Office (IfZ, NO 495). On 17 January 1942 the following telex was sent from the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories to Reich Commissar Lohse, which made clear a fundamental change in the matter of how far Jewish
workers were to be kept alive: ‘On the instructions of the leadership for Business East, Jewish skilled industrial workers and craftsmen, whose usefulness for the war economy must in isolated cases be regarded as particularly important, are to be preserved for work. The preservation of these workers must be negotiated with the local offices of the Reichsführer-SS’ (BAB, R 92/1157, cf. Wolfgang Scheffler, ‘Das Schicksal der in die baltischen Staaten deportierten deutschen, österreichischen und tschechoslowakischen Juden 1941–1945’, in
Buch der Erinnerung. Die ins Baltikum deportierten deutschen, österreichischen und tschechoslowakischen Juden
, ed. Scheffler and Diana Schulle, vol. 1 (Munich, 2003), 1–78, here 6.) Only a few days later, on 20 January 1942, at the Wannsee conference Heydrich was to speak of the columns of Jewish slave workers who were to be taken to the east ‘to build roads’.

18
. See below p.562.

19
. Himmler’s decision to amalgamate was presumably taken at a meeting on 15 January 1942 (
Dienstkalender
); the ensuing order from Pohl went out on 19 January 1942 (IfZ, NO 495); a facsimile of Pohl’s order of 13 March 1942 about the incorporation of the inspectorate of concentration camps into the WVHA is published in Johannes Tuchel,
Die Inspektion der Konzentrationslager 1938–1945. Das System des Terrors
(Berlin, 1994), 88 f. For further details see Schulte,
Zwangsarbeit
, 197 ff. and 357.

20
. Schulte,
Zwangsarbeit
,344 ff.; IfZ, NO 3795, Himmler to Pohl, 31 January 1942; BAB, NS 19/2065, Kammler’s extended proposal of 10 February 1942, forwarded on 5 March 1942 to Himmler.