The Third Reich

by Thomas Childers

  or a legal guardian: Robert E. Proctor, Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis (Cambridge, MA, 1988), pp. 46–49.

  “the use of force is permissible”: Burleigh and Wippermann, The Racial State, p. 137.

  the new order of things: Koonz, The Nazi Conscience, p. 104.

  fall into one of these categories: Fritzsche, Life and Death in the Third Reich, pp. 87–88.

  such appeals were successful: Proctor, Racial Hygiene, pp. 72–73, 102–4.

  “never have been born at all”: Hitler’s Table Talk, 1941–1944, entry of August 29, 1942, p. 675. For a partial list of test questions, see Burleigh and Wipperman, The Racial State, pp. 138–39. Convinced that the brilliance of the Führer should be recorded for posterity, Bormann had begun transcribing Hitler’s dinner and luncheon conversations. A Bormann aide unobtrusively took notes, which were then typed out, and read by Bormann to eliminate any possible faux pas or embarrassing comments.

  first six months of pregnancy: Giesela Bock, Zwangssterilisation im Nationalsozialismus. Studien zur Rassenpolitik und Frauenpolitik (Opladen, 1986), pp. 230–46; and Burleigh and Wippermann, The Racial State, p. 140.

  lead to compulsory sterilization: Fritzsche, Life and Death in the Third Reich, pp. 80–81.

  “Hope for as many children as possible”: Claudia Koonz, “Eugenics, Gender, and Ethics in Nazi Germany: The Debate about Involuntary Sterilization, 1933–1936,” in Childers and Caplan, eds., Reevaluating the Third Reich, pp. 70–71.

  “preservation of high-grade germ plasma”: Hermann Paull, “Deutsche Rassenhygiene: Ein Gemeinverständliches Gespräch über Vererbungslehre, Eugenik, Familie, Sippe, Rasse und Volkstum,” in C. A. Starke, Erbegesundheitspflege und Wappenkunde, Part II (Berlin 1934), pp. 17–21; and Mosse, ed., Nazi Culture, pp. 35–38.

  race, eugenics, and preventive medicine: Michael Kater, Doctors Under Hitler (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), pp. 54–59.

  organically grown vegetables and whole wheat bread: See Robert E. Proctor, The Nazi War Against Cancer (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).

  new lifestyle for the Volksgemeinschaft: Hitler’s Table Talk, pp. 114–15, 230–31, 360–61.

  awaiting admission were processed: Proctor, Racial Hygiene, p. 65.

  offering courses in the subject: Ibid., pp. 79–81.

  Aryan, Germanic, and Nordic peoples: See, for example, Dr. H. Meinshausen, Erziehung zum Dritten Reich. Reden und Aufsätze (Berlin, 1934).

  “engaged in by the Jews of your acquaintance?”: From Jakob Graf, Familienkunde und Rassenbiologie für Schüler, second edition (Munich 1935), pp. 107–14, 115, quoted in Mosse, Nazi Culture, pp. 80–81.

  to create “a new moral order”: Koonz, The Nazi Conscience, p. 110.

  “The healthy preserve the Volk”: For examples, see Koonz, The Nazi Conscience, pp. 118–20.

  staffed by 3,600 workers: Proctor, Racial Hygiene, pp. 87–89.

  to deal with racial affairs: Koonz, The Nazi Conscience, p. 115.

  a nationwide program of euthanasia: Burleigh and Wippermann, The Racial State, p. 142; Proctor, Racial Hygiene, pp. 181–82.

  No visitations were permitted: Burleigh, The Third Reich, p. 284.

  Genetically Determined Illness: Burleigh and Wippermann, Life and Death in the Third Reich, pp. 142–50. See also Michael Burleigh, Death and Deliverance: Euthanasia in Germany 1900–1945 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

  victims in Germany and beyond: See Henry Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution (Chapel Hill, 1995).

  30,000 had received decorations for bravery: Burleigh, The Third Reich, p. 284.

  by the close of 1938, there were none: Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews, vol. I, pp. 283–84.

  “whose idea is Bolshevism”: Ibid., p. 182.

  many who were not committed Nazis: Graml, Antisemitism in the Third Reich, pp. 108–9.

  thrown into the street: Report of the Stapostelle Regierungsbezirk Köln, March 4, 1935, in Otto Dov Kulka and Eberhard Jäckel, eds., Die Juden in den geheimen NS-Stimmungsberichten, 1933–1945 (Düsseldorf, 2004), p. 122.

  would no longer be admitted to theaters: Sopade, Deutschland-Berichte, reports from September 1935, pp. 1021, 1027, 1031.

  “this persecution of the Jews”: Sopade, Deutschland-Berichte, September 1935, pp. 1028–29.

  well-ordered, and happy Germany: Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews, vol. I, pp. 180–81.

  Hitler’s long-cherished ideas: Graml, Antisemitism in the Third Reich, pp. 109–11.

  his or her impending blunder: Noakes and Pridham, eds., Nazism, vol. II, p. 533.

  the honor of reading out the text: Ibid., pp. 531–37.

  Aryan women of child-bearing age: Cornelie Essner, Die “Nürnberger Ge-setze” oder Die Verwaltung des Rassenwahns, 1933–1945 (Paderborn, 2002).

  Führer about the details: Noakes and Pridham, eds., Nazism, vol. II, p. 538.

  quarter Jews at 25,000 to 130,000: Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews, vol. I, pp. 150–51.

  Wannsee Conference in January 1942: Graml, Antisemitism in the Third Reich, pp. 121–23; and Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews, vol. I, p. 152. For the many contradictions and perplexities arising from the Nuremberg Laws, see Friedländer, ibid., pp. 148–49. For Wannsee, see chapter 16 of this book.

  “at least one of the partners”: For the unanticipated complexities of Nazi racial policy, see Robert Procter, Racial Hygiene, pp. 64–125; and Michael Burleigh, The Racial State, pp. 44–199.

  without first being sentenced in court: Graml, Antisemitism in the Third Reich, p. 125.

  “Aryan customers entering Jewish businesses”: Report of the Stapostelle Breslau, May 5, 1935, in Kulka and Jäckel, Die Juden in den geheimen NS-Stimmungsberichten, p. 129.

  warnings against frivolous denunciations: Grunberger, The 12-Year Reich, pp. 108–15; Robert Gellately, The Gestapo and German Society.

  to slip back into the German mainstream: Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews, vol. I, p. 116; Graml, Antisemitism in the Third Reich, pp. 112–13.

  “to speak like that in public”: Quoted in Marion Kaplan, From Dignity to Despair (New York, 1998), p. 21.

  their position deteriorated: Graml, Antisemitism in the Third Reich, pp. 123–24.

  to have a passable knowledge of Hebrew: Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews, vol. I, pp. 197–99.

  “but with poison gas”: Michael Wildt, Die Judenpolitik des SD 1935 bis 1938 (Munich, 1995), pp. 66–67; also in Susanne Heim, “Deutschland muss ihnen ein Land ohne Zukunft. Die Zwangsemigration der Juden, 1933–1938,” in Beiträge zur Nationalsozialistischen Gesundheits und Sozialpolitik, vol. 11, Arbeitsemigration und Flucht (Berlin, 1993).

  “None of it should remain”: Barth, Goebbels und die Juden, pp. 110–17.

  “left the population perpetually on edge”: Sopade, Deutschland-Berichte, Report for September 1938, pp. 913–32.

  to add Israel or Sara to their names: Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews, vol. I, pp. 98–99.

  It worked: Karl Dietrich Bracher, Schulz, and Wolfgang Sauer, Die nationalsozialistische Machtergreifung, part I, Bracher, Stufen der Machtergreifung (Frankfurt a.M., 1974 ed.), pp. 80–81.

  nonetheless to Heydrich and the SD: Burleigh, The Third Reich, pp. 321–32.

  “Nobody wants them”: Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews, vol. I, p. 94.

  “for incompetent party members”: Peter Longerich, Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews (Oxford, 2010), p. 109.

  “our tragedy and that of the 12,000”: Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews, vol. I, p. 268.

  “chased like an animal”: Toland, Adolf Hitler, p. 502.

  “sizzled with white-hot fury”: Peter Longerich, Joseph Goebbels. Eine Biographie (Munich, 2010), p. 394ff; Barth, Goebbels und die Juden, p. 132.

  action of an enraged nation: Peter Longerich, Der ungeschriebene Befehl. Hitler und Weg zur
“Endlösung” (Munich, 2001), p. 61ff; Longerich, Holocaust, pp. 109–13.

  “difficult diplomatic situation”: Uwe Dietrich Adam, “Wie Spontan war der Pogrom?,” in Walter H. Pehle, ed., Der Judenpogrom 1938: Von der “Reichskristallnacht” zum Völkermord (Frankfurt, 1988), pp. 74–80; also Goebbels’s diary entry from November 10, 1938, in Goebbels, Tagebücher, I. Aufzeichnungnen, 1923–1944, vol. VI, p. 80.

  watching but not intervening: Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews, vol I., pp. 277–78.

  a train that would take them to Dachau: Simon Ackermann file, Leo Baeck Institute, New York.

  “and had to pay”: Sally Schlesinger File, Leo Baeck Institute, New York.

  in Hitler’s good graces: Reuth, Goebbels, pp. 224–25, 239–40; and Longerich, Joseph Goebbels, pp. 389–96.

  “sixty percent of the population thought like this”: Report of the mayor, Borgentreich, November 17, 1938, ibid., p. 322.

  in the regime’s overall Jewish policy: Longerich, Holocaust, pp. 114–17.

  “it will have to be tackled”: Noakes and Pridham, eds., Nazism, vol. II,pp. 565–66.

  “I would not wish to be a Jew in Germany tonight”: Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews, vol. I, p. 283.

  “on the Jewish question to be undertaken”: Noakes and Pridham, eds., Nazism, vol. II, p. 565.

  the effects of the Great Depression: Konrad Kwiet, “Gehen oder Bleiben. Die deutschen Juden am Wendepunkt,” in Pehle, ed., Der Judenpogrom 1938, pp. 132–45.

  “practical purposes been realized”: Heinz Boberach, ed., Meldungen aus dem Reich. Die geheimen Lageberichte des Sicherheitsdienstes der SS, vol. II, Berlin, 1984, pp. 20–21.

  “a country without a future”: Burleigh, The Third Reich, p. 316.

  Chapter 12: Courting Disaster

  “their side to do the same”: Baynes, ed., The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, vol. II, pp. 1049–53.

  withdrawal from the League of Nations: Domarus, ed., Hitler Speeches, vol. I, p. 36.

  forfeit its strategic advantage: Hitler’s “Proclamation to the German People,” October 14, 1933, in Baynes, ed., The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, vol. II, p. 1091.

  “be so mad as to want a war”: Domarus, ed., Hitler Speeches, vol. II, p. 392.

  Hitler gladly endorsed: Wilhelm Deist, “Die Aufrüstung der Wehrmacht,” in Wilhelm Deist et al., Das Deutsche Reich un der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. I (Stuttgart, 1979), pp. 400–409; and Noakes and Pridham, eds., Nazism, vol. III, p. 676.

  Hitler meanwhile continued: Domarus, ed., Hitler Speeches, vol. II, pp. 613–34.

  an immense program of rearmament: Ian Kershaw, Hitler, 1936–1945: Nemesis, vol. II (New York, 2000), p. xxxviii.

  Lebensraum in the East: Domarus, ed., Hitler Speeches, vol. I.

  “the preservation of peace”: Domarus, ed., Hitler Speeches, vol. II, p. 656.

  “with such enthusiasm”: Sopade, Deutschland-Berichte, 1935, p. 279.

  “strengthened its army by 30 percent”: Ibid., pp. 115–17.

  The Stresa Front was dead: Hans-Henning Abendroth, “Deutschlands Rolle im Spanischen Bürgerkrieg,” in Manfred Funke, ed., Hitler, Deutschland und die Mächte (Düsseldorf, 1978), pp. 471–88; and Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, Nationalsozialistische Aussenpolitik, 1933–1938 (Frankfurt a.M.), pp. 421–28.

  “its creed” was “world revolution”: Baynes, ed., The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, vol. II, pp. 1287–88.

  and then a withdrawal: See Kershaw, Hitler, vol. I, pp. 587–89. Also Max Braubach, Der Einmarsch deutscher Truppen in die entmilitarisierte Zone am Rhein im März 1936 (Cologne/Opladen, 1956).

  resounded through the crowded chamber: Baynes, ed., The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, vol. II, p. 1297.

  “no territorial claims to put forward in Europe”: Ibid., pp. 1298–1300.

  “with the assurance of a sleepwalker”: Völkischer Beobachter, March 14, 1936.

  could really be true: For the largely favorable response of American visitors, see Shirer, Berlin Diary, pp. 65–66.

  “the rulers of Jewish Bolshevism”: Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews, vol. I, pp. 180, 184.

  Germany’s growing global influence: Jacobsen, Nationalsozialistische Aussenpolitik, pp. 424–34.

  “even for vital imports”: Shirer, Berlin Diary, p. 35.

  “offices of the party and state”: Joachim Kuropka, ed., Meldungen aus Münster, 1924–1944 (Münster, Germany, 1992), pp. 16–162.

  other armored vehicles: Evans, The Third Reich in Power, pp. 354–57.

  services purchased by the Reich: Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, pp. 206–7.

  “a cancerous shadow on our politics”: Goebbels, Tagebücher, Aufzeichnungen, vol. 4, November 4, 1937, p. 390.

  for the good of the nation: Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, pp. 219–30.

  complications for economic planning: Ibid., pp. 209–11.

  “of the preparations being made”: Ibid., pp. 210–13.

  were encouraged to do the same: Goebbels, Tagebücher, Aufzeichnungen, vol. 4, pp. 319–23; and Sopade, Deutschland-Berichte, 1937, p. 9.

  “nourishment for the war psychosis”: Sopade, Deutschland-Berichte, vol., 4, See report of February 1937, pp. 9–20.

  “I am completely happy”: Goebbels, Tagebücher, Aufzeichnungen, vol.3, entry of September 29, 1937.

  “ ‘when and how’ ”: Hossbach’s firsthand account, referred to historically as the Hossbach Memorandum, is reproduced in Friedrich Hossbach, Zwischen Wehrmacht und Hitler, 1934–1938 (Göttingen, 1965), pp. 181–89.

  “the Führer to reverse a decision”: The Ribbentrop Memoirs, p. 79.

  was the pistol: Kershaw, Hitler, vol. II, p. 53.

  submitted his resignation: Ibid., pp. 51–53.

  Hitler turned to replace Neurath: Evans, The Third Reich in Power, pp. 644–45.

  his new foreign minister brilliant: François-Poncet, The Fateful Years, p. 212.

  “considers itself a German state”: Kurt Schuschnigg, Austrian Requiem (London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1947), p. 7.

  and skilled workforce into the Four Year Plan: Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, pp. 245–46.

  to broach the topic with Schuschnigg: Papen, Memoirs, pp. 406–9.

  “Then you’ll see something”: Schuschnigg, Austrian Requiem, pp. 11–19.

  “the Agreement goes into effect”: Ibid., pp. 24–25.

  “there was little room for any hope”: Ibid., p. 27.

  “to serve the interests of both countries”: Kershaw, Hitler, vol. II, p. 72.

  “its fate, and its world view”: Domarus, ed., Hitler Speeches, vol. II, pp. 1031–32.

  “ ‘What do we get out of it?’ ”: Sopade, Deutschland-Berichte, March 15, 1938.

  “ruthlessness by force of arms”: Domarus, ed., Hitler Speeches, vol. II, pp. 1039–49.

  the modus operandi of Nazi diplomacy: Schuschnigg, Austrian Requiem, pp. 43, 45–46.

  He had spoken for ten minutes: Ibid., pp. 51–52.

  “I believe I have now fulfilled it”: David Faber, Munich, 1938: Appeasement and World War II (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), pp. 140–42.

  “my homeland into the German Reich”: Ibid., pp. 146–47.

  colossal building projects in Berlin and Nuremberg: Jens-Christian Wagner, “Work and Extermination in the Concentration Camps,” in Caplan and Wachsmann, eds., Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany, pp. 130–31.

  The violence of the rampaging Nazi: Graml, Antisemitism in the Third Reich, pp. 135–44.

  fluttered from steeple after steeple: Kershaw, Hitler, vol. II, p. 81.

  “no war because of Austria”: Sopade, Deutschland-Bericht, 1938, pp. 263–64.

  “and wear down their power of resistance”: Toland, Adolf Hitler, pp. 464–66.

  at this point an isolated minority: Kershaw, Hitler, vol. II, pp. 101–4.

  the Reich stood on the brink of war: Domarus, ed., Hitler Speeches, vol. II, p. 1124.

  deeply ambivalent about Hitler’s course of action: Sopade, Deu
tschland-Bericht 1938, p. 930.

  and the offensive was unrelenting: Shirer, Berlin Diary, pp. 126, 134–35.

  “German Volksgenossen (people’s commander) in Czechoslovakia: Domarus, ed., Hitler Speeches, vol. II, pp. 1158–59.

  “matters into my own hands”: Paul Schmidt, Hitler’s Interpreter (New York, 1950), p. 92.

  “when he had given his word”: Ibid., p. 94.

  “we found ourselves alone”: Toland, Adolf Hitler, p. 478.

  “he would intervene at once”: Schmidt, Hitler’s Interpreter, p. 96.

  and the Czechs as “war mongers”: Ibid., pp. 102–3.

  “will go get it for ourselves”: Domarus, ed., Hitler Speeches, vol. II, pp. 1187–92.

  down in his chair thoroughly spent: Leo Amery, My Political Life, vol. III, The Unforgiving Years, 1929–1940, p. 276; and Shirer, Berlin Diary, p. 142.

  “by next Monday we will all be at war”: Faber, Munich, 1938, pp. 370–71.

  “are dead set against war”: Shirer, Berlin Diary, September 27, 1938; and Faber, Munich, 1938, p. 380.

  “in a war on her account”: Faber, Munich, 1938, p. 378.

  clouded by his “blind hatred against England”: Goebbels, Tagebücher, September 29, 1938, 6, Teil I, p. 119.

  a “hugger-bugger affair”: Faber, Munich, 1938, p. 405.

  “and we were allowed to go”: Ibid., pp. 412–13.

  “means peace in our time”: Schmidt, Hitler’s Interpreter, p. 112.

  “and Daladier, outside their hotels”: Ibid., pp. 113–14.

  “things cannot go on like this”: Domarus, ed., Hitler Speeches, vol. 2, Hitler comments November 19, 1938, pp. 1245–46.

  Chapter 13: Early Success

  “. . . recognize your common enemy!”: Baynes, ed., Speeches of Adolf Hitler, vol. II, pp. 740–41.

  “the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe”: Domarus, ed., Hitler Speeches, vol. III, p. 1449.

  “The day of reckoning has come”: Toland, Adolf Hitler, p. 510.

  “I shall go down in history as the greatest German”: Ibid., pp. 516–17; and Bullock, Hitler, pp. 430–31.

  “war is inevitable”: Sopade, Deutschland-Berichte, 1939, p. 284.

  “all support in their power”: Bullock, Hitler, p. 444.

  to isolate Poland diplomatically: Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham, eds., Nazism, 1919–1945, vol. III, Foreign Policy, War and Racial Extermination (Exeter, 1988), pp. 735–36.