Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews

by Peter Longerich

  the Jews’ against whom it was necessary to take steps ‘of a security policy

  nature’. 109 It was probably at this meeting that Globocnik received the assignment to build Belzec extermination camp. 110

  A personal letter sent by a colleague of Globocnik’s, Hauptsturmführer Hellmuth

  Müller, on 15 October 1941 to the head of the Main Office for Race and Settlement,

  Otto Hofmann, makes it clear that decisions concerning Globocnik’s radical plans

  for the future of Judenpolitik in his district were actually made in mid-October.

  Müller wrote that Globocnik saw ‘the political conditions in the GG basically as a

  transitional stage’. Globocnik, who was strongly opposed to the governor of the

  district in this respect, considered the ‘gradual cleansing of the entire GG of Jews

  and also of Poles for the purpose of securing the Eastern territories etc. to be

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  necessary. He is, in this connection, full of good and far-reaching plans the

  implementation of which is hampered only by the, in this respect, limited influence

  of his current office. For, before he can act he needs the support of the civil offices

  and authorities of the GG, which will only cooperate on the basis of existing laws

  and decrees. ’111

  Müller’s letter, which corresponds to the state of information before Globocnik’s

  trip to Berlin, thus shows that Globocnik had at this point not yet been given any

  extensive authorization to implement the destruction of the Jews. That changed

  fundamentally, however, after Globocnik had returned from his trip to the Reich,

  and Frank had been informed by Rosenberg that a deportation of the Jews from the

  General Government to the occupied Soviet territories was illusory. Müller’s letter

  also makes it clear that, as far as Globocnik was concerned, the mass murder of

  Jews in his district was only the first step to a far more comprehensive ‘new order’

  in terms of population policy in the district of Lublin, aimed at the settlement of

  ethnic Germans and the expulsion of the Polish population. 112 In the short term, however, the plans for the mass murder of indigenous Jews were to be used

  primarily to free up accommodation in the overcrowded ghettos of the district,

  which was to be filled with Jews from the Reich and Slovakia.

  Subsequent events make it plain that the meeting between Himmler and

  Globocnik on 13 October 1941 was actually of considerable importance in terms

  of the transition to mass murder. At the beginning of November and two to three

  weeks after the meeting, after the ‘Jewish question’ had been discussed several

  times at the meetings of the government of the General Government, work began

  on the construction of the first extermination camp, Belzec, a relatively small

  collection of barracks. 113 From December 1941 onwards, the euthanasia staff assigned to the T4 organization began arriving in Lublin. 114

  As has already been outlined, according to Eichmann’s own statements he

  visited the camp while it was still under construction in late summer or autumn.

  Given the advanced state of the building work that he describes, a date in the

  winter would seem more likely. However, it is also possible that in his recollections

  he was confusing this visit with a later visit to Treblinka, which was also under

  construction at the time. 115 Some weeks after work began in Belzec. On 27 and 28

  November 1941 a meeting of T4 specialists was held in Pirna (Saxony). There, as

  one of the participants wrote beforehand to his wife, ‘future developments’ would

  be discussed. 116

  However, there was another reason why mid-October was a particularly

  critical phase in Judenpolitik in the the district of Lublin. On 20 October 1941,

  accompanied by Ribbentrop, Himmler met the Slovakian President, Joseph

  Tiso, his Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Vojtech Tuka and the Slovak-

  ian Interior Minister, Sano Mach, and made the head of the Slovakian state

  the offer of deporting the Slovakian Jews to a particularly remote area of the

  General Government. 117 There is much to suggest that this offer formed the 296

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  starting point for the construction of a second extermination camp in the

  district of Lublin, Sobibor. 118 There are—unconfirmed—indications that the building of Sobibor was already being prepared in late 1941, but that the

  beginning of construction was postponed until the spring of 1942.119 When the deportation of the Slovakian Jews, first mooted in October 1941, began

  in May 1942 it was in fact Jews from the district of Lublin who were first

  murdered in Sobibor. But, from June onwards, the Slovakian Jews were included

  as well.

  There are also indications that in November 1941 the district physician in the

  district of Galicia, Dorpheide, tried to have staff from the T4 organization made

  available to him in Lvov, the district capital, to murder mentally ill people. This

  might, however, have to do with the construction of another extermination camp

  in the district of Galicia which was never realized. 120

  The fact that Belzec’s capacity for murder was initially limited (the camp was to

  be considerably extended in the spring), and that the construction of the other

  extermination camps in the General Government began only in the spring of 1942,

  indicates that, in the autumn of 1941, Globocnik had still received no orders to

  make preparations for the murder of all the Jews in the General Government, but

  that his assignment covered the district of Lublin, and perhaps already the district

  of Galicia as well. 121

  The further radicalization of the persecutory measures in the General Govern-

  ment, particularly in the districts of Lublin and Galicia, had already been heralded

  since the beginning of 1942. On 20 January 1942 the Department of Population and

  Welfare of the government of the General Government called upon the relevant

  district governors’ offices to provide detailed information about the existing

  ghettos and their Jewish inhabitants. 122

  In the district of Lublin compulsory identity cards were introduced for Jews

  in early February, and in March the papers of those still required as workers

  were marked accordingly. 123 From January 1942 the civil administration in the district of Galicia had planned the ‘resettlement’ of Jews unfit for work from

  Lvov to the surrounding communities (Gemeinden) in the district. Early in

  January the district (Kreis) leaders were ordered to have the Jewish councils

  arrest any Jews who had immigrated illegally and ‘hand them over to the relevant

  security office to be transported to camps for intensified, long-term forced

  labour service’. 124 In practice, this meant ‘extermination through work’ in the SS forced labour camps. 125 The ‘action’ itself, which was originally to take place on 1 March, was then postponed to the period after 1 April. 126 It is unclear whether the planned ‘resettlement’ to the rural communities was a euphemism

  for deportation to Belzec, or whether the plans were further radicalized in the

  first months of 1942.127 At any rate the Jewish council was ‘instructed to provide a list all those Jews and Jewish families who were not engaged in productive

  labour’. 128

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  General Commissariat Ostland: The Mass Murders

  in Kovno (Kaunas), Riga, and Minsk

  From the beginning of October 1941 the Security Police in the territory of the

  German-installed General Commissariat Ostland (incorporating the Baltic states

  and Belarus) once again pursued the plan already set out in August 1941 for the

  construction of a large concentration camp near Riga. The reason it now gave was the

  need to accommodate the expected 25,000 Jews transported from the Reich. 129 This wish was authorized by the RSHA. In the further negotiations with the civil administration Franz Stahlecker, the BdS Eastland, referred expressly to a ‘wish’ of Hitler’s to set up a large concentration camp for Jews from the Reich and the Protectorate in the

  area around Riga and Mitau. 130

  However, Reichskommissar Hinrich Lohse, the head of the civil administration,

  tried to prevent this project. As we have already seen, while Lohse was trying to

  find an alternative, Wetzel, the Jewish expert of the Eastern Ministry, in his

  notorious memorandumn of 25 October, offered to send him euthanasia staff to

  build a gas chamber in Riga. 131

  On 8 November, ignoring the Reich Commissar’s protests, Lange informed

  Lohse about the imminent arrival of 50,000 Jews, 25,000 each for Riga and Minsk.

  The first transport would arrive in Riga on 19 November. As the construction of

  the planned concentration camp had not advanced in the meantime, the first five

  Riga transports could be redirected to the ghetto in Kovno (Kaunas). There was

  also, Lange wrote, a temporary possibility of accommodation in Jungfernhof

  (Jumpravmuiza), in the grounds of a former airport. 132 The following day, Lohse’s political adviser, Friedrich Trampedach, wrote to the Eastern Ministry with a

  request to stop these transports as ‘Jewish camps must be moved considerably

  further to the East’. 133 The Eastern Ministry replied immediately that the camps in Riga and Minsk were only temporary measures: ‘Jews are going further East . . .

  Hence no concerns.’134

  A short time before, another message from the Eastern Ministry had reached

  Lohse’s office, in which the Reich Commissar had been asked to respond to

  accusations from the RSHA that he had ‘prohibited the executions of Jews in

  Libau’. On 7 November Lohse’s adviser Trampedach had also, in response to

  complaints from Wehrmacht authorities, instructed the District Commissar of

  Vilnius to prevent further shootings of Jewish skilled workers; in a file note he had

  demanded ‘fundamental instructions’ on this matter. Moreover, early in Novem-

  ber a complaint from District Commissar Kube concerning murder actions

  carried out by the SS in Belarus had reached Lohse. 135 Thus, there were reasons enough for Lohse to request fundamental clarification about further action in the

  ‘Jewish question’.

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  Lohse reacted to these objections on 15 November. He made it clear to the

  Eastern Ministry that he had banned the ‘arbitrary executions of Jews in Libau’

  because ‘the manner of their execution had been unacceptable’. Lohse now

  requested the Eastern Ministry for clarification about whether its position could

  be understood as being ‘that all the Jews in the Ostland are to be liquidated’, and

  whether this was to occur ‘without concern for age and sex and economic interests’

  (e.g the Wehrmacht’s interest in ‘skilled workers in munitions factories’). 136

  The reply from the Eastern Ministry reached Riga on 22 December: referring

  to ‘oral discussions’ that had taken place in the meantime, it was stated that

  ‘economic concerns . . . should be fundamentally disregarded in dealing with

  the problem’. All doubtful cases were to be resolved directly with the HSSPF.

  Thereupon Lohse abandoned his protest. 137

  This clear answer from the Eastern Ministry had come after Rosenberg had had

  a conversation with Himmler lasting several hours, concerning Judenpolitik

  amongst other things. 138 Three days later, at a press conference in the Eastern Ministry, Rosenberg had delivered his confidential declaration, already mentioned

  above, in which he had spoken openly of the ‘biological extermination of the

  whole of Jewry in Europe’, and stated that ‘they were to be forced over the Urals or

  otherwise exterminated’. 139

  The first transport to the Minsk ghetto left Hamburg on 8 November. 140 The previous day the German Security Police and auxiliaries had murdered some

  12,000 inhabitants of the Minsk ghetto in a ‘large action’. The Jews from the

  Reich were now placed in their accommodation. Protests against the deportations

  came from various sources: the commanders of the Army Group Centre, Field-

  Marshall von Bock, and the Wehrmacht Commander Ostland raised objections,

  in particular because of the overstretched transport situation. 141 On 16 December, the Commissar General for White Russia, Wihelm Kube, advised Lohse against

  further transports of Jews from the Reich, since he wanted to see ‘people who

  come from our cultural background’ treated differently from the ‘indigenous,

  animalistic hordes’. 142 The Minsk deportations were actually suspended after eight transports (the last one left Vienna on 28 November).

  However, when the deportations to Riga began on 19 November, the construc-

  tion of the concentration camp planned for the German Jews in the area of Riga

  had not even begun. 143 The Jews transported from Germany were to build the camp themselves, in unimaginably primitive conditions in the middle of winter. 144

  As in Lodz and in Minsk, the relevant offices in Riga were placed in an impossible

  situation in November 1941 when they were called upon to accommodate 25,000

  Jews in the shortest possible time; the officials on the ground responded to the

  challenge with a radical, murderous solution.

  The first five transports meant for Riga, from Frankfurt am Main, Munich,

  Vienna, Breslau, and Berlin, with around 5,000 people, were redirected via

  Kaunas. All the transportees were shot there immediately on arrival at Fort IX

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  by the murder units of Einsatzkommando 3.145 And as in Minsk, in Riga the inhabitants of the ghetto fell victim to mass murder: between 29 November and

  1 December around 4,000 Latvian Jews and between 8 and 9 December an

  estimated over 20,000 further ghetto-dwellers were shot. 146 In his Soviet prison, HSSPF Friedrich Jeckeln, the man responsible for the murders, stated that he had

  received the order to liquidate the ghetto directly from Himmler in November.

  Himmler had also ordered him to kill ‘all Jews in the Ostland down to the last

  man’. 147 During the first massacre, 1,000 Jews deported from Berlin were also shot in the early morning of 30 November, immediately on arrival.

  After this mass murder, however, the shooting of Jews from the Reich was

  temporarily suspended. This is borne out by an entry in Himmler’s telephone

  diary for 30 November 1941 about a conversation with Heydrich: ‘Transport of

  Jews from Berlin. No liquidation.’148 However, by this time, the Berlin Jews had already been murdered. On 1 December Himmler sent a radio telegram to Jeckeln,

  stating that ‘unauthorized acts and contraventions’ of the ‘guidelines issued by

  myself or by the Reich Security Main
Office on my behalf’ for how the ‘Jews

  resettled to the Ostland territory’ were to be ‘treated’ would be ‘punished’. At

  the same time he summoned Jeckeln to discuss the ‘Jewish question’ on 4

  December. 149

  From the way Himmler had phrased his 1 December telegram it becomes clear

  that the murder of the 6,000 people from the Reich had neither been expressly

  ordered nor explicitly forbidden; ‘guidelines’ were in place, but no precise instruc-

  tions or orders. No general policy for the immediate murder of those deported to

  the Eastern European ghettos existed, as is demonstrated by the fate of the

  deportees to Lodz and Minsk, who were initially put in ghettos there. If we assume

  that the RSHA or Himmler had issued such an explicit order to murder deportees

  in Riga, and the Reichsführer SS had revoked it on 30 November, Jeckeln’s rebuke

  fom Himmler would make no sense; in that case he would only have been acting

  on orders. However, no express prohibition seems to have existed either; had it

  done so, Himmler would have referred to such a prohibition in his telegram to

  Jeckeln, and not referred in general terms to ‘guidelines’. It appears that it was not

  envisaged from the start that the Jews deported from Central Europe would be

  murdered on arrival. Instead, it seems that Jeckeln acted on his own initiative, on

  the assumption that the RSHA’s ‘guidelines’, which were drafted in general terms

  and of which we are inadequately informed, permitted such action in view of the

  extremely difficult situation in Latvia, where there was no available accommoda-

  tion for the deportees who were arriving in quick succession.

  There is some reason to believe that the rapid deportations to Riga, like those to

  Lodz and Minsk, were deliberately used to create ‘intolerable situations’ as a way

  of effectively forcing the local authorities to find more radical ‘solutions’. Greiser

  in Lodz had responded with his proposal to murder 100,000 indigenous Jews and

  the HSSPF for Russia-Centre had organized a mass murder in the Minsk ghetto.

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