Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews

by Peter Longerich

  the Axis powers, but through latent sabotage indirectly provided a contribution to

  the opponents of the Axis powers.’195 Thus it had to be German policy—this is the logical conclusion to be drawn from these trains of thought—to strive to tear up

  that ‘guarantee’, if they wanted to keep Hungary on their side.

  In late May 1943, however, Prime Minister Kállay demonstrated in a speech that

  he did consider the ‘complete resettlement of Jewry’ as the ‘definitive solution’ of

  the ‘Jewish question’, but that he would only address this once he had had ‘an

  answer to the question of where the Jews are to be resettled to’. So the Germans

  could not expect speedy consent to the deportations from the Hungarians. 196

  The Germans gradually set about undertaking the solution of the ‘Jewish

  question’ in Hungary without Kállay. In a further report about the situation in

  Hungary, which he wrote after a further fact-finding trip to Budapest in December

  1943,197 Veesenmayer stressed that the solution of the ‘Jewish question’ in Hungary represented ‘a rewarding and compelling task for Reich policy . . . grappling with it

  and cleaning it up’. In writing that the ‘cleaning up’ of the ‘Jewish question’ was

  ‘the precondition for the engagement of Hungary in the Reich’s battle for defence

  and existence’, Veesenmayer once again made it clear that the intensification of

  the persecution of the Jews in Hungary was the ideal instrument to render their

  ‘ally’ compliant.

  The Hungarian government’s stubborn refusal to hand over the Jews resident in

  the country was, from the point of view of the Nazi regime, the decisive gauge with

  which the progressive erosion of Hungarian loyalty to the Reich since Stalingrad

  could be measured. The German insistence on the issue proved crucial in keeping

  the ‘ally’ under control. If the Hungarian government, so the German calculation

  ran, could be forced to hand over the Jews domiciled in the country, the Hungar-

  ians would lose their ‘guarantee’ vis-à-vis the Western Allies, and would thus be

  bound for good or ill to their German ‘partner’.

  Murders and Deportations, 1942–3

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  At the beginning of 1944, the German–Hungarian relationship increasingly

  deteriorated. In February 1944 Hungarian troops retreated from the Ukraine;

  their secret negotiations with the Western Allies were just as well known to the

  Germans as the war-weariness and the growing anti-German attitude in the

  country. With the occupation of the country by German troops in March 1944,

  the formation of the new Hungarian government under Sztojay, previously the

  mission head in Berlin, the appointment of Veesenmayer as the new ambassador

  and Plenipotentiary of the Greater German Reich in Hungary (effectively the

  German governor), and the establishment of an SS apparatus in the country, the

  political and technical preconditions for the deportations were in place. 198

  At Veesenmayer’s instigation, in April the Sztojay government offered 50,000

  Jewish workers for armaments projects; a further 50,000, it was agreed, would

  follow in May. 199 According to a familiar pattern, ‘labour deployment’ provided the pretext on the basis of which the SS prepared the complete deportation and

  extermination of the Hungarian Jews. The perfidious system of concentration and

  deportation tested in German-occupied Europe for years was to be installed in

  Hungary, with the active support of the Hungarian authorities and without

  encountering any notable resistance among the non-Jewish population—in a

  form that had been more or less perfected. 200

  In March and April the new Hungarian government was induced to introduce

  comprehensive anti-Jewish legislation that created preconditions for the deport-

  ations. On 23 April the Hungarian trade ministry had all Jewish shops closed and

  expropriated, and on 26 April the Hungarian cabinet undertook to send 50,000

  Jewish forced labourers (‘with their families’) to Germany, and put the compul-

  sory organization of Hungarian Jews, already established by Eichmann, under

  Hungarian control. 201

  The Germans were not only exceedingly well informed about the legislative and

  administrative measures of the Hungarian government, but also exercised, ‘in

  constant personal contact’ and ‘in an advisory capacity in the drafting and

  implementation of ordinances’, a ‘control’ over the ‘operation of Hungarian

  Jewish laws’. 202

  On the orders of the Sonderkommando of the RSHA, which had been sent to

  Budapest, and of which Eichmann had personally assumed leadership, a Jewish

  council was set up, initially for the capital, later for the whole country. 203

  On 27 April Goebbels recorded statements by Hitler about Horthy, which reveal

  that the Hungarian Reich administrator had become so involved in German

  Judenpolitik that he could now to some extent be seen as a relatively reliable

  ally: ‘At any rate, he now no longer obstructs the cleansers of public life in

  Hungary; on the contrary, he is now murderously angry with the Jews and has

  no objections to us using them as hostages. He even suggested the same thing

  himself . . . At any rate the Hungarians will not escape the rhythm of the Jewish

  question. Whoever says A must say B, and the Hungarians, having started with

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  Judenpolitik, can for that reason not halt it. From a certain point onwards

  Judenpolitik propels itself.’ After further anti-Semitic tirades the dictator con-

  tinued: ‘By and large one can say that a long-term policy is only possible in this

  war if one starts out with the Jewish question.’204

  To simplify the deportations, the country was divided into zones. In each

  zone the Jews were first brought by the Hungarian police from smaller villages

  to the larger towns, where ghettos or camps were set up. After this, zone by zone,

  the deportations to Auschwitz occurred, in only a few days in each case. 205 First the territories annexed by Hungary from 1938 onwards, the Carpatho-Ukraine

  (Zone I) as well as Northern Transylvania (Nordsiebenbürgen) (Zone II). The

  ‘concentration’ began in the Carpatho-Ukraine on 16 April, in Northern Transyl-

  vania on 3 May, the deportations to Auschwitz from these two zones on 15 May.

  They were gradually followed by the Old Hungarian Provinces (Zones III–V),

  where the concentration process was completed on 3 July and the deportations on

  6 July. The final zone was to be Budapest, and the deportation of the 200,000 or so

  Jews living there. 206

  The first two trains carrying almost 4,000 people, officially presented as the first

  contingent in the context of the agreed allocation of Jewish workers to the Reich,

  had already left Hungary at the end of April for Auschwitz, where 2,700 deportees

  were murdered in the gas chambers immediately on arrival. 207

  In early May, the pace of the deportations was considerably accelerated: at a

  timetable conference on 4/5 May, aiming for a target set no later than the start

  of the conference, 208 it was established that 12,000 Jews should be deported per day rather than the 3,000 originally agreed. 209 From 14 May, four transports a day left Hungary, each carrying 3,000 Jews. By the tim
e the deportations were

  halted in early July, a total of 437,000 people had been deported from the five

  zones, almost exclusively to Auschwitz. There were two exceptions: at the end

  of June around 15,000 people were brought to Strasshof near Vienna and

  deployed in forced labour so that, as Eichmann put it, they could be ‘put on

  ice’. 210 This statement of Eichmann’s is connected with the negotiations that had begun in the spring between the SS and the Jewish rescue committee,

  Vaada, about buying the freedom of Jews. We shall examine this more closely

  in the next section. As a concrete result of these negotiations 1,684 people were

  deported to the exchange camp of Bergen-Belsen, also in June, from where they

  were able to travel to Switzerland over the next few months. The remaining

  Hungarian Jews, 433,000 in all, were deported to Auschwitz in transports lasting

  three to four days; 211 of these some 10 per cent were deemed to be fit for work, the rest, far more than 10,000 people per day, were murdered immediately on

  arrival. 212

  At the beginning of July, preparations were already under way to deport the

  Jews living in Budapest, who had already been forced to move into houses marked

  with yellow stars. 213 In the face of the worldwide protests against the imminent Murders and Deportations, 1942–3

  409

  deportations, 214 Sztojay informed Veesenmayer on 6 July that Horthy had ordered a halt to the deportations. 215

  In response, the Germans tried to enforce the resumption of the deportations.

  On 8 July, when Sztojay asked Veesenmayer whether they could accept offers from

  various states to grant a certain number of Jews permission to enter or to pass

  through, Hitler, when asked about this, replied that they could accept these offers,

  as long as ‘the transport of Jews to the Reich, temporarily stopped by the Reich

  governor, be brought quickly and immediately to an end’. 216 On Ribbentrop’s instructions, in mid-July Veesenmeyer gave Horthy an ultimatum to resume the

  deportations. 217

  After Eichmann, on his own responsibility, had more than 2,700 Jews

  deported to Auschwitz from two Hungarian internment camps218 in the second half of July, the Hungarian government, under severe pressure from the

  Germans, agreed to the resumption of the deportations from the end of the

  month. 219 A few days later, however, Horthy declared himself in agreement only with the imprisonment of the Jews in special camps, but not with their deportation. 220 What was decisive for this step was that on 23 August Romania had declared its secession from the Axis alliance, and joined the anti-Hitler coalition.

  On 29 August Horthy gave the newly formed Hungarian government under

  Prime Minister Lakatos express instructions—kept secret from the Germans—to

  end the persecution of the Jews. Surprisingly, however, Himmler had already

  issued the order for all further deportations from Hungary to be suspended, 221 and in September the Sonderkommando, Eichmann, also left Hungary. 222

  At first glance, Himmler’s attitude seems surprising in view of the stubborn

  German efforts over the previous few months to set the deportations in motion. 223

  But if we adopt the perspective of the Nazi regime, for whom the deportations

  represented an important political instrument to bind the Hungarian allies to the

  Reich, for good or ill, as accomplices of an unparalleled crime, it becomes clear

  that at the end of August the Germans must finally have become aware that

  further insistence on a continuation of the deportations threatened to become

  counter-productive, as it must inevitably lead to the end of the Horthy regime and

  possibly to the loss of their Hungarian ally.

  However, the situation changed fundamentally in mid-October, after Horthy

  had declared Hungary’s withdrawal from the war as the result of secret ceasefire

  negotiations with the Soviet Union, and the Arrow Cross Party under Ferec

  Szàlasy seized power with German support. 224 Now the Germans tried once again to set the deportations in motion: their new Hungarian partners were to

  be irresistibly bound to their allies as accomplices of mass murder. But, as the

  complete deportation of the Budapest Jews to Auschwitz could no longer be

  carried out because of the transport situation and the destruction of the gas

  chambers in Birkenau undertaken in the autumn of 1944, 225 Eichmann, who had returned to Budapest immediately after the putsch, now once again demanded

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  Extermination of the European Jew, 1942–1945

  that Hungary put 50,000 workers at the disposal of the Reich, although he in fact

  intended to double this figure at a later date. 226 In negotiations with the Hungarians, an agreement was reached for 25,000 Jewish ‘loan workers’, then revised to

  50,000, and, at the end of October, the people in question were marched to the

  Austrian border in the most cruel and extreme conditions. 227 However, because of the high death rate, Szàlasy had the marches suspended on 21 November. On

  the same day Ribbentrop instructed Veesenmayer, at his next meeting with the

  Hungarian prime minister, to urge him to ‘press ahead energetically with the

  evacuation of the Budapest Jews’. 228 In December the Jews who had remained in Budapest were confined in a ghetto. There, along with the inhuman living

  conditions, they were exposed to the terror of the Arrow Cross supporters, until

  Budapest capitulated in February. 229

  The End of the Holocaust

  Removal of Traces

  In 1942 the SS initiated the strictly secret ‘Action 1005’. The goal of this enterprise

  was to destroy the traces of the mass murders, in particular to remove the human

  remains of the victims in the mass graves. 230 The man appointed to lead the action was Standartenführer Paul Blobel. As a pioneer officer in the First World War, as

  well as a former Einsatzkommando leader, he no doubt appeared well qualified for

  the task. The Sonderkommandos under him consisted of members of the Security

  Police and the SD as well as the Order Police. The removal of the corpses

  themselves had to be undertaken by prisoners, who were in turn murdered after

  a certain amount of time and replaced by new prisoners. In June 1942 the

  first attempts were made to burn the remains in Chelmno extermination camp,

  and this activity was then extended to the other extermination camps as well.

  In Sobibor this had been happening since the summer of 1942, and in Auschwitz-

  Birkenau, where the first crematoria had not been built until July 1942, in the

  autumn of 1942, in Belzec, which had been closed in December 1942, between the

  end of 1942 and the spring of 1943, and in Treblinka since the spring of 1943. 231

  In June 1943 the commandos began to open the mass graves in the occupied

  Soviet territories, first in the Ukraine, then in White Russia, and finally in the

  Baltic states. To remove the traces of the murders in occupied Poland, in 1944

  Sonderkommandos were established under the five commanders of the Security

  police and the SD in the General Government, and under the HSSPF responsible

  for the annexed Polish territories. Aktion 1005 Sonderkommandos can also be

  identified in Yugoslavia. 232

  The Sonderkommandos were extraordinarily thorough in the removal of the

  corpses: the mass graves were opened up, the corpses were burned on piles of

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  wood or steel grilles, then the ashes were examined for valuable objects, gold teeth

  above all, before the bones were ground and the ashes scattered or buried. Then all

  other traces that could have indicated the places of execution were removed, and

  the murder scene dug over and planted.

  According to the wishes of the perpetrators, no traces of the extermination

  camps themselves were to remain either. The so-called palace, in which the

  installations of Chelmno extermination centre were housed, was blown up in

  the spring of 1943. 233 On the grounds of Belzec and Treblinka, all buildings were removed after the end of the mass murders, the grounds were planted, and a farm

  was built. The same was done in Treblinka, where the murders in the gas

  chambers continued until August 1943. In summer 1943, after the mass murders

  there were ended, Sobibor was temporarily turned into a concentration camp,

  where the prisoners were deployed in the sorting of captured ammunition. After

  the uprising of October 1943 this camp too was closed, and here too the grounds

  were planted and an agricultural establishment constructed. 234

  During the German retreat in July 1944, Majdanek was set on fire, but the gas

  chambers and other traces of the mass murders remained, so that as early as the

  summer of 1944 the Soviets could begin to document the procedures in this

  extermination camp, the first to be seized by Allied troops. In Auschwitz in

  November and December technical installations were removed from the gas

  chambers and crematoria; the crematoria were blown up and the remains covered

  with soil and planted. 235

  The fundamental intention of the SS was to clear not only the mass murder sites

  but the concentration camps, and where possible to destroy them; all proof of the

  crimes was to be destroyed, no witnesses were to fall into the hands of the Allies.

  That meant that the prisoners were either to be murdered or ‘evacuated’ from one

  camp to the other. The SS saw the prisoners who were ‘fit for work’ as living

  capital that would be exploited to the bitter end.

  Himmler reserved a special policy for the Jewish prisoners: beginning in mid-

  1944 he offered them to the Western Allies as barter, presumably to open up