Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews
Page 91
motivated—seemed to have confirmed the distorted picture of the Jewish-Bolshevist
arch-enemy.
70. e.g. Nosske, ZSt, 76/59, 2, 315 ff., 30 July 1964 and II 213 AR 1902/66 main document XI, 13 Mar. 1969, 2610 ff., and in similar vein the testimony of defence counsel Rudolf
Aschenauer who had been involved in the Nuremberg trials, published in Hans-
Heinrich Wilhelm, Rassenpolitik und Kriegführung. Sicherheitspolizei und Wehrmacht
in Polen und der Sowjetunion (Passau, 1991), 227 ff.; cf. Angrick, Besatzungspolitik,
102 ff.
71. Erwin Schulz: ZSt, 207 AR-Z 76/59, vol. 6, pp. 58 ff., 22 Mar. 1971; cf. Ogorreck,
Einsatzgruppen, 82–3, with references to further interrogations; Gustav Nosske: ZSt, II 213
AR 1902/66, correspondence file 2, pp. 597 ff., 24 May 1971; similarly ZSt, 76/59, 2,
pp. 315 ff., 30 July 1964; Ogorreck, Einsatzgruppen, 91–2; Karl Tschierschky, ZSt, 207
AR-Z 76/59, vol. 8, pp. 34–41, 14 May 1971; ZSt, 201 AR-Z 14/58, vol. 7, pp. 3327 ff., 14
Aug. 1959; cf. Ogorreck, Einsatzgruppen, 59; Otto Bradfisch, ZSt, 202 AR-Z 76/59, vol. 11, p. 7605, 8 Oct. 1971; ZSt, 202 AR-Z 81/59, vol. 2, pp. 531 ff. (cf. Ogorreck, Einsatzgruppen, 73); Erhard Kroeger, ZSt, 76/59, vol. 9, pp. 14 ff., 28 Aug. 1967; cf. Ogorreck, Einsatzgruppen, 83 ff. Two leaders, Günther Herrmann (ZSt, 4 AR-Z 11/61, 5, pp. 24 ff., 11 Oct.
1962 and pp. 108 ff., 1 Feb. 1963; cf. Ogorreck, Einsatzgruppen, 80–1) and Erich Ehrlinger (ZSt, 204 AR-Z 21/58, 4, pp. 2421 ff., 5 May 1959) only admitted that they had been
ordered to shoot Jewish men by the heads of their Einsatzgruppen after the invasion of
the Soviet Union. Ehrlinger later drew back from this statement and claimed that Jews
had not expressly been mentioned in the relevant orders but had been involved ‘in so
far as they were seen as carriers of Bolshevism’ (ZSt, 201 AR-Z 76/59, vol. 9, pp. 100 ff., 23 June 1971; cf. Ogorreck, Einsatzgruppen, 62 ff.).
72. Walther Blume: ZSt, 201 AR-Z 76/59, 39, pp. 9 ff. (bzw 7118 ff.), 11 May 1971; thus also already in ZSt, 202 AR-Z 96/60, 9, pp. 3104 ff., 19 Dec. 1962; cf. Ogorreck, Einsatzgruppen, 68 ff. Woldemar Klingelhöfer: ZSt, 202 AR-Z 287/60, 1, pp. 207 ff., interrogation of 2 Nov.
1961; ZSt, 201 AR-Z 76/59, 9, pp. 122 ff., interrogation of 30 June 1971. Martin Sandberger, ZSt, 201 AR-Z 76/59, 2, pp. 34 ff., 30 Sept. 1957; also in ZSt, AR-Z 246/59, 2, pp. 209 ff., 18
Feb. 1960 and ZSt, 201 AR-Z 76/59, 2, pp. 351 ff., 30 Nov. 1964 and 1 Dec. 1964; ZSt, II 207
AR-Z 18/58, 11, pp. 2313 ff., 3 Nov. 1965; on Sandberger’s statements cf. Ogorreck, Einsatzgruppen, 59 ff. Rudolf Batz, ZSt, 207 AR-Z 7/59, 11, pp. 1255 ff., 26 Jan. 1961 and pp. 1279 ff., 27 Jan. 1961; cf. Ogorreck, Einsatzgruppen, 65f. Karl Jäger, ZSt, 207 AR-Z 14/58 pp. 1883 ff., 15 June 1959; cf. Ogorreck, Einsatzgruppen, 67–8. Alfred Filbert, ZSt, 207 AR-Z 14/58, 54, pp. 171 ff., 11 May 1959; ZSt, 201 AR-Z 76/59, 11 (¼ supplementary volume II, vol. xii of the Hamburg files), pp. 7563 ff., 23 Sept. 1971; cf. Ogorreck, Einsatzgruppen, 74–5.
73. ZSt, 201 AR-Z 76/59, 12, pp. 7766 ff., 9 Dec. 1971; ibid. 4, application for pre-investigation, 29 Dec. 1969, quoting from an earlier interrogation (pp. 5324–5 of the Hamburg
files); STA Munich, 114 Ks 8/71, pp. 3980 ff., 3 Jan. 1968. Cf. Ogorreck, Einsatzgruppen, 88–9, with references to further interrogations.
Notes to pages 189–193
501
74. ZSt, 204 AR 1258/66, 23.
75. Quoting Blume literally and Filbert in summary: see n. 72.
76. BAB, NS 19/3957, 11–15 June 1941. This will have been the meeting at which Bach-
Zelewski says Himmler spoke about the imminent decimation of the Russian popula-
tion by 30 million (cf. n. 8)—which Bach-Zelewski dated at January 1941.
77. This emerges clearly from statements about this meeting.
78. See for example: ZSt, 201 AR-Z 76/59 2, 315–325 30 July 1964, Gustav Adolf Nosske; ibid.
6, pp. 58 ff, 22 Mar. 1971, Erwin Schulz; 207 AR-Z 7/59, Red Files, 8, pp. 1523 ff., 14 Aug.
1966, Erhard Grauel, Deputy Commando Leader, Einsatzkommando 3; 204 ZSt, AR
1258/66, 17, pp. 5 ff. 1 Aug. 1967, Friedrich Buchardt, speaker for the staff of the
Einsatzgruppe B, 1 Aug. 1964.
79. BAB, R 70 SU/32.
80. BAB, R 70 SU/31, published in Peter Longerich, ed., Die Ermordung der europäischen
Juden. Eine umfassende Dokumentation des Holocaust 1941–1945 (Munich, 1989), 116 ff.
English translation in J. Noakes and G. Pridham, eds. Nazism 1919–1045, vol iii: Foreign
Policy, War, and Racial Extermination (Exeter, 1988), 489.
81. This is the text of the letter of 29 June.
11.
The Mass Murder of Jewish Men
1. Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, 536.
2. Bogdan Musial, however, assumes that Soviet crimes in the summer of 1941 ‘had as a
consequence the brutalization of the German-Soviet war’ and led to a corresponding
radicalization of the persecution of the Jews by Germans (cf. summary in Deutsche
Zivilverwaltung und Judenverfolgung im Generalgouvernement, 291–2). He fundamen-
tally underestimates the influence the Germans had in triggering the pogroms and the
high level of potential violence against Jews that was expressed in the orders given by
the German side before the start of the war.
3. See Karlis Kangeris, ‘Kollaboration vor der Kollaboration? Die baltischen Emigranten
und ihre “Befreiungskomitees” in Deutschland 1940/41’, in Werner Röhr, ed., Europa
unterm Hakenkreuz. Okkupation und Kollaboration (1938–1945). Beiträge zu Konz-
eption und Praxis der Kollaboration in der deutschen Okkupationspolitik (Berlin and
Heidelberg, 1994), 165–90.
4. Siegfried Gasparaitris, ‘ “Verrätern wird nur dann vergeben, wenn sie wirklich bewei-
sen können, dass sie mindestens einen Juden liquidiert haben.” Die Front Litauischer
Aktisten (LAF) und die antisowjetischen Aufstände 1941’, in ZfG 49 (2001), 886–904.
The quotation in the title of this article means ‘traitors are only forgiven when they can genuinely prove that they have liquidated at least one Jew’, and is from an appeal
circulated by the LAF in Lithuania in March 1941. See also Michael MacQueen, ‘The
Context of Mass Destruction: Agents and Prerequisites of the Holocaust in Lithuania’,
HGS 12 (1998), 27–48.
5. For Latvia see Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm, ‘Offene Fragen der Holocaust-Forschung. Das
Beispiel des Baltikums’, in Uwe Backes, Eckhard Jesse, and Rainer Zitelmann, eds, Die
Schatten der Vergangenheit. Impulse zur Historisierung des Nationalsozialismus
(Frankfurt a. M., 1990), 403–25, n. 22.
502
Notes to pages 193–195
6. See Rsyzard Torzecki, ‘Die Rolle der Zusammenarbeit mit der deutschen Besatzungs-
macht in der Ukraine für deren Okkupationspolitik 1941 bis 1944’, in Röhr, ed., Europa
unterm Hakenkreuz, 239–72.
7. Dieter Pohl, Nationalistische Judenverfolgung in Ostgalizien 1941–1944 (Munich, 1996), 56–7, has a relevant reference, albeit a somewhat vague one.
8. Bericht v. 15 Oct., 180-L, IMT xxxvii. 670 ff.
9. On the pogrom in Kaunas (Kowno), see: ZSt, 207 AR-Z 14/58, 297 ff., report by retired
Colonel von Bischoffshausen of 19 Apr. 1959, published in Ernst Klee et al., eds, ‘Schöne Zeiten’. Judenmord aus der Sicht der Täter und Gaffer (Frankfurt a. M., 1988), 35–6
(where there are also other witness statements concerning what happened there from
trials 207 AR-Z 14/58 and 201 AR-Z 21/58). See also Ereignis Meldung (EM) 8 and the
collection of documents by Avraham Tory, Surviving the Holocaust: The Kovno G
hetto
Diary (Cambridge, Mass., 1990), 7 ff.
10. EM 19.
11. On Riga see also EM 15 and ZSt, II 207 AR-Z 7/59, judgement of the District Court in
Hamburg.
12. EM 40. Details on events in Jelgava (Mitau) may be found in Andrew Ezergailis, The
Holocaust in Latvia (Washington, 1996), 156 ff.
13. EM 24; Pohl, Ostgalizien, 60 ff.; Hannes Heer, ‘Einübung in den Holocaust: Lemberg
Juni/Juli 1941’, ZfG 40 (2001), 389–408, sees in this pogrom an ‘enactment’ of something
carefully prepared by the Germans.
14. Pohl, Ostgalizien, 69.
15. Ibid. 64–5. The ‘reason’ for the pogrom was the 15th anniversary (delayed by two
months) of the murder of Ukraine’s former (anti-Semitic) prime minister, Simon
Petljura.
16. EM 24, and Bernd Boll, ‘Zloczow, Juli 1941: Die Wehrmacht und der Beginn des
Holocaust in Galizien’, ZfG 50 (2002), 901–16.
17. EM 14 and EM 19. On Sonderkommando 4b see Ogorreck, Einsatzgruppen, 135 ff.
18. EM 14 from 6 July 1941.
19. Ibid.
20. EM 47.
21. EM 10.
22. Andrzey Zbikowski, ‘Local Anti-Jewish Pogroms in the Occupied Territories of Eastern
Poland, June–July 1941’, in Lucjan Doboszycki and Jeffrey S. Gurock, eds, The Holocaust
in the Soviet Union: Studies and Sources on the Destruction of the Jews in the Nazi
Occupied Territories of the USSR, 1941–1945 (New York and London, 1993), 173–9—
where 35 places are named for eastern Galicia alone. Zbi Aharon Weiss, ‘The Holocaust
and the Ukrainian Victims’, in Michael Berenbaum, ed., A Mosaic of Victims: Non-Jews
Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis (New York, 1990), 109–15 refers to 58 pogroms in
West Ukraine, including Volhynia. On the number of victims, see Pohl, Ostgalizien, 67.
Bogdan Musial, ‘Konterrevolutionäre Elemente sind zu erschiessen’. Die Brutalisierung
des deutsch-sowjetischen Krieges im Sommer 1941 (Berlin and Munich, 2000), 172, makes
reference to numerous other places in which pogroms occurred.
23. EM 47.
24. EM 81 and EM 112.
Notes to pages 195–197
503
25. Pohl, Ostgalizien, 54 ff.
26. Documented in (amongst others) Jacek Borkowicz et al., eds, Thou Shalt not Kill: Poles on Jedwabne (Warsaw, 2001); Antony Polonsky and Joanna B. Michlic, eds, The
Neighbors Respond: The Controversy over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland (Princeton
and Oxford, 2004) and the contributions to YVS 30 (2002).
27. Jan T. Gross, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland
(Princeton and Oxford, 2001).
28. See in particular the contribution by Edmunt Dimitrów in the volume edited by him
with Pawel Machcewicz and Tomasz Szarota, Der Beginn der Vernichtung. Zum Mord
an den Juden in Jedwabne und Umgebung im Sommer 1941. Neue Forschungsergeb-
nisse polnischer Historiker (Osnabrück, 2004); see also Dariusz Stola, ‘Jedwabne:
Revisting the Evidence and Nature of the Crime’, HGS 17 (2003), 139–52; and Radoslaw
J. Ignatiew, ‘Findings of Investigations 1/00/Zn into the Murder of Polish Citizens of
Jewish Origin in the Town of Jedwabne on 10 July 1941’, in Polonsky and Michlic, eds,
The Neighbors Respond, 133–6, and Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, The Massacre in Jed-
wabne July 10, 1941: Before, During, and After (New York, 2005).
29. BAB, R 70/32, published in Peter Klein, ed., Die Einsatzgruppen in der besetzten
Sowjetunion 1941/42. Die Tätigkeits- und Lageberichte des Chefs der Sicherheitspolizei
und des SD (Berlin, 1997), 320–1.
30. On the early executions by Einsatzgruppe A see Hans-Heinrich, Wilhelm, Einsatz-
gruppe A der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD 1941/42 (Frankfurt a. M., 1996) and the
overview by Wolfgang Scheffler in Klein, ed., Die Einsatzgruppen.
31. EM 24; Ezergailis, Holocaust, 272 ff.
32. EM 24.
33. Judgement of the Hamburg District Court of 21 Dec. 1979. ZSt, 207 AR-Z 7/59. On the
Arajas commando, see Ezergailis, Holocaust, 173 ff.; on the murders in the Bikernieki
Forest, ibid. 222 ff.
34. Klee, ed., ‘Schöne Zeiten’, 122 ff.; Max Kaufman, Churbn, Lettland: The Destruction of the Jews of Latvia (Munich, 1947), 305; Margers Vestermanis, ‘Ortskommandantur Libau.
Zwei Monate deutscher Besatzung im Sommer 1941’, in Hannes Heer und Klaus Nau-
mann, eds, Vernichtungskrieg. Verbrechen der Wehrmacht 1941–1945 (Hamburg, 1995),
219-26. On the shootings in Liepa
$ ja (Libau) see also the statements by Werner Schäfer,
naval officer, from 16 July 1959 (ZSt, 207 AR-Z 7/59, Red Files, 8, pp. 1557 ff.), Georg
Rosenstock, leader of the 2nd commando of Police Battalion 13, 2 Nov. 1959 (ibid.) and
Kawelmacher, marine commandant of Liepa
$ ja (207 AR-Z 18/58, pp. 22 ff.).
35. ZSt, II 207 AR 1779/66.
36. The so-called Jäger Report (OS, 500-1-25 and USSR Central Document Office 108).
37. Ibid.
38. OS, 500-1-758, telex from the Gestapo office in Tilsit of 1 July 1941 and EM 14. In the trial of former members of the Tilsit Einsatzkommando, which took place in 1958 in Ulm,
the historian Helmuth Krausnick, employed as an expert witness, took the view that the
commando leader, Böhme, had been told on 23 June by the leader of Einsategruppe A,
Franz Stahlecker, that in this border area all the Jews including women and children
were to be shot. This view formed part of the judgement of the court and this fact
was cited again and again by Krausnick as a confirmation of his thesis in favour of an
504
Notes to pages 197–198
early comprehensive order for the murder of the Jews in the occupied Eastern zones. A
closer analysis of the witness statements, however, and of newly discovered documents
shows that this thesis is not tenable (see Longerich, Politik, 326 ff.). The executions
perpetrated by the Tilsit Commando were not the first steps in carrying out a general
order for the murder of all Jews that had only recently been transmitted to the
commando, as Krausnick assumed, but part of a series of ‘reprisal operations’ originally
initiated by the Wehrmacht.
39. EM 19.
40. EM 26.
41. EM 19 and the judgement of the Ulm District Court of 29 Aug. 1958, (¼ Sagel-Grande,
Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, no. 465); Streim, SWCA 6 (1989), 333 ff.
42. See below, p. 31.
43. Also in EM 26. For Himmler’s journey see also the diary of his personal assistant,
Brandt, for 30 June 1941 (BAB, NS 19/3957).
44. OS, 500-1-25 (also ZSt, Dok. SU 401). See also EM 11.
45. On the first murders committed by Einsatzgruppe B in Belarus, see Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, 540 ff., and the overview of Einsatzgruppe B by Gerlach in Klein, ed., Einsatzgruppen, 52–70.
46. EM 50, 12 Aug. 1941. On Sonderkommando 7a see also the judgement of the Essen
District Court of 29 Mar. 1965 (¼ Sagel-Grande, Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, xx, no. 588),
and Ogorreck, Einsatzgruppen, 114 ff.
47. EM 50 and judgement of the Essen District Court of 29 Mar. 1965 (¼ Sagel-Grande,
Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, xx, no. 588).
48. Ibid.
49. Ogorreck, Einsatzgruppen, 116 ff., esp. p. 120.
50. Judgement of the Munich I District Court of 21 July 1961 (¼ Sagel-Grande, Justiz und
NS-Verbrechen, xvii, no. 519, pp.
672 ff.); judgement of the Kiel District Court of 8 Apr.
1964 (¼ Sagel-Grande, Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, xix, no. 567, pp. 790 ff.); ZSt, 202
AR-Z 81/59, vol. 1, charge of 19 Apr. 1960.
51. EM 32 (24 July 1941).
52. On the reconstruction of this event, see the judgement of the Cologne District
Court of 12 May 1964 (¼ Sagel-Grande, Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, xx, no. 573,
pp. 171 ff.).
53. ZSt, 208 AR-Z 203/59, C-vol. I, testimony of Bradfisch, 9 June 1958, pp. 2 ff.
54. Ibid.
55. For example in his interrogation on 20 Apr. 1966 (ZSt, 73/61, 6, pp. 1510 ff.). Bach-
Zelewski erroneously dated the meeting as 12 July 1941.
56. See KTB, chapter 3, 13.7 (YV, 053/88): ‘Appeal by Company Chief Lieutenant Colonel of the Protection Police Riebel (special jurisdiction, conduct towards Jews)’.
57. EM 21. See also the judgement of the Berlin District Court of 22 June 1962 (¼ Sagel-
Grande, Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, xviii, no. 540a) and the judgement of the Essen
District Court of 29 Mar. 1964 (¼ Sagel Grande, Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, xx, no. 588);
on the activities of Einsatzkommando 9 in Vilnius cf. Ogorreck, Einsatzgruppen, 125 ff.;
and Yitzhak Arad, Ghetto in Flames: The Destruction of the Jews in Vilna in the
Holocaust (Jerusalem, 1980), 66 ff.
Notes to pages 199–201
505
58. Judgement of the Berlin District Court of 22 June 1962 (¼ Sagel-Grande, Justiz und NSVerbrechen, xviii, no. 540a); ZSt, II 202 AR 72a/60, judgement of the Berlin District
Court of 6 May 1966.
59. 207 AR-Z 14/58, note on Einsatzkommando 3, 27 Sept. 1961, Correspondence File 6,
pp. 1151 ff.
60. EM 21 for 13 July 1941; ZSt, II 202 AR 72a/60, judgement of the Berlin District Court of 6
May 1966.
61. BAB, R 70 SU/32.
62. For the visits on 30 June and 9 July, see Brandt’s diary (BAB, NS 19/3957) and Bach-
Zelewski’s diary (BAB, R 20/45b).
63. On the early executions carried out by Einsatzgruppe C, see the contribution by Dieter Pohl in Klein, ed., Einsatzgruppen, 71–87 and his ‘Schauplatz Ukraine. Der Massenmord
an den Juden im Militärverwaltungsgebiet und im Reichskommissariat 1941–1943’, in
Norbert Frei, Sybille Steinbacher, and Bernd C. Wagner, eds, Ausbeutung, Vernichtung,