Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews
Page 94
November is confirmed by Nachum Alpert, The Destruction of Slonim Jewry: The Story
of the Jews of Slonim during the Holocaust (New York, 1989), 84. On Slonim, cf.
Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, 621 ff.
142. NO 2658.
143. See e.g. BAM, RH-18/91, Order from the Army High Command, 18, of 9 July 1941,
concerning the establishment of an auxiliary police.
144. For 1941 see Richard Breitman, ‘Police Auxiliaries in the Occupied Soviet Territories’, SWCA 7 (1990), 23–39.
145. BAB, R 19/326, 25 July 1941.
146. Ibid., 31 July 1941.
147. Breitman, ‘Police Auxiliaries’, 24–5.
148. Martin C. Dean, Collaboration in the Holocaust: Crimes of the Local Police in Belorussia and Ukraine 1941–1944 (New York, 2000), 60.
Notes to pages 240–242
517
149. Dean, Collaboration, 65 ff.
150. BAB, R 19/326, 6 Nov. 1941. In addition there were fire-service teams and auxiliary
teams for work details and for guarding prisoners of war.
151. Latvian and Lithuanian battalions were deployed in this manner in Belarus, the
Ukraine, and the General Government. See the appendix in Tessin, Stäbe.
152. On the deployment of these volunteer battalions see cf. Breitmann, ‘Police Auxiliaries’, 26–7.
153. See the collection of documents edited by Angelika Ebbinghaus and Gerd Preissler ‘Die Ermordung psychisch kranker Menschen in der Sowjetunion. Dokumentation’, in
Götz Aly, Angelika Ebbinghaus, Matthias Hamann, et al., eds, Aussonderung und
Tod. Die klinische Hinrichtung der Unbrauchbaren (Berlin, 1985).
154. EM 88.
155. Report of 15 October, 180-L, IMT xxxvii. 670 ff.
156. EM 96.
157. EM 108.
158. For details, see below, p. 241.
159. EM 135.
160. EM 135.
161. EM 132.
162. EM 156 (16 Jan. 1942); cf. also the judgement of the Wuppertal District Court of 30 Dec.
1965, published in Justiz and NS-Verbrechen xxii, no. 606.
163. Ebbinghaus and Preissler, eds, ‘Ermordung’, 101 ff.
164. Breitman, Architect, 246. See also Breitman’s details (pp. 178 ff.) of the systematic extirpation of the Turkmenians interned in German camps.
165. See Ch. 10, n. 24.
166. BAM, RH 22/12. There is a similar tenor to the instructions compiled by the
Department of Wehrmacht Propaganda for dealing with propaganda in the case of
Barbarossa (BAM, RW 4/of 578) and the June issue of the paper, Information for the
Troops. On the nature of the propaganda in general, see Jürgen Förster, ‘Operation
Barbarossa as a War of Conquest and Annihilation’, in Horst Boog et al., eds,
Germany and the Second World War, vol. iv: The Attack on the Soviet Union (Oxford,
1996), 525 ff, and Pohl, Herrschaft, 254 ff.
167. George H. Stein, Geschichte der Waffen-SS (Düsseldorf, 1978), 113–14; cf. Breitman,
Architekt, 235.
168. EM 21.
169. EM 36.
170. EM 73.
171. EM 133, EG B.
172. Jäger’s report and EM 92; cf. Michael Zimmermann, Rassenutopie und Genozid. Die
nationalsozialistische ‘Lösung der Zigeunerfrage’ (Hamburg, 1996), 260.
173. EM 94 (25 Sept. 1941) and EM 119 (20 Oct. 1941).
174. For this reason Zimmermann’s claim (Rassenutopie, 262) that in the middle of August
1941, in parallel with the extension of the range of murders to include the entire Jewish population of the Soviet Union, ‘the order to murder [the Jews] had obviously been
extended to include the Gypsies’ is not plausible.
518
Notes to pages 242–243
175. See Hannes Heer and Klaus Naumann, War of Extermination: The German Military in
World War II 1941–1944 (New York, 2004). This question has been widely debated in
Germany over past years, in particular in connection with the two exhibitions ‘Crimes
of the Wehrmacht’, designed by the Hamburg Institute for Social Research: Hannes
Heer and Klaus Naumann, Vernichtungskrieg. Verbrechen der Wehrmacht. Bilanz
einer Debatte (Hamburg, 1995) (English translation 2004); Verbrechen der Wehrmacht.
Dimensionen des Vernichtungskrieges 1941–1944 (Hamburg, 2002); Christian Hart-
mann, Johannes Hürter, and Ulrike Jüreit, eds, Verbrechen der Wehrmacht. Bilanz
einer Debatte (Munich, 2005); Karl-Heinrich Pohl, ed., Wehrmacht und Vernichtungs-
politik. Militär im nationalsozialistischen System (Göttingen, 1999); Christian Hart-
mann, ‘Verbrecherischer Krieg—verbrecherishe Wehrmacht? Überlegungen zur
Struktur des deutschen Ostheeres 1941–1944’ in VfZ 52 (2004), 1–75, demonstrates
that it is impossible to calculate the percentage of soldiers who were involved in crimes.
See most recently Dieter Pohl, Die Herrschaft der Wehrmacht. Deutsche Militärbesatz-
ung und einheimische Bevölkerung in der Sowjetunion 1941–1943 (Munich, 2008).
176. NOKW 2510.
177. NOKW 1654.
178. IMT xxxiv. 129 ff., 4064-PS.
179. NOKW 1693.
180. Krausnick, ‘Einsatzgruppen’, 223 ff.
181. See ibid. 235. At the mass murder of the Kiev Jews in September 1941, for example, the leaflets that summoned the Jews to the collection points were printed by a Wehrmacht
propaganda company (ZSt, 204 AR-Z 269/60, judgement of 29 Nov. 1968). A loud-
speaker van from a propaganda company was sent for the executions in Zhitomir (see
above, p. 200). See also NO 4234, interrogation of Braune, leader of Commando 11b:
‘The 11th Army had given an order that the executions in Sinfernopol should be
completed before Christmas. We therefore received trucks, petrol and personnel
from the army for this purpose.’
182. Lutsk (see above, p. 200); Kodyma (p. 202); Liepa
$ ja (Libau, p. 196). Members of the
Military Police took part in the shooting of the Jews of Feodosia in December 1941 (N.
Kunz, ‘Feld- und Ortskommandanturen auf der Krim und der Judenmord’, in W. Kaiser,
ed., Täter im Vernichtungskrieg; der Überfall auf die Sowjetunion und der Völkermord an
den Juden (Berlin, 2002), 68–9).
183. Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, 537–8.
184. Thus the order from Reichenau of 10 August forbade Wehrmacht members to take
part in shootings that had not been ordered by the military; however, it permitted the
deployment of teams of men to seal off certain areas if the SD approached the local
commandant (NOKW 1654). The commanding general of the xxx corps also banned
voluntary participation in executions on 2 August 1941; these had to be under the
command of army officers (NOKW 2963). Cf. Krausnick, ‘Einsatzgrupppen’, 240–1,
who has further details on this issue.
185. Compilation in Krausnick, ‘Einsatzgruppen’, 228 ff.
186. Including Lvov and Tarnopol: details in Longerich, Politik, 338 and 340. In Uman on 21
October members of the Wehrmacht took part in excesses committed by the Ukrain-
ian militia against the Jewish population (EM 119).
187. For example from the civilian camps set up by the Wehrmacht, including Minsk and
Zwiahel: (details in Longerich, Politik, 336 and 674). For further examples see Kraus-
nick, ‘Einsatzgruppen’, 236.
Notes to pages 243–245
519
188. For example by the intelligence officer of the 17th Army on 22 September 1941, who
asked Sonderkommando 4b for reprisals aga
inst the Jews in Kremenchuk because of
sabotage attacks (NOKW 2272); other examples include Zhitomir, Chmielnik, and
Zwiahel (details in Longerich, Politik, 383, 343f, 338 and 368).
189. See for example EM 32 (EG B): ‘With the assistance of the Secret Field Police,
intelligence troops, and the Military Police the series of operations against Bolshevist
agents, political Commissars, members of the NKVD, etc. was continued. In Barano-
wicze a further 381 people were liquidated. They were Jewish activists, functionaries
and looters.’ In EM 128 Einsatzgruppe C complains that despite excellent cooperation
with the Wehrmacht in general terms, when it came to the ‘Jewish question’, there was
‘no complete understanding demonstrated by the lower Wehrmacht agencies, with the
exception of the Secret Field Police, the intelligence service, and intelligence officers.
For further examples see Krausnick, ‘Einsatzgruppen’, 242–3; Theo Schulte, The
German Army and Nazi Policies in Occupied Russia (Oxford, 1989), 203; Hannes
Heer, ‘The Logic of the War of Extermination: The Wehrmacht and the Anti-Partisan
War of Extermination’, in Hannes Heer and Klaus Naumann, eds, War of Extermin-
ation: The German Military in World War II 1941–1944 (New York, 2004), 92–126,
Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, 538–9.
190. Bila Zerkva (see above, p. 226), Einsatzkommando Tilsit (p. 197). The massacre at Babi Yar was planned on 26 September in the presence of the city commandant; the one in
Zhitomir was planned in conjunction with the field commandant’s office (see above,
pp. 224 and 226). Field and city commandants were also involved in preparations for the
major ‘operations’ against the Jews in Kharkov in which 20,000 people were killed in
December 1941 and January 1942 (Bernd Boll and Hans Safrian, ‘On the Way to Stalingrad:
The 6th Army 1941/42’, in Heer and Naumann, eds, War of Extermination, 237–71).
Similar cooperation has been shown to have taken place in the Crimea; see Kunz, ‘Feld-
and Ortskommandanturen’. Pohl, Wehrmacht, 248ff. continous these research findings
191. Reference should be made here once more to the situation in Belarus as described by
Gerlach: in the autumn and winter of 1941 the large-scale ‘ghetto operations’ were
taking place precisely in the eastern area that was under military occupation (Genlach,
Kalkulierte Morde, 585 ff.). The Commandant responsible for the Rear Army Area in
the southern segment of the front, 553, reported that more than 20,000 Jews were killed
between August 1941 and summer 1942 (Schulte, Army, 231). There has not yet been a
systematic, comprehensive investigation of annihilation policies in the occupied Soviet
Union that draws a comparison between military areas and those under civilian
administration. It would only be able to come to valid conclusions with the help of a
comprehensive assessment of the materials in East European archives.
192. State Archive. Minsk, 378-1-698 (copy in USHM, Minsk-films, roll 2), Commandant in
Belarus, 10 Oct. 1941.
193. BAM, RH 26–707/2, 10 Nov. 1941.
194. NA, T 77, R 1179.
195. State Archive, Minsk, 378-1-698 (copy in USHM, Minsk-films, roll 2), Commandant in
Belarus, 24 Nov. 1941.
196. BAM, RH 26–707/5, 8 Dec. 1941.
197. See above, p. 232 ff. On this ‘cleansing operation’ by the Wehrmacht, see in particular Hannes Heer, ‘Killing Fields: The Wehrmacht and the Holocaust in Belorussia 1941–
1942’, in Heer and Naumann, eds, War of Extermination, pp. 55–79.
520
Notes to pages 246–249
198. BAM, RH 26–221/21, Commander of the 350th Infantry Regiment, 19 Aug. 1941; cf.
Heer, ‘Killing Fields’, 66–7.
199. Christian Gerlach, ‘German Economic Interests, Occupation Policy and the Murder of the Jews in Belorussia, 1941/43’ in Ulrich Herbert, ed., National Socialist Extermination Policies: Contemporary German Perspectives and Controversies (New York, 2000), 210–39, 231.
200. See the examples in Boll and Safrian, ‘Way’, 267–8 (for the 6th Army).
201. See in particular Omer Bartov, The Eastern Front 1941–1945: German Troops and
the Barbarization of Warfare (Houndmills, 1985); Truman Anderson, ‘Die 62. Infant-
erie-Division. Repressalien im Heeresgebiet Süd, Oktober bis Dezember 1941’, in Heer
and Naumann, Vernichtungskrieg, 297–323, proves that for this formation and the
Army Rear Area there were isolated ‘reprisal operations’ against Jews carried out in
autumn 1941, but that from 1942 it was increasingly Ukrainians who were targeted. See
Boll and Safrian, ‘Way’, 286 ff., on the ‘indiscriminate terror inflicted on the whole of the civilian population’ (p. 289) from the end of 1941.
202. NO 3414, published in Jacobsen, ‘Kommissarbefehl’, 200 ff. For details on the issue of orders with respect to Soviet prisoners of war, see Alfred Streim, Die Behandlung
sowjetischer Kriegsgefangener im ‘Fall Barbarossa’ (Kaarlsruhe, 1981), 52 ff.; and Chris-
tian Streit, Keine Kameraden: Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen
1941–1945 (Stuttgart, 1978), 87 ff.
203. Ibid. The original of the order has not been preserved. Its content corresponds to section III of the Instructions for the Treatment of Soviet Prisoners of War issued on 8 Sept. 1941.
204. Streit, Keine Kameraden, 109.
205. BAB, R 58/272 and NO 3422, published in Jacobsen, ‘Kommmissarbefehl’, 205 ff. and 220–1.
206. Streim, Behandlung, 127–8; Streit, Keine Kameraden, 100 ff.
207. Streim, Behandlung, 97 ff.; Streit, Keine Kameraden, 94.
208. Streim, Behandlung, 127.
209. Ibid., 129 ff.; Streit, Keine Kameraden, 94 ff.
210. Ibid., 96 ff.
211. Streim, Behandlung, 244.
212. Streit, Keine Kameraden, 105, also does not give a definite figure. On the basis of
deployment orders 8 and 9 Reinhard Otto, Wehrmacht, Gestapo and sowjetische
Kriegsgefangene im deutschen Reichsgebiet 1941/42 (Munich, 1998), estimates the total
number of prisoners murdered in concentration camps in the area of the Reich at
38,000; those who were murdered in the occupied Soviet areas and the General
Government need to be added.
213. State Archive, Moscow, 7021-148-101 (also Central Office, Documentation 301, General Order of 23 Sept. 1941).
214. Streit, Keine Kameraden, 106 ff.
215. Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, 774 ff., gives various examples of this.
216. Ortwin Buchbender, Das tönende Erz. Die Propaganda gegen die Rote Armee im
Zweiten Weltkrieg (Stuttgart, 1978), 104.
217. Streit, Keine Kameraden, 137 ff.
218. Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, 796 ff.
219. IMT xxxvi. 107–8.
220. Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, 799.
Notes to pages 249–259
521
221. NOKW 1535.
222. Elke Fröhlich, ed. Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil II: Band 2: Oktober-
Dezember 1941. Bearbeitet von Elke Fröhlich (Munich, 1996), 23 Oct. 1941, 161–2.
223. On the transportation and accommodation of prisoners, see Streit, Keine Kameraden,
162 ff. and Streim, Die Behandlung.
224. Instructions for the Treatment of Soviet Prisoners of 8 Sept. 1941 (NO 3417, published in Jacobsen, ‘Kommissarbefehl’, 217 ff.).
225. Streit, Keine Kameraden, 211.
226. Ibid. 136.
227. Ibid. 244 ff.
228. Einsatzgruppe A,
overall report up to 15 Oct. 1941, report of 15 Oct. 1941, 180-L, IMT
xxxvii. 670 ff.; in addition there were 5,500 Jews murdered by Einsatzkommando Tilsit
and Jews murdered in ‘pogroms’: overall report by Einsatzgruppe A from 10 Oct. 1941
to 31 Jan. 1942, Ifz, Fb 101/35.
229. EM 133 and OS, 500-1-770, activity and situation report by Einsatzgruppe B for the
period between 16 and 28 Feb. 1942. The numbers of the victims of this Einsatzgruppe
are calculated in Christian Gerlach, ‘Einsatzgruppe B’, in Peter V. Lein, ed., Die
Einsatzgruppen in der besetzten Sowjet unions 194/42. Die Tätigkeits- und Lageberichte
des Chefs der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD (Berlin, 1997), 62.
230. EM 128 (3 Nov. 1941).
231. EM 145 and EM 190.
14.
Plans for a Europe-Wide Deportation Programme after the Start of
Barbarossa
1. According to Richard Breitman, The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final
Solution (London, 1991) 145, a fundamental decision had already been made in the first
months of 1941; Himmler had then made the decisions for its execution in the summer
of 1941 (ibid. 167 ff.). An early decision by Hitler, which he only imparted gradually to his subordinates, is also accepted by Helmut Krausnick, ‘The Persecution of the Jews’,
in Hans Buchheim et al., Anatomy of the SS State (London, 1968), 17–139; Hermann
Graml, Reichskristallnacht. Antisemitismus und Judenverfolgung im Dritten Reich
(Munich, 1988), 207; Wolfgang Benz, The Holocaust: A German Historian Examines
the Holocaust (New York, 1999), 61 ff.
2. Raul Hilberg, ‘Die Aktion Reinhard’, in Eberhard Jäckel and Jürgen Rohwer, eds, Der
Mord an den Juden im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Stuttgart, 1985), 125–36.
3. Philippe Burrin, Hitler and the Jews: The Genesis of the Holocaust (London, 1989),
154 ff.; Uwe Dietrich Adam, Judenpolitik im Dritten Reich (Düsseldorf, 1972), 312; on
Browning’s position see below, p. 522, n. 8.
4. Christian Gerlach, ‘The Wannsee Conference, the Fate of the German Jews, and
Hitler’s Decision in Principle to Exterminate All European Jews’, Journal of Modern
History 70 (1998), 759–812; L. J. Hartog, Der Befehl zum Judenmord. Hitler, Amerika
und die Juden (Bodenheim, 1997).