Nazi Germany and the Jews, Volume 2: The Years of Extermination

by Saul Friedlander

  From mid-1942 on the continent-wide murder campaign ran as an administrative bureaucratic system in all its basic operations. However, had these operations unfolded only according to bureaucratic norms of instrumental rationality, they would increasingly have adapted, mainly after Stalingrad and Kursk, to the worsening military situation. A whole array of activities of no use to the war effort, such as transporting the Jews to their death despite growing logistic problems or exterminating Jewish workers—although, of course, the argument of the Jewish threat could always be brandished—would have probably slowed down. Yet the contrary was happening: Anti-Jewish propaganda became more pervasive than ever and the danger represented by every single Jew turned into a generalized ideological obsession.

  In order to be effective, however, the ideological impetus had to emanate not only from the top but also be fanatically adopted and enforced at intermediate levels of the system by the technocrats, organizers, and direct implementers of the extermination—by those, in short, who made the system work, several levels below the main political leadership. Key figures in the agencies involved—particularly some of the best organizers and technocrats among them—were motivated by anti-Jewish fanaticism.26

  In the face of such ruthless German determination, the absence of major opposition or protest from the surrounding world did not change significantly. As before, hundreds of thousands (possibly millions) of Germans and other Europeans continued tacitly to support the extermination campaign, both for profit and on ideological grounds (that, in occupied countries, did not exclude the simultaneous hatred of Germans, particularly among many Poles). The determining factors in the passivity of most remained fear, of course, the absence of any sense of identification with Jews, and the lack of decided and sustained encouragement to help the victims from the leaders of Christian churches or the political leadership of resistance movements.

  Among the Jews—the majority of whom had already been murdered by mid-1943—the two contrary trends that have already been mentioned became ever more noticeable: increasing passivity and lack of solidarity with fellow sufferers among the mass of terrorized and physically weakened victims (mainly in the camps) on the one hand, and on the other the tightening bonds within small, usually politically homogeneous groups that, as we shall see, would rise in some places in desperate armed revolts.

  II

  On January 11, 1943, Hermann Höfle sent a radiogram from Lublin to SS Obersturmbannführer Franz Heim, the deputy commander of the Security Police and the SD in the General Government; a few minutes later he sent a second, most probably identical one to Eichmann. Whereas the radiogram from Höfle to Heim was partially decoded by the British and distributed on January 15 (to the small group of recipients of these decodes), the second message was either not fully intercepted or not decoded except for the indication of the source and of the addressee.27

  Höfle’s message to Heim was, in its main part, a computation of the number of Jews exterminated in the camps of “Aktion Reinhardt” up to December 31, 1942. After listing the number of Jews who had arrived in the four camps during the third and fourth weeks of December, Höfle gave the following overall results of the extermination for each camp:

  L [Lublin-Majdanek]: 24,733.

  B [Belzec]: 434,508.

  S [Sobibor]: 101,370.

  T [Treblinka]: 71,355 (read: 713,555).

  TOTAL: 1,274,166.28

  Höfle’s report was probably related to a more encompassing set of results being put together at the same time. According to his postwar declarations, Eichmann had given Himmler a first progress report at the SS leader’s headquarters near Zhitomir, on August 11, 1942 (although Himmler’s calendar indicates that the meeting dealt essentially with the planned deportations from Romania).29 A second report, this time a written one, was prepared by Eichmann’s IV B 4 department and sent to Himmler on December 15, 1942, under the title “Operations and Situation Report 1942 on the Final Solution of the European Jewish Question.”30 Though the report is considered lost, it is known to have displeased the SS chief intensely.

  In a letter of January 18, 1943, addressed to Müller, the irate Reichsführer did not mince words: “The Reich Main Security Office is hereby relieved of its statistical responsibilities in this area, since the statistical materials submitted to date have consistently fallen short of professional standards of precision.”31 On the same day the Reichsführer put the SS chief statistician, Richard Korherr, in charge of the report: “The Reich Security Main Office,” Himmler wrote Korherr, “is to put at your disposal whatever materials you request or need for this purpose.”32

  An initial Korherr report, sixteen pages long, establishing the total of Jews killed by December 31, 1942, was submitted to Himmler on March 23, 1943: The number of Jews “evacuated” was estimated at 1,873,539. On Himmler’s demand an abridged estimate, updated to March 31, 1943, was prepared for Hitler; it was six and a half pages long. In this second version, Korherr was ordered to replace the words “special treatment” (of the Jews) by “transport of Jews from the eastern provinces to the Russian East: passed through camps in the General Government…through camps in the Warthegau.33 We do not know the total number that could have been alluded to or deduced from the second version, but it must have been close to 2.5 million. Korherr titled his report “The Final Solution of the European Jewish Question.”34

  According to some interpretations, Himmler needed the report to defend himself against criticism coming from Speer and from the commander of the Reserve Army, Gen. Friedrich Fromm, in regard to the extermination of potential workers or even soldiers.35 This seems unlikely, as, on Hitler’s orders, thousands of Jews working in German industries were seized and deported in February 1943 and further tens of thousands of Jewish slave laborers would be systematically murdered throughout the year. Moreover, on December 29, 1942, Himmler had reported to Hitler about the extermination of Jews in the Ukraine, in southern Russia, and in the Bialystok district during the summer of 1942; as we saw, in the Ukraine no distinctions were made between working and non-working Jews. According to the Reichsführer, 363,211 Jews had been exterminated in these operations.36 Had Hitler criticized such indiscriminate annihilation, some hint of it would most probably have been mentioned.

  The Korherr report was an overall progress report that, let us remember, Himmler had been trying to obtain since midsummer 1942. Was it pure chance that the Nazi leader received it on the eve of his fifty-fourth birthday, after Germany had suffered its worst military defeats yet? Here at least was a war that Hitler was winning. The document was eventually returned to Eichmann’s office with Himmler’s remark: “The Führer has taken note: destroy. H.H.”37

  During these same days Rosenberg forwarded his own general survey of Jewish spoils, explicitly for his leader’s birthday: “My Führer,” the minister wrote on April 16, 1943, “with the wish to make you happy for your birthday, I allow myself to submit to you a folder with photos of some of the most valuable paintings from Jewish ownerless property secured by my Commando in the occupied western countries…. This folder gives but a weak impression of the extraordinary value and quantity of the art objects seized by my agency in France and put in security in the Reich.” Rosenberg attached a written summary of all the treasures his commando had seized in the West. Until April 7, 1943, the “recovery locations” in the Reich had received 2,775 boxes of art objects in ninety-two freight cars; of these objects, 9,455 had already been inventoried, while “at least” 10,000 further objects had yet to be processed.38

  While Rosenberg’s fawning birthday offering definitively stamps National Socialism’s foremost thinker not only a criminal but also a grotesque figure, even by Nazi standards, the significance of the other gift, Korherr’s report, whether meant for Hitler’s birthday nor not, is quite different in several ways. First, Korherr’s wording of one sentence was corrected on Himmler’s order to avoid associating the Führer with an expression openly used as a reference to mass murder. Yet st
rangely enough the new phrasing—“Transport to the Russian East…passed through the camps”—was as easily identifiable with mass murder as the previous euphemism. Moreover, as historian Gerald Fleming quite cogently noted, no mistake could be made about the meaning of these words, as another part of the same document alluded to “the collapse of the Jewish masses…since the evacuation measures of 1942.”39

  Mainly, whatever the intent of Himmler’s linguistic exercises may have been, Korherr’s report is not merely a statistical survey to be tucked away in the history of the “Final Solution” in a section dealing with the number of victims. Of course, it is that, but also much more. Himmler sent the report to Hitler (or presented it to him) either because the Nazi leader had asked for it or the SS chief knew that his Führer would be pleased to see it. Be that as it may, we have to imagine Hitler reading the six pages of the report (typed on his special typewriter) outlining for him the interim results of the mass murder operation that he had ordered. Two and a half million Jews had already been killed, and the campaign was rapidly unfolding. We do not know whether the Nazi leader showed satisfaction as he read, or impatience about the slow pace of the killings. The killing in and of itself, but also the perusal of the report by its initiator, the leader of one of the most advanced nations in the world, remains of the essence. The scene thus imagined—which necessarily took place—tells more about the regime and its “messiah” than many an abstract treatise.

  Another aspect of this ghoulish occurrence comes to mind. We do not know of any other equally elaborate and detailed statistical report about a specific group of people whom Hitler ordered to murder; we know merely of general estimates and aggregates. It is only in regard to the number of murdered Jews that Himmler gave full vent to his anger, in view of the unprofessional statistical work of Eichmann’s office. And Korherr offered the precision Himmler requested: 1,873,539 Jews by December 31, 1942. To Kaltenbrunner, Himmler wrote: “In the brief monthly reports of the Security Police, I only want figures on how many Jews have been shipped off and and how many are currently left.”40 In other words, every Jew still alive remained a danger, and every Jew still alive had to be caught and murdered in the end.

  III

  To keep the extermination progressing at full pace, the Germans had to impose their will on increasingly reluctant allies. In the case of Romania, Hitler gave up. He did not want to confront Antonescu, whom he considered a trustworthy ally, although he continued to prod him. In Hungary the situation was different. The Nazi leader believed that Horthy and Kallay were under Jewish influence, and he (rightly) suspected them of aspiring to switch sides. Moreover, for Hitler the 800,000 Jews of Hungary were a huge prize, almost within his grasp. On April 17 and 18, 1943, the Nazi leader met with Horthy at Klessheim Castle, near Salzburg, Austria, and berated him about the mildness of Hungary’s anti-Jewish measures. German policies, the Nazi leader explained, were different. In Poland, for example, “if the Jews did not want to work, they were shot; if they could not work, they had to perish. They were to be dealt with like tuberculosis microbes that could infect a healthy body. This was not cruel if one considered that even innocent beings such as deer or hares had to be killed to avoid damages. Why should one spare the beasts that wanted to bring us bolshevism?” At this point in his exhortation, the Nazi leader felt the need to add a historical proof to his arguments: “People who did not defend themselves against the Jew,” he went on, “perished. One of the best-known examples was the downfall of the once so proud Persian people, who now lived a miserable life as Armenians.”41

  Whether the regent was impressed by the German leader’s erudition is hard to tell, but he certainly understood that Hitler was set on the speedy extermination of all of European Jewry. Just in case German aims had not been sufficiently hammered home at Klessheim, a cable from Ambassador Sztójay to Kallay, sent on April 25, left no further doubt: “National Socialism,” the ambassador reported, “despises and deeply hates the Jews whom it considers as its greatest and most relentless enemy with which it is engaged in a life and death struggle…. The Reich Chancellor is determined to rid Europe of the Jews…. He has decreed that until the summer of 1943 all the Jews of Germany and of the countries occupied by Germany will be moved to the Eastern territories that is to the Russian territories…. The German Government has expressed the wish that its allies should participate in the action mentioned.”42

  Neither Hitler’s exhortations nor Sztójay’s report sufficed to change Horthy’s policies—increasingly aimed at an understanding with the Allies. In fact Kallay made a point of stating openly that, in regard to the Jews, Hungary would not budge. In a speech delivered at the end of May 1943, the Hungarian prime minister was explicit: “In Hungary,” he declared, “live more Jews than in all of Western Europe…. It is self-explanatory that we must attempt to solve this problem; hence the necessity for temporary measures and an appropriate regulation. The final solution, however, can be none other than the complete resettlement of Jewry. But I cannot bring myself to keep this problem on the agenda so long as the basic prerequisite of the solution, namely the answer to the question where the Jews are to be resettled, is not given. Hungary will never deviate from those precepts of humanity, which, in the course of history, it has always maintained in racial and religious questions.”43 Given Hitler’s declarations to the regent a few weeks before, Kallay’s speech was nothing less than a slap in the Nazi leader’s face. Clearly the moment of confrontation with Germany was rapidly approaching; it did not bode well for Hungary—mainly, not for its large Jewish community.

  In the meantime the Bulgarian attitude regarding the country’s further deportations of Jews still looked promising to Berlin. As we saw, in March and April 1943, Sofia had given all necessary assistance to Dannecker and his men in deporting the Jews of occupied Thracia and Macedonia to Treblinka. Simultaneously, in March 1943, thousands of Bulgarian Jews had already been concentrated at assembly points, and the transports from the “Old Kingdom” were about to start. King Boris had promised this to the Germans. When it came to the deportation of native Bulgarian Jews, however, public protest erupted. The opposition found its strongest expression in parliament and among the leaders of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. The monarch backed down: Any further such deportations were definitively canceled.44

  The king, slightly embarrassed, it seems, had some explaining to do to his German ally. On April 2, during a visit to Germany, the Bulgarian monarch informed Ribbentrop that “he had had given his agreement to the deportation to Eastern Europe only in regard to the Jews of Thracia and Macedonia. As for the Jews of Bulgaria as such, he was merely ready to allow for the deportation of a small number of Bolshevik-communist elements, while the other 25,000 Jews would be put into concentration camps, as he needed them for road construction.” The protocol of the conversation indicates that Ribbentrop did not address Boris’s remarks in detail but merely told him: “According to our view on the Jewish question, the most radical solution is the only right one.”45

  A few days after the meeting, a general overview of the events in Bulgaria, sent by the Foreign Ministry to the RSHA, indicated that, there as in other countries of southeastern Europe, “distancing from harsh anti-Jewish measures was noticeable.”46

  Even in Slovakia, hesitation about further deportations persisted. It may be remembered that merely 20,000 mostly baptized Jews remained in the country after the last three transports to Auschwitz had departed in September 1942 following a three-month lull. In the meantime rumors about the fate of the deportees had seeped back. Thus when Tuka mentioned the possibility of resuming the deportations in early April 1943, protests from Slovak clergy, and also from the population, put an end to his initiative.47 On March 21, a pastoral letter condemning any further deportations had been read in most churches.

  The growing turmoil led to a meeting between Ludin and Tuka, as reported by the German envoy to Berlin on April 13. After minimizing the significance of the pastoral letter, Tuk
a mentioned that information about atrocities perpetrated by the Germans against the Jews had reached the Slovak bishops. “Prime Minister Dr. Tuka let me know,” Ludin went on, “that the ‘naïve Slovak clergy’ was prone to believe such atrocity fairy tales and he [Tuka] would be grateful if they were countered from the German side by a description of conditions in the Jewish camps. He considers that from a propaganda viewpoint it might be especially valuable if a Slovak delegation, which should appropriately comprise a legislator, a journalist, and perhaps also a Catholic clergyman, could visit a German camp for Jews. If such an inspection might be organized,” Ludin concluded, “I would certainly welcome it.48

  On April 22, 1943, Hitler met Tiso at Klessheim. Essentially the Nazi leader held forth against the protection that Horthy granted to the Jews of Hungary; Ribbentrop, who attended the meeting, added a few comments of his own to his Führer’s declarations.49 Tiso, in other words, was being indirectly encouraged to complete the job on his own turf by delivering his remaining Jews. On this occasion, the Slovak president did not make any promise.

  As by the early summer of 1943 the deportations from Slovakia had not yet been resumed, Eichmann added a heavy dose of what could only be defined as comic relief to the messages sent to Bratislava. In a memorandum dated June 7, 1943, that the Wilhelmstrasse passed on to Ludin, Tuka, and Tiso, the head of IVB4 demanded that the Slovaks be informed of the favorable reports published about the “conditions in Jewish camps” by a series of newspapers in Eastern Europe (and even one in Paris), with “numerous photographs.” “For the rest,” Eichmann added, “to counteract the fantastic rumors circulating in Slovakia about the fate of the evacuated Jews, attention should be drawn to the postal communications of these Jews with Slovakia, which are forwarded directly through the advisor on Jewish affairs with the German legation in Bratislava [Wisliceny] and which for instance amounted to more than 1,000 letters and postcards for February-March this year. Concerning the information apparently desired by Prime Minister Dr. Tuka about the conditions in Jewish camps, no objections would be raised by this office against any possible scrutinizing of the correspondence before it is forwarded to the addressees.”50