The Third Reich at War

by Richard J. Evans

116 . Ibid., 85-96, 235-8; idem, Salonica: City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews 1430-1950 (London, 2004), 421-2.

  117 . Payne, A History of Fascism, 404-11; Ladislaus Hory and Martin Broszat, Der kroatische Ustascha-Staat 1941-1945(Stuttgart, 1965 [1964]), 13-38; Jozo Tomasevich, War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941-1945: Occupation and Collaboration (Stanford, Calif., 2001), 47-174; Gert Fricke, Kroatien 1941-1944: Der ‘Unabḧngige Staat’ in der Sicht des Deutschen Bevollm̈chtigten Generals in Agram, Blaise v Hortenau (Freiburg, 1972), 10, 25-67.

  118 . Hory and Broszat, Der kroatische Ustascha-Staat, 39-57.

  119 . Misha Glenny, The Balkans 1804-1999: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers (London, 1999), 498-502: Hory and Broszat, Der kroatische Ustascha-Staat, 75-106; Payne, A History of Fascism, 408-10; Friedländer, The Years of Extermination, 228 - 30; gruesome details and photographs in Edmond Paris, Genocide in Satellite Croatia 1941 - 1945: A Record of Racial and Religious Persecution and Massacres (Chicago, 1961), esp. 88 - 126 and 162 - 205.

  120 . Quoted in ibid., 109 - 10; see also ibid., 127 - 61 for the concentration camps.

  121 . Milan Ristovic’, ‘Yugoslav Jews Fleeing the Holocaust, 1941-1945’, in John K. Roth and Elisabeth Maxwell (eds.), Remembering for the Future: The Holocaust in an Age of Genocide (London, 3 vols., 2001), I. 512-26; Glenny, The Balkans, 300-302; Payne, A History of Fascism, 409-10; Hory and Broszat, Der kroatische Ustascha-Staat, 75-92; Tomasevich, War and Revolution, 380-415 for the Ustashe reign of terror, and 511-79 for the role of the Catholic Church. A careful analysis of numbers killed in the genocidal campaigns of the Ustashe can be found in Marko Hoare, Genocide and Resistance in Hitler’s Bosnia: The Partisans and the Chetniks, 1941 - 1943 (London, 2006), 19 - 28.

  122 . Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich, 316.

  123 . Kershaw, Hitler, II. 305.

  124 . Hitler, Kriegstagebuch, II. 214 (5 December 1940); Kershaw, Hitler, II. 307 - 8; Bernd Stegemann, ‘Hitlers Kriegszeiele im ersten Kriegsjahr 1939/40: Ein Beitrag zur Quellenkritik’, Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, 27 (1980), 93 - 105. For Stalinist antisemitism, see Herf, The Jewish Enemy, 93. For a detailed account of the decision to invade, see Jürgen Förster, ‘Hitler’s Decision in Favour of War against the Soviet Union’, in GSWW IV. 13 - 51. For policy discussions and options in the summer of 1940, see Andreas Hillgruber, Hitlers Strategie: Politik und Kriegführung 1940-41 (Frankfurt am Main, 1965), 144-277.

  125 . Roberts, Stalin’s Wars, 30 - 46.

  126 . Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, 421-5.

  127 . Halder, Kriegstagebuch, II. 49 (31 July 1940).

  128 . Bock, Zwischen Pflicht und Verweigerung, 173 (1 February 1941); repeated on 14 June 1941 (ibid., 193).

  129 . Kershaw, Hitler, II. 331 - 7; Weinberg, A World at Arms, 198 - 205.

  130 . David M. Glantz, Barbarossa: Hitler’s Invasion of Russia 1941 (Stroud, 2001), 13 - 18.

  131 . Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War 1941-1945 (London, 2005), 19 - 20; Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, 429 - 36.

  132 . Anthony F. Upton, Finland 1939-40 (London, 1974); David Kirby, Finland in the Twentieth Century (London, 1979).

  133 . Förster, ‘Germany’s Acquisition’, 398 - 408; see also Mark Axworthy et al., Third Axis, Fourth Ally: Romanian Armed Forces in the European War, 1941 - 1945 (London, 1995); and Hillgruber, Hitler, König Carol und Marschall Antonescu, 126-34; more generally, idem, Hitlers Strategie, 484 - 501.

  134 . Dear (ed.), The Oxford Companion to World War II, 431-3; Förster, ‘Germany’s Acquisition’, 409 - 24.

  135 . Ibid., 421 - 8; Weinberg, A World at Arms, 274 - 8.

  136 . Quoted in Marshall Lee Miller, Bulgaria during the Second World War (Stanford, Calif., 1975), 1.

  137 . Hans-Jürgen Hoppe, Bulgarien - Hitlers eigenwilliger Verbündeter (Stuttgart, 1979); Miller, Bulgaria, 93 - 106; Richard Crampton, Bulgaria (Oxford, 2007), 248 - 65.

  138 . Quoted in Miller, Bulgaria, 76.

  139 . Klukowski, Diary, 158 (14 June 1941).

  140 . Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, 321; Heinrich Schwendemann, Die wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit zwischen dem Deutschen Reich und der Sowjetunion von 1939 bis 1941: Alternative zu Hitlers Ostprogramm? (Berlin, 1993), 373.

  141 . Weinberg, A World at Arms, 201 - 5; Roberts, Stalin’s Wars, 61 - 70.

  142 . Quoted in Robert Service, Stalin: A Biography (London, 2004), 407.

  143 . Ibid., 406-9; Gabriel Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion: Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia (London, 1999); Roberts, Stalin’s Wars, 70 - 81; Mawdsley, Thunder in the East, 32 - 41.

  144 . Glantz, Barbarossa, 28-32; for Soviet intelligence, see David M. Glantz, Stumbling Colossus: The Red Army on the Eve of War (Lawrence, Kans., 1998), 233 - 57.

  145 . Simon Sebag-Montefiore, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (London, 2003), 317.

  146 . Kershaw, Hitler, II. 369 - 73, 378.

  147 . Quoted in Rainer F. Schmidt, ‘Der Hess-Flug und das Kabinett Churchill: Hitlers Stellvertreten im Kalkül der britischen Kriegsdiplomatie Mai - Juni 1941’, VfZ 42 (1994), 1 - 38, at 14 - 16.

  148 . Kershaw, Hitler, II. 369 - 81, effectively disposes of the numerous and often extremely bizarre conspiracy theories that were spun around Hess’s flight at the time and later. Neither the claim that Hitler would have sanctioned, let alone ordered, such a hare-brained escapade, nor the idea that either Hess or Hitler was encouraged to mount such a mission by an influential ‘peace party’ in the British government and secret service - to take two of the less fanciful theories - has any basis in reality.

  149 . Gerhard Engel, Heeresadjutant bei Hitler 1938 - 1943 (ed. Hildegard von Kotze, Stuttgart, 1974), 103 - 4.

  150 . Fröhlich (ed.), Die Tagebücher, I/IX. 309 (13 May 1941).

  151 . Quoted in Kershaw, Hitler, II. 939 n. 210.

  152 . Boberach (ed.), Meldungen, VII. 2,302 and 2,313 (15 and 19 May 1941).

  153 . Martin Broszat et al. (eds.), Bayern in der NS-Zeit (6 vols., Munich, 1977 - 83), I. 148 (‘Aus Monatsbericht des Landrats, 31. 5. 1941’).

  154 . Bock, Zwischen Pflicht und Verweigerung, 185 (10 - 12 May 1941).

  155 . Klemperer, I Shall Bear Witness, 368 (21 May 1941).

  156 . Walb, Ich, die Alte, 219 (15 May 1941).

  157 . Kershaw, Hitler, II. 166 - 7.

  158 . Quoted in Marie Vassiltchikov, The Berlin Diaries of Marie ‘Missie’ Vassiltchikov 1940-1945 (London, 1987 [1985]), 51-2; Hassell, The von Hassell Diaries, 196, 204, and Gerhardt B. Thamm, Boy Soldier: A German Teenager at the Nazi Twilight (Jefferson, N.C., 2000), 34.

  159 . Hugh R. Trevor-Roper, ‘The Mind of Adolf Hitler’, in Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk 1941 - 1944 (Oxford, 1988 [1953]), vii - xxxv, at xii - xiii. 160. Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk, 51 (10 October 1941).

  161 . Ibid., 38 (23 September 1941).

  162 . Ibid., 16 (27 July 1941).

  163 . Ibid., 24 (8/9 and 9/10 August 1941). For Hitler and Himmler’s concept of the Ukraine as an imperial fiefdom, equivalent to British India, see Wendy Lower, Nazi Empire-Building and the Holocaust in Ukraine (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2005), 98 - 128.

  164 . Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk, 68 - 9 (17 October 1941).

  165 . Ibid., 61 (2 and ⅔ November 1941).

  166 . Ibid., 447 (27 April 1942).

  167 . Ibid., 578 (18 July 1942).

  168 . Ibid., 77 (17/18 October 1941).

  169 . Ibid., 69 (17 October 1941 and 22 July 1942).

  170 . Ibid., 62 (9 August 1942).

  171 . Longerich, Politik, 298; quote in Madajczyk, Die Okkupationspolitik, 92.

  172 . Alex J. Kay, ‘Germany’s Staatssekretäre, Mass Starvation and the Meeting of 2 May 1941’, Journal of Contemporary History, 41 (2006), 685-700; Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, 475 - 80.

  173 . Madajczyk et al. (eds.), Vom Generalplan Ost; Mechthild Rössler and Sabine Schleiermacher, Der ‘Generalplan Ost’: Hauptlinien der nationalsozialistischen Planungs- und Vernichtungspoliti
k (Berlin, 1993); Thomas Podranski, Deutsche Siedlungspolitik im Osten: Die verschiedenen Varianten des Generalplan Ost der SS (Berlin, 2001).

  174 . Evans, The Third Reich in Power, 419 - 28.

  175 . Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, 463 - 76.

  176 . Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk, 8 (11/12 July 1941).

  177 . Ibid., 587 (22 July 1942).

  178 . Ibid., 624 (9 August 1942).

  179 . Halder, Kriegstagebuch, II. 317 - 20 (17 March 1941).

  180 . Ibid., 336 - 7 (30 March 1941).

  181 . Ibid.

  182 . Quoted in Longerich, Politik, 300-301; see also Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, ‘The Kommissarbefehl and Mass Executions of Soviet Russian Prisoners of War’, in Helmut Krausnick et al., Anatomy of the SS State (London, 1968 [1965]), 505 - 35 (full translation of the order of 6 June on 532 - 4).

  183 . See also Jürgen Förster, ‘Operation Barbarossa as a War of Conquest and Annihilation’, in GSWW IV. 481 - 521.

  184 . Jacobsen, ‘The Kommissarbefehl’, 505 - 35, at 517; Kershaw, Hitler, II. 353 - 60; Bodo Scheurig, Henning von Tresckow: Ein Preusse gegen Hitler (Frankfurt am Main, 1987), 113 - 14; Christian Gerlach, ‘Hitlergegner bei der Heeresgruppe Mitte und die “Verbrecherischen Befehle” ’, in Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.), NS-Verbrechen und der militärische Widerstand gegen Hitler (Darmstadt, 2000), 62-76; Johannes Hürter, ‘Auf dem Weg zur Militäropposition: Tresckow, Gersdorff, der Vernichtungskrieg und der Judenmord: Neue Dokumente über das Verhältnis der Heeresgruppe Mitte zur Einsatzgruppe B im Jahr 1941’, VfZ 52 (2004), 527 - 62; Bock’s views can be found in Bock, Zwischen Pflicht und Verweigerung, 190 (4 June 1941).

  185 . Quoted in Förster, ‘Operation Barbarossa’, 485.

  186 . Quoted in ibid., 514.

  187 . Quoted in ibid., 520.

  188 . Friedländer, The Years of Extermination, 210-11; see also Ortwin Buchbender, Das tönende Erz: Deutsche Propaganda gegen die Rote Armee im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Stuttgart, 1978), and for the senior commanders’ attitude to the ‘criminal orders’, Hürter, Hitlers Heerführer, 247 - 65.

  189 . Longerich, Politik, 302 -10, convincingly dealing with the specifics of the controversy between Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (London, 1998 [1992]), and Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (London, 1996), though the general issues raised by Goldhagen rightly continue to be debated. For the background, see Helmut Fangmann et al., ‘Parteisoldaten’: Die Hamburger Polizei im ‘3. Reich’ (Hamburg, 1987); for indoctrination, see Jürgen Matthäus, ‘Ausbildungsziel Judenmord? Zum Stellenwert der “weltanschaulichen Erziehung” von SS und Polizei im Rahmen der “Endlösung” ’, Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, 47 (1999), 677 - 99; and idem et al. (eds.), Ausbildungsziel Judenmord? ‘Weltanschauliche Erziehung’ von SS, Polizei und Waffen-SS im Rahmen der ‘Endlösung’ (Frankfurt am Main, 2003).

  190 . Quoted in Longerich, Politik, 315.

  191 . Ibid., 310-20, provides a very careful consideration of the evidence, concluding that the postwar trial statements of defendants such as the Task Force leader Ohlendorf that a general command was given to kill all Jews indiscriminately lack credibility because of their exculpatory intent. After being condemned to death, indeed, Ohlendorf changed his story and said there had been no such command. See in particular Ralf Ogorreck, Die Einsatzgruppen und die ‘Genesis der Endlösung’ (Berlin, 1996). For the contrary view, see Breitman, The Architect of Genocide, 145 - 206. For Jews in the Soviet apparatus, see Friedländer, The Years of Extermination, 247-51; more detail in Mordechai Altschuler, Soviet Jewry on the Eve of the Holocaust: A Social and Demographic Profile (Jerusalem, 1998).

  192 . Glantz, Barbarossa, 35.

  193 . Brief summaries in Weinberg, A World at Arms, 264-6; Glantz, Barbarossa, 35; and Kershaw, Hitler, II. 393-9. John Erickson, Stalin’s War with Germany, I: The Road to Stalingrad (London, 1975), remains the classic account, but has inevitably been overtaken by more recent research and particularly by Soviet documentation released since 1990. The same can be said of the even more detailed account in GSWW IV, in which the sections dealing with the Soviet Union are particularly outdated. The most recent narrative is Bellamy, Absolute War. See also the discussion of the senior generals’ conduct of the campaign in Hürter, Hitlers Heerführer, 279 - 302.

  194 . Hürter (ed.), Ein deutscher General, 68 (letter to his wife, 11 July 1941).

  195 . Karl Reddemann (ed.), Zwischen Front und Heimat: Der Briefwechsel des münsterischen Ehepaares Agnes und Albert Neuhaus 1940-1944 (Münster, 1996), 223 (to Agnes Neuhaus, 25 June 1941).

  196 . Konrad Elmshäuser and Jan Lokers (eds.), ‘Man muss hier nur hart sein’: Kriegsbriefe und Bilder einer Familie (1934-1945) (Bremen, 1999), 92 (Kalendereintrag Hans-Albert Giese, 22 June 1941).

  197 . Hürter (ed.), Ein deutscher General, 63 (letter to family, 24 June 1941).

  198 . Quoted in Merridale, Ivan’s War, 96-7 (also for the preceding details in this paragraph); Mawdsley, Thunder in the East, 59-69; Glantz, Barbarossa, 37-40. For the condition of the Red Army in 1941, see Glantz, Stumbling Colossus.

  199 . Merridale, Ivan’s War, 86 - 7.

  200 . Ibid., 99.

  201 . Ibid., 99 - 100, 116, 122 - 3 (translation slightly amended).

  202 . Hürter, Hitlers Heerführer, 393 - 404.

  203 . Reddemann (ed.), Zwischen Front und Heimat, 225 (to Agnes Neuhaus, 27 June 1941).

  204 . Rudolf Stützel, Feldpost: Briefe und Aufzeichnungen eines 17jährigen 1940-1945 (Hamburg, 2005), 41; more generally Hannes Heer (ed.), ‘Stets zu erschiessen sind Frauen, die in der Roten Armee dienen’: Geständnisse deutscher Kriegsgefangener über ihren Einsatz an der Ostfront (Hamburg, 1995), 7, and Hürter, Hitlers Heerführer, 359 - 76.

  205 . Klukowski, Diary, 173 (4 October 1941).

  206 . Ibid., 173 (5 October 1941).

  207 . Merridale, Ivan’s War, 123-5; Christian Streit, Keine Kameraden: Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941 - 1945 (Stuttgart, 1978).

  208 . Quoted in ibid., 131; see also Hürter, Hitlers Heerführer, 377 - 93.

  209 . Hosenfeld, ‘Ich versuche’, 557 (letter to wife, 3 December 1941).

  210 . Streit, Keine Kameraden, 9.

  211 . Halder, Kriegstagebuch, III. 289 (14 November 1941); see more generally Vyacheslav M. Molotov et al., Soviet Government Statements on Nazi Atrocities (London, 1945), 183 - 8.

  212 . Streit, Keine Kameraden, 201 - 88.

  213 . Andreas Hilger, Deutsche Kriegsgefangene in der Sowjetunion, 1941-1956: Kriegsgefangenenpolitik, Lageralltag und Erinnerung (Essen, 2000), superseding earlier studies such as Kurt W. Böhme, Die deutschen Kriegsgefangenen in sowjetischer Hand: Eine Bilanz (Munich, 1966). For the statistics, see Hilger, Deutsche Kriegsgefangene, 137, 370, 389, 425; for political re-education, which was largely unsuccessful, 220 - 54.

  214 . Christian Streit, ‘The Fate of the Soviet Prisoners of War’, in Michael Berenbaum (ed.), A Mosaic of Victims: Non-Jews Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis (London, 1990), 142-9; Alexander Dallin, German Rule in Russia 1941-1945: A Study of Occupation Policies (London, 1957), 409 - 27; Mawdsley, Thunder in the East, 102 - 5.

  215 . Bock, Zwischen Pflicht und Verweigerung, 298 (20 October 1941); see also ibid., 312-13 (9 November 1941), protesting that, ‘According to military custom and law, the army is responsible for the life and safety of its prisoners of war, of whatever kind.’

  216 . Hürter, Hitlers Heerführer, 377 - 93.

  217 . Mawdsley, Thunder in the East, 102 - 5.

  218 . Service, Stalin, 410 - 24; Merridale, Ivan’s War, 83; Sebag-Montefiore, Stalin, 330 - 33, also recording different versions of Stalin’s statement by various memoirists, all equally vulgar; the version quoted here is attested by both Molotov and Chadaev. On Stalin’s unpreparedness, see Roberts, Stalin’s Wars, 61-70. Roberts’s scepticism about Stalin’s loss of nerve
falls down on chronology by failing to realize that it came at the end of June, not immediately after the invasion (89 - 95).

  219 . Hoffmann, Hitler’s Personal Security, 216-63; Kershaw, Hitler, II. 395-7; Fröhlich (ed.), Die Tagebücher II/I. 35 (9 July 1941).

  220 . Halder, Kriegstagebuch, III. 38 (3 July 1941).

  221 . Kershaw, Hitler, II. 405 - 7; Friedländer, The Years of Extermination, 199 - 200.

  222 . Quoted in Kershaw, Hitler, II. 405.

  223 . Ibid., 399 and 944 n. 40; Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk, 17 September 1941; Fröhlich (ed.), Die Tagebücher II/I. 29 - 39 (9 July 1941).

  224 . Walb, Ich, die Alte, 225 (30 June 1941).

  225 . Broszat et al. (eds.), Bayern, I. 149 (‘Aus Monatsbericht der Gendarmerie-Station Heiligenstadt, 25. 6. 1941’ and ‘Aus Monatsbericht der Gendarmerie-Station Waischenfeld, 26. 6. 1941’).

  226 . Solmitz, Tagebücher, 662 (23 June 1941).

  227 . Jochen Klepper, Überwindung: Tagebücher und Aufzeichnungen aus dem Kriege (Stuttgart, 1958), 50 (22 June 1941).

  228 . Maschmann, Account Rendered, 91.

  229 . Broszat et al. (eds.), Bayern, I. 149-50 (‘Aus Monatsbericht der Gendarmerie-Station Ebermannstadt, 27. 6. 1941’).

  230 . Ibid., I. 152 (‘Aus Monatsbericht des Gendarmerie-Kreisführers, 29. 8. 1941’).

  231 . Merridale, Ivan’s War, 84 - 7; Sebag-Montefiore, Stalin, 332 - 4.

  232 . Merridale, Ivan’s War, 115 - 17.

  233 . Ibid., 114-16, also for the quotes; Roberts, Stalin’s Wars, 95-103; Soviet reserves discussed in Glantz, Barbarossa, 15.

  234 . Bock, Zwischen Pflicht und Verweigerung, 210 (6 July 1941).

  235 . Halder, Kriegstagebuch, III. 53 (8 July 1941).

  236 . Rolf-Dieter Müller, ‘The Failure of the Economic “Blitzkrieg Strategy” ’, in GSWW IV. 1,081 - 8, esp. 1, 141 - 72; graphic details in Anatoly Kuznetsov, Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a Novel (London, 1970 [1966]), 149 - 52.

  237 . Hürter (ed.), Ein deutscher General, 63 (diary, 23 June 1941).

  238 . Ibid., 64 (Heinrici to family, 4 July 1941).

  239 . Meier-Welcker, Aufzeichnungen, 124 (31 July 1941), 129 (24 August 1941).