Hitler's Foreign Executioners

by Christopher Hale

  40 Ioanid, p. 66.

  41 USHMM, RG 25.004M, roll 48.

  42 Malaparte, pp. 46ff.

  43 Ibid., p. 70.

  44 http://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/pinkas_romania/rom1_00142.html

  45 Interview by Francisca Solomon, November 2006. Quoted with permission.

  46 http://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/NurTranscript/TranscriptSearches/tran_about.php. NMT 04. Pohl Case – USA v. Oswald Pohl, et al., English Transcript (10 July 1947), p. 4128.

  47 Figures from Carp (2000).

  4 Horror Upon Horror

  1 www.holocaustinthebaltics.com.

  2 Zuroff (2010), p. 106.

  3 Klee et al. (1991), pp. 28ff.

  4 http://www.xxiamzius.lt/archyvas/xxiamzius/20021206/mums_04.html.

  5 Klee et al., p. 31.

  6 Baranauskus (1970), pp. 194–5.

  7 Eidintas (1998), p. 17.

  8 Rein, ‘Local Collaboration …’, JHGS (winter 2006).

  9 Nathan Cohen, ‘The destruction of the Jews of Butrimonys as described in a farewell letter from a local Jew’, in Holocaust and Genocide Studies,Vol. 4, No 3 (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), pp. 357–75.

  10 A. Tooze (2006), pp. 461ff.

  11 Quoted in Burleigh (2002), p. 5.

  12 See A. Tooze (2006); and Burleigh, M., The German-Soviet war and other tragedies (Burleigh, 1997), pp. 92ff.

  13 See Snyder, ‘Holocaust: The Ignored Reality’, in New York Review of Books, Vol. 56, No 12 (16 July 2009).

  14 Cited by Burleigh (2002), p. 194. English translations in Noakes & Pridham (2001), pp. 324–6; and Gigliotti & Lang (2005), pp. 167–9. See also Helmut Heiber, Der Generalplan Ost (1957), Denkshrift Himmlers über die Behandlung der Fremdvolksischen im Osten.

  15 M. Burleigh, Ethics and Extermination: Reflections on Nazi Genocide (Cambridge, 1997). pp. 9–11.

  16 Quoted in Burleigh (2010), p. 247.

  17 Headland (1992), p. 75.

  18 Stahlecker, ‘Consolidated Report’, 15 October, 1941: Nuremberg Document L–180. NARA: records of Case 9, USA versus Otto Ohlendorf et al., roll 8.

  19 American Military Tribunal, No II, United States of America versus Otto Ohlendorf, Vol. 6, p. 2158.

  20 The Jäger Report was discovered after the Einsatzgruppen Trial in Nuremberg had ended and is now in the Central Lithuanian Archives. Jäger himself was not a defendant in Nuremberg; he was arrested many years after the war but committed suicide in 1959 while awaiting trial.

  21 Headland (1992), p. 155.

  22 BA, R70 Sowjetunion/32, folios 4–10; Krausnick, Die Einsatzgruppen, pp. 163ff. for Heydrich’s orders.

  23 Stahlecker, Riga, 7 July 1941.

  24 See MacQueen, ‘The Context of Mass Destruction …’, in HGS, 12(1) (1998), pp. 27–48.

  25 Quoted in Ezergailis (1996), p. 81.

  26 Lumans, pp. 26ff.

  27 Bellamy (2007), pp. 88ff.

  28 For a detailed account see Dov Levin, The Lesser of two Evils: Eastern European Jewry under Soviet Rule, 1939–1941 (Jewish Publication Society, 1995), pp. 272–3.

  29 Freidlander (2007), p. 220.

  30 See Kwiet, Rehearsal for Murder …, pp. 12ff.; Bauer (1980), p. 36.

  31 Levinson (2009), pp. 166ff.

  32 Quoted in Winkler, H.A., Germany, Volume 2: The Long Road West, 1933–1990 (Oxford, 2007), p. 100.

  33 Quoted in Burleigh (1997), p. 41.

  34 Extracts quoted in Boog et al. (1996), pp. 491ff.

  35 See Kwiet, p. 9.

  36 See R. Hilberg, Documents of Destruction: Germany and Jewry 1933–1945 (Chicago, 1971).

  37 Quoted in Kwiet, p. 17.

  38 See Arad, Ghetto in Flames, pp. 35ff.

  39 Ibid., p. 24.

  40 See Stang (1996), pp. 114ff.

  41 Burleigh (1997), pp. 92–3, citing Schumann & Nestler (eds), Europa unterm Hakenkreuz.

  42 Arad et al. (1989), p. 4.

  43 Quotations from The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania: Chronicles from the Vilnius Ghetto and Camps, 1939–1944 ed. Benjamim Harshav (Newhaven and London, 2002).

  44 See Arad, op. cit., p. 19.

  45 Bauer, op. cit., p. 67.

  46 Details from Bauer, op. cit., pp. 75ff.

  47 Klee et al. (1988), pp. 38–45.

  48 Michael MacQueen, Lithuanian Collaboration in the ‘Final Solution’: Motivations and Case Studies (Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies USHMM, 2004).

  49 Quoted in Sutton (2008), pp. 126–7.

  5 Massacre in L’viv

  1 See Brandon & Lower (eds) (2008), p. 114.

  2 In historical terms, distinguishing Galicia from its northern neighbour Volhynia is close to impossible. Strictly, one should refer to Galicia-Volhynia, but to simplify I have used ‘Galicia’ throughout.

  3 Macmillan (2001), Chapters 6 and 17 provide an indispensable analysis of the Russian problem in 1919.

  4 Littman, Pure Soldiers, p. 9.

  5 See H. Torrè, Le process des pogroms (Paris, 1928).

  6 Quoted in Golczewski, p. 122.

  7 See Bruder, pp. 38ff. for a discussion of OUN ideology.

  8 Ibid., p. 46.

  9 For a full account see V. Shandor, Carpatho-Ukraine in the Twentieth Century: A Political and Legal History (Harvard, 1997); and Kosyk (1993), pp. 40ff.

  10 Lahousen documents, IfZ, Fd 47 and IMT 3047-PS.

  11 Golczewski, pp. 126–7.

  12 BA NS 43/43.

  13 Quoted in Headland (1992), p. 114.

  14 See Rosenberg documents, IMT 1017-PS.

  15 Another Abwehr officer who liaised with the Ukrainians was Helmut Groscurth. Like Canaris, Groscurth was a conservative nationalist who somewhat half-heartedly turned against the Nazi regime. He called Heydrich a ‘criminal’. On 19–22 August at Bjelaja Zerkow, Groscurth resisted SS demands to shoot Jewish children who had been captured. He held out for a day then capitulated to SS demands under some pressure to ‘avoid acrimony’. See Friedlander, in Bartov et al. (2002), pp. 18ff.

  16 Kosyk, pp. 82ff.

  17 Quoted in Meinl, p. 314.

  18 BA-MA, RH 20–11/485, 12 June 1941.

  19 NARA, T175, roll 10, Himmler to Berger, 31 April 1941.

  20 Gigliotti & Lang (2005), pp. 167–9.

  21 IfZ No 2860 & IMT XXII 32.

  22 Friedman (1980), p. 180.

  23 Dallin (1981), p. 118.

  24 Boog et al. (1996), pp. 547ff.

  25 Quotations from Boll, in Bartov et al. (2002), op. cit., p. 67.

  26 Ibid., p. 64.

  27 De Zayas, The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau: 1939–1945 (Rockport, Maine, 2000), Chapter 20. According to de Zayas, the Bureau collected data from various sources and published a report ‘War Crimes of the Soviet Forces’ in November 1941. The Bureau’s evidence was also used by the German Foreign Office to compile ‘Bolshevist War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity’ which was passed to the British FO through its Swiss legation.

  28 Here is one especially repellent example: http://www.ety.com/HRP/jewishstudies/comcrimes.html

  29 BA, Film Archive Berlin/Transit Film, Munich.

  30 Quoted in Bruder (2006), p. 231. ‘Moskales’ is a pejorative characterisation of Russians.

  31 Ibid.

  32 Oberländer died in 1998. At the time he was deeply involved in far right German political movements and was again under investigation for crimes committed in 1942 when he was leader of the Sonderverband Bergmann, a mixed German and Russian brigade.

  33 Quoted in Bruder, op. cit., p. 150.

  34 Quoted in Friedländer (2008), p. 214.

  35 Quoted in Melnyk, p. 6.

  36 Kosyk, op. cit., pp. 510–1.

  37 Quoted in Berkhoff & Carynnyk, p. 152. Archive reference: TsDAVOV, 3833/7/6.

  38 See Mulligan (1988), p. 34.

  39 Bräutigam (1968).

  40 Berkhoff (2004), pp. 305ff.

  6 Himmler’s Shadow War

  1 IMT-Blue Series, Vol. 38, pp. 68–94, document L–221Der Prozess gegen die H
auptknegsverbrecher vor dem Intennationalen Militargenchtshof.

  2 Himmler, Dienstkalendar, p. 195.

  3 Quoted in Krausnick & Wilhelm (1981), p. 248.

  4 The most important study of the SS brigades is by Cüppers (2005). There is no English translation.

  5 The SS Command Staff was established on 7 April as the Einsatzstab (Task Force staff?), but was renamed on 6 May as the Kommandostab RFSS. See Cüppers, Wegbereiter (2005); Jürgen Förster, ‘Das andere Gesicht desKrieges: Das ‘Unternehmen Barbarossa’ als Eroberungs- und Vernichtungskrieg’, in Roland G. Foerster (ed.), ’Unternehmen Barbarossa’: Zum historischen Ort der deutsch-sowjetischen Beziehungenvon 1933 bis Herbst 1941 (Munich, Oldenbourg, 1993), pp. 155–7; Ruth Bettina Birn, ‘Zweierlei Wirklichkeit? Fallbeispiele zur Partisanenbekämpfung imOsten’, in Bernd Wegner (ed.), Zwei Wege nach Moskau: Vom Hitler-Stalin-Pakt bis zum ‘Unternehmen Barbarossa’ (Piper, Munich, Zurich, 1991), pp. 275–90; Yehoshua Büchler, ‘Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS: Himmler’s Personal Murder Brigades in 1941’, in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 1, No 1 (1986), pp. 11–25; Yaakov Lozowick, ‘Rollbahn Mord: the Early Activities of Einsatzgruppe C’, in Holocaust and Genocide Studies Vol. 2, No 2 (1987), pp. 221–42; Unsere Ehre heißt Treue: Kriegstagebuch des Kommandostabes Reichsführer SS.Tätigkeitsberichte der 1. und 2. SS-Inf.-Brigade, der 1. SS-Kav.-Brigade und vonSonderkommandos der SS (Europa Verlag, Vienna, 1965).

  6 Quoted in Cooper (1979), p. 57.

  7 Quoted in Krausnick & Wilhelm, Die Truppe, p. 248.

  8 See P. Blood (2008), an essential source on Hitler’s anti-partisan war.

  9 Sources: ZStL, B162/19784 contains lengthy interviews with Bach-Zelewski (BZ) conducted in 1960 by lawyers investigating his role in the destruction of Warsaw in 1944. See also: NARA, RG242, A3343-SSO–023, Bach-Zelewski, RG238, T 1270–1, BZ interrogations by IMT, RG238, M 1019–4, BZ interrogations by USMT, BA, SS Bach-Zelewski personal file, BA, R20/45b war diary, NA UK, HW 16/6, MSGP 32, 14/2/42: BZ Diary. Tuviah Friedman, Bach-Zelewski: Dokumentensammlung (Haifa, 1996); Machlejd & Wanda (eds), War Crimes in Poland: Erich von dem Bach (Warsaw, 1961).

  10 Bach-Zelewski’s testimony can be accessed in World Jewish Congress Records, C203/Bach-Zelewski.

  11 http://www.holocaust-history.org/himmler-poznan/speech-text.shtml

  12 Quoted in Büchler, p. 15. A brilliant analysis of the German view of the Pripet can be found in D. Blackburn (2006).

  13 See Cüppers (2006), pp. 49–60, 98–107.

  14 IMT, Vol. 33, 197, 3839-PS.

  15 ‘Kommandosonderbefehl’ Himmler, 28 July 1941, quoted in Norbert Müller (ed.), Die faschistische Okkupationspolitik in den zeitweilig besetzten Gebieten der Sowjetunion, 1941–1944 (Akademie Verlag, Berlin, 1991), pp. 175–7.

  16 Here is a list of names and birth regions according to German prosecution files: Otto Mittelstädt, 4.4.18, Romania; Kurt Zapf, 28.8.20, Łódź; Samuel Grieb, 1.9.20, Neuarzis, Romania; Rudolf Swoboda, 9.7.12, Theresienthal/CSR (Czech Republic); Rudolf Müller, 24.9.1920, Silberbach, CSR; Johann Schütz, 8.2.1918, Grabowa, Poland; Josef Charwat, 30.9.02, Czernowitz, Buchenland?; Alois Chedina, 6.12.09, Cortina, Süd Tirol; Georg Christian, 12.10.03, Kiev, Dersinski (phon?); Otto Deutschmann, 31.7.12, Alsace; Serverin Dörner, 23.10.08, Sudetenland; Werner Dormeyer, 9.1.23, Johannesburg; Oskar Dreger, 24.4.22, Łódź; Dr Med Fritz Eichin, Alsace; Andreas Frank, 29.8.01, Petersburg; Rudolf Fröhlich, 23.3.09, CSR; Adam Fusenecker, 17.7.23, Hungary; Samuel Grieb, 1.9.20, Romania; Karl Kelm, 7.8.18, Marzuki; Franz Klie, 11.2.21, Hungary; Friedrich Maletta, 30.1.07, CSR; Otto Mittelstädt, 4.4.18, Romania; Eduard Moschitz, 2.7.19, Südtirol; Alois Oschowitzer, 9.9.22, CSR; Karl Pangratz, 26.10.12, CSR; Oskar Reinke, 26.8.24, Romania; Anton Scheidenwindt, 1.6.13, Yugoslavia; Johann Serr, 23.2.15, Mangbunar?; Alfred Stegener, Constantinople (d.1944, Warsaw); Rudolf Swoboda, CSR; Rudold Sucko, 25.1.21, Romania; Helmut Urbainski, 12.3.13, Kattowitz?; Thomas Wolf, 11.12.13, Romanian; Kurt Zapz, ?Łódź.

  17 Das Schwarze Korps, 3 September 1942, 3.

  18 Büchler, p. 15.

  19 BA-MA, RS 4/441: ‘Es bleibt kein männlicher Jude leben, keine Restfamilie in den Ortschaften.’ SS-Kav. Rgt. 1 Reit. Abt. (Lombard) Abteilungsbefehl Nr. 28.

  20 See Kriegstagebuch des Kommandostabes Reichsfuehrer SS (Vienna, 1965), pp. 217ff.

  21 Reported in the ‘Kriegestagbuch’, p. 214.

  22 Büchler, p. 16; Cüppers, p. 155.

  23 Quoted in Burleigh (2010), p. 399.

  24 See R. Breitmann, ‘Friedrich Jeckeln: Spezialist für die “Endlösung” in Osten’, in Smelser & Syring (eds), Die SS. Elite unter dem Totenkopf. Cited by Burleigh (2010), p. 400.

  25 See Pohl, pp. 27ff., in Bandon & Lower (eds) (2008).

  26 Büchler, p. 17.

  27 See D. Pohl, in Brandon & Lower (2008), pp. 29ff.

  28 Figures from Pohl, op. cit.

  7 The Blue Buses

  1 Ezergailis (1996), pp. 242–3. The ‘Landgericht Hamburg’ holds records of a number of war crimes trials of German and Latvian SD recruits who served in Latvia, including testimony by Hemicker. StA Hamburg 141 Js 534/60 Anklageschrift vom 10.5.1976 gegen Viktors Arājs. I have made significant use of Ezergailis’ detailed account of the Latvian Holocaust throughout this chapter. I have, however, drawn different conclusions from his evidence.

  2 ‘Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers, 1941/42’ (Hamburg, 1999), pp. 178ff.

  3 See Breitman (1991), p. 170; and Diesntkalendar, pp. 180–1.

  4 Ibid., p. 195.

  5 Longerich (2008), pp. 552–3.

  6 See Boog et al., op. cit., p. 589.

  7 Kershaw (2000), pp. 400ff.

  8 NCA, IMT L–221, Bormann memorandum.

  9 BA-MA, RW4/14: Abschrift, RFSS, 25 July 1941.

  10 Nuremberg Document PS–1997; see also Dallin, p. 99.

  11 See Dallin, p. 183. Lohse’s manifesto, ‘Ostland baut auf’, was published in Nazionalsozialistische Monatshefte in January 1942.

  12 To be more precise, according to Ezergailis, p. 146, SD powers passed to the Kommandant der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD (KdS), which was subordinated to the HSSPF, who received orders from Berlin.

  13 Quoted in Ezergailis (1996), p. 119.

  14 Ibid., p. 120.

  15 See Lumans, Latvia in WW2, pp. 161ff.

  16 Quoted in Ezergailis, p. 133.

  17 Alfreds Bilmanis, Latvia under German Occupation (Press Bureau of the Latvian Legation, Washington DC, 1943).

  18 Arad (1989), pp. 27ff.

  19 Longer representative extracts can be found in Ezergailis, Chapter 3.

  20 Quoted in Ezergailis, p. 159.

  21 ZStL B 162/2976–3074, 3076, 3078–3117, 14230, 14486, 14532, 14607, 21481: Schwurgericht, Koln, 1968. Arajs trial: ‘wegen gemeinschaftlichen Mordes an mindestens 13.000 Menschen zu lebenslanger Freiheitsstrafe verurteilt’ (Fundstelle: Bundesarchiv, B 162/14607).

  22 Ezergailis, pp. 226ff.

  23 Ibid., p. 161.

  24 Arad (1989), pp. 27ff.

  25 Quoted in Lumans (2006), p. 237.

  26 Ibid., p. 240.

  27 Figures cited in Lumans, p. 242.

  28 Yad Vashem, 02/870, cited in Ezergailis, p. 167.

  29 BA, R 58/215, ‘Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers 189, Ereignismeldungen UdSSR, No. 48’, 10 August 1941.

  30 See K. Kangeris, “‘Closed” Units of Latvian Police …’, in The Hidden and Forbidden History of Latvia under Soviet and Nazi Occupations 1940–1991 (2007), pp. 104–21. Christopher Browning’s study ‘Ordinary Men’ also examined a German closed brigade: the 101st Reserve Police Battalion.

  31 See Curilla (2006), pp. 908ff.

  32 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,833564-1,00.html. See also G. Walters (2010).

  33 According to this propagandist Cukurs website: http://herberts-cukurs.blogspot.com/

  34 Zuroff (2010), pp. 117–20. Testimony by Rafael Shub, Abraham Shapiro and Max Tukacier.

  35 Evidence cited by R. Viksne, ‘Membe
rs of the Arajs Commando in Soviet Court Files; Social Position, Education, Reasons for Volunteering, Penalty’, in The Hidden and Forbidden History of Latvia … (2007), pp. 188–208.

  36 See H. Krausnick & H-H. Wilhelm (1981), p. 567.

  37 Friedländer (2008), p. 281.

  38 Kershaw, op. cit., pp. 465–6.

  39 ‘The Topography of Genocide’, in Stone (ed.) The Historiography of the Holocaust’, pp. 221–2. At Lvow, the killing grounds next to the Janowska Camp are called ‘The Sands’. The deep sand dunes that fronted the Baltic Sea at Liepāja in Latvia provided another killing site. Babi Yar was a ravine in deep sand deposits that were easy to dynamite. At Treblinka 1, Poles were worked to death in an enormous sand and gravel pit.

  40 Ezergailis, p. 244.

  41 F. Michelson, I Survived Rumbula (New York, 1979).

  42 Quoted in Friedländer (2008), p. 262.

  8 Western Crusaders

  1 Quoted in The Danish Volunteers in the Waffen SS and their Contribution to the Holocaust and the Nazi War of Extermination by Claus Bundgård Christensen, Niels Bo Poulsen & Peter Scharff Smith. I would like to thank the authors for their assistance with this chapter.

  2 NARA, T175, 110/2634766, Berger to Himmler, ‘20,000 Mann-Aktion’.

  3 Boog et al., p. 1049.

  4 Quoted in Förster, p. 1051. PA Handakten Ritter No 55.

  5 BA-MA Wi/I: OKW/WFSST/Abt L (II Org.), No 001331/41, 6 July 1941.

  6 BA-MA RH 22/30, ‘Report on the operations of the French Legion and lessons learnt’.

  7 Figures from Boog, op. cit.