Hitler's Hangman (34 page)

molested’. Furthermore, the SD was to ensure that important archival

sources from synagogues were confiscated rather than destroyed. Finally,

the telegram stated,

as many Jews in all districts, especially the rich, as can be accommodated

in existing prisons are to be arrested. For the time being only healthy

male Jews, who are not too old, are to be detained. After the detentions

have been carried out the appropriate concentration camps are to be

contacted immediately for the prompt accommodation of the Jews in

the camps. Special care is to be taken that the Jews arrested in accord-

ance with these instructions are not ill-treated.54

Later that night, Heydrich sent out a further telegram, reiterating that

looters were to be arrested immediately, but that generally participation in

the pogrom would not give rise to criminal investigations against the

perpetrators.55

The hectic sequence of orders transmitted by Müller and Heydrich

indicates that the SS leadership had been surprised by the beginning and

the extent of the pogrom. Throughout the Reich, Nazi activists had begun

destroying synagogues and Jewish shops, demolishing the interiors of

private homes, stealing their belongings and forcibly pulling Jews out of

their houses, in order to humiliate, abuse and, in many cases, murder them.

The official number of Jewish deaths was later estimated to be ninety-one,

but the real figure is likely to be much higher. In addition, numerous

desperate Jews committed suicide, and of the approximately 30,000

Jewish men who were arrested and shipped to concentration camps that

128

HITLER’S HANGMAN

night, more than a thousand died, either during their imprisonment or as

a result of its long-term effects. Furthermore, an estimated 7,500 Jewish

businesses, 117 private houses and 177 synagogues were destroyed,

inflicting material damage of several hundred million Reichsmarks.56 The

pogrom also spread to the recently annexed Sudetenland and Austria.

Forty-two synagogues were burned down in Vienna alone and nearly

2,000 Jewish families were evicted from their houses and apartments.57

In some ways, Kristallnacht – as the pogrom came to be known in Nazi

Germany – was a frustrating event for Heydrich, partly because it under-

mined his attempts to organize the systematic expulsion of the Jews and

partly because he was aware through SD reports that a majority of

Germans did not approve of open violence against Jews. Public support

for discrimination and enforced emigration did not necessarily extend to

murder and mass destruction of property.58 Furthermore, the pogroms

unnecessarily aroused international protests at a time when Hitler needed

calm for his expansionist foreign policy plans.59

Yet, while Heydrich was concerned that the pogrom had disrupted the

‘orderly’ conduct of emigration, he was also aware of a positive side-effect:

its acceleration of the speed of emigration of frightened Jews. After

inspecting Eichmann’s Central Office in Vienna in November 1938,

Hagen reported to Heydrich on the advantages of the policy adopted in

Austria:

The establishment of the Central Office guarantees the speedy issue of

emigration visas to Jews, usually within 8 days. Furthermore, the Central

Office knows the exact numbers of those who wish to emigrate, their

professions, wealth etc., which will enable it to assemble the necessary

emigration transportation . . . According to our assessment approxi-

mately 25,000 Jews have so far been made to emigrate by the Central

Office so that the overall number of Jews who have left Austria is now

approximately 50,000. The establishment of the Central Office does not

put an extra financial burden on the SD Oberabschnitt Donau [the SD

office responsible for former Austria] because it and its employees are

self-financed by the tax levied on every Jewish emigrant. In view of the

success rate of the Central Office regarding Jewish emigration, it is

recommended – with reference to the recent proposal of 13 January

1938 concerning the establishment of an emigration office – that the

possibility of such an office is considered for the whole of the Reich

as well.60

Hagen’s report landed on Heydrich’s desk at a critical time. On

10 November, one day after the Kristallnacht pogrom, Heydrich added a

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129

handwritten note to the report to the effect that the SD should draft

a proposal for the establishment of a Central Office for Jewish Emigration

in the Old Reich, based on Eichmann’s Vienna model. While the SD’s

Jewish experts frantically worked on the proposal requested by their boss,

Heydrich had little difficulty convincing Göring of the economic point-

lessness of the mob anti-Semitism that had erupted on 9 November. He

informed Göring that, according to early estimates, at least 815 Jewish

businesses had been destroyed and that twenty-nine department stores

had been set on fire. Of the 191 synagogues set alight, seventy-six had

been completely destroyed. Göring was outraged by the damage the

pogrom had done to the economy.61

Only two days after the pogrom, on 12 November, the future Nazi

Jewish policy was discussed during a high-level conference convened by

Göring in the Reich Ministry of Aviation, which he had directed as

minister since 1933. Apart from Heydrich, more than one hundred

representatives of various state and party agencies participated in the

conference, many of them more senior than Heydrich. Fol owing long

discussions about the economic implications of the pogrom, Heydrich

cal ed for an accelerated emigration of Jews from Germany. He

pointed to the previous success of his Central Office for Jewish Emigration

in Vienna and recommended the creation of a similar office for the

entire Reich. Heydrich maintained that by the end of October about

50,000 Jews had been expel ed from Austria, a figure that was, in

fact, lower than that subsequently established by historians: more

recent research shows that about half of the approximately 190,000

Austrian Jews had left their country by May 1939.62 If implemented,

Heydrich insisted, similar success rates could be expected for the Old

Reich. When Göring enquired how such an expensive process would

be paid for, Heydrich pointed out that the wealthier Jews could cover

the expenses for the less wel -off emigrants through compulsory

contributions. The envisaged time-frame for the complete emigration of

German Jews was ‘at least ten years’. Göring approved Heydrich’s

proposal.63

The fact that his suggestion of an organized expulsion of German Jews

met with general approval at this meeting was the decisive enabling factor

for Heydrich’s future role as
the
leading figure in Nazi Germany’s anti-

Jewish policies. The comprehensive expulsion programme developed by

the SD’s Jewish department over the preceding years now became the

official policy of the Nazi regime, sanctioned by Hitler himself.64 Göring

would continue to claim overall responsibility for the Jewish question, but

the power to act had effectively been handed over to Heydrich’s Security

Police and SD apparatus.

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HITLER’S HANGMAN

On 24 January 1939, Göring ordered that the emigration of the Jews

from the Reich, particularly of poor Jews, should be advanced by every

possible means. A Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration, based on

the Vienna model, was to be established under Heydrich’s leadership.

Only a few days later, on 31 January, Heydrich directed that, with the

exception of a few particularly ‘dangerous’ left-wing intellectuals, Jews

held in protective custody should be released
provided
that they were

willing to leave Germany for ever.65

In late January, Heydrich successively informed the heads of all

German ministries that the Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration

had now been set up and asked for co-operation and consultation in all

matters relating to the issue of Jewish emigration from Germany.66

Simultaneously, he proposed the creation of a new umbrella organization

for all Jewish societies and associations, the
Reichsvereinigung der Juden in

Deutschland
(Reich Association of Jews in Germany), whose main task it

would be to co-operate with the Central Office in ensuring an orderly

emigration of Jews from Germany.67 From 4 July 1939 onwards, all Jews

living in Germany had to become members of the Reich Association, thus

ensuring comprehensive records on each and every Jew in the country.

This allowed Heydrich the direct supervision of all Jewish organizations

in Germany, while enabling him to keep a closer watch on the Jews them-

selves and also to bring about a remarkable simplification of the adminis-

tration and processing of Jewish assets.68

Although he had not initiated it, the pogrom of November 1938 thus

proved to be a major turning point in Heydrich’s career, resulting in

considerably more power for him and the police apparatus he controlled.69

Goebbels, who had instigated the pogrom on the evening of 9 November,

had hoped that this action would allow him once again to set the tone

with regard to Jewish policies. But the initiative backfired. It resulted in

millions of Reichsmarks of damage to the economy, severe international

criticism and a negative response from large sections of the German

population.70 Göring, like Himmler and Heydrich an opponent of the

pogrom, openly confessed to leaders of the party at the beginning of

December that he was ‘extremely angry about the whole affair’.71 Heydrich

agreed – partly out of conviction and partly for tactical reasons. In

December 1938, during a speech to Wehrmacht officers, he maintained

that the pogrom constituted ‘the worst blow to state and party’ since the

Röhm ‘revolt’ of 1934.72

The pogrom of November 1938 was followed by a further wave of anti-

Semitic laws: Jews were widely excluded from economic life in Germany,

their companies were forcibly Aryanized and the insurance pay-outs for

the damage they suffered in the pogroms were confiscated. In a particu-

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131

larly cynical move, they were forced to pay a ‘redemption fee’ of 1 billion

Reichsmarks for the damage caused during Kristallnacht.73

Already during the meeting of 12 November, Goebbels and Heydrich

had argued in favour of further measures to exclude German Jews from

the rest of society. New discriminating legislation was to ban them from

theatres, cinemas, public swimming pools and ‘German forests’; to separate

Jews from Aryans in hospitals and railway carriages; and to confiscate

privately owned cars. Most of these suggestions were implemented over

the fol owing months, either by national laws, by police orders or on the

initiative of local communities.74 Although arguing against ‘ghettoization’,

Heydrich further proposed that in order to ‘assist their identification’

Jews should wear a distinguishing mark on their clothing: a yel ow star.

His suggestion was turned down by Hitler in light of both public opinion

and the ‘predictable recurrent excesses’ against Jews. Although disappointed

by his failure to secure Hitler’s backing, Heydrich would return to his

proposals for the introduction of the yel ow star during the Second World

War.75

Kristallnacht and the increasingly threatening chicanery that followed

in its wake had a profound impact on Germany’s Jewish community. The

panic unleashed by the November pogrom and the loosening of immigra-

tion regulations in several countries persuaded more and more Jews to

leave the Reich: in 1938 alone, 33,000–40,000 escaped Nazi Germany,

and in 1939 a further 75,000–80,000 German Jews left the country.

Despite the often extraordinary hardships that they experienced during

their exodus, future developments would show that they were right to

leave while they still had the opportunity to do so.76

The Death of Czechoslovakia

Following the Anschluss of Austria in March 1938, Hitler turned his

attention to the Sudetenland, giving increasingly inflammatory speeches

and demanding that the largest ethnic minority in Czechoslovakia, the

roughly 3.1 million Sudeten Germans living in the western, north-

western and south-western border areas of the country, should be

reunited with their homeland. The success of the Anschluss had made