Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews (107 page)

7. At the meeting held in the Stapo Branch Office in Ostrava on 9 October, there was some discussion of the details for the construction of these barracks (ibid., note by Dannecker, 11 Oct. 1939).

8. Ibid., note from the Central Office in Vienna, 17 Oct. 1939. According to this note,

Gauleiter Bürckel, who had been informed of the latest discussions with Eichmann by

one of his colleagues, was ‘more than happy . . . that the planned resettlement of the

Jews into barracks did not need to take place, since the costs per head of the construc-

tion of the barracks alone would have amounted to 330 RM’.

9. Ibid., telegram from the SD Headquarters to the Stapo Branch Office in Ostrava, 13 Oct.

1939 and response from SD Danube, 16 Oct. 1939.

10. See Safrian, Eichmann-Männer, 77 ff. On the execution of these deportations, see

Goshen, ‘Eichmann’, 86; Herbert Rosenkranz, Verfolgung und Selbstbehauptung. Die

Juden in Österreich 1938 bis 1945 (Munich and Vienna, 1978) (on Vienna); on the

deportation from Ostrava, see Karny, ‘Nisko’, 96 ff. and Lukas Pribyl, ‘Das Schicksal

des dritten Transports aus dem Protektorat nach Nisko’, Theresienstädter Studien

(2000), 297–342; there is detailed material on this in YV, 053/86.

11. Ibid., note on the contents of a telex and Eichmann’s views on it. Eichmann did not

receive this until 21 October in Nisko.

12. Ibid., note from the Gestapo Branch Office in Ostrava dated 21 Oct. 1939. In a letter to Bürckel from 9 Nov. 1939, Himmler made it clear once more that he had ‘put a stop to

the transportation of Jews until further notice because of the technical difficulties’. See Botz, Wohnungspolitik, 196, and IMT xxxii. 255 ff., 3398-PS.

13. Ibid., note from the Gestapo Branch Office in Ostrava dated 24 Oct. 1939.

14. IMT xxvi. 378–9, 864-PS, minute of 20 Oct. 1939. On military reservations about the

further concentration of Jews in the area around Lublin see also the remark made by

Notes to pages 153–156

483

Krüger on 1 Nov. 1939 in Das Diensttagebuch des deutschen Generalgouverneurs in Polen

1939–1945, ed. Werner Präg and Wolfgang Jacobmeyer (Stuttgart, 1975), 56. The negative

attitude of the OKW with regard to a ‘massing (Zusammenballung) of Jews’ near the

demarcation line is also mentioned in the so-called ‘long-term plan’ of the RHSA

(c. November 1941, BAB, R 69/1146).

15. Ibid., SD Danube to the Stapo Branch Office in Ostrava, 28 Oct. 1939.

16. Diensttagebuch, ed. Präg and Jacobmeyer, 56.

17. Bogdan Musial, Deutsche Zivilverwaltung und Judenverfolgung im Generalgouver-

nemnt. Eine Fallstudie zum Distrikt Lublin 1939–1944 (Wiesbaden, 1999), 127–8.

18. Faschismus, ed. Berenstein et al., 46.

19. Hagemann, Presselenkung, 146.

20. IMT xxx. 84 ff. (95), 2278-PS.

21. Quoted from Sybille Steinbacher, ‘Musterstadt’ Auschwitz. Germanisierungspolitik und

Judenmord in Ostoberschlesien (Munich, 2000), 120.

22. Pohl, Judenpolitik, 52.

23. Diensttagebuch, ed. Präg and Jacobmeyer, 186.

24. Quoted from Götz Aly and Susanne Heim, Vordenker der Vernichtung. Auschwitz und

die deutschen Pläne für eine europäische Ordnung (Hamburg, 1991), 204.

25. Karl Haushofer: Leben und Werk, vol. ii: Ausgewählter Schriftwechsel, 1917–1946, ed.

Hans-Adolf Jacobsen (Boppard am Rhein, 1979), no. 226.

26. Longerich, Politik, 262. On the deportations and plans for deportations after autumn

1939, especially those relating to Jews in the annexed Polish areas after autumn 1939, see in particular Adler, Verwaltete Mensch, 106 ff.; Aly, ‘Final Solution’, 33 ff., and Browning, Origins, 43 ff.

27. BAB, R 75/3b, published in Faschismus, ed. Berenstein et al., 42–3.

28. Minute in Biuletyn Glowncj Komisji Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich W Polsce (Biule-

tyn), XII, document 3. On this see also Krüger’s report made at a workshop for the

district administrators (Landräte) of Cracow held on the same day (Diensttagebuch, ed.

Präg and Jacobmeyer, 60–1): ‘the most urgent matter is the return of 25,000 ethnic

Germans from the Bug–Vistula area. By spring 1,000,000 Poles and Jews must be

removed from East and West Posen, Danzig, Poland and Upper Silesia and taken into

the General Government. The return of the ethnic Germans and the reception of the

Poles and Jews (10,000 per day) must be achieved according to plan.’

29. Minute of the meeting of 8 Nov. 1939 (see previous note); circular from the HSSPF

Warthegau, Koppe, 12 Nov. 1939, AGK, Bühler-Prozess, 8.

30. BAB, R 58/240, note by Best dated 31 Oct. 1939; cf. Karl-Heinz Roth, ‘Erster

“Generalplan Ost April/May 1940” von Konrad Meyer’, in Dokumentationsstelle zur

NS-Sozialpolitik Mitteilungen, vol. 1 (1985), 34.

31. See the memorandum by two of the members of the Racial Policy Office, G. Hecht and

E. Wetzel, on ‘The Question of How to Treat the Population of the Former Polish Areas

seen from a Racial Political Perspective’ (BAR, R 49/75, 25 Nov. 1939, published in

Documente Occupationis Teutonicae (Doc. Occ.) (Poznan, 1949), v. 2 ff.

32. Letter from Heydrich to the HSSPF in Cracow, Breslau, Poznan, and Danzig and telex

on the details of the short-term plan dated 28 Nov. 1939: Biuletyn Glownej Komisji

Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich W Polsce, vol. XII, documents 4 and 5. A copy of the

484

Notes to pages 156–157

completed ‘long-range plan’ has not so far been discovered, but there is a draft in

existence, undated and unsigned, which was presumably made by Department III of the

RSHA: BAB, R 69/1146, in 1999 11 (1997), 50–71.

33. BAB, R 75/3b, letter from HSSPF Koppe to the RSHA, dated Poznan, 18 Dec. 1939

(Biuletyn, XII, document 8).

34. BAB, R 75/3b: concluding report by Koppe, dated 26 Jan. 1940 (published in Faschismus, ed. Berenstein et al., 48).

35. BAB, R 58/544, II-112. The SD headquarters was at precisely this point being trans-

formed into Department III of the RSHA.

36. BAB, R 58/276 (also published in Biuletyn, XII, document 9); the letter referred to the in-house meeting of 19 Dec. 1939.

37. Götz Aly, ‘Final Solution’: Nazi Population Policy and the Murder of the European Jews (London, 1999), 41–2, quoted from AGK, UWZ, P 197. On these plans see also Frank’s

statements on 19 Jan. 1940 (Diensttagebuch, 93 ff.).

38. According to Aly, ‘Final Solution’, 41 (based on AGK, UWZ, P 197).

39. Aly, ‘Final Solution’, 43–4, 46–7, 80.

40. For details see Longerich, Politik, 266–7.

41. Note dated 8 Jan. 1940 on an interministerial meeting held on 4 Jan. 1940; see Kurt

Pätzold, Verfolgung, Vertreibung, Vernichtung. Dokumente des faschistischen Antisemi-

tismus 1933 bis 1942 (Leipzig, 1984), 256–7.

42. BAB, R 113/10 (published with an introduction by Karl-Heinz Roth and supplementary

documents in Mitteilungen), 45 ff. There is a suggestion for the dating of the document

in the marginal note ‘zum Vermerk vom 24.1.40’.

43. BAB, R 58/1032, meeting of 30 Jan. 1940 in the RSHA; published in Faschismus, ed.

Berenstein et al., 50 ff. On the limitations placed on the plans for deportation, see

Browning, Origins, 54 ff.

44. Frank Golczewski, ‘Polen’ in Wolfgang Benz, ed., Dimensionen des V}

olkermords. Die

Zahl der jüdischen Opfer des Nationalsozialismus (Munich, 1991), 429. On the inter-

mediate plan see Browning, Origins, 63 ff.

45. OS, 503-1-385, express letter dated 12 Feb. 1940. This document was first drawn to

historians’ attention by Wolf Gruner, ‘Von der Kollektivausweisung zur Deportation

der Juden aus Deutschland’, in Christoph Dieckmann et al., eds, Beiträge zur Geschichte

des Nationalsozialismus, vol. xx: Die Deportation der Juden aus Deutschland, Pläne,

Praxis, Reaktionen 1938–1945 (Göttingen, 2004), 39.

46. BAB, R 43II/1412; see Adler, Verwalteter Mensch, 140 ff.

47. Speech to the Gauleiters, 29 Feb. 1940, Himmler, Geheimreden, 139. This thesis was

adopted by Aly, ‘Final Solution’, 60–1, but the deportations were evidently a component

of a plan that encompassed the whole of the Reich, as Gruner was the first to

demonstrate. Those affected, however, saw the transportations as an act of revenge

on the part of the Gauleiter and the Mayor after the ‘resettlement’ of Jews in the district of Stettin had been thwarted in January after an intervention from the RVJD (WL, 02/

425, report by Arthur Abrahamson dated 1 Sept. 1941). Cf. Jakob Toury, ‘Die Entste-

hungsgeschichte des Austreibungsbefehls gegen die Juden der Saarpfalz und Badens

(22/23. Oktober 1940—Camp de Gurs)’, Jahrbuch des Instituts für Deutsche Geschichte

15 (1986), 432–3, who finds this thesis plausible.

Notes to pages 157–160

485

48. See p. 159.

49. OS, 500-1-385, 15 Mar. 1940; cf. Gruner, ‘Von der Kollektivausweisung’, 40.

50. Jakob Peiser, Die Geschichte der Synagogengemeinde zu Stettin (Würzburg, 1965), 133–4

and report WL 02/425. See also Else Rosenfeld and Getrud Luckner, eds, Lebenszeichen

aus Piaski Briefe Deportierter aus dem Distrikt Lublin 1940–1943 (Munich, 1968), e.g.

report of Frau G.M., 27 ff.

51. Himmler, Geheimreden, 138–9.

52. IMT xxxvi. 299 ff., 305 EC.

53. Discussed in Aly, ‘Final Solution’, 49. The text is cited in a letter from Goering dated 4

Apr. 1940 to the Trustee Offices (Treuhandstellen) in the eastern areas (original in the

State Archive, Posen). That the Zentralstellen Für Jüdische Auswanderung in Berlin und

Wien, in fact agencies of the RSHA, had asked Soviet authorities for a resettlement of the German Jews at the beginning of 1940, is the astonishing revelation of the most recent

research in Russian archives. See Parel Polian, ‘Hätte der Holocaust beinahe nicht

stattgefunden? Überlegungen zu einem Schriftwechsel im Wert von zwei Millionen

Menschenleben’ in: Johannes Hürter and Türgen Zarusky, eds, Besatzung, Kollaboration,

Holocaust. Neue Studien zur Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden, 1–20.

54. Diensttagebuch, ed. Präg and Jakobmeyer, 2 and 4 Apr. 1940, 127 ff., 143 ff.

55. Report of the Director of the Resettlement Department of the Governor of the district of Warsaw, Waldemar Schön, dated 20 Jan. 1941 in Faschismus, ed. Berenstein et al., 108 ff.

56. Paul Sauer, ed., Dokumente über die Verfolgung der jüdischen Bürger in Baden-

Württemberg durch das NS-Regime (Stuttgart, 1965), ii, no. 409.

57. See below, 165.

58. See n. 157.

59. Aly, ‘Final Solution’, 51 and 98.

60. Steinbacher, ‘Musterstadt’ Auschwitz, 118 ff.

61. The Einsatzgruppen had already begun to register Jews, establish councils of Jews,

deploy forced labour, confiscate property, and organize emigration (Pohl, Lublin, 27;

Krausnick, ‘Einsatzgruppen’, 71–2). In the phase of military administration the heads of

the civilian authorities, who were subordinate to the high command of the army, had

instituted the labelling of Jews, the expropriation of Jewish businesses and the confis-

cation of raw materials (Pohl, Lublin, 28).

62. Regulation on the labelling of Jews, male and female, in the General Government, 23 Nov.

1939, Verordnungsblatt für das Generalgouvernement (VOGG), 61; Adam, Judenpolitik, 255.

63. Regulation on the determination of the concept ‘Jew’ in the General Government,

VOGG, 231; see Diensttagebuch, ed. Präg and Jakobmeyer, 6 May 1940, 193.

64. Regulation on the introduction of enforced labour for the Jewish population of the

General Government, dated 26 Oct. 1939 (VOGG, 5 ff.).

65. Pohl, Lublin, 72 ff.

66. VOGG, 231–2.

67. Regulation on the use of railways by Jews in the General Government, dated 26 Jan.

1940 (VOGG, p. 45); see also Pohl, Lublin, 66–7.

68. Pohl, Lublin, 66.

69. Published in English translation in Alan Adelson and Robert Lapides, Lodz Ghetto:

Inside a Community under Siege (New York, 1989), 31–2.

486

Notes to pages 160–162

70. Golczewski, ‘Polen’, 436.

71. Ibid. (Piotrków in October 1939, Radomsko in December 1939).

72. Pohl, Lublin, 68.

73. On this see AGK, Bühler-Prozess, 66 (published in Faschismus, Berenstein et al., 108 ff.), report by Schön dated 20 Jan. 1941, district workshop in Warsaw, Bühler-Prozess, 35

(published in Berenstein et al., Faschismus, 86), report by Schön dated 8 Apr. 1940.

74. AGK, Bühler-Prozess, 94, General Governor to the district heads, 25 May 1940. On

Cracow see also ed. Diensttagebuch, eds, Präg and Jakobmayer, entries for 12 Apr. 1940,

22 May 1940, 10 June 1940, 15 July 1940, and 2 Aug. 1940, and Golczewski, ‘Polen’, 433 ff.

75. Regulation of the Governor of the district of Cracow, Otto Wächter, on the establish-

ment of a ghetto in Cracow, 3 Mar. 1941 (Faschismus, ed. Berenstein et al., 118 ff.).

76. Regulation on the establishment of Jewish Councils, 28 Nov. 1939 (VOGG, 72).

77. The role of the Jewish councils as the agents of the German occupying powers, especially in the context of managing the ghettos, is the subject of intense historiographical debate, which cannot be explored in detail here. For an introduction to this topic see Gustavo

Corni, Hitlers Ghettos: Voices from a Beleaguered Society 1939–1944 (New York, 2002),

62 ff. and for further secondary literature on the ghettos see below, n. 129.

78. See Browning, Origins, 151 ff.

79. See Pohl, ‘Lublin’, 55 ff.

80. Majer, Fremdvölkische, 507; Pohl, ‘Lublin’, 65–6.

81. On the Madagascar Project see Adler, Verwaltete Mensch, 69 ff.; Magnus Brechtken,