Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews (110 page)

discusssions with Heydrich: Bundesarchiv Berlin (BAB), RW 4v/575, published in

Jacobsen, ‘Kommissarbefehl’, doc. 2. On 16 April Wagner met Himmler, Heydrich,

the Head of the Order Police, Kurt Daluege, and Hans Jüttner (Chief of Staff in the SS

Main Leadership Office) in a hotel in Graz, clearly in order to discuss the draft

(Himmler, Dienstkalender, ed. Witte, 150). The negotiations are presented in detail by

Andrej Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und Massenmord. Die Einsatzgruppe D in der südli-

chen Sowjetunion 1941–1943 (Hamburg 2003), 41 ff.

18. Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, 81.

19. RH 22/155. Jacobsen, ‘Kommissarbefehl’, doc. 3.

20. RH 31-Iv.23; cf. Jürgen Förster, ‘Operation Barbarossa as a War of Conquest and

Annihilation’, in Boog et al., ed., Germany and the Second World War, iv. 481–521;

and Walter Manoscheck, ‘Serbien ist Judenfrei’. Militärbesatzungspolitik und Judenver-

nichtung in Serbien 1941/42 (Munich, 1993), 41–2.

21. Halder, KTB ii. 317 ff., 320.

22. Ibid. 335 ff., 336–7.

23. BAM, RH 22/155, published in Reinhard Rürup, Der Krieg gegen die Sowjetunion 1941–

1945. Eine Dokumentation (Berlin, 1991), 45; for details of the genesis of this measure see Förster, ‘Operation Barbarossa’; and Ralf Ogorreck, Die Einsatzgruppen und die Genesis

der ‘Endlösung’ (Berlin, 1996), 19 ff. The accompanying letter by the Commander-in-

Chief of the army of 24 June (Disciplinary Decree; Jacobsen, ‘Kommissarbefehl’, doc.

10) pursues the line of the need to prevent the excessive implementation of this order

from the Führer by the troops on the ground. The activity report made by the

Notes to pages 183–185

495

intelligence officer of the Third Tank Group for the period between January and July

1941 (BAB, RH 21–3/v, 423) shows how the intelligence officers and military judges of

the Group were informed of the order on 11 June by Special Purpose General Müller:

‘One of the two enemies must fall by the wayside, those who hold hostile view are to be

finished off, not preserved . . . . The severity of the war demands severe punishments

(remember the First War: the Russians in Gumbinnen: shooting dead all the inhabit-

ants of villages on the route between Tilsit and Insterburg in case the route was

damaged). Where there is any doubt about who the perpetrators are, suspicion will

often have to suffice. It is often not possible to provide unambiguous proof.’

24. BAM, RH 2/2082, published in Rürup, Der Krieg gegen die Sowjetunion, 46. On the

Commissar Order in general see Felix Römer, Der Kommissarbefehl Wehrmacht und

NS-Verbrechen an der Ostfront 1941/42 (Paderborn, 2008 ) .

25. BAM, RH 22/12. There are similarities in the tenor of the instructions drawn up by the Army Propaganda Department for the Implementation of Propaganda in the case of

Barbarossa (BAM, RW 4/v, 578) and the June edition of the journal Troop Information.

26. NOKW 2079, published in Jacobsen, ‘Kommissarbefehl’, 184–5.

27. Meaning the OKH order of 28 April, which corresponded to the Wagner–Heydrich

draft made on 26 March (see above, pp. 182–3).

28. Angrick, Besatzungspolitik, 56 ff.

29. Originally the Wehrmacht had obviously tried to accommodate all the Order Police

battalions in permanent tactical subordination to its own security formations, but had

not succeeded in doing so (Halder, KTB ii. 371).

30. At a meeting on 8 July 1941 Himmler made it unambiguously clear that the units under

the command of the command staff would be deployed in the areas under political

administration. ‘It is possible to deploy the larger formations in the Army Rear Areas.

Members of the command staff and of the units under its command have in principle

no business in the operational area or the Army Rear Area’: Command staff, note Ia,

meeting of 8 July 1941 (YV, M 36/3).

31. On the formation of Einsatzgruppen see Angrick, Besatzungspolitik, 74 ff.; Helmut

Krausnick, ‘Die Einsatzgruppen vom Anschluss Österreichs bis zum Feldzug gegen die

Sowjetunion. Entwicklung und Verhältnis zur Wehrmacht’, in Helmut Krausnick and

Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm, DieTruppe des Weltanschauungskrieges. Die Einsatzgruppen

den Sicherheitspolizei und des SD 1938–1942 (Stuttgart, 1981), 19 ff.; Peter Klein, ed., Die Einsatzgruppen in der besetzten Sowjetunion 1941/42. Die Tätigkeits- und Lageberichte

des Chefs der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD (Berlin, 1997); Hans-Heinrich

Wilhelm, ‘Die Einsatzgruppe A der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD 1941/42. Eine

exemplarische Studie’, in Krausnick and Wilhelm, Truppe, 281 ff.; Hans-Heinrich

Wilhelm, Die Einsatzgruppe A der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD 1941/42 (Frankfurt

a. M., 1996), 11 ff.

32. In the cases of the campaigns against Denmark and Norway and of the war in the West

the Wehrmacht had largely succeeded in preventing the formation of such units. See

Krausnick, ‘Einsatzgruppen’, 107 ff., and Krausnick, ‘Hitler und die Befehle an die

Einsatzgruppen in Sommer 1941’, in Eberhard Jäckel and Jürgen Rohwer, eds, Der

Mord an den Juden in Zweiten Weltkrieg: Entschlussbildung und Verwirklichung

(Stuttgart, 1985) (the publication of a note by Heydrich of 2 July 1940).

496

Notes to pages 185–186

33. The 909 members of Einsatzgruppe A in February 1941 were made up as follows: 37 SD

members, 55 Kripo employees, 85 Stapo workers, 134 Order Police, 257 Waffen-SS men,

185 truck drivers, 53 emergency services personnel (who had for the most part not been

part of the SS or Police), 9 telex operators, 23 radio-operators, 22 female employees, 26

administrators, 3 special representatives.

34. Krausnick, ‘Einsatzgruppen’, 180–1.

35. Ulrich Herbert, Best. Biographische Studien über Radikalismus, Weltanschauung und

Vernunft 1903–1989 (Bonn, 1996), gives further details of this type.

36. Wilhelm, ‘Einsatzgruppe A’, in Krausnich and Wilhelm, Truppe, 281 ff.

37. On the Order Police see Andrej Angrick et al., eds, ‘Da hätte man schon ein Tagebuch führen müssen’. Das Polizeibataillon 322 und die Judenmorde im Bereich der Heeresgruppe Mitte

während des Sommers und Herbstes 1941’, in Helga Grabitz et al., Die Normalität des

Verbrechens (Berlin, 1994), 325–85; Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police

Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York, 1992); Daniel J. Goldhagen,

Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (New York, 1996);

Konrad Kwiet, ‘Auftakt zum Holocaust: Ein Polizeibataillon im Osteinsatz’, in Wolfgang

Benz, ed., Der Nationalsozialismus: Studien zur Ideologie und Herrschaft (Frankfurt a. M., 1993), 92–110; Jürgen Matthäus, ‘What about the “Ordinary Men”? The German Order

Police and the Holocaust in the Occupied Soviet Union’, (HGS) 10 (1996), 134–50; Klaus-

Michael Mallmann, ‘Vom Fussvolk der “Endlösung”. Ordnungspolizei, Ostkrieg und

Judenmord’, Tel Aviver Jahrbuch 25 (1997), 355–91; Edward B. Westermann, Hitler’s Police

Battalions. Enforcing Racial War in the East (Lawrence, 2005). The work of Hans-Joachim

Neufeldt, Jürgen Huck, and Georg Tessin, Zur Geschichte der Ordnungspolizei, i and ii

(Koblenz, 1957) omits the whole complex of the role of the police in the murder of the

European Jews, but is indispensable for an understanding of the organizational history of the Order Police; see in particular Part II: Georg Tessin, Die Stäbe und Truppeneinheiten der Ordnungspolizei, 5–19, to which the current section of the present study is heavily indebted.

38. See BAB, R 19/97, a lecture by Kurt Daluege at the meeting of the commanders and

inspectors of the Order Police, 1 to 4 Feb. 1942, and the unused manuscript by Daluege,

‘Der Winterkampf der Ordnungspolizei im Osten’ (BAB, R 19/382). On individual

units, see Longerich, Politik, 308–9.

39. Ibid.

40. This was the ‘increased police protection’, made up of men born between 1901 and 1909, authorized at a level of 95,000 at the start of the war (BAB, R 19/382, address by

Daluege, 16 Jan. 1941). At the beginning of 1940, of the 64,872 police reservists called up, there were only 8,513 in the battalions (OS, 500-5-26a, address by Daluege, 19 Jan. 1940).

At the start of 1942 this figure was only 7,325 from a total of 117,525 reservists called up (BAB, NS 19/335, lecture by Daluege at the meeting, 1–4 Feb. 1942). The overall strength

of all the battalions was just over 60,000 (BAB, NS 19/335, memo from the Chief of the

Order Police, 20 Aug. 1940).

41. The volunteers from the so-called ‘26,000-man-campaign’ were taken from those born

between 1918 and 1920 (applicants to join the police) or 1905 and 1912 (employment as

patrolmen) (Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv (BHSt.A), Reichsstatthalter Epp, decrees of

the RFSS of 11 Oct. 1939 and 31 Oct. 1939; decree of the Reich Minister of the Interior of 25 Oct. 1939). Volunteers were deployed in a total of 31 battalions, which means (not

Notes to pages 186–187

497

counting the officers and NCOs) some 400–50 volunteers per battalion, or only half of

the 26,000 recruited (cf. NS 19/395, memo from the Chief of the Order Police of 20 Aug.

1940).

42. See Tessin, Stäbe, 14. According to the Chief of the Order Police, Daluege, only one in four of the applicants fulfilled the police criteria: of the 160,000 applications made in the context of the ‘26,000-man-campaign’ at the beginning of 1940, 51,000 had been

enrolled to date, of whom ‘7,100 born between 1905 and 1912 and roughly 6,000 from

between 1918 and 1920 were enrolled as fit for police duty’ (OS, 500-5-26a, address by

Daluege, 19 Jan. 1940).

43. BAB, NS 6/821, decree of the Party Chancellery, A 28/41 from 4 June 1941 concerning

the political assessment of recruits to the SS Police Division and the Police Battalions.

As a result, the commanders of the Police Training Battalion sought political assess-

ment of their recruits from the NSDAP district leaders.

44. See above, pp. 44 ff.

45. See Browning, Ordinary Men; Goldhagen, Executioners. On the Goldhagen debate, see

Introduction, n. 18.

46. Bernd Wegner, Hitlers Politische Soldaten: Die Waffen SS 1933–1945 Leitbild, Struktur und Funktion einer nationalsozialistischen Elite, 4th edn (Paderborn, 1982), 142 and 49 ff.

47. Leaflet signed by Himmler, September 1938: StA Munich, PolDir. 8466.

48. See above, p. 45.

49. National Archives Washington DC (NA), T 175 R 6, 15 Apr. 1937 and decree of 5 June

1937.

50. BHSt.A, Reichsstatthalter Epp, 366, Richtlinien für die Durchführung der weltanschau-

lichen Schulung der Ordnungspolizei während der Kriegszeit.

51. Wegner, Soldaten, 110 ff. On the ideological indoctrination of the Order Police, see also Jürgen Matthäus, ‘Antisemitism as an Offer: The Ideological Indoctrination of the SS

and Police Corps during the Holocaust, Lessons and Legacies’ in Dagmar Herzog ed.,

Lessons and Legacies, vii: The Holocaust in International Perspective (Evanston, 2006),

116–28.

52. See Yehoshua Büchler, ‘Kommandostab Reichsführer SS: Himmlers Personal Murder

Brigades in 1941’, HGS 1/1 (1986), 13–14; Martin Cüppers, Wegbereiter der Shoah. Die

Waffen SS, der Kommandostab Reichsführer SS und die Judenvernichtung 1939–1945

(Darmstadt, 2005), 64 ff.

53. BAB, NS 19/3508, SS-Leadership Office, 24 Apr. 1941 and 6 May 1941.

54. For details, see Cüppers, Wegbereiter, 33 ff.

55. BAB, NS 19/3508, order by Himmler of 17 June, effective from 21 June 1941.

56. BAM, M 806 (copies from the Military Archive in Prague), actual strength at the end of July 1941.

57. Ohlendorf spoke in his testimony at the main trial (Case 9, IfZ, MB 19, German

transcript, roll 13, pp. 484 ff., esp. p. 525) of a ‘special order’ that read, ‘that over and above the general tasks of the Security Police and the SD, the Einsatzgruppen and

Einsatzkommandos had the additional responsibility of keeping the rearguard clear by

killing Jews, Roma, Communist functionaries, active Communists and all persons who

might endanger the troops’. At his interrogation on 24 April 1947 (NOU2890) and in his

testimony at the Trial of the Major War Criminals he also always spoke of ‘Jews’ and

498

Notes to pages 187–188

‘Communists’ and other groups in one breath when describing the designated victims.

Cf. Ogorreck, Einsatzgruppen, 49 ff.

58. Paul Blobel, Sk 4a. IfZ MB 19, roll 14, pp. 746 ff. (esp. 752); Walter Blume, Sk 7a, (ibid., roll 15, pp. 208 ff. (esp. 218); see also NO 4145, interrogation on 29 June 1947); Gustav Nosske, Einsatzkommando 12, and Martin Sandberger, Sk 1a. IfZ MB 19, roll 15,

pp. 596 ff. (esp. pp. 610 ff.).

59. IfZ, MB 19, roll 14, pp. 139 ff. (esp. pp. 168–9, 170, 177 ff., 191 ff.).

60. IfZ, MB 19, roll 13, pp. 314 ff.

61. Judgement of the District Court in Ulm of 29 Aug. 1958 See Irene Sagel-Grande et al., Justiz und NS-Verbrechen. Sammlung deutscher Strafurteile wegen nationalsozialistischer Tötungsverbrechen, 22 vols (Amsterdam, 1968–81), xv, no. 465. See also Kraus-

nick’s report for the Auschwitz Trial (published as Krausnick, ‘The Persecution of the

Jews’, in Buchheim et al., Anatomy, 1–74 and his expert witness statement in the trial

against Kroeger (Zentralstelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen zur Aufklärung national-

sozialistischer Verbrechen (ZSt), 204 AR 1258/66, p. 23, transcript of the main proceed-

ings, pp. 97–8); the second expert witness, Seraphim, challenged this version, however.

There was a similar confrontation between the two expert witnesses in the Darmstadt