Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews (118 page)

serious accusations from the military commander. On the synagogue attacks see also

Claudia Steuer, Theodor Dannecker. Ein Funktionär der Endlösung (Essen, 1997),

59 ff.

100. BAB, NS 19/1734; this statement was connected to Heydrich’s demand that there

should in future be no experts on Jewish questions working within the Eastern

Ministry.

101. PAA, Inland II g/194, 28 Oct. 1941, in: ADAP, series D, vol. 13, 570 ff.

102. IfZ, ED 53, the so called ‘Engel diary’, actually handwritten notes by Engel from the post-war period, presumably on the basis of contemporary notes, 2 Nov. 1941. In the

Engel edition, Hildegard von Kotze, ed., Heeresadjutant bei Hitler 1938–1943. Aufzeich-

nungen des Majors Engel (Stuttgart, 1974), 111, wrongly dated (2 Oct. 1941). A meeting

between Himmler and Hitler on 2 November 1941 is confirmed by the entry in

Himmler’s official diary. On the attacks in Salonica see Klein, ‘Rolle der Vernichtung-

slager’, 473.

103. Browning, Origins, 579. The original is in the Rijksinstitut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie in The Hague.

530

Notes to pages 277–278

15.

Autumn 1941: The Beginning of the Deportations and Regional

Mass Murders

1. There are various indications that the euthanasia action in summer 1941 occurred

under pressure of protests and according to plan, after the originally cited quota of

around 70,000 patients to be killed had been reached. The planned number, by now

raised to 130,000–150,000, then lowered again to around 100,000 victims (IMT xxxv.

906-D, pp. 681 ff., note from Sellmer about Blankenburg visit, 1 Oct. 1940) would

probably have been reached in quantitative terms if a similarly high percentage of

patients from mental institutions had been murdered throughout the whole of the T4

action as had occurred in the first few months of the systematic murders of patients in

south-west Germany, around Berlin, or in Austria. In fact, however, the number of

murdered patients fell the more the action spread into the regions. This was particu-

larly true of the provinces of Hanover, Rhineland, and Westphalia, which were only

involved in summer 1941. See Heinz Faulstich, Hungersterben in der Psychiatrie. 1914–

1949; mit einer Topographie der NS-Psychiatrie (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1998), 260 ff.

There is evidence to suggest that protests on the part of church circles increasingly

served to curb the euthanasia programme in 1941, and led the organizers to bring their

planned numbers back down to the original figure of 70,000 victims. Thus, for example

the governor (Landeshauptmann) of Westphalia, Karl Kolbow, in a note dated 31 July

1941, remarked that ‘the action in Westphalia is progressing briskly, and will be over in 2 to 3 weeks’ (facsimile in Karl Teppe, Massenmord auf dem Dienstweg. Hitlers

‘Euthansie’. Erlass und seine Durchführung in den Westfälischen Provinizalanstalten

(Münster, 1989), 21). (I am grateful to Peter Witte for important references in this

field.)

2. On the development of the euthanasia programme pp. 136–42; on the planned figures,

see IMT xxxv. 906-D, 681 ff., note from Sellmer about Blankenburg visit, 1 Oct. 1940;

Fröhlich, ed., Tagebücher Goebbels, I, x, 30 Jan. 1941. On the suspension of the euthanasia programme see Michael Burleigh, Death and Deliverance: ‘Euthanasia’ in Germany

1900–1945 (Cambridge, 1994), 176 ff.; Henry Friedländer, The Origins of Nazi Genucide:

From Euthanasia to the Final Solution (Chapel Hill, NC, 1995) 111 ff.

3. Faulstich, Hungersterben, 260 ff., gives a clear picture of how the murder quotas rose in the individual regions and then fell again.

4. Note from 31 July 1941; facsimile in Teppe, Massenmord 21.

5. Fröhlich, Die Tagebücher, Teil II, Diktate 1941–1945, vol. i (Munich, 1996), 23 Aug. 1941, p. 299.

6. Walter Grode, Die ‘Sonderbehandlung 14f13’ in den Konzentrationslagern des Dritten

Reichs (Frankfurt a. M., 1997), 82–3; Ernst Klee, ‘Euthanasie’ im NS-Staat. Die Vernich-

tung lebensunwerten Lebens (Frankfurt a. M., 1985), 345.

7. Grode, ‘Sonderbehandlung’, 84 ff.

8. Ibid. 113 ff., also Friedlander, Origins, 143 ff.

9. Patricia Heberer, ‘Eine Kontinuität der Tötungsoperationen. T4-Täter und die “Aktion

Reinhard” ’, in Bogdan Musial, ed., ‘Aktion Reinhard’. Der Völkermord an den Juden un

Generalgouvernement 1941–1944 (Osnubrück, 2004), 285–308, 292, suggests that this may

Notes to pages 278–280

531

have concerned the killing of German soldiers who had suffered very serious and

irreversible injuries.

10. See Longerich, Davon, 159 ff.

11. This process was reconstructed from eyewitness accounts: Matthias Beer, ‘Die

Entwicklung der Gaswagen beim Mord an den Juden’, VfZ 35 (1987), 407; Staatsan-

waltschaft Munich, case against Karl Wolff (ZSt, ASA 137), 140 ff.; Dienstkalender,

ed. Witte et al., 15 Aug. 1941, p. 195. Christian Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde. Die

deutsche Wirtschafts- und Vernichtungspolitik in Weissrussland 1941 bis 1944 (Ham-

burg, 1999), 647–8, presents some admittedly rather weak evidence to suggest that

preparations for the construction of the gas vans had already begun at the end of

July 1941.

12. Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, 648; PRO HW 16/32, 16 August and 18 August 1941.

13. Beer, ‘Entwicklung’, 408: A. Ebbinghaus and G. Preisler, ‘Die Ermordung psychisch

kranker Menschen in der Sowjetunion. Dokumentation’, in Götz Aly et al., eds,

Aussonderung und Tod. Die klinische Hinrichtung der Unbrauchbaren (Berlin, 1985),

83 ff. Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, 648, points out that the assignment given to Nebe may

not have come directly from Himmler, as Bach-Zelewski had claimed in a post-war

statement, but from himself.

14. Beer, ‘Entwicklung’, 408; Ebbinghaus and Preissler, ‘Die Ermordung’, 88 ff.; statement fromWidmann, 11 Jan. 1960, ZSt, 202 ARZ 152/159, 33 ff. Also statement from Georg

Frentzel, 27 Aug. 1970, and Alexander N. Stepanow (chief doctor at the psychiatric

institution in Mogilev), 20 July 1944, both in StA Munich, Zentraler Untersuchungs-

vorgang 9 (Ermittlungsakten des Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit der DDR).

15. Beer, ‘Entwicklung’, 409 ff.; Aussage Widmann in ZSt, 202 AR-Z 152/59, pp. 33 ff., 11 Jan. 1960.

16. Beer, ‘Entwicklung’, 411.

17. Even before Christmas 1941 further vehicles were driven from Berlin to Einsatzgruppe A in Riga: Beer, ‘Entwickling’, 413. For SK 4a (Einsatzgruppe C) Beer, ‘Entwickling’, 412.

For EK 8 (Einsatzgruppe B): statement from Otto Matonoga, 8 June/9 June 1945 to

Soviet investigators (StA Munich, Zentraler Untersuchungsvorgang 9). In Einsatz-

gruppe D, according to a witness, a gas van was used at the end of 1941. Beer,

‘Entwickling’, 413; LG Munich, 119 c Js 1/69, Urteil; statement by Jeckeln of 21 Dec.

1945 in Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm, ‘Die Einsatzgruppe A der Sicherheitspolizei und des

SD—Eine exemplarische Studie’, in Helmut Krausnick and Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm,

eds, Die Truppe des Weltanschauungskrieges. Die Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei

und des SD 1938–1942 (Stuttgart, 1981), 548.

18. Eugen Kogon et al., eds, Nationalsozialistische-Massentötungen durch Giftgas (Frank-

furt, 1983), 110 ff.

19. For details see Ch. 7, p. 139.

20. ND NO 365, also published in Helmut Krausnick, ‘The Persecution of the Jews’, in Hans Buchheim et al., eds, Anatomy of the SS-State (London, 1968), 114–15.

21. See p. 280.

22. Ibid.

23. Heberer, ‘Eine Kontinuität der Tötungsoperationen’, 295. The meeting between Himm-

ler and Brack has been substantiated in the official diary entry for 14 December 1941

with the note ‘Euthanasia’; see, Dienstkalender, ed. Witte et. al., 290. On the allocation 532

Notes to pages 280–282

of Brack’s staff see also in particular the memo from Brack to Himmler dated 23 June

1942, in which he declared himself willing to make further staff available and recalls the earlier agreement with Himmler (BAB, NS 19/1583).

24. Cf. and Robert-Jan van Pelt and Deborah Dwork, Auschwitz 1270 to the Present (New

Haven, 1996), 280 ff.; Franciszek Piper, Vernichtung in Auschwitz 1940–1945. Studien

zur Geschichte des Konzentrations- und Vernichtungslagers Auschwitz, vol. iii (Oswie-

cim, 1999), 88 ff.; On the murders of Jewish forced labourers see Sybille Steinbacher,

‘Musterstadt’ Auschwitz. Germanisierungspolitik und Judenmord in Ostoberschlesien

(Munich, 2000), 276–7.

25. Jan Erik Schulte, Zwangsarbeit und Vernichtung. Das Wirtschaftsimperium der SS.

Oswald Pohl und das SS Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt 1933–1945 (Paderborn,

2001), 50 ff.

26. Stanislaw Klodzinski, ‘Phenol’, in Die Auschwitz Hefte, vol. i (1994), 277–81; see

also Danuta Czech, Kalendarium der Ereignisse im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-

Birkeanau 1939–1945 (Reinbek b. Hamburg, 1969), 108 and 151.

27. Jean C. Pressac, Die Krematorien von Auschwitz. Die Technik des Massenmordes

(Munich, 1984), 19.

28. On the other hand the date of December 1941, suggested by Pressac, Krematorien, 41–2, does not seem convincing. That the murder of these prisoners occurred in early September

1941 can be reliably assumed thanks to Klodinski’s investigation based on interviews with around 200 former inmates. According to Franciszek Piper, Die Zahl der Opfer von

Auschwitz (Oswiecim, 1993), 23, this mass murder was already preceded by experiments

with poison gas in August 1941; see also Czech, Kalendarium, 115 ff., and Jerzy Brandhuber,

‘Die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz’, Hefte von Ausch-

witz 4 (1961), 5–46, and Wojciech Barcz, ‘Die erste Vergasung in Auschwitz’, in H. G. Adler et al., eds, Auschwitz: Zeugnisse und Berichte (Cologne and Frankfurt a. M., 1983), 17–18.

29. Cf. Browning, Origins, 398, 421; Steinbacher, ‘Musterstadt’ Auschwitz, 276–7, demon-

strates the murder of Jews from the Schmelt camps since November 1941 but leaves the

question of the killing method open.

30. Rudolf Hoess, Commandant in Auschwitz (London, 1959), 207 ff.

31. Ibid. 208–9.

32. Trial of Eichmann, vii. 376 ff.

33. OS, 502-1-312, Topf Company to building management, 31 Oct. 1941; See Pressac,

Krematorien, 31 ff.

34. Michael Thad Allen, ‘The Devil in the Details: The Gas Chambers of Birkenau, October

1941’, HGS 16/2 (2002), 189–216; van Pelt and Dwork, Auschwitz, 322; Browning, Origins,

358, has spoken out in favour of Allen’s dating

35. See pp. 317 f.

36. Pressac, Krematorien, 38 ff.

37. See Götz Aly, ‘Final Solution’: Nazi Population Policy and the Murder of the European Jews (London, 1999), 223–4; Christian Gerlach, ‘Failure of Plans for an SS Extermination Camp in Mogilew, Belorussia’, HGS 7 (1997), 60–78.

38. Evidence for this may be found in Sandkühler’s work on Galicia, see Thomas Sand-

kühler, ‘Endlösung’ in Galizien: Der Judenmord in Ostpolen und die Rettungsinitiativen

von Berthold Beitz, 1941–1944 (Bonn, 1996), 156 ff.

Notes to pages 283–285

533

39. See Hitler’s statements in the discussion about ‘Eastern questions’ on 16 July; IMT

xxxviii. 86 ff., 221-L.

40. For Lemberg, however, there is only one reference to plans for the construction of an extermination camp. In the area of Minsk thousands of Jews deported from the Reich

were murdered in Maly Trostinets from the spring of 1942 onwards.

41. This is evident in a presentation by the Propaganda department of Goebbels’s ministry dated 17 August 1941, which—clearly in connection with Hitler’s speech the same day—

lists the arguments for a marking of the Jews (MA 423, in H. G. Adler, Der Verwaltete

Mensch. Studien zur Deportation der Juden aus Deutschland (Tübingen, 1974), 50–1).

42. On the history of this: on 21 April Goebbels had commissioned his Secretary of State, Leopold Gutterer, to prepare for the marking of the Berlin Jews: Kriegspropaganda

(Boelcke) and Akten der Parteikanzlei, 2 parts, ed. Helmuth Heiber et al. (Munich 1983

and 1991), Mikrofiches, vol. 4, 76074, memo Tießler, 21 Apr. 1941. It was subsequently

established in the Propaganda Ministry that a proposal for cross-Reich identification of

the Jews had already been proposed by Himmler or Heydrich (IfZ, MA 423, Taubert to

Tießler 22 Apr. 1941 and memo of Tießler, 25 Apr. 1941). Goering had received such a

proposal from the Führer’s Deputy (StdF) and the SD the previous year, when

Heydrich had first suggested the marking of Jews after Kristallnacht (ibid., 76069,

from BAB, NS 18alt/842, memo from Reischauer to Tießler, 24 May 1941.

43. On 14 August the State Secretary in the Ministry of the Interior, Wilhelm Stuckart, in a memo to Lammers, had supported Karl Hermann Frank’s suggestion that marking

should be introduced in the Protectorate (ND NG 1111). Heydrich too had asked

Bormann—after consulting Goering—in a memo of 17 August 1941 to urge Hitler to

agree to the marking of the Jews, as the draft from the Propaganda Department for

Goebbels of 17 August 1941 makes plain (IfZ, MA 423). With his initiative Goebbels thus

came just ahead of other offices.

44. See p. 266 on the propaganda campaign.

45. In Walter Strauß, ed., ‘Bernhard Lösener, “Als Rassenreferent im Reichsministerium

des Innern” ’, VfZ 9 (1961), 262–313, 302 ff.

46. Fröhlich, ed., Die Tagebücher, Teil II, vol. ii, 19 Aug. 1941, p. 265. Goebbels had already recorded his intention to mark the Jews in his diary entry for 12 Aug. 1941, p. 218.

47. Reichsgesetzblatt (RGBl) 1941, I, p. 547; See express letter from the Reich Interior