"Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich (163 page)

61.
Unpublished circular decree of the chief of the Security Police and the SD dated September 10, 1943 (Allgemeine Erlaßsammlung des RSHA, 2 A III ff., 150 ff., with implementing orders, 159 ff.).

62.
Circular decree of September 27, 1943, ibid.

63.
Secret decree circulated by the RFSSuChddtPol on June 30, 1943 (Allgemeine Erlaßsammlung des RSHA, 2 A III f., 123 ff.).

64.
Circular decree of RFSSuChddtPol of September 10, 1943, ibid., with regard to the Poles; for major work projects they were accommodated in camps. For the so-called “Eastern workers,” who were accorded the same status as prisoners of war, “accommodation in camps subject to strict discipline” was obligatory (circular decree of RFSSuChddtPol of February 20, 1942, ibid.).

65.
Police order of Reich Ministry of the Interior dated March 8, 1940 (
RGBl.
I 555), and administrative decree circulated by the RFSSuChddtPol on the same date (ZS, Versch. 26, Bl. 15; copy; also in
Doc. Occ.
10:11 ff.) Unpublished circular decree of RSHA dated August 4, 1942 (Allgemeine Erlaßsammlung 2 A III f.). For more details on identification of the “Eastern workers,” see decree circulated by the chief of the Security Police and the SD to the Reich governors on July 17, 1944 (State Archive Pozna
,
Reichsstatthalter
1218, Bl. 182).

66.
See, for example, a complaint, submitted by letter, about the management of the Jaworzno coalfield (Upper Silesia) to the Upper Silesia district group of the mining employers’ organization Steinkohlenbergbau, June 11, 1942; report by the Warthenau District Gendarmerie to the prefect of the district of Warthenau dated December 21, 1943 (quoted from
Doc. Occ.
10:272 ff., 274 ff.); letter from Governor General Hans Frank to the plenipotentiary for the Forced Labor Service (Sauckel), dated November 21, 1943 (Nuremberg doc., PS-908; also
Doc. Occ.
10:306 ff.).

67.
Unpublished decree of the RFSSuChddtPol of February 12, 1943 (ZS, Polen Film 64, Bl. 337).

68.
Secret decree circulated by the RFSSuChddtPol of June 30, 1943 (Allgemeine Erlaßsammlung des RSHA, 2 A III ff., 123 ff.)

69.
Cf. program of the plenipotentiary for the Forced Labor Service, April 20, 1942, in Sauckel,
Handbuch
(1944), 27 ff., 38; manifesto of the plenipotentiary for the Forced Labor Service, April 20, 1943 (41 ff.); Sauckel, “Das Wesen des Großdeutschen Arbeitseinsatzes” (1944), 51 ff., 54.

70.
“News from the Reich” issued by the chief of the Security Police and the SD, September 26, 1940 (24 ff.), BA R 58/154.

71.
See summary of the modified “Principles for the Treatment of Foreign Workers in the Reich” in the leaflet dated April 15, 1943 (quoted from
Doc. Occ.
10:312 ff.), which among other things says:

Everything must be subordinated to the goal of ending the war victorious. Foreign laborers working in the Reich should therefore be treated in such a way as to maintain and encourage their reliability … so that, in the long term, their manpower will remain fully at the service of the German war effort, or even a further increase in efficiency will be achieved. In this connection the following points should be seen as crucial: (1) Every human being, even primitive man, has a well-developed sense of justice. Accordingly, every instance of unjust treatment has grave consequences. Injustices, insults, oppressive measures, mistreatment, etc. must therefore cease. Beatings as a form of punishment are forbidden…. (2) It is impossible to get someone actively involved in a new idea if, at the same time, his self-esteem is being undermined. One can hardly ask people who are insulted as beasts, barbarians, and subhumans to give of their best efforts. In contrast, every opportunity should be taken to stimulate and foster positive characteristics, such as the will to fight against Bolshevism, the desire to safeguard one’s existence and home, readiness for service, and working morale. (3)…. (d) Foreign workers receive the rations stipulated by the Reich minister for food and agriculture, based on the rationing quotas for comparable German workers…. (e) Every foreign worker has a right to receive effective healthcare…. (f) The pastoral care of foreign workers is very important for the maintenance of their capacity and appetite for work. Entertainments, leisure activities, sports, etc. should be conducted in the camp itself by camp inmates…. (g) All foreign workers should have access to pastoral care, insofar as this is desired…. (h) Political persuasion should concentrate on strengthening feelings against Bolshevism and should be organized accordingly.

Part One. Section 2. Introduction. I. Objectives and Outlines of the Implementation of National Socialist Policy

Nazi laws in the occupied territories often had no sections, only “numbers.” This was done on purpose, to show that these territories were of juridically minor status and not worthy of the “gift” of normal German rules. It is therefore important to show this disdain in the quoting of the regulations. Sections and paragraphs indicate normal leegal status; numbers indicate something much more inferior. The reader not familiar with details will see, in the manner of quoting the German original exactly, the trace of discriminatory law.

1.
For details see Gruchmann, “Nationalsozialistische Großraumpolitik” (1962), 20 ff., 71 ff.

2.
Hitler,
Mein Kampf
(1934), 739, 742 f.; Hitler,
Hitlers Zweites Buch
(1961), 217 f.

3.
Cf. Hitler’s proclamation at the Reich Party Rally of September 7, 1937, in Nuremberg, in Hohlfeld,
Dokumente der Deutschen Politik und Geschichte
(1951), 5:360; more details in Gruchmann, “Nationalsozialistische Großraumpolitik” (1962), 71 ff., 93 ff.

4.
Cf. the statement of Hitler’s chief interpreter of the time, Paul Schmidt, after the war: “The general aims of the Nazi leadership, that is to say, domination of the European continent, were obvious from the start…. The implementation of these basic objectives was, however, so designed as to give an impression of improvision. Each step appeared to follow as the response to a new situation; but each of them was in line with the ultimate aim mentioned above” (Nuremberg doc. PS-3308).

5.
Hitler,
Mein Kampf
(1934), 704, 710 f., 728 ff., 739, 741 f., 754 ff., 766 f. The same train of thought is repeated with stronger emphasis on the “struggle for Lebensraum” in Hitler,
Hitlers Zweites Buch
, 217 f.

6.
Walz,
Das britische Kolonialreich
(1935); Seeley,
Die Ausbreitung Englands
(1954); Bennet,
The Concept of Empire
(1953); Lufft,
Das britische Weltreich
(1930).

7.
As early as 1940 Hitler had decided that questions of “recovering the German colonies [were] to be dealt with by the Foreign Office and that the Colonial-Political Office of the NSDAP should prepare for the administration of the colonies in accord with the relevant Party and state agencies” (quoted from Party Chancellery Order 3/409 of January 23, 1940, in
Verfügungen
, 3:254); it is clear from a Party Chancellery communication following the order that the Party was designed to play the leading role in the colonies: “The Foreign Section of the NSDAP is the sole competent agency for taking care of people in the colonies.”

8.
Draft of a colonial law (signed Dr. Hahl) of March 28, 1940, with amendments and corrections dated April 12, 1940; cf. the amendments to the draft and finally the (eleventh) draft of a Reich colonial law of January 17, 1941, further the draft of a Führer’s decree on the German colonies, undated (presumably 1940) (BA R 22/20977). See a draft order (signed Winkelmann) on jurisdiction for “nonnatives” and an order on jurisdiction for “natives” that was submitted on April 12, 1940, by the Reich Ministry of Justice; cf. also a draft order by the governors of “the colonies Cameroun and New Guinea regarding jurisdiction for natives,” undated (presumably from 1940), and the draft of an implementing order by the governors “of German east and southwest Africa regarding jurisdiction for natives of the German colonies.” A draft order of March 29, 1940, regulated land rights in the German colonies—authorization required before natives can issue injunctions, etc. (BA R 22/20997).

9.
These regions had been German colonies since 1884–85 and (“except for German East Africa,” which was held by the German Defense Force under von Lettow–Vorbeck until the 1918 armistice) were occupied by Allied troops (British, South African, Australian) during World War I. The German Reich renounced all claims to its overseas territories in section 4 of the Versailles Peace Treaty of June 28, 1919.

10.
See the sources quoted in notes 5 and 6, as well as the colonial legislation of the period before 1914 (Protected Territories Law of September 10, 1900, sec. 1) (
RGBl.
I 813); Representation Law of March 17, 1878; Kaiser’s decree of July 3, 1908;
Reichskanzler
’s directive of February 21, 1913 (
Kolonialblatt
[1913]: 213); Kaiser’s decree of July 14, 1905 (Zorn and Sassen,
Deutsche Kolonialgesetzgebung
, 147). For full details, see Sachweh, “Die Verwaltung der deutschen afrikanischen Kolonien” (1941).

11.
Reich Ministry of Justice circular of April 4, 1939 (Erlaßsammlung Reich Ministry of Justice, BA Koblenz), which obliged all subordinate authorities to report on applications by officals for vacations “in the German colonies.” The Reich Ministry of Justice reserved the right of decision for itself. A career in colonial administration was suggested to the Colonial-Political Office of the NSDAP by the Colonial Institute of Hamburg University on February 13, 1942. See also a letter of July 6, 1942, from the Colonial-Political Office of the NSDAP to the Reich minister for science (BA R 22/4440).

12.
The main content of a speech on agricultural and land settlement policy at the Brown House in Munich to a select circle of Party members in the summer of 1932, quoted in Rauschning,
Gespräche mit Hitler
(1950), 37 ff., from which the following details are taken. Confirmation of the authenticity of Rauschning’s statements as a historical source will be found in T. Schieder,
Rauschnings “Gespräche mit Hitler
” (1972) (Rheinisch-Westfälische Akademie der Wissenschaften Vorträge, G 178). With regard to the concept of a Greater German Reich, see also Fest,
Hitler
(1973), 927 ff.; Gruchmann, “Nationalsozialistische Großraumpolitik,” 71 ff. Hitler,
Mein Kampf
(1934), 704, 710 f., 728 ff., 739, 741 f., 754 ff., 766 f. For Hitler’s Eastern policy, see also H. Krausnick, “Zu Hitlers Ostpolitik im Sommer 1943,”
VjhZ
(1954): 305 ff.

13.
Hitler, quoted by Rauschning,
Gespräche mit Hitler
, 39 f.; Hitler was of the opinion that “a core of eighty or a hundred million Germans determined to settle” was necessary. Austria would “of course” be part of this core, as well as Bohemia and Moravia, the western regions of Poland, and the Baltic states.

14.
Quoted in ibid., 85 f.; Hitler also indicated that all was ready for a Putsch attempt in Austria.

15.
Ibid., 37; also Hitler,
Mein Kampf
(1934), 115 ff.

16.
Specifically it was planned to annex Alsace-Lorraine and Luxembourg, as well as Belgium and part of northern France, to subdue France definitively, to annex Denmark and Norway to the Reich in the form of satellite states or German provinces (full details in Gruchmann, “Nationalsozialistische Großraumpolitik,” 76–93, with references), and to transform Holland into “a part of the Reich” (Hitler, discussion at table, November 8–10, 1941, quoted by Picker,
Hitlers Tischgespräche
[1951], 45). Plans for the East included annexation of western Poland; transformation of the Baltic states into a protectorate; complete Germanization of the General Government and large parts of the Ukraine; annexation of the Crimea as a Reich territory; creation of the Reich commissariats Caucasus and Moscow; and making Finland, Slovakia, and the Balkan states satellites (Gruchmann, “Nationalsozialistische Großraumpolitik,” 93–109, with numerous references). For the status of the neutral states (Sweden, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain) from the National Socialist point of view, see ibid., 111 ff.

17.
See the memorandum of October 13, 1941, by Italian foreign minister Count Ciano (quoted by Jacobsen,
1939–1945
[1961], 270): “The conquered states will to all intents and purposes be colonies; Germany’s allies will be allied provinces, with Italy as the most important. We must come to terms with this situation.”

18.
Fest,
Hitler
, 938 ff.

19.
As expressed by Hitler to Rauschning (fall 1933), in Rauschning,
Gespräche mit Hitler
, 115 f.

20.
Ibid., 113, 115.

21.
Broszat, “Soziale Motivation und Führerbindung des Nationalsozialismus” (1970), 392 ff., 407, 408.