The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 (120 page)

244. Berkhoff,
Harvest of Despair
, p. 77.

Chapter Five: September 1941–December 1941

1. The general description of the events follows Andrew Ezergailis,
The Holocaust in Latvia, 1941–1944: The Missing Center
(Riga and Washington, DC, 1996), pp. 244–50.

2. It seems that SS architects and other experts were consulted about the disposals of the bodies of the 30,000 Riga Jews. See Konrad Kwiet, “Rehearsing for Murder: The Beginning of the Final Solution in Lithuania in June 1941,”
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
12, no. 1 (1998), p. 7.

3. Ezergailis,
The Holocaust in Latvia, 1941–1944
, p. 253.

4. Ibid., p. 254.

5. Wolfgang Benz, Konrad Kwiet, and Jürgen Matthäus,
Einsatz im “Reichskommissariat Ostland”: Dokumente zum Völkermord im Baltikum und in Weissrussland, 1941–1944
(Berlin, 1998), p. 96.

6. Sophie Dubnov-Erlich,
The Life and World of S. M. Dubnov. Diaspora Nationalism and Jewish History
(New York, 1991), pp. 246–47.

7. Jürgen Matthäus, “Weltanschauliche Forschung und Auswärtung. Aus den Akten des Amtes VII im Reichssicherheitshauptamt,”
Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung
5 (1996), p. 316.

8. Quoted in Konrad Kwiet, “Erziehung zum Mord: Zwei Beispiele zur Kontinuität der deutschen ‘Endlösung der Judenfrage,’” in
Geschichte und Emanzipation
, ed. Michael Grüttner et al. (Frankfurt, 1999), p. 449.

9. Peter Witte, “Two Decisions Concerning the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question”: Deportations to Lodz and Mass Murder in Chelmno,”
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
9, no. 3 (1995), p. 330.

10. Ibid., pp. 324–25.

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid.

13. Joseph Goebbels,
Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels: Sämtliche Fragmente
, ed. Elke Fröhlich part 2, vol. 1 (Munich, 1996), pp. 384, 388.

14. Gerhard L. Weinberg,
A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II
(Cambridge, UK, 1994), pp. 243–44.

15. This had been the pretext for the anti-Jewish boycott of April 1933 and was mentioned time and again as an effective anti-Jewish strategy from the end of 1938 to the war. See Saul Friedländer,
Nazi Germany and the Jews, Volume 1: The Years of Persecution, 1933–1939
(New York, 1997), p. 316.

16. Martin Dean, “The Development and Implementation of Nazi Denaturalization and Confiscation Policy up to the Eleventh Decree to the Reich Citizenship Law,”
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
16, no. 2 (2002), p. 230.

17. Saul Friedländer,
Prelude to Downfall: Hitler and the United States, 1939–41
(New York, 1967), pp. 290ff.

18. Ibid., p. 291.

19. On these discussions and related issues see Heinrich Himmler,
Der Dienst-
kalender Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42
, ed. Peter Witte et al. (Hamburg, 1999), pp. 203, 205.

20. Ibid., p. 205 n. 19.

21. Christopher R. Browning and Jürgen Matthäus,
The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939–March 1942
(Lincoln, NE, 2004), p. 328.

22. About the exchanges between Himmler and Übelhör, then between Heydrich and Übelhör, see mainly ibid., pp. 331ff. See also, among others, H. G. Adler,
Der verwaltete Mensch: Studien zur Deportation der Juden aus Deutschland
(Tübingen, 1974), pp. 173ff.

23. Henry Friedlander, “The Deportation of the German Jews: Post-War German Trials of Nazi Criminals,” in
Year Book of the Leo Baeck Institute
(London, 1984), vol. 29, p. 212.

24. For the additional measures see Yaacov Lozowick, “Malice in Action,”
Yad Vashem Bulletin
27 (1999), pp. 300–301.

25. For the fate of the Reich Jews deported to Kovno see, among other publications, Dina Porat, “The Legend of the Struggle of the Jews from the Third Reich in the Ninth Fort near Kovno, 1941–1942,”
Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für deutsche Geschichte
20 (1991), pp. 363ff. and particularly 375ff.

26. Friedlander, “The Deportation of the German Jews: Post-War German Trials of Nazi Criminals,” p. 214.

27. Himmler,
Der Dienstkalender
, p. 278 n. 104.

28. Ibid.

29. Goebbels,
Tagebücher
, part 2, vol. 2, pp. 49–50, 73 (for the translation see Christopher R. Browning,
Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers
[Cambridge, 2000], p. 38).

30. Willi A. Boelcke, ed.,
Wollt Ihr den totalen Krieg? Die geheimen Goebbels Konferenzen 1939–1943
(Herrsching, 1989), p. 246.

31. Dawid Sierakowiak,
The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak
, ed. Alan Adelson (New York, 1996), p. 136.

32. Ibid., p. 138.

33. Chaim Aron Kaplan,
Scroll of Agony: The Warsaw Diary of Chaim A. Kaplan
, ed. Abraham I. Katsh (Bloomington, 1999), p. 272.

34. Victor Klemperer,
I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1933–41
(New York, 1998), p. 440.

35. Willy Cohn,
Als Jude in Breslau 1941
, ed. Joseph Walk (Gerlingen, 1984), p. 106.

36. Ibid., p. 110.

37. Mihail Sebastian,
Journal, 1935–1944
(Chicago, 2000), p. 425.

38. Jacques Biélinky,
Journal, 1940–1942: Un journaliste juif à Paris sous l’Occupation
, ed. Renée Poznánski (Paris, 1992), p. 156.

39. Ian Kershaw,
Hitler, 1936–45: Nemesis
(New York, 2000), p. 440.

40. Ernst Klink, “The Conduct of Operations: 1. The Army and the Navy,” in
The Attack on the Soviet Union
, ed. Horst Boog (Oxford, 1998), pp. 685ff, 690ff, and 701–2.

41. Goebbels,
Tagebücher
, part 2, vol. 2, p. 296.

42. Friedländer,
Prelude to Downfall: Hitler and the United States, 1939–41
, pp. 292ff.

43. David M. Kennedy,
Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945
(New York, 1999), p. 499.

44. Goebbels,
Tagebücher
, part 2, vol. 2, p. 297.

45. Galeazzo Ciano,
Diary 1937–1943: The Complete Unabridged Diaries of Count Galeazzo Ciano, Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs, 1936–1943
(London, 2002), p. 459.

46. About the Des Moines speech, see A. Scott Berg,
Lindbergh
(New York, 1998), pp. 324ff.

47. Ibid., p. 426–27.

48. Ibid., p. 427.

49. Goebbels,
Tagebücher
, part 2, vol. 1, p. 417.

50. For the text of Hitler’s order of the day of October 2, 1941, see Adolf Hitler,
Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen, 1932–1945: Kommentiert von einem deutschen Zeitgenossen
, ed. Max Domarus, 4 vols. (Leonberg, 1987–88), part 2, vol. 4, pp. 1756–57.

51. Ibid., p. 1759.

52. Adolf Hitler,
Monologe im Führer-Hauptquartier 1941–1944
, ed. Werner Jochmann and Heinrich Heim (Munich, 2000), p. 78.

53. Ibid., p. 88.

54. Ibid., p. 90.

55. Ibid.

56. Ibid., p. 93.

57. Ibid., p. 96.

58. Ibid., pp. 96–99 (for the translation of some of the excerpts, see also Adolf Hitler,
Hitler’s Table Talk, 1941–1944
, ed. H. R. Trevor-Roper [London, 1953]), p. 79.

59. Nuremberg doc. NG-287. Quoted in Josef Wulf, ed.,
Presse und Funk im Dritten Reich: Eine Dokumentation
(Gütersloh, 1964), p. 254.

60. Hitler,
Monologue
, p. 106.

61. Ibid.

62. Andreas Hillgruber,
Staatsmänner und Diplomaten bei Hitler: Vertrauliche Aufzeichnungen über Unterredungen mit Vertretern des Auslandes
(Frankfurt am Main, 1967–70), vol. 1, pp. 634–35.

63. Hitler,
Monologe
, pp. 130–31.

64. Hitler,
Reden
, vol. 4, p. 1772.

65. Ibid., pp. 1772–73.

66. Ibid., p. 1778.

67.
DGFP: Series D
, vol. 13, (Washington, 1964), p. 767.

68. Hitler,
Monologe
, p. 137.

69. Ibid., p. 143.

70. Joseph Goebbels, “Die Juden sind schuld!” in Joseph Goebbels,
Das eherne Herz: Reden und Aufsätze aus den Jahren 1941/42
, ed. Moritz Augustus Konstantin von Schirmeister (Munich, 1943), pp. 85ff.

71. For an excellent analysis of Goebbels’s article in
Das Reich
and his lecture of December 1, see Jeffrey Herf, “The ‘Jewish War’: Goebbels and the Antisemitic Campaign of the Nazi Propaganda Ministry,”
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
19, no. 1 (2005), pp. 67–68. Now, see mainly Jeffrey Herf,
The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust
(Cambridge, Mass., 2006), pp. 122ff.

72. Goebbels,
Tagebücher
, part 2, vol. 2, pp. 340–41.

73.
DGFP: Series D
, vol. 13, pp. 850–51.

74. Hillgruber,
Staatsmänner
, pp. 664ff.

75.
DGFP: Series D
, vol. 13, p. 893.

76. Memorandum for Ribbentrop from Schmidt, November 30, 1941, ibid., pp. 908–9.

77. Hitler,
Monologe
, p. 144.

78. Ibid., pp. 147–8.

79. Hitler,
Reden
, part 2, vol. 4, p. 1794.

80. Ibid., pp. 1794–97.

81. Ibid., pp. 1800–1804. “The spirits this man has called” was of course a reference to Goethe’s
Faust.

82. Ibid., p. 1804.

83. Goebbels,
Tagebücher
, part 2, vol. 2, pp. 498ff.

84. Himmler,
Der Dienstkalender
, p. 194; Christian Gerlach, “Die Wannsee-Konferenz, das Schiksal der deutschen Juden und Hitlers politische Grundsatzentscheidung, alle Juden Europas zu ermorden,” in Christian Gerlach,
Krieg, Ernährung, Völkermord: Forschungen zur deutschen Vernichtungspolitik im Zweiten Weltkrieg
(Hamburg, 1998), pp. 8, 121.

85. Goebbels,
Tagebücher
, part 2, vol. 2, pp. 533–34.

86. Hitler,
Monologe
, p. 158.

87. Goebbels,
Tagebücher
, part 2, vol. 2, p. 614.

88. Hitler,
Reden
, pp. 1820–21.

89. The killing operations in Galicia—including the mass murders in the fall of 1941—have been studied in considerable detail. See in particular Dieter Pohl,
Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung in Ostgalizien 1941–1944: Organization und Durchführung eines staatlichen Massenverbrechens
(Munich, 1996); Dieter Pohl, “Hans Krüger and the Murder of the Jews in the Stanislawow Region (Galicia),”
Yad Vashem Studies
26 (1998); Thomas Sandkühler,
“Endlösung” in Galizien: der Judenmord in Ostpolen und die Rettungsinitiativen von Berthold Beitz, 1941–1944
(Bonn, 1996); Browning and Matthäus,
The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939–March 1942
, pp. 347ff.

90. For the description of the events at the cemetery, see in particular Sandkühler,
Endlösung in Galizien
, pp. 151–52.

91. Elsa Binder’s diary is quoted in Alexandra Zapruder,
Salvaged Pages. Young Writers’ Diaries of the Holocaust
(New Haven, 2002), pp. 301ff., particularly 315.

92. The deportations to Minsk also led to mass executions of local Jews; the killing of local Jews to make space for the deportees from the Reich may explain the aborted plans for setting up an extermination site in Mogilev. On this issue see Christian Gerlach, “Failure of Plans for an SS Extermination Camp in Mogilev, Belorussia,”
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
7, no. 1 (1997), pp. 60ff.

93. The full text of Heydrich’s statement is quoted in H. G. Adler,
Theresienstadt, 1941–1945: Das Antlitz einer Zwangsgemeinschaft. Geschichte, Soziologie, Psychologie
(Tübingen, 1960), pp. 720ff. The Wannsee conference will be discussed in chapter 6.

94. Himmler,
Der Dienstkalender
, pp. 233–34 n. 35.

95. For the function of the Zamosc region as the first colonization project in the framework of General Plan East, see in particular Bruno Wasser, “Die ‘Germanisierung’ im Distrikt Lublin als Generalprobe und erste Realisierungsphase des ‘Generalplans Ost,’” in Mechtild Rössler, Sabine Schleiermacher, and Cordula Tollmien, eds.,
Der “Generalplan Ost”: Hauptlinien der nationalsozialistischen Planungs- und Vernichtungspolitik
(Berlin, 1993), pp. 271ff.

96. Hitler,
Monologe
, pp. 78ff. Hans Mommsen’s suggestion that the extermination process leading to the full-scale “Final Solution” was triggered by Globocnik’s extermination initiatives in Lublin and Katzmann’s murder operations in Galicia is hard to sustain. According to this argument it was Globocnik who convinced Himmler to send him T4 personnel to deal with the Jews unfit for work on his road-building projects (
Durchgangstrasse IV
) and also to make space for ethnic Germans from the Zamosc region. Along the lines of the same interpretation, Globocnik’s initiative would have led to the construction of the other extermination camps in the General Government and started a murderous chain reaction that ultimately engulfed the whole of European Jewry. For this thesis see Hans Mommsen,
Auschwitz, 17. Juli 1942: Der Weg zur europäischen “Endlösung der Judenfrage”
(Munich, 2002), pp. 134ff. and 138. There is no doubt that the fanaticism and the activism of a Globocnik—or a Jeckeln or a Greiser—were highly valued by Himmler and certainly acknowledged by Hitler; yet nothing indicates that these or any other local initiatives set a course that “die höchste Instanz” then adopted as his own. The Globocniks of the system could act only within the limits set by Himmler, and when it came to the general extermination plan, the Reichsführer himself got his orders from Hitler.

97. Philippe Burrin,
Hitler and the Jews: The Genesis of the Holocaust
(London, 1994), p. 127.