The Path to the Mass Murder of European Jews
Since the early 1920s Hitler had been propagating an
Antisemitism aimed at eliminating the Jews with force. Yet it was only after the
invasion of Poland that Hitler’s fantasies began to be realised with real
opportunities for deportation and murder. Representatives of the subordinated
occupation authorities generally lent their active support to these plans.
Nonetheless, attempts to deport Polish, Czech, German and Austrian Jews failed.
In summer 1941, the attack on the Soviet Union presented the antisemitic
National Socialists with new opportunities. Various police units murdered Jews
behind the front in mass shooting operations. At the same time, plans were
formed to also deport Jews from the West to the East. The security police,
headed by Reinhard Heydrich, had the responsibility for these plans. Many of
those deported from Germany, Vienna, Prague and Luxembourg between October 1941
and the period just before the Wannsee Conference were shot dead upon arrival at
their destination. Most were sent to ghettos. The construction of small
extermination sites began during this time. In January 1942 the murderers gained
experience of mass killing using diesel fumes at the death camp near Chełmno
(Kulmhof). At the Auschwitz death camp they killed Jews who were unable to work
and Soviet prisoners of war using the pesticide gas Cyclon-B.
7.1.
Hitler’s Antisemitism and the World Wars
Already in his book Mein Kampf Hitler claimed that
Germany could have won the First World War if thousands of Jews had been exposed
to poison gas as German soldiers had been at the front. When faced with military
defeat almost twenty years later he called for the Germans to commit to a
continuous struggle against all Jews. Between these two statements from 1927 and
1945 the National Socialists and their helpers carried out the genocide of
European Jewry during the Second World War, intent on its complete destruction.
This genocide cost around six million lives.
"Fight the
devilish power that is plunging Germany into this misery, fight Marxism as well
as the Jew, who is the intellectual force behind this world plague and epidemic.
Do not fight according to bourgeois rules, ‘carefully’, so that it does not hurt
too much. No and no again! When we joined together to form this new movement
back then we were clear that there are only two outcomes for this struggle:
either the enemy walks over our corpse or we over his."
From Hitler’s speech on 27 February 1925
"If, at the start
of the war and during the war, twelve or fifteen thousand of these Hebrew
corrupters of the nation had been subjected to poison gas as hundreds of
thousands of our very best German workers from all levels of society and
professions had to endure in the field, then the millions of frontline victims
would not have been in vain. On the contrary, if twelve thousand villains had
been eliminated at the right time then perhaps the lives of a million decent
Germans, valuable for the future, would have perhaps been saved."
Adolf
Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 2, Munich 1927
"If the
International Jewish financiers in and outside Europe again succeed in plunging
the nations into a world war, the result will not be Jewish victory but the
annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe."
From Hitler’s speech in the Reichstag, 30
January 1939
"I also made it
quite plain that, if the nations of Europe are again to be regarded as mere
shares to be bought and sold by these international conspirators in money and
finance, then that race, Jewry, which is the real guilty party in this murderous
struggle, will be saddled with the responsibility."
Adolf Hitler, My Political Testament, 29 April 1945
7.2.
Organised Terror against Jews
The German occupying forces used the occupation of Poland in
1939 and of the western Soviet Union in 1941 to firstly exploit, deport and
murder the Jews living there. Right after the invasion an atmosphere of
permanent violence against Jews prevailed in these areas. This atmosphere was
generated on the initiative of German authorities from the military, police and
civil administration. A large number of German perpetrators willingly carried
out criminal actions against Jews.
"We won’t waste
much time on the Jews. It is a joy to finally be able to physically attack the
Jewish race. The more that die the better; to strike him [the Jew] is a victory
of our Reich."
From a speech by the German Governor General in
Poland, Hans Frank, to the heads of the German district administration in Radom,
25 November 1939
"When and how the
ghetto and thus the town of Lodsch is to be cleansed of Jews is left up
to me. In any case, the end goal must be to completely burn out this plague
spot."
From a circular from Friedrich Uebelhoer,
Regierungspräsident (Governor) of the Warthegau, to all local
authorities, military and police departments, 10 December 1939
"Lodsch" was the Germanised word for the Polish city of Łódż.
On 11 April 1940 it was renamed "Litzmannstadt".
"There is the
risk that, in the coming winter, it will become impossible to feed all the
Jews. It must be seriously considered whether the most humane solution would be
to finish off the Jews unfit for labour using some fast-acting method. This
would definitely be more pleasant than letting them starve to death."
From a letter from Rolf-Heinz Höppner, head of the
Posen [Poznan] headquarters of the SD, to Adolf Eichmann, 16 July 1941
"If an act of
sabotage is carried out in a village and all Jews in that village are
exterminated you can be sure to have exterminated the perpetrator, or at least
the initiator."
From a camp report by Major General Gustav Freiherr
von Bechtolsheim, commandant of White Ruthenia from 1-15 October 1941, 19
October 1941
7.3.
The First Deportation Measures
Between the invasion of Poland and the invasion of the Soviet
Union there were repeated deportations of Austrian, Czech, Polish and French
Jews. These deportations were the radical progression of the Reich
expulsion policy, but they also served to Germanise new border territories.
Finally, they were intended to isolate the victims in so-called “Jewish
reservations”.
At the time, there were no plans to carry out mass murders of
deportees in any of the destinations in occupied Poland or France. However, the
people deported there were left to look after themselves in catastrophic
conditions.
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"Eichmann informed me that two transports from both
Moravská Ostrava and Katowice are initially planned. Following
the transports, an evaluation report must be sent via the head of the
Security Police to the Reichsführer-SS and Head of German Police.
This will probably be passed on to the Führer. We must then wait
until the order for the general transport of Jews. The Führer has
initially ordered the resettlement of 300,000 Jews without means from
the Altreich [the German Reich according to its 1937
borders] and Ostmark [Austria]."
Note of a conversation on
9 October 1939 between Adolf Eichmann, the local Wehrmacht
representative and the head of the civil administration in Katowice
concerning the deportation of Jews from Katowice and the surrounding
area |
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"I have instructed SS-Gruppenführer Frank,
Kaltenbrunner and Rodenbücher that owing to technical difficulties the
deportation of Jews is forbidden until further notice and that deportation may
only take place on my instructions."
Letter from Himmler to
Gauleiter Bürckel in Vienna on the suspension of the transports, 9 November
1939 |
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"You are hereby instructed to vacate your apartment within 7
hours. The persons conveying this instruction are obliged to remain with you
until you have packed your suitcase and sorted out your apartment according to
the rules. They will then take you to the station.[...]
You are to obey all the instructions given by those informing
you of this order completely and without resistance, and to provide them with
any information that they require. If not, you will face a severe punishment."
Order from the state police.
Stettin, 12 February 1940
Around 1,200 Jews from Stettin
were deported to the Lublin district the same day. |
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"On the order of Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter
Josef Bürckel, currently in Metz, and Gauleiter Wagner, currently in
Strasbourg, on the night of Tuesday 22 October 1940 and the following day the
Gestapo had all of the Jews from Baden and Saarpfalz arrested in their
homes by police reserve units and deported directly afterwards on railway trains
assigned for this purpose. [...]
Pursuant to an agreement between the Wiesbaden Armistice
Commission, headed by General v. Stülpnagel, and the French delegation, headed
by General Huntziger, as well as the Vichy government, all Jews of French
nationality are to be deported from Alsace and Lorraine into unoccupied France
and the French authorities are required to grant entry to the evacuees. [...]
According to reports so far, the transports, consisting of 12
sealed railway trains, arrived at concentration camps at the foot of the
Pyrenees in the south of France after a journey of several days. As there is a
lack of food and adequate accommodation for the deportees, who are mainly
elderly men and women, as far as we know the French government is considering
sending them on to Madagascar as soon as the sea routes are open."
Report on the deportation of Jews
from Baden, Palatinate and Saar regions, 30 October 1940
Around 7,500 Jews were affected
by this operation. |
7.4.
The Role of Reinhard Heydrich
Since January 1939 the Head of the Security Police and the SS
Security Service had been one of the most important decision-makers when it came
to anti-Jewish measures. Reinhard Heydrich initially used his new
responsibilities to speed up the emigration and expulsion of Jews from Germany
and Austria. He was also involved in the later plans to deport the Jews and to
establish “Jewish reservations”. In spring 1941 there was indication that
the war against the Soviet Union would provide new destinations for Jewish
deportation transports. Following the invasion, Heydrich had his authority
reinforced by Göring. From summer 1941 he was not only responsible for the mass
murders carried out by Einsatzgruppen, but also for coordinating future
deportations to the occupied territories. With his appointment as Deputy
Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, Heydrich was also responsible for
the fate of the Czech Jews.
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Letter from Heydrich to the
Reich Foreign Minister regarding the Reich Office for Jewish
Emigration, 30 January 1939
Heydrich announced the
establishment of this authority with Heinrich Müller as director. |
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On 21 December 1939
Heydrich informed police representatives in the eastern border
territories and occupied Poland that he had set up a special department
for the central administration of “evacuation” operations.
Adolf Eichmann was appointed director. |
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"In his capacity as Plenipotentiary for the Four-Year Plan,
in January 1939 the General Field Marshal gave me the task of implementing
Jewish emigration from the entire Reich. Despite severe difficulties, it
has subsequently been possible – even during the war – to successfully continue
the process of Jewish emigration. Since my department assumed this
responsibility on 1 January 1939, over 200,000 Jews have now emigrated from
Reich territory. The main problem – I refer to the already 3 1/4 million
Jews living in the territories currently under German sovereignty – can however
no longer be solved by emigration. A territorial final solution is
therefore necessary. May I ask to be included in any forthcoming discussions on
the Endlösung (final solution) of the Jewish question."
Letter from Heydrich to the Reich
Foreign Minister on 24 June 1940, indicating his wish to be involved in talks on
a "territorial final solution".
At the time, the Foreign Office
had selected the island of Madagascar as a deportation destination for Jews in
the area under German control. |
On 31 July 1941 Reinhard Heydrich
received written confirmation from Hermann Göring of his responsibility for
planning a final solution to the Jewish question in the German sphere of power
in Europe:
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Reich Marshal of the Großdeutsches Reich
Berlin, 31 July 1941
Commissioner for the Four Year Plan
Chairman of the Ministerial Council for the Reich’s
Defense
To the
Chief of the Security Police and SD,
SS-Gruppenführer Heydrich
Berlin
Supplementary to the task entrusted to you in the decree of 24 January 1939, to
solve the Jewish question under the prevailing circumstances by emigration or
evacuation in the most favourable way possible, I herewith commission you to
carry out all necessary preparations in regard to organizational, practical and
material matters for a total solution of the Jewish question [Gesamtlösung
der Judenfrage] in the German sphere of influence within Europe.
Insofar as the competences of other central organizations are affected, these
are to be involved.
I
further commission you to submit to my office in the near future an overall plan
that shows the preliminary organisational, practical and material measures
requisite for the implementation of the projected final solution of the Jewish
question [Endlösung der Judenfrage].
[handwritten signature] Göring
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► Document as
*.pdf-file
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"In order
for the NSDAP weekly slogan to have full effect it must be ensured that
the required number of notices are put up without delay in all businesses,
shops, authorities, schools, party departments, offices, community rooms,
waiting rooms and stairwells."
Litzmannstädter Zeitung
[newspaper], Sunday, 2 June
1940, p. 6 |
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