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The Nazis- a Warning From History

Page 36

by Laurence Rees


  Prisoners at the newly opened concentration camp at Dachau outside Munich in 1933.

  Nazi Storm Troopers enjoy themselves by shaving a young Communist’s hair, March 1933.

  1 April 1933: the Nazis organize a boycott of Jewish shops and the Storm Troopers fix hate-filled slogans on shop windows.

  Hitler and Röhm in the summer of 1933. One year later Röhm would be dead, murdered on the orders of the man standing next to him.

  Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg, German Minister of Defence, and Hitler in September 1937; less than six months later Blomberg resigned.

  Karl Boehm-Tettelbach as a young Luftwaffe officer.

  German troops march in Nuremberg in September 1937. Hitler would shortly reveal why he wanted this new army.

  Jubilant crowds greet Hitler at the Party Congress in Nuremberg in 1938.

  Ribbentrop (left) and Himmler at Nuremberg in 1938. Himmler was one of the few leading Nazis not to despise Ribbentrop openly. At least they shared a sense of radicalism.

  Austrians in Linz greet Hitler’s arrival on 12 March 1938, boosting his already sky-high self-confidence.

  Austrian Nazis make Viennese Jews scrub the streets in the aftermath of the Anschluss. The crowds were so big that they had to be held back.

  A child gives the Führer flowers in 1938, the year of his greatest popularity so far.

  The Union Flag and the Tricolour hang above an SS guard of honour outside the ‘Führerhaus’ in Munich during the conference of September 1938.

  A passer-by surveys the damage to a Jewish shop in Berlin after Kristallnacht, November 1938.

  Philipp Bouhler, the ambitious Nazi who organized the child ‘euthanasia’ policy.

  Proof that history can be stranger than fiction. Ribbentrop shakes hands with Stalin, the man who represented the ideology the Nazis despised – Communism. The Hitler–Stalin Pact, signed in Moscow on 23 August 1939, was an act of pure pragmatism by both sides.

  Albert Forster (right) and Arthur Greiser in August 1939 when Greiser still worked for Forster in Danzig/West Prussia. Once Greiser was given his own area to control he complained constantly about his former boss.

  A Polish family run from their home during the Nazi occupation. A scene of panic and suffering that was seen in Poland a hundred thousand times.

  Himmler examines a child, eyeing up his racial potential. Himmler treated such children as a farmer treats his animals, deciding which should be allowed to grow and breed, and which should be slaughtered young.

  German officials in Albert Forster’s area determine the suitability for Germanization of the Poles sitting opposite; with Forster’s attitude to Germanization, the discussion should not have taken long.

  Scenes of life in the 25d4 ghetto. The old man (previous page) might well be asking, ‘What more can I sell to survive?’ Notice how the Jewish workers do not even stop working whilst their photo is taken.

  Hans Biebow (right), ghetto manager of 25d4, counts the money extorted from the Jews in 1940. Biebow was careful to share the loot around – especially with Arthur Greiser.

  A Jewish woman who has been abused by the citizens of Lemberg (Lvov) in the Ukraine, after the Germans arrived in 1941.

  The ‘Death-dealer of Kaunas’ holds the iron bar he used to dispatch many of his victims.

  A photograph of the so-called ‘garage’ killings in Kaunas. The Germans stood and watched as the Lithuanians did their work for them, killing the Jews.

  Jewish women in Latvia are forced to pose for the camera just before they are shot, December 1941. Within months the Nazis would have developed a more efficient way of committing mass murder – the gas chambers of the extermination camps.

  The face of a killer: Petras Zelionka in the uniform of a Lithuanian soldier.

  The entrance to Bremen station. This photograph was taken in 1941 when the Nazis were at the height of their power.

  Himmler pays a visit to a concentration camp in the east and examines the Russian prisoners. In the conflict in the east the POWs (on both sides) were treated appallingly. The Germans took 5 million Soviet prisoners – only 2 million survived the war.

  German soldiers conduct an execution in a forest somewhere in the east, 1941. Shootings like this were widespread on the Eastern Front.

  Jews are deported from Würzburg in Germany in 1942. Knowledge varied wildly amongst the German Jews about their possible fate – most could probably not conceive that they would be exterminated. Germany, after all, was a civilized country.

  An unknown man and boy stare out from behind the wire of Auschwitz, January 1945. Suffering like this was the logical conclusion of the Nazis’ pseudo-Darwinian theories.

  Count von Stauffenberg. The man who tried to kill Hitler on 20 July 1944.

  The aftermath of the bomb at the Wolf’s Lair. No wonder, seeing this destruction, that Hitler felt divine providence had saved him.

  Women run with their children from the advancing Red Army, Danzig, March 1945.

  The aftermath of the fire-bombing of Dresden, February 1945. Destruction like this reinforced, for many Germans, the need to fight to the end.

  A German soldier gives a thumbs-up sign to a Frenchman who has volunteered to fight for the Germans against the Soviet Union. The Nazis dreamt of an alliance of the west against the east.

  German soldiers shoot ‘deserters’, April 1945. That spring the Nazis turned on their own countrymen in an unprecedented way.

  Soviet soldiers shelter behind a sign which says, in Russian, ‘Onwards Stalingraders, the victory is close!’, in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin, April 1945.

  The grave of a German soldier is marked by a cross and three helmets as holidaymakers sunbathe by one of the lakes in Berlin in the summer of 1945. The war was over, but it couldn’t be forgotten.

  NOTES

  CHAPTER ONE

  1Laffin, John, Hitler Warned Us (Brassey’s, 1995), p.31

  2Ibid., p.33

  3Noakes, J. and Pridham, G. (eds), Nazism: A Documentary Reader 1919–45 (University of Exeter Press, 1984), Vol.2, p.572

  4Kershaw, Ian, Hitler (Longman, 1991), p.33

  5Bundesarchive Lichterfelde, file R43, 1/2696

  6Hamann, Brigitte, Hitler’s Wein (R. Piper GmbH, München, 1996)

  7Bayrisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Abt IV, p.3071

  8Fest, Joachim, The Face of the Third Reich (Penguin Books, 1972), p.211

  9Ibid., p.208

  10Ibid., p.115

  11Marktbreiter Wochenblatt, 26 October 1923, Bayrisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Microfiche 1, Akt. Minn73725

  12Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung, Technische Universität Berlin (pamphlet originally published by Dr Heinrich Budor, Leipzig)

  13Noakes and Pridham (eds.), Vol.1, p.35

  14Hitler’s Table Talk (Introduction by Trevor-Roper, Hugh) (Oxford University Press Paperback, 1988), p.39

  15Meissner, Otto, Staatssekretär (Hoffmann und Campe Verlag, 1950), p.240

  16Bessel, Richard, The Rise of the NSDAP and the Myth of Nazi Propaganda, Wiener Library Bulletin, (1980), Vol.23, no.51/51

  17von Papen, Franz, Der Wahrheit eine Gasse (Paul List Verlag, Munich, 1952), p.249

  18Note made on 2 December 1932 by Lutz Graf von Schwerin-Kroszigk, Reichs Finance Minister, quoted in ‘Preparations for the military emergency under Papen’ by Wolfram Pyta, Militargeschichtliche Mitteilungen MGM51 (1992), p.141

  CHAPTER TWO

  1Noakes and Pridham (eds.), p.169–70

  2These facts about Blomberg are quoted in Fest, Joachim, Hitler (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974), p.453

  3Speer, Albert, Inside the Third Reich (Orion, 1995), p.84

  4Ibid., pp.194–5

  5Kershaw, Ian, ‘Working Towards the Führer’, Contemporary European History, Vol.2, Issue 2 (Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp.103–18

  6Gone with the Wind: for more on the reasons for Goebbels’ obsession with this film see Selling Politics (BBC Worldwide, 1992) by the pr
esent author

  7Professor Robert Gellately. What follows is based on an extensive BBC interview at the Wurzburg archives with Professor Gellately. See also his book The Gestapo and German Society (Oxford University Press, 1991)

  8Gellately, Robert, The Gestapo and German Society, pp.55–6

  9The Children’s ‘Euthanasia’ Programme: this chronology is based on documents in Noakes and Pridham, Vol.3, and on Professor Noakes’s advice to us for the section of the script of episode two of the television series The Nazis: A Warning from History, which dealt with the workings of the Chancellery and the child euthanasia policy

  CHAPTER THREE

  1Trevor-Roper, p.15

  2Ibid., p.24

  3Noakes and Pridham, Vol.2, p.263

  4Wistrich, Robert S., Who’s Who in Nazi Germany (Routledge, 1995), p.202

  5Trevor-Roper, p.635

  6Noakes and Pridham, Vol.3, p.615

  7Ibid., Vol.3, p.614

  8Ribbentrop, Joachim von, The Ribbentrop Memoirs (London, 1954), p.41

  9Wistrich, p.202

  10Ibid., p.202

  11Noakes and Pridham, Vol.2, p.278

  12Memo from Hitler, August 1936. Ibid., Vol.2, p.281

  13Ibid., Vol.3, p.680

  14Ibid., Vol.3, p.680

  15Taylor, A.J.P., The Origins of the Second World War (Hamish Hamilton, London, 1961), Ch.2

  16Noakes and Pridham, Vol.3, p.696

  17Ibid., p.688

  18Fritsch was forced . . . See Fest, Hitler, p.543

  19Ibid., p.544

  20Noakes and Pridham, Vol.3, p.739

  21Fest, Hitler, p.546

  22Fest, Joachim (ed.), Himmler’s Secret Speeches (Propyläen Verlag, Germany, 1974), p.49

  23Cooper, Duff, Old Men Forget (Rupert Hart-Davis, 1953)

  24Noakes and Pridham, Vol.3, p.739

  25Author’s interview with Hans Otto Meissner, 1991

  CHAPTER FOUR

  1Trevor-Roper, p.19; 1 August 1941

  2Browning, Christopher, The Path to Genocide (Cambridge University Press, 1992)

  3Personal correspondence, Greiser to Himmler, 21 November 1942 (Berlin Document Centre)

  4Noakes and Pridham, Vol.3, p.938

  5Ibid., p.940

  6Ibid., p.954

  7Public statement, June 1942; Institut für Zeitgeschichte, DokI–176, p.29

  8Noakes and Pridham, Vol.3, p.949

  9Ibid., p.949

  10Browning, p.13

  11Noakes and Pridham, Vol.3, p.965

  12Letter, 19 January 1943 (Berlin Document Centre, BDC, SS-HOI/4701)

  13Dobroszycki, Lucjan (ed.), Chronicle of the Łódź Ghetto 1941–44 (Yale University Press, 1985), p.37

  14Browning, p.36. See also this book (pp.28–56) for a detailed description of the decision-making process that led to the establishment of factories in the Łódź ghetto.

  15Ibid., p.37

  CHAPTER FIVE

  1Cecil, Robert, Hitler’s Decision to Invade the Soviet Union (Davis-Poynter, 1975), p.167

  2Cecil, p.15, from Rauschning, H., Hitler Speaks (Thornton Butterworth, 1939), p.140

  3Leach, Barry, German Strategy Against Russia 1939–41 (Oxford University Press, 1973), p.14

  4Salisbury, H.E, Marshall Zhukov’s Greatest Battles (Harper & Row, 1969), p.154

  5Halder, Spruchkammeraussage, 20 September 1948, IfZ ZS 240/6, pp.23–4

  6Burdick, Charles and Jacobsen, Hans Adolf (eds), The Halder War Diary 1939–42 (Greenhill, 1988), pp.220–1

  7Ibid., p.446

  8Letter from Franz Halder to Luise von Benda, 3 July 1941; BA-MA, N 124/5: Colonel J. Rohowsky (rtd) papers; private property Luise Jodl, née v. Benda

  9Suny, Ronald Grigor, ‘Stalin and Stalinism 1930–53’, Kershaw, Ian and Lewin, Moshe, Stalinism and Nazism (Cambridge University Press, 1997), p.30

  10Ibid., p.49

  11Talbott, Strobe (ed.), Khrushchev Remembers (Deutsch, 1971), p.307

  12Trotsky Moyazhizn, Vol.2, pp.213–14, quoted in Volkogonov, Dmitri, Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1991), p.57

  13Lewin, Moshe, ‘Stalin in the Mirror of the Other’, Kershaw and Lewin, p.109

  14Kershaw and Lewin, p.124

  15A.A.Yepischev, as quoted in Volkogonov, p.279

  16Reuth, Ralph (ed.), Goebbels’ Diaries (Munich, 1990), Vol.3, p.198; 10 July 1937

  17With the notable exception of the Röhm Putsch of 1934, though that was directed at the Nazis’ own SA – the brownshirts – and not the German Army. Ironically, Stalin, when he heard of the Röhm Putsch, remarked how much he approved of it

  18Bullock, Alan, Hitler and Stalin, Parallel Lives (HarperCollins, 1991), p.731

  19Quoted in Fest, Hitler, p.644

  20See Streit, Christian, ‘The German Army and the Policies of Genocide’ in Hirschfeld. In Streit’s view, ‘Statements by troop commanders that they had not passed it [the Commissär Order] on or had forbidden its execution prove to be wrong in most cases. Only in one instance do sources verify that a divisional commander ignored the order.’(p. 8)

  21Froehlich, Elke, ‘Joseph Goebbels und sein Tagebuch’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 35 (1987)

  22Voenno-istoricheskii Zhurnal, 9 (1987), p.49, quoted in Volkogonov, p.37

  23Volkogonov, p.369

  24Overy, p.74

  25Erickson, John, The Soviet High Command (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1983), p.574

  26Bullock, p.768

  27Barros, James and Grefor, Richard, Double Deception: Stalin, Hitler and the Invasion of Russia (Northern Illinois University Press, 1995).

  28Sudoplatov, Pavel, Special Tasks (Warner Books, 1995), pp.145–7

  29Volkogonov, p.413

  30But note that one estimate is that 600,000 Soviet POWs were handed over during the war to Heydrich’s Einsatzkommandos under his instructions of 17 July 1941, giving ‘guidelines for the cleansing of camps for Soviet POWs’. These went further than the Commissar Order and called for the ‘liquidation’ not just of suspected commissars, party and state officials, but also of ‘intellectuals’ in the camps. See Streit, Christian, ‘The German Army and the Policies of Genocide’ in Hirschfeld. (Also note that the figure of 600,000 is the subject of dispute.)

  31Minutes of a meeting of civilian and military officials, 2 May 1941. Nuremberg Trial Files, Vol.31, p.84, Document 2718–PS.

  32Ibid., Vol.36, pp.135–57

  33Quoted in Aly, Gotz, Final Solution, (Arnold, 199) p.201; Reuth (ed.), Vol.4, 1645

  34Deutsch, Harold C. and Showalter, Dennis E., (eds), What If? Strategic Alternatives of WWII, (Emperor’s Press, Chicago, 1997)

  35Quoted in Overy, Richard, Russia’s War (Allen Lane, 1998), p.94

  36Bullock, p.811

  37Voenno-istoricheskii Zhurnal, 10, (1991), pp.335–41

  CHAPTER SIX

  1The question of just how many civilians died is controversial. See Overy, p.288. This estimate comes from detailed consultation with Professor John Erickson

  2Quoted in Fest, Hitler, p.655

  3Quoted in Ibid, p.654

  4Goebbels also recorded . . . Reuth (ed.); 20 and 21 March 1942.

  5Trevor-Roper, p.38; 23 September 1941

  6Ibid., p. 69; 17 October 1941

  7Mulligan, Timothy Patrick, The Politics of Illusion and Empire (Praeger, 1988), p.11, from notes by Dr Werner Koeppen, 19 September 1941.

  8Quoted in Dallin, Alexander, German Rule in Russia 1941–1945 (2nd edition, Macmillan, London, 1981), p.163

  9Koch speech, 5 March 1943, quoted in Mulligan, p.68

  10Quoted in Wistrich, p.142

  11Trevor-Roper, p.319; 19 February 1942

  12Ibid., pp.587–9; 22 July 1942

  13Bormann to Rosenberg, 23 July 1942, Document NO-1878, quoted in Dallin, p.457

  14For a full history of this row see Dallin, pp.454–8

  15See Streit, Christian, ‘Parti
sans-Resistance-Prisoners of War’, in Wieczynski, J. (ed.), Operation Barbarossa (Salt Lake City, 1993)

  16Bullock, p.824

  17Armstrong, pp.21–7

  18Estimates provided by Colonel David Glantz. See Grenkevich, Leonid, The Soviet Partisan Movement 1941–44, ed. Glantz, David (Frank Cass, 1999)

  19Timoshenko claimed when interviewed that, when possible, if there was a secure route through to Red Army lines, he would send German prisoners back. This should be treated with scepticism. For a partisan unit operating behind enemy lines, it must almost always have been easier just to kill the German POWs as he describes.

  20Quoted in Mulligan, p.137

  21NKGB report 17 March 1945, Minsk Central Archive.

  22Ukrainian Interior Ministry Procurator’s Report sent to 1st Party Secretary of Ukraine, 15 February 1949. Central State Archive, Kiev.

  23Kosyk, Wolodymyr, The Third Reich and Ukraine (Peter Lang, 1993), p.621

  24Ibid., p.554

  25Quoted in Mulligan, p.139

  26Quoted in Ibid., p.139

  27Quoted in Ibid., p.142

  28Report (sent 3 January 1944) to Army Group Centre about Operation Otto begun in December 1943. (Source BA-MA, RH 19 11/242, Anlagen KTB HG Mitte, 1.1.–24.9.44; Bandenbekämpfung, 01/44–03/44)

 

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