The Holocaust: A New History

by Laurence Rees

  After Kristallnacht there was no pretending that Hitler was a normal politician in charge of a country that wanted peaceful relations with the rest of the world. Lord Halifax, the British Foreign Secretary, told a meeting of the Foreign Policy Committee that ‘crazy persons’ had managed to ‘secure control’ of Germany. He believed that ‘the immediate objective [of the British government] should be the correction of the false impression that we were decadent, spineless and could with impunity be kicked about’.89

  As for Hitler, there is no record of him saying anything in public or in private about Kristallnacht after the event, although at the time Goebbels in his diary had made it clear that the German leader approved of the action against the Jews. Almost certainly Hitler did not want to be associated with the violence. He prized his prestige as head of state, and did not want foreign leaders to hold him personally responsible. His silence also left him the option of blaming extremists within the party for the violence if there was discontent within Germany about the attacks. Manfred von Schröder, then a young German diplomat, remembers that many believed that Kristallnacht was the work of ‘radical Nazis and SA people’ and that the crime had not been ‘agreed by Hitler’.90 Given how Hitler acted over Kristallnacht, it should not come as a surprise to learn that he would subsequently adopt the same tactic during the war and never speak explicitly in public about how the security forces of the Third Reich were murdering Jews.

  On 12 November 1938, Hermann Göring chaired a conference at the Aviation Ministry in Berlin to discuss the aftermath of Kristallnacht. It is one of the only high-level Nazi gatherings on Jewish policy for which a stenographic record of much of the meeting survives, and the contents are revealing.91 In the first place the meeting laid bare the extent to which the Nazi hierarchy had not thought through the consequences of their own actions. The problem they had created for themselves with Kristallnacht was straightforward – not only were the Jews able to claim for the damage they had suffered to their property from German insurance companies, many of which were owned by non-Jews, but a considerable quantity of the glass that had been destroyed could be replaced only by buying it from abroad and thus wasting large amounts of money on the foreign exchange market. Göring said that it was ‘insane, to clean out and burn a Jewish warehouse then have a German insurance company make good the loss’. He would much rather that ‘200 Jews’ had been killed rather than property of such value destroyed.

  The participants at the conference also discussed further restrictive measures against the Jews. Reinhard Heydrich suggested that Jews should be forced to wear ‘a certain insignia’ on their clothes. One consequence of this, he said, would be that it would stop foreign Jews ‘who don’t look different from ours’ from ‘being molested’. This, in turn, would prevent other governments from complaining about the mistreatment of their own citizens in Germany. Göring pointed out that this action, combined with the further seizure of Jewish businesses and greater restrictions on the ability of Jews to move about freely, would lead to ‘the creation of ghettos on a very large scale, in all the cities’. But Heydrich was against this: ‘We could not control a ghetto where the Jews congregate amidst the whole Jewish people. It would remain the permanent hideout for criminals and also for epidemics and the like. We don’t want to let the Jew live in the same house with the German population; but today the German population, [in] their blocks or houses, force the Jew to behave himself. The control of the Jew through the watchful eye of the whole population is better than having him by the thousands in a district where I cannot properly establish a control over his daily life through uniformed agents.’ This exchange is significant in the light of what was to come, since both measures – the marking of Jews with an ‘insignia’ and the creation of ghettos – would be implemented in parts of the occupied east little more than a year later.

  The transcript of the meeting also demonstrates the outlandish nature of the debate between these leading Nazi figures. What emerges is a world in which any idea, no matter how radical or eccentric, could be floated and discussed. Goebbels suggested that ‘this is our chance to dissolve the synagogues’ and to replace them with other buildings or ‘parking lots’. They also discussed forcing Jews to travel in special compartments on trains, but Goebbels said that wouldn’t work because ‘suppose there would be two Jews in the train and the other compartments would be overcrowded. These two Jews would then have a compartment all to themselves.’ Göring countered by saying, ‘I’d give the Jews one coach or one compartment. And should a case like you mention arise and the train be overcrowded, believe me, we won’t need a law. We’ll kick him out and he’ll have to sit all alone in the toilet all the way!’

  Goebbels proposed that they should consider forbidding Jews to enter the German forests, because the ‘behaviour of the Jews is so inciting and provocative’ with ‘whole herds of them’ running about the Grunewald, a forest outside Berlin. Göring latched on to Goebbels’ idea and gave it a bizarre twist of his own, suggesting that while the Jews should be banned from most of the forest, an area could be reserved just for them. This section could be stocked with animals that ‘look’ like Jews – Göring suggested the elk, because it ‘has such a crooked nose’.

  Göring’s remark about the elk captures the attitude of those attending the 12 November meeting. No ethical restriction held them back. A plan to send the Jews to the moon could have been proposed were it not for the practical difficulties of making it happen. These Nazi leaders knew that Hitler liked to hear radical ideas, and as a consequence they felt exhilarated, and able to dream as fantastically as they liked.

  By the time the meeting ended Göring and his colleagues had discussed a whole range of new measures against the Jews, including plans to seize – or ‘Aryanize’ – Jewish businesses, establish a similar emigration operation in Germany to the one Eichmann had created in Austria, and – in an act of pure double-speak – make the Jews pay a massive fine as a penalty for causing Kristallnacht, because vom Rath had been murdered by a Jew. Finally, Göring summed up the situation for the Jews who still lived under German rule: ‘If, in the near future, the German Reich should come into conflict with foreign powers, it goes without saying that we in Germany should first of all let it come to a showdown with the Jews.’92

  As for Hitler, his rhetoric was now almost apocalyptic. In his speech before the Reichstag on 30 January 1939, the sixth anniversary of the seizure of power, he made explicit threats against the Jews. In an address that lasted more than two and a half hours, he asserted that Germany wanted only to live in peace with other countries, but ‘international Jewry’ sought to ‘gratify its thirst for vengeance’. Furthermore, ‘At this moment, the Jews are still propagating their campaign of hatred in certain states under the cover of press, film, radio, theater, and literature, which are all in their hands.’ Infamously, Hitler also said that if ‘international’ Jewish financiers within Europe and abroad should succeed ‘in plunging mankind into yet another world war, then the result will not be a Bolshevization of the earth and the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe’.93

  What exactly did Hitler mean by this? A serious threat against the Jews, certainly. But did he explicitly mean that he intended to kill the Jews in the event of a world war? That is debatable, especially since there is no evidence that he had a detailed plan of destruction in mind for the Jews as he uttered these words. An alternative, more persuasive interpretation is that by ‘annihilation’ Hitler meant ‘elimination’, and thus one possible ‘solution’ to the Nazis’ Jewish ‘problem’ remained the destruction of the Jews in Europe by forcibly removing them from the continent. Support for this view is offered by Hitler’s statements earlier in his speech, when he denounced ‘the entire democratic world’ for their ‘non-intervention’ and failure to accept Jewish emigrants. These countries were ‘filled with tears of pity at the plight of the poor, tortured Jewish people, while remaining hardhearted’. It was in this context
that Hitler promised that Germany would ‘banish this people’ – that is, the Jews.

  A further insight into Hitler’s intentions is offered by his comments at a meeting with István Csáky, the Hungarian Foreign Minister, on 16 January 1938 – two weeks before his ‘prophecy’ speech. Csáky was no friend of the Jews and served in a government that had already implemented anti-Semitic legislation. Hitler told Csáky that he was ‘certain’ that ‘the Jews would have to disappear from Germany to the last one’.94 He also said that the ‘Jewish problem’ existed ‘not just in Germany’ and that he would support any other state that sought to confront it. The context of his use of the word ‘disappear’ in this meeting suggests that Hitler meant ‘expulsion’ rather than ‘extermination’.

  Additional backing for this reading of events is offered by Hitler’s remarks on 21 January 1938. During a discussion with the Czechoslovakian Foreign Minister, František Chvalkovský, Hitler said that the Jews would be ‘destroyed in Germany’ in vengeance for ‘9 November 1918’ and that one ‘possibility’ was for the countries that were ‘interested’ to select ‘any location in the world’ and ‘put the Jews there’. The other ‘Anglo-Saxon countries that are dripping with humanity’ could then be told, ‘Here they are; they either starve to death or you can put into practice your many speeches [and, by implication, look after them].’95

  However, while on balance it is unlikely that Hitler’s prophecy demonstrated that he already had a definite plan to murder the Jews in the light of any forthcoming ‘world war’, the importance of the linkage in his mind between the fate of the Jews and any future conflict should not be underestimated. If Germany was involved in a war, the Jews would suffer appallingly – that was the assurance he gave on 30 January 1939. What form that suffering would take – forced expulsion or something even worse – was yet to be decided.

  At the same time, Hitler was ratcheting up the pressure on his European neighbours still further. The Slovaks, who had gained greater autonomy within Czechoslovakia in the wake of the Munich agreement, were pressured into declaring full independence from the Czech state. Göring, at a meeting with Slovak representatives, expressed himself with typical bluntness. ‘Do you want to make yourselves independent?’ he said. ‘[Or should] I let the Hungarians have you?’96 In March 1939 the Slovaks did as they were asked and split from the Czechs. Under the Presidency of Jozef Tiso, a Catholic priest, the new regime in Slovakia implemented a series of anti-Semitic measures. The following month, for instance, they passed Decree 63/39 banning Jews from many professions in an attempt to ensure that Jews were ‘excluded’ from ‘national life’.97 ‘Our lives turned upside down,’ says Linda Breder, an orthodox Slovak Jew then fourteen years old. Linda was ‘kicked out of school’ and her father lost his job. She was particularly shocked because previously ‘Jews and Christians had lived side by side.’98 Otto Pressburger, a Slovak Jew who was seventeen in 1939, confirms that ‘There used to be no difference between us, between Jewish and Christian youth.’ But after the Slovak state had been established, ‘I was sent back home from school and told I cannot go to school any more. We could not go anywhere and had to stay at home … Before we used to go dancing with girls – not only Jewish girls – something like a disco today. Then the signs were put up: “No Jews and Dogs Allowed”.’99

  Once Slovakia, the eastern part of the former Czechoslovakia, had split from the rest of the country, Hitler ordered German troops to march into the remaining Czech lands. The occupation was completed in a matter of hours, and on 16 March 1939, Hitler travelled to Prague and announced the creation of the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Over 110,000 more Jews now came under German control, and they too were soon subjected to a whole series of anti-Semitic measures, including the ‘Aryanization’ of Jewish businesses.

  Hitler’s aggressive intentions were now obvious to the world. The occupation of the Czech lands could not be defended as part of a Nazi plan merely to regain German-speaking territory lost at the end of the First World War. As the permanent under-secretary to the Foreign Office, Sir Alexander Cadogan, wrote in his diary on 20 March 1939: ‘I’m afraid we have reached the crossroads. I always said that, as long as Hitler could pretend he was incorporating Germans in the Reich, we could pretend that he had a case. If he proceeded to gobble up other nationalities, that would be the time to call “Halt!” ’100

  The British now offered guarantees against any future Nazi aggression to Poland, Greece and Romania. Roosevelt, recognizing the seriousness of what had just happened to Czechoslovakia, decided to write Hitler a letter. On 15 April 1939 he held a press conference at the White House and announced that he had asked Hitler to commit to solving problems by peaceful means. He had sought ‘assurance’ from him that German armed forces would not ‘attack or invade the territory or possessions’ of more than thirty different countries, from Finland to Yugoslavia, from the Netherlands to Portugal and from Sweden to Iran.101

  Roosevelt’s letter was a propaganda gift for Hitler. After all, what right did the President of the United States have to ask the leader of Germany for a public assurance that he did not intend to use German forces to invade Spain or Switzerland? Hitler replied to Roosevelt’s letter in a tour de force of bitter sarcasm during a speech to the Reichstag on 28 April. He pointed out that America had played a part in imposing the hated ‘Diktat of Versailles’ on the German people after the First World War and so was ill qualified now to talk of raising a ‘voice of strength and friendship for mankind’ – especially since the Americans had refused to support the League of Nations. But most embarrassingly for Roosevelt, Hitler pointed out that a number of the countries named on his list, such as Syria, were ‘presently not in the possession of their liberty since their territories are occupied by the military forces of the democratic states which have robbed them of all their rights’. Moreover, Hitler said, Ireland did not see Germany as a threat but ‘England’; and it appeared ‘to have slipped Mr. Roosevelt’s mind that Palestine is not being occupied by German troops but by English ones’.102

  This marks the moment when Hitler burnt any diplomatic bridges that had been left standing between Germany and America. He mentioned a number of times in the speech how America had intervened on the Allied side in the First World War, and his concern, though unspoken, was obvious – the Americans might do just the same thing in any future conflict in Europe. Since Hitler believed that the Jews held profound influence in America, it is not surprising that December 1941, the month that America did finally enter the war, is a key moment – as we shall see – in the evolution of the Holocaust.

  Not that the knowledge that America might become an adversary in a future war deterred Hitler from pursuing the conflict. He knew that if the war in Europe began without delay then the German Army would have an opportunity to gain sufficient territory and win the war before America decided to take part. It was all a matter of timing. As he said to his generals in August 1939, ‘all these favourable circumstances will no longer prevail in two or three years’ time … A long period of peace would not do us any good.’103 It was now necessary to ‘close your hearts to pity’ and to ‘act brutally’. These were the sentiments of the authentic Hitler.

  Hitler was about to take Germany to war, but it was not the war he had once planned. Years ago he had wanted Britain as an ally, not an adversary. More recently he had hoped Poland would cooperate with Nazi aggression and join the Germans in a war against the Soviet Union. Yet the Poles now opposed him as well. So in order to restrict the number of nations that Germany would have to confront in the short term, he dispatched Ribbentrop to Moscow to agree a non-aggression pact with Stalin, his greatest ideological enemy. But while one of Hitler’s desires – war against the Soviet Union – would have to wait, the other – a radical reckoning with the Jews – could begin at once.

  8. The Start of Racial War

  (1939–1940)

  German troops invaded Poland on Friday 1 September 1939 and initiated a r
ule of terror that would see Poland become the epicentre of the Holocaust. The Germans would build all of their most infamous extermination camps on Polish soil, and Poland would suffer a greater proportionate loss of population than any other single country in the war. Up to 6 million people living in Poland – at least half of them Jews – lost their lives. The vast majority of these people did not die in battle, but as a result of a deliberate policy of starvation, deportation and murder.

  The Germans defeated the Polish Army in less than six weeks. In part this success was gained because of superior armaments and tactics, but the Germans also received assistance from an unlikely source – their ideological enemy. On 17 September, just over two weeks after the Germans had entered Poland from the west, the Red Army invaded Poland from the east. As a result Polish forces were crushed between two powerful adversaries. The Poles never stood a chance.

  In Moscow, the Germans and the Soviets agreed in comradely fashion to put ideological differences aside and discuss the detailed division of Poland. Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet Foreign Minister, toasted each other at an extravagant banquet in the Andreevsky Hall of the Kremlin on 27 September. ‘Hurrah to Germany, her Führer and her Foreign Minister!’ said Molotov as he raised his glass.1 This ‘friendship’ had begun with the signing of the Nazi–Soviet pact in August 1939 – a deal which had included a secret protocol about the allocation between them of ‘spheres of influence’ in eastern Europe. But it was only tactical as far as Hitler was concerned – just twenty-two months later Germany would invade the Soviet Union.