9 Previously unpublished testimony.
10 Previously unpublished testimony.
11 Yehuda Bauer, Jews for Sale? Nazi–Jewish Negotiations, 1933–1945, Yale University Press, 1994, pp. 150–51.
12 Laurence Rees, Auschwitz: The Nazis and the ‘Final Solution’, BBC Books, 2005, p. 230.
13 Gerald Jacobs, Sacred Games, Hamish Hamilton, 1995, pp. 63–7.
14 Previously unpublished testimony.
15 Previously unpublished testimony.
16 Ilana Rosen, Sisters in Sorrow: Life Histories of Female Holocaust Survivors from Hungary, Wayne State University Press, 2008, pp. 192–3.
17 Previously unpublished testimony.
18 US Holocaust Memorial Museum figures, https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007728.
19 Previously unpublished testimony.
20 Previously unpublished testimony.
21 Previously unpublished testimony.
22 Testimony from Touched by Auschwitz, written and produced by Laurence Rees, transmitted on BBC2, 20 January 2015.
23 Previously unpublished testimony.
24 Franciszek Piper, Auschwitz: How Many Perished?, Frap Books, 1996, p. 53, writes of 438,000 Hungarian Jews taken to Auschwitz (from within Hungarian wartime borders), but Mirek Obstarczyk of Auschwitz museum informs me that the figure is now revised to 430,000.
25 Rees, Auschwitz, p. 235.
26 SIME report no. 1 on the interrogation of Joel Brand, 16–30 June 1944, file no. SIME/P 7769, PRO FO 371/42811. Also Rees, Auschwitz, p. 227.
27 Bauer, Jews for Sale? p. 178.
28 Ibid., p. 186.
29 Ibid., p. 166.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid., p. 167.
32 Himmler, Hitler and the End of the Reich, produced by Detlef Siebert, executive producer, Laurence Rees, transmitted on BBC2, 2001.
33 Peter Longerich, Heinrich Himmler, Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 720.
34 Document discovered by the research team of Himmler, Hitler and the End of the Reich, PRO HW 1/3196.
35 Testimony from Himmler, Hitler and the End of the Reich, transmitted on BBC2, 2001.
36 Previously unpublished testimony.
37 Previously unpublished testimony.
38 Rees, Auschwitz, pp. 243–4.
39 Testimony from Himmler, Hitler and the End of the Reich, transmitted on BBC2, 2001.
40 Bauer, Jews for Sale?, pp. 158–9.
41 Previously unpublished testimony.
42 Robert Jan van Pelt, The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial, Indiana University Press, 2002, pp. 145–6.
43 Filip Müller, Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers, Ivan R. Dee, 1999, p. 121. Also quoted in part in van Pelt, Case for Auschwitz, p. 149.
44 We can’t know for certain if the Pope had read the Vrba–Wetzler report before sending his note to Horthy, but it is very likely he knew about it, since Vrba met a papal representative in Bratislava on 20 June 1944.
45 Testimony from Reputations: Pope Pius XII: The Pope, the Jews and the Nazis, produced by Jonathan Lewis, executive producer Laurence Rees, transmitted on BBC2 in 1995.
46 Ibid.
47 Ibid.
48 Peter Longerich, Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 407–8, Goebbels diary entry for 27 April 1944.
49 Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader, Penguin, 2009, p. 342.
Chapter 18: Murder to the End
1 PRO FO 371/42809, online at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/worldwar2/theatres-of-war/eastern-europe/investigation/camps/sources/docs/5/transcript.htm.
2 Michael J. Neufeld and Michael Berenbaum (eds.), The Bombing of Auschwitz, St Martin’s Press, 2000, Martin Gilbert, The Contemporary Case for the Feasibility of Bombing Auschwitz, p. 70. And see Martin Gilbert’s lecture to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, 8 November 1993, http://www.winstonchurchill.org.
3 Laurence Rees, Auschwitz: The Nazis and the ‘Final Solution’, BBC Books, 2005, pp. 248–52.
4 Neufeld and Berenbaum (eds.), The Bombing of Auschwitz, p. 68. Rees, Auschwitz, p. 248.
5 Yehuda Bauer, Jews for Sale? Nazi–Jewish Negotiations, 1933–1945, Yale University Press, 1994, p. 195.
6 Martin Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies, Pimlico, 2001, p. 127.
7 Testimony from Auschwitz: The Nazis and the ‘Final Solution’, Episode 5, written and produced by Laurence Rees, transmitted on BBC2, February 2005.
8 Robert Jan van Pelt, The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial, Indiana University Press, 2002, pp. 155–6. Simonov’s first report on Majdanek was released by the Soviet embassy in Washington on 29 August 1944.
9 Filip Müller, Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers, Ivan R. Dee, 1999, p. 153.
10 Henryk Świebocki, Auschwitz, 1940–1945: Central Issues in the History of the Camp, vol. 4: The Resistance Movement, Auschwitz Birkenau State Museum, 2000, pp. 244–9, and Franciszek Piper, Auschwitz, 1940–1945: Central Issues in the History of the Camp, vol. 3: Mass Murder, Auschwitz Birkenau State Museum, 2000, pp. 186–7.
11 Ibid.
12 Testimony from Auschwitz: The Nazis and the ‘Final Solution’, Episode 5, transmitted on BBC2, February 2005.
13 Previously unpublished testimony.
14 Testimony from Touched by Auschwitz, transmitted on BBC2, 20 January 2015.
15 Świebocki, Auschwitz, vol. 4, pp. 232–3.
16 While Italy, Bulgaria and Romania were allies of Nazi Germany, the Finns considered the arrangement with the Nazis to be one in which they were ‘co-belligerents’, not formal allies.
17 Ian Kershaw, Hitler: 1936–1945, Nemesis, Allen Lane, 2000, pp. 728–31.
18 David Cesarani, Eichmann: His Life and Crimes, Vintage, 2005, pp. 189–92.
19 See the testimony of Kurt Becher, 10 July 1947, cited in Eichmann Interrogations: Trial of Adolf Eichmann, Jerusalem, vol. VIII, pp. 2895–6. Online at http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/e/eichmann-adolf/transcripts/Testimony-Abroad/Kurt_Becher-04.html note 42.
20 Laurence Rees, World War II: Behind Closed Doors, BBC Books, 2008, p. 326.
21 Max Domarus, Hitler. Reden und Proklamationen 1932–1945, vol. 2: Untergang, R. Löwit, 1973, p. 2152, Hitler proclamation, 25 September 1944.
22 Max Domarus, Hitler: Speeches and Proclamations, vol. 4: 1941–1945, Bolchazy-Carducci, 2004, pp. 2965–6, Hitler speech, delivered by Himmler, 12 November 1944.
23 Ibid., p. 2993, Hitler’s New Year 1945 proclamation to the Wehrmacht.
24 Danuta Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle 1939–1945: From the Archives of the Auschwitz Memorial and the German Federal Archives, I. B. Tauris, 1990, p. 783, report of Józef Cyrankiewicz and Stanislaw Klodiński, 17 January 1945.
25 Previously unpublished testimony.
26 Previously unpublished testimony.
27 Previously unpublished testimony.
28 Previously unpublished testimony.
29 Andrzej Strzelecki, Auschwitz, 1940–1945: Central Issues in the History of the Camp, vol. 5: Epilogue, Auschwitz Birkenau State Museum, 2000, pp. 29–36.
30 Previously unpublished testimony.
31 Previously unpublished testimony.
32 Shmuel Krakowski, ‘Massacre of Jewish Prisoners on the Samland Peninsula – Documents’, Yad Vashem Studies, vol. 24 (1994), pp. 349–87, here p. 367. See also Janina Grabowska, K. L. Stutthof, Temmen, 1993, p. 60.
33 Schoschana Rabinovici, Dank meiner Mutter, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 2009, pp. 220–47.
34 Daniel Blatmann, Die Todesmärsche 1944/45. Das letzte Kapitel des nationalsozialistischen Massenmords, Rowolth Verlag, 2010, p. 203.
35 Irene Sagel-Grande, H. H. Fuchs and C. F. Rüter, Justiz und NS-Verbrechen. Sammlung deutscher Strafurteile wegen nationalsozialistischer Tötungsverbrechen 1945–1966, vol. XIV, University Press Amsterdam, 1976. Massenvernichtungsverbrechen in Lagern, KZ Stutthof, Herbst 1944 (Lfd. Nr. 446: LG Bochum vom 16.12.1955,
17 Ks 1/55), pp. 147–234, here pp. 156–60.
36 Ian Kershaw, The End: Germany 1944–45, Allen Lane, 2011, p. 234.
37 Strzelecki, Auschwitz, vol. 5, pp. 35–6.
38 Kershaw, The End, p. 334.
39 Previously unpublished testimony, and from Rees, Auschwitz, p. 270.
40 Testimonies held at Lund University, Sweden, Testimony no. 22 at www.ub.lu.se/en/voices-from-ravensbruck-3.
41 Ibid., http://www3.ub.lu.se/ravensbruck/interview18.pdf.
42 Nikolaus Wachsmann, KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps, Little, Brown, 2015, p. 568.
43 Laurence Rees, Their Darkest Hour, Ebury Press, 2007, p. 112.
44 Rees, Auschwitz, p. 272.
45 Testimony from Himmler, Hitler and the End of the Reich, transmitted on BBC2, 2001.
46 Ibid.
47 Elke Fröhlich (ed.), Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil II: Diktate 1941–1945, vol. 15, K. G. Saur, 1995, p. 514, entry for 15 March 1945.
48 Ibid., p. 521, entry for 16 March 1945.
49 Ibid., p. 564, entry for 22 March 1945.
50 Reproduced in Felix Kersten, Totenkopf und Treue. Heinrich Himmler ohne Uniform. Aus den Tagebuchblättern des finnischen Medizinalrats Felix Kersten, Mölich, 1952, pp. 358–9, Himmler to Kersten, 21 March 1945.
51 Leaflet 2 of the White Rose protest, http://www.white-rose-studies.org/Leaflet_2.html. Hans and Sophie were both caught and executed in February 1943.
52 http://db.yadvashem.org/righteous/family.html?language=en&itemId=9221536.
53 Estimate of Johannes Tuchel, head of the German Resistance Memorial Center, http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/press/2007/museum-created-germans-hid/.
54 Ian Kershaw, The ‘Hitler Myth’: Image and Reality in the Third Reich, Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 229–30.
55 Ian Kershaw, ‘The Persecution of the Jews and German Popular Opinion in the Third Reich’, Yearbook of Leo Baeck Institute, vol. 26 (1981), pp. 261–89, here p. 284. Also Laurence Rees, The Nazis: A Warning from History, BBC Books, 1997, p. 223.
56 Previously unpublished testimony.
57 Previously unpublished testimony and from Rees, Darkest Hour, p. 210.
58 Previously unpublished testimony.
59 Felix Kersten, The Kersten Memoirs, Hutchinson, 1956, pp. 286–90.
60 Testimony from Himmler, Hitler and the End of the Reich, transmitted on BBC2, 2001.
61 Kershaw, Hitler: Nemesis, p. 819.
62 Domarus, Hitler. Reden und Proklamationen, vol. 2, pp. 2236–7, 2239, Hitler’s Political Testament, 29 April 1945.
63 Hitler’s Table Talk, 1941–1944, Phoenix Books, 2002, p. 221, 18 January 1942.
64 Interview with Professor Sir Ian Kershaw conducted by Laurence Rees in 2009 for the educational website WW2History.com, http://ww2history.com/experts/Sir-Ian-Kershaw/Hitler-and-the-Holocaust.
65 See, for instance, pp. 259–60 for Fröhlich (ed.), Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil II, vol. 3, K. G. Saur, 1994, pp. 557–63, entry for 27 March 1942.
66 Peter Longerich, Heinrich Himmler, Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 731.
67 Previously unpublished testimony.
Postscript
1 http://ww2history.com/experts/David-Cesarani/Hitler-s-ruthlessness-vs-Stalin-s.
2 Laurence Rees, Their Darkest Hour, Ebury Press, 2007, pp. viii–ix.
3 Ibid., especially p. ix.
Acknowledgements
Since this book draws on twenty-five years’ work, you won’t be surprised to learn that there are a considerable number of people who helped me along the way and who deserve my gratitude. In particular I want to give enormous thanks to the talented members of the many different production teams that worked with me. To begin with, I mention my German colleagues, Tilman Remme and Detlef Siebert, whose commitment to historical research over the years was breathtaking. Others who were of special help at various times included Tanya Batchelor, Saulius Berzinis, Martina Carr, Sallyann Kleibel, Wanda Koscia, Michaela Lichtenstein, Elodie Maillot, Nava Mizrahi, Dominic Sutherland, Anna Taborska and Elena Yakovleva. I am profoundly grateful to them all. I also need to remember here Dr Frank Stucke. He was a brilliant researcher and penetrating intellectual who worked on many of my TV series. If it had not been for his pioneering journalism a number of our most important interviews with former Nazis would never have happened. I was proud to call him my friend. He died, tragically young, in February 2016, and is missed by us all.
This book has also benefited from the indefatigable research talents of the German historian Julia Pietsch. She also read through the book in manuscript and made many helpful comments. In addition, I thank all the various copyright holders for permission to quote from their material, including the Hoover Institution for permission to publish extracts from the diaries of Heinrich Himmler and, of course, the BBC.
My thinking on this subject has been influenced by a large number of academic historians – in particular by the opportunity to discuss this history over many years with my dear friend Professor Sir Ian Kershaw. Anyone who has even a passing interest in this subject is aware of his immense gifts as a historian. He has been a constant source of encouragement and help to me with this project, from the moment of its conception through to reading the final book in manuscript. I am also grateful to two other distinguished historians, Antony Beevor and Andrew Roberts, for reading this book before publication and giving me a wealth of wise advice.
I also benefited from the chance to discuss this period of history a few years ago with many of the world’s other leading thinkers on Nazism and the Holocaust for my educational website WW2History.com. They include Professor Omer Bartov, Professor Christopher Browning, Professor Sir Richard Evans, Professor Norbert Frei, Professor Richard Overy and Professor Adam Tooze. I also make special mention of Professor David Cesarani, who worked with me on my Auschwitz project. David and I shared many lively discussions about the Holocaust in particular and the world in general. His death in October 2015 robbed the world of a great scholar.
At Viking, my publishers, I give thanks to my editor Daniel Crewe, who has shown great faith in this project, as well as to my copy editor Peter James. I must also mention the considerable debt I owe to my former editor at Ebury Press, Albert DePetrillo. And, as ever, I thank my literary agent, the legendary Andrew Nurnberg.
In addition, I want to express my gratitude to the staff of the Holocaust Educational Trust for their help and support over many years. In particular, the Chairman Paul Phillips, the Chief Executive Karen Pollock and the Head of Education Alex Maws.
My wife Helena has helped me every step of the way with this book. Her comments were always incisive and to the point. This book would be much poorer without her. My children, Oliver, Camilla and Benedict, offered cheerful encouragement, particularly during the difficult moments on this project.
This book is dedicated to my daughter Camilla, an Oxford history graduate herself. Not just because she is the most wonderful daughter that a father ever had, but because she carefully read the whole of this book in draft and made many useful suggestions.
My final thanks go to the interviewees whose testimony we recorded over the last twenty-five years. Since there were several hundred of them, I cannot list them all individually here. But my gratitude is no less sincere and heartfelt.
Laurence Rees
London, September 2016
THE BEGINNING
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First published 2017
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ISBN: 978-0-241-97995-2
* The BDM collected, along with others, for the Winterhilfswerk des Deutschen Volkes (the Winter Relief of the German People), the highlight of which was the Day of National Solidarity.
The Holocaust: A New History Page 63