by Ian Kershaw
179. Klee, Unternehmen, 205; Domarus, 1586 n.505; Jacobsen, 1939–1945, 172; and see Hillgruber, Strategie, 175–6.
180. Carr, Poland, 103; Lukacs, Duel, 225–7.
181. A term coined by Hans Mommsen, Beamtentum im Dritten Reich, Stuttgart, 1966, 98 n.26; and Hans Mommsen, ‘Nationalsozialismus’, in Sowjetsystem und demokratische Gesellschaft. Eine vergleichende Enzyklopädie, ed. CD. Hernig, 7 vols, Freiburg etc., 1966–72, vol.4, column 702. For critical assessments, see Hermann Weiß, ‘Der “schwache” Diktator. Hitler und der Führerstaat’, in Wolfgang Benz, Hans Buchheim, and Hans Mommsen (eds.), Der Nationalsozialismus. Studien zur Ideologie und Herrschaft, Frankfurt am Main, 1993, 64–77; Manfred Funke, Starker oder schwacher Diktator? Hitlers Herrschaft und die Deutschen. Ein Essay, Düsseldorf, 1989; and Ian Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship. Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, London, (1985), 4th edn, 2000, Ch.4.
182. Broszat, Staat, 382, notes that radicalization of political content and disintegration of governmental form went hand in hand.
183. The following relies upon Rebentisch, 117–28, and Broszat, Staat, 382–3.
184. Hitler put out a decree to that effect on 5 June 1940 (Broszat, Staat, 382).
185. Gruchmann, ‘“Reichsregierung” im Führerstaat’, 202; Rebentisch, 290 and n.24, 371–3.
186. Rebentisch, 291.
187. Rebentisch, 291, 331ff. See Frank’s post-war comment on the recognitions of the ‘social Darwinism’ at the root of Hitler’s encouragement of conflict and struggle: ‘… I associated with my struggle the personal ambition to achieve; not to value myself lower than a Himmler or Bormann; and, trusting in the tactic of the Führer, giving broad scope to the political “Darwinism” of selection among his underlings as they fought among themselves, to be firmly confident of proving victorious in this struggle’ (Hans Frank, Im Angesicht des Galgens. Deutung Hitlers und seine Zeit auf Grund eigener Erlebnisse und Erkenntnisse, Munich/Gräfelfing, 1953, 195).
188. Rebentisch, 290–91.
189. See Reinhard Bollmus, Das Amt Rosenberg und seine Gegner. Studien zum Machtkampf im nationalsozialistischen Herrschaftssystem, Stuttgart, 1970, ch.6, 236ff., especially 245; Rebentisch, 284.
190. For the term, see Hans Mommsen, ‘Der Nationalsozialismus. Kumulative Radikalisierung und Selbstzerstörung des Regimes’, in Meyers Enzyklopädisches Lexikon, Bd.16, Mannheim, 1976, 785–790 (though Mommsen plays down ideology as a driving-force).
191. See also Rebentisch, 164, 338.
192. See Rebentisch, 132ff.; Peter Hüttenberger, Die Gauleiter. Studie zum Wandel des Machtgefüges in der NSDAP, Stuttgart, 1969, 152ff.; and Karl Teppe, ‘Der Reichsverteidigungskommissar. Organisation und Praxis in Westfalen’, in Rebentisch and Teppe, Verwaltung contra Menschenführung, 278–301.
193. Nineteen Gauleitertagungen were held during the course of the war (Rebentisch, 290 and n.26). I am most grateful to Martin Moll for letting me see a detailed study, as yet unpublished, which he has undertaken: ‘Die Tagungen der Reichs- und Gauleiter der NSDAP: Ein verkanntes Instrument zur Koordinierung im “Ämterchaos” des Dritten Reiches?’
194. Schirach, 298.
195. See Orlow, 268–72.
196. See Longerich, Hitlers Stellvertreter, ch.VIII.
197. Rebentisch, 246–51.
198. Cit. Rebentisch, 251.
199. Rebentisch, 206ff., 247, 251; Hüttenberger, Gauleiter, 1 38ff.
200. For the administrative confusion and tangled reins of control in occupied Poland, see Norman Rich, Hitler’s War Aims. The Establishment of the New Order, London, 1974, 72–3.
201. See Rebentisch, 248–50 for Forster and Greiser; also Kershaw, ‘Greiser’. Forster’s remark about Himmler – ‘Wenn ich so aussehen würde wie Himmler, würde ich von Rasse überhaupt nicht reden’ – is cited in Hüttenberger, 181 (from testimony provided to the RSHA in 1943 in the dispute between Himmler and Forster) and by Jochen von Lang, Der Adjutant. Karl Wolff: Der Mann zwischen Hitler und Himmler, Munich, 1985, 147.
202. Ruth Bettina Birn, Die Höheren SS- und Polizeiführer. Himmlers Vertreter im Reich und in den besetzten Gebieten, Düsseldorf, 1986, 197–205. Martyn Housden, ‘Hans Frank – Empire Builder in the East, 1939–41’, European History Quarterly, 24 (1994), 367–93, here especially 376–8, is inclined to play down Frank’s subordination to the SS. On the figure of Hans Frank, see Christoph Kleßmann, ‘Der Generalgouverneur Hans Frank’, VfZ, 19 (1971), 245–60; Christoph Kleßmann, ‘Hans Frank – Parteijurist und Generalgouverneur in Polen’, in Ronald Smelser and Rainer Zitelmann (eds.), Die braune Elite, Darmstadt, 1989, 41–51; and Joachim C. Fest, The Face of the Third Reich, Harmondsworth, 1972, 315–31.
203. See Herbert, Fremdarbeiter, 115ff.
204. See Christopher Browning, ‘Nazi Resettlement Policy and the Search for a Solution to the Jewish Question, 1939–1941’, in Christopher Browning (ed.), The Path to Genocide. Essays on Launching the Final Solution, Cambridge, 1992, 3–27. Aly, ‘Endlösung’, 14ff., emphasizes the interconnection of resettlement plans and genocide, which his study examines.
205. Aly, 60–62.
206. See Seev Goschen, ‘Eichmann und die Nisko-Aktion im October 1939’, VfZ, 29 (1981), 74–96, especially 72, 82, 86; Safrian, 68ff.
207. Aly, 62–4.
208. Goschen, 91ff; Safrian, 78–81.
209. Faschismus-Getto-Massenmord. Dokumentation über Ausrottung und Widerstand der Juden in Polen während des zweiten Weltkrieges, ed. Jüdisches Historisches Institut Warschau, Frankfurt am Main, n.d. [1961], 42–3.
210. Faschismus, 43–6; Hilberg, 137ff.; Kershaw, ‘“Warthegau”’, 56–7.
211. See Ernst Klee and Willi Dreßen (eds.), ‘Gott mit uns’. Der deutsche Vernichtungskrieg im Osten 1939–1945, Frankfurt am Main, 1989, 12–13; The New German Order in Poland, 220ff., 230–31; Faschismus, 53.
212. Faschismus, 46.
213. Glowna Komissa Badni Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce Archiwum Warsaw [War Crimes Archive], Process Artura Greisera, File 27, Fol. 167.
214. See Faschismus, 52–3.
215. Aly, 84–5. As we noted in the previous chapter, patients in asylums in Stettin and other localities on the Pomeranian coast had been murdered the previous autumn to make accommodation available for almost 50,000 ethnic Germans transported there from Latvia. (See Aly, ‘Endlösung’, 65.)
216. Aly, 85.
217. Pätzold, Verfolgung, 262.
218. Browning, Path, 32.
219. Lucjan Dobroszycki (ed.), The Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto, 1941–1944, New Haven/London, 1984, xxxix.
220. Browning, Path, 35.
221. Werner Präg and Wolfgang Jacobmeyer (eds.), Das Diensttagebuch des deutschen Generalgou verneurs in Polen 1919–1945, Stuttgart, 1975 (=DTB Frank), 261–4 (31 July 1940).
222. Kershaw, ‘“Warthegau”’, 58.
223. DTB Frank (31 July 1940), 261; Faschismus, 57–8.
224. Wildt, 32–3.
225. Brechtken, 16, 32ff.; and Leni Yahil, ‘Madagascar – Phantom of a Solution for the Jewish Question’, in Bela Vago and George L. Mosse (eds.), Jews and Non-Jews in Eastern Europe, New York, 1974, 315–34, here 315–19, where consideration by the Polish government in the later 1930s of Madagascar as an area to resettle Jews, leading to talks with the French government about the proposal, is also outlined. On 5 March 1938, Heydrich instructed Eichmann to prepare a memorandum indicating that emigration could no longer, partly for financial reasons, be regarded as a solution to the ‘Jewish Question’, and that it was therefore necessary ‘to find a foreign-political solution as had already been negotiated between Poland and France’ (‘und dass man darum herantreten muss, eine außenpolitische Lösung zu finden, wie sie bereits zwischen Polen und Frankreich verhandelt wurde’). An arrow pointed to ‘Madagaskar-Projekt’ written in the margin. (Cit. Yahil, ‘Madagascar’, 321.)
226. Christopher Browning, The Final Solution and the German Foreign Office, New York/London, 1978, 35.
227.
Richard Breitman, The Architect of Genocide. Himmler and the Final Solution, London, 1991, 122. The French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet had reported in late 1938 that, if other governments participating in the Evian Committee were prepared to contribute, France ‘would consider the settlement in Madagascar and New Caledonia of 10,000 persons’, though these were not to be of German origin. (Brechtken, 204. And see Yahil, ‘Madagascar’, 319.)
228. IMG, xxviii.539, 1816-PS (Minutes of meeting of 12 November 1938); Yahil, ‘Madagascar’, 322; Breitman, Architect, 122.
229. Breitman, Architect, 121, mentions Hitler speaking to Jodl on 20 May about demanding the return of German colonies as part of a settlement with Britain and (276 n.24) Himmler already working out plans for a colonial police.
230. Helmut Krausnick, ‘Denkschrift Himmlers über die Behandlung der Fremdvölkischen im Osten (Mai 1940)’, VfZ 5 (1957), 194–8, here 197. For the significance of Himmler’s remarks on extermination, as regards the Jews, see the interpretation of Breitman, Architect, 121 and n.
231. Breitman, Architect, 118 and 275–6 n.11. Aly, 140, has 25 June, but this seems an error.
232. Krausnick, ‘Denkschrift’, 197 (transl., N&P, iii.932).
233. Hans-Jürgen Döscher, Das Auswärtige Amt in Dritten Reich. Diplomatie im Schatten der ‘Endlösung’, Berlin, 1987, 215; see also Yahil, ‘Madagascar’, 325; Browning, Final Solution, 36; Breitman, Architect, 123.
234. Döscher, Das Auswärtige Amt, 219–20.
235. Browning, Final Solution, 37.
236. Döscher, Das Auswärtige Amt, 217–18.
237. Döscher, Das Auswärtige Amt, 217. See Lukacs, Duel, 142 n.
238. Döscher, Das Auswärtige Amt, 218–19; Yahil, ‘Madagascar’, 326; Browning, Final Solution, 40–41.
239. Schmidt, 495.
240. CP, 374; see also CD (18–19 June 1940), where Ribbentrop is reported to have said ‘that there is a German project to round up and send the Jews to Madagascar’.
241. Lagevorträge, 107 (20 June 1940); Brechtken, 230; Browning, Path, 18. According to the note of the meeting with Raeder, Hitler spoke, remarkably, of ‘French responsibility’ for the Jews to be deported to Madagascar. Raeder suggested exchanging Madagascar for the northern part of Portuguese Angola. Hitler said he would have the suggestion tested. The exchange hints at superficial interest in the Madagascar proposal.
242. DTB Frank, 252; Aly, 146–7 (and n.35); and Faschismus, 57.
243. John P. Fox, ‘German Bureaucrat or Nazified Ideologue? Ambassador Otto Abetz and Hitler’s Anti-Jewish Policies 1940–44’, in Michael Graham Fry (ed.), Power, Personalities, and Policies. Essays in Honour of Donald Cameron Watt, London, 1992, 175–232, here 184; Döscher, Das Auswärtige Amt, 216; Breitman, Architect, 128. The meeting took place on 3 August.
244. TBJG, 1/8, 276 (17 August 1940).
245. Goebbels thought the film was finished, but within three days had to rework it (TBJG, I/7, 264 (9 January 1940), 268 (12 January 1940); Hornshøh-Møller, 19).
246. TBJG, 1/8, 159 (6 June 1940).
247. TBJG, 1/8, 236 (25 July 1940).
248. Breitman, Architect, 131–2.
249. Pätzold, Verfolgung, 271–5; Hilberg, 392.
250. Breitman, Architect, 135.
251. IMG, xxxix, 425–9, Doc. 172-USSR; DTB Frank, 302 (6 November 1940); Breitman, Architect, 142–3. Frank was also told by Hitler that he would have to accept more Poles deported to his area from the incorporated territories. Their standard of living was immaterial.
252. Breitman, Architect, 137; Hilberg, 166; Ulrich Herbert, ‘Labour and Extermination: Economic Interest and the Primacy of Weltanschauung in National Socialism’, Past and Present, 138 (1993), 144–95, here 158ff.
253. Breitman, Architect, 139.
254. DTB Frank, 318–20 (11 January 1941); Breitman, Architect, 143.
255. IMG, xxviii.301, Doc.1776-PS; Klee, Dokumente, 298; Hillgruber, Strategie, 178.
256. Michalka, ‘From the Anti-Comintern Pact’, 282; Hillgruber, Strategie, 179; Carr, Poland, 117.
257. Carr, Poland, 107.
258. Domarus, 1588–9; Carr, Poland, 107–8; Michalka, ‘From the Anti-Comintern Pact’, 281–3; Bloch, 303–6; Weinberg III, 168–9, 182, 248.
259. Hillgruber, Strategie, 188–92.
260. Hillgruber, Strategie, 189–90; and see Carr, Poland, 117.
261. Hillgruber, Strategie, 190.
262. Bloch, 308–10.
263. CP, 395–9; Bloch, 307.
264. CD, 296 (4 October 1940).
265. CD, 297 (12 October 1940); CP, 398.
266. Bloch, 311.
267. Staatsmänner, i.124–33; and see Jäckel, Frankreich, 105–17.
268. Bloch, 310.
269. Halder KTB, ii.133 (11 October 1940); Weizsäcker-Papiere, 221 (21 October 1940).
270. Preston, Franco, 393.
271. Schmidt, 510–11, claimed that Franco’s train was an hour late. In fact, it was eight minutes late (Preston, Franco, 394).
272. Schmidt, 511.
273. The following account is based upon Staatsmänner I, 133–40 (quotation, 138); and Schmidt, 511–14. Schmidt, 511, conveys the misleading impression that he was present throughout the talks. In fact, another German interpreter was used on this occasion since Schmidt did not command fluent Spanish. Schmidt was in the party at Hendaye, however, and almost certainly drew up the (incomplete) record of the discussion for the Foreign Office. He was, therefore, thoroughly versed in the course of the talks, and his account accords well with the contemporary notes of the Spanish interpreter, Baron de las Torres. On the meeting, see, especially, Paul Preston, ‘Franco and Hitler: the Myth of Hendaye 1940’, Contemporary European History, 1 (1992), 1–16, here 9–10; and Preston, Franco, 394–400. The misleading impression given by Schmidt is pointed out in David Wingeate Pike, ‘Franco and the Axis Stigma’, JCH, 17 (1982), 369–406, here 377–9.
274. See Samuel Hoare, Ambassador on Special Mission, London, 1946, 92–5, for the general view in diplomatic circles that Spanish claims on north Africa had been the major stumbling-block in the discussions.
275. Cit. Preston, ‘Hendaye’, 10 and n.32 (the reported comment of the Spanish interpreter, Baron de las Torres, on 26 October 1940).
276. Cit. Preston, ‘Hendaye’, 12.
277. Schmidt, 514; Bloch, 311–12.
278. CP, 401–2.
279. Halder KTB, ii.158 (1 November 1940); trans. Halder Diary, 272. Halder was noting comments passed on by Hitler’s Army adjutant, Gerhard Engel.
280. Schmidt, 514–16.
281. François Delpla, Montoire. Les premiers jours de la collaboration, Paris, 1996, ch.16, and Delpla, Hitler, 337–8, places a more positive gloss on the outcome of the talks, from Hitler’s point of view, especially in terms of the propaganda impression intended to be conveyed abroad that Germany was indomitable on the continent of Europe.
282. Staatsmänner, i.49; Halder KTB, ii.157–8 (1 November 1940); CP, 401; and see Jäckel, Frankreich, 121.
283. Schmidt, 516; Below, 249. Hitler’s disappointment was implicit in the comments passed on by Engel and noted by Halder. (Halder KTB, ii.158 (1 November 1940).)
284. Below, 250.
285. Schmidt, 516–17; Engel, 88 (28 October 1940).
286. CP, 399–404; Schmidt, 517.
287. CP, 402.
288. Engel, 89–90 (4 November 1940), and n.272.
289. Carr, Poland, 98–9, 118–19; Martin van Creveld, Hitler’s Strategy 1940–1941. The Balkan Clue, Cambridge, 1973, 69–72; and see Robert Cecil, Hitler’s Decision to Invade Russia 1941, London, 1975, Ch.VI-VII.
290. Weisungen, 81, Directive No.18, Section 5 (12 November 1940).
291. Carr, Poland, 120.
292. Weizsdcker-Papiere, 224 (15 November 1940). The Molotov visit is well described in Read and Fisher, Deadly Embrace, ch.46, 510ff. The following account draws on Schmidt, 526–36, and the official texts of the discussions: Staatsmänner I, 166–93; AD
AP, D, XI.1, 455–61, 462–72, Nos.326, 328.
293. Carr, Poland, 121.
294. Staatsmänner I, 193; ADAP, D, XI.1, 472–8, No.329.
295. ADAP, D, XI.2, 597–8, No.404; Carr, Poland, 121; Weinberg III, 201; Bloch, 316.
296. Bloch, 316.
297. Hillgruber, Strategie, 356 and n.21 (Engel communication of 10 April 1964).
298. Engel, 91 (15 November 1940).
299. Below, 253.
300. Fedor von Bock, The War Diary 1939–1945, ed. Klaus Gerbet, Atglen PA, 1996, 193–4 (3 December 1940); Hillgruber, Strategie, 361 n.50. The translation of part of the passage from Bock’s diary – ‘zumal ein wirksames Eingreifen Amerikas dann durch Japan, das nun den Rücken frei hat, erschwert wird’ (‘especially since an effective intervention by America would be complicated by Japan, which would keep our rear free’) – mistakenly implies that the implication of eliminating the Soviet Union would be that Germany’s, not Japan’s, rear would be unexposed.
301. Halder KTB, ii.209–14 (5 December 1940); trans. Halder Diary, 292–8. Hitler amended the operational plan when Jodl presented it to him on 17 December in one significant element. He insisted that strong mobile units from the centre of the front swing northwards from the Warsaw region to ensure the destruction of Soviet forces in the north and subsequently occupy Leningrad and Kronstadt. Only thereafter were operations aimed at Moscow to be undertaken. (Kriegstagebuch des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht (Wehrmachtführungsstab), ed. Percy Ernst Schramm (=KTB OKW) Bd.I: 1. August 1940–31. Dezember 1941, Frankfurt am Main, 1965, 233.)
302. Halder KTB, ii.227–8 (13 December 1940).
303. KTB OKW, i.996; Hillgruber, Strategie, 363.
304. Weisungen, 96 (18 December 1940).
305. The Army High Command had until December 1940 used the code-name ‘Otto’ for its operational plan for the east (Halder KTB, ii.210, 214 (5 December 1940)). The Wehrmachtführungsstab, however, had used the designation ‘Fritz’, coined by Loßberg, who (see above n.157) named the operation after his son, for its own campaign-plan. The latter term was then given by Jodl to the draft directive No.21 for the ‘eastern operations’ on 12 December 1940, before being altered to ‘Barbarossa’ five days later. (KTB OKW, i.226, 233. And see B. Whaley, Codeword Barbarossa, Cambridge, Mass., 1973, 16–18; Barry A. Leach, German Strategy against Russia 1939–1941, Oxford, 1973, 79, 82, 258; Dirks/Janßen, ch.9). Confusingly, ‘Otto-Programm’ was also used by the Army for the programme to develop rail and roads in the east (Halder KTB, ii.133 n.3, 210 n.6, 381).