Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis (Allen Lane History)

by Ian Kershaw

  94. The emphasis placed on the Atlantic Charter as the cause of a fundamental shift in Hitler’s policy towards the Jews, allegedly bringing the decision for the ‘Final Solution’, by Jersak, 341ff., 349ff., (see above, n.75) seems exaggerated.

  95. See Longerich, Politik, 431–2.

  96. See Haider KTB, iii.226 (13 September 1941), for the OKW memorandum of 13 September 1941, approved by Hitler, indicating for the first time that the war was likely to last over the winter. The victory at Kiev temporarily restored Hitler’s confidence, a few days later, that an early end to the campaign was in prospect (TBJG, II/1, 481–2 (24 September 1941)).

  97. Dienstkalender, 211.

  98. Longerich, 430; Witte, ‘Two Decisions’, 330; Dienstkalender, 213 and n.57.

  99. Longerich, Ermordung, 157. The figure of 60,000 Jews was the same as that mentioned in at least two earlier references to deportation – that of the Viennese Jews in the winter of 1940–41, and by Eichmann at a meeting in the Propaganda Ministry in March. It seems to have been plucked from thin air. The actual number agreed on, following hard bargaining between Eichmann and the regional authorities in the Warthegau, was 20,000 Jews and 5,000 Gypsies, whom Eichmann seems to have accommodated in the demands for deportation following pressure from the local Nazi authorities in the Burgenland. (Saffrian, 115–19; Michael Zimmermann, ‘Die nationalsozialistische Lösung der Zigeunerfrage’, in Herbert, Vernichtungspolitik, 235–62, here 248–9.) As Zimmermann (237–8) points out, the murder of the Gypsies took place without Hitler ever showing notable interest in the ‘Gypsy question’; nor was a pre-existing programme for their persecution and extermination devised, either by Himmler or Heydrich. (Michael Zimmermann, Verfolgt, vertrieben, vernichtet. Die nationalsozialistische Vernichtungspolitik gegen Sinti und Roma, Essen, 1989, 82–3, where the numbers of Roma and Sinti murdered is estimated at between 220,000 and 500,000.)

  100. The connections with genocide have been well brought out by Gerlach, Krieg, Ernährung, Völker-mord, 167–257; and Christian Gerlach, ‘Deutsche Wirtschaftsinteressen, Besatzungspolitik und der Mord an den Juden in Weitßrutßland, 1941–1943’, in Herbert, Vernichtungspolitik, 263–91.

  101. See Herbert, ‘Labour and Extermination’, 167ff., for the sensitivity of the labour question in the unfolding of anti–Jewish policy at this juncture.

  102. TBJG, II/1, 481–2 (24 September 1941).

  103. Burrin, 123–4, sees it as such. Eichmann, whose testimony while in Israeli custody many years later was shaky on chronology, claimed to have been told by Heydrich two to three months after the beginning of the Russian campaign of the Führer’s order for the physical extermination of the Jews. (Lang, Eichmann-Protokoll, 69; see Browning, Fateful Months, 23–6.) Höß?, the Commandant of Auschwitz, recalled being told by Himmler in summer 1941 of Hitler’s decision. But his memory was as at least as fallible as Eichmann’s on detail and much, if not all, of what he said appears better to fit 1942 than 1941. {Kommandant in Auschwitz. Autobiographische Aufzeichnungen des Rudolf Höß, (1963), Munich, 4th edn, 1978, 157. And see Browning, Fateful Months, 22–3; Burrin, 170 n.15.) Breitman, Architect, 189–90, accepts the testimony for the timing of Hitler’s decision, as does Graml, Reichskristallnacht, 228–9. The view that Höß’s testimony referred to 1941 is, however, convincingly rejected by Karin Orth, ‘Rudolf Höß? und die “Endlösung der Judenfrage”. Drei Argumente gegen deren Datierung auf den Sommer 1941’, Werkstattgeschichte, 18 (1997), 45–57.

  104. Longerich, Politik, 475.

  105. John L. Heinemann, Hitler’s First Foreign Minister. Constantin Freiherr von Neurath, Diplomat and Statesman, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London, 1979, 209–11.

  106. TBJG, II.i.480–81 (24 September 1941).

  107. TBJG, II.i.485 (24 September 1941).

  108. TBJG, II.ii.169 (24 October 1941). It was the first of nine batches of deportation from Berlin before a temporary halt at the end of January 1942 because of transport problems (Tb Reuth, 1710, n.209).

  109. TBJG, II.ii. 194–5 (28 October 1941).

  110. TBJG, II.ii.309 (18 November 1941).

  111. Das Reich, 16 Nov. 1941: ‘Die Juden sind schuld!’: ‘… Es bewahrheitet sich an ihnen [den Juden] auch die Prophezeihung, die der Führer am 30. Januar 1939 im Deutschen Reichstag aussprach… Wir erleben eben den Vollzug dieser Prophezeihung, und es erfüllt sich damit am Judentum ein Schicksal, das zwar hart, aber mehr als verdient ist. Mitleid oder Bedauern ist da gänzlich unangebracht…’ A lengthy extract from the article, including this passage, is printed in Hans–Heinrich Wilhelm, ‘Wie geheim war die “Endlösung”’, in Benz, Miscellanea, 131–48, here 137–8 (136 for Das Reich’s circulation figures); and see Reuth, Goebbels, 491. As the passage indicates, Goebbels, unlike Hitler, dated the ‘prophecy’ of 1939 correctly.

  112. Irving, Goebbels, 379.

  113. MadR, viii.3007 (20 November 1941).

  114. TBJG, II/2, 352 (23 November 1941).

  115. TBJG, II/2, 340–1 (22 November 1941). Hitler also recommended – obviously responding to a point close to the Propaganda Minister’s heart – Goebbels to tread carefully with regard to Jewish ‘mixed-marriages’, especially in artistic circles. He was of the opinion that such marriages were dying out anyway with the passage of time, and that it was not necessary to lose any sleep about them. Fifteen months later, Goebbels would ignore such a recommendation. But a week-long protest of hundreds of wives would eventually halt the planned deportation of their Jewish husbands. (See Nathan Stoltzfus, Resistance of the Heart, New York/London, 1996.)

  116. See Martin Broszat, ‘Hitler und die Genesis der “Endlösung”. Aus Anlaß der Thesen von David Irving’, VfZ, 25 (1977), 739–75, here especially 752–3, 755–6.

  117. Raul Hilberg, ‘Die Aktion Reinhard’, in Eberhard Jäckel and Jürgen Rohwer (eds.), Der Mord an den Juden im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Entschlußbildung und Verwirklichung, Stuttgart, 1985, 125–36, here 126; Longerich, Politik, 457; Aly, 342–7; Christian Gerlach, ‘Failure of Plans for an SS Extermination Camp in Mogilev, Belorussia’, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 11 (1997), 60–78.

  118. For the significance of local and regional initiatives in the unfolding of genocide in Poland, see Dieter Pohl, Von der ‘Judenpolitik’ zum Judenmord. Der Distrikt Lublin des Generalgouvernements 1939–1944, Frankfurt am Main, 1993; Dieter Pohl, Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung in Ostgalizien. Organisation und Durchführung eines staatlichen Massenverbrechens, Munich, 1996; Dieter Pohl, ‘Die Ermordung der Juden im Generalgouvernement’, in Herbert, Vernichtungspolitik, 98–121; Thomas Sandkühler, ‘Endlösung’ in Galizien. Der Judenmord in Ostpolen, und die Rettungsinitiativen von Berthold Beitz, Bonn, 1996; Thomas Sandkühler, ‘Judenpolitik und Judenmord im Distrikt Galizien, 1941–1942’, in Herbert, Vernichtungspolitik, 122–47; also Longerich, Politik, 457–8; Kershaw, ‘Improvised Genocide?’, especially 74ff.

  119. See Browning, Fateful Months, ch.3 (‘The Development and Production of the Nazi Gas Van’).

  120. Kommandant in Auschwitz, 159; Danuta Czech, Kalendarium der Ereignisse im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz–Birkenau 1939–1945, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1989, 117–18; Yehuda Bauer, A History of the Holocaust, New York etc., 1982, 214–15; Leni Yahil, The Holocaust. The Fate of European Jewry, 1932–1945, New York/Oxford, 1990, 365; Browning, Fateful Months, 29; Gerald Fleming, ‘The Auschwitz Archives in Moscow’, Jewish Quarterly (Autumn, 1991), 9–12, here 9. Jean–Claude Pressac, Les Crématoires d’Auschwitz. La Machinerie du Meurtre de Masse, Paris, 1993, 26ff., especially 34, 101 n.107, 113–14, dates the gassing of the Soviet prisoners to December, rather than 3 September, the date given by Czech and most other historians. See Longerich, Politik, 444–5, 457 and 704 n.114.

  121. BDC, SS–HO, 1878: ‘… Es bestehe auf jeden Fall die Gefahr, dafi vor allem von Seiten der Wirtschaft in zahlreichen Fällen Juden als unentbehrliche Arbeitskräfte reklamiert würden und daß sich niemand bemühe, an Stelle der Juden andere Arbeitskräfte zu bekommen. Dies würde aber den
Plan einer totalen Aussiedlung der Juden aus den von uns besetzten Gebieten zunichte machen…’

  122. Browning, Fateful Months, 30–31; Breitman, Architect, 200; Longerich, Politik, 455.

  123. See Faschismus, 269–70.

  124. See Yitzhak Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. The Operation Reinhard Death Camps, Bloomington/Indianapolis, 1987. There are different interpretations of the derivation (and spelling) of the name. It used to be presumed that the spelling was ‘Reinhard’, and referred to Reinhard Heydrich, which was the understanding of SS men involved in the ‘Action’. This interpretation was countered by the suggestion that the name was actually spelt ‘Reinhardt’ and was taken from the State Secretary in the Reich Finance Ministry, Fritz Reinhardt, hinting at the regime’s interest in the material outcome of the mass murder of around 1.75 million Jews (mainly from Poland). When account was rendered, money and valuables worth around 180 million Reich Marks were placed in the Deutsche Reichsbank for the future use of the SS (Benz, Graml, and Weiß, Enzyklopädie, 354–5). A thorough examination has, however, led to the conclusion that the attribution to Heydrich is after all the more plausible. The lack of clarity is partly a result of both spellings being used by contemporaries. See Hermann Weiß, ‘Offener Brief an Wolfgang Benz wegen Reinhard(t)’, in Hermann Graml, Angelika Königseder, and Juliane Wetzel (eds.), Vorturteil und Rassenhaß. Antisemitismus in den faschistischen Bewegungen Europas, Berlin, 2001, 443–50.

  125. Faschismus, 374–7; Kommandant in Auschwitz, 157–8; Lang, Eichmann–Protokoll, 76–7; Browning, Fateful Months, 24; Breitman, Architect, 203.

  126. Kershaw, ‘Improvised Genocide?’, 63, 65–6.

  127. Faschismus, 278; Kershaw, ‘Improvised Genocide?’, 71, 73; Longerich, 451–2.

  128. BDC, Personalakte Arthur Greiser, Brandt to Koppe, 14 May 1942: ‘Der letzte Entscheid muß ja in dieser Angelegenheit vom Führer gefällt werden.’

  129. BDC, Personalakte Arthur Greiser, Greiser to Himmler, 21 November 1942: ‘Ich für meine Person glaube nicht, daß der Führer in dieser Angelegenheit noch einmal befragt werden muß umso mehr, als er mir bei der letzten Rücksprache erst bezüglich der Juden gesagt hat, ich möchte mit diesen nach eigenem Ermessen verfahren.’

  130. Kershaw, ‘Improvised Genocide?’, 65ft, 70–74.

  131. Hilberg, Destruction, 232; Longerich, Politik, 461–5.

  132. TBJG, II.2, 503 (14 December 1941). See Burrin, 124–5, and Ulrich Herbert, ‘Die deutsche Militärverwaltung in Paris und die Deportation der französischen Juden’, in Herbert, Vernichtungs-politik, 170–208, here 185–93, for the background to the deportation of the French Jews; and Leni Yahil, ‘Some Remarks about Hitler’s Impact on the Nazis’ Jewish Policy’, Yad Vashem Studies, 23 (1993), 281–93, here 288–9, for Hitler’s role in the moves leading to the deportation.

  133. Krausnick/Wilhelm, 566–70 (Jeckeln testimony), quotation 566; Fleming, Hitler und die Endlösung, 87–104; Longerich, Politik, 464.

  134. Gerlach, ‘Wannsee’, 7–44, here 17; Longerich, Politik, 463.

  135. Gerlach, ‘Wannsee’, 12; Fleming, Hitler und die Endlôsung, 88 and n.184, 103–4; Longerich, Politik, 464.

  136. Longerich, Politik, 466.

  137. A point emphasized by Eberhard Jäckel in his hitherto unpublished paper on Heydrich’s role in the genesis of the ‘Final Solution’.

  138. Longerich, Politik, 466.

  139. IMG, xxix, 145, Doc. PS–1919.

  140. Koeppen, 42 (6 October 1941).

  141. Monologe, 99; Koeppen, 60–61 (21 October 1941).

  142. Himmler visited FHO nineteen times – more frequently than any other guest – between July 1941 and January 1942 (Bullock, Hitler and Stalin, 800–801).

  143. Koeppen, 71 (25 October 1941).

  144. Monologe, 106. The translation of the passage in Hitler’s Table Talk, 1941–1944, London, 1953, 87, is not wholly accurate, and includes a phrase – ‘Terror is a salutary thing’ – not found in the German text.

  145. Himmler had spoken on 1 August about driving female Jews into the Pripet marshes. The SS had done this, but the swamps had proved too shallow for drowning (Burrin, 111–12; Browning, Path, 106).

  146. It is difficult to see why Irving, HW, 331, infers from the comments that Hitler did not favour the extermination of the Jews.

  147. Monologe, 130.

  148. Monologe, 130–31; Koeppen, 78 (5 November 1941).

  149. Domarus, 1772–3.

  150. Monologe, 148; Picker, 152.

  151. Kershaw, ‘Improvised Genocide?’, 66 n.71 for the conflicting evidence about the precise date of the commencement of the gassing; and for the extermination at Chelmno, see above all Adalbert Rückerl (ed.), NS–Vernichtungslager im Spiegel deutscher Strafprozesse, Munich, 1977, Part 2.

  152. TBJG, II.2, 498–9 (13 December 1941). Though Hitler’s extreme comments undoubtedly gave further impetus to the gathering momentum of genocide, Gerlach, ‘Wannsee’, 28, in my view goes too far in seeing his speech to the Gauleiter as the announcement of a ‘basic decision’ to murder all the Jews in Europe. See also Kershaw, Nazi Dictatorship, 2000, 126–30.

  153. IMG, xxvii.270, Doc.PS–1517; and see Gerlach, ‘Wannsee’, 24.

  154. DTB Frank, 457–8 (16 December 1941); trans., slightly amended, N & P, iii.1126–7, Doc.848.

  155. IMG, xxxii.435–7, Docs. PS–3663, PS–3666 (quotation, 437).

  156. Dienstkalender, 294. It is extremely unlikely that the entry can be equated in the way Gerlach, ‘Wannsee’, 22 interprets it, with a ‘basic decision’ to extend the extermination from Soviet Jewry to the rest of Europe, seeing European Jews in general as ‘imaginary partisans’. As far as is known, Hitler did not use the term ‘partisan’ in connection with Jews in the Reich or in western Europe. (See Longerich, Politik, 467 and 712 n.234.)

  157. The following is taken from the minutes of the Conference: Longerich, Ermordung, 83–92; trans., N & P, iii.1127–34, Doc.849. See Eichmann’s comments on the minutes during his interrogation in Jerusalem in 1961 in Longerich, Ermordung, 92–4.

  158. See Jeremy Noakes, ‘The Development of Nazi Policy towards the German–Jewish “Mischlinge” 1933–1945’, LBYB, 34 (1989), 291–354, here 341ff.

  159. Longerich, Ermordung, 93.

  160. Longerich, Politik, 470–71.

  161. Longerich, Ermordung, 91.

  162. Longerich, Politik, 514–15.

  163. Dienstkalender, 73.

  164. Domarus, 1829. Hitler had also issued a threat to those seeking through ‘Jewish hatred’ to bring about destruction through the war in his ‘New Year’s Appeal’ (Domarus, 1821). Two weeks later, Hitler spoke to Goebbels of the Jews deserving the catastrophe that was befalling them. ‘With the destruction of our enemies they will also experience their own destruction,’ Goebbels reported Hitler as saying {TBJG, II/3, 320 (15 February 1942)).

  165. MadR, 3235.

  166. Martin Broszat and Norbert Frei (eds.), Das Dritte Reich im überblick. Chronik–Ereignisse–Zusammenhänge, Munich/Zurich, 1989, 270, give the date of 17 March for the beginning of the mass killing in Belzec. The decision to exterminate most of the Jews of the districts of Lublin and Galicia had probably been taken at the beginning of March (Longerich, Politik, 513).

  167. TBJG, II/3, 513 (20 March 1942).

  168. TBJG, II/3, 561 (27 March 1942).

  CHAPTER 11: LAST BIG THROW OF THE DICE

  1. Schroeder, 129.

  2. TBJG, II/3, 501–2 (20 March 1942).

  3. TBJG, II/3, 511 (20 March 1942).

  4. Schroeder, 129–30.

  5. TBJG, II/3, 513 (20 March 1942). The absence of any genuinely personal contact with Hitler was underlined by Gerda Daranowski, one of his secretaries, who nevertheless still thought well of him many years after the war. (Library of Congress, Washington, Adolf Hitler Collection, tape C–63A (interview with John Toland, 26 July 1971).)

  6. Koeppen, Fol. 67 (24 October 1941).

  7. Guderian, 266.


  8. Breloer, 100 (29 January 1942).

  9. Adolf Görtz, Stichwort: Front. Tagebuch eines jungen Deutschen 1938–1942, 2nd edn, Leipzig, 1987, 139.

  10. MadR, ix.3225, 29 January 1942).

  11. Ernest K. Bramsted, Goebbels and National Socialist Propaganda 1925–1945, Michigan, 1965, 222–3; Kershaw, ‘Hitler Myth’, 180–81 and n.40; Robert Edward Herzstein, The War that Hitler Won. The Most Infamous Propaganda Campaign in History, London, 1979, 429, for the success of the film.

  12. For the plainly intended parallels indicated by Goebbels himself, Hitler’s pleasure at the film, and the impact upon him of the characterization of Frederick the Great, see TBJG, II/3, 499, 506 (20 March 1942).

  13. Seidler, chs.3–4.

  14. Seidler, 239; Alan S. Milward, ‘Fritz Todt als Minister für Bewaffnung und Munition’, VfZ, 1966, 46; Alan S. Milward, Die deutsche Kriegswirtschaft 1939–1945, Stuttgart, 1966, 56.

  15. Seidler, 273.

  16. Seidler, 262–3; Mommsen, Volkswagenwerk, 544–5.

  17. Seidler, 352ff.

  18. Overy, War and Economy, 354–5; Seidler, 256.

  19. Overy, War and Economy, ch.11, especially 352ff.; Hans–Ulrich Thamer, Verführung und Gewalt. Deutschland 1933–1945, Berlin, 1986, 716; Ludolf Herbst, Das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933–1945, Frankfurt am Main, 1996, 410.

  20. Seidler, 256–60.

  21. Seidler, 258, 265.

  22. Seidler, 260, 365–6.

  23. Jürgen Thorwald, Die ungeklärten Falle, Stuttgart, 1950, 144–5.

  24. Seidler, 367–9; Max Müller, ‘Der Tod des Reichsministers Dr Fritz Todt’, and Reimer Hansen, ‘Der ungeklärte Fall Todt’, Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 18 (1967), 602–5.

  25. Seidler, 375ft., Thorwald, 133–54. I am grateful to Steven Sage for a summary preview of the research he is undertaking on Fritz Todt. He sees the air-crash as arranged at Hitler’s behest.