German regulations, 76 whether they applied to handing over money and goods or organizing gangs of forced labourers. The Jewish councils, which were usually set
up by the German authorities, were also responsible in particular for providing
accommodation and nourishment for the Jewish population and they organized
cultural and educational activities within the ghettos. 77 The Jewish councils had their own ‘police force’ with which to assert their authority.
The situation of the Polish Jews was characterized by the systematic under-
provision of goods necessary for survival78 and the permanent terror to which the German occupiers subjected them: mistreatment, raids, organized shootings by
the gendarmerie, the Gestapo and the SS were commonplace, but so were attacks
by members of the German civilian administration and the army. A regime of
terror was the norm in the forced labour camps and the death rates were high. 79
Anti-Jewish policies were accompanied by parallel campaigns of systematic anti-
Semitic propaganda. 80
German Judenpolitik from Spring 1940 to mid-1941:
Comprehensive Resettlement Plans
The Madagascar Plan
In the early summer of 1940 plans for a ‘final solution’ to the ‘Jewish question’ via
mass deportations were once more making headway within the National Socialist
government. Now, after the victory in the West, the French colony of Madagascar
began to look like a suitable target destination. 81
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The Persecution of the Jews, 1939–1941
The idea that it would be possible to ‘export’ large numbers of European
Jews to Madagascar of all places had enjoyed a certain resonance in the anti-
Semitic circles of various European countries since the end of the nineteenth
century. Such ‘Madagascar Projects’ were combined with various other ambi-
tions and were vigorously revived after 1937/8 not only by leading National
Socialist functionaries, 82 but by politicians of other countries, too, and by the speculations of the international press. 83 On the German side these utopian, impracticable notions were to some extent turned into concrete plans in early
summer 1940.
An important stimulus evidently derived from Himmler, who presented a
memorandum to Hitler on 25 May 1940 in which he set out his intention of
‘seeing the concept “Jew” . . . completely extinguished by the possibility of a huge
emigration of all the Jews to Africa or one of the colonies’. 84 Interestingly, in this memorandum the Reichsführer SS had mentioned a radical alternative to his
resettlement plans, namely the ‘Bolshevist method of the physical extermination
of a people’, but for reasons of personal conviction he had rejected this as
‘un-Germanic and impossible’.
After Hitler had approved the basic principle underlying this memoran-
dum, 85 the idea of a ‘colonial’ solution was taken up by the Foreign Ministry, too. On 3 June Franz Rademacher, who had just been named Director of
the new ‘Department of Jewish Affairs’, presented a memorandum to the
Director of the Department for German Affairs, Hans Luther, in which he
asked for ‘a fundamental definition of German war aims in the matter of
the Jewish question by the Reich Foreign Minister’. Rademacher saw three
possibilities:
(a) ‘all Jews out of Europe’;
(b) a ‘separation of Eastern and Western Jews’, the Eastern Jews, who
were considered to be ‘the future Jewish intelligentsia, potent and well
grounded in the Talmud’, would remain ‘in German hands (Lublin?)
as a bargaining counter (Faustpfand)’ in order to ‘paralyse the
American Jews’, whilst the Western Jews would be deported ‘out of
Europe’, possibly to Madagascar;
(c) a ‘Jewish national homeland in Palestine’ (where Rademacher
immediately committed his doubts to paper with the note ‘danger of a
second Rome!’). 86
Within a short time Rademacher was given the task of writing a first draft of a
comprehensive deportation plan, 87 and began his work at a point where the Madagascar Project enjoyed a high level of support among the National Socialist
leadership: Hitler and Ribbentrop explained the plan to Mussolini and Ciano on
17 and 18 June; 88 Hitler mentioned it on 20 June to the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Erich Raeder; 89 at the beginning of July Frank informed his colleagues of Deportations
163
the Madagascar Plan; 90 at the beginning of August Hitler mentioned the plan to drive all the Jews out of Europe to the German ambassador in Paris, Otto
Abetz;91and in mid-August he spoke of it to Goebbels. 92 Even representatives of the Jewish communities were semi-officially informed about the Madagascar Plan,
including those from the Reich Association, who were told at the end of July 1940,
and the Chair of the Warsaw Jewish Council, Adam Czerniakow, who learned of it
on 1 July. 93
By 24 June Heydrich had already intervened in the Foreign Ministry’s
preparations for the Madagascar Project via a letter to Ribbentrop. 94 The problem of the millions of Jews under German rule (to which Heydrich
assigned the figure 3¼ million) could no longer be solved by emigration:
‘therefore a territorial final solution is necessary’. Heydrich asked ‘to take
part . . . in the discussions that are envisaged on the final solution to the Jewish
question’.
A few days later, on 3 July, Rademacher presented a draft for the Madagascar
project. 95 His deft formula, ‘all Jews out of Europe’, showed unambiguously what kind of territorial solution was being sought at this point. He imagined that France
would ‘place Madagascar at [Germany’s] disposal for the solution of the Jewish
question’, as a mandate: ‘the part of the island that has no military importance
would be placed under the administration of a German police governor who
would report to the office of the Reichsführer SS. The Jews will be able to run their
own administration in this territory . . . ’ Rademacher’s goal was to ensure that the
Jews remained ‘a bargaining counter in German hands to guarantee the future
good behaviour of their racial associates in America’; the Madagascar Project,
then, was to function as a form of ‘hostage taking’, as the ‘Jewish reservation’ in
Poland had been intended to.
Another document by Rademacher, dated 2 July (‘Plan for a Solution to the
Jewish Question’96) contains further information about his intentions. ‘From a German perspective, the Madagascar solution means the creation of a huge
ghetto. Only the security police have the necessary experience in this field; they
have the means to prevent a break-out from the island. In addition, they have
experience of carrying out in an appropriate manner such punishment measures
as become necessary as a result of hostile actions against Germany by Jews in
the USA.’
Whilst Rademacher was obtaining expert opinion on the feasibility of his
project, 97 and whilst the Reich Office for Area Planning (Reichsstelle für Raumordnung) was confirming to Goering (who was thereby also involved in
the ‘planning for the final solution’) the existence of sufficient ‘settlement possi-
bilities’ on the island, 98 the Reich Security Head Office was putting together its own version of the Madagascar Plan, which was ready in booklet form by 15
August.
99 It contained the suggestion that a ‘police state’ be set up for the four million Jews who would be on the island at that point under German rule. The
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The Persecution of the Jews, 1939–1941
RSHA estimated that a period of four years would be necessary to transport these
people to Madagascar by ship.
In a later note, dated 30 August, Rademacher explicitly supported a sugges-
tion that had in the meantime been made by Victor Brack, 100 who was based in the Chancellery of the Führer of the NSDAP and responsible for overseeing the
‘euthanasia’ programme. Brack proposed ‘using the wartime transport systems
that he had developed for the Führer for the transport of Jews to Madagascar at
a later date’. The mention of Brack and the fact that another key figure
responsible for the ‘euthanasia programme’, the Director of the Chancellery of
the Führer, Philipp Bouhler, was being considered for the role of Governor in
Madagascar, taken together cast the Madagascar Project in a very dark light
indeed. Furthermore, Rademacher’s document shows that the estimate of the
number of Jews that were to be settled on Madagascar had by then reached 6½
million, which suggests that the Jews from the south-east European states
and the northern French colonies were now being included in the plans for
deportation.
Fantastic though the Madagascar Plan now seems, it cannot simply be
dismissed as merely distraction tactics for a Judenpolitik that had reached a
dead-end. 101 It is precisely the lack of feasibility in this plan that points up the cynical, calculating nature of German Judenpolitik: the idea that millions of
European Jews would be deported to Madagascar for years and years, and the
fact that—without even considering the ‘punishment measures’ that Radema-
cher envisaged—a large proportion of the transported Jews would presumably
die there relatively quickly as victims of the hostile living conditions they would
meet, all this makes it perfectly clear that behind this project lay the intention of
bringing about the physical annihilation of the Jews under German rule. How-
ever, this was an intention that appropriate ‘good behaviour’ on the part of
the United States might cause to be revised. From the point of view of the RSHA
the Madagascar Project was a means of perpetuating the plans for a ‘Jewish
reservation’ in the General Government that were at that time unrealizable,
and of extending them to the Jews of Western Europe. When the Madagascar
Plan had to be suspended in the autumn of 1940 because of the failure to make
peace with Great Britain the preparations for Barbarossa immediately opened
up a new perspective for a ‘territorial solution’ of the ‘Jewish question’. For a
period of a few months, then, ‘Madagascar’ stood for ‘anywhere’ that might
permit the execution of a ‘final solution’, or in other words for the option of
initiating a slow and painful end for the Jews of Europe in conditions inimical
to life.
Inspired by the intention to annihilate the Jews under German rule, Hitler was
to keep coming back to the Madagascar Project time and again until 1942, by
which time the idea of ‘anywhere’ had been replaced by that of ‘nowhere’. 102 In the Foreign Ministry the plan was officially shelved in February 1942. 103
Deportations
165
Judenpolitik between the Madagascar
Plan and ‘Barbarossa’
The German Regime and the Polish Jews
The progress of the war and the overall plans of the National Socialist regime for
the fate of the Jews under German rule had direct consequences for Judenpolitik in
the General Government.
The halt put to deportations of Jews into the General Government in March
1940 was initially seen as a provisional measure. 104 However, in the summer of 1940, after the victory in France, the aim of establishing a ‘Jewish reservation’ in
Poland was definitively abandoned. On 8 July, Frank informed his colleagues a few
days later, 105 Hitler had assured him that no further deportations into the General Government would take place, in view of the Madagascar Project. On 9 July
Himmler made the definitive end to deportations into Frank’s area known
internally. 106
Besides putting an end to the deportations, the war in the West had other
consequences for the German occupation of Poland. From September 1939 to
April 1940 the occupying power in Poland had carried out mass executions of
people who had been held in the context of the so-called ‘intelligentsia campaign’
or the waves of regional arrests; 107 now, after May 1940, such executions were to be continued on a much greater scale as part of the so-called ‘AB campaign’ (where
AB stands for Außerordentliche Befriedungsaktion or ‘extraordinary pacification
campaign’). As Frank explained to representatives of the police at the end of May,
the beginning of the war in the West had presented them with a chance ‘of
finishing off the mass of seditious resistance politicians and other politically
suspect individuals in our area and at the same time of eliminating the inheritance
of earlier Polish criminality’. Frank stated quite explicitly that this campaign
would ‘cost a few thousand Polish lives, above all those from the leading intellec-
tual cadres of Poland’ and in this context he cited Hitler when he said, ‘the
elements of the Polish leadership that we have now identified are to be liquid-
ated’. 108 This is in fact what happened: during the ‘AB campaign’ some 3,500
members of the intelligentsia and political functionaries, as well as about 3,000
people who had been designated criminals were killed. This policy of the system-
atic mass murder of the Polish elites was itself bound to have a radicalizing effect
on the persecution of the Jews.
After the Department for the Internal Administration of the General Governor
had in August 1940 already confirmed the necessity of establishing ghettos that
were, however, not to be hermetically sealed, 109 the construction of new ghettos in the General Government evidently gained further impetus in autumn 1940. In
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The Persecution of the Jews, 1939–1941
Warsaw110 and other cities further closed Jewish quarters were set up111 after the legal basis for such action had been established in September when the Order
concerning Domicile Restrictions was issued. 112 However, the formation of ghettos did not follow a unified plan; local authorities’ need to gain control was the
decisive factor, rather than the failure of the Madagascar Plan. The establishment
of ghettos or the designation of certain quarters or areas of a city as Jewish
represent only one of the measures that the occupying administration used to
deal with the astonishing lack of living accommodation for the Jewish population.
Since the occupying power usually tackled its need for space at the expense of the
Jews—and moreover undertook several ‘deportations’ (Aussiedlungen) to the
‘capital’ of the General Government, Cracow, for example, or to recreational
resorts—it found itself repeatedly forced to intervene in Jewish living arrange-
ments in a regulatory fashion. This trend increased after spring 1941 when more
space was needed to accommodate the eastern army marching
into Poland. 113 The original aim for ‘concentrating’ Jews in larger cities was often not achieved,
however; on the contrary, Jews were deported from such places and divided
between the surrounding smaller towns. 114
In the rationing scheme for foodstuffs Jews were in the lowest of ten consumer
groups. These rations, which often only existed on paper, were already set at such
a low level that they did not permit survival. 115 In order to survive the Jewish population was dependent on smuggling and the black market; the danger of the
‘Jewish black market’ was a further reason for the occupation administration to
intensify their control over the Jewish population and step up their persecution of
the Jews.
Until autumn 1941 the authorities generally continued to count on the Jews
soon being removed, which is why most anti-Jewish measures were essentially
provisional. The situation of the Jews did not worsen as the result of a carefully
planned set of policies on the part of the Germans but because of the cumulative
effect of inadequate support measures and a regime fundamentally uninterested in
their fate. Even the establishment of ghettos was carried out so haphazardly and
slowly that it would be wrong to see it as a systematic policy ultimately aimed at
the physical annihilation of the Jews. It is quite clear that there was no uniform
and unified policy towards the inhabitants of the ghettos. Using the examples of
the Lodz and Warsaw ghettos, the historian Christopher Browning has shown
that there were two contrasting positions represented simultaneously within the
German departments responsible: according to one view, the population of the
ghettos should be left to starve, whilst according to the other, opportunities for
employment had to be created in order to give the Jews the possibility of sustain-
ing themselves—although in this case the motive was less humanitarian than
connected with the fear of disease. 116 In both ghettos the ‘productive’ line of argument prevailed over the argument for starving the Jews to death. However,
it is significant that in the course of this discussion the possibility of gradually
Deportations
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