Nazi Germany and the Jews, Volume 2: The Years of Extermination

by Saul Friedlander

  By the fall of 1941 the status and fate of mixed-breeds remained as confused as ever. On the eve of the deportations from the Reich, in a conversation with Lammers, Walter Gross, head of the racial policy office of the party, pointed to two major desiderata, from “a purely biological viewpoint”: “1. No reappearance of persons of mixed blood of the second degree—that is, the necessity of sterilizing persons of mixed blood of the first degree where exceptions [having to do with marriage] are necessary for political reasons. 2. The maintenance of some kind of clear distinction between persons of mixed blood of the second degree and Germans, so that a certain stigma could still be attached to the term ‘Mischling.’ Only by clearly keeping persons of mixed blood beyond the pale can racial consciousness be kept alive and the birth of children of mixed blood…be prevented in the future. We must reckon with such births in view of the extensive contacts between peoples and races in the future. Reichsminister Lammers listened attentively to both ideas and declared himself in favor of the sterilization of persons of mixed blood of the first degree, if they were allowed to remain on the territory of the Reich (emphasis added). Furthermore, he himself suggested that a marriage permit be compulsary for persons of mixed blood of the second degree, in order to keep control in every case over their choice of partners. The aim of such a measure would be to prevent, under all circumstances, the marriage of mixed-breeds of the second degree among themselves, because of the danger of transmitting Jewish characteristics in accordance with Mendel’s [heredity] laws. I answered,” Gross added, “that…one should thoroughly examine whether it was more advantageous to spread Jewish traits throughout the entire Volk rather than isolating them among a limited section of the community from which, now and than, persons possessing an accumulation of Jewish characteristics would appear, who in turn could be eradicated in some way.”121 The issue was left pending.

  Finding a solution was becoming urgent, however, first and foremost in view of the deportations, but also in regard to the continuing service of at least some categories of Mischlinge in the Wehrmacht or in regard to their admission to universities. In principle Hitler’s decisions of 1940 regarding Mischlinge serving in the Wehrmacht remained valid, and were actually imposed more rigorously after the end of the French campaign and maintained despite the growing difficulties on the Eastern Front: Half Jews had to be discharged; quarter Jews could stay in the army but were not to be promoted, even to NCO ranks.

  In reality, though, confusion persisted. It seems that in Rommel’s Afrika Korps these rules were entirely disregarded; in the navy their implementation was postponed, whereas in the army and the Luftwaffe, they were applied only if and when the racial identity of the soldier or officer was declared or discovered.122 Hitler usually kept for himself the right to promote quarter Jews to NCO or officer ranks. And, in addition to the existing confusion, the Nazi leader decreed that if a Mischling (even a half Jew) fell on the battlefield, the family should be protected from anti-Jewish measures.123 It seems, in other words, that in 1941 the Wehrmacht was still drafting half Jewish Mischlinge for active service.124

  As could be expected, some Mischlinge were mistreated by commanding officers or fellow soldiers when their identity was uncovered. Many later testified, however, that they encountered humane, even friendly, attitudes from members of their units. Some Mischlinge felt deeply deprived at having to leave the army; others were relieved not to have to serve Hitler any longer. Most of the mixed-breeds found civilian work, at times in highly sensitive positions, such as scientific research in missile construction plants at Peenemünde, among other places.125

  Access to universities remained extremely difficult for Mischlinge of the first degree, although, as we saw, the Reich Ministry of Education accepted candidates with distinguished military credentials. As beforehand, however, the Party Chancellery and the rectors represented the hard line and used every possible argument (including the observation by some of the rectors of negative racial traits of the candidates) to close the doors of the universities to part Jews.126

  Generally, part Jews were spared from deportation, as were the Jewish spouses in mixed marriages with children, although as time went by and defeat appeared more certain, the radicalization and extension of the persecution increased.

  VI

  In the Reich information about massacres perpetrated in the East was first and foremost spread by soldiers who often wrote home quite openly about what they witnessed—and quite approvingly as well. “In Kiev,” Cpl. LB wrote on September 28, “mines explode one after the other. For eight days now the city is on fire and all of it is the Jews’ doing. Therefore all Jews aged 14 to 60 have been shot and the Jewish women will also be shot, otherwise there will be no end to it.”127 On November 2 Pvt. XM described a former synagogue, built in 1664, that was in use up to the war. Now, only the walls remained. “It won’t ever be used in the previous function,” XM added. “I believe that in this country [the Soviet Union] the Jews will soon not be in need of any prayer house. I already described to you why it is so. For these dreadful creatures it remains after all the only right redemption.”128

  An SD report of October 2 from Münster conveyed a conversation between two officials of the mayor’s office about soldiers’ letters recently received from the Russian front. The extraordinary brutality of the fighting stemmed, for example, from “the intentional destruction of all religious and moral feelings by the Jews. The Russians were solely driven by their blind fear of the Jewish commissars. The Russian defends himself and bites like an animal. This is what Jewry has done to the Aryan peoples of Russia…. Already in peacetime, a substantial part of the Russian soldier hordes were purely Mongols. The Jews have mobilized Asia against Europe.”129 The letters these officials received in Münster must have represented a random opinion sample of the Ostheer.

  The information about the gigantic exterminations of Jews in the East was of course not conveyed only by soldiers’ letters. As early as in July 1941, Swiss diplomatic and consular representatives in the Reich and in satellite countries were filling detailed reports about the mass atrocities; all their information stemmed from German or related sources.130 Senior and even midlevel officials in various German ministries had access to the communications of the Einsatzgruppen and to their computations of the staggering number of Jews they had murdered. Such information was mentioned in internal Foreign Ministry correspondence in October 1941 and not even ranked top secret.131

  In a letter addressed to his wife, Freya, Helmuth von Moltke displayed a clear understanding of what was going on: “The news from the East is terrible again. Our losses are obviously very, very heavy. But that could be borne if we were not burdened with a hecatombe of corpses. Again and again one hears reports that in transports of prisoners or Jews only 20 percent arrive…What will happen when the nation as a whole realizes that this war is lost, and lost differently from the last one? With a blood guilt that cannot be atoned for in our lifetime and can never be forgotten.”132 These lines were written at the end of August 1941.

  Later that year, in October and November, Moltke commented on the deportations: “Since Saturday,” he wrote to Freya on October 21, “the Berlin Jews are being rounded up. They are picked up at 9:15 in the evening and locked into a synagogue overnight. Then they are sent off, with what they can carry to Litzmannstadt and Smolensk. We are to be spared the sight of them being simply left to perish in hunger and cold, and that is why it is done in Litzmannstadt and Smolensk.”133 And, on November 13: “I find it hard to remember these two days. Russian prisoners, evacuated Jews, evacuated Jews, Russian prisoners…. That was the world of these two days. Yesterday, I said goodbye to a once famous Jewish lawyer who has the Iron Cross First and Second Class, the Order of the House of Hohenzollern, the Golden Badge for the Wounded, and who will kill himself with his wife today because he is to be picked up tonight.”134

  Regarding the killings in occupied Soviet territories, Hassell received much of his information from Gen.
Georg Thomas, chief of the Economic and Armaments Division of the Wehrmacht (who played a strange role as enforcer of looting in the occupied Soviet territories on the one hand, and source of information for the opposition to the regime on the other). “Conversations with Frida [Dohnanyi], among others and particularly a report from Auerley [Thomas], who again arrived from the front,” Hassell recorded on October 4, “confirm the continuation of the most disgusting atrocities mainly against the Jews who are executed row after row without the least shame…. A headquarters commanding medical officer…reported that he tested Russian dum-dum bullets in the execution of Jews and achieved such and such results; he was ready to go on and write a report that could be used in [anti-Soviet] propaganda about this ammunition!”135

  German populations were also quite well informed about the goings-on in the concentration camps, even the most deadly ones. Thus, people living in the vicinity of Mauthausen, for example, could watch what was happening in the camp. On September 27, 1941, Eleanore Gusenbauer sent a letter of complaint to the Mauthausen police station: “In the concentration camp Mauthausen at the work site in Vienna Ditch inmates are being shot repeatedly; those badly struck live for yet some time, and so remain lying next to the dead for hours or even half a day long. My property lies upon an elevation next to the Vienna Ditch, and one is often an unwilling witness to such outrages. I am anyway sickly and such a sight makes a demand on my nerves that in the long run I cannot bear. I request that it be arranged that such inhuman deeds be discontinued, or else done where one does not see it.”136

  As for the fate of Jewish deportees from the Reich, some information seeped back from the very outset. Thus, on December 12, 1941, the SD reported comments from the inhabitants of Minden, near Bielefeld in Westphalia, on the fate of the Jews from their own town, deported to the East a few days beforehand. “Until Warsaw,” people were saying, “the deportation takes place in passenger trains. From there on, in cattle cars…. In Russia, the Jews were to be put to work in former Soviet factories, while older Jews, or those who were ill, were to be shot.”137

  The killers themselves were not shy about describing their deeds, even regarding mass executions in the supposedly secret operation 14f13. During the last months of 1941, Dr. Friedrich Mennecke, one of the SS physicians directly involved in the operation, left a few notorious letters to his wife—and to posterity. On November 19, 1941, he reported to his “dearest Mummy” from the Ravensbrück women’s concentration camp that on that day he had filled out ninety-five forms [of inmates to be murdered], that after completing the task he had supper (“3 sorts of sausages, butter, bread, beer”), that he slept “marvelously” in his bed and felt “perfect.”138 Seven days later he wrote from Buchenwald: The first “portion” of victims was Aryan. “A second portion of some 1200 Jews followed, who need not be ‘examined,’ but for whom it suffices to take the incarceration reasons (often considerable!) from the file and transfer them to the form. Thus it is a purely theoretical task.”139 A few days later the Jews were transported to Bernburg and gassed.

  The German population’s reactions to the deportations and the fate of the Jews sent from the Reich to the East, remained diverse as already mentioned. While some of the inhabitants of Minden, for example, welcomed the deportations,140 others expressed their compassion (“the Jews are also God’s creatures”).141 Yet others simply remained hostile to the Jews, whatever may have been happening to them. Thus, in the same area, many housewives were infuriated by a change in the hours allocated to Jews for their food purchase. The change either compelled German housewives to shop at an inconvenient time or to do so together with Jews.142

  Knowledge about the exterminations also spread to German academics in the East and created panic among some “field researchers.” Take the dire straits in which the Viennese Dr. Elfriede Fliethmann from the Race and Folklore (Volkstumskunde) section of the Krakow Institute for Research on the East found herself in October 1941: “We do not know what measures are being planned for the evacuation of the Jewish population in the next few months,” Fliethmann wrote on October 22 to her close friend and colleague in the Anthropology Department of the University of Vienna, Dr. Dora Maria Kahlich. “It could possibly happen that if we wait too long, valuable material could escape us; mainly our material could be torn out of its family background and of its habitual environment, whereby the shots would have to be taken under difficult conditions and the very possibilities for photographing would have considerably changed.”143

  Fliethmann and Kahlich were soon on their way to Tarnów in Galicia to take pictures and measurements of various Jewish family members, “so that we could save at least something of the material, in case measures were to be taken.”144 As the “objects” resisted, the snapshots and measurements had to be taken with the “kind” help of the Security Police. Tarnów Orthodox families with many children were the main material; they were considered as “typical representatives of the original Galician Jewry.”145 Both researchers forged energetically ahead as their correspondence of the following weeks showed: They did not hide their enthusiasm about the racial-anthropological “wonders” which they were discovering. Thus Kahlich, who, back in Vienna, was interpreting the material informed Fliethmann of the first results but with all the scientific caution necessary: “I must immediately set something right. I only established that the Jews of Tarnów can be included in the Near eastern-oriental racial mixture, which does not mean that they will not also show some other racial trace.”146

  The importance of Fliethmann’s and Kahlich’s research led to further inquiries at the SD in Lemberg: Couldn’t the Tarnów Jewish community be left in place somewhat longer?147 We can only surmise what the answer from Lemberg may have been. Nonetheless the preliminary results of Fliethmann’s endeavor were not lost. They can still be found in the “Preliminary Report about the Anthropological Photographs of Jewish Families in Tarnów” published in volume 2 of Deutsche Forschung im Osten in 1942.148

  And, at the very time when the Kahlichs and the Fliethmanns of German academe were increasingly worried about the disappearance of their “material,” at the end of 1941 and in January 1942, historian Schieder—whose advice on the handling of Poland’s Jews we already encountered in October 1939—was writing a “confidential” survey about ethnic relations in the newly annexed Bial/ystok region. Contrary to the two female anthropologists, the eager historian from Königsberg prided himself on an “extraordinarily good” collaboration with the authorities. Schieder strongly encouraged the same authorities to pursue their policies in regard to the Jewish inhabitants of Bial/ystok; the ghettoization had put an end to the economic primacy acquired by the Jews under the czars and reestablished by other means during the 1939–41 Soviet occupation period when “the Bolshevik organization of the Jewish-Russian bureaucracy soon controlled the entire economic life of the Bialystok district.” Schieder uncovered the roots of this Jewish ability to dominate its economic environment in pre-1917 Russian history: Jewish assimilation to Russian society was sheer “whitewash” (Tünche) that, in his eyes, “did not deter these Jews from tenaciously keeping the racial characteristics which had allowed them in the past to occupy all key economic positions.” Now, however, “Anti-Semitism was becoming understandable to the Belorussians from their everyday experience.”149

  VII

  The two most extreme measures taken against the Jews of the Reich from mid-September 1941 on, the introduction of the star and the beginning of the deportations, confronted the German churches with challenges they could no longer disregard. Even more immediately than other segments of German society, the Christian churches had to take a stand, as at least some of the victims were converted Jews.

  On September 17, two days before the enforcement of the star decree, Cardinal Theodor Innitzer of Vienna sent out a pastoral letter commending respect and love toward the Catholic Jews; on September 18, the cardinal’s message was withdrawn and replaced by a short text from which any mention of lo
ve and respect had disappeared; it merely allowed non-Aryan Christians to continue to participate in church life as previously.150

  Also on September 17, Breslau’s Cardinal Bertram set the guidelines for the Church in the Reich. He reminded the Bishops of the equal standing of all Catholics, Aryans or non-Aryans, and demanded that discriminatory measures in church services be avoided “as long as possible.” But, if asked by (non-Aryan) Catholics, priests should recommend “attendance of early morning services.” If disturbances were to occur, then—and only then—a statement reminding the faithful that the church did not recognize any differences among its members, whatever their background, should be read, but separate church attendance should also be considered.151 A month later, however, Bertram wrote to Munich’s Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber that the church had more urgent issues to deal with than the problem of the converted Jews.152 As for the Jews as such, they were not even mentioned.

  For some Catholic institutions, keeping converts was too much of a burden. In her memoirs Cordelia Edvardson, at the time a young Jewish convert to whose story we shall return, describes a telling episode. Shortly after the introduction of the star, the headmistress of the Berlin branch of the Catholic Girls Association to which Cordelia belonged informed her that “if it became known that one kept members who wore the Jewish star, the authorities would disband the association; it would be better therefore if the girl did not come to their meetings anymore.” And, unaware of the irony, the director added: “You know our slogan: one for all and all for one.”153

  Among Protestants stark differences of course appeared between the Confessing congregations and the “German Christians.” Some members of the Confessing Church demonstrated outright courage. Thus, in September 1941, Katerine Staritz, a church official in Breslau, published a circular letter in support of the star bearers, calling on her congregation to show an especially welcoming attitude toward them.154 The SD reported on the circular;155 the Schwarze Korps commented on it, and officials of the church dismissed Staritz from her position as “city curate.” A few months later she was shipped to Ravensbrück for a year. Upon her return she was not allowed to perform any significant duties in the church and had to report twice a week to the Gestapo.156