Heydrich opened the meeting by reminding the participants of the task Göring had delegated to him in July 1941 and of the ultimate authority of the SS Reichsführer in this matter. The RSHA chief then presented a brief historical survey of the measures already taken to segregate the Jews of the Reich and force them to emigrate. After further emigration had been forbidden in October 1941, given the danger it represented during wartime, Heydrich went on, another solution had been authorized by the Führer: the evacuation of the Jews of Europe to the East. Some 11 million persons would be included, and Heydrich listed this Jewish population, country by country, including all Jews living in the enemy and neutral countries of Europe (Great Britain, the Soviet Union, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, and Sweden).
The evacuated Jews would be assigned to heavy forced labor (like the building of roads) which naturally would greatly reduce their numbers. The remnants, “the strongest elements of the race and the nucleus of its revival,” would have to be “treated accordingly.” To implement the operation Europe would be “combed from West to East,” whereby the Reich would be given priority “because of the housing problem and other sociopolitical considerations.” Jews over sixty-five, war invalids, or Jews decorated with the Iron Cross would be evacuated to the newly established “old people’s ghetto,” Theresienstadt: “This adequate solution would put an end in one stroke to the many interventions.” The beginning of major evacuations would greatly depend on the evolution of the military situation.
The statement regarding the latter was strange and has to be understood in relation to the formula “evacuation to the East,” used from then on to mean extermination. To maintain the linguistic fiction, a general comment about the war was necessary given the impossibility of actual deportations “to the East” in January 1942.
In regard to the extension of the “Final Solution” to occupied or satellite countries, the Foreign Ministry, in cooperation with the representatives of the Security Police and the SD, would negotiate with the appropriate local authorities. Heydrich did not foresee any difficulties in Slovakia or Croatia, where preparations had already begun; an adviser on Jewish affairs needed to be sent to Hungary; as for Italy the RSHA chief deemed it necessary to get in touch with the head of the Italian police. Regarding France, Heydrich, in his initial listing, had mentioned 700,000 Jews from the Vichy zone, which probably meant the inclusion of the Jews of French North Africa. Heydrich expected considerable problems in getting hold of this Jewish population. Undersecretary Martin Luther, the Foreign Ministry delegate, set him straight: No problems were foreseen in Vichy France. On the other hand Luther pointed out (quite correctly) that difficulties would be encountered in the Nordic states; thus, given the small number of Jews involved, the deportations there should be left for a later phase. No potential reaction of any of the Christian churches or of public opinion in general (except, as we shall see, in the neighborhood of the camps) was mentioned.
Up to that point Heydrich’s survey presented both an overly detailed statement on one issue and an obvious gap regarding another. The country-by-country listing of the Jews who would be targeted in the “Final Solution,” including the Jews of Great Britain, the Soviet Union, Switzerland, and so on, was of course unnecessary in itself; yet the enumeration had a purpose, nonetheless: It conveyed that every Jew in Europe, wherever that Jew might be living, would eventually be caught. None would escape or be allowed to survive. Moreover, all Jews, everywhere, even in countries or areas still outside Germany’s reach, were and would be subjected to Himmler and Heydrich’s authority.
As for the gap, it was ominous and clear: Able-bodied Jews would be assigned to heavy forced labor and thus decimated; decorated war veterans, invalids, and elderly Jews (from Germany and possibly some Western or Scandinavian countries) would be deported to the “old people’s ghetto” in Theresienstadt (where they would die off). But what of all the others, the unmentioned vast majority of European Jewry? Heydrich’s silence about their fate stated loudly that these nonworking Jews would be exterminated. The discussion that followed the RSHA chief ’s address clearly showed that he was well understood.
Heydrich then moved to the issue of mixed breeds and mixed marriages.33 He systematically attempted to include some groups of Mischlinge and some of the partners in mixed marriages in the deportations, in line with the steady endeavors of party radicals since 1933 to extend the reach of the anti-Jewish measures. In 1935, during the discussions that immediately preceded and followed the proclamation of the Nuremberg laws, the aim of party radicals had been to identify Mischlinge with full Jews as widely as possible; in January 1942 Heydrich’s aim was the same; also, the larger the array of victims, the greater his own power would be.
During the discussion that followed, State Secretary Stuckart of the Ministry of the Interior warned of the considerable amount of bureaucratic work that the Mischlinge and mixed marriage issues would create, and strongly recommended the generalized sterilization of mixed breeds of the first degree as an alternative policy. Moreover, Stuckart favored the possibility of annulling mixed marriages by law. State Secretary Erich Neumann of the Four-Year Plan did not wish Jews working in essential war industries to be included in the evacuations; Heydrich answered that currently this was not the case.
State Secretary Bühler pleaded for starting the evacuations in the General Government where transport was a minor issue, the Jews were mostly not part of the workforce and where, moreover, they were a source of epidemics and of economic instability as black marketeers: The 2.5 million Jews of the General Government should be the first to go. Bühler’s request demonstrates that he perfectly understood what Heydrich had omitted to spell out: The nonworking Jews were to be exterminated in the first phase of the overall plan. Thereupon Frank’s delegate felt the need to add a “loyalty declaration”: The executive authority for the solution of the Jewish question in the General Government was in the hands of the chief of the Security Police and the SD; he was getting full support from all General Government authorities. Bühler demanded once again that in Frank’s kingdom the Jewish question be solved as rapidly as possible.
In the final part of the discussion both Meyer and Bühler stressed that despite the need for preparatory measures in the designated territories, unrest among the local population had to be carefully avoided. The conference ended with Heydrich’s renewed appeal to all the participants to extend the necessary help for implementing the solution.34 Whether during the discussion of the “practicalities” Heydrich volunteered information about Chelmno or about Globocnik’s construction of the first extermination camp in the General Government is not known.
Heydrich’s reference to the decimation of the Jews by way of forced labor, particularly in road building in the East, has for years been regarded as code language designating mass murder. It is likely, however, that at this stage (and of course only in regard to Jews capable of working) the RSHA chief meant what he said: Able-bodied Jews would first be exploited as slave labor given the escalating manpower needs of the German war economy. “Road building” was probably an example of slave labor in general; it may also have been a reference to the building of Durchgangstrasse IV, in which, as we saw, Jewish slave laborers were already used en masse and where they also perished en masse.39 Moreover, either at the end of 1941 or in early January 1942, Hitler ordered the use of Jewish slave labor for the building of roads in the northern part of the occupied Soviet Union.40 This interpretation seems (very indirectly) confirmed by Heydrich’s comments on February 2, 1942, to an assembly of German officials and party representatives in the Protectorate: “We could perhaps [use] those Czechs who cannot yet be Germanized when we further open up the area of the Arctic Sea (Eismer), where we will take over the concentration camps of the Russians, which according to our present knowledge hold some 15–20 million deported inmates and which could become the ideal homeland for the 11 million European Jews. Perhaps there the Czechs who cannot be Germanized—and that would be a pos
itive contribution—could fulfill pro-German tasks as supervisors, foremen, etc.”37 In any case, as Heydrich made amply clear at Wannsee, none of the working Jews would eventually survive.
Did the RSHA chief ensure at the January 20 conference, the exclusive authority of the SS in the implementation of the “Final Solution”? Regarding mixed-breeds and mixed marriages, the Ministry of the Interior and, later, the Ministry of Justice, would continue to push ideas of their own. As a rule however, these ideas applied to a limited number of persons living in the Reich, not to the millions included in the continent-wide scope of the “Final Solution.” In general terms, even if discussions about the fate of mixed-breeds and mixed marriages went on, there is no doubt that, at Wannsee, Himmler’s and Heydrich’s overall authority in the implementation of the “Final Solution” throughout Europe was generally recognized. On the morrow of the conference, Heydrich reported to his chief.38
On January 25, 1942, Himmler informed the inspector of concentration camps, Richard Glücks, that “as no more Russian prisoners of war are expected in the near future,” he would send to the camps “a large number of Jews and Jewesses from Germany (…Make the necessary arrangements for the reception of 100,000 male Jews and up to 50,000 Jewesses into the concentration camps during the next four weeks…).”39 Nothing came of this immediate deportation order. In fact, Himmler’s message to Glücks appears to have been an improvised step, an immediate follow-up to the Wannsee conference. The Reichsführer probably wanted to show that he was firmly in charge and ready to order the next concrete measures. In concrete terms, Himmler’s teletype demonstrated—as did the Wannsee conference as such—that apart from ensuring the cooperation and subordination of all concerned to the SS chief and his delegates, very little had been prepared regarding the continent-wide deportation of the Jews, and very little had been planned ahead of time.
On January 31, Eichmann informed the main Gestapo offices throughout Germany that “the evacuations of Jews that took place recently from several areas of the Reich to the East represented the beginning of the ‘Final Solution’ of the Jewish Question in the Old Reich, in Austria, and in the Protectorate.” Yet, Eichmann stressed, “the evacuation measures were initially restricted to especially urgent plans…. New reception sites are presently being arranged with the aim of deporting additional contingents of Jews. Clearly, these preparations would take some time.”40
The fate of mixed-breeds and mixed marriages was discussed again at a meeting that took place on March 6, 1942, in Berlin, at the RSHA headquarters; it was later dubbed “the second ‘Final Solution’ conference.” The meeting was attended by representatives of a large number of agencies; it did not lead to any definitive agreement. Following suggestions made by Stuckart in a circular of February 16, sterilization of mixed-breeds of the first degree and compulsory dissolution of mixed marriages after the Aryan spouse had been given sufficient time to opt freely for divorce were decided, in principle.41 Yet barely were these measures agreed on that they were called into question by the acting minister of justice (since Franz Gürtner’s death in January 1941), Franz Schlegelberger.42 Schlegelberger’s proposals were no more conclusive than Stuckart’s guidelines. In fact both issues were never fully resolved. On the one hand, various exemptions were granted by Hitler himself, whereas on the other, some chance remarks by the Nazi leader about Jewish traits among second-, third-, and fourth-degree Mischlinge led to further exclusions from the Wehrmacht and to even harsher treatment of the mixed-breeds in general. A third conference, convened by the RSHA on October 27, 1942, did not proceed much beyond the March 6 proposals.43 Ultimately, most mixed-breeds were not deported.
On the same March 6, and in the same building of the RSHA, Eichmann convened a meeting of Gestapo delegates from all over the Reich to discuss the further deportation of 55,000 Jews from Germany and the Protectorate. This time the majority of deportees would come from Prague (20,000), from Vienna (18,000), and the remainder from various German cities. It was imperative, Eichmann stressed, that local Gestapo authorities be extremely attentive not to include elderly deportees to avoid a recurrence of previous complaints. A special camp was being established for this category of Jews in Theresienstadt, “in order to save face in regard to the outside world” (Um nach aussen das Gesicht zu währen). Moreover, Eichmann admonished, the Jews should not be informed of the deportations ahead of time. The local Gestapo office would be informed of the departure date only six days in advance, possibly to limit the spreading of rumors and any attempts by Jews to avoid deportation.
After instructing his acolytes how to keep the deportees’ assets for the RSHA as far as possible, despite the Eleventh Ordinance (which transferred their assets to the state), Eichmann dwelled on the transportation difficulties: The only available trains were Russenzüge, which brought workers from the East and returned empty. These trains were set for 700 Russians, but should be filled with 1,000 Jews each.44
III
Aside from the evolution of the war and of its overall impact, the major factors influencing the course of the “Final Solution” from early 1942 on, were the need for Jewish slave labor in an increasingly overextended war economy on the one hand, and the “security risk” the same Jews represented in Nazi eyes on the other. These issues applied only to a small minority of the Jewish population of Europe but regarding this minority, policies would change several times.
The reorganization and “rationalization” of the German economy (and that of the occupied countries) from a Blitzkrieg economy to an effort adapted to a total and prolonged war became an urgent necessity in view of the global strategic changes during the winter of 1941–42. In February 1942, following the death of Fritz Todt, Hitler appointed Albert Speer as overlord of armaments production, despite Göring’s ambitions in this domain. And on March 31, Hitler named the Gauleiter of Thuringia, Fritz Sauckel, as general plenipotentiary for labor (Generalbevollmächtigter für den Arbeitseinsatz, or GBA). The ruthless deportation to the Reich of millions of forced laborers from all over Europe began (2.7 million by the end of 1942, 8 million by the end of the war).45
The new “rationalization process” also led to changes within the SS system. During the same month of February 1942, the “SS Main Office for Administration and Economy” and the “Main Office for Budget and Construction,” both led by Pohl, were unified and became, under Pohl’s command throughout, the “SS Main Office for Economic Administration” (SS Wirtschaftsverwaltungs-Hauptamt, WVHA). A month later, the WVHA took over the Inspectorate of the Concentration Camps: Section D of Pohl’s Main Office, under Richard Glücks, now administered the entire concentration camp system. However, the “Aktion Reinhardt” camps (Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Majdanek at a later stage) remained Globocnik’s domain, and Globocnik himself received his orders from Himmler. Otherwise, as far as the extermination camps were concerned, the WVHA managed the hybrid centers of slave labor and extermination, mainly Auschwitz, but RSHA kept its control over the “political section” of the Upper Silesian camp and thus over all decisions concerning the rate of extermination of the growing number of Jewish inmates. Chelmno stayed in the hands of the Gauleiter of the Wartheland, under Himmler’s direct authority.
In a memorandum submitted to Himmler on April 30, 1942, Pohl stressed the need for a change of policy as a result of the new constraints imposed by the total war economy: “The detention of prisoners for reasons of security, correction and prevention is no longer the first priority. The center of gravity has shifted to the economic side. The mobilization of the labor power of all internees primarily for war tasks (increase of armaments) must take absolute precedence, until such time as it can be used for peacetime assignments. Such being the case, all necessary measures must be taken to transform the concentration camp from an exclusive political organization into one fitted for its economic mission.”46
In that same memorandum Pohl informed Himmler that all instructions about the change of course had been transmitted to t
he camp commanders and the heads of SS enterprises: In each camp and in each SS plant the work force had from now on to be utilized to the utter limit (on the assumption that there would a sufficient supply of new inmates to replace those who would succumb to the truly exhausting pace). The political section would ensure that the policies regarding Jews be adhered to.47 Thus Heydrich’s scheme was basically intact.
The same policy was increasingly applied to the large ghettos. In Lodz, Sierakowiak had been assigned to a saddler’s workshop. “The ghetto population,” he recorded on March 22, 1942, “has been divided into three categories: “A,” “B,” and “C.” “A”: workshop workers and clerks; “B”: clerks and ordinary laborers; “C”: the rest of the population.48 Wave after wave, the “rest of the population” was shipped to Chelmno.
In the General Government a “substitution” policy developed, at least for a short while: Jewish labor gradually replaced Polish workers sent to the Reich. This policy started around March 1942 and grew in scope over the following months, with the support of the “Armaments Inspectorate” of the Wehrmacht and even of Globocnik’s main deportation and extermination expert, Hermann Höfle.49 It became standard procedure to stop deportation trains from the Reich and Slovakia in Lublin in order to select the able-bodied Jews for work in the General Government; the others were sent on to their death in Belzec. Hans Frank himself seemed more than ready to move from the ideological stand to the pragmatic one: “If I want to win the war, I must be an ice-cold technician. The question what will be done from an ideological-ethnic point of view I must postpone to a time after the war.”50
Nazi Germany and the Jews, Volume 2: The Years of Extermination Page 45