228. See Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews, vol. 1, p. 284.
229. For the relations between the Reichsvereinigung and the Berlin community see, among others, Beate Meyer, “Gratwanderung zwischen Verantwortung und Verstrickung—Die Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland und die jüdische Gemeinde zu Berlin 1938–1945,” in Beate Meyer and Hermann Simon, eds Juden in Berlin, 1938–1945 (Berlin, 2000), pp. 291ff.
230. Wolf Gruner, “Public Welfare and the German Jews under National Socialism,” in Probing the Depths of German Antisemitism: German Society and the Persecution of the Jews, 1933–1941, ed. David Bankier (New York, 2000), pp. 78ff.
231. On these issues see Wolf Gruner, “Poverty and Persecution: The Reichsvereinigung, the Jewish Population, and Anti-Jewish Policy in the Nazi State, 1939–1945,” Yad Vashem Studies 27 (1999), pp. 23ff.
232. Salomon Adler-Rudel, Jüdische Selbsthilfe unter dem Naziregime 1933–1939, im Spiegel der Berichte der Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland (Tübingen, 1974), pp. 31–33.
233. Yfaat Weiss, “The ‘Emigration Effort’ or ‘Repatriation,’” in Probing the Depths of German Antisemitism: German Society and the Persecution of the Jews, 1933–1941, ed. David Bankier (New York, 2000), pp. 367–68; See also Arnold Paucker and Konrad Kwiet, “Jewish Leadership and Jewish Resistance,” in Probing the Depths of German Antisemitism: German Society and the Persecution of the Jews, 1933–1941, ed. David Bankier (New York, 2000), p. 379.
234. Paucker and Kwiet, “Jewish Leadership and Jewish Resistance,” p. 379.
235. Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness, p. 321.
236. See mainly Raul Hilberg and Stanislaw Staron, introduction to Czerniaków, Warsaw Diary, pp. 29–30.
237. Ibid., p. 27.
238. Ibid., p. 144.
239. Ibid., p. 152.
240. Apolinary Hartglas, “How Did Czerniaków Become Head of the Warsaw Judenrat?” Yad Vashem Bulletin 15 (1964), pp. 4–7.
241. Philip Friedman, Roads to Extinction: Essays on the Holocaust, ed. Ada June Friedman (New York, 1980), p. 336.
242. Czerniaków, Warsaw Diary, p. 191.
243. Ringelblum, Notes, pp. 47–48.
244. For Szulman’s diary and his remarks on Rumkowski, see Robert Moses Shapiro, “Diaries and Memoirs from the Lodz Ghetto in Yiddish and Hebrew,” in Holocaust Chronicles: Individualizing the Holocaust through Diaries and Other Contemporaneous Personal Accounts, ed. Robert Moses Shapiro (Hoboken, NJ, 1999), pp. 195ff.
245. Israel Gutman, “Debate,” in Patterns of Jewish Leadership in Nazi Europe, 1933–1945, ed. Cynthia J. Haft and Yisrael Gutman (Jerusalem, 1979), p. 186.
246. About Kaplan’s life, see Abraham I. Katsh’s introduction to Kaplan’s Diary, pp. 9–17.
247. The details of Ringelblum’s life are taken from Jacob Sloan’s introduction to Ringelblum’s Notes and from a recent analysis: Samuel David Kassow, “Vilna and Warsaw, Two Ghetto Diaries: Herman Kruk and Emanuel Ringelblum,” in Holocaust Chronicles: Individualizing the Holocaust through Diaries and Other Contemporaneous Personal Accounts, ed. Robert Moses Shapiro (Hoboken, 1999), pp. 171ff.
Chapter 2: May 1940–December 1940
1. Otto Dov Kulka and Eberhard Jäckel, Die Juden in den geheimen NS-Stimmungsberichten 1933–1945 (Düsseldorf, 2004), p. 439.
2. Paul Sauer, ed., Dokumente über die Verfolgung der jüdischen Bürger in Baden-Württemberg durch das nationalsozialistische Regime 1933–1945, vol. 2, (Stuttgart, 1966), p. 240.
3. Ibid., p. 257.
4. Goldman’s letter is reproduced in Abraham J. Peck, ed., Archives of the Holocaust, vol. 8 (New York: 1990), pp. 76ff.
5. See most recently Ian Kershaw, Hitler, 1936–45: Nemesis (New York, 2000), pp. 294ff. and 296.
6. For this “antimaterialist” dimension see in particular Zeev Sternhell, La Droite Révolutionnaire 1885–1914: Les Origines françaises du fascisme (Paris, 1978); Zeev Sternhell, Neither Right nor Left: Fascist Ideology in France (Berkeley, 1986).
7. John Lukacs, The Duel: Hitler vs. Churchill: 10 May–31 July 1940 (Oxford, 1992), pp. 206ff.
8. Ibid.
9. Emmanuel Mounier, “A Letter from France,” The Commonweal, October 25, 1940, p. 10–11.
10. “Accomodation” was thoroughly described and analyzed in regard to occupied France in Philippe Burrin, France under the Germans: Collaboration and Compromise (New York, 1996). See in particular pp. 175ff.
11. For this issue see Georges Passelecq and Bernard Suchecky, L’Encyclique cachée de Pie XI: Une occasion manquée de l’Église face à l’antisémitisme (Paris, 1995).
12. I shared this misinterpretation. See Saul Friedländer, Pius XII and the Third Reich: A Documentation (New York, 1966).
13. For the most recent publications on the anti-Jewish tradition of the church and the modern papacy, see mainly James Carroll, Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews: A History (Boston, 2001), and David I. Kertzer, The Popes Against the Jews: The Vatican’s Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism (New York, 2001).
14. For Pacelli’s personality see in particular John Cornwell, Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII (New York, 1999).
15. For both documents, uncovered in 2003, see Laurie Goodstein, “New Look at Pius XII’s Views of Nazis,” New York Times, August 31, 2003, p. 17. On the prewar years see Thomas Brechenmacher, “Teufelspakt, Selbsterhaltung, universale Mission? Leitlinien und Spielräume der Diplomatie des Heiligen Stuhls gegenüber dem nationalsozialistischen Deutschland (1933–1939) im Lichte neu zugänglicher vatikanischer Akten,” Historische Zeitschrift 280, no. 3 (2005), pp. 591ff.
16. See Peter C. Kent, “A Tale of Two Popes: Pius XI, Pius XII and the Rome-Berlin Axis,” Journal of Contemporary History 23, no. 4 (1988), p. 604.
17. For the decision and its context see Eugen Weber, Action Française: Royalism and Reaction in Twentieth Century France (Stanford, 1962), pp. 251–52.
18. Friedländer, Pius XII, pp. 10ff.
19. Regarding Pius XII’s decision to keep German affairs to himself and for Orsenigo’s role, see Michael Phayer, The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930–1965 (Bloomington, 2000), pp. 44–45.
20. For the Encyclical, see Heinz Boberach, ed., Berichte des SD und der Gestapo über Kirchen und Kirchenvolk in Deutschland 1934–1944 (Mainz, 1971), p. 382 n. 1; for the Polish demands, see most recently Giovanni Miccoli, Les Dilemmes et les silences de Pie XII: Vatican, Seconde Guerre Mondiale et Shoah (Bruxelles, 2005), pp. 52ff.
21. Burkhart Schneider, Pierre Blet, and Angelo Martini, eds., Die Briefe Pius’ XII. an die deutschen Bischöfe 1939–1944 (Mainz, 1966), pp. 104–11.
22. For the full context of this letter see Eberhard Jäckel, “Zur Politik des Heiligen Stuhls im Zweiten Weltkrieg,” Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht (Jan. 1964), translated in Friedländer, Pius XII, pp. 55–56.
23. Within Himmler’s empire the “Main Office for the Security of the Reich” (Reichssicherheitshauptamt, or RSHA), established on September 27, 1939, and placed under Heydrich’s command, created a single institutional framework for the security and police agencies (the SD, the Gestapo, and the criminal police) that had already been coordinated since 1936. Heydrich’s (later Kaltenbrunner’s) main office became one of the centers of the planning and implementation of the anti-Jewish measures of the regime, within the general policy framework set up by Hitler. New initiatives were often worked out at the RSHA and submitted for Himmler’s and ultimately Hitler’s approval, although, as we shall see, on many occasions proposals were rejected or sent back for modification, due to political or military constraints. The RSHA delegates, the commanders of the Security Police (Befelshaber der Sicherheitspolizei, or BdS), operated in each occupied country or area throughout the Continent, and at times their relations with the Wehrmacht or with other Nazi agencies were tense, as a result of their independent initiatives and frequent disregard for the established chain of command. In 1940, the basic structure of the RSHA was finalized. Reg
arding Jewish matters, two offices were of special importance: Amt (office) IV and Amt V. Amt IV—“Research About and Fighting Against Enemies”—was, in fact, the Gestapo, under the command of Heinrich Müller. Subsection IVB4, the Jewish Referat or “desk,” under Eichmann’s authority, became the hub of the administrative and logistic organization of the anti-Jewish policies decided by the higher echelons. Eichmann had direct access to Heydrich and often to Himmler as well. Amt V, the criminal police central office, in charge of all measures against “asocials,” homosexuals, and the “Gypsies” also developed methods, mainly gas installations, for the murder of the mentally ill, later to be adapted to the extermination of the Jews; it worked in close cooperation with the headquarters of the “euthanasia” operation, often identified as T4 (the address of its headquarters, Tiergarten 4). For a thorough study of the RSHA see Michael Wildt, Generation des Unbedingten: Das Führungskorps des Reichssicherheitshauptamtes (Hamburg, 2002). Kurt Daluege’s Order Police, also under Himmler’s command as chief of the German police, soon became an indispensable auxiliary of the Security Police units, mainly in the East. It was from the ranks of the Security Police that most of the commanders of the Einsatzgruppen were chosen. Notwithstanding its crucial role, the RSHA was only one of the agencies within the SS that fulfilled a major function in the terror system. The higher SS and police leaders (Höhere SS und Polizeiführer, or HSSPF) were Himmler’s personal delegates, East and West. They carried the ultimate responsibility for operations against the Jews and the fight against “partisans” or various resistance movements in their country or area. They represented the goals and interests of the SS in any policy debate with local authorities, the Wehrmacht, or party appointees in the occupied countries. The HSSPF commanded a network of district SS and police leaders (SSPF) and were the commanders of the Order Police units in their area. For a thorough study of the HSSPF, see Ruth Bettina Birn, Die höheren SS und Polizeiführer: Himmlers Vertreter im Reich und in den besetzten Gebieten (Düsseldorf, 1986). The concentration camps had been one of the main SS instruments of terror from the outset of the regime: The first of these camps, Dachau, was established at the very beginning of the regime, in March 1933. The camps became a single system, from 1934 onward under the command of the SS Concentration Camps Inspectorate (The first inspector, SS general Theodor Eicke, was followed by Richard Glücks). The camps grew from seven in the 1930s to hundreds of main and satellite camps, spread all over occupied Europe at the height of the war; some of them were almost as deadly as the extermination camps set up from the end of 1941 on. In early 1942, the Concentration Camps Inspectorate was integrated into Oswald Pohl’s SS Main Office for Economic Administration (Wirtschaftsverwaltungs-Hauptamt, or WVHA) in charge of the entire SS economic realm. On the WVHA see Erik Schulte, Zwangsarbeit und Vernichtung: Das Wirtschaftsimperium Oswald Pohls und das SS-Wirtschafts-und Verwaltungshauptamt (Paderborn, 2001), and Michael Thad Allen, The Business of Genocide: SS, Slave Labor and the Concentration Camp (Chapel Hill, 2002). New SS organizations such as Himmler’s Reich Agency for the Strengthening of Germandom (RKFDV) played a major role after the beginning of the war. The RKFDV ruled over the ethnic reshuffling in Eastern Europe: ingathering, expulsions, deportations. Himmler’s chief of staff at the RKFDV was SS Obergruppenführer Ulrich Greifelt and the ongoing contact with the ethnic Germans, their transportation, and resettlement (or their ever longer waiting in transit camps) was more directly in the hands of the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (VOMI), headed by an old-timer of Nazi propaganda and incitement operations among German communities in foreign countries, SS Gruppenführer Werner Lorenz. Notwithstanding major achievements in the historiography dealing with the SS, one of the best overviews still remains the two-volume study: Hans Buchheim et al., Anatomie des SS-Staates, 2 vols. (Olten, 1965).
24. For an assessment of Jewish population statistics in 1940, see the studies in Wolfgang Benz, ed., Dimension des Völkermords: Die Zahl der jüdischen Opfer des Nationalsozialismus (Munich, 1991).
25. Mihail Sebastian, Journal, 1935–1944 (Chicago, 2000), p. 297.
26. For details about Sebastian’s life and work see mainly Radu Ioanid, Introduction to Sebastian, Journal, pp. viiff.
27. See Adam Czerniaków, The Warsaw Diary of Adam Czerniaków, ed. Raul Hilberg, Stanislaw Staron, and Josef Kermisz (New York, 1979), pp. 161ff.
28. Chaim Aron Kaplan, Scroll of Agony: The Warsaw Diary of Chaim A. Kaplan, ed. Abraham I. Katsh (Bloomington, 1999), p. 162.
29. Ibid., p. 163.
30. Ibid., p. 164.
31. Ibid., p. 166.
32. Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1933–41 (New York, 1998), p. 346.
33. Ibid., p. 349.
34. Ibid.
35. Jochen Klepper, Unter dem Schatten Deiner Flügel: Aus den Tagebüchern der Jahre 1932–1942, ed. Hildegard Klepper (Stuttgart, 1956), p. 902.
36. Adolf Hitler, Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen, 1932–1945: Kommentiert von einem deutschen Zeitgenossen, ed. Max Domarus, vol. 2, part 1 (Munich, 1965), p. 1541.
37. Ibid., p. 1580.
38. Ibid., p. 1628.
39. Documents on German Foreign Policy: Series D, 1937–1945, vol. 9 (Washington, DC, 1956), p. 146. (Hereafter cited as DGFP: Series D.)
40. Ibid., vol. 10, (Washington, DC, 1957), p. 316.
41. Tatjana Tönsmeyer, Das Dritte Reich und die Slowakei 1939–1945: Politischer Alltag zwischen Kooperation und Eigensinn (Paderborn, 2003), pp. 63 and 137ff.
42. Andreas Hillgruber, Staatsmänner und Diplomaten bei Hitler: Vertrauliche Aufzeichnungen über Unterredungen mit Vertretern des Auslandes, vol. 1 (Frankfurt am Main, 1967–70), pp. 187ff.
43. Joseph Goebbels, Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, ed. Elke Fröhlich, vol. 8, part 1 (Munich, 1998), p. 103.
44. Helmut Krausnick, ed., “Einige Gedanken über die Behandlung der Fremdvölkischen im Osten,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 5, no. 2 (1957), pp. 194ff.
45. DGFP, Series D, vol. 10, p. 484.
46. For the exchange of views on this issue between Ribbentrop and Bonnet on December 7, 1938, see Saul Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews, Volume I: The Years of Persecution, 1933–1939 (New York, 1997), p. 301.
47. Galeazzo Ciano, Diary 1937–1943: The Complete Unabridged Diaries of Count Galeazzo Ciano, Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs, 1936–1943 (London, 2002), p. 363.
48. DGFP: Series D, vol. 11 (Washington, DC, 1960) p. 635.
49. Hans Safrian, Die Eichmann-Männer (Vienna, 1992), p. 94.
50. DGFP: Series D, vol. 10, p. 113.
51. Ibid., p. 95.
52. Czerniaków, Warsaw Diary, p. 169.
53. Hans Frank, Das Diensttagebuch des deutschen Generalgouverneurs in Polen 1939–1945, ed. Werner Präg and Wolfgang Jacobmeyer (Stuttgart, 1975), p. 252.
54. Ibid., p. 258.
55. Christopher R. Browning, The Path to Genocide: Essays on Launching the Final Solution (Cambridge, 1992), p. 33
56. Safrïan, Die Eichmann-Männer, p. 94.
57. Greiser opened the discussion by mentioning the new plan [Madagascar], which he welcomed, but as far as his Gau was concerned, the Jewish problem had to be solved before the winter. “Obviously this all depended on the duration of the war. If the war were to continue, then one had to find an interim solution” (Frank, Diensttagebuch, p. 261). At that point Greiser became more specific: It had been foreseen, he emphasized, that the 250,000 Jews in the Litzmannstadt (Lodz) ghetto would be transported into the General Government. These Jews could not stay in Litzmannstadt throughout the winter due to the lack of food and the danger of epidemics. Frank was adamant: Hitler had promised him that there would be no further deportations into the General Government, and he had “officially” informed Himmler of the Führer’s decision (ibid., p. 261).
SS general Friedrich Wilhelm Krüger, Himmler’s chief delegate in the General Government, referred to the Madagascar plan and emphasized that the situation in Litzmann
stadt should be given priority in all evacuations of Jews overseas…SS general Wilhelm Koppe, Krüger’s counterpart in the Warthegau, brought the discussion back to the immediate situation. The establishment of the ghetto in Litzmannstadt, he argued, had been decided only on the assumption that the evacuation of the Jews into the General Government would start “by the middle of the year, at the latest” (ibid., p. 262). Frank held his ground, and when Greiser stated that he understood from the discussion that the General Government could not take in the 250,000 Jews of Litzmannstadt, even on a temporary basis, Frank concurred that Greiser had correctly assessed the situation (ibid., p. 263). Nothing helped the Warthegau delegation, not even a lurid description of the epidemics that threatened the German citizens who had moved to Litzmannstadt, including members of the Gau administration themselves. At present, Frank reiterated, he could do nothing (ibid., p. 264).
58. A strange epilogue to the Madagascar plan appeared in internal party correspondence on October 30, 1940. Martin Bormann informed Rosenberg that Hitler deemed the publication of Rosenberg’s article “Jews in Madagascar” as inadvisable for the time being, “but it possibly would be so within a few months.” Helmut Heiber, ed., Akten der Partei-Kanzlei der NSDAP: Rekonstruktion eines verlorengegangenen Bestandes. Regesten., vol. 1, part 2 (München, 1983), abs. no. 24983.
59. Sybil Milton and Frederick D. Bogin, eds., Archives of the Holocaust, vol. 10, part 2 (New York: 1995), pp. 649ff.
60. Joseph Walk, ed., Das Sonderrecht für die Juden im NS-Staat: Eine Sammlung der gesetzlichen Massnahmen und Richtlinien, Inhalt und Bedeutung (Heidelberg, 1981), p. 320. The interdiction regarding the deportation of Jews into the General Government was reversed a few days later. John Mendelsohn and Donald S. Detwiler, eds., The Holocaust: Selected Documents in Eighteen Volumes, vol. 6, doc. 150 (New York, 1982), pp. 234–38. In May of the same year, the United States chargé d’affaires in Berlin, Alexander Kirk, informed Washington that according to a high-ranking German official, “It was still Germany’s policy to encourage emigration of German Austrian and Czech Jews respectively from the Old Reich, Austria, and the Protectorate.” In the case of Polish Jews, they would be allowed to leave only if they were not hindering the departure possibilities of Jews from Germany for the Protectorate; mixed areas would be given preference over the General Government.
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