92. On Hitler’s statements (on the basis of Goebbels’s and Rosenberg’s diary entries) see above p. 660f; on Heydrich see BAB, R 58/825, Departmental chiefs’ meeting, 29 September 1939.
93. Andreas Hillgruber (ed.), Staatsmänner und Diplomaten bei Hitler. Vertrauliche Aufzeichnungen über Unterredungen mit Vertretern des Auslandes (Frankfurt a. M., 1967), 1, 29f.
94. ADAP D 8, No. 176.
95. Verhandlungen des Reichstages 460, 51ff.
96. Confidential Information (from the propaganda ministry), 9 October 1939, published in Hagemann, Presselenkung, 145; Jonny Moser, ‘Nisko: The First Experiment in deportation’, in Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual, 2/1 (1995), 3, points out that the Belgrade newspaper Vreme was already reporting the plans for a reservation on 19 September. The Black Book published by Jacob Apenszlak in 1943 refers to reports about the Nisko project in the Luxemburger Wort (21 November 1939), in the Swiss Neue Zeitung (1 November 1939), and in the Spectator of December 1939 (p. 92). See also The Times, 16 December 1939, ‘Lublin for the Jews’.
97. YV, 053/87 (Gestapo files from Mährisch-Ostrau), Eichmann note, 6 October 1939, about his mission. On the autumn deportations see Miroslav Kärny, ‘Nisko in der Geschichte der Endlösung’, in Judaica Bohemiae 23 (1987); Seev Goshen, ‘Eichmann und die Nisko-Aktion im Oktober 1939. Eine Fallstudie zur NS-Judenpolitik in der letzten Etappe vor der “Endlösung” ’, in VfZ 29 (1981), 74–96.; Goshen, ‘Nisko. Ein Ausnahmefall unter den Judenlagern der SS’, in VfZ 40 (1992), 95–106; Moser, ‘Nisko’; H. G. Adler, Der verwaltete Mensch. Studien zur Deportation der Juden aus Deutschland (Tübingen, 1974), 125ff.; Christopher Browning, ‘Die nationalsozialistische Umsiedlungspolitik und die Suche nach einer “Lösung der Judenfrage” 1939–1942’, in Browning, Der Weg zur ‘Endlösung’. Entscheidungen und Täter (Bonn, 1998), 17ff.; Longerich, Politik, 256ff.; Safrian, Eichmann-Männer, 68ff.; Ludmila Nesládková (ed.), The Case Nisko in the History of the Final Solution of the Jewish Problem in Commemoration of the 55th Anniversary of the First Deportation of Jews in Europe 1994 (Ostrava, 1995).
98. See Safrian, Eichmann-Männer, 77ff. On the carrying out of the deportations see Goshen, ‘Eichmann’, 86; Rosenkranz, Verfolgung (on Vienna); on the deportation from Mährisch-Ostrau see Kärny, ‘Nisko’, 96ff., and Lukás Přibyl, ‘Das Schicksal des dritten Transports aus dem Protektorat nach Nisko’, in TheresienstädterStudien und Dokumente 2000, 297–342. The deportations from the Kattowitz (Katovice) district and from Mährisch-Ostrau had already been initiated or prepared by the Wehrmacht and the Gestapo in the Protectorate in mid-September.
99. On 16 October Eichmann told the head of the Reich Criminal Police Office, Nebe, that the deportations from the old Reich would begin in around two or three weeks. See YV, 053/87, Telegram from SD Danube to SD-Main Office, 16 October 1939.
100. Ibid., Günther note, 11 October 1939, about remarks by Eichmann to the Silesian Gauleiter; Eichmann also made remarks in Vienna about a commission from the Führer (quoted in Gerhard Botz, Wohnungspolitik und Judendeportation in Wien 1938 bis 1945. Zur Funktion des Antisemitismus als Ersatz nationalsozialistischer Sozialpolitik (Vienna and Salzburg, 1975), 105).
101. YV, 053/87, Note of 6 October 1939.
102. Ibid., Note by the Mährisch-Ostrau Gestapo office, 21 October 1939. See also letter from Himmler to Bürckel, 9 November 1939 (Botz, Wohnungspolitik, 196); IMT 32, 3398-PS, 255ff. The last deportation train reached Nisko on 28 October.
103. Götz Aly, ‘Endlösung’. Völkerverschiebung und der Mord an den europäischen Juden (Frankfurt a. M., 1995), 35ff.
104. IMT 26, 864-PS, IS. 378f. On the concerns of the military about a further concentration of Jews in the Lublin region see also Krüger, 1 December 1939 (Das Diensttagebuch des deutschen Generalgouverneurs in Polen 1939–45, ed. Werner Präg und Wolfgang Jacobmeyer (Stuttgart, 1975), 55f.). On the OKW’s negative attitude towards a concentration of Jews near the line of demarcation see BAB, R 69/1146, ca. November 1940, ‘Long-term plan of the RSHA’.
105. Since September 1939 the Einsatzgruppen and the Wehrmacht had been forcibly driving tens of thousands of Jews over the line of demarcation into the Soviet occupation zone. See Christopher Browning, Die Entfesselung der ‘Endlösung’. Nationalsozialistische Judenpolitik 1939–1942 (Berlin, 2006), 56f.; Joachim Böhler, ‘“Tragische Verstrickung” oder Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg? Die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939’, in Mallmann and Musial (eds), Genesis, 45ff.
106. On the Weimar debate see Schmuhl, Rassenhygiene, 115ff.; Michael Schwartz, ‘“Euthanasie”–Debatten in Deutschland (1895–1945)’, in VfZ 46 (1998), 617–65. On the actual developments in psychiatry between 1914 and 1933 see Heinz Faulstich, Hungersterben in der Psychiatrie 1914–1949. Mit einer Topographie der NS-Psychiatrie (Freiburg i. Br., 1998), 25ff.
107. On the ‘deplorable state of psychiatry’ before the start of the Second World War see Dirk Blasius, ‘Einfache Seelenstörung’. Geschichte der deutschen Psychiatrie 1800–1945 (Frankfurt a. M., 1994) in particular 145ff.; Michael Burleigh, Tod und Erlösung. Euthanasie in Deutschland 1900–1945 (Zurich, 2002), 63ff.; Ludwig Siemen, Menschen blieben auf der Strecke. Psychiatrie zwischen Reform und Nationalsozialismus (Gütersloh, 1987); Hans-Walter Schmuhl, ‘Kontinuität oder Diskontinuität? Zum epochalen Charakter der Psychiatrie im Nationalsozialismus’, in Franz-Werner Kersting, Karl Teppe, and Bernd Walter (eds), Nach Hadamar. Zum Verhältnis von Psychiatrie und Gesellschaft im 20. Jahrhundert (Paderborn, 1993), 112–36; Faulstich, Hungersterben, 101ff.
108. Schmuhl, Rassenhygiene, 178ff.; Schwartz, ‘“Euthanasie”-Debatten’, 643ff.
109. Hanns Kerrl, Nationalsozialistisches Strafrecht. Denkschrift des preußischen Justizministers (Berlin, 1933), 87.
110. Quellen zur Reform des Straf-und Strafprozessrechts, Abt. 2/2, 17th Session, 1 March 1934, 425f. (Gürtner), 20th Session, 16 April 1934, 531 (Freisler). See Schmuhl, Rassenhygiene, 291ff.; Lothar Gruchmann, ‘Euthanasie und Justiz im Dritten Reich’, in VjZ 12 (1984), 235ff.
111. Schwartz, ‘“Euthanasie”-Debatten’, 647ff.; for the permission to abort for ‘genetic reasons’ granted by the circular from the Reich Doctors’ Leader, Wagner, of 13 September 1934, and the amendment of the law in 1935 see Schmuhl, Rassenhygiene, 161ff.
112. MK, 447f.
113. Karl Binding and Alfred Hoche, Die Freigabe der Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens. Ihr Maß und ihre Form (Leipzig, 1920).
114. Quoted from RSA 3, Doc. 64. The term ‘weakest’, as used in the edition, refers to the children who were to be got rid of. The term ‘weakest’ as used, for example, in Schmuhl, Rassenhygiene, 152, would also include adults. In relation to this number Hitler was not referring to an annual quota but an overall total of victims.
115. See above p. 437.
116. Alexander Mitscherlich and Fred Mielke (eds), Medizin ohne Menschlichkeit. Dokumente des Nürnberger Ärtzteprozesses (Frankfurt a. M., 1960), 184; If Z, MB 12, Proceedings of the Doctors’ Trial, 2414.
117. Schmuhl, Rassenhygiene, 180, concludes, therefore, that it is unclear whether or not Hitler was committed to ‘euthanasia’ from 1933 onwards. Kershaw’s statement (Hitler, 2, 353), that we know on the basis of Brandt’s post-war testimony that Hitler was advocating ‘euthanasia’ at the latest from 1933 is incorrect, while the ‘well-known views on euthanasia from the 1920s’ referred to (p. 350) do not in fact exist.
118. There was some confusion about the identity of the child after the medical historian, Udo Benzenhöfer, who in 1998 believed he had solved the problem, then had to disavow this ‘discovery’. In the meantime this false information had been adopted in the literature; see Udo Benzenhöfer, ‘Der Fall “Kind Knauer” ’, in Deutsches Ärzteblatt 95 (1998), 954–5; Benzenhöfer, ‘Brandt, S. Richtigstellung’, in Deutsches Ärzteblatt 104 (2007), 3232; Ulf Schmidt, ‘Reassessing the Beginning of the “Euthanasia Programme” ’, in German History 17 (1999), 543–57; Schmidt, Karl Brandt: The Nazi Doctor. Medicine and Power in the Third Reic
h (London, 2007), Engl. edn., 117ff. In the German edition, however, the mistake is corrected (Ulf Schmidt, Hitlers Arzt Karl Brandt. Medizin und Macht im Dritten Reich (Berlin, 2009), 177ff.).
119. On the children’s ‘euthanasia’ programme see Schmuhl, Rassenhygiene, 182ff.; Aly, Die ‘Euthanasie’ 1939–1945. Eine Gesellschaftsgeschichte (Frankfurt a. M., 2013), 109ff.; Burleigh, Tod, 117ff.; Henry Friedlander, Der Weg zum NS-Genozid. Von der Euthanasie zur Endlösung (Berlin, 1997), 84ff.; Ernst Klee, ‘Euthanasie’ im NS-Staat. Die ‘Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens’ (Frankfurt a. M., 2010), 334ff.
120. On the organizational preparations for the T4 action see Friedlander, Weg, 117ff.; Burleigh, Tod, 137ff.; Schmuhl, Rassenhygiene, 190ff.; Aly, Belasteten, 42ff.; Klee, ‘Euthanasie’, 112ff.
121. IMT 26, 630-PS, 169; see also Gruchmann, ‘Euthanasie’, 241.
122. If Z, MB 12, Fall I (Doctors’ Trial), Brandt statement, 2412f.: According to this, in September 1939 a further meeting took place in Zoppot between Conti, Lammers, and Hitler, at which a fruitless discussion was held about the introduction of a ‘euthanasia’ law.
123. In October 1940 it was intended to murder between 130,000 and 150,000 people. In January a figure of 100,000 was mentioned: IMT 35, 906-D, 681ff. (‘30,000 dealt with, a further 100,000–120,000 to go’). Goebbels TB, 30 January 1941 (about a meeting with Bouhler): ‘40,000 have gone, 60,000 have still to go’.
124. For example, in the preparatory phase with the number of potential ‘euthanasia’ victims assumed to be around 60,000, Brandt no longer believed it was necessary to keep it secret, according to a witness statement by an associate of Hefelmann (quoted in Aly, ‘Endlösung’, 54). On the inadequate concealment of the ‘euthanasia’ programme see Winfried Süss, Der ‘Volkskörper’ im Krieg. Gesundheitspolitik, Gesundheitsverhältnisse und Krankenmord im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland 1939–1945 (Munich, 2003), 129f.; Klee, ‘Euthanasie’, 172ff. and 210ff.
125. For examples of ‘euthanasia’ propaganda see Klee, ‘Euthanasie’ [1983], 76f. and 175f.
126. Friedlander, Weg, 418ff.
Resistance
1. Halder, KTB, 1, 7 October 1939.
2. Hans-Adolf Jacobsen (ed.), Dokumente zur Vorgeschichte des Westfeldzuges 1939–1940 (Göttingen, Berlin, and Frankfurt a. M., 1956), Nos 3 and 3a; Halder, KTB, 1, 10 October 1939; Jacobsen, Fall Gelb, 12ff.; Müller, Heer, 475f.; Kershaw, Hitler, 2, 365; Hubatsch (ed.), Weisungen, No. 6.
3. Domarus, 2, 1398.
4. Goebbels TB, 14 October 1941.
5. Müller, Heer, 471ff.; Hoffmann, Widerstand, 165ff.; Erich Kosthorst, Die deutsche Opposition gegen Hitler zwischen Polen- und Frankreichfeldzug (Bonn, 1954); Harold C. Deutsch, Verschwörung gegen den Krieg. Der Widerstand in den Jahren 1939/40 (Munich, 1969), 146ff.
6. Halder, KTB, 1, 14 October 1939; the three alternatives are in the minute ‘OB’; the further comments reflect the results of the discussion between Halder and Brauchitsch. See also Müller, Heer, 480f.
7. Halder, KTB, 1, 17 October 1939.
8. Hubatsch (ed.), Weisungen, signed ‘on behalf of Keitel’.
9. Jacobsen (ed.), Dokumente, No. 10.
10. See Groscurth, Tagebücher, 385, from a ‘reliable source’; Müller, Heer, 493; Kershaw, Hitler, 2, 365.
11. Halder, KTB, 1, 22 October, see also 27 October 1939.
12. Bock, C-in-C of Army Group B, expressed concerns about an attack at this time of year because of doubts about air support. Brauchitsch and Halder were surprised by Hitler’s intention to launch the main attack south of the Meuse. See Bock, Pflicht, 67ff.
13. On Hitler’s directives and their revision see Halder, KTB, 1, 25 and 27–29 October 1939; Leeb, Tagebuchaufzeichnungen, 31 October 1939 (based on information from Stülpnagel). On the new version of the directive see Jacobsen (ed.), Dokumente, Doc. 11. For comment see Jacobsen, Fall Gelb, 41ff.
14. Halder, KTB 1, 27 October 1939.
15. Leeb, Tagebuchaufzeichnungen, 31 October 1939 and Appendix VI; Halder, KTB 1, 2 and 3 November 1939; Bock, Pflicht, 1 November 1939.
16. Deutsch, Verschwörung, 241ff.; Müller, Heer, 520ff.; Hoffmann, Widerstand, 177; KTB OKW, 1, 951f.; Halder, KTB, 1, 5 November 1939; Groscurth, Tagebücher, 225 and 305; Keitel, Leben, 260f.; Below, Adjutant, 213; Engel, Heeresadjutant, 7 November 1939; Christian Hartmann, Halder. Generalstabschef Hitlers 1938–1942 (Paderborn, 1991), 159f.
17. Domarus, 2, 1405ff.
18. Lothar Gruchmann (ed.), Autobiographie eines Attentäters: Johann Georg Elser. Der Anschlag auf Hitler im Bürgerbräu 1939 (Stuttgart, 1989); Anton Hoch and Lothar Gruchmann, Georg Elser, der Attentäter aus dem Volke. Der Anschlag auf Hitler im Münchner Bürgerbräu 1939 (Frankfurt a. M., 1980); Anton Hoch, ‘Das Attentat auf Hitler im Münchner Bürgerbräukeller 1939’, in VfZ 17 (1969), 383–413; Kershaw, Hitler, 2, 371ff.
19. Goebbels TB, 9 November 1939.
20. Boelcke (ed.), Kriegspropaganda, 11 November 1939, 1 and 13 November 1939, 1; DAZ, 10 November 1939 (A), ‘Hintergründe und Vorbereitungen’; Der Angriff, 11 November 1939, ‘Mit Pfund und Höllenmaschine’.
21. Goebbels TB, 9–15 November 1939.
22. Ibid., 16 and 17 November 1939.
23. VB (B), 22 November 1939, ‘Der Attentäter gefaßt’ (headline); 23 November 1939, ‘Otto Strasser das Werkzeug des englischen Geheimdienstes’ (headline); 24 November 1939, ‘Captain Stevens sagt aus’ (headline); 25 November 1939, ‘So wurde Strassers Werkzeug Elser zur Strecke gebracht’, similarly DAZ and Angriff from 22 November 1939.
24. Domarus, 2, 1420ff.; ADAP D 8, No. 384. See Kershaw, Hitler 2, 377ff.
25. Bock, Pflicht, 78f.
26. Halder, KTB 1, 23 November 1939; Nuremberg statement by Brauchitsch, IMT 20, 628; Müller, Heer, 550.
27. The Swedish deliveries of iron ore from north Sweden via Narvik and the North Sea were reduced to a quarter in autumn and winter 1939/40, while the central Swedish ore could continue to be transported via the Baltic without hindrance. During the war Finland delivered the whole of its copper production to Germany. Romanian oil deliveries were interrupted on the outbreak of war, but from December onwards the oil began flowing again. See Berthold Puchert, ‘Der deutsche Außenhandel im Zweiten Weltkrieg’, in Eichholtz, Geschichte, 403ff., 413, 415, and 418f.
28. Tooze, Ökonomie, 390f.; Müller, 384.
29. Budra., Flugzeugindustrie, 588ff.; BAF, RL 3/874, Hitler Order, 21 August 1939, and Procurement Plan No. 13.
30. Salewski, Seekriegsleitung 1, 129–32.
31. Tooze, Ökonomie, 396; BAF, RW 19/205, internal monthly reports, November 1939; RW 19/1945, Minute about a meeting with Thomas, 1 December 1939, noting that Hitler was ‘not in the least satisfied’ with the performance of the munitions sector as planned and carried out hitherto.
32. BAF, RW 19/164 and RH 15/160, 10 January 1940.
33. Tooze, Ökonomie, 397.
34. Ibid., 411ff.; the argument, influential in the literature, that the war effort during the first years had hardly affected German living standards has been convincingly disproved, above all by Richard Overy in ‘Guns or Butter? Living Standards, Finance, and Labour in Germany 1939–1942’, in Overy, War and Economy in the Third Reich (Oxford, 1994), 259–314.
35. Ibid., 403ff.; RGBl. 1940 I, 513.
36. Tooze, Ökonomie, 407ff.
37. Jacobsen, Fall Gelb, 93ff.
38. Domarus, 2, 1446.
39. Horst Boog, Die deutsche Luftwaffenführung 1935–1945. Führungsprobleme, Spitzengliederung, Generalstabsausbildung (Stuttgart, 1982), 514.
40. Halder, KTB 1, 12 January 1940.
41. Ibid., 20 January 1940.
42. Ibid., 21 January 1940.
43. Jacobsen, Fall Gelb, 106.
44. Hans Umbreit, ‘Der Kampf um die Vormachtstellung in Westeuropa’, in Klaus A. Maier et al. (eds), Die Errichtung der Hegemonie auf dem europäischen Kontinent (Stuttgart, 1979), 248; Jacobsen (ed.), Dokumente, No. 11. Thus Jodl told Halder on 17 November that Hitler feared a G
erman attack could be blocked by the Belgian canal system; the dictator considered that the ‘southern flank offered more opportunities’ (Halder, KTB, 1, 17 November 1939).
45. Umbreit, ‘Kampf’, 249.
46. Ibid., 252ff.; Jacobsen, Fall Gelb, 112ff. On the implementation of the new plan see Halder, KTB, 1, 18 February 1940; Jacobsen (ed.), Dokumente, Nos 19 and 44; IMT 28, 1809-PS, 402; Erich Manstein, Verlorene Siege (Bonn, 1955), 91ff. and 118ff.
47. Goebbels TB, 22 January 1940.
48. Ibid., 6 February 1940.
49. ADAP D 8, No. 504.
50. Goebbels TB, 8 and 10 March 1940.
51. ADAP D 8, No. 663. On 10 January, however, Ribbentrop had expressed surprise to Attolico at the ‘anti-Bolshevik tone’ in Mussolini’s letter and dismissed the idea of a settlement with the western powers through the creation of a Polish state (ibid., No. 518).
52. Goebbels TB, 29 December 1939.
53. Ibid., 12 January, also 25 January 1940.
54. Ibid., 15 March 1940.
55. ADAP D 8, Nos 637 and 640–643. The experienced Welles soon realized that the official line had been set for all the discussions with Germans. See Sumner Welles, The Time for Decision (New York, 1944), 104; for the meeting with Ribbentrop, 90ff.
56. ADAP D 8, No. 649; Welles, Time, 101ff.
57. ADAP D 8, No. 665.
58. Ibid., Nos 667 and 669f.; see also Schmidt, Statist, 48; Ciano, Diary, 10 and 11 March 1940.
59. IMT 28, 1809-PS, 412.
60. ADAP D 9, No. 1; Kershaw, Hitler, 2, 396ff.; Schmidt, Statist, 488ff.; Ciano, Diary, 18 March 1940.
61. Klaus A. Maier and Bernd Stegemann, ‘Die Sicherung der europäischen Nordflanke’, in Maier et al., Errichtung., 196f. On the background see Robert Bohn, Reichskommissariat Norwegen. ‘Nationalsozialistische Neuordnung’ und Kriegswirtschaft (Munich, 2000), 15ff.; Carl-Axel Gemzell, Raeder, Hitler und Skandinavien. Der Kampf für einen maritimen Operationsplan (Lund, 1965); Hans-Dietrich Loock, Quisling, Rosenberg und Terboven. Zur Vorgeschichte und Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Revolution in Norwegen (Stuttgart, 1970), 518ff.; Salewski, Seekriegsleitung 1, 175ff.
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