130. Goebbels TB, 9 July 1941.
131. OA Moscow, 1363–3, Conference of Ministers.
132. For details see Longerich, ‘Davon’, 160f.
133. To Goebbels on 18 August (Goebbels TB, 19 August 1941).
134. Meldungen, 7, 2471f., 2486f., 2502, 2514f., 2545, and 2559f. See also Goebbels TB, 10 and 14 July, also 17 and 23 July 1941.
135. Meldungen, 7, on food supplies: 2487, 2502f., 2511ff., and 2530; on the air raids: 2502, 2529f., and 2545f.
136. Goebbels TB, 3, 6, 7, and 24 July 1941.
137. Meldungen, 7, 2578 and 2591f. (concerns that it could turn into a ‘lengthy war of position’).
138. Ibid., 2608f. (‘decline in expectations’).
139. Goebbels TB, 24 July 1941; on the need for propaganda to ‘toughen people up’ see also 26 and 28 July 1941; on the deterioration in mood see also 27 and 29 July and 7, 9, and 10 August 1941.
140. Meldungen, 7, 2529f., 2545f., and 2590.
141. A reference to this in Lammers to Bormann, 14 April 1942, in which a directive of Hitler’s, issued in July, is referred to, which Bormann had been given the responsibility of implementing (BAB, R 43 II/158).
142. See the numerous complaints and objections in the Reich Chancellery files: BAB, R 43 II/159, 1271, 1271a, 1271b, and 1272. On the ‘monastery storm’ see Ludwig Volk, ‘Episkopat und Kirchenkampf im Zweiten Weltkrieg’, in Albrecht (ed.), Katholische Kirche, 92ff. In mid-July Cardinal Bertram complained in detail to Goebbels in the name of the German Bishops’ Conference about the difficulties being made for the Catholic Church. Goebbels did not reply. See Goebbels TB, 20 July 1941.
143. See below p. 764.
144. Wehrmachtberichte, 1, 6 August 1941. Meldungen, 7, 2618, 2631, and 2643 (growing confidence); Meldungen, 8, 2659 (once again mixed), 2671 (Confidence but concern because of the length of the war), and 2684 (increasing numbers of rumours; the hopes for a quick end to the war are being ‘reluctantly’abandoned).
The Radicalization of Jewish Policy
1. On 21 April Goebbels had already instructed his state secretary, Gutterer, to prepare for the marking out of Jews. See Boelcke (ed.), Kriegspropaganda; AktenPartei-Kanzlei, Microfiches, vol. 4, 76074, Tiessler submission, 21 July 1941. At the beginning of July Goebbels pressed Bormann to get Hitler to approve the marking out of the Jews (ibid., 74650f., Tiessler minute for the Party Chancellery, 3 July 1941). On the earlier proposals by the security police and the staff of the Deputy Führer see Longerich, ‘Davon’, 165 and 393 (with further bibliographical references). On the re-adoption of the initiative by Goebbels see Goebbels TB, 12 August 1941.
2. Lösener, ‘Rassereferent’.
3. Goebbels TB, 19 August 1941.
4. Ibid., 20 August 1941. Lösener reported to his minister, Frick, on the 15 August meeting in the Propaganda Ministry that, ‘on the question of the evacuation of the Jews from the old Reich’, Eichmann had said that, in response to a request from Obergruppenführer Heydrich, the ‘Führer’ ‘had rejected evacuations during the war, whereupon the former had worked out a proposal aimed at a partial evacuation of the larger cities.’ See Lösener, ‘Rassereferent’, 303. However, as the entries in the Goebbels TB show, the deportation ban had not yet been implemented during the war in the East.
5. See above, p. 762.
6. On the pastoral letter see Nowak, ‘Euthanasie’ und Sterilisierung im ‘Dritten Reich’. Die Konfrontation der evangelischen und katholischen Kirche mit dem Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses und der ‘Euthanasie’-Aktion (Göttingen, 1978), 112.
7. Ibid., 161ff.; Heinrich Portmann, Der Bischof von Münster (Münster, 1947), 143ff. Texts of the Galen sermons of 12 and 20 July and 3 August 1941 in Peter Löffler (ed.), Bischof Clement August Graf von Galen. Akten, Briefe und Predigten 1933–1946, 2 (Mainz, 1988), Nos 333, 336, and 341. On people’s awareness of the ‘Euthanasia’ programme in the Reich and the protests see Marlis Steinert, Hitlers Krieg und die Deutschen. Stimmung und Haltung der deutschen Bevölkerung im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Düsseldorf, 1970), 152ff.; Schmuhl, Rassenhygiene, 312ff.; Longerich, ‘Davon’, 162ff.
8. Goebbels TB, 11 July 1941.
9. On Bertram’s letter see Nowak, ‘Euthanasie’, 160.
10. Goebbels TB, 14 and 18 August 1941.
11. Akten Partei-Kanzlei, Part II, Microfiche 60.332f. (BA, NS 18/200), Goebbels circular to the Reichsleiters and Gauleiters, 24 August 1941.
12. On the halt to T4 see Klee, ‘Euthanasie’, 333ff. Four days before his visit to Hitler Goebbels was determined to ask him whether he wanted a public discussion about ‘euthanasia’ at that time; he advised against. See Goebbels TB, 15 August 1941. In his account of the meeting of 18 August the ‘euthanasia’ question is not explicitly referred to. On 22 August Goebbels was already aware of its impending suspension (ibid., 23 August 1941).
13. The senior Westphalian official, Kolbow, stated in a minute of 31 July 1941, that the action was going ahead briskly in Westphalia and would be finished in around two or three weeks. (Facsimile in Karl Teppe, Massenmord auf dem Dienstweg. Hitlers ‘Euthanasie’-Erlaß und seine Durchführung in den westfälischen Provinzialanstalten (Münster, 1989), 21.) For details see Longerich, ‘Davon’, 170.
14. On the (decentralized) continuation of ‘euthanasia’ see Süss, ‘Volkskörper’, 310ff.; he discusses estimates of the number of victims, which vary between 72,000 and 117,000. See also Schmuhl, Rassenhygiene, 220ff.
15. BAB, R 43 II/737b, Brandt to Bormann, 24 August 1941, Bormann to Lammers, 25 August 1941, and a circular from the Reich HQ of the NSDAP (Brandt), 8 October 1941. On the halt to ‘euthanasia’ and the Brandt action see Faulstich, Hungersterben, 271ff.; Süss, ‘Volkskörper’, 127ff. and 281ff.; Schmuhl, Rassenhygiene, 210ff.; Aly, ‘Endlösung’, 312ff.; Schmidt, Arzt, 251ff.
16. Walter Ziegler, ‘Der Kampf um die Schulkreuze im Dritten Reich’, in Hans Maier (ed.), Das Kreuz im Widerspruch. Der Kruzifix-Beschluss des Bundesverfassungsgerichts in der Kontroverse (Freiburg, 1996); Wagner’s edict dated 23 April 1941. Walter Ziegler (ed.), Die kirchliche Lage in Bayern nach den Regierungspräsidentenberichten 1933–1945, 4 (Mainz, 1973), Nos 122–26. See also Goebbels TB, 29 August and 4 September 1941.
17. Hitler, Monologe, 14 October, 22 and 30 November 1941; Goebbels TB, 13 and 14 December 1941.
18. Klink, ‘Heer’, 595ff.
19. Meldungen, 8, 2671, 2684ff., 2712f., 2724 (‘signs of a certain trepidation’), 2737f., 2849, and 2760 (‘in view of winter coming a certain despondency’). See also the reaction in the Goebbels TB, 18, 25, and 28 August and 5 September 1941.
20. Meldungen 8, 2771 (mixed picture), 2787 (‘improved mood’), 2795 (‘more confident’ mood) and 2809 (‘positive picture’). On the change in the mood see also Goebbels TB, 20, 21, and 23 September 1941.
21. Ibid., 27 September 1941; on the very positive mood also 25–28 September 1941.
22. On 17 September C-in-C AG Centre presented Halder with the operational plans for the offensive later named ‘Typhoon’. See Klink, ‘Heer’, 659. The order of 26 September approving it is published in Klaus Reinhardt, Die Wende vor Moskau. Das Scheitern der Strategie Hitlers im Winter 1941/42 (Stuttgart, 1972), Appendix 1.
23. Klink, ‘Heer’, 660ff.
24. Domarus, 2, 1758ff., quotes 1761–63.
25. Koeppen, Herbst, 55.
26. Ibid., 69.
27. Wehrmachtberichte, 1, 8 October 1941.
28. BAK, ZSg. 109/26, Vertrauliche Information (Mitteilungsblatt) of 9 October 1941; Goebbels TB, 10 October 1941. Manuscript by the head of the historical section of the OKW, Scherff, 13 February 1942, concerning Hitler’s statement: ‘Dietrich’s speech on his orders’ (published in Marianne Feuersenger, Mein Kriegstagebuch. Zwischen Führerhauptquartier und Berliner Wirklichkeit (Freiburg i. Br., 1982) 90); Pyta, ‘Schicksalsgemeinschaft’, 40, refers to this; Dietrich, Jahre, 101; Stefan Krings, Hitlers Pressechef. Otto Dietrich (1897–1952). Eine Biographie (Göttingen, 2010), 413ff., wit
h more evidence.
29. Klink, ‘Heer’, 660ff.; Reinhardt, Wende, 63ff.
30. KTB OKW 1, 1070f.; Klink, ‘Heer’, 663.
31. Goebbels TB, 11, also 12 October 1941.
32. Goebbels gave the start signal at the propaganda ministry’s conference on 21 August 1941. For details see Longerich, ‘Davon’, 169ff.
33. Theodore Kaufman, Germany Must Perish (Newark n.d. [Beginning of 1941]); see Wolfgang Benz, ‘Judenvernichtung aus Notwehr? Die Legende um Theodore N. Kaufman’, in VfZ 29 (1981), 615–30.
34. Goebbels TB, 19 August 1941. On the production of the pamphlet see ibid., 13, 29, and 30 August 1941.
35. On this campaign see Longerich, ‘Davon’, 168f.
36. BAK, ZSg. 102/34, 12 September, midday; Goebbels TB, 13 September 1941.
37. For detailed evidence see Longerich, ‘Davon’, 169.
38. BAB, R 8150/18.
39. On the reactions see Longerich, ‘Davon’, 171ff. On Goebbels’s saying quoted in the caption see BAB, NS 18/188, copy by the Reich propaganda headquarters, 25 September 1941.
40. On the announcement see BAK, ZSg. 102/34. Longerich, ‘Davon’, 173ff.
41. Gruner, ‘Kollektivausweisung’, 48; Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42, ed. Peter Witte (Hamburg, 1999), 2 and 4 September 1941; a few days later Eichmann informed Rademacher, who was on the Germany desk in the Foreign Ministry, that at that moment it was impossible to accommodate Jews from Serbia or the Reich in the General Government. See Robert M. Kempner, Eichmann und Komplizen (Zurich, 1961), 291. Koppe’s letter of 10 September 1941 has not survived, but can be reconstructed from the letter book of the Reichsführer SS’s personal staff (editorial note in the Dienstkalender, 4 September 1941).
42. Alfred Eisfeld and Victor Herdt (eds), Deportation, Sondersiedlung, Arbeitsarmee. Deutsche in der Sowjetunion 1941 bis 1956 (Cologne, 1966), 54f. For the views of the German leadership see Goebbels TB, 9 September 1941. Rosenberg mentions the Soviet decision in his diary on 12 September 1941, and is extremely upset about it (Rosenberg, Tagebücher).
43. Ibid., 12 September 1941. A few days before he had already had a tough statement prepared, which Hitler then ‘toughened up still further’ (ibid.).
44. Dienstkalender, 16 September 1941; Zeitschel to Dannecker, 8 October 1941, on the results of this meeting, published in Serge Klarsfeld (ed.), Die Endlösung der Judenfrage in Frankreich. Deutsche Dokumente 1941–1944 (Paris, 1977), 23ff.
45. Hillgruber, Strategie, 694 on the meeting between Hitler and Ribbentrop; Dienstkalender, 17 September 1941; Peter Witte, ‘Zwei Entscheidungen in der “Endlösung der Judenfrage”. Deportationen nach Lodz und Vernichtung in Chelmno’, in Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente 1995, 38ff.
46. Longerich (ed.), Ermordung, 157.
47. Goebbels TB, 24 September 1941.
48. Koeppen, Herbst, 21 September 1941. Koeppen was Rosenberg’s liaison officer in Hitler’s headquarters. The information for the second part of the quotation in Koeppen’s note comes from Gustav Adolf Steengracht von Moyland on Ribbentrop’s personal staff.
49. The fact that in many places the deportations were carried out in public and observed by the population has been documented in numerous local studies. For details see Longerich, ‘Davon’, 194ff. See also the photo album by Klaus Hesse and Philipp Springer, Vor aller Augen. Fotodokumente des nationalsozialistischen Terrors in der Provinz, ed. Reinhard Rürup (Essen, 2002), 135ff.
50. The reports in the international press, which since the start of the deportations had reported in detail on these events, fulfilled Hitler’s intention of putting pressure on the United States. See, for example, NZZ, 20 October 1941 (UPI report, 18 October 1941), about deportations from the Rhineland and Berlin to Poland: ‘It is reported that these Jews number almost 20,000. It is reported that yesterday around 5,000 Jews left the capital. They are to be transported first to Litzmannstadt (formerly Lodz) and probably be taken later to the General Government.’ The New York Times already had this report on 18 October 1941 with further details about the situation of the Berlin Jews. On 22 October, based on a UPI report of 20 October, the NZZ announced that the deportations would be continued.
51. Goebbels gave instructions that foreign correspondents asking questions should be told that the Jews were being ‘deployed for work in the east’. See BAB, NS 18 alt/622, Minutes of the propaganda conference, 23 October 1941. For details see Longerich, ‘Davon’, 182f.
52. Ibid., 183ff.
53. This is shown by a series of mood reports, which also noted critical comments. See ibid., 194ff.
54. It is clear from the records of the office of the General Inspector for the Reich Capital that, after an initial action at the beginning of January and a second in May, in August 1941 Speer began a ‘further action to clear around 5,000 Jewish homes’. See Susanne Willems, Der entsiedelte Jude. Albert Speer’s Wohnungsmarktpolitik für den Berliner Hauptstadtbau (Berlin, 2002), 27ff., 195ff., and 258ff. In September 1941, on the initiative of the Gau headquarters, the Jews in Hannover were forced at short notice to move in together into sixteen houses. It was planned to rehouse them in a barracks. See Marlis Buchholz, Die hannoverschen Judenhäuser. Zur Situation der Juden in der Zeit der Ghettoisierung und Verfolgung 1941 bis 1945 (Hildesheim, 1987), 28ff.; see also the report in the New York Times, 9 September 1941. In May 1941 the Cologne Jews were ordered at short notice to leave a number of ‘Jewish’ houses in privileged neighbourhoods; the plan to accommodate them in barracks was not implemented, however. See Horst Matzerath, ‘Der Weg der Kölner Juden in den Holocaust. Versuch einer Rekonstruktion’, in Die jüdischen Opfer des Nationalsozialismus aus Köln (Cologne, 1995), 534. On the deportation of the Breslau Jews to Tomersdorf near Görlitz see Willy Cohn, Als Jude in Breslau – 1941. Aus den Tagebüchern von Willy Israel Cohn, ed. Joseph Walk ( Jerusalem, 1975), 8, 9, 15, and 23 August, and 11 September 1941.
55. See Witte, ‘Entscheidungen’, 45, who refers to pressure from the Gauleiter for the deportations from Hamburg. Browning, Entfesselung, 468, quotes a statement in a post-war trial in the Cologne regional court, according to which the Cologne Gauleiter sent a delegation to Hitler with the same request.
56. Detlev Brandes, Die Tschechen unter deutschem Protektorat, 1 (Munich, 1969), 207ff.; Walter Manoschek, ‘Serbien ist judenfrei’. Militärische Besatzungspolitik und Judenvernichtung in Serbien 1941/42 (Munich, 1993), 43ff.; Ahlrich Meyer, ‘ “. . . dass französische Verhältnisse anders sind als polnische”. Die Bekämpfung des Widerstands durch die deutsche Militärverwaltung in Frankreich 1941’, in Guus Meershoeck et al., Repression und Kriegsverbrechen. Die Bekämpfung von Widerstands- und Partisanenbewegungen gegen die deutsche Besatzung in West- und Südosteuropa (Berlin, 1997), 43–93; Wolfram Weber, Die innere Sicherheit im besetzten Belgien und Nordfrankreich, 1940–1944. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Besatzungsverwaltungen (Düsseldorf, 1978), 59ff.; Die Okkupationspolitik des deutsche Faschismus in Dänemark und Norwegen (1940–1945), ed. Fritz Petrick (Berlin and Heidelberg, 1992), 33; Peter Klein, ‘Die Rolle der Vernichtungslager Kulmhof (Chelmno), Belzec, (Belzec) und Auschwitz-Birkenau in den frühen Deportationsvorbereitungen’, in Dittmar Dahlmann and Gerhard Hirschfeld (eds), Lager, Zwangsarbeit, Vertreibung und Deportation. Dimensionen der Massenverbrechen in der Sowjetunion und in Deutschland 1933 bis 1945 (Essen, 1999), 473.
57. Goebbels TB, 24 September and 4 October 1941.
58. Ibid., 26 and 30 October 1941.
59. On 28 September Keitel modified the order so that hostages from nationalist and bourgeois democratic circles could also be shot. See KTB OKW 1, 1068f.; IMT 27, 1590-PS, 373f.
60. Manoschek, ‘Serbien’, 55ff.
61. Koeppen, Herbst, 7 October 1941, about the previous day.
62. Dienstkalender, 20 October 1941. The editors quote from a statement to the Slovak state council by Mach on 26 March 1942, which reveals the German offer.
63. Ulrich Herbert, ‘Die deutsche Militärverwaltung in Pari
s und die Deportation der französischen Juden’, in Christian Jansen et al., Von der Aufgabe der Freiheit. Politische Verantwortung und bürgerliche Gesellschaft im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Festschrift für Hans Mommsen zum 5. November 1995 (Berlin, 1995), 437ff.
64. Browning, Entfesselung, 471.
65. Hitler, Monologe, 25 October 1941.
66. BAB, NS 19/2655, Uebelhör to Himmler, 4 and 9 October 1941, Heydrich to Himmler, 8 October 1941, and Himmler to Uebelhör and Greiser, 10 and 11 October 1941; further material in the same file. Here too a complaint from the head of the Wehrmacht Armaments Office, Thomas, to Himmler, 11 October 1941, and Himmler’s reply, 22 October 1941.
67. Ibid., Heydrich to Himmler, 8 October 1941.
68. Eichmann Trial, Doc. 1544; Gottwaldt and Schulle, ‘Judendeportationen’; Adler, Mensch; also the contributions by Ino Arndt and Heinz Boberach on the German Reich, by Ino Arndt on Luxemburg, by Jonny Moser on Austria, and by Eva Schmidt-Hartmann on Czechoslovakia in Wolfgang Benz (ed.), Dimension. On the deportation of the Burgenland Gypsies see Michael Zimmermann, Rassenutopie und Genozid. Die nationalsozialistische ‘Lösung der Zigeunerfrage’ (Hamburg, 1996), 223ff.
69. On the deportations to Riga see Wolfgang Scheffler, ‘Das Schicksal der in die baltischen Staaten deportierten deutschen, österreichischen und tschechoslovakischen Juden 1941–1943’, in Wolfgang Scheffler and Diana Schulle (eds), Buch der Erinnerung. Die ins Baltikum deportierten deutschen, österreichischen und tschechoslowakischen Juden, 1 (Munich, 2003), 1–43; Gottwaldt and Schulle, ‘Judendeportationen’, 110ff.
70. Scheffler, ‘Massenmord in Kowno’, in Scheffler, and Schulle (eds), Buch, 83–7.
71. On the seven deportations to Minsk that took place between 11 November and 5 December 1941 see Gottwaldt and Schulle, ‘Judendeportationen’, 84ff.
72. Goebbels TB, 17 and 22 November 1941.
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