by The Destruction of the European Jews, Vol. 1-3 (Third Edition) Yale University Press (2003) (pdf)
funds also from the party (Party Treasurer Schwarz). Berger to Himmler, July 2, 1941,
NO-29. In addition, he received contributions from industry. Von Schröder to Himmler,
enclosing 1,100,000 reichsmark, September 21, 1943, EC-453.
29. Affidavit by Schellenberg (Security Service), November 21, PS-3033. On Heyd-
rich, see the biography by Günther Deschner, Reinhard Heydrich (New York, 1981).
30. Daluege to Wolff, February 28, 1943, NO-2861. Main Office Order Police also
included technical services, fire fighters, and other services.
201
CONCENTRATION
regional machinery of the main offices was coordinated by the Higher
SS
and
Police
Leaders,
in
accordance
with
the
usual
functional-
territorial pattern:
Himmler------------- ►Higher SS and Police Leader
I
I
Main Office
Regional branch of Main Office
We shall be concerned primarily with the regional machinery of
two main offices: the Main Office Order Police and the Reich Security
Main Office (RSHA). These two main offices had three types of regional machinery: one in the Reich, another in occupied territories, the third in areas undergoing invasion (see Table 6-9).
It should be noted that the mobile units of the Order Police were
T A B L E 6-8
THE MAIN OFFICES
SS-Hauptamt (SSHA)
(SS-Main Office)
(Wittje) Berger
Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA)
(Reich Security Main Office)
Heydrich (Kaltenbrunner)
Hauptamt Ordnungspolizei
(Main Office Order Police)
Daluege (Wünnenberg)
Chef des Persönlichen Stabes RF-SS
(Chief of Himmler’s Personal Staff)
Wolff
SS Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt (WVHA)
(Economic-Administrative Main Office)
Pohl
SS Personal Hauptamt
(Personnel)
Schmitt (von Herff)
Hauptamt SS-Gericht (SS-Court)
Breithaupt
SS-Fiihrungshauptamt
(Operational Main Office)
Jüttner
Dienststelle Heissmeyer
(Services to families of SS men)
Heissmeyer
Stabshauptamt des Reichskommissars fur die Festigung des deutschen Volkstums
(Staff Main Office of the Reichskommissar for
Strengthening of Germandom)
Greifelt
Hauptamt Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (VOMI)
(Welfare Main Office for Ethnie Germans)
Lorenz
Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt (RuSHA)
(Race and Resettlement Main Office)
Hofmann (Hildebrandt)
note: From Organisationsbuch der NSDAP, 1943, pp. 417-29. PS-2640. Names of
officials were taken from several documents.
202
POLAND
T A B L E 6-9
REGIONAL MACHINERY OF THE ORDER POLICE AND RSHA
Reich
Occupted Territory
Invaded Areas
Order Police Inspekteur der
Befehlshaber der
Truppenverbände
Ordnungspolizei
Ordnungspolizei
(troop units)
(WO)
(BdO)
organized in
(Inspector of
(Commander of
police regiments and
Order Police)
Order Police)
police battalions
RSHA Inspekteur der
Befehlshaber der
Mobile units
Sicherheitspolizei
Sicherheitspolizei
organized in
und des
und des
Einsatzgruppen
Sicherheitsdienstes
Sicherheitsdienstes
(battalion size) and
(IdS)
(BdS)
Einsatzkommandos
(Inspector of
(Commander of
(company size)
Security Police and
Security Police and
Security Service)
Security Service)
permanent
formations
that
could
be
shifted
from
one
country
to
another.
The
Generalgouvernement
was
in
fact
garrisoned
by
such
units, numbering more than 10,000, under a BdO.51 As a matter of
functional jurisdiction, the Order Police asserted control over regular
indigenous police left or reorganized in occupied territories. In the
Generalgouvernement,
Polish
police
(and
after
the
attack
on
the
USSR, also Ukrainian police in the Galician area) totaled over 16,000.“
The Security Police was stretched thin in occupied Europe. Its mobile
units (Einsatzgruppen), formed anew for every deployment in an invaded area, were basically improvised and temporary, while its stationary personnel
always
remained
sparse.
In
the
Generalgouvernement,
there were barely 2,000 men.” Any special indigenous police organs
under
Security
Police
supervision,
such
as
native
Criminal
Police
offices, were comparatively small.
In the Generalgouvernement, the key police officials (in succession) were:
BdO: Becker, Riege, Winkler, Becker, Grünwald, Höring
BdS: Streckenbach, Schöngarth, Bierkamp
31. Generalgouvernement police conference of January 25, 1943. Frank diary. PS-
2233. A higher figure is cited in Daluege to Wolff, February 28, 1943, NO-2861.
32. Daluege to Wolff, February 28, 1943, NO-2861.
33. The figure refers to 1940. before addition of Galicia. Generalgouvernement
conference of April 22,1940 (Frank diary), Werner Präg and Wolfgang Jacobmeyer, eds.,
Das Dienstlagebuch des deutschen Generalgouverneurs in Polen W9-I94S (Stuttgart,
1975), p. 182.
203
CONCENTRATION
The SS and Police organization was centralized not only at the
Generalgouvemeur level but also under the Gouverneure. The five SS
and Police Leaders (in succession) were:
Kraköw: Zech, Schedler, Schemer, Thier
Lublin: Globocnik, Sporrenberg
Radom: Katzmann, Oberg, Böttcher
Warsaw; Moder, Wigand, von Sammem, Stroop, Kutschera, Geibel
Galicia: Oberg, Katzmann, Diehm
Each SS and Police Leader disposed over a Kommandeur der Ordnungspolizei (KdO) and a Kommandeur der Sicherheitspolizei und des Sicherheitsdienstes
(KdS).
Command
relations
consequently
looked
like this:
To Frank, this was an incomplete picture. He imagined himself ir
front of Krüger as a kind of supreme territorial chief:
-Chief of Order Police
(Chief, R
SHA)
1
BdO
I
(BdS)
l
SS and Police
KdO
(KdS)
To make sure of such a relationship, Frank had in fact appointed Krii-
ger as his Staatssekretär for Security.w The new title was intended not
as an honor but as a device to ensure that Krüger would take orders
from Frank. Himmler, of course, regarded such a relationship as an
absurdity. Just as Frank was a “fanatic" of territorial centralization,
Himmler was a fanatic of functional centralization. From his men Himmler demanded 100 percent accountability to himself.
34.
Summary of Generalgouvernement police conference, April 21. 1942, Frank
diary, PS-2233.
204
POLAND
Thus from the very beginning Frank and Himmler were enemies. It
is not accidental that this friction should find its first target in the Jews,
for the Himmler apparatus claimed primary authority in Jewish matters
throughout Poland, and that was a big claim. We can understand the
basis for this assertion of jurisdiction if we examine the closing stages
of the concentration process in the Reich-Protektorat area. In the enforcement of movement restrictions and indentification measures, and particularly in the direction of Jewish administrative machinery, the SS
and Police emerged gradually as the most important control mechanism. As the destruction process proceeded to its more drastic phases, it began to take on more and more the characteristics of a police operation. Movement control, roundups, concentration camps—all these are police functions.
In the Reich-Protektorat area the rise of the SS and Police was
imperceptible. The increasing importance of the Himmler apparatus in
the home area grew out of the natural development of the destruction
process. In Poland, however, the destruction process was introduced in
its concentration stage. The immediate entry of the SS and Police on a
very high level of policy formation was therefore conspicuous, and
troublesome. In fact, we have noted that Security Police Chief Hey-
drich issued his ghettoization order on September 21, 1939, before the
civil administration had a chance to organize itself. This means that in
Jewish matters Himmler was not only independent of but ahead of
Frank. The destruction process in Poland was thus to be carried out by
these two men. It is characteristic that, as enemies and rivals, Himmler
and Frank competed only in ruthlessness. The competition did not
benefit the Jews; it helped to destroy them.
THE EXPULSIONS
As we have seen, the Heydrich plan for the concentration of the Polish
Jews was divided into two phases. In the course of the first phase,
approximately 600,000 Jews were to be shifted from the incorporated
territories to the Generalgouvernement. The Jewish population of the
Generalgouvernement was therefore to be raised from about 1,400,000
to 2,000,000. The second part of the Heydrich directive stipulated that
these 2,000,000 Jews be crowded into closed quarters—the ghettos.
Since the army had insisted that the “cleanup" be postponed until
after the transfer of jurisdiction from military to civilian authority, the
first phase could not begin immediately.” Arrangements were conse- 35
35.
Notwithstanding SS assurances, a few movements took place in September.
See army correspondence, September 12-24, 1939. NOKW-129.
205
CONCENTRATION
quently made to set aside, after November 15, 1939, the entire railway
network (the Ostbahn) of the Generalgouvernement for the purpose of
resettling the Jews.* Just before the mass settlement was to begin, the
Generalgouvernement’s
Higher
SS
and
Police
Leader,
Krüger,
announced at a meeting of main division chiefs and Gouverneure that, in
addition to the Jews, the Poles of the incorporated territory were to be
sent into the Generalgouvernement. All together, 1,000,000 Poles and
Jews were to be moved in by spring, at the rate of 10,000 a day.”
By December 1, a little behind schedule, the trains started to roll
into
the
Generalgouvernement.“
Hardly
had
these
movements
begun
when the evacuation program was expanded still more. Not only Jews
and Poles from the incorporated territories but also Jews and Gypsies
from the Reich were to be dispatched to the Generalgouvernement.
The Reich with all its incorporated territories was to be cleared of
Jews, Poles, and Gypsies alike. The depopulated regions of the incorporated areas were to be filled with ethnic Germans “returning,” by special arrangements with Russia, from the Baltic states and the other
territories
allocated
to
the
Soviet
sphere.
A
vast
movement
had
started. Train after train moved into the Generalgouvernement without
prior notification or planning. The transports were sent farther and
farther east, until someone got the idea that the Lublin district was to
be turned into a Jewish reserve, or Judenreservat.
At first Frank took all these movements in stride. An unsigned
memorandum,
dated
January
1940
and
probably
written
by
Frank,
speaks of the whole idea in very nonchalant terms. In all, Frank
was prepared to receive 1,000,000 Jews (600,000 from the incorporated
areas and 400,000 from the Reich). The sojourn of the Jews in his
“kingdom” was to be temporary anyway. “After the victory,” an evacuation of several million Jews, “possibly to Madagascar,” would create plenty of room. Frank was not even worried about the Poles who were
being sent into his Generalgouvernement in increasing numbers. "After
the victory,” the "superfluous Poles” could be sent farther east, perhaps to Siberia, as part of a “reorganization" of the entire eastern European area.”
Himmler's grandiose resettlement plans did not long remain in 36 37 38 39
36. Summary of Generalgouvernement police conference under the chairmanship
of Frank, October 31, 1939. Frank diary, PS-2233.
37. Summary of conference under chairmanship of Frank, November 8, 1939.
Frank diary, PS-2233.
38. Summary of conference of Generalgouvernement Amtsleiter, December 8,
1939. Frank diary, PS-2233.
39. Materials for submission to the Committee of Nationality Law of the Academy
of German Law (unsigned), January 1940, PS-661. Frank was president of the academy.
206
POLAND
force. Frank took a closer look at the situation and became frightened.
The uninterrupted flow of Jews, Poles, and Gypsies into his limited
area became a Lebensfrage, the central question for his administration,
particularly the administration of the Lublin district, which could no
longer stand the strain.*"
In the first two months of the program, about 200,000 Poles and
/>
Jews had been shoved into the Generalgouvernement. Their number
included 6,000 Jews from Vienna, Prague, Moravska Ostrava (Protek-
torat), and Stettin.*1 The Stettin transport had been so brutal that, to
everyone’s embarrassment, it was widely commented on in the foreign
press.*2 On February 12, 1940, Frank went to Berlin and protested
against the manner in which transports were shoved down his throat.*’
In
the
presence
of
Reichsfiihrer-SS
Himmler,
Reichsstatthalter
Forster and Greiser, and Oberprasidenten Koch and Wagner, the chairman of the conference (Goring) declared that henceforth no transports were to be sent to the Generalgouvernement without prior notification
of the Generalgouvemeur. Koch (East Prussia) pointed out that no
Jews had been sent from his districts to the Generalgouvernement.
Forster (Danzig-West Prussia) announced that he had virtually no Jews
left; only 1,800 remained. Greiser (Wartheland) reported that after the
evacuation of 87,000 Jews and Poles, he still had 400,000 Jews and
3.700.000
Poles. Wagner (Silesia) requested that 100,000 to 120,000
Jews plus 100,000 “unreliable” Poles in his area be deported. Himmler
thereupon pointed out that room would have to be made in the incorporated territories for 40,000 Reich Germans, 70,000 Baltic Germans, 130.000
Volhynian Germans, and 30,000 Lublin Germans. The last
group was to get out of Lublin because that district was to become a
Jewish reserve.“
Although Goring had ruled that the Generalgouvernement had only
to be notified of arriving transports, Frank went home with the firm
conviction that he had been given absolute veto power over all incoming transports.*’ This interpretation proved to be correct, for on March 23, 1940, Goring ordered all evacuations stopped. Henceforth 40 41 42 43 44 45
40. Frank speech to Kreishauptmanner and Stadthauptmanner in (he Lublin district, March 4, 1940, Frank diary, PS-2233.
41. Heydrich memorandum, undated. NO-5150.
42. See letter by Lammers to Hitler, March 28, 1940, enclosing a report received by
the Reich Chancellery, NG-2490. See also instructions by the Reichspressechef to German press (Brammer material), February 15, 1940. NG-4698.
43. Summary of Goring conference on eastern problems, February 12, 1940, EC-
305.
44. Summary of conference attended by Gdring, Frank. Koch. Forster, Greiser,
Wagner, and Himmler, February 12, 1940, EC-305.
45. Frank speech to Lublin officials, March 4, 1940, Frank diary, PS-2233.
207
CONCENTRATION
transports
could
proceed
only
with
Frank's
permission.“
Reichsstatthalter Greiser of the Wartheland, who had 400,000 Jews in his Gau,