Decision to kill Polish Jews: Mid-March 1942?

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David Thompson
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#106

Post by David Thompson » 27 Nov 2007, 01:07

Jonathan -- Thanks for the reminder. For what it's worth, I agree with Longerich's "take" on the issue. In my opinion, the Ostministerium correspondence of 18 Dec 1941 is merely an extension of Himmler's "special mission from the Fuehrer" from the Army areas of operation to the Occupied Eastern Territories. According to a contemporaneous order signed by Keitel, the arrangement with the German Army had been made as early as 13 Mar 1941:
In the area of operations, the Reichsfuehrer SS is, on behalf of the Fuehrer, entrusted with special tasks for the preparation of the political administration, tasks which result from the struggle which has to be carried out between two opposing political systems. Within the realm of these tasks, the Reichsfuehrer SS shall act independently and under his own responsibility.
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 885#551885

For more see:

Himmler's "Special Mission from the Fuehrer"
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=61802

Per Stahlecker's recap of his instructions at Comprehensive Report of Combat Group A up to 15 Oct 1941
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=60197 , the idea was for the Einsatzgruppen to proceed cautiously, using discreet locations and indigenous hirelings and criminals wherever possible to avoid accountability when murdering the Jews of the USSR:
Similarly, native anti-Semitic forces were included to start pograms against Jews [at Kovno, Lithuania on 25-26 Jun 1941} during the first hours after capture, though this inducement proved to be very difficult. Following out orders, the Security Police was determined to solve the Jewish question with all possible means and most decisively. But it was desirable that the Security Police should not put in an immediate appearance, at least in the beginning, since the extraordinarily harsh measures were apt to stir even German circles. (p. 979, emphasis added; see also p. 984).
Another example appears in the report at p. 985:
Action against Jewry. From the beginning it was to be expected that the Jewish problem in the East could not be solved by pogroms alone. In accordance with the basic orders received, however, the cleansing activities of the Security Police had to aim at a complete annihilation of the Jews. Special detachments reinforced by selected units in Lithouania partisan detachments, in Latvia units of the Latvian auxiliary police therefore performed extensive executions both in the towns and in rural areas. (emphasis added).
Here is another, at p. 986:
After the carrying out of the first larger executions in Lithouania and Latvia it became soon apparent that an annihilation of the Jews without leaving any traces could not be carried out, at least not at the present moment. (emphasis added).
On page 987, the reader can see this example:
In this connection it may be mentioned that some authorities of the Civil Administration offered resistance, at times even a strong one, against the carrying out of larger executions. This resistance was answered by calling attention to the fact that it was a matter of carrying out basic orders. (emphasis added)
The decision to extend the murdering operations to Reich and other Jews appears to have been made in Nov 1941, according to Kersten's diaries:

November 11, 1941:
"To-day Himmler is very depressed. He has just come from the Fuehrer's Chancellery. I gave him treatment. After much pressure and questions as to what was the matter with him, he told me that the destruction of the Jews is being planned." (Hoehne 367)
November 16, 1941:
"In these last few days with Himmler I have constantly been trying to return to the fate of the Jews. Contrary to all his habits he only listens to me in silence." (Hoehne 367)
the Rosenberg memo of his meeting with Hitler on 14 Dec 1941:
I remarked on the Jewish question that the comments about the New York Jews must perhaps be changed somewhat after the conclusion (of matters in the East). I took the standpoint, not to speak of the extermination [Ausrottung] of the Jews. The Fuehrer affirmed this and said that they had burdened the war upon us and that they had brought the destruction; it is no wonder if the results would strike them first.

The Fuehrer further said that he did not deem it necessary to order forth the other nations to contribute as yet, since they can produce therein a legal claim for later.
He does that from time to time in single negotiations. I told him that I, too, had written that down as a question. I would comply with these instructions to edit more carefully the corresponding paragraphs in my speech.
and the Ostministerium correspondence, cited above.
Last edited by David Thompson on 27 Nov 2007, 01:36, edited 1 time in total.

Jonathan Harrison
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#107

Post by Jonathan Harrison » 27 Nov 2007, 01:35

I would say "by Nov 41" rather than "in Nov 41" because Hitler could have made it earlier but not put it into motion until Nov.

Also importantly, the Kube-Lohse correspondence of 16 Dec 41 (see my timeline) shows that both officials were aware by that date of the policy. I therefore think that the Rosenberg memo of 18 Dec was simply putting in writing what Kube and Lohse had already been told in November.

So not only do we have the decision by November, we also have the pacification of the civilian administration in the same month.


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#108

Post by David Thompson » 27 Nov 2007, 01:38

I agree, though a decision isn't effective until communicated for execution. Himmler was clearly depressed about it on 11 Nov 1941. Judging from his 14 Dec 1941 memo of his conference with the Fuehrer, Rosenberg was already aware of the extermination order by that date. Lohse and Kube probably hadn't gotten the word about the Fuehrer order yet at the time they were protesting in Oct-Nov 1941.

michael mills
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#109

Post by michael mills » 27 Nov 2007, 02:52

I would like to remind you all that the subject of this thread concerns the timing of the German Government decision to kill the Polish Jews, in whole or in part.

The question of the timing of that decision arose from the contrast between Goebbels' comments on the outcome of the Wannsee Conference, made early in March 1942, in which he does not mention any decision to kill non-Soviet Jews being deported into occupied Soviet territory, but rather their concentration there pending deportation from German-controlled Europe, and his diary entry of 27 March, in which he specifically records the beginning of the "liquidation" of the 60% of the Polish-Jewish population assessed as unusable for forced labour.

There has been a lot of discussion about the timing of authorisations to carry out mass executions of Soviet Jews, ie the Jews of the territory conquered during Operation Babrbarossa, but that is not really relevant to the topic of this thread.

There has also been discussion on the fate of Reich Jews deported into occupied Soviet territory from November 1941 onwards, but that discussion is relevant, as the available evidence suggestss that until at least the end of 1941, the highest levels of the German Government made a distinction between Reich Jews and Soviet Jews, and that the authorisations to kill the latter en masse did not apply to the former. The timing of a high-level authorisation to begin the killing of the deported Reich Jews may therefore give some indication of the timing of a similar authorisation in respect of the Jews of the Generalgouvernement.

Once again I point out that Longerich concluded that the commencement of the killing operations at Belzec in March was a local operation applicable to the Jews of Districts Lublin and Lemberg only. He concludes that the killing operation at Chelmno was likelwise a local initiative, restricted to the Jews of Reichsgau Wartheland. According to him, the extension of the extermination operation to all the Jews of Europe under German control did not come until May 1942. These conclusions were included in his Expert Opinion for the Irving-Lipstadt court action.

Longerich also specifically states that, as of the end of 1941, no authorisation had been given for the killing of Reich Jews. That statement is not included in his Expert Opinion, so you will not find it in websites related to that event. To find it, you will need to read his magnum opus "Politik der Vernichtung", no easy task, since it is in German, over 1,000 pages long, and has no pictures.

I would ask everybody to please get back to the topic of this thread.

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#110

Post by David Thompson » 27 Nov 2007, 03:57

Michael -- You wrote:
I would like to remind you all that the subject of this thread concerns the timing of the German Government decision to kill the Polish Jews, in whole or in part.
I think you can safely assume that the English-speaking participants in this discussion have read and understand the title of the thread. I feel confident that they also understand that this statement:
The decision to extend the murdering operations to Reich and other Jews appears to have been made in Nov 1941, according to Kersten's diaries
at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 96#1146396 includes the Jews of Poland. Your analysis confuses the scheduling of the killings with the decision itself, whereas the topic of this thread is the decision, not the scheduling.

Jonathan Harrison
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#111

Post by Jonathan Harrison » 27 Nov 2007, 05:06

Michael, the fates of Soviet and Polish Jews are clearly interdependent by late 1941. It beggars belief that the Nazis would go to the trouble of killing Soviet Jews in huge quantities simply to make way for Polish Jews.

Moreover, it must be obvious from the resistance that Lohse and Rosenberg initially put up to the deportation of only 60,000 Reich Jews that there would have been massive resistance to the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Polish Jews.

We already have Frank's "liquidate them yourselves" quote of 16 Dec 41, which fits the timeline discussed above perfectly. Frank got to know of the extermination decision at the same time that Rosenberg, Lohse and Kube did. In all cases it was pre-Wannsee. There are simply too many convergences of evidence in this period compared to the March 42 one. As Browning notes, there were no top-level meetings held in March-May 1942 that would explain a decision being taken at that time. The meetings occurred earlier, the memos were sent earlier, and almost all the documentation and postwar testimony says so.

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#112

Post by michael mills » 27 Nov 2007, 06:09

It beggars belief that the Nazis would go to the trouble of killing Soviet Jews in huge quantities simply to make way for Polish Jews
Not necessarily. National Socialism regarded all Jews as bad, but some were worse than others, and the Soviet Jews were the worst of all, being allegedly the prime bearers of Bolshevism.

But even within Soviet Jewry, distinctions were initially made. The original orders for the killing of groups of Jews specified politically active Jews, those in the Party or State bureaucracies, as well as militarily active Jews.

As of August 1941, the official German Government policy toward the Soviet Jews who did not fall into the categories defined for "Sonderbehandlung", was to imprison them in rural camps, far from the main population centres, where they would be used for rural labour such as forestry, pending their final removal to a destination outside Europe; see the letter from Stahlecker to Lohse at the beginning of that month.

In that same August letter, Stahlecker drew a clear distinction between Soviet and Polish Jews. The latter were not dangerous, and could safely be kept in urban ghettos; the former were dangerous, and therefore needed to be removed far from the towns, they could not be kept in urban ghettos on the Polish model, as Lohse wanted to do.

With the elapse of time, the attitude toward Soviet Jews became more radicalised, and the categories of Jews to be killed were extended to include women and children, whole communities. But that process occurred at different times at different places within occupied Soviet territory. For example, in some former Polish areas that had been annexed by the Soviet Union in October 1939, eg Volhynia and Galicia, the thorough-going extermination did not occur until 1942.

The radicalisation of attitude toward Soviet Jews that began from about mid-August 1942 onward cannot be assumed to have caused a similar radicalisation toward non-Soviet Jews at the same time. There are many indications that as of early spring 1942, many senior figures in the German Government were still thinking in terms of deporting Jews into occupied Soviet territory, eg Goebbels, as shown in the quote at the beginning of this thread, Heydrich in Prague.
Moreover, it must be obvious from the resistance that Lohse and Rosenberg initially put up to the deportation of only 60,000 Reich Jews that there would have been massive resistance to the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Polish Jews.
It is quite possible that resistance from Lohse and other commanders in occupied Soviet territory to the dumping of Jews into their bailiwicks was one of the factors which led to a decision to kill at least part of the Jews of Poland, rather than deporting them.

But the resistance of Lohse could be overcome. After all, he was compelled to accept the transport of Reich Jews to his territory, to Riga and Minsk, albeit with the promise that they would be moved further East at some future time. Any opposition to the eastward deportation of Polish Jews could no doubt have been overcome, if the highest levels of the German Government had decided on that.

It is more likely that it was the failure to decisively defeat the Soviet Union by early 1942, and the concomitant inability to move Jews further to the East, across the Urals into whatever polity remained in Siberia, that led to the abandonment of plans for mass deportation of non-Soviet Jews and the adoption of the principle of killing those Jews unable to be used for labour. The question is when that change of policy was made, and also whether it was made in one go or progressively.
We already have Frank's "liquidate them yourselves" quote of 16 Dec 41, which fits the timeline discussed above perfectly. Frank got to know of the extermination decision at the same time that Rosenberg, Lohse and Kube did. In all cases it was pre-Wannsee.
It is most likely that it was Lohse and Koch who said "liquidate them yourself" to Frank, and that they said it in early December, when all of them were in Berlin. It is also likely that Lohse and Koch were giving a response to a renewed attempt by Frank to get them to agree to accept Jews deported from the Generalgouvernement.

But the very words used by Lohse and Koch (if it was indeed they who spoke them) suggest that at the time of their being spoken early December 1941, there was no extermination policy in place. Basically Frank was being told that if he wanted to be rid of the Jews in his bailiwick, he would have to do it himself. That is not the answer he would have been given if Hitler had aleady ordered the killing of all Jews, and assigned the SS to carry out the task.

Furthermore, in the same speech to his Cabinet in which Frank informed his ministers that he had been told "liquidate them yourself", he stated that gigantic measures were underway in the Reich, and they would have to be emulated in the Generalgouvernement. In December 1941, the "gigantic measures" underway in the Reich were the deportation of tens of thousands of Jews into occupied Soviet territory. Frank could still have been thinking of doing the same with Polish Jews, despite the rebuff he had received from the satraps in Ostland and Ukraine.

Jonathan Harrison
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#113

Post by Jonathan Harrison » 27 Nov 2007, 14:27

Michael, where are the documented meetings from March 1942 that would have been held if the policy had been changed at that time? We both know that there were several documented meetings from October through December, culminating in Wannsee. The logical path for a historian is to follow that decision-making process, rather than make an unsupported assumption that the decision can only be dated from the month that the deportations to Belzec got under way. In the absence of further documentation from yourself, I would have to conclude that you are rejecting sourced evidence in favour of unsourced speculation that falls foul of Occam's Razor.
Frank could still have been thinking of doing the same with Polish Jews, despite the rebuff he had received from the satraps in Ostland and Ukraine.
No, this is directly refuted by the speech itself, where he says:
But what should be done with the Jews? Can you believe that they will be accommodated in settlements in the Ostland? In Berlin we were told: why are you making all this trouble? We don't want them either - not in Ostland or in the Reichskommisariat; liquidate them yourselves!
http://www.datasync.com/~davidg59/frank.html

His question, 'Can you believe that they will be accommodated in settlements in the Ostland?' is clearly rhetorical. He knows the answer is No. Indeed, that answer was given to him by Rosenberg back in October.

Frank may be clinging to the hope of dumping the Jews further east in Siberia, rather than having to gas them, but it's also clear that he would expect them to die there. What is not on the table is resettlement in currently occupied territory.

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