michael mills wrote:It is clear that I need to repeat the essential point made in my iniytial post on this thread, since the various responses to my post seem to be ignoring that point.
Obviously, as of May 1940, there was no German extermination plan or intention, not even in regard to the Jews.
Accordingly, the root cause of the mass exterminations perpetrated by German agencies from 1941 onward must be sought elsewhere than in the mind of Hitler or his followers. Rather, it must be sought in the objective circumstances of the war against the Soviet Union and the situation Germany found itself in.
My post addressed German intentions and plans as of May 1940, not subsequent actions that were determined by the course of the war, in particular Germany's failure to achieve a swift victory and resulting necessity to fight a long, grinding war of attrition against enemies who refused to negotiate. German practice did become harsher than the concepts sketched out by Himmler in May 1940; but that was because Germany's position was becoming increasingly desperate.
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As to the suggestion that Himmler was proposing 100% illiteracy for the part of the Polish population that was not to be assimilated into the german people and that would provide a labour force, it is quite obviously mistaken, and takes Himmler's hyperbole at face value.
Himmler was proposing four years of elementary education for Polish children belonging to the unassimilated group. It is clear that by the end of four years of elementary education the children would have achieved basic literacy and numeracy, certainly more than the ability to write their own names and count up to ten.
I recall that by my second year of primary school, when I was six, I could read and write at the basic level, and that after completing four years I could read books and do all the basic arithmetical functions.
Furthermore, Himmler proposed more advanced education for those young Poles who were selected for full assimilation into the German people. The proportion of the Polish population considered suitable for germanisation through education was quite large, certainly appreciably greater than the proportion of descendants of African slaves in the United States which in 1940 had achieved educated, middle-class status. None of my interlocutors has addressed that point.
Himmler also laid down that there should be no discrimination against or abuse of Poles who were being educated for assimilation into the German people. That contrasts with the social position of that small minority of descendants of African slaves in the United States which had achieved a higher level of education; despite their education and middle-class status, and whatever the legal situation, they were discriminated against and not accepted as equals by the "White" middle class anywhere in the United States in 1940. Again, none of my interlocutors has addressed that point.
Three points:
1) I quite agree with Mr. Mills that the policy of total extermination of the European Jews had not yet matured in Himmer's - and possibly Hitler's - mind by May 1940. In the burst of euphoria over the swift victory over Poland in September of 1939, Hitler approved a massive resettlement program involving the complete Germanization of East Prussia, Silesia and the Warthegau by the resettlement there of Volksdeutsche living in Eastern Europe (e.g. the Baltics, Volhynia and the area to become the General Gouvernment, which roughly corresponded to the "Congress Poland" as delineated by the 1815 Congress of Vienna and the 1917 Treaty of Brest Litovsk) To make room for them, the Poles, Jews and Gypsies living in the areas to be Germanized were to be expelled to the General Gouvernment in the East, with the Jews being concentrated in the area the farthest to the East around Lublin and the Poles deprived of their potential leadership elites by systematic executions.
Although some measures were taken to execute this grandiose policy, it soon faltered due to difficulties in finding appropriate space for the Volksdeutsche to be resettled, lack of adequate transportation to handle the huge numbers to be resettled, disruption in the economics of all effected areas and the opposition of the General Gouvernment officials to the influx of such a large number of undesirable Jews. By March 1940 Hitler had given up on the idea of the Lublin Reservation as the solution to the Jewish question.
But with the unexpectedly rapid military advances in the battle for France, another solution came to Himmler's attention - the establishment of Madagascar, then a French colony, as a dumping ground for the Jews of Europe. This half-baked notion, reflected as a possibility in Himmler's May 1940 Memo, was jumped upon by the Nazi bureaucracy and flourished over the summer until forced up against the harsh realization that the continuation of the war with Great Britain rendered the Madagascar Plan totally unrealistic.
For a detailed and fully sourced description of the above see Christopher R. Browning's
The Path to Genocide (Cambridge University Press, 1992", paperback ed.) in Chapter 1, "Nazi Resettlement Policy" at 6-20, and his
Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers (Cambridge University Press, 2000, paperback ed.) at 3-20. Also the documents quoted in:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 62&start=0
There seems to be a general consensus among more recent historical thought that Hitler's decision to eliminate European Jewry by murder (including working to death) came about sometime in 1941. Christopher Browning gives, IMHO, a fair presentation of the different points of view as to exactly when this decision was made, and opts for mid-October as the point of time at which, in his words, "Hitler, Himmler and Heydrich - and a widening circle of initiates there after - were aware that the ultimate goal or vision of Nazi Jewish policy was now the systematic destruction and no longer the decimation and expulsion of all European Jews."
Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers, op cit supra at 39. I personally lean more toward Christian Gerlach's date of mid-December 1941 as the time of the crucial decision, but in any event I agree with Michael Mills that it had not yet been made in May of 1940.
2) As to the degree of education that Himmler proposed for the Poles, I think Mr. Mill's own experience in the primary grades (which much resembles my own, as best I can remember) is entirely irrelevant to the régime that Himmler had in mind and specifically outlined in his memo.
Although after four years Mr. Mills "could read books and do all the basic arithmetical functions" Himmler specifically stated that:
For the non-German population of the East there must be no higher school than the four-grade elementary school. The sole goal of this school is to be--
Simply arithmetic up to 500 at the most; writing of one's name; the doctrine that it is a divine law to obey the Germans and to be honest, industrious, and good. I don't think that reading is necessary. [My emphasis]
Clearly, Himmler's avowed
purpose in the 4 years of elementary schooling was not to
educate but to
indoctrinate the Polish child, at his most impressionable years, as to the glory of Germany and the
divine (probably with a nod to traditional Polish Catholicism) duty of obedience to German dictates, and, as lower class laborers, to follow them honestly, industriously and well. As far as education goes, the ability to deal with numbers up to 500 and to write one's name was altogether sufficient - literacy was
specifically not necessary!
Even in the most red-necked areas of the Southern United States never was such a radical policy of indoctinated subservience to a master race officially imposed upon the descendants of African slaves.
3) Mr. Mills believes that "The proportion of the Polish population considered suitable for germanisation through education was quite large, certainly appreciably greater than the proportion of descendants of African slaves in the United States which in 1940 had achieved educated, middle-class status."
I read somewhere, and I regret that I can't now find the source, that it was estimated that about 1/8 of the Polish youths would be considered suitable for Germanization. I don't have any figures as to what proportion of the U.S. negro population at the time had "achieved educated, middle class status" - however defined - by 1940, but certainly more than 12 1/2 % had received an education entiteling them to such a status, even though such status had, as in many instances was truly the case, been denied them by the effect of private, unofficial attitudes on the part of much (but by no means all) of the white population.
And there is a great deal of truth in Mr. Mills assertion that in 1940 even those educated blacks who had achieved middle class status were not accepted as equals and were discriminated against and not accepted as equals in most (but not all) areas of the U.S. Examples such as Dorothy Dandridge's treatment at the Stork Club and the refusal to permit Marian Anderson to sing at Washington D. C.'s Constitution Hall certainly abound, but this was
not the result of
governmental but rather of
private policy - and indeed, in the case of Marian Anderson, the public outrage at the refusal was so great that the U.S. Department of the Interior arranged for her to perform her concert at the Lincoln Memorial, at which some 75,000 attended.
Granted that there were very substantial injustices, both official at a local level and privately inspired at a broader national level, prevalent in the U. S. against Negros in the 1940s, in light of the fact that the U.S. government and- eventually- the large majority (but admittedly not the entirety) of the U.S. people have abandoned any notion of discrimination and have accepted the African-Americans as equals in every way, I would simply ask Mr. Mills two questions:
1st - Does he really believe that the
policies of the U.S. government in 1940 toward the descendants of the African-American slaves were in any way equally oppresive to the Nazi
policies toward the Poles, as set forth in Himmler's May 1940 memo? - and
2nd -What does he believe the attitude of Himmler and Hitler would have been toward the Negro population had the Nazis been at the head of the U. S. government in 1940 - and where does he believe that population (if it still existed) would stand today?
Regards, Kaschner