Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews Peter Longerich (grave mercy .TXT) 📖

authority that had

just taken over and Einsatzgruppe A. It concerned the future of ‘anti-Jewish

policy’ and because of the deeply entrenched positions that were taken it

merits further attention here.

232

Mass Executions in Occupied Soviet Zones, 1941

The August 1941 Controversy in the Reich Commissariat

Ostland about Future ‘Guidelines for the Treatment of Jews’

On 2 August 1941 the Reichskommissar for the Ostland (the Baltic States and

White Russia), Hinrich Lohse, sent the administration of the Higher SS and Police

Commander for Riga a draft of provisional guidelines for the treatment of Jews in

his area of responsibility that he planned to issue a few days later. This draft

corresponded in substance to the oral instructions Lohse had already issued to his

staff in the speech he made on taking over the post on 27 July in Kaunas. 110

Amongst other things, it made provision for the seizure of the Jews within the

Reich Commissariat, for marking them out with the Star of David, for implement-

ing bans on their exercising any profession, for bans on their use of certain

facilities, and for regulations concerning registration and handing over accumu-

lated Jewish wealth. The ‘flat land’, that is, the countryside, was to be ‘cleansed of

Jews’, ghettos were to be formed, and forced labour gangs were to be set up. 111

Higher SS and Police Commander Prützmann, the leader of Einsatzgruppe A

and the head of the Security Police, Stahlecker, both responded to these sugges-

tions with great alarm, 112 since from their perspective they represented a challenge to their division of responsibilities and were not in accordance with the situation

as they saw it.

Stahlecker drew up a paper on Lohse’s draft in which he explained his position

thus: ‘The measures proposed in the draft for dealing with the Jewish problem

do not conform with the orders given by Einsatzgruppe A of the Security Police

and the SD for the treatment of Jews in the Eastland. Nor have the new

possibilities that exist in the Eastland for clearing up the Jewish problem been

taken into account. The Reichskommissar is evidently seeking a temporary

solution to the Jewish problem in the Eastland that corresponds to the situation

that has been established in the General Government. On the one hand, he fails

to take account of the changes in the situation brought about by the effects of the

Eastern campaign, and on the other, he avoids confronting the radical possibil-

ities for dealing with the Jewish problem, which have emerged for the first time

in the Eastland.’113 One difference between the Eastland and the General Government, he said, was the need there to use the Jews as part of the labour force.

‘These necessities have not been manifest in the area under the Reichskommis-

sar for the Eastland with the exception of the question of skilled craftsmen in a

very few towns and are hardly likely to present themselves in the future. . . .

Perspectives derived from the need to use the Jews for labour will simply not be

relevant for the most part in the Eastland.’ And in addition, the Jews in the

Eastland, in contrast to the General Government, are ‘mostly supporters of

Bolshevism’ and would contribute in no small measure to creating agitation.

Extension of Shootings to Whole Jewish Population

233

After making further criticisms of the measures proposed in the provisional

guidelines, Stahlecker explained how he saw the solution to the ‘Jewish problem’

in the Reich Commissariat Eastland. If it was ‘already’ necessary to proceed with

‘resettlement from the flat lands into the cities’, Stahlecker claimed, this had to be

implemented ‘across the board and in the following manner’: ‘Across the broad

areas of the Eastland certain districts will be set aside for Jewish reservations as

required. . . . In the Jewish reservations male and female Jews will be housed

separately. Boys will remain with their mothers until they reach puberty. The

Jews can immediately be set to perform gainful work within the Jewish reserva-

tions. . . . If there is a workforce available over and above this, the Jews can be

deployed in chain-gangs for road-building even outside the reservations. If the

cleansing of Europe of all the Jews has not by then become official policy other

possibilities for work can be created at a later date by setting up technical and

industrial enterprises within the Jewish reservations. Housing and food will only

be approved in the Jewish reservations to the extent that it is absolutely necessary

to maintain their ability to work.’114 All Jews who were needed outside the sealed

‘reservation’ would have to be housed in closed camps. All Jews would also have to

be visibly identified as such.

At the end of his response Stahlecker summarized the ‘advantages’ of his

approach: ‘an almost 100 per cent immediate cleansing of the whole of the

Eastland of Jews, preventing Jews from multiplying, possibilities for the most

ruthless exploitation of Jewish labour, a significant easing of the later transporta-

tion of Jews into a Jewish reservation outside Europe’. Finally, he suggested that

‘before a fundamental set of instructions is published, we need to discuss all these

questions in detail face to face, especially as the draft directly affects fundamental

orders to the Security Police received from higher up which cannot be discussed in

writing’. 115

How is this document to be assessed? There is an obvious contradiction

between the mass executions that were taking place at the same time in Lithuania

and the ‘solution’ suggested here. At first sight a conjecture proposed by Christopher

Browning looks plausible, namely that this is a ‘cover story’ put together for

the civilian administration by the Einsatzgruppe in order to disguise the decision

to murder all the Jews in the ‘Eastland’ that had already been taken. 116 Two days before writing this document on 6 August 1941, but after making an

application to the Reich Security Head Office on 21 July for the approval of a

concentration camp in Riga under the auspices of the Security Police, Stahlecker

had received permission to set up a detainee camp as an ‘extended police

prison’. 117 The plan for a large camp in the Riga area was pursued by the Security Police over the coming months despite the fact that the shootings were being

extended. These constant efforts, and the fact that in Riga (as in Minsk) prepar-

ations for setting up a ghetto had already been begun in July, 118