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

Case 1, trial

transcript, 7502-3, 14 May 1947). But we know from Himmler’s official diary that Brack

and Bouhler met Himmler on 14 December 1941, and that this was the only meeting

throughout that whole period. The subject for discussion at the meeting with Brack is

given as ‘euthanasia’, and in a later memo Brack reminds Himmler that in the context

of the ‘Judenaktion’ he (Himmler) had ‘expressed the opinion to him that, for reasons

of camouflage, work should get under way as soon as possible’ (BAB, NS 19/1583). In

contrast to Browning’s account, this meeting matches the other dates that we have for

the transfer of T4 staff to Poland (see p. 280).

32. BAB, R 58/954; in Peter Longerich, ed., Die Ermordung der europäischen Juden

(Munich, 1989), 74–5.

33. Two notes from the RFSS, 21 July 1941 (Berlin Document Centre (BDC)-Akte

Globocnik).

34. On this complex, material in BDC files Globocnik.

35. See above pp. 214–15.

36. Das Diensttagebuch des deutscher Generalgouverneurs in Polen 1939–1945, ed. Werner

Präg and Wolfgang Jacobmeyer (Stuttgart, 1975), 17 July 1941, p. 386.

37. BAB, R 6/21, in a memo to Lammers on 19 July 1941 Frank explained the planned

extension by saying that ‘elements of the population (Jewish ones above all) were to be

provided with a productive occupation that was useful to the Reich’. Frank returned to

the subject of the planned annexation at a meeting on 22 July (IfZ, MA 120).

38. IfZ, MA 120; in the published edition of the official diary only as a paraphrase. On 21

July Frank had told Senior Medical Officer (Obermedizinalrat) Dr Jost Walbaum, the

Notes to pages 265–267

525

‘Health leader’ of the General Government, of his decision that in the impending

removal of the Jews from the General Government ‘the dissolution of the Warsaw

ghetto was the first thing to be got under way’ (ibid.).

39. ADAP, series D, vol. 12, 2, 835 ff.

40. See p. 174.

41. Bernhard Lösener, ‘Als Rassereferent in Reichsministerium des Innern’, VfZ 9/3 (1961), 303, reproduction of a note for Frick.

42. Fröhlich, ed., Tagebücher Goebbels, II, i, 19 August 1941, pp. 265–6.

43. Ibid. 265.

44. Plettenberg City Archive (¼YV, 051/202). See also Goebbels’s instruction which he

submitted on the same day at his Ministry’s internal propaganda meeting: Special

Archive, Moscow, 1363–3.

45. Gerald Fleming, Hitler and the Final Solution (London, 1984), 79.

46. Theodore N. Kaufman, Germany Must Perish (Newark, NJ, 1941), 104, published early

1941. See also Wolfgang Benz, ‘Judenvernichtung aus Notwehr? Die Legende um

Theodore N. Kaufman’, VfZ 29 (1981), 615–30. The polemic against the Kaufman

pamphlet had been going for around four weeks, but was now intensified; Tagesparole

der RPL, N. 732, 23 July 1941 (BAB, ZSg. 100/21); VB 24 July; Fröhlich, Tagebücher, Teil

II, vol. i, 24 July 1941, pp. 116–17; Goebbels in VB, 17 August; Wolfgang Diewerge, a staff member of the Propaganda Ministry, published a pamphlet against Kaufman’s text,

under the title ‘Das Kriegsziel der Weltplutokratie’, which was distributed on a large

scale: Dokumentarische Veröffentlichung zu dem Buch des Präsidenten der amerika-

nischen Friedensgsellschaft Theodor Nathan Kaufman ‘Deutschland muss sterben’,

September 1941

47. Jürgen Hagemann, Die Presselenkung im Dritten Reich (Bonn, 1970), 155.

48. Fröhlich, ed., Die Tagebücher, Teil II, vol. i, 20 Aug. 1941, p. 278.

49. Decree of the Supreme Soviet, 28 August 1941, in Alfred Eisfeld and Victor Herdt, eds, Deportation, Sondersiedlung, Arbeitsarmee. Deutsche in der Sowjetunion 1941–1956

(Cologne, 1996), 54–5.

50. According to the notebooks of his contact man in the OKH, Otto Bräutigam; see H. D.

Heilmann, ‘Aus dem Kriegstagebuch des Diplomaten Otto Bräutigam’, in Götz

Aly et al., eds, Biedermann und Schreibtischtäter. Materialien zur deutschen Täter-

Biographie. Institut für Sozialforschung Hamburg. Beiträge zur nationalsozialistischen

Gesundheits- und Sozialpolitik 4 (1987), 144.

51. Details see below p. 274.

52. Peter Witte, ‘Two Decisions Concerning the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question”.

Deportations to Lodz and Mass Murder in Chemno’, HGS 9 (1995), 330. According to

Himmler’s official diary he telephoned the Foreign Office that evening. Further evi-

dence for the date of the decision can be drawn from a marginal note by the Foreign

Office’s Jewish expert, Rademacher, dated 13 September 1941, on a memo from Benzler

(the Foreign Office’s Plenipotentiary in Belgrade) dated 12 September 1941, which

reveals that Eichmann had not at this point been informed about the decision to

resume the deportations (‘Eichmann schlägt Erschießen vor’, facsimile in Robert

M. W. Kempner, Eichmann und Komplizen (Zurich, 1961), 291).

53. BAB, NS 19/2655, published in Ermordung, ed. Longerich 157.

526

Notes to pages 267–269

54. Wolf Gruner, points this out in ‘Von der Kollektivausweisung zur Deportation der

Juden aus Deutschland 1938–1945’, in Birthe Kundrus and Beate Meyer, eds, Die

Deportation der Juden aus Deutschland. Pläne—Praxis—Reaktionen (Gottinger,

2004), 48. Individual documents: Dienstkalender, 2 and 4 Sept. 1941; some days later

Eichmann informed Rademacher of the German Department of the Foreign Office that

it was currently impossible to accommodate Jews from Serbia or the Reich in the

General Government (handwritten note from Rademacher on telegram from Belgrade

Embassy, 13 September 1941, printed as facsimile in Kempner, Eichmann und Kompli-

zen, (291). Koppe’s memo of 10 Sept. 1941 has been lost, but it can be reconstructed from the Brieftagebuch (epistolary diary) of the personal staff of the RFSS (cf. commentary,

Dienstkalender, ed, Witte et al., entry for 4 Sept. 1941, p. 205).

55. Browning, Origins, 426.

56. Fröhlich, ed., Die Tagebücher, Teil II, vol. i. 480–1.

57. BAB, R 6/34, Koeppen-Aufzeichnungen, 21 Sept. 1941.

58. For the context see David Reynolds, The Creation of the Anglo-American Alliance

1937–41: A Study in Competitive Co-operation (Chapel Hill, NC, 1981), 213 ff.

59. See p. 164.

60. Fröhlich, Die Tagebücher, Teil II, vol. ii: Oktober-Dezember 1941 (Munich, 1996), 24

Oct. 1941, p. 169.

61. Minutes of the propaganda conference, 23 Oct. 1941, NS 18 alt/622. Details in Peter

Longerich, ‘Davon haben wir nichts gewusst’! Die Deutschen und die Judenverfolgung

1933–1945 (Munich, 2006), 182–3.

62. See e.g. Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) of 20 Oct. 1941 (UPI-Meldung 18 October)

concerning deportations from the Rhineland and from Berlin to Poland: ‘In the

evening a large number of Jews from the Rhineland arrived in Berlin, before being

transported along with a number of Berlin Jews to Poland or other Eastern European

countries. According to reports, the number of these Jews is approaching 20,000. It has

been reported that around 1,500 Jews left the capital yesterday. They are to be trans-

ported to Litzmannstadt (formerly Lodz) and later possibly brought to the General

Government.’ The New York Times carried this