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

Vernich-

tung lebensunwerten Lebens (Frankfurt a. M., 1985), 345.

7. Grode, ‘Sonderbehandlung’, 84 ff.

8. Ibid. 113 ff., also Friedlander, Origins, 143 ff.

9. Patricia Heberer, ‘Eine Kontinuität der Tötungsoperationen. T4-Täter und die “Aktion

Reinhard” ’, in Bogdan Musial, ed., ‘Aktion Reinhard’. Der Völkermord an den Juden un

Generalgouvernement 1941–1944 (Osnubrück, 2004), 285–308, 292, suggests that this may

Notes to pages 278–280

531

have concerned the killing of German soldiers who had suffered very serious and

irreversible injuries.

10. See Longerich, Davon, 159 ff.

11. This process was reconstructed from eyewitness accounts: Matthias Beer, ‘Die

Entwicklung der Gaswagen beim Mord an den Juden’, VfZ 35 (1987), 407; Staatsan-

waltschaft Munich, case against Karl Wolff (ZSt, ASA 137), 140 ff.; Dienstkalender,

ed. Witte et al., 15 Aug. 1941, p. 195. Christian Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde. Die

deutsche Wirtschafts- und Vernichtungspolitik in Weissrussland 1941 bis 1944 (Ham-

burg, 1999), 647–8, presents some admittedly rather weak evidence to suggest that

preparations for the construction of the gas vans had already begun at the end of

July 1941.

12. Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, 648; PRO HW 16/32, 16 August and 18 August 1941.

13. Beer, ‘Entwicklung’, 408: A. Ebbinghaus and G. Preisler, ‘Die Ermordung psychisch

kranker Menschen in der Sowjetunion. Dokumentation’, in Götz Aly et al., eds,

Aussonderung und Tod. Die klinische Hinrichtung der Unbrauchbaren (Berlin, 1985),

83 ff. Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, 648, points out that the assignment given to Nebe may

not have come directly from Himmler, as Bach-Zelewski had claimed in a post-war

statement, but from himself.

14. Beer, ‘Entwicklung’, 408; Ebbinghaus and Preissler, ‘Die Ermordung’, 88 ff.; statement fromWidmann, 11 Jan. 1960, ZSt, 202 ARZ 152/159, 33 ff. Also statement from Georg

Frentzel, 27 Aug. 1970, and Alexander N. Stepanow (chief doctor at the psychiatric

institution in Mogilev), 20 July 1944, both in StA Munich, Zentraler Untersuchungs-

vorgang 9 (Ermittlungsakten des Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit der DDR).

15. Beer, ‘Entwicklung’, 409 ff.; Aussage Widmann in ZSt, 202 AR-Z 152/59, pp. 33 ff., 11 Jan. 1960.

16. Beer, ‘Entwicklung’, 411.

17. Even before Christmas 1941 further vehicles were driven from Berlin to Einsatzgruppe A in Riga: Beer, ‘Entwickling’, 413. For SK 4a (Einsatzgruppe C) Beer, ‘Entwickling’, 412.

For EK 8 (Einsatzgruppe B): statement from Otto Matonoga, 8 June/9 June 1945 to

Soviet investigators (StA Munich, Zentraler Untersuchungsvorgang 9). In Einsatz-

gruppe D, according to a witness, a gas van was used at the end of 1941. Beer,

‘Entwickling’, 413; LG Munich, 119 c Js 1/69, Urteil; statement by Jeckeln of 21 Dec.

1945 in Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm, ‘Die Einsatzgruppe A der Sicherheitspolizei und des

SD—Eine exemplarische Studie’, in Helmut Krausnick and Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm,

eds, Die Truppe des Weltanschauungskrieges. Die Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei

und des SD 1938–1942 (Stuttgart, 1981), 548.

18. Eugen Kogon et al., eds, Nationalsozialistische-Massentötungen durch Giftgas (Frank-

furt, 1983), 110 ff.

19. For details see Ch. 7, p. 139.

20. ND NO 365, also published in Helmut Krausnick, ‘The Persecution of the Jews’, in Hans Buchheim et al., eds, Anatomy of the SS-State (London, 1968), 114–15.

21. See p. 280.

22. Ibid.

23. Heberer, ‘Eine Kontinuität der Tötungsoperationen’, 295. The meeting between Himm-

ler and Brack has been substantiated in the official diary entry for 14 December 1941

with the note ‘Euthanasia’; see, Dienstkalender, ed. Witte et. al., 290. On the allocation 532

Notes to pages 280–282

of Brack’s staff see also in particular the memo from Brack to Himmler dated 23 June

1942, in which he declared himself willing to make further staff available and recalls the earlier agreement with Himmler (BAB, NS 19/1583).

24. Cf. and Robert-Jan van Pelt and Deborah Dwork, Auschwitz 1270 to the Present (New

Haven, 1996), 280 ff.; Franciszek Piper, Vernichtung in Auschwitz 1940–1945. Studien

zur Geschichte des Konzentrations- und Vernichtungslagers Auschwitz, vol. iii (Oswie-

cim, 1999), 88 ff.; On the murders of Jewish forced labourers see Sybille Steinbacher,

‘Musterstadt’ Auschwitz. Germanisierungspolitik und Judenmord in Ostoberschlesien

(Munich, 2000), 276–7.

25. Jan Erik Schulte, Zwangsarbeit und Vernichtung. Das Wirtschaftsimperium der SS.

Oswald Pohl und das SS Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt 1933–1945 (Paderborn,

2001), 50 ff.

26. Stanislaw Klodzinski, ‘Phenol’, in Die Auschwitz Hefte, vol. i (1994), 277–81; see

also Danuta Czech, Kalendarium der Ereignisse im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-

Birkeanau 1939–1945 (Reinbek b. Hamburg, 1969), 108 and 151.

27. Jean C. Pressac, Die Krematorien von Auschwitz. Die Technik des Massenmordes

(Munich, 1984), 19.

28. On the other hand the date of December 1941, suggested by Pressac, Krematorien, 41–2, does not seem convincing. That the murder of these prisoners occurred in early September

1941 can be reliably assumed thanks to Klodinski’s investigation based on interviews with around 200 former inmates. According to Franciszek Piper, Die Zahl der Opfer von

Auschwitz (Oswiecim, 1993), 23, this mass murder was already preceded by experiments

with poison gas in August 1941; see also Czech, Kalendarium, 115 ff., and Jerzy Brandhuber,

‘Die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz’, Hefte von Ausch-

witz 4 (1961), 5–46, and Wojciech Barcz, ‘Die erste Vergasung in Auschwitz’, in H. G. Adler et al., eds, Auschwitz: Zeugnisse und Berichte (Cologne and Frankfurt a. M., 1983), 17–18.

29. Cf. Browning, Origins, 398, 421; Steinbacher, ‘Musterstadt’ Auschwitz, 276–7, demon-

strates the murder of Jews from the Schmelt camps since November 1941 but leaves the

question of the killing method open.

30. Rudolf Hoess, Commandant in Auschwitz (London, 1959), 207 ff.

31. Ibid. 208–9.

32. Trial of Eichmann, vii. 376 ff.

33. OS, 502-1-312, Topf Company to building management, 31 Oct. 1941; See Pressac,

Krematorien, 31 ff.

34. Michael Thad Allen, ‘The Devil in the Details: The Gas Chambers of Birkenau, October

1941’, HGS 16/2 (2002), 189–216; van Pelt and Dwork, Auschwitz, 322; Browning, Origins,

358, has spoken out in favour of Allen’s dating

35. See pp. 317 f.

36. Pressac, Krematorien, 38 ff.

37. See Götz Aly, ‘Final Solution’: Nazi Population Policy and the Murder of the European Jews (London, 1999), 223–4; Christian Gerlach, ‘Failure of Plans for an SS Extermination Camp in Mogilew, Belorussia’, HGS 7 (1997), 60–78.

38. Evidence for this may be found in Sandkühler’s work on Galicia, see Thomas Sand-

kühler, ‘Endlösung’ in Galizien: Der Judenmord in Ostpolen und die Rettungsinitiativen

von Berthold Beitz, 1941–1944 (Bonn, 1996), 156 ff.

Notes to pages 283–285

533

39. See Hitler’s statements in the discussion about ‘Eastern questions’ on 16 July; IMT

xxxviii. 86 ff., 221-L.

40. For Lemberg, however, there is only one reference to plans for the construction of an extermination camp. In the area of Minsk thousands of Jews deported from the Reich

were murdered in Maly Trostinets from the spring of 1942 onwards.

41. This is evident in a