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

murder the Jews was in fact constructed for the purposes of Ohlendorf’s defence. Ohlendorf put formidable pressure on his co-defendants in order to be able to claim that

he had been acting upon orders received, thereby reducing to a minimum the

extent to which he had himself been free to act with respect to the atrocities of

several Einsatzkommandos. Streim’s theses are now broadly accepted by histor-

ians. 68

Streim’s argument is supported by a series of statements made by former

members of the Einsatzgruppen that expose Ohlendorf’s testimony as a defence

Laying the Ground for Racial Annihilation

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strategy. Ernst Biberstein, who in 1942–3 was leader of Einsatzkommando 6 and

was sentenced to death in Nuremberg, convincingly exposed Ohlendorf’s man-

ipulation of historical events as early as 1948 in a detailed note that was to be given

to his family if he was executed. 69 There is more testimony that illuminates Ohlendorf’s role. 70

The analysis of statements concerning the deployment of Einsatzgruppen made

to German lawyers by former leaders of the Einsatzkommandos and Sonderkom-

mandos between the 1950s and early 1970s also suggest that there was no clear

order to murder all the Jews living in the Soviet Union that had been given before

the start of the war. These statements differ significantly from each other in

respect of place, time, the person transmitting the order, and the content of the

order. Whilst one element in the commando leadership clearly stated that far-

reaching orders such as this had only been issued weeks after the war had started, 71

the statements of those who mention an early comprehensive order are extremely

contradictory, especially when they are traced back over a long period, and are

characterized by memory lapses and reservations. 72 Clear evidence in favour of an early comprehensive order is only provided by the statement of commando leader

Zapp (Sonderkommando 11a)73 and—with reservations—by that of Ehler, who had originally been designated leader of Einsatzkommando 8.74 Some of the former commando leaders instead remember a step-by-step mode of receiving

orders, a ‘framework order’, which was intended to be ‘filled in’ on the initiative of

the commandos and by subsequent orders. 75 The fact that the undifferentiated murder of women and children only began weeks after the campaign started, and

the circumstance that the great mass of commando members agree in their claims

that they did not receive orders such as this from their leaders until immediately

before the massacres themselves both show that briefing the Einsatzgruppen was a

process that cannot be reduced to the issuing of a single order.

What emerges from all this is the impression of a degree of vagueness in the

way orders were issued to Einsatzgruppen. A manner of issuing orders in which

the subordinate was supposed to recognize the ‘meaning’ behind the words

intuitively is familiar from National Socialist anti-Jewish policy from 1933 on-

wards, in particular in cases where the orders had something criminal about them.

In contrast to the military model of giving and carrying out orders this practice

presupposes a certain collusiveness, a strongly developed feeling of consensus

amongst those involved about how anti-Jewish policy was going to develop in the

future—which is a consensus that we can assume to be present when we remem-

ber how the leadership of the Einsatzgruppen were recruited from amongst the SS

and the police.

On the basis of the existing statements and other evidence we can ascertain

what organizational processes were at work in directing the leaders of the Einsatz-

gruppen to carry out their duties. Alongside Streckenbach’s visit to Pretzsch in

June, a social ‘farewell’ visit at which there will also have been discussion about

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Mass Executions in Occupied Soviet Zones, 1941

upcoming tasks, briefing for the SS leadership took place at a decisive meeting

with Himmler in Wewelsburg Castle from 11 to 15 June at which Jeckeln, Pohl, and

Heydrich were also present. 76 The commando leaders were briefed at two sessions with Heydrich, first a meeting in the Prince Carl Palace in Berlin (presumably on

17 June), and second an occasion when the Einsatzgruppe leadership received

instructions from Heydrich in Pretzsch shortly before the outbreak of war, a

meeting that took place immediately after the official farewell to the members of

the Einsatzkommandos who had reported for duty. 77

Even though the leadership of the Einsatzgruppen gave contradictory evidence

about their briefings during the war in the East, what emerges unanimously from

interrogations is that when such conversations took place the ‘firmness’ and

‘severity’ of the deployment about to take place were always stressed, as was the

view that the campaign was a conflict between two ‘world-views’ that had to be

carried out completely ruthlessly and that would demand ‘sacrifices in blood’. At

the same time the central role of the Jews in preserving the Bolshevist system and

their ‘potential enemy’ status were also emphasized. 78

From the tenor of statements such as these it is clear that the Einsatzgruppe

leadership was given a line to take in discussions concerning the treatment of Jews

and Communists, a line that corresponded to the content of the orders and

instructions that pertained to the Wehrmacht (the jurisdiction decree, the com-

missar order, guidelines for the conduct of the troops). Furthermore it is clear that

instructions were given that Heydrich shortly afterwards summarized in writing,

making explicit reference, moreover, to the meeting on 17 June: in a letter to the

heads of the Einsatzgruppen dated 29 June he merely referred to ‘attempts at self-

purification’ that the commandos were to initiate; 79 in a letter to the Higher SS and Police Commanders of 2 July he informed them of the ‘most important instructions given by me to the Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos of the Security

Police and the SD’. 80 In this second letter the point headed ‘executions’ contains the following list:

Those to be executed are all

Functionaries of the Comintern (and all professional Communist

politicians of any kind)

People’s Commissars

Jews in Party and state posts

other radical elements (saboteurs, propagandists, snipers, assassins,

agitators, etc.)

The revealing ‘etc.’ at the end of that list and the fact that Heydrich wrote in this

letter of ‘removing all obstacles in the way of attempts at self-purification by anti-

Communist or anti-Jewish circles in the areas to be occupied’, and of supporting

such attempts, ‘albeit invisibly’, 81 suggest that the range of those to be executed was by no means clearly delimited. One can assume instead