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“Final Solution” Chronology 1904-07 Hitler in Linz: remark to friend re. synagogue: “This
doesn’t belong in Linz.” (Fleming) 1919 16 September 1919: Hitler letter to Gemlich outlining political action plans “removal” (Entfernung) = murder (Dawidovicz 16-17) A deterministic, teleological interpretation which does not explain why all Jews did not flee at once. (Bauer 36) 13 November 1919: Hitler’s first public speech: “We
will carry on the struggle until the last Jew is removed from the German
Reich.” (Dawidovicz 17) 1920 The
Nazi party twenty-five point program
on Jewish policy is announced. (Friedlander) A ‘blueprint for anti-Jewish
legislation’, Hitler advocates “the removal (Entfernung) of the Jews
from our nation, not because we would begrudge them their existence- we would
congratulate the rest of the world on their company- but because the
existence of our nation is a thousand times more important to us than that of
an alien race.” (Dawidovicz 56) 1922 Fall
1922: Himmler joins Reichsflagge, a military group under Ernst Rohm 1923 August
1923: Himmler joins NSDAP, following Rohm. He is Bavarian Reichswehr and
participates in the Putsch as an SA standardbearer. (Dawidovicz ) 8-9 November 1923: Beer Hall
Putsch (Munich) 1924 Hitler
imprisoned at Landsberg Mein Kampf: Hitler’s death
wish against Jews: “If at the beginning of the war twelve or fifteen thousand
of these Hebrew corruptors of the people had been held under poison gas...”
(Dawidovicz 3) From
Anti-Semitic ideology came the energy that eventually propelled the Nazis
towards Auschwitz, but in 1933, to say nothing of 1919 or 1925, no one yet
imagined where that energy might lead. (Schleunes 56) “The Jew” occupied a significant place in Mein Kampf. He appeared in many different guises: the anithesis of the German Aryan, the purveyor of modernity, the prime mover of parasitic capitalism, the agent of Marxist subversion, and the master of Bolshevist Russia. It seems as if Hitler, determined to provide the Nazi movement with a single enemy, seized upon “the Jew” as best suited to make ‘widely separated adversaries appear as if they belonged to but one category.’(Mayer) In Mein Kampf there is nothing to suggest that the drive to the east was intended to de-capitate the “Jewish octopus” or to seize Europe’s principal reservoir of Jews, located in Poland and Russia.... Anti -Semitism permeated Hitler’s worldview and project. It was also consonant with his interpretation- and execration- of the corruption of the modern world. But while Hitler condemned the Jews as the chief disease carrying poisoners and parasites of contemporary society, he struck out through them against the processes and forces of emancipation and modernization, which for him were the ultimate source of pollution. (Mayer) People
rallied to a syncretic creed of ultranationalism, social Darwinism,
anti-Marxism, anti-bolshevism, and anti-Semitism, as well as to a party program
calling for revision of Versailles, the repeal of reparations, the curb of
industrial capitalism and the establishment of a Volkish welfare state.
(Mayer) Anti-Semitism
in its basest form, but it is hardly a blueprint for the planned mass killing
of all European Jews….“If at the beginning of the war twelve or fifteen
thousand of these Hebrew corruptors of the people had been held under poison
gas...” : “a solitary sentence in a thick book of turgid German prose.”
“Until the end of 1938 neither Hitler nor any of his chief propagandists of
the regime suggested any other solution for what they called the Jewish
problem than eviction from Germany.”(Bauer 37) 1924 From 1924 to 1930 NSDAP members of the Reichstag introduced anti-Jewish legislation seeking to prevent Jews from taking jobs in the civil service. In 1930 they even introduced legislation which attempted to expropriate funds from Jewish ‘bank and stock exchange princes’. (Dawidowicz 56) early
1924: Himmler joins NSFB, led by Ludendorf and Strasser June 1924: Himmler becomes
Strasser’s secretary (NSFB Gauleiter for Lower Bavaria). (Dawidovich) 1925 May 1925: NSFB joins NSDAP;
Himmler- deputy Gauleiter for Lower Bavaria under Strasser 1926 Strasser becomes party propaganda
leader; Himmler remains his deputy. 1927 Himmler
appointed deputy leader of the SS. Helmut
Nikolaiis assigned to plan anti-Jewish legislation for the Ministry of the
Interior (Frick) upon the Nazi accession to power. His overall purpose is to
repeal ‘Jewish-Roman law’ and assert a conception of citizenship based on
Germanic law: volk and race. (Dawidovicz 58) 1928 Late 20’s Nazi Anti-Semitic Ideology: Hitler’s Second Bookwritten
but not published in 1928. He said that the Jews were an anti-race, formed
out of a hybrid, indeterminate mongrel core, a nomad people of eternal
restlessness, incapable of independent political, territorial existence…
their religion was a cover for their lust for power and for absolute rule
over others…. Their control of the world based on financial machinations.
First, the Jew will demand equal rights and then superior rights…. The Jew’s
character was parasitic, and incapable of a separate existence; his rule
would lead not only to the destruction of nations oppressed by him but also
to his own demise. Years before the wish to murder the Jews became articulate
in their own minds, they formulated it in obverse fashion. They could murder because they accused the
Jews of wanting to murder them. Rosenberg, Goebbels and others use Christian
anti-Semitism and its identification of Jews as a people possessed by the
Devil and build a modern demonology based on fears of Bolshevik world
domination. (Bauer 37) Given their commitment to anti-Semitism it is surprising that they had no clear plans about how to handle the Jewish question when they cam to power in 1933. (Schleunes 57) 1929
Himmler appointed Reichsfuhrer-SS Gregor Strasser, second to Hitler in party leadership, establishes a think tank within the party (OA II) that was charged with making the ‘intellectual preparations for the future National Socialist State’: a shadow cabinet, producing detailed programmatic statements. However, nothing of comparable nature was produced regarding the Jewish question. The few plans that were made were
largely the work of Dr. Helmut Nikolai: racial
hygiene measures and locking out of professions, precursors to the Nuremburg
laws. He indicates that legal measures can be pursued if the Nazis come to
power through absolute majority, by administrative means if through a
coalition. However, there is no reason to believe that Hitler ever took
the slightest note of what Nicolai had to say… Hitler was in no mood to
delegate authority in Jewish affairs. (Schleunes 58) Reichstag Election KPD SPD Catholic DNVP NSDAP 77 143 (-33) 107 (+12) 18% Polarization
and paralysis of Reichstag; Nazis disrupt legislative. 1931 Himmler sets up Race and
Settlement Office (RuSA, later RuSHA) to screen prospective SS candidates for
racial purity. Fall: NSDAP (w/ SA left wing workers), veterans organizations (Stahlhelm) and DNVP (Schacht, Hugenburg) 19
September 1931:Geli Raubal Scandal The SD is established within the
SS as the chief intelligence office of the organization. Ic Subdivision
(intelligence) under Heydrich. Winter: Hindenburg wants to retire. May 1932: Goring, then chief
delegate to Reichstag explains to an Italian journalist what the Nazis plan
to do eventually to the Jews: marriage laws, expulsion of post 1914 Jewish
immigrants, exclusion of Jews from professions, but Merchants would be allowed
to stay in business. (Schleunes 58)
January 1932: Hitler Industry Club Speech. Hitler meets with Fritz Thyssen
6 November Reichstag Elections: Communists-17%,
Socialists-20%, Catholics-15%, NSDAP- 33%, DNVP-9% 10 March Presidential Elections: KPD Center NSDAP Stahlhelm 13% 49.6% 30% 6-8% Runoff 10% 53% 37% Bruning:
chancellor tries to reign in SS and SA 5/30
Bruning resigns and is replaced by von Papen (Catholic, Prussian aristocrat)…
Schleicher as Defense Minister will run government. 6/16
Von Papen lifts restrictions on SS and SA, new civil war between Nazis and
communists. Von Papen dismisses SPD premier 31 July 1932 Reichstag
Elections KPD SPD Center
NSDAP DNVP 89
(+12) 133(-10) 75(+6) 230 37.5% 37(-4) Von
Papen inept, Hindenburg reluctant to turn to Hitler; Von Papen offers Hitler
the vice-chancellorship and Hitler holds out. Von Papen unable to form
majority of the right. Nazi popularity tops out. Von
Papen dissolves the Reichstag after vote of no confidence SA
violence starts to sour industry’s support of Nazis 6 November 1932 Reichstag Elections KPD SPD Center
NSDAP DNVP 100
(+11) decline decline 196(-30)
33% 52(+15)9% setback
of NSDAP vonPapen
plots against Schleicher after Hindenburg asks him for his resignation von
Papen schemes with Hitler to regain top post; Schleicher becomes Chancellor Schleicher:
Hindenburg attempt to split NSDAP by offering Strasser cabinet position Schleicher tries towin over the Socialists by offering public work projects, but SPD won’t cooperate. Von
Papen schemes to regain power 1
January 1933 meeting with Hitler and DNVP conservatives: plot to overthrow
the Weimar in legislative coup Hitler: Chancellor; von-Papen Vice Chancellor
but running things behind the scenes. Von Ppapen persuades Hindenburg that he
can manage Hitler in an authoritarian government. 30 January 1933: Hitler named Chancellor: Upon
accession to power, Hitler moved methodically to implement the Final Solution,
but in order to do so, he had to
restrain party radicals and give his actions the veneer of legal process.
Legislation would lead first to political, legal and economic
disenfranchisement, then it would seek to identify and define Jews as sub-human,
subject to medical measures. (Dawidowicz 48) In
reference to the first six year of Hitler’s rule, one cannot speak of a Nazi
Jewish policy. Instead, one must speak of many Jewish policies, no one of
them truly official, no one of them coordinated with others, and many of them
pursued in contradiction to each of the others…” (Schleunes 56) nor until
1939 in the aftermath of Kristallnacht can the intervention of Hitler clearly
be seen. Himmler wound up winning
this fiercely contested struggle…”that the struggle was a bitter one is
evidence confirming the importance of anti Semitism to [Hitler] and the
Nazis. (57) How can Schleunes argue that Jewish policy
was essential to Hitler, an issue over which he refused to delegate control,
yet he ignored it until Kristallnacht? Hitler’s hatred of the Jews is undeniable, but it is not clear that he participated in any specific way to realize any measures. He did not appoint a leader of Jewish policy, and he consistently chose less radical solutions when confronted with choices for action. Anti-Jewish policy underwent a process of ‘cumulative radicalization’ spurred by competition within the bureaucracy. To maintain control in the face of Nazi party efforts to infiltrate the government, the civil bureaucracy gradually made concessions on the Jewish question as a sop to party ideologues who could only exercise power in this limited arena. The radicalization was a natural result of the competition for this ministry. (Mommsen) Although
the anti-Semitism of Hitler and the Nazis was hard set, it could not have
become genocidal without a whole series of enabling and catalyzing
contingencies, which ultimately included the opportunistic conquests and irreversible
insufficiencies of an ideologically immutable warfare state.... The most
crucial of these contingencies was the deep-seated convergence of interests
between, on the one hand, the cartel of traditional conservatives and
reactionaries, and, on the other hand, Hitler and the National Socialist
movement.... Although there were scattered and spontaneous anti-Semitic
incidents during Hitler’s first two months in office, his government and
political movement concentrated on hounding leftists, not Jews.” (Mayer) Anti-Jewish
Legislation: 1933-35 (I) During this period we see that the first stage of the implementation of Hitler’s plan to kill the Jews involved: a) the political, legal and economic disenfranchisement of the Jews which began in April of 1933. b) The dehumanization of the Jews through laws forbidding intermarriage at Nuremburg in 1935. (F)
Hitler had difficulty consolidating control over party fanatics like Rohm who
were eroding his political image and he had to give non-Jewish actions the
veneer of legal process. Having gained state power, Hitler consolidated real
power of the violent forces within in his own party. Henceforth, control of
Jewish policy and ascendancy within the police state would be synonymous. January 1933: Upon Hitler’s
accession to power, the SS has 50,000 members: General SS (Allgemeine SS) and
two spin offs: the Reserve SS (Verfugungstruppe) and the Death’s Head Units
(Totenkopfverbunde) 1 February 1933: Hitler decree
blames Marxist parties for the misery of Germany. He insists that he will not
complete the nation’s ruin by tolerating ‘the red flag of destruction’.
(Mayer) 4 February 1933: Suppression of
Socialist and Communist political parties (Dawidowicz 49) 20 February 1933: Hitler and
Goring address prominent industrialists and bankers. Disparages liberalism
and refers to the coming election: ‘there’s no going back’. There will be “no
internal peace until Marxism is finished off.” (Mayer) January to April 1933: Ernst
Rohm’s SA troopers engage in terrorization program: beatings and vandalism.
Hitler is embarrassed by their activities because he was a ‘law and order’ candidate. To curtail SA
hoodlums, SS units were sometimes called in to maintain order (Schleunes 60) 27 February 1933: Reichstag fire: In emergency
decrees, Goring suspends freedom of political discourse, orders the arrest of
all Communist deputies in the Reichstag, and closes all KPD offices,
newspapers and meeting halls. (Mayer) 5
March 1933: Reichstag Elections: NSDAP: 44% DNVP 8% (Dawidowicz 50) 9 March 1933: Himmler appointed
acting police president of Munich. Himmler heads all police except in
Goring’s powerbase in Prussia (the Gestapo). 10 March 1933: Hitler calls on the
party, SA and SS to continue giving first priority to “the destruction of
Marxism”. (Mayer) 11 March 1933: Goring sanctions
anti-Jewish boycott violence (Dawidowicz 52), but even she acknowledges that
the boycott originated in spontaneous SA hooliganism, yet later she describes
the event as an example of Hitler’s “improvisatory and opportunistic manner”
and acknowledges that he was forced to get involved to prevent the SA from
getting out of control. (Dawidowicz 53-54) 20 March 1933: Himmler
opens Dachau. (Dawidowicz 51) The
first contingent of two hundred prisoners, all of them Communists, arrive two
days later. During the first six months of Hitler’s chancellorship 27,000
people would be imprisoned, primarily for political purposes. (Mayer) 21 March 1933: Spectacular national celebration orchestrated by Goebbels on Potsdam Day to mark the investiture of the new Reichstag. Hitler and Hindenburg do honor to the tombs of Frederick II and Frederick the Great. In less than eight weeks Hitler accomplished his ‘legal revolution’. (Dawidowicz) Having consolidated ‘legislative’ power, Hitler would move to secure real control by defeating rivals within the Nazi Party. Controlling Jewish policy meant control of ideology from the inner circle and hands on the levers of power in the police state. Combatants: Goring (Prussian secret police- Gestapo), Rohm (SA), Goebbels (Ministry of Propaganda), Streicher (publisher of Der Sturmer), Rosenberg (Hitler’s ideological mentor), Frick (Interior), Himmler (SS). (Schleunes 61) In this contest Hitler’s interventions appeared to be restraining ones. He did not deem Jewish policy important enough to appoint one leader, and he did not contribute specific ideas. (Unlike autobahn plans which were hands on.) (Schleunes 62) 26 March 1933: Hitler meets with Goebbels to discuss planned anti-Jewish boycott of April 1. (Friedlander) 26 March 1933: Goring meets with
leaders of Jewish organizations to get them to pressure Hitler wants to steer SA activity
into more limited, officially sponsored activities, overseen by the SS.
(Schleunes 61) April 1933: Goring maintains power
base as head of Prussian Political Police-Gestapo. April 1933 National Defense Council:a committee of military and political leaders formed to make Germany powerful again. They lay the military and diplomatic plans for 1. Withdrawal from
the League of Nations 2. Remilitarization 3. Re-occupation
of the Rhineland 4. Four Year Plan 1-3 April 1933: The April 1933 Boycott Official boycott of Jewish businesses led by Streicher fails. Goebbels begins campaign to ‘aryanize’ Jewish businesses, limited by economic rationality. Another failure. (Schleunes 61) The
anti-Jewish boycott demonstrated Hitler’s talent for rationalizing and
politicizing raw anti-Semitism. (Dawidovicz) 4 April 1933: Hindenberg letter to Hitlerin which he seeks to prevent the forced resignation of Jewish war veterans. Hitler backs down and agrees to limit SA terrorization activities. “The solution of this problem will be carried out legally, and not by capricious acts.” (Dawidovicz) (I) During this period we see that the first stage of the implementation of Hitler’s plan to kill the Jews involved: a) the political, legal and economic disenfranchisement of the Jews which began in April of 1933. b) The dehumanization of the Jews through laws forbidding intermarriage at Nuremburg in 1935. (F)
Hitler had difficulty consolidating control over party fanatics like Rohm who
were eroding his political image and he had to give non-Jewish actions the
veneer of legal process. Having gained state power, Hitler consolidated real
power of the violent forces within in his own party. Henceforth, control of
Jewish policy and ascendancy within the police state would be synonymous. 7 April to October 1933 Anti-Jewish Legislation
preventing Jews from holding jobs in a variety of professions: civil service,
bankers, judiciary, professors, students, journalists, entertainers, writers,
thereby eliminating their ability to influence policy. “the exclusion of Jews
from public life, government, culturem and the professions.” (Dawidowicz 59)
Ministries form Judenreferat to monitor compliance. Anti
Jewish legislation: 1.
eliminate eligibility for Jews in legal, civil service and school jobs 2. legally define who a Jew is (vital to more radical ‘removal’ methods 3.
WPA for Mittelstand/ bogus economics 4.
maintain permanent revolutionary spirit (Dawidovicz 61) 5.
replace class concerns with racial concerns 6.
good Germans cowed by Nazi police actions and by fears of Communist
revolt. Over 500,000 Jews flee the Reich. The next year only 135,000 Jews would leave, indicating the failure of Nazi’s emigration plans due to opposition within Interior to the flight of Jewish capital from the country. (Schleunes 64) Hands
off? Hitler’s is acceding to Schacht on flight of Jewish wealth. It would not be until 1934 and the accession of Himmler to power within the Interior Ministry that he would gain control of the forced emigration of Jews. Until then the “Haavra” policy was followed. (Schleunes 64) Emigration was still handled by Interior which was staffed by old line Weimar bureaucrats sympathetic to the Jews. (Dawidovicz ) June 1933: Himmler
appoints Theodor Eicke (recently released from a psychiatric unit) to be
commandant at Dachau and bring under control the ‘wild improvisations’ going
on there. (Dawidovicz 28 June 1933: Frick Speech on
Genetic Purity (Dawidovicz 65) Interior Minister Frick announces policy on
race whose goal is genetic purity. Frick resisted pressure to issue an
immediate ban on Jewish-Aryan marriages (proposed by Dr. Gerhardt Wagner)
because Germany’s reputation abroad would suffer from such an assault on a
basic human right. (Schleunes 63) 14 July 1933: Sterilization legalized for people suffering from hereditary diseases a precursor of “positive eugenics” (euthanasia) programs to be administered by Hereditary Health Courts. (Dawidovicz 65), August 1933: the “Haavara agreements”: negotiations
between Ministry of Economy and the Jewish Agency for Palestine to allow
emigrating Jews to deposit assets in a Jewish trust company. Once in
Palestine, the Jew would be payed half the deposited amount. (Dawidovicz) 10
September 1933: Concordat with Vatican Catholics maintain religious rights at expense of political rights. (Dawidovicz
61) October 1933: Germany withdraws from League of Nations 24 October 1933: Hitler allows
“Haavara agreements” to stand thus demonstrating his willingness to allow
emigration to Palestine. Hitler would support the emigration of Jews to
Palestine until mid-1937, after the Peel Commision on Palestine, when the
foreign ministry came out against the creation of a Jewish state: ‘a new
Vatican’. (Dawidovicz 62) November 1933: German Medical Association under Dr. Gerhardt Wagner launches campaign urging an immediate ban on marriages between Jews and Germans. Initially opposed by Frick who feared world reaction to an assault on basic human rights. (Schleunes 63) 1934
May 1934: Eicke promoted to reorganize other camps in the Nazi
prison system. 9 June 1934: Hitler makes SD head
of all NSDAP intelligence services. Eicke
shoots Rohm as part of the SA purge; he is later promoted to head the Nazi
concentration camp system. Aftermath of the purge: no significant anti-Jewish
legislation enacted in 1934. Even expulsion was no longer pushed due to
opposition from Interior (Frick and Goring) (Dawidovicz 62) A demonstration
of Hitler’s true concerns: holding power. Hitler’s
decimation of the SA leadership finally gave the SS full independence.
(Schelunes 64)
Hitler to his personal secretary, Christa Schroeder: "So Fraulein Schoeder, now I have had a bath and I am as clean as a newborn babe again." (Rosenbaum 64) late June 1934:
Heydrich begins to expand SD bureaucracy and to penetrate political police
with SD personnel. Heydrich creates desk for Jewish Affairs, SDII-112, under
Leopold von Mildenstein. Later in 1934 he will hire Adolph Eichmann as an
expert in Zionism, SD Desk-II- 1123. Heydrich also participates in the
planning for an expansion of the prison system as well as the creation of a
military force independent of the Wehrmacht. July 1934: Hitler makes the SS an
independent organization within the framework of the NSDAP. Summer 1934: S.S. ‘Situation Report- Jewish question’ encourages massive Jewish emigration, even support for Zionism. (Dawidovicz) For the first time mention was made of organizing a massive emigration of Jews from Germany. “It had occurred to the SS that to support Zionist sentiment among Jews could serve to encourage their departure!” (Schleunes 64) August 1934: Hitler named ‘Fuhrer’. September 1934: The
Verfugungstruppe is accorded official status by Defense Minister despite
resentment from Wehrmacht leaders. “A standing armed force for such special
internal tasks as may be allotted to the SS by the Fuhrer.” ((Dawidovicz) 1935 28 January 1935: Heydrich, as head
of Bavarian Police, allows Zionist oriented youth organizations to prepare
children for emigration to Palestine. ((Dawidovicz 84) Himmler creates “Lebensborn”
program: positive eugenics 16 March 1935: Hitler
repudiates Versailles Treaty and begins to rearm Wehrmacht. Military service becomes compulsory. March 1935: Prison camp system has
expanded to 7 camps with a total population of 10,000. Totenkopfuerbunde
units and other camp expenses are financed through Ministry of Interior
budget. (Dawidovicz) 21 March 1935: Hitler foreign policy address assures world that he seeks peace. (Dawidovicz 62) March: Renewed anti-Jewish street
terrorism quickly curtailed. (Dawidovicz 63) 15
May 1935: Scwartze Korpspublication supports Zionists vs.
assimilationists. (Dawidovicz 84) April 1935 SS emigration directive
supporting as the solution to the Jewish problem in Germany (Dawidovicz
84-85) Note Dawidovicz rebuttal. 18 June 1935 Naval Agreement with
Great Britian 27 July 1935 Frick memo announcing coming legislation
against Aryan/non-Aryan marriage. (Dawidovicz 66) 20 August 1935 Schacht, in
conference at the Ministry of Economy, complains of disorders to business
caused by “irresponsible Jew-baiting” (Dawidovicz 63) 30 August 1935: Promulgation of
Jewish Laws reported to be forthcoming by foreign press. (Friedlander) approaching
annual NSDAP Rally in Nuremburg Hitler orders legislation regulating “German-Jewish” blood relations. (Dawidovicz 66) Frick and associates hurry legislation into shape and compromise on the legal definition of Jewishness (Dawidovicz 66) Foreign
Minister Von Neurath convinces Hitler to drop plans to take advantage 15 September 1935: The Nuremberg Laws: decree Jews to be second class subjects rather than citizens; limit placed on Aryan-Jewish marriage/ sex; the ‘tolerated Jew’ status of the 17th and 18th centuries. (Laws rushed to passage after collapse of policy declaration re. the Abysinnian conflict.) (Schleunes ) The
centrality of blood and race was transformed into state policy. Jews were
defined and identified as a medical threat: a new departure and an essential
step towards the Final Solution. Reich Citizenship Law rejects doctrines
based on equality of man grounded in natural law in favor of citizenship
based on racial and national differences.
(Dawidovicz 69) The
term citizen is revoked from non-Aryans. After a century of assimilation, the
Nazis, the Nazis declare a new natural law. If one of four grandparents are
Jewish, then you are Jewish. Ominous interpretation: 1. Elimination of
Jew from white collar workplace 2. Definition of
Jew using racial terminology 3. concentration
and “removal” Note
that Jews maintained economic rights. Rather
than an ominous step forward the Nuremburg Laws could be regarded as a
compromise that reassured German Jews by establishing a understood staus with
historical precedents: the tolerated Jew of the 17th and 18th
centuries. No further legislation was enacted in the next couple years. 24 September 1935: Secret
Fuhrer Conference in Munich: Hitler adopts Interior’s position on a more
limited legal definition of Jewishness. Mischlinge status clarified.
(Mommsen) (Dawidovicz 68) Hitler claims he needs four more years to be ready
for war. (Dawidovicz 92) 1936 7March
1936: Germany
Reoccupies Rhineland: Neutral de-militarized land on the west bank
of the Rhine made into a buffer zone between France and Germany by Versailles
Treaty March 1936: Massive emigration plan: Eichmann (S.D.) raises possibility of
buying an Ecuadorean province for Jewish emigration (Schleunes) 17 June 1936: Hitler makes Himmler Reichsfuhrer-SS and Chief of German Police. The completion of Himmler’s infiltration of the police apparatus: the party now controls the police; Himmler has won out over Goring. Himmler reorganizes the police into two major departments: Orpo (Regular Police: uniformed urban and rural police) under Kurt Daluege and Sipo (Security Police: political police (Gestapo) and criminal police (Kripo) under Heydrich. (Dawidovicz “Situation
Report- Jewish Question”: first mention made of organizing a massive
emigration of Jews from Germany. SS support for Zionist sentiment among Jews.
Eichmann proposes purchase of uninhabited province in Ecuador for
Jewish emigrants. (Schleunes) August 1936: Hitler drafts memorandum in Berchtesgaden which became the Four Year Plan: the plan to put Germany economically and militarily on a war footing by August 1940. Lebensraum: rationale for a war of conquest against Russia: war would create breathing room to expand population, return it to its agricultural roots, defeat the Bolsheviks, remove the Soviet Regime and annihilate Jewry. The preamble reads like Mein Kampf. A call for a holy war against the Jewish Bolshevism. The preamble calls for the expropriation of all Jewish property and wealth. (Dawidovicz 90-93) Hitler
stated that Germany must be ready for war within four years because “the loss
of months may cause damage that will be irreparable in hundreds of years.”
Then prospective victory of Jewry “whose most radical expression is
Bolshevism… will not this time lead to a new Versailles treaty, but to the
final destruction, that is the extermination of the German people”…. Which
will cause “the catastrophic destruction of the European nations, such as
humanity has not known since the demise of the states of antiquity.” (Bauer
38) Germans
were fighting a defensive battle against Jewry. Murder is required; it is a
positive ethical command to save the world. Jews are demons and vermin; since
they are not human, they can be killed. But according to Bauer, we cannot
regard such rhetoric as actual planning; the murder of the Jews is implied
but not stated. We cannot regard this type of apocalyptic thinking as
evidence of actual planning for mass murder: the idea remains an
“unarticulated wish”. (Bauer 39) Was the Berchstaden memorandum intended for public eyes? If
not, can it be regarded merely as propaganda designed for political purposes?
Isn’t it an expression of hard core Nazi ideology put into practical
application? Hitler is preparing for total war with Russia and he is
presenting the struggle with the Jew/Bolshevik in apocalyptic terms. Can
there be any doubt that mass killing will be committed? 28 August 1936: SD officer
Schroder, Eichmann’s superior, describes his section’s work as reaching an
encompassing National Socialist definition of “Jewry as an enemy of the State
and Party”. The Jew simply by being a Jew was defined as an enemy of the
party. Ideology is being transformed into a legal concept. (Dawidiwicz)
September 1936: Schacht resigns as Minister of Economy, and Goring is made
Plenipotentiary of Four Year Plan, thus assuming total control of economic policy, and he
proceeds to Aryanize nearly 40.000 Jewish owned businesses that had been
protected by Schacht (Dawidovicz 95-96) October 1936: Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis formed. November 1936: Spanish Civil
War: Germany recognizes Franco, openly supplying his forces during
war. 1937 29 April 1937: Hitler warns radicals of party not to
demand steps in Jewish matters which he has not carefully planned beforehand.
(Friedlander) Hitler’s craft to plan and patience to wait for the best
opportunity. (Dawidovich) ‘by mid-1937’: Goring has emerged
as Hitler’s chief troubleshooter and determines to have a fundamental
settling of the Jewish question. New, more vigorous efforts at Aryanization
of Jewish businesses. (Schleunes 66) 17 August 1937: Hitler secret directive reaffirms the military character of the Verfungstruppe, in peacetime under Himmler’s command, in wartime under the Wehrmacht. They were to be available for ‘internal political tasks’. 13 September 1937: Hitler speech
at NSDAP Congress reviling Jewish-Bolshevik enemy (Dawidovicz 94) 5 November 1937: The Hossbach Memorandum:Hitler speech to Wehrmacht high command in Reich Chancellery: agenda presents Hitler’s timetable for the conquest of Austria and Czechoslovakia. Preference for attack, as early as 1938. (Dawidowicz 94) Was
Hitler flushing out high military officials whose loyalty could not be
depended upon: Blomberg, Fritsch, and Neurath are out. (Taylor) Peel Commission (Brit)
recommendation for a Jewish state in Palestine ends Nazi flirtation with Zionism. The specter of a sovereign Jewish
state gave some Nazis second thoughts about encouraging Zionism. Ribbentrop warned
Hitler about the dangers that might emanate form a “Jewish Vatican”.
(Schleunes 65) 1938 5 January 1938: ID cards are
required for all Jews. January 1938: Goring initiates systematic planning for ‘Aryanization’ of Jewish businesses.He asserts the government’s control (his ministry’s control) over party members who were seizing Jewish businesses. (Dawidiwicz 96-97) By April of the next year over 20,000 businesses had been Aryanized or ‘liquidated’ under Goring’s direction. This was his method for dealing with the Jewish problem without losing Jewish capital. (Schleunes 66) Between then and the end of the year, control of Jewish policy would be seized by Himmler and the SS. 25 January 1938: Interior
Department decree allows police to arrest any suspicious persons February 1938: SD gets Hitler’s
approval to control emigration policy. (Adam) February 1938: Himmler orders expulsion of Soviet Jews to be carried out in ten days. By May they are rounded up and sent to concentration camps in preparation for “emigration”. (Schleunes 66) Nazi persecutions reached a new level of fury in the summer of 1938. 12 March 1938: Anschluss: the German invasion and annexation of Austria: 200,000 more Jews fall under Nazi control. March 1938: Eichmann (S.D.) forces 50,000 Austrian Jews to emigrate in six
months.Over 100,000 more Austrian Jews would leave the country before the
war. Eichmann controlled SS street terror, centralized an emigration office,
reestablished a Jewish organization and freed Jewish leaders from jail. Then
using terror and appeals to Jewish leadership, he forced Jewish emigration.
(Dawidovicz 99, 104) Eichmann was a minor SD official hired in 1934. The emergence of Eichmann as an important figure in Jewish policy provides persuasive evidence that the Final Solution was not the result of a long standing grand design: a failed used car salesman who was not overtly anti-Semitic becomes within a year the SD’s resident Jewish expert. (Schleunes 64) His first grand idea was forced emigration to Ecuador Schleunes (65) After the Anschluss, though, could be made the laboratory in which to test methods for solving the Jewish problem March 1938: Expropriation of Jewish
businesses sped up. 28 March 1938: Fuhrer himself decrees
all existing Jewish organizations illegal, forcing the creation of one
organization for Jewish affairs under total police control. (Dawidovicz) 22-26 April 1938: Goring decree
forces Jews to identify themselves as owners of businesses. (Dawidovicz 96-97) 22 April 1938: Goring decrees that
Jews must report value of wealth. (Dawidovicz 97) 1 June 1938: Heydrich instructs
police to make mass arrests to create pool of able-bodied men for forced
labor at Buchenwald. (Dawidovicz 99) 14 June 1938: Goring: Reich
Citizenship Law defines business enterprises that are Jewish. (Dawidovicz 96) June 1938: Supplement to Nuremberg
laws: Jewish professionals barred from
practice. June 1938: Soviet Jews sent to
camps preparatory for ‘emigration’ to the Soviet Union. 1500 German Jews
arrested and sent to Buchenwald. (Schleunes 66) 15 July 1938: Jews barred from
medical practice. July 1938 Evian
Conference in France: US and Great Britain make Jewish emigration
more difficult (Landau) 17 August 1938: Hitler clarifies
chain of command for armed SS units which will remain directly under Hitler
(and Himmler) unless war breaks out. Then the SS units would fall under
Wehrmacht command. (Dawidiwicz) 17 August 1938: Goring outlaws
name changes. All Jews renamed Israel and Sarah. (Dawidiwicz) 27 September: Jews barred from
legal profession. 29 September 1938: Munich Conference- Czechoslovakia dismembered and Sudetenland annexed. (The rest of Czechoslovakia would be annexed the following year.) 7 November 1938: Herschl
Grynszpan, a 17 year old Polish Jew living in Paris, shoots and wounds Ernst
vom Rath, a German diplomat. 8 November 1938: The Nazi elite
had gathered in Munich to celebrate the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch.
There, Himmler addresses SS officers
about the coming change in Jewish policy and how they must be prepared for hard tasks to be carried
out without pity in the days ahead. (Breitman) 8 November 1938: Hitler is seen
speaking with Goebbels at a dinner
celebrating the Putsch. Hitler leaves the party early, and Goebbels delivers
a vitriolic anti -semitic speech, in essence, cutting the SA loose to act out
reprisals. Himmler orders Heydrich to instruct the SS to remain neutral and insure that
non-Jewish property is not destroyed. (Friedlander) (Breitman) 9 November 1938: Kristallnacht: massive pogrom
organized by Goebbels, opposed by Himmler and Goring . When told that those
responsible had to be punished, Goring replied: “You want to punish Hitler?”
(Breitman quoting Adam) Mass arrests of 30,000 Jews sent to Buchenwald,
Dachau and Sachsenhausen (Dawidovicz 100-02) Of the approximately 30-35
thousand internees in Nazi concentration camps taken there on Kristallnacht
most were set free in 1939 when emigration papers or opportunities were
obtained for them from their frantic relatives. (Bauer 40) The Night of Crystal was the kind of anti-Semitic orgy for which Nazi ruffians had been yearning since 1933. It was also to be their last independent action. Goring complained of vast insurance damages to German busisness, and he spent the next two days closeted with Hitler. No protocol of these talks exists. (Schleunes 67). 12 November 1938: Air Ministry meeting Goring announces that he has been given responsibility for handling the Jewish question ‘one way or another’, thus removing Goebbels from power as an architect of Jewish policy. Heydrich boasts of the success of Eichmann’s forced emigration of the Austrian Jews. Goring and Heydrich are primarily concerned with finding the most profitable means of forcing emigration. (Schleunes 67) (Brietman) Kristallnacht provided the Nazis with the
opportunity to proceed with the total expropriation of Jewish businesses and
the complete removal of their freedom. (Dawidowicz 102) 15 November 1938: Education
Ministry bars Jewish children from schools. (Dawidovicz 103) 24 November 1938: post-
Kristallnacht article in SS journal Das
Schwartze Korps threatens Jews
with ‘fire and sword’ quoting Heydrich at Goring meeting. The article raises
the possibility that other nations might still take in Germany’s Jews. It
even claims that it would welcome the creation of a Jewish state. Barring that,
Germany would go ahead and resolve the problem. Suggestion that Goring
opposed war and believed a resolution of the Jewish question would calm the
West. (Brietman) (Bauer 41) 24 November 1938: Hitler meets
with South African minister for Defense, Oswald Pirow. He tells him, “The
problem will soon be solved.” He also says that he did not intend to export
Nazism, but he would export anti-Semitism by sending the Jews elsewhere.
(Breitman) A few weeks later Hitler
meets with Czech Foreign Minister Chvalkovsky: “We are going to destroy
the Jews....The day of reckoning has come.” (Bauer 41)(Schleunes) “We
have every evidence that these plans (Schacht-Rublee, Madagascar) were meant
seriously, and no evidence that any mass murder plan exists at that stage!”
Bauer (41) 29 November 1938: Goring meets
privately with Hugo Rothenberg, a Danish Jew. During the meeting Goring
admits that the pogrom had been a financial disaster, but he insists that
foreign Jews need to come up with loans to enable German Jews to finance
emigration. Goring mentions that if such loans were not forthcoming, Germany naturally had other
ideas in case emigration didn’t work. (Breitman) December
1938: Schacht- Rublee negotiations:
Hitler gives permission to Schacht, the former Minister of Economy, now an
associate of Goring, to negotiate with American lawyer George Rublee to
arrange finances to allow the emigration of over 150,000 German Jews. He
warns a delegation of American Quakers to ...
“be quick, for nobody knows what happens in this country tomorrow.”
(Bauer) (Breitman) If
Jews were not really human, one could sell them—if there were someone who
would buy. The tragedy was that there was no buyer. (Bauer 41) 14 December 1938: Goring sends a memorandum to Reich high officials confirming his office’s control of Jewish question. (Schleunes 68) mid-December 1938: Reich Health
Leader Conti tells government physicians that the state intended to find a
‘final solution’ to the Jewish problem in Europe. (Breitman) 1939 January 1939: Rublee comes to
Berlin to continue negotiations. Foreign Office tries to prevent initialing
of agreements and any promises about the future treatment of Jews in Germany.
(Breitman) 20 January 1939: Schacht is
dismissed as the head of Reichbank. Publicly, Goring indicates that Schacht
was dismissed because of his refusal to follow Hitler’s financial policy.
There are reports that Himmler, long an enemy of Schacht, had intervened and
convinced Hitler that Schacht had been disloyal to Nazi interests during the
negotiations. Nevertheless an agreement is signed with Goring’s
approval. (Breitman) mid-January 1939: Hitler meets
with Goring and informs him of the major rhetorical attack coming in the January
30 Reichstag speech. Hitler does not object to the Wohlthat-Rublee agreement.
Goring implies that Hitler has given him six months to work out a deal.
(Breitman) 24 or 25 January 1939: Heydrich
ratchets up the rhetoric as he addresses high ranking SS officers, discusses
the danger from the Jews, “the eternal sub-humans”. A new height in
anti-Semitic rhetoric usage in 1939, but common after 1941. Heydrich notes
that Jews had frequently, throughout history, been expelled, which had been
an error- presumably because it had never resolved the problem. (Brietman) In
the SS report (Lagebericht) for 1939 the Jewish problem is defined as ‘the
problem’ of world politics (Bauer 40) 24 January 1939: Goring
orders Heydrich to speed up forced emigration of the Jews using
Eichmann’s techniques: establishment of Reich Central Office for
Jewish Emigration concentrates authority for handling the Jewish question
under Heydrich’s authority. In June
Heydrich would found the Reich Association of Jews in Germany- the only
Jewish association that was legal. (Adam) which drafts Jewish leaders to
facilitate emigration procedures (Dawidowicz 104-05) 25 January 1939: Goring dispatch to all German diplomatic missions to ‘speed up emigration of all Jews living in the territories of the Reich.... the ultimate aim of the Jewish policy.” (Schleunes 67) “The
expulsion of the Jews would cause greater understanding of Germany’s stand by
foreign powers because the expelled Jews would cause anti-Semitic reactions
in their new abodes and this would help Germany!” (Bauer 40) 30
January 1939: Hitler, in Reichstag
speech, publicly threatens the ‘annihilation’ of the Jewish race in
Europe if international Jewry unleashes another world war. (Dawidowicz 106)
Hitler is warning the Western powers not to interfere with his planned
expansion in the East. Hitler needed to have Jewish hostages in Germany in
the hope of controlling Western behavior. If war broke out, the Jews’ value
as hostages would diminish sharply. (Breitman) (Rhetoric: to increase
pressure for emigration) January
1939: Euthanasia program planning
begun which will kill 70,000 to 80,000 Germans by 1941. 7 February 1939: Alfred Rosenberg
press conference. He alludes to the possibility of the eventual emigration
from Europe of as many as 15 million Jews. (Schleunes 67) 10 February 1939: Hitler private speech to Wehrmacht generals in which he indicates that an ideological and racial war is coming, and in it the fate of the German race will be determined. (Breitman) 11
February 1939: First meeting of Reich
Central Office for Jewish Emigration: Heydrich instructs staff to proceed
as if agreement with international committee does not exist. (Breitman)
Eichmann appointed to leadership position. The outbreak of war ended the
opportunities for Jewish emigration. In October 1939 the creation of RSHA
would make put this iffice within the jurisdiction of the political police:
RSHA Desk IV-B-IV: “Jewish Affairs and Evacuation Affairs” (IV-B-4): this is
the office that would schedule, organize, and manage the deportation of
German Jews to the death camps. 15 March 1939: Addition of Rump
Czechoslovakia adds more Jews to Reich. (Schleunes 67) March 1939: Goebbels presses for
the total elimination of the Jews in more humane fashion during time of
peace, in more inhumane fashion during war. (Breitman) April
1939: Geist letters to Washington-
US intelligence in Washington indicates a fundamental change in policy is in
the works: an acquaintance of Himmler and Heydrich predicts the future course
of SS policy: placing able bodied Jews in work camps, confiscating wealth,
isolating Jews, putting additional pressure on whole community, and getting
rid of as many as possible by force. The SS continued to pursue emigration
policies, but when war came it was
clear that the steps toward the Final Solution would commence. Source:
Gestapo Hasselbacher in Muller’s office. (Breitman) 29 April 1939: Hitler speech NSDAP
Regional Meeting: Referring to constant demands for resolution of the Jewish
question: “The final aim of our whole policy is quite clear for all of us…”
(Dawidovicz 93) early May 1939: another Geist
letter arrives in Washington warning that time was running out to make a
deal. Roosevelt indicates so in a meeting with a small number of prominent
American Jews who resisted the idea of Nazi extortion. Roosevelt indicates
that lives may be at stake. (Breitman) June 1939: Heydrich complains that
emigration is not proceeding satisfactorily due to organizational problems as
well as foreign unwillingness to accept immigrants. (Schleunes) Heydrich
creates the Reich Association of Jews in Germany- an Eichmannn inspired
organization which encouraged Jewish emigration by actually softening
emigration fees. (Adam) 23 June 1939: Goring meeting with
Reich Defense Council to discuss manpower problems that war would impose.
Himmler suggests forced labor in the camps. Goring backs bringing foreign
workers into the Germany. A slave labor network is discussed. (Dawidovich) July 1939: T-4 euthanasia program initiated from the Fuhrer Chancellery to
kill ‘defective’ adults. Program proceeds under the authority of SS officer
Philipp Bouhler, SS officer Victor Brack, and Hitler’s personal physician,
Karl Brandt. An estimated 5,000 children would be killed in this program, in
operation until November 1944. Hitler next moved to the official destruction
of other people deemed "racially valueless": the adult insane. Bouhler
wound up the head of this program as well because he would accept oral
orders. The program was named Tiergartenstrasse 4 (Bohler's office at the
chancellery) code name: T-4. (Dawidovicz 131-32) July
1939: Operation Tannenberg:
Heydrich reaches an agreement with an officer of the army general staff
according to which special units of the Security police and SD will accompany
the army into foreign territory and combat elements hostile to Germany behind
the lines of the regular troops. The Einsatzgruppen were composed of SD
officers and both Security police and Order Police manpower.Technically these
troops were under Wehrmacht command,
but their real responsibility was to Himmler and Heydrich. (Breitman) 23 August 1939: Nazi-Soviet Pact: Hitler says, “Pact with Satan
so as to drive out the Devil.” 22
August 1939: Hitler speech to
commanders of the armed services: “Our strength is in our quickness and our
brutality. Genghis Kahn had millions of women and children killed by his own
will and with a gay heart. History sees only in him a great state builder....
Thus for the time being I have sent to the East only my “Death’s Head Units”
with the order to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of
Polish race or language. Only in such a way will we win the vital space that
we need. Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?”
(Breitman) 1 September 1939: Blitzkrieg into Poland: “War
and the annihilation of the Jews were interdependent. The disorder of war would
provide Hitler with the cover for the unchecked commission of murder.... He
had set in motion a two-fold war- one that was traditional in its striving
for resources and empire and that would be fought in traditional military
style, and one that was unconventional inasmuch as its primary political
objective was to attain National Socialist ideology and that would be
attained in an innovative style of mass murder.” Poland: the launching ground
of the Final Solution. (Dawidovicz) 27September 1939: Warsaw Falls
Segregated
air-raid shelters, confiscated radios and telephones, curfews for Jews in
Germany 12 September 1939: Wehrmacht complaints about the
indiscriminate killing of Poles by Einsatzgruppen, Hitler personally informs
officers that in unambiguous terms that “it was necessary to eliminate the
clergy, the aristocracy, the intelligentsia, and the Jews.” Planning and
authorization at the highest level of an SS campaign to murder and
incarcerate perceived Polish and Jewish enemies that extended beyond the
length of the military campaign. The Wehrmacht officers sought thenceforth to
insulate their troops from the SS activities. (Breitman) 21 September 1939: Heydrich orders to Einsatzgruppen Officers A memorandum instructs the SS to establish ghettos and Judenraete in Poland. In an express letter to Einsatzgruppen officers instructing them to relocate Jews and other enemies to Lublin area, he alludes to the ‘final goal’ of Jewish policy which could be accomplished only through stages . The most far reaching goal mentioned in the letter is the deportation of Jews to the Lublin area. (Breitman) To
Dawidovich this is a seminal document. First, it ordered the concentration of
Poland’s Jews in a few large centers near railway lines. Second, it exploited
Eichmann’s method of negotiating with the Jews through councils directed by
Jewish leaders. Eichmann’s method had proved successful in forced
emigrations. (Dawidovicz) “A
brutal plan to evict a maximum number of Jews, starve them as much as
possible, and concentrate them so as to facilitate a later massive expulsion.
With all the suffering and massive mortality in the ghettos of Eastern Europe
between 1939 and 1942, the large mass of Polish Jewry would have survived the
war has the decision to mass murder them not been made.” (Bauer 42)
Get Browning's spin. 27
September 1939: Himmler reorganizes
the Gestapo and SD, creating an umbrella security organization called the
Reich Security Main Office (RSHA).
Under Heydrich’s leadership, the RSHA was to be heavily involved in the
resettlement program in Poland. (Breitman) As part of the reorganization,
Eichmann is shifted to RSHA under Muller. Desk for Emigration and Evacuation
IV-D-4, later reorganized as Jewish Affairs and Evacuation Affairs: IV-B-4,
the office which organized the transport of European Jews to the death camps.
(Dawidovich) October 1939: Hitler T-4 Memo, on his personal stationary, writes a brief authorization for selected doctors to grant ‘incurable’ patients a merciful death. (Breitman) The T-4 program was in business. (Dawidowicz 133) A protocol was drawn up to identify and select patients in state hospitals for euthanasia, and the program was administered by SS personnel (Himmler himself was kept apprised of the operations.) Six euthanasia centers were set up within Germany, and a means for mass killing that would disguise to the victims what was in store for them and deceive their families was sought. Experiments commenced with carbon monoxide gas and Zyklon-B cyanide. 3 October 1939: Heydrich complains
that the old problems between the SS and the military had arisen once again
with full gravity. (Breitman) October 1939: Ribbentrop gives Heydrich
permission to attach RSHA intelligence agents to diplomatic missions abroad.
By 1941, these agents would be effectively intruding on the Foreign Office’s
jurisdiction. (Dawidovicz) 7
October 1939: Himmler appointed Reich
Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germandom (RFV) (Schleunes 70) This position made Himmler,
to the dismay of several rivals, the person in charge of plans for massive
relocation of millions of people in western Poland to make room for
colonization of the area by ethnic Germans. (Breitman) Himmler’s path has
been cleared to become ruler of Nazi dystopia in annexed territories in
Western Poland (eventually all of Eastern Russia) The appointment also gives
a huge boost to his “positive eugenics” colonization schemes.
8 November 1939 Assassination Attempt on Hitler 12 October 1939: Hitler issues a
decree establishing a civilian administration in Poland, the General
Government to be run by Karl Frank. (Dawidovich) 17 October 1939: Hitler confers with Himmler, then meets
with Wehrmacht General Keitel to explain how the army is to be relieved of
administrative matters in Poland. He informed the General that there
would be massive resettlement in areas to be annexed to the Reich, and the
General Government was to be the dumping ground for unsuitable Poles and all
Jews. Authority for the relocation would be in civilian and police hands.
Resettlement would be accomplished through cleverness and harshness. Breitman
interprets the exchange as a warning to the military to stay out of matters
which no longer concerned it. That
same day Himmler reorganizes programs for ethnic Germans in Europe to fall
under RFV authority. (Breitman) 19 October 1939: Goring announces that his Office of the
Four Year Plan would take over all Polish and Jewish territory in the annexed
sections of Poland. He delegates agricultural property to RFV but
maintains control over all urban and industrial property. (Breitman) 28 October 1939: Himmler issues
order for the entire SS and police to father as many children as possible to
compensate for military losses. He says that it would be permissible for
officers to overstep the boundaries of law and common practice to produce
children outside of marriage. The Wehrmacht high command was outraged by the
order. (Breitman) 30 October 1939: After a tour of
major Polish cities (Bromberg, Lodz, Warsaw,and Lublin), during which he personally observed killings, heard reports
from heads of killing squads, and observed conditions in Lublin (a huge
concentration camp), Himmler issues
orders for the next round of relocations: all Jews from annexed
territories (Danzig- West Prussia, the Wartheland, East Upper Silesia) as
well as all Poles who had moved into the area in recent decades and hostile
Poles were to be moved into the Government General. (Breitman)
October 1939: Hitler/ Himmler
order: ‘Suspicious Jews to concentration camps.’ 8 November 1939: Himmler and
Hitler escape bombing assassination attempt in Munich to celebrate Beer Hall
Putsch. 24 November 1939: Hitler calls
meeting of Wehrmacht high command to announce his decision to attack in the
West. November 1939: Polish Jews ordered
to wear arm bands. 5
December 1939: A possible smoking gun:
Himmler meets with Oswald Pohl, head of SS economic enterprises, to discuss
recent deaths at Buchenwald and to discuss plans for new camps. Himmler’s
agenda for the meeting still exists; Item 7 on the agenda:
‘crematoriun-delousing units’. Although there is insufficient evidence to
conclude that Himmler saw poison gas technology as the only solution to the
Jewish problem, he clearly was aware of this method of killing people.
(Breitman) 7 December 1939: Gassing of psychiatric patients begins
in gas vans at Tiegenhof asylum, Wartheland: a T-4 operation. A Hitler
Directed Program! In August 1941 public clamor would force Hitler to call a
halt to the gassings, only after between 80,000 and 100,000 murders. The
staff was then shifted east to build killing facilities in Chelmno, Belzec,
Maidanek, Treblinka and Birkenau. In early 1941, Bouhler would also begin
supplying Himmler with personel and equipment to gas inmates in concentration
camps: “Sonderbehandlung (special treatment) 14 f 13” (Breitman)
Hitler was informed of the results of testing with carbon monoxide gas and
with Zyklon-B (cyanide) and ordered that CO2 be used (Dawidovicz 133) December 1939: Food rations for
Jews shortened. December 1939 Hitler Approves Plans for Invasion of Denmark and Norway 1940 January 1940: Heydrich approves ‘camouflaged’ killings at Soldau Castle, near
town on E. Prussian border with Poland. (Dawidowicz) late January 1940: Himmler meets with Frank who complains
of the disorganized nature of the resettlement program. Huge numbers of
people were being dumped into the General Government. Frank argues against
genocide for the Poles because of its expense and labor problems within the
Reich. Frank’s arguments find favor with Goring. Himmler states that RSHA
desk IV-D-4 was coordinating all future deportations. (Breitman) 2 February 1940: Himmler suggests
creation of a huge anti-tank ditch on border of Soviet controlled Poland as a
means of using the huge slave labor supply in the masses of people being
relocated into the General Government. He conceivers of a work force of 2.5
million: the number of adult male Jews
in the conquered territories. The families of the workers would be dumped
into the General Government. (Breitman) 12 February 1940:
Goring, Himmler and Frank meet. Goring
opposes evacuation measures that would deplete labor in the East. He
directs that resettlement of Jews from the territories take place in an
orderly manner and only with the permission of Frank. (Goring attempt to assert authority over
Himmler.) Himmler concurs, but basically ignores the order. (Breitman) 29 February 1940: Himmler secret
speech explains the mission given him by the Fuhrer: to ensure that the
annexed territory be made Germanic in the near future. He offers a racial
analysis of the problem and defends the executions of opposition leaders
despite the psychological effects being imposed on his brave troops.
(Breitman) 2 March 1940: Frank meeting with
Himmler in attempt to assert his authority over the General Government. He
insisted that the Jewish problem in the territory presented no immediate
danger. (Breitman) 3 March 1940: Himmler addresses
Wehrmacht officers re. Oct. 28 ‘fathering’ order and the resettlement
policies in the East. He elaborates at length on racial policy, rejecting the
“Bolshevist method’ of mixing races which would ask for trouble in the
future. He claimed that execution of opposition leaders was authorized at the
highest levels. “I do nothing that the Fuhrer doesn’t know.” He asks for
cooperation in the creation of a Nordic Empire while disposing of Slavs. A
veiled reference to Jews as that ‘other problem’. (Breitman) 24 March 1940: Goring, at Frank’s request, forbids further deportations of Jews and Poles into the General Government without Frank’s approval. Himmler responds by issuing a decree through Heydrich which banned emigrations of Jews from the General Government. (Breitman) (Mommsen) 5April 1940: Blitzkrieg against Norway and Denmark 5 April 1940: Himmler speech to
industrialists (many with Wehrmacht connections) outlining solution to racial
problem in the East. Three choices: Russian mixing, Genghis Kahn
extermination, or the German humane solution of sifting racially valuable
from racially useless and dumping the latter into the General Government.
(Breitman) 27 April 1940: Himmler in Plock,
meeting with SS leaders, grants permission for Lange’s ‘gas van’ unit to be
used to kill mental patients from East Prussia and Soldau. The killings take
place between May 21 and June 6. (Breitman) March 1940: Himmler order: ‘No
Jews released from camps during the war.” May 1940: Hitler dismisses
Blaskowitz, a Himmler opponent, as commander in chief in the East, prevents
Ulex’ succession. Instructions from Army over all commander in chief to not
interfere with political authorities in resettlements and killings of
opposition leaders. (Breitman) 10 May 1940: Blitzkrieg against Belgium, Netherlands and France 22
May 1940: Himmler on Madagascar Plan:
He meets with Hitler in flush of military victory in West to discuss the
resettlement policies in the East. Hitler discourages mass murder of Poles
but authorizes the continuation of racial selections. In reference to the
Jews, Himmler mentions the possibility of a great peacetime forced migration
of the Jews to Africa to a colony to be run by the SS. Breitman reads the
Madagascar plan as a radicalization of policy. By getting approval for a plan
to remove all Jews from Europe to Africa, Himmler could assert control over a
continent wide program. The policy satisfied Hitler, Goring and Frank, gave
the appearance to the outside world that Germany was behaving responsibly and
drew Jewish policy more tightly under SS control. (Breitman)
27 May 1940: British Begin Evacuation of Dunkirk. 3 June 1940: BVP (Labor) orders restrictions upon labor benefits for Jews, at the same time maintaining the staus of Jewish employment gurantees. The BVP functioned as a moderate force against ideological extremists in StdF (the Hitler Chancellery under Bormann) and the SD. (Adam) 12 June 1940: Rademacher of
Foreign Ministry submits Madagascar Plan. 21 June 1940: Fall of France 24 June 1940: Hitler, Ribbentrop meet
with Mussolini and Ciano to discuss peace after the Fall of France.
Ribbentrop proposes the idea of a Jewish colony in Madagascar to Ciano. Heydrich got wind of the conversation
and wrote a pointed note to Ribbentrop reminding him that in January 1939
Goring had entrusted him with full authority over Jewish emigration. He
mentions that since there were 3.5 million Jews under German control, emigration
could no longer provide the solution:
‘a territorial final solution is therefore necessary.’ Heydrich insisted
that he be included in all further discussions of the ‘final solution’ of the
Jewish problem. (Breitman) 25 June 1940: Representative of
the Reich Association of Jews in Germany is informed of a plan to resettle
vast numbers of Jews in some as yet undesignated colonial reservation.
Eichmann still favors an extensive program of emigration to Palestine.
(Mommsen) 3 July 1940: Heinrich Muller to
Rudolf Brandt: Himmler had decided that ‘the other half should remain’
referring to plans for relocation of European Jews to Madagascar. Hitler had
recently decided to prepare for a landing against Britain. The war would go
on; no opportunity to take on a massive relocation to Africa would be
possible. Even so, Himmler continued to back the plan in public, as it
improved his relations with Frank. (Breitman) July 1940: Heydrich informs German
authorities in occupied France that the active participation of Security
Police experts was essential to a successful resolution of the Jewish
question there.
31 July 1940: Hitler Orders Planning Begun for Invasion of Russia (Wall 149) August 1940: Eichmann and Dannecker present the RSHA version of the Madagascar
Plan : Heydrich would lead it, and the SS would be in complete control.
August to September 1940: Battle of Britain
August 1940: Mussolini Invasion of Egypt 21 August 1940: Greifelt letter to Frick of Interior
re. enforcement of Nuremberg Laws in annexed territories. He discouraged use
of the laws at that time. He revealed that Hitler had set the maximum number
of assimilable Poles at one million. He saw no reason to protect
non-assimilable Poles from breeding with Jews since ‘a final cleansing of the
Jewish question and the mixed-blood question was foreseen for after the war.’
(Breitman) 30 August 1940: Brack, head of
euthanasia operations at Hitler Chancellery, issues directive for the
concentration of of all Jewish asylum patients in a single institution.
(Breitman) . 9 September 1940: Himmler speech to
SS officers in which he recognizes the importance of economic considerations
in the SS empire, indicating that Jews capable of labor should be put to
work. (Breitman) 11 September 1940: Heydrich memo
on Germanization of mixed blood (German-Slav) in Bohemia- Moravia. What to do
with those not suitable? “One could only set the imaginary goal of evacuating
those remaining Czechs to a currently imaginary Government’. (Breitman)
15 September 1940: Operation Sea Lion postponed 25 September 1940: Hitler meets
with Gauleiter of Alsace-Lorraine. He indicates that he would not be opposed
to Germanization of the region ‘through whatever means’. The Gauleiter
respond by dumping 105,000 people into unoccupied France.(Breitman) 28 October 1940: Himmler visits
Gross-Rosen in Silesia and inspects the stone breaking operations there.
Breitman notes that many of the Jews there and nearby at Mauthausen were
being intentionally worked to death. (Breitman)
September 1940: Anti-Comintern Pact late October 1940: RSHA decree
bans emigration of Jews from the Generalgouvernement. (Breitman) 26 October 1940: Himmler and Frank meet in Cracow. 23 November 1940: Frank’s office accepts new RSHA policy banning emigration of Jews from Generalgouvernement. October 1940: Hitler expels the Jews of the Mannheim-Pfalz area in western Germany to France, not Poland. Viennese Jews are sent to Poland (an act that only makes sense if a final expulsion to Madagascar was envisaged. (Bauer 42) Bauer argues that by May 1941, Einsatzgruppen units were being trained to kill Jews and Communists in Operation Barbarossa. An oral order must have come down sometime between this time and May 1941. Fall 1940: Gestapo register all
unemployed Jews for special work. Fall 1940: Battle of Britain
28 October 1940: Mussolini invades Greece November 1940: Warsaw ghetto
sealed off. 11 November 1940: 1945 inventory
of Himmler papers reveals some statistical material on Jewish emigration,
death rates, numbers of Jews left in the Reich, and ‘suggestions to solve the
Jewish question’. Brack, under interrogation after the war acknowledged that
the decision to destroy the Jews was an open secret by this time. (Breitman) 10 December 1940: Himmler speech
to Gauleiter in Berlin about the necessity to make the Eastern provinces
German and of the limit of one million non-Germans. He referred to the
upcoming Jewish emigration in the Generalgouvernment. Breitman:
Himmler knew there would be no emigration. It went against the recent RSHA
decree. (Breitman) 11 December 1940: Hitler to Frank: an old Japanese proverb- ”After victory, bind the helm faster.” 13 December 1940: Himmler orders euthanasia operation at Graffneck in
Wurttemberg shut down due to public outrage in the locale. He learns the necessity
of secret operations. (Breitman) 18
December 1940: Hitler signs Operation
Barbarossa orders. Hitler and Himmler meet that night in the Chancellery.
(Breitman) The decision for the practical implementation of the final
solution came from Hitler After Dec. 18 and before March 1. (Dawidovicz) 30 December 1940: A Finance
Ministry decree concerning War Damage Reparations allows Jews to apply. The
Finance Ministry would wait another six months before forbidding Jews from
applying. (Adam) 1941
January 1941: The administrative officials of the RSHA
are instructed to prepare for a large scale police action in broad areas.
(Breitman)
January 1941: British Defeat Italians in North Africa (Tobruk) January 1941: Hitler gives order
or wish to free Germany of Jews by the end of 1942. Breitman interprets the
vagary as restraint to deceive foreign powers, particularly the United
States. In January Roosevelt would propose Lend-Lease to Congress. (Breitman) 8 January 1941: Heydrich orders
90,000 Jews sent from Warthegau to General Government area in Poland.
Greiser, the Gauteir of the Wartheland, later made a separate deal with
Goring to deport the Jews to the Reich to work in the war effort. In
April Hitler would ban employment of foreign Jews in the Reich. (Adam) January 1941: Heydrich approves
scheme for expansion of Auschwitz. Auschwitz I would take in criminals
‘capable of rehabilitation.’ Auschwitz II appeared on a list of concentration
camps where dangerous criminals were to be ‘educated’. Hoss would only find
out later that his camp had been designated for expansion. (Breitman) early February 1941: An
application by a Sonderkommando named Kunsberg to have his unit join the SS
revealed the Heydrich had been in negotiations with Wehrmacht officers
regarding the use of Security Police alongside combat troops in Barbarossa:
‘special tasks’. (Breitman)
February 1941: Heydrich is still speaking of "sending then [the Jews] off to whatever country will be chosen later on." And the Foreign Office continued to cooperate with RSHA to block emigration from other countries so as to monopolize emigration possibilities for Jews from Germany. (Browning 104) 10 February 1941: Rademacher of
Foreign Office reports that the war against Russia would provide the
possibility of using other territories for the final solution so the
Madagascar Plan, at the instruction of the Fuhrer, had been dropped. (Mommsen)
March 1941: Germans Attack British in North Africa early in
1941: T-4 head Bouhler provides
euthanasia personnel and equipment to Himmler for use in camps; Action
Special Treatment 14 f 13. Medical selections and gassings in camps using
Wirth’s CO2 gas chamber. There is testimony (in Lifton) that this type of
medically selected killing had begun in the camps as early as the summer of
1940. (Dawidowicz 134) (Lifton 135) 1 March 1941: Himmler visits Auschwitz and outlines the expansions to be made
for Hoss: expand existing camp, build IG Farben Buma works, construction of
camp for 100,000 at Birkenau. 2 March 1941: Himmler visits camp at Breslau: a resettlement facility for ethnic Germans from the Burgenland region of Hungary. There officials determined loyalty by methods including physical examination of racial features. Recapturing German blood for the Reich was part of the task of developing the Greater German Empire. (Breitman) 3 March 1941: General Jodl
announces Fuhrer’s guidelines for planned administration of conquered
territory in Soviet Union. Collision of ideologies requiring elimination of
Jewish-Bolshevik intelligentsia. The military would control as little
territory as possible. Civilian commissioners would rule over the rest,
accompanied by police authorities. No military court martial. Summary
executions. (Breitman) 12 March 1941: Further guidelines
to military: Himmler was to act independently and on his own responsibility.
Military was to cooperate in handing over of prisoners to SS troops. 13
March 1941: Keitel issues secret directive for Operation Barbarossa. In
it he defines jurisdiction of armed forces, SS and civilian administration of
conquered territories. The SS is to be entrusted with ‘special tasks’ for the
preparation of the political administration, “tasks entailed by the final
struggle that will have to be carried out between two opposing political
systems”, ie plans to kill all Jews. 17 March 1941: Hitler meets
privately with Frank in Reich Chancellery. 20 March 1941: Eichmann refers to
Heydrich as being in charge of the ‘final evacuation of the Jews’ to the
Government General. (Breitman) 26 March 1941: Anti-German Military coup in Belgrade 30 March 1941: Hitler speech
provides impetus for Commissar Order: the execution of alleged Soviet
commissars without trial. Nazi propaganda dating back to 1935 closely
identified commissary and party functionaries with Jews. Order designed to
exploit military’s anti-Bolshevist sentiment and move it toward acceptance of
the general killings of Jews. (Breitman) Mid-March 1941: Einsatzgruppen are being trained. March 1941: Hitler orders end to
Jewish employment in Germany. The decree was made in response to a deal made
by Greiser and Goring to deport Jews from the Wartheland to the Reich to
provide workers for the war effort. (Adam)
2 April 1941 After a conference with Hitler, Rosenberg ominously noted: "What I do not want to write down today, I will nonetheless never forget." (Browning 104) April 1941: Blitzkrieg into Yugoslavia and Greece:
forces postponement of Operation Barbarossa. May 1941: Goring orders emigration
of German Jews hastened; Belgian and French Jewish emigration ended.
May 1941: Hess Flight to England
May, June, July? 1941 : According to Hoss’ testimony five years later
at the Nuremburg Trials, he received orders from Himmler to prepare
the camp for mass annihilation of the Jews. The order could have come as
early as June 1941 when Hoss met with Himmler. (Friedlander)
Whether in July or shortly thereafter is unclear, Himmler and Heydrich began to act on the assumption that Hitler had given the "green light" to prepare an extermination program. (Browning 106) 23 May 1941: Economic Headquarters
of the East report states that the population of the northern frost region
faced a great famine after the invasion. Tens of millions of people would be
superfluous and face starvation or evacuation. “Absolute clarity must prevail
in this regard.” (Browning p. 110) 26 May 1941: Himmler assigns a
group of Waffen-SS units to what he called the Commandostab Reichsfuhrer
SS, in effect his own private army. 6 June 1941: ‘Commissar Order’ by General Warlimont allows summary execution
of all suspected political captives. 17 June 1941: SS honors Himmler.
Heydrich addresses Einsatzgruppen commanders: “Eastern Jewry provided the
‘reservoir of intellectuals for Bolshevism’, and the Fuhrer and the
leadership of the state held the view that it must be destroyed."
(Breitman) 22 June 1941: Operation Barbarossa launched. 23 June 1941: Einstazgruppe A,
under Stahlecker, arrives in Tilsit, East Prussia near border with Lithuania.
Stahlecker orders Lithuanian police to clear 25 sq. mi. area of Jews and
subject them to ‘special treatment’. First mass killings, of 231 Jews, occur
over next two days. (Breitman) 25 June 1941: Stahlecker enlists
Lithuanian militia to participate in the killings in Lithuanian capitol of
Kovno. Pogroms take place over the next few nights resulting in the deaths of
3800 Jews. “without any visible indication to the outside world of a German
order or German participation.” (Breitman) 30 June 1941: Himmler and Heydrich
tour conquered Polish cities of Augustowo and Grodno near E. Prussian border.
They find no killings taking place. Heydrich directs Einsatzgruppen A to keep
pace with military developments and take the initiative. Killings begin there
the next week. Haste may have been required to make the killings appear as if
they were part of the war itself. No one believed the war would last for
longer than eight weeks. (Breitman) July 1941: Local discussion of
possible extermination of Lodz ghetto Jews to solve overcrowding.
(Friedlander) 1 July 1941: Bialystock: Order
Police sweep Jewish section. Himmler orders 2,000 Jews killed because they
had participated in looting of Russian shops before the arrival of the
Germans. Breitman argues that in situations where local police could not be
convinced to perform the pogrom, the Germans would do it themselves using the
idea of reprisal as a cover for the action. (Breitman) 3 July 1941: Latvian auxiliary
police carry out pogroms killing over 400 Jews and destroying synagogues.
16 July 1941: Hitler at Rastenberg meets with Goring, Keitel, Bormann, Lammers and Rosenberg. He discusses the pacification and future colonization of the conquered territories and how to present this occupation to the world. Since the Russians had put out a call for partisan warfare behind the lines, Hitler declared that anyone opposing them should be exterminated. “Shoot anyone who even has a cross look.” 16 July 1941: SS officer Hoppner letter to Eichmann describes catastrophic conditions in Wartheland in the Lodz ghetto, a transit camp for the Jews transported from the old Reich. Greiser had complained as early as summer 1940 of the conditions in the ghetto and also of the existence of such a ghetto in the Reich itself. Hoppner suggested ‘it should be seriously considered whether it might not be the most humane solution to dispose of those Jews who are unfit for work by some quick acting means. At any rate it would be more agreeable than letting them starve.” Suggestion that the idea for the final solution emerged from the bottom up. “The partial liquidation of transports of Jews from the Old Reich and the annexed territories was a desperate new step. It could not be justified as part of the destruction of bolshevik resistance cells. A pseudo-moral justification was needed as a pre-condition for the systematic implementation of the Final Solution.” (Broszat) (Mommsen) 17 July 1941: Hitler decree gives Himmler authority to pursue SS policies in the
East despite civilian authority’s opposition. Himmler wins over Rosenberg
and Economic Department. 15 July 1941: RSHA (Eichmann)
submits plan to mark German Jews, dodged by Goring and blocked by Bormann in
Reich Chancellery. Bormann had previously blocked an effort by Goebbels to initiate
a marking plan which he had announced publicly. Goebbels would later meet
face to face with Hitler to get control of the amrking pprogram, but at the
last minute Hitler would give the RSHA approval to issue the decree. (Adam) 17 July 1941: Heydrich directive
in agreement with Army gives Einsatzgruppen authority to to remove political
prisoners from prisoner of war camps. 20
July 1941: Himmler appoints Globocnik his deputy to create an SS stronghold
in the newly conquered areas. “Program
Heinrich” (Operation Reinhard) involved the creation of a new forced
labor camp, Maidanek, for 25 to 50 thousand inmates in the Lublin area. This
was the first step in the imagined post war resettlement of the east: a
racial magnet to select the pure of blood and dispose of the others.
Discussion of ‘cleansing’ of all Poles and Jews from the General Government?
(Breitman) 30 July 1941: Himmler order to Bach-Zelewski in Pripet River region near the border of Byetlrussia and Ukraine: “All Jews must be shot. Drive the women into the swamp.” 31 July 1941: Goring orders Heydrich to prepare “complete solution of the Jewish question in the German sphere of influence in Europe” (Gesamtlosung) Goering Order to Heydrich Concerning the finding of a "solution of the Jewish problem". July 31, 1941 For a discussion of the significance of this document, see Destruction of European Jewry Explanatory Timeline, July 31, 1941 Goring acted as an administrative conduit who, acting under Hitler's orders, authorized the involvement of state apparatus in the Final Solution and legitimated it as a state undertaking. Administrative responsibility for the Final Solution was lodged in the RSHA’s office IV-B-4 where Eichmann supervised “Jewish Affairs and Evacuation Affairs”. (Dawidovicz 130) Himmler and Heydrich were planning arrangements for a continent wide solution of the Jewish question, and they wanted Goring to sign off. (Breitman) The
authorization was drafted by Eichmann and submitted to Goring for his
signature. There is no indication that it is connected with any previous
order from Hitler. It could refer to pursuing a solution that would no longer
be implemented under the cover of war. (Mommsen) Heydrich
already had an authorization signed by Goring for coordinating Jewish
emigration (Jan. 1939). When Jewish emigration gave way to plans for massive
resettlement, Heydrich had felt no need for a new charter and cited the older
one when asserting his jurisdiction over the emerging Madagascar Plan in
1940. Moreover, Heydrich had just spent the previous months organizing the
Einsatzgruppen for the extermination of the Russian Jews, and that murder
campaign was now in full swing. The historical context would thus suggest
that if indeed Heydrich was the initiator of the July authorization, he did
not need it to continue emigration and resettlement activities, but rather
because he now faced a new and awesome task that dwarfed even the systematic
murder campaign of the Einsatzgruppen. (Browning pp.105-06)
1 August 1941 "Specific orders of the Reichsfurher-SS [Himmler] stated that 'all Jews must be shot; Jewish females driven into swamps.'" (Browning 103) 3
August 1941: the Catholic Bishop of
Munster von Galen openly accused the government of carrying out mass murder
of the mentally ill at the Marienthal Asylum. He condemned the idea that
any human being could be considered unworthy of life. Hitler backed down and
stopped the euthanasia effort there. The gassing specialists within the
program then became available for activities in the East. (Breitman) early August 1941: Himmler witnesses a mass execution
in Minsk. A blond, blue-eyed boy approached Himmler and was told that he
could not be helped. Himmler became more and more uncomfortable during the
shootings. Afterwards he addressed the killers, telling them that the orders
though harsh had to be obeyed unconditionally. He said the orders came from
Hitler personally. The next day, still shaken by the shootings, he told Nebe,
the Einsatzgruppen leader, that shooting was not the most humane method. Nebe
asked for permission to experiment with dynamite and it was granted.
(Breitman) early August 1941: Eichmann visits Hoss at Auschwitz: discussion of future transports and methods
of killing. Shooting and gas vans were ruled out due to inefficiency and
expense of building construction. Eichmann said he would try to find a gas
available in large quantities that would not require special installations.
(Breitman)
According to Hoss, Eichmann mentioned "killing with showers of carbon monoxide while bathing as was done with mental patients in the Reich." (Dawidovicz 131)
Despite their discussion of the inadequacy of existing killing methods, actual final methodology remained in question until Hoss attended a conference of Eichmann's men in Berlin in November. (Browning 106) Browning
argues that documents from fall 1941 indicating frenetic planning was
underway and that key ingredients of the Final Solution- special reception
camps for deported Jews, and gassing- were being discussed not only in the SS
but also in the Hitler Chancellery, the Foreign Office and the
Ostministerium. These documents enhance the credibility of Eichmann and Hoss’
testimonnies. (Browning p.109)
15 August 1941 Walter Stahlecker, commander of Einsatzgruppen A, submitted a summary report of events through October 15, 1941 which stated, "it was expected from the start that the Jewish problem would not be solved solely through pogroms. On the other hand the security-police cleansing work had according to basic orders the goal of the most complete removal as possible of Jews. Extensive executions in the cities and flat lands were therefore carried out through special units." Browning asserts that by mid-October Einsatzgruppen A had executed 118,430 Jews! Evidence that the order for implementation of the first stage of the Final Solution, ie all the Soviet Jews, had been made before Operation Barbarossa commenced. (Browning 103)
24 August 1941: Hitler gives Brandt a verbal order to stall operation T-4. 26 August 1941: Himmler’s office
manager telephones Heydrich’s office to say that Himmler ahd agreed to
Heydrich’s plans. 28
August 1941: Eichmann letter to Jewish specialists in the Foreign office
referring to the ‘coming Final Solution now in preparation.’ The timing of
the change in phraseology coincides with Eichmann’s own account of learning
about the extermination order in late summer. (Browning p.107) late
summer 1941: Operation Reinhard transfers T-4 to East: Gassing
specialist Christian Wirth tells another officer that he has been transferred
to a new facility in the Lublin area of the Generalgouvernment along with
ninety two other men from the chancellery After the war, Brack, who ran the
euthanasia program in the Chancellery, admitted that Wirth had been
transferred to Globocnik’s command to start a new euthanasia program after
the war. (Breitman) late August 1941: 11,000 stateless Jews
expelled from Hungary and massacred at Kamenets-Podolsk. (Friedlander) 1 September 1941: Heydrich RSHA decree to mark all Jews older than six in the Reich with the star of David. This decree countermanded a Fuhrer order in effect since December of 1938 which prevented either the marking (SD plan) or ghettoization (BVP plan) of German Jews. Eichmann and Heydrich had wrested the control of the issue from Goebbels and the BVP at the last minute. (Adam) 3 September 1941: first experimental gassing with Zyklon B, of Soviet prisoners is conducted at Auschwitz in Block11 on 600 Russian prisoners of war, the brainchild of one Hauptsturmfuhrer Fritsch, who used gas obtained from a Hamburg pesticide firm, Tesch and Stabenow, which had been used before at the camp to fumigate lice-riden buildings. Zyklon B was manufactured by a Frankfurt firm called Degesch, in which I.G. Farben held an interest. (Bauer 42) 10 September 1941: Himmler
approves transfer of gassing specialists to Globocnik. He discusses with
Pohl, Klammer and Vogel, the planning, construction and administration of
Maidanek, Belzec and Birkenau. (Breitman) 18 September 1941: Himmler, acting
under Hitler’s orders, commands that the old Reich and Bohemia-Moravia be
cleared of Jews. They are to be sent first to the annexed Polish territory
then by early 1942 ‘farther to the east’. (Breitman)
19 September 1941: Germans Capture Kiev
26 September: Germans Resume Attack on Moscow 29, 30 September 1941: Babi Yar massacre of 33,000. late September 1941: Inspiring
military situation on the Eastern front: German forces had surrounded
Leningrad, the southwestern army group had triumphed near Kiev. A new
offensive against Moscow was being planned. The Russian situation was at its
lowest ebb. At this time Hitler’s final solution plans were in active
planning stages: a post war plan, not as many argue a reaction in frustration
to bad news in the East. (Breitman) ? Fall 1941: Deportations from
Reich begin, mostly to Lodz, Kovno, Minsk and Riga (mass killings near Riga
in November.) (Friedlander) October 1941: Stahlecker’s report
about the activities of Einsatzgruppen A: “the goal of the cleansing
operation of the Security Police, in accordance with the fundamental orders
was the most comprehensive elimination of the Jews possible.” (Breitman) 3 October 1941: BVP (Goring) defines special
labor situation of German Jews. Later
in the month new restictions would deprive the Jews of any labor rights-
indicative of a change in policy. Even so, as late as December 19, 1941 the
Labor Ministry would issue a decree to protect working German Jews from the
Gestapo. (Adam) 10
October 1941: Heydrich at conference in Prague mentions Riga and Minsk as destinations
for deported Jews. He also indicates that deported Jews should be turned over
to Einzatzgruppen commanders who were supervising the killings of Communists
and Jews. (Browning p.109) 13 October 1941: Heydrich approves the proposal of Martin Luther, the under-secretary of state, that Spanish Jews resident in France be included in the Spanish cabinet’s plan to send their Jews to Morocco. A few days later his decision was revoked. Those Jews would be beyond the German sphere of influence. An indication of confusion about policy toward Western European Jews even at this late date. (Mommsen) Four
days later, however, Heydrich’s RSHA informed Luther by telephone of its
opposition to the Spanish proposal, as the Spanish government had neither the
will nor the experience effectively to guard the Jews in Morocco. “In
addition these Jews would also be too much out of the direct reach of the
measures for a basic solution of the Jewish question to be enacted after the
war.” Indicates a fundamental shift in Nazi Jewish policy. (Browning
pp.107-08) Browning
further quotes an Eichmann associate, Fredirich Suhr, who had traveled with Franz Rademacher of
the Foreign Office to Belgrade to deal with the Jewish question in Serbia.
Rademacher reported that “as soon as the technical possibility exists within
the framework of a total solution of the Jewish question the Jews will be
deported by waterway to the reception camp in the east.” Browning assumes that the Jewish experts
traveling to and from Berlin in October were aware of plans for a ‘reception
camp’ in the East to receive Jews
incapable of heavy labor and for ‘special measures’ for extermination.
Clearly, the continent wide final solution is in gear. (Browning p. 108) mid-late October 1941: Planning
begins for the construction of the Chelmno death camp in time for December
transports from Lodz. (Browning p.111) 23 October 1941: The Head of the
Gestapo, Muller, announces the prohibition of further Jewish emigration
from German-occupied areas of continental Europe although the emigrations
had been previously and publicly approved. An indication of slow change in
RSHA Jewish policy. (Mommsen) No general order? (Friedlander)
25 October 1941: Hitler Table Talk: Late night conversation with Himmler and Heydrich, among others, which he knows is being recorded for posterity: "From the rostrum of the Reichstag, I prophesied [in 1939] that in the event of war's proving inevitable, the Jew would disappear from Europe. That race of criminals has on its conscience the two million dead of the First World War and now already hundreds of thousands more. Let nobody tell me that all the same we can't park them in the marshy parts of Russia! Who's worrying about our troops? It's not a bad idea, by the way, that public rumor attributes to us a plan to exterminate the Jews. Terror is a salutary thing." What was the expression on Hitler's face during this episode? (Rosenbaum 62) If the rumor were true, then the killings would be just! The Holocaust did not happen, but if it did, the Jews deserved it! October 1941: Hans Klammers’ SS
construction office begins work at Birkenau. October
1941: construction of Belzec death
camp begins. Gassing would begin in March 1942 under the supervision of
its new commandant, Christian Wirth. (Breitman) If
the plans for the Belzec camp were being drawn up in mid-October and work
began on November 1, and if Lange was in Berlin making final arrangements for
Chelmno in late October and work began there by early November, it is very
difficult to avoid the conclusion that sometime in October Hitler had
approved the extermination plan he had solicited the previous summer.
(Browning p.112) October 1941: Ministry of Labor:
all employment rights cut off for
Jews. Indication to Adam that a fundamental change in Jewish policy was in
the works, reversing the January decision to recognize minimal Jewish
employment guarantees. Even so, in December, the Labor Ministry would try to
protect working German Jews from the Gestapo. (Adam) In
addition to their efforts to devise a Final Solution to the Jewish question
in all of Europe, the planners suddenly had to improvise immediate
deportations as an interim solution for the Reich. The attempt to carry out
these deportations before the death camps now being conceived were built
caused difficulties and confusion. Broszat and Adam argue that the stalled
military campaign which blocked transit and backed up deportations led to the
frustration which initiated the Final Solution. Killing became the only
alternative. Browning relies upon the testimony of Hoss and Heydrich and the
events of October to show that the Germans were working on the extermination
program even before the deportations began. (Browning 115) November 1941: German Jews outside
Reich forfeit property. 10 November 1941: Himmler orders
relayed to Baltic Reichcommissar Lohse, re. the Riga exterminations: “Tell Lhose that it is my order, which is
also the Fuhrer’s wish.” (Friedlander) 11 November 1941: Himmler tells
Kersten that “the destruction of the Jews is being planned... Now the
destruction of the Jews is imminent.” (Browning p.112) 18 November 1941: Rosenberg
background report to German press that asserts that the Jewsish Question can
only be solved in a biological extermination of all the Jews in Europe.”
(Browning p. 113) 25 November 1941: First massacre
in Kovno 29
November 1941: Invitations to Wannsee Conference mailed, originally
scheduled for December 9th . The invitations contain a copy of Goring’s July
31st authorization. (Browning 113) 30 November 1941: First massacre
in Riga December
1941: Maidanek, near Lublin, under Globocnik’s command, receives its first
transport of Jews. This first group would all be dead by February. By July
1942, it had a crematorium. Two months later it had a set of gas chambers.
(Breitman)
early December 1941: German Offensive Against Moscow Stalls
7 December 1941: Pearl Harbor 8
December 1941: Herbert Lange, see 1940 gas van using bottled CO2, uses second generation of gas vans
developed in September 1941 by RSHA Criminal Technical Institute which
redirected its own exhaust into prisoner compartment. With this innovation Chelmno, 35 miles NW of Lodz, became the
first death camp in operation. (Breitman) (Bauer 42) 9 December 1941: Original date set
for Wannsee Conference. (Friedlander)
11 December 1941: Germany Declares War On U.S. 16 December 1941: Frank states
that the 3.5 million Jews in the General Government could not be liquidated,
but ‘that action must be taken that
will lead to successful destruction, in connection with the major measures
which are to be discussed at Reich level (ie the Wannsee Conference)’
Indication that a formal plan had not been implemented. (Mommsen) Browning
cites the same Frank report to indicate that Frank had no doubt of the goal
of the meeting. (p.113)
18 December 1941: Lohse memo: Berlin overrules attempts to protect Jewish workers with essential jobs in the war effort. "As a matter of principle economic considerations should be overlooked in the solution of the problem." (Dawidovicz 144) 19 December 1941: Labor decree to protect working German
Jews from the Gestapo. (Adam) late December: Over 1 million Jews
already killed by Einsatzgruppen in U.S.S.R. (Friedlander) 1942 20 January 1942: Wannsee Conference Originally scheduled for 9 December 1941 but postponed because of Pearl Harbor. Heydrich hints strongly that Hitler has agreed to extermination plan. (Dawidovicz 136) Official
policy: work to death. Reference is still made to the ‘territorial final
solution’, but “the formulation that
‘certain preparatory work for the Final Solution’ should be carried out ‘in
the areas concerned’ (ie the General Government) signified the beginning of
selective liquidations.... The killings began in early 1942 and gradually
acquired the character of a planned and systematic program.. Even then,
however, it was implemented with varying degrees of intensity... the program
of annihilation thus retained its character as a temporary measure taken
during the wartime state of emergency.” (Mommsen) If
the goal and scope of the Nazi Jewish policy were no longer in doubt, some
aspects of the final Solution were still unsettled: practical killing methods were still being tested,
proportions to be killed and spared for work were still unclear. (Browning
p.114) 27 January 1942: Himmler issues
instructions to ‘equip’ the SS concentration camps primarily with German
Jews. Indication that even after the Wannsee conference Jewish labor was
considered important to the war effort. Birkenau was never considered a pure
extermination camp. (Mommsen)
Feb 1942: Belzec, near Lublin, becomes operational March 1942: Jews forbidden to use
public transportation. May 1942: Heydrich assassinated in
Prague.
late summer 1942: Himmler letter to Rosenberg: "The occupied Eastern territories are to become free of Jews. The execution of this very grave order has been placed on my shoulders by the Fuhrer. No one can deny me the responsibility anyway." (Dawidovicz 129) September 1942: Food rations of
Jews shortened: no meat, dairy, tobacco or tropical fruit. 21 November 1942: Arthur Greisler
(Gaultier of Lodz, Chelmno) meets with Hitler and is instructed ‘to act
according to own judgment’ He had been killing Jews for nearly a year. He
took the comment to mean that he should kill the rest of them. Limited contradictory decisions took place
notwithstanding the general plan. (Friedlander) 21 December 1942: Direct report to
Hitler re. Einsatzgruppen exterminations per Hitler’s request. (Friedlander)
3 February 1943: Germans Surrender at Stalingrad
13 May 1943: Germans Surrender in North Africa
9 July 1943: Anglo-American Forces Invade Sicily October 1943: Himmler speech at
Poznan seems to attest to a verbal order made by Hitler to implement the
Final Solution through mass killing. (Bauer 42)
June 1944: Allies Take Rome 6 June 1944: D-Day: Allied Invasion of Northern Europe 20 July 1944: Assassination Attempt on Hitle 1945 29 April 1945: Hitler in bunker on eve of suicide:
boasts of extermination of the Jews as greatest service of National Socialism
to humanity. (Friedlander) He
exhorted the German people to continue the battle with the Jews, the
"universal poisoners of all nations." Fackenheim argues that Hitler went to his
grave the poser, actor and opportunist he always was. (Rosenbaum 58)
30 April 1945 Hitler commits suicide. According to Bullock, he used cyanide, not the soldier's way out. Trevor-Roper argues that Hitler, the true believer, shot himself. Later, Bullock argued that Hitler bit the cyanide and pulled the trigger simultaneously. Hitler: the actor who comes to believe his mask is his true face. Earlier in his career Bullock had argued that Hitler was a pure opportunist, an actor; later, he came to believe that Hitler started believing his own act after the initial success in Operation Barbarossa. (Rosenbaum 68)
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