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Updated as of 2 October 05
Today in History:
On October 2, 1780, Major John
Andrι, a British spy associated with Benedict Arnold, was
executed on this day in history.
Quote of the Day:
"In my view we are much worse
off now than when we went into Iraq. This is not a partisan position. I voted
for these guys."
A senior figure at a
military-sponsored think tank as told to James Fallows in "Bush's Lost Year" in
The Atlantic Monthly (Oct. 2004)
Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
Take the Ann Coulter
Quiz
Where are you politically? Take
the
Neocon Quiz and find out.
"History
is Far too Important to be left to History Professors"
Teaching isn't such a novel idea
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The Final
Solution
Endlosung der Judenfrage
The Holocaust
Fall 2008
The Absorption and Destruction
Process
Background
When the war broke out, Hitler
told the Reichstag and the world that the Jews would pay for the conflict.
No one fully understand what
Hitler was up too.
But right from the start, Hitler
and Germany was going to fight a racial war.
This meant a major campaign to
reconfigure Europe, particularly Poland.
And in Poland, the Wehrmacht had
little trouble in overwhelming the ill-prepared Polish armed forces.
The Invasion of Poland
German Attitudes Toward Liberated Poland
Many saw the new acquired Polish
territories as liberated Germany.
Guderian routed the XIX Panzer
Corps though his ancestral home.
The SS Mission in Poland
Did not function as an armed
military unit.
The SS
Totenkampfverbande (SSTV)
deployed three regiments to Poland
The
Einsatzgruppen
in Silesia
The SS formed special action
groups in Silesia.
They were called Special Action
groups.
They all operated in the wake of
the German Army.
This was called
Pacification
taking livestock at will.
Also liquidating Polish
intellectuals and Jews.
Remember Jorg Haider says these
guys are great fellows.
A
Judenaktion
Plundered Jewish concerns.
Dynamited and burned synagogues.
Arrest males.
Executed Jewish leaders.
The record of the SS in Poland
was one of rape, murder and plunder.
There was no Phony War in
Poland.
The German Army knew what was
happening.
The Test in Poland
After the defeat of Poland, the
RSHA (Reich Security Main Office) held a meeting to discuss The Final Solution
to the German Jewish Problem.
They discussed the creation of a
German Jewish reservation in Poland.
Or whether something else should
be done.
The issue was whether the Jews
should be driven from Germany into the the General Government zone of Poland.
What Did the SS Mean by the Disposal
Option?
Heydrich appointed Eichmann to
work with the Gestapo.
The goal was to coordinate
activities for all deportations and evacuations.
Deportations of whom?
The Jews.
Himmler then proposed the
possibility of the mass extermination of the Jews.
This was not totally new.
What Influenced Himmler?
Both Himmler and Heydrich were
influenced by an already established program.
This was the euthanasia program
and killing those whose life was unworthy of life.
They carefully studied those
murders.
And how the SS used gas chambers
and crematoria.
At specifically located killing
centers.
The Precursor to the Euthanasia Program
Even before the Germans really
got underway with the Euthanasia program in Germany, the RSHA started to kill
the inform, the weak, the sick in German occupied Poland.
The RSHA carried out the
killings in order to free beds for the German troops.
This was done even before the
Einsatzgruppen started their murders in Russia in 1941.
The Start in Poland
A Sonderkommando Detachment
under Herbert Lange systematically eliminated Poles and German mentally ill.
This was done by the use of
poison gas.
By piping in carbon monoxide
into air-tight motorized vans.
The Nazis covered this operation
by calling them evacuations.
Himmlers Lack of Action
Neither Himmler nor Heydrich
acted quickly on placing gas chambers and crematoria in concentration camps.
But in 1940, the SS selected a
new camp at Oswiecim not far from Krakow in Upper Silesia.
Previously it was under Polish
control since 1918, but in 1939, was now under German administration.
The Precursor to the Holocaust
Secretly in October 1939, Hitler
signed an order to eliminate Germans deemed not worth living.
This was the euthanasia order,
which he backdated to Sept. 1, 1939.
The whole Nazi bureaucracy was
involve including medical professionals.
The SS was tasked to carry out
the murders.
Hitler Knew What Was to Be Done
Even as early as 1935, Hitler
told Gerhard Wagner, the Reich Physician, that once war started.
He would authorize euthanasia.
One of the chiefs of the program
was Karl Brandt, the Fuhrers personal physician.
The goal was to rid Germany of
those who could pollute the Volk.
The codename for this plan was
called T4.
Why T4?
It was named after the programs
headquarters at Tiergartenstasse 4.
A small staff ran the operation
fifteen clerks and staffers.
Many were young, unexceptional,
had business experience, and all were party hacks who joined before 1933.
But it was run by the Reichs
Chancellery.
Doctors, University professors,
lawyers, and others were involved.
Why Was The T4 Program Important?
The commanders of the main
killing centers, for the most part, had their start in the T4 Program.
Three Threats to Polish Jewry
The composition of the German
administration in occupied Poland (because of the large number of Party men in
the apparatus).
Racial stereotypes Poles were
lower than Germans, Jews were even lower still.
The weight of the Jewish numbers
Jews made up 10% of Polands population (3.3 million out of 33 million
people).
The Formation of the Ghettos
After the German occupation of
Poland the first move was to great Ghettos.
The Germans created the
impression that Jews were in control with a Jewish police force and a Jewish
Council called the Judenrat.
German Actions
On Nov. 23, 1939, Hans Frank
ordered all Jews over the age of 12 to wear a white armed band with a blue
Jewish Star.
In other areas, Jews had to wear
the yellow star on the front and back of their clothes.
On Dec. 11, 1939, Jewish
movements were restricted during the day .
Jews could not change dwellings
or use the railroads.
The Formation of the
Einsatzgruppen
These were special action groups
to kill Jews.
They were part of the SD, a
component of the SS.
Many of the commanders were
well-educated individuals.
They often followed in the wake
of the Wehrmacht during the invasion of the Soviet Union after June 22, 1941.
Their directives came from the
Chief of the Security Police and SD, Reinhard Heydrich.
Command Authority of the Order
Police and RSHA
Who Were Those Men?
The first two came directly from
the RSHA.
Those included Criminal Police
Chief Artur Nebe and Otto Ohlendorf.
Nebe was involved in the Plot to
Kill Hitler on July 20, 1944 and executed in 1945.
Ohlendorf was an interesting
study in his own right.
Otto Ohlendorf: The Guy Next
Door
In 1941, Ohlendorf was
thirty-four.
He had studied at three
universities (Leipzig, Pavia, and Gottingen).
He had a Ph.D. in Law.
He had held a research
directorship in the Institute for World Economy and Maritime Transport in Kiel.
He joined the Party in 1925 and
SS in 1926.
He saw his activities in the
Party as part-time.
Left the RSHA in 1943 and worked
in the Economic Ministry latter.
Heydrichs Revenge on Ohlendorf
Heydrich disliked anyone who had
divided loyalties.
As a result, Heydrich decided to
teach Ohlendorf a lesson.
He assigned him as commander of
the Einsatz-gruppen D.
But Ohlendorf was not the only
one, so was the case of Ernst Biberstein.
The Career of Ernst Biberstein
He was born in 1899.
Served in World War I as a
private.
Upon his discharge he studied
theology and became a Protestant paster in 1924.
He joined the NSDAP in 1926 and
SS in 1936.
After eleven years as a
minister, he entered the Church Ministry and was transferred to the RSHA.
After a visit to the RSHA he
started to have misgivings and Heydrich sent him to take over a local GESTAPO
office.
He was then drawn into the
destruction process by organizing round-ups of Jews for deportation.
After Heydrichs assassination,
he was assigned command of Einsatzgruppen C in 1942.
Scheme of Command of the
Einsatzgruppen
Organization of the
Einsatzgruppen
OB for Einsatzgruppen A
Assignments of the
Einsatzgruppen
Routes of the Einsatzgruppen
Jewry In The Soviet Union
Five million plus Jews lived in
the Soviet Union.
A large number lived in the
Western portions of the Soviet Union.
Four million lived in areas
under German control.
About a million or more fled the
approach of the Wehrmacht.
The Jews were concentrated in
the cities too.
In the Old USSR it composed 87%
and the Buffer Regions it was 90%.
Methods of the Einsatzgruppen
Locating a site outside of a
town.
The ditch could be an anti-tank
trap, shell crater, or a trench.
The Jews were taken out in
batches to be murdered, with men first followed by the women.
The killing site was supposed to
be sealed to the public, but that did not always happen.
Before the execution, all the
victims had to surrender their clothes and other valuables.
Shooting was the standard, but
so was the use of gas vans.
The Einsatzgruppen Operationally
The goal was to reach Soviet
cities as quickly as possible.
So the victims could not
discover their fate.
Sometimes they found themselves
in the midst of heavy fighting.
Even before executions took
place Einsatzgruppe C found that the Soviet Naval Infantry had cut off their
rear.
Sometimes they were used in
anti-partisan activities.
The Wehrmacht actively
cooperated with the Einsatzgruppen to round up Jews and other groups considered
subhumans.
Ghetto Clearance in Kovno
Inquiry by Security Police in
Riga to Special Commandos in Reval, Minsk, and Kovno
Reply from Special Commando 3 in
Kovno
The Lijepaja Massacre
In Lijepaja, Latvia, 2,731 Jews
and 23 Communists were shot between Dec. 15-17, 1941.
The executions were conducted by
the German and Latvian police.
The photo was taken by the local
Gestapo chief.
Original Documents
Select Soviet Cities Before
German Rule
The Blonde Beast: Reinhard
Heydrich (1904-42)
He was born in Halle.
His father was an opera singer
and influenced by the cult of Richard Wagner.
He was exposed to a false charge
of being partly Jewish.
He was cashiered from the Navy
in 1931 for mistreating a female friend.
He was a friend of Himmler who
placed him in charge of intelligence.
He became the head of the SD,
Kripo, and Gestapo.
Then Reichs Protector for
Bohemia/Moravia.
Background to Wannsee
Soon after the invasion of the
Russia, Herman Goring extended a commission to Heydrich on July 31, 1941.
Heydrichs task was to finalize
the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.
The decision had already been
made now it was time to work out the impediments to the Final Solution.
On November 29, 1941, Heydrich
sent out invites to attend.
The meeting was delayed until
January 20, 1942, because of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the entry of the
United States into World War II.
Invitees to Wannsee
The Discussions at Wannsee
The meeting was chaired by
Heydrich.
Heydrich outlined past Nazi
plans for emigration and blamed other governments for their failures.
Emigration was now impossible so
he outlined a new policy which would be the
Final Solution.
The Germans noted that there
were 11 million Jews in Europe (including 330,000 in England).
The goal was to resettle Jews
from the West to the East.
A large number was to be
eliminated by natural causes.
The survivors were to be treated
accordingly.
Plans were then arranged for the
transportation for the destruction of European Jewry.
Operation Reinhard
Operation Reinhard was the Code
name for the elimination of the Polish Jews in the Generlgoverment.
And other European Jews as well.
To do this a series of new camps
truly death camps were created.
This began in March 1942.
Poland was selected because of
its isolation and its large Jewish population.
The New Killing Centers
After discovering that the
Einsatzgruppen methods of execution was not economical, a series of new camps
were constructed.
They were organized at Chelmo,
Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka.
They became factories.
The Germans first used C02 as
the method of execution.
Christian Wirth, the Commanding
Officer of Belzec, developed two principles that were used in the other camps.
The first was speed and the
second was deception.
Map of Treblinka
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