H O L O C A U S T
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HOLOCAUST
The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews
PETER LONGERICH
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Library of Congress Control Number: 2010922410
Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India
Printed in Great Britain
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ISBN 978–0–19–280436–5
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Publisher’s Acknowledgements
The publishers would like to extend their especial thanks to Professor Jeremy
Noakes for his editorial contribution to the preparation of the English edition of
this book.
Acknowledgements
It would be impossible to list by name all the friends, colleagues, and other people
who in one way or another have contributed to the writing of this book.
I will therefore restrict myself to thanking the many archivists and librarians
who have helped me, as well as all my colleagues, both in Germany and abroad,
who have given me the opportunity to discuss various sections of the book and
some of the arguments to be found within it at various conferences, lectures, and
seminars. In fact, I would like to thank everyone with whom I have discussed this
subject, in whatever context, over the years.
The whole project would have been impossible without the generous assistance
of the German Department of Royal Holloway College, who once again gener-
ously gave me leave from my regular academic duties. I would like to thank all my
colleagues and students, in particular Maire Davies and Bill Jones. A ten-month
research residency at the International Research Centre of the Israeli Centre for
Remembrance and Research at Yad Vashem proved particularly enlightening, for
which I am very grateful to Israel Gutman, who was at that time the director of the
institute. I would also like to thank the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Universität
der Bundeswehr in Munich, in particular Michael Wolffsohn and Merith Niehuss,
to whom I submitted the original version of this book as my post-doctoral thesis.
The whole project would have been impossible without the generous assistance
of the German Department and the School of Modern Languages, Literature, and
Culture of Royal Holloway College. I would like to thank all my colleagues and
students. In particular I would like to express my deep gratitude to Jeremy Noakes
without whom the English edition would not exist.
London and Munich, November 2009
Contents
Abbreviations
ix
Introduction
1
Historical Background: Anti-Semitism in the Weimar Republic
10
P A R T I R A C I A L P E R S E C U T I O N , 1933–1939
1. The Displacement of the Jews from Public Life, 1933–1934
29
2. Segregation and Comprehensive Discrimination, 1935–1937
52
3. Interim Conclusions: The Removal of Jews from German Society,
the Formation of the National Socialist ‘People’s Community’,
and its Consequences for Jewish Life in Germany
70
4. The Intensification of the Racial Persecution of Non-Jewish Groups
by the Police Apparatus, 1936–1937
90
5. Comprehensive Deprivation of Rights and Forced Emigration, late
1937–1939
95
6. The Politics of Organized Expulsion
123
P A R T I I T H E P E R S E C U T I O N O F T H E J E W S , 1939–1941
7. The Persecution of Jews in the Territory of the Reich, 1939–1940
133
8. German Occupation and the Persecution of the Jews in Poland,
1939–1940/1941: The First Variant of a ‘Territorial Solution’
143
9. Deportations
151
viii
Contents
P A R T I I I M A S S E X E C U T I O N S O F J E W S I N T H E
O C C U P I E D S O V I E T Z O N E S , 1941
10. Laying the Ground for a War of Racial Annihilation
179
11. The Mass Murder of Jewish Men
192
12. The Transition from Anti-Semitic Terror to Genocide
206
13. Enforcing the Annihilation Policy: Extending the Shootings
to the Whole Jewish Population
219
P A R T I V G E N E S I S O F T H E F I N A L S O L U T I O N O N A
E U R O P E A N S C A L E , 1941
14. Plans for a Europe-Wide Deportation Programme after the Start of
Barbarossa
259
15. Autumn 1941: Beginning of the Deportations and Regional
Mass Murders
277
16. The Wannsee Conference
305
P A R T V T H E E X T E R M I N A T I O N O F T H E E U R O P E A N
J E W , 1942 –1945
17. The Beginning of the Extermination Policy on a European Scale in 1942
313
18. The Further Development of the Policy of Extermination after the
Turning of the War in 1942–1943: Continuation of the Murders
and Geographical Expan
sion of the Deportations
374
Conclusion
422
Notes
436
Bibliography
573
Index
627
Abbreviations
AA
Auswärtiges Amt (Foreign Ministry)
Abt.
Department
ADAP
Akten zur Deutschen Auswärtigen Politik
AdV
Alldeutscher Verband
AGK
Archivum Glównej Komisji Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich
w Polsce
AOK
Army High Command
APL
Archivum Panstwowe w Lublinie
Aufl.
Edition
BAB
Bundesarchiv Berlin
BAM
Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv
Batl.
Battalion
Bd.
volume
BDC
Berlin Document Centre
BdO
Commander of the Order Police
BdS
Commander of the Security Police
BHSt.A
Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv
Biuletyn
Biuletyn Glownej Komisji Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich
w Polsce
BLI
Bulletin Leo Baeck Institute
BT
Berliner Tageblatt
CDJC
Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine
CdZ
Head of the Civil Administration
CEH
Central European History
CV
Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens
(Central Assocation for Citizens of the Jewish Faith)
x
Abbreviations
DAF
Deutsche Arbeitsfront (German Labour Front)
DAZ
Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung
DG
Durchgangsstrasse
DHR
German University Circle
DHV
German National Association of Commercial Employees
DGFP
Documents on German Foreign Policy
DiM
Dokumenty i Materialy
DNVP
German National[ist] People’s Party
DVFP
German Völkish Freedom Party
EK
Einsatzkommando (Task Force Commando)
EM
EWZ
Einwandererzentrale (Immigration Centre)
FRUS
Foreign Relations of the United States
FZ
Frankfurter Zeitung
Gestapa
Geheime Staatspolizeiamt (Secret State Police Office)
Gestapo
Geheime Staatspolizei (Secret State Police)
GFP
Geheime Feldpolizei (Secret Military Police)
GG
General Government
GSR
German Studies Review
GStaA
Geheime Staatsarchiv Berlin-Dahlem
HGS
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
HSSPF
Higher SS and Police Commander
1a
Senior Ranking General Staff Officer
1c
Third Ranking General Staff Officer (Intelligence)
IfZ
Institut für Zeitgeschichte
IKG
Israelitische Kultusgemeinde
IMT
International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg)
JA
Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung
JDC
Joint Distribution Committee
JR
Jüdische Rundschau
KdO
Commander of the Order Police
KdS
Commander of the Security Police
KL
Konzentrationslager (Concentration Camp)
KPD
German Communist Party
Abbreviations
xi
Kripo
Criminal Police
KTB
Kriegstagebuch (War Diary)
KZ
Concentration Camp
LAF
Lithuanian Activist Front
LBIY
Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook
LG
Landgericht (Provincial Court)
LV
Provincial Association
MBliV
Ministerialblatt fur die innere Verwaltung
MGM
Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen
NA
National Archives, Washington DC
NKVD
Soviet People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs
NS, ns
National Socialist
NSDAP
Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist
German Workers’ Party)
NS-Hago
Nationalsozialistische Handels-, Handwerks-und
Gewerbeorganisation (National Socialist Association for Commerce,
Crafts, and Trade)
NYT
New York Times
NZZ
Neue Züricher Zeitung
ObdH
Commander-in-Chief of the Army
OKH
Oberkommando des Heeres (Army High Command)
OKW
Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (Armed Forces High
Command)
OS
Osabi Archive (Moscow)
OT
Organisation Todt
OUN
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
PAA
Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes
Pol.Abt.
Political department
RAF
Royal Air Force
Reg.Bez.
Regierungsbezirk (Government District)
RFSS
Reichsführer SS
RGBl
Reichsgesetzblatt
RKF
(Reich Commissioner for Settlement)
RMBliV
Reichsministerialblatt für die innere Verwaltung
xii
Abbreviations
RSHA
Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Head Office)
RVJD
Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland
RWM
Reichswirtschaftsministerium (Reich Ministry of Economics)
SA
Sturmabteilung (Storm Troop)
SD
Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service)
Sipo
Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police)
SK
Sonderkommando
Sopade
Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (German Social
Democratic Party)
SS
Schutzstaffel (Protection Squads)
SSPF
SS and Police Commander
StA
Staatsarchiv
STA
Staatsanwaltschaft
StdF
Stellvertreter des Führers (Führer’s Deputy)
StS
State Secretary
SWCA
Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual
TSD
Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente
USHM
United States Holocaust Museum
VB
Völkischer Beobachter
VfZ
Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte
VO
Decree
VOGG
Verordnungsblatt für das Generalgouvernement
Vomi
Volksdeutsche Mittelstell
e (Ethnic German Agency)
VZ
Vossische Zeitung
WL
Wiener Library
WVHA
SS Business and Administration Head Office
YIVO
Yiddischer Vissenschaftlikher Institut
YV
Yad Vashem
YVS
Yad Vashem Studies
ZAA
Zeitschrift für Agrargeschichte und Agrarsoziologie
ZASM
Zentrum zur Aufbewahrung historisch-dokumentarischer
Sammlungen Moskau
z.b.V
zur besonderer Verwendung (for special purposes)
ZfG
Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft
Abbreviations
xiii
ZGO
Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins
ZOB
Zydowsk Organizacja Bojowa (Jewish combat organization)
ZSt
Zentralstelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen zur Aufklärung
nationalsozialistischer Verbrechen
ZUV
Zentraler Untersuchungsvorgang
ZZW
Zydowski Zwiazek Wojskowy (Jewish Military Association)
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INTRODUCTION
Current State of Research, Methodology
When the German edition of this book appeared twelve years ago in 1998
research on the situation of the murder of the European Jews was in a
transitional state because of the opening of the Eastern European archives at
the beginning of the 1990s. An intensive phase of research had begun using a
large number of documents that had hitherto been inaccessible and asking new
questions of more familiar material. Holocaust research had become a steadily
developing field and now, at the point when this English edition is being
prepared, this process of development has by no means ceased. If it seemed
extremely ambitious in the late 1990s to undertake a comprehensive account of
the persecution and murder of the European Jews from the perspective of the
perpetrators, it is no less so now.
The original aim of this book was to make a contribution to the lively debate
amongst Holocaust researchers about when the Nazi leadership took the decision
to implement a ‘final solution’ (Endlösung) to what they called the ‘Jewish question’
(Judenfrage). Via an analysis of the processes of decision-making, the book hoped
to offer an explanation of the causes of the terrible events that constituted the
Holocaust. When I began preparing this book in the mid-1990s, the state of
so-called ‘perpetrator research’ was defined by two opposing schools of thought:
on the one side were the ‘intentionalists’, 1 who made the focus of their analysis the intentions and objectives of Hitler and other leading Nazis, and on the other were
the ‘structuralists’, who emphasized the importance of the bureaucratic apparatus