To mark Hilberg’s death,
I believe that the Germans did not know, at the beginning, what they were doing. It’s as if they were driving a train whose general direction was toward a growing violence against Jews, but whose precise destination was uncertain. Let’s not forget that Nazism was more than a political party: it was a movement that had to keep going forward, without ever stopping. Confronted with a completely unprecedented task, German bureaucracy didn’t know what to do. And that’s where Hitler’s role is important. Someone at the top had to give the green light to the naturally conservative bureaucrats.
One of the intentionalists’ main pieces of evidence is this phrase of Hitler’s, taken from a public speech made in January 1939: “If the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, the result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.” Conversely, the most revealing clue in support of the functionalists is that, for a long time, the Nazis were genuinely seeking out territories to which they might deport the Jews: Madagascar, the Arctic Ocean, Siberia, Palestine. On more than one occasion, Eichmann even met with some militant Zionists. But the hazards of war would force them to abandon all these plans. Most notably, the transportation of the Jews to Madagascar could not take place until the Germans had control of the seas—in other words, until the war with Great Britain was over. The search for more radical solutions would finally be precipitated by the turning of the war in the East. Even if they didn’t admit it, the Nazis knew their eastern conquests were in peril. They did not fear the worst—because nobody in 1942 imagined that the Red Army would one day invade Germany and penetrate all the way to Berlin—but the powerful Soviet resistance forced them to acknowledge that they might lose the occupied territories. Consequently, they had to move quickly. So it was, one thing leading to another, that the Jewish question took on an industrial dimension.
A freight train screeches to a halt. At the end of the tracks is a gate surmounted by a tower, with a brownstone wing on either side. Above, you hear the cawing of crows. The gate opens. You are now entering Auschwitz.
This morning, Heydrich receives an indignant letter from Himmler. It concerns some five hundred young Germans arrested by the Hamburg police because they were fans of swing, that degenerate foreign dance accompanied by Negro music.
I will oppose any half measures in this matter. All the ringleaders are to be sent to a concentration camp. First of all, these youths will get a good thrashing there. They will stay in the camp quite a long time—two or three years. Obviously they will no longer have the right to study. Only through brutal actions can we stop the spread of these dangerous Anglophile trends.
Heydrich will actually deport about fifty of these youngsters. Just because the Führer has entrusted him with the historic task of getting rid of every single Jew in Europe does not mean he’s going to neglect his other duties.
Goebbels’s diary, January 21, 1942:
Heydrich has now installed his new government of the Protectorate. Hacha has made the declaration of solidarity with the Reich that was requested of him. Heydrich’s policy in the Protectorate is truly a model one. He mastered the crisis there with ease. As a result, the Protectorate is now in the best of spirits, quite in contrast to other occupied or annexed areas.
Hitler is giving another of his interminable political soliloquies to a servile, silent audience. His diatribe touches on the situation in the Protectorate:
The Czechs were taking Neurath for a ride! Another six months of that regime and production would have fallen by twenty-five percent! Of all the Slavs, the Czech is the most dangerous—because he’s a worker. He is disciplined, methodical; he knows how to conceal his intentions. But they will knuckle down now because they know we are violent and merciless.
It’s his way of saying that he is very pleased with the job Heydrich is doing.
Not long afterward, Heydrich goes to see Hitler in Berlin. So Heydrich finds himself in the presence of the Führer—or perhaps it’s the other way around. Hitler declares: “We will clean up the Czech mess if we stick to a consistent policy with them. A lot of Czechs have Germanic origins, so it’s not impossible to re-Germanize them.” This speech, too, is a way of complimenting Heydrich on his work. The Blond Beast is—along with Speer (though for very different reasons)—the colleague Hitler most respects.