The rampaging actions of the Selbstschutz were only one element of the programme of radical ‘ethnic struggle’ (Volkstumskampf) designed by the SS leadership for the ‘new order’ in Poland. More systematic ‘ethnic cleansing’ operations, involving widespread liquidation of targeted groups, were mainly in the hands of the Security Police Einsatzgruppen, following in the wake of the military advance. Already at the end of the first week of the invasion, Heydrich was reported to be enraged — as, apparently, was Hitler too — at the legalities of the military courts, despite 200 executions a day. He was demanding shooting or hanging without trial. ‘The nobility, clerics, and Jews must be done away with (umgebracht),’ were his reported words.69 He repeated the same sentiments, referring to a general ‘ground cleansing’ (Flurbereinigung), to Haider’s Quartermaster-General Eduard Wagner some days later.70 Reports of atrocities were not long in arriving. By 10–11 September accounts were coming in of an SS massacre of Jews herded into a church, and of an SS shooting of large numbers of Jews.71 On 12 September Admiral Canaris, chief of the Abwehr, told Keitel that he had heard ‘that extensive shootings (Fusilierungen) were planned in Poland and that especially the nobility and clergy were to be exterminated (ausgerottet)’. Keitel replied ‘that this matter had already been decided by the Füihrer’.72 Chief of Staff Haider was already by then heard to have said that ‘it was the intention of the Führer and of Göring to annihilate (vernichten) and exterminate (auszurotten) the Polish people’, and that ‘the rest could not even be hinted at in writing’.73
What it amounted to — an all-out ‘ethnic cleansing’ programme — was explained by Heydrich to the commanders of the Einsatzgruppen on 21 September. The thinking was that the former German provinces would become German Gaue. Another Gau with a ‘foreign-speaking population’ (mit fremdsprachiger Bevölkerung) would be established, with its capital in Cracow. An ‘eastern wall’ would surround the German provinces, with the ‘foreign-speaking Gau’ forming a type of ‘no man’s land’ in front of it. The Reichsführer-SS was to be appointed Settlement Commissar for the East (an appointment of vital importance, giving Himmler immense, practically unrestricted powers in the east, confirmed by secret edict of Hitler on 7 October).74 ‘The deportation of Jews into the foreign-speaking Gau, expulsion over the demarcation-line has been approved by the Führer,’ Heydrich went on. The process was to be spread over a year. As regards ‘the solution of the Polish problem’, the 3 per cent at most of the Polish leadership in the occupied territories ‘had to be rendered harmless’ and put in concentration camps. The Einsatzgruppen were to draw up lists of significant leaders, and of various professional and middle-class groups (including teachers and priests) who were to be deported to the rump territory (soon to be known as the General Government). The ‘primitive Poles’ were to be used as migrant workers and gradually deported to the ‘foreign-speaking Gau’. Poles were to remain no more than seasonal and migrant workers, with their permanent homes in the Cracow region. Jews in urban areas were to be concentrated in ghettos, giving better possibilities of control and readiness for later deportation. Jews in rural areas were to be removed, and placed in towns. Jews were systematically to be transported by goods-train from German areas. Heydrich also envisaged the deportation to Poland of the Reich’s Jews, and of 30,000 Gypsies.75
