Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis полностью

With scarcely any direct involvement by Hitler, racial policy unfolded its own dynamic. Within the Reich, pressures to rid Germany of its Jews once and for all increased. In the asylums, the killing of the mentally sick inmates was in full swing. And the security mania of the nation at war, threatened by enemies on all sides and within, coupled with the heightened demands for national unity, encouraged the search for new ‘outsider’ target groups. ‘Foreign workers’, especially those from Poland, were in the front line of the intensified persecution.²⁰³

However, the real crucible was Poland. Here, racial megalomania had carte blanche. But it was precisely the absence of any systematic planning in the free-for-all of unlimited power that produced the unforeseen logistical problems and administrative cul-de-sacs of ‘ethnic cleansing’ which in turn evoked ever more radical, genocidal approaches.

Those who enjoyed positions of power and influence saw the occupation of Poland as an opportunity to ‘solve the Jewish Question’ — despite the fact that now more Jews than ever had fallen within the clutches of the Third Reich. For the SS, entirely new perspectives had emerged. Among Party leaders, all the Gauleiter wanted to be rid of ‘their’ Jews and now saw possibilities of doing so. These were starting points. At the same time, for those ruling the parts of former Poland which had been incorporated into the Reich, the expulsion of the Jews from their territories was only part of the wider aim of Germanization, to be achieved as rapidly as possible. This meant also tackling the ‘Polish Question’, removing thousands of Poles to make room for ethnic Germans from the Baltic and other areas, classifying the ‘better elements’ as German, and reducing the rest to uneducated helots available to serve the German masters. ‘Ethnic cleansing’ to produce the required Germanization through resettlement was intrinsically connected with the radicalization of thinking on the ‘Jewish Question’.²⁰⁴

Beginning only days after the German invasion of Poland, Security Police and Party leaders in Prague, Vienna, and Kattowitz — seizing on the notions expounded by Heydrich of a ‘Jewish reservation’ to be set up east of Cracow — saw the chance of deporting the Jews from their areas.²⁰⁵ Eichmann’s own initiative and ambition appear to have triggered the hopes of immediate expulsion of the Jews.²⁰⁶ The Chief of the Reich Criminal Police, Arthur Nebe, asked Eichmann around the same time, in mid-October 1939, when he could send Berlin’s Gypsies into the reservation. Between 18 and 26 October Eichmann organized the transport of several thousands of Jews from Vienna, Kattowitz, and Moravia to the Nisko district, south of Lublin. Gypsies from Vienna were also included in the deportation. At the same time, the resettlement of the Baltic Germans began.²⁰⁷ Within days of the Nisko transports beginning, the lack of provision for the deported Jews in Poland, creating chaotic circumstances following their arrival, led to their abrupt halt.²⁰⁸ But it was a foretaste of the greater deportations to come.