Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis полностью

The frame of mind was overtly genocidal. The reference to Madagascar was meaningless. It had been ruled out as an option months earlier. But Siberia, which had in the interim come into favour, would itself have meant genocide of a kind. It was in such a frame of mind that Hitler had agreed to the big increase in the number of police units in the east, and presumably given Himmler carte blanche to operate as he should see fit in ‘cleansing’ the conquered eastern territories of Jews. And, from his comments to Kvaternik, Hitler was plainly contemplating a ‘solution to the Jewish Question’ not just in the Soviet Union, but throughout the whole of Europe.

No decision for the ‘Final Solution’ — meaning the physical extermination of the Jews throughout Europe — had yet been taken. But genocide was in the air. In the Warthegau, the biggest of the annexed areas of Poland, the Nazi authorities were still divided in July 1941 about what to do with the Jews whom they had been unable to deport to the General Government. One idea was to concentrate them in one huge camp which could easily be policed, near to the centre of coal production, and gain maximum economic benefit from their ruthless exploitation. But there was the question of what to do about those Jews incapable of working.

A memorandum sent on 16 July 1941 to Eichmann, at Reich Security Head Office, by the head of the SD in Posen, SS-Sturmbannführer Rolf-Heinz Höppner, struck an ominous note. ‘There is the danger this winter,’ his cynical report to Eichmann read, ‘that the Jews can no longer all be fed. It is to be seriously considered whether the most humane solution might not be to finish off those Jews not capable of labour by some sort of fast-working preparation.’ Asking for Eichmann’s opinion, Höppner concluded: ‘The things sound in part fantastic, but would in my view be quite capable of implementation.’⁶⁰

On the last day of the month, Heydrich had Eichmann draft a written authorization from Göring — nominally in charge of anti-Jewish policy since January 1939 — to prepare ‘a complete solution (Gesamtlösung) of the Jewish question in the German sphere of influence in Europe’.⁶¹ The mandate was framed as a supplement to the task accorded to Heydrich on 24 January 1939, to solve the ‘Jewish problem’ through ‘emigration’ and ‘evacuation’. Heydrich was now commissioned to produce an overall plan dealing with the organizational, technical, and material measures necessary.⁶² This written mandate was an extension of the verbal one which he had already received from Göring no later than March.⁶³ It enhanced his authority in dealings with state authorities, and laid down a marker for his control over the ‘final solution’ once victory in the east — presumed imminent — had been won.⁶⁴ Hitler did not need to be consulted.⁶⁵

The dragnet was closing on the Jews of Europe. But Heydrich’s mandate was not the signal to set up death camps in Poland. The aim at this point was still a territorial solution — to remove the Jews to the east.⁶⁶ Within the next few months, recognition that the great gamble of the rapid knockout victory in the east had failed would irrevocably alter that aim.

With victory apparently within Germany’s grasp, pressures to intensify the discrimination against the Jews and to have them deported from the Reich were building up.⁶⁷ The growing privations of the war allowed Party activists to turn daily grievances and resentment against the Jews. The SD in Bielefeld reported, for instance, in August 1941 that strong feeling about the ‘provocative behaviour of Jews (das provozierende Verhalten der Juden)’ had brought a ban on Jews attending the weekly markets ‘in order to avoid acts of violence’ (um Tätlichkeiten zu vermeiden)’. In addition, there had been general approval, so it was alleged, for an announcement in the local newspapers that Jews would receive no compensation for damage suffered as a result of the war. It was also keenly felt, it was asserted, that Jews should only be served in shops once German customers had had their turn. The threat of resort to self-help and use of force against Jews if nothing was done hung in the air. Ominously, it was nonetheless claimed that these measures would not be enough to satisfy the population. Demands were growing for the introduction of some compulsory mark of identification such as had been worn by Jews in the General Government since the start of the war, in order to prevent Jews avoiding the restrictions imposed on them.⁶⁸