Invasion of the USSR, Jewish Bolshevism and the Einsatzgruppen - Custom Essay

Invasion of the USSR, Jewish Bolshevism and the Einsatzgruppen

Lebensraum – the central theme to Nazi ideology

Principle used to shape Nazi Foreign Policy and Eastward Expansion

Aims ; Conquest of Poland, Acquisition of Ukraines resources, War against USSR. (Defeat communism, Jewish-Bolshevism and red terror, and acquire lebensraum and East all in one go)

Limitations to war in the East – 1939 Ger not ready to tackle all of those aims.

First priority was Poland

Hitler needed to ensure USSR would not act against invasion of Poland – Nazi-Sov pact.

-          Signed by Ribbentrop and Molotov Aug 1939

-          Non- aggression pact – lasting 10 years

-          Agreed Ger and USSR would invade Poland and share it between them.

-          Shocked the world, against nazi Ideology.

-          It didn’t last because ; Hitler planned to break it, only made it to avoid fighting a war on two fronts, war in west turned positive for the Germans, fall of France 1940

-          By oct 1940 Hitler was planning invasion of Russia

Operation Barbarossa June 22^nd 1941 – Invasion of USSR

Einsatzgruppen A – North - Leningrad

Einsatzgruppen B – East - Moscow

Einsatzgruppen C – South East – Ukraine

Ideological / racial War

Hitler linked Jewishness with Bolshevism through all his political career – Believed communism was an ideology created by Jews to weaken the Aryan race.

Vied showndown with USSR as ideological and a race war – Communism and Jews.

“Jewish Bolshevik intelligentsia would need to be eliminated during Operation Barbarossa” – 3^rd march 1941

Goering’s Commissar Order

Hitler’s comment supported by Goering’s commissar order july 1941 – All communist commissars and jewish sympathisers should be executed.

Used as a loose justification for mass killings in the east.

Einsatzgruppen A,B,C,D carried out the killings.

A – Franz Stahlecker

B – Arthur Nebe

C – Otto Rasch

D – Otto Ohlendorf

June-July 1941 500k killed, 1941-42 750k killed.

Special group A- 250k Special Group B 45k. A killed 60k Jews.

The Einsatzgruppen

Mainly police personnel and German SS and regular troops and the Gestapo with some local volunteers. Between 600 and 1,000 men.

Supported by police reserve units.

Police Battalion 309 – Bialystok massacre in east Poland 27 June 1941. – Rose to 40k men.

August 1941 – Himmler witnessed “special action” near Minsk in Belarus. –Apparently extended shootings to women and children. No proof however.

Sept 29-30 1941 Babi Year massacre in Kiev. – Largest mass murder at an individual location during WW2 100k estimated murdered.

Shooting was the most common form of killing, yet Himmler in late summer 1941 noticed the psychological burden that the shootings produced on his men, requested more convenient mode of killing be developed. – Gas vans created.

Beginnings of the Final Solution and developments in 1941

By the time Operation Barbarossa was unleashed in June 1941, aspects of Holocaust already in place. T4 Euthanasia programme against disabled children 1939 – august 1941- Technical issues of gas chambers been developed. And Einsatzgruppen killed thousands of Jews.

Until late 1941 – situation in East confused by the War. Many officials believed aim was to make Ger Jewfree by emigration, deportation and resettlement. Only a few new Hitler’s real intentions.

Because they could not completely conquer USSR, had to abandon plan to send Jews to Siberia and Madagascar.

Number of Jews in General Gov of Poland too much to cope with. The urgency of these problems led to radical new policies being devised.

New Techniques developing

Until winter 1941 – Main method of killing Jews was Mass Shootings (By the Einsatzgruppen, such as Babi Yar)

This method was hard to conceal and caused psychological stress on the soldiers. Himmler advised on finding an efficient humane method of killing.

Experiemented with techniques, such as explisives. Then thought of using the ones trained to gas who worked on the Aktion T4 programme. Experiments in the Lodz ghetto summer 1941 were successful. – Plan extended to an old mansion in Chelmo near Lodz in Nov 1941, first jewish victims killed in gas vans at Chelmo died in Dec 1941. By 1943 when it was destroyed 140k killed there.

These techniques spread to other camps, gassings experiments at Auschwitz on Soviet prisoners took place Nov 1941. Construction work on new death camp Belzec began November.

Key moment was the Wannsee Conference 20^th Jan 1942.

Wannsee conference about implementation, not decision making. Invitations send out late November but delayed due to war. Decisions already been made at the latest Nov 1941 to kill all the Jews.

Wannsee Conference January 1942

Purpose – Heydrich ordered by Goering to make preparations for the Final solution to the Jewish question

Attendees – Reinhard Heyrdrich (Chairman)

Adolf Eichmann (Admin)

Gauleiter Meyew, Dr Leibbrandt – MO eastern occupied territories

Dr Stickart - RMOI

Hofmann – RSHO

And more.

Initially planned for December 1941, delayed until 20 jan 1942 – War.

Logistical arrangements for solution to jewish question.

Formulated common procedures where all of Europes 11 mil Jews were to be “resettled” in east.

Did not discuss extermination, simply used words like “legalised removal” and resettlement”

Significant – Endorsement of wide range of Nazi Gov, not just SS

-          Procedural development – turned extermination into an efficient process.

Not Significant – Extermination already underway

-          Many leading Nazis like Himmler, Goering, Hitler not present

-          Failure to agree on status and treatment of Mischlinge Jews.

Aftermath – Deportation of Jews more organised

-          All organisations and bodies across German territories working to one set of guidelines

-          Accelerated mass killings. Feb 1942 – feb 1943 When most Jews died in the Holocaust

Jews in Nazi occupied Europe up to 1942

By june 1941  - Nazis occupied most of Europe.

-          Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, France, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania

-          Nazi’s had dominance over the jewish pop in these areas.

France fel 1940 – Pro nazi regime run by Pierre Laval from Vichy southern france. Authoritarian regime.

In 1942 most of North France put under direct Ger occupation, Jews rounded up and send to the Drancy internment camp near Paris

Drancy was a stop-off point on the way to death camps

In western Europe – No large scale deportations until 1942.

German Jews – Radio sets confiscated Nov 1939

-          Banned from buying chocolate Dec 1939

-          1940 – Excluded from wartime rationing allowances for clothes and shoes

-          1941 – needed a police permit to travel

-          Dec 1941 – Wear yellow Star of David

-          Increased propaganda – Harder racial edge. Eternal Jew, Die Rothschilds: Atkien in Waterloo and Jud suss created.

Nazi treatment of Jews in the East 1940 -42

Throughout 1940and 1941 Romania, Croatia and Bulgaria came under Nazi control and had puppet govs implemented. These govs implemented anti-Semitic measures to please hitler and fall in line with anti-Semitic feeling within their countries. After june 1941 Croatia’s pro-Nazi leaders introduced anti-Sem legislation, thousands of jews died in Croatian concentration camps.

Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu encouraged violence against jews without directly saying it.

Slovak Jews.

Slovakia was a nazi puppet state.

President Father Josef Tiso signed Treaty of Protection – gave ger full control over foreign policy.

Tiso followed Nazi race policy. Leader of nationalistic and anti-Semitic Hlinka party. Prejudices against gypsies. Tiso’s gov adopted harsh anti-Sem policies against the 90k Jews. Businesses confiscationed, excluded from public life, forced to wear yellow star. Encouraged Jewish emigration, excluded Jew children from schools.

Tiso’s “Hlinka Guard” similar to SA in 1930s Germany. “No Jews” signs and posters.

1942 – Tiso agrees to hand Slovakias Jews over to Germans for deportation to

Death camps.

The Twisted road to Auschwitz

By 1942 – Extermination of racial undesirables becomes a war aim (as important as defeating the USSR)

By 1942 – Propaganda prepared the way

SS fully functioning

Camps established in the east ready to expand.

The SS in wartime

Key leaders – Himmler and heydrich

In 1938/39 – Annexation of new territories and allowed SS to expand (Austria, Czech, Poland)

No rival power bodies in new territories.

The Waffen SS guarden concentration/death camps

Concentration Camps (Different to 1942 onwards Death Camps)

Most gers knew little about the concentration camps, some approved, others feared them.

Concentration camps – Most containted beggars, vagrants and habitual criminals. 26k from Kristallnacht Jews incarcerated, a lot of Jews from 1938 onwards.

-          Dachau – First established. March 1933. Tehodor Eicke commandant. Prisoners repaired and maintained the camp. Supervision carried out by Kapos. Subject to hard labour, not productive but simply a burden on the prisoners’ lives.Then rented out as slave labour in factories and SS controlled plants. Also used for experiments.

-          Netherlands – Vught

-          Austria – Mauthausen

-          Germany – Flossenberg 96k incarcerated, 36k died

-          Theresienstadt

-          Buchenwald- Opened july 1937 – 250k prisoners passed, 56k died.

-          Gross rosen

-          Bergen-Belsen(War camp),

-          Neuengamme

-          Sachsenhausen – First “new-model” concentration camp. Specialist training centre for SS personnel. 200k prisoners sent in, 30k died by execution and casual brutality and disease or overwork.”Arbeit macht Frei” – Work will free you. Later used above Auschwitz.

-          Ravensbruck

-          Natzweiler (Close to Eastern France border)

-          East Prussia – Stutthof

Camps in the east 1941+

Death camps – Poland (General Government) – Treblinka, Sobibor, Chelmo, Majdanek, Belzec, Auschwitz-Birkenau

Operation Reinhard

-Mass gassing of 2 mill Jews in Gen Gov area from 1942+.

- Named after Heydrich, assassinated by Czech Partisans May 1942

Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka were the death camps associated with Operation Reinhard

The Death Camps

Chelmo – Nov 1941 converted mansion

-          Forest clearing 5km away as a mass grave

-          First victims of gas vans Dec 1941

-          Jan 1942 – Permanent gas chamber

-          First pure killing center

-          Destroyed March 1943

-          140K Jews, gypsies, poles and Russian PoWs killed.

Auschwitz-Birkenau – Created for polish prisoners 1940

-          Late summer 1941 became a DC

-          Commandant = Rudolf Hoess

-          Gassing in May 1942 until autumn 1944

-          1.1mil killed

Belzec – First operation Reinhard camp

-          Gas began march 1942

-          Christian Wirth was commandant, an experienced Aktion T4 leader.

-          Linked by railway to Lublin ghetto

-          600k killed

-          Closed july 1943

Treblinka – July 1942

-          Commandant was ex Sobibor Franz Stangl

-          August 1943 Jewish resistance escape attempt

-          Used deception tactics – fake railway station

-          900k killed Between july 1942 – August 1943

Sobibor – Opened April 1942

-          Franz Stangl commandant (Ex Hartheim euthanasia centre)

-          Oct 1943 escape attempt (300 escaped)

-          160k killed

-          Closed oct 1943

Madjanek – Setup July 1941 for soviet PoW

-          Death/labour camp

-          230k killed, most from conditioning

-          Gas used Oct 42-43

-          Liberated July 1944

Auschwitz

Auschwitz 1 – First camp established in Oswiecim – construction began may 1940. SS authorities deployed prisoners at forced labour to expand the camp. First prisoners at Auschwitz included Ger prisoners transferred from Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Ger and polish political prisoners from Lodz

Purpose – Incaercerate real and perceived enemies of the regime

-          An available supply of forced labour for deployment

-          A sight to eliminate small, targeted groups of the pop whose death is determined by the SS

Had a gas chamber and a crematorium. SS engies made improvised gas chambers in basement of prison block 11. Then a separate permanent gas chamber made outside.

Block 10 – Medical experiments in the hospital block. Psuedoscientific research in infants, twins and dwarfs. Sterilisations, castrations and hypothermia experiments on adults. Best known physician – Dr Josef Mengele. The Angel of Death.

Black Wall – SS guards executed thousands of prisoners between crematorium and block 10 barracks.

Auschwitz 2, Birkenau began construction Oct 1941. The killing center. Zyklon B gas introduced summer/autumn 1941 as a means for murder.

Auschwitz 3, Monowitz – Large factory, made Buna rubber (terrible quality)

Deportation to Auschwitz – In total aprox 1.1mil Jews deported to Auschwitz. Unfit ones sent to Birkenau, possessions confiscated and sorted in “Kanada” warehouse for shipment back to Germany. Fit ones were sent to Auschwitz 1 and 3.

960k Jews killed at Auschwitz. 74k poles, 21k gypsies and 15k sov PoW’s.

Kapo – Prisoners assigned duties by SS, mostly hostile, Nazi collaborators, ex gang leaders, did it for extra food, cigarettes and alcohol. Violent towards the other Jews.

Sonderkommando’s – Male, young, Jewish prisoners forced by threat of death to do manual labour, clean crematoria, sort through “Kanada”, direct the Jews to the gas chambers, seal the door and clean up the bodies. (Any experience of being a barber? Had to cut off dead peoples hair.) Some said they were nazi collaborators, but they had no choice in the matter.