The Terrible Secret

Suppression of the Truth About Hitler's "Final Solution"

Walter Laqueur

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351472890
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Historia
• Categoría: Historia del mundo

This book seeks to answer three vital questions about the worldwide response to Hitler's "Final Solution": When did information about the genocide first become known to Jews and non-Jews? Through what channels was this information transmitted? What was the reaction of those who received word of the slaughter?

Walter Laqueur's quest focuses on the period between June 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and December 1942, by which time the United Nations had confirmed the news about the mass killings in a common declaration. By the end of 1942, Chelmno, Belzec, Auschwitz, Maidanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka were fully operational and two and a half million Jews had already been killed.

According to Laqueur, word started to spread soon after extermination began. But there is no easy, straightforward answer to the wider question of why there was a failure to read and correctly interpret the signs in 1941; why so many individuals and governments actually chose to deny the reality of genocide when faced with incontrovertible evidence. A probing and disturbing work, The Terrible Secret explores one of the most perplexing aspects of the Holocaust, a political and psychological riddle of general significance to the understanding of the history of our times.

1

GERMANY: A WALL OF SILENCE?

WHEN did the news of the mass murder first reach Germany? According to an almost general consensus there was a ‘wall of silence’. If it was possible in wartime to keep certain secrets even in the Western democracies (such as the ‘Manhattan’ project, or ‘Ultra’ or the preparations for the second front), it was, of course, much easier to do so in totalitarian countries with their far more effective means of control and repression. The Nazi authorities, moreover, made a determined effort to spread misleading information about the fate of the Jews.

All this is true, but it is not the whole truth. The comparisons with Manhattan and Ultra are hardly relevant because these projects concerned only a few hundred, at most a few thousand, people and the secret of the second front had to be kept only for a few weeks or months. While it is correct that only a handful of Germans knew all about the ‘final solution’, very few knew nothing. As Hans Frank, Hitler’s viceroy in Poland, said at Nuremberg, one should not believe anyone claiming that he knew nothing, and he did not refer only to those on trial. Himmler in a famous wartime speech on the issue of secrecy surrounding the fate of the Jews solemnly announced: we shall never speak about it. There will be no record. But while he was talking the tape recorders were running and the speech can still be heard, loud and clear in most major sound archives. Millions of people cannot be killed without participants in the murder and without witnesses.

The party leaders, the ss, the security police and the other agencies involved used camouflage language even in their internal correspondence: Jews were not executed, let alone killed or murdered; they were only ‘resettled’, ‘evacuated’, ‘removed’ ‘deported’ or at worst given ‘special treatment’. ‘Special treatment’ was, however, too outspoken for the sensitive Himmler; when Korherr, the chief statistician of the s S submitted to him an interim report about the progress of the ‘final solution’ – yet another of these euphemisms – Himmler ordered him not to use this term any more but simply to refer to the ‘transport of Jews’. But even in a totalitarian system there is no consistency: the ‘special units’ (the Einsatzgruppen) did not use circumlocution in their daily, weekly or monthly reports. They were in a hurry and simply announced that so many thousands of Jews had been killed during a certain period. The same was true with regard to the war diaries of army units, big and small, which reported without any embellishment the massacres which had been witnessed. For, ironically, the ss could not tell them to use the special terms without also telling them why this was necessary, and this was thought inadvisable.

The issue became of importance in the post-war trials: some of the most senior s s leaders claimed that they had never heard about the ‘final solution’. One of them was Karl Wolff: true, he had been Himmler’s chief of staff and his rank had been that of an ss general, but Himmler had never mentioned mass murder to him; had he done so, he, Wolff, would have immediately committed suicide. How then could he explain that in a letter in July 1942 Wolff had expressed ‘joy’ that the ‘chosen people’ were transferred from Warsaw to Treblinka at the rate of several thousands a day? Well, the letter had been drafted by someone else, he had not been aware of any sinister meaning….

The German experience shows that secrets cannot, in fact, be kept even in a totalitarian regime once they have percolated beyond a certain small group. Ten men or women may keep a secret, but thousands cannot. Even the walls of silence have their loose bricks and holes. To prepare and carry out the ‘final solution’ the active participation of thousands in many walks of life was needed. Who in 1942 was in a position to know in Germany? Above all, of course, the people who had ordered the mass murder and those who were directly instrumental in carrying it out. These were not many: Hitler, Goering, Himmler and then in descending order Heydrich, Eichmann and their immediate collaborators. Then the special units, the Einsatzgruppen, which were relatively small; they counted about three thousand members. Once the death camps had been established, those running the camps serving and guarding them have to be added. Again, these were no more than a few thousand, and all of them, of course, under strict orders to keep silent. But in many cases these orders were not obeyed, guards talked, or at the very least dropped hints to relations or girlfriends. Neither the members of the Einsatzgruppen nor the camp guards belonged to élite units with a high degree of discipline. Once they had completed their mission they were reposted. Some of them talked more or less freely about their experience in the East to other soldiers or policemen.

If the number of those directly involved was fairly small, the ‘final solution’ could still not be carried out without the indirect help or knowledge of many others, and this especially applies to the very early period, the first months after the invasion of Russia. The special units, which killed some 500,000 Jews between late June and November 1941, entered occupied Soviet territory immediately after the Wehrmacht. They could, of course, act only in close co-operation with the German army. They had to announce their presence to the local commanders and they had to co-ordinate with them their forthcoming ‘actions’. The daily or weekly bulletins of the special units frequently mention the state of relations with the army. Sometimes the army is praised for the help extended. Units from army group centre actually participated in some of the massacres and Field Marshall von Reichenau was warmly praised by the Einsatzgruppen. Elsewhere local army commanders actually requested the ‘special units’ to finish their work more quickly (Kremenchug, Dzankoi). This provoked protests on the part of the otherwise not oversensitive SS commanders: ‘We are not the hangmen of the army…’

At other times there were complaints about the lack of assistance or even the criticism voiced by army officers who failed to show understanding for the thankless work done by the ‘specials’. Thus, many German army officers were bound to know, except those who were constantly in the front line or those in regions in which there were no Jews at all, of which there were not many. For every army officer who had to be taken into confidence by the s s there were several others who saw or heard about the killing by accident.^* There are countless reports of officers and soldiers who, having watched ‘executions’ inadvertently, had taken pictures. This seems to have been a fairly common practice even among the special units. There was a Heydrich order in November 1941 to stop this practice immediately – and a second order in early 1942 to collect all existing pictures. From now on all photographs were to be taken only by those authorized and this material was considered a state secret.

Some of those who witnessed the ‘executions’ talked or wrote about it with approval, others with horror, many just related the facts. This refers not only to officers and soldiers, but also to civilians (journalists, railway workers, technicians and others) who related what they had seen; many of them were not even bound by oath. This was, broadly speaking, how the news first reached large sections of the German people. Internal Nazi reports specifically mention soldiers on leave as the most important single source about the ‘very hard measures’ taken against the Jews. All this refers to the early phase, the stage of the Einsatzgruppen. Once the ‘final solution’ became institutionalized and more organized, with the installation of the death camps such as Chelmno, Sobibor, Treblinka and Auschwitz, army personnel were less likely to witness extermination.

The ‘special units’ continued their actions albeit on a smaller basis – not that many Jews were left in the occupied territories. On the other hand the number of civilians involved grew by leaps and bounds. Even in the very early planning meetings, such as the Wannsee conference, representatives of the ministries of Foreign Affairs, Justice, the Interior and the Four-Year Plan, and the Reich Chancellery had participated and as the deportations from Germany and Central Europe came under way, officials of every rank from many other state offices had to be enlisted. For this was a major administrative operation which, given the intricacies of modern society, involved countless decisions, instructions, circular letters and correspondence. The mayor of a small or medium-sized town in Germany or Austria would get an order informing him that Jews were to be transported to the East and that he was to extend all possible help to those who would run the operation. The Jews had to be informed (for which the services of the post office were needed), the old and infirm had to be transported to the concentration point, physicians and nurses had to check whether all could be transported. The operation was frequently not even supervised by the ss, which was needed for more urgent commissions, but by the regular police. The offices of the railway services were needed; it was not at all easy to obtain special trains in wartime even if the deportations had the highest priority. The trains were accompanied by policemen from various branches, including the ordinary, regular police force. Reports had to be written about each transport and those in command would sometimes complain that station masters had shown lack of co-operation (of course they too had to be informed). Some had even gone out of their way to be friendly towards the deportees. Perhaps they had an inkling of what was in store for them.

But with the disappearance of the Jews the bureaucratic problems were by no means over. The neighbours of the Jews and the people in the factories where many of them had worked were, of course, aware that they had vanished. Many may have believed the official version of ‘resettlement in the East’. But there is documentary evidence that at least some knew more; Jews working in Berlin factories were warned of impending razzias, and sometimes they were even told by well wishers among factory managers and foremen that the fate in store for them was not just ‘resettlement’. The bureaucratic machinery continued to work. The property of the Jews was taken over by the state. Banks and insurance companies had to be informed that the Jews were legally dead, other offices had to be told that the Jews no longer needed food and clothing stamps. All kinds of legal complications concerning property arose and the law courts had to deal with problems of this kind.¹

Then, at a later stage, the administration had to cope with new problems. Certain belongings of those who had been killed in the camps were shipped back to Germany. Money and other valuables, including gold fillings, were sent to the banks; blankets, glasses, children’s dolls, handbags, linen, watches, pipes, umbrellas, fountain pens and sundry other belongings were sent to various agencies specializing in social work such as the Winterhilfe and to the families of wounded soldiers. The women were shaved before being subjected to ‘special treatment’ and their hair was sent to Alex Zink felt factory near Nuremberg to be used in the war effort. It is unlikely, to put it cautiously, that the recipients of these shipments had no idea whatsoever where these commodities came from.

As the transports from Germany and other countries were rolling towards the East – it has been said – the Jews disappeared without a trace. For as the extermination camps were located far away from the borders of Germany, no one but the few directly involved in the ‘final solution’ could possibly know about the fate of the Jews. This version is widely believed but it isn’t quite true: two of the extermination camps, Chelmno, the first to become operative, and Auschwitz, the largest, were actually within the borders of Grossdeutschland. Though Auschwitz was in many ways a state within a state, this meant that various branches of the German civilian bureaucracy were involved in the establishment and running of the camps. It was not occupied territory where bureaucratic procedure could frequently be disregarded. A glance at the map shows that Auschwitz is located not in the middle of a desert but at the border of the Upper Silesian industrial area, near such major cities as Beuthen, Gleiwitz, Hindenburg (Zabrze) and Katowice.

Auschwitz, furthermore, was both a work and extermination camp, unlike places such as Treblinka and Sobibor which were factories of death, tout court. Auschwitz was a veritable archipelago with some forty branches (Aussenstellen). The list of these branches reads like a gazetteer of Silesia: Kosel, Blechhammer, Gleiwitz, Beuthen, Laurahuette, Bunzlau, Langenbielau, Ottmuth, Gogolin, Annaberg, Neukirch. The Auschwitz branches extended as far as Riesa, in Saxony, and Warsaw. Not every worker in every branch knew, but some did. Auschwitz workers were employed by AEG, the German electricity trust, and by IG Farben; they worked for the German railway system and other enterprises connected with the war effort. It is known from various sources, Polish and German, that the Polish population living in the neighbourhood of far more isolated camps than Auschwitz were well aware of what went on inside these camps. It is impossible to believe that no resident of Gleiwitz, Beuthen or Katowitz had any idea of what went on within a distance of a few miles from their homes. Moreover, those Auschwitz inmates who had been fortunate enough to be selected for work rather than death were, in fact, dispersed all over Silesia, and since they met with thousands of people it is inconceivable that the news about Auschwitz did not reach many non-Jews. If Jews living in the nearby ghettos did know, others who had greater freedom of movement knew too.^*

Charles Joseph Coward, a British prisoner of war, said in his evidence in the post-war trial against IG Farben:

The people in the city [Auschwitz], the s.s. men, the camp inmates, foreign workers, all the camp knew it. All the civilian population knew it, they complained about the stench of the burning bodies. Even the I.G. Farben employees to whom I spoke, a lot of them would admit it. It would be utterly impossible not to know.

A physician serving with the Waffen SS said during the interrogation: Question: ‘Did these civilians living in the shadow of the crematoria know about the gassings?’ Answer: ‘Yes, that is the way I meant it, because in Katowitz one was able to smell the stench of the crematoria just as well as in Auschwitz.’² According to Pery Broad, a member of the ss, civilians from all parts of Germany had heard of Auschwitz, at least as a rumour, ‘otherwise the great interest cannot be accounted for shown when the trains passed near the camp. The passengers usually rose from their seats and went to the windows….³

Adolf Bartelmas, a railway employee in Auschwitz, said in his testimony at the Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt many years later that the flames could be seen at a distance of fifteen-twenty kilometres and that it was known that human beings were burned there. Even more emphatic were Kaduk and Pery Broad who appeared in the same trial: when the chimneys were operated there was a flame of five metres. The railway station, full of civilians and soldiers on leave, was covered with smoke and there was an all-pervasive sweet smell. According to Broad the pitch-black clouds of smoke could be seen and smelled for kilometres: ‘The smell was simply intolerable…’

Hundreds of civilian employees, Germans as well as Poles, worked at Auschwitz, arriving in the morning, leaving in the afternoon. The families of some of the higher officials lived there too. Many technicians and workers from various parts of Germany and the occupied countries came to Auschwitz for shorter and longer periods of time, and there is evidence that they discussed in public places what they had seen in the camp.⁴ Workers from Krupp, such as Erich Lutat and Paul Ortmann, said in evidence at the Nuremberg trial that the workers used to discuss the events in the camp, and when they went home on leave to see their families in Essen they also told them, ganz entsetzt (‘quite horrified’).

If the workers knew, it stands to reason that at least some of the bosses knew too, which is not to say that every director of Krupp or IG Farben was aware of the systematic killing. But it seems to have been an open secret even in business circles not directly connected with either making deliveries to Auschwitz or having a branch in the camps. In 1961 Dr Guenther Prey, a German industrialist, made a deposition at the Dutch Government War Institute, according to which he had discovered, by chance in late 1941 or in 1942 in Danzig, that Jews were killed by gassing. Perhaps this was a mere accident, perhaps others were unlikely to learn the secret the same way. But Dr Prey also said that the matter was openly talked about in the German circles in which he moved in Holland, where it was generally known that the Jews in Auschwitz and other camps were murdered en masse (Dr Prey used the German term Grossbetrieb).⁵

Altogether 40,000 Auschwitz inmates were employed by various German industrial enterprises. I.G. Farben, which was the pioneer, alone had some 10,000 inmates – inc...