DOCUMENTING GENOCIDE
by Darren O'Brien and Richard Tidyman*
It is remarkable when an author states the obvious. One simple statement is capable of arousing dis-satisfaction in the minds of readers. Yet, it is often only by doing so that the critical importance of the simplest issue is recognised.
In a recent article, Robert Wolfe reiterated the significance of utilising primary textual sources for the historical study of the Holocaust. [1] The same may be said of the historical examination of all cases of genocide. While all documentation may be relevant - courtroom testimony, oral history, memoirs, articles, books, plays, photographs, motion pictures, including documentaries and docu-dramas - each lacks the contemporaneity in fact and purpose, (providing they are authentic) of primary textual sources. [2] Collections of papers become “contemporaneous agency, organisational and unit procedures.” Paperwork practices such as the drafting, editing, signing, distribution and initialling of memoranda and correspondence, as well as filing systems, letterheads and `incoming' and `outgoing' circulation details are discovered. [3] In essence, the day-to-day mechanisms contributing to the destructive process are laid bare.
The collection of documents housed in the Centre have been drawn from archives in Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Czechoslovakia, USA, the United Kingdom, Israel, the former Yugoslavia and Australia. [4] It represents one of the most accessible collections in the Southern Hemisphere, and constitutes a significant resource for those students who wish to familiarise themselves with such documents before incurring the expense of moving on to collections held overseas. At present, staff at the Centre are working on a computerised documentary teaching package comprised of a collection of documents drawn from our archive and divided into six one-hour teaching units. The areas covered include “Prologue”, “Implementation”, “Genocidal Campaigns”, “Escape and Resistance”, “Ghettoisation” and “Structure and Organisation”. Each area includes from eight to ten documents which have been scanned into the computer and are displayed with an English translation. Keywords can be entered to search for a particular subject of interest to the user. Each area is arranged chronologically, mainly focussing on the period from 1939 to 1941 and the initial directives and murderous Einsatzgruppen actions. The project has been funded by the Macquarie University Teaching Collection Grant and is due for completion by December this year.
In his article, Wolfe emphasises the importance of primary documentation in refuting deniers and specifies the difference between an `isolated' document and a document which draws `authenticity support' from other documents. [5] A case at hand can be found in a succession of letters drawn from our collection which, in addition to offering `authenticity support', provide a graphic insight into the competing personalities and conflicting priorities of the individuals involved in the so-called `Final Solution of the Jewish Question' (all three documents are reproduced on the following pages).
Document A is a letter from Dr Georg Leibbrandt, deputy to Alfred Rosenberg of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories. It was sent to Heinrich Lohse, Reich Commissioner for Ostland (the Baltic States) on October 31, 1941. It stemmed from Lohse's banning of executions of Jews in the coastal city of Libau in Latvia. Lohse's action led to a complaint by Dr Walter Stahlecker, the commander of Einsatzgruppe A, to his superior Heinrich Himmler in Berlin who passed the complaint on to the Reich Ministry. According to the stamp (obscured on the right-hand side below the date), Leibbrandt's letter was received in Lohse's office on November 5, 1941. Recapping then, the chain of transmission is rendered from Stahlecker to Himmler who passed it to Rosenberg who then assigned it to Leibbrandt and it was Leibbrandt who wrote the letter to Lohse.
The two questions that result from this document are: why did Lohse ban the executions and why did Stahlecker feel it was important enough to complain? Lohse answers the first question for us
Document A: Letter from Leibbrandt to Lohse
[Translation of Document A]
The Reich Minister Berlin, W 35, 31 October 1941
for the Occupied Eastern Territories Rauchstraße 17/18
Telephone 21 95 15 and 39 50 46
Cable Address: Reichministerost
No. I/ 2591 / 41
Please use this business sign and
subject in further correspondence.
__________________________________
To the : Reich Commissioner East :
Reich Commissioner for the East : 5.11.1941 :
: Main Division IIa :
in Riga
Hermann Goering Street 26
The Reich and Main Security Office has complained that the Reich
Commissioner for the East has forbidden executions of Jews in Libau.
I request a report in regard to this matter by return mail.
By order
signed: Dr Leibbrandt
_____________________________
: Reich Ministry for the :
: Occupied Eastern : certified
: Territories : (illegible signature)
Regierungsinspektor
in his reply (Document B). This is a handwritten draft of a letter dated November 15, 1941. If we look at the document, one of the first things that becomes apparent is that it is written in two different hands. Most of the letter is written by Trampedach, Lohse's subordinate. The second hand (Lohse's) becomes apparent just before the last paragraph. We find at the end of the second paragraph that a note has been inserted by someone else (this appears in italics in the translation). The corrected text would have been submitted by Lohse.
Lohse's explanation for banning the “wild executions” is that “they were not justifiable”. His main objection appears to be the economic damage sustained when Jews were removed from skilled positions in the local economy. A similar objection had been raised in the previous month by the General Commissioner in Minsk, Carl, after the action in Slutsk. [6]
Yet, there is more to this dispute than meets the eye. It is not a dispute over “economic considerations”; rather, it is a dispute over jurisdiction, areas of control. Lohse goes on to explain that the `Brown Folder' contained no directives to liquidate the Jews in Ostland. The `Brown Folder' (Braune Mappe) was a set of “guidelines for the treatment of the Jewish Question” issued by Alfred Rosenberg, the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, in September, 1941. [7] Obviously, Lohse's reading of the `Brown Folder' had only been cursory as page 38 of the document explicitly forbids the civilian administration from control of summary executions. Thus, Lohse was acting outside his jurisdiction- hence Stahlecker's complaint to Himmler. After banning the executions, Lohse discussed the situation with Stahlecker, who objected to Lohse's action. The basis of Stahlecker's objection was that he had received special orders from Himmler, but Lohse rebutted this by informing him that “you are subordinate to me, and I will not allow such things”. [8] Stahlecker counterargued that he was subordinate to Higher SS and Police Leader Prützmann, not Lohse, and Lohse could complain about this if he wished. [9] Steinberg, in his study of German civil administration in the Soviet Union, summed up the incongruities of the situation: “the Higher SS and Police Leader was, according to the Brown Folder, directly subordinate to the Reich Commissars for the Ostland and Ukraine, as were the police commanders at lower levels...in practice neither the Einsatz- and Sonderkommandos operating in the Reich Commissariats nor the Order Police, when dealing with `ethno-political tasks', took the slightest notice of orders, decrees, regulations or entreaties of the civil administration”. [10]
As we know, Nazi policy on `the Jewish question' referred to in documents was cloaked in euphemisms. The wording is usually circumscribed and very rarely explicit. Document B, however, is remarkable for its frankness. In this instance, Lohse asks: “I should like to be informed whether your inquiry of 31 October is to be regarded as a directive to liquidate all Jews in Ostland?”
This question leads us to Document C, the last, and perhaps most interesting of the three. It is the reply from the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories to the above letter (Document B) and brings the entire issue to a close. It was probably prepared by Dr Otto Bräutigam, the deputy chief of the Political Department.
It opens with the reply “Clarification of the Jewish Question has most likely been achieved through verbal discussions”. This line seems to emphasise the point that orders surrounding `the Jewish Question' tended to be passed on orally and were rarely written down. [11] This passage can also be viewed as both rebuking Lohse for being so explicit in mentioning the liquidation of Jews in a letter, and `covering' (through omission on paper) the intentional orders of the author (Bräutigam).
The “economic considerations” referred to by Lohse in Document B are raised again, but he is informed that they “should fundamentally remain unconsidered”. Once again a euphemistic phrase cloaks the intent - that all Jews should be killed regardless of the economic impact that their deaths would bring to the local economy and the war effort in general.
The final slap in the face for Lohse comes in the last sentence of the document. Reference has been made earlier in this article to the question of jurisdiction. In his letter, Bräutigam requests that Lohse take up all future queries in this regard with the Higher SS and Police Leader. The `Jewish Question' was a matter for the SS, not for the civilian administration. Reichskommissar Lohse had lost his fight.
* Darren O'Brien is Assistant to the Director of the Centre and is researching a PhD entitled “The Pinnacle of Hatred: The Blood Libel and the Jews”. Richard Tidyman is a War Crimes Archivist at the Centre and is researching a PhD entitled “The 12th Lithuanian Schutzmannschaft Battalion and the `Final Solution of the Jewish Question' in Reichskommissariat Ostland, 1941-45”.
Document B: Draft of Response from Lohse
[Translation of Document B]
The Reich Commissioner for the East Riga, 15.11.41
IIa 4 M 219/41 secret
To the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories
Re: Executions of Jews
District of Erlau 31.10.41 I/2591/41 Berlin
Reporter: Reg.Rat Trampedach Rauchstr. 17/18
I have forbidden the wild executions of Jews in Liepaja because they were not justifiable in the manner in which they were carried out.
I should like to be informed whether your inquiry of 31.10 is to be regarded as a directive to liquidate all Jews in Ostland? Shall this take place without regard to age and sex and economic interests (of the Wehrmacht, for instance in specialists in the armament industry)? Of course the cleansing of the East of Jews is a necessary task; its solution, however, must be harmonised with the necessities of war production.
So far I have not been able to find such a directive either in the regulations regarding the Jewish Question in the “Brown Folder” or in other decrees.
2) Resubmit 1.12.41
Submitted 1.12
(initialled) Tr. 8.11.
Document C: Letter from the Ostministerium to Lohse
[Translation of Document C]
The Reich Minister Berlin, W 35, 18 December 1941
for the Occupied Eastern Territories Rauchstrasse 17/18
Telephone: 21 95 15 and 39 50 46
Cable Address: Reichministerost
No. I/1/157/41 Top Secret
Please use this business sign and
subject in further correspondence.
Journal No. 394/41 Received 22/12
Secret Reich Document
1.) To the
Reich Commissioner for the East
Riga / Leitort Tilsit
Adolf Hitler Street
Subject: Jewish Question
re. correspondence of 15.11.41
Clarification of the Jewish Question has most likely been achieved through verbal discussions. Economic considerations should fundamentally remain unconsidered in the settlement of the problem. Moreover, it is requested that questions arising be settled directly with the Higher SS and Police Leaders.
By order
(signed) illegible [probably Bräutigam]
2.) Filed II. a 4 Ma 26/1.
[1] Robert Wolfe, “Nazi Paperwork for the Final Solution” in J.S. Pacy and A.P. Wertheimer, eds., Perspectives on the Holocaust: Essays in Honour of Raul Hilberg (Boulder, 1995), pp. 5-37.
[2] Wolfe, pp. 5-6.
[3] Wolfe, p. 6.
[4] A partial list of the archives used by the Special Investigations Unit of the Australian Attorney-General's Department can be found in Graham Blewitt, Report of the Investigations of War Criminals in Australia (Canberra, 1994), p. 8. A fuller listing is held by the Centre.
[5] Wolfe, p. 6.
[6] For a discussion of this action see Richard Tidyman, “The Murderous 12th Lithuanian Police Battalion,” Newsletter of the Centre for Comparative Genocide Studies 1:4 (1995), p. 8.
[7] Central State Special Archive Moscow,“Die Zivilverwaltung in besetzten Ostgebieten (Braune Mappe)”.
[8] National Archives, Washington, Record Group 238, M-1019/R 43/792-93 as quoted by Richard Breitman, The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final Solution (London, 1991), p. 209.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Jonathon Steinberg, “The Third Reich Reflected: German Civil Administration in the Occupied Soviet Union, 1941-4,” English Historical Review 100:437 (1995), p. 641.
[11] Breitman, p. 216.