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Improvised Genocide? The emergence of the ‘Final Solution’ in the ‘Warthegau’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Ian Kershaw
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The ‘Warthegau’—officially the ‘Reichsgau Wartheland’, with its capital in Posen (Poznan)—was the largest of three areas of western Poland annexed to the German Reich after the defeat of Poland in 1939. In the genesis of the ‘Final Solution’ it plays a pivotal role. Some of the first major deportations of Jews took place from the Warthegau. The first big ghetto was established on the territory of the Warthegau, at Lodz (which the Nazis renamed Litzmannstadt). In autumn 1941, the first German Jews to be deported at the spearhead of the combing-out process of European Jewry were dispatched to die Warthegau. The possibility of liquidating ghettoised Jews had by then already been explicitly raised for the first time, in the summer of 1941, significantly by Nazi leaders in the Warthegau. The first mobile gassing units to be deployed against the Jews operated in the Warthegau in the closing months of 1941. And the systematic murder of the Jews began in early December 1941 in the first extermination camp—actually a ‘gas van station’—established at Chelmno on the Ner, in the Warthegau.

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Research Article
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Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 2 , December 1992 , pp. 51 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1992

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References

1 I would like to express my warmest thanks and appreciation to the following for their most helpful contributions to the research for this article: Christopher Browning, Philippe Burrin, Lucjan Dobroszycki, Gerald Fleming, Czesław Madajczyk, Stanisław Nawrocki, Karol Marian Pospieszalski, and the staffs of the Archiwum Państwowe Poznań, the Berlin Document Center, the Główna Komissa Badni Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce Archiwum Warsaw, the Instytut Zachodni in Poznań, and the Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen, Ludwigsburg. I owe grateful thanks, too, to the British Academy and the Polish Academy of Sciences for their generous joint support of the research I undertook in Poznań and Warsaw in September 1989.

2 The others were West Prussia and part of Upper Silesia. In addition, in the north of Poland substantial tracts of territory were added to the existing German province of East Prussia. In each of the incorporated territories (least in Gau Danzig-Westpreuβen, most by far in the Warthegau), the new boundaries included areas which had never hitherto belonged to Prussia/Germany. See Broszat, Martin, Nationalsozialistische Polepolitik 1939–1945 (Frankfurt am Main, 1965), 36–41Google Scholar; Madajczyk, Czesław, Die Okkupationspolitik Nazideutschlands in Polen 1939–1945 (Berlin, 1987), 30–6Google Scholar.

3 Der Mord an den Juden im Zweiten Weltkrieg, eds. Jäckel, Eberhard and Rohwer, Jürgen (Stuttgart, 1985), 145Google Scholar.

4 Two essays appeared in Polish in the 1970s, but before much recent scholarly literature on the genesis of the ‘Final Solution’: Leszczyński, Julian, ‘Ż dziejów zagłady Żydów w Kraju Warty: Szkice do genezy ludóbojstwa hitlerowskiego’, Biuletyn Zydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego 82 (1972), 57–72Google Scholar; and Artur Eisenbach, ‘O należyte zrozumienie genezy zagłady Zydów’, ibid. 104 (1977), 55–69.

5 For summaries and evaluations of the debate, see: Friedländer, Saul, ‘From Anti-Semitism to Extermination’, Yad Vashem Studies 16 (1984), 1–50Google Scholar. Marrus, Michael, The Holocaust in History (1988), chap. 2Google Scholar, and Kershaw, Ian, The Nazi Dictatorship. Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation (3rd edn., 1993), chap. 5Google Scholar.

6 Broszat, , Polenpolitik, 37–8Google Scholar.

7 I have contributed a brief character sketch of Greiser to the forthcoming second volume of Ronald Smelser, Enrico Syring, and Rainer Zitelmann (eds.), Die braune Elite und ihre Heifer. A character description by the prosecution counsel at Greiser's trial can be found in Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen, Ludwigsburg (= ZSL), Anklageschrift aus dem Prozeβ gegen Arthur Greiser, German translation (= Prozeβ Greiser), Bl. 74–82. (A copy of the Polish text is in Polen-365h, Bl. 677–828).

8 See, for example, Główna Komisa Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce (= GK), (Archive of the Central Commission for the Investigation of Hitlerite Crimes in Poland, Ministry of Justice, Warsaw), Process Artura Greisera (= PAG), vol. 11, Bl. 52; and see also the comment by Burckhardt, Carl J., Meine Danziger Mission (Munich, 1962), 79Google Scholar.

9 Berlin Document Center (= BDC), Personalakte (= PA) Arthur Greiser, unfoliated, Führer decree awarding the promotion, 30 Jan. 1942. Greiser's telegram to Himmler of the same date, thanking the Reichsführer-SS for his nomination to Hitler, stated that ‘I am at your disposal at all times and without reservation in all my areas of work’.

10 Directly on Koppe, there is Datner, Szymon, Wilhelm Koppe—nie ukarany zbrodniarz hitlerowski (Warsaw, 1963)Google Scholar. Koppe figures prominently in Birn, Ruth Bettina, Die Höheren SS- und Polizeiführer. Himmlers Vertreter im Reich und in den besetzten Gebieten (Düsseldorf, 1986)Google Scholar. There is much valuable information on him in his personal file in the BDC. His trial indictment, ZSL, Landgericht Bonn 8 J8 52/60, Anklageschrift gegen Wilhelm Koppe wegen Beihilfe zum Mord (= Prozeβ Koppe), Bl. 49–55, summarises his career and personality. He was said to have been unbureaucratic and unconventional in his workstyle—‘ruling through the telephone’, as one witness put it—and to have combined a propensity for unfolding new, sometimes fantastic, schemes, with pedantic attention to detail. Ibid., Bl. 54.

11 BDC, PA Koppe, unfoliated, effusive handwritten letter of thanks to Himmler for the latter's good wishes on his promotion, 5 Feb. 1942. The headed notepaper already bore Koppe's new grade, which had been bestowed on him only a week earlier.

12 Broszat, , Polenpolitik, p 20Google Scholar.

13 Ibid., 25.

14 ZSL, Verschiedenes, 301 Ar., Bl. 32.

15 ZSL, Polen 365n, Bl. 635–9. Printed in Broszat, , Polenpolitik, 21Google Scholar.

16 Seraphim, Hans-Günther, Das politische Tagebuch Alfred Rosenbergs 1934/35 und 1939/40 (Munich, 1964), 99Google Scholar.

17 ZSL, Verschiedenes, 301 Ar., Bl. 39–40.

18 Verfolgung, Vertreibung, Vernichtung. Dokumente des faschistischen Antisemitismus 1933 bis 1942 ed. Pätzold, Kurt (Leipzig, 1983), 239–40Google Scholar.

19 See Goschen, Seev, ‘Eichmann und die Nisko-Aktion im Oktober 1939’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 29 (1981), 74–96Google Scholar; and Moser, Jonny, ‘Nisko, the First Experiment in Deportation’, Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual 2 (1985), 1–30Google Scholar.

20 Pätzold, 262.

21 Some Jews were sent westwards in 1940. On 22–3 Oct. 1940, with Hider's approval, 6,504 Jews from Baden and the Saarpfalz were deported into Vichy France. Hitler also authorised, at the prompting of von Schirach in October 1940, the deportation of Viennese Jews to Poland. These began in January 1941 but were stopped again in March. See Browning, Christopher, ‘Nazi Resettlement Policy and the Search for a Solution to the Jewish Question, 1939–1941’, German Studies Review, IX (1986), 513Google Scholar.

22 A memorandum from the Reichsleitung of the Rassepolitisches Arm of 25 November 1939, for example, establishing guidelines for the treatment of the conquered population ‘from a racial-political viewpoint’, commented that the Jews in the rump of Poland (Restpolen) posed a less dangerous problem than the Poles themselves. ‘The Jews here could certainly be given a freer hand than the Poles,’ the memorandum ran, ‘since the Jews have no real political force such as the Poles have with their Greater Polish ideology’. ZSL, Polen 365P, Bl. 449, 453.

23 Already in November 1939, on a visit to Lodz, Greiser spoke of meeting ‘figures who can scarcely be credited with the name “person”’, but assured his audience that the ‘Jewish Question’ was no longer a pro blem and would be solved in the immediate future. GK, PAG, vol. 27, Bl. 167.

24 Instytut Zachodni (= IZ), Poznań, I–441, Bl. 144.

25 Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich (= IfZ), Eichmann 1458; and see Präg, Werner and Jacobmeyer, Wolfgang (eds.), Das Diensttagebuch des deutschen Generalgouverneurs in Polen 1939–1945 (Stuttgart, 1975)Google Scholar, (= DTB Frank), 60ff. The Lodz Jews, however, the greatest number in what became the Warthegau, were not included in the first wave of deportees since it was at this stage not clear whether Lodz would belong to the Warthegau or Generalgouvernement.—Browning, Christopher, ‘Nazi Ghettoization Policy in Poland’, Central European History, xix (1986), 346 and n.9Google Scholar.

26 IZ, 1–441, Bl. 145–9.

27 IfZ, Eichmann 1460.

28 ZSL, Prozeβ Koppe, Bl. 156. For deportation policy in general, see Koehl, Robert, RKFDV. German Resettlement and Population Policy 1939–1945 (Cambridge Mass., 1957)Google Scholar. For the most reliable guide to the numbers of Poles expelled from the Warthegau under Nazi rule, see Madjczyk, Okkupationspolitik, appendix, Table 15.

29 ZSL, Prozeβ Koppe, Bl. 158.

30 ZSL, Polen 179, Bl. 653–4. Koppe to Greiser (17 May 1940), enclosing a ‘Stellungnahme’ to the complaints, dated 20 April 1940, compiled by the Umwandererzentralstelle Posen. The expulsion figures (which do not differentiate between Jews and Poles) comprised 87,883 persons deported between 1 and 16 December 1939, and 40,128 from the 10 Feb. to 15 March 1940.

31 Browning, , ‘Resettlement’, 506Google Scholar.

32 Browning, , ‘Ghettoisation.’, 347Google Scholar.

33 All following from DTB Frank, 261–4, entry for 31.7.40.

34 DTB Frank, 261. Greiser had ordered the Lodz Jews to be ghettoised in December 1939 as an interim measure prior to their expulsion—he mentioned a figure of ‘some 250,000’—‘over the border’. The empty ghetto would then, he added, to burnt to the ground. BDC, PA Greiser, Besuchs-Vermerk/Akten-Vermerk, Stabsleiter of the Reichsschatzmeister, 11 Jan. 1940, Bl. 3. At the establishment of the ghetto, the Government President of Lodz, Dr. Friedrich Uebelhoer, proposed in a communication to party and police authorities dated 10 December 1939 a ‘temporary’ solution to the problem of Lodz's Jews (which he numbered at about 320,000). He emphasised that ‘the establishment of the ghetto is, it goes without saying, only a transitional measure’. Jüdisches Historisches Institut, Warsaw, Faschismus—Getto—Massenmord (Frankfurt am Main, n.d. [1961]), 81Google Scholar.

35 DTB Frank, 264.

36 GK, PAG, vol. 36, Bl. 559–60.

37 Details in this paragraph based on reports in Archiwum Państwowe Poznań (= APP), Reichsstatthalter 2111.

38 The Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto, 1941–1944, ed. Dobroszycki, Lucjan (New Haven/London, 1984), xxxix, l–liGoogle Scholar. APP, Reichsstatthalter 1855 contains statistics of disease in the ghetto in 1941. And, for evidence of rocketing death-rates from summer 1940, see also Browning, , ‘Ghettoisation’, 349Google Scholar.

39 GK, PAG, vol. 36, Bl. 567–8V.

40 See Browning, , ‘Ghettoisation’, 349–51Google Scholar, for disputes between ‘productionists’ and ‘attritionists’ in Lodz. Dr. Karl Marder, the mayor of Lodz, signified in a letter to Uebelhoer of 4 July 1941—less than a fortnight before the Höppner memorandum—that the character of the ghetto in Lodz had changed, and that it should remain as an ‘essential element of the total economy’. Ibid., 350.

41 Hitler's description, prior to the invasion of the USSR, as noted by his Chief of Staff, Haider, Franz, Kriegstagebuch, 3 vols., (Stuttgart, 1962–1964), II, 336–7Google Scholar.

42 Browning, Christopher, The Final Solution and the German Foreign Office (New York/London, 1978), 8Google Scholar.

43 These comments follow the analyses of Streim, Alfred, Die Behandlung sowjetischer Kriegsgefangener im ‘Fall Barbarossa’ (Heidelberg/Karlsruhe, 1981) 74–93Google Scholar; and Burrin, Philippe, Hitler et les Juifs. Genèse d'un génocide (Paris, 1989) 112–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The counter-argument, that a general order to exterminate all Soviet Jews was orally given to the Einsatzgruppen leaders before the invasion of the Soviet Union, is most vehemently expressed by Krausnick, Helmut, in Krausnick, Helmut and Wilhelm, Hans-Heinrich, Die Truppe des Weltanschauungskrieges (Stuttgart, 1981), 158–66Google Scholar, and in Jackel and Rohwer, 120–1.

44 International Military Tribunal: Trial of the Major War Criminals, 42 vols., (Nuremberg, 1949), XXVI, 266–7, Doc. 710-PSGoogle Scholar.

45 That the document emanated from the Reichssicherheitshauptamt is certain, that Eichmann drafted it, very probable: see Hilberg, Raul, Die Vernichtung der europäischen Juden (Frankfurt am Main, 1990), 1064 n.7Google Scholar; Jäckel and Rohwer, 15; Browning, Christopher, Fateful Months. Essays on the Emergence of the Final Solution (New York/London, 1985), 21–2Google Scholar; Mommsen, Hans, ‘Die Realisierung des Utopischen: Die “Endlösung der Judenfrage” im “Dritten Reich”, in Hans Mommsen’, Der Nationalsozialismus und die deutsche Gesellschaft (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1991) 207Google Scholar; and Breitman, Richard, The Architect of Genocide. Himmler and the Final Solution (1991), 192Google Scholar.

46 See Burrin, 129–34; Mommsen, , Der Nationalsozialismus, 207Google Scholar; and Mayer, Arno, Why did the Heavens not Darken? The ‘Final Solution’ in History (New York, 1988), 290–2Google Scholar. See also Adam, Uwe Dietrich, Judenpolitik im Dritten Reich (Düsseldorf, 1972), 308–9Google Scholar, though Adam presumes a Hitler directive behind the mandate, for which there is no evidence. Fleming, Gerald, Hitler und die Endlösung. ‘Es ist des Führers Wunsch…’ (Wiesbaden/Munich, 1982), 78Google Scholar, Browning, , Fateful Months, 21–2Google Scholar, Breitman, 193, Krausnick in Jäckel and Rohwer, 201, with differing emphasis, hold to the view that the mandate inaugurated the ‘Final Solution’. Hilberg in Jäckel and Rohwer, 137–8, rather agnostically suggests a decision might have been taken around the date of the mandate, but that the evidence is inconclusive.

47 Burrin, 136–9; Browning, Christopher, ‘Zur Genesis der “Endlösung”’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgesckichte XXLX (1981), 103Google Scholar; Martin Broszat, ‘Hitler und die Genesis der “Endlosung”’, in ibid. XXV (1977), 750.

48 Browning, , Fateful Months, 26Google Scholar.

49 Though impossible to be certain, it is probable that Rosenberg's influence was decisive in pressing Hitler to approve the immediate deportation of German Jews in retaliation for the Soviet deportation of Volga Germans to Siberia. See Burrin, 138–9; Browning, , ‘Zur Genesis’, 103Google Scholar.

50 ZSL, USA 2, Bl. 310. Both Heydrich and Koppe were in receipt of copies of Himmler's letter to Greiser, which is, in fact, the only direct record of Hitler's deportation order.

51 Ibid., Bl. 286, Gettoverwaltung to Regierungspräsident Uebelhoer, 24 Sept. 1941, signed by Werner Ventzki, the Oberbürgermeister of Lodz.

53 Ibid., Bl. 286–309, Gettoverwaltung to Uebelhoer, 24 Sept. 1941; Bl. 277–9, Uebelhoer to Himmler, 4 Oct. 1941.

54 Ibid., Bl. 280–2, Heydrich telegram to Himmler, 8 Oct. 1941; Brandt reply to Heydrich, same date.

54 Entire correspondence in the Uebelhoer case in ibid., Bl. 257–85.

55 Broszat, , ‘Genesis’, 751Google Scholar; Browning's, reply, ‘Zur Genesis’, 103–4Google Scholar, seems weak on this point.

56 Cited Broszat, 751, n. 24.

57 Jäckel and Rohwer, 126.

58 Burrin argues (139–41), correctly in my view, that the deportation decision was tantamount to the decision to kill the European Jews.

59 Fleming, 83, letter from Dr. Wetzel, from the Ministry of the Occupied Eastern Territories, to Hinrich Lohse, Reich Commissar for the Baltic (Ostland), 25 Oct. 1941. The letter states categorically that there are no objections to the gassing of Jews unfit for work.

60 Browning, , Fateful Months, 27Google Scholar.

61 Fleming, 81–3 (see note 59).

62 Jäckel and Rohwer, 127–8; Browning, , Fateful Months, 30–1Google Scholar.

63 Browning, , Fateful Months, 31Google Scholar.

64 Jäckel/Rohwer, 172–6; Browning, , ‘Zur Genesis’, 107Google Scholar.

65 DTB Frank, 457 (entry for 16 Dec. 1941). ‘Self-help’ was, in fact already being resorted to in the Baltic, where—among many mass shootings—the first German Jews had been shot in Lithuania and Latvia in late November 1941. See Fleming, 14, 77–104.

66 Further confirmation is the reply from the Eastern Ministry in Berlin, on 18 December, to a request for clarification made the previous month by Gauleiter Lohse, the Reich Commissar in the Baltic, that economic considerations were deemed to be irrelevant to the settling of the ‘Jewish problem’. Browning, , Fateful Months, 33Google Scholar.

67 NS-Vernichtungslager im Spiegel deutscher Strafprozesse, ed. Munich, Adalbert Rückerl, 1977, S. 257 n. 39Google Scholar (henceforth cited as NS-Vernichtungslager). APP, Reichsstatthalter 1214, Bl. 7–9 has a statistical breakdown of the 17th and 20th transports on 1st and 4th Nov. 1941. For details of point of origin, date of arrival, and numbers involved, see Dobroszycki, , Chronicle, lviiGoogle Scholar.

68 The Ghetto Speaks, 5 08 1942 (Bund Archives of the Jewish Labor Movement, New York), IGoogle Scholar. I am grateful to Prof. Lucjan Dobroszycki for a copy of this document. And see Dobrosrycki, , Chronicle, livGoogle Scholar (where it is stated they were shot, though this is not stipulated in the report in The Ghetto Speaks).

69 ZSL, Verfahren 206 AR-Z 228/73. I am grateful to Dr. Wacker of the ZSL for providing me with this information.

70 Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, VII, Amsterdam, 1971, no. 231 b–2, 217–18, 230–1Google Scholar.

71 The date of 5 December 1941 was accepted at the Chelmno trial in Bonn (Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, XXI, Amsterdam 1979, 280)Google Scholar, and at Koppe's trial (ZSL, Prozeβ Koppe, Bl. 218) as the date of the first arrival of transports in Chelmno. Browning, , Fateful Months, 30Google Scholar, dates the first gassing to 8 December 1941, as does Madajczyk, , Okkupationspolitik, 380Google Scholar (apparently, though not explicitly stated, based on early post-war Polish testimony). In a letter he sent me, dated 25 June 1991, Christopher Browning writes: ‘I have seen no evidence given for either date, nor have I seen the discrepancy addressed’.

72 NS-Vernichtungshger, 258–9.

73 The killing was carried out by bottled carbon monoxide gas being released into the van. Lange's unit was to introduce at Chelmno a refined version of gassing, using die vehicle's exhaust. See Browning, , Fateful Months, 59, 101 n. 8Google Scholar.

74 Kogon, Eugen et al. (eds.), Nationalsozialistische Massentötungen durch Giftgas (Frankfurt am Main, 1986), 113–14, 310 n. 10Google Scholar; Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, XXI, 246. According to the evidence assembled for Koppe's trial (ZSL, Prozeβ Koppe, Bl. 194), the initial drivers of the vehicles were SS men from the unit who were subsequently replaced by two drivers coming from the RSHA in Berlin. Walter Burmeister, Lange's chauffeur, stated, however, that the drivers came together with the gas vans. Kogon, 114.

75 For the extermination at Chelmno, see above all NS-Vernichtungslager, Part 2. An important independent source is the account, compiled in 1945, of the Forest Inspector of the area, Heinz May. Part Three, ‘Der groβe Judenmord’, is printed (in German and Polish) in Pospieszalski, Karol Marian, ‘Niemiecki Nadleśniczy o Zagładzie Żydów w Chełmnie nad Nerem’, Przeglad Zachodni Poznań 18 (1962), 85–105Google Scholar. I am greatly indebted to Prof. Pospieszalski for providing me with a copy of this article, and with a translation into German of his introduction. An extract in English can be found in Dobroszycki, , Chronicle, lv–viGoogle Scholar.

76 NS-Vernichtungslager, 252.

77 Justiz und NS-Verbredun XXI, 280.

78 As claimed, though he cites no direct evidence, by Madajczyk, , Okkupationspolitik, 380Google Scholar. Prof. Madajczyk acknowledges in a letter to me, dated 27 August 1991, that the assertion rested on inference. Christopher Browning (letter to me of 25 June 1991) points to the greater role of the Posen Security Police than the Lodz Gestapo in the build-up to the exterminations in Chelmno.

78 ZSL, Prozeβ Koppe, Bl. 194–7; NS-Vernichtungslager, 262–4.

80 The centrality of Koppe's role is taken for granted in Birn, 181.

81 Printed in Kogon, 111–12. See also, for Koppe's dubious testimony, note 107 below.

82 NS-Vernichtungslager, 251, 258. See also ZSL, Prozeβ Koppe, Bl. 212, 216–17.

83 According to one postwar witness, formerly a civil servant in Damzog's office, both Lange and Bothmann visited Damzog on a number of occasions, there was a special file on Chelmno in the office, and reports on the numbers killed were sent there. NS-Vernichtungslager, 252 & n. 22. Written reports of the Sonderkommando on the liquidation of the Jews were sent to Koppe, and Damzog and Bothmann were from time to time summoned by him to present verbal reports. ZSL, Prozeβ Koppe, Bl. 197, 211, 216.

84 ZSL, Prozeβ Koppe, Bl. 172.

85 NS-Vernichtungslager, 252 n. 25.

86 NS-Vernichtungslager, 252.

87 NS-Vernichtungslager, 252–3. See, for example, ZSL, USA-1, Bl. 91–4, the exchange of letters Greiser-Himmler. 19–27 March 1943, relating to the end of the operations of the 85 men of Sonderkommando Lange in Kulmhof.

88 NS-Vernichtungslager, 252–3; BDC, PA Greiser, for correspondence involving Pohl, Greiser, and Himmler, 9 17 Feb. 1944.

89 Faschismus-Getto-Massenmord, 285; NS-Vernichtungslager, 252, 290.

90 BDC, PA Greiser, Greiser to Himmler, 1 May 1942; printed in Faschismus-Getto-Massenmord, 278.

91 NS-Vernichtungslager, 290–1. Possibly, Greiser's request—though not specified as such—related to Jews from the Lodz ghetto, whereas the RSHA figure was a general one for the Warthegau. Around 55,000 Jews from the Lodz ghetto had been killed by 9 June 1942. Attention was turned in the summer to ‘clearing’ the surrounding rural districts, from where at least 15,000 Jews were transported to their death in Chelmno. A further 15,700, mainly weak and sick, Jews were taken from the Lodz ghetto in September 1942, bringing the total to around 70,000 Lodz Jews killed in Chelmno by the beginning of October 1942. Ibid., 288–90.

92 This is presumed by Hilberg, Raul, The Destruction of the European Jews (New York, 1973), 561Google Scholar, and—slightly more cautiously expressed—in the revised German edition (see above, note 44), 508.

93 BDC, PA Greiser, Greiser to Himmler, 5 May 1942. The number of Poles with tuberculosis was said to be around 230,000, those with the disease in an ‘open’ condition around 35,000.

94 BDC, PA Greiser, Koppe to Brandt, 3 May 1942.

95 Ibid., Brandt to Koppe, 14 May 1942.

96 Ibid., RFSS Persönlicher Stab-Untersturmführer Rutzen, 21 May 1942, with request from Brandt to Heydrich; Heydrich-Himmler, 9 June 1942.

97 Ibid., Himmler-Greiser, 27 June 1942.

98 Ibid., Greiser-Himmler, 21 Nov. 1942.

99 Ibid., Blome-Greiser, 18 Nov. 1942.

100 Ibid., Greiser-Himmler, 21 Nov. 1942. The date of this discussion between Hitler and Greiser cannot be precisely determined. Fleming, Gerald, Hitler und die Endlösung, 35Google Scholar, states (though gives no supporting evidence) that Greiser had last seen Hitler on 1 Oct. and 8 Nov. 1942 (the English version of Fleming's book, Hitler and the Final Solution (Oxford, 1986), 22Google Scholar, has 11 Nov. 1942, but this seems a translation error). Fleming is followed in this by Friedländer, ‘From Anti-Semitism to Extermination’, 41, and by Czesław Madajczyk, ‘Hitler's Direct Influence on Decisions Affecting Jews during World War II’, Yad Vashem Studies XX (1990), 63–4Google Scholar. Both the dates mentioned by Fleming were large gatherings—a meeting of Gauleiter and Reichsleiter addressed by Hitler on 1 October, and the annual assembly of the Party faithful to commemorate the 1923 Putsch on 8 November (see Hauner, Milan, Hitler. A Chronology of his Life and Time (1983), 179)Google Scholar. Whether Greiser, presuming he attended both, had the opportunity for a private discussion with Hitler might be doubted. Since Greiser had requested, and been given, Himmler's permission to exterminate 100,000 Jews well before 1 May 1942, and these killings had already taken place before October-November 1942, the purpose of seeking a mandate from Hitler at such a date is not immediately obvious. The only explanations seem to be: a) that Greiser, for reasons which are unclear but were possibly directly to do with the proposed ‘tuberculosis action’, was trying at a late stage to obtain Hitler's retrospective dispensation for a free hand in liquidating the Jews; b) that he was asking Hitler for permission to extend the initial figure of 100,000, though it is scarcely imaginable that he would have needed to go beyond Himmler for such permission, nor that any permission at all would have been needed to widen the killing within the scope of what had by spring 1942 emerged as the fully-fledged ‘Final Solution’ programme; or, c) and perhaps most likely, that his discussion with Hitler relating to the Jews, took place at a significantly earlier date, and was simply being evoked by Greiser in autumn 1942 as a weapon in the tuberculosis matter.

101 BDC, PA Greiser, Himmler-Greiser, 3 Dec. 1942.

102 In other policy areas, such as the persecution of the Church, the instigation of draconian measures also came from Greiser and his subordinates rather than from central directives from Berlin. ZSL, Prozeβ Greiser, 96.

103 As was necessary—finally even in written form—in the ‘euthanasia action’ (see Klee, Ernst, ‘Euthanasie’ im NS-Staat. Die ‘Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens’ (Frankfurt am Main, 1983), 100—1)Google Scholar as well as being called for in the case of the tuberculosis victims. The point is made by Burrin, 172.

104 NS-Vernichtungslager, 253.

105 ZSL, Prozeβ Greiser, 99—102; USA-1, Bl. 91–4, exchange of letters Greiser-Himmler about Sonderkommando Lange; UdSSR-411, Bl. 13–15, testimony of Hermann Gielow from 15 May 1945 about Greiser's involvement in the work of Sonderkommando Bothmann at Chelmno between March 1944 and January 1945; Prozeβ Koppe, 210, 216.

106 BDC, PA Greiser, (also in IfZ, MA-303) telegram to Himmler, 7 March 1944, thanking him for his generous support and giving the text of the ‘proud report’ he had sent the same day to the Führer. See also Fleming, , Endlösung, 34Google Scholar.

107 Koppe's claims at his trial were both contradictory and incredulous. Having claimed (see above note 81) that he heard in 1940 or 1941 from Rudolf Brandt in Himmler's office of the forthcoming ‘action’ against the Warthegau Jews, he then alleged that—apart from rumours—he first heard of the ‘Final Solution’ and of the existence of the extermination camp at Chelmno from Greiser (following a telephone call to the latter from Philip Bouhler at the Führer Chancellor). He went on to claim that he had even successfully persuaded Himmler to end the ‘Final Solution’, but that Göring and Keitel had opposed it being halted.—ZSL, Prozeβ Koppe, Bl. 290–1, 294.

108 See Broszat, , ‘Genesis’, 753 n. 26Google Scholar.

109 See Browning, , Fateful Months, chap. 1, esp. 32Google Scholar; Burrin, chap. 5; Jäckel and Rohwer, 125–98; Breitman, chap. 6–9.

110 ZSL, Prozeβ Koppe, Bl. 297, emphasised the regional control of the Sonderkommando Lange/Bothmann. The Lodz ghetto was a ‘Gaughetto’ (Faschismus-Getto-Massennwrd, 285)—a status Greiser was able to retain in Febrary 1944 when Oswald Pohl, from the SS-Verwaltungshauptamt, was aiming to turn it into a concentration camp (BDC, PA Greiser, Greiser to Pohl, 14 Feb. 1944).

111 See Broszat, , ‘Genesis’, 751Google Scholar.

112 Browning, , Fateful Months, 30 4Google Scholar; chronology in Kogon, 328.

113 NS-Vernichtungslager, 268.

114 Ibid., 276–7, and n. 69.

115 Ibid., 280–2.

116 Ibid., 282–6. Some 7000 Jews were killed at Chelmno in this second spell, though all between 23 June and 14 July 1944. Ibid., 292–3. There were still at that time over 68,000 Jews in the Lodz ghetto, almost all of whom were, by 28 August 1944, sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Dobroszycki, , Chronicle, lxiii–vGoogle Scholar.

117 NS-Vernichtungslager, 246–50, 257 n. 38; letter of ZSL, dated 20 June 1989 to Prof. Dr. Stanisław Nawrocki (State Archives Poznań). I am most grateful to Prof. Nawrocki for a copy of this letter with details of the fate of some of the chief perpetrators.

118 GK Warsaw, Process Artura Greisera (36 files); ZSL, Prozeβ Greiser (transl. of Anklageschrift); Polen-365h, Bl. 677–828, Anklageschrift; Polen-3650, Bl. 88–136, Greiser's final plea. The appeal for papal intercession was reported in L'Osservatore Romano, 22–3 July 1946. (I owe this information to the kindness of Dr. Gerald Fleming.) According to Dr. Marian Olszewski of the Instytut Zachodni in Posnań, currently working on a life of Greiser (letter to me from Prof. Nawrocki, Poznań, dated 15 May 1991), Greiser's defence lawyer, Heymowski, wrote intercession letters not only to the Pope, but also to President Truman. No response from either has come to light.

119 NS-Vernichtungslager, 251; ZSL, Prozeβ Koppe. On Koppe's arrest, trial, and release on grounds of being unfit to stand: Quick, 15 July 1960; Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 21 Jan. 1965; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 29 May 1965; Allgemeine; Unabhängige jüdische Wochenzeitimg, 17 02 1967 (copies in IfZ, Munich)Google Scholar.

120 Date of Koppe's death according to information from ZSL (see n. 117 above).

121 NS-Vernichtungslager, 288–93. While these figures provide a minimum estimate, they are far more accurate than the figure of 300,000 given at Greiser's trial (ZSL, Prozeβ Greiser, Bl. 58).

122 NS-Vernichtungslager, 293 n. 96.