DOCSLIB.ORG

Table 1: Defendants in United States of America V

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Table 1: Defendants in United States of America V Vanguard of Genocide: The Einsatzgruppen in the Soviet Union A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts Christopher M. Osmar August 2010 © 2010 Christopher M. Osmar. All Rights Reserved. 2 This thesis titled Vanguard of Genocide: The Einsatzgruppen in the Soviet Union by CHRISTOPHER M. OSMAR has been approved for the Department of History and the College of Arts and Sciences by Norman J.W. Goda Professor of History Benjamin M. Ogles Dean, College of Arts and Sciences 3 ABSTRACT OSMAR, CHRISTOPHER M., M.A., August 2010, History Vanguard of Genocide: The Einsatzgruppen in the Soviet Union (133 pp.) Director of Thesis: Norman J.W. Goda This thesis examines the involvement of the leaders of the Einsatzgruppen in the development of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union. The Einsatzgruppen participated in the 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union, executing Communists, Jews, Roma, and mentally handicapped persons behind German lines. Though no plan for the uninhibited annihilation of all Soviet Jews existed at the outset of the war, the Einsatzgruppen continually included more Jews in the groups targeted for execution in response to a perceived threat from the Soviet Jewish community. This thesis approaches the question of the role of the Einsatzgruppen leaders in the radicalization of the Einsatzgruppen task by analyzing the defense strategies employed by twenty-two Einsatzgruppen officers in The United States of America v. Otto Ohlendorf et. al., one of the twelve subsequent trials held at Nuremberg after World War II. It concludes that unclear orders, fear of Soviet Jews, the brutality of the war, and interaction with superiors drove the leaders of the Einsatzgruppen to expand upon their task until it reached the proportions of a genuine genocide. Approved: ______________________________________________ Norman J.W. Goda Professor of History 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract ............................................................................................................................... 3 List of Tables ...................................................................................................................... 5 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 6 The Trial and the Defendants ............................................................................................ 21 The Superior Orders Defense and the Creation of the Führer Order Myth ...................... 39 Presumed Self Defense: Justifying Genocide ................................................................... 70 Initiative and Interpretation in the Evolution from Security to Genocide ........................ 94 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 120 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 130 5 LIST OF TABLES Page Table 1: Einsatzgruppen Executions by Month ..............................................................62 Table 2: Defendants in United States of America v. Otto Ohlendorf et al....................126 Table 3: Equivalent SS and U.S. Army Ranks .............................................................128 Table 4: Einsatzgruppen Organization..........................................................................129 6 INTRODUCTION On 22 June 1941, the day Germany invaded the Soviet Union, nearly all the Jews living in the German sphere of influence were still alive. Though singled-out from the general population, stripped of their wealth and livelihoods, and concentrated in ghettos or dedicated housing units, the Jews within the Reich and occupied territories had escaped outright destruction. A year later hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews would be dead and the transportation of western Jews to extermination camps in the East would be underway. The turn from exclusion of Jews from civic and economic life to outright annihilation in the months following the opening of the campaign in the Soviet Union marked the most dramatic transformation of anti-Jewish policy during the Third Reich. The vanguards of this radical new approach to the “Jewish Question” were the Einsatzgruppen, task forces composed of personnel from the Gestapo, Criminal Police, Waffen-SS, Order Police, and the Sicherheitsdienst (SD or Security Service). Pushing into the Soviet Union on the heels of the Wehrmacht, the German army, the Einsatzgruppen combed newly occupied cities and villages for Communists, Roma, mentally handicapped persons, and Jews. When discovered by the Einsatzgruppen, members of these groups could expect detention and questioning, often followed by summary execution. By the time the Soviets drove the last German forces out of their territory, the Einsatzgruppen had slaughtered approximately one million people1, nearly as many as died in Auschwitz. 1 Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm estimates that, during the German occupation of the western reaches of the Soviet Union, 2.2 million of the 4.7 Jews living in the occupied territory perished. One third of these deaths are directly attributable to the Einsatzgruppen, and one quarter occurred during the first year of Einsatzgruppen activity. Helmut Krausnick and Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm, Die Truppe des Weltanschauungskrieges: Die 7 Leading the Einsatzgruppen was a cadre of men who, on the whole, were dedicated members of the Nazi party, well educated, and experienced in working with issues concerning occupied territory. Close inspection of their post-war trial testimonies and the reports they sent to Berlin in the first year of the Soviet campaign reveals that these commanders were integral to the evolution of Jewish policy which occurred in the Soviet Union. Though the Einsatzgruppen‟s original orders called for the execution of all Jews in party or state positions, they did not proscribe uninhibited destruction of entire Jewish communities. Nonetheless, given the power over life and death, many of the Einsatzgruppen leaders chose to incorporate ever more Jews into the executions carried out by their Kommandos. The engine for this process was the widely held anti-Semitic fear of communism personified in the Jew. The Berlin leadership subsequently endorsed and encouraged the expansion of Einsatzgruppen killings, adding further pressure to those Einsatzgruppen leaders who had not yet radicalized the activity of their units. The original plan for Operation Barbarossa, the attack on the Soviet Union, did not include provisions for paramilitary police units tasked with subduing the civilian population.2 When Alfred Jodl, Chief of the Operation Staff of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW or High Command of the Armed Forces), presented Hitler with the Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD 1938-1942, (Stuttgart: Institut für Zeitgeschichte, 1981), 621-622. 2 The invasion of the Soviet Union would not be the first campaign to incorporate Einsatzgruppen. Reinhard Heydrich originally established Einsatzkommandos for the 1938 annexation of Austria, but these Einsatzkommandos had little in common with the Einsatzgruppen who would terrorize the Soviet Union. The purpose of the Austrian Einsatzkommandos was to secure government buildings and documents in the newly annexed territory. Einsatzgruppen served a similar function in the 1938 annexation of the Czechoslovakian Sudetenland, as well as the 1939 occupation of the remainder of Czechoslovakia. When the war began, Einsatzgruppen accompanied the German military into Poland. It was in Poland that the Einsatzgruppen first received a mandate to execute population groups deemed hostile to Germany. After the Polish campaign, Einsatzgruppen would participate in German western offensives, but with their original directive to capture government buildings and documents. 8 original draft of Directive No. 21 for Operation Barbarossa, Hitler directed him to revise the plan to ensure that the “Jewish-Bolshevik intelligentsia” would be “eliminated.”3 Chief of the OKW, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, bent to Hitler‟s wish in his 13 March 1941 draft of “Instruction on Special Matters Attached to Directive No. 21 (Barbarossa).” It read, in part, “In order to prepare the political and administrative organization the Reichsführer-SS [Heinrich Himmler] has been given by the Führer certain special tasks within the operations zone of the army; these stem from the necessity finally to settle the conflict between two opposing political systems….”4 Having received the official nod from Keitel‟s addendum to Directive No. 21, Himmler turned to the Reichsicherheitshauptamt (RSHA or Reich Security Main Office) and its leader Reinhard Heydrich to organize the formations that would be responsible for carrying Hitler‟s world-ideological struggle into the Soviet Union. An order from Himmler created the RSHA on 27 September 1939 by merging the Main Office Security Police, comprised of the Kripo (Kriminalpolizei, the Criminal Police) and the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei or Secret State Police), with the SD, a party intelligence service. Perched at the top of the RSHA, Heydrich embraced the opportunity to involve his organization in the war in the East. “This should finally dispel the false impression,” confided Heydrich to the RSHA director of counterespionage Walter Schellenberg in March of
Load more

Recommended publications
  • On the Threshold of the Holocaust: Anti-Jewish Riots and Pogroms In
    Geschichte - Erinnerung – Politik 11 11 Geschichte - Erinnerung – Politik 11 Tomasz Szarota Tomasz Szarota Tomasz Szarota Szarota Tomasz On the Threshold of the Holocaust In the early months of the German occu- volume describes various characters On the Threshold pation during WWII, many of Europe’s and their stories, revealing some striking major cities witnessed anti-Jewish riots, similarities and telling differences, while anti-Semitic incidents, and even pogroms raising tantalising questions. of the Holocaust carried out by the local population. Who took part in these excesses, and what was their attitude towards the Germans? The Author Anti-Jewish Riots and Pogroms Were they guided or spontaneous? What Tomasz Szarota is Professor at the Insti- part did the Germans play in these events tute of History of the Polish Academy in Occupied Europe and how did they manipulate them for of Sciences and serves on the Advisory their own benefit? Delving into the source Board of the Museum of the Second Warsaw – Paris – The Hague – material for Warsaw, Paris, The Hague, World War in Gda´nsk. His special interest Amsterdam, Antwerp, and Kaunas, this comprises WWII, Nazi-occupied Poland, Amsterdam – Antwerp – Kaunas study is the first to take a comparative the resistance movement, and life in look at these questions. Looking closely Warsaw and other European cities under at events many would like to forget, the the German occupation. On the the Threshold of Holocaust ISBN 978-3-631-64048-7 GEP 11_264048_Szarota_AK_A5HC PLE edition new.indd 1 31.08.15 10:52 Geschichte - Erinnerung – Politik 11 11 Geschichte - Erinnerung – Politik 11 Tomasz Szarota Tomasz Szarota Tomasz Szarota Szarota Tomasz On the Threshold of the Holocaust In the early months of the German occu- volume describes various characters On the Threshold pation during WWII, many of Europe’s and their stories, revealing some striking major cities witnessed anti-Jewish riots, similarities and telling differences, while anti-Semitic incidents, and even pogroms raising tantalising questions.
    [Show full text]
  • Die Deutsche Ordnungspoli2ei Und Der Holocaust Im Baltikum Und in Weissrussland 1941-1944
    WOLFGANG CURILLA DIE DEUTSCHE ORDNUNGSPOLI2EI UND DER HOLOCAUST IM BALTIKUM UND IN WEISSRUSSLAND 1941-1944 2., durchgesehene Auflage FERDINAND SCHONINGH Paderborn • Munchen • Wien • Zurich INHALTSVERZEICHNIS Vorwort 11 Einleitung 13 ERSTER TEIL: GRUNDLAGEN UND VORAUSSETZUNGEN .... 23 1. Entrechtung der Juden 25 2. Ordnungspolizei 49 3. Die Vorbereitung des Angriffs auf die Sowjetunion 61 4. Der Auftrag an die Einsatzgruppen 86 ZWEITER TEIL: DIE TATEN 125 ERSTER ABSCHNITT: SCHWERPUNKT BALTIKUM 127 5. Staatliche Polizeidirektion Memel und Kommando der Schutzpolizei Memel 136 6. Reserve-Polizeibataillon 11 150 7. Reserve-Polizeibataillon 65 182 8. Schutzpolizei-Dienstabteilung Libau 191 9. Polizeibataillon 105 200 10. Reserve-Polizei-Kompanie z.b.V. Riga 204 11. Kommandeur der Schutzpolizei Riga 214 12. Reserve-Polizeibataillon 22 244 13. Andere Polizeibataillone 262 I. Polizeibataillon 319 262 II. Polizeibataillon 321 263 III. Reserve-Polizeibataillon 53 264 ZWEITER ABSCHNITT: RESERVE-POLIZEIBATAILLONE 9 UND 3 - SCHWERPUNKT BALTIKUM 268 14. Einsatzgruppe A/BdS Ostland 274 15. Einsatzkommando 2/KdS Lettland 286 16. Einsatzkommando 3/KdS Litauen 305 DRITTER ABSCHNITT: SCHUTZPOLIZEI, GENDARMERIE UND KOMMANDOSTELLEN 331 17. Schutzpolizei 331 18. Polizeikommando Waldenburg 342 g Inhaltsverzeichnis 19. Gendarmerie 349 20. Befehlshaber der Ordnungspolizei Ostland 389 21. Kommandeur der Ordnungspolizei Lettland 392 22. Kommandeur der Ordnungspolizei Weifiruthenien 398 VLERTER ABSCHNITT: RESERVE-POLIZEIBATAILLONE 9 UND 3 - SCHWERPUNKT WEISSRUSSLAND 403 23. Einsatzkommando 9 410 24. Einsatzkommando 8 426 25. Einsatzgruppe B 461 26. KdS WeiSruthenien/BdS Rufiland-Mitte und Weifiruthenien 476 F0NFTER ABSCHNITT: SCHWERPUNKT WEISSRUSSLAND 503 27. Polizeibataillon 309 508 28. Polizeibataillon 316 527 29. Polizeibataillon 322 545 30. Polizeibataillon 307 569 31. Reserve-Polizeibataillon 13 587 32. Reserve-Polizeibataillon 131 606 33.
    [Show full text]
  • SS-Totenkopfverbände from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia (Redirected from SS-Totenkopfverbande)
    Create account Log in Article Talk Read Edit View history SS-Totenkopfverbände From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from SS-Totenkopfverbande) Navigation Not to be confused with 3rd SS Division Totenkopf, the Waffen-SS fighting unit. Main page This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. No cleanup reason Contents has been specified. Please help improve this article if you can. (December 2010) Featured content Current events This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding Random article citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2010) Donate to Wikipedia [2] SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV), rendered in English as "Death's-Head Units" (literally SS-TV meaning "Skull Units"), was the SS organization responsible for administering the Nazi SS-Totenkopfverbände Interaction concentration camps for the Third Reich. Help The SS-TV was an independent unit within the SS with its own ranks and command About Wikipedia structure. It ran the camps throughout Germany, such as Dachau, Bergen-Belsen and Community portal Buchenwald; in Nazi-occupied Europe, it ran Auschwitz in German occupied Poland and Recent changes Mauthausen in Austria as well as numerous other concentration and death camps. The Contact Wikipedia death camps' primary function was genocide and included Treblinka, Bełżec extermination camp and Sobibor. It was responsible for facilitating what was called the Final Solution, Totenkopf (Death's head) collar insignia, 13th Standarte known since as the Holocaust, in collaboration with the Reich Main Security Office[3] and the Toolbox of the SS-Totenkopfverbände SS Economic and Administrative Main Office or WVHA.
    [Show full text]
  • Hitler's Quest for Oil: the Impact of Economic Considerations on Military Strategy, 1941-42
    Hitler's Quest for Oil: the Impact of Economic Considerations on Military Strategy, 1941-42 JOEL HAYWARD When asked by his Allied captors in 1945 to what extent German military strategy had been influenced at various stages by economic considerations, Albert Speer, Hitler's outstanding Armaments Minister, replied that in the case of Operation BARBAROSSA the need for oil was certainly a prime motive.' Indeed, even during the initial discussions of his plan to invade the Soviet Union, Hitler stressed the absolute necessity of seizing key oilfields, particularly those in the Caucasus region, which accounted for around 90 per cent of all oil produced in the Soviet Union. For example, during a war conference at the Berghof on 31 July 1940, Hitler revealed to high-ranking commanders his intention to shatter Russia 'to its roots with one blow'2 After achieving the 'destruction of Russian manpower', he explained, the German Army must drive on towards the Baku oilfield, by far the richest of those in the Caucasus and one of the most productive in the world. Despite Hitler's optimism, the 1941 campaign - which opened along a 2,000 km front and involved 148 combat divisions - failed to shatter Russia 'to its roots with one blow'. Consequently, it failed to bring the huge oil region of the Caucasus under German control. After reverses in the winter of 1941/42, it was no longer possible for the Wehrmacht to undertake wide-ranging offensives along the entire front, by then over 2,500 km in length. The summer campaign of 1942, although still immense, was necessarily less ambitious.
    [Show full text]
  • Nurses and Midwives in Nazi Germany
    Downloaded by [New York University] at 03:18 04 October 2016 Nurses and Midwives in Nazi Germany This book is about the ethics of nursing and midwifery, and how these were abrogated during the Nazi era. Nurses and midwives actively killed their patients, many of whom were disabled children and infants and patients with mental (and other) illnesses or intellectual disabilities. The book gives the facts as well as theoretical perspectives as a lens through which these crimes can be viewed. It also provides a way to teach this history to nursing and midwifery students, and, for the first time, explains the role of one of the world’s most historically prominent midwifery leaders in the Nazi crimes. Downloaded by [New York University] at 03:18 04 October 2016 Susan Benedict is Professor of Nursing, Director of Global Health, and Co- Director of the Campus-Wide Ethics Program at the University of Texas Health Science Center School of Nursing in Houston. Linda Shields is Professor of Nursing—Tropical Health at James Cook Uni- versity, Townsville, Queensland, and Honorary Professor, School of Medi- cine, The University of Queensland. Routledge Studies in Modern European History 1 Facing Fascism 9 The Russian Revolution of 1905 The Conservative Party and the Centenary Perspectives European dictators 1935–1940 Edited by Anthony Heywood and Nick Crowson Jonathan D. Smele 2 French Foreign and Defence 10 Weimar Cities Policy, 1918–1940 The Challenge of Urban The Decline and Fall of a Great Modernity in Germany Power John Bingham Edited by Robert Boyce 11 The Nazi Party and the German 3 Britain and the Problem of Foreign Office International Disarmament Hans-Adolf Jacobsen and Arthur 1919–1934 L.
    [Show full text]
  • Spaces of Killing Using National Research to Inform Your Classroom Practice
    CENTRE FOR HOLOCAUST EDUCATION The entrance sign to Treblinka. Credit: Yad Vashem Spaces of killing Using national research to inform your classroom practice. Highlights from our research report ‘What do students know and understand about Research the Holocaust?’ Evidence from English secondary schools (Foster et al, 2016) briefing 4 Free to download at www.holocausteducation.org.uk/research If students are to understand the significance of the Holocaust and the full enormity of its scope and scale, they need to appreciate that it was a continent-wide genocide. Why does this matter? The perpetrators ultimately sought to kill every Jew, everywhere they could reach them with victims Knowledge of the ‘spaces of killing’ is crucial to an understanding of the uprooted from communities across Europe. It is therefore crucial to know about the geography of the Holocaust. If students do not appreciate the scale of the killings outside of Holocaust relating to the development of the concentration camp system; the location, role and purpose Germany and particularly the East, then it is impossible to grasp the devastation of the ghettos; where and when Nazi killing squads committed mass shootings; and the evolution of the of Jewish communities in Europe or the destruction of diverse and vibrant death camps. cultures that had developed over centuries. This briefing, the fourth in our series, explores students’ knowledge and understanding of these key Entire communities lost issues, drawing on survey research and focus group interviews with more than 8,000 11 to 18 year olds. Thousands of small towns and villages in Poland, Ukraine, Crimea, the Baltic states and Russia, which had a majority Jewish population before the war, are now home to not a single Jewish person.
    [Show full text]
  • Criminals with Doctorates: an SS Officer in the Killing Fields of Russia
    1 Criminals with Doctorates An SS Officer in the Killing Fields of Russia, as Told by the Novelist Jonathan Littell Henry A. Lea University of Massachusetts-Amherst Lecture Delivered at the University of Vermont November 18, 2009 This is a report about the Holocaust novel The Kindly Ones which deals with events that were the subject of a war crimes trial in Nuremberg. By coincidence I was one of the courtroom interpreters at that trial; several defendants whose testimony I translated appear as major characters in Mr. Littell's novel. This is as much a personal report as an historical one. The purpose of this paper is to call attention to the murders committed by Nazi units in Russia in World War II. These crimes remain largely unknown to the general public. My reasons for combining a discussion of the actual trial with a critique of the novel are twofold: to highlight a work that, as far as I know, is the first extensive literary treatment of these events published in the West and to compare the author's account with what I witnessed at the trial. In the spring of 1947, an article in a Philadelphia newspaper reported that translators were needed at the Nuremberg Trials. I applied successfully and soon found myself in Nuremberg translating documents that were needed for the ongoing cases. After 2 passing a test for courtroom interpreters I was assigned to the so-called Einsatzgruppen Case. Einsatzgruppen is a jargon word denoting special task forces that were sent to Russia to kill Jews, Gypsies, so-called Asiatics, Communist officials and some mental patients.
    [Show full text]
  • Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction Du Branch Patrimoine De I'edition
    Library and Bibliotheque et 1*1 Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-38002-4 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-38002-4 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, prefer, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans loan, distribute and sell theses le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non­ sur support microforme, papier, electronique commercial purposes, in microform, et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these.
    [Show full text]
  • Special Motivation - the Motivation and Actions of the Einsatzgruppen by Walter S
    Special Motivation - The Motivation and Actions of the Einsatzgruppen by Walter S. Zapotoczny "...Then, stark naked, they had to run down more steps to an underground corridor that Led back up the ramp, where the gas van awaited them." Franz Schalling Einsatzgruppen policeman Like every historical event, the Holocaust evokes certain specific images. When mentioning the Holocaust, most people think of the concentration camps. They immediately envision emaciated victims in dirty striped uniforms staring incomprehensibly at their liberators or piles of corpses, too numerous to bury individually, bulldozed into mass graves. While those are accurate images, they are merely the product of the systematization of the genocide committed by the Third Reich. The reality of that genocide began not in the camps or in the gas chambers but with four small groups of murderers known as the Einsatzgruppen. Formed by Heinrich Himmler, Reichsfuhrer-SS, and Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), they operated in the territories captured by the German armies with the cooperation of German army units (Wehrmacht ) and local militias. By the spring of 1943, when the Germans began their retreat from Soviet territory, the Einsatzgruppen had murdered 1.25 million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Polish, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian and Soviet nationals, including prisoners of war. The Einsatzgruppen massacres preceded the invention of the death camps and significantly influenced their development. The Einsatzgruppen story offers insight into a fundamental Holocaust question of what made it possible for men, some of them ordinary men, to kill so many people so ruthlessly. The members of the Einsatzgruppen had developed a special motivation to kill.
    [Show full text]
  • Clemency in a Nazi War Crimes Trial By: Allison Ernest
    Evading the Hangman’s Noose: Clemency in a Nazi War Crimes Trial By: Allison Ernest Ernest 2 Contents Introduction: The Foundations for a War Crimes Trial Program 3 Background and Historiography 10 Chapter 1: Investigations into Other Trials Erode the United States’ Resolve 17 Chapter 2: The Onset of Trial Fatigue Due to Public Outcry 25 Chapter 3: High Commissioner McCloy Authorizes Sentence Reviews 38 Chapter 4: McCloy and the United States Set the War Criminals Free 45 Conclusion: A Lesson to be Learned 52 Chart: A Complicated Timeline Simplified 57 Bibliography 58 Ernest 3 Introduction: The Foundations for a War Crimes Trial Program “There is a supervening affirmative duty to prosecute the doers of serious offenses that falls on those who are empowered to do so on behalf of a civilized community. This duty corresponds to our fundamental rights as citizens and as persons to receive and give respect to each other in view of our possession of such rights.” Such duty, outlined by contemporary philosopher Alan S. Rosenbaum, was no better exemplified than in the case of Nazi war criminals in the aftermath of World War II. Even before the floundering Axis powers of Germany and Japan declared their respective official surrenders in 1945, the leaders of the Allies prepared possible courses of action for the surviving criminals in the inevitable collapse of the Nazi regime. Since the beginning of the war in 1939, the Nazi regime in Germany implemented a policy of waging a war so barbaric in its execution that the total numbers of casualties rivaled whole populations of countries.
    [Show full text]
  • Quiet in the Rear: the Wehrmacht and the Weltanschauungskrieg in the Occupation of the Soviet Union
    Quiet in the Rear: The Wehrmacht and the Weltanschauungskrieg in the Occupation of the Soviet Union by Justin Harvey A thesis presented to the University Of Waterloo in fulfillment of the thesis requirement for the degree of Master Of Arts in History Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2018 © Justin Harvey 2018 I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. ii Historians widely acknowledge that the Second World War witnessed a substantial degree of ideology in the conflict itself. This paper will establish the degree to which the ideology of National Socialism shaped the Wehrmacht’s decision-making process prior to and during their occupation of the Soviet Union, as well as the outcomes of those decisions. To this end, those in positions of authority in the military – including Hitler himself, the OKW, the OKH and various subordinate commanders – will be examined to determine how National Socialist tenets shaped their plans and efforts to quell and exploit the occupied Soviet Union. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my most profound gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Alexander Statiev, for guiding me as this project came together. Your patience and support in this process were greatly appreciated. This work is dedicated to my grandfather, Jack Harvey, whom I never met, but whose service in the RCAF in the Second World War first inspired me to engage in the serious study of history.
    [Show full text]
  • Lithuania and the Jews the Holocaust Chapter
    UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM CENTER FOR ADVANCED HOLOCAUST STUDIES Lithuania and the Jews The Holocaust Chapter Symposium Presentations W A S H I N G T O N , D. C. Lithuania and the Jews The Holocaust Chapter Symposium Presentations CENTER FOR ADVANCED HOLOCAUST STUDIES UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM 2004 The assertions, opinions, and conclusions in this occasional paper are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect those of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council or of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. First printing, July 2005 Copyright © 2005 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Contents Foreword.......................................................................................................................................... i Paul A. Shapiro and Carl J. Rheins Lithuanian Collaboration in the “Final Solution”: Motivations and Case Studies........................1 Michael MacQueen Key Aspects of German Anti-Jewish Policy...................................................................................17 Jürgen Matthäus Jewish Cultural Life in the Vilna Ghetto .......................................................................................33 David G. Roskies Appendix: Biographies of Contributors.........................................................................................45 Foreword Centuries of intellectual, religious, and cultural achievements distinguished Lithuania as a uniquely important center of traditional Jewish arts and learning. The Jewish community
    [Show full text]