DOCSLIB.ORG

Female Perpetrators of the Nazi Final Solution

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Female Perpetrators of the Nazi Final Solution Trinity College Trinity College Digital Repository Senior Theses and Projects Student Scholarship Spring 2015 Ordinary Women: Female Perpetrators of the Nazi Final Solution Haley A. Wodenshek Trinity College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/theses Part of the European History Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Wodenshek, Haley A., "Ordinary Women: Female Perpetrators of the Nazi Final Solution". Senior Theses, Trinity College, Hartford, CT 2015. Trinity College Digital Repository, https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/theses/522 Ordinary Women: Female Perpetrators of the Nazi Final Solution Haley Wodenshek History Department Senior Thesis Advisor: Allison Rodriguez Class of 2015 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgements……………..………………………………………………………... 1 “We believe in Adolf Hitler, our Eternal Führer”………………………………………... 2 An Introduction to the Role of Nazi Women Chapter 1: “Power would tame [Hitler’s] extremism, they said”………………………. 22 The Rise and Fall of the Weimar Republic Chapter 2: Hitler’s Girls………………………………………………………………… 43 Chapter 3: Hitler’s Girls Go East……………………………………………………….. 67 Chapter 4: The Case Studies of Herta Oberheuser, Irma Grese & Ilse Koch…………... 85 The Case of Herta Oberheuser ............................................................................. 87 The Case of Irma Ilse Ida Grese, #9 ………………………………………....... 108 The Case of Ilse Koch ........................................................................................ 127 Conclusion: Fleeing the East, The Final Retreat ……………………………………... 149 “My [sic] wife, sir, wouldn’t hurt a fly.” Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………… 158 3 Acknowledgements *** This work is dedicated to my mother Anne Wodenshek, who has always pushed me to become the strong and independent woman I am today, and who gave me the gift of education. *** I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to my Thesis advisor, Professor Allison Rodriguez for helping me through this yearlong process. Your method of teaching in our Modern German History class my Sophomore year initially sparked my interest, and caused me to continually question the absence of women in the Historical discussion. I truly could not have completed this work without your continued support and guidance throughout. I would also like to thank my History Major advisor Professor Dario Euraque for always challenging me and pushing me to become a better writer and to think more critically. To my second reader Professor Samuel Kassow, thank you for your direction and your continued interest throughout. Furthermore, I would like to give my most sincere thanks to the parents of Colin Leroy. Without your generous donation, which allowed me to conduct research at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., this work would not have been successful. To my fellow Thesis writers congratulations on your hard work! To my family and my friends, especially those of you in Crescent 63, thank you for your support throughout this challenging process, and being understanding in times of great stress. Finally, a special thanks to Harrison Lawrence, Class of 2015 History and German double major, who while writing his own Thesis in the German language, took the time to translate a document that was critical to my case study of Irma Grese. *** In memory of those who’s lives were lost as a result of the Nazi Final Solution 4 “We believe in Adolf Hitler, our Eternal Führer” An Introduction to the Role of Nazi Women Late 1943 into early 1944 marked a turn of the tides in World War II. As it became evidently clear that Germany would soon lose the war, the Allied Powers were faced with deciding how to appropriately bring justice to an entire society that had been responsible for the annihilation of millions. In July 1944, an extremely important, yet largely forgotten, study commissioned by the United States government was published, entitled Women in Nazi German. This study, conducted by Ruth Kempner, in collaboration with her husband, Robert Kempner, was written to expose the roles women played in Nazi Germany and served as an informational resource for the de-Nazification of German women, for use by potential prosecutors. It outlined the various female Nazi organizations that paralleled those of men, and was essential in demonstrating that women were also fanatical supporters who had been incorporated into the many facets of the Nazi regime. It was used to prove that men were not solely responsible for the destruction society under the Nazi experiment. Kempner stressed the importance of her work, claiming, “This study has been included in our Administrative Series because of the future demographic and social consequences which will prevail in post-Nazi Germany.”1 Kempner delves into the variety of ways in which women were inculcated with Nazi ideology and tells readers that women should not be absolved of post-war guilt simply because they are women. The contents of Kempner’s work expertly outlines the variety of ways women were incorporated into Nazi German. Despite prevalent gender biases, they were not simply housewives, and the report demonstrates just how deeply rooted Nazi ideology was in German society at the time. Nazi women enthusiastically rallied to participate in the Nationalsozialistische Frauenschaft (NS), or the National Socialist Women’s League, which organized women in a range of activities, from finances to education to training in auxiliary 1 Ruth Kempner, Women in Nazi Germany, (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1944) Cover page. 5 services. From the young age of six, both boys and girls were put into Nazi training programs, the Hitler-Jugend (Hitler Youth, or HJ) and Bund Deutscher Mädel (League of German Girls, or BDM), and were trained as “the smallest assistants of Hitler.” 2 Though Kempner’s work is crucial for many reasons, probably the most important aspect was the extensive collection of data outlined in the section entitled, “Classification According to Public Danger.” This section ranked the extent by which Nazi women were seen as a public danger, threatening democratic life. 3 The first category of women, the most dangerous, consisted of a group of about 3,000 Nazi-trained career Party leaders. These were the women who served as heads of Departments in the Party headquarters, or top women in Eastern districts, who coordinated women’s organizations and “form[ed] the nucleus of the political bureaucracy and [held] full-time jobs in the central and district headquarters of the NS Frauenschaft, the Deutsche Frauenwerk (German Women’s Welfare Organization).”4 They were the most dangerous because only a small number of the identities of these Nazi career women were known, thus, if women were not held accountable, Kempner seeks to say that many of these unknown women would easily get away. The group which posed the second greatest threat to democratic life consisted of about 584,000 Nazi female leaders who participated voluntarily in the political work of the Nazi Party. Like the Nazi career women, this group, too, was trained in Nazi ideology and organizational work, making them no less dangerous than the Nazi career women. These Nazi Party activities included women in positions of power, as local political bosses or deputies of county and local units throughout the country. 5 Aside from the sheer difference in numbers of women in this second group, the only real difference between the 3,000 full-time Nazi Party workers and the 2 Kempner, Women in Nazi Germany, 46. 3 Ibid, 60. 4 Ibid, 60. 5 Ibid, 61. 6 work of the volunteer corps was that those in the former were paid for their service, while the latter were rewarded for their efforts with positions of “political leadership in their community, with all its privileges and financial advantages.”6 The next category of women included the approximately 1,600,000 ordinary members of the NS Frauenschaft , who joined the Nazi Party before 1936. Unlike the women in the two previous categories, who were trained as political leaders, promoters, and indoctrinators, these women were responsible for “keeping the rest of Germany’s female population in line with the Nazi State.”7 Another 1,000,000 younger women, serving the same important function as the NS, joined the Nazi party after 1936 as members of the Deutsche Frauenwerk. These women, differing only in terms of seniority within the Nazi Party, were “no less ardent in their determination to serve the Nazi Party efficiently than the members of the NS Frauenschaft .”8 Amongst the more than three million female participants described in the three former categories, still another four million girls, aged ten and up, were all highly indoctrinated members of the Bund Deutscher Mädel, an umbrella organization under the Hitler-Jugend that was dedicated to cultivating the growth of good Nazi girls. Of these four million, approximately 250,000 of them were BDM Leaders 9—20,000 of whom were career officers with a full-time salary. 10 Seven million girls and women were directly involved in the Nazi Party through the NS Frauenschaft, the Deutsche Frauenwerk, and BDM, but still eleven million more were indirectly organized as employees of the Nazi state. These women, controlled by the Nazi Party through their membership in the women’s sections of the Labor Front, the Peasant Organization, and other professional work organizations, would contribute to the total of approximately sixteen 6 Ibid, 61. 7 Ibid.,61. 8 Ibid, 62. 9 Ibid, 62. 10 Ibid, 31. 7 million organized Nazi women. 11 Through this informational survey, Kempner was able to conclude that of these women, almost one out of “every sixth woman between twenty and sixty years of age is a genuine Nazi.” 12 Despite Kempner’s impressive and thorough study, which advised for the immediate disbandment of the various programs created through the NS , for reasons of being “detrimental to any form of peaceful development… dangerous to public security in post-War Germany… and… for reasons of public safety,”13 only a small fraction of these genuine Nazi women were brought to trial for the crimes committed during the Holocaust.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • From Complaisance to Collaboration: Analyzing Citizensâ•Ž Motives Near
    James Madison University JMU Scholarly Commons Proceedings of the Tenth Annual MadRush MAD-RUSH Undergraduate Research Conference Conference: Best Papers, Spring 2019 From Complaisance to Collaboration: Analyzing Citizens’ Motives Near Concentration and Extermination Camps During the Holocaust Jordan Green Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/madrush Part of the European History Commons, and the Holocaust and Genocide Studies Commons Green, Jordan, "From Complaisance to Collaboration: Analyzing Citizens’ Motives Near Concentration and Extermination Camps During the Holocaust" (2019). MAD-RUSH Undergraduate Research Conference. 1. https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/madrush/2019/holocaust/1 This Event is brought to you for free and open access by the Conference Proceedings at JMU Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in MAD-RUSH Undergraduate Research Conference by an authorized administrator of JMU Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. From Complaisance to Collaboration: Analyzing Citizens’ Motives Near Concentration and Extermination Camps During the Holocaust Jordan Green History 395 James Madison University Spring 2018 Dr. Michael J. Galgano The Holocaust has raised difficult questions since its end in April 1945 including how could such an atrocity happen and how could ordinary people carry out a policy of extermination against a whole race? To answer these puzzling questions, most historians look inside the Nazi Party to discern the Holocaust’s inner-workings: official decrees and memos against the Jews and other untermenschen1, the role of the SS, and the organization and brutality within concentration and extermination camps. However, a vital question about the Holocaust is missing when examining these criteria: who was watching? Through research, the local inhabitants’ knowledge of a nearby concentration camp, extermination camp or mass shooting site and its purpose was evident and widespread.
    [Show full text]
  • Déportés À Auschwitz. Certains Résis- Tion D’Une Centaine, Sont Traqués Et Tent Avec Des Armes
    MORT1943 ET RÉSISTANCE BIEN QU’AYANT rarement connu les noms de leurs victimes juives, les nazis entendaient que ni Zivia Lubetkin, ni Richard Glazar, ni Thomas Blatt ne survivent à la « solution finale ». Ils survécurent cependant et, après la Shoah, chacun écrivit un livre sur la Résistance en 1943. Quelque 400 000 Juifs vivaient dans le ghetto de Varsovie surpeuplé, mais les épi- démies, la famine et les déportations à Treblinka – 300 000 personnes entre juillet et septembre 1942 – réduisirent considérablement ce nombre. Estimant que 40 000 Juifs s’y trouvaient encore (le chiffre réel approchait les 55 000), Heinrich Himmler, le chef des SS, ordonna la déportation de 8 000 autres lors de sa visite du ghetto, le 9 janvier 1943. Cependant, sous la direction de Mordekhaï Anielewicz, âgé de 23 ans, le Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa (ZOB, Organisation juive de combat) lança une résistance armée lorsque les Allemands exécutèrent l’ordre d’Himmler, le 18 janvier. Bien que plus de 5 000 Juifs aient été déportés le 22 janvier, la Résistance juive – elle impliquait aussi bien la recherche de caches et le refus de s’enregistrer que la lutte violente – empêcha de remplir le quota et conduisit les Allemands à mettre fin à l’Aktion. Le répit, cependant, fut de courte durée. En janvier, Zivia Lubetkin participa à la création de l’Organisation juive de com- bat et au soulèvement du ghetto de Varsovie. « Nous combattions avec des gre- nades, des fusils, des barres de fer et des ampoules remplies d’acide sulfurique », rapporte-t-elle dans son livre Aux jours de la destruction et de la révolte.
    [Show full text]
  • Bibliographical Essay
    Bibliographical Essay Below is a working bibliography of the most important books and artides that have been particularly useful to the editors and that complement the essays contained in the volume. Since we focused on the structural, i. e., economic, dass, and power dimensions that largely led to the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the successful ascension to power of the Nazi party, most of the items listed reßect that ap- proach. Although not exhaustive, this list indudes some of the most significant works in the field and those which have shaped our thinking. For a discussion of the emergence of fascism and its relation to dass, economics, and political development, see: Nicos Poulantzas, Fascism and Dictatorship (London: NLB, 1974); Renzo De Felice, Fascism: An Informal Introduction to lts Theory and Practice (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1976); Stanley Payne, Fascism: Comparison and Definition (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980); Stein Ugelvik Larsen, Bernt Hagtvet, Jan Petter Myklebust, eds., Who Were the Fascists: Social Roots of European Fascism (Bergen: Universitetsforlaget, 1980); Peter Stachura, ed., The Shaping of the Nazi State (London: Croom Helm, 1978); Walter Laqueur, Fascism: A Readers Guide (London: Wildwood House, 1976); Ernst Nolte, Three Faces of Fascism (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1965); Barrington Moore, Jr., Social Ori- gins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966); Eugen Weber, Varieties of Fascism (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1964); Francis L. Carsten, The Rise of Fascism (London: Batsford, 1967); John Weiss, The Fascist Tradition (New York: Harper & Row, 1967); Hans Rogger and Eugen Weber, eds., The European Right (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1965); George L.
    [Show full text]
  • Martin Heidegger on Humanism 8
    Alon Segev Thinking and Killing Alon Segev Thinking and Killing Philosophical Discourse in the Shadow of the Third Reich ISBN 978-1-61451-128-1 e-ISBN 978-1-61451-101-4 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the internet http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2013 Walter de Gruyter, Inc., Boston/Berlin Typesetting: Frank Benno Junghanns, Berlin Printing: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com Foreword The motivation for writing this book began with my, one might say, naïve belief that critical thinking could have avoided the rise of the Third Reich and the Shoah in World War II. The main culprits were put on trial in Nuremberg, and then came the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem and the Auschwitz trials in Germany. Later on, the compliancy of Heidegger, Gadamer, and others with the Nazi regime was exposed by prominent scholars.1 Thus, the personal and public reputations of Heidegger, Jünger, Schmitt, Gadamer and others were destroyed and then partly rehabilitated. Their teaching, which was essential in consolidating and promulgating the Nazi world-view and in creating and designing the atmosphere of support for the Nazi movement, has, however, mostly remained untouched and continues to be uncritically studied and referred to. As Alain Finkielkraut writes: As Jankélévitch has rightly noted, the extermination of the Jews “was doctrinally founded, philosophically explained, methodically prepared by the most pedantic doctri- narians ever to have existed.” The Nazis were not, in effect, brutes, but theorists.
    [Show full text]
  • Female Nazi Perpetrators Kara Mercure Female Nazi Perpetrators
    Undergraduate Research Journal Volume 19 Article 13 2015 Female Nazi Perpetrators Kara Mercure Female Nazi Perpetrators Follow this and additional works at: https://openspaces.unk.edu/undergraduate-research-journal Part of the European History Commons, and the History of Gender Commons Recommended Citation Mercure, Kara (2015) "Female Nazi Perpetrators," Undergraduate Research Journal: Vol. 19 , Article 13. Available at: https://openspaces.unk.edu/undergraduate-research-journal/vol19/iss1/13 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Office of Undergraduate Research & Creative Activity at OpenSPACES@UNK: Scholarship, Preservation, and Creative Endeavors. It has been accepted for inclusion in Undergraduate Research Journal by an authorized editor of OpenSPACES@UNK: Scholarship, Preservation, and Creative Endeavors. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Female Nazi Perpetrators Kara Mercure Nazi women perpetrators have evolved in literary works as they have become more known to scholars in the last 15 years. However, public knowledge of women’s involvement in the regime is seemingly unfamiliar. Curiosity in the topic of women’s motivation as perpetrators of genocide and war crimes has developed in contrast to a stereotypical perception of women’s gender roles to be more domesticated. Much literature has been devoted to explaining Nazi ideology and how women fit into the system. Claudia Koonz’s, Mother’s in the Fatherland, demonstrates the involvement of women in support of National Socialism. The book focuses on women in support of the regime and how they supported the regime through domestic means. Robert G. Moeller’s, The Nazi State and German Society, also examines how women were drawn to National Socialism and how their ideals progressed through the regime.
    [Show full text]
  • Eastern Europe
    NAZI PLANS for EASTE RN EUR OPE A Study of Lebensraum Policies SECRET NAZI PLANS for EASTERN EUROPE A Study of Lebensraum Policies hy Ihor Kamenetsky ---- BOOKMAN ASSOCIATES :: New York Copyright © 1961 by Ihor Kamenetsky Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 61-9850 MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY UNITED PRINTING SERVICES, INC. NEW HAVEN, CONN. TO MY PARENTS Preface The dawn of the twentieth century witnessed the climax of imperialistic competition in Europe among the Great Pow­ ers. Entrenched in two opposing camps, they glared at each other over mountainous stockpiles of weapons gathered in feverish armament races. In the one camp was situated the Triple Entente, in the other the Triple Alliance of the Central Powers under Germany's leadership. The final and tragic re­ sult of this rivalry was World War I, during which Germany attempted to realize her imperialistic conception of M itteleuropa with the Berlin-Baghdad-Basra railway project to the Near East. Thus there would have been established a transcontinental highway for German industrial and commercial expansion through the Persian Gull to the Asian market. The security of this highway required that the pressure of Russian imperi­ alism on the Middle East be eliminated by the fragmentation of the Russian colonial empire into its ethnic components. Germany· planned the formation of a belt of buffer states ( asso­ ciated with the Central Powers and Turkey) from Finland, Beloruthenia ( Belorussia), Lithuania, Poland to Ukraine, the Caucasus, and even to Turkestan. The outbreak and nature of the Russian Revolution in 1917 offered an opportunity for Imperial Germany to realize this plan.
    [Show full text]
  • Using Diaries to Understand the Final Solution in Poland
    Miranda Walston Witnessing Extermination: Using Diaries to Understand the Final Solution in Poland Honours Thesis By: Miranda Walston Supervisor: Dr. Lauren Rossi 1 Miranda Walston Introduction The Holocaust spanned multiple years and states, occurring in both German-occupied countries and those of their collaborators. But in no one state were the actions of the Holocaust felt more intensely than in Poland. It was in Poland that the Nazis constructed and ran their four death camps– Treblinka, Sobibor, Chelmno, and Belzec – and created combination camps that both concentrated people for labour, and exterminated them – Auschwitz and Majdanek.1 Chelmno was the first of the death camps, established in 1941, while Treblinka, Sobibor, and Belzec were created during Operation Reinhard in 1942.2 In Poland, the Nazis concentrated many of the Jews from countries they had conquered during the war. As the major killing centers of the “Final Solution” were located within Poland, when did people in Poland become aware of the level of death and destruction perpetrated by the Nazi regime? While scholars have attributed dates to the “Final Solution,” predominantly starting in 1942, when did the people of Poland notice the shift in the treatment of Jews from relocation towards physical elimination using gas chambers? Or did they remain unaware of such events? To answer these questions, I have researched the writings of various people who were in Poland at the time of the “Final Solution.” I am specifically addressing the information found in diaries and memoirs. Given language barriers, this thesis will focus only on diaries and memoirs that were written in English or later translated and published in English.3 This thesis addresses twenty diaries and memoirs from people who were living in Poland at the time of the “Final Solution.” Most of these diaries (fifteen of twenty) were written by members of the intelligentsia.
    [Show full text]
  • Racial State” by Scholars
    Obsession, Separation, and Extermination: The Nazi Reordering of Germany 2. Nazi Germany is described as a “Racial State” by scholars. Explain the place of racism and in particular of anti-Semitism to the Nazi reordering of Germany and of Europe. In your analysis pay attention to both ideology and practice, to domestic and foreign policy, to culture and to politics. Following the Nazi rise to power, officials declared that “hereafter the Reich will recognize only three classes: Germans (of German or related blood), Jews and ‘Jewish mixtures’” (Birchall, “Reich Puts Laws on Jews in Force; Trade Untouched”, in Moeller, 98). This quote lies in a source written in 1935, well before the mass extermination of the Jewish population began in the Third Reich. The politics of the Reich were built around a feeling of Volk and racial similarities; those who were declared to be outside of the Volk were ostracized by the practice of laws within the German culture. Racist ideology was formed and manifested quickly upon the rise of Nazi power, with racial laws causing an obsession with heritage and the split of Germans and Jews. Nazi racism spread internationally as well, particularly as the Nazis began the occupation of Poland, Austria, and other nations. This potent racism, especially toward Jews, fueled the manner in which the Nazis reordered the German nation into a race-obsessed state and spread their obsession into neighboring countries. Politics were the origin of the extreme anti-Semitism in Nazi German. The politicians decided what the German people should believe and advertised it well enough to succeed in changing the outlook of the population.
    [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]
  • Appendix 1: Sample Docum Ents
    APPENDIX 1: SAMPLE DOCUMENTS Figure 1.1. Arrest warrant (Haftbefehl) for Georg von Sauberzweig, signed by Morgen. Courtesy of Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde 129 130 Appendix 1 Figure 1.2. Judgment against Sauberzweig. Courtesy of Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde Appendix 1 131 Figure 1.3. Hitler’s rejection of Sauberzweig’s appeal. Courtesy of Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde 132 Appendix 1 Figure 1.4. Confi rmation of Sauberzweig’s execution. Courtesy of Bundesarchiv Berlin- Lichterfelde Appendix 1 133 Figure 1.5. Letter from Morgen to Maria Wachter. Estate of Konrad Morgen, courtesy of the Fritz Bauer Institut APPENDIX 2: PHOTOS Figure 2.1. Konrad Morgen 1938. Estate of Konrad Morgen, courtesy of the Fritz Bauer Institut 134 Appendix 2 135 Figure 2.2. Konrad Morgen in his SS uniform. Estate of Konrad Morgen, courtesy of the Fritz Bauer Institut 136 Appendix 2 Figure 2.3. Karl Otto Koch. Courtesy of the US National Archives Appendix 2 137 Figure 2.4. Karl and Ilse Koch with their son, at Buchwald. Corbis Images Figure 2.5. Odilo Globocnik 138 Appendix 2 Figure 2.6. Hermann Fegelein. Courtesy of Yad Vashem Figure 2.7. Ilse Koch. Courtesy of Yad Vashem Appendix 2 139 Figure 2.8. Waldemar Hoven. Courtesy of Yad Vashem Figure 2.9. Christian Wirth. Courtesy of Yad Vashem 140 Appendix 2 Figure 2.10. Jaroslawa Mirowska. Private collection NOTES Preface 1. The execution of Karl Otto Koch, former commandant of Buchenwald, is well documented. The execution of Hermann Florstedt, former commandant of Majdanek, is disputed by a member of his family (Lindner (1997)).
    [Show full text]
  • “And Then They Came for Me...”
    “AND THEN THEY CAME FOR ME...” (Image: The National WWII Museum, 2014.057.036_1.) Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party’s rise to power in Germany ushered in an era of attacks against people Hitler deemed undesirable. Jews living across Europe became the primary target of Nazi hatred and violence. Attacks against other groups of people—such as individuals with mental or physical disabilities, political prisoners, Romani, Soviet citizens and prisoners of war, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, Slavs, and Jehovah’s Witnesses—also became a part of the Nazi program to “purify” German society. Those who did not fit within Nazi standards of a “master race” faced capture and horrific brutality in the attempted genocide now known as the Holocaust. From 1939 to 1941, the Nazis steadily took steps toward a formal policy of extermination. Known as the Final Solution, this policy spread to each region that fell under Nazi rule throughout World War II. Anti-Semitism had been present throughout Europe for centuries, peaking during times of upheaval, such as the Crusades or outbreaks of plague. This historical precedent perpetuated hateful stereotypes that again resurfaced in the era of upheaval that followed Germany’s defeat in World War I. While anti-Semitism had been limited to fringe political groups, the rising popularity of the Nazi Party helped promote ideas of segregating and removing the Jewish population from the region. While not all Germans actively supported the anti-Semitic attacks taken by the Nazis, many adopted an attitude of indifference toward the treatment of their Jewish neighbors.
    [Show full text]
  • Building an Unwanted Nation: the Anglo-American Partnership and Austrian Proponents of a Separate Nationhood, 1918-1934
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Carolina Digital Repository BUILDING AN UNWANTED NATION: THE ANGLO-AMERICAN PARTNERSHIP AND AUSTRIAN PROPONENTS OF A SEPARATE NATIONHOOD, 1918-1934 Kevin Mason A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of PhD in the Department of History. Chapel Hill 2007 Approved by: Advisor: Dr. Christopher Browning Reader: Dr. Konrad Jarausch Reader: Dr. Lloyd Kramer Reader: Dr. Michael Hunt Reader: Dr. Terence McIntosh ©2007 Kevin Mason ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Kevin Mason: Building an Unwanted Nation: The Anglo-American Partnership and Austrian Proponents of a Separate Nationhood, 1918-1934 (Under the direction of Dr. Christopher Browning) This project focuses on American and British economic, diplomatic, and cultural ties with Austria, and particularly with internal proponents of Austrian independence. Primarily through loans to build up the economy and diplomatic pressure, the United States and Great Britain helped to maintain an independent Austrian state and prevent an Anschluss or union with Germany from 1918 to 1934. In addition, this study examines the minority of Austrians who opposed an Anschluss . The three main groups of Austrians that supported independence were the Christian Social Party, monarchists, and some industries and industrialists. These Austrian nationalists cooperated with the Americans and British in sustaining an unwilling Austrian nation. Ultimately, the global depression weakened American and British capacity to practice dollar and pound diplomacy, and the popular appeal of Hitler combined with Nazi Germany’s aggression led to the realization of the Anschluss .
    [Show full text]