Ordinary Killers, Extraordinary Crimes and Resettlement Policies in (Former) Poland

Christopher R. Browning. Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. xii + 185 pp. $21.99, paper, ISBN 978-0-521-77490-1. Reviewed by Joachim Lerchenmueller Published on H-Genocide (April, 2002) Ordinary Killers, Extraordinary Crimes and resettlement policies in (former) Poland. He This volume comprises six lectures delivered portrays Eichmann's autumn 1939 Nisko Plan for by Christoper R. Browning at Cambridge Universi‐ the expulsion and deportation of Jews and Gyp‐ ty in the Lent Term of 1999. Fortunately, author sies from Reich territory--both old and new--to the and publisher decided not to revise the format of Lublin district and Rademacher's Madagascar the original texts substantially. Hence the book as Plan of June 1940 as examples of "timely low-level a whole is very readable, with the individual lec‐ initiative[s] that offered a way to implement poli‐ tures being shining examples for concise and cy decisions just made at the top" (p. 17). Accord‐ clear argumentation. The lectures address three ing to Browning, both plans were abruptly halted pertinent issues of current Holocaust scholarship: when political circumstances changed without be‐ (a) decision and policy making with regard to the ing formally abandoned. Instead these plans "lin‐ Final Solution, (b) the role of economic considera‐ gered as the official policy until an alternative tions in these decision making processes, and (c) was proclaimed" (p. 17). Browning illustrates this the behaviour and mindset of those Germans who by referring to the sudden defeat of France and implemented Nazi policy on local level. the problem of fnding space for the incoming eth‐ nic Germans which had rendered the Nisko Plan Addressing these issues in close (and often obsolete, just as the Madagascar Plan was ren‐ horrible) detail and based on his own extensive dered unrealistic by the failure of the Blitzkrieg archival work, Browning presents the reader with against Great Britain. Similarly, Browning contin‐ a critical, yet very reasoned and diligent discus‐ ues, Heydrich's three Nahplaene (short-range sion of other scholars' viewpoints. plans), aimed at deporting Poles and Jews from The frst two lectures deal with the evolution the recently annexed Polish territories to the Gen‐ of Nazi Jewish policy from the time of the inva‐ eralgouvernement, had to be revised due to sion of Poland to late 1941. Browning discusses in changing conditions in the Generalgouvernement. detail the various plans to implement Nazi racial H-Net Reviews Browning contends that wartime Nazi Jewish brief entry in Himmler's office diary documents policy initially was dominated by the ideological the Fuehrer's instruction to eliminate all the Jews goal to cleanse all Reich territory of Jews and that in Europe: "There can be no doubt that what plans put forward by lower level officials to that Himmler wrote down after the vertical line repre‐ effect were readily seized upon without having sented the results of that conversation. But what due regard to their feasibility. Additionally, did the brief notation mean? Linguistically, the Browning contends that these plans either failed statement is an order." I would argue that not to take account of other NS policy objectives--such only is it possible in principle to doubt that this as the resettlement of ethnic Germans and statement is a summing-up of their conversation, wartime economic planning--or were overtaken but there is also no compelling reason to interpret by events in the war. The repeated failure of these what clearly is a notation by Himmler as a state‐ SS plans for ethnic cleansing "left the frustrated ment from Hitler. Linguistically, it may just as German demographic planners receptive to ever well refer to a suggestion that Himmler intended more radical solutions" (p. 17). Browning goes on to put to the Fuehrer at that meeting. Gerlach, to argue that it was in the context of planning the however, doesn't even entertain that thought, invasion of the Soviet Union that Nazi Jewish poli‐ which is not surprising as his whole line of argu‐ cy reached another level of escalation--the whole‐ ment depends on the assumption that this sen‐ sale deportation of Jews from European territo‐ tence refers to a fundamental decision in princi‐ ries ruled or controlled by Germany to a "territory ple by Hitler. And it was this fundamental deci‐ yet to be determined" (i.e., the Soviet Union).[1] sion, Gerlach claims, that is the real reason be‐ Clearly, Browning is not of the opinion that this hind the postponement of the Wannsee Confer‐ phrase (used in late January 1941) was merely a ence: it had to be rescheduled for 20 January 1942 euphemism camouflaging the intended annihila‐ in order to give time to prepare for this new task. tion of European Jewry (p. 21), even though he Browning's refutation of Gerlach's argumen‐ speculates that as early March 1941, Hitler, tation is not based on a linguistic and philological Himmler, and Heydrich might have lost interest analysis of this single entry, even though this in this 'solution' and were thinking "of another alone is sufficient to put a big question mark on possibility, if all went well with the imminent mil‐ Gerlach's hypothesis. Instead, Browning draws on itary campaign" (p. 22). numerous archival records and established facts The question of when and how precisely the to reconfirm his viewpoint that the fate of Euro‐ decision to annihilate the Jews of Europe was pean Jewry had been sealed much earlier than eventually arrived at is at the center of Brown‐ December 1941. And Browning's refutation is as ing's second lecture. Here he takes issue with detailed as it is convincing. For one, he doubts Christian Gerlach's hypothesis [2] that the fate of that Hitler attributed as much meaning to U.S. en‐ German and west European Jewry had still been try into the war as Gerlach would hypothesize undecided in mid-December 1941. According to him to have had. Rather than U.S. entry into the Gerlach, it was the United States' entry into the war, Browning asserts, it was the military situa‐ war that triggered the implementation of Hitler's tion on the eastern front that eventually sealed 1939 prophecy of annihilation. Gerlach refers to the fate of European Jewry. Browning points to an entry under the 18 December 1941 in Himm‐ the fact that Hitler solicited a "feasibility study" ler's Terminkalender as the "'smoking pistol' docu‐ for the physical destruction of European Jews as ment" (p. 34). This entry reads: "Judenfrage ? | Als early as mid-July 1941. He shows that by late Au‐ Partisanen auszurotten" ("Jewish question ? to be gust of that year Eichmann had changed his "year exterminated as partisans" [3]. For Gerlach, this old formulaic answer to the Foreign Office" that 2 H-Net Reviews the Final Solution was "imminent" to saying that it less of the economic productivity and usefulness was "now in preparation" (p. 36). Browning stress‐ of its inmates. es that the deportation of Reich Jews began in Browning's fourth lecture is based on 134 tes‐ mid-October, at the same time that Himmler or‐ timonies by survivors of the Starachowice labor dered that all Jewish emigration cease immediate‐ camp (south of Radom). These testimonies fall ly and construction of the Belzec death camp got into three distinct categories: those collected im‐ under way. Unconvincingly, Gerlach tries to ex‐ mediately after the war in Poland, 1960s testi‐ plain away the fact that Belzec was under con‐ monies taken by German investigators, and those struction already well before Hitler's alleged fun‐ videotaped for the Fortunoff Archives in the damental decision by stating: "Exactly what fu‐ 1980s. Browning's critical evaluation of these ture expectations were associated with the erec‐ sources is meticulous. This chapter of the book is tion of the Belzec camp remains unknown" (p. all the more relevant and merits scholarly atten‐ 807). Thus, Browning sticks to his well-known the‐ tion because it serves to redress the imbalance sis [4] that the Final Solution was the result of "an that most historiography of the Holocaust is based incremental, ongoing decision-making process on sources that emanated from the perpetrators. that stretched from the spring of 1941 to the sum‐ By combining survivors' testimonies and archival mer of 1942, with key turning points in the mid‐ written evidence, Browning overcomes the short‐ summer and early fall of 1941 that corresponded comings of either category of sources and uses to the peaks of German victory euphoria" (p. 56). them to construct an account of the everyday his‐ Browning's model of incremental, ongoing de‐ tory of this labor camp. This account is as fasci‐ cision-making is supported by his fndings on the nating as it is depressing to read, especially when exploitation and destruction of Jewish workers in one learns at the very end that despite these de‐ Poland, the theme of his third lecture. Focusing on tailed testimonies, just one Starachowice guard the situation in Lodz and Warsaw, Browning stud‐ was convicted for exactly one murder (p. 115). ies in some detail the debates over the use of Jew‐ The issue of local initiative and leverage in ish labor between so-called "productionists" the decison-making process is revisited in the ffth (arguing that ghettoized Jews ought to be put to lecture, where Browning discusses the destruc‐ work so as to keep themselves alive by their own tion of the Brest-Litovsk Jewry. The author argues efforts and at their own expense) and so-called that the guidelines issued by the Nazi leadership "attritionists" (who viewed ghettos as a means for a war of destruction against the Soviet Union only to liquidate Jews).

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