WEEK 5 A of Annihilation in the East: and Mass Shootings of Jews and Other Soviets Prepared by Tony Joel and Mathew Turner

Week 5 Unit Learning Outcomes ULO 1. evaluate in a reflective and critical manner the consequences of racism and prejudice

ULO 3. synthesise core historiographical debates on how and why occurred

ULO 4. recognise important linkages between the Second World War and the Holocaust, and question Hitler’s role in these events

Introduction On 22 June 1941, Germany launched Operation Barbarossa: the invasion of the . Coinciding with the war in the East was a further radicalisation of anti-Jewish policy that culminated in the decision to systematically exterminate all European Jews. That radicalisation occurred was no coincidence. The invasion of the Soviet Union was conceptualised and waged as a “” against longstanding “racial” and ideological enemies pejoratively referred to as “Jewish-Bolsheviks.” In the first few months, more than a million Jews residing in eastern Europe — the Soviet Union, eastern Poland, and the of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia — were murdered by Germans and their non-German collaborators. It was a period of intense, decentralised killing that involved mass shootings being conducted across vast amounts of enemy territory. The months between June 1941 and were the most critical in the evolution of the Holocaust. Through mass shootings the Nazi régime and its collaborators were “bringing death to Jews,” but by the end of this period the process was reversed so that they would be “bringing Jews to death” instead.1 In late 1941 and early 1942, the infrastructure was put into place to construct extermination camps. The “” would see millions of Jews from across Europe deported to these extermination camps where they were gassed.

This week’s learning module asks some critically important questions with which historians have grappled over many decades. Section 1 examines Operation Barbarossa, and asks you to consider whether the mass murder of Soviet Jews through

1 These contrasting phrases are borrowed from your set text edited by Peter Hayes.

LEARNING MODULE 5. Section 2: Operation Barbarossa 2 decentralised shootings was a primary objective of the invasion of the Soviet Union. Moreover, given the scale of killing and the transition from shootings to gassings that began from late 1941 onwards, you need to question whether the systematic extermination of Soviet Jews through mass shootings represented the first stage in a plan to exterminate all European Jews. How was the establishment of gas chambers, and the decision to exterminate all of Europe’s Jews, related to these mass shootings? At first glance, it may appear to be a question with an obvious answer. As you engage with the material in Section 1, however, you will realise that, in preparing for the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Nazis had a number of bloodthirsty ambitions. Their goals were multifaceted: the destruction of (and Bolsheviks); the enslavement and wide-scale starvation of Slavic “subhumans” (Untermenschen); the gaining of further “living space” in the East; and the mass killing of Jews. But what is the relationship between these various brutal objectives? It cannot be assumed that the links are necessarily direct, automatic, or even planned at all. How historians — and students of history — answer these questions reflects their approach to the broader, critical issue of Holocaust planning and intentions.

Section 2 of this week’s learning module examines a related, important, and similarly contested topic: what motivated Holocaust perpetrators to kill? In addressing German and non-German perpetrators alike, the section essentially asks you to consider: were they “willing executioners” motivated by and ideological zeal? Or were they otherwise “ordinary men” who, when placed in extraordinary circumstances, suddenly became capable of committing ?

After completing this learning module, you will continue your evaluation, in a reflective and critical manner, the consequences of racism and prejudice. Furthermore, you will continue to grapple with and synthesise core historiographical debates on how and why the Holocaust occurred. Along the way, you should recognise important linkages between the Second World War and the Holocaust, and question Hitler’s role in these events.

Section 1. Operation Barbarossa This section examines ’s invasion of the Soviet Union, which was launched on 22 June 1941, and considers the reasons that possibly motivated Hitler to attack. It provides an overview of the ways in which this conflict was intended and designed to be fought as an ideological war of annihilation with strong racial underpinnings, as evidenced by the issuance of pre-invasion orders authorising murderous actions against political and racial enemies. Importantly, Operation Barbarossa provided the context and cover for the first systematic mass shootings of Jews in the East by the (mobile killing squads). It also enabled Romania, a German ally with a long history of virulent antisemitism, to embark on its own program of murdering Jews immediately. Similar scenes quickly unfolded in Lithuania, too, with public massacres of local Jews occurring within days of the German assault on the Soviet Union. LEARNING MODULE 5. Section 2: Operation Barbarossa 3

a) The Decision to Invade the Soviet Union The discussion here examines the issue of why Germany went to war against the Soviet Union. Was the war prosecuted primarily for “conventional” strategic reasons? Or was ideology the chief motivation with Hitler’s main objective being the annihilation of Jews and other local “racially inferior” populations more generally?

Doris Bergen stresses that war with the Soviet Union always had been at the forefront of Hitler’s mind as a means of implementing his policies of racial resettlement and “ethnic cleansing” in the East.2 Bergen convincingly argues that Hitler’s aggression against the Soviet Union was by no means a defensive reaction to perceived, let alone actual, provocation on Stalin’s behalf. Unparalleled destruction was part of the planning, not merely a consequence. The question — one that remains contested by historians — is whether military-strategic considerations took precedence over racial- ideological priorities, or vice versa, in forming the catalyst for Hitler’s ultimate decision to invade the Soviet Union in mid-1941. In this sense, the same considerations apply to the examination of Hitler’s motivations for invading the Soviet Union as they do to the two years earlier (as explored in Week 3).

The German historian Jürgen Förster outlines the background to the decision to invade the Soviet Union.

READING EXCERPT: Please read Jürgen Förster’s piece entitled “Why did Hitler Invade the Soviet Union?”

The Förster reading reveals that planning for the invasion of the Soviet Union already had commenced by late July 1940. This is when it became clear to Hitler that, despite his conquest of continental western Europe, Britain would not agree to withdraw from the war. Hitler had planned to defeat Britain quickly through aerial bombardment and invasion by sea, and to further strengthen his position through a rapid invasion of the Soviet Union. An invasion of the Soviet Union also was aimed at counteracting the possibility of the United States entering the war.

Britain weathered the Battle of Britain (the German aerial assault) and this meant Operation Sea Lion (Hitler’s planned sea invasion of Britain) never eventuated. These developments seem to have reinforced in Hitler’s mind the urgency of a Soviet

2 Doris Bergen, War & Genocide. (Rowman & Littlefield, London, 2009) pp. 145-46. LEARNING MODULE 5. Section 2: Operation Barbarossa 4 invasion. The degree of support offered to Britain by the still neutral United States during the Battle of Britain (through the Lend Lease program of economic assistance) and the preparations being made by the United States for war against Japan highlighted for Hitler the dangers of American intervention. Hitler feared the possibility of a re-run of the outcome of the First World War when the United States had entered the conflict as late as 1917, but in doing so played a decisive role in the final outcome turning against Germany. After failing to defeat Britain quickly in 1940, Hitler’s attention subsequently turned to the option of attacking the Soviet Union.

Critically, however, in the reading Förster concludes that such strategic arguments became intertwined with ideological considerations:

In the summer of 1940 Hitler linked the realisation of his twenty-year-old living-space programme — which united expansion towards the east, annihilation of Bolshevism, and extermination of Jewry — with the strategic necessity of securing Germany’s sphere of power against the growing challenge of the Anglo-American naval powers.

Förster makes the further insightful point that, although Hitler resolved in the summer of 1940 to begin planning for war against the Soviet Union, this did not necessarily represent a final or irreversible decision. He still could have changed his mind in response to differing circumstances as events unfolded. Nonetheless, the formulation of plans did entail a series of political, military, and supply commitments that developed “their own dynamic,” building up expectations that an ideologically-driven apocalyptic war in the East was imminent if not inevitable.

Hitler’s strategic dilemmas in western Europe magnified in his mind the possible threats posed by the United States entering the war. It appeared imperative for Germany to move to protect its eastern boundaries by invading the Soviet Union. Such a strategy had the added advantage of enabling Hitler to carry out his ideologically-shaped vision of racial obliteration in the Soviet Union. Strategy and ideology became intertwined to influence decision-making about the planned invasion of the Soviet Union.

b) A War of Annihilation If the decision to invade the Soviet Union was framed in a strategic logic, an intensely ideological framework marked the conceptualisation of how such a war should be fought and what were to be its key objectives. War with the Soviet Union, while securing Germany’s strategic position and unlimited economic opportunities through the exploitation of agricultural riches, would enable Germany to destroy once and for all the perceived threat of “.”

Importantly, it was not only Hitler who held such views but also the military leadership. Many ordinary soldiers, furthermore, were infused with antisemitic ideology. , a (colonel general, the second-highest rank in the ) and the commanding officer of a Panzer tank unit at the time that LEARNING MODULE 5. Section 2: Operation Barbarossa 5

Operation Barbarossa was launched, kept a wartime diary. Hoepner, in a May 1941 diary entry quoted by Jürgen Förster, commented: The war against Russia is an important chapter in the struggle for existence of the German nation. It is the old battle of the Germanic against the Slav peoples, of the defence of European culture against Moscovite-Asiatic inundation, and the repulse of Jewish Bolshevism. The objective of this battle must be the destruction of present-day Russia and it must therefore be conducted with unprecedented severity. Every military action must be guided in planning and execution by an iron will to exterminate the enemy mercilessly and totally. In particular, no adherents of the present Russian-Bolshevik system are to be spared.3

At the time that preparations for Operation Barbarossa were being finalised, Hoepner clearly was totally committed to Hitler and convinced that he was about to engage in an ideological war of an extraordinary nature. His comments raise issues that bear on the relationship between ideology and planning for war against the Soviet Union in a general sense as well as the relationship shared by the Wehrmacht and the SS in particular. (Despite his earlier unwavering commitment to the national socialist cause, facing insurmountable odds Hoepner defied Hitler’s orders in December 1941 and instructed his Panzer group to retreat. An enraged Hitler summarily dismissed Hoepner from the Wehrmacht. Later, Hoepner became involved in the July 20 bomb plot — a failed assassination attempt against Hitler in 1944. Hoepner was put on trial and found guilty by the Volksgerichtshof, and hanged at ’s Plötzensee Prison in August 1944.)

(l) While still a highly-respected Generaloberst in the Wehrmacht and a Panzer Group leader, Hoepner being congratulated by Hitler (with SS chief Heinrich Himmler standing directly behind him, showing the close ties between the army and the SS). (r) Hoepner on trial in August 1944. He was hanged a week later. Sources: “Erich Hoepner,” Getty Images. http://www.gettyimages.com.au/photos/erich- hoepner?excludenudity=true&sort=mostpopular&mediatype=photography&phrase=erich%20hoepner http://www.gettyimages.com.au/detail/news-photo/verhandlung-im-kammergericht-an- derelssholzstrasse-in-news-photo/545962931?#verhandlung-im-kammergericht-an-derelssholzstrasse-in- erich-hoepner-picture-id545962931 [Accessed 25 March 2017]

3 Jürgen Förster, “The German Army and the Ideological War against the Soviet Union,” in Gerhard Hirschfeld (ed.) Genocide: Jews & Soviet Prisoners of War in Nazi Germany. (The German Historical Institute, Allen & Unwin, 1986). p. 18. LEARNING MODULE 5. Section 2: Operation Barbarossa 6

• How were ideological intentions translated into the planning for battle?

• What specific plans were made to kill Jews? (Hoepner’s diary entry points to a racially- and politically-motivated campaign in which Jews appear as part of a generalised racial struggle, not as the objects of a systematically planned program of destruction.)

Two elements in the planning and practice of war in the Soviet Union determined its emergence as an ideologically-driven war of annihilation:

• The so-called “Criminal Orders” that authorised, indeed required, members of Germany’s military to conduct atrocities against troops and Soviet civilians alike;

• Mobilisation of the Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing squads) to “pacify” occupied territory behind the front.

The “Criminal Orders”

What have now become retrospectively known as the “Criminal Orders” were a series of formal instructions negotiated between Hitler and his Supreme Command of the German Armed Forces (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, OKW) in the lead-up to invading the Soviet Union. They paved the way for the Wehrmacht to break all previous humanitarian conventions and international laws of war when it came to waging war in the East. They established inter alia:

• The Barbarossa Decree, 13 May 1941 o German soldiers could not be courtmartialled for atrocities against civilians in the Soviet Union (unless their actions posed a direct threat to Wehrmacht interests)

o All suspicious civilians were to be killed on sight

• The Guidelines for the Conduct of Troops in Russia, 19 May 1941 o Portrayed Soviet populations as inherently dangerous and not to be trusted

o Justified any treatment towards those regarded as a threat

• The so-called , 6 June 1941 o Authorised the shooting of civilian political commissars attached to Red Army

German soldiers received the Guidelines for the Conduct of Troops in Russia in June, and its first paragraphs set the tone for how they were expected to behave:

1. Bolshevism is the deadly enemy of the National-Socialist German Nation. It is this undermining ideology and its supporters at which Germany’s struggle is aimed. LEARNING MODULE 5. Section 2: Operation Barbarossa 7

2. This struggle demands ruthless and energetic measures against Bolshevist agitators, guerrillas, saboteurs, Jews, and the complete elimination of all active or passive resistance.

3. Strictest reserve and utmost vigilance toward all members of the Red Army — including the prisoners — is vindicated, since treacherous fighting methods are to be expected. Especially the Asiatic soldiers of the Red Army are obscure, unpredictable, insidious, and callous.

From the perspective of a unit studying the Holocaust, what is striking about these Guidelines is that “Bolsheviks,” especially those in the Red Army, and not specifically or exclusively Jews, were the primary target. Jews were subsumed into a broader list and yet once the war was underway Jews were the main group targeted among the civilians. Nonetheless, the German historian Wigbert Benz observes that the Guidelines were the first example of military orders “directly” identifying Jews collectively as an enemy group.4

Three Soviet civilians, Krill Trous, Masha Bruskina, and Volodya Sherbateivich, being marched to their public execution in , Byelorussia (present-day Belarus), in October 1941. Bruskina, a seventeen-year-old Jewish girl, was forced to wear a placard that stated in German and Russian: “We are partisans and we shot at German soldiers.” Source: “Masha Bruskina gehängt als Partisanin in Minsk 26.10.1941.” geocities.ws http://www.geocities.ws/epjacobs4/masha.htm [Accessed 25 March 2017]

4 Wigbert Benz, Der Hungerplan im “Unternehmen Barbarossa” 1941. (WVB, Berlin, 2011) LEARNING MODULE 5. Section 2: Operation Barbarossa 8

Why did the Wehrmacht accept, with apparently so little resistance and perhaps even some enthusiasm, its transformation into an instrument of Nazi ideology?

The OKW agreed for a number of reasons:

• first, key military leaders such as Wilhelm Keitel, the field marshal who served as OKW chief for most of the Second World War, by and large shared Hitler’s belief that Soviet soldiers and civilians were intrinsically barbaric and therefore agreed that any measures taken against them were justifiable;

• second, the troops themselves were the products of the Nazi educational system. As Philippe Burrin observes they welcomed and absorbed the extensive fed to them as they trained for the invasion;5

• in addition, it was believed that German soldiers would be engaged in such brutal warfare for only a few weeks — until the inevitable victory was achieved — and that it was psychologically feasible to continue such a frenzy of violence for a short, intensive period. What they did not believe they were being asked to do was to carry out a sustained campaign over a long period of time;

• once the war continued and the Red Army responded with similarly tough and brutal tactics or died like flies through malnutrition in prisoner of war camps, however, the German view of as subhuman was “confirmed,” further reinforcing ongoing brutal treatment by the invading forces.

PRESCRIBED TEXT: Please read Timothy Snyder’s chapter entitled “Racial War in the East,” pp. 285-98.

c) The Einsatzgruppen You will note from Snyder’s chapter (pp. 296-97) that, as part of their intended war of annihilation, the Nazis deployed mobile killing squads known as Einsatzgruppen. These squads were comprised of members from a combination of SS and Police organisations such as the SD (security police) and Order Police. Their task was to

5 Philippe Burrin, Hitler and the Jews: The Genesis of the Holocaust. (Edward Arnold, London, 1994) p. 113. LEARNING MODULE 5. Section 2: Operation Barbarossa 9

“pacify” the area behind the troops’ frontlines in preparation for occupation. In practice, this meant the mass shooting of Jews, often forced to dig their own graves prior to their execution. The scale of mass murder undertaken by these mobile killing squads is unfathomable. In one notorious act, perpetrated at , near Kiev in Ukraine, an Einsatzgruppe liquidated over 30,000 Jews in just two days in September 1941. Indeed, around 50 per cent of were murdered within close vicinity to where they lived, as a result of German operations to clear newly occupied areas of Jews through mass shootings. The killings often were conducted under the noses of non-Jewish residents, who in turn frequently benefited from their Jewish neighbours’ demise.6

Members of Einsatzgruppe B conduct a mass shooting in the Soviet Union. Source: “Einsatzgruppen,” Justice Network. http://www.nosue.org/the-holocaust-german-and-american-law/einsatzgruppen/ [Accessed 25 March 2017]

PRESCRIBED TEXT: Please read Richard Rhodes’ chapter entitled “Bringing Death to Jews,” pp. 455-61 (from the subheading “Babi Yar”).

6 Omer Bartov, “Wartime Lies and Other Testimonies,” in Omer Bartov (ed.) The Holocaust: Origins, Implementation, Aftermath, second edition. (Routledge, New York, 2015). pp. 276-77. LEARNING MODULE 5. Section 2: Operation Barbarossa 10

It should be stressed, too, that the SS and the Wehrmacht shared a remarkably good relationship in the East. The Einsatzgruppen worked closely with the regular army, which not only tolerated the SS operating in the rear of the military front but even allowed SS troops to accompany the army at the frontline. The Wehrmacht actively cooperated in measures taken against Jews. According to Christian Streit, despite some initial reluctance the army also eventually agreed to hand over Jewish prisoners of war to the SS.7

At first only 3,000 troops were deployed in the Einsatzgruppen. They were divided into four groups as follows:

• Einsatzgruppe A (behind the army in the Baltic states)

• Einsatzgruppe B (into Byelorussia and Russia)

• Einsatzgruppe C (northern Ukraine)

• Einsatzgruppe D (southern Ukraine, including territory annexed by Romania, and the Crimea)

Map showing where each of the four Einsatzgruppe swept through eastern Europe following the German army’s advance deep into Soviet territory. Source: “Einsatzgruppen: The Nazi Killing Squads,” Illustrated History. https://incredibleimages4u.blogspot.com.au/2011/01/einsatzgruppen-nazi-killing-squads.html [Accessed 25 March 2017]

7 Christian Streit, “The German Army and the Policies of Genocide” in Gerhard Hirschfeld (ed.), The Policies of Genocide: Jews and Soviet Prisoners of War in Nazi Germany. (Allen & Unwin, London, 1986) pp. 1-12. LEARNING MODULE 5. Section 2: Operation Barbarossa 11

Map showing the locations of some of the major massacres perpetrated by Einsatzgruppen across eastern Europe between June 1941 and November 1942. The brown section of the map indicates the vast amount of Soviet territory the German forces occupied during the war. Source: “Einsatzgruppen,” USHMM. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_nm.php?ModuleId=10007862&MediaId=342 [Accessed 25 March 2017]

PRESCRIBED TEXT: Now please read pp. 447-50 (up to subheading “Barbarossa”) of Richard Rhodes’ chapter “Bringing Death to Jews.”

Brought together a month before the invasion of the Soviet Union, members of the Einsatzgruppen trained in Germany for a few weeks prior to deployment. But was this training specifically directed towards the murder of Jews?

Philippe Burrin argues that the resources for a mass extermination of Jews were simply not available at the time of the invasion of the Soviet Union. Harassment, intimidation, and victimisation of Jews was what was intended, not systematic murder — and here he differs from Lucy Dawidowicz who sees the deployment of 3,000 troops as sufficient evidence of an intention to embark on mass murder.

Indeed, in the initial period of the invasion during June-July 1941 Burrin points out that male, working-age Jews were targeted in mass shootings (presumably to prevent LEARNING MODULE 5. Section 2: Operation Barbarossa 12 them engaging in “partisan” activities), whereas Jewish women and children were spared summary execution (so, too, were elderly males). He suggests that it was not until August — when it became evident that German victory in the Soviet Union was by no means assured and consequently the chance to kill Jews may be lost forever — that Himmler formally authorised mass killings. According to Burrin, this decision reflected a rapid escalation from September onwards in the numbers of Jews killed as the Einsatzgruppen numbers were reinforced to a 10,000-strong membership.8 Conversely, Christopher Browning argues that the decision to escalate extermination was taken a month earlier, in July 1941, amid what he terms the “euphoria of victory.”9

8 Burrin, Hitler and the Jews. p. 113. 9 Christopher R. Browning, “Beyond ‘Intentionalism’ and ‘Functionalism’: The Decision for the Final Solution Reconsidered,” in The Path to Genocide: Essays on Launching the Final Solution. (Cambridge University Press, New York, 1992). pp. 99-113. LEARNING MODULE 5. Section 2: Operation Barbarossa 13

A series of photos depicting the liquidation of female Jews from the Mizocz ghetto in October 1942. 1. First, German Einsatzkommandos and Ukrainian auxiliaries forced the victims to disrobe in a ravine (so that their clothing could be redistributed). 2. Then the naked women and girls were marched to a nearby site for execution. Some of the women were nursing toddlers, and it is clear that the woman trailing behind was heavily pregnant. 3. After the mass shooting had occurred, an Einsatzkommando can be seen shooting one of the women who survived the execution. The Mizocz liquidation is a reminder that mass shootings still happened throughout Soviet territory long after the extermination camps had become operational. Sources: USHMM. https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1065458 https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1065469 [Accessed 25 March 2017]

In all probability, the Einsatzgruppen were told at the beginning of the campaign to kill as many of the Jewish élite as possible, and additionally to strike a deadly blow at the wider Jewish population by organising . An escalation started to occur a month later, which took a decisive turn some time between the end of July and the end of August when women and children also started to be targeted in massacres. The mission of Himmler’s troops had been transformed. Roughly 50,000 Jews had been killed up until mid-August 1941, in nearly two months of activity. This is a staggering figure, of course, but still a modest one compared with the total, ten times higher, murdered in the remaining four months of the year.

Whether one sides with Browning or Burrin, the escalation from the killing of the Soviet and Jewish leadership to mass murder of the wider population vindicates Dawidowicz’s argument that engagement in ideological warfare led to a desensitisation to horror. The atmosphere of brutality associated with the ideological war of annihilation in the Soviet Union enabled the mass atrocities committed against Jews (and many other Soviet civilians). What is less clear is whether the systematic mass murder of Soviet Jews was planned prior to the invasion of the Soviet Union. LEARNING MODULE 5. Section 2: Operation Barbarossa 14

Two cases studies from the first few days following the launch of Operation Barbarossa — the brutal treatment of Jews in the Baltic state of Lithuania, and the massacre of Jews in Iasi (located on the Romanian side of the Soviet Union) — illustrate the difficulties in assuming that the extermination of Jews was the result of a simple decision made by Hitler alone.

(l) Members of a Lithuanian militia unit forcing a group of Jewish women from Panevezys to undress prior to their execution in the Pajuoste Forest, 1941. (r) German Order Police and Ukrainian militia shooting Jews from the Ukrainian village of Chrystynowka in the Soviet Union. Sources: “History of Trashkun” http://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/troskunai/history.htm [Accessed 25 March 2017] http://www.librarying.com/jewish/holocaust3/Albums/Album1/Chrystynowka_- _German_police_and_Ukrainian_militia_shooting_Jews_from_the_village_of_Chrystynowka.htm [Accessed 25 March 2017]

d) Lithuania and Beyond: the Einsatzgruppen in Action The Einsatzgruppen operations evolved over time from piecemeal attacks initiated against local communities to full-scale, mass exterminations engulfing entire regions.

READING EXCERPT: Please read Ronald Headland's survey entitled "The Einsatzgruppen in Lithuania."

LEARNING MODULE 5. Section 2: Operation Barbarossa 15

Persecution escalated as follows:

• local populations, such as those in Lithuania, were incited to take action against Jews. Attacks (pogroms) on Jews, while intense, remained sporadic and then petered out;

• the Einsatzgruppen soon took complete control over the killing of Jews and initiated the murder of “dangerous” males;

• mass killing of whole Jewish communities was coordinated by the SS. Entire villages were destroyed in the process. Non-German collaborators (such as Lithuanians, Latvians, Ukrainians, and Romanians among others) continued to assist the Germans, but they remained under Nazi control at least in principle.

The extent and tempo of actual murders reflected the reinforcement of the Einsatzgruppen numbers and the clear decision to exterminate Soviet Jewry. Headland shows how closely the rationalisation for murder followed the ideological framework of the demonisation of “Jewish Bolsheviks,” established prior to the invasion and reinforced during the offensive.

Lithuanian nationalists bludgeoned local Jews to death with iron bars and other blunt weapons in the Lietūkis Garage, a main square of the capital city Kovno in June 1941, just days following the launch of Operation Barbarossa. Members of Einsatzgruppe A were present (and perhaps incited the Lithuanian nationalists) but they did not actually participate in this public act of extreme violence. Source: “The Kovno Garage Massacre,” Rare Historical Photos. http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/kovno-garage-massacre-lithuania-1941/ [Accessed 25 March 2017] LEARNING MODULE 5. Section 2: Operation Barbarossa 16

PRESCRIBED TEXT: Please read pp.450-55 (from the subheading “Barbarossa” to the subheading “Babi Yar”) of Richard Rhodes’ chapter entitled “Bringing Death to Jews.” Rhodes draws on eyewitness testimony (predominantly from Germans) to recall shocking scenes of brutality against Jews at the hands of Lithuanian citizens. The outburst of violence that he describes in Kovno is the same episode documented by the photos on p. 15 of this learning module.

e) Romania and the Iaşi Massacre Along with Hungary and Bulgaria, Romania joined the Axis alliance with Germany. Romania did so partly to ensure that it was secure from German attack and partly to avenge itself against the Soviet Union, which had recently occupied the territories of Bessarabia and Bukovina, situated north-east of Romania between Hungary and Ukraine. When Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, Romanian forces simultaneously attacked the Soviet Union.

General Ion Antonescu was a committed antisemite and the rise of the fascist-style, arch-nationalist paramilitary Iron Guard paved the way for his seizure of power.

READING EXCERPT: Now turn to Radu Florian's "The Jassy Massacre of June 29-30, 1941: An Early Act of Genocide against the Jews." Please note that Jassy is an alternative spelling to Iaşi (pronounced “Yash”) and also in this piece Florian refers to Iron Guard forces as Legionnaires.

Florian describes how Antonescu’s government planned and executed the massacre of Jews just days after the Soviet invasion, using the pretext that Jews were communist sympathisers and traitors allegedly communicating with the enemy. Importantly, both the Romanian army and the Iron Guard were deeply implicated, as were local populations whose antisemitic emotions were deliberately stirred up by the SS. Furthermore, as Andrej Angrick points out, German forces also are presumed to have cooperated (although members of Otto Ohlendorf’s Einsatzgruppe D did not participate in the actual massacre, just as Walther Stahlecker’s Einsatzgruppe A did not actively participate in the Kovno massacre occurring around the same time).10 Even Hitler praised Antonescu for paving the way for the Jewish extermination.

10 Andrej Angrick, “Die Einsatzgruppe D,” in Peter Klein (ed.), Die Einsatzgruppen in der besetzten Sowjetunion 1941/42. (Edition Hentrich, Berlin, 1997). p. 92. LEARNING MODULE 5. Section 2: Operation Barbarossa 17

Victims of the Iaşi left on the path along one of the town’s central streets. These local Jews were massacred by their fellow Romanians in June 1941.

Source: “Drama Evreilor Români În Anii Celui De Al Doilea Război Mondial 1939-1945,” Ovidiu Czinka. http://ovidiuczinka.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/drama-evreilor-romani-in-anii-celui-de.html [Accessed 25 March 2017]

USHMM map depicting the sites of major massacres in which Romanian forces participated, 1941-42. Note the location of Iaşi near what was the Romanian-Soviet border at that time. Source: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_nm.php?ModuleId=10005472&MediaId=2344 [Accessed 25 March 2017]

Sharing many of the antisemitic prejudices of the Nazis, the Romanians also actively participated in the ongoing activities led by Ohlendorf’s Einsatzgruppe D as it swept through the region as far as Odessa and the Crimea on the Black Sea. The actions of Romanian and many other non-German perpetrators stand as sobering reminders that the Holocaust may have been a German concept but it was very much undertaken as a European-wide enterprise. Why did so many people willingly participate in genocide? LEARNING MODULE 5. Section 2: Perpetrator Motivation 18

Section 2. Perpetrator Motivation

Although Hitler, as Führer of the Third Reich, was the supreme leader of the Jewish catastrophe, as Raul Hilberg points out an architect cannot construct a building alone.11 Plans must be drafted, materials organised, sites found, tradespeople employed, and the project supervised. When it came to the mass killing of Jews, it is not only those who pulled the trigger, or dropped pellets of Zyklon B into a , who can be considered perpetrators. From lawyers who drafted the (that identified who was defined as “racially” Jewish), to medical professionals engaged in finding effecient ways of mass killing, scientists who provided advice on questions of “racial hygiene,” architects who designed extermination facilities, engineers who built them, train drivers who drove loads of Jews to death camps, through to bureaucrats who created the train timetables: each played a role in the destruction of Jews. These individuals were what Hilberg describes as self-aware cogs in “the machinery of destruction.”

But what motivated their behaviour? And how was it possible to find so many apparently willing participants in such ghastly and barbaric scenes on such a magnitude? There is a danger of attributing the mass murder of millions of Jews to the single explanation of antisemitism, and identifying Nazis as the sole perpetrators. We have already seen in Section 1, however, the Holocaust also encompassed the crucial involvement of many non-German perpetrators who proved to be more than willing and able to kill Jews en masse without any prewar Nazi indoctrination. The question remains, then, as to whether German and non-German Holocaust perpetrators were motivated to kill Jews primarily or perhaps even exclusively by antisemitism? Or were other factors at play?

“Hitler’s Willing Executioners” or “Ordinary Men”? Daniel Goldhagen’s book Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust was published in 1996 in a whirlwind of publicity and controversy. In contrast to mainstream academic historians, whose analysis of the causes of the Holocaust emphasise the interaction of complex factors (see for instance structuralist interpretations), Goldhagen contended that the Holocaust was simply the outcome of a unique strain of antisemitic beliefs held by Germans only — what he terms “German eliminationist antisemitism.”

In his provocative book, Goldhagen identifies (and rejects) five popular explanations that downplay the role of antisemitism: • the belief that Germans were culturally programmed to obey orders; • the notion that perpetrators killed in response to social-psychological pressure; • the pursuit of self-interest by individuals, including petty bureaucrats, whose

11 Raul Hilberg, Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders: The Jewish Catastrophe 1933-1945. (Harper Perennial, New York, 1993) LEARNING MODULE 5. Section 2: Perpetrator Motivation 19

careerism blinded them to the wider implications of their actions; • fear that a refusal to kill would result in punishment; • and that the process of psychological “fragmentation” enabled perpetrators to distance themselves from the broader implications of their actions (for example, the doctors who engaged in medical experimentation in camps who justified their behaviour in terms of the benefits of medical “science”).

READING EXCERPT: Taken from Goldhagen's highly controversial book, the reading "Theories of Perpetration" criticises what he dismisses as "conventional" explanations for perpetrator behaviour.

Goldhagen argues that none of the above explanations account for the apparent enthusiasm of German perpetrators, their cruelty towards Jews, and what he terms their “impulse to violence.” Goldhagen explicitly dismisses the conclusions drawn by historians Christopher Browning and Raul Hilberg. Browning underplays the role of personal antisemitism in the actions of Order Police engaged in mass shootings, while Hilberg portrays bureaucratic “desk murderers” (Schreibtischtäter) as technocrats who felt no personal responsibility for their actions.

READING EXCERPT: Christopher R. Browning, in the piece entitled "Orders from Above, Initiative from Below, and the Scope of Local Autonomy," discusses perpetrator motivation involving a case study in the Byelorussian city of Brest. (n.b. It is the second extract contained in multiple readings.)

Interestingly, labour shortages meant that there was a reluctance to exterminate the city’s Jews and German authorities were willing to condone Jewish survival. Nonetheless, Browning concludes that the fanatical antisemitism of a few overwhelmed indifference or inertia in influencing the decision to murder Jews. As in the case of the Polish ghettos, support by central authorities also was critical. Influenced by the heated debate that erupted between him and Goldhagen, Browning subsequently has been forced to give greater consideration to the role of individual antisemitism than he had in his earlier research. LEARNING MODULE 5. Section 2: Perpetrator Motivation 20

Understandably, though, many historians have hit back at Goldhagen’s claims. While welcoming his refocusing on the importance of agency in the Holocaust, there has been widespread criticism for what is widely regarded as Goldhagen’s simplistic monocausal approach. Omer Bartov, for instance, comments: “This is history in black and white, and it pleases those impatient with careful argument and weighing of evidence.”12 Bartov’s barbed quote should be borne in mind by students who are often too readily attracted to simple explanations for the Holocaust (such as the effects of Nazi propaganda or blatant antisemitism) instead of viewing the attempted extermination of European Jewry as resulting from the interaction of complex phenomena.

PRESCRIBED TEXT: Please read Edward B. Westermann’s chapter entitled “Political Soldiers,” pp. 481-91. You are urged to take heed of Westermann’s suggestion: “Historians should rightly be wary of treating the complexities of human motivation reductively and finding one single explanation so monstrously beyond human comprehension.”

It is also important to remember that even under the weight of Nazi indoctrination and amidst a conflict of unspeakable brutality, “Ordinary Men” — to borrow Browning’s well-known idiom — shot innocent, defenceless women and children, often at close range. Invariably, over time such experiences negatively impacted the psychology of the shooters. Yet, there seems to have been no shortage of volunteers.

High-ranking Nazis, while all too willing to order the liquidation of millions of individual lives, rarely visited the scenes of the crimes. In one infamous incident, Heinrich Himmler, considered by some historians to be the “architect” of the Judeocide, witnessed a mass shooting near Minsk involving around 100 victims on 15 August 1941. When the massacre was over, Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, the SS commander in charge of this particular action, turned to his chief Himmler and remarked: “Those men are finished for the rest of their lives. What kind of followers are we training here? Either neurotics or savages!”13 Himmler, apparently made visibly sick from witnessing just one comparatively small-scale action, was in total agreement. A different method of systematic extermination was required. But the murderous onslaught could not be halted and so mass shootings had to carry on in the meantime.

12 Omer Bartov, “Ordinary Monsters: Perpetrator Motivation and Monocausal Explanations,” in Germany’s War and the Holocaust: Disputed Histories. (Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 2003) 13 Yitzak Arad, The Holocaust in the Soviet Union. (Yad Vashem, , 2009). p. 137. LEARNING MODULE 5. Conclusion 21

To finish off, we have three short film extracts highly relevant for this week’s topic.

Conclusion

The Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union launched on 22 June 1941 marked the beginning of a systematic, murderous campaign against Soviet Jews. Through various “Criminal Orders,” Nazi leaders ensured the campaign would be ruthless, and aimed not only to defeat the Soviet Union militarily but, moreover, to destroy Bolshevism. In practice, this meant the shooting en masse of Soviet political commissars and anyone else who posed a threat — real or imagined — to the advancing German armies. Although Jews were thus one target group amongst many, their slaughter was planned and on a large scale. Over 1 million Jewish men, women, and children were murdered by the Einsatzgruppen and their fellow perpetrators across eastern Europe.

The period from the invasion of the Soviet Union and the initial mass shootings in June 1941, through to the establishment of extermination camps and accompanying implementation of the “Final Solution” in the first half of 1942, is critical in understanding how the Holocaust unfolded. It was during this period that Hitler (and/or Himmler) authorised the killing of all European Jews in extermination centres LEARNING MODULE 5. Conclusion 22 located in occupied Poland. The relationship between the invasion of the Soviet Union, the intention to defeat the Soviet Union militarily and ideologically, mass shootings of Soviet Jews, and the subsequent decision to implement the “Final Solution” through gas chambers in extermination camps, remains unclear. Characteristically, historians disagree on the timing of Hitler’s decision to authorise the extermination of Jews. Did the murderous actions of the Einsatzgruppen in the second half of 1941 mark the first step in a clear plan for continental-wide genocide? Or were the mass shootings of Jews throughout Soviet territory an improvised (albeit systematic) action against one of many perceived enemies of the Reich that was part of the largest military campaign in history, without any concrete plans for expanding the “machinery of destruction” to target all European Jews?

It is known that the mass shooting of Jews took a psychological toll on those pulling the trigger. Less certain is the question of what motivated perpetrators to kill or to willingly contribute to a program of genocide. The men who killed may have been “ordinary” and motivated by factors other than antisemitism — including adherence to authority, indoctrination to prewar propaganda, acclimatisation to the brutality of warfare, peer pressure, fear, and even plain-old careerism — yet their crimes were extraordinary. Similarly, we have to be wary of attributing something as complex as perpetrator motivation to a single explanation, such as Goldhagen’s highly problematic concept of “German eliminationist antisemitism.” The substantial and willing role played by non-German states, including but certainly not limited to our two case studies of Lithuania and Romania, in the slaughter of their own Jewish populations in 1941-42 adds much complexity to the question of motivation. Even the most virulently antisemitic perpetrators, however, once charged with the close-quarters execution of dozens of defenceless women and children day after day, week after week, month after month, eventually felt the psychological effects. A more humane method of killing would be sought — more humane for the killers, that is — and the Nazis would embark on their “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” (Endlösung der Judenfrage).