The Splendid Blond Beast Money, Law, and Genocide in the Twentieth Century CHRISTOPHER SIMPSON � GROVE PRESS NEW YORK Copyright © 1993 by Christopher Simpson All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publisher. Published by Grove Press A division of Grove Press, Inc. 841 Broadway New Yo rk, New Yo rk 10003-4793 Published in Canada by General Publishing Company, Ltd. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Simpson, Christopher. The splendid blond beast : money, law, and genocide in the twentieth century I Christopher Simpson. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 0-8021-1362-1 1. United States-Foreign relations-20th century. 2. Armenian massacres, 1915-1 923. 3. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) 4. Genocide-History-20th century. I. Title. E744.S5636 1993 327.73-dc20 92-16783 CIP Manufactured in the United States of America Printed on acid-free paper Designed by Jules Perlmutter/Off-Broadway Graphics First Edition 1993 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For Susan Acknowledgments AM GRATEFUL for assistance in United States archives to Brews­ I ter Chamberlain and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Dennis Bilger of the Harry S Tr uman Library, to the research staffs at the U.S. National Archives, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Library of Congress, and the McKeldon Library at the University of Maryland. I am especially grateful to Marilla Guptil of the United Nations Archives, who helped with research in the United Nations War Crimes Commission archives, and to Senator Claiborne Pell and Benjamin Ferencz, who permitted access to important collec­ tions of private papers. My special thanks for assistance in German archives and for assistance in translations to Konrad Ege, Mike Fichter, Thomas and Rena Giefer, Bernd Greiner and the Hamburger lnstitut fiir Sozialforschung, Monika Halkort, Katharina Hering, Anke Mack­ rodt, David Marwell and the Berlin Document Center, Oliver Rath­ kolb, Ludger Wess, and the Bundesarchiv Koblenz. I am especially grateful to Gabrielle Korner and the Gedenkstatte Deutscher Wider­ stand, whose enthusiasm and research skills became essential to this project. Thanks also to Rouben Adalian and the Armenian Assembly, vii Vlll ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Eddy Becker, Chip Berlet, Bernard Bernstein, Kai Bird, Tr acy Brandt, Noam Chomsky, Arthur Macy Cox, Ann Coyle, Va kahn Dadrian, Rebecca Daugherty and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Carolyn Eisenberg, Richard Falk, Mika Fink, John Friedman, John Gimbel, Sue Goodwin, Jean Hardesty and Political Research Associates, Richard Hovannisian, Radu Ionid, Mary J(aufman, Earl Kintner, Mel Leffler, Mark Levy, Louis Mad­ ison, Jonathan Marshall, Marc Mazurovsky, Pat Merloe, Marcel Ophuls, Mark Pavlick, Vladimir Pechatnov, Robert Pehle, David Preston, Kate Porterfield, John Prados and Jill Gay, Marc Raskin, Jan Philipp Reemstsma, Al ti Rodal, Steven Rogers, Eli Rosenbaum, Hans Safrian, Neal Sher, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Bradley F. Smith, Ervin Staub, John Stevenson, Te lford Taylor, George Wheeler, Murat Williams, and George Willis. My special thanks to those whose editing, patience, and busi­ ness acumen made this book possible: Walt Bode, Gail Ross, and John Herman (who should have been thanked last time, but wasn't). My most special gratitude goes to Bruce and Caroline Simpson, Susan Coyle, and Konrad Ege, who stuck with me through the whole thing. Contents 1. The Splendid Blond Beast 3 2. "The Immediate Demands of Justice" 15 3. Young Tu rks 27 4. Bankers, Lawyers, and Linkage Groups 43 5. The Profitsof Persecution 59 6. "Who Still Ta lks of the Armenians?" 75 7. No Action Required 99 8. Katyn 117 9. Silk Stocking Rebel 133 10. "The Present Ruling Class of Germany" 149 11. The Tr ials Begin 159 12. Morgenthau's Plan 171 13. "This Needs to Be Dragged Out Into the Open" 189 14. Sunrise 199 15. White Lists 217 16. Prisoner Tr ansfers 233 17. Double-Think on Denazification 245 " CONTENTS 18. "It Would Be Undesirable if This Became Publicly Known" 255 19. The End of the War Crimes Commission 269 20. Money, Law, and Genocide 279 Appendix 289 Notes and Sources 311 Index 385 There has always been a certain conflict between justice and the law. HERBERT PELL The Splendid Blond Beast LTI The Splendid Blond Beast RIEDRICH NIETZSCHE called the aristocratic predators who write Fsociety's laws "the splendid blond beast" precisely because they so often behave as though they are beyond the reach of elemen­ tary morality. As he saw things, these elites have cut a path toward a certain sort of excellence consisting mainly of the exercise of power at the expense of others. When dealing with ordinary peo­ ple, he said, they "revert to the innocence of wild animals ....We can imagine them returning from an orgy of murder, arson, rape and torture, jubilant and at peace with themselves as though they had committed a fraternity prank-convinced, moreover, that the poets for a long time to come will have something to sing about and to praise."1 Their brutality was true courage, Nietzsche thought, and the foundation of social order. To day genocide-the deliberate destruction of a racial, cultural, or political group-is the paramount example of the institu­ tionalized and sanctioned violence of which Nietzsche spoke. Genocide has been a basic mechanism of empire and the national 3 4 Christopher Simpson state since their inception and remains widely practiced in "ad­ vanced" and "civilized" areas.2 Most genocides in this century have been perpetrated by nation-states upon ethnic minorities living within the state's own borders; most of the victims have been children. The people responsible for mass murder have by and large gotten away with what they have done. Most have succeeded in keeping wealth that they looted from their victims; most have never faced trial. Genocide is still difficultto eradicate because it is usually tolerated, at least by those who benefit from it. The Splendid Blond Beast examines how the social mechanisms of genocide often encourage tacit international cooperation in the escape from justice of those who perpetrated the crime. It looks at the social underpinnings and day-to-day dynamics of two mass crimes, the Armenian Genocide of 1915-18 and Hitler's Holocaust of the Jews, as well as the U.S. government's response to those tragedies. According to psychologist Ervin Staub, who has studied dozens of mass crimes, genocidal societies usually go through an evolution during which th� different strata of society literally learn how to carry out group murder. In his book The Roots of Evil, Staub con­ tends that genocidal atrocities most often take place in countries under great political, economic, and often military stress. They are usually led by authoritarian parties that wield great power yet are insecure in their rule, such as the Nazis in Germany or the Ittihad (Committee of Union and Progress) in Tu rkey. The ideologies of such parties can vary in important respects, but they are nonethe­ less often similar in that they create unity among "in-group" mem­ bers through dehumanization of outsiders. Genocidal societies also show a marked tendency toward what psychologists call "just­ world" thinking: Victims are believed to have brought their suffer­ ing upon themselves and, thus, to deserve what they get.3 But the ideology of these authoritarian parties and even their seizure of state power are not necessarily enough to trigger a genocide. The leading perpetrators need mass mobilizations to actually implement their agenda. For example, the real spearheads of genocide in Germany-the Nazi party, SS, and similar groups­ by themselves lacked the resources to disenfranchise and eventu­ ally murder millions of Jews. They succeeded in unleashing the Holocaust, however, by harnessing many of the otherwise ordinary elements of German life-of commerce, the courts, university THE SPLENDID BLOND BEAST 5 scholarship, religious observance, routine government administra­ tion, and so on-to the specialized tasks necessary for mass mur­ der. Not surprisingly, many of the leaders of these "ordinary" institutions were the existing notables in German society. The Nazi genocide probably would not have been possible without the active or tacit cooperation of many collaborators who did not consider themselves Nazis and, in some cases, even opposed aspects of Hitler's policies, yet nonetheless cooperated in mass murder. Put bluntly, the Nazis succeeded in genocide in part through offering bystanders money, property, status, and other rewards for their active or tacit complicity in the crime. The actions of Nazi Germany's business elite illustrate how this works. Prior to 1933, German business leaders did not show a marked impulse toward genocide. Anti-Semitism was present in German commercial life, of course, but was often less pronounced there than in other European cul lures of the day. 4 Among the Nazis' first acts in power, however, was the introduction of incen­ tives to encourage persecution of Jews. New Aryanization laws created a profitable business for banks, corporations, and mer­ chants willing to enforce Nazi racial preferences. Te ns of thou­ sands of Germans seized businesses or real estate owned by Jews, paying a fraction of the property's true value, or drove Jewish competitors out of business.5 Jewish wealth, and later Jewish blood, provided an essential lubricant that kept Germany's ruling coalition intact throughout its first decade in power. By 1944 and 1945, leaders of major German companies such as automaker Daimler Benz,6 electrical manufacturers AEG and Siemens,7 and most of Germany's large mining, steelmaking, chemical, and con­ struction companies found themselves deeply compromised by their exploitation of concentration camp labor, theft, and in some cases complicity in mass murder.