Jon Milani

Himmler’s Einsatzgruppen and the “Final Solution;” an Analysis of Systematic Extermination in the Warthetagu Territory

On October 4, 1943, Heinrich Himmler gave a speech to SS Officers in Posen, Poland, where he spoke about the difficulties associated with the systematic extermination of European Jews demanded by the Nazi programme.[1] While some historians attribute this “Final Solution” to the intentional outcome of early forms of antisemitism, others postulate its genesis was an undirected outcome in the evolution of increasingly radical antisemitic policies during the latter years of the Reich. Similarly, while many historians present Hitler as the architect of extermination (even in terms of the use of gas), others suggest that a host of political, military, and bureaucratic institutions were responsible for producing a systematized genocide. Historians have also considered whether the “Final Solution” was initiated by an explicit “Führer Order.” Arguably, while Hitler authorized the measures that lead to the extermination of Jews in the east, he deferred responsibility for determining its outcome to various Nazi officials; under these conditions, semi-autonomous entities including Himmler’s Einsatzgruppen contributed to the systematization of extermination in the Warthegau territory.

Many early scholarship adopted an “intentionalist” approach to the study of the Holocaust; these scholars assert that the systematic annihilation of the Jews was conceived of by Hitler early in his political career and that steps to the “Final Solution” were programmatically instituted as early as the mid 1930s. For “intentionalist” historians such as Karl-Dietrich Bracher and John Toland, early antisemitic policies were part of a well-defined programme of total Jewish extermination.[2] According to Lucy Dawidowicz, Mein Kampf was the essential formulation of Hitler’s programme for the genocidal policies that followed in the late 1930s and 1940s.[3] Other historians cite Hitler’s second book as foreshadowing the gassing of the Jews in the Warthegau territory in the 1940s.[4] Consensus among “intentionalist” historians has suggested that Hitler envisioned systematic extermination during the early years of his political career, and that he initiated antisemitic policies in order to realize a programme of eastern extermination.

By contrast, the “functionalist” approach explains Jewish extermination as primarily the result of ad hoc policy-based solutions to the logistical constraints of eastward Jewish expulsion. For “functionalists,” Hitler was not solely responsible for the rise of programmatic extermination; furthermore, this approach disputes the requirement of a “Führer Order” for the genesis of the “Final Solution.” According to a strict “functionalist” interpretation, held by scholars like Martin Broszat and Hans Mommsen, Hitler uttered no explicit extermination orders to commence the “Final Solution.”[5] Rather, the “Final Solution” evolved out of the fragmentation of Reich institutions and the subsequent discontinuity of antisemitic policies during the late 1930s and early 1940s; ultimately, the direction of systematic extermination gained traction as an outgrowth of early forms of extermination in the Warthegau territory. Although these interpretations do not absolve Hitler’s guilt in the Holocaust, they necessarily challenge the primacy of Hitler’s hand in the development of Jewish extermination policies in the east.

More recent scholarship by Ian Kershaw and Christopher Browning has taken a “synthesis” approach to reconciling the disconnection between “intentionalist” and “functionalist” explanations of the “Final Solution.” Although it is doubtlessly attractive to assert Hitler’s primacy in the Holocaust, the “intentionalist” interpretation on its own is somewhat problematic. According to Kershaw, it is dubious to understand Hitler’s early antisemitic language – hateful, but not altogether unique in the Völkisch Right – as foreshadowing programmatic genocide.[6] According to Browning, this “post-Auschwitz” perspective ignores the authenticity of eastward expulsion policies.[7] While originally concerned with the expulsion of Jews from German economic life, according to Yehuda Bauer, the interim period was characterized by full-scale physical expulsion of Jews from German territory.[8] As such, the rise of systematic extermination can be best understood by examining the infrastructural strains of mass-deportation and ghettoization in the Warthegau territory, which provided conditions that demanded more thorough methods of dealing with the growing Jewish problem.[9]

According to Browning, these often ignored interim years in the Warthegau territory are crucial to demonstrating not only the nexus of “intention” and “function,” but also provide the impetus of systematization of Jewish extermination.[10] Although many historians agree that Hitler provided, at least, the impetus for the radicalization of antisemitic policies, the lack of early directives by the Führer resulted in increased policy radicalization at an institutional level, including proposals for mass-sterilization as a means of alleviating the strain of Jewish expulsion.[11] Institutional radicalism was coupled with radicalism at the front. According to Browning, the mass shooting of Russian Jews by the Einsatzgruppen, as well as early killing experiments against Russian prisoners of war, represents the genesis of Jewish mass-extermination.[12] It was within this radicalized climate that the impossibilities of expulsion gave way to the necessities of systematic genocide. According to Christian Gerlach, the Wannsee Conference, where the heads of various branches of the Reich leadership met to decide the institutional coordination, was the most important step in reaching “Final Solution.”[13] Although Hitler did not take part in the meeting, his monocratic status necessarily directed (at least implicitly) the Reich leadership toward policies of total Jewish annihilation in the east.[14]

According to the “synthesis” approach, it seems unlikely that Hitler foreshadowed programmatic execution of the Jews as early as the 1920s. Furthermore, it is even less likely that Hitler always intended to use poison gas to liquidate Jews in the Warthegau territory. Rather, it seems that the use of poison gas became the preferred method of mass-extermination because of its efficiency. Kershaw acknowledges that the use of Zyklon B in Nazi death camps was likely connected to the use of gas and gas-vans in the T4 “Euthanasia Action.”[15] According to Richard Breitman, theEinsatzgruppen came under adverse psychological distress due to the nature of their “work” in the east.[16] And, Himmler admitted the that task at hand was altogether more difficult than mere “party-talk” suggested.[17] The use of poison gas and the subsequent construction of Nazi death camps as mechanisms of systematized extermination were advantageous.[18] Not only was the use of gas practical in terms of overall efficiency, but it also mitigated the psychological burden placed on the Einsatzgruppen.

Based on analysis, it seems that a “synthesis” approach to understanding Jewish systematic extermination is the most appropriate. Contrary to the “intentionalist” claim, it seems unlikely that Hitler’s early dogmatic writings foreshadowed wide-ranging extermination policies or the use of gas in the Warthegau territory. It seems evident that the systematic realization of the “Final Solution” was, at least implicitly, on the Führer’s authorization. However, its genesis was more likely the outgrowth of evolving and radicalizing antisemitic policies, the result of logistical constraints of the mass-expulsion of Jews to the east. Its systematization was directly related to the ad hoc application of more efficient methods of extermination. Concurrently, those methods were necessarily adopted as means of limiting the strain placed on the Einsatzgruppen; experimentation with gas-vans unequivocally led to the construction of gas chambers not simply as the most efficient mechanism of extermination, but also as the most “humane” for Himmler’s SS, who necessarily carried the burden of Jewish annihilation for the Reich.

[1]Heinrich Himmler, “Speech to SS officers, Posen, October 4, 1943,” doc. 1919-PS, in Office of the United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946) in Robert G. Moeller, The Nazi State and German Society: A Brief History with Documents (New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010), 139-140; Not only does Himmler make reference to the difficulties of carrying out Jewish extermination, but he also notes that the actions of the Einsatzgruppen were to be carried out in the strictest secrecy – that the SS should carry the burden for the Reich. As such, it seems more plausible that Hitler deferred responsibility for Jewish extermination to Himmler and other subordinate Reich leaders; secrecy and distance lent themselves to Hitler’s desire for posthumous absolution of guilt, should the crimes of the SS ever be revealed.

[2]Ian Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship (New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc., 1993), 88; John Toland, Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography (Port Moody: Anchor Publishing, 1991), 89.

[3]Lucy Dawidowcz, The War Against the Jews (New York: Bantam Books, 1986), 193-195; Arguably Dawidowcz makes the fatal mistake of assuming the explicit connection between antisemitism in the 1800s and antisemitism in the Third Reich. Although she might rightly recognize that one can draw a line from Martin Luther to Hitler, the antisemitism of the Third Reich was unique for many reasons, not the least of which because of its biological component, informed by conceptions of social Darwinism.

[4]Joachim C. Fest, Hitler (translated, London, 1974) cited in Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship, 83.

[5]Christopher Browning, “Nazi Resettlement Policy and the Search for a Solution to the Jewish Question, 1939-1941,” German Studies Review, Vol. 9, No. 3 (October, 1986), 498.

[6]Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship, 89.

[7]Christopher Browning, “Nazi Resettlement Policy and the Search for a Solution to the Jewish Question, 1939-1941,” German Studies Review, Vol. 9, No. 3 (October, 1986), 508.

[8]Yehuda Bauer, “Genocide: Was It the Nazis’ Original Plan?” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Vol. 450, Reflections on the Holocaust: Historical, Philosophical, and Educational Dimensions (Jul., 1980), 40.

[9]Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship, 95.

[10]Christopher Browning, “Nazi Resettlement Policy and the Search for a Solution to the Jewish Question, 1939-1941,” German Studies Review, Vol. 9, No. 3 (October, 1986), 499.

[11]Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship, 97.

[12]Christopher Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution: The evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942 (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyers’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, 2004), 7-8.

[13]Christian Gerlach, “The Wannsee Conference, the Fate of German Jews, and Hitler’s Decision in Principle to Exterminate All European Jews,” Journal of Modern History Vol.70, No.4 (December, 1998), 760; Gerlach’s analysis aptly counters the often-held notion that programmatic extermination was already in place prior to the Wannsee Conference. Rather, Gerlach suggests that the Reich leadership assembled at the conference indicates that the purpose of the meeting was to establish the institutional coordination to carry out programmatic extermination on a systematic level and in secret.

[14]Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship, 106.

[15]Ian Kershaw, Hitler – 1936-45: Nemesis (New York: The Penguin Press, 2001), 483.

[16]Richard Breitman, “Himmler and the ‘Terrible Secret’ among the Executioners,” Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 26, No. 3/4 The Impact of Western Nationalisms: Essays Dedicated to Walter Z. Laqueur on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday (Sept., 1991), 431; Christopher Browning, in Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Batallion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, provides an interesting analysis into the conditions under which reserve police forces in the east became the executioners at the spearhead of systematic extermination. His analysis is largely in opposition to attempts by historians such Daniel Goldhagen, who, in Hitler’s Willing Executioners, argues that the units that spearheaded Jewish extermination were totally committed to the Nazi cause.

[17]Heinrich Himmler, “Speech to SS officers, Posen, October 4, 1943,” doc. 1919-PS, in Office of the United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946) in Robert G. Moeller, The Nazi State and German Society: A Brief History with Documents (New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010), 139.

[18]Richard Breitman, “Himmler and the ‘Terrible Secret’ among the Executioners,” Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 26, No. 3/4 The Impact of Western Nationalisms: Essays Dedicated to Walter Z. Laqueur on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday (Sept., 1991), 431.

Bibliography

Bauer, Yehuda. “Genocide: Was It the Nazis’ Original Plan?” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Vol. 450, Reflections on the Holocaust: Historical, Philosophical, and Educational Dimensions (Jul., 1980), 35-45.

Breitman, Richard. “Himmler and the ‘Terrible Secret’ among the Executioners” Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 26, No. 3/4 The Impact of Western Nationalisms: Essays Dedicated to Walter Z. Laqueur on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday (Sept., 1991), 451-445.

Browning, Christopher. “Nazi Resettlement Policy and the Search for a Solution to the Jewish Question, 1939-1941,” German Studies Review, Vol. 9, No. 3 (October, 1986), 497-519.

Browning, Christopher. The Origins of the Final Solution: The evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyers’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, 2004.

Dawidowcz, Lucy. The War Against the Jews. New York: Bantam Books, 1986.Gerlach, Christian. “The Wannsee Conference, the Fate of German Jews, and Hitler’s Decision in Principle to Exterminate All European Jews” Journal of Modern History Vol.70, No.4 (December, 1998), 759-812.

Himmler, Heinrich. “Speech to SS officers, Posen, October 4, 1943,” doc. 1919-PS, in Office of the United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946) in Robert G. Moeller, The Nazi State and German Society: A Brief History with Documents. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010.

Kershaw, Ian. Hitler – 1936-45: Nemesis. New York: The Penguin Press, 2001.Kershaw, Ian. The Nazi Dictatorship. New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc., 1993.

Toland, John. Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography. Port Moody: Anchor Publishing, 1991.

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Originally submitted to:

Professor (Dr.) Bredohl

University of Regina 

October 26, 2010