Chroniclers of systematic destruction

A few hours before setting fire to the synagogue in Baden-Baden, sixty Jewish men, including guests at the spa, were rounded-up and marched through the town in columns. While they marched, SS men yelled to the German spectators, “Here are the Jews. Do to them what you will!” No hand was raised against them. When the Jews reached the synagogue they were funneled up the staircase through a column of SS men and curious onlookers. Once inside they were seated in the sanctuary and forced to listen while a fellow Jew, gymnasium professor Dr. Flehinger, read selections from Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ at the lecturn from which the Torah scroll is generally read. Afterwards, the Jews had to rehearse the Horst Wessel song until they could recite the text perfectly. Forty of these Jews were later deported to Dachau. This photo is dated 18 November 1938. Photo credit, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Between 1955 and 1958, Leon Poliakov and Joseph Wulf published, in German, three volumes of documents on National Socialist perpetrators. Léon Poliakov (1910–1997) founded a centre for research on the Holocaust in France, the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine (CDJC, Centre for Contemporary Jewish Documentation), a historical commission to document the crimes against French Jews. Today, it is part of the Mémorial de la Shoah, the central Holocaust memorial site in France.

He also published extensively on the subject of Nazi perpetrators. Poliakov acted as an expert-advisor to the French delegation during the Nuremberg trials. In his function as the director for research at the CDJC, he explored the systematic destruction of Jews. His publication ‘Le Bréviaire de la haine. Le IIIe Reich et les Juifs‘ (Breviary of Hate. The Third Reich and the Jews) in 1952 offered one of the first comprehensive studies of the Holocaust.

Joseph Wulf (1912–1974) published the first documentary works on the Holocaust in German. He confronted German society with the crimes. From 1955 until his suicide in 1974, Joseph Wulf lived in Berlin. He researched the history of the Holocaust and the culture of the destroyed Polish Jewry. In his publications, Wulf focused on German sources to better educate German society about the crimes committed in their name. He named the perpetrators in various sectors of society, which was met with great resistance in German post-war society.

‘Das Dritte Reich und die Juden‘ (The Third Reich and the Jews) was the first joint publication of Poliakov and Wulf about Nazism, in 1955. One year later, they published ‘Das Dritte Reich und seine Diener‘ (The Third Reich and Its Servants), and in 1959, ‘Das Dritte Reich und seine Denker‘ (The Third Reich and Its Thinkers).

George L. Mosse (1918–1999) has been described as one of the 20th century’s most provocatively original historians. Best known for his work on the origins of fascism, he dealt with modern European social, cultural, and political history. Mosse’s work helped impel research into new fields including new cultural history, the comparative study of fascism, the history of racism and antisemitism, the study of bourgeois respectability, the aesthetics of nationalism, modern Jewish history, and the history of gender and sexuality. Themes that Mosse did much to advance now occupy a prominent place in the historical scholarship of modern Europe.

In his article on the three books by Poliakov and Wulf, in the journal ‘Commentary’, published in August 1960, Mosse wrote: “These weighty volumes of documents show us how little we have, as yet, penetrated to the core of National Socialism. Historians have concentrated on the political and sociological side of the movement to the virtual exclusion of its ideology. Yet one cannot read through these volumes without being impressed by the all-pervasiveness of the ideological appeal, and without seeing that the Jewish question was; unmistakably, central to this ideology.”

“Indeed, the authors apologize for the fact that even in those volumes not specifically concerned with the Jews, so many documents seem to deal with their fate. But there is no need for such an apology, the less so since the majority of the documents deal with the war years. What had always been central to National Socialist thought then became an obsession, not only in the mind of Hitler but within the whole apparatus of party and state. Racialism, discussed in these volumes with an almost monotonous sameness, is the clue without which National Socialism remains forever inexplicable.”

These paragraphs which follow are taken from the introductory chapter of ‘Das Dritte Reich und die Juden‘ (The Third Reich and the Jews) . The German original text is followed by the translation.

Das in der vorliegenden Dokumentensammlung behandelte Thema weist einige besonders hervorstechende Charaktermale auf. Im wesentlichen umfassen sie den Komplex, der unter der Bezeichnung „Endlösung der Judenfrage“ bekanntgeworden ist. Die annähernde Zahl der Vergasten und auf andere Weise Ermordeten ist bekannt. Auch über die zu diesem Zweck vom hitleristischen Verwaltungsapparat aufgezogene Maschinerie ist man ziemlich genau unterrichtet.

“The subject dealt with in the present collection of documents has some particularly salient features. Essentially, they comprise the complex that has become known as the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question”. The approximate number of those gassed and murdered in other ways is known. The machinery set up for this purpose by the Hitlerite administrative apparatus is also fairly well known.”

Aber wie kam es zu dieser ausschlaggebenden Entscheidung? Ist es richtig, wenn einige Erzählungen oder Hinweise die Vermutung erlauben, daß Goebbels und Heydrich die Triebfedern dieses Unternehmens waren, während Heinrich Himmler den kategorischen Befehl des Führers erst nach heftigem Widerstreben ausführte? Welche Beamten und Verwaltungsangestellten wurden davon in Kenntnis gesetzt? Auch heute noch — 10 Jahre nach den Ereignissen — besitzt der Geschichtsschreiber hierüber keine einzige verläßliche Unterlage, ganz in dem Sinne wie Himmler selbst einmal sagte: „Es ist ein Ruhmesblatt unserer Geschichte, aber es wird niemals beschrieben sein.“

“But how did this decisive decision come about? Is it correct if some narratives or indications allow the assumption that Goebbels and Heydrich were the driving forces of this enterprise, while Heinrich Himmler carried out the categorical order of the Führer only after fierce resistance? Which officials and administrators were informed of this? Even today – 10 years after the events – the historian does not possess a single reliable document about this, quite in the sense as Himmler himself once said: “It is a glorious page in our history, but it will never be described.” “

Vellum scroll with an eyewitness account and remembrance of those lost in a 1918 massacre in Novhorod-Siversʹkyi, Russia, (now Ukraine.) Written soon after the pogrom, it curses the perpetrators, recounts the events, and records a prayer for the dead and the names of the men, women, and children who were murdered. It is the only known eyewitness account of this event. On April 6, 1918, as Red Army troops retreated from the German Army, they attacked the Jews of Novhorod-Siversʹkyi, and 88 were killed. Hostility toward Jews was widespread in the Russian Empire, and the military was notoriously antisemitic. Anti-Jewish pogroms, outbreaks of mass violence, erupted frequently in the early 20th century, causing immense suffering. These scrolls were a traditional way to express community remembrance and to honor victims of pogroms. The practice of recording the names of the dead was done following the Holocaust in memorial books known as Yizkor books, created through the collective efforts of survivors to remember and preserve what was lost. Dated after 1918 April-before 1918 December. Photo credit, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection.

Ohne den entsprechenden Abstand ist in diesem Falle eine Geschichtsschreibung besonders schwierig und heikel. Doch kommt noch ein weiteres erschwerendes Moment hinzu. Eine jüdische Feder — und wenn sie noch so gewissenhaft sein will — muß, in die undankbare Rolle des Anklägers gezwungen, Gefahr laufen, den rechten Ton zu verfehlen oder an den beiden gleicherweise gefährlichen Klippen scheitern, daß sich der Historiker erstens jeglichen —• wenn auch verständlichen — Ressentiments zu enthalten hat und zweitens übermenschliche „wissenschaftliche“ Objektivität besitzen muß, die jedem angesichts von 6 Millionen Leichen — einem Drittel des gesamten jüdischen Volkes — schwerfallen dürfte.

“Without the appropriate distance, a historiography in this case is particularly difficult and delicate. But there is another complicating factor. A Jewish pen – however conscientious it may wish to be – forced into the thankless role of accuser, must run the risk of missing the right note or failing on the two equally dangerous cliffs that the historian must, first, refrain from any — albeit understandable — resentment and, secondly must possess superhuman “scientific” objectivity, which should be difficult for anyone in the face of 6 million corpses – one third of the entire Jewish people.”

Aus diesem Grunde wurde die einzig vollkommen neutrale und vorurteilslose Form einer Sammlung von Dokumenten und unbeeinflußbaren Zeugenaussagen — sie stammen größtenteils aus den Archiven des Dritten Reiches selbst — gewählt.

“For this reason the only completely neutral and unprejudiced form of a collection of documents and uninfluential testimonies – most of them coming from the archives of the Third Reich itself – was chosen.”

Dadurch erübrigt es sich, den schmerzlichen, als „kollektive Schuldfrage” bereits in die Geschichte eingegangenen Fragenkomplex zu erörtern. Ohne nochmals auf dieses Thema zurückzukommen, möchten wir uns hier mit folgender Bemerkung begnügen: ln allen zivilisierten Ländern sind zwischen 1945 und 1955 zahlreiche Werke erschienen; Juden und Nichtjuden haben sich mit dem in der Geschichte unserer Zivilisation neuen Komplex des industrialisierten Mordens an Männern, Frauen und Kindern befaßt, denen nichts anderes zum Vorwurf gemacht wurde, als daß sie in diesem und nicht in jenem Bett geboren waren…

Yellow cloth badge in the shape of a six-pointed Star of David with black stiching around the edge. The star outline is formed from two overlapping, dyed triangles and has Dutch text in the center. Dated 1940-45. Photo credit, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection.

“This makes it unnecessary to discuss the painful complex of questions that has already gone down in history as the “collective guilt question”. Without returning to this subject, we would like to content ourselves here with the following remark: ln all civilized countries between 1945 and 1955 numerous works have appeared; Jews and non-Jews have dealt with the complex, new in the history of our civilization, of the industrialized murder of men, women and children, who were not blamed for anything other than that they were born in this bed and not in that one…”

Ausgerechnet im pedantischen Deutschland ist dieses Thema — außer in einigen Schriften ganz allgemeiner Art — bisher keiner einzigen ernsthaften Untersuchung gewürdigt worden. Weshalb ein solches Mißverhältnis? Ist denn nicht das Wissen davon, was geschah und wie es geschah, einem Stillschweigen vorzuziehen, welches verschiedene, unter Umständen sich sogar widersprechende Beweggründe haben könnte?

“In pedantic Germany, of all places, this subject has not been the subject of a single serious study, except in a few writings of a very general nature. Why such a disproportion? Is not the knowledge of what happened and how it happened preferable to silence, which could have various, possibly even contradictory motives?”

Dem Außenstehenden will erscheinen, als sei gerade das Gewissen der untadeligsten und kultiviertesten Deutschen am meisten durch jene Verbrechen belastet, an denen sie selbst keinerlei Anteil hatten; Verbrechen jedoch, die in ihrem Namen, im Namen des gesamten deutschen Volkes, begangen wurden… Wenn nun auch die strikte Verneinung (in unseren Tagen leider nur allzu häufig!) keinesfalls eine Lösung darstellt, so ist zurückhaltendes Schweigen bestimmt erst recht keine.

“To the outsider it would seem that the conscience of the most blameless and cultivated Germans is most burdened by those crimes in which they themselves had no part; crimes, however, which were committed in their name, in the name of the entire German people…. If strict denial (unfortunately all too common in our days!) is by no means a solution, restrained silence certainly is not.”

Wenn die vorliegende Studie zur Zerstreuung nicht gerechtfertigten Unbehagens, zur besseren Erkenntnis der Zusammenhänge und zu ihrem Bewußtwerden beitragen und eine sorgfältige Nachforschung anregen würde, ist die Arbeit der Herausgeber dieses Buches nicht umsonst gewesen.

“If the present study would contribute to the dispersion of unjustified uneasiness, to the better realization of the connections and to their becoming conscious and would stimulate a careful investigation, the work of the editors of this book would not have been in vain.”