H O L O C A U S T
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HOLOCAUST
The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews
PETER LONGERICH
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Library of Congress Control Number: 2010922410
Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India
Printed in Great Britain
on acid-free paper by
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ISBN 978–0–19–280436–5
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Publisher’s Acknowledgements
The publishers would like to extend their especial thanks to Professor Jeremy
Noakes for his editorial contribution to the preparation of the English edition of
this book.
Acknowledgements
It would be impossible to list by name all the friends, colleagues, and other people
who in one way or another have contributed to the writing of this book.
I will therefore restrict myself to thanking the many archivists and librarians
who have helped me, as well as all my colleagues, both in Germany and abroad,
who have given me the opportunity to discuss various sections of the book and
some of the arguments to be found within it at various conferences, lectures, and
seminars. In fact, I would like to thank everyone with whom I have discussed this
subject, in whatever context, over the years.
The whole project would have been impossible without the generous assistance
of the German Department of Royal Holloway College, who once again gener-
ously gave me leave from my regular academic duties. I would like to thank all my
colleagues and students, in particular Maire Davies and Bill Jones. A ten-month
research residency at the International Research Centre of the Israeli Centre for
Remembrance and Research at Yad Vashem proved particularly enlightening, for
which I am very grateful to Israel Gutman, who was at that time the director of the
institute. I would also like to thank the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Universität
der Bundeswehr in Munich, in particular Michael Wolffsohn and Merith Niehuss,
to whom I submitted the original version of this book as my post-doctoral thesis.
The whole project would have been impossible without the generous assistance
of the German Department and the School of Modern Languages, Literature, and
Culture of Royal Holloway College. I would like to thank all my colleagues and
students. In particular I would like to express my deep gratitude to Jeremy Noakes
without whom the English edition would not exist.
London and Munich, November 2009
Contents
Abbreviations
ix
Introduction
1
Historical Background: Anti-Semitism in the Weimar Republic
10
P A R T I R A C I A L P E R S E C U T I O N , 1933–1939
1. The Displacement of the Jews from Public Life, 1933–1934
29
2. Segregation and Comprehensive Discrimination, 1935–1937
52
3. Interim Conclusions: The Removal of Jews from German Society,
the Formation of the National Socialist ‘People’s Community’,
and its Consequences for Jewish Life in Germany
70
4. The Intensification of the Racial Persecution of Non-Jewish Groups
by the Police Apparatus, 1936–1937
90
5. Comprehensive Deprivation of Rights and Forced Emigration, late
1937–1939
95
6. The Politics of Organized Expulsion
123
P A R T I I T H E P E R S E C U T I O N O F T H E J E W S , 1939–1941
7. The Persecution of Jews in the Territory of the Reich, 1939–1940
133
8. German Occupation and the Persecution of the Jews in Poland,
1939–1940/1941: The First Variant of a ‘Territorial Solution’
143
9. Deportations
151
viii
Contents
P A R T I I I M A S S E X E C U T I O N S O F J E W S I N T H E
O C C U P I E D S O V I E T Z O N E S , 1941
10. Laying the Ground for a War of Racial Annihilation
179
11. The Mass Murder of Jewish Men
192
12. The Transition from Anti-Semitic Terror to Genocide
206
13. Enforcing the Annihilation Policy: Extending the Shootings
to the Whole Jewish Population
219
P A R T I V G E N E S I S O F T H E F I N A L S O L U T I O N O N A
E U R O P E A N S C A L E , 1941
14. Plans for a Europe-Wide Deportation Programme after the Start of
Barbarossa
259
15. Autumn 1941: Beginning of the Deportations and Regional
Mass Murders
277
16. The Wannsee Conference
305
P A R T V T H E E X T E R M I N A T I O N O F T H E E U R O P E A N
J E W , 1942 –1945
17. The Beginning of the Extermination Policy on a European Scale in 1942
313
18. The Further Development of the Policy of Extermination after the
Turning of the War in 1942–1943: Continuation of the Murders
and Geographical Expansion of the Deportations
374
Conclusion
422
Notes
436
Bibliography
573
Index
627
Abbreviations
AA
Auswärtiges Amt (Foreign Ministry)
Abt.
Department
ADAP
Akten zur Deutschen Auswärtigen Politik
AdV
Alldeutscher Verband
AGK
Archivum Glównej Komisji Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich
w Polsce
AOK
Army High Command
APL
Archivum Panstwowe w Lublinie
Aufl.
Edition
BAB
Bundesarchiv Berlin
BAM
Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv
Batl.
Battalion
Bd.
volume
BDC
Berlin Document Centre
BdO
Commander of the Order Police
BdS
Commander of the Security Police
BHSt.A
Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv
Biuletyn
Biuletyn Glownej Komisji Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich
w Polsce
BLI
Bulletin Leo Baeck Institute
BT
Berliner Tageblatt
CDJC
Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine
CdZ
Head of the Civil Administration
CEH
Central European History
CV
Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens
(Central
