Friends of Padre Steve’s World,
Since I posted an article about Hitler’s attack on Poland a few days ago, and wrote an article about the T4 Euthanasia program which was authorized the same day as the invasion of Poland, followed up by the our Hearts of Darkness; I am following it up with an older article dealing with Hitler’s first use of the Einsatzgruppen in dealing with Poles who might become leaders in an anti-Nazi Resistance as well as Jews.
Another section of the article dealing with the campaign of mass murder and genocide conducted by Hitler’s legions in Eastern Europe. This section deals with the actions of the Einsatzgrüppen in during the Polish campaign and occupation in 1939 and 1940. In it you will see that the while most of the killing was done by the SS that the German military high command was not guiltless. Some commanders attempted to stop SS actions, but they were the minority. Most simply turned a blind eye to what was going on and a few would lend their assistance to the Einsatzgrüppen.
Please note, that all of this took place before the first extermination camps began operations, and were accomplished well before the decision about the Final Solution. This killing was done up close and personal by the men of the Einsatzgruppen and the Police battalions, sometimes with the direct support and approval of the Wehrmacht. In all just a few thousand troops massacred hundreds of thousands of Polish Jews as well as the Polish gentile elites.
The precedent of the Polish Campaign would set the course of future Einsatzgruppen Operations in the Soviet Union and the Baltic states. Their actions showed that formerly law abiding and otherwise decent people could become mass murderers and war criminals. Many of these men had been honorable police officers until the Ordungspolizei and Germanderei, the City and County Police were absorbed by the SS, and their units and members used as part of the Police, and Reserve Police Battalions which assisted the Einsatzgruppen in their mass murder of Poles, and later of Russians, Ukrainians. Belorussians, Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians. As historian Timothy Snyder wrote:
“The European history of the twentieth century shows us that societies can break, democracies can fall, ethics can collapse, and ordinary men can find themselves standing over death pits with guns in their hands. It would serve us well today to understand why.”
It is terribly uncomfortable, for as I always say, these men were little different than most of us, they were terribly ordinary. The real question for Americans is this: can once Fully trust formerly trusted officials of local, state and even Federal law enforcement agencies of being completely loyal to their oaths to the Constitution when the Justice Department, before it’s takeover by Trump Loyalists noted that Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists had already infiltrated police forces at every level, and that White Nationalist groups were the greater threat to national security than any other terrorist organization. Thus when local and state police authorities commit homicide against Black Citizens and then stand beside and support Neo-Nazis, they must be exposed and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law in order to protect and defend the great number of others who uphold the law, apply it equitably, and seek justice and and see their roles as servants, who protect and defend all citizens, not just those of those who are their race, creed, or political ideology.
Padre Steve+
Heinrich Himmler
The Polish campaign was a precursor to the Russian campaign and was not totally race driven. It contained elements of Germany’s perception of the injustice of Versailles which gave Poland the Danzig corridor and Germany’s desire to reconnect East Prussia to the Reich, as well as the perceived necessity to remove a potential enemy from its rear as it faced France, yet it was a campaign steeped in Nazi racial ideology. Poland resisted German efforts to ally itself with Germany in 1939, thus Hitler determined it “would be crushed first.” 80
Meeting with military leaders on 23 May 1939 Hitler “made it plain that the real issue was not Danzig, but securing of Germany’s Lebensraum….” 81 On 22 August Hitler enjoined the generals to “Close your hearts to pity! Act brutally! Eighty million people must obtain what is their right.” 82
Even so, most military leaders failed to appreciate what Hitler was calling on them to do; Erich von Manstein would later note that “what Hitler had to say about an eventual war with Poland, could not, in my opinion, be interpreted as a policy of annihilation.” 83
General Johannes Blaskowitz
Others such as Abwehr director Wilhelm Canaris was “utterly horrified.” As he read his notes to his closest colleagues “His voice trembled as he read, Canaris was acutely aware that he had witnessed something monstrous.” 84 General Johannes Blaskowitz, the controversial commander of the German 8th Army who would become the military commander in Poland did not leave any notes about the meeting. However, his biographer noted that Blaskowitz “may have naively attached a military meaning to these terms since he was busy with military matters and soon to begin operations.” 85 As was noted before this was also the interpretation of Erich Manstein gave Hitler’s words, but one has to wonder as to the veracity of his statements. 86 Field Marshal Keitel noted that the speech was “delivered in the finest sense of psychological timing and application,” with Hitler molding “his words and phrases to suit his audience.” 87
In light of the mixed interpretations by military leaders, it is possible that many misinterpreted Hitler’s intent and did not fully appreciated his ideology as they went into Poland, carefully secluding themselves in the narrow confines of their military world. While such an explanation is plausible for some, it is also true that many others in light of subsequent actions were in full agreement with Hitler. One author notes that “no man who participated in the FührerConferences….and there were present the highest ranking officers of the three services, could thereafter plead ignorance of the fact that Hitler had laid bare his every depth of infamy before them, and they had raised no voice in protest either then or later.” 88 In July, General Wagner, the Quartermaster General issued orders that “authorized German soldiers to take and execute hostages in the event of attacks by snipers or irregulars.” 89
Regardless of the meaning ascribed to Hitler’s speech by his generals, Hitler had already laid plans to destroy the Jews in Poland and decimate the Polish intelligentsia and leadership. Hitler gave Himmler the task of forming “Einsatzgrüppen to follow the German troops as they advanced into Poland and liquidate Poland’s upper class wherever it was to be found.” 90 While senior party leaders remained at Hitler’s side following the conference, Himmler worked to coordinate his troops, including the reinforced Totenkopf battalions and Einsatzgrüppen with the Army. 91
Himmler began planning in early May and the Army, working in close collaboration with the SS decided to “use SS and police units to augment their own forces for security tasks.” 92 Himmler established “five Einsatzgrüppen to accompany each of the numbered German armies at the start of the campaign.” 93 Placed under the aegis of Reinhard Heydrich the groups were broken down into smaller units of 100-150 men and allotted to army corps. All senior posts were occupied by officers of the SD, the Sicherhietsdienst. 94
Two additional Einsatzgrüppen were formed shortly after the invasion. 95Additionally three regiments of the SS Totenkopfverbande, under the direction of SS General Theodore Eicke were deployed in the rear areas of the advancing armies. These regiments were formed from the Concentration Camp guard units and eventually became the nucleus of the 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf. 96 The SS carefully shielded the real purpose of these units from the Army in the planning stages, while the Army might countenance anti-guerrilla operations and cooperate in arresting people who might lead resistance in Poland, the SS was not yet sure that the Army would support or countenance mass murder. 97 That being said, Heydrich worked with the Army to develop lists of up to 30,000 Poles to be arrested following the invasion including intellectuals, political leaders and clergy. 98
Himmler and Frank, Krakow, Spring 1940
To eliminate the Polish elites without disturbing the Army, Himmler and Heydrich gave the Army “only the bare minimum of information” as to their ultimate intent99 The deception was initially successful and many Wehrmacht commanders welcomed the assistance of the SS units for rear area security missions. Blaskowitz’s 8th Army defined the mission of the Einsatzgrüppen in the traditional doctrinal terms of the Ettapen, noting their mission as “the suppression of all anti-Reich and anti- German elements in the rear of the “fighting troops, in particular, counter espionage arrests of politically unreliable persons, confiscation of weapons, safeguarding of important counter- espionage materials etc…” 100 General Wagner, the Quartermaster General issued orders in July 1939 that “authorized German soldiers to take and execute hostages in the event of attacks by snipers or irregulars.” Despite the deception, there was no way to disguise the murder of Polish intelligentsia and Jews once it began, and had the Army had the political acumen and moral courage it could have considerably restricted or even halted the terror campaign. 101
Reinhardt Heydrich
The ensuing campaign in Poland demonstrated Hitler’s true intent. Heydrich openly discussed “murdering the Polish ruling class” of the aristocracy, Catholic clergy, communists and Jews at a meeting on September 7th, barely a week after the beginning of the invasion. 102 As the German armies advanced into Poland slicing through the badly deployed and inadequately equipped Polish Army the Einsatzgruppen and the Totenkopf Verbande followed in their wake, conducting mass arrests and executions of those Poles deemed to be a threat.
Many army leaders were worried about Polish soldiers left behind in rear areas as the armies advanced. In some cases that concern became a paranoid mindset and some generals believed that a “brutal guerrilla campaign has broken out everywhere and we are ruthlessly stamping it out.” 103
Ordungspolizei Battalion preparing for Mass Murder
Yet some of the actions by Einsatzgruppen and Totenkopf Verbande against the Polish elites and the Jews drew Army reactions. The unit commanded by SS General Woyrsch “behaved with such unparalleled bestiality that it was thrown out of the operational area” by General List of 14th Army.” 104 Another unit, the Totenkopfverbande Brandenburg came to Army attention when its commander remarked that the “SSVT would not obey Army orders.” The conclusion drawn by the Army General was that “the SSVT commander was following orders from some non-military authority to terrorize the local Jews.” 105
These atrocities as well as those of other Waffen-SS units were hard to hide and brought reactions out of army commanders who sought to punish the offenders. Blaskowitz and a few other commanders attempted to put a halt to SS actions against Poles and Jews, 106 but most officers turned a blind eye to the atrocities or outright condoned them. It is believed that General Walter Model and many other senior officers “not only knew what was occurring in Poland but actually took part in what Colonel General Franz Halder himself described in October as “this devilish plan.”” 107
Notification of a Mass Execution, Warsaw, March 1941
It appears that many of the officers who objected were not motivated so much by humanitarian, moral or legal considerations, but rather by the effect on good order and discipline of their soldiers. 108 Likewise it is clear that many officers, even if they did not participate in the actions probably approved of them. Many of the early biographies and histories of this period were written by authors who were influenced by surviving German officers. Many of these men were being rehabilitated and helping the Americans and British meet the threat of the Soviet Union, made no or little mention of the Army’s part in these actions.
Both Himmler and Heydrich were sensitive to the perception of the Army and resented the fact that the Army believed them to be responsible for actions that they were carrying out under the direction and orders of Hitler himself, They also resented that their troops were characterized as “undisciplined gangs of murderers” by many Army officers. 109
Einsatzgruppen Execution in a Bydgoszcz Poland 1939
After crushing the Polish armies and dividing Poland with the help of the Red Army, the Germans established what became known as the Government General, which was headed by Hans Frank. The new civilian administration came into conflict with the military governor, General Blaskowitz. Appalled by the actions of the SS, Police and the Nazi administration. Blaskowitz made an “elaborate report on the atrocities of the SS,” 110 expressing concern about his “extreme alarm about illegal executions, his worries about maintaining troop discipline under those circumstances, the failure of discussions with the SD and Gestapo and their assertions that they were only following SS Orders.” 111
The Synagogue in Bydgoszcz in 1939 with a Banner saying the “City is Cleansed of Jews”
While it is unclear if the memorandum made it to Hitler, it is clear that Hitler did know about the protest and Blaskowitz fell into disfavor and was reassigned after a period of continued conflict with the Nazi administration. Hitler was not impressed by the less than ruthless attitudes of Blaskowitz and other commanders. His reaction to Army objections regarding the methods of the SS and police units was characteristically acidic. Hitler’s military adjutant recalled that Hitler accused the Army’s leaders of using “Salvation Army” methods, and called their ideas regarding the occupation as “childish.” 112
Following the reassignment of Blaskowitz, other officers that objected were also relieved of their commands or reassigned. General Georg von Külcher was relieved of command for protesting SS and police atrocities. 113
At the beginning of the campaign the SS units and their commanders fell under military justice, and a number of SS officers and their troops were convicted by Army courts-martial for their actions. But soon, SS Officers convicted by Army courts-martial were given amnesty by Hitler and Hitler “removed SS units from the jurisdiction of military courts,” on October 4th 1939. 114 While the army remained, it was no longer in charge and would actively assist the SS and Police in combat and further atrocities against civilians. In November 1939, One German officer, who later was a conspirator in the July 20th plot, remarked, “was ashamed to be German! The minority are dragging our good through the mud by murdering, looting and torching houses will bring disaster on the whole German people if we do not stop it soon…” 115
Bodies of Einsatzgruppen Victims
The Army was soon relieved of responsibility for policing Poland which fell on the Ordungspolizei battalions and Gendarmerie. Many officers were pleased as they could now turn their backs on the situation there and begin to prepare for the campaign in the West.
Polish Jews Being Forced to Dig their Own Graves before being Murdered
The Ordungspolizei battalions and the Gendarmerie units were composed of mobilized city police and rural constabulary police. These men would soon wreak their own devastation on Poland in the coming months and years. 116Poland was also be the first use of mass evacuations of civilian populations to make room for German settlers, in the newly acquired Lebensraum. Poles were driven into the newly formed Government General and ethnic Germans moved into previously Polish occupied territories. By 1941 over 1,200,000 Poles and 300,000 Jews had been expelled and 497,000 ethnic Germans brought into provinces German had lost in 1919. 117
Prior to the war about 3.3 million Jews lived in Poland. The actions of the Einsatzgruppen and the Police brought a reign of terror to Poland’s Jews. The Jews were rounded up and sent to Ghettos from which they would be dispatched to the death camps following the decision to implement the “Final Solution.”After the war only some 50-70,000 Jews were found to have survived in Poland, the Polish Army and camps in Germany. A further 180,000 were repatriated from the Soviet Union. 118
To be continued….
Notes
80 Ibid. Weinberg. Visions of Victory p.8
81 Ibid. Goerlitz, History of the German General Staff p.346
82 Höhne, Heinze. The Order of the Death’s Head: The Story of Hitler’s SS. Translated by Richard Barry. PenguinBooks, New York and London, 2000. First English edition published by Martin Secker and Warburg Ltd. London 1969. Originally published as Der Orden unter dem Totenkopf, Verlag Der Spiegel, Hamburg 1966 p.259
83 Manstein, Erich von. Forward by B.H. Liddle Hart, Introduction by Martin Blumenson. Lost victories: The War Memoirs of Hitler’s Most Brilliant General. Zenith Press, St Paul MN 2004. First Published 1955 as Verlorene Siege, English Translation 1958 by Methuen Company p.29
84 Ibid. Hohne. Canaris p.347
85 Giziowski, Richard. The Enigma of General Blaskowitz. Hppocrene Books, New York 1997 p.119
86 Ibid. Manstein. Lost Victories p.29
87 Ibid. Goerlitz. The Memoirs of Field Marshal Keitel p.87
88 Wheeler-Bennett, John. The Nemesis of Power: The German Army in Politics 1918-1945. St. Martin’s Press Inc. New York, NY 1954 p.448
89 Ibid. Megargee. War of Annihilation p.13
90 Ibid. Höhne The Order of the Death’s Head p.297
91 Padfield, Peter. Himmler. MJF Books, New York 1990 p.264
92 Ibid. Megargee. War of Annihilation p.13
93 Ibid. Westermann. Hitler’s Police Battalions p.127
94 Ibid. Höhne The Order of the Death’s Head p.297 95 Ibid. Westermann. Hitler’s Police Battalions p.127 96 Ibid. Sydnor Soldiers of Destruction p.37
97 Ibid. Giziowski Blaskowitz p.120
98 Ibid. Witte. The Wehrmacht p.100
99 Ibid. Höhne The Order of the Death’s Head pp. 297-298
100 Ibid. Giziowski Blaskowitz p.120
101 Ibid. Höhne The Order of the Death’s Head p.298
102 Ibid. Witte. The Wehrmacht p.100
103 Newton, Steven H. Hitler’s Commander: Field Marshal Walter Model-Hitler’s Favorite General Da Capo Press a division of Perseus Books Group, Cambridge MA 2005. p.74
104 Ibid. Giziowski. The Enigma of General Blaskowitz pp.165-166
105 Ibid. Sydnor, Soldiers of Destruction pp. 42-43 Note SSVT is the common abbreviation for Verfügungstruppe which was the early designation of the SS Totenkopf Verbande and some other Waffen SS Units.
106 Ibid. Goerlitz. History of the German General Staff p.359
107 Ibid. Newton. Hitler’s Commander p.78
108 Ibid. Witte The Wehrmacht p.102
109 Ibid. Höhne The Order of the Death’s Head p.298
110 Ibid. Goerlitz. History of the German General Staff .p.359 111 Ibid. Giziowski. The Enigma of General Blaskowitz p.173 112 Ibid. Giziowski. TheEnigma of General Blaskowitz p.173
113 Ibid. Witte The Wehrmacht p.102
114 Burleigh, Michael and Wippermann, Wolfgang. The Racial State: Germany 1933-1945 Cambridge University Press, New York NY and Cambridge UK 1991. p.100
115 Ibid. Witte The Wehrmacht p.102
116 For a good account of one of the Police Battalions see Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher Browning Harper Perennial Publishers, San Francisco CA 1992
117 Reitlinger, Gerald. The SS: Alibi of a Nation. The Viking Press, New York, 1957. Republished by Da Capo Press, New York, NY p.131
118 Ibid. Davidowicz The War Against the Jews pp.395-397
The Inglorius Padre Steve's World 
Hello,
How do you view the left? Do you understand the history of Soviet Russian atrocities, National SOCIALIST Germany? The human rights abuses the Cuban communists have inflicted on the good catholic people of that nation? The left In this country embraces killing the unborn. Many of these unborn are black babies? This is wholesale genocide of African Americans, and all human beings and is a mortal sin, in Catholicism. How about the genocide that currently takes place in communist China, and most notably in communist North Korea. Unfortunately, your liberalism has blinded you to reality, and makes you much more dangerous to those of us who believe in classic liberal thought, freedom, free markets that are free of race based quotas, and freedom of expression. I wholly disagree with your opinions, expressed herewith, and I believe you are blind to the realities of the evil that Is leftist thought. We should not embrace group think and should value the amendments afforded us by the brilliant thinkers who created the constitution. To me you are either evil, or naive. Either way you are a dangerous individual advertising yourself as a doer of good. Contrary however you are as Lenin put it, a “useful idiot”.
Brian,
I won’t give you the courtesy of thanking you for your vile and half-baked comment. You resort to name calling throughout your comment. I find that offensive and by doing so I have no reason to respect you. First you don’t know me and second you attack in broad generalities without citing specifics. Since you are the third person in the past two weeks to attack me in similar ways, but you are the most repugnant of them. They attacked my positions without facts, but didn’t resort to the your putrid use of name calling and insults.
So, I’ll start with abortion, of which it seem you know little about other than what is now outdated propaganda. Let’s deal with facts and leave out the name calling. I am against abortion but do not believe that it is the government’s responsibility to limit it, same with birth control. But you don’t actually report any facts regarding the actual numbers of abortions in the USA. The fact is that in the years leading up to Roe v. Wade abortions legal and illegal were running between 500,000 and 800,000 a year. While Governor of California, Ronald Reagan supported by a strongly Republican legislature passed the most expansive pro-abortion law in the country. After Roe v. Wade they jumped to 1.2 to 1.5 million a year until 1990 when they peaked at just over 1.6 million. Since then they have steadily declined almost every year and the last reported data that in 2018 there were 327,000 abortions in the US and in 2019 just 61,229. It is also likely that many of the abortions in 2018 and 2019 were to save the life of the mother because so many states have severely restricted access to abortions.
Second, simply being anti-abortion does not make a person “pro life.” The Nazis too were against abortion, but they had no problem killing pregnant women, or killing defective children which they referred to as Gnadetöten or mercy killings.
Being pro life means, that all lives are sacred and that one does not abandon children and families, deny them health care, adequate nutrition, or in the case of illegal immigrants or refugees separate families and lock children in cages, nor does it mean approving of drone strikes where Hellfire missiles are fired into homes or tents of suspected terrorists and instead of killing the terrorists end up killing women and children, including pregnant women.
What the Trump Administration is doing is little different than the early years of the Nazis. They have determined during COVID that certain lives are unworthy of life. I could keep going on, but if you claim to be pro life but are only anti-abortion, you are not pro-life. If you cannot be honest stay away because I will figuratively chew you up and spit you out every time, facts matter. Not your unfounded accusations about me, or your lack of facts dealing with abortion.
So on to the Nazis and their policy of genocide against the Jews, and your comparisons of them with the Soviets, Chicoms, and other Communist regimes.
My true academic specialty in both my Bachelors and Masters degrees in history is German History, from 1870 to the War Crimes Trials. My primary professor, a German-American who came to the US as a 7 year old served in WWII as an interpreter and interrogator with the 82nd Airborne. He served as a translator and interpreter the the Major Nuremberg trials and those that followed. In my Masters degree in WWII history I continued my studies on the Nazi State and expanded out of necessity to Japan’s crimes, which ashore and at sea were horrific. I have written about them on this site and every time that I do I receive hate mail from Japanese nationalists and their bevy of war crime deniers. I have read much and I am aware of the Soviet crimes against their own peoples, their minority groups, and the lands that they occupied and instituted Communist regimes after the war, and yes in raw numbers they were much greater than those of the Germans, except that they were spread over decades and directed at many different groups, usually in regions where there was thought to be resistance and possible rebellion to the Central Soviet, like in the Ukraine SSR, and in the Central Asian SSRs.
The Nazis did the bulk of theirs in a period of under 4 years and their primary target were the Jews, from which they expanded to others that they considered sub-human. The Nazi drive to kill the Jews was Hitler’s driving goal in domestic and foreign policy. The Nazi regime is the only regime in history to use the extermination of a race in their own country and worldwide as their central tenant of policy. They are the only country in history to build camps with no other purpose but to exterminate the Jews, I am speaking of Soribor, Belzec, and Treblinka since Auschwitz had a dual mission. Likewise they were the on nation ever to set up Euthanasia centers to kill those adults and children they considered to be “life unworthy or life.” Had the Nazis succeeded in defeating the Soviet Union they would have starved and killed 30-50 million Soviet citizens as a minimum, and who knows how many other Europeans. That being said I don’t ignore the Soviet crimes, or those of the Chinese Communists or other repressive regimes, but as far as what I write about here, I stay pretty much with what I know the best. I would suggest that you read Timothy Snyder’s book Bloodlands which deals with both the Nazi and Soviet killing campaigns in detail. As far as Soviet Symbols, and the use of them by some in the American Left, I look down on them as well and as an old Cold Warrior still see them for what they are, symbols of repression and evil.
I am not going to go on because I have better things to do. But I will say, don’t bother to post a comment here again, because I will trash it and block you. I have no use for vile hate filled propagandists of the Right who claim to be conservative and love the Constitution but disrespect it at every turn. I have sworn an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic for over 39 years of military service in peace and war. My loyalty is to that Constitution and no President or political party, as I have served under 6 Presidents and found things that I admired or didn’t, and policies that I like and those that I didn’t in all of the first five, going back to Reagan. Had I enlisted a few months before I would have Jimmy Carter too. However, I see the current occupant of the White House as a man whose only loyalty is to himself, not the country or the Constitution. He has made that plain.
Compared to how you treated me in your comments, I have treated you with an extraordinary amount of patience and kindness.
So be gone and never come back. If you do you will be blocked. If you threaten me in any way you will be reported to the FBI because your threats are coming from near San Diego California, which makes threats a Federal Crime. I had to do that with a real Neo-Nazi not long after I returned From Iraq.
Toodles.