CHAPTER 8
EXPECTATIONS AND OFFICIAL POLICY ON THE EVE OF THE INVASION
All those concerned with the preparations for the imminent invasion and subsequent occupation, particularly those involved in planning the economic exploitation of the Soviet Union, were banking on a rapid and successful conclusion to the military campaign and a consequentially early start for the implementation of their occupation policy itself. The success of the whole operation depended on it. If the Blitzkrieg developed into a war of attrition, then the deficiencies of the German war economy would be laid bare, with potentially fatal consequences. Therefore, the presumption that the campaign would be won in the allotted time frame – indeed, that it had to be – was built into both the invasion and the occupation plans. The expected duration for accomplishing the military objectives of the eastern campaign ranged from six weeks to three months. Meeting this target would ensure an end to major hostilities prior to the onset of the autumn rains and well before the start of the notoriously cold Russian winter. Few among the political and military elite believed that the target would not be met. All those directly involved in the planning for the campaign and subsequent occupation were in agreement that the aims could be achieved in the time frame envisaged.
With the formulation and distribution of the economic-political guidelines of 23 May 1941, the central aim of the campaign against the Soviet Union – to obtain as much as possible in the way of agricultural produce from the Soviet territories – had been clearly established and approved by Germany's supreme leadership. With barely a month till the invasion date of 22 June, the moment for setting official policy had indeed now arrived. The various and, at times, contrasting proposals from the planning staffs within the VJPB, RMEL, Wi Rü Amt, Bureau Rosenberg, RSHA and Office of the RKFDV would have to be weighed up and evaluated whilst the planners themselves continued with their machinations. As so often, however, things were not quite so straightforward in the Nazi regime. Conflicts over such vital issues as the allocation of power in the occupied Soviet territories, the policies to be pursued there and both the shape and the staffing of the future civil administration were still raging into the final pre-invasion days. The economic planners once again led the way in continuing to push their own agenda, whilst Himmler's SS began to assert itself both in support of the annihilatory objectives of those around Backe as well as against the anticipated jurisdiction of Rosenberg and his staff. This conflict between the SS and the civil administration would drag on well beyond 22 June.
Counting on a Swift Victory
Speculation as to the likelihood of a swift victory against the Red Army was widespread among senior figures in both the political and the military leaderships. Reichsmarschall Göring, ‘just like the Führer’, was ‘of the view that the whole Bolshevik state would collapse’ when German troops entered the Soviet Union.1 Four days before the launching of the campaign, Joseph Goebbels noted in his diary that, like Reichsleiter Rosenberg and Dr Fritz Todt, Reich Minister for Armaments and Munitions, he anticipated a ‘very quick collapse’. They hoped that the Soviets would amass their forces on the other side of the border – this, it was believed, would then allow for a rapid destruction of the Soviets' fighting forces, with the probability that the German army would capture large numbers of enemy soldiers.2 This expectation in itself, widely held within the German leadership, tells us much about the reasons for the massive death rate amongst Soviet POWs in German captivity, estimated at 3.3 million from a total of 5.7 million captured between June 1941 and February 1945.3 Far from it being a case of the German authorities being taken by surprise at the capture of tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers during the first weeks of the campaign and their inability to deal logistically with such numbers, they were in fact well aware that, if military operations went according to plan, captured Soviet troops would be flooding into German POW camps from day one. Despite this knowledge, they neglected to make anything like sufficient preparations for the provisioning of captured enemy troops. This was intentional and is to be explained in the context of the ‘starvation strategy’. If the German troops had to supply themselves from Soviet resources – clearly to the detriment of the Soviet population – there would be no food left over for Soviet troops who fell into German hands. In the event of surpluses being available, they would be sent back to the Reich, as had been repeatedly stated during the run-up to the campaign. The German troops themselves were directly, and not inconsiderably, affected by Hitler's patent unwillingness to make winter preparations in view of the expectation that the campaign would be at an end before the onset of winter.4 This inevitably resulted in the German troops being wholly insufficiently kitted out with winter clothing – such was the self-assuredness and the extreme irresponsibility of the German leadership.
In a communication with the Section for Wehrmacht Propaganda in the OKW Operations Staff from the day before the invasion, the National Defence Section, headed by General Warlimont, expressed similar sentiments to those conveyed by Goebbels in his diary entry of three days earlier:
The opponent, in accordance with the hitherto existing picture regarding this, has deployed the bulk of his forces in the border regions and because of this fits in with German intentions. This Russian concentration is to be made use of in the compiling of reports to the effect that the Russians had deployed themselves ‘all set to go’ and the German action was thus an absolute military necessity.5
As shown earlier,6 the concept of a ‘preventive war’ has no basis in reality and indeed, as demonstrated by this internal OKW communication, finds its origins in the Nazi regime's own pre-invasion propaganda.
The members of Germany's military leadership were no less confident of a swift victory than their political counterparts. At the end of April 1941, Army Commander-in-Chief Brauchitsch judged the likely course of military operations as follows: ‘Fierce border battles anticipated, duration up to 4 weeks. Afterwards, only minor resistance is to be expected.’7 At the beginning of May, over six weeks before the beginning of the campaign, Colonel-General Halder was already discussing with fellow senior officers duties to be carried out in the autumn of 1941 ‘after [the] completion of our European tasks’ (i.e., the military defeat of the Soviet Union).8 A month later, Halder stated in his war diary that work on the organizational foundations for the conversion of the army for tasks within Germany following ‘Barbarossa’ had already been in progress ‘for a long time’.9 There was no doubting the confidence of this man or of those around him. Ernst von Weizsäcker, who was in close contact with Halder,10 noted on 2 June that the German military expected the action against the Soviet Union to be over ‘within 4, 8, at the most 10 weeks’.11
It was not only the army leadership which was very optimistic about a quick end to hostilities; the most senior officers of the Wehrmacht, as could be expected, were also certain of the inferiority of their opponent. The Chief of the OKW Operations Staff, General Jodl, was recorded as declaring that ‘the Russian colossus’ would ‘be proved to be a pig's bladder; prick it and it will burst’. Hitler had also described the Soviet armed forces as a colossus, but a ‘headless colossus with feet of clay’. Hitler did, however, add that ‘we cannot with certainty foresee what they might become in the future. The Russians must not be underestimated.’12 The Soviet Union and its military were, however, being underestimated, and indeed by the majority of Germany's military and political leadership, Hitler included, despite his occasional expressions of concern and uncertainty. The reference to the Soviet armed forces being ‘headless’ was not a judgement on Stalin's leadership capacity, for Hitler held Stalin, the self-styled ‘Man of Steel’, in high esteem. It was rather an allusion to the purges of the Soviet officer corps carried out by Stalin during the late 1930s. Given the almost universal feeling amongst the German leadership – both political and military – of racial superiority towards the Slavic peoples, it is highly likely that the same confidence (or foolishness) would have been in evidence even if no purges had taken place. In contrast to the misgivings voiced in the autumn of 1939 within the army leadership regarding the success of a campaign against France, no doubts were expressed by the military leadership at the time of the preparations for ‘Barbarossa’ to the effect that the undertaking could fail.13
The German leadership was not alone in its expectation of a quick victory over the Red Army. Though not tinged with the same sense of racial superiority as its German counterpart, the British government did not rate the chances of a successful Soviet defence against German attack highly. The Ministry of Economic Warfare believed that the Germans would not incur heavy casualties or any high degree of military exhaustion in defeating the Red Army. On 9 June 1941, less than two weeks before ‘Barbarossa’ got under way, the Joint Intelligence Committee produced a paper dealing with the military, political and economic effects of a Soviet–German war. According to this paper, the Germans could hope to occupy the Ukraine and possibly to reach Moscow in four to six weeks.14 Members of the US government expressed similar views. Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox spoke of six to eight weeks and one to three months, respectively, for the length of time which would elapse between the beginning of the German invasion and the collapse of the Soviet Union.15
By the first week of June 1941 at the latest, the tasks of the four principal agencies in the forthcoming campaign – or at least their broad boundaries – had become clear to those involved in the preparations. At a two-day meeting in Berlin of officers from the army and the Abwehr, the Wehrmacht's counter-intelligence department, on 5 and 6 June, Major Johann Schmidt von Altenstadt gave a presentation on the ‘cooperation’ between the four central pillars of German occupation policy. In addition to being head of the department War Administration attached to the Quartermaster-General in the OKH, Altenstadt was also the first port of call for the Bureau Rosenberg's liaison officer to the OKH, attached to the staff of the Quartermaster-General,16 Otto Bräutigam, who doubled as the designated deputy leader of the Policy Department in the future Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories.17 In his presentation, Altenstadt summed up the fundamental areas of competence of the four pillars as follows:
4 representatives: Wehrmacht: Overpowering of the enemy
Reichsführer SS: Political-police fight against the enemy
Reichsmarschall: Economy
Rosenberg: Polit[ical] reconstruction.18
In Major von Altenstadt's summing up of the main players and their broadly defined tasks, Reichsführer-SS Himmler was denoted as possessing responsibility not only for police and security measures against the enemy, but also for political measures. This automatically encroached upon the intended sphere of authority of Reichsleiter Rosenberg, whose jurisdiction was defined by Altenstadt perhaps as accurately as had hitherto been the case. According to Altenstadt, Rosenberg and the Reich Commissars subordinated to him would be responsible for ‘political reconstruction’ – their function lay in the reorganization and re-establishment of administrative institutions and structures, though self-evidently under German and not indigenous control. It is apparent from Himmler's correspondence from the end of May and the beginning of June 1941, which is discussed later in this chapter, that the Reichsführer-SS expected his jurisdiction in the East to cover political as well policing tasks. Exactly what was meant by ‘political’ tasks is not entirely clear, but Himmler was evidently not the only person under this impression, as Altenstadt's presentation demonstrates.
A meeting on 10 June 1941 between Backe and Himmler indicates the harmony which existed between the ideas of the author of the ‘starvation strategy’ on the one hand and those of the man who would later be the ‘architect’19 of the so-called ‘Final Solution’ on the other. It should come as no surprise that Backe held the rank of Gruppenführer in the SS (roughly equivalent to Lieutenant-General in the army) or that he was a friend of Himmler's right-hand man, Reinhard Heydrich, Chief of the Reich Security Main Office.20 Himmler and Backe met on 10 June ostensibly to discuss agriculture in the soon-to-be-occupied territories of the USSR. However, although Himmler had been a poultry farmer in Munich in the late 1920s, one can be sure that it was not this aspect of agriculture which the two men discussed. Backe requested Himmler's permission that the two to three thousand ethnic German settlers in Bessarabia who were capable as farmers be used for the administration of large estates in the aftermath of Operation Barbarossa. Himmler ‘naturally’ granted Backe his permission and instructed the relevant orders to be issued.21 In this case, Himmler was acting in his capacity as Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of German Nationhood.22
It would be highly surprising, however, if Backe and Himmler did not also discuss the plans for mass murder in which the two of them were deeply involved. A post-war statement from Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski points in this direction. Bach-Zelewski was at the time SS-Gruppenführer and designated Higher SS and Police Leader for Russia-Centre, and was present at the get-together of 12–15 June 1941 of senior SS officers at the Wewelsburg, a Renaissance castle which was the scene of Himmler's attempts to provide the SS with a scientific and ritualistic centre.23 Alongside Himmler and Bach-Zelewski, Reinhard Heydrich, Chief of the Order Police Kurt Daluege and designated Higher SS and Police Leader for Russia-North Hans-Adolf Prützmann, among others, were also present.24 At Nuremberg after the war, Bach-Zelewski recalled Himmler speaking of the purpose of the Soviet campaign as being ‘the decimation of the Slavic population by thirty million’.25 Karl Wolff, the former Chief of the Personal Staff of the Reichsführer-SS, qualified this assertion somewhat by claiming that Himmler had stated that the death of thirty million people was not to be the aim, but rather the result, of the war against the USSR.26
The anticipated number of Soviet deaths quoted by Bach-Zelewski and attributed to Himmler may well have originated with Backe, as the figure of circa thirty million emerged on several other occasions and appears to have been the standard expectation amongst the economic planners of the human cost of the ‘starvation strategy’. Thirty million was the amount by which the Soviet population – exclusively the urban population – had grown between the beginning of the First World War in 1914 and the beginning of the Second World War in 1939.27 It is worth recalling that it was in fact ‘particularly the population of the cities’, according to the economic-political guidelines of 23 May 1941, which would ‘have to face the most terrible famine’ in the Soviet Union.28 Twenty to thirty million was also the figure later given by Reichsmarschall Göring in a discussion with the Italian Foreign Minister, Count Galeazzo Ciano, for the number of people in the Soviet Union who would starve during 1941.29
According to a statement made by the Chief of the Advance Commando Moscow of Einsatzgruppe B, Professor Dr Franz Alfred Six, in July 1941 at the headquarters of Army Group Centre, thirty million people would starve in a ‘blazing strip’ (Brandstreifen) between Moscow and the Ural Mountains as a result of the removal of all foodstuffs from this territory.30 Moscow was in the ‘wooded zone’ of the north and constituted, therefore, a so-called ‘deficit territory’. When Bach-Zelewski referred to Himmler's comments at the Wewelsburg, he neglected to mention that it was he, as Higher SS and Police Leader for Russia-Centre, who was responsible for the extermination of twenty million people in Belarus and the territories further east, including Moscow and the surrounding area.31 He had received this order from Himmler.32 Exactly when he received it, however, is unclear. The fact that responsibility for the killing of two-thirds of the thirty million fell to Bach-Zelewski can be explained in that a significant chunk of the so-called ‘wooded zone’ was located in his geographical area of competence.33 For the most easterly of the Russian General Commissariats, beyond the Ural Mountains, Rosenberg envisaged the notorious SS and Police Leader in Lublin, Odilo Globocnik,34 who would later be appointed to run ‘Aktion Reinhardt’, the murder of the General Government's Jews in the extermination camps of Belzec, Sobibór and Treblinka.35
Already before the beginning of the war, continental Europe needed imports of twelve to thirteen million tons of grain a year, equivalent to the food requirements of over twenty-five million people.36 Supplying the inhabitants of continental Europe with the foodstuffs they required and thereby making continental Europe – in other words, German-occupied Europe – immune from naval blockade was the purpose of the intended starvation of thirty million Soviet citizens. In the process, the industrial and urban development which had taken place in the Soviet Union over the previous thirty years was to be reversed.
Economic and Agricultural Guidelines
In the four weeks between the production of the economic-political guidelines of 23 May 1941 by the agricultural section of the Economic Staff East and the commencement of ‘Barbarossa’, a further set of guidelines was produced which would serve as the official handbook for the economic administration of the occupied Soviet territories. These instructions, known as the ‘Green Folder’ (Grüne Mappe) because of the colour of their binding, were issued on 16 June, just six days before the invasion began.37 The folder served in the first place to orient those in the highest leadership and command positions down as far as divisional level.38 Given its official nature, the language used in this document – 1,000 copies of which were distributed – was slightly more restrained than that used in the economic-political guidelines of 23 May, but the message was nonetheless clear: the resources of the newly occupied territories were to be immediately and comprehensively fleeced to the advantage of Germany and its invading troops.39
In a preamble to the document, dated 16 June, Field Marshal Keitel gave his express approval, and thus in effect that of the whole military, to the instructions and their contents. This was, of course, to be expected, as the military had worked closely with the economic experts in setting the parameters of the guidelines and indeed the policy contained therein. In addition, the Green Folder contained directives for the provisioning of the troops ‘off the land’, something in which the army leadership had a vested interest. Economic sections would be at the disposal of the Wehrmacht authorities for the purpose of satisfying the immediate supply requirements of the troops. During the operations, the Economic Staff East would remain in direct proximity to the High Command of the Army and the Army's Quartermaster-General, Eduard Wagner, the latter being responsible both for supplying the troops and for matters of military administration in the occupied territories.40 Indeed, such was the closeness of the relationship between the Economic Staff East and the Office of the Army Quartermaster-General that, until the end of 1941, Lieutenant-General Schubert was housed in General Wagner's quarters in Bartenstein in East Prussia. At Schubert's request, he was given the room next to Wagner's.41 Tellingly, Wagner's wife was under the impression that her husband had in fact himself created the Economic Staff East!42
Perhaps more clearly than hitherto, the guidelines stated that the winning ‘for Germany’ of as much as possible in the way of foodstuffs and mineral oil was the ‘main economic aim of the campaign’. The first task, indeed, was to ensure as soon as possible that the German troops were fed ‘completely’ from the occupied area, with the intention of alleviating Europe's food situation and easing the strain on transport routes. In terms of the seizure of foodstuffs, stress was laid in particular on oil crops and grain.43 Thus, the guidelines confirmed the vital importance of the appropriation of foodstuffs and thus implicitly approved the ‘starvation policy’ drawn up over the preceding months. Furthermore, with regard to the treatment to be meted out to the local population, the cities of Leningrad and Moscow and the territory eastwards of the latter constituted a ‘difficult problem’ according to the author(s) of the guidelines, particularly as the two cities required substantial food surpluses. The measures to be taken in this respect would be contained in further instructions, which were to be issued on the strength of the experiences of the first weeks of the campaign.44 The economic-political guidelines of 23 May had already made it abundantly clear, however, what the fate of the inhabitants of these territories was likely to be.
As for industrial raw materials, the Green Folder placed emphasis on mineral oil.45 The exploitation of the remainder of Soviet industrial capacity, including the armaments industry, would only be considered in so far as the implementation of the projected main tasks of the campaign would not be impaired as a result. A breakdown in industrial production in the agricultural ‘deficit territories’ of north and central Russia due to a migration of workers into the countryside – doubtlessly in search of food – was to be fully accepted.46 As has already been discussed, in the conception of the Nazi planners, Russia would in the future no longer possess any industrial capacity or manufacturing capabilities to speak of.47 As northern and central Russia possessed only a very limited agricultural capacity, and therefore required relatively small numbers of workers to cultivate the crops, it would be no great shame in the eyes of the occupiers if an exodus of workers were to occur. In such regions, which were unable to sustain themselves, the economic organization was in any case to restrict itself to exploiting only what it found following the capture of the area by German troops.48
This programme and the guidelines as a whole appear once again to have obtained the express approval of Hitler: ‘According to the orders issued by the Führer, all measures are to be taken which are necessary to bring about the immediate and most extensive exploitation of the occupied territories for the benefit of Germany. On the other hand, all measures which could endanger this aim are to be omitted or set aside.’49 In fact, according to a revealing report dating from the end of June 1941 and produced by the War Economy and Armaments Office, an extensive economic exploitation of the Soviet territories was not only the main aim of the undertaking, but also the main reason for the decision to invade the Soviet Union. The report, entitled ‘Thoughts on the Topic: “Economic War of Attrition Instead of War with a Rapid Military Conclusion”’, stated: ‘The main reason for the operation against Russia lies without doubt in the pressure on Germany's supreme leadership to broaden at all costs the economic basis of Germany's prosecution of the war.’50 In other words, the necessity to strengthen Germany's war economy in view of the looming confrontation against the Anglo-Saxon powers was decisive in motivating the German leadership to launch a full-scale invasion of the Soviet Union prior to the defeat of Great Britain, thereby bringing about a two-front war.
In addition to Hitler's approval, the Green Folder had also received the approval of Göring in the sense that the guidelines were issued in his name, even if he had not necessarily contributed directly to their production. In fact, it was Colonel, later Major-General, Hans Nagel of the Wi Rü Amt who ‘compiled’ the Green Folder.51 Nagel had been armaments inspector in Prague and in the General Government during the course of 1939 and was appointed the following June as head of the economy attached to the military commander in Belgium and northern France. From the beginning of the Soviet campaign till the end of 1941 Nagel was the liaison officer between Göring and Thomas, Chief of the War Economy and Armaments Office. In this capacity Nagel's duties included forwarding to Göring any demands from Thomas and, vice versa, to Thomas any decisions taken by Göring.52 He was requested by Thomas to report to him twice a month on all the important happenings in the economic sphere.53
At almost thirty pages, the Green Folder was even more substantial than the guidelines of 23 May 1941. Once more, however, racial-ideological remarks were scarce. On page eighteen, the Belarusians were described as lagging intellectually far behind the Greater Russians, Jews and Poles resident in Belarus,54 a comment similar to the sentiments expressed by Rosenberg on the subject in his paper of 2 April 1941.55 For the most part, though, as in the guidelines of 23 May, the ‘logic of economic circumstances’56 sufficed to justify the programme of annihilation. Generally speaking, the Green Folder had little to offer that was not already contained, and expressed more explicitly, in the 23 May guidelines from Riecke's Group La of the Economic Staff East. The Green Folder constituted the official version of an economic programme which had already been approved by Germany's supreme leadership several weeks, if not months, earlier.
On the first day of June – that is, between the appearance of the economic-political guidelines on 23 May 1941 and the Green Folder on 16 June – Backe issued his so-called ‘12 Commandments’ (12 Gebote) as part of the ‘Folder for District Agricultural Leaders’ (Kreislandwirtschaftsführermappe).57 He evidently deemed it necessary to explain in writing how the agricultural leaders should behave towards the Soviet population. Nevertheless, it was important for these men once in the occupied eastern territories to take independent action and not be afraid of making decisions which could be wrong – better to act and make a mistake than not to act at all. Anyone who did nothing out of fear of taking responsibility was ‘of no use’.58 Allowing the agricultural administrators a good deal of independence corresponded to Hitler's expectations of the men appointed to the civil administration in the occupied Soviet territories. He wished only broad instructions to be sent out from Berlin; ‘the settlement of day-to-day issues can safely be left in the hands of the respective regional Commissars’.59
The central importance of agriculture, and hence of the agricultural leaders, to the German occupation is indicated by the huge numbers sent to the East. In total, around 13,000 agricultural leaders were deployed in the occupied Soviet territories, aside from Galicia and Bialystok,60 under the charge of Backe's right-hand man, Hans-Joachim Riecke.61 In his instructions of 1 June, Backe claimed – rather unconvincingly – that the Russian was ‘effeminate and sentimental’ and wanted foreigners to come and rule his land in order to provide order. This had apparently always been the case, from the Normans and the Mongols right up to the present day. It was not the aim of the occupiers to convert the Soviet population to National Socialism, but rather to transform the ‘Russians’ into their tool.62 The eleventh commandment served as a reminder, if one was needed, of the Nazi plan to starve large sections of the Soviet population: ‘The Russian has already endured poverty, hunger and frugality for centuries. His stomach is elastic, hence no false sympathy. Do not attempt to apply the German standard of living as [your] yardstick and to alter the Russian way of life.’63 In his paper of February 1941, General Thomas had in a similar vein attempted to justify his proposal that the Soviet consumption per head be reduced by arguing that ‘the Russian is accustomed to adapting his needs to poor harvests’.64 Backe concluded his 12 Commandments by reiterating that the agricultural leaders had to fend entirely for themselves. There should be no complaints or cries for help from the top. ‘Help yourself, then God will help you!’65
The Standpoint of the Political Planners
In response to Dr Lammers having forwarded to him the draft decrees for the organization of the occupied eastern territories, Himmler sent Lammers a ‘Draft of a new 
2 for the decree of the Führer, re.: intended appointment of Rosenberg’ on the day of his 10 June meeting with Backe.66 Lammers, as Head of the Reich Chancellery and one of Hitler's principal advisers on legal problems, was responsible for formulating and preparing so-called ‘Führer decrees’ (Führererlasse).67 In the absence of cabinet discussions (since 1937), a flood of legislation emanating independently from each ministry had to be formulated by a process whereby drafts were circulated and recirculated among the relevant parties until some agreement was reached. Only at that stage would Hitler, provided he approved after its contents had been briefly summarized for him, put his name to the decree. Lammers, as the sole link between the ministers and Hitler, naturally attained considerable influence over the way legislation and other business of ministers were presented to Hitler.68
In his covering letter of 10 June, Himmler argued amongst other things for the issuing of a ‘special regulation’ for the police, similar to those being prepared for the military and for the Four-Year Plan organization (eventually issued on 25 and 29 June 1941, respectively). This was particularly necessary, according to Himmler, in view of the ‘difficulties’ which the police had faced in the General Government, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and in other occupied territories in carrying out the measures dictated by his directives. Accordingly, Himmler also enclosed a draft of a ‘special decree of the Führer’.69 This issue had already been on Himmler's mind for several weeks, as demonstrated by his letter to Head of the Party Chancellery Martin Bormann, in which he posed the question as to whether or not he would be ‘under Rosenberg’s command’ when it came to his (Himmler's) tasks for the ‘political securing’ of the territory under occupation.70 As mentioned above, Himmler was at this point in time evidently expecting to be commissioned by Hitler not only with policing tasks in the East, but also with tasks of a more political nature.
Upon reading the altered draft for the administration of the occupied eastern territories, Alfred Rosenberg wrote to Lammers, complaining of the apparent inconsistency between Lammers's original, ‘completed’ draft of this ‘Führer decree’ and Himmler's more recent version:
In your completed draft…, it states that the setting down of the law in the eastern territories is to be carried out by the Reich Minister, furthermore that the Reich Commissars are subordinated to the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, receive their directives exclusively from him and that they are to manage the entire administration in those territories entrusted to them.71
In Rosenberg's view, a further distribution of authority within the occupied Soviet territories – beyond the accustomed division between the military commander and the civil administration – would be ‘completely unbearable’. Yet this was exactly what Himmler's own draft was proposing. Rosenberg clearly feared for his own position: ‘According to the draft of the Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police, there remains absolutely nothing left for the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories and the Reich Commissars to do, except perhaps to take note of the orders of other authorities, as, alongside the military commander, the economy and the police would represent independent powers .…’72 Here is evidence that Rosenberg, a full month before his official appointment as Reich Minister in the East, was well aware of how the hierarchical picture was developing and what the chances were of his coming out of the scramble for power with any kind of meaningful authority. In part, the ‘power struggle’ seen in the occupied East after the German–Soviet war was under way had already begun during the preparations for that conflict. This was how the Nazi state functioned. The overlapping duties, competences and areas of authority in the dual Party–state system, consciously encouraged by Hitler as a means of preserving his own rule and fostering loyalty and initiative,73 led to both radicalism and, ultimately, chaos – hence the ‘organized chaos’ subsequently seen during the German occupation itself.74 Rosenberg recognized the logical implications of such a system. In his view, the outcome of the realization of such proposals as those put forward by Himmler would not be to assist Hitler in the implementation of ‘a great political conception’, but rather to produce power struggles between different agencies, which would mutually cancel each other out and leave not an ‘organized eastern space under German rule’ in their wake but ‘unparalleled chaos’.75
Further difficulties for the members of the Bureau Rosenberg arose some time shortly after 16 June 1941, the day the Green Folder was issued. A copy of this document fell into the hands of Otto Bräutigam, designated deputy of Georg Leibbrandt in the Policy Department of the RMO. Disgusted, as he later claimed, with the ‘policy of unscrupulous exploitation’ contained in its pages, Bräutigam, along with Leibbrandt, went directly to Rosenberg to complain. Rosenberg, seemingly more bothered by his relatively modest position on the distribution list – he received copy thirty-three of the guidelines – than by the contents of the document, nevertheless instructed Bräutigam to draw up a draft of political guidelines which would accompany Göring's economic instructions. Bräutigam completed the draft by the following day and laid it before Rosenberg, who, with merely minor modifications, accepted it and circulated it with a covering letter.76
The opening statements of Bräutigam's declaration, entitled ‘General Guidelines for the Political and Economic Administration of the Occupied Eastern Territories’, portrayed ‘Barbarossa’ as a struggle against the dangers of Bolshevism and Soviet imperialism.77 As well as removing this threat, wrote Bräutigam, a German defeat of Soviet forces would make both Germany and Europe immune from blockade. In order to realize these objectives, it would be necessary to win the sympathy and with it the cooperation of the broad mass of the populations of the Baltic States, Belarus, the Ukraine and the Caucasus; Russia was conspicuous by its absence. Bräutigam then summed up the thrust of his arguments in two sentences: ‘The war against the Soviet Union is a political campaign, not an economic raid. The conquered territory is not as a whole to be regarded as an object of exploitation, even when the German food and war economy must lay claim to more extensive territories.’78 Given that the programme of ruthless economic exploitation and mass starvation had received ‘the approval of the highest authorities’,79 Bräutigam's analysis of the nature of the operation was way off the mark.
Bräutigam then stated his acceptance that the abolition of the collective farms was, ‘for well-known economic reasons’ (i.e., that such a wholesale rearrangement of the Soviet agricultural system could well create major difficulties when it came to reaping and distributing the harvest), ‘for the time being’ out of the question.80 Bräutigam quickly sprang once more from the defensive, however, and dealt directly with the concepts of the economic experts themselves, challenging the wisdom of approaching the tasks in hand with a fixed plan for seizing a certain amount of grain from the forthcoming harvest. He even went so far as to suggest that the scenario that Germany would have to use its own supplies to help the Soviet population out (‘with the exception of the Russian territories’) was just as likely to be the case as there being grain surpluses available to the Germans. This kind of statement was, of course, sacrilege to the economic planners who had dreamed up the ‘starvation strategy’. Bräutigam did not stop there. Towards the end of the guidelines he argued that it would be an ‘enormous achievement’ if the German army succeeded in provisioning itself to a large extent from the land, something considered by those present at the meeting of the Staatssekretäre on 2 May 1941 as a prerequisite for the continuation of the war!81
That Bräutigam argued against exactly these concepts hints at his knowledge of the meeting of 2 May. In his memoirs, written over twenty years after the war, though nevertheless very detailed, he wrote that he had been influenced in his drafting of the political guidelines by a session in the Reich Ministry for Food and Agriculture, from which a participant had shown him a copy of the minutes. Bräutigam recalled that Staatssekretär Backe had declared that ten million tons of grain would have to be delivered from the occupied eastern territories to Germany.82 On two separate occasions in his guidelines, Bräutigam referred to ‘figures of 7 and 10 million tons of grain’ as being the amounts already named for intended seizure in the East. Although the meeting of 2 May was not a standard session of the RMEL (General Thomas was present, for example), Bräutigam may have been talking about the same meeting, and Rosenberg could feasibly have been the participant who showed him a copy of the minutes. It is clear from his guidelines that he for one did not subscribe to the conclusions drawn there.
Almost immediately after the beginning of the German invasion, the Office of the Four-Year Plan not surprisingly raised objections to Bräutigam's guidelines for policy in the East and Rosenberg was forced to withdraw them.83 Bräutigam's statement was in part a rejection of the premises on which Germany's intended economic policy in the occupied Soviet territories, approved by Hitler, was based. ‘Complete exploitation’ (restlose Ausbeutung) was a phrase used repeatedly in the various guidelines issued by the VJPB and the Wi Stab Ost and the core ‘concept’ of their plans. Yet here were the men most responsible for planning the political administration of the occupied eastern territories raising objections to the very notion of ‘complete exploitation’. Drafted by Bräutigam, supported by Leibbrandt and approved by Rosenberg without the initial knowledge or influence of the economic planners, it is reasonable to describe the ‘General Guidelines for the Political and Economic Administration of the Occupied Eastern Territories’ as the ‘clearest expression of the political objectives of the East Ministry that is available to us’.84
How far the future East Minister, Rosenberg, was in fact prepared to go in promoting and defending this set of ideas, however, is another question. His lacklustre response to the objections raised against Bräutigam's guidelines by the VJPB does not speak in his favour. He does not appear to have defended the statement and its ideas, but rather withdrew it at the first sign of trouble. This could, of course, have a lot to do with Rosenberg's dawning realization that Göring was to have far greater power in the administrative set-up in the East and that there would only be one winner in any confrontation between the Reichsmarschall and the Reichsleiter. It can also be explained by the fact that the Bureau Rosenberg – hence presumably Rosenberg himself – had already a month earlier declared itself ‘in agreement’ with the Green Folder, the very guidelines against which Bräutigam's paper, approved by Rosenberg, was directed! Towards the end of the fourth session of the Wi Fü Stab Ost on 26 May 1941, three weeks before the Green Folder was issued (and only three days after the release of the 23 May guidelines), talk turned to this document:
Following the last ‘B[arbarossa]’ session, the ‘green folder’ compiled by Colonel Nagel was passed on to the [other] departments for comment. The departments are to coordinate their requests for alterations, in so far as this has not already taken place, directly with Colonel Nagel. Fundamental objections have not been raised. Oberbereichsleiter Malettke [sic] from the Staff Rosenberg has also declared himself to be in agreement. He has likewise agreed with the Staff Schubert upon the leaflets put together by the Staff Rosenberg.85
The fact that the acquiescence of Rosenberg's representative received a special mention in the minutes of the session indicates not only its importance but also that this acquiescence was explicitly given and not simply presumed. Additionally, the minutes also make it clear that the various departments involved were given the opportunity to comment on, request alterations to and even raise objections to the contents of the Green Folder, should they so wish.
Rosenberg's own position with regard to these questions can be better seen in a speech he gave on 20 June 1941, two days before the opening of the eastern campaign. Although it is very often referred to as being a speech before his closest colleagues in the Bureau Rosenberg,86 it is known that Reinhard Heydrich, who was not only Chief of the RSHA but would be appointed four days later as Himmler's liaison officer to Rosenberg,87 was also present.88 In addition, Rosenberg's request towards the end of his speech that ‘wishes of other departments’ be referred to him suggests that representatives of other bodies also attended.89 Rosenberg spoke of the necessity of setting up state structures ‘organically’ in order to erect them against ‘Moscow’. The four large blocks which would ‘shield’ Germany would be ‘Greater Finland’, the Baltic (Baltenland), the Ukraine and the Caucasus. The ‘freedom of the Ukrainian people’ was stressed as being one of Germany's aims, to be adopted ‘absolutely’ as a ‘political item on the agenda’. However, there was no sense at this point in time, argued Rosenberg, ‘to speak about in which form and extent a Ukrainian state can later come into being’,90 thus suggesting, as his written statements from April and May had done, that the creation of an independent Ukraine was for him a long-term goal, which would follow a period of preparation. At this point, about halfway through the speech, Rosenberg came to perhaps the most important passage, one which summed up his concept of how policy should be pursued in the East:
If the economic leadership of the Reichsmarschall must aim at pulling as much as possible out of this territory [i.e., the Ukraine], then it [i.e., the economic leadership] will truly be able to support this [i.e., Rosenberg's] political stance and this political leadership; for there is a difference, as to whether after a few years I have won 40 million people to voluntary cooperation or whether I must place a soldier behind every peasant. I believe that, when both sides recognize these necessities, then the political [leadership] will be an aid to the economic leadership and, vice versa, the economic leadership can adjust itself very well to the political objective.91
At the same time as stressing the importance of winning the native population to ‘voluntary cooperation’, however, Rosenberg emphasized that the nourishment of the German population ‘stands during these years doubtlessly at the top of German demands in the East’. It would be the job of the ‘southern territories’ and northern Caucasus to balance out the German food requirements.92
The sentences from Rosenberg which followed demonstrate that he could compete with the economic planners when it came to callous articulation of the consequences of their starvation policies: ‘We see by no means the obligation to feed the Russian people as well [as ourselves] from these surplus territories. We know that that is a harsh necessity which is beyond every emotion. A very extensive evacuation will doubtlessly be necessary and very difficult years will certainly be in store for the Russian people.’93 This, without doubt, was a wholehearted acceptance on Rosenberg's part of the consequences of the policy of ruthless requisitioning of foodstuffs from the ‘surplus territories’ of the Soviet Union. These consequences have been portrayed during the course of this study. Rosenberg's use of the word ‘evacuation’ (Evakuierung) in this context can only be taken as an example of the use of camouflage language, in this case alluding to the intentional starvation of the people in question. Rosenberg had in fact made a similar comment in a speech given at a Nazi Party rally on 22 February 1941. On this occasion he had claimed that it was not Germany's duty to supply all the peoples of occupied Europe with its (i.e., Germany's) foodstuffs.94 The final words of Rosenberg's 22 June speech confirmed the two ‘immense tasks’ facing the Reich. Reichsmarschall Göring's ‘great task’ would be the securing of the German food supply and the consolidation of the war economy whilst the liberation of Germany ‘forever from the political pressure coming from the East’ would be ‘the political aim in this struggle’.95
What conclusions can be drawn from the various facets of this most revealing of speeches from Rosenberg? He remained determined to follow through his aim of establishing three substantial buffer states – the Ukraine, the Caucasus and a single Baltic state – in order to act as a protective barrier against Greater Russia, which he saw as the core of the Bolshevik menace. The Baltic States would be united to form a protectorate in anticipation of later annexation to the Reich; the Ukraine would eventually attain independence, though all the while maintaining close relations with Germany; and the Caucasus would take the form of a federal state. Rosenberg's embracement of Göring's ‘great task’ – the ruthless economic exploitation of the occupied territories (above all, the Ukraine) – is likely to have been genuine rather than a matter of awareness on Rosenberg's part that any attempt to deflect his colleagues in the Nazi leadership from this cause would be futile. The enthusiasm with which he appears to have espoused its necessity certainly points in this direction. In a report on the preparatory work for the occupation of the Soviet territories compiled just under a week after the commencement of ‘Barbarossa’, Rosenberg confirmed that the ‘most extensive agreement’ had been reached regarding ‘eastern questions’ during talks over the preceding two months with Schlotterer, Thomas, Körner, Backe, Riecke, Schubert and others concerning the economic objectives of the Wi Fü Stab Ost.96
What marked Rosenberg out more than anything from the likes of Göring, Backe and Riecke was his realization that the best way to maximize the amount of grain which Germany could obtain from the East whilst at the same time minimizing the destruction of agricultural produce and the dislocation of production was to win the bulk of the native population over to voluntary cooperation. Hence his declaration during his speech that the Germans ‘are no enemies of the Russian people’,97 despite his wish to cut ‘Greater Russia’ off from the rest of the Soviet lands in an attempt to force it to ‘turn eastwards’. Rosenberg had no qualms about the nature of the policy developed by the economic planners; his conception differed regarding methods of approach and implementation. Although not the ‘man of action’ that Göring, for example, was and certainly not so adept when it came to prevailing in the power struggles inherent in the nature of the Nazi state, Rosenberg was nonetheless ‘brutal and cruel’. This was the assessment of Douglas M. Kelly, the American military doctor and psychiatrist in the Nuremberg prison.98 Rosenberg was the man who declared that the regulations of the Hague Convention on Land Warfare were not valid in the East and that all Jewish civil servants in the occupied eastern territories should disappear completely.99 In mid-September 1941 he advocated ‘the dispatching of all the Jews of central Europe’ to the East in retaliation for the deportation of the Volga Germans by Stalin,100 a suggestion acted upon by Hitler only days later.101 A little over two months afterwards he announced in a speech to the German press that the so-called ‘Jewish Question’ could only be solved ‘by the complete biological annihilation of all Jews, from the entire area of Europe’.102 In creed, if not in manner, Rosenberg fitted in well with the other men about to be let loose on the Soviet Union.
Notes
1. BA-MA, RW 19/185, fo. 170.
2. TBJG, I/9, p. 386, entry for 18 June 1941.
3. For the calculations, see Streit, Keine Kameraden, pp. 128–137 and 244–249, esp. pp. 244–246.
4. Oberst i.G. a.D. Wilhelm von Rücker, ‘Die Vorbereitungen für den Feldzug gegen Russland’, in Wagner (ed.), Der Generalquartiermaster, Appendix, pp. 313–318, here p. 317. See also Klink, ‘Die militärische Konzeption des Krieges’, p. 318; Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, pp. 439 and 447.
5. BA-MA, RW 4/v. 578, fos. 85–89, Abteilung Landesverteidigung, ‘Betr.: Barbarossa’, 21 June 1941, here fo. 87: ‘Der Gegner ist nach dem bisher darüber vorliegenden Bild mit der Masse seiner Kräfte in den Grenzzonen aufmarschiert und kommt hierdurch den deutschen Absichten entgegen. Bei der Berichterstattung wird diese russische Massierung dahin auszunutzen sein, dass der Russe “sprungbereit” aufmarschiert war und somit das deutsche Vorgehen eine absolute militärische Notwendigkeit war.’
6. See chapter 4, ‘Soviet Awareness of German Intentions’.
7. IMG, vol. 26, p. 400: ‘Voraussichtlich heftige Grenzschlachten, Dauer bis zu 4 Wochen. Im weiteren Verlauf wird dann aber nur noch mit geringerem Widerstand zu rechnen sein.’
8. Halder, KTB, II, p. 394, entry for 5 May 1941: ‘[General] Erfurth, [Oberst] Ziehlberg: Aufgaben der kriegsgeschichtlichen Arbeiten ab Herbst 1941 nach Erledigung unserer europäischen Aufgaben.’
9. Ibid., p. 444, entry for 5 June 1941: ‘Organisatorische Grundlagen für Umbau des Heeres für deutsche Aufgaben nach Barbarossa sind seit langem in Arbeit.’
10. Hill (ed.), Die Weizsäcker-Papiere, p. 54.
11. Ibid., p. 257, notes from 2 June 1941.
12. Warlimont, Inside Hitler's Headquarters, p. 140. Jodl's comment was made on 18 January 1941 and Hitler's on 9 January.
13. Hillgruber, Hitlers Strategie, pp. 210–211.
14. Llewellyn Woodward, British Foreign Policy in the Second World War, vol. 1 (Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1970), pp. 615 and 619–620.
15. Andreas Hillgruber, ‘Das Rußland-Bild der führenden deutschen Militärs vor Beginn des Angriffs auf die Sowjetunion’, in Hans-Erich Volkmann (ed.), Das Rußlandbild im Dritten Reich (Böhlau Verlag, Cologne/Weimar/Vienna, 1994), pp. 125–140, here p. 139.
16. Bräutigam, So hat es sich zugetragen, pp. 309–310.
17. Ibid., p. 322. Altenstadt's own adviser in all administrative questions was Ministerialdirigent Dankwerts of the Reich Interior Ministry.
18. BA-MA, RH 19 III/722, fos. 82–86, here fo. 83: ‘4 Beauftragte: Wehrmacht: Niederringen des Feindes[;] Reichsführer SS: Politisch-polizeil. Bekämpfung des Feindes[;] Reichsmarschall: Wirtschaft[;] Rosenberg: Polit. Neuaufbau.’
19. See Breitman, The Architect of Genocide.
20. See Joachim Lehmann, ‘Herbert Backe – Technokrat und Agrarideologe’ in Ronald Smelser, Enrico Syring and Rainer Zitelmann (eds), Die Braune Elite II: 21 weitere biographische Skizzen (Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 1993), pp. 1–12, here p. 9.
21. BA, NS 19/3874, fo. 9, letter from Himmler to SS-Brigadeführer Ulrich Greifelt, Head of the Staff Main Office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of German Nationhood, 11 June 1941.
22. See chapter 6, ‘Germanic Resettlement’.
23. Benz et al. (eds), Enzyklopädie des Nationalsozialismus, p. 806. This gathering has often been dated to the beginning of 1941, even since the correct date was established in the literature in 1982; Karl Hüser, Wewelsburg 1933 bis 1945 – Kult- und Terrorstätte der SS. Eine Dokumentation (Verlag Bonifatius-Druckerei, Paderborn, 1982), p. 3. As recently as 1994 (Gerhart Hass, ‘Zum Rußlandbild der SS’ in Volkmann (ed.), Das Rußlandbild im Dritten Reich, pp. 201–224, here p. 214) and even 1998 (Longerich, Politik der Vernichtung, p. 298), the date of the gathering was given as ‘January 1941’.
24. Witte et al. (eds), Dienstkalender, p. 172, entry for 12 June 1941.
25. IMG, vol. 4, pp. 535–536, 7 January 1946.
26. Jochen von Lang, Der Adjutant. Karl Wolff: Der Mann zwischen Hitler und Himmler (Herbig, Munich/Berlin, 1985), pp. 50–51.
27. Backe, Um die Nahrungsfreiheit Europas, p. 162.
28. IMG, vol. 36, p. 141; see chapter 7, ‘The Hungerpolitik in Writing’, in this study.
29. Czeslaw Madajczyk, Die Okkupationspolitik Nazideutschlands in Polen 1939–1945 (Akademie-Verlag, Berlin, 1987), p. 92.
30. Gersdorff, Soldat im Untergang, p. 93; Gerlach, ‘Deutsche Wirtschaftsinteressen’, pp. 270–271.
31. BA D-H, ZM 1683, Bd. 1, fo. 105, post-war questioning in Riga of Friedrich Jeckeln, former Higher SS and Police Leader for Russia-South and, later, for Russia-North, 2 January 1946; Gersdorff, Soldat im Untergang, p. 93.
32. BA D-H, ZM 1683, Bd. 1, fo. 105.
33. Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, p. 53.
34. Nbg. Dok. PS 1036, fo. 14. The name of the General Commissariat was Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg).
35. Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, p. 712.
36. Aly and Heim, Vordenker der Vernichtung, p. 366. See also BA-MA, RW 19/473, fos. 306–307, ‘Die Ernährungsbilanzen Festlandeuropas’ (nach Berechnungen der Studiengesellschaft für bäuerliche Rechts- und Wirtschaftsordnung e.V.), Wi Rü Amt/Stab I b 5, 10 December 1940.
37. Robert J. Gibbons, ‘Allgemeine Richtlinien für die politische und wirtschaftliche Verwaltung der besetzten Ostgebiete’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 25 (1977), pp. 252–261, here p. 254; Brandt, Management, p. 69.
38. BA-MA, RW 19/739, fo. 77, ‘Vortragsnotiz über die Besprechung betr. Vorbereitungen Barbarossa am 29.4. nachmittags’, 9 May 1941.
39. BA, R 26 IV/33a, ‘Richtlinien für die Führung der Wirtschaft in den neubesetzten Ostgebieten (Grüne Mappe)’, Teil I (2. Auflage), July 1941. The second edition was printed 2,000 times.
40. BA, R 26 IV/33a, pp. 3 and 5–6. See Gerlach, ‘Militärische “Versorgungszwänge”’, pp. 177–182.
41. Gerlach, ‘Militärische “Versorgungszwänge”’, p. 180.
42. Wagner (ed.), Der Generalquartiermeister, p. 215.
43. BA, R 26 IV/33a, pp. 3–4 and 9. Cooking oil is extracted from the oil-bearing part of the crop, whether it be a fruit (e.g., olive), a seed (e.g., sesame) or a nut (e.g., walnut). Today, Russia is one of the world's largest sunflower seed producers.
44. Ibid., p. 18. See chapter 9, ‘Ordering the Destruction of Leningrad and Moscow’, in this study.
45. BA, R 26 IV/33a, p. 4.
46. Ibid., pp. 4–5.
47. See chapter 7, ‘The Hungerpolitik in Writing’.
48. BA, R 26 IV/33a, p. 3.
49. Ibid.: ‘Nach den vom Führer gegebenen Befehlen sind alle Maßnahmen zu treffen, die notwendig sind, um die sofortige und höchstmögliche Ausnutzung der besetzten Gebiete zugunsten Deutschlands herbeizuführen. Dagegen sind alle Maßnahmen zu unterlassen oder zurückzustellen, die dieses Ziel gefährden könnten.’
50. BA-MA, RW 19/473, fos. 167–176, ‘Gedanken zu dem Thema: “Wirtschaftlicher Durchhaltekrieg statt Krieg der schnellen militärischen Entscheidung”’, June 1941, here fo. 174: ‘In dem Zwang für die deutsche Oberste Führung, um jeden Preis das [W]irtschaft-Fundament der deutschen Kriegsführung zu verbreite[r]n, liegt zweifellos der Hauptgrund für die Aktion gegen Rußland.’
51. See BA-MA, RW 19/739, fo. 135. Within a month, Nagel had been promoted to Major-General; see BA-MA, RW 19/175, fo. 100, ‘Namensbezeichnung in der Wi-Organisation Ost’, 25 June 1941.
52. BA, 99 US 7/1110, fo. 176, post-war comments of Hans Nagel, 8 September 1948. See also IMG, vol. 36, pp. 105–106 and 109.
53. BA, 99 US 7/1112, fo. 19, post-war comments of Hans Nagel, 9 September 1948.
54. BA, R 26 IV/33a, p. 18.
55. See IMG, vol. 26, pp. 549–550.
56. Götz Aly, ‘The Planning Intelligentsia and the “Final Solution”’, in Michael Burleigh (ed.), Confronting the Nazi Past: New Debates on Modern German History (Collins & Brown, London, 1996), pp. 140–153, here p. 148. See also Aly and Heim, ‘Deutsche Herrschaft “im Osten”’, pp. 100–101.
57. IMG, vol. 39 (1949), pp. 367–371, doc. 089–USSR, ‘12 Gebote’, Herbert Backe, 1 June 1941.
58. Ibid., pp. 367–368.
59. Trevor-Roper (ed.), Hitler's Table Talk, p. 590, entry for 22 July 1942.
60. Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, pp. 168–169; Eichholtz, ‘Institutionen und Praxis’, p. 51. See Müller, Hitlers Ostkrieg und die deutsche Siedlungspolitik, p. 99, where the number of agricultural leaders is given as ‘more than ten thousand’.
61. Mai, ‘Rasse und Raum’, p. 306. Here, the number of agricultural leaders is given as ‘around 10,000’.
62. IMG, vol. 39, pp. 370–371.
63. Ibid., p. 371: ‘Armut, Hunger und Genügsamkeit erträgt der russische Mensch schon seit Jahrhunderten. Sein Magen ist dehnbar, daher kein falsches Mitleid. Versucht nicht, den deutschen Lebensstandard als Masstab anzulegen und die russische Lebensweise zu ändern.’
64. Thomas, Geschichte, p. 517.
65. IMG, vol. 39, p. 371: ‘Hilf Dir selbst, dann hilft Dir Gott!’
66. BA, R 6/21, fol. 60, ‘Entwurf eines neuen 2 zum Erlaß des Führers betr. beabsichtigte Einsetzung Rosenbergs’, 10 June 1941.
67. A comprehensive biographical study of Lammers remains outstanding.
68. Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 533.
69. BA, R 6/21, fos. 59–60, letter from Himmler to Lammers, 10 June 1941, here fo. 59.
70. BA, NS 19/3874, fos. 12–13, here fo. 12; reproduced in Heiber (ed.), Reichsführer!, pp. 87–88, here p. 87.
71. BA, R 6/21, fos. 62–73, letter from Rosenberg to Lammers, 14 June 1941, here fos. 62–63: ‘In den von Ihnen fertiggestellten Entwurf…steht, daß die Rechtsetzung in den Ostgebieten durch den Reichsminister erfolgt, ferner daß die Reichskommissare dem Reichsminister für die besetzten Ostgebiete unterstehen, ausschließlich von ihm ihre Weisungen erhalten und daß sie die gesamte Verwaltung in den ihnen anvertrauten Gebieten zu führen haben.’
72. BA, R 6/21, fos. 66–67: ‘Nach dem Entwurf des Reichsführers SS und Chef der Deutschen Polizei bleibt für den Reichsminister für den besetzten Ostgebiete und die Reichskommissare überhaupt nichts zu tun übrig als höchstens die Befehle anderer Stellen zur Kenntnis zu nehmen, denn neben dem Militärbefehlshaber würden die Wirtschaft und die Polizei selbständige Gewalten darstellen…’
73. The application of the ‘divide and rule’ tag to Hitler's method of governing is nothing new; see Karl Dietrich Bracher, Die deutsche Diktatur: Entstehung, Struktur, Folgen des Nationalsozialismus, rev. 4th edition (Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne, 1972), pp. 251–258 and, esp. pp. 375–379.
74. See chapter 1, ‘Organized Chaos: the German Occupation, 1941–1944’.
75. BA, R 6/21, fos. 67–68.
76. Bräutigam, So hat es sich zugetragen, pp. 315–316; Gibbons, ‘Allgemeine Richtlinien’, p. 255.
77. For the full text of the guidelines see BA, NS 19/2808, fos. 2–8, ‘Allgemeine Richtlinien für die politische und wirtschaftliche Verwaltung der besetzten Ostgebiete’, n.d.; reproduced in Gibbons, ‘Allgemeine Richtlinien’, pp. 257–261, which is used here. The fact that a copy of Bräutigam's guidelines is to be found in the files of the Personal Staff of Reichsführer-SS Himmler makes it clear that members of Himmler's staff, and perhaps Himmler himself, had knowledge of the guidelines and hence the stance of the Bureau Rosenberg with regard to the issues addressed in the guidelines.
78. Gibbons, ‘Allgemeine Richtlinien’, p. 259: ‘Der Krieg gegen die Sowjetunion ist ein politischer Feldzug, kein wirtschaftlicher Raubzug. Das eroberte Gebiet darf also als Ganzes nicht als ein Ausbeutungsobjekt betrachtet werden, selbst wenn auch die deutsche Ernährungs- und Kriegswirtschaft größere Gebiete beanspruchen muß.’
79. See chapter 7, ‘The Hungerpolitik in Writing’.
80. Gibbons, ‘Allgemeine Richtlinien’, p. 259. See also Bräutigam, So hat es sich zugetragen, p. 306; BA, R 26 I/13, fo. 2, order from Göring to various ministers, 27 July 1941.
81. Gibbons, ‘Allgemeine Richtlinien’, pp. 260–261.
82. Bräutigam, So hat es sich zugetragen, p. 316.
83. Ibid., p. 323.
84. Gibbons, ‘Allgemeine Richtlinien’, p. 253: ‘…es ist die wohl klarste Darlegung der politischen Zielsetzung des Ostministeriums, die uns zur Verfügung steht.’
85. BA-MA, RW 19/739, fos. 130–136, ‘Niederschrift zur 4. Sitzung des Wirtschafts-Führungsstabes Ost unter Vorsitz von Staatssekretär Körner vom 26. Mai 1941’, here fos. 135–136: ‘Die von Oberst Nagel zusammengestellte “grüne Mappe” ist im Anschluss an die letzte “B”-Sitzung den Ressorts zur Stellungnahme zugeleitet worden. Die Ressorts stimmen ihre Abänderungswünsche, soweit dies nicht bereits geschehen ist, unmittelbar mit Oberst Nagel ab. Auch Oberbereichsleiter Malettke vom Stabe Rosenberg hat sich einverstanden erklärt. Er hat die vom Stabe Rosenberg zusammengestellte Flugblätter ebenfalls mit dem Stabe Schubert abgestimmt.’ Including Staatssekretär Körner, seventeen men were present at the session. The minutes were taken by Dr Joachim Bergmann of the VJPB. After the invasion of the Soviet Union, Oberbereichsleiter Walter Malletke became head of the Department for Special Measures in the Main Department III (Economy) of the RMO; Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, p. 158, fn. 201.
86. See Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race, p. 203; Krausnick, ‘Die Einsatzgruppen’, p. 114; Aly and Heim, Vordenker der Vernichtung, p. 378.
87. BA, NS 19/2803, fo. 1, letter from Himmler to Rosenberg, 24 June 1941. See also BA, NS 19/3874, fo. 3, letter from Himmler to Lammers, 28 May 1941, for Himmler's appointment of SS-Brigadeführer Heinrich Müller, Chief of Office IV (Gestapo) in the RSHA, as liaison officer to Rosenberg.
88. See IMG, vol. 11 (1947), p. 528, for Rosenberg's statement of 16 April 1946 at Nuremberg.
89. IMG, vol. 26, pp. 610–627, doc. 1058–PS, ‘Rede des Reichsleiters A. Rosenberg vor den engsten Beteiligten am Ostproblem am 20. Juni 1941’, here p. 625.
90. Ibid., pp. 616 and 618–619: ‘In welcher Form und in welchem Umfang dann später ein ukrainischer Staat entstehen kann, darüber zu sprechen, hat jetzt noch keinen Sinn.’
91. Ibid., pp. 619–620: ‘Wenn die Wirtschaftsführung des Reichsmarschalls darauf ausgehen muss, möglichst viel aus diesem Gebiet herauszuziehen, dann wird sie diese politische Haltung und politische Führung erst recht unterstützen können; denn es ist ein Unterschied, ob ich 40 millionen Menschen nach einigen Jahren zur freiwilligen Mitarbeit gewonnen habe oder hinter jeden Bauern einen Soldaten stellen muss. Ich glaube, wenn beide Seiten diese Notwendigkeiten sehen, dann wird die Politik eine Helferin für die Wirtschaftsführung sein und umgekehrt sich die Wirtschaftsführung sehr gut auf die politische Zielsetzung einstellen können.’
92. Ibid., p. 622: ‘Die deutsche Volksernährung steht in diesen Jahren zweifellos an der Spitze der deutschen Forderungen im Osten .…‘
93. Ibid.: ‘Wir sehen durchaus nicht die Verpflichtung ein, aus diesen Überschussgebieten das russische Volk mit zu ernähren. Wir wissen, dass das eine harte Notwendigkeit ist, die ausserhalb jeden Gefühls steht. Zweifellos wird eine sehr umfangreiche Evakuierung notwendig sein und dem Russentum werden sicher sehr schwere Jahre bevorstehen.’
94. BA, NS 8/90, fos. 54–61, ‘Aus der Rede des Reichsleiters Alfred Rosenberg bei der Kundgebung der NSDAP. Gau Hamburg bei Sagebiet am 22. Februar 1941’, Hansische Hochschul-Zeitung, vol. 22, March 1941, here fo. 55.
95. IMG, vol. 26, pp. 626–627: ‘Deutschland für immer von dem politischen Druck aus dem Osten zu befreien; das ist das politische Ziel in diesem Kampf.’
96. Ibid., pp. 584–592, doc. 1039–PS, ‘Bericht über die vorbereitende Arbeit in Fragen des osteuropäischen Raumes’, 28 June 1941, here p. 586: ‘In den Ostfragen wurde, was die unmittelbare fachliche Arbeit jetzt und für die Zukunft anbetrifft, weitgehendste Übereinstimmung erzielt.’
97. Ibid., p. 621.
98. Joachim C. Fest argued that ‘that is certainly wrong’; Fest, ‘Alfred Rosenberg’, p. 174.
99. BA, R 90/256a, pp. 25 and 28.
100. H.D. Heilmann, ‘Aus dem Kriegstagebuch des Diplomaten Otto Bräutigam’ in Götz Aly (ed.), Biedermann und Schreibtischtäter: Materialien zur deutschen Täter-Biographie (Rotbuch Verlag, Berlin, 1987), pp. 123–187, here p. 144, entry for 14 September 1941. For a contrasting interpretation, see Gerlach, ‘Die Ausweitung der deutschen Massenmorde’, pp. 77–78.
101. Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, pp. 478–479.
102. See Arad, ‘Alfred Rosenberg and the “Final Solution”’, p. 280.