Hitler. Part 17

Radicalization of the National Socialist 'programme', vague as it was, could not possibly subside. The ways different power-groups and important individuals in positions of influence interpreted the ideological imperative represented by Hitler saw to it that the dream of the new society to be created through war, struggle, conquest, and racial purification was kept in full view. At the gra.s.s-roots level, ba.n.a.l though for the individuals concerned certainly not unimportant material considerations like the chronic housing shortage, the growing scarcity and increasing cost of consumer goods, or an acute shortage of farm labourers could produce resentments easily channelled towards disparaged minorities and fuelled by petty greed at the prospect of acquiring goods or property belonging to Jews. The flames of such social antagonisms were fanned by the hate-filled messages of propaganda. The mentalities that were fostered offered an open door to the fanaticism of the believers. The internal compet.i.tion built into the regime ensured that the radical drive was not only sustained, but intensified as fresh opportunities were provided by the war. And as victory seemed imminent, new breathtaking vistas for rooting out racial enemies, displacing inferior populations, and building the 'brave new world' opened up.

With scarcely any direct involvement by Hitler, racial policy unfolded its own dynamic. Within the Reich, pressures to rid Germany of its Jews once and for all increased. In the asylums, the killing of the mentally sick inmates was in full swing. And the security mania of the nation at war, threatened by enemies on all sides and within, coupled with the heightened demands for national unity, encouraged the search for new 'outsider' target groups. 'Foreign workers', especially those from Poland, were in the front line of the intensified persecution.

However, the real crucible was Poland. Here, racial megalomania had carte blanche. But it was precisely the absence of any systematic planning in the free-for-all of unlimited power that produced the unforeseen logistical problems and administrative cul-de-sacs of 'ethnic cleansing' which in turn evoked ever more radical, genocidal approaches.

Those who enjoyed positions of power and influence saw the occupation of Poland as an opportunity to 'solve the Jewish Question' despite the fact that now more Jews than ever had fallen within the clutches of the Third Reich. For the SS, entirely new perspectives had emerged. Among party leaders, all the Gauleiter wanted to be rid of 'their' Jews and now saw possibilities of doing so. These were starting points. At the same time, for those ruling the parts of former Poland which had been incorporated into the Reich, the expulsion of the Jews from their territories was only part of the wider aim of Germanization, to be achieved as rapidly as possible. This meant also tackling the 'Polish Question', removing thousands of Poles to make room for ethnic Germans from the Baltic and other areas, cla.s.sifying the 'better elements' as German, and reducing the rest to uneducated helots available to serve the German masters. 'Ethnic cleansing' to produce the required Germanization through resettlement was intrinsically connected with the radicalization of thinking on the 'Jewish Question'.

Beginning only days after the German invasion of Poland, Security Police and party leaders in Prague, Vienna, and Kattowitz seizing on the notions expounded by Heydrich of a 'Jewish reservation' to be set up east of Cracow saw the chance of deporting the Jews from their areas. Eichmann's own initiative and ambition appear to have triggered the hopes of immediate expulsion of the Jews. Between 18 and 26 October he organized the transport of several thousands of Jews from Vienna, Kattowitz, and Moravia to the Nisko district, south of Lublin. Gypsies from Vienna were also included in the deportation. At the same time, the resettlement of the Baltic Germans began. Within days of the Nisko transports beginning, the lack of provision for the deported Jews in Poland, creating chaotic circ.u.mstances following their arrival, led to their abrupt halt. But it was a foretaste of the greater deportations to come.

At the end of the month, in his new capacity as Reich Commissar for the Consolidation of Germandom, Himmler ordered all Jews to be cleared out of the incorporated territories. The deportation of around 550,000 Jews was envisaged. On top of that came several hundred thousand of the 'especially hostile Polish population', making a figure of about a million persons in all. From the largest of the areas designated for deportations and the resettlement of ethnic Germans, the Warthegau, it proved impossible to match the numbers initially charted for deportation, or the speed at which their removal had been foreseen. Even so, 128,011 Poles and Jews were forcibly deported under horrifying conditions by spring 1940. s.a.d.i.s.tic SS men would arrive at night, clear entire tenement blocks, and load up the inhabitants subjected to every form of b.e.s.t.i.a.l humiliation on to open lorries, despite the intense cold, to be taken to holding camps, from where they were herded into unheated and ma.s.sively overcrowded cattle-trucks and sent south, without possessions and often without food or water. Deaths were frequent on the journeys. Those who survived often suffered from frostbite or other legacies of their terrible ordeal. The deportees were sent to the General Government, seen in the annexed territories as a type of dumping-ground for undesirables. But the Governor General, Hans Frank, was no keener on having Jews in his area than were the Gauleiter of the incorporated regions. He envisaged them rotting in a reservation, but outside his own territory. In November 1939 Frank had plainly laid down the intentions for his own province. It was a pleasure, he stated, finally to be able physically to tackle the Jewish race: 'The more who die, the better ... The Jews should see that we have arrived. We want to have a half to three-quarters of all Jews put east of the Vistula. We'll suppress these Jews everywhere we can. The whole business is at stake here. The Jews out of the Reich, Vienna, from everywhere. We've no use for Jews in the Reich.'

Around the same time as Frank was voicing such sentiments, the Reich Governor of the Wartheland, Arthur Greiser, speaking of encountering in Lodz 'figures who can scarcely be credited with the designation "person"', was letting it be known that the 'Jewish Question' was as good as solved. However, by early 1940, his hopes (and those of Wilhelm Koppe, police chief of the Warthegau) of the quick expulsion of the Jews into the General Government were already proving vain ones. Hans Frank and his subordinates were starting to raise objections at the numbers of Jews they were being forced to take in, without any clear planning for what was to become of them, and with their own hopes of sending them on further to a reservation an idea meanwhile abandoned now vanished. Frank was able to win the support of Goring, whose own interest was in preventing the loss of manpower useful for the war effort. Goring's strong criticism of the 'wild resettlement' at a meeting on 12 February ran counter to Himmler's demands for room for hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans, already moved from their original homes. The very next day, Jews from Stettin were deported to the Lublin area to make way for Baltic Germans 'with sea-faring jobs'. The police chief of the Lublin district, Odilo Globocnik, suggested that if the Jews coming to the General Government could not feed themselves, or be fed by other Jews, they should be left to starve. On 24 March, at Frank's bidding, Goring felt compelled to ban all 'evacuation' into the General Government 'until further notice'. Greiser was told that his request to deport the Warthegau's Jews would have to be deferred until August. From 1 May 1940 the huge ghetto at Lodz, containing 163,177 persons, initially established only as a temporary measure until the Warthegau's Jews could be pushed over the border into the General Government, was sealed off from the rest of the city. Mortalities from disease and starvation started to rocket during the summer. At a meeting in Cracow on 31 July, Greiser was told by Frank in no uncertain terms of Himmler's a.s.surance, under instructions by Hitler, that no more Jews were to be deported to the General Government. And on 6 November 1940 Frank informed Greiser by telegram that there were to be no further deportations into the General Government before the end of the war. Himmler was aware of this. Any transports would be turned back. The solution which to Greiser had seemed so close to hand a year earlier was indefinitely blocked.

As one door closed, another opened or, for a brief moment, appeared to open. At the meeting in Cracow at the end of July, Greiser mentioned a new possibility that had emerged. He had heard personally from Himmler, he reported, 'that the intention now exists to shove the Jews overseas into specific areas'. He wanted early clarification.

Resettling Jews on the island of Madagascar, a French colony off the African coast, had for decades been vaguely mooted in antisemitic circles, not just in Germany, as a potential solution to the 'Jewish Question'. With the prospect looming larger in the spring of 1940 of regaining colonial territories in the near future (and acquiring some which had not previously belonged to Germany), Madagascar now began to be evoked as a distinct policy option. It seems to have been Himmler, perhaps testing the waters, who at this point first broached in the highest circles the idea of deporting the Jews to an African colony, though he did not refer specifically to Madagascar. In the middle of May, after a visit to Poland, the Reichsfuhrer-SS produced a six-page memorandum (which Hitler read and approved) ent.i.tled 'Some Thoughts on the Treatment of the Alien Population in the East', detailing brutal plans for racial selection in Poland. Only in one brief pa.s.sage did Himmler mention what he envisaged would happen to the Jews. 'The term "Jew",' he wrote, 'I hope to see completely extinguished through the possibility of a large-scale emigration of all Jews to Africa or to some other colony.'

Sensing what was in the wind, the newly appointed, highly ambitious head of the Foreign Ministry's 'Jewish Desk', Franz Rademacher, prepared a lengthy internal memorandum on 3 June putting forward, as a war aim, three options: removing all Jews from Europe; deporting western European Jews, for example, to Madagascar while leaving eastern Jews in the Lublin district as hostages to keep America paralysed in its fight against Germany (presuming the influence of American Jewry would in these circ.u.mstances deter the USA from entering the war); or establishing a Jewish national home in Palestine a solution he did not favour. This was the first time that Madagascar had been explicitly mentioned in a policy doc.u.ment as a possible 'solution to the Jewish Question'. It was a product of Rademacher's initiative, rather than a result of instructions from above. With the backing of Ribbentrop (who had probably himself gained the approval of Hitler and Himmler), Rademacher set to work to put detail on his proposal to resettle all Europe's Jews on the island of Madagascar, seeing them as under German mandate but Jewish administration. Heydrich, presumably alerted by Himmler at the first opportunity, was, however, not prepared to concede control over such a vital issue to the Foreign Ministry. On 24 June he made plain to Ribbentrop that responsibility for handling the 'Jewish Question' was his, under the commission given to him by Goring in January 1939. Emigration was no longer the answer. 'A territorial final solution will therefore be necessary.' He sought inclusion in all discussions 'which concern themselves with the final solution of the Jewish question' the first time, it seems, the precise words 'final solution' were used, and at this point plainly in the context of territorial resettlement. By mid-August Eichmann and his right-hand man Theo Dannecker had devised in some detail plans to put 4 million Jews on Madagascar. The SD's plan envisaged no semblance of Jewish autonomous administration. The Jews would exist under strict SS control. Soon after Rademacher had submitted his original proposal, in early June, the Madagascar idea had evidently been taken to Hitler, presumably by Ribbentrop. The Foreign Minister told Ciano later in the month 'that it is the Fuhrer's intention to create a free Jewish state in Madagascar to which he will compulsorily send the many millions of Jews who live on the territory of the old Reich as well as on the territories recently conquered'. In the middle of August, reporting on a conversation with Hitler, Goebbels still noted: 'We want later to transport the Jews to Madagascar.'

Already by this time, however, the Madagascar plan had had its brief heyday. Putting it into effect would have depended not only on forcing the French to hand over their colony a relatively simple matter but on attaining control over the seas through the defeat of the British navy. With the continuation of the war the plan fell by the end of the year into abeyance and was never resurrected. But through the summer, for three months or so, the idea was taken seriously by all the top n.a.z.i leadership, including Hitler himself.

Hitler's rapid endors.e.m.e.nt of such an ill-thought-out and impracticable scheme reflected his superficial involvement in anti-Jewish policy during 1940. His main interests that year were plainly elsewhere, in the direction of war strategy. For the time being at least, the 'Jewish Question' was a secondary matter for him. However, the broad mandate to 'solve the Jewish Question' a.s.sociated with his 'mission', coupled with the blockages in doing so in occupied Poland, sufficed. Others were more active than Hitler himself. To Goebbels, Hitler gave merely the a.s.surance that the Jews were earmarked to leave Berlin, without approving any immediate action. Some had more luck with their demands. As in the east, the Gauleiter given responsibilities in the newly occupied areas in the west were keen to exploit their position to get rid of the Jews from their Gaue. In July Robert Wagner, Gauleiter of Baden and now in charge of Alsace, and Josef Burckel, Gauleiter of the Saar-Palatinate and Chief of the Civil Administration in Lorraine, both pressed Hitler to allow the expulsion westwards westwards into Vichy France of the Jews from their domains. Hitler gave his approval. Some 3,000 Jews were deported that month from Alsace into the unoccupied zone of France. In October, following a further meeting with the two Gauleiter, a total of 6,504 Jews were sent to France in nine trainloads, without any prior consultation with the French authorities, who appeared to have in mind their further deportation to Madagascar as soon as the sea-pa.s.sage was secure. into Vichy France of the Jews from their domains. Hitler gave his approval. Some 3,000 Jews were deported that month from Alsace into the unoccupied zone of France. In October, following a further meeting with the two Gauleiter, a total of 6,504 Jews were sent to France in nine trainloads, without any prior consultation with the French authorities, who appeared to have in mind their further deportation to Madagascar as soon as the sea-pa.s.sage was secure.

Above all, the running in radicalizing anti-Jewish policy was made by the SS and Security Police leadership. While Hitler at this time paid relatively little attention to the 'Jewish Question' when not faced with a particular issue that one of his underlings had raised, Himmler and Heydrich were heavily engaged in planning the 'new order', especially in eastern Europe. Hitler's decision, taken under the impact of the failure to end the war in the west, to prepare for the invasion of the Soviet Union opened up new prospects again in the east for a 'solution' to the 'Jewish Question'. Once more, policy in the General Government was reversed. Hans Frank, who had been expecting in the summer to have the Jews from his area shipped to Madagascar, was now told that they had to stay. Emigration from the General Government was banned. The brutal forced-labour conditions and ghettoization were already highly attritional. Jews were in practice often being worked to death. An overtly genocidal mentality was already evident. Heydrich suggested starting an epidemic in the newly sealed Warsaw ghetto in autumn 1940 in order to exterminate the Jews there through such means. It was into an area in which this mentality prevailed that Frank, so Hitler told him in December, had to be prepared to take more Jews.

With Hitler playing little active role, but providing blanket approval, conditions and mentalities had been created in the occupied territories of former Poland in which full-scale genocide was only one step away.

IV.

Before Hitler signed the directive in December 1940 to prepare what would rapidly be shaped into a 'war of annihilation' against the Soviet Union, there was a hiatus in which the immediate future direction of the war remained uncertain. Hitler was ready, during this phase that stretched from September to December 1940, to explore different possibilities of prising Britain out of the conflict before the Americans could enter it. Out of the failure of the 'peripheral strategy', a term hinted at by Jodl at the end of July, which at no stage gained Hitler's full enthusiasm, the hardening of the intention to invade the Soviet Union, first mooted in July, emerged until, on 18 December, it was embodied in a war directive.

With the invasion of Russia in the autumn of 1940, as initially proposed by Hitler, excluded on practical grounds by Jodl, other ways of retaining the strategic initiative had to be sought. Hitler was open to a number of suggestions. Ribbentrop was able to resurrect the idea he had promoted before the war, of an anti-British bloc of Germany, Italy, j.a.pan, and the Soviet Union. The new situation in the wake of the German victories in western Europe now also opened the prospect of extending the anti-British front through gaining the active cooperation of Spain and Vichy France in the Mediterranean zone, together with a number of satellite states in south-eastern Europe. For j.a.pan, the overrunning of the Netherlands and defeat of France, together with the serious weakening of Britain, offered an open invitation to imperialist expansion in south-eastern Asia. The Dutch East Indies and French Indo-China offered irresistible temptation, with the lure of the British possessions including Singapore, British Borneo, Burma, and beyond that India itself as an eventual further prize. j.a.pan's interests in expanding to the south made her willing now to ease the long-standing tensions in relations with the Soviet Union. At the same time, j.a.pan was keen to improve relations with Germany, soured since the HitlerStalin Pact, in order to have a free hand in south-eastern Asia. Hitler at this time opposed any formal alliance with j.a.pan. Only in late summer, persuaded that Britain would not accept his 'offer', and concerned that America could soon enter the war (a step appearing closer since the news of the destroyer deal with Britain), did Hitler reverse this position. The negotiations that began in late August led to the signing of the Tripart.i.te Pact on 27 September 1940, under which Germany, Italy, and j.a.pan agreed to a.s.sist each other in the event of one of the signatories being attacked by an external power not involved in the European or Sino-j.a.panese conflicts meaning, of course, the United States.

Raeder, too, was able to take advantage of Hitler's uncertainty in the late summer and autumn of 1940. In September the Commander-in-Chief of the navy put forward two memoranda strongly advocating a strategy directed at destroying Britain's strength in the Mediterranean and Near East. Hitler was not discouraging to Raeder's ambitious proposal aimed squarely against Great Britain to seize control (with Spanish a.s.sistance) of Gibraltar and the Suez Ca.n.a.l, before pushing through Palestine and Syria to the Turkish border. With Turkey 'in our power', as Raeder put it, the threat of the Soviet Union would be diminished. It would be 'questionable whether then moving against the Russians from the north would still be necessary', he concluded.

Hitler did not demur. He remarked that after the conclusion of the alliance with j.a.pan he wanted to carry out talks with Mussolini and perhaps with Franco before deciding whether it was more advantageous to work with France or Spain.

Franco had opportunistically looked to join the Axis in mid-June, counting on spoils in a war about to be won (as it seemed). He wanted Gibraltar, French Morocco, and Oran, the former Spanish province currently in French Algeria. There was at the time every reason for Hitler to avoid acting on proposals that could have jeopardized the armistice. In September, a diplomatic balancing-act to ensure support for the Mediterranean strategy of France, Spain, and Italy now appeared desirable and timely. Ribbentrop and Ramon Serrano Suner, Franco's brother-in-law and personal emissary, soon to be the Spanish Foreign Minister, met in Berlin on 16 September. But all that was forthcoming was an offer by Franco to meet Hitler on the Spanish border in October.

Before that, on 4 October, Hitler met Mussolini at the Brenner. Ribbentrop, feeling unwell and uncharacteristically quiet, and Ciano were also present. Hitler raised the question of Spanish intervention, outlining Franco's demands. Mussolini agreed on the stance to be taken towards Spain, reaffirming Italian demands of France to cede Nice, Corsica, Tunis, and Djibouti claims in effect placed in cold storage at the armistice. Ciano drew the conclusions from the meeting that the proposed landing in Britain would not take place, that the aim was now to win over France to the anti-British coalition, since Britain was proving more difficult to defeat than antic.i.p.ated, and that the Mediterranean sector had, to Italy's advantage, won greater significance.

The meeting had been cordial. But eight days later Mussolini's patience was stretched once more when he heard, without prior warning, that a German military commission had been dispatched to Bucharest and that the Germans were taking over the defence of the Romanian oil-fields. Mussolini's retaliation was to order the invasion of Greece for the end of the month, to present Hitler this time with a fait accompli. Hitler had warned against such a venture on numerous occasions.

On 20 October Hitler, accompanied by Ribbentrop, set out in his Special Train for southern France, bound first of all for a meeting, two days later, with Pierre Laval, Petain's deputy and foreign minister in the Vichy regime. This proved encouraging. Laval, full of unctuous humility, opened up the prospect of close French collaboration with Germany, hoping for France's reward through retention of its African possessions and release from heavy reparations both at the expense of Great Brtain once a peace-settlement could be concluded. Hitler did not seek firm details. Leaving no doubt that some African possessions would fall to Germany after the war, he was content to offer the inducement that the ease of terms for France would depend on the extent of French cooperation and the rapidity with which the defeat of Britain could be attained.

Hitler's train travelled on to Hendaye, on the Spanish border, for the meeting with the Caudillo on the 23rd. From Hitler's point of view, the meeting was purely exploratory. The next day, as arranged with Laval, he would be talking with Petain in the same vein. The repulsing by Vichy forces of a BritishGaullist landing at Dakar, the French West African port, a month earlier, and attempt to seize West Africa encouraged the already existing inclination of Hitler and Ribbentrop towards France over Spain if the respective interests of the two could not be reconciled. Hitler knew that his military chiefs were opposed to attempts to bring Spain into the war, and that Weizsacker had also strongly advised that there was 'no practical worth' in Spain joining the Axis. From Franco's angle, the aim was not to keep Spain out of the war but to make maximum gains from her entry. In effect, Hitler had little or nothing to offer Franco, who wanted a great deal. The contours were set for the difficult meeting to follow.

It took place in the salon of Hitler's train. Franco little, fat, swarthy in complexion, his droning sing-song voice reminiscent, it was later said, of that of an Islamic prayer-caller said Spain would gladly fight on the side of Germany during the current war, though the economic difficulties of the country ruled this out. Unmistakably and disappointingly to Spanish ears, however, Hitler spent much of his rambling address dampening down any hopes Franco might have had of major territorial gains at minimal cost. It became ever plainer that he had little concrete to offer Spain. He proposed an alliance, with Spanish entry into the war in January 1941, to be rewarded by Gibraltar. But it was evident that none of the colonial territory in North Africa, coveted by Franco, was earmarked for Spain in Hitler's thinking. The Spanish dictator said nothing for a while. Then he unfolded his list of exorbitant demands of foodstuffs and armaments. At one point, Hitler's irritation was so great that he got up from the table, stating that there was no point in continuing. But he calmed down and carried on. The talks produced, however, no more than an empty agreement, leaving the Spanish to decide when, if ever, they would join the Axis. Hitler was heard to mutter, as he left the meeting: 'There's nothing to be done with this chap.' At Florence a few days later, Hitler told Mussolini that he 'would prefer to have three or four teeth taken out' than go through another nine hours' discussion with Franco.

The discussions with Petain and Laval in Montoire on 24 October were no more fruitful. Hitler sought France's cooperation in the 'community' of countries he was in the process of organizing against Britain. The aged leader of Vichy France was non-committal. He could confirm the principle of French collaboration with Germany, which Laval had agreed at his meeting with Hitler two days earlier, but could not enter into detail and needed to consult his government before undertaking a binding arrangement. Hitler had offered Petain nothing specific. He had in return received no precise a.s.surances of active French support, either in the fight against Britain or in steps to regain the territory lost in French Equatorial Africa to the 'Free French' of de Gaulle, allied with Britain. The outcome was therefore inconsequential.

It was not surprising that Hitler and Ribbentrop travelled back to Germany with a sense of disappointment at the hesitancy of the French. It was a slow journey, during which Hitler, dispirited and convinced that his initial instincts had been right, told Keitel and Jodl that he wanted to move against Russia during the summer of 1941.

On crossing the German border Hitler received news that did nothing to improve his mood. He was informed that the Italians were about to invade Greece. He was furious at the stupidity of such a military action to take place in the autumn rains and winter snows of the Balkan hills.

However, during the meeting of the two dictators and their foreign ministers in Florence on 28 October essentially a report on the negotiations with Franco and Petain Hitler contained his feelings about the Italian Greek adventure, and the meeting pa.s.sed in harmony. Hitler spoke of the mutual distrust between himself and Stalin. However, he said, Molotov would shortly be coming to Berlin. It was his intention, he added, to steer Russian energies towards India. This remarkable idea was Ribbentrop's part of his scheme to establish spheres of influence for Germany, Italy, j.a.pan, and Russia (the powers forming his intended EuropeanAsiatic Bloc to 'stretch from j.a.pan to Spain'). It was an idea with a very short lifetime.

Briefing his military leaders in early November on his negotiations with Franco and Petain, Hitler had referred to Russia as 'the entire problem of Europe' and said 'everything must be done to be ready for the great showdown'. But the meeting with his top bra.s.s showed that decisions on the prosecution of the war, whether it should be in the east or the west, were still open. Hitler had seemed to his army adjutant Major Engel, attending the meeting, 'visibly depressed', conveying the 'impression that at the moment he does not know how things should proceed'. Molotov's visit in all probability finally convinced Hitler that the only way forward left to him was the one which he had, since the summer, come to favour on strategic grounds, and to which he was in any case ideologically inclined: an attack on the Soviet Union.

Relations with the Soviet Union were already deteriorating seriously by the time Molotov had been invited to Berlin. Soviet designs on parts of Romania (which had been forced earlier in the summer to cede Bessarabia and northern Bukovina) and on Finland (effectively a Soviet satellite following defeat in the recent war) had prompted direct German involvement in these areas. Anxious about the Ploesti oil-fields, Hitler had agreed in September to Marshal Antonescu's request to send a German military mission comprising a number of armoured divisions and air-force units to Romania, on the face of it to reorganize the Romanian army. Russian protests that the German guarantees of Romania's frontiers violated the 1939 pact were dismissed. In late November Romania came fully within the German orbit when she joined the Tripart.i.te Pact. The German stance on Finland had altered at the end of July the time that an attack on the Soviet Union had first been mooted. Arms deliveries were made and agreements allowing German troops pa.s.sage to Norway were signed, again despite Soviet protests. Meanwhile, the number of German divisions on the eastern front had been increased to counter the military build-up along the southern borders of the Soviet Union.

Undaunted by the growing difficulties in GermanSoviet relations, Ribbentrop impressed upon the more sceptical Hitler the opportunities to build the anti-British continental bloc through including the Soviet Union, too, in the Tripart.i.te Pact. Hitler indicated that he was prepared to see what came of the idea. But on the very day that talks with Molotov began, he put out a directive that, irrespective of the outcome, 'all already orally ordered preparations for the east [were] to be continued'.

The invitation to Molotov had been sent on 13 October before the fruitless soundings of Franco and Petain were made. On the morning of 12 November Molotov and his entourage arrived in Berlin. Weizsacker thought the shabbily dressed Russians looked like extras in a gangster film. The hammer and sickle on Soviet flags fluttering alongside swastika banners provided an extraordinary spectacle in the Reich's capital. But the Internationale was not played, apparently to avoid the possibility of Berliners, still familiar with the words, joining in. The negotiations, in Ribbentrop's study in the lavishly redesigned old Reich President's Palace, went badly from the start. Molotov, cold eyes alert behind a wire pince-nez, an occasional icy smile flitting across his chess-player's face, reminded Paul Schmidt there to keep a written record of the discussions of his old mathematics teacher. His pointed, precise remarks and questions posed a stark contrast to Ribbentrop's pompous, long-winded statements. He let Ribbentrop's initial comments, that Britain was already defeated, pa.s.s without comment. And he made little response to the German Foreign Minister's strong hints in the opening exchanges that the Soviet Union should direct her territorial interests towards the Persian Gulf, the Middle East, and India (plainly indicated, but not mentioned by name). But when Hitler joined the talks for the afternoon session, and provided his usual grand sweep of strategic interests, Molotov unleashed a hail of precise questions about Finland, the Balkans, the Tripart.i.te Pact, and the proposed spheres of influence in Asia, catching the German leader off guard. Hitler was visibly discomfited, and sought a convenient adjournment.

Molotov had not finished. He began the next day where he had left off the previous afternoon. He did not respond to Hitler's suggestion to look to the south, and to the spoils of the British Empire. He was more interested, he said, in matters of obvious European significance. He pressed Hitler on German interests in Finland, which he saw as contravening the 1939 Pact, and on the border guarantee given to Romania and the military mission sent there. Molotov asked how Germany would react were the Soviet Union to act in the same way towards Bulgaria. Hitler could only reply, unconvincingly, that he would have to consult Mussolini. Molotov indicated Soviet interest in Turkey, giving security in the Dardanelles and an outlet to the Aegean.

Symbolizing the fiasco of the two-day negotiations, the closing banquet in the Soviet Emba.s.sy ended in disarray under the wail of air-raid sirens. In his private bunker, Ribbentrop showing once more his unerring instinct for clumsiness pulled a draft agreement from his pocket and made one last vain attempt to persuade Molotov to concur in a four-power division of a large proportion of the globe. Molotov coldly rea.s.serted Soviet interest in the Balkans and the Baltic, not the Indian Ocean. The questions that interested the Soviet Union, went on Molotov, somewhat more expansively than during the actual negotiations, were not only Turkey and Bulgaria, and the fate of Romania and Hungary, but also Axis intentions in Yugoslavia, Greece, and Poland. The Soviet government also wanted to know about the German stance on Swedish neutrality. Then there was the question of outlets to the Baltic. Later in the month, Molotov told the German Amba.s.sador in Moscow, Graf von der Schulenburg, that Soviet terms for agreeing to a four-power pact included the withdrawal of German troops from Finland, recognition of Bulgaria as within the Russian sphere of influence, the granting of bases in Turkey, acceptance of Soviet expansion towards the Persian Gulf, and the cession by j.a.pan of southern Sakhalin.

Molotov listed these terms on 26 November. Hitler did not need to wait so long. He viewed the talks in Berlin, he had told his army adjutant Major Engel before Molotov came to the Reich capital, as a test of whether Germany and the Soviet Union would stand 'back to back or breast to breast'. The results of the 'test' were now plain, in Hitler's eyes. The two-day negotiations with Molotov had sufficed to show that irreconcilable territorial interests of Germany and the Soviet Union meant inevitable clashes in the near future. Hitler told Engel that he had in any case expected nothing from Molotov's visit. 'The talks had shown where the Russian plans were heading. M[olotov] had let the cat out of the bag. He (F[uhrer]) was really relieved. It would not even remain a marriage of convenience. Letting the Russians into Europe meant the end of central Europe. The Balkans and Finland were also dangerous flanks.'

Hitler's conviction, hardening since the summer, was confirmed: the strike against the Soviet Union had to take place in 1941. Some time in the autumn, probably following Molotov's visit, he sent his adjutants to search out a suitable location for field headquarters in the east. They recommended a spot in East Prussia, near Rastenburg, and he gave Todt orders to begin construction and have the headquarters completed by April. On 3 December he congratulated Field-Marshal Fedor von Bock on his sixtieth birthday and told him that the 'Eastern Question is becoming acute'. He spoke of rumoured links between Russia and America, and Russia and England. To await developments was dangerous. But if the Russians were eliminated from the equation, British hopes of defeating Germany on the continent would vanish, and j.a.panese freedom from worries about a Soviet attack from the rear meant American intervention would be made more difficult.

Two days later, on 5 December, he reviewed the objectives of the planned attack on the Soviet Union with Brauchitsch and Halder. Soviet ambitions in the Balkans, he declared, were a source of potential problems for the Axis. 'The decision concerning hegemony in Europe will come in the battle against Russia,' he added. 'The Russian is inferior. The army lacks leadership.' The German advantage in terms of leadership, materiel materiel, and troops would be at its greatest in the spring. 'When the Russian army is battered once,' continued Hitler, in his cra.s.s underestimation of Soviet forces, 'the final disaster is unavoidable.' The aim of the campaign, he stated, was the 'crushing of Russian manpower'. The key strikes were to be on the northern and southern flanks. Moscow, he commented, was 'of no great importance'. Preparations for the campaign were to be advanced in full force. The operation was expected to take place at the end of May. Halder reported Hitler's thoughts to a meeting of military leaders on 13 December. The campaign, he told them, would involve the launching of 130140 divisions against the Soviet Union by spring 1941. There was no indication that Brauchitsch, Halder, or their subordinate commanders raised objections to Hitler's a.n.a.lysis. On 17 December Hitler summarized his strategy for Jodl by emphasizing 'that we must solve all continental European problems in 1941 since the USA would be in a position to intervene from 1942 onwards'.

The following day, 18 December 1940, Hitler's war directive No. 21 began: 'The German Wehrmacht must be prepared, also before the ending of the war against England, to crush Soviet Russia in a rapid campaign. to crush Soviet Russia in a rapid campaign.'

The operation had been code-named 'Otto' by the General Staff. It had been referred to as 'Fritz' by the Wehrmacht operational staff, and the draft directive No. 21 laid before Jodl on 12 December had carried that name. When Jodl presented it to him five days later, Hitler changed the code-name to the more imperious 'Barbarossa' an allusion to the mighty twelfth-century emperor, ruler of Germany's first Reich, who had dominated central Europe and led a crusade against the Infidel. Hitler was now ready to plan his own crusade, against Bolshevism.

On 89 January 1941 Hitler held discussions at the Berghof with his military leaders. On the reasons for deciding to attack the Soviet Union, he reiterated arguments he had been deploying since the previous summer. Partly, the argument rested on an understanding of Soviet intentions, sharpened since Molotov's visit. Stalin was shrewd, said Hitler, and would increasingly exploit Germany's difficulties. But the crux of his case was, as ever, the need to pull away what he saw as a vital prop to British interests. 'The possibility of a Russian intervention in the war was sustaining the English,' he went on. 'They would only give up the contest if this last continental hope were demolished.' He did not think 'the English were crazy. If they saw no further chance of winning the war, they would stop fighting, since losing it would mean they no longer had the power to hold together the Empire. Were they able to hold out, could put together forty to fifty divisions, and the USA and Russia were to help them, a very difficult situation for Germany would arise. That must not happen. Up to now he had acted on the principle of always smashing the most important enemy positions to advance a step. Therefore Russia must now be smashed. Either the British would then give in, or Germany would continue the fight against Britain in most favourable circ.u.mstances.' 'The smashing of Russia,' added Hitler, 'would also allow j.a.pan to turn with all its might against the USA', hindering American intervention. He pointed to further advantages for Germany. The army in the east could be substantially reduced in size, allowing greater deployment of the armaments industry for the navy and Luftwaffe. 'Germany would then be una.s.sailable. The gigantic territory of Russia contained immeasurable riches. Germany had to dominate it economically and politically, though not annex it. It would then preside over all possibilities of waging the struggle against continents in future. It could then not be defeated by anyone. If the operation were carried through,' Hitler concluded, 'Europe would hold its breath.' If the generals listening had any reservations, they did not voice them.

During 1940 the twin obsessions of Hitler 'removing the Jews', and Lebensraum Lebensraum had come gradually into sharp focus. Now, in the first half of 1941, the practical preparations for the showdown that Hitler had always wanted could be made. In these months the twin obsessions would merge into each other. The decisive steps into genocidal war were about to be taken. had come gradually into sharp focus. Now, in the first half of 1941, the practical preparations for the showdown that Hitler had always wanted could be made. In these months the twin obsessions would merge into each other. The decisive steps into genocidal war were about to be taken.

19.

Designing a 'War of Annihilation'

I.

Between January and March 1941 the operational plans for 'Barbarossa' were put in place and approved by Hitler. Outwardly confident, he was inwardly less certain. On the very day that the directive for the attack on the Soviet Union was issued to the commanders-in-chief of the Wehrmacht, 18 December 1940, Major Engel had told Brauchitsch (who was still unclear whether Hitler was bluffing about invading the USSR) that the Fuhrer was unsure how things would go. He was distrustful of his own military leaders, uncertain about the strength of the Russians, and disappointed in the intransigence of the British. Hitler's lack of confidence in the operational planning of the army leadership was not fully a.s.suaged in the first months of 1941. His intervention in the planning stage brought early friction with Halder, and led by mid-March to amendments of some significance in the detailed directives for the invasion.

Already by the beginning of February, Hitler had been made aware of doubts at any rate a mood less than enthusiastic among some of the army leaders about the prospects of success in the coming campaign. General Thomas had presented to the Army High Command a devastating overview of deficiencies in supplies. Halder had noted in his diary on 28 January the gist of his discussion with Brauchitsch early that afternoon about 'Barbarossa': 'The "purpose" is not clear. We do not hit the British that way. Our economic potential will not be substantially improved. Risk in the west must not be underestimated. It is possible that Italy might collapse after the loss of her colonies, and we get a southern front in Spain, Italy, and Greece. If we are then tied up in Russia, a bad situation will be made worse.' Misgivings were voiced by the three army group commanders, Field-Marshals von Leeb, von Bock, and von Rundstedt, when they lunched with Brauchitsch and Halder on 31 January. Brauchitsch, as usual, was reluctant to voice any concern to Hitler. Bock, however, tentatively did so on 1 February. He thought the German army 'would defeat the Russians if they stood and fought'. But he doubted whether it would be possible to force them to accept peace-terms. Hitler was dismissive. The loss of Leningrad, Moscow, and the Ukraine would compel the Russians to give up the fight. If not, the Germans would press on beyond Moscow to Ekaterinburg. War production, Hitler went on, was equal to any demands. There was an abundance of materiel materiel. The economy was thriving. The armed forces had more manpower than was available at the start of the war. Bock did not feel it even worth suggesting that it was still possible to back away from the conflict. 'I will fight,' Hitler stated. 'I am convinced that our attack will sweep over them like a hailstorm.'

Halder pulled his punches at a conference with Hitler on 3 February. He brought up supply difficulties, but pointed to methods by which they could be overcome, and played down the risks that he had been emphasizing only days earlier. The army leaders accepted the priority Hitler gave to the capture of Leningrad and the Baltic coast over Moscow. But they neglected to work out in sufficient detail the consequences of such a strategy. Hitler was informed of the numerical superiority of the Russian troops and tanks. But he thought little of their quality. Everything depended upon rapid victories in the first days, and the securing of the Baltic and the southern flank as far as Rostov. Moscow, as he had repeatedly stressed, could wait. According to Below, Brauchitsch and Halder 'accepted Hitler's directives to wage war against Russia without a single word of objection or opposition'.

In the days that followed the meeting, General Thomas produced further bleak prognoses of the economic situation. Fuel for vehicles sufficed for two months, aircraft fuel till autumn, rubber production until the end of March. Thomas asked Keitel to pa.s.s on his report to Hitler. Keitel told him that the Fuhrer would not permit himself to be influenced by economic difficulties. Probably, the report never even reached Hitler. In any case, if Thomas was trying through presentation of dire economic realities to deter Hitler, his method was guaranteed to backfire. A further report demonstrated that if quick victories were attained, and the Caucasus oil-fields acquired, Germany could gain 75 per cent of the materials feeding the Soviet war industry. Such a prognosis could only serve as encouragement to Hitler and to other n.a.z.i leaders.

Hitler remained worried about a number of aspects of the OKH's planning. He was concerned that the army leadership was underestimating the dangers from Soviet strikes at the German flanks from the Pripet Marsh, and called in February for a detailed study to allow him to draw his own conclusions. In mid-March, he contradicted the General Staff 's conclusions, a.s.serting rightly, as things turned out that the Pripet Marsh was no hindrance to army movement. He also thought the existing plan would leave the German forces overstretched, and too dependent upon what he regarded as the dubious strength of the Romanian, Hungarian, and Slovak divisions the last of these dismissed merely on the grounds that they were Slavs on the southern front. He ordered, therefore, the alteration from a two-p.r.o.nged advance of Army Group South to a single thrust towards Kiev and down the Dnieper. Finally, he repeated his insistence that the crucial objective had to be to secure Leningrad and the Baltic, not push on to Moscow, which, at a meeting with his military leaders on 17 March, he declared was 'completely immaterial'. At this conference, these alterations to the original operational plan were accepted by Brauchitsch and Halder without demur. With that, the military framework for the invasion was in all its essentials finalized.

While the preparations for the great offensive were taking shape, however, Hitler was preoccupied with the dangerous situation that Mussolini's ill-conceived invasion of Greece the previous October had produced in the Balkans, and with remedying the consequence of Italian military incompetence in North Africa.

In all, during the calamitous month of January, the fighting in Libya had seen some 130,000 Italians captured by the British. The likelihood of a complete rout for the Italians in North Africa had to be faced. By 6 February, Hitler was briefing the general he had selected to stop the British advance and hold Tripolitania for the Axis. This was Erwin Rommel, who, with a combination of tactical brilliance and bluff, would throughout the second half of 1941 and most of 1942 turn the tables on the British and keep them at bay in North Africa.

Hitler's hopes of a vital strategic gain in the Mediterranean notably affecting the situation in North Africa by the acquisition of Gibraltar were, however, to be dashed again by the obstinacy of General Franco. Already at the end of January, Hitler had been informed by Jodl that 'Operation Felix' the planned a.s.sault on Gibraltar would have to be shelved, since the earliest it could now take place would be in mid-April. The troops and weapons would by then be needed for 'Barbarossa', at that time scheduled for a possible start only a month later. Hitler still hoped that Mussolini, at his meeting on 12 February with Franco, might persuade the Caudillo to enter the war. The day before the meeting, Hitler sent Franco a personal letter, exhorting him to join forces with the Axis powers and to recognize 'that in such difficult times not so much wise foresight as a bold heart can rescue the nations'. Franco was unimpressed. He repeated Spanish demands on Morocco, as well as Gibraltar. And he put forward in addition, as a price for Spain's entering the war at some indeterminate date, such extortionate demands for grain supplies saying the 100,000 tons already promised by the Germans were sufficient for only twenty days that there was no possibility they would be met. Spain, as before, had to be left out of the equation.

II.

Hitler confirmed the 'dreadful conditions' in Spain which Goebbels reported to him the day after his big speech in the Sportpalast on 30 January 1941, to mark the eighth anniversary of his appointment as Chancellor. The Propaganda Minister found Hitler in high spirits, confident that Germany held the strategic initiative, convinced of victory, revitalized as always by the wild enthusiasm like a drug to him of the vast crowd of raucous admirers packed into the Sportpalast. 'I've seldom seen him like this in recent times,' Goebbels remarked. 'The Fuhrer always impresses me afresh,' he added. 'He is a true Leader, an inexhaustible giver of strength.'

In his speech, Hitler had concentrated almost exclusively on attacking Britain. He did not devote a single syllable to Russia. But for the first time since the beginning of the war, he reiterated his threat 'that, if the rest of the world should be plunged into a general war through Jewry, the whole of Jewry will have played out its role in Europe!' 'They can still laugh today about it,' he added, menacingly, 'just like they used to laugh at my prophecies. The coming months and years will prove that here, too, I've seen things correctly.' Hitler had made this threat, in similar tones, in his Reichstag speech of 30 January 1939. In repeating it now, he claimed to recall making his 'prophecy' in his speech to the Reichstag at the outbreak of war. But, in fact, he had not mentioned the Jews in his Reichstag speech on 1 September, the day of the invasion of Poland. He would make the same mistake in dating on several other occasions in the following two years. It was an indication, subconscious or more probably intentional, that he directly a.s.sociated the war with the destruction of the Jews.

Why did he repeat the threat at this juncture? There was no obvious contextual need for it. He had referred earlier in the speech to 'a certain Jewish-international capitalist clique', but otherwise had not played the antisemitic tune. But within the few weeks immediately prior to his speech, Hitler had had the fate of the Jews on his mind, commissioning Heydrich at this point with the task of developing a new plan, replacing the defunct Madagascar scheme, to deport the Jews from the German sphere of domination. Perhaps. .h.i.tler had harboured his 'prophecy' in the recesses of his mind since he had originally made it. Perhaps one of his underlings had reminded him of it. But, most probably, it was the inclusion of the extract from his speech in the propaganda film Der ewige Jude Der ewige Jude, which had gone on public release in November 1940, that had stirred Hitler's memory of his earlier comment. Whatever had done so, the repeat of the 'prophecy' at this point was ominous. Though he was uncertain precisely how how the war would bring about the destruction of European Jewry, he was sure that this would be the outcome. And this was only a matter of months before the war against the arch-enemy of 'Jewish-Bolshevism' was to be launched. The idea of the war to destroy the Jews once and for all was beginning to take concrete shape in Hitler's mind. the war would bring about the destruction of European Jewry, he was sure that this would be the outcome. And this was only a matter of months before the war against the arch-enemy of 'Jewish-Bolshevism' was to be launched. The idea of the war to destroy the Jews once and for all was beginning to take concrete shape in Hitler's mind.

According to the account post-war recollections, resting partly on earlier, lost notes in diary form of his army adjutant Gerhard Engel, Hitler discussed the 'Jewish Question' soon after his speech, on 2 February, with a group of his intimates. Keitel, Bormann, Ley, Speer, and Ribbentrop's right-hand man and liaison officer Walther Hewel were present. Ley brought up the topic of the Jews. This was the trigger for Hitler to expound at length on his thoughts. He envisaged the war accelerating a solution. But it also created additional difficulties. Originally, it had lain within his reach 'to break the Jewish power at most in Germany'. He had thought at one time, he said, with the a.s.sistance of the British of deporting the half a million German Jews to Palestine or Egypt. But that idea had been blocked by diplomatic objections. Now it had to be the aim 'to exclude Jewish influence in the entire area of power of the Axis'. In some countries, like Poland and Slovakia, the Germans themselves could bring that about. In France, it had become more complicated following the armistice, and was especially important there. He spoke of approaching France and demanding the island of Madagascar to accommodate Jewish resettlement. When an evidently incredulous Bormann aware, no doubt, that the Madagascar Plan had by now been long since shelved by the Foreign Ministry and, more importantly, by the Reich Security Head Office asked how this could be done during the war, Hitler replied vaguely that he would like to make the whole 'Strength through Joy' fleet (ships belonging to the German Labour Front's leisure programme) available for the task, but feared its exposure to enemy submarines. Then, in somewhat contradictory fashion, he added: 'He was now thinking about something else, not exactly more friendly.'

This cryptic comment was a hint that the defeat of the Soviet Union, antic.i.p.ated to take only a few months, would open up the prospect of wholesale deportation of the Jews to the newly conquered lands in the east and forced labour under barbarous conditions in the Pripet marshlands (stretching towards White Russia in what were formerly eastern parts of Poland) and in the frozen, arctic wastes in the north of the Soviet Union. Such ideas were being given their first airing around this time by Himmler, Heydrich, and Eichmann. They would not have hesitated in putting their ideas to Hitler. The thinking was now moving way beyond what had been contemplated under the Madagascar Plan, inhumane though that itself had been. In such an inhospitable climate as that now envisaged, the fate of the Jews would be sealed. Within a few years most of them would starve, freeze, or be worked to death. The idea of a comprehensive territorial solution to the 'Jewish problem' had by now become effectively synonymous with genocide.

Hitler had been under continued pressure from n.a.z.i leaders to deport the Jews from their own territories, with, now as before, the General Government seen as the favoured 'dumping-ground'. Among the most persistent was the Gauleiter of Vienna, and former Hitler Youth Leader, Baldur von Schirach, who had been pressing hard since the previous summer to relieve the chronic housing problems of Vienna by 'evacuating' the city's 60,000 Jews to the General Government. Hitler had finally agreed to this in December 1940. The plans were fully prepared by the beginning of February 1941. Fresh from his visit to Vienna in March, on the third anniversary of the Anschlu, Hitler discussed with Hans Frank and Goebbels the imminent removal of the Jews from Vienna. Goebbels, anxious to be rid of the Jews from Berlin, was placated with an indication that the Reich capital would be next. 'Later, they must sometime get out of Europe altogether,' the Propaganda Minister added.

Despite the problems which had arisen in 1940 about the transfer of Jews and Poles into the General Government, Heydrich (partly under pressure from the Wehrmacht, which needed land for troop exercises) had approved in January 1941 a new plan to expel 771,000 Poles together with the 60,000 Jews from Vienna (bowing to the demands for deportation from Schirach, backed by Hitler) into Hans Frank's domain to make room for the settlement of ethnic Germans. A major driving-force behind the urgency of the ambitious new resettlement programme was the need to accommodate (and incorporate in the work-force) ethnic Germans who had been brought to Poland from Lithuania, Bessarabia, Bukovina and elsewhere in eastern Europe and since then miserably housed in transit camps. Frank's subordinates were dismayed at having to cope with a ma.s.sive new influx of 'undesirables'. In the event, however, inevitable logistical complications of the new plan soon revealed it as a grandiose exercise in inhumane lunacy. By mid-March the programme had ground to a halt. Only around 25,000 people had been deported into the General Government. And only some 5,000, mainly elderly, Jews had been removed from Vienna. There was still no prospect, within the confines of the territory currently under German control, of attaining either the comprehensive resettlement programme that Himmler was striving for, or, within that programme, solving what seemed to be becoming a more and more intractable problem: removing the Jews.

From comments made by Eichmann's a.s.sociate Theodor Dannecker, and, subsequently, by Eichmann himself, it was around the turn of the year 194041 that Heydrich gained approval from Hitler for his proposal for the 'final evacuation' of German Jews to a 'territory still to be determined'. On 21 January Dannecker noted: 'In accordance with the will of the Fuhrer, the Jewish question within the part of Europe ruled or controlled by Germany is after the war to be subjected to a final solution.' To this end, Heydrich had obtained from Hitler, via Himmler and Goring, the 'commission to put forward a final solution project'. Plainly, at this stage, this was still envisaged as a territorial solution a replacement for the aborted Madagascar Plan. Eichmann had in mind a figure of around 5.8 million persons.

Two months later, Eichmann told representatives of the Propaganda Ministry that Heydrich 'had been commissioned with the final evacuation of the Jews' and had put forward a proposal to that effect some eight to ten weeks earlier. The proposal had, however, not been accepted 'because the General Government was not in a position at that time to absorb a single Jew or a Pole'. When, on 17 March, Hans Frank visited Berlin to speak privately with Hitler about the General Government presumably raising the difficulties he was encountering with Heydrich's new deportation scheme he was rea.s.sured, in what amounted to a reversal of previous policy, that the General Government would be the first territory to be made free of Jews. But only three days after this meeting, Eichmann was still talking of Heydrich presiding over the 'final evacuation of the Jews' into into the General Government. Evidently (at least that was the line that Eichmann was holding to), Heydrich still at this point had his sights set on the General Government as offering the the General Government. Evidently (at least that was the line that Eichmann was holding to), Heydrich still at this point had his sights set on the General Government as offering the temporary temporary basis for a territorial solution. Frank was refusing to contemplate this. And Hitler had now opened up to him the prospect of his territory being the first to be rid of its Jews. Perhaps this was said simply to placate Frank. But in the light of the ideas already taking shape for a comprehensive new territorial solution in the lands, soon to be conquered (it was presumed), of the Soviet Union, it was almost certainly a further indicator that Hitler was now envisaging a new option for a radical solution to the 'Jewish problem' once the war was over by ma.s.s deportation to the east. basis for a territorial solution. Frank was refusing to contemplate this. And Hitler had now opened up to him the prospect of his territory being the first to be rid of its Jews. Perhaps this was said simply to placate Frank. But in the light of the ideas already taking shape for a comprehensive new territorial solution in the lands, soon to be conquered (it was presumed), of the Soviet Union, it was almost certainly a further indicator that Hitler was now envisaging a new option for a radical solution to the 'Jewish problem' once the war was over by ma.s.s deportation to the east.

Heydrich and his boss Himmler were certainly anxious to press home the opportunity to expand their own power-base on a grand scale by exploiting the new potential about to open up in the east. Himmler had lost no time in acquainting himself with Hitler's thinking and, no doubt, taking the chance to advance his own suggestions. On the very evening of the signing of the military directive for 'Operation Barbarossa' on 18 December, he had made his way to the Reich Chancellery for a meeting with Hitler. No record of what was discussed survives. But it is hard to imagine that Himmler did not raise the issue of new tasks for the SS which would be necessary in the coming showdown with 'Jewish-Bolshevism'. It was a matter of no more at this point than obtaining Hitler's broad authority for plans still to be worked out.

Himmler and Heydrich were to be kept busy over the next weeks in plotting their new empire. Himmler informed a select group of SS leaders in January that there would have to be a reduction of some 30 million in the Slav population in the East. The Reich Security Head Office commissioned the same month preparations for extensive police action. By early February Heydrich had already carried out preliminary negotiations with Brauchitsch about using units of the Security Police alongside the army for 'special tasks'. No major difficulties were envisaged.

III.

What such 'special tasks' might imply became increasingly clear to a wider circle of those initiated into the thinking for 'Barbarossa' during February and March. On 26 February General Georg Thomas, the Wehrmacht's economics expert, learned from Goring that an early objective during the occupation of the Soviet Union was 'quickly to finish off the Bolshevik leaders'. A week later, on 3 March, Jodl's comments on the draft of operational directions for 'Barbarossa' which had been routinely sent to him made this explicit: 'all Bolshevist leaders or commissars must be liquidated forthwith'. Jodl had altered the draft somewhat before showing it to Hitler. He now summarized Hitler's directions for the 'final version'. These made plain that 'the forthcoming campaign is more than just an armed conflict; it will lead, too, to a showdown between two different ideologies ... The socialist ideal can no longer be wiped out in the Russia of today. From the internal point of view the formation of new states and governments must inevitably be based on this principle. The Jewish-Bolshevik intelligentsia, as the "oppressor" of the people up to now, must be eliminated.' The task involved, the directions went on, was 'so difficult that it cannot be entrusted to the army'. Jodl had the draft retyped in double-s.p.a.cing to allow Hitler to make further alterations. When the redrafted version was finally signed by Keitel on 13 March, it specified that 'the Reichsfuhrer-SS has been given by the Fuhrer certain special tasks within the operations zone of the army', though there was now no direct mention of the liquidation of the 'Bolshevik-Jewish intelligentsia' or the 'Bolshevik leaders and commissars'.

Even so, the troops were to be directly instructed about the need to deal mercilessly with the political commissars and Jews they encountered. When he met Goring on 26 March, to deal with a number of issues related to the activities of the police in the eastern campaig