Hitler's Foreign Executioners (80 page)

15
   A. Weiss-Wendt (2010), p. xvii.

16
   Ibid., p. 342.

17
   Quoted in Birn, p. 185.

18
   See Gurin-Loov (1994).

19
   Arad (1989), p. 347.

20
   Under German rule, the Omakaitse targeted many different ‘enemies of Estonia’. The list included a rural underclass of farm hands and unskilled workers who had benefitted from Soviet land reform and free schooling and were accused of holding socialist views. They had become, according to popular opinion, ‘
hochmuetig und frech
’ (arrogant and uppish); Omakaitse squads shot hundreds. Alcoholics, gossips and troublemakers – they too were targeted. Estonian police arrested women who had done the laundry or other domestic chores for the Soviet occupiers and anyone who was heard to speak Russian. Women who had had Russian boyfriends were all dragged in front of ‘Strafprojektierungskommisionen’, Estonian commissions appointed by the Germans, and frequently sentenced to death. Ruth Bettina Birn examined the recommendations for execution held in the archives of the occupation Estonian security police: recommended for execution are petty thieves of ‘no value to the community’; an alcoholic thief who is judged ‘a disadvantage to the community’; a prostitute ‘completely useless to the community’; another prostitute whose ‘descendants will surely be inferior human beings, detrimental to the interests of society, the same as she is.’ Sandberger himself believed that 35 per cent of people arrested by his Estonian colleague were later sentenced to death. Estonian society, dominated as it was by old baronial families, was conservative and reactionary. Under German occupation, Jews had been the first victims; many hundreds of other Estonians judged to be ‘useless’ or ‘detrimental’ followed them to the gallows or execution chamber. Sandberger, who had such good relations with his Estonian colleagues, was preoccupied by pressing ‘
rassepolitischen Grundsaetzen
’ (racial political considerations). His colleague Heinrich Bergmann, a National Socialist fanatic, advised action ‘devoid of all restraint’ to deal with Estonia’s ‘Roma’. In February 1942, Sandberger ordered his Estonian police to begin treating Roma ‘as if they were Jews’: this
Zigeuneraktion
was completed by the autumn. In the first phase, the Estonian police arrested gypsies, locked them up in camps and put them to work. By the end of October, many of them had been executed.

21
   BA-MA, RH 19 III/492, Kant to Oberste Heeresleitung, 12.8.41.

22
   BA NS, 19/382, Berger to Rosenberg, 10.10.1941.

23
   BA NS, 19/3522, Jost to Himmler, 7.8.1942 (Estniche SS Legion).

24
   BA NS, 19/3522, Berger to Rosenberg.

25
   Nuremberg Document NO 3301, USMT IV, Case 11, Himmler, 13 January 1943.

26
   NARA, T175, 140/2668141–355.

27
   Himmler,
Dienstkalender
, pp. 542–4.

28
   Blood (2008), pp. 89–90.

29
   After the war, Valdmanis immigrated to Canada where his career ended in ignominy after a conviction for fraud. He was killed in a highway accident in 1970.

30
   Bassler (2000), pp. 142ff.

31
   BA NS, 19, C.19.2.8, Germanische, fremvolkische und sonstige nicht-deutsche (FW) Verbande: 1506; C.19.2.5.

32
   Facsimile in Silgailis (1986), Appendix 1.

33
   Quoted in Lacis (2006), p. 36.

34
   Bassler, p. 150.

35
   Ezergailis (2005), pp. 60–1.

36
   Silgailis, Appendix 5, p. 217.

37
   Quoted in Bassler, p. 151.

38
   Ibid., p. 153.

39
   See for example Lacis (2006).

40
   This account uses information from R.B. Birn, ‘Zaunkönig an Uhrmacher. Grosse Partisanenaktionen 1942/3 an Beispiel des “Unternehmens Winterzauber”’, in
Militärgesschichtliche Zeitschrift 60
(2001), pp. 110ff.

41
   See ibid., pp. 99–118.

42
   Himmler,
Geheimreden
(ed. Smith/Peterson).

43
   Sutton (2008), pp. 185ff.

44
   BA NS, 19/1446. Minutes on Himmler’s conversation with Hitler, 7 September 1943.

11  Nazi Jihad

  
1
   See
Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11
by Matthias Kuntzel (2007) for an extreme version of this argument.

  
2
   NA UK, WO 208/3781, ‘Investigation into the Last Days of Adolf Hitler’.

  
3
   See Avi Jorisch, ‘Al-Manar: Hizbollah TV’, in
Middle East Quarterly
(winter 2004).

  
4
   Julius (2009), pp. 95ff.

  
5
   Matthias Küntzel,
From Zeesen to Beirut National Socialism and Islamic antisemitism
; Seth Arsenian, ‘Wartime Propaganda in the Middle East’, in
The Middle East Journal
, Vol. 2 (October 1948); Robert Melka,
The Axis and the Arab Middle East 1930–1945
(University of Minnesota, 1966); Heinz Tillmann,
Deutschlands Araberpolitik im Zweiten Weltkrieg
(East Berlin, 1965).

  
6
   Quoted in Gensicke (1988), p. 121.

  
7
   For a clear-sighted and up-to-date analysis of this period and the role of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem see E. Karsh (2010), Chapter 1.

  
8
   There is a substantial literature on the British mandate and the emergence of Arab nationalism. See, for example, J. Marlowe,
The Seat of Pilate. An Account of the Palestine Mandate
(Cresset Press, London, 1959);. Hyamson,
Palestine under the Mandate 1920–1948
(Methuen, London, 1950); Y. Porath,
The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement. Vol. 1: 1918–1929
(Frank Cass, London, 1974) and
The Palestinian Arab National Movement. Vol. 2: 1929–1939. From Riots to Rebellion
(Frank Cass, London, 1977); B. Wasserstein,
The British in Palestine. The Mandatory Government and the Arab-Jewish Conflict 1917–1929
(Royal Historical Society, London, 1978); M. Cohen,
The Origins and Evolution of the Arab-Zionist Conflict
(University of California Press, 1987); Ann Mosely Lesch,
Arab Politics in Palestine, 1917–1939.

  
9
   H. Cohen, ‘The Anti Jewish Farhud in Baghdad 1941’, in
Middle Eastern Studies
, 3 (1966), pp. 2–17.

10
   See Hans-Jürgen Döscher,
Das Auswärtige Amt in Dritten Reich: Diplomatie im Schatten der Endlösung
(Berlin, 1987), p. 168, cited by Herf (2010).

11
   Details from Speer,
Inside the Third Reich
, pp. 158ff.

12
   Quoted in Gensicke (2007), p. 124. See also DGFP, Set D, Vol. 12, ‘Record of the Conversation between the Führer and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem on November 28, 1941 in the presence of the Reich Foreign Minister and Minister Grobba in Berlin’, pp. 881–5.

13
   See Matthias Kuntzel, ‘National Socialism and Anti-Semitism in the Arab World’, in
Jewish Political Studies Review
(spring 2005).

14
   Quoted in Cüppers & Mallmann, ‘Rede Mufti zur Eröffnung des Islamischen Zentralinstituts’ v. 18.12.1942, PAAA, R 27327; see Matthias Kuntzel, ‘Von Zeesen bis Beirut. Nationalsozialismus und Antisemitismus in der arabischen Welt’, in Doron Rabinovici, Ulrich Speck & Natan Sznaider (eds),
Neuer Antisemitismus? Eine globale Debatte
(Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 2004), pp. 271–93.

15
   In a debate in the House of Commons on 2 July 1942, Churchill said: ‘The military misfortunes of the last fortnight in Cyrenaica and Egypt have completely transformed the situation, not only in that theatre, but throughout the Mediterranean. We are at this moment in the presence of a recession of our hopes and prospects in the Middle East and in the Mediterranean unequalled since the fall of France.’

16
   See Klaus-Michael Mallman & Martin Cüppers, “‘Elimination of the Jewish National Home in Palestine”: The Einsatzkommando of the Panzer Army Africa, 1942’, in
Yad Vashem Studies
XXV (available online at
http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_holocaust/studies/vol35/Mallmann-Cuppers2.pdf
).

17
   BA-MA, RW 5/690. Quoted in Cüppers & Mallmann (2007).

18
   Quoted op. cit. Niederschrift dess. v. 29.8.1942; ibid., R 27325; see Kriegstagebuch Amt Ausland/Abwehr II v. 13.7.1942, BA-MA, RW 5/498.

19
   Details from Satloff (2006), pp. 44ff.

20
   BA B, NS 19/1775OKW/WFSt/Qu.IV an RFSS v. 8.12.1942; BA-MA, RH 2/600; Oberkommando Heeresgruppe(HGr) Afrika/Ic an OKH/Gen.St.d.H./Op.Abt. v. 19.4.1943, Ordensvorschlag HoSSPF Italien v. 25.2.1945, BAB, R 70 Italien/19. The experience of the Tunisian Jews is also documented in Daniel Carpi,
Between Mussolini and Hitler. The Jews and the Italian Authorities in France and Tunisia
(Brandeis University Press, Hanover & London, 1994); and Raul Hilberg,
The Destruction of the European Jews
(Harper & Row, New York, 1961), pp. 411–3.

21
   
Völkischer Beobachter
, 20 March 1943: ‘
Aufruf des Großmufti gegen die Todfeinde des Islams, Araber werden für ihre Freiheit an der Seite der Achse kämpfen
’.

22
   Gensicke, op. cit., pp. 134–9.

23
   NARA T–77, Roll 895, and T–501, Roll 264 and 268. For the Croatian legion see Tomasevich,
The Chetniks
, p. 395.

24
   NARA T–120, Roll 5793, and Hoover Institution, Heinrich Himmler Collection, Box 5.

25
   Redzic, p. 178.

26
   Stein (1996), pp. 179–80.

27
   NARA T–175, 94/2614801, see also the Kersten Memoirs, pp. 258ff.

28
   Hoover Institution, Himmler Collection, Box 5, File 281. Vrančić’s letter was forwarded to Phleps who passed it on, with comments, to Hans Jüttner in the SS Head Office in Berlin.

29
   Quoted in Gensicke (2007), pp. 116–9 for an account of el-Husseini’s journey.

30
   NARA T–120, Roll 5782 and 5783.

31
   NARA: T–120, Roll 2908, E464782.

32
   Hoover Institution Archives, Himmler Collection, Box 5, File 281.

33
   See Trigg (2009), p. 83.

34
   Diary of Erich Braun, quoted in Lepre, pp. 41–2.

35
   Report by the German police commander in Sarajevo to Einsatzgruppe E in Zagreb, 15 July 1943, National Archives Microcopy T–175, Records of the Reich Leader and Chief of the German Police, roll 140, frame 952; Glaise-Horstenau, Die Erinnerungen, 254; Letter from SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Artur Phleps to Himmler, 7 July 1943, T–175/140/955; Memorandum on the Meeting of Phleps and Himmler, 28 July 1943, T–175/140/952; Letter from Himmler to Phleps, 6 August 1943, T–175/140/949.

36
   T–175 roll 70: Dienstanweisung für Imame der 13. SS-Freiwilligen b.h. Geb. Div. (Kroatien).

37
    ‘Rede des RFSS Heinrich Himmler vor den Führen der 13. SS-Frchw. B.h. Goerings-Division (Kroatien) im FuhrerheimWestlager, Truppenübungsplatz Neuhammer am 11. Januar, 1944’, BA NS19/4012, 6–16.

38
   See E. Serotta,
Survival in Sarajevo: Jews, Bosnia and the Lessons of the Past
(Vienna, 1994).

39
   NARA, T–175, roll 70.

40
   
Handzar
, Folge 7, 1943, quoted by Lepre, pp. 77–9.

41
   NARA T–175, Roll 126.

42
   Report on the Villefranche mutiny, generously shared by George Lepre.

43
   Quoted in Lepre, p. 101.

44
   NARA T–175, roll 94.

45
   NARA T–175, roll 94: Rede des Reichsführers auf der Tagung der RPA-Leiter, am 28 January 1944.

46
   Hoare, pp. 279–80.

47
   NARA T–175 roll 70 and T–175 roll 21, Berger to Himmler, 26.1.44, Brandt to Berger 31.1.44, and Berger to Himmler 18.2.44.

48
   I am grateful to Jonathan Trigg for first-hand descriptions of Bosnia. See
Himmler’s Jihadis
(2009), p. 110.

49
   Trigg (2009), p. 93.

50
   NARA T175, roll 7013 SS-Division Kommandeur, Briefe No 8, 25.2.44.

51
   Peter Broucek,
Ein general in Zwielicht: Die Erinnerungen Edmund Glaises von Horstenau
(Vienna, 1988), p. 231.

52
   Personal communication, George Lepre, 2008.

53
   
Hitlers Lagebesprechungen: Die Protokollfragmente seiner militärischen Konferenzen, 1942–1945
, Heiber, Stuttgart (ed.) (1962), p. 560.

54
   See for example
The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany’s Bid for World Power, 1898–1918
by Sean McMeekin (2010), which repeats figures from David G. Dalin’s biography of the Grand Mufti
Icon of Evil
(2008).

55
   R. Birn (1991), pp. 360–1.

12  The Road to Huta Pieniacka