The Nuremberg Interviews (80 page)

  
1.
Gregor Strasser (1892–1934) was a leader of the early Nazi Party. He eventually split with Hitler and was murdered on June 30, 1934, as part of the so-called “night of the long knives.”

  
2.
In the elections of March 5, 1933, to the German parliament, the Nazis obtained 43.9 percent of the vote and 288 seats out of a total of 647 seats. Their coalition partners, the German National People’s Party (DNVP), won 8 percent of the vote and another 52 seats, thus giving Hitler “command” of a majority in the house. Altogether, more than 20.3 million people voted for these two parties out of a total of 39.3 million who cast their ballot in the elections.

  
3.
George S. Messersmith was U.S. Consul General in Berlin, 1930–34. He was then sent to Vienna, where he remained until 1937.

  
4.
Otto Dietrich (1897–1952), was Reich press chief for most of the Nazi era. On the press in Nazi Germany, an older but reliable study in English is Oron J. Hale,
The Captive Press in the Third Reich
(Princeton, 1964).

  
5.
Hans Bernd Gisevius (1904–1974) happily rushed to join the Gestapo in 1933, but eventually distanced himself from the regime and became involved in the resistance.

  
6.
For a compelling account of the prewar persecutions and also of the “night of broken glass,” see Saul Friedländer,
Nazi Germany and the Jews
, vol. 1,
The Years of Persecution, 1933–1939
(New York, 1997).

  
7.
The meeting of November 12, chaired by Hermann Goering, was called to deal with the pogrom of November 9, 1938. For an introduction and reference to the literature, see Gellately,
Backing Hitler
, 126–32.

  
8.
U.S. secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. put forward a plan in the autumn of 1944 that aimed at preventing Germany from starting another war. The nation was to be returned to a premodern pastoral condition, with the country divided and its economy destroyed. The plan was opposed by U.S. secretary of war Henry Stimson, as well as by President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

  
9.
The meeting was likely a gathering of wealthy industrialists on February 20, 1933. For a full account, also of the broader issues, see Henry Ashby Turner Jr.,
German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler
(New York, 1985); here, see 328–33.

10.
Heinrich Hoffmann (1885–1957) was Hitler’s official photographer.

11.
Twilight of the Gods
is the fourth of four operas constituting Richard Wagner’s
The Ring
.

  
1.
Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, first earl of Halifax (1881–1959), was British ambassador to the United States 1941–46.

  
2.
Although many German Jews belonged to the middle-class elite in society and culture until 1933, Goering exaggerates their role. For a more differentiated account, also with useful references to further literature, see Friedländer,
Nazi Germany and the Jews
.

  
3.
For a still useful account of Chamberlain and his role in the intellectual background to the rise of the Third Reich, see Mosse,
Toward the Final Solution
.

  
4.
The “Rundstedt Offensive” — sometimes referred to as the Ardennes Offensive (December 1944–January 1945) — is commonly known as the Battle of the Bulge. The German attack was commanded by General Field Marshall Rundstedt, but it was Hitler’s plan and he was involved at every stage. He hoped to break the Allies will, but failed disastrously. The battle cost both sides dearly, with each suffering around 80,000 casualties.

  
5.
Field Marshal Hans Guenther von Kluge (1882–1944) is said by one historian to have “displayed his zeal for carrying out Hitler’s commands to the letter” in the attack on the Soviet Union in 1941. See Barry A. Leach,
German Strategy Against Russia 1939–1941
(Oxford, 1973), 226. On the other hand, Kluge was ambivalent about the later military resistance to Hitler, and opposed assassination, much as did Rommel. For the full details, see Peter Hoffmann,
The History of the German Resistance 1933–1945
(Cambridge, Mass., 1977).

  
6.
Karl Brandt (1904–1948) was a physician to Hitler and became directly involved in fostering the notorious euthanasia program that began in 1939. At the “euthanasia” trial in Nuremberg he was sentenced to death, and executed. For details and reference to the vast literature on the topic, see Michael Burleigh,
Death and Deliverance: “Euthanasia” in Germany 1900–1945
(Cambridge, 1994).

  
7.
On Hitler’s use of amnesties, see Gellately,
Backing Hitler
, 39, 88, 196.

  
8.
The reference here is to Adolf Eichmann (1906–1962), whose importance was realized fully only later, particularly at his trial in Jerusalem in 1961.

  
9.
The notorious Posen speech (October 4, 1943) is reprinted in J. Noakes and G. Pridham,
Nazism: A Documentary Reader
(Exeter, 1988), 3:1199–200.

10.
Birger Dahlerus was a friend of Goering. He is described in the court documents
as a private Swedish citizen who wanted to help negotiate the Anglo-German conflict at the time of the outbreak of the Second World War. In fact Goering tried to use Dahlerus in late September 1939 to get the British to accept that Germany have a free hand in Poland and be able to resolve the “Jewish question” as Germany saw fit. Dahlerus thought initially he was being used to broker a peace, but finally realized he had been duped by Goering and to some extent also by Hitler. For this matter, see Richard Overy,
Goering: The “Iron Man”
(London, 1984), 93.

11.
APC is a pharmaceutical compound of aspirin, caffeine, and phenacetin.

12.
See the in-depth discussion of art and politics under Hitler in Jonathan Petropoulos,
Art as Politics in the Third Reich
(Chapel Hill, 1996).

13.
For the precise background to the decision-making process and these laws, see Ian Kershaw,
Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris
(London, 1998), 568–69.

14.
Edward, duke of Windsor (1894–1972), abdicated the British throne in 1936 in order to marry Wallis Simpson. They went initially to Paris, left for Madrid when France fell in 1940, and sailed to the Bahamas on August 1, 1940, quite unaware that the Germans were plotting around them. Rumors continue to circulate of the duke’s positive feelings toward Hitler and the Third Reich.

  
1.
For the context and Hitler’s highly emotional response to Hess’s flight to Scotland on May 10, 1941, see Ian Kershaw,
Hitler 1936–45: Nemesis
(New York, 2000), 369–81. Kershaw shows convincingly that “there is not a shred of compelling evidence” that Hitler had any prior knowledge of the Hess “mission.” The deputy führer evidently got it into his head that he might be able to arrange an Anglo-German agreement of some kind before the Germans launched Operation Barbarossa, the attack on the Soviet Union that had been planned just shortly before, for June 22, 1941.

  
1.
For details on the Criminal Police (Kripo), which was finally centralized in 1936 in the Reich Criminal Police Office (RKPA), see Gellately,
Backing Hitler
, 34–50.

  
2.
On the mythical “purge” of the police in 1933 and the creation of the Gestapo, see Robert Gellately,
The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy, 1933–1945
(Oxford, 1990), especially 50–57. See also George C. Browder,
Foundations of the Nazi Police State: The Formation of the Sipo and SD
(Lexington, Ky., 1990).

  
3.
For an excellent account of the RSHA (with full organizational charts) and a biography, see Peter R. Black,
Ernst Kaltenbrunner: Ideological Soldier of the Third Reich
(Princeton, 1984). For a detailed account of the RSHA, see the detailed study of Michael Wildt,
Generation des Unbedingten: Das Führungskorps des Reichssicherheitshauptamtes
(Hamburg, 2002).

  
4.
Heinrich Mueller (born 1901) was the notorious head of the Gestapo and what became known inside the RSHA as Office IV. He played a key part in the creation
and operation of the Gestapo, and disappeared in 1945. For an introduction to his career, see Gellately,
Gestapo and German Society
, 55–56.

  
5.
For a social analysis of the party, see Kater,
Nazi Party
.

  
6.
The claim continues to be made that Hitler and Nazi Germany had carried out a “preventive war” to parry an attack that Stalin and the Soviets were about to launch. For a solid rebuttal, see Gabriel Gorodetsky,
Grand Delusion: Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia
(New Haven, Conn., 1999). For a precise account of the military preparations and dispositions of both sides, see Overy,
Russia’s War
.

  
7.
The Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907), as well as other international treaties such as the Geneva Convention (1929), had attempted to work out the rules of war.

  
8.
In a seminal speech in the evolution of the Cold War, Churchill warned — on March 5, 1946, at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri — that “an iron curtain has descended across the Continent” of Europe. He was referring to how the Soviet Union had extended its control over what became the Eastern Bloc countries.

  
9.
Wilhelm Canaris (1887–1945) had been head of the German military intelligence (
Abwehr
). His reservations and doubts about Hitler eventually led him to participate in some resistance activities; he was arrested and tortured in the wake of the
Attentat
of July 1944, and finally hanged on April 9, 1945. For the details and general account, see Hoffmann,
History of the German Resistance
.

  
1.
Walter von Brauchitsch (1881–1948) was commander in chief of the German army 1938–41. He was appointed by Hitler to replace Werner von Fritsch (1880–1939). Brauchitsch was dismissed by Hitler on December 19, 1941. Hitler demonstrated who was boss with the ousters of military leaders like Brauchitsch and Fritsch, as well as Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg (1878–1946). Blomberg was commander in chief of the army until 1938 and minister of war 1935–38. He was forced from office through an orchestrated scandal in 1938.

  
2.
The German annexation of Austria took place on March 12, 1938. Most Austrians responded with enthusiasm and euphoria. See Evan Burr Bukey,
Hitler’s Austria: Popular Sentiment in the Nazi Era
(Chapel Hill, 2000), 33.

  
1.
The reference is to William E. Dodd and Martha Dodd, eds.,
Ambassador Dodd’s Diary, 1933–1938
(London, 1941).

  
2.
On the subsequent elections of March 5, 1933, to the German parliament, see above, chapter on Funk, note 2.

  
3.
The Munich Conference (September 29–30, 1938) was the high point of British and French appeasement policies toward Germany. Czechoslovakia was in effect given up in return for keeping the peace. In the end this policy failed to appease Hitler, who was determined upon war.

  
4.
Hans Heinrich Lammers (1872–1962) was chief of the Reich Chancellery throughout the period of the Third Reich. At one of the follow-up trials at Nuremberg (the Wilhelmstrasse case in 1949), he was held to account and sentenced to twenty years, but was released from prison in 1954.

  
1.
For Papen’s role in helping Hitler into power, see Turner,
German Big Business
, 322–29.

  
2.
Hitler came to power as part of a coalition government. See chapter on Funk, note 2, above.

  
3.
This refers to the murder of Ernst Roehm (1887–1934) among others on the “night of the long knives,” June 30, 1934. For a brief introduction and literature, see Gellately,
Backing Hitler
, 38–39.

  
1.
For an analysis of how the Nazis portrayed Jewish influence in the United States during the Roosevelt era, see Dan Diner,
America in the Eyes of the Germans: An Essay on Anti-Americanism
(Princeton, 1996), especially 79–103, “Uncle Sam as Uncle Shylock.”

  
2.
The revealing and massive diary is published: Werner Präg and Wolfgang Jacobmeyer, eds.,
Das Diensttagebuch des deutschen Generalgouverneurs in Polen
1939–1945 (Stuttgart, 1975).

  
3.
The Nazi-Soviet pact was signed on August 23, 1939.

  
4.
Lend-lease was an American military and economic program introduced by FDR in 1941 to aid nations warring against the Axis powers. By August 1945, when the war ended, the United States had sent a total of $48 billion in material aid. Most of the money lent countries such as Britain was eventually repaid. The Soviet Union also repaid some of what it owed — perhaps less than one-third of the total.

  
5.
Lazar Kaganovich was Jewish, a loyal Stalin supporter, and at one time member of the Politburo and Central Committee. For a recent Russian account see Dmitri Volkogonov,
Stalin, Triumph and Tragedy
(New York, 1991).

  
6.
For a general account of Majdanek (Lublin) — created in 1941 — and of all the other camps, see Hilberg,
Destruction of the European Jews
.

  
7.
Werner Best (1903–1989) was one of the most influential leaders of the Gestapo and was head of the office in charge of administration and law from 1935. From September 1939 he was leader of Office II of the RSHA, but in 1940 he was appointed to a major position in the administration of occupied France. From November 1942 he became the Reich plenipotentiary in Denmark, and played a role in saving the Danish Jews. Nevertheless, he was sentenced to death in 1949 in Copenhagen, but amnestied and released in 1951. He testified at Nuremberg, but was not put on trial there.