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DeCemb4!r 1985
World
A Review
FatefUl months: By Michael R. Marrus
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Among the most d ifficult tasks historians face in understa nding the Nazis' Final Sol u t i on is t o fit th e mass m u rder o f European Jews i nto the larger fra mework of the Third Reich . Was the a nti-Jewish cou rse of H itlerian poli cy set from a very early poi nt, for the u lti mate goal of mass m u rder? Was "World Jewry" such a constant preoccu pation, re qu iring contin u ing efforts, even at the expense of other Germa n goals? Or did the Nazis' m u rderous i m p ulses evolve, n ota bly under the i m pact of the war i n R ussia, to reach their genocidal conclusions only when that conflict reached its heig ht? Did some pa rticu larly demollic ideolog ica l force d rive the machinery of death forward, even at its lowest levels? Or was Nazi Germany less affected by the pathological hatreds of its leaders than is sometimes a l lowed ? One ()f the foremost schola rs now g rappling with these questions is Ch ristopher R. B rown ing, whose second book o n the subject, an important collection of essays, g ives us a good idea of the progress of research on these q uestions In the fi rst of fou r cha pters, Browning provides a masterful g u ide through the historians' debate over the decision for the Final Solution itself. As we know from i nvestigation i n practically every domain of Nazism, decisio n - making i n the Third Reich was an often chaotic process of orders and cou nter-orders, moving a long complex and often d upl icated chains of co m ma n d . At the top, the Fuhrer worked impulsively, procras tinating and letting others handle difficult problems, then sending orders careening through the system H e preferred to issue directions ora l ly, often avoiding deta i l , pack a ging co mmands in ideological exhortations meant to galvan ize subordi nates i nto action . As a result it is freq uently difficult to trace the exact origins of important u ndertakings, n otably the decision to m u rder all the European Jews. Browning was the fi rst to apply a disti nc tion between "intentionalist" and "fu nc tionalist" i nterpretations to the study of Nazi genocide. The former, he notes, focus on H itler's coherent and consistently-held anti Jewish ideology, im plying a long-sta nding plan for mass m u rder which was finally executed at the opportune moment; the latter stress the a n a rchic structure of the Third Reich, i n which a nti-Jewish pol icies fol lowed an uncerta i n path, with a ltered objectives, radicalizing m u rderously d u ri ng the latter half of 1 941 . Both g roups of interpreters recog n ize the powerful mobiliz ing force of H itler's a nti -Jewish obsessions; they differ, however, o n the degree of premeditatio n for mass m u rder, a nd the means by which the Final Sol ution was finally i m plemented Browning enters this debate as a self professed "moderate-functionalist " While rejecting the belief that the Final Solution was predetermined, he is sensitive to the role of H itler in seeking a n i ncreasingly radical a nsw er to the Jewish question . At the sa me time, as the author of a previous book on the German Foreign Office and the Final Solution, Browning knows well the Byzantine character of the German govern ment and bureaucra cy, notably the way the latter stu m b led a nd
Essavs On The Emergence Of The Final Solution
Dr. Chris Browning joined the PLU faculty in 1974 immediately after earning his doctorate in history at the University of Wisconsin. During the past 1 1 years he has gained recognition as a world authority on the Holocaust During the 1984-85 academic year he was a Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Last spring his second book was published by Holmes and Meier of New York City Fateful Months Essays on the E mergence of the Final Solution was recently reviewed for the Jerusalem Post b y Michael R. Marrus, himself a Holocaust expert We are proud to reprint that review on this page Browning is presently working on his third book, a study of the evolution and implementation of Nazi Jewish policy during World War II. The manuscript will form part of the multi-volume Comprehensive History of the Holocaust being produced by the Yad Vashem Rememberance A uthority in Israel.
Dr Chris Browning
g roped towa rds deci s i o n s rather t h a n o p e rati ng i n a d e l i berate, machine- l i ke fashion. After a careful review of the evidence, his conclusion is that some time i n the early phase of the Ba rba rossa ca mpaign against Russia, and moved by the euphoria of his ea rly victories, H itler ordered his SS chiefs to prepare a destruction plan H i m mler and Heyd rich then set to work, moving i n fits and sta rts By October, when the Nazis seal ed emigration possibilities once and for a l l, the pieces were fa lling i nto place; Jews from across E u rope would be deported to k i l l i ng centres in Pola nd to be mu rdered by poison gas. Construction then began on the earliest of the death ca mps - Belzec and Chelmno. B ut not u ntil the fol lowing spring would the Nazis' g enocidal system be put i n place, and the major problems solved . It took time to create this monstrosity, to find a way through g round as yet uncharted in human history In th ree additional essays, Browning ex a m i nes g ove rnment officials and Wehrmacht and SS officers as they ta ke the crucial i n itiatives necessary to kill on a massive sca le. U n l i ke many authors who concentrate upon H itler and a handful of his hench men , he combs the local levels, seeing dozens of Germans in various positions of responsibility contributing to the preparation of th e Final Solutio n . As it appears fro m this vantage
poi nt, Nazi genocide was fa r more a process of trial and error, with widespread involve ment, than we may h itherto have thought In Nazi-occupied Serbia, for exa m ple, th e m ur der of virtually a l l the male Jews was carried out by the Wehrmacht quite independently of the more comprehensive decisions being made in Berlin about the same time. In that turbu lent region, where an important Com mu nist uprising agai nst the occu piers beg an after the Nazis' invasion of the Soviet U n ion, the Germans i na u g u rated a vicious reprisal policy in September 1 941 against partisan attacks. Massacres of Jewish hostages fol lowed a s a matter of cou rse, a n exped ient way to satisfy ever higher quotas for reprisal executions. By the end of the year the Germans had shot more tha n 1 1 ,000, i nclud ing almost all the Jewish men in the cou ntry. Later, when the rest of the Serbian Jews were m u rdered , it was Nazi occupation authorities on the spot who moved Berl in to provide technical assistance and not the other way a round. By the spring of 1 942 the new turn i n H itlerian pol icy was n ot only common know ledge, it was eagerly adopted in some q ua rters, when they thi rsted to get the job done properly What moved these killers at the m iddle and lower echelons? Anti-Jewish ideology, to be sure, but to an i m portant deg ree also the forces that move specialists everywhere - a m bition, the i ncli nation to satisfy people in power, and the sense of freedom from personal responsibility that a bureaucratic org an ization can provide While describing an im po rtant deg ree of local i n itiatives in the Serbian case, Brown ing carefully notes the conti nuities between m u rderous activities agai nst Jews being carried out i n va rious places He rejects the notion, a rg ued by the German historian Martin Broszat that the idea of the Final Solution emerged only as a result of exten sive and unsystematic mu rders by local officials. In h is view, H itler a nd h is top SS commanders knew what they wanted , but needed time to develop the mean s. Begi n ning in the autu mn of 1 941 , he notes, individuals previously associated with the N azis' "euthanasia progra m me," operati ng u nder the a uthority of the SS police boss Rei nhard Heydrich , worked together with other expe rts to develop a "more h u mane method of execution" than that being used by the killing tea ms or Einsatzgruppen operating in Russia . ( " More h u mane, " i n this case, did not mean sol icitude for the victims; it mea ns rather an effort to spare the execution ers the psychological strai ns pro duced by the g risly work of k i l l i ng the Jews by rifle fire ) The experts' creation, the mobile gas van i n which J ews were killed by exhaust fu mes, "was pressed i nto service as a stop gap measure when the plans for the Final Solution in Europe were taking shape " Centra l agencies of Nazi power constantly refined the logistics of m u rder on a European sca le, but needed the help of armies of perpetrators operati ng with in thei r own a reas of specialization The task itself was g iga ntic, and Brown ing's sch ola rly work g ives us an excellent sense of how the process worked . It is a chilling thought that the pri ncipa l difficulties - and there were many - were tec h n ica l, not moral o r ideolog i ca l . W e now know what human i ngenuity, u n checked by h u mane sensibi lity, ca n fina l ly achieve . Reprin ted from the Jerusalem Post