Inferno - Max Hastings [328]
IN THE WINTER OF 1941–42, a large number of Jewish deportees from Germany were shot immediately on their arrival at eastern destinations, but these killings were carried out at the discretion of local SS commanders; no general order was issued, decreeing either their preservation or their extinction. Late in November there was an eccentric intervention by Himmler himself, ordering a temporary halt to the killing of Reich Jews as distinct from easterners, though this check was soon reversed. To a remarkable degree, regional autonomy and logistical convenience—shortage of accommodation and food or, contrarily, of labour—still decided who lived and who died; but large-scale killings of eastern Jews, especially those unfit for work, continued through the winter. In Serbia, thousands of Jews and gypsies were executed in retaliation for partisan activity; local German commanders knew that prioritising such people as victims ensured Berlin’s approval.
Only one further step remained to be taken by the Nazi leadership: to order a transition from inflicting death arbitrarily and regionally towards imposing it by direct order from the top, in pursuit of an agreed policy of total extermination. In a speech on 12 December 1941, following his declaration of war on the United States, Hitler made plain his commitment to the destruction of the Jews, in supposed retaliation for their responsibility for the conflict. The implementation of the genocide programme was entrusted to the SS’s deputy chief, Reinhard Heydrich, to whom Himmler later paid unstinting posthumous tribute: “He was a character of rare purity with an intelligence of penetrating greatness and clarity. He was filled with an incorruptible sense of justice. Truthful and decent people could always rely on his chivalrous sentiment and humane understanding.” These virtues were skilfully concealed on 20 January 1942, when at the Wannsee conference Heydrich mapped the road to the death camps. There is no record that he articulated an explicit commitment to murder all of Europe’s Jews, not least because the logistical obstacles remained formidable. Starvation still had a useful part to play; where convenient, victims could be worked to death. But the intended outcome was no longer in doubt: the “Final Solution” of the Jewish problem would be accomplished in stages, only the last of which must await the war’s end.
There was considerable detailed discussion about the construction of extermination camps and the virtues of gas. The principal outcome of the conference was agreement that the SS would in future exercise absolute authority over the fate of Europe’s Jews; that no other Reich agency could appeal against its decisions; and that henceforward, policy would be directed towards the overarching aim of cleansing the entire Nazi empire. This was implemented with remarkable speed: in mid-March 1942, almost three-quarters of all those who perished in the Holocaust were still alive; eleven months later, the same proportion were dead.
A ministerial adviser enquired of SS-Brigadeführer Odilo Globocnik whether it might not be prudent to burn the bodies of the Nazis’ Jewish victims, rather than bury them: “After us there might come a generation that doesn’t