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The Ideologue as Genocidaire: Alfred Rosenberg and the Murder of the Jews in the Soviet Union

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The Jews, the Holocaust, and the Public

Part of the book series: The Holocaust and its Contexts ((HOLC))

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Abstract

‘There was no silence’ writes David Cesarani in the introduction to his 2012 book on postwar Jewish Holocaust responses. This chapter addresses a related myth; that of Jews failing during World War Two to comprehend the deadly dynamics of German Judenpolitik. It does so by focusing on wartime reports from the office of Richard Lichtheim, the Jewish Agency representative in Geneva during World War II. The assumption of a centrally devised and systematically executed annihilation project taking shape in the summer of 1942 became a compelling and enduring conceptual frame of reference to explain Nazi genocide, leaving little room for interpretations that—like Lichtheim’s pre-1942 reports and later accounts by functionalist historians—highlight the radicalizing force of improvisation and local initiative. This chapter examines the collecting, mental processing, and transfer of information on the unfolding ‘final solution’ in order to reassess prevailing patterns of understanding Holocaust violence.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The views presented here are those of the author; they do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

    David Cesarani, Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews 1933–1949 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2016), 794–795, similar xxxii–xxxvii.

  2. 2.

    Ibid., 351–449.

  3. 3.

    File note on the results of a meeting by German planners of military economy on May 2, 1941, Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949; hereafter: IMT) 31: 84 (2718-PS). See also Berthold Alleweldt, Herbert Backe. Eine politische Biographie (Berlin: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2015).

  4. 4.

    See especially Richard Breitman, The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final Solution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991). With strong focus on Himmler and his apparatus: Peter Longerich, Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Saul Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Persecution, 1933–1939 (New York: Harper Collins, 1997); and the most recent edition of Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2003).

  5. 5.

    Most notably Christian Gerlach, The Extermination of the European Jews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), with references to his earlier work highlighting food policy; also Christoph Dieckmann, Babette Quinkert eds., Kriegführung und Hunger 1939–1945. Zum Verhältnis von militärischen, wirtschaftlichen und politischen Interessen (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2015). A proponent of the argument among U.S. scholars is Gesine Gerhard; see her “Food and Genocide. Nazi Agrarian Politics in the Occupied Territories of the Soviet Union,” Contemporary European History 18, 1 (2009): 45–65; idem, Nazi Hunger Politics: A History of Food in the Third Reich (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015). For critical assessments of the food argument see Longerich, Holocaust, 209–210; Christopher R. Browning, with contributions by Jürgen Matthäus, The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939–March 1942 (Lincoln and Jerusalem: University of Nebraska Press in association with Yad Vashem, 2004), 238–239.

  6. 6.

    It is a reflection of the importance Cesarani places on Himmler that he lists the SS-chief as participant (together with Göring , Keitel, Rosenberg, Lammers, and Bormann) in a decisive meeting at Hitler ’s headquarter on July 16, 1941, devoted to German policy-making in Rosenberg’s territory (Cesarani, Final Solution, 381). In fact, Himmler was absent from that meeting.

  7. 7.

    The influential journalist Joachim Fest presented Rosenberg as an ‘outsider’ who ‘had little or no political influence and no voice in the real decisions’; Joachim C. Fest, “Alfred Rosenberg—The Forgotten Disciple,” in idem, The Face of the Third Reich: Portraits of the Nazi Leadership (New York: Pantheon Books, 1970), 163–174. Rosenberg’s depiction was more nuanced in Gerald Reitlinger, The House Built on Sand: The Conflicts of German Policy in Russia, 1939–1945 (New York: Viking Press, 1960); Alexander Dallin, German Rule in Russia, 1941–1945: A Study of Occupation Policies, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1981).

  8. 8.

    See Timothy Patrick Mulligan, The Politics of Illusion and Empire: German Occupation Policy in the Soviet Union, 1942–1943 (New York: Praeger, 1988); Andreas Zellhuber, ‘Unsere Verwaltung treibt einer Katastrophe zu…’ Das Reichsministerium für die besetzten Ostgebiete und die deutsche Besatzungsherrschaft in der Sowjetunion 1941–1945 (Munich: Vögel, 2006), 149–159; Alex J. Kaye, Jeff Rutherford, and David Stahel, eds., Nazi Policy on the Eastern Front, 1941 (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2012).

  9. 9.

    Hans-Günther Seraphim, ed., Das politische Tagebuch Alfred Rosenbergs 1934/35 und 1939/40 (Göttingen: Musterschmidt Verlag, 1956).

  10. 10.

    For details of Rosenberg’s biography before and after ‘Barbarossa’ and information on the diary’s postwar fate see Jürgen Matthäus, Frank Bajohr, eds., The Political Diary of Alfred Rosenberg and the Onset of the Holocaust (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), 1–17, 413–479.

  11. 11.

    These Party appointments formed the core of a loose assortment of functions under his name; see Reinhard Bollmus, Das Amt Rosenberg und seine Gegner. Zum Machtkampf im nationalsozialistischen Herrschaftssystem (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1970).

  12. 12.

    See Mulligan, Politics, 21–31.

  13. 13.

    See Geoffrey P. Megargee, War of Annihilation: Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front, 1941 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006).

  14. 14.

    See Longerich, Holocaust, 179–255; Hilberg, Destruction, 275–407; Browning, Matthäus, Origins, 244–309.

  15. 15.

    See Megargee, War, 59–62; Christian Streit, Keine Kameraden. Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941–1945 (Stuttgart: DVA, 1978).

  16. 16.

    Elke Fröhlich, ed., Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels. Teil I: Aufzeichnungen 1923–1941, Teil II: Diktate 1942–1945 (Munich: K.G. Saur, 1994–2006). The official notes by the German chief administrator in occupied rump Poland, Generalgouverneur and Hitler ’s long-time legal advisor Hans Frank share some of the characteristics of a diary. They were printed in part in Das Diensttagebuch des deutschen Generalgouverneurs in Polen 1939–1945, ed. Werner Präg and Wolfgang Jacobmeyer (Stuttgart: DVA, 1975).

  17. 17.

    See Peter Witte, Michael Wildt, Martina Voigt, Dieter Pohl, Peter Klein, Christian Gerlach, Christoph Dieckmann, and Andrej Angrick, eds., Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42 (Hamburg: Christians, 1999); Katrin Himmler and Michael Wildt, eds., Himmler privat. Briefe eines Massenmörders (Munich: Piper, 2014).

  18. 18.

    Among the gaps in Rosenberg’s diary entries is the crucial period from January to early October 1942. It is not clear whether Rosenberg did not write during these months or whether his entries were later destroyed or lost. See Matthäus, Bajohr, Diary, 10–11.

  19. 19.

    See Ian Kershaw, The ‘Hitler Myth’: Image and Reality in the Third Reich (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987); idem, Hitler, the Germans, and the Final Solution (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008).

  20. 20.

    See Matthäus, Bajohr, Diary, 370–373.

  21. 21.

    Longerich, Holocaust, 174–175.

  22. 22.

    Browning, Matthäus, Origins, 236.

  23. 23.

    Matthäus, Bajohr, Diary, 81, 257. On the elusive concept of ‘the East’ in European political thinking, see Kate Brown, A Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Borderland to Soviet Heartland (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005); Alexander V. Prusin, The Lands Between: The East European Frontiers in Wars, Revolutions and Nationality Conflicts, 1900–1992 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

  24. 24.

    Matthäus, Bajohr, Diary, 229–230.

  25. 25.

    Ibid., 229–231, 234–236.

  26. 26.

    Ibid., 229.

  27. 27.

    See Browning, Origins, 224–243.

  28. 28.

    Memorandum “Betr. UdSSR,” April 2, 1941; IMT 26: 547–554 (1017-PS).

  29. 29.

    Ibid.

  30. 30.

    Matthäus, Bajohr, Diary, 234–236.

  31. 31.

    Ian Kershaw, “Working toward the Führer,” in idem, Hitler, 29–48 (here 33).

  32. 32.

    Interview Raul Hilberg with Claude Lanzmann, January 1979, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives (hereafter USHMMA) RG-60.5045 Transcript, 47.

  33. 33.

    Matthäus, Bajohr, Diary, 234–236 (emphases in the original).

  34. 34.

    “Memorandum No. 2, ‘Betr. UdSSR’,” April 7, 1941 (1018-PS); cited from OUSCC extract translation in http://www.fold3.com/image/231970296, 305, 317, 329, 339 (accessed October 10, 2017). For the appendix: IMT 26: 555–560 (1019-PS).

  35. 35.

    See Longerich, Holocaust, 215–216.

  36. 36.

    See Browning, Origins, 224–234.

  37. 37.

    Matthäus, Bajohr, Diary, 242 (diary entry for April 20, 1941).

  38. 38.

    Matthäus, Bajohr, Diary, 243 (diary entry for May 1, 1941).

  39. 39.

    Letter Himmler to Bormann, May 25, 1941, USHMMA RG 14.015M (Bundesarchiv Berlin NS 19/3874, fol. 12–13).

  40. 40.

    See Megargee, War, 33–41.

  41. 41.

    See war diary No. 1 OKW WiRüAmt Arbeitsstab Oldenburg, February 24 – June 23, 1941; USHMMA RG 71 (Robert Kempner papers), box 377, entry for May 2, 1941.

  42. 42.

    Protocol of a meeting of state secretaries, May 21, 1941; economic policy guidelines, May 23, 1941; quoted from Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung, ed., Verbrechen der Wehrmacht: Dimensionen des Vernichtungskrieges 1941–1944 (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2002), 64–66.

  43. 43.

    Memorandum “Betr. UdSSR,” April 2, 1941 (1017-PS).

  44. 44.

    By mid-1942, the staff of Rosenberg’s ministry had grown to what would be its maximum strength of roughly 1600. See Zellhuber, Verwaltung, 162–169; Mulligan, Politics, 21–26.

  45. 45.

    “Allgemeine Instruktion für alle Reichskommissare in den besetzten Ostgebieten,” May 8, 1941 (1030-PS); IMT 26: 576–580 (here: 580).

  46. 46.

    “Instruktion für einen Reichskommissar im Ostland,” May 8, 1941 IMT 26: 573–576 (1029-PS).

  47. 47.

    “Eine allgemeine Behandlung erfordert die Judenfrage, deren zeitweilige Übergangslösung festgelegt werden muss (Arbeitszwang der Juden, eine Ghettoisierung usw.).” Memorandum Rosenberg regarding “Allgemeiner Aufbau und Aufgaben einer Dienststelle für die zentrale Bearbeitung der Fragen des osteuropäischen Raumes,” April 29, 1941 (1019-PS), IMT 26: 560–566 (here 561; emphasis in the original).

  48. 48.

    “Denkschrift Nr. 2,” quoted from Christoph Dieckmann, Deutsche Besatzungspolitik in Litauen 1941–1944 (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2011), 794.

  49. 49.

    “Instruktion für einen Reichskommissar in der Ukraine,” May 7, 1941, IMT 26: 567–573 (1028-PS).

  50. 50.

    “The plan, the outline, the goal emerges from the steps as they are being taken”; interview Raul Hilberg with Claude Lanzmann, January 1979, USHMMA RG-60.5045 transcript, 47.

  51. 51.

    See excerpts from four policy texts by Rosenberg’s office regarding propaganda and public relations work with reference to the Soviet Union; printed in Matthäus, Bajohr, Diary, 373–375.

  52. 52.

    See Browning, Matthäus, Origins, 272; Kai Struve, Deutsche Herrschaft, ukrainischer Nationalismus, antijüdische Gewalt. Der Sommer 1941 in der Westukraine (Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg 2015).

  53. 53.

    See Cesarani, Final Solution, 364–374.

  54. 54.

    See Matthäus, Bajohr, Diary, 249–253 (notes by Rosenberg dated June 6, 1941, for his speech on June 20, 1941). For a full transcript of Rosenberg’s speech see IMT 26: 610–627 (1058-PS).

  55. 55.

    See Megargee, War, 58–71; Kaye, Rutherford, Stahel, Nazi Policy.

  56. 56.

    See Dieckmann, Besatzungspolitik, vol. 2; Anton Weiss-Wendt, Murder without Hatred: Estonians and the Holocaust (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2009); David Gaunt, Paul A. Levine, and Laura Palosuo, eds., Collaboration and Resistance During the Holocaust: Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania (Bern: Peter Lang, 2004).

  57. 57.

    Gerlach, Extermination, 66–74.

  58. 58.

    See Dieter Pohl, “The Murder of Ukraine’s Jews under German Military Administration and in the Reich Commissariat Ukraine,” in Ray Brandon and Wendy Lower, eds., The Shoah in Ukraine: History, Testimony, Memorialization (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press in association with the USHMM, 2008), 23–76.

  59. 59.

    See figures in Alexander Kruglov, “Jewish Losses in Ukraine, 1941–1944,” in ibid., 278–279.

  60. 60.

    For a more detailed analysis of Rosenberg’s role in the ‘final solution’ after the beginning of ‘Barbarossa’ see Matthäus, Bajohr, Diary, 447–468.

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  1. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, USA

    Jürgen Matthäus

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  1. University of Derby, Derby, UK

    Larissa Allwork

  2. King’s College London, London, UK

    Rachel Pistol

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Matthäus, J. (2019). The Ideologue as Genocidaire: Alfred Rosenberg and the Murder of the Jews in the Soviet Union. In: Allwork, L., Pistol, R. (eds) The Jews, the Holocaust, and the Public. The Holocaust and its Contexts. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28675-0_8

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