"Final decision"

The “Archival Drama” by the historian Lev Simkin “He was hanged on Victory Square” - a study of the biography and personality of the executioner Babyeu Yar and the Riga ghetto Friedrich Ekkelna, one of those who stood at the sources of Jewish genocide. This is a story about how the Holocaust began. With the kind permission of Corpus, we publish (in reduction) one of the chapters of the book that has just passed out of the press

“On May 5, 1941, I was called to Himmler. The Reichsfuhrer SS ordered me to go on vacation, which lasted before the start of the war with the Soviet Union. Himmler told me then that the war against the Soviet Union will begin soon and a very important task will be entrusted to me. ”

So Ekkeln learned about the Operation Barbarossa. He considered it necessary to mention during interrogation that Himmler sent him on vacation, but kept silent about what were the instructions regarding his future appointment. He did not mention the fact that these instructions were given in the presence of Heydrich, and this could explain a lot. Most likely, it was about the "final solution to the Jewish issue."

* Austrian architect and public figure, after the end of World War II, devoted his life to the search for Nazi criminals hiding from punishment. - The New Times

If someone needs to explain what the “final decision” is, I will explain: this euphemism designated the mass destruction of the Jewish population of Europe. True, it is not known for sure whether this expression from the moment of its occurrence had exactly this meaning and whether it received such a wide use in the Third Reich, as it is now customary to think. Simon Wizenthal* already in the 1980s, he addressed the former Hitler Minister Albert Speer with a question when he first heard this expression. Speer replied that neither Hitler nor Himmler consumed him, and he himself heard him only after the war. In the documents it is extremely rare, I came across only once: in the order of Goering Heydrich of July 31, 1941, "provide a plan for the final solution of the Jewish issue." The key role in this regard was to play Ainzatzgroups - punitive formations created on the initiative of Heydrich to destroy the “political enemies of the Reich” in the occupied territories - real and potential.

The squadrons of death

Ainzatzgroups, following the Wehrmacht, in turn, consisted of Ainzatzkomand (sometimes this word is translated as operational teams) A, B, C and D, sharing the front by geographical principle. They were surrounded by complete secrecy. So complete that the brother of Goering Albert, he said, first learned about them from Reichsmarshal only in the summer of 1942.

According to the instructions approved by Heydrich, sabotage workers, partisans and propagandists were subject to destruction, as well as enemies in positions - party and middle -level party workers and political commissars. “Jews in party and state institutions” fell into a separate category of victims. Nevertheless, Ainzatzkomandy began to kill all Jews, despite the floor and age. Wherever they appear, with the help of local informants, the Jews identified and went to the prefabricated points. Then they were led or brought on trucks to the place of execution, where trenches were already prepared, or the victims should have been digging their graves themselves. Small settlements of the Jews were destroyed immediately, in large cities Jews were separated from the population and drove into the ghetto. By the end of 1941, Ainzatzgroups reported on the murder of a million (!) People, mainly about 700 thousand people - Jews. Incidentally, the selection of personnel for them was carried out by none other than Strekkenbach, who in May 1940 served as the head of the 1st Directorate (personnel management) of the Main Directorate of Imperial Security (RSHA).

Let us listen to him: “I became aware of the preparation of war against the Soviet Union in May 1941, when I got the task to compose a list of all the Russian security officers and diabetes. At the same time, I was informed the number of required operational groups. ” Strekkenbach not only formed Ainzatzgroups, but also instructed their commanders. At a meeting in the city, he introduced them to the instructions brought from Berlin, defining the "circle of special tasks of Ainzatzgruple SS in Russia." In May 1941, 2 thousand people from SD, Gestapo and Criminal Police arrived at the Border Police School. Everyone perfectly understood why they were sent there. We'll have to kill. They explained to whom to kill: the main thing is the “Jewish question”.

At the Nuremberg process, the SS Otto Olendorf, the head of Ainzatzgruppe D, testified that Himmler in an interview with him on the eve of the war, punished to destroy all Jews - both women and children. He remembered that meeting with the participation of Strekkenbach.

“Emens (the prosecutor from the USA): Who was present at this meeting?

Olendorf: the heads of operational groups and teams and from the Main Directorate of the Imperial Security of Strekkenbach, who transferred orders of Heydrich and Himmler. ” I think Strapekenbach responsibly approached the selection and distribution of future killers. He took an example from Himmler, who was very preoccupied with finding a suitable performer for each task and also meticulously selected people to key posts to the police and the SS. True, in his testimony he retroactively assured that in those days “he believed that the use of police officers in the occupied territories was being decomposed by a police apparatus.”

Ainzatzgroups were in a kind of double subordination-first of all, they were subordinated to their founding Heydrich, but their actions were coordinated by the highest Fuhrers of the SS and the police. One of them - Erich von Dema Bach - at the Nuremberg process the question was asked: "What was the main task of Ainzatzgrupp?" He answered directly: "The destruction of Jews, gypsies and political commissars."

"Little Himmlers"

“On June 25, Himmler called me to Berlin and appointed the head of the SS and the police at the Army Group“ A ”in Ukraine. From June to October 1941, I led in Ukraine an infantry brigade, the formations of the SS and the police regiment "South". Giving testimony at the investigation, Ekkeln tried to mention his position as a little as possible as possible the SS and the police.

To coordinate the activities of the police and the SS in the east, Himmler established three additional posts of the highest Fuhrers. For peace in the operational rear, they were responsible: in the north of Russia-the SS-Audolf Potzman group, in the south of Russia-Obergruppenfuhrer SS Friedrich Ekkeln (in November they changed places), in Central Russia and Belarus-Erich von Dema Bach. They were called "little Himmler." According to the general admission, Ekkeln was among them "the most energetic, if it came to a quick solution to the Jewish issue." But in this company there were no faint of heart. However, at some point, von Dema Bach still could not stand the nerves. In 1942, he went down from the nervous exhaustion, could not sleep, the executions of the Jews seemed. He spent a lot of time in the hospital, and recovered, he returned. Unlike Ekkelna, Erich von Dema Bach by origin of the aristocrat. From birth, he had another surname - Zelevsky. Western pretense was once part of the ancient Polish state, and almost any Pomeranian junker could find among the ancestors of the Poles. Years later, having renounced on behalf of his ancestors, he began to be called von Dema Bach-Zelevsky, and then just von Dema Bach.

Like Frederick, Erich volunteered for the front of the First World War, only at an even earlier age - at 15 years old, an exception was made to the descendant of a noble family. At 17, he received lieutenant shoulder straps, was awarded the Iron Cross of the I and II degree. When Germany surrendered and most officers were thrown out of the army, he remained to serve until 1924. With the advent of Hitler, his career went parallel to the career of Ekkelna.

The SS Reichsfuhrer experienced a drink to the aristocracy, especially to those representatives who were ready for the sake of the party to betray their estate. On the “Night of Long Knives”, Erich von Bach sent two of his subordinates to the estate of one of the leaders of the cavalry units of Baron Anton von Hokhberg Bukhhchbald, where they shot him in his own smoking room, and then said to his 17-year-old son: “We just killed your father, and now we are leaving with the fulfillment of the fulfillment.”

... It is customary to think that the responsibility for the murder of Jews lies exclusively on Ainzatzgroups. Meanwhile, their number was not so large - each is equal to the battalion, up to 800 people, plus technical staff - drivers, radio operators, translators. 3 thousand people who entered them (though by the end of 1941, their composition grew due to collaborators) themselves would never have coped with their task and could not commit so many murders without the help of the SS troops and the forces of the police and security forces. Ekkeln concentrated in his hands all the powers necessary for the uninterrupted implementation of mass killings. In addition to the Ainzatzgruppe C and D (over 1,500 people), in addition to the Ainzatzgruppe, which, however, were in double subordination, were the SS troops, the police officer and the security police. First of all, the police regiment "South" containing three police battalions with a total number of about 1,700 people. On July 22, 1941, the 1st SS motorized infantry team consisting of two SS regiments of over 6 thousand people was added to this regiment, two more police battalions in August. Both the police regiment and the brigade units were involved in the Jewish actions.

These are no longer selected killers from Ainzatzkamand. Ordinary people, ordinary police officers. Before the war, the order of order has grown strongly, in September 1939 it totaled 131 thousand people. With the admission of it, young people were freed from the army (Hitler dissociated himself from the provisions of the Versailles treaty and introduced mandatory military service) and could serve near the house, although they were in a barracks. With the outbreak of war, the “police army” began to be called up reservists. And this is the worst thing - it would be easier to understand if the police battalions were completed from professional killers.

Began to kill in the Soviet Union

The English Holocaust researcher Martin Dean assured me that there was no single “final decision”, that it was made in parts-from the spring of 1941 to the summer of 1942-and was performed in parts, Jews were killed at different times throughout the war. Hitler’s hints, Himmler’s orders, at the local level - his orders, his own initiative. To my question, what about the famous German Ordnung, he recalled many parallel police departments, which, although they cooperated, were competing with each other.

It seems that indeed everything went not only from top to bottom, but also from the bottom up. According to the British historian Richard Evans, “there was no exactly formulated order; Hitler set the general framework of action, Himmler interpreted them in his own way, and the SS officers in the field, referring to him, acted on their own initiative. ” When on June 22, 1941 the Wehrmacht attacked the Soviet Union, the mass killings behind the front line began immediately. How did it happen that they suddenly began to kill Jews, everyone in a row?

It is usually customary to refer to the notorious “Commissars Order”, signed on June 6, 1941 by Keitel. But there is nothing about Jews in it. There - about commissars, it is they “are not recognized as soldiers; They do not apply to prisoners of war international legal protection. After the sorting, they must be destroyed. ” Jews appear in the order adopted by the order of the head of the RSHA Heydrich of July 2, 1941. By the way, the directive is addressed to the SS -SS and Security Police in the USSR zone in the USSR: “Executions are subject to executions ... Jews are members of the party and employed in public service, as well as other radical elements (saboteurs, sons, propagandists, snipers, killers, arsonists, etc.)”.

A little later, “Jews - party members and employed in the public service” were expanded, and all Jews, including women and children, were included in them, simply because they were born Jews. But this did not happen right away. At first, Ekkeln on paper tried to bring his victims to the category indicated in the order of Heydrich. The substitution of the concepts of “commissars” - “Jews” took place gradually.

On July 25, Ekkeln signed an “operational order on the cleaning campaign in the forests south of the Rivne-Zvyagel road”, where “the 124th Soviet division with its significant forces lasted for a long time”: “captured commissars should be delivered to me after a brief interrogation for a thorough interrogation by the Fuhrer of my headquarters. With the agents of women or Jews who have provided themselves to the disposal of the Soviets, should be appropriately contacted. ” The "properly" meant execution.

To conduct the action, a subordinate to Ekkelnu was appointed 1st motorized infantry brigade of the SS. On July 31, Ekkeln in the radiogram reported on the completion of the action: “Shot: 73 Russian soldiers who acted as partisans. 165 functionaries and other persons who provided significant support (among them are four women). 1658 Jews, including 59 women who provided significant support and issued the Ukrainian population to the Bolshevik authorities. ”

"Sabotage"

On July 5, on the orders of Ekkelna, the first "Military Custom Promotion" was held. The police units subordinate to him (the South Regiment) shot 150 Jews in the city of Vladimir-Volynsky. After completing the action, Ekkeln set the task of protecting the “OKH axis axis west of the Starokonstantin -Sephatovka line”. “Security” again in fact brought to the murders of Jews. On August 3, 489 people (302 men and 187 women) were shot by the forces of the 8th regiment of the SS-as if for sabotage. In his report, he portrayed the murder as follows: “In Staroconstantinov, the current residence of the SS of the SS and the police and the head of the rear military region, after the German troops entered the Jewish, the Jews behaved impudently and even refused to work. Of the about 1 thousand Jews involved in the field work, only 70 appeared the next day. In addition, sabotage acts in relation to harvesting machines were established. The Jewish Council of Elders even dismissed the rumor about the advance of the Russians that the Jews were immediately used as an occasion to publicly threaten and vilify Ukrainians. Finally, it was found that the Jews of Boyko were traded by stolen cattle and goods ”(from the“ report on events in the USSR ”No. 59 of August 21, 1941).

"Sabotage acts." This word was often used in German documents in relation to Jews. Why?

In pre -war Germany there was a persistent belief that the Jews were the cause of defeat in the First World War. Gradually, this strange conclusion began to refer to a well -known circumstance. The SS men used it as a reason for mass reprisals. When the Parisian synagogue was burned in the fall of 1941, Heydrich officially approved the arson "only in the sense that the Jews are responsible for the fact that the First World War broke out in Europe."

“How much would we complicate the situation for ourselves if, in the conditions of bombing, hardness and deprivation of war, we would have Jews in every city today! They would have acted as secret sabotage, agitators, and troublemakers. Now we would probably have reached the level of 1916-1917, when the Jews were still present in the German national body. ” These are the words of Gimmler at a meeting of the General of October 4, 1943, given by the American prosecutor at the Nuremberg trial, William Walsh.

In addition to commissars and sabotage, Jews were put on a par with saboteurs. In those areas where the 101st reserve police battalion was deployed, the identification of Jews and partisans practically did not intersect. However, from the frequent repetition of words about Jews and saboteurs in the minds of the soldiers, they themselves believed - they themselves believed that we were talking about the same people. This was the case of the testimony of Christopher Browning, the author of the book “Ordinary Men”, based on the documents of the German investigation, which lasted from 1962 to 1972, - the protocols of interrogations of 210 police officers, five of which were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment.

... At first, the numbers in the reports of Ekkelna were very modest, no scale. He personally managed the action in Shepetovka on July 28, when 800 Jews were shot in Staroconstantinov on August 3 - 489 victims. Others have achieved much greater success. What Himmler strictly indicated to Ekkeln on August 12, when he arrived with him with a report. Himmler advised him to take an example from the cavalrymen. At this point, 13,788 “robbers and soldiers in civilian clothes” were shot by regiments of the Cavalry brigade of the SS. The word “robbers” could not mislead anyone-so in the SS reports (for example, in the report of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment of the SS about the results of the operation “Pripyat”), Jews were called.

In the first months of the war, punishers in the reports brought Jewish sacrifices to the categories of sabotage and party workers. Of course, there was another lie, but it was she who at first served as a pretext for murder. В Берлине составителям отчетов доверяли. Вот что об одном из них, коллеге Еккельна, писал в собственноручных объяснениях на следствии Штреккенбах: «Фон дем Бах — честолюбивый, низкий человек… тщеславный, мнительный человек, от которого, как и от Далюге, была далека правда. Его сообщения всегда были преувеличены или даже измышлены, о чем знали все. Только в этом нельзя было убедить Гиммлера».

Потом уже никакие предлоги для убийств не требовались. Презюмировалось, что евреи подлежат уничтожению как пособники тех, кто оказывает оккупантам сопротивление. Все, включая детей, стариков и женщин. Уже никто не заморачивался поиском каких-либо доказательств принадлежности жертв к партизанам или подпольщикам. Говорили прямо, и «свидетельство о рождении автоматически становилось свидетельством о смерти» (Эли Визель).

Это было задолго до обсуждения в Ванзее мер по «окончательному решению», до того, как заработали печи Освенцима. Так что к газовым печам привела не только страшная логика нацизма и безумные идеи Гитлера, но и усердие фанатиков и садистов из айнзатцгрупп и полицейских батальонов, действовавших на оккупированной советской территории. Именно там начался Холокост. Это был «Холокост от пуль».