Woman Hanged WWII"

Oh! I had the impression you've really been asking several questions about the book resp. about what Browning answers in 'Ordinary Men'. So instead of having other people (re-)read passages and summarise things for you, you could go to a library, get the book and read it yourself.

 

Oh! I had the impression you've really been asking several questions about the book resp. about what Browning answers in 'Ordinary Men'. So instead of having other people (re-)read passages and summarise things for you, you could go to a library, get the book and read it yourself.

Not at all, I presented some facts that were being countered against by another member, I merely asked them to clarify on what they said, in this case, what unit they were referring to. I've read through my old posts in this topic and I don't see anything wrong with what I asked, up until now my posts were asking Stig about what Browning was referring to.

I asked for a polite clarification, if someone adds to, counters, etc one of your arguments they should explain it, the person on the other end shouldn't be tasked with researching what the other person said about their research. I'm not blaming Stig by any means, we were just having a polite discussion on the matter.

That being said, I haven't discredited the book in any way, I just had a question about it.

 

Johannes Blaskowitz spoke out against the atrocities he saw the S.S. commit in the Eastern Front. He was blacklisted and relieved of duty,

Johannes Blaskowitz - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Disobedience and Conspiracy in the German Army, 1918–1945

 

Johannes Blaskowitz spoke out against the atrocities he saw the S.S. commit in the Eastern Front. He was blacklisted and relieved of duty [...]

... and later re-employed.
You might be interested in the following passage:
"[...] le cas du général Blaskowitz, présenté comme un farouche opposant de la SS, est assez révélateur de la complexite de ces relations [between Wehrmacht and SS]. Celui qui a été bien malgré lui à l'origine de la division "Totenkopf" et de la division de police (en suggerant à Hitler l'idée d'enrôler ces forces dans l'armée le 18 septembre 1939) a tout d'abord vu dans ces détachements un appoint utile en tant que troupes de sécurité. [...] Son aversion pour l'Ordre noir n'avait donc rien d'inné. En réalité, son revirement (comme celui d'autre généraux allemands) a été motivé par les exactions perpetrées, et plus encore l'indiscipline que ces crimes traduisaient. Au demeurant, les divergences provenaient aussi la manière de considérer les Juifs en Pologne. L'armée tendait a distinguer parmi les Juifs ceux politiquement actifs ou suspectible de l'être [...]. Pour la SS, 'un Juif [était] un Juif' [...]. Plus rarement, l'opposition à la SS a été liée à des questions de moralité bourgeoise [...]."
J.-L. Leleu, La Waffen-SS, p. 752.

(In short this implies that Blaskowitz was by no means the 'fierce opponent' to the Waffen-SS as it might seem, his relations were really much more complex. What caused most aversion was the fact that the crimes committed in Poland showed arbitrariness and, more important, lack of discipline. Also, there was a difference between the Wehrmacht and the SS in view of how "the Jew" was percieved as well as disagreement on certain moral principles.)

Besides, what you're talking about isn't crimes committed on the "Eastern Front" - it's about what happened in Poland in 1939 which can't really be compared to what began in June 1941 as so-called "war of annihilation".

*edit* I do however see where you're coming from - opposing Himmler's institution could be a hazardous thing to do indeed.

 

Good point, I guess his position in the army may have been one of the reasons why they were so soft on him?

Is Poland not lumped in with the Eastern Front? The Russian part at least. Japan in Asia pre Pearl Harbor was essentially "merged" into WWII so I assume a similar action may have been taken by Historians with Poland?

Would what happened in Poland not be looked at in post war trials? Or are you referring to it in relation to Brownings book which if I follow correctly is about what happened in June of 1941?

From what I am told, Browning claims it was not documented that someone would disobey orders given to them even if they knew they were morally wrong. If I understood Stig correctly, he is referring to the entire war and not just 1 unit/front. Johannes Blaskowitz was on trial for war crimes, I'm not sure if he did anything after the Eastern Front that would warrant such a thing, and the fact that he killed himself before his trial probably doesn't help either.

 

Is Poland not lumped in with the Eastern Front? The Russian part at least. Japan in Asia pre Pearl Harbor was essentially "merged" into WWII so I assume a similar action may have been taken by Historians with Poland?

Would what happened in Poland not be looked at in post war trials? Or are you referring to it in relation to Brownings book which if I follow correctly is about what happened in June of 1941?


Sorry, I didn't put that very well.
Geographically Poland could be called "Eastern Front" indeed but that term wasn't used in 1939 (at least I've never seen it in German literature) but refers to the campaign against the Soviet Union 1941+.
(Of course what happened in Poland was looked at in post war trials.)

What I meant is that the situation in Poland 1939 and in the Soviet Union 1941 wasn't quite the same. As the quote above about Blaskowitz shows, crimes in Poland often left an impression of being somewhat out of control. The problem wasn't really the crimes themselves but the way they were committed: Soldiers who randomly butchered people "without reason" showed indiscipline. (If you look at the Kriegsgerichtsbarkeiterlass you will notice that even in the east crimes were punished if that served the Aufrechterhaltung der Manneszucht i.e. discipline)

The war against the Soviet Union was of a different kind. It was planned as war of annihilation, hence much better "organized" compared to Poland. The competences of Wehrmacht and SS were strictly regulated and good co-operation was ensured.
One could consider the war in Poland 1939 as prelude to the war of annihilation against the Soviet Union which started in 1941 - but by their nature the two campaigns were very different and thus usually aren't lumped together.

 

The campaigns in Poland and two years later were somewhat different.Poland, a country formed in 1918 out of Polish speaking parts of Russia,Austria and Germany was declared by Hitler to be "the bastards of Versailles". The annexation of Poland was the act by Hitler of correcting what he thought was the wrongs of the Versailles Treaty.Poland was to be brought into the German family of nations,that is the Greater German Reich similar to the status of Alsace Lorraine with Hans Frank,a lawyer and prominent member of the NSDAP, appointed as Governor General.The policy towards the Poles was one that they would be relegated to the status of a servant society and Poland's human and material resources exploited for the German war effort.There many German speakers in Poland were welcomed into the German fold and indeed many volunteered for Reich service.At the western end of Poland,Polish farmers were expelled from their lands for Germans to settle and the region was then named as Warthegau.

Regarding Russia,Hitler had long indicated that the Russian territory to the Urals would be Germany's lebensraum with the Ukraine providing a "bread basket" for the German Empire.It was not a new doctrine but merely regurgitated policy from the late 19th century. Further there was the Russian ideologies and supposed racial differences in the background despite the German/Russian pact of August 1939 of peaceful coexistence.One of the first diplomatic actions Hitler took in 1934 was to sign a 10 year non aggression pact with Poland with the sole intention of destablishing the understanding between Britain / France and Poland which guaranteed Poland's right to exist, which, Poland in turn,had seen as a counterbalance to the resurgence of a "new" Germany.

Both Germany and Russia for their own ends treated the Poles in a similar fashion.Polish intelligentsia was not allowed to flourish,indeed it was elimimated.Hitler went further as regards documents that survive show, when he issued a Fuhrer Decree "the Polish Amnesty Decree' in 1939 for the invasion of Poland.This decree gave a full amnestry to the SS men for atrocities about to be perpretated in Poland.It signaled to the Wehrmaht that it had no jurisdiction over special SS units.The decree appears to have been understood by the Wehrmacht leadership in Poland and later in Russia.There was little disent to this decree by the Wehrmacht although it has to be said that some commanders are recorded to having the moral courage to put in place orders that their men should not be requisitioned for special duties.Although then, there are many that would say that the Wehrmacht did not emerge from both campaigns with clean hands.

Regarding the SS,I would say there were more cases of German disciplinary action taken against SS individuals for "financial irregularities" in the management of their many Himmler inspired businesses than there was for crimes against enemy personnel and its civilians.

 

Regarding the SS,I would say there were more cases of German disciplinary action taken against SS individuals for "financial irregularities" in the management of their many Himmler inspired businesses than there was for crimes against enemy personnel and its civilians.

Harry,

From what I understand I tend to agree with you. Quite a few SS personnel ended up in prison or Concentration camps themselves for theft as it was classed as appropriation from the state.

Quite sick really when you consider everything was stolen from the inmates in the first place and their hard labour made much money for the SS on the labour market.

Regards
Tom

 

So basically S.S. units were only punished if they did something that didn't agree with the Nazi Party?

 

The campaigns in Poland and two years later were somewhat different.Poland, a country formed in 1918 out of Polish speaking parts of Russia,Austria and Germany was declared by Hitler to be "the bastards of Versailles". The annexation of Poland was the act by Hitler of correcting what he thought was the wrongs of the Versailles Treaty.Poland was to be brought into the German family of nations,that is the Greater German Reich similar to the status of Alsace Lorraine with Hans Frank,a lawyer and prominent member of the NSDAP, appointed as Governor General.The policy towards the Poles was one that they would be relegated to the status of a servant society and Poland's human and material resources exploited for the German war effort.There many German speakers in Poland were welcomed into the German fold and indeed many volunteered for Reich service.At the western end of Poland,Polish farmers were expelled from their lands for Germans to settle and the region was then named as Warthegau.
You should not neglect the fact that Poland had existed before Versailles. Apart from that the plans Hitler had in mind for it reached much further - far into the Soviet Union; in this respect, Poland was mainly regarded from a racial standpoint (Slavs and Jews - he never made a secret of what should happen to them). It is no surprise that German speakers, i.e. "Volksdeutsche" were welcome in the "homeland". Just remember how Himmler predicted that he would fetch "germanic blood" from the whole world to unite it in a germanic empire (thinking in categories of races rather than nationalities).

Hitler went further as regards documents that survive show, when he issued a Fuhrer Decree "the Polish Amnesty Decree' in 1939 for the invasion of Poland.This decree gave a full amnestry to the SS men for atrocities about to be perpretated in Poland.It signaled to the Wehrmaht that it had no jurisdiction over special SS units.The decree appears to have been understood by the Wehrmacht leadership in Poland and later in Russia.There was little disent to this decree by the Wehrmacht although it has to be said that some commanders are recorded to having the moral courage to put in place orders that their men should not be requisitioned for special duties.Although then, there are many that would say that the Wehrmacht did not emerge from both campaigns with clean hands.
What exactly do you mean by "Polish Amensty Decree"?
Fact is, jurisdiction of Wehrmacht and SS was indeed separated at the end or after the campain in Poland. The reason for this were the crimes that had caused dissatisfaction among Wehrmacht generals/personnel. So it was decided that from now on the SS would have their own jurisdiction - tactically they were still under the orders of the Wehrmacht (it had long been agreed that in case of war the armed SS troops would be under the Wehrmacht's orders).

Regarding the SS,I would say there were more cases of German disciplinary action taken against SS individuals for "financial irregularities" in the management of their many Himmler inspired businesses than there was for crimes against enemy personnel and its civilians.
That could indeed be so - the reason for it lies in NS and thus in Himmler's ideology; crimes against enemy personnel and civilians wouldn't be punished because they were committed according to ideological beliefs (unless they showed indiscipline - but even then severe sentences were rare if not inexistent). Stealing* however was, as Himmler saw it, a (capital) crime because it "betrayed" what his SS stood for: comradeship, loyalty, honesty (these terms might seem cynic, but taking into consideration, what they implied in the ideology of the SS, they perfectly make sense).
*edit* Tom, what you correctly call stealing from inmates in camps wasn't considered so by Himmler. In his famous speech in Poznan he actually says that what was taken from the victims belonged to the regime (or to Germany, as he'd put it). He claimed that he would not take a single DM from it, and whoever did would face death penalty. (It was different in reality but since I was talking about the ideological standpoint that doesn't matter here)

(*as well as driving too fast)

 

Why the german soilders smiling when there is a women dangling from a tree? They seem to be so proud of a women dangling and dead.

 

Elle

Why the german soilders smiling when there is a women dangling from a tree? They seem to be so proud of a women dangling and dead.


Well may you ask

Ron

 

I can recommend two goog books in german and english about war crimes during Polish Campaign 1939: Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg. Die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939 by Jochen Bohler (2006) and Hitler Strikes Poland: Blitzkrieg, Ideology, and Atrocity by Alexander Rossino (2003).

 

I can recommend two goog books in german and english about war crimes during Polish Campaign 1939: Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg. Die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939 by Jochen Bohler (2006) [...]

Laufer, have you read Böhler's book? I would be rather careful with it, judging by this review which reveals factual errors as well as weaknesses in both argumentation and conclusions.

 

Heimbrent quote as below.

What exactly do you mean by "Polish Amensty Decree"?
Fact is, jurisdiction of Wehrmacht and SS was indeed separated at the end or after the campain in Poland. The reason for this were the crimes that had caused dissatisfaction among Wehrmacht generals/personnel. So it was decided that from now on the SS would have their own jurisdiction - tactically they were still under the orders of the Wehrmacht (it had long been agreed that in case of war the armed SS troops would be under the Wehrmacht's orders).

My reply

Hitler was rather busy in October 1939 in his plans for the governing of Poland and the discharging of his racial policies.This was reflected in the number of decrees he issued to German forces.

October 4.Hitler declared an amnesty for all deeds committed by Germans enraged by the atrocities perpretated by the Poles, namely the Polish Amnesty Decree 1939.(The German propaganda machine spoke of wholesale atrocities against German paratrooper POWs and ethnic Germans.) The Wehrmacht leadership saw this as giving a free hand to the SS to engage in excesses and an area not to challenge.

October 7.A decree giving Himmler the authority to eliminate the injurious influence of such segments of of the non German population in Poland that are seen as a danger to the Reich.

October 8.The new German districts (Gaues) of West Prussia and Posen set up by decree.

October 12 The decree covering the governing of the remaining occupied portion of Poland for the restoration of public order.These Gaues would be governed by a Governor General who would answer direct to Hitler.This man would be revealed as the senior Nazi Party lawyer,Hans Frank who would later have differences with the SS as regards the morals of law and order in these Gaues.

All German forces were subject to the same disciplinary codes but there is ample evidence that the Waffen SS were subject to additional diciplinary practices in what might be described as ad hoc.The most notorious Waffen SS divisional commander was Theo Eicke of the SSTK who acted in accordance with his own interpretion of judicial authority,incarcerating his defaulters in concentration camps such as Buchenwald.He was able to place these defaulters in concentrations camps for indefinite periods and his disciplinary initiatives went unchallenged, even by the Gestapo.

 

As regards the SS as organisation with a large central budget and the owner of "businesses", it was seeded with a fair degree of corruption and financial irregularities,particularly within the concentration camp administrations.

Himmler appointed a "fire fighter auditman",an assistant SS judge,Dr Konrad Morgen to visit the various SS locations with the responsibilty to seek out the "white collar" criminals within the SS and surprisingly, to ensure that "no brutality took place"in their concentration camps.This latter duty, is, to sane people as rather strange given that these inspections were conducted in extermination centres surrounding the gassing and burning of bodies. Morgen's investigative role in seeking out theft by SS guards and officers is easy to understand and it is also reported that he obtained sentences for brutality in the camps.His terms of reference also covered investigation of senior members of the SS administration and he successfully brought a charge against Karl Koch,commandant of Buchenwald.Koch was found to have embezzled over 100.000 Reich marks,falsified documents and concealed murders.

Morgen's report eventually reached the "virtuous" Himmler who took action against Koch. Tried by the SS, Koch was found guilty and sentenced to death.There was also reports that he investigated Christian Wirth who was involved with the Belzec,Majdanek,Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps.It is not known what was the outcome.

Himmler considered that probity was an essential trait for an SS man and his particular financial arrangements are interesting to note.Throughout his time as head of the SS,Himmler took what was a relatively low salary as a Reichsleiter.It is reported that he could never manage on this salary (he had two families to keep,his wife with one child and a mistress with two children, both with homes) but never requested an increase in salary but managed, month to month, by borrowing from party officials.

 

By moral framework, what I meant is that Germans of the 30's and 40's grew up in a world where antisemitism was very common and widely accepted. It was also a country where political violence and murder were also the norm. The effect that this may have had on the personal morals of these ordinary men can never truly be known but I don't doubt that it had an impact.

It's been a while since I read Browning, but I thought one of his main arguments was that the actions of the police reservists could not be explained away by 'Nazification'? They were interesting subjects because they were middle-aged, middle-of-the-road, apolitical family men who had been educated and had lived as Germans, rather than Nazis, for the greater part of their lives. Clearly, 7 or 8 years of Adolf's ideas had some effect on them, but they cannot be excused on the grounds that Nazi ideals and anti-semitism were all they had ever known.

 

Hitler was rather busy in October 1939 in his plans for the governing of Poland and the discharging of his racial policies.This was reflected in the number of decrees he issued to German forces.

October 4.Hitler declared an amnesty for all deeds committed by Germans enraged by the atrocities perpretated by the Poles, namely the Polish Amnesty Decree 1939.(The German propaganda machine spoke of wholesale atrocities against German paratrooper POWs and ethnic Germans.) The Wehrmacht leadership saw this as giving a free hand to the SS to engage in excesses and an area not to challenge.

[...]
All German forces were subject to the same disciplinary codes but there is ample evidence that the Waffen SS were subject to additional diciplinary practices in what might be described as ad hoc.The most notorious Waffen SS divisional commander was Theo Eicke of the SSTK who acted in accordance with his own interpretion of judicial authority,incarcerating his defaulters in concentration camps such as Buchenwald.He was able to place these defaulters in concentrations camps for indefinite periods and his disciplinary initiatives went unchallenged, even by the Gestapo.

(I wasn't questioning the existence of the decree, I just didn't know what document you were exactly talking about)
Anyway, the so-called "Gnadenerlass" (4.10.39) indeed declared an amnesty for crimes committed since 1.10.39 - with limitations though. Crimes were still prosecuted were they committed out of self interest (Eigennutz) which included looting, theft, rape etc. In short, crimes that endangered the discipline. [Toppe, Militär und Kriegsvölkerrecht, p. 347]

Since 17.10.1939 the Waffen-SS (i.e. SS-VT, SS-TV and Junkerschulen) and police (for "special operations") had their own criminal jurisdiction ("Sondergerichtsbarkeit in Strafsachen") - they've had their own disciplinary jurisdiction and right of appeal ("Disziplinarstraf- und Beschwerdeordnung") since 30.1.1933. [Wegner, Hitlers Politische Soldaten, p. 319-320]

 

October 4.Hitler declared an amnesty for all deeds committed by Germans enraged by the atrocities perpretated by the Poles, namely the Polish Amnesty Decree 1939.(The German propaganda machine spoke of wholesale atrocities against German paratrooper POWs and ethnic Germans.) The Wehrmacht leadership saw this as giving a free hand to the SS to engage in excesses and an area not to challenge.

Somewhat related, somewhat off-topic, but I remember having seen a German propaganda booklet issued after the invasion of Poland, justifying the invasion with atrocities against the Ethnic Germans residing in Polish territory. Some quite grisly pictures of exhumed bodies showing signs of execution. They were quite good at pointing fingers at others while doing the same or worse in a much larger scale.

There were a number of publications issued by both sides translated to the local languages, more or less freely distributed by diplomatic channels. My father being one of the local administration luminaries was a usual recipient of these. My brother kept most of this material, German, US and British magazines, some in Portuguese, others in English and occasional French. From his estate I have kept one book on nazi architecture the German embassy presented to my father on the occasion of a visit by Speer.