The
autumn of 1941 was a critical period in the evolution of the “Final Solution”.
Although much evidence about the development of the Nazi policy regarding the annihilation
of the Jews of Europe has emerged in recent years, the actual decision-making process is
less clear. Conjecture still surrounds the precise chronology and personnel involved, but it is
possible to piece together a probable course of events from existing documentation and the
extensive scholarly research which this has produced.
In the German-occupied Soviet Union, the initial policy of shooting only Jewish males had
been expanded from the
late summer of 1941 to encompass all Jews,
irrespective of age or gender. As this programme of annihilation gathered momentum in the
autumn of 1941, the German Army had commenced the murder of
Serbian Jews, and, significantly,
Hitler had finally
given authorisation for the deportation of German Jews.
In Byelorussia,
Einsatzgruppe B had embarked upon an escalating
policy of slaughter from the earliest days of the invasion of the Soviet Union. The city of Mogilev is situated on the
River Dnieper, about 200 km east of
Minsk and close to the border with Russia.
The headquarters of the HSSPF Russia Centre,
SS-Obergruppenführer
Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, were in Mogilev;
Einsatzkommando 8, commanded by
SS-Obersturmbannführer
Otto Bradfisch, were the principal perpetrators of murder in the city. On
25 September 1941, the remaining Jews of Mogilev were ordered to
move into a ghetto at the Dubrovenka Bridge
within 5 days. On the instructions of
Bach-Zelewski,
the liquidation of the ghetto soon followed; 2,273 people were murdered on
2 and 3 October 1941, followed by a further 3,726 on
19 October 1941.
Within two months, 6,500 Jews had been killed in Mogilev. The remaining Jews, numbering
less than 1,000, were resettled in a new labour camp inside the
Dimitrov factory.
Between 23-25 October 1941,
Heinrich Himmler
visited Mogilev and inspected the new labour camp, accompanied by a party of “eight
other gentlemen”, one of whom was the
HSSPF Nordsee,
SS-Gruppenführer
Rudolf Querner. In
1946,
Bach-Zelewski testified that “a commission” from
Hamburg had arrived in Mogilev in
1943
with an SS order to construct “a gas plant” there for the murder of people. The gas chamber
was to be erected within a well-preserved factory under
Bach-Zelewski’s command, identical to the
Dimitrov factory.
As with other perpetrators,
Bach-Zelewski’s testimony
was largely self-serving; the date he mentioned is not credible and was designed to indicate
how late in the day he found out about the mass gassings. However,
Bach-Zelewski’s evidence is entirely consistent with the visit of
Himmler and his entourage in
October 1941.
The connection between the commission from
Hamburg
and the proposed gas chamber in Mogilev is yet to be determined. But that something
occurred around this time is not in doubt, for in
mid-November 1941,
the
Topf & Söhne Company of
Erfurt
received an order to construct a huge crematorium at Mogilev from
Amt II of the
SS Main Office for Budget and Building. On
30 December 1941,
an oven with four cremation chambers was delivered and assembled.
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| Novinki |
There is other evidence to suggest that during those months, Nazi minds were turning
towards large-scale exterminations in the
Minsk
and Mogilev regions. On
15 August 1941,
Himmler
visited the psychiatric asylum of
Novinki,
6.5 km north of
Minsk. The asylum was situated at
a collective farm which had been assigned to the SS.
Himmler
instructed
SS-Brigadeführer Arthur Nebe,
commandant of
Einsatzgruppe B, to kill the patients, but to use a “more humane” method
than shooting.
On
18 September 1941, 200 patients from
Novinki
were brought to a small bath house and murdered by using vehicle exhaust gas. A further unsuccessful
experiment was conducted using high explosives; 25 patients were locked into two bunkers
and the explosives detonated. The gruesome results can be imagined.
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| Mogilev |
A few days earlier another experimental killing involving more than 500 mental patients, and also
supervised by
Nebe, had occurred in Mogilev.
A room in the local mental asylum was hermetically sealed and two pipes were driven into the
wall. A car (
Adler 1939 limousine or convertible, 2 litres, registration number "Pol 28545")
was parked outside and one of the pipes connected to the car’s exhaust. The
car’s engine was turned on and the exhaust fumes flooded into the sealed room. When
after eight minutes the people in the room were still alive, a second car (possibly a police van
Opel Blitz,
registration number "Pol 51628") was connected to the other pipe in the wall and both vehicles were operated
simultaneously. A few minutes later all of those in the room were dead. Dr
Albert
Widmann, a chemist from the Criminal Technology Institute (
Kriminaltechnisches Institut – KTI)
who monitored the operation, described the events:
“
During the afternoon Nebe
had the window bricked in, leaving two openings for the gas hose… When we arrived,
one of the hoses that I had brought was connected. It was fixed onto the exhaust of a touring car…
Pieces of piping stuck out of holes made in the wall, onto which the hose could easily be fitted…
After five minutes Nebe came out and
said that nothing appeared to have happened. After eight minutes he had been unable to
detect any result and asked what should be done next.
Nebe and I came to the conclusion that the car
was not powerful enough. So Nebe
had the second hose fitted onto a transport vehicle which belonged to the regular police. It then
took only another few minutes before the people were unconscious. Both vehicles were left
running for about another ten minutes.”
The gassing at either the mental home or collective farm was filmed; the film was found at the end of the war in
Nebe's flat in
Berlin.
The extent to which
Himmler was implicated in these
experimental killings is revealed in another deposition by
Widmann:
"
Nebe wanted to discuss the matter with
me, as he said that he had to report it to Himmler."
These experiments in Byelorussia have been linked to the development of gassing vans,
and indeed
Widmann brought drawings of gassing vans
with him to Mogilev in
September 1941. The
Einsatzgruppen,
dependant on mobility for maximum effectiveness, sought a portable method of killing.
But given that these improvised tests were conducted in stationary gas chambers, it is
conceivable that they may also have been part of the search for an immovable killing system.
The evaluations of alternative methods – carbon monoxide versus “Zyklon B”, gas
vans versus gas chambers – were not mutually exclusive. In fact, all of the options were
being assessed during this period. The first use of “Zyklon B” at
Auschwitz occurred at the
beginning of
September 1941; in
September 1941,
SS-Obersturmbannführer
Walter Rauff, head of department IID of the
RSHA, informed
Friedrich Pradel, head of the transportation service of his idea
to use heavy trucks as gassing vans; a survey of the camp site must have been underway at
Belzec by
October 1941 at the latest for
construction to have begun on
1 November 1941, as it did; and as
has already been indicated, the experimental gassings in improvised gas chambers had been
conducted in
Novinki and Mogilev in
September 1941.
It is reasonable to propose that this flurry of activity, all occurring within a few weeks, was not coincidental.
It also suggests that, at least within the higher echelons of the SS and the
Führer’s
Chancellery (
Kanzlei des Führers), some were already contemplating genocide
in the
autumn of 1941. This was a classic example of what
Ian Kershaw described in his memorable phrase as “working towards
the
Führer”; that is to say anticipating
Hitler’s
actions and fulfilling his perceived intentions. The description of this mindset by
Werner Willikens, State Secretary in the Prussian Agriculture
Ministry, describes what the thinking of those responsible for the ensuing slaughter may
have been at that time:
“
Very often, and in many places, it has been the case that
individuals…have waited for commands and orders… Rather, however, it is the duty of
every single person to attempt, in the spirit of the Führer, to work towards him…
The one who works correctly toward the Führer along his lines and towards his
aim will in future as previously have the finest reward of one day suddenly obtaining legal
confirmation of his work.”
A probable scenario, therefore, is that in different places, and by different methods, the
components were being pieced together in the
autumn of 1941
for the annihilation of the Jews. All that was required was the green light from Hitler – and
that green light was effectively provided by
Hitler’s
approval for the deportation of the
Reichsjuden. It was not necessary for
Hitler, notoriously indolent, to be aware of the minutiae concerning
the implementation of the
"Final Solution"; in the poisonous atmosphere he had created that
could safely be left to others, working towards the
Führer. Exactly when the decision was taken for
the murder of all European Jews is as yet uncertain; but that the decision could have been taken by anybody other
than
Hitler is beyond belief.
On
15 October 1941, the first transport of Jews left
Wien (Vienna) for
Lodz. Between that date and
21 February 1942,
a further 58 trains followed, carrying in total more than 58,000 deportees (including 5,000 Sinti
and Roma). These transports were destined for four cities in occupied eastern Europe:
Lodz,
Kovno (Kaunas),
Riga, and
Minsk. Subsequently
other transports were directed to the
Lublin district. Other than in
Kovno,
where 5 transports were killed immediately, relatively few of these deportees were murdered
on arrival. Instead they were placed in ghettos, replacing local Jews who had been liquidated in
order to make room for them.
One of the many Nazi euphemisms for mass murder was “evacuation to the east.” When
Regierungsrat Karl Friedrich Trampedach
of the
Reichskommissariat Ostland complained about the resettlement of the
Reich
Jews in
Riga and
Minsk,
he was told on
13 November 1941 not to worry, since the
Jews would be sent “further east” (another euphemism for murder). Could it be that these words
had a literal as well as a coded meaning – that the final destination of the
Reich Jews was
then intended to be the new gassing facility to be established at Mogilev, considerably further to the
east of both
Riga and
Minsk?
A clue may lie in the words of
Reinhardt Heydrich
at a conference on “Jewish questions” held in
Praha (Prague) on
10 October 1941, at which he stated that the heads of
Einsatzgruppen B and C,
Nebe and
Rasch, “
could
take Jews into the camps for communist prisoners in the operational area. According to a statement from
SS-Sturmbannführer
Adolf Eichmann this is already in progress.”
Since
29 September 1941 a labour camp for “suspicious vagabond
civilians” had existed in Mogilev – the
Dimitrov factory.
Similar camps were planned for
Vitebsk and
Smolensk.
Presumably it was to these camps that
Heydrich referred.
During the course of his visit to Mogilev in
October 1941,
Himmler discussed with
Bach-Zelewski
and the commander of
Polizeiregiment Mitte,
Max Montua,
“solutions” to the “Jewish problem” other than shooting.
Himmler
promised that those “other solutions” would soon come. The reference could only have been to
gassing. Viewed overall, it seems highly probable that
Himmler’s visit to
Mogilev was connected with plans to deport the Jews.
In the event, the plans for an extermination camp at Mogilev were never realized. The logistical
problems of transporting Jews so far East could not be overcome. Transports to
Minsk had to be stopped about
20 November 1941
because of the supply crisis of Army Group Centre. So far as can be ascertained, no train
containing Polish or
Reich Jews appears to have arrived in Mogilev. The shortage
of railway engines and rolling-stock led to consideration of transportation of Jews by ship via
the rivers Pripet and Dnieper, but this proved impractical. However, the SS did not apparently
finally abandon the idea of a death camp in Mogilev until
August 1942,
when the balance of the order for cremation furnaces placed with
Topf & Söhne Company in
November 1941 was instead delivered to
Auschwitz-Birkenau. The furnaces were installed there in
Crematoria IV and V. By that time a death camp in Mogilev was no longer necessary. The
Aktion Reinhard camps of
Belzec,
Sobibor, and
Treblinka were fully operational, murdering the Jews of
the
Generalgouvernement;
Chelmno performed the same function for the Jews of the
Warthegau. At
Auschwitz-Birkenau
Bunkers 1 and 2 were already functioning, and plans for the larger crematoria were well advanced;
near
Minsk, thousands were being killed at
Maly Trostinec. At other locations throughout eastern Europe,
the
Einsatzgruppen carried out their part in the planned mass-murder. There was no need for
a permanent execution site in Mogilev of the kind originally envisaged; instead, gas vans were at
various times located in the city.
The labour camp at Mogilev was liquidated in
September 1943.
It is difficult to arrive at the number of murdered victims of the camp since the corpses were
exhumed and cremated in the
autumn of 1943. Most had been killed at the
nearby villages of
Novopashkovo and
Polykovitshi.
Estimates of the number killed have ranged as high as 25-30,000, although this figure may be
overstated. However, it is certain that about 7,500 of the victims were Jews and 1,200 others
were mentally ill patients of the region.
Although many details are as yet unclear, it seems apparent that in
autumn 1941 the SS intended to send at least some European Jews to
Mogilev with a view to killing them there. Mogilev was only one of several options;
Lodz, Minsk, and
Riga (where there is evidence of a similar intention to establish an
extermination camp) were among the others. It would appear that the plans for a death camp in
Mogilev ultimately became superfluous as other killing sites became operational.
Sources:
Gerlach, Christian.
Failure of Plans for an SS Extermination Camp in Mogilev, Belorussia,
Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 7/1, 1997.
Gerlach, Christian.
German Economic Interests, Occupation Policy, and the Murder of the
Jews in Belorussia, 1941/43, (in Ulrich Herbert, ed. National Socialist Extermination Policies),
Berghahn Books, New York, 2000.
Browning, Christopher R.
The Origins of the Final Solution, William Heinemann, London, 2004.
Reitlinger, Gerald.
The Final Solution – The Attempt to Exterminate the Jews of Europe 1939-1945,
Jason Aronson Inc, Northvale, New Jersey and London, 1987.
Kogon, Eugen; Langbein, Hermann; Rückerl, Adalbert; eds.
Nazi Mass Murder –
A Documentary History of the Use of Poison Gas, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1993.
Arad, Yitzhak.
Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka - The Operation Reinhard Death Camps,
Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1987.
Hilberg, Raul.
The Destruction of the European Jews, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2003.
Kershaw, Ian.
Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris, Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, London, 1998.
Gutman, Yisrael & Berenbaum, Michael.
Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp,
Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1998.
© ARC 2005
