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Auschwitz and the Archives
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2008
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References
1. Hitler und die Endlösung: “Es ist des Führers Wunsch …” (Wiesbaden and Munich, 1982).Google Scholar
2. Stokes, Lawrence D., “The German People and the Destruction of the European Jews,” Central European History 6 (1973): 167–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kershaw, Ian, “The Persecution of the Jews and German Popular Opinion in the Third Reich,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 26 (1981): 261–89.Google Scholar Stokes (esp. 184–91) distinguishes between public knowledge of the Einsatzgruppen killings and public unawareness of the death camp operations.
3. The latest work here, and the best work on American policy, is Wyman, David S., The Abandonment of the Jews, 1941–1945 (New York, 1984).Google Scholar Wyman does not, however, seriously weigh whether outside pressure or bargaining would in fact have induced the Nazis to modify their extermination policy. See my review in Washington Jewish Week, 27 Dec. 1984.
4. See S. Pinkney Tuck to Secretary of State, 9 July 1942, National Archives Record Group 84, American Embassy Vichy, Confidential File 1942, 840.1. Also Howard Elting, Jr. to Leland Harrison, 11 Aug. 1942, with attached report by Donald Lowrie, NA RG 84, Box 829, American Consulate Geneva, Confidential File 1942, 800.
5. Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Biddle, 20 Jan. 1943, NA RG 84, Box 2784, American Embassy Warsaw (in London), 1943 vol. 8, 711 Atrocities.
6. Nazi Black Record, NA RG 165, Box 3138, Poland 6950.
7. Burton Berry to secretary of state, 21 June 1943, copy in NA RG 226, doc. 38346.
8. NA RG 218, Joint Chiefs of Staff, CCS 334 Polish Liaison (Washington), Folder 3.0. Sophia Miskiewicz of the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University was kind enough to translate this document for me. For Menzies's statement, Paul [Peabody?] to General Hayes Kroner, Military Intelligence Service, War Department, 12 June 1943, NA RG 319, Box 956, Poland 350.09. The discussion was of Order of Battle information, but Menzies's reported statement was a sweeping one.
9. In the summer of 1942 Polish resistance chief Stefan Korbonski notified Polish representatives in London that 7,000 Jews per day were being deported and gassed. See Laqueur, Terrible Secret, 113, and Korbonski's letter to the editor, Commentary (January 1984): 8. Although I found no specific verification, there are still all too many documents classified. Korbonski's claim is credible.
10. Military attaché's report, 20 Mar. 1944, NA RG 165, Box 3138, Poland 6950. F. L. Belin to William Langer, 10 Apr. 1944, NA RG 226, doc. 66059. I am indebted to Raul Hilberg, who discovered the OSS copy, and to Robert Wolfe, director of the Modern Military Branch of the National Archives, who realized that Hilberg's discovery and mine matched.
11. On the incredibly detailed Wetzlar-Vrba report on Auschwitz, as well as other eyewitness accounts, see Conway, John S., “Frühe Augenzeugeberichte aus Auschwitz: Glaubwürdigkeit und Wirkungsgeschichte,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 27 (1979): 260–84.Google Scholar
12. Wyman, David S., “Why Auschwitz Was Never Bombed,” Commentary (05 1978): 37–46Google Scholar. idem, The Abandonment of the Jews, 288–307.
13. Many of the relevant American documents are reprinted in Mendelsohn, John, ed., The Holocaust: Selected Documents in Eighteen Volumes (N.Y., 1982), vol. 14, 95–152.Google Scholar
14. Irving, David, Hitler's War, (N.Y., 1977), esp. xiv, 392, 504Google Scholar. See the extensive and effective criticism of Irving by Sydnor, Charles W. Jr., “The Selling of Adolf Hitler: David lrving's ‘Hitler's War,’” Central European History 12 (1979): 169–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
15. Browning, Christopher R., “Zur Genesis der Endlösung: Eine Antwort an Martin Broszat,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 29 (1981): 96–109.Google Scholar Browning's article has now appeared in English as well: “A Reply to Martin Broszat Regarding the Origins of the Final Solution,” Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual 1 (1984): 113–32Google Scholar. See also his recent book Fateful Months: Essays on the Emergence of the Final Solution (New York and London, Holmes & Meier, 1985).Google Scholar
16. Jäckel, Eberhard, Hitler in History, Series for the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry, 3 (Hanover, N.H., 1984), 44–65.Google Scholar
17. Mommsen, Hans, “Die Realisierung des Utopischen: Die ‘Endlösung der Judenfrage’ im ‘Dritten Reich,’“ Geschichte und Gesellschaft 9 (1983): 391.Google Scholar
18. Until Fleming, the most forthright advocate of a preplanned Final Solution was perhaps Dawidowicz, Lucy, The War Against the Jews (New York, 1975).Google Scholar But predetermination is surely also the implication of Jäckel's, EberhardHitler's Weltanschauung: A Blueprint for Power, tr. Arnold, Herbert (Middletown, Ct., 1972).Google Scholar For reviews of the literature and the controversy, see Conway, John S., “The Holocaust and the Historians,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (07 1980): 153–64Google Scholar; the concise summary in Hildebrand, Klaus, The Third Reich (London, 1984), 146–51Google Scholar, and the extended discussion in Kershaw, Ian, The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation (London, 1985), 82–103.Google Scholar Extremely useful as well is the historiographical introduction to the American edition of Fleming's book, written by Saul Friedländer. Forthcoming is Dov Kulka, Otto, “Major Trends and Tendencies of German Historiography on National Socialism and the ‘Jewish Question,’ 1924–1984,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 30 (1985).Google Scholar
19. Krausnick, Helmut, “Judenverfolgung,” in Buchheim, Hans et al. , ed., Anatomie des SS-Staates (Munich, 1967), vol. 2, esp. 297.Google Scholar
20. Schleunes, Karl A., The Twisted Road to Auschwitz: Nazi Policy Toward German Jews 1933–1939 (Chicago, 1970), esp. 73, 258.Google ScholarDietrich Adam, Uwe, Judenpolitik im Dritten Reich (Düsseldorf, 1972).Google ScholarBroszat, Martin, “Hitler und die Genesis der Endlösung,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 25 (1977): 739–75.Google Scholar
21. There has been a running debate in Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht between “monocrats” and “polycrats.” Martin Broszat and Hans Mommsen have been among the leading figures in the polycratic camp. For specific citations of the literature, see Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship, 61–81.
22. Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship, esp. 78–81.
23. Klaus Hildebrand, The Third Reich, 146.
24. Weinberg, Gerhard L., The Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany: Diplomatic Revolution in Europe, 1933–1936 (Chicago, 1970)Google Scholar; idem, The Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany: Starting World War II, 1937–1939 (Chicago, 1980).Google Scholar
25. Fleming, Hitler and the Final Solution, xviii.
26. I am leaving out all consideration of the Nazi euthanasia program here. Henry Friedlander has prepared a major study of the subject.
27. NA RG 238, Interrogation of Erwin Lahousen, 17 Nov. 1945.
28. The Halder Diaries: The Private War Journals of Colonel General Franz Halder, ed. Lissance, Arnold (Boulder, 1976), 10.Google Scholar Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Axis Criminality, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, 6 (Washington, 1946)Google Scholar, Document 3363–PS, pp. 97–100. Eichmann Interrogated: Transcripts from the Archives of the Israeli Police, ed. von Lang, Jochen and Sibyll, Claus, tr. Manheim, Ralph (New York, 1983), 92–93.Google Scholar
29. See for example, Goschen, Seev, “Eichmann und die Nisko-Aktion im Oktober 1939: Eine Fallstudie zur NS-Judenpolitik in der letzten Etappe vor der ‘Endlösung,’” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 29 (1981): 81–82.Google Scholar
30. Krausnick, Helmut, “Hitler und die Morde in Polen; Ein Beitrag zum Konflikt zwischen Heer und SS um die Verwaltung der besetzten Gebiete,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 11 (1963): 206–9.Google Scholar
31. “Notiz für Pg. Friedrichs,” 6 Dec. 1939, NA RG 242, T–81, Roll 676/5485594.
32. NA RG 242, T-175, Roll 94, Frame 2615330; Roll 103/2625558. Himmler to Müller, Dec. 1942 [the day was left blank], NA RG 242, T-175, Roll 103/2625557. Himmler's handwritten notes, 10 Dec. 1942, NA RG 242, T-175, Roll 94/2615330.
33. Irving, Hitler's War, 462.
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