Eichmann lecture

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Deportation routes (1939-1945)

When Eichmann Unit , also Judenreferat , a Gestapo department in the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) during the Second World War called. From 1941 onwards, the so-called final solution of the Jewish question was administratively coordinated and organized in this office . The staff of the Eichmann department were thus significantly involved in the Holocaust . From December 1939, Adolf Eichmann was the head of this department ; from 1941 Rolf Günther was his permanent deputy. So-called " Judenreferenten " existed in a number of other Nazi offices; the Foreign Office in particular had its own "Judenreferat", both in Berlin and in many embassies. In addition, there were regional “Judenreferate” within Germany, which were reluctant to accept orders from the RSHA and had their own chains of command, mostly within the regional Gestapo.

construction

Heinrich Müller's conception dates from autumn 1939 , according to which the previous Gestapo Department II B (denominations, Jews, Freemasons, emigrants and pacifists) should be broken down and the area of ​​Jewish affairs / emigrants should be grouped into a separate subject area. The subject area corresponded to the responsibility of the Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration , which had existed since January 1939 and whose manager was Eichmann. In the business distribution plan of February 1940, the Eichmann department was named IV D 4 (Emigration, Eviction) in Office IV of the RSHA, the Gestapo office. Eichmann, who previously belonged to the Security Service (SD), had the opportunity to give instructions to subordinate Gestapo offices. Eichmann's responsibility for the executive handling of the “Jewish question” was decided on January 4, 1940 by Reinhard Heydrich . In March 1941, the Eichmann department changed from country group IV D to church group IV B of the RSHA and was now referred to as department IV B 4. Albert Hartl was the group leader ; However, Eichmann discussed drafts and decisions directly with office manager Heinrich Müller, without adhering to the formal official channels via group leader Hartl. In March 1944, the RSHA was reclassified according to war requirements; the Eichmannreferat now traded as Fachreferat IV A 4 in Group IV A under Friedrich Panzinger .

Personnel and distribution of tasks

The size of the Eichmann unit with dozens of employees exceeded that of the other RSHA units, which usually had five to six employees. More department than unit, “a Europe-wide deportation center was created”. The SS-Obersturmführer Rudolf Jänisch headed the office of the Eichmannreferat for the entire duration of its existence.

The importance of the department was also underlined by the fact that it was housed separately from the other departments of Group IV B in Berlin's Kurfürstenstraße 115/116, the former club and residential building of the Jewish Brotherhood. The representative association and residential building of the Jewish welfare association was built between 1908 and 1910. Some officials from the Eichmann department lived together in an adjoining house.

Subject areas and management

Subject area Head of Department Rank Period tasks
Subject IV B 4a (Emigration) Rolf Günther SS-Sturmbannführer and Adolf Eichmann's deputy 1941 to March 1944 Deportation of Jews
Subject IV B 4b (Law) Friedrich Suhr Government councilor, SS-Obersturmbannführer July 1941 - November 1942 Legal issues relating to the confiscation, administration and utilization of property of the deportees, as well as cooperation with other authorities that were involved in the expropriation of the deportees
Otto Hunsche Government Councilor, SS-Hauptsturmführer November 1942 - March 1944

Distribution of personal tasks from 1941 to March 1944

clerk tasks Subject area
Franz Novak transport IV B 4a
Herbert Mannel Emigration statistics IV B 4a until December 1941
Franz Stuschka Organization, from January 1942 censorship of the Jewish prisoner mail IV B 4a
Karl Hrosinek administration IV B 4b
Fritz Woehrn General cases until December 1941 IV B 4b then with the same area of ​​responsibility IV B 4a
Ernst Moes Individual cases until December 1941 IV B 4b then with the same area of ​​responsibility IV B 4a
Werner Kryschak Individual cases from January 1942 IV B 4a
Richard Gutwasser Finances & possessions IV B 4b
Max Pachow Finances & possessions from January 1942 IV B 4b
Otto Hunsche from December 1941 to November 1942 Friedrich Suhr's deputy IV B 4b
Friedrich Bosshammer "Preparing for the political solution to the European Jewish question " January 1942 - November 1942 IV B 4b, then with the same area of ​​responsibility IV B 4a
Karl Kube Dispositions January 1942 - November 1942 IV B 4b, then with the same area of ​​responsibility IV B 4a
Hans Wasserberg Withdrawal of German nationality from April 1943 IV B 4a
Alexander Mischke Withdrawal of German nationality from April 1943 IV B 4a
Willy Jeske Combating enemies of the state from April 1943 IV B 4b
Paul Pfeifer Combating enemies of the state from April 1943 IV B 4b

The Eichmann department in Berlin was essentially set up by Austrian employees who, after the annexation of Austria to the German Reich, first established the Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Vienna and later the one in Prague . These men, among them Franz Stuschka and Franz Novak, were "old party comrades" and found a new job in the Vienna Central Office after periods of unemployment. They later occupied many higher-level posts in the Eichmann department in Berlin.

tasks

Participation of the Eichmann department in the deportation of Jews: woman with children on the way to the gas chamber of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in May / June 1944, photo of SS man Bernhard Walter, which was made in Auschwitz with Eichmann's permission ( Auschwitz album ).

“I can only say again that even if Eichmann never said anything to me personally about such Jewish measures, it was known throughout Section IV B 4 from the typists up to the top that the Jews were systematically killed. We were also aware that some of the Jews who were fit for work were singled out and, as long as they could, used to work, while the Jews who were unable to work were liquidated. Therefore, if someone in the report claims that they did not know anything about it, he is probably doing so for understandable reasons. It wasn't a secret. "

- Richard Hartenberger : Testimony from September 22, 1961.

Eichmann had been head of the Vienna Central Office for Jewish Emigration from August 1938, which operated the forced emigration of Jewish Austrians. The Vienna Central Office and another in Prague were subordinated to the Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration, established in January 1939 and also headed by Eichmann from October 1939. After the German invasion of Poland , Eichmann organized the deportation of Jews to Nisko in October 1939 . The deportations to the German-Soviet demarcation line were soon discontinued, their meaning has not yet been clarified: Eichmann's unauthorized action is considered possible, but also a "model experiment" in which Heydrich and the RSHA, which had just emerged, established the feasibility of deportations to the occupied Poland wanted to prove.

On December 21, 1939, Heydrich Eichmann appointed special adviser for the "implementation of the evacuation in the eastern room" in Office IV of the RSHA. As a special adviser, Eichmann was to carry out the deportation of Jews and Poles from West Prussia and the Warthegau , the western Polish areas annexed by the German Reich, as ordered by Himmler . During the previous deportations to the Generalgouvernement , the occupied part of Poland, difficulties arose because the German occupation authorities there were unable to accommodate all the deportees. There were also transport problems. According to the record of a meeting in the RSHA on January 30, 1940, the Eichmann department took over the "central control of the evacuation tasks". The Eichmann department was responsible for the “Office for the Resettlement of Poles and Jews” in Poznan , later referred to as the “ Central Office for Migrants ”. Between mid-February and mid-March 1940 over 40,000 people were deported from the Warthegau before the resistance within the Nazi leadership became too great.

Man with a Jewish star in September 1941

In addition, employees of the Eichmann department were involved in drawing up the so-called “ Madagascar Plan ”. The plan envisaged the deportation of four million European Jews to the island of Madagascar , then a French colony, off the east coast of Africa . According to Dieter Wisliceny later , Eichmann dealt intensively with the Madagascar Plan throughout 1940. After the German occupation of France , studies were also carried out in the Paris Colonial Ministry. The planning was preceded by considerations in this regard by the “Judenreferenten” from the Foreign Office, Franz Rademacher , who were supported by the Reich Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop . Via Rademacher, Ribbentrop had the Eichmann department informed of the considerations influenced by foreign policy, which essentially provided for the cession of Madagascar by the Vichy regime to the German Reich. In the Eichmann department, these “reserve plans” were examined by Erich Rajakowitsch , Theodor Dannecker and Eichmann and their practical implementation was further elaborated. The result, a fourteen-page report, was sent to Rademacher in mid-August 1940. However, the Madagascar Plan was not implemented.

Within the Eichmann department, ordinances were drawn up that contributed to the disenfranchisement and isolation of Jews in the run-up to the deportations. This included the ordinance of September 1941, which obliged Jews to wear a yellow star and was created in Section IV B 4a under Friedrich Suhr . Other ordinances issued between September 1941 and June 1942 obliged Jews, for example, to deliver typewriters, bicycles, cameras or ski equipment and forbade them to use public transport. Violations of these police regulations were punished with “ protective custody ”, the order of which was decided by the Eichmann department in cooperation with the RSHA department IV C 2 responsible for “protective custody matters”. Forms that were used for the revocation of German citizenship during the deportation of Jews in accordance with the Eleventh Ordinance on the Reich Citizenship Act contained a telephone number for the Eichmann department to which queries were to be directed. Blank forms could also be obtained from there.

After the emigration ban for Jewish citizens in autumn 1941, the area of ​​responsibility included "Jewish affairs, eviction affairs, confiscation of property that is hostile to the people and the state, deprivation of Reich German citizenship". In March 1941 at the latest, the Eichmann lecture documented the “coming final solution to the Jewish question” for the first time. As a result, the Eichmann department, which had executive powers within the RSHA, was responsible for the administrative coordination and organization of the deportation of Jews from Germany , the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and finally from the occupied territories to the ghettos , concentration and extermination camps . The Eichmann Department also sent so-called “ Jewish advisors ” to allied satellite states to implement anti-Jewish measures in the affected states. Theodor Dannecker, who had been “adviser to Jews” in Paris since September 1940, was officially subordinate to the commander of the Security Police and the SD in France, Helmut Bone ; In fact, his office was a branch of the Eichmann department; which also gave him the instructions.

Invitation to the follow-up conference of the Wannsee Conference on March 6, 1942 in the Eichmann department.

The invitations for the Wannsee Conference , initially planned for December 1941, were sent under the letterhead of the Eichmann report, signed by Heydrich . Eichmann was the recorder of the Wannsee Conference, which was postponed to January 1942, at which the organizational implementation of the deportation and murder of European Jews was discussed. Under the direction of Adolf Eichmann, two follow-up conferences were held at Kurfürstenstrasse 116 on March 6 and October 27, 1942 at the speaker level. One of the topics of the conference was the treatment of " half-breeds ", who should be given the choice of sterilization or deportation. The conference participants advocated the deportation of "half-breeds" to the east. The plans were not implemented, in particular because of resistance in the Reich Ministry of Justice; the "mongrel problem" should be settled after the end of the war. Also on March 6, 1942, a meeting with representatives of regional Gestapo offices took place in the Eichmann department, at which Eichmann presented plans for further deportations and gave instructions for their implementation. Eichmann reported on an agreement with the High Command of the Army (OKH), according to which freight trains should be used to transport Russian forced laborers on their way back. The trains with a capacity of 700 people were to be used for the deportation of 1,000 Jews. It is important that the Jews do not know anything about the planned deportations in advance, said Eichmann. Following Eichmann's lecture, the Gestapo officials exchanged experiences.

In the Eichmann office building on Kurfürstenstrasse, there was a work detachment of around 30 Jews, most of whom lived in “ privileged mixed marriages ” and were therefore excluded from deportations. The work command was used for maintenance work, in particular for extinguishing fires after air raids, during which Jews were forbidden to stay in air-raid shelters. Franz Stuschka was responsible for the work detail; Survivors describe him as brutal and a sadist who beat members of the work detail. Between October 1942 and June 1943 officials from the Eichmann Department were involved in the selection of Berlin Jews prior to their deportations to the extermination camps. Fritz Wöhrn and Rolf Guenther chose for example on 20 October 1942 in the municipality of Action 533 Jews who were deported from 26 October. There are no known survivors. Eichmann himself made several trips in 1941 and 1942 to the sites of mass extermination . Presumably in November 1941 he observed the murders in the Bełżec and Kulmhof extermination camps ; in March 1942 he was present at mass shootings in Minsk ; Eichmann's visits to Auschwitz and Treblinka , during which he inspected the gas chambers , are documented. In the final phase of the Second World War, the Eichmann Command organized the deportation of up to 400,000 Jewish people from Hungary from March to December 1944 . Between autumn 1944 and spring 1945 there were deportations from Slovakia with around 12,000 Jewish people. As early as 1942, up to 60,000 Jews had been deported from Slovakia . The last deportation transport from Slovakia left Sered on March 30, 1945 with the destination Theresienstadt .

End of the Eichmann presentation

Reminder place (2009)

In the last months of the war, the Eichmann department, which, in contrast to the main building of the RSHA in Prinz-Albrecht-Straße 8 , was not hit by a bomb as a result of the heavy bombing on February 3, 1945, issued RSHA employees for camouflage purposes with forged ID cards, certificates and declarations . Eichmann, who was in Prague with other employees from his office immediately before the end of the war, arrived in the Salzkammergut towards the end of April 1945 . After Eichmann and his companions Burger , Hunsche, Novak, Hartenberger and Slawik hid boxes of unknown content there in early May 1945 - probably looted gold and other assets - they went into hiding.

From April 1961, Eichmann had to appear before the Jerusalem District Court in the Eichmann trial . He was sentenced to death and executed on May 31, 1962 in Ramla Prison.

The building in Kurfürstenstrasse 115/116, in which the Eichmann department was housed, was demolished in 1961. Today, a bus stop for the Berlin transport company that has been redesigned as a memorial commemorates the Eichmann report.

literature

  • Klaus Drobisch : The Judenreferate of the Secret State Police Office and the Security Service of the SS 1933 to 1939. In: Yearbook for Research on Antisemitism. Vol. 2, 1993, ISSN  0941-8563 , pp. 230-254.
  • Yaacov Lozowick , Haim Watzman: Hitler's Bureaucrats. The Nazi Security Police and the Banality of Evil. Continuum International Publishing, London a. a. 2002, ISBN 0-8264-6537-4 .
  • Hans Safrian : The Eichmann men. Europaverlag, Vienna a. a. 1993, ISBN 3-203-51115-0 , also as a Fischer paperback under the title Eichmann und seine Gehilfen. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-596-12076-4 .
  • Claudia Steur: Eichmann's emissaries. The "Jewish advisors" in Hitler's Europe. In: Gerhard Paul , Klaus-Michael Mallmann (ed.): The Gestapo in the Second World War. "Home Front" and Occupied Europe. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2000, ISBN 3-89678-188-X , pp. 403-436.
  • Claudia Steur: Theodor Dannecker. A functionary of the "Final Solution". Klartext-Verlag, Essen 1997, ISBN 3-88474-545-X ( Writings of the Library for Contemporary History NF 6), (At the same time: Stuttgart, Univ., Diss., 1996).
  • Michael Wildt : Generation of the Unconditional. The leadership corps of the Reich Security Main Office. Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-930908-75-1 .
  • Michael Wildt (Hrsg.): The Jewish policy of the SD 1935 to 1938. A documentation. Oldenbourg, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-486-64571-4 ( series of the quarterly books for contemporary history 71).

Web links

Commons : Eichmannreferat  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Klee : Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, pp. 129f., 209.
  2. as an example: Carsten Schreiber, Elite in the Hidden. Ideology and regional domination practice of the security service of the SS and its network using the example of Saxony. Oldenbourg, Munich 2008 ISBN 3-486-58543-6 .
  3. a b Wildt, Generation , p. 358.
  4. Wildt, Generation , p. 360.
  5. After the judgment in the Eichmann trial , see Wildt, Generation, p. 361.
  6. Wildt, Generation , p. 701.
  7. Lozowick, Malice (PDF file; 230 kB) , p. 4.
  8. Wildt, Generation , p. 859.
  9. ^ Ernst Klee: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 281.
  10. Wildt, Generation , p. 699.
  11. For the building, see Topography of Terror  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.topographie.de  
  12. Lozowick, Malice (PDF file; 230 kB) , p. 3.
  13. Organization chart of the RSHA and Eichmannreferates (pdf, 970 kB, p. 12.). From Jonathan Littell : The Well-Minded . Translated by Hainer Kober . Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2008 ISBN 978-3-8270-0738-4 .
  14. Hans Safrian: Eichmann und seine Gehilfen, p. 49ff.
  15. Interview with Richard Hartenberger, Regional Court Vienna, Vr 3388/61, quoted in Safrian, Eichmann-Männer , p. 332.
  16. On the importance of the Nisko action: Wildt, Generation , p. 471f.
  17. Wildt, Generation , p. 490ff.
  18. ^ Note on the meeting of January 30, 1940 (Nuremberg Document NO-5322); quoted in Wildt, Generation , p. 496.
  19. ^ Peter Krause: The Eichmann process in the German press , Campus Verlag, 2002, ISBN 978-3-593-37001-9 , p. 25.
  20. Wildt, Generation , p. 504.
  21. Hans Safrian: Eichmann und seine Gehilfen , S. 93f.
  22. Lozowick, Malice (PDF file; 230 kB) , p. 4f.
  23. Lozowick, Malice (PDF file; 230 kB) , p. 26.
  24. Lozowick, Malice (PDF file; 230 kB) , p. 25.
  25. Lozowick, Malice (PDF file; 230 kB) , p. 10.
  26. ^ HG Adler: Theresienstadt , Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 978-3-89244-694-1 , p. 5.
  27. Gabriele Anderl, Dirk Rupnow, Alexandra-Eileen Wenck, Historians Commission of the Republic of Austria: The Central Office for Jewish Emigration as a Robbery Institution , Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2004, p. 309f.
  28. Wildt, Generation , p. 521f.
  29. Safrian, Eichmann-Männer , p. 332. Facsimile of the letter of invitation ( Memento of the original from May 25, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at the Memorial and Education Center House of the Wannsee Conference. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ghwk.de
  30. a b Wildt, Generation , p. 639f
  31. a b Lozowick, Malice (PDF file; 230 kB) , p. 20f.
  32. Lozowick, Malice (PDF file; 230 kB) , p. 32.
  33. Lozowick, Malice (PDF file; 230 kB) , p. 33f.
  34. Wildt, Generation , pp. 636f.
  35. Hans Safrian: Eichmann und seine Gehilfen, pp. 295f., 308f.
  36. Hans-Joachim Heuer: Geheime Staatspolizei - on killing and the tendencies of decivilization , Walter de Gruyter, 1995, ISBN 978-3-11-014516-8 , p. 40.
  37. Hans Safrian: Eichmann und seine Gehilfen, p. 321f.
  38. Marlies Emmerich: A bus stop reminds of the infamous "Judenreferat". In: Berliner Zeitung . December 12, 1998, accessed June 8, 2015 .

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 11 "  N , 13 ° 20 ′ 55"  E