Special treatment

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“ Special treatment ” (SB) was a cover name in the Nazi language for the murder of people.

euphemism

The euphemistic designation, such as “ final solution to the Jewish question ”, “ deportation ”, “ resettlement ” or “ evacuation ”, should help to disguise the actual actions. For the same purpose, SS doctors used the term disinfection instead of gassing in the Hartheim statistics . The so-called protective custody imposed by the Gestapo also served to remove those affected from society and subsequently kill them.

Use of terms

The term appeared as a code word for executions on September 20, 1939 in a circular issued by the Chief of the Security Police and the Security Service , Reinhard Heydrich , to all state police stations, which deals with "the principles of internal state security during the war ". Among other things, it is stated there: “In the cases under item 1 (decomposition of the fighting strength of the German people) a distinction must be made between those that can be dealt with in the usual way and those that have to be given special treatment. In the latter case, it is a matter of circumstances which, with regard to their reprehensibility, their dangerousness or their propaganda effect, are suitable to be eradicated (namely through execution) without regard to the persons. "

One example among many for the use of this term is the following excerpt from a decree of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) by Heinrich Himmler regarding the treatment of "foreign civil workers":

“(4) In particularly serious cases, special treatment must be requested from the Reich Security Main Office, stating the personal details and the precise facts.

(5) The special treatment takes place through the strand. "

In the course of the investigative and criminal proceedings for the Nazi crimes , it became apparent that the responsible circles had no doubts about what was meant by this term. The SS group leader and Higher SS and Police Leader Emil Mazuw says:

“During the war, the SS understood“ special treatment ”to mean“ killing ”. I am sure that higher officer ranks knew that. I don't know whether the common SS man knew that. According to the linguistic usage of the time, “special treatment” means only killing and nothing else ”.

In the course of the Auschwitz trials, the defendant Robert Mulka also admitted :

“I knew the term 'special treatment' (SB). 'Special treatment' was murder. I was deeply indignant about that. 'Special treatment' was a secret Reich matter ”.

In the spring of 1943 the term had become so well known that, in the opinion of Reichsführer SS Himmler, it could no longer fulfill the camouflage function in the Korherr report .

In an instruction from Himmler to Richard Korherr on April 10, 1943, it says

“The Reichsführer SS has received your statistical report on 'The Final Solution of the European Jewish Question'. He wishes that there is no mention of 'special treatment of the Jews' at any point. On page 9, point 4, it must read as follows: 'Transporting Jews from the Eastern Provinces to the Russian East [...]' ".

Variations of terms

A variant of the camouflage designation was "separate accommodation". You can find it, for example, in the radio protocol of March 15, 1943 about the arrival of the 36th so-called “Eastern Transport” in Auschwitz. The document is one of only three received reports to the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office in Berlin: “KL Auschwitz reports the transport of Jews from Berlin. Receipt on 3/13/43. Total number 964 Jews. 218 men and 147 women […] came to work. 126 men u. 473 women u. Children accommodated. "

The word special treatment in the colloquial sense as a better position was used in reports from the Reich in February 1942 when NSDAP members criticized the exemption regulations for “Jews married to German bloods” , as they did not have to wear the Jewish star .

Reinterpretations

The Holocaust denier Germar Rudolf attempted to establish a different interpretation of this term with extremely dubious and unscientific methods in his book Fundamentals of Contemporary History .

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ H. Auerbach: The term “special treatment” in the usage of the SS. Expert opinion of the Institute for Contemporary History , Volume 2, Stuttgart 1966, DNB 457067535 , pp. 182-189.
    Cornelia Schmitz-Berning: Vocabulary of National Socialism. de Gruyter, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-11-013379-2 , p. 584.
  2. ↑ IMT , 1947, Volume III, Doc. 3040-PS, p. 507 (RSHA General Collection of Decrees, Part 2, A III f Treatment of Foreign Civil Workers)
  3. ^ SS-Obergruppenführer Emil Mazuw during an interrogation . Quoted at: h-ref.de .
  4. ↑ Online presence NS-ARCHIV.DE The Korherr report: A statistic of destruction
  5. ↑ Andreas Engwert, Susanne Kill: Special trains in the death. The deportations with the Deutsche Reichsbahn. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2009, p. 104: Copy of the radio message protocol from March 15, 1943.
  6. ↑ Heinz Boberach (Ed.): Messages from the Reich. Volume 9, DNB 850102340 , p. 3245: February 2, 1942.
  7. ↑ Jürgen Langowski Germar Rudolf online presence : on special treatment