The Holocaust. Getting to the bottom of things. (Part 2)

 Last week I went off on a rant about how difficult it was to find primary sources giving clues as to the details of the Nazi Holocaust. I mentioned that Peter Longerich's Holocaust, The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews had been recommended to me by Richard Evans.

 The book arrived a few days ago, and despite already being fairly preoccupied with my revision, I have read quite a bit of it. Evans described it as "The most thorough and reliable account" and that it "deserves to be in the library of anyone interested in the history of the greatest genocide in history", and I am already beginning to see why. Last week I mentioned David Irvings complaint of "inter-historian incest" which referred to how reliant other historians were on each others written works, and how few referred to the primary sources for their claims. Longerich's book has a refreshingly wide array of sources including countless Nazi reports.
 Perhaps in the coming months when I can be a little more active I will write a proper review. In the meantime, here is a snippet from Chapter 13:

Enforcing the Annihilation Police: Extending the Shootings to the Whole Jewish Population.

pp.219-220

 In the area behind the mid-section of the front the SS Cavalry Brigade was responsible for bringing the murder campaign to a completely new level. (1) This brigade, composed of two former cavalry regiments, carried out an initial 'cleansing operation' in the Pripet Marshes between 29 July and 12 August under the leadership of Higher SS and Police Commander Russia Centre, Erich von dem Bach-Zewalski. For this operation the brigade received special 'guidelines for combing marsh areas using mounted units' that had been signed by Himmler himself: 'If the population as a whole is hostile, sub-standard in racial and human terms, or even, as is very often the case in marsh areas, made up of criminals who have settled there, then all those who are suspected of supporting partisans are to be shot, women and children are to be transported, cattle and provisions confiscated and secured. The villages are then to be burned to the ground.'(2)
 Shortly afterwards, on a visit to Baranowicze on July 30 at which he briefed Bach-Zewalski, Himmler toughened that order still further. He now ordered the shooting of all Jewish men and in addition demanded that violent measures were to be taken against women. He deliberately avoided making explicit a requirement to shoot women, as is indicated by a radio message from the 2nd Cavalry on 1 August: 'Explicit order from the Reichsführer SS. All Jews must be shot. Drive Jewish women into the marshes.'(3) There was a similarly brutal order given by the commander of the mounted unit of the 1st Cavalry Regiment on 1 August to his men, albeit one that was not wholly clear with regard to the treatment of women: "No male Jews are to be left behind, no families left over in the towns and villages."(4)

Longerich's notes:

1. The most detailed account is in Cüppers, Wegbreiter , 151 ff.; see also Büchler, 'Kommandostab' and Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, 555 ff.
2. KTB Commando Staff RFSS, 28 July 1941, published in Unsere Ehre, 220 ff.
3) BAM, RS 3-8/36; on the meeting with Himmler see also BAB, R 20/45b, Bach-Zelewski's diary, 31 July 1941.
4) BAM, RS 4/441, Divisional Order no.28.

For those of you who are interested, I've added a short video of Longerich describing his book.

The Holocaust. Getting to the bottom of things. (Part 1)

 What has baffled me lately is just how difficult it actually is to find primary sources relating to the Jewish Holocaust. Holocaust denier David Irving often remarked that most historians only quoted each other when it came to Hitler's alleged part in the extermination of the Jews 'For thirty years our knowledge of Hitler's part in the atrocity had rested on inter-historian incest.' (1) In his Telling Lies About Hitler, acclaimed historian Richard J. Evans responded to this complaint rather aptly by pointing out that there was nothing wrong with Historians relying on each other's work 'where the work relied on conformed to the accepted canons of scholarly research and rested on thorough, transparent and unbiased investigation of the primary sources. 

 'So vast was the material with which historians dealt, so numerous were the subjects they covered, so consuming of time, energy and financial resources was the whole process of historical research, that it would be completely impossible for new historical discoveries and insights to be generated if every historian had to go back to the original sources for everything he or she wanted to say' (2)

 I think Prof Evans has a good point here, and it is perfectly understandable how impractical it would be to demand every historian go back to the primary source for every claim they make, and it is precisely for this reason that we have a system of impartial review. Then again, it is in Evans' interest to defend such extensive reliance on the works of other historians. I looked through all the notes to his three volume history of the Third Reich and was amazed to see how much of it was simply quotations from other books! I can't give an exact figure because I was looking through as quick as I could, but I saw probably no more than three actual primary sources, (public records, diary entries etc).

 With this in mind, I still want to remark how difficult it is I have found it to come up with a solid figure for the amount of Jews systematically killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust. Out of pure intellectual curiosity, I sent emails to both Professor Evans and to Professor Richard Overy at Exeter University asking them to give me their current estimates.

Overy informed me that in Yad Vasham so far they have "still only got just over 3 million". This is something I will be interested to find more about in future. However, the figure of 3 million is vastly higher than the average Holocaust deniers care to admit, Nick Griffin and David Irving for instance often allowing for "hundreds of thousands" at most.

Evan's responses were a little more informative, and he recommended two books for me to check the footnotes to. One being Raul Hilberg's classic The Destruction of European Jews written in the sixties, the other being the new book by Peter Longerich; Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews. The unabridged versions of the former are available on Amazon.co.uk for a whopping £113 as of today, which obviously makes it a little bit out of my price range. I also tried consulting my university library but not a single copy was available. Fortunately, the cheaper second book came with a greater recommendation from Evans as Hilberg's estimate was "on the low side" (5.1 million) according to him. Nevertheless, it would still be nice to see the the footnotes for both books, so linked at the bottom of this page is my paypal account where you can send me your generous donations so I that may purchase the book (just kidding). It would have been nice of Prof Evans to have consulted his own copy of the book and picked out a few of the footnotes he considered the most significant for me, but I suspect he is a busy man in his profession.

I'll be making a follow up to this once I've gathered more info and had time to do a little more research into the matter. That's all for now.

For more on Hilberg, his book, his low estimate of 5.1 million, as well as his attitude to Holocaust denial I suggest reading Prof Norman Finkelstein's 2007 memoir; Remembering Raul Hilberg available at his website http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/remembering-raul-hilberg-2/

References:

1. (1977) Irving. D. Hitler's War, pp.10.

2. (2002) Evans. R. Telling Lies About Hitler, pp.24.