Nazi Germany

A CALCULATED RESTRAINT: WHAT ALLIED LEADERS SAID ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST by Richard Breitman

szfreiberger American Diplomatic History, British History, European History, German History, Holocaust, Nazi Germany, Russian History, United States Foreign Policy, World War II Leave a comment
File:Yalta Conference (Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin) (B&W).jpg

(Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin at Yalta 2/1945)

The most frequent question concerning the Holocaust centers on what allied leaders knew about the genocide against the Jews and what they spoke about it in public and private.  In previous monographs, FDR AND THE JEWS and OFFICIAL SECRETS: WHAT THE NAZIS PLANNED AND WHAT THE BRITISH AND AMERICAN KNEW Holocaust historian Richard Breitman addresses when these men knew what was occurring in the death camps.  In his latest work, A CALCULATED RESTRAINT: WHAT ALLIED LEADERS SAID ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST Breitman shifts his focus as it took until December 1942 for allied leaders to issue a joint statement concerning Nazi Germany’s policy of eradicating Jews from Europe.  It would take President Franklin D. Roosevelt until March 1944 to publicly comment on what was occurring in the extermination camps.  In his new book, Breitman asks why these leaders did not speak up earlier.  Further he explores the character of each leader and concludes that the Holocaust must be understood in light of the political and military conditions exhibited during the war that drove their decision-making and commentary.

Breitman begins his account by introducing Miles Taylor, a Steel magnate turned diplomat representing Franklin Roosevelt in a September 22, 1942, meeting with the Pope.  Taylor described the Nazi genocide against the Jews and plans to exterminate millions.  He pressured the Pontiff to employ his moral responsibility and authority against Hitler and his minions.  In the weeks that followed Taylor conveyed further evidence of Nazi plans to the White House.

(Anthony Eden, British Foreign Secretary) in 1942

The Papacy’s response was much less than could be hoped for.  Monsignor Dell’Acqua warned the Pope that any negative commentary concerning Nazi actions could be quite detrimental to the church, ultimately producing a Papal reaction that it was impossible to confirm Nazi actions, and the Vatican had no “practical suggestions to make,”  apparently believing that only military action, not moral condemnation could end Nazi atrocities.  It would take until 2020 for the Vatican to open records of Pius XII’s tenure to outside researchers.

Breitman states his goal in preparing his monograph was to discern what “Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin knew about the Holocaust to what they said about it in their most important statements on the subject.”  The author’s approach rests on two key avenues of research and analysis.  First, the extent to which allied leaders sought to create and mobilize the international community based on a common morality.  Second, how allied leaders understood the relationship between the Holocaust and the war itself during different stages of the conflict.  Breitman’s account relies on thorough research based on years of archival work, in addition to correspondence among allied leaders, numerous biographies and secondary works on the subject.

Despite the release of most allied documents pertaining to the war, except for Russia which has become more forthcoming since the fall of the Soviet Union there is a paucity of material relating to allied leaders.  Further, there is little, if any record of allied leaders themselves addressing the Holocaust in any of their private conversations, though Stalin’s public commentary does allude to Nazi atrocities more so than Roosevelt and Churchill.

It is clear from Breitman’s account that with Hitler’s January 30, 1939, speech to the Reichstag that the Fuhrer was bent on the total annihilation of the Jews, not just pressuring them to leave Germany and immigrate elsewhere.  It is also clear that Churchill and Roosevelt were fully aware of the threat Hitler posed to the international order, but were limited  in their public reaction to the sensitive issue that a war against Germany to save Jews was not politically acceptable, particularly as it related to communism at a time when anti-Semitism was pervasive worldwide.  Fearing Nazi propaganda responses, allied leaders generalized the threat of Nazi atrocities, thereby subsuming Nazi policies to exterminate Jews among a broader range of barbaric behaviors, thereby limiting explicit attacks on the growing Holocaust.

Breckinridge Long (1881–1958). Long was an Assistant Secretary in the US State Department during World War II, from 1940-1944.

(Breckinridge Long, anti-Semitic State Department official did his best to block Jewish immigration to the United States during the Holocaust)

The author is correct in arguing that had allied leaders spoken out and confronted Nazi behavior earlier it might have galvanized more Jews to flee and go into hiding and perhaps encourage gentiles to take serious steps to assist Jews.  No matter what the result it would have confirmed the rumors and stories concerning Nazi “resettlement in the east,” and possibly encouraged neutral governments to speak out and do more.

Breitman’s overall thesis is correct pertaining to why allied leaders did not speak out publicly about the Holocaust, though they did comment on the barbarity of the Nazis.  The reasons have been presented by many historians that Roosevelt was very concerned about providing the Nazis a propaganda tool because any comments would be used to reinforce the view that the Roosevelt administration was controlled by Jews and it would anger anti-Semites, particularly those in his own State Department, and isolationists in Congress.  FDR reasoned the best way to approach the Holocaust was not to single out Jews and concentrate on the larger issue of winning the war.  The faster victory could be achieved, the more Jews that could be saved.  This opinion was similar to Winston Churchill’s beliefs.

The author spends the first third of the book focusing on the “Big Three,” and their early views as to what policies the Nazis were implementing in Eastern Europe.  Breitman will focus on four examples of public commentary which he analyzes in detail.  On August 24, 1941, Winston Churchill made a speech denouncing Nazi executions in the east.  He singled out what the Germans were doing to the Russians on Soviet soil, with no mention of the Jews as victims.  However, his last sentence read; “we are in the presence of a crime without a name.”  Was Churchill referring to the Holocaust?  Was he trying to satisfy Stalin?  It is difficult to discern, but British intelligence released in the 1990s and early 2000s provide an important picture of what the SS and police units were doing behind battle lines in the Soviet Union in July and August 1941 – mass executions of Jews, Bolsheviks, and other civilian targets.  Churchill’s rationale for maintaining public silence regarding the Holocaust was his fear that the Luftwaffe’s Enigma codes that had been broken by cartographers at Bletchley Park would be compromised should he make statements based on British intelligence.  It is interesting according to Breitman that after August 1941, Churchill no longer favored receiving “execution numbers” from MI6, fearing that the information could become public.  Churchill’s overriding goal was to strengthen ties with the US and USSR and would worry about moral questions later.

In Stalin’s case he made a speech on November 6, 1941, the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 at the Mayakovsky Metro Station.  According to Alexander Werth, a British journalist who was present it was “a strange mixture of black gloom and complete confidence.”  Aware of Nazi mass murder of Jews, Stalin mentioned the subject directly only once, saying the Germans were carrying out medieval pogroms just as eagerly as the Tsarist regime had done.  In a follow up speech the next day, Stalin said nothing about the killing of Jews.  Stalin generalized the threat of extermination so all Soviet people would feel the threat facing their country, but at least he mentioned it signaling that subject could now be openly discussed, but Stalin’s overriding concern was to focus on the Nazi threat to the state and people of the USSR and believed that references to the Nazi war against the Jews could only distract from that.  After his November remarks he made no further public comments about the killing of Jews for the rest of the war.

(Jan Karski (born Jan Kozielewski, 24 June 1914[a] – 13 July 2000) was a Polish soldier, resistance-fighter, and diplomat during World War II. He is known for having acted as a courier in 1940–1943 to the Polish government-in-exile and to Poland’s Western Allies about the situation in German-occupied Poland. He reported about the state of Poland, its many competing resistance factions, and also about Germany’s destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto and its operation of extermination camps on Polish soil that were murdering Jews, Poles, and others)

FDR’s approach was to prepare for war and his comments were designed to do so and not say anything that could rile up anti-New Dealers who opposed war preparation.  At press conferences on July 31 and February 1, 1941, FDR did not raise the subject of Hitler’s threat to annihilate the Jews of Europe and was not questioned about it.  Roosevelt feared any publicity surrounding saving Jews would create greater opposition to aiding the democracies of Europe to fight the Nazis.  It took Roosevelt until August 21, 1942, for the president to denounce barbaric crimes against innocent civilians in Europe and Asia and threatened those responsible with trials after the war.  He would reaffirm these comments in a statement on October 7, 1942, but in both instances he was unwilling to denounce the Nazi war against the Jews.  However, if we fast forward to FDR’s March 24, 1944, press conference, shortly after the Nazis occupied Hungary, the president called attention to Hungarian Jews as part of the Nazi campaign to destroy the Jews of Europe, accusing the Nazis of the “wholesale systematic murder of the Jews in Europe.”   Articles written by the White House press corps and government broadcasts were disseminated to a large audience in the United States and abroad.

Nazi camps in occupied Poland, 1939-1945 [LCID: pol72110]

Breitman dissects a fourth speech given on January 30, 1939, where Adolf Hitler lays out his plans in front of the Reichstag.  The speech recounted the usual Nazi accusations against the west, praise for Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, virulent comments and threat against the Jews, and fear of the Bolshevik menace.  He was careful not to attack Roosevelt as he wanted to limit American aid.  According to Chief AP correspondent Louis Lochner who was present at the speech Hitler reserved his most poisonous verbiage for the Jews as he would welcome the complete annihilation of European Jewry.

The title of the book, A CALCULATED RESTRAINT  is somewhat misleading as Breitman focuses a great deal on events and personalities that may tendentiously conform to the title, but do not zero in exactly on that subject matter.  The author details the negotiations leading up to the Nazi-Soviet Pact and its implications for Poland and Eastern Europe in General.  Further, he comments on the American and British about faces in dealing with communism.  Breitman focuses on the “Palestine question” and its role in Nazi strategy and how the British sought to protect its Arab “possessions,” – oil!  Operation Torch, as a substitute for a second in Europe is discussed; the battle of El Alamein and the role of General Erwin Rommel.  Other prominent individuals  are covered including Reinhard Heydrich who chaired the Wannsee Conference outlining the Holocaust and the Lidice massacre after he was assassinated.  Breitman does deal with the Holocaust, not commentary by the “Big Three” as he introduces Gerhart M. Riegner, a representative of the World Jewish Congress and Polish diplomat Jan Karski, who met with Roosevelt, and Peter Bergson who did his best to publicize the Holocaust and convince the leaders to focus more on containing it through his Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe.  Another important American official that Breitman spends a great deal of time on is Oscar Cox, general counsel of the Foreign Economic Administration, which included the Lend-Lease  Administration who tried to enlist others in the battle against anti-Semites, like Breckinridge Long inside the State Department. Both men played an integral role in making the Holocaust public and trying to convince Churchill and Roosevelt to be more forthcoming about educating the public about the annihilation of the Jews.  This would lead to the Bermuda Conference and the War Refugee Board in the United States, neither of which greatly impacted the plight of the Jews.  Breitman also includes a well thought out and incisive analysis of the murder of hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews at Auschwitz toward the end of the war.

SS chief Heinrich Himmler (right) during a visit to the Auschwitz camp. [LCID: 50742]

(SS chief Heinrich Himmler (right) during a visit to the Auschwitz camp. Poland, July 18, 1942)

Perhaps, Breitman’s best chapter is entitled, “The Allied Declaration”  in which he points out that by the second half of 1942 there was enough credible information that reached allied governments and media that affirmed the genocide of the Jews.  However, as Breitman argues, the atmosphere surrounding this period and the risks of going public were too much for allied leaders.

It is clear the book overly focuses on the course of the war, rather than on its stated title.  The non-Holocaust material has mostly been mined by other historians, and in many cases Breitman reviews material he has presented in his previous books.  Much of the sourcing is based on secondary materials, but a wide variety of documentary evidence is consulted.  In a sense if one follows the end notes it provides an excellent bibliography, but the stated purpose of the book does not receive the coverage that is warranted.

In summary, Breitman’s book is a concise and incisive look at his subject and sheds some new light on the topic.  We must accept the conclusion that the allied leader’s responses and why they chose what to say about the Holocaust must be understood in light of the political and military demands that existed in the war and drove their decision making.  I agree with historian Richard Overy that Breitman spends much more time discussing what was known about the murder of Jews, how it was communicated and its effect on lower-level officials and ministers, rather than discussing the response of the Allied big three, which again reveals a generally ambivalent, even skeptical response to the claims of people who presented evidence as to what was occurring.

(Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill at the Tehran Conference, November, 1943)

IN THE MIDST OF CIVILIZED EUROPE: THE POGROMS OF 1918-1921 AND THE ONSET OF THE HOLOCAUST by Jeffrey Veidlinger

szfreiberger German History, Holocaust, Nazi Germany, Russian History Leave a comment

(Victims of a pogrom perpetrated by Ukrainian forces in Khodorkiv, 1919)

According to Webster’s dictionary a “pogrom” is an organized massacre of a particular ethnic group, in particular that of Jewish people in Russia or eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  It is a Russian word meaning to “wreak havoc, to demolish violently.”  Historically, the term refers to violent attacks by local non-Jewish populations on Jews in the Russian Empire and in other countries. The first such incident to be labeled a pogrom is believed to be anti-Jewish rioting in Odessa in 1821. As a descriptive term, “pogrom” came into common usage with extensive anti-Jewish riots that swept the southern and western provinces of the Russian Empire in 1881–1884, following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II. 

One of the most impactful pogroms took place in Kishinev located in the southwest corner of Imperial Russia in April 1903.  It resulted in the death of 49 Jews, an untold number of Jewish women were raped, and 1,500 Jewish homes were damaged. This sudden rush of hoodlum violence — prompted by accusatory rumors of Jewish ritual murder — quickly became a talisman of imperial Russian brutality against its Jews. More than that, the incident brought the word pogrom to the world stage and set off reverberations that changed the course of Jewish history for the next century.

Pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe at the end of the 19th and early 20th century became the impetus for Jewish immigration to the United States.  Between 1880 and 1924 over 2,000,000 Jews immigrated to the United States to escape persecution and poverty.  My own grandparents left their small village north of Kyiv in 1905 on arriving at Ellis Island and settling in the New York area. 

(A funeral held for desecrated Torah scrolls following the Kishinev pogrom of 1903, in which 49 Jews were murdered and hundreds of women raped)

For those who have difficulty imagining what a pogrom is or looks like I refer them to the film “The Fixer” based on the novel of the same name by Bernard Malamud. THE FIXER was based on an infamous case known as the “Beilis case” or the “Beilis trial” of 1913, in which the mutilated corpse of a Christian boy was found in a cave outside Kiev in 1911, and it became the cause célèbre for myriad virulent antisemitic groups to propagate widespread persecution of Jews. A Jewish laborer named Menahem Mendel Beilis (Yacov Bok in the film and novel) was arrested on ludicrous trumped-up charges for ritualistically extracting the child’s blood to be used in Passover matzos and it led to his imprisonment and torture –a prelude to further pogroms and the coming Bolshevik Revolution. In a highly publicized trial akin to the Russian version of the Dreyfus affair, Beilis was ultimately acquitted by an all-Christian jury.

The latest use of the term pogrom has sparked controversy when it was applied to the devastating actions of Hamas terrorists perpetrated on October 7, 2024, against Israel.  The end result  was 1,180 people killed, of which 797 were civilians, including 36 children and 379 security forces.  A further,  3,400 civilians and soldiers were wounded, and 251 civilians and soldiers were taken captive (74 later died in captivity or were confirmed dead).  Hamas’ savagery fits the definition of the term “pogrom” with all the elements of violence, sexual attack, and antisemitism.

(Symon Petliura, a 1920s Ukrainian statesman blamed for the murder of 50,000 Jewish compatriots)

In his latest book IN THE MIDST OF CIVILIZED EUROPE: THE POGROMS OF 1918-1921 AND THE ONSET OF THE HOLOCAUST  Jeffrey Veidlinger tackles the pogrom-like violence in western Belorussia (Belarus) and Poland’s Galicia province (now West Ukraine), that resulted in the murder of over a hundred thousand Jews between 1918 and 1921. According to Veidlinger, apart from murders, “approximately 600,000 Jewish refugees were forced to flee across international borders, and millions more were displaced internally.  About two-thirds of all Jewish houses and over half of all Jewish businesses in the region were looted or destroyed.  The pogroms traumatized the affected communities for at least a generation and set off alarm bells around the world.”

The perpetrators of pogroms organized locally, sometimes with government and police encouragement. They raped, murdered their Jewish victims, and looted their property. During the civil war that followed the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, Ukrainian nationalists, Polish officials, and Red Army soldiers perpetrated these massacres blaming the Jews for the turmoil and destruction of World War I and the ensuing Russian Revolution.  At the time reports of this violence were published in the press and many warned that the Jews were in danger of extermination – a prediction that would come to fruition in the Nazi imposed Holocaust between 1939-1945.

Veidlinger relies on long-neglected materials that include recently discovered eyewitness accounts, trial records, and government orders concluding that the genocidal violence created the conditions for the Holocaust.  He explains how and why so many groups believed that the murder of Jews was a suitable reaction to their perceived problems, allowing “pogroms” to be seen as one of the defining moments of the 20th century.

Veidlinger

(Professor Jeffrey Veidlinger)

The development of pogroms as a threat to the existence of Jews came to a stage.  First, the reaction to the assassination of Alexander II which Russian newspapers and right-wing Christians blamed the Jews.  Next is the results of the Russo-Japanese war which set off a wave of pogroms as the Russian people could not accept defeat.  The situation was further exacerbated by the 1905 Revolution allowing the Black Hundreds and individuals within the Tsarist police to unleash devastating pogroms.  It took until 1906 for the pogroms to subside.  The pogroms unleashed between 1903-1906 helped model behavioral patterns that were further refined with each wave of unrest.  Tensions were heightened with the appearance of THE PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION, first circulated by the Black Hundreds in 1903 it would be widely disseminated across Russia (and Europe) accusing the Jews of a global conspiracy to take control of world finances and manipulate government leaders.  The next stage in the development and implementation of pogroms was a result of World War I where Jews were accused of financing the German war machine and supporting Russia’s arch enemy, Germany.  Rumors of Jewish betrayal throughout the war led to their removal by Russian troops from front line areas leading to thousands of Jews imprisoned and others becoming refugees forced out of their homes and sent to other parts of the empire or forced to emigrate elsewhere when possible to eradicate what was perceived as a world Jewish revolutionary movement.

One of Veidlinger’s most important themes revolves around what happened to Jews in Ukraine during World War II, having its roots in what happened to Jews in the same geographic area in the post-World War I era.  The massacres established violence against Jews as an acceptable response to the excesses of Bolshevism due to the unrelenting exposure to bloodshed which habituated local populations to bloodshed and barbarism.  When the Germans arrived in 1941 they found a decades-old killing ground where the mass murder of innocent Jews was an acceptable reality.

Veidlinger correctly points out how Jews could not escape victimhood as after the Treaty of Brest Litovsk was signed in March 1918 by the Bolsheviks and Germans, the Jews would once again found themselves as victims.  As the Germans occupied Ukraine the Bolsheviks accused them of collaboration with the enemy as well as being members of the bourgeois class.  The Germans accused them of being Bolshevik sympathizers and engaging in violent attacks against German officials.  The Jews were victims of attacks from both sides further reinforcing the concept that it was acceptable to beat up and kill Jews.  Things grew worse when the Bolsheviks created the “Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Profiteering and Corruption” (Cheka) under Felix Dzerzhinsky which employed torture and terror to root out the opposition.  Interestingly, with so many Bolshevik leaders with Jewish backgrounds it was easy to spread lies pertaining to them by opposition to the new Soviet regime.  The remnants of the central powers, the White Army, the Black Hundreds all developed strong rationalizations to unleash further pogroms.

Leon Trotsky

(Leon Trotsky)

With the collapse of the German and Austro-Hungarian empire the nationalist goals of the Poles for their own nation ensued.  Joseph Pilsudski, a Polish military figure and statesman called for a multi-ethnic Polish state and became the first Chief of State for the new country.  However, for Jews the situation was complex as they once again were caught in the middle of divergent forces and soon became victims of pogramatic violence as Poles, Ukranians, and others fought for control of cities within the new Ukrainian and Polish republics.  Violence in Lviv set a new pattern as soldiers deliberately targeted Jews in their homes and businesses with no apparent military objective.  This seemed different as now soldiers were added to gangs of ruffians and local discontented types who openly attacked Jews.  This spread across Poland and Galicia resulting in over 130 pogroms against Jews by soldiers with the general population participating in the violence as crowds cheered them on.  Once again Jews were caught in the middle as a Ukrainian Republic had been proclaimed that seemed to be more tolerant of Jews when compared to the new Polish state.

The author does an excellent job exploring in insightful detail four of the 85 attacks on Jewish life and property between January and March 1919.  The four include pogroms in Ovruch, two in Zhytomyr, and Proskuriv.  What set them apart from previous pogroms was that they were not necessarily an unprompted spree committed spontaneously by unruly soldiers rampaging through civilian neighborhoods, but part of a protracted reign of terror perpetrated by officers, or leaders who achieved some military control acting under the authority of the state military.  They became a watershed for Jews because the Ukrainian government when it came to pass was predicated on the principle of minority rights and national autonomy and their lack of action showed they could not protect them.  For Jews targeted for supporting  Bolsheviks it betrayed the trust Jews had in their government. 

(A 1934 edition by the Patriotic Publishing Company of Chicago)

The problem that emerges in all four pogroms is that the high minded ideals of the Ukrainian cabinet and intellectual elites were not shared by the rest of the military leadership.  Instead, the officers and soldiers, many of whom had been poisoned by the anti-Semitic rhetoric of the Imperial Russian army which they had served and by prejudices learned in their villages, continued to view Jews as speculators stealing the wealth of the Ukrainian people, as enemies of the church, and the agents of Bolshevism.  It was a belief system that reverberated throughout the region to the detriment and of the well-being of Jews.  This would continue in the battles for Kyiv, Fastiv and other areas as the White army with their Cossacks entered the picture.

Fastiv is another example of the horrors Jews faced in September and October 1919 as the White army entered the fray resulting in the death of over 8000 Jews, some the result of outright murder and the rest the effects of hunger, exposure and the lack of any medical care.  The Whites wanted to eradicate the Jewish population anywhere they could find them.  The Whites were made up of former Tsarist officers and soldiers, along with the Cossacks just enhanced the terror Jews faced under the leadership of Anton Denikin, a former peasant and disgruntled Tsarist officer.  The former Tsarist officers saw the Jews as the progenitors of Bolshevism and as an internal enemy whose perfidy had led to Russia’s defeat in the Great War.  Their goal was to restore the Tsarist empire sans Jews.

Portrait of Russian army General Anton Denikin 1842-1947.

(Anton Denikin)

As previously mentioned the Jews were once again caught in the crossfire between the Red army, the White army, the Ukrainian People’s Republic, and the new Polish nation.  With the settlement at the Versailles conference unclear when it came to borders and the fate of Ukraine, it left an opening for these disparate elements to continue to fight and for Jews who grew confused as to whom to support as the political situation was a minefield.  The battlefield consisted of Whites fighting Reds, the Red Army fighting Poland, Poland fighting the Ukrainian People’s Republic, and sorted warlords seizing property and randomly killing Jews as opportunities presented themselves.  Throughout Ukraine and border areas with the new nation of Poland, government control of territory was always tenuous giving anti-Semites the perfect opportunity to engage in pogroms.  Fueled by conspiracy theories and past learning under the Tsar and the fact that Bolshevik leaders had Jewish backgrounds the plight of Jews seemed preordained.  As Veidlinger describes the many pogroms with its executions, shootings, rapes, seizures of property, and outright torture physically and psychologically one has to wonder how depraved the perpetrators of these atrocities were.

Veidlinger sums up the plight of the Jews very clearly: “Jewish civilians were singled out for persecution by virtually everyone.  The Bolsheviks despised them as bourgeois nationalist; the bourgeois nationalists branded them Bolsheviks; Ukrainians saw them as agents of Russia; Russians suspected them of being German sympathizers; and Poles doubted their loyalty to the newly founded Polish Republic.  Dispersed in urban pockets and insufficiently concentrated in any one contiguous territory, Jews were unable to make a credible claim to sovereignty, no party trusted them.  Regardless of one’s political inclination, there was always a Jew to blame.”

The concept of scapegoating stands out.  If one follows the plight of Jews in Europe since the Middle Ages , the Jew was the perfect target.  No matter what century we are speaking about pogroms would draw local people, at times the victim’s neighbors in what the author describes as a “carnivalesque atmosphere” of inebriated singing and dancing.  The perpetrators were often young peasants who had suffered greatly during World War I, who lacked any guidance from their elders who also participated in the bloodshed.

POSTPONED – Pogroms and the Origins of the European Genocide of the Jews

(1919 map of Ukraine)

As the Nazis rose to power and consolidated their rule in Germany in the 1930s the situation for Jews grew untenable.  The Nazi invasion of Poland and the Soviet Union created an invitation for “liberated peoples” to take out their frustrations against Jews.  The Nazis encouraged  anti-Semitism in the Ukraine taking advantage of its previous history of persecuting Jews.  In 1941, Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reich Security Main Office, told subordinates “not to hinder attempts of local anti-communist and anti-Jewish circles to the newly occupies territories to engage in cleansing activities. On the contrary, they should be carried out and intensified, if necessary, and channeled in the right direction, but without leaving a trace.”  Heydrich would organize the Wannsee Conference where the decision labeled the ‘Final Solution” was reached. 

Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the SD (Security Service) and Nazi governor of Bohemia and Moravia. [LCID: 91199]

(Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the SD (Security Service) and Nazi governor of Bohemia and Moravia.. Place uncertain, 1942)

Pogroms broke out throughout the Ukraine in 1941 as the Nazis were aided by those who had participated in the horrors that took place between 1918 and 1921, and the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police.  The Germans would incite the Ukrainians by equating Jews with Bolsheviks, drawing upon the same language which peasants and Cossack militias had massacred Jews twenty years earlier.  The most deadly massacre took place in Kyiv on September 26, 1941, when Jews were marched to an open meadow, part of the Babyn Yar system were 33, 771 Jews were killed over thirty-six hours.  By the spring of 1942, the genocide of the Jews of Ukraine was complete, with over 500,000 Jews, , one-third of the prewar population murdered.  The pogroms Veidlinger describes in his deeply researched monograph had been mostly spontaneous and scattered, but once the Nazis crossed into Poland, the Ukraine, and the Soviet Union the Holocaust became increasingly systematic.   The intellectual preparation lingered from twenty years before, became a reality.  The precedent of1918-1921 came to fruition.  The script of twenty years before was reenacted.

In the end Veidlinger’s scholarly presentation concluded that few of the perpetrators of the Holocaust were punished when compared to their victims.  Some higher ups escaped, some were convicted, and many lesser accomplices had been sentenced to death by tribunals or vigilantes, but the reality is clear, as Veidlinger states, “the value of Jewish life had been debased.”

(Bodies of the Jewish victims of the pogrom in Orvuch, Ukraine, in February of 1919)

AFTERMATH: LIFE IN THE FALLOUT OF THE THIRD REICH 1945-1955 by Harald Jahner

szfreiberger German History, Nazi Germany, World War II Leave a comment
The area extending north beyond the Brandenburg Gate was later controlled by Soviets for almost 40 year. Note the portrait of Stalin in the center.

(Berlin at the end of World War II)

Today Germany finds itself as the strongest economic power in Europe, in addition to possessing  major military influence due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  Its influence in Europe is strong and many of the goals of the Nazi regime during World War II have been achieved peacefully since unification following the collapse of the Soviet Union.  If one thinks back to 1945 Germany was devastated as it suffered from pervasive allied bombing be it Dresden, Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg, and other German cities.  Living in one of these cities in the summer of 1945 and to imagine Germany’s dominant position in Europe today as a member of the European Union would be unthinkable.  The question is how did Germans face up to their Nazi past and how did they move on, for most with no sense of responsibility or guilt for the Holocaust and other atrocities committed by the Hitlerite regime domestically and across Europe?  Harald Jahner a German cultural journalist and former editor of the Berliner Zeitung focuses on the immediate postwar period in trying to determine why this happened in his book AFTERMATH: LIFE IN THE FALLOUT OF THE THIRD REICH 1945-1955.

Jahner immediately asks a series of questions which he hopes to convey the answers to.  For the nine million Germans who were bombed out of their homes and evacuees, the fourteen million refugees and exiles, the ten million released from forced labor and imprisonment, and the countless millions of returning prisoners of war the question was clear; “How was this horde of ragged, displaced, impoverished and leftover people broken up and reassembled?  And how did former national comrades (Volksgenossen), as German nationals were known under Nazism, gradually become ordinary citizens again?”  This process would lay the foundation of the “German economic miracle” of the postwar period and as a result is an important aspect of western history for historians to explore.

(The Nuremburg Trials)

Interestingly, the Holocaust had a negligible impact on the consciousness of most Germans during the period.  Many were aware of the crimes that took place in the name of Aryan unity and lebensraum (living space in the east) and perhaps guilt about causing the war, but there was little guilt concerning the death of six million Jews.  In fact, the whitewashing of the existence of the extermination camps was common even as the allies tried to confront the German people with evidence of Nazi crimes.  This coverup in part was due to the prevalent view of many Germans that they were now the victims.  As Jahner writes; “the survival instinct shuts out feelings of guilt.”

The postwar period was riddled with instances of imprisonments during the war for minor offenses who remained imprisoned after the war, some for years.  Disturbingly, at the same time former Nazi elites, scientists, and spies emerged in the bureaucracy of the new Federal Republic and cooperated with former allies as the Cold War approached.  At the same time ordinary people starved, lost their shelter, and tried to survive with the absence of authority.

Jahner begins his narrative by describing the plight of the German people.  Examples abound during the early months of the postwar period of suffering of the survivors of the war, and the author concludes as far as any guilt was concerned; “forgetting was the utopia of the moment.”  As a cultural historian Jahner’s main focus is how German culture evolved after the war as a tool to denazify the German people.  The author’s focus is broadly encapsulating a broad realm of cultural issues including film, music, art, newspapers, literature, furniture design, clothing, architecture, etc.  Jahner delves into the acceptance and rejection of certain cultural avenues following the war. In film, comedies rather than dramatizations were seen as more acceptable.  The cultural leaders were concerned about the general public’s taste and understanding of art.  The Third Reich had conditioned people in terms of aesthetic judgement, now they needed to break the intellectual chains of the past, i.e.; accepting modern abstract art which was seen as positive as it represented the denazification of culture. 

Road Work

(German soldiers returned home after WWII)

In an interesting comparison between the American and Soviet view of how to denazify and integrate the German people after the war, Jahner focuses on how the United States relied on art as a vehicle to promote democracy.  Employing the CIA as a vehicle to transfer funds to promote western culture, US intelligence services funneled money to particular cultural leaders as a means of obtaining their ends.  The Americans however were less likely to offer the Germans the chance of rehabilitation so soon after the war as the Soviets did.  Americans had no communist theory of history that would have enabled them to view Germans as victims of Hitler.  On the contrary Americans saw the average German as “a militaristic, authoritarian, hard hearted character for whom the Fuhrer’s state was the most representative form of government.”  The Russian approach was simpler, purging who they felt threatened by,  offering what became known as East Germans an off ramp to acceptability, and a culture that was much more digestible like “Socialist Realism.”

Jahner offers a window into how the German people coped economically on a daily basis exploring rationing, the black market, crime, exploitation, and the lack of housing which he argues would eventually lead to a market economy.  He explores topics like sex, love, the plight of orphans, returning POWs, forced laborers, demobilized soldiers, and other wandering human beings who had been displaced by war.  However, the most important insights he offers centers around the belief by Germans that the Nazis had humiliated them and the argument that they too were victims of Hitler.  This rationalization made it easy to avoid discussion of the Holocaust after the war and any German responsibility.  Hitler worshipers were “duped” rather than guilty for the events that led to war and what transpired during the war.  The positive is Jahner’s belief that what he terms as “intolerable insolence” is the belief that to establish democracy in post war Germany this denialism was a necessary prerequisite because it created the foundation of a new beginning.  The victim narrative reached its apex in April 1945 when the Germans were in fact liberated.

Jahners concludes that the majority of surviving Germans were so preoccupied with their own suffering that the dominant mood was one of self-pity.  Since they were victims they “had the dubious good fortune of not having to think about the real ones.”  As grim as Jahner’s discussion is concerning the amount of rubble that was left for the Germans to clear and live with, for many it is just punishment for a sophisticated people who succumbed so easily to the Nazi regime.  The eventual robust economic recovery of the East and West was a boon, according to Jahner, “but such good fortune had nothing to do with historical justice.”

Excellent aerial view showing devastation and bombed out buildings over wide area.

(Berlin at the end of World War II)

NIGHT OF THE ASSASSINS: THE UNTOLD STORY OF HITLER’S PLOT TO KILL FDR, CHURCHILL, AND STALIN by Howard Blum

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File:Yalta Conference (Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin) (B&W).jpg

Many believe that the most important World War II conference between Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, and Franklin D. Roosevelt took place at Yalta.  For those who despise Roosevelt it was at Yalta that the president was duped by the Soviet leader which would lead directly to the Cold War following the president’s death.  Obviously, Yalta was of prime importance when one examines the post-war period, but in fact according to historian Keith Eubanks in his landmark study, SUMMIT AT TEHRAN, the agreements reached at Yalta and much of the postwar settlement were fashioned by the Tehran discussions.

Since Teheran was the first meeting of the “Big Three” coming at a time when it was becoming increasingly clear that the Germans were going to lose the war, anything the Nazis could do to prevent the allied leaders from developing plans to bring the war to a conclusion and what the post-war world would look like was imperative.  For Adolf Hitler, if his commandos could disrupt the conference of perhaps kill allied leadership, new heads of state might be willing to develop more reasonable policies toward Germany other than the goal of “unconditional surrender” announced by Roosevelt at the Casablanca Conference on January 24, 1943.  In Howard Blum’s NIGHT OF THE ASSASSINS: THE UNTOLD STORY OF HITLER’S PLOT TO KILL FDR, CHURCHILL, AND STALIN the author explores events and decision making surrounding the Nazi plan to assassinate allied leaders – code named Operation Long Jump. Blum’s effort is not a work of counterfactual history discussing what might have occurred had the Nazi plan been carried out, but an interesting historical monograph that unwraps how close the Nazis came to success.

(Walter Schellenberg as an SS-Oberführer in 1943)

Blum’s work reads like an engrossing spy thriller, when in fact it is a true story.  It reads like a well written novel, but in reality it is a narrative history at its best.  The monograph itself is presented on parallel lines.  First is the competition between SS General Walter Schellenberg who headed Section 6 of the Reich Security Office (RSHA), and Michael Reilly, the Secret Service agent who was the head of President Roosevelt’s security detail.  The author, having examined the pertinent documentation, delves into the mindset of both figures and the strategies they developed in order to achieve their goals.  For Schellenberg it was to decapitate allied leadership, and for Reilly to thwart any assassination attempts and keep the “Big Three” safe.  The second thread that Blum catalogues are the measures taken to protect Roosevelt and his allied compatriots and Nazi covert plans over a two year period to offset the fact that the war seemed lost by killing the “Big Three” and hoping that replacement leaders would be more amenable.  Third, are the character studies of each of the important personages in the story.  From Schellenberg and his commando operatives, allied and Nazi spies, to Reilly. 

Blum’s commitment to detail is the highlight of the narrative.  For example, the removal of tons of seized opium from smugglers stored in the basement of the Treasury building in Washington to create a safe space for Roosevelt after December 7, 1941, or the use of Al Capone’s automobile that was outfitted with amazing safety features for the time to protect the president.  Other examples include Churchill’s capacity to ingest brandy and scotch and his lax approach for his own security.  Blum delves deeply into the spy craft that was employed highlighting agents, double agents, recruitment of commandos, training for the assassination missions and other aspects of intelligence dexterity.

The author does a useful job discussing the competition within the Nazi bureaucracy exemplified by the relationship between General Schellenberg head of Section 6 of SS intelligence, and the head of Abwehr, the military espionage branch of the Wehrmacht, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris.  Another example of this competition is highlighted by the Abwehr commando training program centered at Lake Quenz headed by Major Rudolph von Holten-Pflug produced jealousy on the part of Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS who ordered Captain Otto Skorzeny to create an SS version of Lake Quenz.  It would be Skorzeny who had rescued  Benito Mussolini from Allied control who would train the commandos and lead them into Teheran to assassinate their targets.  Other key players include Franz Mayr and Roman Gamotha, German spies who had been dropped into Iran in 1940, one of which turned out to be a double agent; Julius Berthold Schilze-Holthus, a Nazi diplomat stationed in Teheran; Nasr Khan who led the Qashqai Tribe’s military arm who allied with the Germans; Lili Sanjari, Roman Gamotha’s secretary and Franz Mayr’s mistress among many other characters.

Howard - Blog Header.jpg

(Michael Reilly and FDR)

At various times it appears that Schellenberg’s plot would be successful.  By November 1943, all the pieces he put into place had come together.  Abwehr and SD agents had successfully gone undercover in Iran early in the war.  Two agents remained active, one in Teheran, and the other in the tribal hill country.  In previous operations commandos had parachuted into Iran and established the procedures for aerial insertion missions with the necessary equipment to carry out the plot.  Further, the alliance with Nasr Khan remained firm.  Lastly, Hitler had complete confidence that Otto Skorzeny, the very tactician who had supervised the training and execution for previous missions into Iran, could carry out a successful assassination mission.

It is interesting to explore how Reilly and the American secret service tried to keep the President and his entourage safe.  Reilly had to deal with a stubborn president who enjoyed certain peccadillos of life that he was wanting to give up.  Further, plans seemed to change almost on a dime especially as negotiations with Stalin to choose the site of the meeting constantly ran into roadblocks.  Other aspects of the trip to Tehran after it was finally chosen were that Roosevelt, Churchill, and Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-Shek would first meet in Cairo which created more headaches for Reilly and company. 

(Otto Skorzeny in 1943)

The role played by the Russians is consequential for a country that was occupied by both the Soviet Union and the United States.   During the war, Iran became a major transshipment route for American Lend-Lease aid to the Soviets, and thousands of American, British, and Russian troops controlled the major cities and ports, particularly Tehran. Blum shows the ruthless nature of the Soviet precautions as Soviet intelligence and secret police agents of the NKVD, the forerunner of the infamous KGB, began a massive sweep of Tehran to arrest any German national or potential sympathizer when the first hint of a conspiracy is heard.  For Reilly, the role of Soviet intelligence was concerning with their nest of secret agents and posers in Teheran, and how he could work with his Soviet counterparts to ensure the safety of the “Big Three.”  Reilly’s concerns were also evident when Stalin offered to have the American delegation moved to the Soviet compound in the city.  The rationale was clear, the American embassy was just outside the city and would require a short car ride each day for the president creating an interesting target.  A move to the Soviet compound would include Russian eavesdropping devices placed throughout where the American delegation would be staying – certainly, a dilemma for the Americans.  Interestingly, Roosevelt was not keen staying at the British compound located near the Russians either.

Blum uses Russian archival sources only made public in the last twenty years along with an ample collection of other primary and secondary sources as he weaves a fast-paced story of how Nazi intelligence services and special commando units tried to infiltrate an assassination team into Iran.  It is a story that would make Ken Follett, Robert Ludlum, and Ian Fleming proud.  In the end the Germans would come closer to a successful suicide mission that is generally believed.   Except for the usual difficulties of controlling foreign intelligence operatives-greed, stupidity, and bad luck, the Nazis might have gotten their commandos within lethal proximity to the “Big Three” and conducted a successful war altering mission.

If you would like to read an updated version of the story see Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch’s THE NAZI CONSPIRACY: THE SECRET PLOT TO KILL ROOSEVELT, STALIN, AND CHURCHILL.

PRISONER OF THE CASTLE: AN EPIC STORY OF SURVIVAL AND ESCAPE FROM COLDITZ, THE NAZIS FORTRESS PRISON by Ben Macintyre

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(Colditz Prison today)

If one is interested in spy craft and traitors during World War II and the Cold War there are few authors that have produced more satisfying works than Ben Macintyre.  Macintyre is a writer-at-large for The Times (U.K.) and has written monographs whose narratives include the history of the British SAS; deceptions that encompass plans to misinform the Nazis in the lead up to the invasions of Sicily and D-Day; well-known spies such as Kim Philby, Oleg Gordievsky, the woman known as Agent Sonya, Eddie Chapman; and his latest the escapees from the Nazi fortress, Colditz.  Whether describing and analyzing the actions of double agents loyal to the United States, Britain, or Russia or other topics Macintyre’s approach to conveying espionage history is clear, concise, entertaining, and remarkably well written.  All books are based on sound research and his readers will welcome his latest effort PRISONERS OF THE CASTLE: AN EPIC STORY OF SURVIVAL AND ESCAPE FROM COLDITZ, THE NAZIS FORTRESS PRISON.

As in all of his books. PRISONERS OF THE CASTLE tackles subject matter with gusto and goes beyond the conventional story that may have been told before.  In his latest effort he breathes new life into one of the greatest war stories ever told as over a period of four years allied prisoners tried to escape the impregnable Nazi fortress.  Macintyre traces the evolution of World War II from within the prison to the point of liberation when inmates feared their rescue would not come quickly enough to save them.  As described by the author, the prisoners were an amalgam of self-identified “communists, scientists, homosexuals, women, aesthetes and philistines, aristocrats, spies, workers, poets, and traitors” who created their own replica of pre-war society and culture within the prison as a means of survival.

Caught in the act, this Allied prisoner can be seen poking climbing out of a sewer after guards at Colditz Camp in Leipzig, Germany had caught him trying to escape. Only the most high risk Second World War prisoners were sent to Colditz - a converted castle built on rocky terrain in eastern Germany
(Escaping through the sewers)

There are two components that dominate Macintyre’s monograph; the replica of the British social class structure that dominated prison life, and the integration of an eclectic and diverse group of prisoners whether British, Dutch, French, Polish, or American.   There are other themes that the author introduces that include the Nazi leadership that ran Colditz, the ebbs and flows of the war which prisoners were able to keep up with by building a surreptitious radio, the planning of escapes and what happened to the escapees, the plight of Prominente – a group of influential and famous prisoners whom the Nazis sought to maximize a return, and how Berlin reacted to what was occurring in the prison.

Running through the heart of Colditz ran a wide and almost unbridgeable social class divide.  This was a camp for captured officers, but it also consisted of a fluctuating population of orderlies, and prisoners of other ranks who performed menial tasks for the Germans, but also served as personal servants for officers.  Only officers were allowed to take part in escape attempts and orderlies were not expected to assist them.  No orderly tried to escape because if caught the consequences could be devastating.  If an officer was caught he was returned to the prison usually unharmed.  There was a working class of soldiers and orderlies, and an upper class of officers, reflecting the class structure of the time. 

The officers had a British “boarding school mentality.”  They tried to recreate the traditions of Eton and other private schools coopting behaviors such as bullying, enslaving individuals on the lower rung of society, “goon-baiting” of Germans, and diverse types of entertainment.  Those who did not attend a boarding school were rarely included.

Spot the dummy?Allied soldiers had a handmade dummy they would use during parade head counts to fool guards at Colditz. While the figure had no legs, prisoners could hold it up and hope it would, at a cursory glance, appear as one of their fellow inmates
(Creating copies of uniforms, including the use of dummies)

Macintyre describes the prison infrastructure that the prisoners studied assiduously to determine weak points and when they might escape.  For most prisoners escaping became their life’s work and interestingly the different nationalities kept a score card highlighting successful escapes.  The food was abysmal, but edible and it was offset by Red Cross packages of food, clothing, toiletries and other important items.  Many packages contained objects hidden in food and other articles that might assist an escape.  Prisoners cooperated in digging tunnels, one of which was known as Le Metro dug mostly by the French, performing logistics, obtaining and making tools, and often attempted an escape that involved substantial number of men.  On the other hand, there were prisoners who worked alone and wanted no part of being in a group.  The prisoners created numerous committees to regulate prisoner life and tried to produce a sense of normality.  One in particular was most important – if a prisoner wanted to try to escape he needed the approval of an Escape Committee headed by the highest ranking officers.

Macintyre’s attention to detail is a strength of the book.  He delves into strategies developed and objects needed, i.e.; the “arse keeper,” a cylinder to hide money, small tools and other objects in one’s anatomy was most creative.  The prisoners were geniuses in developing tactics to confuse their captors, and instruments that were used to make their escape attempts possible, a including a glider that was completely built, but never used..  The author also includes how prisoners tried to keep themselves sane by developing their own entertainment.  They set up theater performances, choirs, concerts, bands, jazz ensembles, plays etc.  Sanity was a major issue and for those who remained at Colditz for years PTSD was definitely an issue.

Captured soldiers were no strangers to using tunnels for their great escapes, but it was highly unlikely they would make it all the way out to freedom. During the Second World War 32 PoWs escaped from Colditz, of which only 15 made it across Europe to safety
(The French “Metro” Tunnel)

The characters Macintyre describes are a diverse and fascinating group.  The following stand out.  Alain Le Ray, a French Lieutenant in an elite mountain infantry force, and a self-contained individual who planned and tried to execute numerous escapes.  Captain Pat Reid, a gregarious member of the British Royal Service Corps who shared his plans and was involved in many escape attempts.  Joseph Ellison Platt, a self-righteous Methodist preacher tried, and usually failed to keep prisoners on the straight and narrow.  Airey Neave, wounded at Calais used planning escapes as a tool to ease his depression. He would finally escape and work for MI9 to assist other prisoners.  Birendranath Mazumdar, an Indian doctor and an officer who was treated poorly by his British “allies” reflecting the racist attitudes of British officers.  He turned down working for the Germans but was still a victim of his compatriots.  Giles Romilly, a nephew by marriage of Winston Churchill, was journalist and communist captured in Norway.  Christopher Layton Hutton designed and developed numerous escape kits and other inventions for prisoners.  Michael Sinclair escaped from Poland who was obsessed with escaping and reuniting with the Anglo-Polish Society, a secret resistance network – he would make seven escape attempts dying on the last one..   Julius Green, a Jewish dentist from Glasgow developed the most prolific code-letter system and treated Nazi patients who disclosed valuable information that he was able to forward to the right authorities.  Checko Chalovpka, a Czech pilot whose affair with Irmgard Wernicke, a dental assistant in town who a spy who fed information provoked awe.  Walter Purdy, a British supporter of Oswald Mosley turned against his fellow prisoners and made radio speeches condemning the allies – his fellow prisoners wanted to lynch him.  Wing Commander Douglas Bader, a double amputee fighter pilot who was held in high esteem by most prisoners. Lee Carson, a beautiful and fearless journalist who traveled with American troops, who was known as the “Rhine Maiden.”  There are also important Nazi figures highlighted by Lt. Reinhold Eggers, the Supreme Security Chief at Colditz who tried to be fair to the prisoners and was often overruled.  Eggers is extremely important in that he maintained a written history of the camp that Macintyre had access to.  Eggers appears almost as a background narrator of the story presenting his battle with prisoners and the thinking of the German occupiers.

The turning point for prisoners came after D-Day.  As long as the German Army was in charge of the camp treatment was palatable.  However, as the war turned after D-Day and the July 1944 Plot that failed to assassinate Hitler more and more the SS and the Gestapo under Heinrich Himmler took over the camp.  Escapees were warned, if you were captured you would be shot, not just returned to the barracks as before.

Prisoners, including some dressed in women's clothes and make up, can be seen here performing in a show. Guards at Colditz organised concerts and shows as a way of keeping prisoners occupied so they could not plan any escapes
(Prisoners created their own theater)

I agree with Andrea Pitzer’s September 29, 2022, Washington Post review as she writes, “Macintyre tells the story of the POW camp that had more escape attempts than any other during World War II. He parades a brigade of officers, some of whom have since been lionized or found postwar fame through film, television and multiple books. Ultimately, Macintyre offers a more complete and complex account than is typical in popular histories from the Nazi era. Read in that light, this is less a fairy tale than an honest account of heroic but fallible men in captivity, made more compelling through the acknowledgment of their flaws and failures.”

The strength of the book lies with Macintyre’s unique ability to weave a story involving so many different characters, not allowing individuals to get in the way of his material.  Macintyre writes as if he is aware that his story is not a literary one, but a recounting the stories of many important men and stitching together their experiences from the disparate historical record. 

(Colditz Prison during WW2)

THE ESCAPE ARTIST: THE MAN WHO BROKE OUT OF AUSCHWITZ TO WARN THE WORLD by Jonathan Freedland

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Rudolf Vrba
(Rudi Vrba)

Two words dominate Jonathan Freedland’s new book, THE ESCAPE ARTIST: THE MAN WHO BROKE OUT OF AUSCHWITZ TO WARN THE WORLD; trust and escape.  These terms would dominate the life of Walter Rosenberg, a Slovakian Jew who along with three others would escape from Auschwitz in 1944.  Only seventeen in February 1942, Rosenberg was rounded up by the Nazis which would begin a horrible journey that would culminate in being deported with his family to Poland.  Passing through Novaky, a Slovak transit camp, he would wind up in Majdanek and then on to Auschwitz by June 1942 where he would remain until April 1944 when he and his compatriot, Fred Wetzler would become the first Jews to escape “the crowning achievement of Nazi extermination.”

From that point on Walter Rosenberg, who would change his name to Rudi Vrba would dedicate his existence to gathering evidence of Nazi atrocities in order to warn Jews of what they could expect once they were deported to Auschwitz.  It was his hope that once warned, Jews would put up as much resistance as possible apart from marching docilly to their deaths.

Freedland’s gripping book sets out to bring Vrba to prominence as a name to be mentioned in the same category as Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, Oskar Schindler, and Anne Frank.  In telling his story Freedland focuses on Vrba’s prodigious memory as he mentally catalogued what he witnessed each day in the camp.  At the outset he may not have realized it but thanks to a series of arbitrary events and lucky breaks Vrba had acquired an unusually comprehensive expertise in the workings of Auschwitz.  Freedland writes that “he had lived or worked in the main camp, at Birkenau and at Bu8na; Auschwitz I, II, III.  He had worked in the gravel pits, the DAW factory, and in Kanada.  He had been an intimate witness of the selection process that preceded the organized murder of thousands….He knew the precise layout of the camp and believed he had a good idea as to how many had entered Auschwitz by train, and how many left via chimney.  And he had committed it all to memory.”

auschwitz-photos-fence
(Birkeneau)

Freeland describes Vrba’s experiences with a keen eye and his ability to process what he experienced as preparation for his escape to warn his fellow Jews.  Freeland relies on the work of two prominent Holocaust historians, David Cesarini and Nikolaus Wachsmann in his retelling of the Final Solution and integrating those events into Vrba’s story.  Freeland’s chapter entitled, “Kanada,” provides insights into Vrba’s methodology as he was assigned to an area where he would separate and quantify the possessions of prisoners upon their arrival at the camp.  Later, he would be assigned to greet and assist in separating arrivals as they exited the cattle cars.  Freeland’s detail is remarkable as even toothpaste tubes were used to hide diamonds.  These experiences helped him master the numbers  that Nazi extermination produced.

Freeland’s overriding theme rests on Vrba’s obsessive drive to escape.  No matter where he found himself or what condition he was in he was always thinking and plotting.  Once Freeland turns to April 1944 and Vrba’s tortuous journey out of the camp we see a young man wise beyond his years realize his dream of warning Jews that deportation to Auschwitz meant death.  He had watched the SS decide who was to live and die with a flick of the finger, now after witnessing so much he decided he could sound the warning that obviated the process.

Freeland describes how observant Vrba was and focuses on the idea that no one could be trusted, even the few he felt comfortable with.  He partnered with Fred Wetzler, another Slovakian Jew and two others in planning and carrying out their departure and what emerges is an amazing story that provides many insights into the resistance to the Holocaust and how difficult it became to educate Jews as to what their fate would become.

Interestingly, Vrba took a course in “escapology” from Dimitri Volkov, a Russian POW who had escaped from Sachsenhausen, another Nazi concentration camp.  The key was to carry no money or food and live off the land.  Further, a watch was needed, as was a knife which could be used for suicide because capture meant torture and death.  Salt and matches were also needed and most importantly, trust no one.

auschwitz-photos-wagon

As Vrba’s journey evolved he develops a deep resentment towards the Jewish Councils that had cooperated with the Nazis and facilitated their methodology in deporting Jews to the death camps.  Freeland notes that Vrba would carry these feelings for the rest of his life particularly involving the actions of Rezso Kasztner, the controversial head of the Budapest Jewish Council who blocked the dissemination of Vrba and Wetzler’s report of what transpired in Auschwitz.

Once the escape proved successful Vrba’s mission was to prepare a report that would support newspaper and eyewitness accounts of what transpired in the death camps.  This discussion is one of the most important aspects of the book as the report is retyped, translated, and printed and eventually reaches the desks of Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and a series of high Vatican officials.  Freeland analyzes this process as to why little or nothing was done, concluding that politics, anti-Semitism, and years of denigrating Jews by church officials was responsible.

Freeland’s rendering of Vrba’s life continues after the war as he lived in Israel, London, and eventually settled in Vancouver.  He became a successful research scientist, married twice, and had two daughters.  Despite professional success following the war he was haunted by bouts of paranoia, anger, lack of trust, and an inability to gain true acceptancefor what he tried to achieve during the war.  As the years passed on he never wavered in his belief that the Jews knew nothing of Auschwitz, despite evidence to the contrary.  Despite this in the end his report was pivotal in saving 200,000 Budapest Jews from extermination as President Roosevelt warned the Hungarian government in late 1944 as to the consequences if more jews were slaughtered.  But this only occurred after a frustrated Vrba and Wetzler decides to print and disseminate their report by themselves when others would not cooperate.

According to Blake Morrison in his The Guardian review of 8 June 2022, “Vrba had three core beliefs about Auschwitz: that the outside world didn’t know about the “final solution”; that once they did know, the allies would intervene; and that once Jews knew, they would refuse to board those fateful trains. Without in the least diminishing Vrba, Freedland disproves all three. Word of the Nazis’ “cold-blooded extermination” had got out at least 18 months before his escape. Allied policy was inhibited by inertia and antisemitism (“In my opinion a disproportionate amount of time of the Office is wasted on dealing with these wailing Jews”, wrote someone in the Foreign Office in London). And whereas younger Jews believed Vrba, the majority were with philosopher Raymond Aron, who said: “I knew but I didn’t believe it. And because I didn’t believe it, I didn’t know.”

Freedland has written a remarkable account combining the history of the Holocaust with the life experiences of a young man, who will emerge emotionally damaged from the war suffering from PTSD.  Despite Vrba’s flaws as a person his commitment to warn Hungary’s Jews stands as a tremendous accomplishment despite the negative opinions of a number of Holocaust historians toward his work.  The book is well written, an absorbing read, and an important contribution to the literature of the Holocaust.

No photo description available.
(Rudi Vrba)

THE POPE AT WAR: THE SECRET HISTORY OF PIUS XII, MUSSOLINI, AND HITLER by David I. Kertzer

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Pope Pius XII
(Pope Pius XII)

For many, one of the most polarizing figures of the Second World War was Pope Pius XII.  Up until 2019 the Vatican archives did not allow access to most of the documents related to Pius XII’s actions before and during the war.  Under the current leadership of Pope Francis, the archive has been made available to historians and has brought about a reassessment of Pius XII’s relationship with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in addition to his attitude toward the Holocaust. 

Until the opening of the archive, historians were of two minds; either Pius XII was too close to Mussolini and Hitler and did not confront them publicly concerning their murderous atrocities and said and did little in relation to the genocide of European Jewry or he did as much as he could in balancing the protection of the Catholic clergy in Germany and working behind the scenes to assist Europe’s Jews.  It is understood that Pius XII was in a very difficult position and Pulitzer Prize winning historian, David I. Kertzer, the author of THE POPE AND MUSSOLINI: THE SECRET HISTORY OF PIUS XI AND THE RISE OF FASCISM IN EUROPE has availed himself of the opportunity to consult newly released documentation and has written what should be considered the definitive source  in dealing with Pius XII in his latest work, THE POPE AT WAR: THE SECRET HISTORY OF PIUS XII, MUSSOLINI, AND HITLER.  Kertzer’s book documents the private decision-making that led Pope Pius XII to stay essentially silent about Hitler’s genocide and argues that the Pope’s impact on the war is underestimated – and not in a positive fashion.  As David M. Shribman writes in the Boston Globe, for Pius XII “silence was easier, safer, more prudent.  Silence was deadly.”*

Kertzer’s presentation is excellent as it is grounded in his previous research and his recent access to the newly opened Vatican archive.  The book is clearly written and tells a story that many have heard before, however it is cogently argued, and he has unearthed new material which may change or reinforce deeply held opinions by many when it comes to Pius XII.  Kertzer makes the case that Pius XII’s obsessive fear of Communism, his belief  that the Germans would win the war, and his goal of protecting church interests motivated him to avoid angering Mussolini and Hitler.  The Pope was also concerned as the book highlights, that opposing Hitler would alienate millions of German Catholics.

Kertzer does an excellent job tracing Pius XII’s relationship with Mussolini; the evolution of Italy’s military failures which negatively impacted Hitler’s plans, i.e.; Italy’s failed invasion of Greece; and Hitler’s growing dissatisfaction with Mussolini.  Kertzer relies heavily on the comments and diaries associated with foreign ambassadors to the Vatican, particularly those of England and France and their negative commentary related to the Papacy.  The descriptions of these ambassadors focused on Pius XII’s lack of action, periodic support for the war effort in Italy, and obsession with German power.  Further, Kertzer focuses on Pius XI’s opposition to Mussolini’s adoption of racial laws targeting Italian Jews.  Despite this opposition, Pius XII would not comment on the increase in Italy’s oppression of Jews and racial laws in general.

Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler watch a Nazi parade staged for the Italian dictators's visit to Germany.

(Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler)

Pius XII’s predecessor, Pius XI had been somewhat of a thorn in the side of fascist dictators.  He saw Mussolini as a “buffoon,” and believed that Hitler was a danger to all of Europe.  Both dictators feared he was preparing an encyclical denouncing Nazi racism and anti-Semitism and feared that the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli who would succeed him as Pontiff would try and talk him out of it, as well as any other anti-fascist comments.  When he died a few days before he could release his encyclical, Mussolini and Hitler experienced a great deal of relief.

Kertzer correctly points out that Mussolini never felt comfortable around priests and complained bitterly about Pius XI barbs.  He was worried as he was aware that Hitler viewed him as a role model and did not want the Pope’s commentary to ruin their relationship.  Once Pius XI died and was replaced by Cardinal Pacelli criticism was reduced and if any were made it was done in private.  Hitler’s main complaint concerned articles in the Vatican’s daily newspaper, Osservatore Romano that focused on Nazi anti-Catholic policies from arresting and beating Catholic priests to closing Catholic schools in Germany.  Pius XII immediately made overtures to Hitler to relax the pressure on German Catholicism and refused to comment publicly on Hitler’s seizure of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, in addition to remaining quiet as Hitler’s pressure on Catholic Poland over Danzig escalated.

Mussolini resented Pius XII’s diplomacy as his ego would not allow anyone to detract from his role as the dominant figure in Italian politics.  Kertzer’s comments concerning Mussolini, his son-in-law Count Galeazzo Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Nazi Foreign Minister, and countless other figures is insightful and at times entertaining, but it does not detract from the danger and derangement of these individuals.

In a very important chapter, Kertzer provides details of secret meetings between the Papacy and Germany before and after the war began.  The conduit for Germany was Prince Philip von Hessen whose goal was to bring about an accommodation with the Papacy and keep the Pope out of politics.  Hitler resented the clergy’s meddling in German domestic politics and wanted the Pope to refrain from comments on Nazi racial policy.  Pius XII’s, his main goal was to protect the German clergy and Catholicism in general, but he expressed the belief that an honorable religious peace was achievable, and in all instances talks should be held in secret.

Mussolini Speaking in Public
(Benito Mussolini)

Once the war began Pius XII refused to break his silence concerning Nazi aggression arguing he would not endanger the church’s situation in Germany.  This argument was repeated throughout the war, but he promised he would pray for the Polish people or whatever nationality was endangered by a Nazi onslaught.  Morality, rights, honor, justice were always met with methods, practicality, tradition, and statistics on the part of the Vatican.  When priests were sent to concentration camps Pius XII did nothing, no statements, no audiences with the Pope in Rome etc.  The only diplomacy Pius II seemed to engage in was to try and talk Mussolini out of following in Hitler’s footsteps as it was clear, even to Il Duce, that Italy was totally unprepared for war.

One could argue that Pope Pius XII evolved in his approach toward fascism and the war.  At first, at least up to 1943 he waffled between neutrality and making general statements structured “as not to be offensive by either side.”  At first the Papacy believed the Germans would win the war and once it was concluded Pius XII was convinced that in a few years the anti-Catholic policies would dissipate and fade away. As the war progressed and when it was clear that the Russians had broken out of Stalingrad and made their way westward, and that the United States and England would invade Italy, Pius XII’s attitude shifted.  Pius XII priority was to prevent allied bombing of Rome and Vatican City (particularly as England was bombing Turin, Milan, and Genoa) which led to messages to President Franklin D. Roosevelt who responded with a demand that Mussolini be replaced, and Italy should drop out of the war.  Pius XII’s other priority was to warn allied leaders (apart from Stalin) that Communism was as large a threat to Europe as Nazism, and he worked to manufacture a peace agreement with the US and England and organize in response to the Soviet threat to all European Catholics.

Count Gian Galeazzo Ciano, (1903 – 11 January 1944), Foreign Minister of Fascist Italy
(Italian Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano)

As to the Holocaust, Pius XII received increasing numbers of reports of Nazi atrocities and extermination camps.  This information came from reliable sources and churchmen like Father Scavini, an Italian military chaplain that the Pope had great faith in.  However, Pius XII refused to publish details contained in these reports to stay on the good side of Hitler and Mussolini.  The only area that the Pope did complain about to the German and Italian governments was the application of racial laws to those he considered Catholics – baptized Jews and the children of mixed marriages.  Pius XII accepted advice that there was no confirmation of Nazi atrocities and was told not to even use the word, “Jew.”  In relation to the Vatican’s attitude toward the roundup of Italian Jews right under their noses provoked little response as Kertzer quotes Lutz Klinkhammer, the foremost historian of Germany’s military occupation of Italy, “it is more than clear that all their efforts were aimed above all at saving the baptized or the ‘half-born’ from mixed marriages,” the Jews who did not fit this category would wind up dying at Auschwitz.

Pius XII’s actions are clear even when he was approached to try and mitigate the actions of Roman Catholic priest Jozef Tiso, the head of the Slovakian government who was about to send 20,000 Jews to Polish concentration camps.  When a move was made to try and send 1000 Jewish children to Palestine, Pius XII did little to facilitate this plan as he was anti-Zionist and he argued that he held little sway with the Nazis and their minions and any Papal criticism risked provoking a backlash against the church in German occupied Europe.  No matter the circumstances Kertzer’s conclusions that Pius XII’s messaging was always weak and vague to protect the church’s interests.

Pius XII’s silence and overall inaction emerges as the dominant theme of Kertzer’s work.  It is clear that any other conclusion is a result of Church propaganda, obfuscation, and analysis that conveniently avoids the facts.  Kertzer’s work is to be commended as it should put to bed once and for all the truth concerning Pius XII’s role during World War II.

*David M. Shribman, “A Deadly Silence: Assessing the Moral Failings of Pope Pius XII during World War II,” Boston Globe,” May 26, 2022.

Pope Pius XII (Courtesy of PerlePress Productions)

THE BETRAYAL OF ANNE FRANK: A COLD CASE INVESTIGATION by Rosemary Sullivan

szfreiberger Genocide, Holocaust, Nazi Germany Leave a comment
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(Ann Frank House, Amsterdam, the Netherlands)

For decades, the most famous work of Holocaust literature, THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK was required reading for many children. It is an important contribution to Holocaust literature in that it is one of the few primary sources that exists for a family’s day to day existence hiding from the Nazis.  Anne Frank’s papers were discovered after World War II and were edited by her father Otto, the only family member to survive extermination and published the diary in Dutch in 1947, and later in English in 1952.  There are many aspects of Anne Frank’s story that are shrouded in mystery, among them is the exact date of her death in Bergen-Belsen, probably some time with only weeks remaining in the war in Europe.

Another of the unknowns is how Nazi authorities came to learn the Frank family was in hiding.  The question of who led Karl Josef Silberbauer, an SS Sergeant and two Dutch detectives on August 4, 1944, to Prinsengracht 263, a narrow building along one of Amsterdam’s canals to the Franks where the family was in hiding.  Rosemary Sullivan’s latest book, THE BETRAYAL OF ANNE FRANK: A COLD CASE INVESTIGATION attempts to answer the questions surrounding the seizure and deportation of the Frank family resulting in the death of all except Otto Frank.

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In 2016 Dutch filmmaker Thijs Bayens, and journalist Pieter van Twisk opened a further investigation with a team of Dutch investigators, historians, and researchers that included  27 year FBI veteran, Vince Pankoke.  The team would be headed by Pankoke who treated the Anne Frank house as a crime scene, not a museum.  “With the help of newly designed software that used artificial intelligence to seek out data, patterns humans might miss, Pankoke and his ‘Cold Case Team’ spent several years combing through historical records, and police files interviewing witnesses and their descendants and analyzing theories.”*

The results of the investigation coincided with the release of Sullivan’s monograph and created quite a stir resulting in the Dutch publisher suspending further dissemination of the book.  One might ask what is gained by questioning how Anne Frank and her family were seized accomplishes.  In a world where many argue that “it cannot happen here”  all one has to look at is the increasing ideological divisiveness and the growing popularity of authoritarianism in the world today to see that it can occur and may be well on the way to doing so at present.

anne2bfrank

One of the main reasons for the creation of the Cold Case Team is that the Netherlands had a reputation of tolerance whereby Jews could seek shelter after the rise of Adolf Hitler.  Despite this reputation the Netherlands transported more Jews to the death camps in the east than any other western European country.  Of the 140,000 Jews living in the Netherlands 107,000 were deported, and only 5,500 returned.  One of the questions Pieter van Twisk asks was why was the number so high?

Sullivan has authored a book that can  be divided into two parts.  The first, encompassing about one-third of the narrative focuses on rehashing the history of the Frank family and those involved in keeping the family safe in the annex behind the business at Prinsengracht 263, and the plight of Dutch Jewry upon the arrival of the Nazis.  The role of a Dutch Judenrat (Jewish Councils), deportations to Buchenwald, the role of the SD Jewish Affairs squad known as unit IV B4 which centered on collaboration, and Kopgeld, bounty hunters, and executions are all explored. Any attempt by the Franks to emigrate to the United States ran into the wall constructed by the State Department led by Breckenridge Long, an anti-Semite who did all he could to thwart the entrance of European Jewish refugees into the United States.  By 1943, Amsterdam was declared Jew free.  There is little that is new or surprising, but it forms a useful lead into the second section which focuses on the organization, make-up, and implementation of strategies to try and figure out who turned in the Franks to the Nazis or was there another explanation as to how the Nazis came upon the annex.

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Sullivan describes how the Cold Case team implemented modern law enforcement techniques that were not available after the war.  Strategies such as behavioral science or profiling, forensic testing, artificial intelligence defined as computer systems able to perform such tasks as visual perception, speech recognition, translation between languages, and decision making were all employed.  Scientists from Xomnia, an Amsterdam based data company that offered to provide the foundation for artificial intelligence that Microsoft agreed to develop further, stated that at some point the program algorithms should be able to predict what or who was likely a suspect.

Perhaps Sullivan’s most useful chapters center around the details of the investigation.  The team was amazingly thorough in its approach.  It investigated numerous theories and concluded that of the 27,000 Jews in hiding in the Netherlands, one-third had been betrayed. By the end of the investigation more than 66 gigabytes of data in the form of more than 7500 files was created.  In so doing Sullivan concludes that suspects such as Job Jansen, who in the early on had denounced Otto Frank to the Nazis and is convinced his Jewish wife is having an affair with Otto Frank was innocent.  Then there is Nelly Voskuijl, a Nazi whose sister was helping to hide the Franks.  Another is Willem van Maaren, the warehouse manager who might have been after bounty money.  Anton “Tanny” Ahlers, a currier for the NSB was a committed Nazi and bounty hunter but he like the others was not responsible for the seizure of the Frank family.  Lastly, there is the case of Anna van Dijk, who from 1943 on laid traps to uncover where Jews were hiding, but there is little evidence that she turned the Franks in – but she was executed at the end of the war for turning in at a minimum 68 Jews and possibly over 200.  

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In the end the Cold Case Team singles out a Jewish notary Arnold van den Bergh and member of Amsterdam’s Jewish Council  may have passed information about the Franks to the SS in order to save his own family.  Sullivan’s exploration into the Cold Case spends the most time analyzing the role of van den Bergh and his relationship with Otto Frank and argues that the most logical culprit was the former notary for the Dutch Judenrat, but Vince Pankoke is not so certain, so we must conclude that the investigation was less of an unsolved mystery and more of a well kept secret on the part of Otto Frank.

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(Vince Pankoke)

As Ruth Franklin points out, “those who went into hiding were perhaps even more at the mercy of others. Anne was unusual in having a stable hiding place together with her family; most Dutch Jewish children were sent into hiding alone, since they were easier to hide than adults. There are many stories of abuse and exploitation of these children by their hosts, in addition to the larger risks that hiding entailed. Picture all those dots on the map: any one of those people could potentially have betrayed the Franks.”  Or as journalist Kathryn Hughes concludes, Regardless, what Sullivan does manage to do is assemble a compelling picture of what it was like to live in Amsterdam under Nazi occupation: here is a collection of increasingly isolated individuals, hungry, terrified and daily faced with impossible choices about whether to save themselves, their loved ones, or the nice family that lives next door. And it is this moral vacuum that follows in the wake of antisemitism, rather than any particular “perp,” that betrayed Anne Frank.**

*Ruth Franklin, “Beyond Betrayal,” New York Review of Books, May 5, 2022, 20.

** Kathryn Hughes, “The Betrayal of Anne Frank by Rosemary Sullivan review – who tipped off the Nazis? The Guardian, 2 February 2022.

For an excellent discussion for the subject at hand consult Jane Eisner, “Searching for Anne Frank’s betrayer, finding a moral dilemma,” Washington Post, January 21, 2022.

Otto Frank’s business premises, Prinsengracht 263 (in the middle), around 1947.
(Anne Frank House, Amsterdam, the Netherlands)

HITLER’S AMERICAN GAMBLE: PEARL HARBOR AND GERMANY’S MARCH TO WAR by Brendan Simms and Charlie Laderman

szfreiberger American Diplomatic History, English History, Modern European History, Nazi Germany, World War II Leave a comment

The dates December 5 through the 7th, 1941 mark the parameters of the most consequential week of the 20th century or perhaps any other time in history.  It was during that week that the Soviet Union began a major counter offensive against the Nazis who were threatening Moscow, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and Hitler declared war on the United States.  It was a perilous time for the British who had endured Dunkirk, the Luftwaffe’s blitz over London and other cities, fears of Japanese attacks against British held territories in Asia, and Churchill’s fear that the only thing that could save his island empire – the entrance of the United States into the war against Germany would not occur as Washington would now focus on Japan after Pearl Harbor.  The event that saved the British was the Nazi dictator’s declaration of war against the United States, an act that should be difficult to understand since Germany was already fighting a devastating two front war.

Historians have questioned for decades why Hitler would take on the United States when Germany faced so many obstacles.  The German alliance with Japan was defensive predicated on an attack on Japan which the events of December 7th made obsolete.  In analyzing Hitler’s decision making historians fall into two camps.  The first, Hitler was a nihilist who was driven by an egoistic personality in making numerous irrational decisions.  The second school of thought has ferreted out a semblance of strategic calculations in his decision making.  In his latest book, British historian Brendan Simms and his co-author Charlie Laderman entitled, HITLER’S AMERICAN GAMBLE: PEARL HARBOR AND GERMANY’S MARCH TO WAR support the latter analysis which is consistent with Simms’s 2019 biography of Hitler when he argued that Hitler was well aware of American power and war with the United States was inevitable therefore his decision was pre-emptive.

Whichever argument one accepts it is clear that Simms and Laderman have made a compelling case in analyzing Hitler’s thought process the first part of December 1941 which led him to declare war on America.  Along with this analysis, the authors dig deeply into the state of the war as of early December, the realpolitik practiced by Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, and the key role played by the Japanese government.

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The authors have written a detailed description of the uncertainty that existed between December 5-12, 1941.  It seems as if the reader is present as decisions are made by the main participants hour by hour.  The blow by blow account is incisive and the results of Hitler’s decision to declare war on the United states would launch a global war.  The authors make a compelling case that before the onset of war the Japanese government did not trust Hitler as they feared the Nazi dictator would seize Vichy French colonies in Southeast Asia.  Simms and Laderman provide an accurate appraisal of the background history leading to December 7th.  They raise interesting points, many of which have been written about by previous historians. 

Lend Lease plays a significant role in the thinking of all the participants leading up to and after the attack on Pearl Harbor.  The authors are clear and correct when they argue that the American aid policy infuriated Hitler.  For the Fuhrer it reinforced the connection in his mind that capitalism, Jews, and American policy were all part of a conspiracy against Germany.  From Hitler’s perspective American actions were driving Germany towards war against the United States.  For example, in March 1941 the American navy began to protect British convoys across the Atlantic.  In addition, the U.S. would expand its defensive zone all the way to Greenland and reinforce its Atlantic Fleet.  Lend Lease also played a key role in Hitler’s thinking even after December 7th.  The authors spend a great deal of time discussing how Churchill and Roosevelt believed that the Nazis pressured the Japanese to attack developing the hope that the Japanese attack would force an American declaration of war against Tokyo and forcing Washington to reduce its aid to England and the Soviet Union because of its own needs in the Pacific.  Hitler was under no illusion concerning US military production, but he would come to believe that the Nazis should strike before the American military-industrial complex could reach maximum production.

As Hitler contemplated declaring war against the United States, Churchill and the British government desperate for continued Lend Lease worried that the aid would be reduced because of US needs in East Asia.  Churchill was especially concerned because of the ongoing fighting in North Africa and the threat to the Suez Canal.  In fact, the authors point out that aid was stopped for a brief period as disagreement arose between Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and Lend Lease administrator Edward Stettinius. 

From the Japanese perspective they were unsure if they could rely on a German declaration of war.  The authors mine the commentary of Japanese leaders particularly Foreign Minister Shigenari Togo who did not trust that Germany would join the war against the United States.

Roosevelt was concerned about America Firsters and isolationists in Congress.  Both groups were willing to fight the Japanese but were against involvement in Europe as they refused to fight for what they perceived to be British colonial interests.  FDR walked a fine line and refused to meet with Churchill after December 7th as to not exacerbate domestic opposition.  Hitler’s declaration made it easier for Roosevelt to declare war on Germany and overcome isolationist opposition.

The Repulse and Prince of Wales Battleships: How They Sunk

(The sinking of the British battleships Repulse and The Prince of Wales December 10, 1941)

The coming Holocaust against European Jewry played a role in Hitler’s strategy.  The Nazi dictator saw the Jews of Europe as hostages to keep FDR from taking further action against Germany.  It did not stop the murderous horror taking place in eastern Europe but as long as the US did not enter the war the fate of western European Jewry would be postponed.  However, the authors argue effectively argue that once Hitler declared war against the United States, in his mind they were no longer a bargaining chip in dealing with Washington.  He was now free to conduct his Final Solution against western and central European Jews.

Churchill & Roosevelt. /Nprime Minister Winston Churchill And President Franklin D. Roosevelt Photographed During A Press Conference In
(Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt)

The authors astutely point out the role of racism in the war.  John W. Dower’s amazing study, WAR WITHOUT MERCY: RACE AND POWER IN THE PACIFIC WAR is the best study of the issue arguing that war in the Pacific was a racial war.  For Simms and Laderman the decision making process on the part of Anglo-American military planners was greatly influenced by their low opinion of Japanese military capability.  Leadership on both sides of the Atlantic could not fathom the idea that the Japanese had the ability to launch intricate attacks such as the attack on Pearl Harbor, Malaya, the Philippines, Guam, Singapore, Southeast Asia at the same time.  This type of thinking also resulted in disaster for the Royal Navy as Japanese bombers destroyed Force Z that included the sinking of the Repulse and the Prince of Wales.

Simms and Laderman do an excellent job delving into the calculations of the major participants in the coming war.  The significant issues apart from Hitler’s decision as to whether he should declare war on the United States included whether Stalin should declare war on Japan? How would England and the Soviet Union make up for the shortfall of Lend Lease aid in the immediate future?  How would FDR overcome domestic opposition to US participation in the European War and so on?

(Japanese envoys in Washington, DC December 1941)

The authors also do an admirable job integrating the opinions of people across the globe concerning the implications for Japanese actions in the Pacific.  People as diverse as the former mayor of Cologne Konrad Adenauer (and future German leader after WWII) to everyday citizens on the streets of Berlin, London, Leningrad, intellectuals in Poland tosoldiers on the eastern front.  For all the key was what would Hitler do – would he declare war on the United States and unleash a global war as Mussolini had warned or would he allow Japan to take on the American colossus themselves.

Overall, Simms and Laderman have written a thought provoking book that breaks down the December 5-12th 1941 period for three-fourths of their narrative that includes an important introduction that sets the scene for Hitler’s decisions and the implications that the decisions would have for the future of the war which would not end until August 1945.

ALL THE FREQUENT TROUBLES OF OUR DAYS: THE TRUE STORY OF THE AMERICAN WOMAN AT THE HEART OF THE GERMAN RESISTANCE TO HITLER by Rebecca Donner

szfreiberger Nazi Germany, World War II Leave a comment
(Mildred Harnack

How does one evaluate courage and commitment?  In the case of Mildred and Arvid Harnack the answer lies in their role as part of the resistance to the Nazis before and during World War II.  Mildred, an American lecturer at the University of Berlin who was working on her PhD in American Literature and her husband Arvid employed at the Ministry of Economics is German and they form a resistance group after Hitler assumed power called “the Circle.”  It is through the work of this organization and sister organizations that they hoped to overthrow the Nazi regime before it can live up to its rhetoric.  Their remarkable story is told by Mildred’s great-great-niece, Rebecca Donner in her book ALL THE FREQUENT TROUBLES OF OUR DAYS: THE TRUE STORY OF THE AMERICAN WOMAN AT THE HEART OF THE GERMAN RESISTANCE TO HITLER.  The book’s title suggests that the narrative will focus mostly on Mildred, but in reality its presentation is much broader zeroing in on the actions of Arvid and a number of others in “the Circle.”

(Arvid and Mildred Harnack)

Donner’s book is a work of narrative history, but it comes across as a spy thriller, in addition to being the life story of a number of remarkable people.  At the outset, Donner focuses on Mildred who she describes as an “enigma who inspired a range of contradictory conclusions about who she was and why she did what she did.”  By 1932, Mildred had moved to Germany to teach at the University of Berlin which would be her foundation to gather like minded people to resist the Nazi seizure of power as she recognized early on the danger that Adolf Hitler presented.  Donner integrates Mildred’s early years and her relationship with her husband Arvid into the web of spies that emerges.  Mildred would soon be fired as a lecturer because her classes were deemed to be unacceptable to Nazi ideology particularly based on the American literary figures she presented in class.  Arvid held a compassion for Germany’s poor and his goal was to address the problems of poverty and develop solutions.  He would travel to the Soviet Union to learn about their economic approach and while there he would develop contacts that in the end would turn him into a Soviet spy against Germany.

Donner’s narrative encompasses most aspects of Hitler’s rise to the Chancellorship; the Nazi seizure power turning Germany into a dictatorship, Hitler’s expansionist foreign policy, and finally World War II.  Donner offers little that is new as she recounts the most notable events be it the Enabling Act, the Night of the Long Knives, Kristallnacht, the seizures of the Rhineland, Austria, the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, the Nazi-Soviet Pact, and finally war.  In doing so Donner integrates the resistance work of Mildred and Arvid and their compatriots until their  arrest by the Gestapo in August 1942.

Donner writes in a manner that the words seem to flow off the page as she tells her story.  She incorporates the latest research along with excerpts from important documents that include speeches, wording of leaflets, family letters, recruitment of assets, and the interrogations of prisoners by the Gestapo.  As Donner chronicles her story she does an excellent job at providing the texture of German society before and during the war as the Nazis implemented their draconian program.  Book burnings, racial laws, reducing women to being brood mares for the Nazi regime, violence and persecution of Jews that leads to the Holocaust, and Hitler and Goebbels’ ravings are all present. 

LIBERATION DU CAMP DE CONCENTRATION DE RAVENSBRUCK 1945
(Ravensbruck Concentration Camp for Women)

Donner’s research was enhanced by a number of sources.  Though Mildred destroyed her journal and was careful that no one see it, Donner’s conversations with her grandmother Jane who spent time with Mildred as a young woman in Germany is important.  Letters from Mildred would be found in a relative’s attic, and Donner was able to obtain observations by Mildred’s friends in letters and diaries, as well as trial records and memoirs by Mildred’s collaborators allowing Donner to tell a story that was mostly unknown.

Donner describes the recruitment and work of “Circle” members who engage in a myriad of activities to resist the Nazis that include posters across Germany, leaflet preparation and distribution, radio transmission of information obtained, newspapers, penetration of Hermann Goring’s staff and the Army High Command, providing evidence for atrocities, and finally spying for the United States and the Soviet Union.  As the war progressed it was clear that Stalin was just as bad as Hitler, but as Harold Nicholson once noted, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” leading Arvid who viewed himself as an anti-fascist to assume the role of a Russian spy passing along secrets that Hitler was about to attack Russia in the spring of 1941 which Stalin would ignore, and providing intelligence that once Stalingrad was taken the Nazis would march on the Caucasus to have access to Rumanian oil.

(Donald Heath Sr. and Jr.)

There are a number of interesting character portraits in the book apart from the main characters.  Martha Dodd, the daughter of William Dodd the American Ambassador to Germany story is fascinating as she engages in numerous affairs, spies on her own father, falls in love with a Russian spy who will be shot during one of Stalin’s periodic purges, among many escapades.  Another interesting and more meaningful character is Donald Heath, eventually the First Secretary in the American embassy in Berlin and his son Donald, Jr.  Donald, Sr. is Secretary of the Treasury Robert Morgenthau’s personal source for information concerning Hitler’s preparation for war. The Heaths and Harnacks become close friends and share intelligence to the point both families use the eleven year old Donald, Jr. as a courier to deliver important intelligence.  Donner makes the excellent point that American intelligence before the war and early on was deeply flawed containing numerous gaps to base important decisions.

By 1942 the Gestapo arrests the key members of “the Circle,” that include Mildred and Arvid, Liberto and Harro Schultze-Boysen, and  Greta and Adam Kuckhoff.  Of these individuals Hitler will harbor an extreme hatred for Mildred and though all are tortured she is the victim of the most extreme form of punishment.  Donner will spend a great deal of time describing their fate once they are arrested and most exhibit a remarkable amount of courage knowing full well they will be executed.

In appearance Mildred Harnack does not appear to be a spy.  She is an American educator teaching in Berlin.  She is a shy bookish individual and doesn’t seem to possess the tools to be a focal point of German resistance and as one Nazi official stated, her story would make a wonderful novel.  However, her work and those of those who were a part of “the Circle” is testimony to what impels people to act for what they believe and in the end are willing to pay for those beliefs and actions with their lives.

Mildred Harnack

(Mildred Harnack)