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Editor's Note: As I receive more and more posts on this subject, I would
like to remind our subscribers of the lengthy discussions which took place
on H-German during February and March 1997 on the issue of the
Wehrmachtsausstellung. These posts are archived in our logs and can be
accessed from the H-German Homepage. The editors finally declared an end
to the debate after a consensus emerged that what was going to be said, had
been. Anyone interested (and particularly new subscribers) should review
our logs for the many insightful and still-relevant contributions made a
year ago.
Since we do not wish merely to rehash the same questions, I am trying (as
far as humanly possible) to ensure that future messages add something new
to the debate. I recently reread most of the posts from that time, and it
seems to me that the issues of the Austrian reaction and the importance of
the Polish campaign are new and certainly worthy of discussion. Since we
are committed to balancing the free exchange of ideas with the requirements
of responsible scholarship, I beseech those wishing to post to the network
to keep in mind our desire for both fresh conversations and measured,
scholarly debate.
(There are 5 messages below. - ed.)
1.
Submitted by: Alan Buel Kennady
Ehrlich606@aol.com
I found Mr. Rossino's recapitulation of the issues involved with Wehrmacht
mass shootings in Poland very informative, but I would question the extent to
which a unique ideology was operative in these cases.
First, a fact that tends to be neglected is that hostage taking and civilian
reprisals were practiced by German armies since the Franco-Prussian War in
1870, as well as notoriously in 1914 in Belgium, and probably in many other
instances but not to my knowledge. The justification for the initiation of
the practice in the first instance (Michael Howard, "The Franco-Prussian War",
p. 251), namely, that the French had acted likewise towards the Germans in the
Wars of Liberation, reminds us that this cruel application of collective
responsibility is not new.
Second, a factor that probably complicates an interpretation of the
(Bydgoszcz) Bromberg Massacre is that at the time the Germans were complaining
of another massacre, namely, the shooting of ethnic German citizens of that
Polish town
by retreating Polish soldiers. How much of this is truth, and how much
legend, I leave to Mr. Rossino, but if at least partly true, that certainly
puts a slightly different spin on the origins of this particular atrocity.
Therefore at minimum, however ugly and distasteful it was, I do not think that
the concept of mass shootings can be laid at the feet of National Socialism
but rather at the strict militaristic imperatives to which the German people
willingly subordinated themselves from the wars of unification onwards.
On the other hand, I think that Mr. Rossino is exactly right if, in this
"tradition" of exacting collective responsibility via mass shooting, he finds
the roots for the more brutal and indiscriminate practices that characterized
the Eastern campaigns World War Two. In this regard, it would be interesting
to compare the levels of partisan activity to the increased ratio of hostage
taking and shooting, from 5:1, to 10:1, and on up. A common sense guess would
be that the highest ratios would have been an ultimately counter-productive
reaction to the highest levels of partisan activity.
On the other hand I think we can safely say that the relationship of any of
this in any real terms would be close to null as far as the exterminations of
Jewish or Romany people are concerned, and this last would reflect the racial
politics of National Socialism.
But on the other hand I wonder if it is still possible to see here, in this
longstanding policy of hostage taking and shooting, the outlines of the policy
that would later embrace the Final Solution. The impetus of those killings
were, of course, ideological or racial, not tactical, as hostage shootings
usually are. But I think the role of military tradition in the
_implementation_ of those exterminations was an important one, as well as one
that tends to be overlooked. I believe it was Seyss-Inquart who said at
Nuremberg that such mass killings could not have been done by hatred alone,
but required above all soldierly obedience. The relevance of that perhaps
contentious observation to present day historiography should be obvious.
Best Regards,
Alan Buel Kennady
Ehrlich606@aol.com
2.
Submitted by: Jorg Bottger
jxb171@psu.edu
Alexander Rossino's informed comments on both the Wehrmachtsausstellung and
the behavior of German troops during the invasion of Poland are much
welcomed. However, the views I attributed to Juergen Foerster were not
constructed out of thin air: "The army acted ruthlessly against insurgents
and was responsible for mass executions of prisoners-of-war and
indiscriminate shootings of civilians, among them many Jews. What it did
forbid were 'wild requisitions, unauthorized, spontaneous measures against
Jews, and the participation of soldiers in the executions carried out by
the SS. THE 'BARBARIZATION OF WARFARE', TO USE A PHRASE FROM OMER BARTOV,
BEGAN IN POLAND, NOT IN THE SOVIET UNION" (my emphasis; quoted from his
"The Relation between Operation Barbarossa as an Ideological War of
Extermination and the Final Solution", in 'The Final Solution: Origins and
Implementation', ed. by David Cesarani, London: Routledge, 1994, p.88.). I
am awaiting Juergen Foerster's forthcoming contribution to the USHMM volume!
Mr. Rossino is absolutely right about the lack of familiarity with the
history of Poland under Nazi German occupation here in the West. This also
pertains to the makers of the Wehrmachtsausstellung (and Omer Bartov for
that matter) whose bibliographies do not list any works by Polish
historians. Szymon Datner, Stanislaw Kania, and Czeslaw Madajczyk, to name
only a few, have done a tremendous amount of research on the Wehrmacht in
Poland. Werner Roehr from the former East Germany has made their findings
available for a German audience ("Die faschistische Okkupationspolitik in
Polen, 1939-1945, Cologne: Pahl-Rugenstein, 1989). Hannes Heer's sympathy
for Polish sensitivities is honorable. But it seems to me an intellectual
'Armutszeugnis' if the pathbreaking work of his peers in Eastern Europe
remains unheralded!
Jorg Bottger
3.
Submitted by Erwin Giedenbacher
Erwin.Giedenbacher@sbg.ac.at
Das Institut fuer Geschichte der Universitaet Salzburg hat in einer
Sitzung am 27. 3. 1998 beschlossen, sich in folgender Stellungnahme
eindeutig von den Aeusserungen des Landeshauptmanns Dr. Franz
Schausberger, der auch Dozent am Institut fuer Geschichte ist, bezueglich
der sog. "Wehrmachtsausstellung" zu distanzieren.
Dr. Schausberger hat mehrmals in Zeitungsartikeln und bei anderen
Gelegenheiten versucht, die Ausstellung "Vernichtungskrieg. Verbrechen
der Wehrmacht 1941 - 1944" zu diffamieren. Ebenso hat er oeffentlich die
GestalterInnen und OrganisatorInnen als auch die BefueworterInnen der
Ausstellung am Institut fuer Geschichte (das Institut hatte die
Unterstuetzung der Ausstellung einstimmig beschlossen) als
HistorikerInnen mit mangelnden Faehigkeiten bezueglich Quellenkritik und
Objektivitaet darzustellen versucht. Er berief sich dabei auf seine
Stellung als Historiker und Universitaetsdozent (Anm.: er hat sich zwar
am Institut fuer Geschichte habilitiert, jedoch nie das Fach Geschichte
studiert).
Diese Stellungnahme ist als offener Brief an alle wichtigen
Tageszeitungen in Oesterreich ergangen und ist auch via Internet unter
folgender Adresse abrufbar:
http://www.sbg.ac.at/ges/schausberger.htm
Im Auftrag des Instituts fuer Geschichte der Universitaet Salzburg
Erwin Giedenbacher
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------
Offener Brief des Instituts fuer Geschichte an:
Landeshauptmann
Dr. F.
Schausberger
27. 3. 1998
Sehr geehrter Herr Dr. Schausberger!
Die Institutskonferenz des Instituts fuer Geschichte der Universitaet
Salzburg hat am 27. 3. 1998 einstimmig
beschlossen, folgenden Text an Sie und an die Oeffentlichkeit zu geben.
Das Institut fuer Geschichte hat durch Ihre Aeusserungen in der Presse
(insbesondere in der "Neuen
Kronenzeitung" vom 3. 3. 98 und in "Kameradschaft Aktiv" 1/2, 1998) im
Zusammenhang mit der
"Wehrmachtsausstellung" heftige Kritik im In- und Ausland erfahren; vor
allem auch deswegen, weil Sie sich in
diesen Kommentaren explizit als "Historiker" bzw. "Universitaetsdozent"
bezeichneten.
Das Institut distanziert sich in aller Form von diesen Ihren Aeusserungen
und ersucht Sie, kuenftig Aussagen, die
Sie eindeutig als Parteipolitiker taetigen und die nicht dem
universitaeren Wissenschaftsverstaendnis
entsprechen, nicht mehr in einen Bezug zum Institut fuer Geschichte der
Universitaet Salzburg zu bringen.
Das Institut konstatiert ferner Widersprueche zwischen Ihren Aussagen in
unseren Gremien und in der
Oeffentlichkeit: So sagten Sie hier eine finanzielle Unterstuetzung des
Rahmenprogrammes der
"Wehrmachtsausstellung" zu, lehnten diese danach jedoch oeffentlich ab.
Das Institut fuer Geschichte hat einstimmig die Durchfuehrung der
"Wehrmachtsausstellung" befeurwortet. Das
geschah aus dem Anliegen heraus, ein schwieriges Kapitel der
Vergangenheit der kritischen Aufarbeitung zu
stellen. Die damit verbundenen, z. T. schmerzhaften Erkenntnisprozesse
sind uns bewusst. Die
notwendigerweise hervorgerufenen Diskussionen finden in zahlreichen
Begleitveranstaltungen statt. Nach
unserem Wissenschaftsverstaendnis soll die Auseinandersetzung konstruktiv
und offen,
argumentationstechnisch und methodisch sauber, konsens- und
erkenntnisorientiert erfolgen.
Selbstverstaendlich erkennen wir die Pluralitaet der Meinungen an,
verlangen aber eine sachgemaesse historische
Ueberpruefung und eine ebensolche Darstellung.
Wir wuerden uns freuen, wenn Sie Ihr Versprechen einhielten, das Sie
waehrend Ihres Habilitationsverfahrens
abgegeben haben, naemlich Aussagen, die Sie als "Historiker" treffen, von
denen eines Parteipolitikers
saeuberlich zu trennen.
Fuer das Institut fuer Geschichte der Universitaet Salzburg
der Institutsvorstand
O.Univ.Prof. Dr. Lothar Kolmer
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------
4.
Submitted by: Thomas Reimer
ycrtmr@ix.netcom.com
In reply to the comments by Alex Russino and Joerg Boettger: It may be
useful to remember that the executions in Bromberg were in retaliation for
the murder by a Polish mob of about 2,000-3,000 harmless civilians whose
only "guilt" was to have been ethnic Germans, as can be read a.e. in the
final chapter of Richard Blanke's Orphans of Versailles (Available through
Amazon Books). It is not a good example of gratuitous violence involving
Nazi proclivities etc. Indeed, the main fault of the expo is to generally
present atrocious actions out of context. Of course, since it was the Third
Reich, there were barbarous orders. However, just because Hitler led that
state does not have to mean the average soldier had imbibed his ideas. Also,
the Wehrmacht was not a bunch of wolves that fell upon sheep led by the
famous pacifist Josef Stalin, a dictator reknowned for his scrupulous
respect for the Hague Convention. Rather, many of the atrocities had nothing
to do with ideology, but were the reactions of soldiers, personally no more
evil than those of other nations, but trapped in the awful logic of terror
and counter-terror, because of the fighting policies decided on the outset
by Hitler AND Stalin. The bias of this exposition has been attributed,
notably by Die Welt, e.g. in its issue of 23 Jan. 1998, to the background of
the "ehemaligen DKP-Mann Hannes Heer" (article available online through
http://www.welt.de archive). The same
observations were made by FOCUS, esp.
in its articles by Prof. Seidler of the Bundeswehr Academy in Muenich.
Thomas Reimer
ycrtmr@ix.netcom.com
5.
Submitted by: Alexander B. Rossino
ARossino@ushmm.org
Regarding Mr. Kennady's response on 30 March to my posting on
Wehrmacht crimes in Poland, he correctly notes that policies such as
the shooting of hostages had a basis in the 19th century. Such a
practice, therefore, could not be "laid at the feet of National
Socialism." The object of my posting was not, however, to simply
blame such policies on Nazism, but to suggest that there was a basis
for the Wehrmacht's later criminal behavior in the USSR and Balkans in
its behavior during the Polish campaign. This behavior created a
context conducive to the implementation of extremely destructive and
genocidal policies by the Nazi regime once the war against the USSR
began. As Hitler happily stated once he heard that Stalin had
exhorted the Soviet people to resist German forces in July 1941, "now
we can have shot anyone who even looks askance at us." He knew that
this was the axis on which the SS' cooperation with the Wehrmacht
could turn, just as it had in Poland, incidentally.
In addition, there were elements of the Wehrmacht's conduct in Poland
that seem to have been influenced by ideology. For example, prior to
the invasion, the army carried out studies of various regions in
western Poland to determine where pockets of resistance were most
likely to erupt. The basis for the assumption of civilian resistance
was the overwhelming presence of Poles and Jews, as opposed to
Ukrainians and Volksdeutsche in a given area. German troops were
further informed to be wary of Poles whose "national character" was
defined as "cruel and sly," as well as of Jews who were to
automatically be considered hostile. The only way to deal with such
ethnic enemies, the army concluded, was through the use of severely
repressive measures, including shootings, summary arrests, and the
destruction of property, the so-called Vergeltungsmassnahmen.
Also, Mr. Kennady suggests a Sonderweg of sorts regarding the army's
repressive policies by claiming that they were based on the "strict
militaristic imperatives to which the German people willingly
subordinated themselves from the wars of unification onwards." In
response to this I have only two questions: Was not the harnessing of
such militarism a standard aim of National Socialism? And was not the
idealization of militaristic values a basic element of Nazism?
Finally, regarding the possible correlation between the level of
partisan activity and the destruction - including shootings - wreaked
by German troops. There is evidence that German troops responded
brutally regardless of the level of partisan activity. In some cases
later in the war, when individual shootings occurred, the response was
the destruction of entire villages and the execution of the entire
population. There were still other incidents, however, when high
levels of partisan activity brought on the same response.
This tendency was already operative in Poland. In Bromberg, for
example, the execution of hundreds of Poles was carried out in
response to continued individual, isolated attacks on German soldiers
(leading to woundings and only a few deaths), not just because ethnic
Germans had been shot by the Poles before the arrival of the German
army. The shooting of the 50 Gymnasium students, for instance, was
carried out in reprisal for the shooting of one officer (a ratio of
50:1!). Similarly, in Konskie, after four soldiers and one police
major were shot, almost 5,000 people were arrested. Out of this group
those individuals considered "suspect" were then seized by members of
the Einsatzgruppe in the area.
In summary, the issues at hand are clearly complex. Events in
September 1939 are of course related to those that happened years
before, just as they are related to what came to pass in 1941 and
afterwards. This is exactly my point, that extraordinary policies
like the genocide of the Jews and others were implemented within a
wartime context that had "normal" characteristics. The result was
that they were themselves rendered "normal" to those carrying them
out. It was this development perhaps more than any other that made
murder on so large a scale possible.
Alexander B. Rossino
ARossino@USHMM.Org
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