History of germany

Ominous signs: 1941-1943

The failure to clinch theRussian campaign before the onset of winter in 1943 profoundly alarms Hitler's generals and would put the idea of a tactical withdrawal into the mind of anyone less obsessively obstinate than the Nazi leader. Yet Hitler's refusal to give an inch seems vindicated when the German armies are still in place to launch an aggessive new campaign on the eastern front during the summer of 1942.

By contrast in 1942-3 there are unmistakable reverses. In October 1942 the French forces in north Africa join the Allies. In January 1941 the entire German Sixth Army is captured atStalingrad. In May, with the fall of Tunis, the Germans and Italians are driven out ofnorth Africa. In September Italy surrendersunconditionally to the Allies. 

Yet these disasters have the paradoxical effect of bringing Hitler even greater swathes of western Europe. The French action in north Africa enables him to sweep aside thearmistice. His occupation ofVichy Francebrings the whole country into German hands. Similarly the Italian surrender, when the Allies are not yet much beyond Naples in their drive up the peninsula, leaves the whole of the rest of Italyunder German control.

Although the tide of war has now turned, the autumn of 1943 gives Hitler the broadest canvas so far on which to create his vision of a new order. In his ideal world Germans will rule as a master race, inferior groups such as Slavs will be made use of as slave labour, and undesirables (Jews, Gypsies and Communists) will be exterminated. 

Hitler's vision for Europe

These principles underlie the gradual development of the Nazis' murderous schemes. The appalling story unfolds in three separate stages.

Before the outbreak of war, with Germany and Austria exposed to the eyes of the world, persecution of Hitler's hated groups is limited to intimidation and violence. His underlying aim is to rid German territory of Jews by terrifying them into moving elsewhere. Visas to leave Germany are freely available, and the willingness to do so can even be enough to bring release from a concentration camp. By 1939 more than half the Jews in Germany and Austria have moved to other countries. 

With the outbreak of war and the closing of borders, escape by emigration becomes difficult (though not at first absolutely impossible). And the German authorities are now free to carry out atrocities unobserved by the wider international community.

At first they largely refrain from doing so, at any rate on a systematic basis (the exception isPoland in 1939-40). After Germany's first conquests in the west, in the summer of 1940, the newly occupied countries (Luxembourg, Netherlands, Belgium, northern France) experience the horrors of an alien police state and the anti-Semitic measures long familiar within Germany. But German rule here is less brutally repressive than in the east. And the explanation lies in Hitler's theories. 
Germans are to rule the united Europe of Hitler's dreams, but they will need assistance. This can only be provided, he believes, by 'Aryans' in the countries to the west of Germany, in those regions settled in the distant past byGermanic peoples such as Franks, Goths, Angles, Saxons and Vikings. He expects, ultimately, cooperation from the west. And he likes to emphasize that the future belongs not to a dominant nation, but a dominant race.

By contrast the regions to the east of Germany, inhabited by the Slavs whom he categorizes asUntermenschen('subhumans'), are suitable only for subjugation. This explains the treatment of the Poles in 1939, and the sudden gear-change in German brutality with the invasion of Russia in 1941.

German treatment of Russian prisoners of war symbolizes the change. On June 27, five days after the invasion, the town of Minsk is surrounded. More than 100,000 Russian soldiers are captured and are herded into open fields, surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. They are given no food, and so over the next few weeks they starve to death. When winter comes, hundreds of thousands of Russian prisoners captured elsewhere on the front are even more easily got rid of. They freeze.

Subsequently the Germans realize that this policy is losing them a valuable reserve of slave labour. It is better that such people should die working for the Reich. In a speech to SS leaders Himmler emphasizes that there is no need to be concerned about 'What happens to a Russian'. 

The invasion of Russia provides the same turning point in the German treatment of the Jews. In planning the campaign, Hitler and Himmler set up fourEinsatzkommando(Special Task Commandos) to follow in the wake of the army. The special task for these SS men is to exterminate two groups of people, the most potent figures in Hitler's demonology, Communist officials and Jews.

The work is carried out with ruthless efficiency. Victims are rounded up in villages and towns, are herded into the countryside, are forced to dig long trenches and then are machine-gunned to fall into the ready-made graves. Within the first few weeks of the German presence in Russia tens of thousands of Jews are murdered in this systematic way. It is the beginning of the Holocaust.