"Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich (141 page)

208.
Cf., for example, the remarks of Schmitt in his lecture “Die deutsche Rechtswissenschaft im Kampf gegen den jüdischen Geist” at the conference of the Reich Group of High School Teachers in the
NS-Rechtswahrerbund
(Nazi Association of Law Officers), October 3–4, 1936,
DJZ
(1936): 1194 ff.: “An exact list must be drawn up if we are to continue the work of librarianship that is necessary to cleanse our libraries and save our students from confusion.” Cf. also a speech by the
Reichsrechtsführer
H. Frank to the Reich Group of High School Teachers of the NSRB in Berlin on the theme of “Das Judentum in der Rechtswissenschaft,” October 3, 1936 (BA All. Proz. 1 ZVII B 1, 60 f.; also as Nuremberg doc., NG-778); according to this, (1) Jews could never represent German law; (2) German jurisprudence was reserved for “men as specified in the racial legislation of the Third Reich”; (3) there were to be no new editions of works by Jewish authors; (4) all Jewish works were to be removed from public libraries; these works were “merely the views of foreign observers of German juridical ideas” and had “nothing whatsoever to do with German jurisprudence”; and (5) quotations from Jewish works could be understood only as illustrations of “a typical Jewish mentality.”

209.
Cf. the declaration of the League of National Socialist German Jurists of March 14, 1933, which demanded the “purging of all German courts of judges and officials of foreign races” (quoted in Schorn,
Die Gesetzgebung des Nationalsozialismus als Mittel der Machtpolitik
[1963], 84); for more details, see the directive of the NSDAP leadership of March 28, 1933, on the formation of an “Action Committee for the
Preplanned Implementation of the Boycott
[author’s emphasis] of Jewish businesses, Jewish goods, Jewish doctors, and Jewish lawyers” on April 1, 1933 (quoted in Göppinger, review of Schorn,
Die Gesetzgebung des Nationalsozialismus als Mittel der Machtpolitik
, 783).

210.
Cf. Hitler’s remarks as reported in Hillgruber, “Die ‘Endlösung’ und das deutsche Ostimperium,” 137: “When our best soldiers fell at the front [in the World War], at least the vermin could be exterminated at home…. If twelve or fifteen thousand of these Hebrew corrupters of the nation had been given a whiff of the poison gas that hundreds of thousands of the very best of our German soldiers from all classes and professions had to suffer in the field, the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain. On the contrary: the timely elimination of twelve thousand of these scoundrels would have saved a million promising young German lives.” As early as summer 1933, Hitler told Rauschning that the “Jews were Germany’s best protection, its security. For if the foreign powers did not desist from their boycott, he would take from the Jews in the same measure as Germany was being damaged by the boycott. When there was nothing more to take away, there would still be precious Jewish lives”; “Streicher … has suggested to me that, in the next war, we should send them out ahead of our skirmish lines. That would be the best way of shielding our soldiers. I’ll give it some thought…. Everything we undertake to do, will be done. I will not make compromises” (Rauschning,
Gespräche mit Hitler
, 86 f.). Concerning the authenticity of Rauschning’s book, see note 203 above.

211.
Goldhagen, “Weltanschauung und Erlösung,” 381.

212.
For further details, see ibid., 388 f.

213.
Hillgruber, “Die ‘Endlösung’ und das deutsche Ostimperium,” 135 ff.; Hillgruber emphasizes the unbreakable link between politics and anti-Semitism in the East and the purely power-motivated politics in the West.

214.
For further details, see Jan T. Gross,
Polish Society under German Occupation
(1979), 39, 49.

215.
Cf. Gütt and Linden,
Kommentar zum Ehegesundheitsgesetz
(concerning sec. 6 of the First Implementing Order to the Blood Protection Law of November 14, 1935 [
RGBl.
I 1334]): “ ‘Alien blood’ within the meaning of sec. 6 refers mainly to the Negro bastards left over from the period of French occupation and Gypsies currently in Germany” (226). For a fuller account of discrimination against the Gypsies, see H. J. Döring,
Die Zigeuner im nationalsozialistischen Staat
(1964).

216.
Circular of the Reich and Prussian ministers of the interior of June 5, 1936, concerning the establishment of an “international central office for the campaign against the Gypsies” in Vienna (
MinbliV
[1936], no. 27, 783); and of June 6, 1936, concerning “fighting the Gypsy pestilence” (785). The decree of June 6, 1936, said among other things: “The Gypsies, with their restless wanderings across the countryside, living mainly from theft, swindle, and begging, still constitute a plague. It is difficult to get the Gypsy people, who are alien to the German
Volkstum
, to accept an ordered, civilized way of life based on honest work…. I would ask that the following be taken into consideration: … ruthless action in response to all crimes committed by wandering Gypsies.”

217.
Cf. OVG of December 5, 1935, OVGE, 97, 117 ff., 120.

218.
DJ
(1942): 25 ff. (30).

219.
Scheuner, “Die nationale Revolution,” 245 f.

220.
Von zur Mühlen,
Rassenideologien
, 243 f.; a different view is expressed by Gross,
Polish Society under German Occupation
, 39, 49, who supports the theory of the racial motivation of Nazi administrative policy.

221.
Decree on the Regulation of Nationality Questions of January 20, 1942 (
RGBl.
I 40), which also empowered the minister of the interior to award so-called collective naturalization.

222.
This decree was drafted in a secret Reich Ministry of the Interior document (signed by Dr. Globke) addressed to the head of the Party Chancellery, dated September 19, 1944 (Main Commission Warsaw, Archive, Government of General Government, Central Department of Internal Administration II/140; transcript). This regulation concerned primarily those “persons of foreign race” who were fighting in the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS and was intended as a reward for services rendered. This plan must not be confused with the awarding of German citizenship on entry into the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS (Führer decree of May 19, 1943,
RGBl.
I 315), which applied solely to foreigners “of German origin.”

223.
Günther,
Rassenkunde
(1930), 6: “There are Germanic, Romance, and Slavonic languages but not a Germanic, Romance, and Slavonic race.”

224.
As early as the spring of 1934, Hitler made the following remarks to H. Rauschning on the subject of the Slav national character (Rauschning,
Gespräche mit Hitler
, 128 f.): “Anyway, we’ve already got far too much Slav blood in our veins.” In this area,

an asocial, inferior section of the population is gradually edging its way into the position of a leading social class…. This is a source of great danger for the German people…. I admit that the danger will not be reduced by the forthcoming occupation of mixed Slav areas, where there will be no quick way of ridding ourselves of the Slav population…. We have a duty to depopulate such areas, just as we have a corresponding duty to take care of the German population. A systematic method of depopulation will have to be developed. What, you may ask, does depopulation mean? Do I propose to eliminate whole population groups? Yes, indeed, something like that will have to be done…. Nature is cruel; that is why we can permit ourselves to be cruel, as well. If I am to send the flower of German manhood into the pitiless storm of the coming war, should I not have the right to eliminate millions of members of an inferior race who multiply like vermin, not by exterminating them but by systematically preventing their marked natural fertility from taking its course. For example, by ensuring that the men are separated from the women for years…. We declare our faith in such a methodical control of population movement.

Regarding the destruction of, in particular, the Polish population through resettlement, labor, and slaughter, see also the account by Gross,
Polish Society under German Occupation
, 47 ff., 49.

225.
Hitler, table talk of January 22, 1942 (Picker,
Hitlers Tischgespräche
[1968], 45).

226.
Cf. directive of the Reich minister for education of the people and propaganda of January 1942, which stipulated that the designation
Slavs
or
Slavic
should be dropped from all official declarations since the main representatives of the states of eastern and southeastern Europe reject this epithet and there is accordingly no cause to coin a common term to cover these peoples (communicated through Confidential Information from the Party Chancellery, no. 3/39 of January 26, 1942 [
Verfügungen
, 2:64 f.]).

227.
Hitler, talking at table on January 22, 1942 (Picker,
Hitlers Tischgespräche
[1968], 45).

228.
The extent to which this hatred of the Russians was racially founded cannot be determined conclusively. There are strong arguments for the equal importance of political motivations: for example, the fact that the non-Communist White Russians received better treatment than the Soviet Russians and that, in 1939, Hitler united with the Soviet Russians in the nonaggression pact and spoke in praise of Stalin and his policy (quoted in Picker,
Hitlers Tischgespräche
, 133, 242: “Behind Stalin there are the Jews”; 245: “In front of Stalin one should have unconditional respect … he knows his role models such as Ghengis Khan intimately”).

229.
Stuckart and Globke,
Reichsbürgergesetz
, introduction, 6; Gütt and Linden,
Kommentar zum Ehegesundheitsgesetz
, 22: “Qualitatively there is no racial difference between the European peoples”; “Reich citizens can therefore become the minorities in Germany, for example, Poles, Danes, …” However, this was the subject of controversy. As early as 1933, H. Nicolai had described the Poles as a “social group of alien people,” which should be “subject to a special status” (
Grundlagen der kommenden Verfassung
[1933], 17 ff., 23).

230.
Cf. Hitler, table talk of April 5, 1942, in which he warned about large-scale Germanization of—for example—Czechs and Poles since the Poles, as the partitions of their country showed, were “adept at tolerating foreign domination.” Himmler put forward the view that, “historically, the Poles were the toughest of nations.” They would therefore need to be gripped in the “iron tongs” of the German
Volkstum
(Picker,
Hitlers Tischgespräche
, 90 ff., 96 f.).

231.
Thus also “Diensttagebuch” (1975), introduction, 8.

232.
Freisler, “Das deutsche Polenstrafrecht,”
DJ
(1942): 25 ff.

233.
For more details, see H. A. Jacobsen, quoted in Picker,
Hitlers Tischgespräche
, 45; Jacobsen, “Vom Wandel des Polenbildes in Deutschland” (1973).

234.
Memorandum on racial policy of November 25, 1939, reproduced in
Doc. Occ.
5:3 ff. For further details see Broszat,
200 Jahre deutsche Polenpolitik
(1972), 26.

235.
Instruction of the Reich head of propaganda of the NSDAP to all heads of propaganda in the
Reichsgaue
, dated February 15, 1943 (Nuremberg doc., PS-634, IfZ, Munich).

236.
RGBl.
I 1334: “No marriage should be contracted if the progeny of that marriage could be expected to endanger the purity of German blood.”

237.
Gütt and Linden,
Kommentar zum Ehegesundheitsgesetz
, 226 f.: “Marriage will also be prohibited when the alien blood” is of particular potency, for example, “Negroes and their blood relations among the primitive peoples of Africa, as well as the Australian aborigines and to some extent those of eastern India.” Every case would have to be carefully investigated. The investigating physician had to pay particular attention to “brown or yellow skin color, broad, low nose, distended nose [the German word
Nüster
refers to the nose of an animal;] slanting, triangular nostrils are clear indications of an alien racial strain. The root of the nose is often broad and low. Further suspicious signs include protruding, thick lips…. Other features are a prominent lower face or prominent jaw [prognathism], broadening of the cheek bone area and flatness of the nose and eye area.”

238.
Cf. draft Law on Acquisition and Loss of German Citizenship, RuPreußMdI, February 1938. The Reich Ministry of Justice was concerned that the law should also apply to non-Jewish “aliens” (
Fremdvölkische
) and recommended avoiding, wherever possible, “the words
Jew
and
Jewish half-caste
” (
Jude und jüdische Mischling
) and instead speaking of “people of alien blood” or “people of non-German or non-related blood” (
nichtdeutsches oder nicht artverwandtes Blut
) (official statement of July 19, 1939; for further details see
Abschnitt Innere Verwaltung/Reich
, vol. 3).

239.
Political by definition were activities that were “destined to serve the protection of the state internally and externally” (Prussian Supreme Court, Berlin,
DJ
[1935]: 1831).

240.
Ministerialdirektor
Crohne of the Reich Ministry of Justice wrote in an essay: “Among the … significant political cases we must also count criminal proceedings against church members, which can be divided into three main categories: currency offenses, sexual offenses, and fraud … since August 1936, the Führer has commanded that—on political grounds—such criminal cases are no longer to proceed to trial” (“Die Strafrechtspflege 1936,” 9).