Neighbours or enemies?: Germans, the Baltic and beyond (On the Boundary of Two Worlds: Identity, Freedom, & Moral Imagination in the Baltics)

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Neighbours or enemies? Germans, the Baltic and beyond

On the Boundary of Two Worlds: Identity, Freedom, and Moral Imagination in the Baltics 12

Editor Leonidas Donskis, Professor of Political Science and Philosophy, and Director of the Political Science and Diplomacy School at Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania Editorial and Advisory Board Timo Airaksinen, University of Helsinki, Finland Egidijus Aleksandravicius, Lithuanian Emigration Institute; Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania Stefano Bianchini, University of Bologna, Forlì Campus, Italy Endre Bojtar, Central European University; Budapest, Hungary Kristian Gerner, University of Uppsala, Sweden John Hiden, University of Glasgow, UK Mikko Lagerspetz, Estonian Institute of Humanities, Estonia Andreas Lawaty, Nordost-Institut; Lüneburg, Germany Olli Loukola, University of Helsinki, Finland Hannu Niemi, University of Helsinki, Finland Alvydas Nikzentaitis, Lithuanian History Institute, Lithuania Yves Plasseraud, Paris, France Rein Raud, University of Helsinki, Finland, and Estonian Institute of Humanities, Estonia Alfred Erich Senn, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, and Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania David Smith, University of Glasgow, UK Saulius Suziedelis, Millersville University, USA Joachim Tauber, Nordost-Institut; Lüneburg, Germany Tomas Venclova, Yale University, USA

Neighbours or enemies? Germans, the Baltic and beyond

John Hiden and Martyn Housden

Amsterdam - New York, NY 2008

Cover photo: Tallinn city wall. Photograph by M. Housden The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents - Requirements for permanence”. ISBN: 978-90-420-2349-9 ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2008 Printed in the Netherlands

Table of contents

Table of photographs

vii 1

Introduction ONE

The troubled nation

6

TWO

Peaceful coexistence

19

THREE

Living communities

35

FOUR

The new aristocracy

52

FIVE

Dying space

70

SIX

Ordinary Germans?

87

SEVEN

Refugee nation

108

EIGHT

The end of nationalism?

125

Bibliography

140

Index

149

Table of photographs

2.1

Carl Georg Bruns, 1890–1931. From Kölnische Volkszeitung, special supplement of August 1929.

2.2

Gustav Stresemann, 1878–1929. From Kölnische Volkszeitung, special supplement of August 1929.

3.1

Paul Schiemann, 1876–1944. By permission of the Latvian State Archive, Riga.

3.2

Revaler Bote, 6 February 1925.

3.3

Ewald Ammende, 1892–1936. From Kölnische Volkszeitung, special supplement of August 1929.

3.4

The offices of Rigasche Rundschau in the 1920s. By permission of the Latvian State Archive, Riga.

4.1

Werner Hasselblatt, 1890–1958. From Kölnische Volkszeitung, special supplement of August 1929.

4.2

Helmut Nicolai, 1895–1955. From H. Frank, H. Nicolai and M. Bilke, Reden. Berlin: Reimar Hobbing, 1933.

5.1

Hans Frank, 1900–46. From H. Frank, H. Nicolai and M. Bilke, Reden. Berlin: Reimar Hobbing, 1933.

5.2

Odilo Globocnik, 1904–1945. By permission of the Federal Archives, Germany. Reference: Bundesarchiv, Bild 146– 2007–0188.

5.3

Am Grossen Wannsee 56–58. Photograph by M. Housden.

6.1

Viktors ArƗjs, 1910–1988. Copyright unknown.

7.1

Ethnic Germans expelled from East Prussia wait for transport near to Meißen. Copyright unknown.

viii 7.2

Ethnic German refugees living in temporary accommodation in Germany. By permission of Sudetendeutsches Archiv München. (image number sab01343).

7.3

The Brandenburg Gate viewed from the East in 1988. Photograph by M. Housden.

7.4

Chancellor Brandt falls to his knees in front of the memorial to the victims of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, 7 December 1970. Copyright unknown.

8.1

The Brandenburg Gate today. Photograph by M. Housden.

8.2

Statues of Marx and Engels located in what used to be Marx-Engels Platz, East Berlin. Photograph by M. Housden.

8.3

House of the Blackheads, Riga. Photograph by M. Housden.

8.4

Villa Ammende, Pärnu, Estonia. Photograph by M. Housden.

The authors have made every effort to trace the copyright holders of all the photographs used in this book. Unfortunately this has proved impossible in the cases of photographs 6.1, 7.1 and 7.4. We would welcome information about the copyright holders of these images so that we can acknowledge them fully in any future editions of Neighbours or enemies?

Introduction Neighbours or enemies? Germans, the Baltic and beyond Rather than pose the question ‘neighbours or enemies’, we could have asked ‘tolerance or cleansing’, ‘co-existence or genocide’, ‘diversity or homogeneity’, perhaps even ‘security through intermingling or exclusion’. All of these possibilities highlight very different ways of imagining the type of moral order to be achieved in society. There are good reasons for our decision to pursue the question ‘neighbours or enemies’ chiefly—though not exclusively—in the Baltic region. It witnessed a process of coexistence between German and non-German dating right back to the twelfth century, when the Teutonic Order began laying the foundations for the Reich’s selfimposed cultural mission in the East. What better exemplified the appeal of Russia’s Baltic provinces to the German intellectual imagination than Gottfried Herder’s arrival in the mid-18th century to teach in the Baltic German Domschule in Riga? Yet the enterprise as a whole was by no means one of mere Germanisation. German intellectuals (Literaten) provided some of the earliest impulses to take account of the national identities of indigenous populations, giving rise to a distinctive liberal strand within the German community. Admittedly, until the end of the Russian Empire reforming impulses were kept in place by the powerful conservative German landowning élites managing the provinces on the Tsar’s behalf. Even the policy of Russification, graphically expressed by the re-branding of the Baltic German alma mater, Tartu University, as Juriev University, could not wholly break the bonds between the Baltic German nobility and the Tsarist regime, particularly after the seismic shock of the 1905 revolution. With little prospect of Russia’s dominion being undermined before the coming of the First World War, the 1905 upheaval nonetheless gave due warning of the ‘national awakening’ of the native Baltic populations. Once that war had ended the post-war democratisation of Central Eastern Europe finally enabled liberal thinkers among ethnic Germans outside the Reich more actively to pursue the cause of equality and reform alongside non-German fellow citizens. Radical agrarian reform, particularly dramatic in the Baltic provinces, where prominent Baltic Germans had once owned most of the arable land, accelerated the shift of political influence within the German community from the countryside to the more volatile and progressive urban centres. It goes without saying that constructing genuinely plural, multi-national societies was greatly complicated by the international realities after 1918, not least through the aspirations of new or restored states, where once all-powerful German communities were consigned at a stroke to the status of national minorities. None of the above suggests that the Baltic area was unique in seeing ethnic Germans losing influence and power. Arguably, the trauma was even

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greater for those German souls who had actually been part of the German Empire and who now had to live in the new Polish state, or indeed for the millions of Sudeten Germans left on the wrong side of the borders of the new Weimar Republic. Equally, hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans, successors of Catherine the Great’s colonial settlement venture, eventually found themselves under the Bolshevik regime. Such stories are also integral to the history of those territories where Germans and non-Germans lived together and would make a fascinating account in their own right. Nevertheless, the Baltic, its strategic interest significantly heightened with the onset of the new ideological clash after 1917, became the critically important interface between East and West. The competition for spheres of interest in this region after the First World War made it even then a ‘litmus test’ for what today would be termed the new European security architecture. And in due course the very moment Hitler’s troops entered the Baltic arena it became absolutely central to the Third Reich’s most millenarian and genocidal project. Implicit in our project, however, is also the attempt to release the concept of ‘living space’ from its exclusive association with the Third Reich in the popular and scholarly imagination. The task is not made easier by the fact that the flood of books on Hitler’s regime continues unabated, while the texts themselves become increasingly lengthy. Many earlier accounts of the Third Reich were accommodated in one sensibly-sized volume. Martin Broszat’s acknowledged classic, The Hitler State, springs to mind, as does his highly compressed overview, German National Socialism 1919–1945. Major contributions from other German historians, notably Hans Mommsen, were first published in essay form. German biographers of Hitler—from Konrad Heiden to Joachim Fest and beyond—managed to keep their subject within the covers of a single book. Eberhard Jäckel’s remarkable Hitler in History is barely one hundred and fifty pages long. This seems to fly in the face of conventional wisdom about unduly weighty German historical tomes. A. J. P. Taylor light heartedly encapsulated the attitude of Anglo-Saxon historians by remarking that he never minded being quoted by others, provided they appended no references to his work. Trevor-Roper would certainly not have made this comment, but his own famous account of Hitler’s last days also has the attractive qualities found in the work of his Oxford colleague. Their successors may well aspire to and in some cases even share the powers of communication shown by the likes of Taylor and Roper, if not their brevity of expression. In the bracing north of England Ian Kershaw filled two formidable scholarly volumes capturing Hitler’s existence, while in the misty fens Richard Evans managed three volumes on the genesis, life and death of the Third Reich. Both historians could claim with justice that they need more pages to cope with the mass of new information available to historians of modern Germany. That cannot in all cases be a satisfactory explanation for the glut of

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publications on National Socialism and its leaders, not least because many of the books published in the past decade cover very similar territory. The sameness that characterizes too many of these accounts might owe something to the disappearance of the ideological viewpoints so evident during the Cold War. This is not to make a case for revisiting the wrong headedness of that era but despite its failings the then ideological spleen enlivened historical debate and gave it diversity. The distortions arising from the use of the history of National Socialism in the confrontation between East and West were at least offset by the sense of immediacy that political purpose gave to historical explanation. Today it often feels as though the politicization of the Third Reich evident during the Cold War era has been displaced by its commercialization and attendant homogenization. Within the vast body of literature on Nazi Germany historians of the English speaking world in particular have treated ‘Lebensraum’ chiefly in terms of the perpetration of National Socialist atrocities in the East. Even the challenging recent investigations of Nazi population politics, which at least examine intellectual and ideological trends in the 1920s, cannot entirely escape this charge.1 The end result is that broader and longer term issues relating to the German nation and the existence of Germans beyond the Reich’s eastern borders have too often been left completely to one side or given insufficient weight. We hope to redress this by opening readers’ minds to the diversity of life-styles and cultural possibilities that could, and indeed did, develop where Germans and non-Germans shared territorial space over time. Their common experience was manifestly integral to the nature of the ‘living space’ between Berlin and Moscow and the more that the Third Reich recedes into the past, the more relevant such wider experiences become to the present Europe as it seeks to renew itself. Not by chance, the historical realities of the 1920s, when new states were forming, with the attendant challenges posed by massive movements of people and trade, have fresh resonance in an enlarged Europe. Present discussion of minority rights, citizenship, inclusion, integration—and more besides—were all foreshadowed in the years after the First World War in the ‘lands between’ Germany and Russia. There is a need to rescue such continuities from the marginalization they have suffered not only in the extensive literature on the Third Reich but also on the origins and course of German anti-Semitism. In the central european empires of the nineteenth century European Jewry not infrequently looked towards German culture and language for sources of inspiration; many sought assimilation.2 The extent to which this occurred helps to account for the absence of pogroms against Jews in German speaking territories after the First World War, in contrast with what took place in some Ukrainian and Polish lands. During the 1920s, both Jewish and German minority leaders in Central Eastern Europe worked to promote the cause of cultural autonomy and minority schooling, as well as the organization of national minorities in

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Europe. Remarkably, such aspirations developed in the very same region that nurtured committed Nazis, many of whom bore non-Germanic names. Attention to this reality therefore provides if nothing else a properly contextualized perspective on Lebensraum; one which demonstrates more clearly that the anti-Semitism of Hitler’s regime, by targeting fully assimilated citizens of the Republic, not only constituted an attack on Germany itself; it also provided the Reich’s foes in Central Eastern Europe with a rationale for attacking German minorities. Finally, it might be worth highlighting that respectively we have written biographies of German thinkers from the 1920s and 1930s who stood both for and against the Nazi vision of Lebensraum; individuals who wholeheartedly embraced the murderous implications of Hitler’s thinking and figures who, in the starkest possible contrast, saw a peaceful multicultural ‘living space’ as the only viable future for Central Eastern Europe. The documentary extracts in the body of the text originate in an extensive selection of archival and printed sources—from Germany itself, from holdings in the Baltic countries, from Russia and finally, the League of Nations Archive in Geneva. While some of the sources will be familiar to subject specialists many will not, particularly the writings of key liberal activists and authors of the 1920s from the Baltic region, some of whom are even today little known in their own countries. Hopefully, the book can be used on several levels. On the one hand, the comparative setting in which our Baltic perspectives are located should make the book a useful introduction for the general reader to the theme of Lebensraum in its multiple forms. On the other hand, precisely because the analysis is informed by our longstanding research in Germany and Eastern Europe, particularly the Baltic and Poland, specialists should find something of interest too. In the last resort we would be happy for the book at least to serve as another reminder of the intrinsic importance of the Baltic region to a Europe properly integrated between East and West. In the modern University carrying out research is impossible without the support of funding bodies. The British Council, the British Academy, the Nuffield Foundation and the Arts and Humanities Research Board have all in different ways helped to support our work. We are profoundly in their debt. We also wish to record that the photographs of Ewald Ammende, Carl Georg Bruns, Werner Hasselblatt and Gustav Stresemann are taken from Kölnische Volkszeitung, special edition of August 1929. The photograph of Paul Schiemann comes from the Baltic German Library, Riga. John Hiden, Martyn Housden – Bradford.

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NOTES 1.

2.

See particularly G. Aly and S. Heim, Vordenker der Vernichtung. Auschwitz und die deutschen Pläne für eine neue Ordnung (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1993); translated by A.G. Blunden as Architects of annihilation. Auschwitz and the logic of annihilation. (Princeton: Princeton UP, 2003). See, for instance, S. Beller, ‘Germans and Jews as Central European and “Mitteleuropaisch” élites’ in P. Stirk, ed., Mitteleuropa History and Prospects (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1994), p. 76.

Chapter one The troubled nation For centuries the questions ‘who is “German”?’ and ‘where should Germans be?’ have been present in one way or another. How many Germanic tribes were there and what was the relationship between them and the other peoples inhabiting the continent such as the Celts? The constant movement of clans criss-crossing future european space has always greatly complicated the study of such issues. That did not prevent a German nationalist confidently asserting in the 1920s that: ‘German national territory comprises two major eastern areas: East Elbia and Austria. Both are colonial settlements.’1 Indeed, the general movement of the Germanic peoples was eastwards but for centuries large numbers of Poles had lived in what would become Prussia. The consequent sense of uncertainty about how to define the extent of German territory was reflected in the extraordinarily fragmented political structure that came to be known as the Holy Roman Empire, even though elements of it took their name directly from the Teutonic tribes that had settled there (for instance, Saxony and Thuringia). In Voltaire’s words: ‘Everything in this pompous title is untrue; it is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor German, nor an Empire.’ That had of course become all too apparent during the bloody wars of religion in the 16th century. The inhabitants won freedom of confession from the conflict but at the cost of further challenges to any commonality that might have been emerging. By the time Napoleon Bonaparte entered the territory of the Holy Roman Empire he faced the challenge of managing over three hundred distinct political units. He had reduced these to thirty-nine when his armies finally admitted defeat. Ironically, Napoleon had thereby made it easier for a German Confederation to be formed in 1815 and for this to resist any future imperial adventure by France. With this said, the prospects for the new confederation were by no means clear-cut, not least because fewer and larger political units with diverse heritages were now thrust together. Protestantism, centred on Berlin, was juxtaposed with Catholicism, based in Munich and Vienna; the Rhineland, Baden and Württemberg soldiered on with French administrative models while Prussia pursued systems created by its own reformers, including the formidable trio of Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Stein; the territorially and ethnically homogenous southern German states had no real counterpart in the north; Prussia’s Junkerdom and massive landed estates found no echo in the south. Meanwhile the administrative reforms of the Habsburg Empire failed to disguise the perpetual discontent of its subject nationalities. The German Confederation managed only with difficulty to contain the latent conflicts until the revolutions of 1848. When the dust settled on the upheavals it was clear that the construct of 1815 could no longer comfortably

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accommodate its two super-powers. Locating the multi-national AustroHungarian Empire in a Grossdeutschland proved unattainable. As a result the Habsburgs were condemned to follow a route leading to power sharing with Hungary from 1867, a compromise known to the world as the Dual Monarchy. Yet even that arrangement was reached at the expense of all the other national groups located on the same territories as the Austrians and Hungarians. Of course, Prussia’s far flung lands had their own share of nationality conflicts but these were not severe enough to prevent it from emerging, as it were by default, as the natural leader of a Kleindeutschland. Indeed, a more compact German state was already portended by Prussia’s superior economic development in the face of Austria-Hungary’s protectiondependent industries. The Zollverein or customs union, formed under Prussian leadership from the 1830s onwards, had long signalled the importance of economic realities. Prussia, Bismarck wrote in April 1863, adheres to her repeatedly expressed view that the entry of the Imperial state [Austria] into the Zollverein is for both sides, in practice, unrealizable.2 The attraction exercised by Prussia over the economic life of the southern German states had major political implications. Ultimately those states could not afford to remain outside the North German Confederation either, once it had been formed in 1867 after the defeat of Austria the previous year. Nevertheless, serious reservations persisted in the non-Prussian lands, contributing to the inner tensions which complicated the political development of the new German Empire. When it was launched with much pomp and ceremony in 1871, the historian Ferdinand Gregorovius expressed pleasure that this Second Empire was ‘more modestly and happily styled’ the German Reich. Observing that no Voltaire would dare to mock this ‘true title’ Gregorovius continued: There is nothing Roman about it except the great memory or myth of its descent from the Rome that ruled the world. There is nothing Holy about it, if a connection with the Roman priesthood is meant; but Holy we hope it is in its origin as the moral force of the people and its mission for the peace of the world. Everything about it is German: its head, its members, and all that beautiful land from Kant’s city in East Prussia to beyond the Rhine, to Strasburg Minster over which the German flag is flying again at last.3 In reality, it became apparent that no imperial constitution could easily resolve the clashes between dynasties, the different regions, traditions and religions of all the member states. Neither was the sum of the different parts

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of the Empire greater than the whole. They could not even with justice be said to make up Germany—at least in the sense that the linguistic group was certainly not co-terminous with the borders of the new Reich. Apart from aggrieved Austrians, abruptly excluded from the centre of the Germanic world in 1871, serious questions were raised in the long term about the relationship between Bismarck’s Germany and the many ethnic Germans scattered beyond its borders. Once the Second Reich belatedly embarked on the route towards becoming a centralised nation state the matter arose as to whether the existing frontiers were the right ones. Bismarck was only too well aware that the extent of Germany had still to be determined but in his case the overriding preoccupation was to stabilise and consolidate the situation achieved in 1871. Above all, he recognized the folly of disputing territory along the Reich’s lengthy frontiers with the Russian Empire and thereby endangering co-operation between Berlin and St Petersburg. Nor did it make sense to endanger the considerable economic advantages derived by German settlers ever since Catherine the Great deliberately encouraged them to Russia to help exploit its vast economic potential.4 Despite Russia’s Crimean defeat the dilemma remained grave enough to keep Bismarck anxious, all the more so in that he anticipated opposition at some point from France, angered at the loss of Alsace-Lorraine. This quandary was encapsulated in the Chancellor’s famous remark, to the effect that no German soldier’s life was worth risking merely for the acquisition of new territory. For the time being at least, Bismarck ruled out conflict to extend Germany’s borders in the East. However, not even Bismarck could expect indefinitely to escape the underlying realities of the international situation. The best he could hope for was to reduce the risks of German involvement in any future war. In that sense the intent behind the Dual Alliance of 1879 was not, in the Chancellor’s thinking, an offensive one. Its purpose was rather to give general reassurance to Austria-Hungary and to lessen its anxiety about being excluded by the new Germany. In particular, Bismarck wished to forestall any clash between Vienna and St Petersburg arising from hasty intervention on the part of Austria in the Balkans, where nationality conflicts were becoming increasingly turbulent. This priority also underpinned efforts to keep Austria and Russia alongside Germany in the so-called Three Emperors’ Alliance of 1881. How much weight these agreements could bear in the event of future conflict between Vienna and St Petersburg was quite another matter. As to the question whose side Germany would take in those circumstances, it surely had to be purely rhetorical. Any doubt on that score was soon removed as first pan-Slavism and then Russification began to impact on all ethnic Germans in the Baltic provinces, threatening their identities and traditions. The inexorable logic of Germany’s predicament became all too apparent after Bismarck left office in 1890. As well as leaving insoluble international issues for his successors, the Iron Chancellor bequeathed a host of domestic

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difficulties, some of which he had exacerbated and all of which increased the overall instability of the Empire. Bismarck’s reluctance to allow the development of fully accountable government was evident in his predilection for managing parties by striking one deal after another, in an attempt to prevent a concentration of power against the regime. The strategy inevitably alienated one section of society at the expense of another, as for example when the so-called Kulturkampf of the 1870s marginalized the Centre Party and Catholics in general. Such measures understandably increased the Empire’s difficulty in establishing a single viable German identity. Important ethnic minorities were alienated, notably the predominantly Catholic and proletarian Poles, who suffered additional persecution by the great landowners of East Prussia and Pomerania. The nobility’s mindset was hardly discouraged by Kaiser Wilhelm II, anxious to underpin the ascendancy of German over Slav in the eastern marches. The German...who sells, without cause, his property in the East sins against his fatherland—whatever his class or age. He must hold out there. Methinks a little duel is being fought out, here, in the German soul, between heart and head. When one is in a position to transact a good piece of business, the heart says, “Now take a rest, retire and go west, where everything is beautiful.” At that point the head will have to intervene and say, “Here in the East is an obligation to the fatherland and to the German nationality. And just as the sentry may not forsake his post, so ought not the German to leave the East.”5 Ultimately, it became all too clear that far from restraining the Junker estate owners Bismarck’s actions had in reality given them more space in the political system. Not without reason the ‘marriage of iron and rye’ in 1879 has been described as a ‘re-founding’ of the Empire, in the sense that the government’s switch to protectionist tariffs at this point brought the captains of industry and the landed élites more firmly behind the regime, whatever reservations they had towards each other. What was essentially a ‘shotgun marriage’ of industry and agriculture nevertheless eventually proved a more durable relationship than might have been expected. As a result another social group increasingly felt left out in the cold, namely the socialists. On the one hand, the growth of the Social Democratic Party was a corollary of the rapid industrialisation of Germany, especially in the early 1890s. Indeed it became the largest political party. On the other hand, the government’s persecution of the German socialists prevented the latter from capitalising on their numbers and fully engaging with the political system. The regime felt compelled to try to offset this precarious situation by pursuing Sammlungspolitik, that is to say an attempt to integrate diverse political interests behind a populist imperial bid for

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Germany’s ‘place in the sun.’6 The project turned out to be ill-conceived, not least in the way in which a German expansionist venture inevitably revived interest in building a pan-German enterprise in Central Eastern Europe—to use Friedrich Naumann’s term—Mitteleuropa.7 Such an enterprise was not likely to make easier the solution to the ongoing problem of establishing a German identity. The discrepancy between the borders of the German state and the extent of the German nation remained as problematic as ever. Part of the difficulty was that the concept ‘Germany’ implied different consequences for different interest groups in the Wilhelmine Empire. For some it promised little more than a loose relationship with non-German communities in the East. Others, however, looked towards establishing direct rule in some form or another over foreign territory. Nevertheless, common to all groups was the assumption of German economic and above all cultural primacy in any new arrangement. The Hakatist organization, set up in 1894 to Germanise those parts of Prussia with substantial Polish populations roundly asserted: In every field of human creation, whatever is good and gratifying in this region can without more ado be attributed to a German origin. From the time of the great migrations on down through the Middle Ages and into modern times, the German has been the kindly teacher of the Pole, and, in spite of manifold disappointments, has remained such until this very day! 8 Such attitudes found echoes among the Empire’s most conservative forces. Yet the vision of cultural hegemony was never completely absent even among progressive political circles in Germany, a point underlined by their self-representation as ‘national’ liberals. Even internationalist groups like the German Social Democrats could not entirely escape the imperialist mindset. Thus, while socialists made objections to the military build up of the 1890s their opposition to the expansion of Germany hardened only after the onset of the First World War. Significantly, much of the debate came to centre on the role of all minorities in any future Mitteleuropa, including of course the German settlements beyond the existing borders of both the Austro-Hungarian and Wilhelmine Empires. There had already been ethnic tension within both Empires, evidenced for example by the re-settlement projects of the 1890s in Posen and Pomerania. These had been specifically designed to emasculate the Polish minority, among other things in the interest of greater safety for Germans living there. To the south, security considerations prevailed in the support given by Vienna to Germans in the Balkan region. Elsewhere close advisers to the Kaiser, like the Baltic German émigré Theodor Schiemann, fanned hostility against Russia and pan-Slavism in the Baltic.9 All of this contributed to the uneasiness experienced by Germans living under the rule

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of St Petersburg, where the drive for Russification and centralisation even threatened long standing traditions of self-rule among the Baltic German nobility. Such pressures could only intensify existing concerns about national identity in what were multi-ethnic societies. How best to express that identity in the ethnic cauldron of Central Eastern Europe was already troubling Austro-Marxist thinkers Karl Renner and Otto Bauer. Both saw the struggle for national survival as a barrier above all to the progress of socialism. They worked from the premise that given the complex historic pattern of settlement a purely territorial solution to nationality disputes was not practical; that is to say not every nationality could have its own state. Instead the Austro-Marxists advocated cultural autonomy, expressed above all by separate schooling, arguing that autonomy tied to persons rather than territory did not threaten to undermine the territorial integrity of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In Renner’s words: An Austria can be created in which all nationalities govern and administer themselves, in which they deal with their nationally specific affairs alone and their common affairs together. 10 Not surprisingly such thinking also attracted the attention of the mixed nationality groups within the Tsarist Russian Empire. It was no accident that fresh thinking on minority rights came from the Austrian rather than the German Empire. In the latter the minorities were insufficiently numerous and not well organized enough to pose any immediate direct threat to the regime. Moreover, while the Reich was able to focus on wide-ranging external goals, even using expansion to divert attention from pressing internal problems and political reform, that route was closed to the Habsburgs and their clients. It was difficult enough as it was for Vienna to prevent Slav ascendancy in the Balkans. For the Austrian regime the nightmare was of the delicate internal balance between nationalities being further upset by foreign policy adventures. While the Austrians were policing their frontiers in a desperate attempt to preserve what they had, in Berlin imagination had more freedom to roam. It is in this context that dreams of Mitteleuropa unfolded. These said almost as much about the balance of forces within the German Empire as they did about the situation outside. On the surface the aims of the political and economic élites on the right of the political spectrum were self-evident: despite reservations for most industrialists, more territory, bigger markets, more labour and resources, with the prospect of economic growth taking the sting out of the rising socialist vote by promising better material conditions.11 As to the landowning classes, if nothing else Mitteleuropa offered the prospect of monopolising and protecting the agrarian sector of the economy, above all grain prices. Doubtless all too many conservatives also rationalised this self-interest with reference to Germany’s traditional cultural and

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religious mission in the East. Truth be told, nor were German liberals averse to the idea of economic dominion of Mitteleuropa for the Reich. However, they injected an enlightened element in the sense that they expected political reform at home to be spread abroad through German influence. Socialists were certainly troubled by the concept of dominion but even they could at least endorse the progressive political agenda of German liberalism. Whatever differences there were between exponents of the idea of Mitteleuropa, the notion as such clearly had a broad constituency behind it by the early twentieth century. At the same time it was nourished by a growing belief that without expansion Germany’s position at the heart of Europe would be increasingly precarious. The Kaiser’s closest aides murmured that the balance of power needed to be actively addressed sooner rather than later and certainly before Russian military reforms began to take effect. In sum, overweening ambition coexisted uneasily with genuine fears for the survival of the German state. The latter consideration necessarily pushed the Reich closer to the other major Germanic power in dispute with Russia, namely Austria, even though by this stage the Habsburg realm was inherently unstable. In time the problematic relationship between Berlin and Vienna would play its part in dragging Europe to war. By a supreme irony a dynasty only too well aware of the consequences of any major war for its ethnically mixed territories played a major part in precipitating conflict by its inept handling of nationality problems in the Balkans. The war that broke out over the cold blooded murder at Sarejevo in 1914 could not fail to have the most serious impact on issues of national identity. As far as Germany was concerned, national identity seemed secure enough in that summer. After all, the Kaiser claimed to recognize ‘only Germans’ while the German population as a whole duly responded by approving the opening of hostilities. Demonstrations on a unique scale across the land appeared to signal a new popular emotional commitment to the nation.12 Even socialists rushed to participate. The commonality forged with Austrians in the heat of battle provided the basis not only for reviving earlier ideas of forming a Grossdeutschland but also for gaining additional living space. In any case, the unwelcome military stalemate eventually reached on the western front reinforced inclinations to look eastwards, where there were by contrast significant German military successes from 1915. Erich von Falkenhayn, Chief of General Staff of the Germany Army, observed in his Christmas Memorandum of December 1915 that, the internal difficulties of the massive [Russian] empire are increasing rapidly. If something as major as a dramatic revolution is not on the cards, nonetheless we can expect that its internal crisis will compel Russia to surrender in a relatively short time.13

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Indeed, at the peak of their eastward advance German forces had occupied Lithuania and the Baltic provinces as well as large tracts of Poland and the Ukraine. At the same time, Austria continued to struggle in the Balkans. Ultimately, a vista beckoned of a permanent German Empire, centred on Mitteleuropa, extending direct or indirect Germanic influence towards the South, North, East and even ultimately the West. For the moment, however, the best opportunities remained in the East, where the military duo of Generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff deployed forceful arguments in favour of securing an impregnable strategic base in the region while they had the opportunity. Apart from plans to tie Polish agriculture more closely to Germany’s needs, the military sought to justify among other things the wholesale resettlement and consolidation of local German populations in Courland and the Crimea. Within this framework the experiences of occupation in the East transformed the relationship between Reich Germans and ethnic Germans living beyond the borders of the German state. How painful this could be for individual families was exemplified by the experience of liberal Baltic German journalist Paul Schiemann, who was in the Tsar’s army with his younger brother while two other brothers fought for the Kaiser. Schiemann saw it as the tragic fate of a national minority that German men saw the obligation placed before them of having to take the field against their own national comrades. In 1914, Baltic Germans were completely agreed that it was a duty. We had to tell ourselves that it would be unworthy if, at the first truly serious moment, we showed ourselves to be wanting after we had proclaimed our unconditional loyalty and fidelity to the [Russian] state time and again over the last one or two hundred years. We also had to reckon with the future peace. No one could suppose that provinces so closely bound to Russia in geopolitical terms would be torn free. If we did not now prove our loyalty to the state, it would be the end, once and for all, for Germans in the Baltic.14 Ultimately, informal ties, long existing between Germans at home and abroad, through schooling, university and other cultural activities, became institutionalised under direct military rule. Essentially, for the military leadership at least, Germanisation was the order of the day.15 Whatever diplomatic reservations existed at the political level about permanently depriving Russia of territory, the exigencies of war persuaded even the German Foreign Office to sanction organizations like the Liga der Fremdvölker Russlands as part of a subversion of the enemy. The Liga aimed specifically at fomenting political unrest among Russia’s subject nationalities in order to undermine the Tsarist war effort. The strategy had the advantage of capitalising on the growing impatience of the native Baltic peoples to

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secure greater autonomy. While there was no love for the German occupiers their presence disrupted the very imperial structures that had been an obstacle to the so-called ‘national awakening’ of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, manifest since at least the mid-19th century. The political expression of this desire for greater self-rule, on the other hand, was still far from certain. Demands for full independence had yet to be voiced by the Baltic peoples.16 Needless to say, the situation could not be expected to last indefinitely once the Russian empire began to dissolve under the pressures of war. In this environment Berlin’s fateful decision to transport Lenin to the Finland Station in April 1917 opened a veritable Pandora’s box. In helping to precipitate the final dissolution of the Russian Empire, the German government could hardly expect to control the growing ambitions of the nationality movements from there. What is more, these could now operate in an international landscape dramatically changed since the period before 1914. National self-determination had belatedly become the watchword of the day—a doctrine actively propagated both by the Bolsheviks and the Allied Powers, albeit for very different reasons. While Lenin was interested in allowing greater autonomy but within a ‘voluntarily’ reconstituted socialist Russian federation, the western Allies felt compelled to display a greater concern in the matter of independence for the ‘border peoples’—not least in order to maintain a viable eastern front against Germany. Nor was the Reich insulated from the new mood. Within the Reichstag in 1917 a political grouping encompassing the Centre Party, some liberals and of course the Social Democratic Party, urged greater regard for the subject nationalities and called for a peace without annexations. 17 Such calculations proved to be of limited immediate concern to the German military leaders in the field, remote from the constraints of Berlin. The Army High Command took the battle to the Red Army from autumn 1917 and forced on the Bolsheviks the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March of the following year. The political standing now won by the national heroes Generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff was such that they felt able to intensify their planning to control vast swathes of the former Russian Empire. The extent of this may be gauged from the mere fact that Germany’s allies, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey, were also parties to the agreement drawn up at Brest-Litovsk. Areas from which Russia had to withdraw its troops included, for example, the provinces of Eastern Anatolia, the districts of Ardahan, Kars and Batum and of course the Ukraine, as well as from Finland, the Åland Islands and Estonia and Livonia. A top priority was the consolidation of Germanic influence in the Baltic provinces, formally detached from Russia under the terms of the supplementary treaty to Brest-Litovsk, concluded on 27 August 1918 in Berlin. Under its terms Russia renounced its sovereignty over its former Baltic territories, ‘taking account of the condition at present existing in Estonia and Livonia.’18 With some justice Courland, with its agricultural

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riches, came to be referred to in the Reich as ‘the nation’s war aim.’19 Despite this, even the Army Supreme Command (OHL) was compelled at least to adopt the rhetoric of self-determination for the Baltic peoples. It certainly could not ignore entirely the pressure coming both from the Bolshevik side and from the Western Allies. Thus part four of the supplementary Berlin agreement of August 1918 stipulated that the future fate of Estonia and Livonia, ‘shall be decided in agreement with their inhabitants.’20 As well as outside pressure, account also had to be taken of the growing trepidation in Germany’s political circles about annexations in general, ever more forcefully expressed in the Reichstag in the course of 1918. The brutal truth was that the military leadership never saw themselves liberating the Baltic provinces for the sake of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians. Unlike elements within the German foreign office, they lacked the foresight to accept that support for the national aspirations of the Baltic peoples was probably the only option likely to lead to long term German influence once the war was over. For the time being, however, the Army leaders simply pressed ahead by exploiting ‘representative assemblies’ set up in 1918. These meetings were monopolised by the Baltic German élites but in the name of self-determination also drew on a handful of compliant Estonians and Latvians. From these bodies eventually came the call to the Kaiser to attach the Baltic territories to the Reich. When ideas were voiced about dividing the Baltic provinces among other German princes the Kaiser’s response left no doubt: Nonsense! The Baltic is one, and I will be its master and tolerate no contradiction.21 Yet what form would the relationship take between such a ‘Baltic state’ and what was after all a federal German Empire? 22All attempts to institutionalise and formalise the political relationship between the Baltic and the Reich— such as a personal union of rule at the head of the structure—served only to heighten the pressures within Germany for reforming the country’s constitution, thereby curtailing the disproportionate power of Prussia. This point was made in the memorandum of State Secretary Otto von Hintze on 18 September 1918, where he argued strongly against the suggestion of the Prussian Ministry of State for attaching to the Reich Courland, Livonia, Estonia and Lithuania. Any such move, Hintze pointed out, would be seen by public opinion at home and abroad as incompatible with the independence promised to the border states. The harmony between the German federal rulers would be disrupted and since any form of personal union would be perceived as barely concealed annexation—already renounced publicly by the German government—there would be grave conflicts in the Reichstag. Furthermore, Hintze foresaw continuing

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resentment from the local populations, harmful to the Reich’s position. Thus personal union would find opposition in the ranks of the majority parties and lead to highly undesirable debates, endangering the maintenance of unity, and would probably also be rejected. The sort of domestic crisis that would thereby arise must be avoided at all costs in view of the current war situation. Even if it were possible to get a majority for the bill, through prior soundings with party leaders, future parliamentary difficulties would be in no way overcome. Rather, in the event of personal union it would be impossible to prevent debates on the internal situation of the new territories in the Reichstag and the Prussian parliament; as well as a Poland debate the government would then regularly have to survive Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian debates.23 By a supreme irony, therefore, the future of the territories detached from mother Russia ultimately came to rest on the outcome of the constitutional struggle within the German Empire. This in turn was determined primarily by the dramatic German military reversals in the West in 1918. As a result of defeat on the western front the OHL was finally driven to request an armistice from the Allied powers. The rapid fall from grace thereafter of both Hindenburg and Ludendorff opened the way for the first German government directly responsible to the Reichstag. It was this unexpected reversal, and the ensuing proclamations of Baltic independence, that finally precipitated a frantic re-assessment of German Ostpolitik within the Reich’s political circles and sparked a search for solutions other than those based on permanent German occupation. The only way forward now was for the German government to try to build friendly relations with the peoples in the Baltic and Central Eastern Europe as quickly as possible in the interests of securing lasting influence in a strategically vital region.24 One thing was indisputable: the actual experience of fighting the war in the East, with its successes, failures and personal discoveries, left its mark on countless numbers of ordinary Germans in the front line, many of whom were very soon to return to the arena as volunteers in the extraordinary Baltic campaign of 1919. Significantly these men were drawn back to the battle lines on the promise of gaining settlement land in the region. It is far from fanciful to suggest that this activity was one tangible sign that, regardless of what happened in government and irrespective of the new democracy in Germany, the notion of living space in the East had undoubtedly secured a foothold in the popular imagination.

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NOTES 1. 2. 3. 4.

5.

6.

7. 8. 9. 10.

11.

12.

13. 14. 15.

16.

Paul Rohrbach, ‘Ostland,’ Revaler Bote 31.2.1926. H. Böhme, ed., The foundations of the German Empire. Select Documents (Oxford: OUP, 1971), p. 119. ibid, pp. 13–4. Cf ‘Catherine the Great’s Manifesto of 22 July 1763’ in F.C. Koch, The Volga Germans in Russia and the Americas from 1763 to the present (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Press, 1977), pp. 12–7. R.W. Tims, Germanising Prussian Poland. The H-K-T Society and the struggle for the eastern marches in the German Empire, 1894– 1919 (New York: Columbia UP, 1941), p. 182. For a critical discussion of Sammlungspolitik see G. Eley, From unification to Nazism. Reinterpreting the German past (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1986), pp. 110ff. Cf J. Elvert, Mitteleuropa. Deutsche Pläne zur europäischen Neuordnung 1818–1945 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1999), pp. 23f. Quoted in Tims, Germanising Prussian Poland, p. 247. K. Meyer, Theodor Schiemann als politischer Publizist (Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg: RtRten & Loening, 1956), pp. 88ff. K. Renner, State and Nation, reprinted in E. Nimni, ed., National Cultural Autonomy and its Critics, (London-New York: Routledge, 2005), p. 24. Cf remarks of N. Ferguson, Paper and iron. Hamburg business and German politics in the era of inflation, 1897–1927 (Cambridge: CUP, 1995), pp. 136-7. For a study of how identity developed in Germany at this time, see P. Fritzsche, Germans into Nazis (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1999), particularly the chapter ‘July 1914’. Reproduced in G. Mai, Das Ende des Kaiserreichs. Politik und Kriegführung im Ersten Weltkrieg (Munich: DTV, 1987), pp. 207–8. P. Schiemann, Zwischen zwei Zeitaltern. Erinnerungen 1903–1919 (Lüneburg: Nordland-Druck, 1979), pp. 129–30 V.G. Liulevicius, Warland on the Eastern Front. Culture, national identity and German occupation in World War I (Cambridge: CUP, 2000), pp. 247 f. R. Wittram, ‘Die baltische Frage als Problem der russischen provisorischen Regierung.’ In J. von Hehn, H von Rimscha and Hellmuth Weiss, eds., Von den baltischen Provinzen zu den baltischen Staaten. Beiträge zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Republiken Estland und Lettland 1917–1918 (Marburg/Lahn: Herder Institut, 1971), pp. 69–96.

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17. K.Epstein, Matthias Erzberger and the dilemma of German democracy (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1959), pp. 108ff. 18. Text of treaty in J.A.S. Grenville, ed., The major international treaties 1914–73 (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 34–6. 19. H.-E. Volkmann, Die deutsche Baltikumpolitik zwischen BrestLitovsk und Compiegne (Cologne-Vienna: Bohlau, 1970), p. 7. 20. Grenville, International treaties, p. 37. 21. W. Baumgart, Deutsche Ostpolitik 1918.Von Brest-Litovsk bis zum Ende des ersten Weltkrieges (Vienna–Munich: Oldenburg, 1966), p. 68 22. H. Rolnik, Die baltischen Staaten Litauen, Lettland und Estland und ihre Verfassungsrecht (Leipzig: R.Noske, 1928), pp. 25–6. See also B. Mann, Die baltischen Länder in der deutschen Kriegszielpublizistik, 1914–1918 (Tübingen: Tübinger Studien zur Geschichte, 1965), pp. 71–8. 23. Memorandum in Volkmann, Die deutsche Baltikumpolitik, 1970, pp. 240–1. 24. See J. Hiden, The Baltic States and Weimar Ostpolitik (Cambridge: CUP, 1987), pp. 9ff.

Chapter two Peaceful coexistence Tantalising glimpses during 1918 of what might have been, made it even more difficult for the Wilhelmine élites to accept the prospect of actually losing territory, let alone having the German economy put under foreign constraints by the peace makers at Versailles. This was of little concern to the Allied Powers. In western capitals German complaints about a ‘dictated peace’ in 1919 met hostile references to what the Kaiser had planned at Brest-Litovsk during the previous year. The expectations once attached to that settlement by the German military appeared to be well and truly buried. Brest-Litovsk was rejected not only by the Allied Powers but also by the Bolshevik regime in Moscow. On the other hand, the peace settlement reached between 1918 and 1921 left the future relationship of Germany to Eastern Europe and Russia still very much an open question. Not only were the Bolsheviks excluded from the negotiations at Versailles but the West had no clear picture as yet about the territorial extent of any future Russia. The combination of circumstances placed serious question marks over the eventual borders in the East and therefore left opportunities for even a defeated Germany to try to capitalise on the fluid situation beyond its frontiers. No German government could now aspire to control the new states making their bid for independence at the end of the war, yet the prospects for securing German influence were very far from dim. That was true above all in the economic sphere. Notwithstanding the serious setbacks to the German economy as a result of the disruption of war and the ensuing peace terms, considerable potential remained. German minorities, historically vital intermediaries of German trade, had lost their former élite standing in newly independent states but most of them were nevertheless still in situ; the removal of former markets and resources from the control of Russia and Austria-Hungary promised fresh opportunities for German enterprise. As a result, exciting business prospects were anticipated from trade with the East.1 Even though the former Russian Empire had collapsed into Bolshevism its new rulers retained a desperate need of economic ties with western capitalism, at least until the distant utopia of world revolution had been reached. In this respect it has long been recognized that ‘peaceful coexistence’—as far as the Bolshevik leaders were concerned—was emphatically a transitional phase. What is far less widely appreciated is that many German business interests heartily reciprocated this sentiment, although they dreamt of an outcome very different to that anticipated by Lenin. Behind German entrepreneurs lurked a host of other groups and personalities who looked towards exploiting what appeared to be bottomless new markets in the ‘wild

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East’. One British diplomat aptly observed at the time that although Rhineland businessmen were looking westwards ‘the rest of Germany is looking East.’2 Furthermore, there was an obvious link between european security and Russia’s renewal, a point that struck the Baltic German politician and businessman from Estonia, Ewald Ammende, as absolutely crucial. Relieving the Russian people of starvation, he argued, should form the basis for a co-operation of the nations of our Continent to awaken the european sense of solidarity. It is the duty of the european nations as the first ones to begin the relief work for Russia.… Russia must be helped by a relief action of an entirely philanthropic nature in order to save twenty millions people dying from hunger at the Volga…. The re-establishment of Russia is at present the greatest problem for the world; it only can be solved if the european states unite for co-operation and together with the New World begin to supply and to build up Russia. Without the Russian market, Europe also cannot recover…. Russia should be helped not only to make a human existence possible for the millions of Russians, but to replace the economy of Europe as well as of the whole world back upon a firm foundation.3 German engagement with Russia was imperative and no less a figure than future Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau had indicated as early as the beginning of 1920 that, although Germany was pledged by the peace terms to accept future Allied political arrangements for the territories of the former Russian Empire, there was nothing in the peace agreements themselves expressly forbidding Germany from opening economic exchanges with governments in the East. The ‘power of economic facts’—to use the words of the director of the Eastern Department of the German Foreign Office, Ago von Maltzan—was expected to offset the ill will towards the Reich after the war, in doing so helping it restore Germany’s standing in Eastern Central Europe.4 Clearly, it was neither easy nor desirable for many in Germany to separate business considerations from political and strategic concerns. Unfortunately, Ammende’s more progressive vision was lacking among those Reichswehr officers involved in negotiating the earliest concessions for Germany inside the Soviet economic system. Military leaders had initially hoped to exploit an unexpected opportunity offered by the armistice concluded on 11 November 1918. Faced with the advance of the Red Army towards Poland and the Baltic republics, and unable to put their own troops into the fighting arena, the Allied Powers stipulated in the armistice that German forces hold the lines in the East until the future of former Russian territories could be determined. Only on that basis, and significantly after the German recruitment agency held out the prospect of settlement land, was Berlin able to implement the armistice terms.5 The recruitment drive ensured

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the replacement of the demoralised regular forces by fresh volunteers for the Baltic, who duly supplemented the ranks of the Landeswehr, an organization set up by Baltic Germans to defend themselves and the Baltic provinces against the Red Army at the end of 1918. The presence of a growing number of German troops in the region, coupled with the approach of the Soviets towards the Reich’s borders during the course of the Soviet-Polish war of 1920, brought nearer the prospect of a common border with Russia once more. The German Army High Command were inevitably tempted by the prospect of a Russia, not party to the peace treaties, indirectly helping Germany to overturn the settlement in the East, above all that with the new Polish state. Certainly, General Rüdiger von der Goltz, who headed the motley force of Reich German and Baltic German fighters during the Baltic campaign in 1919, was driven by the desire to secure a Baltic bridge to what he still fervently hoped would be a restored White Russia. He seemed indifferent to the fact that this would frustrate native Baltic aspirations to independence.6 Others, like General Hans von Seeckt, head of the Reichswehr, eventually bowed to the realities of the era and were prepared if need be to enter for the time being a marriage of convenience with a Soviet government.7 To repeat: peaceful coexistence became as essential to the cause of German nationalists as it was to Lenin’s regime, despite the fact that both camps nursed ill intent towards each other in the long term. Technically, General von der Goltz could claim not to be directly responsible for the putsch against the legitimate government of Latvia under Karlis Ulmanis on 16 April 1919 and its replacement with a German puppet, Andreas Needra. In fact the unclear chains of command between Reich German and Baltic German fighting units make it difficult to accept his pleas at face value.8 Nevertheless, the coup alerted the western powers to the dangers of allowing Germany’s Baltic campaign to continue unchecked.9 With this realisation the hopes for new German settlements in the region were ultimately doomed. The changed situation was neatly underlined when a combined Latvian-Estonian force halted the German advance beyond Riga and, on 4 July 1919, imposed the ýesis armistice. Under its terms the Landswehr was transferred as an independent unit to the command of the Englishman, Colonel Alexander, and the Reich German troops in the Baltic were exposed to renewed pressure to evacuate the region. The priority of the Allied Powers was to pursue the struggle against the Red Army, although it took many more months before the last of the disgruntled Reich German freikorps pulled out of the Baltic area in December 1919.10 In retrospect it is hardly surprising that the German government was tempted to exploit the extension of a German military presence in the East after the armistice; western prevarication over recognizing Soviet Russia offered opportunities that German leaders could hardly refuse. However, from the outset the government in Berlin was aware that in the last resort

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outright defiance of the Allied Powers was not a viable option.11 This did not mean that no action at all could be taken, not least in so far as the West as a whole anticipated expanding trade and business with Russia. German officials therefore continued to try to regularise relations with Moscow, initially under the guise of agreements to return prisoners of war. Moreover, while all european powers were pursuing, as it were, a commercial Drang nach Osten in the immediate post-war years, the German drive turned out to be more effective. One reason for this was Germany’s historic experience of and ties with the region, as well as the active encouragement given by the German government to the country’s entrepreneurs to explore new markets in the East. A lead article in June 1921 in the Estonian paper, Tallinna Teataja rightly observed: ‘Germandom is being organized in the Baltic countries and German big business directed here.’12 Berlin could hardly be criticised for doing its utmost not to be left behind in enlarging trade with the Russia of the future. The difficulty was that under prevailing circumstances any German initiative in the East was likely to be met with profound suspicion by the Allied Powers. Doubts on that score were promptly settled by the hostile reaction in Paris and London to the unexpected signature of the German-Soviet Treaty of Rapallo on 16 April 1922. On one level western unease was unwarranted, in so far as the treaty represented a normalisation of economic and political relations between the two countries involved, although the agreement undeniably gave Germany major advantages in the economic race for Russia. In truth, the shocked western reaction to the announcement of the treaty during the World Economic Conference at Genoa partly reflected the fact that it was the first major international agreement between capitalism and communism, let alone that a defeated Germany had taken the lead in recognizing the Soviet state. Reichswehr Chief Seeckt’s reason for treating Rapallo as the first significant strengthening of Germany’s international position is revealing. ‘It is because one suspects that there is more behind it than is actually the case.’ Indeed, France and Poland in particular worried that the relationship hid a secret military agreement directed against the Versailles conditions. ‘Is it,’ Seeckt went on to ask, ‘in our interests to counter this feeble rumour?’13 Ultimately, however, differences between the interests of Germany and Russia in Central Eastern Europe hardly permitted a partnership directed against the West. What Soviet-German secret military collaboration did take place during the 1920s was undeniably useful to a militarily crippled Germany in gaining experience of newer technology on Russian soil. However, it had a limited impact on Germany’s overall defence capability, which was closely monitored under the Versailles terms. True, there was much talk, in political and not just military circles, about pushing Poland back to its ethnic frontiers with the aid of the Soviet Union, but none of the political leaders in the Weimar Republic saw this as feasible in anything other than a distant future. The plain fact was that after 1919 economics

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dictated a re-integration of Germany into the world economy and that would have been quite impossible without British, French and above all American good will. The policy of ‘fulfilment’ of the peace terms, associated with men like Chancellor Josef Wirth and above all Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann, was predicated on this underlying reality. Tellingly, the German Foreign Office insisted of the non-aggression agreement with the Soviet Union in 1926 that it was ‘only conceivable on the basis created by Locarno and [Germany’s] entry to the League of Nations.’14 The extent to which republican governments could hope to reintegrate Germany into the international system after the First World War could hardly be separated from the question of the eight million Germans now living as minorities in Eastern Central Europe. These, rather than the Soviet Union, became the focus of attention within the Eastern Department of the German Foreign Office from the time of the Locarno treaties of 1925. For Germans abroad (Auslandsdeutschen), outright opposition to their host countries could only have brought more repression and isolation. It would also have intensified european anxiety about German minorities being used as possible fifth columns by a weakened Reich. At the same time, German political leaders—like those of any european government—could not simply ignore the plight of their co-nationals abroad, not least since the recovery of German trade was partly dependent on the future economic health of the Auslandsdeutschen.15 Self-sufficient German minorities, properly integrated into the new host countries of Eastern Central Europe, were potentially valuable intermediaries for German trade. Conversely, German commercial treaties with the new east european states could indirectly help German minorities recover, particularly since under the terms of the peace settlement Berlin could only directly represent its own (Reich German) citizens. What limited support the Weimar Republic could give to ethnic Germans abroad therefore concentrated on preserving their cultural and educational integrity. eastern european governments could hardly protest against this, given that they had signed minority protection treaties drawn up under the aegis of the League of Nations. In sum, providing help towards self-help was the immediate priority in Berlin as far as the Auslandsdeutschen were concerned. The minorities ought not, in their economic struggle, to bank on material aid from Germany: Minorities must be able to lead an independent economic existence. Conditions will vary, inevitably, in each state, according to whether the [German] minority is made up of farmers, landlords, industrial labour or the middle classes…. In each case the effort must be made to bind the German minority to the land. The attempt must be made to ensure that when making new trade treaties the large German minorities are called on by Germany to give advice, so that the self-

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John Hiden and Martyn Housden help of the Grenz- und Auslandsdeutsche will be given strong backing through such treaties.16

However, by effectively including the Auslandsdeutschen in its attempt to define its role in the new Europe, Germany embarked on a path that could not be politically neutral. While republican statesmen could contend with some justice that they were not simply supporting the Auslandsdeutschen in the cause of revising the territorial settlement, that manifestly could not be said of German military and nationalist forces. While it would be misleading to see an unbroken chain linking the subsidies to the Auslandsdeutschen during the 1920s to the mobilisation of German minorities as fifth columns by Hitler’s government in the 1930s, nevertheless, the nationalist German right continued to think of the eight million Germans abroad as outriders for a future greater Germany.17 One of the obvious consequences of this mindset was that it encouraged indifference to the new states of Eastern Central Europe, where after all German minorities had to survive and work as best they could. In the embittered nationalist circles, a growing focus on the Volk helped to compensate for a profound anger at the truncation of pre-war Germany, and above all the loss of territories to Poland. Significantly, the Deutsche Stiftung, set up to oversee the distribution of financial aid for the support and welfare of the Auslandsdeutschen, evolved from the semi-official Eastern Committee, itself originally formed in 1919 to protect German interests in the lost Polish lands. As a result, many of the personalities and officials involved with the Deutsche Stiftung had cut their political teeth in the eastern border zones of the Reich.18 These Grenzlandpolitiker (border politicians) and émigr és from the Baltic, like Max-Hildebert Boehm, were also implicated with other nationalist and right wing elements in founding the June Club—a name pointedly expressing revulsion against the signature of the Versailles Treaty on 28 June 1919.19 Ostensibly looking to restore the German borders of 1914, their world view in reality was already infected with pan-German convictions. June Club members often appeared to show little real understanding of the day-to-day needs of ethnic Germans long resident beyond the borders of the Reich. The new states in which these now found themselves were invariably, like the Empires from which they sprang, multi-national. In this milieu more than ever it was necessary to focus on securing a viable existence as a national minority, preserving cultural and linguistic identity as well as a sense of community. The priorities of the leaders of German minorities abroad in the painful post war period thus differed in important respects from those of Berlin activists in the June Club. Unlike the Grenzlandpolitiker (for instance representatives of the Sudeten Germans), many of the leaders of the Auslandsdeutschen in the field were concerned to secure european wide minority rights through the League of Nations and

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other new organizations. Tellingly, one of the most prominent of such figures, the Baltic German Paul Schiemann, insisted that minorities policy could never be conducted by border politicians, given their preoccupation with revising territorial frontiers. His hope was that through their involvement with Minderheitenpolitiker like himself they would eventually modify their expectations. 20 It has to be said, however, that the borderland activists were in a favoured position to mobilise immense political pressure on German governments, in so far as the wider German public already had an intense dislike of the peace settlement. It was refuelled among other things by the simmering resentment over the partition of Upper Silesia following the plebiscite of 1921. The vote left many Germans under Polish rule in the more prosperous part of the province. The ensuing conflict, particularly in education, over who was German and who was Polish, heightened the feeling of arbitrariness in the drawing of Germany’s borders. Conservative and nationalist politicians did their utmost to keep the grievance before the public eye. Such pressures proved difficult to ignore, in so far as the prevailing electoral arithmetic of the Weimar political system made it desirable for governments to increase their support on the right. This was a major factor in Stresemann’s courageous initiative in 1925, in taking up the cause of German minorities on the international stage, notwithstanding the acutely difficult political challenges that any such step entailed. Political pressure from the German minorities’ lobby for a major German international initiative on minority rights had increased as the date for German entry to the League of Nations drew nearer. In the process leading German minority advocates fed ideas and suggestions into a growing public debate on minority rights, which reached a climax in the autumn of 1924 in Berlin, about the whole minorities problem.21 One important lobbyist was the international lawyer and General Secretary to the Verband der deutschen Minderheiten in Europa (see chapter 3), formed in 1922, Carl Georg Bruns. His memorandum of 28 October 1924 clearly influenced Stresemann’s decision making. Bruns drew Stresemann’s attention to a planned social evening that would introduce German minority leaders abroad to leading German parliamentarians and other officials. This was vital since such figures often: completely overlooked that the German Reich possesses in the eleven German minority fractions in East Europe a free, valuable source of information, which in the absence of closer leadership is virtually unused. Close co-operation with the minorities will also ensure that Germany, when it one day joins the League, will not be put in an embarrassing situation through unintelligent, disruptive actions of individual minorities. Once the minorities see some understanding of their position, they will also be ready to show corresponding

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John Hiden and Martyn Housden appreciation of Germany’s situation. A good outcome of the social on 3 November and other events planned at this time can end the ill feeling exacerbated by years of misunderstandings and lay the foundation for a reasoned co-operation that is in all our interests. I believe therefore, that it must already be of concern to the German Foreign Minister personally and seriously to interest himself in our cause.22

2.1 Carl Georg Bruns, 1890–1931 Central to the lobbying coming from Verband circles was the concept of cultural autonomy. The idea itself was not entirely new, having been discussed at length before the First World War by Jewish theorists from the Russian Empire such as Vladimer Medem and Simon Dubnow.23 More notable still, however, were the Austro-Hungarian voices of Karl Renner and Otto Bauer. As we saw, they were motivated by a concern that the struggle for national survival by the different minorities in the Dual Monarchy hindered the spread of socialism. At the same time, personal autonomy, not tied to territory, offered an expression of national identity that did not threaten the overall integrity of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. In this context, Renner and Bauer conceived of minorities as public corporations, formed exclusively for cultural and educational purposes but coexisting with

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the majority peoples in a shared territory.24 The underlying rationale of such thinking was that all citizens, minority and majority alike, were necessarily interested in the well being and survival of the lands they jointly occupied. To Renner and Bauer there could be therefore no threat to the state as such from the doctrine of personal cultural autonomy; indeed, the state would be strengthened by giving all citizens a greater stake in its survival, ensuring their loyalty. The concept certainly informed Stresemann’s memorandum, drawn up at the beginning of 1925: The foreign policy imperative for a regulation of minorities’ rights within the Reich corresponding to the needs of German minorities in Europe. The document specifically excluded Germans living overseas and focused on the German minorities in Europe, ‘distributed among more or less compact settlements in almost all of the states of the european continent.’ The memorandum went on: The political, cultural and economic value for the Reich of preserving these minorities and their German frame of mind is self-evident. Politically, they serve, as participants in the politics of a foreign state, to influence the policy of that state in a way beneficial for Germany. Culturally, they serve as born mediators for the spreading and understanding of German culture and ideals in their host nation. Economically, they can not only be in themselves markets for German industrial products and suppliers of raw materials essential to Germany, but at the same time valuable footholds for promoting the German economy abroad. The importance that they have for the Reich will be significantly increased through the fact that the geographical situation of the most important groups of Germans in Europe–on the borders of the Reich, along the Baltic coast and in the Danube basin– coincides with the areas of Europe where the vital issues of German policy and the economy must be decided. Critics of Stresemann’s policy have pointed out that this memorandum not only specifically highlighted the plight of the Polish Corridor and Upper Silesia in his memorandum, but even spoke of the distant goal of ‘creating a state whose political borders embrace all German groups inhabiting the compact German settlement area in Mitteleuropa who wish to be part of the Reich.’ Stresemann seems to have had in mind not only the areas adjacent to Germany, including the Sudetenland, which had never been part of the German Reich, but also along the Baltic coast and the Danube basin. Certainly, in his view these ‘coincided with areas of Europe where political and economic issues vital to Germany must be decided.’

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2.2 Gustav Stresemann, 1878–1929 What nationalist and rightist circles chose to overlook in these words was the strong note of realism, as well as morality, struck by Stresemann’s qualifying remarks. He made perfectly clear in his text that the use of force by Germany was out of the question in view of the prevailing european power balance. Moreover, Germany was not in a position to give adequate material support to all its minorities under the financial constraints of the Versailles settlement. The only feasible route was to help German minorities to preserve their culture and national identity: There is unanimity among all German minorities in Europe, that in the long run preserving their German character is guaranteed only where the care of German culture and conviction is placed in their own hands by the majority people. German schools, in which children are educated by German teachers, not only in German but in a German spirit, are everywhere seen as the indispensable condition for a lasting retention of their Germanity. This necessity of life for German minorities is in such flagrant opposition to the still dominant trend among majority peoples towards a national unitary state, that reaching our goal only seems possible if this trend can be broken, if world opinion can successfully be won over to the principle that a claim to

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cultural autonomy is a natural right of every minority—wholly independent of all political considerations and doubts—the withholding of which cannot be excused and is equivalent to suppression. Significantly, there was also an implicit warning against nationalist hopes of appropriating the doctrine of cultural autonomy as a way of promoting the separateness of the Auslandsdeutschen purely in the interests of later territorial revision in the East. As Stresemann said: in any case for any action by the Reich in this sphere, the indispensable precondition of success is to exclude any prospect of being accused of demanding rights for German minorities in Europe that the Reich denies foreign nationals inside its own borders. From this arises a compelling need; that all the basic rights—as well as their recognition at international law and their enforced implementation, also against opposition from the majority people in the German Reich—that Germany must represent before the World, and perhaps very soon strive for in the League of Nations, in order to ensure the necessary cultural freedom for the German minorities in Europe to retain their Germanness, must without exception and in a form beyond all doubt, be guaranteed for those minorities living within the Reich’s borders.25 The ‘great task’ that Stresemann identified with these words for the Weimar Republic was certainly not without risk for his overall foreign policy objective, namely to restore Germany’s standing in Europe in a peaceful manner. After all, other powers, notably Poland and its mentor France, could hardly fail to be deeply suspicious of the idea of cultural autonomy as promoted by Germany, the country with the biggest overall number of conationals abroad. Opponents of cultural autonomy indeed argued that only relatively strong and well-organized minorities—such as the Auslandsdeutschen—would be in a position fully to implement the doctrine. Certainly, pressures coming from the Verband to internationalise the concept of cultural autonomy played a crucial role in the process leading to the founding of the European Nationalities Congress in 1925. 26 If this broader european perspective is given full weight then the 1925 memorandum from Stresemann looks rather more than merely the ‘birth certificate of the Weimar Republic’s minorities’ policy.’27 The ultimate success of his strategy depended not only on Germany entering the League of Nations but also on moulding that organization’s overall minority protection policy. This did not seem wholly unrealistic. Many observers were critical that the thrust of existing League minorities protection arrangements reflected the priority given by the great powers to security. The implication was that

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the continent would only become a safer place if minorities were assimilated to the majority nations. Cultural autonomy, however, was expressly directed against assimilation, seeking to offer minorities a way of having more control over their own destiny within their host states but without threatening those states in any way. In short, the German initiative was designed to make minorities subjects rather than objects of international policy, by embedding minority rights in european wide statutory legislation. This appeared to offer an escape from the all too often Delphic workings of the League mechanism for dealing with minority petitions.28Among other things League procedures tacitly assumed that minority ‘rights’ were somehow in the gift of individual states—and therefore, in the eyes of minority activists, just as liable to be circumvented, abused or even withdrawn at will. From this perspective there was nothing intrinsically sinister about Germany’s foreign policy and minorities’ policy moving in parallel, particularly since there were so many Germans living abroad as minorities. The obvious point that no government could ignore its minorities is still insufficiently emphasised in the existing studies of Berlin’s subsidies to the Auslandsdeutschen. Moreover, since the amounts available for this purpose were small on a per capita basis, the onus remained on the different German minority groups to sustain themselves as far as possible in their host countries. To be successful that demanded collaboration, as noted earlier, between minority and majority peoples. Since this also offered the best prospects for peaceful German economic development, support for cultural autonomy was in fact wholly consistent with if not integral to Stresemann’s approach to re-negotiating Germany’s position in Europe. The fact remains that Germany’s enemies retained a very different perspective. Poland in particular, encouraged by France, viewed the German involvement in League minorities’ policy with deep concern. Thus the Polish influenced Association of Minorities in Germany conducted a campaign through its journal, Kulturwehr, to discredit cultural autonomy as an instrument of German foreign policy.29 Even though Poland’s own treatment of minorities could be less than admirable, the arguments deployed in the Kulturwehr had undoubted appeal to those who felt that only strong, wellorganized and sometimes formerly élite minority groups were likely to profit from cultural autonomy. On the other hand, it is impossible to dismiss the genuine convictions of many German and other european minority leaders engaged in the Nationalities Congress, who profoundly believed that cultural autonomy was the only alternative to european decline through nationality conflicts. Furthermore, the leading exponents of cultural autonomy were convinced that its successful implementation could only go hand in hand with the movement towards european unity. For the time being, the hopes of activists in the Nationalities Congress were also riding on a successful bid by Stresemann to reform the procedures of the League of Nations for protecting minorities.30 This seemed a distinct

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possibility after the League Council meeting at Lugano in 1928, which commissioned a report on those procedures. Sadly, when the report duly appeared in 1929, it effectively rejected the German case for reform. That is to say it refused to set up a permanent minorities’ commission of the League of Nations. Nor did it give any real encouragement to hopes of feeding into the process of reform the expertise on minority rights accumulated by private minorities’ organizations, including of course the Nationalities Congress. Continuing fears about minorities forming ‘states within states’ persuaded the big powers to cling to the existing League mechanism, although promising minor modifications to the appeals process. The brute fact remained that minority rights were still not enshrined in international law; the fate of individual minorities continued to depend on the interplay between state governments. In finally bowing to peer pressure abroad in 1929, shortly before his death, Stresemann could at least make clear to nationalists at home that he had done what he could. These circles were resolutely unconvinced. When they talked of cultural autonomy they continued to think primarily not of its value in promoting co-operation between nationality groups, but rather its use in maintaining distinct identities. In the hands of German nationalists, then, such culturally distinct German groups abroad were viewed crassly as potential components of a future pan-Germany—a German nation transcending the ‘artificial’ barriers imposed by the Versailles treaty. Symptomatically, under pressure from Grenzlandpolitiker above all, the Verband der deutschen Minderheiten had become in 1928 the Verband der deutschen Volksgruppen. The shift from emphasising Minderheit to Volksgruppe threatened the peaceful coexistence of Europe’s nationalities and ultimately made Stresemann’s task impossible. It has rightly been said that he could never take his campaign against the minorities’ policy of the League of Nations beyond the point where it threatened his overall vision of european understanding (Verständigung).31 For Stresemann, nothing could be allowed to dent confidence in Germany’s peaceful intentions. It is clear from his last speeches, however, that he too was personally convinced that a progressive cultural autonomy offered the only hope for Europe’s minorities. His early death in 1929 was therefore a huge setback to the cause of moderate minority leaders like Paul Schiemann and like-minded delegates at the Nationalities Congress. By the close of the 1920s the Congress was increasingly infected by the emerging conflict within the German minorities’ camp.

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NOTES 1.

2. 3. 4.

5. 6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11. 12.

13. 14.

See the pamphlet by an official in the German Ministry of Economics, H. F. Crohn-Wolfgang, Lettlands Bedeutung für die östliche Frage (Berlin and Leipzig: de Gruyter, 1923). E.L. Woodward, R. Butler, eds., Documents on British Foreign Policy, Series 1, Volume 3 (London: HMSO, 1947), p. 227. Ewald Ammende, Europe and Soviet Russia (Riga: Ruetz and Co., 1921), pp. 6–7. Memo of 30.1.1920. Auswärtiges Amt, Akten betreffend Wiederaufnahme des Warenaustausches. Frieden II. Wirtschaftliches, Baltenland. Federal archives, Germany. A. Winnig, Heimkehr (Berlin: Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, 1935), pp.90–1. W. von Blücher, Deutschlands Weg nach Rapallo (Wiesbaden: Limes, 1951), pp. 73–4; R. von der Goltz, Meine Sendung in Finnland und im Baltikum (Leipzig: Koehler, 1920), pp. 134ff For Seeckt’s assessment of German-Russian interests in the border states, after the First World War see F. L. Reichswehr und Politik (Cologne-Berlin: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1965), p. 155. Cf K.-H. Janssen, ‘Die baltische Okkupationspolitik des deutschen Reiches’ in H. von Rimscha and H.Weiss, eds., Von den baltischen Provinzen zu den baltischen Staaten (Marburg/Lahn: Herder Institut, 1977), pp. 248–9. H. de la Poer Gough, Soldiering On (London: Arthur Barker, 1954), p. 191. Cf memorandum of 20.8.1919 on Gough’s mission. Public Record Office (PRO) CAB 24/88. On the reluctance of troops to pull out see H. Dirksen, Moskau, Tokio, London (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1949), pp.30–5. See also the report of Major Stülpnagel on the mutiny of the Reich German Iron Division in late August 1919. Bundsearchiv Koblenz (BAK) Depot Stülpnagel. Briefwechsel der Sp.Gen. d.Inf. Joachim von Stülpnagel in Kolberg und Hannover. HO 8 5/8. Blücher, Deutschlands Weg nach Rapallo, p. 74 Cited in Auswärtiges Amt Akten betreffend politische Beziehungen Deutschland zu Estland, vol 1. London Foreign Office Film (FCO) K2325/K66208. Seeckt to Hasse, 17.5.1922. F. von Rabenau, Seeckt—Aus seinem Leben 1918–1936 (Leipzig: Hase & Koehler, 1940), p.313. Akten zur deutschen Auswärtigen Politik 1918–1945(ADAP), Series B, 1925-1933, Vol 1 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966), p. 162

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15. In general, J. Hiden, ‘The Weimar Republic and the problem of the Auslandsdeutsche,’ Journal of Contemporary History, 12 (1977), pp. 273–9. 16. ‘Das Vereinsleben. Mitteilungsblatt des Deutschen Schutzbundes.’ Report to Auswärtiges Amt of 30.3.1921. BAK Reichskanzlei, Akten betreffend Auslandsdeutschtum. R431/545. 17. Contrary for example to the implication of N. Krekeler, Revisionsanspruch und geheime Ostpolitik der Weimarer Republik. Die Subventionierung der deutschen Minderheit in Polen (Stuttgart: Schriftenreihe VfZ, 1973). 18. B. Schot, Nation oder Staat? Deutschland und der Minderheitenschutz (Marburg/Lahn: Herder Institut, 1988), pp.86ff. 19. There is a lengthy extract of Max-Hildebert Boehm’s ‘Ruf der Jungen,’ written in 1919, in Baltische Montatshefte (1933), pp. 674– 9, under the title ‘Zur Geschichte der deutschen Erneurungsbewegung.’ 20. P. Schiemann, ‘Grenzlandpolitik und Minderheitenpolitik,’ Der Christliche Ständestaat. Oesterreichische Wochenblatt, 26.9.1937. 21. See memorandum sent by Bruns to State Secretary Bracht , Auswärtiges Amt, on 28 October 1924. Reichskanzlei Akten betreffend Auslandsdeutschtum. Auswärtige Angelegenheiten 6, Vol 4, 1 Oct 1922–31 Sept 1925. Institute für Zeitgeschichte, Munich. MA 148. 22. Memorandum of Carl Georg Bruns, 28.10.1924, to State Secretary in the Reichskanzlei. Akten betreffend Auslandsdeutschtum. Ausw Angelegenheiten, 6. Vol 4, 1 Oct 1922–31 Sept 1925. Microfilm in Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich. MA 148. D699225–9. 23. Y. Plasseraud, Les États Baltiques des Sociétés Gigognes (Brest: Armeline, 2006), pp. 90–98, 125–6. 24. Karl Renner’s seminal essay Staat und Nation has recently been translated into English in E. Nimni, ed., National Cultural autonomy and its contemporary critics (London and New York: Routledge, 2005), pp. 15–47. 25. Cf. Schot, Nation oder Staat? pp. 288–92. 26. See M. Garleff, ‘Baltische Minderheitenvertreter auf den Europäischen Nationalitätenkongressen, 1925–38,’ Jahrbuch des baltischen Deutschtums (1986), pp. 117–31. 27. Schot, Nation oder Staat p. 146. 28. For a comprehensive recent discussion of minorities and the League see M. Scheuermann, Minderheitenschutz contra Konfliktverhütung. Die Minderheitenpolitik des Völkerbundes in den zwansiger Jahren (Marburg/Lahn: Herder Institut, 2000).

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29. P. Schiemann, ‘Die Spaltung im Nationalitätenkongress,’ Nation und Staat (1927/28), 3, pp. 158–70. Cf with M. Rotbarth, ‘Kontroversen im Europäischen Minderheitenkongress,’ Studien zur Geschichte der deutsch-polnischen Beziehungen, 3. Rostock (1980), pp. 49–62. 30. E. Ammende, ‘Genf und die Nationalitäten,’ Nation und Staat (1933), 2, pp. 76ff. 31. Schot, Nation oder Staat, p. 241.

Chapter three Living communities In the history of all imperial systems one colonised area invariably figures more prominently than others and leaves its mark on policy. For Britain, India was central to the myths of empire—with all the attractions and burdens this brought with it. In Germany’s case the Baltic region exerted a particular attraction, not only for the rulers of the German Empire and its military leaders, but also for the popular and intellectual imaginations ever since the arrival in the twelfth century of the Teutonic Crusading Order. It was then that German influence in the Baltic provinces of Estonia, Livonia and Courland was first established. Even when other powerful foreign conquerors later took over the region, culminating with Peter the Great’s Russia, the Baltic German élites were allowed to continue governing the Baltic provinces autonomously on behalf of those rulers. Small wonder that Hitler’s take on Germany’s history also inclined him to view the Baltic, with its ‘thin upper crust of Germanhood’, as part of the foundation for a German ‘ascendancy over all the european nations.’1 In reality not all of those who had actually carried out the historic colonisation of the Baltic region fitted so comfortably into Hitler’s scheme. Indeed, even the Führer, like many Germans, including Bismarck, disparaged the social arrogance of the Baltic German landed ruling élites. Nor did these for the most part have any great desire before 1914 to be absorbed by the Reich. Secure on their vast landed estates, sustained at the expense of the Estonian and Latvian peoples, the Baltic Germans held sway administratively as well as culturally. Apart from the control exercised through the four knightly orders (Ritterschaften) of Courland, Estonia, Livonia and Oesel, German burghers dominated urban government and commerce. Baltic German service to the Russian Empire for long gave the Tsar no cause to interfere with their tradition of regional autonomy.2 Baltic German cultural hegemony was underpinned by the development of German education and schooling and, of course, through the alma mater of most prominent Baltic Germans, the University of Dorpat (Tartu).3 To the Baltic there came from the mid-18th century pastors, intellectuals and teachers from the Reich—the so-called Literaten. No less a figure than Johann Gottfried Herder taught for some years in the school attached to the great German cathedral, the Domschule. Beneath the nobility and Literaten there existed no real German peasant class; the invading knights brought no Germanic serfs with them, relying on the native Baltic peoples to service their estates. As to the German bourgeoisie that developed through the trading networks criss-crossing the Baltic sea and converging on the Baltic provinces from the mighty Russian Empire, these for long had little real social contact with Estonians and Latvians. What intermarriage there was

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invariably led to Germanisation of the Latvian or Estonian partner, although this of course contributed to the evolution of an identity that could be seen in important respects as regional. Moreover, some Literaten actively encouraged an Estonian and Latvian cultural renaissance. Ultimately this would be an important component in the so-called national awakening of those peoples in the second half of the 19th century. Willy Brandt, later Chancellor of West Germany, described Europe as ‘a living community of peoples and states.’ His remarks came from a very different era but they aptly conjure up the vibrancy of societies such as those along the shores of the Baltic. Admittedly conditions in that part of the world were not fully replicated among other German groups living in Central and Eastern Europe. Volga Germans, Germans living near the Crimea or in more sensitive areas of the Russian Empire, like those in the Polish borderlands, all had their respective traditions as communities and maintained their German culture. None of them, however, combined it with a central role in the political governance of a major foreign power. That eventually gave the Baltic German community a significance out of all proportion to its size. Yet this very reality made Baltic Germans vulnerable to any significant change in the relationship between their cultural motherland and their political masters, that is to say between Germany and Russia. Russification in the last quarter of the nineteenth century slowly began to erode the trust between the Ritterschaften and St Petersburg.4 Russification attacked not only Baltic German schooling but also the treasured University of Dorpat. Meanwhile Russian officials displaced Baltic Germans in the administration and judiciary, as well as in the municipal authorities.5 The process inevitably motivated the Baltic German community to forge better links with the new Germany created in 1871. Within two decades of the German Empire being proclaimed, a number of eminent Baltic German intellectuals had opted to move to the Reich. Among them was the well-known historian of Russia, Theodor Schiemann, who ultimately gained the Kaiser’s ear and thereafter systematically preached an anti-Russian cause.6 Educational ties also intensified as the beleaguered Baltic German leaders set up for the first time province-wide school associations (Schulvereine) and sought Reich subsidies more systematically. In addition, many Baltic German children and students were packed off to Germany by their parents for the sort of education that even liberal Baltic Germans believed could not be provided by Russian teachers. Conversely, a handful of Baltic German estate holders opened up opportunities for Reich Germans to settle on land allocated from their holdings—settlers later stigmatised by an independent Latvian government as ‘colonists.’ All of these varied contacts helped at last to heighten the mutual awareness of Baltic Germans and Reich Germans. The fact remains that most of the German élites in the Baltic provinces entertained no serious expectation of abandoning the Tsar and his Empire in

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favour of the new Germany. Although loyalties were profoundly shaken by the revolution of 1905 few expected the mighty Russian Empire to collapse. ‘Holding out’ to use the famous words of Carl Schirren’s Livonian Answer continued to seem the only feasible option for the Baltic Germans—short of abandoning their homeland. The alternative of encouraging liberal political reforms and engaging Estonians and Latvians more in the governance of their lands was raised by a few eloquent voices within the Baltic German community. Sadly, their calls went largely unheeded. Once the Russian government had restored order in the wake of 1905 and the Tsar had reined back on promises for reform of his Empire, it was possible for the Ritterschaften to rebuild their alliance with St Petersburg.7 There was, however, no disguising the fact that the partnership was now on a shakier basis than ever. Not the least of the challenges came from the national awakening of the majority Estonian and Latvian people. Their hostility towards the German ruling classes had been all too evident in their attacks against the great baronial estates during 1905.8 The subsequent brutal reprisals from the Baltic German side further poisoned relations between majority and minority peoples. At the same time the emergent Estonian and Latvian political leaders were at last beginning successfully to challenge German political control of the cities and towns. The first electoral victory for the Estonians came in 1903 in the Reval (Tallinn) city council. Needless to say, Baltic Germans experienced an inevitable heightening of their own national identity as a result of their beleaguered position. With the coming of the First World War, and above all the arrival of German occupying forces in the Baltic from 1915 onwards, the idea of embarking on the ‘road from Tsar to Kaiser’ became distinctly attractive to more Baltic Germans.9 It seemed also more achievable, albeit after the 1917 revolution in Russia lip service had to be paid to the doctrine of self-determination.10 Such considerations help to explain as we saw in the last chapter the ambivalent nature of the German-Soviet treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918. Given the constitutional impasse arising thereafter, the new order envisaged by Hindenburg, Ludendorff and their Baltic German allies ultimately came to depend on the continued application of military power, in other words wholesale Germanisation. That was the harsh reality behind this first practical attempt to forge a pan-Germany. The lesson was not lost on those Baltic Germans who later became influential National Socialists, like Ewald Scheubner-Richter and Alfred Rosenberg. Their solution hardly promised ‘living communities’ to put it mildly. They may have been exceptional cases among the many Baltic Germans who had left their homes before and during the First World War, but only a minority of such refugees were prepared to tolerate life in any future Estonian or Latvian national state. They were, in the words of a leading liberal Baltic German, ‘those who waited on the sidelines to see what would happen.’11

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That could even be said of the Baltic German élites remaining in the provinces under the protective hand of German occupation. What they saw as the decisive turn of fate for them only came with the military collapse of the German Reich and the proclamation in November 1918 of independent Baltic states, when immediate fears centred on the Bolshevik forces advancing from the East. Unlike the émigrés, those who stayed behind put their own lives at risk by forming military units—the Baltenregiment in Estonia and the Landeswehr in Latvia—to defend their homeland. This hardly disposed of their doubts about the viability of the provinces as independent states. The feeling was particularly strong among Germans living in Latvian territory, where the political atmosphere had always been more volatile, especially in Riga. The Baltenregiment was comparatively easily integrated with the embryonic Estonian defence forces. That such a route was more difficult to follow in Latvia, where the Landeswehr remained predominantly Baltic German, stiffened in due course by the presence of Reich German volunteers, was shown by the coup against the Ulmanis government in April 1919. Nevertheless, it was only a matter of time before the Allied Powers reasserted their authority. Once Germany had signed the peace treaty on 28 June 1919 an enforced withdrawal of its troops became inevitable. As these crossed the frontier back into the Reich at the close of 1919, the Baltic German élites had no choice other than belatedly and reluctantly to acknowledge the reality of a new life in a new state. Their old supremacy at an end, their continuing presence in Latvia had to be on the basis of being a national minority. The point was made graphically by the man virtually predestined to lead the Baltic German communities in the new parliamentary era, Paul Schiemann. Reviled by the conservative elites of the pre-war Baltic provinces, Schiemann had long insisted on the right of Latvians and Estonians to have a say in the running of their lands and became an advocate of Baltic independence before the war ended. Apart from his parliamentary work in Latvia he edited the liberal Rigasche Rundschau. In one of his earliest post-war editorials entitled ‘Away the faint-hearted’, he looked back to earlier times and to the optimistic response of the peasant leader Ulrich von Hutten in a period when mankind ‘felt the bedrock of the old time breaking below and could see no more than just the glimmer of a new light.’ Schiemann continued: Is not our time similar? Do we not feel with every fibre of our heart, that we are experiencing something more than the morning after traces of an unprecedented grisly and pointless war? Can we not hourly feel that in this time more has collapsed than mere throne and empire? An epoch of mankind, with all its history and tradition, has sunk before our eyes and to us comes the call, to create something new. Is it not a joy to live and to be able to help create? … Whoever dwells in the

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past will be calcified. Fruitless, to weep over lost values, which are perhaps no longer values. Foolish, whoever hopes through fleeing to escape the consequences of a new era. Our Balt society has become proletarianised. University professors sweep the streets and great barons live on charity. Yet our home calls all to work. Whoever helps build it up, will also find a place within it.12 Despite his efforts all too many Baltic Germans found it almost possible to perceive of themselves as a minority in the way Schiemann suggested. 13

3.1 Paul Schiemann, 1876–1944 The élites were especially bitter about being asked to draw a line under their past glories and forced to build a new existence in a democratic state. Moreover, their influence persisted within what remained an essentially deeply conservative Baltic German society. They were never of course completely reconciled to the loss of their huge estates. Nor were they happy about the shift in political power towards the Baltic German bourgeoisie, occasioned by the turn of fate in 1918 but long signalled by the demographic shift towards the cities and towns in the Baltic provinces.14 That process had

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increased the number of Baltic Germans arguing for reform and accommodation with the majority Baltic peoples. The essence of this position—and it applied to other German minorities left outside the Reich and Austria—was that rebuilding living communities would now have to depend on a given minority’s active involvement in new state building throughout Eastern Central Europe. In return minorities could call for toleration of their existence as a cultural community as well as equal treatment as citizens, with equal rights to employment in the new states. In other words, the watchword for German minorities had to be loyal cooperation with the host state. No other stance promised to do more to counteract the widespread distrust in Europe of all things German after the 1914–18 war. The fact that all German minorities shared this predicament to a greater or lesser extent also provided the first major impetus towards them concerting their efforts to survive, namely through creating a more organized relationship between their scattered settlements. In that respect, the First World War, which imposed on German minorities a common fate, has been described and with some justice as ‘the hour of birth’ of the Auslandsdeutschen.15 Could Baltic German and other German minorities live up to the challenge? The problem confronting Germans abroad was that almost any contact between them and Berlin was seen as a barely concealed attempt to extend Germany’s influence in eastern Europe, as an underhand way of preparing for the revision of the Reich’s new borders. This view has certainly been promoted by the bulk of historical writing on German minorities, where the complex organizational structures related to the Auslandsdeutschen, as well as their linkages to the Berlin bureaucracy, have been enthusiastically charted. The activity has invariably been seen, however, through the prism of the Third Reich, generating a conspiratorial air about the whole question of Germans abroad, with many accounts depicting them from the outset as subversive agents of German foreign policy.16 This is partly a result of insufficient attention being given to significant distinctions between the ideas and above all motives driving some of the key, though forgotten, figures in the world of German minorities. For example, there has been too little emphasis on the ways in which numerous German minority parliamentarians actively participated in the new democracies, taking a constructive part in coalition building in their states of residence and advancing policies for reconstruction. As before the war, so after, Germans occupied an important position in the economic life of their respective homelands.17 Notably, a major initiative of importance to all european minorities originated mainly from German inspired attempts to achieve cultural autonomy. Not for the first time, the Baltic area provided a model with the Latvian Schooling Law of 18 December 1919, giving autonomy to German and other minority schooling. The managements of the different minorities’s schools were to be:

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combined in a special Minorities Department in the Education Ministry. Management of the schools of each individual minority will be exercised by a special section of this department. [Moreover]... The Head of the Department for the schools of a minority represents his nation in all cultural matters, with the right of contact with all departments of the Education Ministry, as well as having an advisory role in cabinet meetings in all matters concerning the cultural life of the nation he represents.18 Even more remarkable was the Estonian government’s Law on Cultural Autonomy of 5 February 1925. The Cultural Autonomy Law allowed national minorities of over 3,000 people to organise independent of external government interference in order to run their own educational and cultural institutions. Specifically they could elect between 20 and 60 members to their

3.2 Revaler Bote, 6 February 1925. The Tallinn newspaper announces cultural autonomy. own cultural council which would sit in Tallinn. This would take the lead in matters such as the registration of the minority population, the organisation of its cultural life and of its educational system. Cultural autonomy even gave minorities some powers to raise taxes to help fund schooling in their mother tongue. The first German Cultural Council was opened on 1 November 1925 by Werner Hasselblatt. Estonia’s Jewish minority also pursued cultural autonomy and launched a similar body in July 1926.19

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Predictably enough, Baltic Germans in Estonia played a formative role in the drafting and passage of this law. Among such figures were Ewald Ammende, from Pärnu, and Werner Hasselblatt, a lawyer and parliamentary deputy in Tallinn. In Ammende’s case his energetic post-war travelling to collect material for his doctorate, Die deutsche Minderheiten in Europa. Ihr Entstehen, ihre Organisation und ihre Zusammenschlussbestrebungen, left him with a european wide network of personal contacts among German minority leaders. What had dispirited him during the course of his study was the mood of resignation and fatalism that he encountered among the Auslandsdeutschen. As a result he was inspired to think more actively of ways of uniting the scattered groups. Eventually, during a minorities’ conference in Vienna in October 1922, Ammende—along with the Hungarian German Rudolf Brandsch, the Baltic German leader Paul Schiemann, the Reich German Carl Georg Bruns and others—arranged what was to become in 1923 the Verband der deutschen Minderheiten in Europa. The organization planned to meet annually for a congress aimed primarily at discussing all issues relating to minority rights and the protection of minorities, as well as assessing the overall situation facing the Auslandsdeutschen. Its central goal was to achieve cultural autonomy—not least to secure the right to education in the mother tongue, regarded as the essential foundation for living on equal terms with majority hosts. Initially the one group that was reluctant to join the Verband comprised the Sudeten Germans, who were still hoping for early incorporation into the Reich. Once this goal was finally accepted as unrealistic in the foreseeable future, the Sudeten Germans also attached themselves to Ammende’s new organization. A condition of Verband membership was that attention be focused on minority rights as such, and not on the redrawing of borders. Ewald Ammende could claim with some justice that the organization’s activities were predicated on the existing peace settlement, thereby hoping to pre-empt accusations that it served the cause of German foreign policy against other european powers.20 In that respect the Verband’s work was consistent with the commitment to a peaceful overhaul of the settlement of 1919–1921, preached by all Weimar governments before 1930. The German Foreign Office had already made clear by the time the Verband was formed its determination not to let the Auslandsdeutschen interfere with the progress of the policy of peaceful revisionism proclaimed by Weimar governments. Partly for this reason Ammende experienced some difficulty in winning over important circles in Berlin, although his character also played a role. An immensely energetic, larger than life figure, he often disregarded the niceties of diplomacy. Concerns about the mercurial and unpredictable side to Ammende within German diplomatic circles ultimately frustrated his ambition to lead the Verband.21 This meant that he also lost the opportunity to play a formative role in the distribution of Reich subsidies to German minorities.

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That task fell instead to the Berlin office of the well-connected lawyer and writer on minorities, Carl Georg Bruns, who became the Verband’s General Secretary.22 As a conservative figure and a member of the June Club Bruns was no enthusiastic supporter of the Weimar Republic. However, he functioned as an honest broker and proved perfectly able to work with even the most liberal elements in the Verband, notably Paul Schiemann, with whom he formed a close relationship.23 Equally, it transpired that Bruns was concerned to allow a degree of autonomy to the activities of the German minorities. The Verband was therefore far from subservient to German diplomacy under Bruns’s mediation. At the same time he was a more comfortable figure than Ammende for the German Foreign Office, as well as for other influential lobbyists for the Auslandsdeutschen who were active in Berlin. It may well be that the failure to secure the key role as General Secretary to the Verband impelled the restless Ammende to find another cause on the wider european stage. Certainly, he felt that his initial soundings with key figures in the League of Nations organization gave him sufficient encouragement to prepare the ground for a new venture. Once the Estonian Cultural Autonomy Law had been passed in February 1925, Ammende drafted a working paper for a further meeting of international minority representatives in Warsaw during July 1925. He suggested that each nationality send up to three representatives empowered to vote. He made plain from the outset that the focus of the proposed new organization would not be on specific issues but on general principles. Central to those was the idea of national tolerance as a principle of international law. Discussion would include such propositions as: National cultural freedom is as worthy an intellectual value of the civilised world as freedom of religious confession. This international ethical maxim should find its practical expression and its true worth in positive legal norms. Every state within whose borders other national communities exist alongside the ruling nationality, must be expected to guarantee these national communities free cultural and economic development, together with free and unrestricted enjoyment of all their rights as citizens. Every national community having the entitlement to a self-regulated cultural life should in particular be empowered to promote and develop this as a corporation at public law.24 Ammende eventually secured agreement from representatives of the Catalans, Hungarians from Czechoslovakia, Ukrainians, White Russians and Germans from Poland, as well as Germans from the South Tyrol, to convene a second conference in Dresden. The latter meeting duly initiated what was to

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become the European Nationalities Congress, which held its first session in September 1925 in Geneva.

3.3 Ewald Ammende, 1892–1936 Representatives of no fewer than thirty national groups attended the opening. It was claimed that the congress spoke for some forty million souls who felt themselves to be national minorities.25 The fact that almost nine million of these were ethnic Germans inevitably influenced both the tone and agenda of the congress.26 The Baltic German contingent in particular had a formative impact on procedures and strategy. As the duly elected General Secretary of the Congress, Ewald Ammende at last found his niche, offsetting his earlier disappointment over the leadership of the Verband. Like that organization, the Nationalities Congress resolved not to focus on border disputes. Instead, it sought to lobby within the different states and the League of Nations for european-wide minority rights, thereby hoping to influence the work of the League and other international organizations in the evolving field of minority protection. The very existence of the congress was a declaration that minorities would no longer be content to be merely objects of great power policy. Ammende’s energy and organizational flair was crucial in launching the Nationalities Congress. Central to its convening too was Paul Schiemann, who was also widely regarded as the leading exponent of the ideas informing the Nationalities

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Congress. He firmly believed that living communities could only arise on the basis of cultural autonomy, in spite of considerable resistance from governments. Their argument was that cultural autonomy was potentially divisive and likely to produce a state within a state. A superficial reading of the new law in Estonia might well have provided some justification for such concerns. Essentially, it allowed national minorities to form their own elected public corporations.27 These were given the task of managing the national minority’s educational and cultural affairs, drawing on the funds allocated from the general education budgets of the state and of the local communities in proportion to the size of the national minority. They were also empowered to augment revenue for educational and cultural purposes through selftaxation.28 The sheer novelty of the idea understandably caused Estonian nationalists in particular to fear a weakening of the state by promoting a separate existence for national minorities. To Schiemann, this thinking showed a failure to grasp the true meaning of cultural autonomy. In his understanding, not the expression of national identity but its denial would lead to disgruntled and alienated minorities aspiring to form states within states.

3.4 The offices of Rigasche Rundschau in the 1920s. In trying to demonstrate the truth of this proposition Schiemann made his major contribution to minority rights theory, both in his many public speeches in the international arena, in his addresses to the Latvian parliament and finally in his output of editorials for especially Rigasche Rundschau, articles and pamphlets. At the heart of his thinking was a strong aversion to the centralised nation state as it had developed historically in Western Europe since the French Revolution. Two traits in particular attracted his dislike. One was the insistence on identifying one people with one territory; the other was

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the nation state’s obsession with its own sovereignty. He regarded both factors as major causes of the First World War and was deeply concerned that the peace settlement had not eradicated them, in so far as it encouraged the belief that the only true expression of self-determination was territorial.29 In doing so it ignored the needs of those minorities not in a position to form their own state. Their predicament Schiemann equated to ‘open wounds’ on the peace settlement. The most appropriate response to this potential source of great unrest, in his view, was to permit an expression of national identity based on persons, rather than territory—that is to say, national cultural autonomy. Allowing minorities to run their own cultural affairs promised also to reduce the overbearing state—a major concern of Schiemann as a dedicated liberal. When reflecting on whether or not there was a crisis in european democracy in 1926, for example, he looked for answers not in the nature of parliamentary systems as such, but in the nature of the state. It had to divest itself of some of its power, notably that over the cultural lives of its citizens.30 Schiemann’s belief on this point was reinforced by his perception that belonging to a nationality was akin to professing a religion. With Karl Renner, Schiemann held national identity, like religious conviction, to be integral to being human—a matter of purely personal choice where the state had no right to intervene. Equally, an individual’s obligations to his or her confession could not override those towards the overall community in which that person resided. He maintained that since the bloody thirty years war had ended by rejecting the doctrine affirming that the ruler decided his subjects religion (cuijus regio, eijus religio), history had confirmed that there was no necessary conflict between an individual’s commitment to a religion on the one hand, and, on the other, to the state in which he lived. It followed the logic of Schiemann’s comparison between religion and culture that ‘confessing’ to a national identity was not in itself a threat to the state, but rather strengthened it by giving all citizens a further stake in its survival.31 To make the argument clearer, Schiemann preferred to use the term ‘national community’ (Volksgemeinschaft) to describe a culturally distinct national group. In this way he came to envisage the ‘state’ as a ‘state community’ (Staatsgemeinschaft), made up of a collection of different ‘national communities’—minority and majority people alike. The concept of the Staatsgemeinschaft made clear the shared interest that all citizens necessarily had to have in the well being of the territory which they jointly inhabited over time.32 All surely had to be equally concerned about the political, economic, social welfare as well as the security of their jointly inhabited lands. The one thing that delineated the different nationality groups in the common space, namely culture, could not be allowed to threaten the general good. It was consistent with Schiemann’s overall position that he responded to those Baltic Germans finding it difficult to accept the Latvian or Estonian states with the argument that their collapse would mean the end of

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Baltic Germandom too—a maxim that could be adapted to the situation of all minorities in Europe. Schiemann was of course perfectly aware that implementing cultural autonomy would be problematic and he gave considerable attention to the question of how individuals could reconcile obligations to their own national community with duties to the state community. Indeed, he defined the main task of the european nationalities movement in terms of reconciling the two sets of obligations (respectively to the Volksgemeinschaft and Staatsgemeinschaft).33 Once more Schiemann saw the solution in terms of his comparison between religion and culture. Cultural confession, like religious confession, was reconcilable with the duties to the state community because, he argued, the obligations lay in different spheres. He underlined this fundamental argument by making loyalty to the host country a defining characteristic of those seeing themselves as national minorities. In his own words, politics could only be for the good of the state in which one resided— any other goal ‘was suicide.’ His belief that there could be no rights without obligations led him to insist, for example, on the absolute duty of all national minorities to the physical defence of their country. By definition, a genuine national minority could not behave as a fifth column of the motherland.34 As far as Schiemann was concerned these principles held true for all minorities. There were of course unbelievers and the leader of the Polish minority in Germany, Jan Skala, continued to insist that cultural autonomy was geared to the better-organized and more affluent minorities—the Auslandsdeutschen above all. From this premise he argued that the Nationalities Congress was little more than a cloak for the extension of German influence.35 By contrast, he believed that the inability of poorer minorities to achieve cultural autonomy would lead to their assimilation. Much of this criticism was deflected by pointing out yet again that cultural autonomy was premised on funding from the general state budget and that authority was delegated by the state in this sphere. As to the suggestion of a German conspiracy to exploit cultural autonomy for purely German ends, Schiemann could justly respond by showing that the doctrine was also contested within the German minorities’ camp as a whole.36 This was certainly true of influential ethnic Germans within the Verband der deutschen Minderheiten, notably Werner Hasselblatt, who tended to regard cultural autonomy primarily as a way of promoting the idea of an organic German nation transcending the borders of the Reich.37 His increasingly apparent greater German mindset made it even more difficult for him and others of his ilk to embrace the concept of a German minority. In their perception the term put them in the same camp as any other european national group, a proposition they contested on the grounds of Germany’s historical and cultural importance. In other words they equated Minderheit with minderwertig (less worthy). They preferred to speak of German Volksgruppen (national groups).

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The struggle within the German minorities movement was inevitably imported into the Nationalities Congress, thereby giving greater credibility to the charges of German duplicity levelled by Skala and others. Not surprisingly liberal German minority leaders viewed with complete dismay the appearance of what Paul Schiemann termed the ‘new nationalist wave’ breaking over Eastern Central Europe. Particularly disturbing was the impact of the national renewal being preached above all by National Socialists. One of those, the Baltic German Alfred Rosenberg, in a bizarre analysis of what he saw as the long struggle between ‘the Teuton’ and the ‘forces of race chaos’ insisted that the latter had poisoned ‘our true nature.’ This is exemplified by the kind of commentator who says: “What Austria is striving for [that is to say, the thinking of Renner and Bauer, the pre-war Austrian socialists], the whole world must attain on a vaster scale.” This is racial pollution and spiritual murder elevated to a world political program.38 Hardly surprisingly, leading figures in the Nationalities Congress warned that the spread of nationalist/völkisch ideas within the ranks of the Auslandsdeutschen would lead inexorably to divisions between them. More to the point, the growth of nationalism among German minorities would invite reprisals by the host countries, making living communities a more and more remote possibility and ultimately threatening the very existence of the Auslandsdeutschen.

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NOTES 1. 2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7. 8.

9.

10.

11.

12. 13.

14.

H. Rauschning, Hitler speaks (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1939), pp.40–7. For an overview see W. Schlau, ‘Die Deutschen im Baltikum von 1180-1939/41’ in W. Schlau, ed., Die Deutsch-Balten (Munich: Langen Müller, 1995), pp. 32ff. Cf. L. Peep and P. Kaegbein, ‘Die Universitätsbibliothek Dorpat in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart’ in J. von Hehn and C. J. Kenez, eds., Reval und die baltischen Länder (Marburg/Lahn: Herder Institut, 1980), pp. 473ff. G. von Pistohlkors, Ritterschaftliche Reformpolitik zwischen Russifizierung und Revolution (Göttingen, Frankfurt and Zurich: Musterschmidt, 1978). M. Haltzel, Der Abbau der deutschen ständischen Selbstverwaltung in den Ostseeprovinzen Russlands (Marburg/Lahn: Herder Institut, 1977), pp. 72ff. K. Meyer, Theodor Schiemann als politischer Publizist (Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg: Nord- und Osteuropäische Geschichtsstudien Bd.1, 1956). See M. Hagen, ‘Die Deutschbalten in der III Duma,’ Zeitschrift für Ostforschung, 23 (1974), pp. 577–97. E. Benz, Die Revolution von 1905 in den Ostseeprovinzen Russlands. Ursachen und Verlau der lettischen und estnischen Arbeiter- und Bauernbewegung im Rahmen der ersten russischen Revolution (Mainz: Acta Baltica Bd. 28, 1990). C. Lundin, ‘The road from Tsar to Kaiser: changing loyalties of the Baltic Germans, 1905–1914,’ Journal of Central European Affairs, 10 (1950). Cf. W. Ribhegge, Frieden für Europa. Die Politik der deutschen Reichstagsmehrheit 1917–1918 (Essen: Reimar Hobbing, 1988), pp. 225ff. P. Schiemann, ‘Baltische Outsider,’ Rigasche Rundschau, 26 July 1919. Copies of the paper are to be found in the Latvian National Library, Riga. An extensive selection of Schiemann's articles were collected by his one-time colleague, H. Donath and subsequently published privately. See J. Hiden, Defender of Minorities. Paul Schiemann 1876–1944 (London: Hurst, 2004), p. 290 for details. In Rigasche Rundschau, 22.7.1919 Cf remarks of H. Kause, ‘Die Jahre 1930 bis 1933 als Wende im Leben der deutschen Volksgruppen in Lettland,’ Jahrbuch des baltischen Deutschtums (1971), pp. 38f. On the importance of demographic changes, U. von Hirschhausen, Die Grenzen der Gemeinsamkeit. Deutsche, Letten, Russen und

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50

15.

16.

17.

18. 19.

20. 21.

22. 23. 24.

25.

26. 27.

Juden in Riga 1860-1914 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 2006), pp. 84ff. K.-H. Grundmann, Deutschtumspolitik zur Zeit der Weimarer Republik. Eine Studie am Beispiel der deutsch-baltischen Minderheit in Estland und Lettland (Hannover-Döhren: Hirschheydt, 1977), p. 49. In general, J. Hiden, ‘The Weimar Republic and the problem of the Auslandsdeutsche,’ Journal of Contemporary History, 12 (1977), pp. 273–89. Some idea of the extent of this can be seen from M.O. Balling, Von Reval bis Bukarest. Statistische-Biographisches. Handbuch der Parlamentarier der deutsche Minderheiten in Ostmittel-und Südosteuropa, 1919–1945 (Copenhagen: Hermann-NiermannStiftung, 1991. The text of the law can be found in Valdiibas Vestnesis, No. 89 M. Housden, ‘Cultural autonomy in Estonia: one of history’s curiosities?’ In D.J. Smith, ed., The Baltic states and the region. New Europe or Old? (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005), pp. 233–4. Cf. E. Ammende, ‘Die Sprache der Zahlen,’ Nation und Staat (1931), 10/11, pp. 650–6. S. Bamberger-Stemmann, Der Europäische Nationalitätenkongreß 1925 bis 1938. Nationale Minderheiten zwischen Lobbzistentum und Großmachtinteressen ( Marburg/Lahn: Herder Institut, 2000), p. 74. Cf Nicolai von Berg to Paul Schiemann, 28.1.1928. Schiemann Nachlass. Nicolai von Berg, 1922-1936 and P. Schiemann, ‘Dr Ammende verstorben,’ Berliner Tageblatt und Handels-Zeitung, 15.5.1936. C. G. Bruns, Gesammelte Schriften zur Minderheitenfrage (Berlin: C. Heymann, 1933). Hiden, Defender of Minorities, pp.175–6. The draft is in the Political Archive of the German Foreign Office, Berlin R60 462. Akten der Europäischen Minderheitenkongress in Genf, 1925. Sitzungsbericht des Kongresses der Organisierten Nationale Gruppen in den Staaten Europas (Leipzig: Wilhelm Braumüller, 1925), p. 69. Also M. Housden, ‘Ewald Ammende—his vision for the organisation of national minorities in Europe’ in B. MetuzƗleKangere, ed., The ethnic dimension in politics and culture in the Baltic countries 1920-1945 (Stockholm: Södertörn Aademic Studies, 2004), p. 56. See Hiden, Defender of Minorities, p. 116. The text can be found in the special edition of the Revaler Bote marking the passage of the law.

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28. Cf J.W. Hiden and D.J. Smith, ‘Looking beyond the Nation State: A Baltic vision for national minorities between the wars,’ Journal of Contemporary History, 41, 3, (2006), pp. 387–99. 29. P. Schiemann, ‘Die Entwicklung einer Ideologie,’ Rigasche Rundschau, 5 September 1925. 30. P. Schiemann, ‘Eine Krise des Staatsgedankens,’ Rigasche Rundschau, Number 6, 1926. 31. P. Schiemann, ‘Staat und Volkstum. Der Weg zum wahren Friede,’ Rigasche Rundschau, 29 September 1925 32. Paul Schiemann, ‘Volksgemeinschaft und Staatsgemeinschaft,’ Nation und Staat, Vol 1, 1927, pp. 22–3. 33. ibid, p.20. 34. P. Schiemann, ‘Das Minoritätenrecht als Grundlage des Friedens,’ Rigasche Rundschau, 27 August 1927. 35. P. Schiemann, ‘Heilige Rechte,’ Rigasche Rundschau, 22.12.1928. 36. Schiemann, ‘Volksgemeinschaft und Staatsgemeinschaft,’ 37. See M. Garleff, ‘Nationalitätenpolitik zwischen liberalen und völkischen Anspruch.’ In J. von Hehn and C.J. Kenez, eds., Reval und die baltischen Länder, pp. 116–9; J. Hackmann, ‘Werner Hasselblatt (1890–1958) Von der estländischen Kulturautonomie zur nationalsozialistischen Bevölkerungspolitik’ in G. von Pistohlkors and M. Weber eds., Staatliche Einheit und nationale Vielfalt im Baltikum (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2005), pp. 181–3. 38. See A. Rosenberg, The myth of the Twentieth Century (Torrance, CA: Noontide Press, 1982), pp. 41–2.

Chapter four The new aristocracy The electoral breakthrough of the National Socialists in Germany in September 1930 gave immediate encouragement to those within the Auslandsdeutsche community who rejected being categorised as a ‘minority’ on the grounds that the term signally failed to distinguish qualitatively between different national groups, thereby reducing the nationalities issue to a mere question of numbers. The expression ‘minority’ in such thinking did less than justice to the widespread conviction among German nationalists of Germandom’s cultural and civilising mission in the East.1 They believed that the rule of Bolshevism in Russia made even more imperative the maintenance of a strong Germanic bulwark against what they termed the ‘Asiatisation of Europe.’ There appeared to be no qualms of conscience that the process was likely to be at the expense of the border states. MaxHildebert Boehm for one was so convinced of the supremacy of the German mission that he blithely dismissed any automatic claim by the smaller nationalities to independent statehood in the international system.2 The immediate political strategy of such völkisch minority activists focused on gaining greater control over the organizational network caring for the Auslandsdeutschen, and with it the distribution of official funding. While they were hardly indifferent to the specific conditions of the numerous German minority groups, in practice they were more preoccupied with how best to involve all Germans beyond the homeland’s borders in their grandiose Gesamtdeutsch project. Even more pleasing to such circles than the relaunching in 1928 of the Verband der deutschen Minderheiten as the Verband der deutschen Volksgruppen, was the appointment of Werner Hasselblatt in 1932 as General Secretary to the Verband, following Georg Bruns’s early death. In due course Hasselblatt relocated from Estonia to a permanent residence in Berlin. In many respects the move exemplified his personal odyssey from Estonian politician campaigning for cultural autonomy on behalf of all national minorities in Europe to fully fledged Volkstumspolitiker.3 Hasselblatt’s election expressed a deliberate preference for greater centralisation for the Verband and marked a shift from the relative autonomy hitherto allowed to other ethnic German politicians. Of particular concern to the more liberal of these was the realisation that the internationalist Ewald Ammende strongly backed Hasselblatt’s candidature. Ammende justified his choice by reference to Hasselblatt’s reputation as a tough operator with the right connections in Berlin, thus appropriate to the changing demands of the time.4 Yet he was only too well aware of his candidate’s determination to pursue a völkisch line in the european minorities question. Hasselblatt’s

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ascendancy could hardly fail to impact on the development of the European Nationalities Congress.

4.1 Werner Hasselblatt, 1890–1958 Although the Verband ostensibly continued to look for solutions to the European nationality question within the existing political borders, the events of 1931–1932 opened wider the fault lines within the German minorities camp about their ultimate goals. Latecomers to the Verband, the Sudeten Germans, continued to nurse a desire for their homeland to be incorporated into a future Greater Germany—a wish incidentally shared by most Germans living in the territories disputed between Germany and Poland. Their mood could only harden as a strong revanchist counterforce developed inside the Reich’s polity. The potential for this had of course existed since 1919. Those associated with the June Club had always thought in terms of redefining Germany in order to make the Auslandsdeutschen an integral part of a restored and revitalised German nation, even if this meant extending the Reich’s borders beyond those of 1914. Such sentiments were now dangerously amplified by the tireless electioneering of the National Socialists. Paul Schiemann had long predicted

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that the outcome of imposing Gesamtdeutsch solutions on German minorities would be lasting divisions within their ranks. As he put it: ‘Fighting against propaganda which threatens us with destruction is the first duty of selfpreservation.’5 His stand was consistent with the important distinction he drew as early as 1924 between different types of activists, that is to say between Grenzlandpolitiker like Boehm on the one hand, and, on the other, individuals like himself, Minderheitenpolitiker. The former were primarily driven by a desire to redraw the Versailles territorial settlement in order to recover lands lost to Poland, as well as to bring Sudeten Germans into a future Reich. The minority politicians on the other hand gave priority to securing the long term survival of viable German groups outside the Reich. Underlying this was an even more threatening general distinction. In Paul Schiemann’s words: Today in Europe we have to distinguish above all between two political currents with different final goals. The one is directed exclusively at the flourishing of one’s own state, supposedly leading to power, the other has the broader aspect of western cultural values, whereby natural and durable homesteads should be created in an organically united Europe. There is no need to speak here of a third tendency, that wishes to erect an edifice of world revolution on the ruins of individual states and of western culture. It is deeply hostile to Europe and cannot take root among western mankind. Even so, the nationalist tendency, aiming at the state’s attainment of a decisive position of power, was most immediately threatening to minorities. The individual state arriving at a such a decisive position can either incorporate those minorities of its own nationality into its own territory or, where that is not possible, force foreign states to grant full cultural and citizenship rights to its own compatriots. For a nationalities movement which is called to represent the interests of all the national minorities of Europe, such a single state solution is altogether no solution. But even for a minority so favoured in this way, this solution is wholly unsatisfactory. Because it is based not on law, but on force and therefore has validity only as long as power lasts. Whoever knows something of history is aware that every one sided position of power rests on a transitory economic situation, which will be displaced by another. The looming menace made it imperative for the european nationalities movement to work even harder for european wide legislation on minority rights.6

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Meanwhile, within the Reich the Grenzlandpolitiker ultimately failed to modify essentially their hard line attitudes through contact with minority leaders like Schiemann. The clash of aims and attitudes proved even more difficult to resolve once the various right wing German groups began to coalesce around the common theme of Germany’s ‘renewal.’ This worrying trend was soon inevitably reflected within the Nationalities Congress. True, even though the nationalist agendas began to make more headway among the Berlin Foreign Office bureaucracy, they were kept within bounds at least until the death of Stresemann. Despite this the re-branding of the Verband in 1928 already showed which way the wind was blowing, portending the changes that would come with any significant shift in political priorities in Berlin. That is precisely what happened in September 1930, when the Nazis won 107 seats in the Reichstag. The approach to power by the Hitler movement did more than anything else to intensify the ‘new nationalist wave’ breaking over Central Eastern Europe. A newer generation of German minority leaders, shaking off the restraints of their mentors in the Verband, added their weight to campaigners like Hasselblatt, further shifting the power balance within the German minorities movement. The shift went hand in hand with a growing determination to focus above all on the lot of German minorities, if necessary at the expense of non-German nationality groups. Hasselblatt’s leadership of the Verband, by giving more expression to völkisch sentiments, further undermined the liberal model of cultural autonomy. Those who had long suspected the doctrine as merely a front for German interests were finally given all the ammunition they could have wished for.7 From its genesis as an overtly egalitarian doctrine, cultural autonomy was slowly being transformed into a vehicle for increasingly naked German self-interest. In this climate Hasselblatt’s conviction about ‘the necessity of forging a close inner and organic link between Germandom abroad and at home’ found far wider acceptance than it had only a few years earlier. His relocation to Berlin allowed him to ‘work day and night in the Reich capital’ in order to organize the first Gesamtdeutsch conference (i.e. including Austrian Germans), dedicated to the creation of an inclusive and organic German Volk.8 With the growing likelihood of a National Socialist government of Germany, Paul Schiemann made what turned out to be his last direct appeal to the Verband to resist the nationalist trend within the organization that he had once helped to set up. It took the form of an address to the annual conference in 1932, entitled ‘The new nationalist wave’. Schiemann’s big fear was that of retaliation against German minorities from their host states in reaction to the increasingly strident signals coming from Berlin. It was now obvious that the far right in Germany was so fixated on the concept of the nation being tied to that of state that they could only envisage supporting German minorities abroad by including them in German territory, if need be through the application of force.

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Even more courageously, given the fact that the National Socialists were waiting in the wings, Schiemann insisted that talk of conquest and settlement from the Reich was making Germans in Central Eastern Europe appear to non-Germans analogous to the menace that the Nazis claimed to see in the Jewish communities of the region. We are told of conquests, of projected settlements through political pressure. Anybody aware of how closely the agrarian and national questions are entangled throughout the East can be left in no doubt that even hinting at such plans must hand our opponents the most powerful weapons to deny any national claim to justice. How are we supposed to carry forward our struggle for justice and fight for full equality? For national consciousness to be the measure of national identity? How are we supposed to battle for justice and freedom when day after day it is held against us that precisely such rights are fundamentally contested by a steadily growing number of our own people? Paul Schiemann’s concerns about the decline of Europe were encapsulated in his stricture that service to one’s people ‘can never be placed above morality if we don’t wish entirely to destroy the moral order.’ Without directly attacking Hitler and his followers as such, Schiemann could have left no listener in doubt of the main target of his 1932 address to the Verband. 9 All such fears were confirmed at the September 1933 session of the Nationalities Congress in Bern.10 The meeting had been prefaced by bitter disputes about whether or not to allow specific resolutions at the congress condemning the treatment of Jews in Germany. Hitler’s determination to exclude German Jews from the German nation against their will amounted to dissimilation—notwithstanding their historic identification with the Reich and their longstanding integration in German society. Calls from Jewish leaders in the Nationalities Congress for condemnation of events in Germany, however, presented the organization with an acute dilemma. German delegates above all tried to escape this by clinging to the principle of not naming specific governments or grievances within the congress plenary. In this way the German delegates managed to avoid castigating the Reich, incidentally confirming how far the balance within the Nationalities Congress had tilted towards the nationalist agenda. As a result of behind the scenes machinations, an ignoble resolution was pushed through. On the one hand it accepted the idea of ‘dissimilation from the body of the nation of those of different nationality, and especially of different race.’ On the other hand, it acknowledged that those made into minorities through dissimilation were entitled to strive for the rights which the Nationalities Congress still ostensibly represented. The formula offered no immediate comfort to Jewish groups, who rightly took it as a rebuff. The plenary body’s reluctance to

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condemn Germany’s actions against the Jews made it impossible for them to continue participating in the congress. Thereafter their delegates stayed away from the congress sessions. The organization’s failure in 1933 removed another obstacle from the path of those primarily concerned with defining minorities not in terms of culture but of race, while at the same time asserting German superiority. In effect a fateful step was taken towards drastically and literally reducing living space for the peoples of Central Eastern Europe. The outlook worsened as the Nazi regime tightened its organizational control of German minorities. In the words of Gauleiter Bohle, director of the National Socialist Party’s Auslandsamt: Today every German national abroad knows that he is not abandoned and forgotten, that he does not hold a lost outpost, but is valued as a worthy member of a great community. Today every German national abroad is a wholly equal and fully obligated servant of his nation and his Führer…. For all our work we are cursed as Nazi spies, as Gestapo agents, as Hitler spies, and as Brown provocateurs. This has never bothered us; for these designations always come from those who cry out to all the world that they recognize no fatherland called Germany, who believe that they can live from daily prophesies of the collapse of the Third Reich. These prophets have become somewhat more silent recently; for now little business can be made by predicting the fall of Hitler’s Germany, and even the dumbest person abroad has noticed slowly but surely that today Germany stands more firmly, more immovably, and more strongly than ever before.11 The intentions of the new regime towards German minorities had already been made clear enough from the memorandum of September 1934 from the chief executive of the Deutsche Stiftung, Erich Krahmer-Möllenberg, which was sent to foreign minister Joachim Ribbentrop. Apart from cultural and economic support, Krahmer-Möllenberg urged ‘a systematic integration of the Volksgruppe in foreign policy.’12 The inexorable shift of influence towards Nazi elements continued in Gablonz in 1935, at the conference of the Verband, when Konrad Henlein, the political leader of the Sudeten Germans, became its new head. There could hardly have been a clearer illustration of the distinction made by Schiemann between Grenzlandpolitiker and Minderheitenpolitiker. By this point a leader like Henlein, claiming to speak for two million Germans living close to the Reich borders, could never have framed his platform around cultural autonomy. As well as causing divisions within the German minorities the advance of National Socialist sentiments subverted the terminology used within the European nationalities movement, usurping the discourse first made familiar by the earlier minority activists. For the latter, cultural autonomy had been

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premised on personal choice, its scope defined above all by the selfadministration of schooling and free use of the mother tongue. That is to say, any supranational Volksgemeinschaft arising from those contacts would have to be based strictly and unequivocally on cultural values—precluding by definition national minorities from functioning as fifth columns. By contrast, National Socialist propaganda defined the German Volksgemeinschaft purely in terms of race. A handful of minority activists including Schiemann were principled enough to blame themselves for popularising terms like ‘Volksgemeinschaft’ in the first place. Yet although they also saw themselves as members of the German nation in its widest sense, they retained alongside this an unshakable attachment to their host countries. To them, the idea of their Germanness expressing itself as disloyalty to the host country was anathema. Unfortunately, this sense of obligation was diluted as the younger generation of Auslandsdeutschen came to maturity in the late 1920s and 1930s—a generation particularly susceptible to the clarion call of National Socialism to give absolute priority to the German Volk.13 Only relatively few German minority leaders resisted co-ordination by the agencies of the Hitler regime. Not that these, or the ideas and personalities informing them, fostered a uniform attitude towards the work for German minorities. It is not even possible always to draw a clear line between the völkisch mindset on the one hand and, on the other, the beliefs held generally among right wing nationalists, including influential émigrés. To return briefly to the question of dissimilation, what, for example, were the limits of MaxHildebert Boehm’s arguments in its favour? If nationalities were to be separated out, what guarantee was there that this could be achieved peacefully? Boehm’s thinking on dissimilation certainly provided one ingredient in the intellectual brew contributing towards National Socialism but followers of Hitler were not particularly bothered by resolving the issue peacefully.14 More often than not they took violence for granted. When the Nazi legal ideologist Helmut Nicolai looked at Upper Silesia, he saw only a perpetual biological conflict between Poles and Germans competing for the same territory. The cultural superiority of the Germans is quite manifest.... Compare towns like Opole or Gleiwitz [both in Upper Silesia] with Czenstochau [which lies further East]. This industrial town with 80,000 inhabitants has never had a clean street and the condition cannot be traced back to the ‘failed Russian economy’. No Russian ever prevented the Poles from building orderly and clean houses. It lies, therefore, within the Poles themselves, in their disposition, that they could not do the same as we Germans.... But that makes the racial question in Upper Silesia a very serious matter, not just for Upper Silesia but for the whole German nation. It is a fact ... that the highly

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valuable Nordic blood which exists predominantly in the German population is not increasing as rapidly as its less valuable counterpart of eastern Baltic, Polish origin. Brutal solutions could only follow from such preoccupations with preventing the degeneration of culture and race. 15

4.2 Helmut Nicolai, 1895–1955 The bleak pessimism about multi-ethnic existence in the eastern lands that informed such attitudes blinded National Socialists to the possibilities that liberals like Schiemann saw in a rich and diverse society underpinned by minority rights. It also facilitated the career of a personality like Rosenberg, with his paranoid vision of racial pollution. As far as he was concerned: Seen in its broad outlines, the history of Europe is the history of the struggle between this new human type [the Teuton] and the forces of Roman race-chaos, which, numbering in the millions, stretched from the Danube to the Rhine. This dark tide carried some glittering values on its surface and catered to some nerve-tingling lusts; its waves spoke of a past of once mighty world dominion and of a religion which answered all questions.16 Other would-be right wing intellectuals in Germany during the 1920s aspired to operate on a global level. For example, the remarkably Germano-centric work of geopolitician and influential Munich University professor, Karl Haushofer, located even the defeated Germany of 1918 at the very centre of

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the Eurasian heartland. Going beyond the visionaries of Mitteleuropa, Haushofer found it easy to envisage a German Reich controlling Leningrad, Moscow, the Volga and Ukraine.17 In his thinking whoever dominated this vast space held the key to controlling the world. Such ideas were relayed to Hitler through his acolyte Rudolf Hess, who had studied with Haushofer at university.18 Elsewhere, Nazi agrarianists evolved their own views on the need for Lebensraum, as was the case with Herbert Backe, subsequently appointed as Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture. This son of ethnic German parents had grown up in imperial Russia and was interned there during the First World War. Even before he heard Hitler speaking in public for the first time in 1926, he had already begun arguing the need to acquire colonies to give Germany breathing space in Europe. As an undoubted member of Nazism’s intellectual élite, Backe also favoured the rationalisation of German agriculture and the application of new technology to it.19 Walther Darré’s ideas were still more driven by the values of ‘blood and soil’. This member of the SS (who once attended King’s College School, Wimbledon) served as Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture between 1933 and 1942: We Germans wishing to construct an organic state here in the Homeland, must first of all come to terms with our geopolitical space…. Firstly: questions of defence, since the realm [Scholle] needs not only to be built but to be defended. The concept of blood and soil demands that of the plough and sword. Secondly: the creation of new settlement land on sound foundations in keeping with our people, our race.20 The implications of Darré’s insistence on Germany’s need to acquire land in the East to redress the urban/rural imbalance were chilling: In practice that means for we Germans, that we tear our gaze away from the West and look eastwards. As far as our nation is concerned, the problem of the East in its entirety determines our future fate. It is no help to ignore this like a coward. It is a mistake to focus entirely on retaining East Prussia; that goes without saying. No, two great peoples are destined for a life and death struggle over the geopolitical space in the East: Slavs and Teutons. If we wish to survive as Germans in this struggle then there can be only one battle cry for us: Victory at all costs. Whether in future German or Slavic blood…holds sway in the west of our Fatherland will not be decided in the first instance in the Rhineland but in the East. Our people must be schooled for this battle. And we will learn to recognize that the fate of German lands east of the Vistula is by no means decided only in Warsaw and Moscow, but just as much in Riga and Reval (Tallinn) and that it is no accident that

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Livonia was lost to Germandom at the same time as Strasbourg. These are just a few indications of our geopolitical mission.21 All of these ideas were developing at the grass roots level of the völkisch movement, but during the early 1920s they remained more typical of Bavarian beer hall discourse than mainstream parliamentary thinking. Certainly they had little resonance with any kind of government policy. The Weimar Republic’s subsidies to Germans outside were emphatically not directed simply at creating a Germanic living space in the East, however much they promoted the survival of German life and culture. What fuelled the Ostpolitik of a politician like Stresemann was above all a quest for peaceful coexistence and economic success, admittedly leading to a restoration of Germany’s political standing and influence in Europe.22 The same threat to Schiemann’s world from völkisch activism also endangered Stresemann’s vision. Both men all too clearly understood that the growth of extreme nationalist agitation undermined the peaceful relationship between minority and majority peoples on which a durable European order depended. It might be objected that even Stresemann’s policies would have resulted in something like an informal German Empire in the East, albeit an enlightened one. Even so, this sort of German dominance promised at least to foster economic life and commercial potential in the region, and indeed could not have precluded flourishing links with the wider world economy.23 No respectable economist in the late 1920s would have disagreed with such a proposition. What völkisch experts were envisaging, by contrast, was nothing short of a revival of mercantilism. That is to say they were seeking to control the region’s economy for political purposes, with all the implications this entailed for non-German groups inhabiting the area. Ironically, the few economists preaching this radical gospel in the 1920s were taken seriously only by the National Socialist Party. It was already evolving ideas of treating Eastern Central Europe as a closed system of markets and resources, geared exclusively to the good of Germany. The aim was not only to protect the country against future economic crises afflicting the world economy but also to safeguard Germany’s strategic position in any future conflict. There was never to be another 1918. Such thinking is particularly apparent in Hitler’s own agonising about the best basis on which to build a future German Empire. In the main I approve what has been said about our eastern, or ‘Eastern space’ policy. Only one thing, my party comrades, you must always remember. We shall never be great statesmen unless we have a nucleus of might at the centre as hard and firm as steel. A nucleus of eighty to one hundred million colonising Germans! My first task will therefore be to create this nucleus which will not only make us invincible, but will assure to us once and for all time the decisive

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As to the extent of the ‘nucleus’: Part of this nucleus is Austria, That goes without saying. But Bohemia and Moravia also belong to it, as well as the western regions of Poland as far as certain natural strategical (sic) frontiers. Moreover—and this you must not overlook—the Baltic States too, are part of it—those states which for centuries have had a thin upper crust of Germanhood. To-day in all these regions, alien races predominate. It will be our duty, if we wish to found our greater Reich for all time, to remove these races. Ultimately, Hitler expressly dismissed the idea of an informal Empire built on trade, on the grounds that sooner or later German and British interests would conflict, the outcome being war.24 The alternative was to postpone the conflict with Britain until Germany’s position was impregnable on the continent and the inescapable conclusion for Hitler was that a German Empire in Europe had to be at the expense of Russia. The dreadful logic of his geopolitical thinking boded ill for the independent states of Central Eastern Europe. In this respect Hitler certainly derived inspiration from the vistas opened up by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, in so far as the rule of Generals Ludendorff and Hindenburg between 1915 and 1918 even betrayed the sort of racial undertones usually only associated with Germany and the Second World War, rather than the Second Reich and First World War I.25 During the latter, the German military and its advisors enthusiastically contemplated Germanisation of the Baltic provinces. Baltic émigré Theodor Schiemann, a confidante of the Kaiser on Russian affairs, assured his nephew Paul Schiemann, that he distrusted not only Latvians, a disloyal, treacherous, brutish race’—but Jews and, ‘to a lesser extent,’ Estonians. ‘To allow these people equality in the coming Baltic state is, I think, as harmful and dangerous to the future of the Baltic Germans as it is to the future of the German Reich.26 In limited areas population movements were also brought about during the First World War, as local peoples fled the battles fought by the German armies advancing in the East, notably in the Baltic provinces. Elsewhere it was a matter of deliberate policy, as in the case of the southern Ukraine, where ethnic German settlements were consolidated around the Crimean peninsula. In this respect there is a good case for assuming that the demographic aspects of German Ostpolitik after 1915 were—contrary to

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prevailing opinion—as important for Hitler’s thinking on foreign policy as his awareness of the power political relationships of the First World War. It should be recognised, however, that after that conflict a realisation increasingly began to grow even among relatively conventional and respectable academic thinkers that it was possible to manipulate whole populations. Such actions, previously the preserve of either imperial and military rulers looking to strengthen their marches, or else regional power groupings hoping to do something similar, began to attract a wider audience. Social scientists—particularly those interested in economics—began to get involved. In the process, authors started producing work in which cold calculation easily took precedence over human rights. Theodor Oberländer, in due course the director of the Institute for Eastern European Economy in Königsberg (Kaliningrad), began analysing eastern European population structures in order to determine ratios of productive to unproductive workers. From 1922 Paul Mombert was professor of national economy at Giessen University, a man who created a pseudo-scientific formula relating the food capacity of an area to the number of people it could support and the standard of living they could expect. Such thinking helped make acceptable the illusion that entire population groups were just one more set of variables to be subjected to given political agendas.27 What is more, such ideas about population economics fed directly into racism. For many Germans talk of the Polish economy, for example, was taken as emblematic of an inefficiency and over-staffing that spoke of substantial national cultural backwardness. Assumptions were widespread that Germany and its potential economic performance were far superior to whatever lay to the East, so that attempts to improve that state of affairs were thought of in terms of a new German civilising mission Furthermore the First World War helped politicise anti-Semitism within Germany. The census of Jews living in the Reich carried out by the German Army High Command in 1916 pointedly asked what functions those German Jews who were not in the military were actually fulfilling.28 Admittedly, the army’s concern was, primarily, as it had always been, with Jewish economic activities and economic power. But the harshness of his life on the frozen streets of multi-national Vienna had already attuned Hitler to the undertones of racial policy implicit in the East under the Ludendorff/Hindenburg regime.29 In this light it is improbable that Hitler’s understanding of ethnic cleansing as integral to building empires could have come entirely from his awareness of such tragedies as the Armenian genocide. Pivotal for Hitler’s political development, however, as for so many Germans and not just nationalists, was the conviction that the Russian revolution in 1917 served the interests of World Jewry. Hitler’s well known acceptance at face value of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, passed to him by Alfred Rosenberg, stands testimony to this. Hitler’s aggressive questioning of the role of Jews in

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German public life after the war struck a responsive chord in a population stunned by military defeat and its consequences.30 In this emotional environment the centrality accorded by Hitler to the Jewish question quickly took his thinking far beyond the boundaries set by the likes of Ludendorff and others during the First World War. One thing is certain, namely that the fusion of anti-Semitism and antiBolshevism expressed so vehemently by Hitler became a defining characteristic of the Nazi party.31 Hitler’s hatred of the likes of Rosa Luxemburg and Kurt Eisner attested to a fervent belief that the traumatic collapse of Germany had been caused and exploited by the far left. So hostile was Hitler towards Bolshevism that, unlike many German nationalists, he actively opposed the Treaty of Rapallo between the Weimar Republic and the Soviet Union in 1922, dubbing it a pact with the devil. As far as Hitler was concerned, the evil Soviet empire had to be destroyed and its assets exploited by Germany in its quest for Lebensraum in the East. This priority alone explains his willingness to earn the interim good will of the British Empire, with its feared capacity to blockade continental Europe. As for the peoples co-habiting the areas targeted in Hitler’s mind, the pages of Mein Kampf reveal a complete indifference to non-German citizens of the region. His disdain was the more notable in that he came from the Habsburg Empire, the home of Bauer and Renner as well as prejudiced stump politicians like Karl Lueger. When Hitler insisted that a line be drawn under past German policy, he really did mean it. In the end there was little left here of the mental world inhabited by Hindenburg and Ludendorff; Hitler’s terms of reference were more radical by far. It is not always possible to spell out what Hitler thought in detail of the peoples of Central Eastern Europe. Some of his reported remarks, such as the need to remove the Czech peoples from the region, derive from sources, like Hitler Speaks, which some have taken to be unreliable. Even so the dismissive tone of the sporadic comments he did make about specific peoples reveals an unspoken assumption: namely, that other races must not be allowed to undermine any future German empire. Hitler clearly did not feel the need to define this project closely; the tone of his political message left little doubt of the implications of what he was saying, particularly since he was in fact addressing followers who perfectly understood the context. To his listeners he saw no need to elaborate on his assertion that merely revising the Treaty of Versailles and restoring the borders of 1914 was not a goal worthy of the National Socialist movement. For pan-Germans and völkisch thinkers it was axiomatic not only that the lost territories should be restored, but that German-speaking lands from the old Austrian empire should be included in the coming German nation. The indifference to non-Germans was again all too apparent. For the more far-sighted leaders among the German community abroad, Hitler’s readiness to dismiss if not damage the interests of non-Germans was

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tantamount to forging a weapon which would eventually be used against German minorities by their host states. Few grasped, however, the extent of Hitler’s indifference to such arguments, given the scale of the new imperial project occupying his mind. Looking back on the succession of Nazi initiatives in Eastern Europe from the vantage point of 1939, Paul Schiemann raised the question, ‘Is this the end of the European nationalities movement?’32 Characteristically, while recognizing the distinctly grim prospects for minorities in the immediate future, he saw the looming European war as further proof that nationality conflicts would never be resolved through force alone and that eventually the european nationalities movement would again have its day. That day seemed remoter than ever when, five weeks after the invasion of Poland had commenced, Hitler stood before the Reichstag and insisted that ‘a reordering of ethnographic relations’ was the most important task in the wake of Poland’s collapse. He made it clear that the ‘intolerable scattering’ of the German nation throughout East and South East Europe would most effectively be dealt with by creating ‘better demarcation lines.’33 In a real sense the groundwork for these schemes had already been prepared in part at least by the transformation, during the 1930s, of a supra-national Volksgemeinschaft based purely on culture and minority rights in general, to one conceptualised in terms of German national and racial superiority. In this context how else could the building of a new Germanic empire be achieved other than through resettlement on a massive scale? Since Paul Schiemann was one of the very few prominent personalities who refused to take part in the mass resettlement of Baltic Germans after the conclusion of the Nazi-Soviet pact of non-aggression of August 1939, his views are of considerable interest. What, he asked, did the National Socialist solution to minority conflicts offer for Europe’s future? As he rightly pointed out, the Baltic German experience of being resettled into formerly Polish territory from 1939 showed that voluntary relocation did not necessarily produce the desired results. No matter how much moral pressure was applied, a large percentage of the peoples involved would always refuse to move through love of their homeland. Force alone guaranteed the desired outcome. All the unspeakable human suffering that the Jewish laws have occasioned, must be increased tenfold throughout Europe. And apart from the Jews there are other nationality groups, who have no nation state behind them. Are they to be treated in accordance with the example of German Jewish policy and the German Czech policy?34 What was worse, in Schiemann’s view, other nation states would be driven to favour conquest over re-settlement, leading to a power struggle culminating in a stand off between large states, ultimately fatal for the numerous small countries. So that any policy seemingly favouring one state alone, but which

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harmed Europe as a whole, would ultimately also damage the initiator. Scathingly, Schiemann dismissed the extreme nationalist’s vaunting of a ‘dynamic attitude.’ The only dynamism that cultural, intellectual and artistic life could acknowledge was that of multiplicity. The monochrome and the uniform world implicit in National Socialist thinking promised only conflict and with it the stagnation and paralysis of European cultural life as a whole. This was the harsh and gloomy reality of the world view conjured up by Hitler’s ‘new aristocracy’.

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NOTES 1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6. 7.

8. 9. 10.

11.

12. 13.

As displayed in W.Hasselblatt, ‘Staatskrise und auslandsdeutsche Nationalitätenpolitik,’ Baltische Monatsschrift (1929), p. 159. M.-H. Boehm, Europa Irredenta (Berlin: Reimar Hobbing, 1923), pp. 311–12 Hasselblatt’s moral collapse is detailed in J. Hackmann, ‘Concepts of German nationalities policy in Eastern Europe during the Second World War: the case of Werner Hasselblatt’ in D. Gaunt, P.A. Levine and L. Palosuo, eds., Collaboration and Resistance during the Holocaust (Bern: Peter Lang, 2004). See also X-M. NunezSeixas, Entre Ginebra y Berlin. La Cuestion de las Minorias Nacionales y la Politica Internacional en Europa 1914–1939 (Madrid: Akal, 2001), pp. 480–5. J. Hiden, Defender of minorities. Paul Schiemann, 1876–1944. (London: Hurst, 2004), p. 184. P. Schiemann, ‘Solidarität und Parteigeist,’ Rigasche Rundchau, 20 September 1924. P. Schiemann, ‘Ein europäisches Problem,’ Der Deutsche in Polen, 27.9.1936. These early concerns are manifest in diplomatic correspondence at the time the Congress first met. See A.Köster. Memo of 22 February 1926. German Embassy, Riga. R60463. Political Archive of the German Foreign Office, Berlin. Hasselblatt to Schiemann, 14 March 1931. Schiemann Nachlass: Volksgr. ENK Korresp. Baltic German Library, Riga. ‘Die neue nationalistische Welle,’ Nation und Staat, 5 (1932), pp. 799–810. Sitzungsbericht des Kongresses der Organisierten Nationale Gruppen in den Staaten Europas (Leipzig: Wilhelm Braumüller, 1934). Also M. Housden, ‘Ethical drift. Ewald Ammende, the Congress of European Nationalities and the rise of German National Socialism,’ Central and Eastern European Review 1 (2007) www.ceer.org.uk. Speech delivered in Vienna on 24 October 1936. Printed in R. E. Murphy et al, National Socialism. Basic principles. Their application by the Nazi Party’s Foreign Organization and the use of Germans abroad for Nazi aims (Washington: US Govt., 1943), pp. 355–61. Cited in S. Bamberger-Stemmann, Der Europäische Nationalitätenkongreß (Marburg: Herder Institut, 2000), p. 259. Cf. P. Schiemann, ‘Brüderkampf im Auslandsdeutschtum,’ Der Deutsche in Polen, 9 January 1936.

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14. M.-H. Boehm’s papers can be found at the Federal archive, Koblenz. Nachlass Boehm 1077. 15. M. Housden, Helmut Nicolai and nazi ideology (London: Macmillan, 1992), chapter 4. 16. A. Rosenberg, The myth of the Twentieth Century (Torrance, CA.: Nootide Press, 1982), pp. 41–2. 17. For a brief study of Haushofer can be found in A.D. Low, The men around Hitler. The Nazi élite and its collaborators (New York: East European Monographs, 1996). 18. How influential Haushofer’s views were can be seen in Tammo Luther’s Volkstumspolitik des Deutschen Reiches, 1933–1938. Die Auslanddeutschen im Spannungsfeld zwischen Traditionalisten und Nationalsozialisten (Munich: Franz Steiner, 2004). 19. G. Aly and S. Heim, Vordenker der Vernichtung. Auschwitz und die deutschen Pläne für eine neue europäische Ordnung (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1993), p. 367. 20. Darré's biography is provided by A. Bramwell, Blood and soil. Richard Walther Darré and Hitler’s Green Party (London: Kensall Press, 1985). 21. Extracts from Walther Darré’s address to Gau party meeting at Gera, 12–13 July 1930. Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich. ED 110 Darré Vol. 11. 22. J. Hiden, Germany and Europe 1919-1939 (London: Longman, 1993), chapters 1 and 2; J. Hiden, ‘The Weimar Republic and the problem of the Auslandsdeutsche,’ Journal of Contemporary History, 12 (1977), pp.273–89. 23. J. Hiden, Republican and Fascist Germany (London: Longman, 1996), chapter 12. 24. H. Rauschning, Hitler speaks (London: Thornton Butterwirth, 1939), pp. 40–7. 25. I. Kamenetsky, ‘German colonization plans in Ukraine during World Wars I and II’ in H.-J. Torke and J.-P. Himka, eds., GermanUkrainian relations in historical perspective (Toronto: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1994); M. Broszat, Zweihundert Jahre deutsche Polenpolitik (Munich: Suhrkamp, 1963), p. 272. 26. Theodor Schiemann to Paul Schiemann, 19 October 1918. Printed in P. Schiemann, Zwischen zwei Zeitaltern. Erinnerungen 1903–1919. (H. Krause, ed.) (Lüneburg: Nordland-Druck, 1979), p. 162. 27. G. Aly and S. Heim, Vordenker der Vernichtung. Auschwitz und die deutschen Pläne für eine neue europäische Ordnung (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1993), pp. 102–24. 28. P. Longerich, ed., Die Ermorderung der Europäischen Juden (Munich: Piper, 1989), p. 19.

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29. B. Hamann, Hitler’s Vienna. A dictator’s apprenticeship (Oxford: OUP, 1999). 30. The definitive study of the tract is provided in N. Cohn, Warrant for genocide. The myth of the Jewish world-conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (Chicago: Harper, 1981). 31. M. Housden, Hitler. Study of a revolutionary? (Basingstoke: Routledge, 2000), p. 31. 32. P. Schiemann, ‘Ende der Nationalitätenbewegung?,’ Der Deutsche in Polen, 9 April 1939. 33. M. Broszat, Zweihundert Jahre deutsche Polenpolitik (Munich: Suhrkamp, 1972), p.277. 34. P. Schiemann, ‘Die Umsiedlung 1939 und die Europäische Minderheitenpolitik,’ Jahrbuch des baltischen Deutschtums, 21 (1974), pp. 99–106.

Chapter five Dying space The gloomy predictions made by leaders of the european nationalities movement as to the likely outcome of ignoring their pleas for cultural autonomy came to fruition as German troops crossed their country’s frontiers. In a period of european history as bleak as any conceivable for the continent’s minorities, senior National Socialists used the ideal opportunity provided by war to take drastic measures against designated ‘enemies’ of German nationhood—most notably through wholesale resettlement projects and genocide—out of sight of the wider world. The whole question of securing equality for minorities was thrust aside with impunity from the very outset of the war. Now the very idea of nations coexisting on the same territory was seen as intrinsically threatening. As early as 8 August 1939, head of the Reich Security Head Office Reinhard Heydrich had signaled on Hitler’s authority that ‘people on Polish territory should be shot or hanged, members of the gentry, the clergy and Jews must be liquidated.’1 By 27 September 1939 he calmly accepted the need to eliminate no less than three per cent of the Polish population comprising the leadership élite. These measures indicated beyond any doubt an early Nazi desire to destroy the very idea of a Polish nation. A few days beforehand Heydrich had ordered that all Jews on Polish territory now occupied by Germany be concentrated near transport sites, especially railway stations. He identified Danzig, West Prussia, Posen and Upper Silesia as key sites to be purged of their Jewish peoples. At once the Second World War was a conflict over demography and population structures—a complete rejection of Central Eastern Europe’s longstanding national diversity. When Hitler spoke to the Reichstag on 6 October 1939 about ‘cleansing work’ and the creation of ‘a new order of ethnographic relationships’, he was already well aware of what was starting to unfold on the battlefields and in occupied territory.2 On the very next day he had Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler promoted to Reich Commissar for the Consolidation of Germandom. He was directed by Hitler: (1) to bring back those German citizens and ethnic Germans abroad who are eligible for permanent return to the Reich; (2) to eliminate the harmful influence of such alien parts of the population as constitute a danger to the Reich and the German community; (3) to create new German colonies by resettlement, and especially by the resettlement of German citizens and ethnic Germans coming back from abroad. The Reichsführer SS is authorized to give such general orders and to take such administrative measures as are necessary for

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the execution of these duties. To carry out the task allotted to him under Paragraph I, point 2, the Reichsführer-SS can assign certain dwelling areas to the parts of the population in question.3 Equipped with wide-ranging powers Himmler’s immediate task was to deal with the newly occupied Polish territories, where the resettlement of Baltic Germans from Estonia and Latvia was understood to be part of roughly a threefold pattern.4 When Alfred Rosenberg spoke with Hitler about the Führer’s plans for the New Order in East and West Europe he was told: The Poles are a thin Germanic layer with dreadful material underneath. The Jews are the most horrible thing imaginable. The towns are covered with dirt. He has learned a great deal in recent weeks. Above all, if Poland had ruled over parts of the old [German] empire for just a few more decades, everything would have become lice-ridden and depraved. Now only a purposeful governing hand can rule here. He wants to divide the captured area into three strips.5 According to this plan, moving from west to east, first there was to be a belt of ethnic German settlers, displacing Poles and Jews, most notably in the Warthegau. A second zone, the heart of the newly created Government General, was intended for Poles, including those recently moved out of territories incorporated into the Reich. As to the Jews, these were due for transport to the inhospitable outer sector of the Government General, the area of Lublin which lay between the rivers Bug and the Vistula. It was all too obvious from the very first exchange of hostilities in the East that the construction of new German settlements and the destruction of Polish and Jewish communities were opposite sides of the same coin. Only the German settlement in the first region, on territories slated for incorporation into the German Reich, experienced anything like conventional concern for the conditions of those located there. Admittedly there was an air of unreality about displaced Baltic Germans trying to reconstitute, on land stolen from other nationalities, the lifestyles and hierarchies they had once enjoyed in Riga and Tallinn (see chapter 7). The fact remains that whatever hardships and difficulties they encountered in their new homes paled into insignificance compared with the damage inflicted on the non-German inhabitants of the other occupied areas. Under Hans Frank the Government General became a veritable laboratory for Nazi ideas about the best way to administer the East.6 In the process even the less enlightened traditional modes of co-existence between German and non-German were smashed comprehensively. The future for average Poles in this area was destined to be nasty, brutish and short; they were earmarked for merciless exploitation for the benefit of the German war economy. As a consequence, in due course nearly two million Polish workers were deported

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to the Reich as slave labourers. Those individuals left behind had to struggle for the very barest necessities of life. Were it not for an endemic corruption permeating the Government General, which allowed every manner of illicit transaction, the suffering would have been even greater than it was.

5.1 Hans Frank, 1900–46 The Governor General, a trained lawyer with a personal instinct for order, was tested to distraction by the chaos developing within his realm. Relief for him only came on the horizon when, in March 1941, Hitler finally made clear his ultimate intention to expel all non-Germans from his domain over the following fifteen to twenty years. Frank’s diary entry of 25 March 1941 cheerfully recorded: The Government General, as we know and have developed it, will be essentially richer and happier. It will experience more support and, above all, will be cleared of Jews [entjudet]. What’s more, it will lose the characteristic look of a lifestyle which is still predominantly Polish, because along with the Jews, Poles will also leave this territory. The Führer has decided to make this area into a purely German land (sic).7 Talk of four to five million Germans replacing the ten million or so Poles targeted for removal from the Government General was extraordinary in itself.8 Moreover it implied a singular lack of future for the Jews unfortunate

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enough to find themselves in this particular theatre of war. They could anticipate nothing other than physical attrition from the German authorities, by whatever means. Earlier projects for sending Jews to Lublin (the Nisko project), and later to Madagascar, were accompanied by bigoted rhetoric, which left little doubt that many were expected to die in the process. Those in charge of resettlement knew perfectly well that the winter in Lublin would be extremely severe. Hans Frank showed a chilling disinterest in alleviating Jewish suffering and expressly excluded wasting any resources on the deportees. The Nisko project was consistent with the initial reservations voiced by Himmler, and agreed by Hitler, that it was ‘un-Germanic and impossible’ to commit biological genocide directly.9 At this early point, only a Bolshevik regime was believed capable of attempting such a thing. Through resettlement, even though many people were expected to die, the door was left open to some continuing to live. Moreover there was another sop to the conscience of any doubter: death could still be interpreted as simply a byproduct of policy, not its actual aim. In reality, however, soon even this position became increasingly hard to sustain as the projected scale of resettlements demanded by Berlin expanded exponentially and the destination became increasingly harsh. Taking the case of the Jews alone, in 1939–40 there was talk of moving a million people to Lublin.10 By June 1940 the projected population movements encompassed some three and a half million souls. The upward trend in the figures dramatically increased once more in December 1940. At that point Adolf Eichmann, the leader of the resettlement section of the Reich Security Head Office, planned to expel nearly six million Jews from Europe to the frozen wastes of Siberia.11 Making these numerical projections reality became a constant headache for the Nazi administration, particularly once the resettlement of both Poles and Jews to the Government General had stalled in February 1940. The setback came as a result of misgivings on the part of Göring, who was overseeing the Four Year Plan, and Hans Frank. Both complained that massive population movements would seriously endanger the Government General’s contribution to the war economy. The resettlement initiative only re-started with Hitler’s backing the following November. Even so, results remained disappointing for Himmler in his capacity as Reich Commissar for the Consolidation of Germandom. Of the 830,000 Poles and Jews scheduled for resettlement from the Polish territories incorporated into the Reich and Vienna, only three and a half percent were actually moved to the Government General.12 Consequently hundreds of thousands of would-be ethnic German settlers being assembled from around Central and Eastern Europe could not be moved to take their places; they were left in holding camps and temporary accommodation. The log jams arising from Nazi targets for resettlement could not readily be overcome. For instance during the summer of 1940 an additional plan was

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thought up by Franz Rademacher as he worked in the Jewish office of the Foreign Ministry.13 He proposed resettling Jews to the Indian Ocean, specifically to the island of Madagascar, which would be run as a protectorate by the SS. This idea was, however, frustrated by the British navy maintaining command of the High Seas. The alternative notion of sending these people east of the Urals was a logical outgrowth of Hitler’s decision to commission Operation Barbarossa, but its still more radical nature, both in terms of numbers involved and inclemency of destination, signified the way resettlement and physical genocide were becoming increasingly indistinguishable. Nor was the military immune from the ever more extreme mood generated by Hitler’s preparations to implement his long desired goal to attack Russia. The generals responded readily enough to the ideological conflation of Marxism and Judaism (accomplished with horrendous rhetoric) that Hitler presented to them during the preparatory phase for the campaign. Hence as early as 3 March 1941 General Jodl issued a circular to senior officers characterising the forthcoming attack as ‘a collision between two different ideologies’ in which the ‘Bolshevist-Jewish intelligentsia’ had to be annihilated.14 Later the same month Hitler underlined the message personally in front of some two hundred senior military men, emphasising that severe measures taken now would be best in the long run. Those present subsequently played their part in transforming these sentiments into written regulations, sadly with seemingly little effort. In the Jurisdiction Order of 13 May 1941, for example, General Keitel specifically exonerated German soldiers in advance of any crime that they might commit against Russian civilians in the course of their advance. Most infamous, however, was the Commissar Order of 6 June, authorising the execution of all captured Soviet political officials.15 These developments were part of a bigger picture. They built on the trend, evident since the 1920s at the latest, of German experts theorising that Central and East Europe was seriously over-populated, resulting in inefficient economies and unacceptably poor standards of living. To Nazi minds such population structures had to be changed somehow or other. It was at this point that economics and racism began to flow together seamlessly. There could be no doubt therefore, that the impending assault on the Jews fitted into a much grander agenda for extreme re-ordering of populations.16 The prospect was facilitated by the expectation of controlling the seemingly endless tracts of Siberia for use as a suitable ‘relocation’ site for massive numbers of unwanted people. Worse still, in the months leading up to Operation Barbarossa, Herman Göring anticipated that no fewer than thirty million inhabitants of the areas they were about to invade would be eradicated in the course of the conflict. Other Nazis, including Heinrich Himmler, mentioned a similar figure throughout the summer of 1941.17

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The consequences of this thinking were reflected in the nature of war in the East. It saw, among other things, the exploitation of conditions that permitted millions of Russian prisoners of war to starve and brought utter deprivation to the besieged Soviet urban areas, most notably Leningrad. Manifestly the population of a massive zone was being manipulated to bring about the most ambitious and amoral of ends; namely, to cleanse and render efficient the projected Nazi living space. The same spirit would infect the occupation policies of the swathes of territory eventually brought under the direct control of Alfred Rosenberg from summer 1941. In a secret meeting of 16 July 1941 Hitler planned that: 1. The whole of the Baltic, the Crimea with as large a hinterland as possible, the German Volga colony, the area around Baku, Ukrainian Galicia, the area of Bialystok and the Kola peninsula will become territory of the German empire. 2. Bessarabia, Odessa and the area west and north west from it will be annexed to Romania. 3. The annexation of Finland as a federal state will be prepared with all care. Finland receives Leningrad and Eastern Karelia. 4. The rest of the territory of the Soviet Union becomes a German colony....18 Initially some care was taken to conceal the Reich’s ultimate intentions from the local populations. These were led to believe that Germany might eventually evacuate their territories and restore something of their former independence. However, at the above meeting on the Führer’s train, Rosenberg, newly appointed Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Area, had been expressly instructed that Germany had no intention of relinquishing its new conquests and that from the outset important tasks like shooting and resettlement were to be implemented there. This sentiment boded particular ill in the first instance for the Jews in the area. The sheer scale of the task confronting senior figures like Frank and Rosenberg made unavoidable bruising conflicts with other power centres sharing the construction of the New Order. This was particularly the case with the SS, whose lines of command covered the various occupied territories and which was seeking to monopolise population policy. Thus Himmler, in his capacity of Reich Commissar for the Consolidation of Germandom, pointedly by-passed the civil authorities under Frank and Rosenberg wherever possible, favouring instead direct contact with his police units. The Reichsführer-SS robustly defended his actions in the name of trying to ensure a coherent resettlement policy throughout the East in both conception and execution, despite the institutional complexity and rivalry there after 1939. In striving to bring about a unified police executive controlling the Lebensraum area at the expense of civilian administrations, Himmler could count on the

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support of Hitler. Rosenberg might have wished to insist that Himmler be confined to resettling Germans from the East to Reich territory but this was a vain hope indeed. Ultimately, neither Rosenberg nor Frank were able to prevent the SS from trying to reshape their territories in keeping with Himmler’s agenda. In fact the Reichsführer-SS was driven by images of restoring German towns in the East as they had been in the Middle Ages; in keeping with this goal, for instance, the town of Zamosc was expected to have its name changed to Himmlerstadt. Himmler was also obsessed with the idea of establishing settlements of Germanic warrior farmers in the region. His thinking in this instance was part of a wider and covert reconfiguration scheme developed by the Reich Security Head Office, known as General Plan East. It bluntly affirmed that: The saturation of the massive eastern territories with German life creates the urgent necessity for the Reich to find new kinds of settlement which will balance the size of the spaces at issue with the number of Germans currently at our disposal The plan passed through several versions, but by summer 1942 roughly in harmony with Göring’s figures, it envisaged no fewer than thirty one million non-Germans being resettled to western Siberia, their former homes being handed over to ethnic Germans.19 Himmler was keen to complete the project within two decades, even though it meant in the process removing eighty five percent of the Polish population from German-controlled territory. In the future there were to be a number of key German strongholds radiating eastwards and linking the German heartland to the Baltic states, the Ukraine, the Crimea, the Caucasus and beyond. Bizarre as the thinking seems today, it was far from being a fantasy in the early stages of the war against the USSR. Himmler could rely on a dedicated staff, located in key areas, who were already carrying out the preliminary work. Odilo Globocnik, the Senior SS and Police Leader in Lublin, had agreed with Himmler in August 1940 that his territory should become a key settlement site. The Carinthian, ‘Globus’, was known as ‘an old Austrian terrorist’ from the days when the Nazi party was illegal there and renowned for being frequently drunk whilst on duty in Lublin.20 He nevertheless reveled in being Commissar for the Establishment of SS and Police Bases in the New Eastern Territories. By summer 1942 Globocnik’s domain had become a crucially important component of the wider resettlement agenda, now in full swing. The key sites for Teutonic strongholds included Lublin and Galicia (in the Government General), together with Zhitomir and the Crimea (in the Ukraine). At this time Himmler was also able to gain control of the wholesale Germanisation of the Baltic countries. Even in 1943, as the German position became more precarious, he continued to dream of the day,

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five hundred years hence, when six hundred million Germans would be settled as far as the Urals.21

5.2 Odilo Globocnik, 1904–1945 Not to be outdone, Globus was also looking to create a band of German settlements stretching from the Baltic Sea, through southern Lithuania, Lublin and Galicia towards Transylvania. In a report of 15 October 1941, Senior SS Leader in southern Poland, Helmut Müller, reported that Globcnik regards the gradual cleansing of the whole Government General of Jews and Poles as necessary for the security of the eastern territory. He has extensive and good plans relating to this and is hindered in achieving them simply through the limited influence of his current post since he requires the support of the civil administration and the Governor General’s offices for all the [necessary] initiatives which, what’s more, can only be embarked upon in co-operation with others on the basis of existing laws and ordinances.22 Eventually these settlements were targeted for expansion to eradicate any Poles left to the west. It was hardly accidental that the very space needed for German settlement in order to realise these ambitions became available in mid-1942, when the Jewish ghettos in the Government General were being ‘emptied’. The

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Wannsee conference of January 1942 had already paved the way for the industrialised killing of Jews. Within weeks this was being energetically prosecuted in the gas chambers of Belzec. By July 1942 Himmler was demanding that all Jews be removed from the Government General before the end of the year. The grim record of the Holocaust, its genesis and execution, has been well chronicled elsewhere but the overlap between these developments and the initiation of wholesale resettlement is too striking to be ignored and was certainly related in the minds of the German personnel involved.23 There can be no question of ethnic re-organization ever being low down on the Nazi political agenda. Both Hitler and Himmler clearly saw an integral link between wholesale population resettlement and Germany’s long-term security. Even the titanic struggle at Stalingrad was not at first allowed to stand in the way of population policy, although this grew progressively more difficult to implement. Several months had to pass before it became imperative to confront hard decisions to suspend demographic reorganization in Poland, particularly in the region of Zamosc, where a shortage of German manpower threatened to let the immediate security situation spiral out of control.24 Alarmingly, the occupiers found that rather than wait to be resettled Poles were escaping their homes in the designated districts in order to join the partisans. These events finally brought home that enforced relocation of peoples was actually jeopardising the stabilisation of the Third Reich. Ultimately the risks became too high to bear in what was, after all, an important transport corridor that had to be kept clear for the logistic support of hard-pressed German troops at the front. Consequently resettlement was suspended in Lublin in July 1943. In the end, between 1939 and 1945, up to one and a quarter million Germans were moved from their original homelands across Central and Eastern Europe, and half a million were allocated new holdings at the sites made available by the SS. The frontiersmen of the New Order were resettled to forty seven thousand farms in Poland, accounting for nine hundred and fifty thousand hectares of land out of a total of nine million. All in all, a million Poles were ejected from their homes. Even so, and despite the scale of dislocation behind the bare statistics, the truth is that the underlying conception of consolidating Germandom in the East was only ever achieved to a very limited extent. Sadly, however, the Jewish project was much more fully realised, even though at this stage of the conflict there was a desperate need to employ every able pair of hands in the Third Reich’s war industry. By mid-1943 the regime was allowing those Jews still left in the camps in central Poland a most brutal existence in SS controlled factories, where they were being literally worked to death. Eventually, however, growing security worries arising from the Warsaw ghetto uprising in spring of that year, as well as unrest at camps such as Sobibor, only helped accelerate policy on the part of

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the police. In November 1943, SS contingents turned up unexpectedly at the gates of work camps in the Government General and ruthlessly removed the Jewish work force for summary execution. One of the more confounding consequences of the brutal Operation Harvest Festival was that it left camp managers complaining that they were now unable to honour their contracts to supply much needed munitions.25

5.3 Am Grossen Wannsee 56–58. Location of the Wannsee Conference, 20 January 1942. Such paradoxes stemmed directly from the nature and shortcomings of the Third Reich’s political system. The obsessive pursuit, by individuals, groups and institutions, of destructive racial policies was aided, in some respects at least, by the absence of any institutionalised government forum for collective decision making, let alone anything resembling a cabinet. Without a recognizable and authoritative central body it was virtually impossible to produce an overarching policy line suited to the interests of all the executive institutions concerned. Even at the most senior level there was no regularised meeting during which different ideas could be aired and accepted under relatively open conditions by interested political players. Instead, at least as far as racial policy was concerned, Hitler preferred conspiring at critical moments with acolytes in meetings at best only partially minuted and often carried out under ‘four-eyes’ conditions. In this environment the development of ever more nihilistic racial policies increasingly fell to the trusted figure of Heinrich Himmler, who headed an

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executive with sufficient scope and power to turn the Führer’s extensive visions for the East into reality. Nevertheless, the state of affairs continued to breed uncertainty and confusion among those who were not within Hitler’s closest decision-making circle. This was because the main agency of annihilation and resettlement, the SS, operated under conditions of extreme secrecy and tight control. As a result it was virtually impossible for outsiders to grasp in good time the full implications of the projects that Himmler was driving through. Hence even as late as mid-October 1941, highly placed men like Alfred Rosenberg and Hans Frank felt it necessary jointly to puzzle out the contours of police ‘resettlement’ policy and its consequences for their own territories.26 Police operations, in short, required interpretation by those beyond the SS and consequently ran the risk of disruption by local occupation authorities. The latter were either unclear about the detail of what was happening or attempting to prioritise their particular agendas differently. To make the situation more complicated still, conceptions of what exactly should be done with the East changed over time. Even Hitler toyed with different models for Lebensraum during different periods. This may well have displayed the process of a man making up his mind but it also reflected how the possibilities open to the Führer evolved along with the conflict itself. The concrete circumstances brought about by the war in 1940 were very different from those in 1941, and different again from those in 1943. The options achievable under any of these conditions could never be the same. While the Governor General accepted Hitler’s decision to remove all his Poles in early 1941, a few months earlier the priorities had looked very different. The attack on Russia had not yet been ordered and something had to be done with the Polish population under German control. There had been a long tradition of Polish lands providing an itinerant workforce servicing, for example, the East Prussian harvest.27 Earlier on, therefore, Hitler had personally favoured extending this model to turn the ten million or so Poles of the Government General into a labour reservoir. With their leaders liquidated, in October 1940 the Führer envisaged Polish workers as a mobile labour force allocated wherever and whenever required by the German economy. Here was Grossraumwirtschaft-thinking of the crassest kind. While Operation Barbarossa opened up more drastic possibilities for the peoples suffering Nazi occupation, by 1943 Nazi priorities were again shifting. After the debacle of Stalingrad initiatives emerged seeking to forge a front of united european nations against Bolshevism. Hans Frank therefore became optimistic that he could integrate the Polish population into the long term future of Europe. He even demanded a clear statement to this effect from Hitler. To Frank’s mind the discovery in January 1943 of thousands of dead Polish officers executed by the Soviet secret police, or NKVD, at Katyn provided a perfect opportunity for winning the Polish nation over to the German cause.28 He seemed to have believed genuinely that the Soviet

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atrocity could compensate for all that the Germans had done in Poland up to that point. Admittedly compromise with the Poles proved a step too far for Berlin but fresh moves did emerge to find a useful place for other eastern populations inside the Third Reich. Indeed, some of them were put under arms. In his capacity of Reichsführer-SS, Heinrich Himmler established military units for, among others, Ukrainians, Cossacks and the Baltic peoples, all in the name of saving Western civilization from Bolshevism. While the national differences of these recruits prevented them from being enlisted in the German army, they were attached as racial units to the Waffen-SS. In a variety of respects, the actual practice of wartime occupation ultimately showed that in the East neither annihilation nor expulsion could provide the sole basis for dealing with local populations. Hitler and Himmler undoubtedly favoured such solutions but other leading Nazis could not rely on these alone. For instance, even though he was expecting the eventual removal of all non-Germans from the Government General, in the meantime Hans Frank had to cope with the pressures of dealing with a multi-ethnic population on a day-to-day basis. As a result he set about trying to create a hierarchical social order in his territory. It was founded on the absolute predominance of German nationals, but below them it differentiated Ukrainians, Poles and Jews. Ukrainians were allocated some regions for settlement and had both their own language and the Orthodox Church officially recognised. In return, they were expected to act as henchmen for the regime. On the other hand, while Poles were subjected to labour service they were also allowed secondary school education. As to the Jews, they were permitted only primary schools and were subjected to forced labour. Hans Frank also attempted to set up a legal system with different courts dealing respectively in German and Polish law.29 Whatever the long terms plans for his territory, in the immediate term the Governor General seemed to end up working towards the creation of a multi-ethnic apartheid state. Looking at what Alfred Rosenberg planned for the Ukraine and Baltic states in early summer 1941, we can see that he took account of a future in which the region’s population would be diverse.30 The complexity of his area was reflected in the organisation of the Eastern Ministry. Beneath Rosenberg were to be four Reich Commissars, respectively for the Baltic states and Belorussia, Ukraine, Caucasus and Moscow. The Baltic states and White Russia were easiest to deal with. Rosenberg believed that 700 years of shared history had made many of the peoples there, particularly Estonians, suitable for Germanisation. The ‘unsuitable’ could be expelled to the eastern margins with Russia, that is to say to White Russia. In effect Rosenberg planned the creation of a German protectorate in the western Baltic region. He thought the introduction of the Reichsmark as soon as possible after invasion would be a powerful symbol of the close tie between this area and the Reich. In due course, the Baltic states were designated Ostland and Hinrich Lohse became Reich Commissar. As well as numerous German officials beneath Lohse,

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there were also Latvian led directorates with limited responsibility in agriculture, social welfare, finances, education and transport, under the overall command of former Latvian General, Oskars Dankers. Baltic Germans were also drafted in to help with self-administration (Landeseigene Verwaltung).31 As to the Ukraine, Rosenberg felt it could be developed as a state with a strictly limited measure of independence. Since Bolshevism had liquidated the Ukraine’s intelligentsia, he thought it would be easier for Germany to exploit the area and its people economically and draw them into a close alliance against Moscow. He therefore advocated establishing universities in Kiev and other cities, with courses on German literature and history being taught in Ukrainian.32 He also accepted the need for teaching to be delivered in Russian for the time being. There was even a place for Cossacks, with their purported aggressive inclinations usefully harnessed against Jews and Russians. In planning for the lands to the south of Ukraine, the Caucasus, Rosenberg clearly thought that the highly diverse populations would be eminently suitable for building a new federal structure. It would of course be supervised by a German governor. Manifestly the precise possibilities associated with National Socialism’s occupation of the East varied by person, time and circumstance, but the epic scale of the Lebensraum quest ultimately compelled even the SS to take seriously the prospect of a foreseeable future with mixed populations. This reality was reflected in Himmler’s talk of the need to develop a population plan covering the next five centuries. Specifically in the short term, however, the issue remained of what to do with the space left between the scattered strongholds of German settlers that Himmler was constructing. Globus’s answer to that particular problem in Zamosc was simple. As he settled ethnic Germans there, he also located Ukrainians in the surrounding districts, including Hrubiescow and Tomaszow.33 Their role was to form a security barrier protecting ethnic Germans and absorbing any hostility from the remaining indigenous Poles. There was a clear parallel in thinking here with Rosenberg's notion of settling undesirables on lands between Ostland and Russia.34 Equally, in summer 1941, Rosenberg proposed moving Poles out of the Warthegau, not to the Government General, but to the area around Smolensk, where they too would form a population barrier against Russia.35 In sum there were leading Nazis who convinced themselves that foreign populations could be manipulated to provide relatively long term security benefits for Germans in the East. Actually the question of the eastern borders of the Lebensraum empire is largely overlooked in existing studies of the Third Reich. Taking the logic of events, borders had to be so extensive that they could never be hermetically sealed. Moreover, because many of the areas at stake were so remote they promised direct contact between Germans and a whole new set of peoples, many of whom were encountered for the first time as Soviet prisoners of war.

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Faced with the startling prospect of a possible future border between Germany and, for instance, Turkmenistan, Kazakstan, Uzbekistan and Kirgizia, the SS was simply compelled to take an interest in what cooperation and coexistence would entail in such exotic circumstances. A report of late 1941 by an unknown author hypothesised what might happen if the Soviet Union broke up. Following the partitioning of the Soviet Union, specifically the old Russian Empire, into its national components we must also try to detach the Central Asian regions of the Turkish peoples, namely the former Soviet republics Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakstan and Kirgizia. These are a special case in so far as hitherto there has been no provision for a Reich Commissariat for governing and looking after these regions. There is therefore a danger that in the event of the Soviet Union collapsing these areas will be thrown on their own resources. It is then questionable whether it would be possible to combine the said areas. We must take into account the likelihood of each of the territories setting up their own independent governments. In the even of the Bolshevik Russian yoke being shaken off there is a risk that the English will also penetrate the area from India, Afghanistan and Iran, under the pretence of aiding its ally the Soviet Union in putting down rebellion. It began to seem that in order to prevent subversion of Germany’s southern flank by either eventuality the best option would be to offer these far-flung corners military protection. The report continued: It is therefore not in Germany’s interests that any sort of uprising breaks out against the Soviet Union before Germany can take over the defence.36 In the end, therefore, despite all its ideology of annihilation and despite the massive genocidal projects unleashed by the Third Reich, even the Nazis could not evade the realities of time and place. Despite the extreme desolation of the world outlined in this chapter between 1939 and 1945, even for those who through some miracle managed to survive, the picture would still be incomplete without understanding this point: accepting that the Jewish project stood on its own, in the Hitler State as it developed in practice, even here there was—indeed had to be—room for some manner of co-existence between German and other non-German nationalities. Despite National Socialism’s apocalyptic agenda, genocidal resettlement projects and mass killing necessarily had their limits as tools of social policy.

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NOTES 1.

2. 3.

4. 5.

6.

7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12.

13.

14. 15.

16.

M. Olszewski, ‘The policy of exterminating Polish intellectuals during the Nazi occupation,’ Polish Western Affairs, 21–2 (1981–2), p. 121 M. Broszat, Zweihundert Jahre deutsche Polenpolitik (Munich: Suhrkamp, 1972), p. 277 Decree by the Führer and Reich Chancellor for the Consolidation of Germandom. 7 October 1939. Nuremberg documents, NO 3075. Translated in R.L. Koehl, RKFVD. German resettlement and population policy 1939–1945 (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1957), pp. 247–9. C.R. Browning, The path to genocide. Essays on launching the Final Solution (Cambridge: CUP, 1992), pp. 8–9. H.G. Seraphim, Das politische Tagebuch Alfred Rosenbergs aus den Jahren 1934–35 und 1939–40 (Göttingen: Musterschmidt-Verlag, 1964), p. 98–100. R.C. Lukas, The forgotten Holocaust. The Poles under German occupation 1939–44 (Kentucky: University of Kentucky, 1986), p. 7. Hans Frank’s Official Diary, entry of 25 March 1941. Federal archive, Berlin. R 52 II / 181 ibid. Entry of 26 March 1941. R 52 II / 181. Federal archive, Berlin. H. Krausnick, ‘Denkschrift Himmlers über die Behandlung der Fremdvölkischen im Osten (Mai 1940),’ Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte (1957), pp. 195–98. R. Breitman, The architect of genocide. Himmler and the Final Solution (London: Bodley Head, 1991), p. 118 Browning, Path to genocide, p. 15. G. Aly, Final Solution. Nazi population policy and the murder of the European Jews (London: Arnold, 1999), p. 109. Hans Frank’s official diary. Entry of 8 January 1941. R 52 II / 233. Federal archive, Berlin. Also M. Housden, Hans Frank. Lebensraum and the Holocaust (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2003), p. 140. For an extended discussion of this project, see M. Brechtken, “Madagaskar für die Juden.” Antisemitische Idee und politische Praxis 1885–1945 (Munich: Oldenburg, 1997). W. Warlimont, Inside Hitler’s headquarters 1939–1945 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1964), pp.150–1. For the text of the order, see H. Laschitza and S. Vietzke, Geschichte Deutschlands und der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung 1933–1945 (Berlin: 1964), p. 258–9. G. Aly and S. Heim, Vordenker der Vernichtung. Auschwitz und die deutschen Pläne für eine neue europäische Ordnung (Frankfurt am

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17. 18. 19.

20.

21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

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Main: Fischer, 1993), pp. 102–25. Translated by A.G. Blunden as Architects of annihilation. Auschwitz and the logic of annihilation (Princeton: Princeton UP, 2003). R.L. Koehl, RKFVD. German resettlement and population policy 1939–1945 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1957), p. 146. Nuremberg Document L-221, IMT XI, ADB 37 p. 43 ff. See P. Burrin, Hitler and the Jews. The genesis of the Holocaust (London: Arnold, 1994), p. 99. There are numerous discussions of Generalplan Ost including especially Aly and Heim, Vordenker der Vernichtung, pp. 394–404. Also of interest are A. Dallin, German rule in Russia 1941–1945. A study of ocupation policies (London: Macmillan,1957), pp. 286–8; H. Heiber, ‘Der Generalplan Ost,’ Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 6 (1958), pp. 319–2; C. Madajczyk, ‘General Plan Ost,’ Polish Western Affairs, 3 (1962) pp. 391–442; B. Wasser, Himmlers Raumplanung im Osten. Der Generalplan Ost in Polen 1940–1944 (Basel: Birkhäuser, 1993); D. Eichholtz, Geschichte der deutschen Kriegswirtschaft 1939–1945. Volume 2 (Munich: K.G.Sauer,1999), pp. 430–40. Undated postwar testimony of J.H. Müller (formerly an SSSturmbannführer). NO-5556, Nuremberg State Archive. Globocnik was captured by the British in May 1945 and committed suicide within hours. For the story about his death, see G. Sereny, The German trauma. Experiences and reflections 1938–2000 (London: Penguin, 2000), chapter 9. M. Housden, Hitler. Study of a revolutionary? (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 138. The report is in Globocnik Akten, Bunderarchiv (Zehlendorf) For a good study making this point, see Aly, Final Solution. M. Housden, Hans Frank. Lebensraum and the Holocaust (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2003), chapter 9. Report by Globocnik for Himmler dated 4 November 1943. Federal archive, Berlin. NS 19 / 2234. Hans Frank’s official diary. Entry of 13 October 1941. R 52 II / 186. Federal archive, Berlin. U. Herbert, Hitler’s foreign workers. Enforced foreign labour in Germany under the Third Reich (Cambridge: CUP, 1997), chapter 2. Entry of 31 January 1943. R 52 II / 200. Federal archive, Berlin. See also Housden, Hans Frank, pp. 203-6. M. Housden, ‘Hans Frank, Empire Builder in the East 1939–41,’ European History Quarterly, 24 (1994), pp. 379–82. See for instance B. von Gerber, Staatliche Wirtschaftslenkung in den besetzten und annektierten Ostgebieten während des Zweiten Weltkrieges unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der

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31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

treuhänderischen Verwaltung von Unternehmungen und der Ostgesellschaften (Tübingen: Inst. f. Besatzungsfragen ,1959), pp. 23–4. Also of interest is Dallin, German rule in Russia, pp. 49-58 and 276–88. A good array of documents relating to Rosenberg’s planning in connection with Ostland can be found in Trial of the major war criminals before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg. Volume 26 (Nuremberg: 1947). See for instance documents 1017-PS (pp. 547–54), 1028-PS (pp. 567–73), 1029-PS (pp. 573–6), 1030-PS (pp. 576–80), 1031-PS (pp. 580–4) and 1058-PS (pp. 610–27). Document 1058-PS. Extract from the extended text of a speech given by Rosenberg on 20 June 1941. Trial of the major war criminals. Volume 26, pp. 618–9. See comments in ‘Vermerk—Aktion Wehrwolf.’ This is an undated report (presumably written in February 1943) located among correspondence between Globocnik and Himmler. NS 19 / 2234. Federal archive, Berlin. See for instance the minutes of the speech by Rosenberg delivered on 20 June 1941. Document Fd 47. Institute of Contemporary History, Munich. Document 1029-P. Memorandum dated 8 May 1941 found among Rosenberg's paperwork. Trial of the major war criminals. Volume 26, pp. 573–6. Unsigned report. Institute for Contemporary History, Munich. MA 546

Chapter six Ordinary Germans? Questions of ‘neighbours or enemies’ must sooner or later touch on the human beings actually implementing Nazi occupation policies. Understanding what motivated people to realise Hitler’s racial agenda has become central to the history of the period only relatively recently. Why this is so is an interesting question in its own right. Notwithstanding earlier studies, such as those by Hilberg, Krausnick and Streim, the real benchmark came in 1993, with the publication of Christopher Browning’s seminal Ordinary Men. Three years later, in Hitler’s Willing Executioners, Daniel Goldhagen examined the same group of reserve policemen who figure in Browning’s book, but reached very different conclusions. Both authors were, however, confronting Germans as a whole with deeply felt and very painful issues, not surprisingly calling forth a whirlwind of public debate. Yet until these books appeared, for the most part only Hitler and a handful of leading Nazis had featured on centre stage whenever questions were asked about motivation, particularly in respect of the Holocaust, but also regarding other atrocities, including ones perpetrated by the Wehrmacht in the East.1 At last Hitler’s agents were dragged from the obscurity of the wings and the reasons for their actions were subjected to close scrutiny. One of those, Hans Frank, did not spare senior government officials when he addressed them on 16 December 1941: On one occasion the Führer said this: if united Jewry succeeds in unchaining a world war once again, then not only the nations driven to war will sacrifice their blood, but also the Jew will have met his end in Europe. I know there is criticism of many of the measures which are now being carried out in the Reich in respect of the Jews. The public opinion reports show that time and again there are deliberate attempts to speak out about cruelty, harshness and so on. Before I go on, I would request that we agree on a principle: basically we only want to have sympathy for the German nation and for nobody else in the world. The others have had no sympathy for us. As an old National Socialist I must also say that if the Jewish race [Judensippenschaft] were to survive war in Europe, but we were to sacrifice our best blood for the preservation of Europe, then this war would only be a partial success. As regards the Jews, therefore, I will start fundamentally from the expectation that they will vanish. They must go. I am negotiating for the purpose of deporting them to the East.

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After indicating the forthcoming ‘great conference’ at Wansee to deal with the issue under the direction of SS-Obergruppenführer Heydrich, Frank continued: But what will happen to the Jews? Do you believe they will be accommodated in settlement villages in Ostland? We were told in Berlin: why all of these complaints? We can’t deal with them in Ostland or in the Reich Commissariat, liquidate them yourselves! Gentlemen, I must ask you to steel yourselves against all considerations of sympathy. We must annihilate the Jews wherever we meet them and wherever it is possible in order to be able to preserve the entire structure of the Reich.... Previous standards cannot be applied to such gigantic, unique events. In any case we must find a path that leads to the goal and I have my own views on this.2 Two years later, SS and Police Leader, Friedrich Katzmann, put his name to a memorandum detailing actions taken Galicia, ‘the corner of the world,’ as he put it, ‘best known and on everybody’s lips when it came to Jews.’ According to old statistics from 1931, there were about 502,000 Jews.... Our first step was to identify every Jew by a white armband with a blue Star of David. All positions of power throughout the land were in their hands. So it was also understandable that in July 1941, after German troops occupied this area, wherever you went, you bumped into Jews. As a result it had to be our most urgent task to solve the problem as quickly as possible...When the Senior SS and Police Leader...became involved himself in the Jewish Question on 10 November 1942, and a police order was issued for the creation of Jewish [living] quarters, 254,989 Jews had already been evacuated or resettled.... In the meantime further evacuation was implemented energetically, so that with effect from 23 June 1943 all Jewish living areas could be dissolved. Katzmann estimated that in the process of ‘freeing’ Galicia, some 434,329 Jews had been evacuated by 27 June 1943. As to the ‘cleansing’ of Lvov (Lvov) the fervour of the anti-Semitism in Katzman’s memorandum is truly shocking In order to avoid our own casualties, from the outset here we acted with brutality and as a result a number of houses had to be blown up and then destroyed by fire. In this connection the astonishing fact came to light that rather than just the 12,000 Jews registered there, it was actually possible to round up 20,000 Jews in total. At least 3,000 Jewish corpses, caused by suicide after the administration of poison,

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had to be disposed of by all possible means during the cleaning up process.... Despite the extraordinary burden which every member of the SS and police had to endure during these actions, the attitude and spirit of the men was extraordinarily good and praiseworthy from the first day to the last. Only through a consciousness of personal duty on the part of each leader and man were we successful in mastering this PLAGUE in the very shortest time.3 While many will never have heard of Friedrich Golke, a member of the office of the commander of the security police active in the Ukraine, few will forget his statement of a grisly episode once they have read it. The lorry with the trailers drove in front (with us behind) in the direction of an estate. (It was roughly the end of May 1944.) We drove either through this estate or past it on a sandy road to a little piece of woodland. On arriving there, the lorry with the trailers drove to a pit which had already been dug out. Hauptsturmführer Scherer was already there when we arrived and he assigned my comrades and I to close off the execution site. We were allowed to admit no unauthorised personnel. I took up my designated post which was about 50 to 80 m. from the pit. The people to be executed were unloaded from the lorry in groups and taken to the pit. These people had to go into the pit through an opening in a wall which had been erected. There were shots. The execution itself lasted about an hour and a half. When the execution was over and we had to gather near the pit, I saw how two men wearing similar uniforms to me jumped onto the corpses. Both were drunk. One of the pair said: ‘He’s still laughing.’ By this he meant that one of those lying in the pit was groaning and was still not dead. He was shot in the head with a machine pistol. The pit was roughly square. It might have been four or five meters wide, five or six meters long and three meters deep. I saw personally that two layers of corpses were lying in the pit. Crosswise under the layers of corpses lay tree trunks. Before we drove back, a kind of tar was poured out of canisters over the corpses and set alight. A dark smoke was produced which we could see on our journey back until we were well past the estate.4 In contrast to such contemporary accounts it comes as no surprise that those participants who had ventured to write of their experiences in the Third Reich soon after the war fell into apologism. They affected perplexity at their own behaviour, as if they somehow lacked key elements of responsibility compared to the real culprits with whom they, purportedly, only occasionally rubbed shoulders. The big post-war legal proceedings and trials, most obviously of the major war criminals at Nuremberg, somehow failed to get to

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the heart of the matter. Prosecutors understandably just tended to assume that base motives stood behind the most dreadful actions; hence these were not explored in detail. The hot house atmosphere of such courtrooms was not conducive to dissecting the cluster of issues around mens rea and consciousness of guilt. Judges did not really dwell on the possibility that perpetrators of Nazi crimes had acted from genuinely held ideological convictions, and not just because they were either obeying orders or deeply perverted. A major obstacle to questioning the motives of individuals related to the type of history that found favour in the post World War Two era, particularly among West German historians. There were some interesting attempts to relate National Socialism to German intellectual history; equally, studies asked whether National Socialism was fascism or totalitarianism and examined its relationship to nationalism.5 Nevertheless, the all-pervading social history churned out in that decade, later given new life by various British historians, ultimately proved ill-suited to explaining racism as a phenomenon in its own right. Much of the work even risked reducing questions of individual motive and ideology to expressions of class and economic interest.6 In other words, such academic studies were repeating the same misjudgement of Nazism made by Marxist thinkers in the 1930s. Admittedly some original authors like Franz Neumann had tried to avoid vulgar economic determinism.7 He analysed how and why different ‘pillars’ of the Third Reich functioned as they did, with a view to illuminating the policy making process from that perspective. The institutional aspect of his work, perhaps predictably, also found a new incarnation in historical studies produced from the 1970s onwards. These were preoccupied mainly with the internal structures of the Third Reich. So-called ‘functionalist’ historians concentrated on administrative rivalry and organisational chaos as determinants of policy, in the process giving far too little attention to the personal and the biographical issues of motivation.8 Matters reached the point where the likes of Mommsen and Broszat seriously contended that the Holocaust ultimately grew out of organizational meltdown in the East. The implication was almost as if, faced with insurmountable demands during winter 1941/2, Nazi functionaries convinced themselves that it was more humane to kill people suffering typhus and starvation in eastern ghettos, rather than leave them to endure a slow death. To quote Hans Mommsen: A pseudo-moral justification was needed as a precondition for the systematic implementation of the Final Solution. Inhumanity had first to be declared as ‘humanity’ before it could be put into technocratic practice, and moral inhibitions thereafter reduced to a minimum....9

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The extensive neglect of racial motivation in its own right which was implicit in social and functionalist history led some commentators to begin to wonder if the Nazi period was actually becoming subject to a new kind of excuse-making. As Karl Dietrich Bracher put it, ‘a new wave of trivialisation or even apologism is at hand.’10 Lucy Dawidowicz agreed: ‘The structuralists have ... eliminated the exercise of free-will in human society and deprived men and women of their capacity to choose between good and evil. By removing the moral aspect of decision-making in the Hitler era, the structuralists initiated a new cycle of apologetics in German history.’11 Amid the plethora of sweeping academic frameworks, the empirical reality of why ordinary individuals participated was not investigated in its own right and in appropriate depth. For this reason issues to do with the individual choices and personal responsibilities of those involved in Hitler’s politics seemed too often consigned to the shadows. There was one truly notable exception to the trend. In the 1960s, Hannah Arendt analysed Adolf Eichmann as he was tried in Jerusalem. Nevertheless, her pioneering characterisation of a major perpetrator of crimes against humanity portrayed him as an unthinking cog in a bureaucratic machine, as a careerist displaying ‘the banality of evil’, and in the process raised more questions than it answered.12 In particular, how far did her description reflect the reality of Eichmann’s historical experiences and actions; how far did her work only mirror his self-presentation during a trial taking place years after the event? More generally, Peter Merkl provided a fascinating study of storm troopers claiming to show that their support for Nazism was based not so much on anti-Semitism as on the appeal of the Volksgemeinschaft and Hitler’s personal charisma.13 In this instance, however, the evidence was derived from essays written by participants long before the war. By definition their accounts hardly provided satisfactory explanations for what happened after 1939. Despite the explosion in Third Reich studies from the 1970s onwards, it was not until the early 1990s that the historical profession, particularly in West Germany, began to grasp the nettle of treating Nazi racism more fully and, by implication, to address the emotional challenge of those horrendous events in the occupied East.14 Moreover, serious international developments helped move the question of personal motivation to the top of the historical agenda. One event was the allegation in 1986 that no less a public figure than General Secretary of the UN, Kurt Waldheim, had been too close for comfort to atrocities perpetrated during Germany’s occupation of the Balkans.15 Although he ‘probably did nothing particularly bad’ (emphasis in original), there was speculation especially about his relationship to the deportation of 50,000 Jews from Salonika in 1943, as well as anger that after the war he failed to confront properly both what he had done and (perhaps more important still) what he had failed to do in respect of Nazi demands.16

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The episode prompted widespread public speculation about the relationship between other seemingly decent individuals and what happened during the war. Here the generational divide also played an important role. Whereas at least some older participants had a vested interest in keeping quiet about the recent past, that was manifestly not true of younger West Germans. As far as the latter were concerned, particularly those with relatives who had engaged directly in the destruction of european Jewry, the need to know why inexorably came to outweigh anxiety about the detail of what might be uncovered. The closeted youth of the late twentieth century Federal Republic seemed captivated by questions about a different moral universe. The mood was ably expressed in Gerald Posner’s study of the children of leading Nazis but arguably best encapsulated by the heart-rending and painfully honest reflections of Niklas Frank, the son of the Governor General. Serialised in Der Spiegel before being published in their own right, they caused a stir across the German nation.17 The new spirit of enquiry was fed too by the collapse of the USSR. At the most basic level the release of East Europe from the Soviet Union’s orbit freed archives hitherto difficult to access. Predictably, these contained a great deal of material relating to the whole question of German’s occupation of this Lebensraum. More importantly east european scholars were at last placed in a better position to explore more freely their own national identities. The new freedoms, however, came at a high price, raising painful questions about the extent and nature of collaboration between the peoples of East Europe and the German war-time occupation authorities. The questions extended to the direct participation of non-Germans in the Holocaust. This, however, could hardly be examined without first turning the spotlight back on the Germans themselves. By the onset of the 1990s the pressures to strike some sort of balance of blame between German and non-German perpetrators became unavoidable. What was difficult to ignore in this context was the extent to which both parties had been and were susceptible not only to anti-Semitism but to deeply rooted racism in general. From this perspective it became more than ever implausible to view the SS as, to use Reitlinger’s word, an ‘alibi’ for the entire German nation.18 Of course, the SS still stands out starkly as a manifestly criminal organization, ideologically disciplined and perpetrating calculated racial atrocity in the East. No sooner had the war broken out than Action Tannenberg took place. This saw SS units touring Poland with the names of sixty one thousand Polish ‘enemies of the state’ already targeted for execution.19 That sort of ruthlessness had obvious repercussions within the German state as a whole, provoking disquiet among those in the higher echelons who did not have such strong stomachs. General Ulex, for example, reported in November 1939 that his troops had been outraged by police actions likely to increase Polish resistance, while General Blaskowitz wrote a memorandum which eventually

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reached the Führer’s desk, bemoaning SS actions subverting military discipline.20 Such protests were, however, quickly and decisively marginalised. In summer 1940 Reinhard Heydrich wrote to the head of the Order Police, Kurt Daluege, admitting that during the invasion of Poland police units had murdered Freemasons, Catholics, Communists and Jews. The writer’s considerable irritation, however, was directed not at the fact of so many deaths, but rather at the manner in which Ulex and Blaskowitz complained about the police acting in ways that were ‘arbitrary, brutal and high-handed.’ Most revealingly of all, Blaskowitz’s demand for the immediate restoration of lawful conditions provoked Hitler into railing against ‘childish attitudes’ and recommending the general’s removal from office.21 The harsh truth was that, despite the outrage of a few generals, most senior military figures, such as Commander in Chief of the Army, Field Marshal von Brauchitsch, stuck their heads in the sand. In 1939 Brauchitsch accepted everything that was happening without apparent demur. In other words he conformed to the racial agenda of the time and was not alone in doing so. As Heydrich spelled out in summer 1940, ordinary soldiers were inevitably compromised because such extensive killing by the police depended on military support.22 The sheer extent of this is revealed by the fact that of the seven hundred and sixty four massacres, in the course of which twenty thousand people died on Polish soil between 1 September and 26 October 1939, three hundred and eleven actions were carried out by the Wehrmacht.23 Whether or not every soldier realised the full consequences of individual military initiatives, as early as 1939 the army as an institution was participating in a bloody project designed to destroy the Polish nation. Numerous Polish towns and villages were bombarded to destruction without any military rationale whatsoever. The readiness to commit racial murders only intensified in the course of time. On 22 June 1941 well over three million men, or seventy five percent of the armed forces that Germany could call on, flooded into Soviet Russia along a front stretching two thousand four hundred kilometres from the Baltic to the Black Sea. With Barbarossa underway no qualms of conscience such as those displayed by the likes of Ulex and Blaskowitz were even remotely possible. In this respect Omer Bartov is probably correct in arguing that the total war in the East was germane to creating the right psychological and technical pre-conditions for unique atrocity.24 Over the next four years the majority of the German troops engaged against the Red Army also inflicted dreadful racial carnage on the civilian population. At this stage Nazi Party members accounted for a third of the German officer corps and military language bore ever more clearly the hallmarks of ideological spleen.25 The tone, however, had been set quite consciously by the very top political leadership.

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Hitler’s inflammatory remarks to senior military men made in spring 1941 paved the way directly for the infamous military directives such as the Commissar Order issued just weeks before the invasion. That March Hitler impressed on Commander in Chief of the Army, Jodl, that Operation Barbarossa was far more than a conventional armed conflict. He underlined that the war would not ‘be ended merely by the defeat of the enemy armed forces’ and in doing so confirmed an exterminatory aim.26 Generals and all ranks beneath them were increasingly and thoroughly compromised by racial ideology. Jodl had already authorised the liquidation of communist political leaders at prisoner of war collection points and at transit camps. This dire tone was maintained through subsequent instructions to the military. At the beginning December 1942 Hitler reminded senior military men that: The essential thing about anti-guerrilla warfare—one must hammer this home to everybody—is that whatever succeeds is right. Here’s the most important point: if someone does something which is not according to instructions but which leads to success or if he is faced with an emergency with which he can only deal by using brutal methods, then any method is right which leads to success.... If they [the guerrillas] push women and children in front of them, the officer or NCO must be authorized, if necessary, to shoot them down ruthlessly. The only thing that matters is that he should make a job of it and wipe out the gang. We must give absolute support to the man who's carrying the gun....27 If truth be told, many of the rank and file barely needed such heavy hints, as the actions and attitudes of junior officers and soldiers had shown in 1939. By 1941—eight years into the Third Reich—the erosion of ordinary standards of morality by Nazi ideas was impossible to deny. Elias Mayer, a resident of Zlotow, Galicia, recalled that on the first day of Operation Barbarossa, I know that 8 people were killed in the courtyard on Lemberg Street. A [German] soldier joked about it. [He had] called them together and then shot them. In the town a girl was raped on the pavement. Then a woman came along holding the hand of a three year old child. They said to her that she was a Communist. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m no Communist.’ The mother and child were shot.28 Certainly by now younger men, whether at school or in the Hitler Youth, had been exposed chronically to racial propaganda. As was the case with the police actions in 1939, the three thousand or so members of Himmler’s Einsatzgruppen, who followed the army into the Soviet Union, could never have killed the number of civilians they did in the massive eastern spaces

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without the help of ordinary soldiers. The latter appeared to need little persuasion in the name of a crusade against Bolshevism to help eliminate Jews and Slavs alike. More striking still, intellect proved to be no barrier to participation in the killing fields. Six of the fifteen leaders of the Einsatzgruppen held doctorates, while sixteen of their sixty nine subordinates had the same qualification.29 Specifically the atrocities committed against Jews have elicited a major historical literature seeking some plausible explanation for terrible behaviour. Daniel Goldhagen had no hesitation in interpreting the accelerating Nazi murders in unambiguous terms. To his mind, events were driven by a single variable, namely a kind of anti-Semitism that had the status of a ‘cultural cognitive’ model.30 By this he meant a racial hatred embedded in the German psyche since the time of Luther which became so virulent that it alone was powerful enough to motivate Germans to kill Jews. As he put it, that ‘ordinary Germans were possessed of a racial, demonological anti-Semitism cannot be doubted.’31 Following the example set by Christopher Browning, Goldhagen also explored his thesis by studying the actions of the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101. From 1942 they were active in Poland massacring Jewish communities face to face, hunting individual Jews in hiding and supervising transportations to extermination camps. Battalion 101 in fact was the tip of an iceberg since two hundred and forty four thousand Germans staffed similar police units. The sheer weight of numbers finally convinced Goldhagen to represent his subjects as typical of the wider German population. It was a short step for him to view the Holocaust as such as ‘a German national project’. In simple terms he maintained: ‘No Germans, no Holocaust.’32 Goldhagen’s text enjoyed massive sales worldwide, including Germany, leading to so many people to write to him that a collection of the correspondence was published in its own right.33 These popular responses were predictably varied but stand as testimony that whatever else it did, the work touched a great many raw nerves. Nonetheless, Hitler’s Willing Executioners has met with unusually outspoken criticism from some academic quarters. Notably, Norman Finkelstein judged as follows: Replete with gross misrepresentations of the secondary literature and internal contradictions, Goldhagen's book is worthless as scholarship.34 The outcry against Goldhagen was in some respects surprising because there were limits to the novelty of his work, as even Finkelstein himself recognised. Long ago Raul Hilberg had already observed that those involved in realising the Holocaust were not a specially selected social group. There had been just too many of them. To use his words, the ‘German perpetrator

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was not a special kind of German.’35 So it was almost certainly Goldhagen’s insistence that the Holocaust was driven by pure racism that was the issue. Fortunately criticisms were also levelled in more measured tones. It was said, for instance, that Goldhagen was guilty of reading evidence selectively. Atrocities committed against non-Jews are ignored as are statements of shame by the perpetrators which raise questions about the depth of their antiSemitism. There are issues relating to the extent to which Goldhagen managed to locate the behaviour of these men in the wider context of values dominant in Germany at the time as they concerned, for instance, definitions of cowardice and expectations of obedience.36 Also Goldhagen has been criticised extensively for failing to add a comparative strand to his work, for emphasising German actions as unique while ignoring the participation of ‘ordinary’ eastern european auxiliaries in the Holocaust.37 Here, however, a strident tone returns to the criticism, not least in the words of Finkelstein once more. He accused Goldhagen of failing to make comparisons for example with the history of racial extremism in the USA, where the Ku Klux Klan was active in the 1920s exploiting a legal system that was hopelessly prejudiced against black Americans.38 Such a comparison would have revealed, it was suggested, that the position of Jews in the Weimar Republic after 1918 had not in reality been as bad as Goldhagen’s thesis implied it should have been. Less obviously controversial than Goldhagen’s book is the restrained account of Battalion 101 constructed by Christopher Browning three years earlier. Browning pointedly excluded ‘Germans’ from his title and focused on ‘ordinary men’. Unlike Goldhagen, Browning was clearly unhappy with a monocausal interpretation of mass murder, particularly one based on pathological belief. What is striking about Browning’s account is his recreation of the alarming ‘normality’ of the everyday activities and lives of those who were employed for no other reason than to kill civilians in German occupied areas. The reserve policemen, mostly of thirty seven to forty two years of age, were not exactly impressionable youths who had simply fallen under the spell of the Third Reich. Indeed, they came from a traditionally socialist area of Hamburg and only a quarter of them were Party members. On this basis Browning raised painful questions about what constitutes normality by asking, if the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 could become killers under such circumstances, what group of men cannot?39 In puzzling out this question, Ordinary Men assembles a veritable list of pressures, only one of which was associated with racism in its own right. Among the factors Browning emphasised were: a human predisposition to obey orders, a natural readiness to conform to social roles and the capacity to be habituated into ever more outlandish behaviour. Most notably, in the complex of motives driving the men, an overriding need appears to have been the desire not to break peer solidarity in the face of an insecure environment far from home.40

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Ultimately, however, Browning’s attempt to find a version of normality in the midst of the chaos and terror of the Holocaust has the effect of making the catastrophe into more of an enigma than ever. Under the circumstances, even admitting problems with Goldhagen’s study, the primary emphasis on racial motivation still seems warranted, particularly in the light of available figures. When the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 turned up at the site of their first massacre, only about fifteen percent of them declined to participate and an astonishing eighty percent saw the event through to the bitter end.41 The statistics become even more disturbing when it is realised that the officer in charge first of all explained what was about to take place and gave doubters the option of falling out. Even more remarkably, senior officers were instructed not to take reprisals against ‘refusniks’ and to allow participants in the massacre to be relieved of duty at any time. Clearly, then, at the time the first massacre was ordered, the command structure gave considerable scope for individuals to opt out. Peer pressure may well have been a contributing factor explaining participation, as Browning insists, but surely never a complete one. The very fact that the men involved were neither absolutely clear about the social role they had to fulfil nor habituated into mass murder makes the gist of Goldhagen’s thesis all the more plausible. In other words there appears to be no tenable alternative to seeing the behaviour of the men in Reserve Police Battalion 101 as reflecting a serious and endemic racism pervading German institutions at this time, especially in the East. Indeed, Browning himself freely admitted that his subjects ‘were immersed in a deluge of racist and anti-Semitic propaganda’ during basic training and their subsequent service.42 In spite of this he contended that: Influenced and conditioned in a general way, imbued in particular with a sense of their own superiority and racial kinship as well as Jewish inferiority and otherness, many of them undoubtedly were; explicitly prepared for the task of killing Jews they certainly were not (authors’ italics).43 On the contrary, the overwhelming majority of the men arriving in a Polish village early in the morning of their first day of killing were adequately prepared for the job, in so far as the pervading ideological climate predisposed acceptance of the most severe anti-Semitic initiatives. Faced with daily choices between right and wrong, decisions were often taken purely on the basis of anti-Semitism. While the officer in charge of 101 refused to order his men not to rob corpses (assuming their sense of honour prevented them doing so anyway) he never hesitated to order the deaths of Jewish children. How could such an option have been influenced by anything other than sheer racial bigotry of the worst kind? Was there any need for reserve police men to kill Jews with such calculated brutality (say by burning a crowded synagogue)? Were photographs of the atrocities obligatory? It is

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more likely that these ‘ordinary Germans’ had taken up radical racism as their own and had behaved accordingly. Returning to a consideration of atrocities in the East committed against both Slav and Jew, it might be tempting at first glance to understand them solely in terms of explanations resting on the grim conditions of war. This was no impersonal, clear-cut, high-tech Blitzkrieg; it was combat under appalling circumstances. Within a month of the onset of the attack on Russia, Army Group South had already been forced to replace half its trucks with horse-drawn wagons. Before the end of September 1941, two-thirds of the German tanks in the East were out of commission. As winter set in and German troops faced Russian counter-offensives without even the consolation of clothing suitable for a sub-zero environment, their physical and mental state deteriorated rapidly, as did the conflict experience. An observer in the operational area in the East recorded in October 1941: The stream of Russian prisoners of war moving through the streets gives the impression of herds of dumb animals. The guards, who are very few in number compared with the prisoners and who are in part not even from military units (for example the Labour Service), can only keep some sort of order with the use of physical force (beatings, blows from rifle butt). Due to the physical demands of marching, lack of food and poor living conditions in the camps prisoners of war often collapse completely, and are either carried by their comrades or left lying there. The 8th Army has ordered that any incapacitated prisoners of war must be shot. Unfortunately this is done in the street, even in residential areas, so that the domestic population witnesses these events. The account also reported that Russian roads had surfaces of more or less thick, viscous, muddy layer, which at slow speeds stops the vehicle and at quicker speeds makes it slip and slide. Evading traffic is extremely difficult on these routes in spite of their width, since all vehicles in both directions stick to the same worn tracks as far as possible, from which it is difficult to escape, so that under these conditions there are many collisions.44 Another officer admitted ‘Orders are not given any more.... Leadership has reverted to its original form.’45 Life became a battle for survival in which fighters convinced themselves that anything could be done to them, their comrades and, by implication, their race. Friends died with increasing regularity, often killed by an unseen enemy, seemingly drawing on a neverending source of manpower and prepared to fight with fearsome courage. German military discipline became increasingly harsh in order to maintain

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control over soldiers who felt utterly lost and who were hundreds of miles away from home. In Omer Bartov’s words: Fearful of their commander, and unable to defeat the enemy, the troops turned against the occupied civilians and prisoners.46 Nevertheless, the truly brutalising experience of war in the East did not in itself exculpate the shocking actions taking place there. Most obviously the idea cannot explain everything about the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 because they had not served at the front before embarking on the destruction of Jewish communities. What is more, since both these men and the front line units had already experienced extensive indoctrination before reaching their posts in the East, it is more plausible that the traumatic experiences awaiting them reinforced rather than formed their inclinations. It is most likely that the reserve policemen clung to ideology as a way to justify their atrocities to themselves. Meanwhile the fighting units experienced warfare under such radical conditions of de-modernisation and barbarisation that Nazism’s crass ideas seemed to encapsulate their desperate plight. No surprise, then, that reports and letters sent home by soldiers displayed a widespread acceptance of stereotyping and a belief that the war in the East was indeed a decisive struggle between races.47 This was a world in which experience and belief converged. Under the circumstances, battles and atrocities did not so much cause racism as re-inforce prejudices that had taken root already. The very nature of the war had created a world perfectly suited to deeply pessimistic ideological terms of reference, turning wellknown racist ideas and propaganda into self-fulfilling prophecies. Less generally acknowledged are the similarities between the attitudes developing among the soldiers and those displayed by the bureaucrats organising the occupation of the East. These too, like the policemen and soldiers, had also been exposed to the creeping racial propaganda of National Socialism. Moreover, they were the inheritors of a particular kind of pseudoscientific economic thought—‘population economics’—deriving from the 1920s (see chapter 4). Such thinking implied that the East could be exploited with greater efficiency by reducing the population, a drastic step to facilitate industrial development and agricultural rationalisation. On this basis it did not require much to provide a comforting and ‘respectable’ rationale for the amoral administration that subsequently began to unfold. Any residual ethical restraints on the administrators fell away under the influence of the extreme racial agenda implemented around them by Himmler’s men. In addition they were exposed to the missionising speeches of their own bosses. The likes of the Governor General, Hans Frank, expressed prejudice in ways fluctuating between the virulent and the dismissive, providing a working environment within which civil servants busily organised systems condemning millions to virtual starvation.48 Their policies produced labour

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service based on conditions that tore families apart and brought about the merciless plundering of the occupied zone. Like the soldiers, German administrators were only too acutely aware of their isolation from the indigenous populations around them, and just as prone to rationalise outrageous behaviour. The temptation to use ideology to bolster existing mentalities was all the more attractive in so far as officials were actually dealing day in and day out with people who were objectively hardly different from themselves. How could clear distinctions readily be drawn between ‘German’ and ‘Untermensch’ when even influential members of the SS bore distinctly non-Aryan names? We have already seen that an arch perpetrator of the Holocaust was called ‘Globocnik’ while a senior SS leader in the Government General had the name ‘Kutschera’ and the Waffen-SS General in charge of anti-partisan warfare was ‘von dem Bach-Zelewski’. In their world, administration was never just banal. Bureaucrats could not maintain detachment from their role; they were anything but simply cogs in a machine. Their mood was heightened by the atmosphere of constant hostility, living as they did as an occupation force that was vastly outnumbered by the conquered population. They lived with the constant risk of assassination by an unseen hand, whether on the way to work, while sitting at the desk or at home at night. How could they be entirely certain about trusting, say, a Polish aide, or whether communications were wholly secure? Intelligence organizations found it difficult to put down roots at a rate likely to provide solid and reliable information in advance, say, of a comparable attack. Well known is the assassination attempt on Reinhard Heydrich. As he was driven across the Moldau bridge in Prague on 27 May 1942, the SS man’s open-top car was attacked by two British-trained Czech partisans, Jan Kubish and Josef Gabschik. Heydrich was seriously injured and died in hospital a few days later.49 Numerous such attacks also occurred elsewhere. In the Government General a senior SS man in Warsaw was assassinated (the said Kutchera), while attempts were made against both Senior SS and Police Leader Krüger and the Governor General himself. The difficulties facing officials when it came to policing such events were highlighted, for example, by the huge amount of effort and time needed to clear up the attack on Krüger and track down somebody who could be made to confess.50 To such constant stress were added pressures arising from the degeneration of the German system of occupation from late 1942. As the crisis deepened, Berlin demanded ever more unrealistic supplies of food and forced labour from the East. It became increasingly difficult to square the competing expectations of the military and the local populations, which after all were supposed to be kept at least quiescent in order to continue working for the German war effort. In the ensuing chaos projects were initiated by one authority only for it to be discovered that another was already doing something similar. Ultimately and with supreme irony, the military authorities then began auditing the administrators, with a view to drafting

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civilian officials to the eastern Front. The cadre of German officials faced problems they could neither control nor even address properly. As a result they became ever more hardened to the treatment of their charges. As brutality escalated, falling back on ideology provided at least some kind of ‘meaning’ for many—the alternative being to accept complicity with evil in full measure. In sum, the ultimate failure of the Third Reich’s widest annihilatory agenda for the whole of the Lebensraum area owed much more to its intrinsic impossibility than popular resistance from the functionaries on the ground. Between 1939 and 1945 the position of Germans in the East was characterised by racist ideology and exposure to experiences that reinforced harsh action based on crude national stereotypes. Mutual fear and inequality remained the watchwords of the day, particularly as resistance to the German occupiers developed. True, illicit contacts between German and non-German persisted in the black market, notably that servicing German requirements for luxury goods. Only Poles could meet this demand but they were largely driven by the desperate need to survive at all costs. So it came about that even the criminal world was permeated by ideology. Anything remotely approaching an ordinary relationship, that is to say something other than collaboration, between German and non-German was, under these conditions, unusual in the extreme. It had to imply to the authorities that any German in question had rejected categorically Nazism’s missions in the East. A few did do this, as was shown for instance when the security police investigated the assassination attempt against Senior SS and Police Leader Krüger. The enquiry revealed that a number of ethnic Germans living in Poland, born for instance in Cracow and Vilnius, were members of a socialist resistance movement. Obvious political and ideological considerations must have motivated these individuals, but probably they were also responding to the complexity of borderland identities built up since youth. A family background of mixed ethnicity, well-established friendships with Slavs or Jews and left-wing political beliefs together predisposed some ethnic Germans to reject occupation and side with Poles. But such a relationship was so high-risk that it was ‘abnormal’ in the context of the time. Some people were in a better position than others to take that risk, although it still required conviction of a high order. The obvious example was the Baltic German Paul Schiemann. Despite his longstanding criticism of National Socialism, his extreme ill health and enforced isolation in his home in a Riga suburb ultimately spared him a worse fate under the Nazi occupation of the Baltic countries from 1941 until his death in 1944. However, he managed to exploit the anomalous situation to provide a hiding place for at least one victim of persecution. The young Jewish girl in question later testified to entering an ‘ethical microclimate’ on joining the Schiemann household.51 From her testimony it is clear that Schiemann maintained his conviction to the very end, namely that National Socialism made impossible

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any meaningful coexistence between German and non-German in Central Eastern Europe. Co-operation could only be on fundamentally unequal terms. Typically the Poles sucked into the Nazi administration of the Government General worked in a mood of sullen resentment, driven by the need to exist at some level but deeply frustrated by the invasion of their own state and the hopelessness that this engendered. This was not experienced to the same degree by the populations of the neighbouring Baltic countries, whose occupants had seen the arrival of German troops in the summer of 1941 as an improvement at least on the detested Soviet occupation. Even here, however, collaboration was partly motivated by a hope that it would lead ultimately to the recovery of a greater degree of autonomy for the Baltic states in the New Order. Similar hopes were raised among Ukrainians and Tartars—that is to say peoples who had hitherto little recent experience of their own statehood. It has to be emphasised again that the expectations of greater independence invariably went hand in hand with a profound antiBolshevism. This made it easier for Nazism to exploit to its advantage the bitter experiences of those subjected to direct rule from Moscow and in so doing to radicalise the atmosphere in the occupied East. All of this facilitated the involvement of local non-German populations in the Holocaust. Even before the invasion of Russia, a Lithuanian collaborationist group, the Lithuanian Activist Front under Colonel Karys Skirpa, had been at work in Berlin. Three days before Operation Barbarossa began, it issued a leaflet demanding that Lithuania be liberated from the twin yokes of ‘Asiatic Bolshevik slavery’ and the ‘Jewish yoke’ and affirmed: In the name of the Lithuanian people, we solemnly declare that the ancient right of sanctuary granted to the Jews in Lithuania by Vytautas the Great is abolished forever and without reservation....52 Shockingly, anti-Semitic massacres were carried out in Lithuania even before German troops arrived. Local populations, it is now clear beyond doubt, played a significant role in the extensive persecutions which followed under Nazi direction after Heydrich’s infamous order of 2 July 1941. Under this, the Einsatzgruppen instigated ‘purges or spontaneous pogroms’ in the East by ‘local anti-Communist or anti-Jewish elements’.53 In Latvia, by comparison, the majority of the local peoples appear to have been less enthusiastic about initiating anti-Semitic atrocities. The balance of judgement seems to be that these first occurred only after German troops had arrived and begun to organise Latvian death squads, such as the infamous ArƗjs commando, which killed twenty six thousand of the eighty six thousand civilians who died in that country.54 Here too, Nazi propaganda assiduously linked Jews with Bolshevism with the aim of radicalising eastern peoples. One pamphlet, for instance, described a man being tortured by a ‘hideous Jewess’ employed by the Bolsheviks to extract information, who stuck a

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needle into his thigh.55 The very use of such a propaganda technique does create an impression that like ‘ordinary’ Germans, ‘ordinary’ east europeans basically were susceptible to anti-Semitism. It remains likely, however, that Germany played the decisive role, certainly in Latvia and Estonia, in initiating killings. In Lithuania, the arrival of German forces added momentum to the murders already underway.

6.1 Viktors ArƗjs, 1910–1988 Local help for the Nazi cause was indispensable. The vastness of the occupation area made it utterly impossible for Germans to accomplish their grim mission without the collaboration of non-Germans, prompting Rosenberg for example to argue a case for involving local peoples in the Baltic quite extensively in their own governance. He justified the strategy on the grounds of an increasing readiness [of the Baltic peoples] to work [in German interests]. Incidentally, security clauses are in place which prevent the self-administration doing anything without the approval of the Commissar General. Indeed to exclude any eventual possible political danger, an exception has been made for Riga. Riga has 10,000 to 12,000 officials and will maintain a German mayor who is not subordinate to the Latvian self-administration. This will prevent the Latvian directorate pursuing a political personnel policy.56

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In the Ukraine, where the German occupiers again exploited nationalist and anti-Bolshevik sentiment to telling effect, the Ukrainian collaborator, Stephan Bandera, declared war on local Jewry, contributing to the death of sixty percent of Jews in Soviet Ukraine and a very substantial proportion of Jews in Galicia.57 No fewer than twelve thousand Ukrainians joined the Nazis as auxiliary police and thirteen thousand were active in the Waffen-SS in Galicia. At the same time, the work of these partisans made the Ukraine more volatile, in so far as a large sector of the population was profoundly unhappy about collaboration. Whereas some forty to two hundred thousand Ukrainians chose to assert a desire for national liberation by fighting both Wehrmacht and the Red Army, two and half million Ukrainians opted to join the Soviet forces to repulse the German invader. Taking another example, that of the Tartars, ten thousand of these fought for the Waffen-SS, but twice as many fought for the Red Army. The point of these statistics is that they graphically illustrate the diversity of motives in play for East Europeans after 22 June 1941. Political radicalisation conducted by the Nazi occupiers did not prevent many from opting for Bolshevism, with its rejection of the German invader, or from fighting for independent statehood. Their position was far from enviable in the face of combined odds so massive that the latter choice verged on the suicidal. Even by 1939, and manifestly by 1941, Nazi ideology provided the formative experience for German society. Racist ideas had long been disseminated extensively and there were more than enough fervent ideologues in influential positions to affect policy. Such an extensive commitment permeating the upper reaches of the state was more than enough to carry along waverers and opportunists. By contrast, huge difficulties confronted those, such as Ulex and Blaskowitz, who raised objections about what was going on. In the heat of battle, especially after the singular onslaught against the Soviet Union, the conditions of life in the East added exponentially to the pressure on ordinary German soldiers and administrators to conform with the racist agenda. Only the most extraordinary individuals could withstand what happened there. That east europeans were unable to avoid being drawn into the process is a fact that today’s inhabitants of the region are still coming to terms with. The memory of this traumatic experience inevitably coloured relations between German and Slav, German and Jew, Slav and Jew and indeed more generally within individual nationality groups, where additional complications arose from the juxtaposition of collaborator, partisan and Red Army member. Such considerations, as much as specific policy decisions taken by the Great Powers, ensured that after 1945 ethnic German communities could barely survive in Eastern Europe. Military hostilities might be concluded, but personal animosities on the ground were much more enduring. Prospects for peaceful coexistence in the territory so long shared between German and non-German were gloomy to say the least.

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NOTES 1.

2. 3. 4.

5.

6. 7. 8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14. 15. 16.

Naturally there are some exceptions to this general point. They include G. Sereny, Into that darkness (London: Vintage, 1974) and C. Streit, Keine Kameraden. Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941–45 (Bonn: Dietz, 1991) (originally 1978). Regierungssitzungen, 16.12.41. R52 II / 241. Federal archive, Berlin. Berlin Document Centre R70 Polen / 205. P. Kohl, Der Krieg der deutschen Wehrmacht und der Polizei 1941– 1944. Sowjetische Ueberlebende berichten (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1995), p. 262 Particularly interesting was E. Nolte, Three faces of fascism (New York: Mentor, 1969). Also K.D. Bracher, The German dictatorship (London: Penguin, 1971). M. Housden, Helmut Nicolai and nazi ideology (London: Macmillan, 1992), pp. 7–9. F. Neumann, Behemoth (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1967). See H. Mommsen, ‘National Socialism: continuity and change’ in W. Lacqueur, ed., Fascism. A reader’s guide (London: Penguin, 1976). H. Mommsen, ‘The Realization of the Unthinkable. The Final Solution and the Jewish Question in the Third Reich’ in H. Mommsen, ed., Weimar to Auschwitz (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), p. 247. See also M. Broszat, ‘Hitler and the Genesis of the “Final Solution”. An Assessment of David Irving’s Theses’ in H.W. Koch, ed., Aspects of the Third Reich (London: Macmillan, 1985). K.D. Bracher, ‘Tradition und Revolution in Nationalsozialismus’ in M. Funke, ed., Hitler, Deutschland und die Mächte (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1976), pp. 17 ff. L. Dawidowicz, The war against the Jews 1933–45. 10th anniversary edition (London: Penguin, 1987), p. xxvi. See also Housden, Helmut Nicolai, chapter 2. H. Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem. A Report on the Banality of Evil (London: Penguin, 1994), p. 288. See also Z. Baumann, Modernity and the Holocaust (Oxford: Polity Press, 1989), p. 22. P. Merkl, Political violence under the swastika (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1975) and The making of a storm trooper (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1980). See particularly the prefaces to both books. Streit, Keine Kameraden. M. Palumbo, The Waldheim files: myth and reality (London: Faber and Faber, 1988). G. Sereny, The German trauma. Experiences and reflections 1938– 2000 (London: Penguin, 2000), p. 249 and pp. 259–61.

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17. N. Frank, Der Vater. Eine Abrechnung (Munich: Goldmann, 1993). G. Posner, Hitler’s children. Inside the families of the Third Reich (London: Penguin, 1992). 18. G. Reitlinger, SS. Alibi of a nation. 1922–45 (New York: Da Capo, 1989 edition. Originally 1968). 19. J. August, ed., ‘Sonderaktion Krakau.’ Die Verhaftung der Krakauer Wissenschaftler am 6. November 1939 (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 1997). 20. M. Broszat, Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik, 1939–1945 (Stuttgart: Deutsche-Verlags Anstalt, 1961), p. 41. 21. ibid, p.28. 22. Heydrich to Daluege. Memorandum of 2 July 1940. Federal Archive, Berlin. R19 / 395. 23. S. Datner, ‘Crimes Committed by the Wehrmacht during the September Campaign and the Period of Military Government (1 Sept 1939–25 Oct 1939),’ Polish Western Affairs, 2–3 (1962–3), pp. 298–338. 24. O. Bartov, ‘Operation Barbarossa and the Origins of the Final Solution’ in D.Cesarani, ed., The Final Solution. Origins and Implementation (London: Routledge, 1994), p. 119. 25. O. Bartov, The eastern front 1941–45. German troops and the barbarisation of warfare (London: Macmillan, 1985), pp. 64–5 and pp. 80–1. 26. W. Warlimont, Inside Hitler’s headquarters 1939–45 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1964), pp. 150–1. 27. ibid, pp. 289–91. 28. Postwar interview with Elias Mayer, Nuremberg State Archive. M 38 29. For a depressing study underlining this depressing insight, see G.C. Boehnert, ‘The jurists in the SS-Führerkorps 1925–39’ in G. Hirschfeld and L. Ketternacker, eds., Der Führerstaat: Mythos und Realität (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1981). 30. D.J. Goldhagen, Hitler’s willing executioners. Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (London: Little,Brown, 1996), p. 34 31. ibid, p. 128. 32. ibid, p. 6 and 11. 33. D.J. Goldhagen, ed., Briefe an Goldhagen (Berlin: Siedler, 1997). 34. N.G. Finkelstein and R.B. Birn, A nation on trial. The Goldhagen thesis and historical truth (New York: Holt, 1998), p. 4. 35. R. Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1973), p. 649. 36. R.B. Birn, ‘Revising the Holocaust,’ Historical Journal, 40 (1997), pp. 195–210.

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37. I. Deak, ‘Holocaust views: the Goldhagen controversy in retrospect,’ Central European History, 30 (1997), p. 301. H-U. Wehler, ‘The Goldhagen controversy: agonizing problems, scholarly failure and the political dimension,’ German History, 15 (1997), p. 86. 38. Finkelstein and Birn, A nation on trial, p. 50. 39. C. Browning, Ordinary men. Reserve police battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), p. 189. 40. ibid, chapter 18. 41. ibid, p. 74. 42. ibid, p. 184. 43. ibid. 44. Institute for Contemporary History, Munich, FD47 45. This view is developed in O.Bartov, Hitler’s army. Soldiers, nazis and war in the Third Reich (Oxford: OUP, 1991), p. 27. See also Bartov, The eastern front, 1941-45 p. 142. 46. Bartov, Hitler’s army, p. 61. 47. For a study of the letters, see A. Golovchansky, ‘Ich will raus von diesem Wahnsinn.’ Deutsche Briefe von der Ostfront 1941–1945. Aus sowjetischen Archiven (Wuppertal: Peter Hammer, 1991). 48. M. Housden, Hans Frank. Lebensraum and the Holocaust (London: Palgrave, 2003), chapter 4. 49. After Heydrich’s death, Nazi authorities carried out severe reprisals particularly against the inhabitants of Lidice. It was believed incorrectly that the partisans had hidden in this town. 50. M. Housden, ‘Security policing: a “successful” case from the Government General,’ German History, 14 (1996), pp. 209–216. 51. Personal communication from Valentina Freimane 52. Leaflet No 37 of the Lithuanian Activist Front, Berlin 19 June 1941. In M. Greenbaum, The Jews of Lithuania. A History of a remarkable community 1316-1945 (Jerusalem: Gefen, 1995), p. 304. 53. J. Noakes and G. Pridham, eds., Nazism 1919–1945. Volume 3 (Exeter: Exeter UP, 1988), pp. 1091–92. 54. A. Ezergailis, The Holocaust in Latvia 1941–1944 (Riga: Historical Institute of Latvia, 1996), p. 173. 55. ibid, p. 86. 56. Memorandum of discussion between Rosenberg and Hitler on 8 May 1942. Nuremberg Documents. Volume 27, p. 283 ff. 57. A. Reid, Borderland. A journey through the history of Ukraine (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1998), p. 148.

Chapter seven Refugee nation German population movements started well before 1945. As early as 1939 the Nazi-Soviet Pact had signalled that ethnic Germans faced displacement in the East.1 There was every chance that if left to the Soviets, as they assumed control of their newly extended sphere of influence, this would be a grim experience indeed. Paul Schiemann, one of the few prominent Baltic Germans not to have re-settled in the Reich, reflected at first hand on the implications of the first Russian occupation of his country: That atrocities happen during a revolution, that many wrong things take place, cannot be denied. If the goal is achieved, however, then the continuation of violent methods signifies the abolition of any kind of law and the penetration of national life with vulgarity and injustice. The nations of Russia had been infected with this poison for 24 years and only this can explain the completely meaningless cruelty to which the Baltic states had to bear witness. After the attempt to conquer mentally a component area of european culture apparently proved unsuccessful, naturally the idea had to surface on behalf of enduring revolution simply to ‘liquidate’ the disruptive population. That was to happen through enforced resettlements, which began on 14 June, when thousands of families were cleared out at night and through the day were taken by lorry to the railway trains where men had to be separated from women and without any welfare provision were taken to the most diverse places in Russia, where the majority seemed doomed to certain destruction. The lack of system in the selection of those to be deported, which included at the same time Latvians, Russians, Jews and Germans, former dignitaries and members of the bourgeoisie, minor officials, workers and farmers, leads to the sole conclusion that people simply were seized so that someone would follow the others. How the returning danger of war began the great slaughter of thousands of defenceless victims, just as whole train loads of children going to certain ruin after they had been removed from their parents is quite well known and in the future cannot be contested even by the greatest of all sceptics.... 2 On the other hand, those Baltic Germans who fled their homeland at speed under Nazi auspices in a process called the ‘Umsiedlung’ (resettlement) faced a less depressing future, if only in the immediate term. Viewed as part of the raw material for Himmler’s demographic project to bring about the consolidation of Germandom, before Stalin took over the Baltic states these people were shipped by the German government for

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settlement on Polish territory now incorporated into the Reich, that is to say in Warthegau. A prominent member of the pre-war Baltic German community of Latvia, Wilhelm von Rüdiger, recorded privately for his family his experiences of re-settlement. We always thought of the stay in Posen as temporary, and never felt at ease there. The atmosphere of surrounding hate on the part of the repressed, unjustly and unwisely treated Polish population, the stupid anti-church policy of Gauleiter Greiser and his efforts to coordinate everything and to stifle any Baltic way of life, the striking, wholly unsympathetic behaviour of the Party bosses—secure in their power and whose moral qualities in no respect corresponded to their position—hindered settling into the new conditions. Nevertheless, it has to be admitted that life in Posen and generally in Warthegau had its light side too. It was gratifying that so many of us driven out of the homeland lived together in Posen. One could hardly go through the streets without meeting several acquaintances and being greeted cheerfully. A large percentage of the shopkeepers were Balts. Bookshops, chemists, grocers, butchers and bakers that one visited were owned by Riga folk, and most of the artisans, hairdressers, tailors and shoemakers were from back home. All the more so those from the learned professions, such as pastors, doctors, judges and lawyers, were for the most part Balts. As a result there was always a certain feeling of being at home….3 The situation, however, even of those as fortunate as Rüdiger, as well as that of millions of others, became ever more precarious when, in the course of the war, the Wehrmacht began retreating from the East. With the end of hostilities the radical re-definition of both Germany and the states lying between Berlin and Moscow made peaceful coexistence between German and non-German all but impossible in Central Eastern Europe. The Potsdam Conference of summer 1945 underlined that further impending demographic changes were going to be substantial since the Western Allies insisted on wholesale population transfers as the only effective way of ending nationality conflict in the region. Germans were forced to abandon extensive territories chiefly (but not exclusively) to the benefit of Poland, the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. To make matters worse, many of the lost lands had strong historic and emotional significance. The relinquishment of Königsberg, with its university tradition and the association with the great Immanuel Kant, was a very obvious example. The growing atmosphere of tension and mistrust only intensified as refugees flooded westward, very many bringing dreadful stories of personal hardship and persecution which have remained to this day elements of the German political scene. All in all, in a movement of people without

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precedent, at least 12 million souls either fled or were forced to leave the German settlement areas of eastern Europe. They left a heritage of up to 25% of Germany’s present population deriving in some way from this massive refugee movement.4 At the time a number of tributaries fed the human torrent. There were sources from within the old borders of the Reich (such as East Prussia and Silesia), from nearby borderlands (for instance from the Sudetenland), as well as ethnic Germans from further afield (such as from Siebenbürgern).5 From the perspective of western Germany, of course, all of these were supplemented by families desperate to escape life under Soviet control in eastern Germany.

7.1 Ethnic Germans expelled from East Prussia wait for transport near to Meißen Relatively few of the refugees from beyond East Germany were fortunate enough to have been relocated in a more humane and organized fashion under the supervision of the retreating German armed forces. Most had been forced to flee in disorder or were abruptly expelled by new east european governments operating on the principle of collective guilt. Perhaps in appreciation of having found a safe haven, these newcomers to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG—West Germany) were relatively content to be institutionalised into the life of their new home. The mushrooming organizations inside West Germany looking after and promoting the interests of refugee groups testify to this fact. A mixture of government and private funding supported them.

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7.2 Ethnic German refugees living in temporary accommodation in Germany While the so-called Charter of Germans Expelled from their Homeland, proclaimed on 5 August 1950 in Stuttgart, insisted on the right to a homeland as ‘a God-given fundamental human right’ it also affirmed: 1. We expellees renounce retribution and compensation. This decision is made in grave and sacred memory of the endless suffering inflicted on mankind especially during the last decade. 2. We will support to our utmost any initiative which directed towards creating a united Europe, in which peoples can live free of fear and force. 3. Through hard and tireless labour we will take part in the reconstruction of Germany and Europe. In return the expellees demanded and desired, as in the past: 1. Equal rights as a citizen, not only before the law but in everyday life. 2. Fair and sensible apportionment across the entire German nation of the burdens of the last war and a just realisation of this principle. 3. Meaningful incorporation of all expellee occupational groups into the life of the German people. 4. Active engagement of the German expellees in the reconstruction of Europe.

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The document ended by declaring roundly that: the fate of the German expellees, as of all refugees, is a global problem, the solution of which demands the utmost moral responsibility and commitment to its decisive realisation.6 It is worth mentioning at this point that Axel de Vries, former editor of Revaler Bote, and acquaintance of Hasselblatt and Ammende (see chapter 3), was active in the expellee organisations and, in fact, was one of the chief authors of the Charter. In the early 1950s he also held a seat in the West German parliament or Bundestag as a member of the Free Democratic Party. It is also true that whereas this attitude paved the way towards the peaceful integration of so many refugees into the FRG, it did not of course completely remove their deep sense of grievance. Inevitably elements within the expellee bodies could be strident and emotionally charged on the subject of injustice suffered in the East. Any historian having to address such organizations in the post-war period can testify to the passions attending public discussions of the German question.7 Those crowding into lecture halls and seminar rooms were hardly in a position to provide the most objective accounts of their recent fate, which to their extreme annoyance was not even discussed by the Czech and Polish governments. Moreover, refugees often allowed their sense of grievance to divert them from confronting painful questions about their own role in Germany’s pursuit of Lebensraum after 1939. Instead, historical bodies, such as the Baltische Historische Kommission, dwelt at first selectively on the past. Rather than asking searching questions about their own community’s relationship with National Socialism, or why exactly they chose en masse to leave their homeland in the Umsiedlung of 1939, they were initially prone to compartmentalise their experience. Topics for the annual conferences of the early post-war years rarely touched on the Nazi period, only briefly dealing with those very few far-sighted members of their community, such as Paul Schiemann, whom they had once marginalised precisely for his attack against Hitler and Germany’s renewal in the 1930s. In failing to examine closely enough the recent past and the loss of the East, the needs of the émigrés overlapped with those of the wider community in which they were now located. It should be emphasised in this context that Konrad Adenauer, who became Chancellor in the FRG on 15 September 1949, was both a conservative figure and an ardent anti-communist. He was also a veteran Roman Catholic politician from the Rhineland who had escaped the taint of National Socialism. Both the Nuremberg trials and the process of denazification facilitated his task of building a new West Germany. The trials claimed to have identified the main instigators of

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National Socialism and its crimes, while the wider process of denazification underpinned the idea that a new start was possible for the FRG. Neither was the German Democratic Republic (GDR—East Germany) any less selective in its reading of the past. In this case, the purging of the body politic was accomplished by the argument that East Germany, as a member of the communist bloc, had by definition broken with monopoly capitalism and therefore by association with its agents, Adolf Hitler and the National Socialists. For both Germanies, in other words, the different imperatives of post-war reconstruction dictated much of the historians’ agenda, as can be seen from two obvious examples. In the West there developed the historical myth of the Reichswehr’s shield remaining untarnished by 1945, a myth aiding the cause of integrating the FRG into NATO; as to the GDR, its historians inaccurately memorialised communism as the sole significant opponent of Hitlerism.8 In such ways the practice of history on both sides of the Iron Curtain contributed to the hardening of the two blocs in the new bipolar world. In the East coexistence between German and non-German now had to be on the basis of a shared ideology. The irony of another doctrinaire belief system replacing the Nazi mission was acute. Certainly the Nazis had done their best to eradicate or marginalise non-Germans. By contrast the Soviet claim that there was no significant nationality problem in their domain barely concealed the regime’s indifference to the diversity of national cultures. The very concept of ‘Soviet man’ indicated communism’s aspiration to transcend national differences, relegating national identity to a highly subordinate role. Germans, as it were, were permitted to read and discuss Karl Marx but not Goethe. To be fair, neither did the western powers give critical attention at an early point to the real distinctions between national groups which underlay the outward presentation of an eastern bloc. It was not of course easy for outsiders to gain access to the sort of every day life of the communist world that might have revealed the full reality of continuing national differences. Personal and institutional contacts were closely monitored and organized by the Soviet authorities. Depressingly, with Nazi Lebensraum a thing of the past and the New Order no more, the populations in Central Eastern Europe—including the millions of Germans in the GDR—now found themselves subjected to Stalin’s empire. Marxist rule was hardly conducive to genuine national coexistence. At that stage, however, the prospects for a long lasting Soviet Empire seemed somewhat stronger than they had been for the would-be thousand year Reich. The latter had been opposed by most of Europe; the former enjoyed if not popular approval, then grudging acceptance by the major powers. When it came to public debate about the existence of two German states—the latest incarnation of the German problem—the constraints seemed most severe on the GDR ruling élites, with their subordination to

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Moscow. West German politicians could at least engage in open political argument. It was not in Berlin—the symbol of enduring division—but in the small town of Bonn in the Federal Republic of Germany that extensive consideration of the post-war order would take place.9 Even here there were constraints of a different but no less intractable type. Most obviously, no West German political leader with any ambition could afford to consider in public anything other than the re-unification of the German peoples of East and West, however remote that might seem. Nevertheless, Bonn’s non-recognition of East Germany as a separate state had some bizarre diplomatic consequences. Under the doctrine associated with the name of the Bundesminister Hallstein, it even became impossible for the Federal Republic to have formal political relations with states recognizing the German Democratic Republic, since this would in effect constitute indirect acknowledgement of an independent East Germany.10 Maps in schoolrooms, on German trains and other public places perpetuated this fantasy world by displaying pre-1939 borders, with areas shaded to indicate foreign occupation. Since this way of thinking contributed to the hardening of the political blocs, Adenauer’s policy ultimately made unification less likely in the short to medium term. Paradoxically, while

7.3 The Brandenburg Gate viewed from the East in 1988. The Berlin Wall can be seen beyond it. refugee organisations were vociferous in keeping alive public interest in the recovery of lands lost to Poland and Czechoslovakia, in supporting the Hallstein doctrine they made their own important contribution to locking Eastern Europe into the Soviet Union’s orbit. The political impasse clearly barred Germany from resuming its historic role in Mitteleuropa, impeding

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economic development and generating extensive social dislocation throughout the region.11 The Berlin wall symbolised the seemingly hopeless situation. No wall could ever be strong enough, however, entirely to frustrate the reemergence of historic patterns of trade between East and West. By the beginning of the 1960s, the tentative economic links forming between the two power blocs were making the Hallstein doctrine anachronistic. The West German economic miracle could hardly be stopped at Berlin, let alone the television signals emitting from the FRG. Nevertheless, by the 1960s the wider public was becoming inured to the ongoing existence of two German states. This situation provided for Bonn a major impulse to try at least to reduce the lamentable human costs of division and to facilitate individual contacts and exchanges. These were also increasingly necessary to the growing economic participation of the West in the reconstruction of the GDR. In addition the declining popularity of the conservative forces under Adenauer, together with growing public support for the German Social Democratic Party made for a more flexible approach to the German question. The mood was exemplified by SPD leader Willy Brandt’s New York speech of May 1964, when he urged: ‘It is time to see more clearly that Europe does not stop at the Iron Curtain.’ He echoed strongly the optimism associated with President Kennedy’s espousal of détente and encouraged the search for further concrete expressions of peaceful coexistence with Eastern Europe. Brandt’s was an astute mind, well able to draw appropriate lessons from the past of both his country and Europe as a whole. Like it or not, Brandt insisted, Germans had to realise that even twenty-five years after the war ended: we still have to bear the consequences of Hitlerism. No one who fails to realize this can forge a wise policy for Germany, and anyone who believes himself capable of managing without an emphatic break with the past will flounder. Neo-Nazism is treason to fatherland and nation. The world has changed since the days of Weimar, but the foreign policy of the Federal Republic is in large part characterized by the principles of Ebert, Rathenau and Stresemann. Peace, justice and freedom were the basic principles they wanted to have upheld through the vital forces of the German people. Through them, Germany was to assume a fitting place in the world and to carry out a reasonable mission in Europe.... Brandt recognized that the transformation of the european situation would be a lengthy process while insisting, however, that: it would be a grave mistake for anyone to regard Europe as the petrified excrescence of two spheres of power. It is a living

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community of peoples and states. And the transformation that some wish for and others would like to stop, is already making itself manifest. It was in this context that Brandt asserted a three-fold aim to his eastern policy. improved relations with the Soviet Union; normal relations with the eastern european states; and a modus vivendi between the two parts of Germany.12 Undoubtedly, Brandt proved to be the right man in the right place at the right time, eloquently re-stating the case for Germany’s historic role as a bridge between East and West.13 As he came to the forefront of German politics the inclination of the east european states to function as separate entities was becoming more and more evident as Moscow’s attention was diverted by its growing concerns over China. Since he was Mayor of Berlin and a known Nazi resister, Brandt was particularly well equipped to capitalise on any new possibilities emerging in the East. His celebrated memorandum, published in Vorwärts in New Year 1965, made specific reference to the changing global situation and raised the question of whether the time was not ripe to develop stronger ties with the nations there. As he put it: ...the recently begun unification of free Europe [in the European Economic Community], notwithstanding all its deficiencies and limitations, has exercised a strong attraction [on eastern Europe] and [there is no doubt] that a pan-european consciousness has remained alive of has re-awakened in the nations between Germany and Russia.14 He went on to plead for a far more differentiated treatment of eastern european countries, recommending specifically that economic and cultural ties be developed in such a way that the latter be accorded complete equality with their western counterparts. Brandt was particularly careful to emphasise the need for co-ordination with the western powers in developing new initiatives in the East. In fact the consequent need to clarify the political intentions of partner states in the West as a prelude to intensifying economic relations with the East immediately drew attention to the special position of the GDR. Brandt made it clear that there was no question of undermining the main tenets of policy accepted in the West (i.e. the non-recognition of the GDR, the ultimate goal of selfdetermination for the German nation and the need for a peace settlement dealing with eastern borders). It goes without saying that he saw no

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contradictions between the FRG’s continuing unity with the West and any normalisation of the state’s relations with Eastern Europe. The implications of rapprochement with the East for the expellees were all too apparent, not least because Brandt did little to cloak them. In an interview given to Die Welt in September 1968, the now Foreign Minister was clear that Germany needed a foreign policy pursued without illusions and in the realization that there was no alternative to a peaceful balancing of forces in Europe.15 This was the spirit Brandt took to the Chancellorship on 21 October 1969. One of the earliest and most dramatic examples of the gap opening between his government and the refugees was his controversial visit to Buchenwald, in the then GDR. As the world’s press noted, the Chancellor ended up in tears for the victims of National Socialism and placed a wreath in memory of Ernst Thälmann, the German Communist Party leader murdered in 1944. What outraged the expellee press in West Germany was the fact that no mention was made of the use of Buchenwald by the communist secret police after 1945. The camp was not closed until 9 February 1950. Under the headline, ‘The hell of Buchenwald under Ulbricht’, the expellee newspaper, Deutsche National-Zeitung, took grave issue with Brandt for overlooking the 8,000 victims of Soviet occupation who perished there and ended up in unmarked graves. Pointedly, one journalist asked rhetorically: Did we in West Germany build the wall? Are we responsible for tensions in Central Europe? Are we oppressing the people in the GDR?16 The signs of Brandt’s readiness to recognize the status quo in the East, an event that would finally end naive hopes of expellees returning to their earlier existence, particularly exercised the Bund der Vertriebenen (BdV). Even before Brandt’s Erfurt visit (which the expellee press eventually greeted with the headline ‘Brandt and Stoph—the grave-diggers of Germany’), the BdV at its 17/18 January 1970 conference demanded that the government maintain a line of constitutionally-based reticence on the East, seeing anything short of this as a betrayal of the two and a half million Germans out of the seventeen million (their figure) who died in the course of expulsion.17 Essentially, their declaration at the end of the conference demanded the re-establishment of human and group rights in Germany and the West, as well as in the areas from which they had been expelled. Any legalisation of the consequences of mass deportations was anathema to the BdV. It therefore categorically rejected acceptance of the Oder-Neisse line between West Germany and Poland and insisted that the Federal government keep the way open for a just peace. In effect the call was for non-recognition of the eastern bloc. The point of view was dutifully reported in the expellee press. It loudly proclaimed its determination to oppose what it depicted as ‘shoring up the sphere of power

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of the eastern bloc through inadmissible recognition’ of the Oder-Neisse line.18 Three months later—that is to say during Brandt’s Erfurt trip—the BdV issued what it called ‘The last warning from the refugees’ against any acceptance of the status quo.19 The new president of the BdV, Dr Herbert Czaja, had already made clear in February in his inaugural address, that millions of Germans categorically rejected Brandt’s policy and would oppose it with all means. Czaja’s words found an echo in the intervention by the Christian Social Union politician and self-styled spokesman for the expellees, Dr Becher, who spoke up during the February debate on foreign policy held in the Bundestag. Becher stressed once again that the government’s new Ostpolitik could only be conducted at the expense of the refugees. For these Germans, he observed, ‘it was not just a question of formal agreement but of the very homeland in which they had been born.’ It came down to whether the Federal Republic would be weakened or strengthened by giving up rights to German territory. For this reason Becher called for a referendum on what should happen next. That Germany was still very much a nation in search of an adequate state, as far as the BdV was concerned, is all too evident from Becher’s call for all Germans ‘wherever they live’ to be consulted on the future. Quite how Becher imagined the Germans living in East Germany being consulted is difficult to grasp. As matters stood, only those living in West Germany had any realistic prospect of being asked, with the refugee organizations inevitably coming to the fore. In effect the process offered little more than continuing stagnation. It was certainly no route to developing closer relations between the two halves of Germany—the only prospect of restoring the country’s traditional role as a bridging power between East and West Europe. In this situation the expellee dilemma was extreme. Without some normalisation of relations between the two German states there could be no prospect at all of arranging any return to the lost homelands, even to visit friends and relatives. At the same time, such normalisation threatened to underpin the status quo. The paradox could hardly have been lost on a man of Brandt’s political stature. As he prioritised his political mission, he showed little inclination to focus on the expellees from Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Instead, his energy was devoted in the first instance to easing the daily unhappiness and discomfort caused by the physical separation of German families by the internal German border. Making progress in this area—no small challenge under the circumstances—was also much more likely in the long run to bring with it a general easing of EastWest relations, and therefore could help achieve a gradual re-definition of living space for German and non German in the East Brandt’s insight was lost on most of the expellees, who saw in the Chancellor’s policy only the politics of resignation and the hardening of the Oder-Neisse border. Unsurprisingly their outrage endured, the Deutsche

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National-Zeitung publishing, for instance, a timeline of Germans shot at the Berlin wall under the headline, ‘Murder—murder—time and again: murder’.20 Their feelings were not helped by the Chancellor falling to his knees before a memorial to the victims of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Nor were they assuaged by his later contention that the now iconic gesture, which happened on a rainy day in early December 1970, had been entirely spontaneous—a reaction to the emotional drama surrounding the first visit of a German head of government to Poland during a sombre wreath-laying ceremony. More important to many expellees (especially those from lands now belonging to Poland) was the fact that on a trip which led to the signing of a treaty between Bonn and Warsaw which recognised the Oder-Neisse border, the Chancellor was not mentioning their loss.

7.4 Chancellor Brandt falls to his knees in front of the memorial to the victims of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, 7 December 1970. Nonetheless, there was slow change coming in even this hostile constituency. By this point at least some of the expellees were showing signs of a growing appreciation of Brandt’s long term strategy by voting for the SPD. After all, Brandt readily accepted Adenauer’s view, popular among expellees, that the West was likely to become an economic magnet to attract nations out of the Soviet orbit in the long run.21 What distinguished Brandt was his determination not simply to wait for this to happen but to do his utmost to bring it about through specific initiatives. These included: mutual renunciation with the USSR of the use of force; re-establishment of formal

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diplomatic relations with the east european states (and therefore effective acceptance of the GDR as well as its existing border with Poland); and finally pressure for a four power initiative to improve communications with Berlin. He was at least engaging with the East.22 To his vociferous critics Brandt replied that the agreement gave away nothing that had not already been lost. In his own words: ‘We have [to have] the courage to open a new page in history.’ He did not convince all his opponents, who happily scribbled threatening anti-Brandt graffiti on the Berlin wall. In the view of the expellees, especially those from Silesia and East Prussia, Brandt’s treaty with Moscow remained a violation of the constitution of the Federal Republic. They maintained that through this treaty Brandt had accepted and cemented the borders of 1945, perpetuating the misery caused by families kept apart and deprived of their former property. Indeed, they insisted that Germans would in effect be robbed of their full citizenship. Ultimately Brandt’s reading of the constitution was upheld, however, by the decision of the Constitutional Court sitting in Karlsruhe, after a whole series of formal complaints about the Moscow agreements from the expellee organizations. As it transpired, by the time the judges delivered their formal ruling a basic agreement between the GDR and the FRG had already been reached. It acknowledged the existence of two states, earlier confirmed by the formal exchange of notes between the two governments on 20 June 1973. In addition, both states had been admitted to the United Nations on the following day. Together these events constituted the legal basis and the precondition, in the view of the judges, for a new and closer special relationship between the two German entities. In the words of the vice president of the Constitutional Court, Walter Seuffert: Re-unification is a constitutional matter. It must, however, be left to the relevant political authorities of the Federal Republic to decide what is the proper and appropriate political route towards reunification. In his judgement the scope for political action was rather wide but on one fundamental condition, namely: No constitutional authority of the German Federal Republic can abandon reunification as a political goal. His view was that all state organs were obliged to work towards this, both at home and abroad. The implications for the eventual recognition of East Germany were selfevident. This is precisely why the Bavarian authorities, where many of the expellees lived, made every effort to derail the process. In spite of their

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efforts the so-called Grundlagenvertrag (Basic Treaty) was concluded in June 1973. Ultimately the really significant advance made by Brandt’s early Ostpolitik lay in the field of human relations. The easing of transit between East and West facilitated greater person-to-person contact and in so doing helped restore a basis for future genuine and lasting coexistence between German and non-German in Eastern Central Europe. It could even be argued that in achieving this Brandt was helping to recast German identity through the moral dimension of his policies and symbolic shows of penitence. Not to put too fine a point on it, he began re-creating an image of ‘Germanness’ and Germany that was less brash and more humbled by its history. His policy did much to accelerate the rehabilitation of the German nation, helping it to redefine itself in a manner less threatening to its eastern neighbours. That was crucial to any restoration of Germany’s historic role as a mediator between East and West, as well as to any rebuilding of co-operation between German and non-German in the ‘lands between’. On one level, the expellees were required to pay a higher price than most—in the short term at least—as they watched the likelihood of restoration of their pre-war lives recede. Their compensation had to be continuing integration in the western bloc, with its singular economic success. What other possibility could they realistically have expected by the 1970s? At the very least, reunification was not made less likely by Brandt’s so-called ‘small steps’ in the process of rapprochement with the Soviet bloc. What made Brandt’s strategy so telling was the absence of any obvious alternative to a future Germany integrated into a peaceful pan-european security order. Paradoxically, however, a policy that was ostensibly predicated on accepting the status quo was most likely to lead to its overthrow in the longer term.

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122 NOTES 1.

2. 3. 4.

5.

6. 7.

8.

9.

For a classic study of Nazism’s resettlement and the Baltic Germans, see D.A. Loeber, Diktierte Option. Die Umsiedlung der Deutschen aus Estland und Lettland 1939–41. Dokumentation (Neumünster: Karl Wachholtz, 1972). For a personal view of Himmler’s decisionmaking, see E. Kröger, Der Auszug aus der alten Heimat (Tübingen: Verlag Deutschen Hochschullehrer-Zeitung, 1967), pp. 48–54. P. Schiemann, Zwischen zwei Zeitaltern. Erinnerungen 1903-1919 (Lüneburg: Nordland-Druck, 1979), pp. 193–4. Copy of unpublished manuscript of Wilhelm von Rüdiger. These figures are quoted in A. Lehmann, ‘Die alte Heimat’ in C. Studt, ed., Das Dritte Reich. Ein Lesebuch zur deutschen Geschichte 1933-1945 (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1995), p. 307. According to de Zayas, they may be too conservative. Quoting the Federal Ministry for Expellees, he says that in 1982 11 million expellees were living in West Germany, 4 million in East Germany and half a million in Austria and other western countries. See A.M. de Zayas, Die AngloAmerikaner und die Vertreibung der Deutschen (Munich: Ullstein, 1996), pp. 28–9. For an interesting discussion of some of the controversial historiography that has grown up around this event, see R. Evans, In Hitler’s shadow. West German historians and the attempt to escape from the Nazi past (London: Tauris, 1989), chapter 3. According to de Zayas, between 1945 and 1950 almost 7 million ethnic Germans fled the eastern areas of Germany which eventually became part of Poland, nearly 3 million fled Czechoslovakia and almost 2 million fled other areas. He adds that after 1950, another 3.5 million Germans fled the East as a whole. About 2.1 million people are said to have died or gone missing in the process of expulsion / flight. De Zayas, Die Anglo-Amerikaner, pp. 28–9. From www.pommersche-landsmannschaft.de/body_charta.htm (sourced 4 November 2005) Their experiences are recorded extensively in the multi-volume collection Dokumente der Vertreibung (Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, various dates). See for instance T. Prittie, Germans against Hitler (London: Hutchinson, 1964) and for an East German view J. Herrmann et al, Deutsche Geschichte in 10 Kapiteln (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1988), pp. 384–8. A point underlined in C. Hacke, ‘Die Deutschlandpolitik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland’ in W. Weidenfeld and H. Zimmermann, eds., Deutschland-Handbuch. Eine doppelte Bilanz 1949–1989 (Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 1989).

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10. For a good discussion and interesting documents, see H.A. Jacobsen, ed., Misstrauische Nachbarn. Deutsche Ostpolitik 1919/1970. Dokumentation und Analyse (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1970). Especially the chapter ‘1945–1961: Politik der starren Fronten. Westintegration als Mittel deutscher Ostpolitik’. For a more accessible study, see M. Kitchen, A History of Mn Germany (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), chapter 14 ‘The Adenauer era.’ 11. Also noted in Jacobsen, ed., Misstrauische Nachbarn, see the chapter ‘1961–1970: Politik der Bewegung. Von Konfrontation zur Kooperation.’ 12. W. Brandt, A peace policy for Europe reproduced in K. Harpprecht, Willy Brandt. Portrait and Self-Portrait (London: Abelard Schuman, 1972), pp. 237–277. 13. His biography is provided by B. Marshall, Willy Brandt (London: Palgrave, 1990). There are also a number of autobiographical volumes such as My life in politics (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1992) and People and politics. The years 1960–1975 (London: Collins, 1978). For his earlier life, see In exile. Essays, Reflections and letters, 1933–1947 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971). 14. W. Brandt, ‘Die Eigenständigkeit der osteuropäischen Staaten stützen,’ Vorwärts, 27 January 1965. 15. ‘Brandt: Wir werden unsere Ostpolitik ohnen Illusionen fortsetzen,’ Die Welt, 5 September 1968. 16. 'Im KZ Buchenwald hat sich Brandt selbst entlarvt,’ Deutsche National-Zeitung, 27 March 1970. Microfilm copies of this fascinating, if rather shrill, newspaper can be found at the Institute for Contemporary History, Munich. 17. Deutsche National-Zeitung, 27 March 1970. The constitution was agreed on 23 May 1949 and looked to the day, for example, when the ‘entire German nation’ would be able to complete ‘the unity and freedom of Germany’ on the basis of ‘self-determination’. 18. ‘Expellees against Brandt’s Ostpolitik,’ Deutsche National-Zeitung, 8 May, 1970. 19. ‘Letzte Warnung der Vertriebenen,’ Deutsche Nationale-Zeitung, 3 April 1970. 20. Deutsche National-Zeitung, 1 May 1970. 21. Viewed historically, this may have been what happened, see C. Hacke, ‘Die Bedeutung des Nationalen Interesses für die Außenpolitik der Bundesrepublik’ in G. Niedhart, D. Junker and M.W. Richter, eds., Deutschland in Europa. Nationale Interessen und internationale Ordnung im 20. Jahrhundert (Mannheim: Palatium Verlag, 1997), p. 22.

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22. His determination is made particularly clear in A. Grosser, Germany in our time. A political history of the post-war years (London: Pall Mall, 1974), pp. 496–501.

Chapter eight The end of nationalism? All that refugee populations had longed for came suddenly on the horizon with the collapse of the eastern bloc and re-unification of Germany. The then British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, was hardly alone in the first instance in fearing a consequent resurgence of the German problem in aggressive form. She held a conference with among others six leading historians of Germany, to consider whether or not a united Germany would aspire to dominate East Europe. There was agreement that Chancellor Kohl’s handling of the Polish border issue and in particular his reference to protecting the German minority in Silesia had given the wrong signals, reviving historic fears of Germany’s mission in Eastern and Central Europe. However, further discussion, recorded by the Prime Minister’s private secretary, Charles Powell, revealed a generally thoughtful reaction to the new challenges in Europe.

8.1 The Brandenburg Gate today. On the issue of German minorities in East Europe, reassurance was found in their reduced number and in the fact that most of them aspired to move within Germany’s borders, rather than have those borders come to

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them. Nor did the meeting find evidence that Germany was likely to make further territorial claims in the foreseeable future. To the extent that border problems might arise, it would be as a result of comparatively wealthy Germans buying lands and property in poorer Poland and Czechoslovakia (bearing in mind that the Polish border would be only 40 minutes’ drive from the assumed capital of a united Germany). More widely, it was likely that Germany would indeed dominate Eastern and Central Europe economically. But that did not necessarily equate to subjugation. Nor did it mean that a united Germany would achieve by economic means what Hitler had failed to achieve militarily. There were undoubtedly still some who believed that Germany had a ‘civilising mission’ to the east. But the fact was, the pressure for a German economic presence came as much from the east europeans themselves as from the Germans. They wanted and needed German help and German investment; indeed it was probably the only way to restore and revive Eastern Europe.1 Indeed, the new situation had not been created specifically by a resurgent German nationalism, but as an indirect result of the reassertion of independent national being in the east european states as the Soviet system imploded. Certainly there were now opportunities for Germany to express a new identity of its own and to capitalise on it, but as Brandt had foreseen all options remained heavily dependent on the German state showing restraint in the rapidly changing international order. It was helpful for Chancellor Kohl’s government that German identity was still fragile and public opinion anxious not to betray signs of national arrogance. The mood was exemplified in the reaction of liberal and progressive circles against what they saw as the attempt of conservative historians to relativise the Holocaust, among other things by equating the dictatorships of Hitler and Stalin, and by drawing attention to other genocides in history. In the last resort, this particular academic debate, or Historikerstreit, served largely to underline that Germany had invested far too much in the project for european union to put it at risk through ill considered unilateral actions.2 In truth, Germany could not avoid being thrust into the spotlight. Having identified their state so closely with european integration, German politicians could not ignore the growing clamour from the resurgent east european countries for support in joining the West. Hans-Dietrich Genscher, then Federal Foreign Minister, confirmed in an essay that, for reasons of history, geography and economics, Germany had particular responsibilities to ensure that Europe remained at peace as it underwent the transformations that now seemed inevitable.3 But the notion of having a unique responsibility for peace also meant that Kohl’s government could not be as active on behalf of the eastern european populations as it might have wished.4 True, West Germany

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did push harder than most european states to recognise Croatia and Slovenia. Bonn’s behaviour here was even likened to that of ‘a bull in a china shop’ as it asserted a dynamic policy line in the face of greater hesitation among other members of the European Community.5 The initiative certainly hastened the break up of Yugoslavia, but Bonn’s behaviour came with certain limits attached.6 There was a danger that by being too active in Eastern Europe Germany would complicate its relationship with Russia, an entity still vital to the stability of Central and Eastern Europe.7 In more immediate terms, however, Moscow’s good will was needed to bring about the evacuation of former Soviet troops from German soil. Thus Kohl managed to have those forces withdrawn from East Germany, while in other parts of the former Soviet Empire, notably the Baltic republics, Russian army units remained firmly in place for the time being. Germany’s preoccupation with its own agenda on this issue undeniably complicated the new relationship developing between itself and the former Soviet satellites. Politicians in these countries were not alone in fearing a possible new division of Europe and even referred in this context to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. In reality there would have been little incentive for Russia to withdraw its forces had it not been for extensive material aid from Bonn. More importantly, the same evacuation of the former GDR was an indispensable first step in the process of removing Soviet troops from the whole of the former Warsaw Pact region. Despite this, the failure of Russian forces to leave the Baltic countries at the same time as those evacuating eastern Germany continued to prompt fresh concerns about the future security architecture in the East. Where would the boundaries of the EU and NATO eventually be drawn?8 To the Baltic countries the Second World War would never be over until all Soviet troops had finally left. The length of the period between the departure of Russians from East Germany and 1993–94, when they also left Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, aroused understandable fears in these countries of being stranded in what they called a ‘grey area’ of european security. This explained their absolute insistence on asking to join both the European Union and NATO— steps which in their mind would definitively signal departure from the Russian sphere of influence. Both Gorbachev and then later even Yeltsin, in the early stages seen as a friend of the Baltic countries, ultimately found it impossible to abandon all Russian ambitions to have the definitive say in what they provocatively called the ‘near abroad’. Ironically the Russian minorities in the Baltic countries now appeared to many as a potential fifth column, in much the same way that Germans had been perceived between the wars. As a leading NATO and EU member Germany could not afford to give the impression of being indifferent to such issues, even had it wanted to. This pressure was supplemented by the need to revitalise the economy of eastern Germany. That could hardly be separated in turn from the restoration and

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development of economic links between the former GDR and the new eastern Europe. Emphasis must also be placed on Germany’s concern for the wider natural environment. Alarm about possible pollution from Polish industry on the other side of the river Oder gave the German government a vested interest in facilitating EU investment in the problem.9 Another major factor was the existence of Germans still living in the East. Many of these, as Thatcher’s conference had observed, were anxious to migrate to Germany. Over 1.5 million did so in the five years to 1993.10 By contrast, there were also German refugees anxious to return to their homelands, if only to lay claim to former property. In the last resort Kohl was left with little option other than to have an active Ostpolitik. To some extent at least the heavy-handed involvement in Yugoslavia was balanced by greater sensitivity in northern Europe. None the less even in this region some of the long familiar concerns of Germans in the East resurfaced—borders, population movements, the struggle to democratise and privatise society. For others it was hard to contemplate the issue of Kaliningrad (a Russian centre now cut off from its motherland by Lithuania).

8.2 Statues of Marx and Engels located in what used to be MarxEngels Platz, East Berlin. Note the graffiti on Engels’s coat. without recalling that it was once Germany’s Königsberg.11 It continued to be difficult to leave such historically-conditioned relationships and ownerships

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to one side completely. As we have seen, such matters had been, over time, as inherent to the concept and experience of Lebensraum as the murderous fixations of Nazism. For all that, it is still Hitler’s shadow that looms large in the new Europe. The point is made consistently in article titles found in newspapers and academic publications alike.12 But nothing illustrates the impact of the Nazi heritage more clearly than the treatment of the Jewish question in both the eastern states and Germany. Notwithstanding the huge literature on the Third Reich, prior to re-unification the historiography of those dismal years had developed along very different lines in the FRG and GDR respectively, as we saw in chapter six. In East Germany historical studies inevitably focused largely on economic issues, in keeping with the Marxist orthodoxy of National Socialism as a product of capitalism in crisis. This explanatory model had also conveniently served the political purpose of distancing East Germany from the crimes of the Third Reich, in so far as the GDR had rejected the capitalist order. Nor were political imperatives entirely absent from West Germany’s selection of historical themes, where the assumption that Hitlerism and National Socialism beguiled and deceived a German population about its ultimate intentions could be unduly comforting. In the case of the Holocaust, for instance, West German historians too often balked at raising questions about personal responsibility. Before re-unification it looked as though Hitler had been surrounded by ‘unwilling executioners’ who were coerced into killing all those standing in the way of a racially pure German nation. Neither of the above approaches could provide a reliable foundation on which to rebuild national identity in the long term. That required above all an honest and searching confrontation with the past and the overwhelming evidence that the Third Reich killed six million Jews. Because Marxist historians in the GDR gave little attention to Nazi ideology, other than as a function of economic forces, they overlooked its manifest appeal to swathes of the German electorate, thereby failing to consider fully the important constellation of issues surrounding personal choice and participation in Hitler’s politics. This stance had its counterpart among West German historians, who were prone to minimising the attraction of Hitler’s ideas by resorting to explanations employing impersonal phrases like ‘cumulative radicalisation’, effectively pushing aside once more painful and difficult questions about motivation.13 Similarly the strong focus on Alltagsgeschichte—or history of everyday life—tended to exaggerate the normality of life in Hitler’s dictatorship, as if the daily round could go on somehow insulated from demands of the regime. Even when the dialogue between East and West German historians intensified from the 1960s, the epicentre of debate for a long time remained on functions and structures, rather than on personal engagement.14 The popular success of Goldhagen’s book on Hitler’s ‘willing executioners’ was

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an oblique indictment of the failure of the German historical profession to confront fully the questions troubling the German public at large—a public now embracing former GDR citizens deprived until then of any serious confrontation with Nazism’s Jewish policy. The link between the rapid growth of Holocaust studies, German reunification and the restoration of Central Eastern Europe is too obvious to labour. A sustained attempt is now underway to remove the obstacles to a healthy sense of national identity through in depth study of all aspects of the tragedy. In other words the process is no longer driven solely by German concerns, important as these are to the government in Berlin. The country is now so firmly embedded in the structures of the European Union that any renewed attempt to acquire an informal Empire could not be couched in the ambitions of a single nation, confounding those commentators who, having expected trouble from a reunified Germany, have had to accept the reality of it becoming ‘a global citizen par excellence.’15 Quite apart from the need to retain both French and British support, German policy towards the East is increasingly driven by the need for accommodation with the re-established democracies in Eastern and Central Europe. Within this framework, any Drang nach Osten is more than matched by the Drang nach Westen, not least because the new democracies have seen entry into Europe as a definitive break with Soviet hegemony. The central dilemma in dealing with the post-Soviet period is that the same imperatives driving the Baltic and other countries towards the West also keep firmly on the agenda some particularly painful questions relating to their collaboration with the Third Reich, above all: what was the relationship between nonGermans in the East and the genesis and prosecution of the Holocaust? The question concerns not just limited numbers of, say, Ukrainains and Lithuanians, who served as auxiliary policemen and in the process helped exterminate large numbers of Jews.16 Sometimes it also has to do with relatively large portions of local populations who participated in and profited from murderous anti-Semitism.17 By necessity such issues strike at the heart of national identity in today’s new Europe and cannot be divorced from the larger issue of state building in the East. Indeed when President Adamkus set up a commission to investigate the Holocaust in Lithuania, he did so with the clear intention of overcoming a potential obstacle to the healthy democratic development of the Lithuanian polity.18 In this respect particularly the ending of the Cold War has certainly not brought the end of history predicted by Francis Fukuyama. On the contrary, for the states to the East of Germany it could be said to mark the beginning of history, or more accurately of objective historical research. This applies literally in the matter of shared responsibility for the deaths of so many Jews in the National Socialist domain. The earlier literature written by émigrés from the former Soviet bloc, in so far as it dealt at with the Jewish problem in any length at all, was unashamedly apologist. Émigré circles from the Baltic

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region, for example, were prone to attacking evidence which came from German sources, such as the memoranda compiled by the members of the Einsatzgruppen relating to their activities.19 It was contended that the documents, such as those from head of Einsatzkommando 3, SSStandartenführer Jäger detailing his troops’ actions in Lithuania, were only put together several weeks after the event and, as such, represented fabrications by the German authorities to give the impression of substantial local complicity in the killing of Jews. Similar denials came from émigré Latvians who had once been in the Legion set up under the Waffen-SS in the last stages of German occupation of the Baltic area. However, no serious historian can believe that the atrocities in the Baltic were perpetrated by German forces alone.20 Recent studies of occupied Lithuania, for example, show beyond doubt that German forces were desperately needed for the thrust against Russia, therefore much of the killing had to be left to locals.21 A similar predicament existed in Latvia, albeit that collaboration required considerably more persuasion by the German occupiers. In the first major study of the Holocaust in Latvia, it has been shown that the murder of sixty five thousand Jews took place there even before the Latvian Legion was formed in 1943. The collaborationist auxiliary police unit led by Latvian Viktors ArƗjs and set up in early July 1941 after a meeting between ArƗjs and Stahlecker, was heavily involved in killing civilians and, following the implementation of the Holocaust, numbered about 1,200 men.22 Such studies reveal the growing pressure on current citizens of the Baltic states—as distinct from émigrés—to face the fact of so many Jews being killed on their soil. In post-war Lithuania only six thousand were left of the two hundred and forty thousand Jews living there before the Second World War. It has been argued that from two to three thousand Lithuanians were involved in the police battalions carrying out the executions of Jews— although popular participation stretched much more widely. In Latvia thirty thousand Jews were killed in the forests at Birkernieku and a further twenty eight thousand at Rumbula. Estonia was also a killing ground, where some twenty thousand Jews perished throughout the war. In the event, during the early stages of restored Baltic independence concerns about local involvement in the Holocaust took second place to exposing and prosecuting Soviet atrocities against the Baltic nations. In rehabilitating those Baltic citizens punished for anti-Soviet resistance, some Nazi collaborators proved able to escape odium. That was true of some Legion members who had taken part in atrocities before 1943. Clearly, the Legion cannot be completely separated from the killings, even though many of its members claimed with some justice also to be patriots fighting for an independent Latvia. Their cause found more resonance than otherwise would have been the case because of general loathing in the Baltic countries of the Soviet occupiers and the continuing distrust of any Russian regime.

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In such an atmosphere war crimes proceedings were initiated in the first instance against known villains from the Soviet side. Even so, given the priority attached to re-joining Europe and to democratisation, Baltic governments must heed the mounting calls inside and outside their countries for a proper historical examination of the recent past. Just as Lithuania began to face up to its heritage in the 1990s, so the then Latvian president, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, made all too plain in a speech of 27 January 2000, to the Stockholm International Forum on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research, the obligation on her own country to wrestle with the period of German occupation and its effects. In 1990, shortly after officially declaring our intention to secede from the Soviet Union, Latvia’s parliament openly condemned the events of the Holocaust in Latvia and expressed deep regret that Latvian individuals had participated in it. Latvia has assumed its sacred responsibility of condemning the Holocaust. Our criminal code specifically condemns genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, regardless of the ideology in whose name such crimes were perpetrated,—whether Nazi or Communist—and regardless of the nationality of the perpetrator. Latvia holds no statute of limitations on these crimes and is committed to the prosecution and punishment of those found guilty through the due process of law. We stand ready to receive any additional evidence that will help us to initiate criminal proceedings against any individual suspected of committing war crimes in Latvia.23 Thus uncovering the Holocaust and admitting to involvement—although it has some way to go yet, particularly in Estonia—has become essential to building an enduring and solid sense of national identity in the Baltic countries too. 24 Needless to say, it is not difficult to identify on-going needs to come to terms with the recent past in Germany’s surviving émigré community, pressure from which outlasted Kohl’s term as Chancellor. The Association of Expellees remains active and influential, as do the organisations (or Landsmannschaften) representing the different geographical areas from which the families fled. Literature and speeches which emanate from their circles display clearly the conflicting emotions which they still feel about their history. Yet despite being painfully conscious of past injustices, many came to acknowledge just how important properly confronting the past was to their very existence and future. Others draw on experiences and traditions that surely once more have potential value in a newly enlarged Europe. In both parts of our life we have collected experiences which are completely foreign to a person who has never lost their homeland. The

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most valuable experience of all from the first part of our life is that of co-existing with other nations. Living together was not always without its tensions, but all in all given its many facets, it was enriching for each of us. In the second part of our life we had to learn something that we inherited in the first part. From the outset of our lives in the places of our origin, we were integrated. Our ancestors had produced the achievement demanded by integration in a foreign society. In the second part of our life, the achievement of integration was demanded from us. As a result we know what it means to be integrated, but also what it means to integrate yourself, to have to integrate yourself in order to be able to capitalise on the opportunities offered to us in the second part of our lives and in order to find a new home.25 One interesting illustration of how attitudes have changed over time is provided by the evolution of the Baltische Historische Kommission. This was and remains a historical body, backed by the German government, with a mission to investigate Germany’s place in the Baltic. Naturally it has always drawn Germans whose families hailed from the region. Originally, however, it was dominated largely by senior figures who had themselves been close to or members of the Nazi influenced Baltic German Bewegung (‘The Movement’) of the 1930s. In the post-war atmosphere, the Commission members felt uncomfortable with close examination of the recent past. Thus, apart from their preoccupation with their own experiences in the Umsiedlung, Baltic German historians tended to dwell on nostalgic examinations of their glory days in the former Baltic provinces. Adelsgeschichte (or history of aristocracy) ruled. There were few papers at the Commission’s annual conference examining the implications of a former landed ruling caste settling on land stolen during the Second World War from Poles. Equally there was a deafening silence on the role of Baltic Germans acting as translators for the Nazi security police. And what of the role of Baltic Germans in managing life in German occupied Baltic states between 1941 and 1944? These are all areas which needed addressing fully by all concerned before there could be any talk either of honest national identity or of mutual and lasting coexistence in the space the different nationalities had shared over time. Today a change is well underway. Not only are new younger German academics involved in the work of the Commission, but papers are invariably given by Estonian and Latvian historians. Michael Garleff’s recently edited volume on Weimar, Third Reich and Baltic Germans, for example, squarely faced questions of German occupation and the Holocaust, even referring to the contribution of specific Baltic German prominente, like Reinhard Wittram, to the spread of National Socialist thinking within his community.26 Similar trends can be discerned within Baltic German émigré strongholds like the Carl Schirren Gesellschaft.. The speakers at a recent conference held by

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the society at Lüneburg not only gave attention to Baltic German figures ignored during the 1930s, notably Paul Schiemann, but also hosted Estonian and Latvian historians talking about the Umsiedlung, agrarian reform, compensation and other issues long problematic in the German-Baltic relationship. Symptomatically, a young Latvian historian was invited to address the topic of understanding public celebrations among Baltic German society between the wars. On this occasion, however, there were still no papers directly concerned with the Holocaust. It must also be admitted that talk of a restored community of language and culture in the present day Baltic states tends to come largely from the German side and refers to the German rather than the Latvian or Estonian languages. In one respect this mirrors earlier conceptions of living space, in so far as there were assumptions about a unifying German cultural mission in the East. However, in reality the situation is now dramatically changed by the imperatives of european enlargement. The process makes the Baltic states less economically dependent on Germany in comparison with the interwar period. The German Grosswirtschaftsraum has given way to the EU equivalent, which in turn is being affected by the inclusion of Scandinavian and Nordic countries; the Reichsmark has yielded to the Euro. The nationalism of the old Europe cannot sit comfortably with this new cosmopolitanism. The options are greater and the flexibility emerging in the new united european space promises to redefine the concept of living space, in the process identifying the inhabitants much more clearly as cooperating neighbours rather than enemies. There can never again be military action by Germany to extend its realm into Russia. On the other hand, fears about German fifth columns have been displaced by fears of Russian misuse of its minorities. This concern in turn has given new dimensions to the security architecture developing since the end of the Cold War. Despite this, earlier worries about the development of what was dubbed a grey area between the EU and Russia have proved unfounded, given the eastward enlargement of NATO. The process has not entirely resolved the problem of Russian hostility towards western incursions into what Moscow still perceives as its historic sphere of interest, yet even President Putin’s megaphone diplomacy cannot conceal the dramatic loss of power and influence of his country in the lands between. Events like the pro-Western electoral victory in the Ukraine suggest strongly that the dramatic dissolution of the old Soviet Empire is likely to continue, paving the way for a new europeanised concept of living space. Not that the old version will ever be forgotten. The symbolism, particularly of the Nazi past, will remain powerful and undoubtedly will continue to be intrinsic to general perceptions of the historical relationship between Germans and non-Germans. Yet the resilience and self-confidence displayed in recent years by resurgent east european democracies should make it possible for

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them to recognize more positive Germanic inputs into their own environment.

8.3 House of the Blackheads, Riga.

8.4 Villa Ammende, Pärnu, Estonia. To take a final example from the Baltic, any visitor to Tallinn, Riga or any number of historic centres, will instantly be aware through the

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architecture of these cities how much they owe to past German dominion. True, the more depressing aspects of the past are underlined by the presence, for example, of the Museum of Occupation in Riga, which records both Soviet and Nazi crimes in the city. Nonetheless the museum is located adjacent to a monument of past German power, in the form of the House of Blackheads, home of former Baltic German businessmen. This building has been splendidly restored and today among other things houses major civic receptions for the City of Riga. Equally, in Tallinn the archives of the former Baltic Germans have been carefully preserved and newly catalogued, while in Pärnu the Ammende family home is being maintained as a hotel full of historical atmosphere. In the lands between Berlin and Moscow, the past has hardly been forgotten and many obstacles are still to be overcome but the present mood is at least conducive to a fresh start.

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NOTES Quoted in H. James and M. Stone, eds., When the Wall came down. Reactions to German Unification (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 233–9. 2. Historikerstreit (Munich: Piper, 1987). Discussed in R.J. Evans, In Hitler’s shadow. West German historians and the attempt to escape from the Nazi past (London: Tauris, 1989). 3. H.-D. Genscher quoted in R. Fritsch-Bournazel, Europe and German unifcation (New York: Berg, 1992), pp. 207–8. For a clear statement of Germany’s position in later years, see ‘Germany looks East,’ leading article in The Times, 22 January 1997. 4. M. Kreile, ‘Verantwortung und Interesse in der deutschen Außenß und Sicherheitspolitik,’ Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte. Beilage zur Wochenzeitung Das Parlament. B5/96, (1996). 5. T. Garton-Ash, In Europe’s name. Germany and the divided continent (London: Vintage, 1993), p. 10. Also of interest here is J. Eyall, Europe and Yugoslavia. Lessons from a failure (Weymouth: RUSI, 1993). 6. J. Joffe, ‘After bipolarity. Germany and European security,’ Adelphi Paper 285, pp. 34–47. 7. P. Frank, ‘Stability and instability in Eastern Europe,’ Adelphi Paper 285, pp. 3–15. 8. In an early but perceptive discussion of this theme, Karsten Voigt argued that NATO membership for the former Warsaw Pact countries could actually help underpin future stable relations with Russia. K.D. Voigt, ‘Osterweiterung der NATO,’ Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte. Beilage zur Wochenzeitung Das Parlament, B 5/96, (1996). A later author cautioned that for this to be the case, NATO membership should not become a means of designating Russia as an ‘enemy’. Ernst-Otto Czempiel, ‘Die Neuordnung Europas,’ Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte. Beilage zur Wochenzeitung Das Parlament. B 1-2/97, (1997). 9. J. Mackow, ‘Die Normalisierung der neuen alten Nachbarschaft. Zum aktuellen Stand der deutsch-polnischen Beziehungen,’ Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte. Beilage zur Wochenzeitung Das Parlament. B 39/95, (1995). 10. B. Koller, ‘Aussiedler in Deutschland. Aspekte ihrer sozialen und beruflichen Eingliederung,’ S. Delfs, ‘Heimatvertreibene, Aussiedler, Spätaussiedler. Rechtliche und politische Aspekte der Aufnahme von Deutschstämmigen aus Osteuropa in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland’ and A. Eisfeld, ‘Zwischen Bleiben und Gehen. Die Deutschen in den Nachfolgestaaten der 1.

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11.

12. 13.

14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19.

20.

21. 22.

23. 24.

Sowjetunion.’ All these essays are Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte. Beilage zur Wochenzeitung Das Parlament. B 48/93, (1993). A. Große-Jütte, ‘Die Region Kaliningrad/Königsberg. Chance oder Gefahrenherd im Ostseeraum?’ Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte. Beilage zur Wochenzeitung Das Parlament. B18-19/94, (1994). For instance M. Walker, ‘Overstretching Teutonia. making the Best of the Fourth Reich,’ World Policy Journal, 12 (1995/6). For Hans Mommsen’s development of the terms, see his essays ‘Anti-Jewish politics and the implementation of the Holocaust’ in H. Bull, ed., The challenge of the Third Reich (Oxford: Clarendon, 1986), p. 130 and ‘National Socialism: continuity and change’ in W. Laqueur, ed., Fascism. A reader’s guide. London. 1976. p. 156. M. Housden, Helmut Nicolai and nazi ideology (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992), chapters 1 and 2. D. Benjamin, ‘Past is not prologue,’ Time, 9 October 2000. M. Dean, Collaboration in the Holocaust. Crimes of the local police in Belorussia and Ukraine, 1941–44 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000). J.T. Gross, Neighbours. The destruction of the Jewish community in Jedwabne, Poland 1941 (Princeton: Princeton UP, 2001). J. Tauber, ‘“Jews. Your history on Lithuanian soil is over!” Lithuania and the Holocaust in 1941,’ Central and Eastern European Review 1 (2007). www.ceer.org.uk. J. Tauber, ibid. One of the memoranda is available in Y.Arad et al, eds., Documents on the Holocaust (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1996), pp. 398–400. A further extract from a report from Einsatzgruppe A is included in ibid, pp. 389–93. For a study of events in Lithuania, see also C. Dieckmann, ‘Der Krieg und die Ermordung der litauischen Juden’ in U. Herbert, ed., Nationalsozialistische Vernichtungspolitik 1939–1945 (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1998), pp. 303–6. Tauber, ibid. A. Ezergailis, The Holocaust in Latvia 1941–1944 (Riga: Latvian Historical Institute, 1996), pp. 188–90. For a photograph of ArƗjs as well as another Latvian accused of war crimes (KonrƗds KalƝjs) see Latvijas OkupƗcijas Muzejs. 1940–1991. Museum of the Occupation of Latvia (Riga: Museum of Occupation, 2002), p. 66. As well as Jews, ArƗjs’s men killed Roma, communists and mentally ill individuals. From the web site of the Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. www.mfa.gov.lv/en/news/speeches/2000/jan/3449/ For a study of the work of the commissions dealing with the Holocaust in the Baltic states see E.-C. Onken, ‘The politics of

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finding historical truth: Reviewing Baltic history commissions and their work,’ Journal of Baltic Studies, 38 (2007), pp. 109–16. 25. ‘Was uns verbindet, sind Erinnerungen und eine gemeinsame Geschichte,’ Banater Berglanddeutsche. Mitteilungsblatt der Heimatverbandes Banater Berglanddeutscher eV, March-April 2004, No. 115 v. 20. 26. M. Garleff, ed., Deutschbalten, Weimarer Republik und Drittes Reich (Cologne: Bohlau, 2001).

Bibliography This is confined to a selection of general studies relating to each theme. More detailed bibliographical guidance can be found in the footnotes to each chapter, where there are also pointers to valuable archive holdings. Introduction Alter, P. The German Question and Europe. A History. London: Arnold, 2000. Berger, S. National identity and historical consciousness in Germany since 1800. Oxford: OUP, 1997. Broszat, M. German National Socialism 1919–1945. Santa Barbara: Clio Press. 1966. ———. The Hitler State. London: Longman, 1981. ———. Zweihundert Jahre deutsche Polenpolitik. Munich: Suhrkamp, 1963. Calleo, D. The German problem reconsidered. Germany and the World Order 1870 to the present. Cambridge: CUP,1979. Cobban, A. The nation state and national self-determination. London: Fontana, 1969. Jäckel, E. Hitler in history. Hanover, London: Brandeis University Press, 1984. Jacobsen, H.A. ed. Misstrauische Nachbarn. Deutsche Ostpolitik 1919–1970. Dokumentation und Analyse. Düsseldorf: Droste, 1970. Katzenstein, P. ed. Mitteleuropa: between Europe and Germany. Oxford: OUP, 1999. Macartney, C. A. National states and national minorities. London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1934. Nimni, E. ed. National cultural autonomy and its contemporary critics. London: Routledge, 2005. Ther, P. ‘Beyond the nation: the relational basis of a comparative history of Germany and Europe,’ Central European History, 36:1 (2003). Chapter 1 Breuilly, J. The formation of the first German nation-state, 1800–1871. Basingstoke: Routledge, 1996 ———. Ed. Nineteenth century Germany. Politics, culture and society 1780– 1918. London: MacMillan, 2001. ———. Ed. The state of Germany: The national idea in the making, unmaking and remaking of a modern nation-state. London: Longman, 1992. Campion, L.K. Behind the modern Drang nach Osten. Baltic emigres and Russophobia in 19th Century Germany. Ann Arbor: Indiana UP, 1966.

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Düwell, K. & Link, W. Eds. Deutsche auswärtige Kulturpolitik seit 1871. Geschichte und Struktur. Referate und Diskussionen eines interdisziplinären Symposiums. Cologne: Böhlau, 1981. Fedyshyn, O. S. Germany’s drive to the East and the Ukrainian revolution, 1917–1918. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1971. Geiss, I. The question of German unification. 1806–1996. London: Routledge, 1997. Giesinger, A. From Catherine to Kruschev. The story of Russia’s Germans. Battleford: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1981. Haffner, S. The rise and fall of Prussia. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980. Johnson, L. R. Central Europe. Enemies, neighbours, friends. Oxford: OUP, 1996. Liulevicius, V.G. War land on the eastern front. Culture, national identity and German occupation in World War I. Cambridge: CUP, 2000. Lutz, H. Zwischen Habsburg und Preussen. Deutschland 1815–1866. Berlin: Siedler, 1985. Mann, B. Die Baltischen Länder in der deutschen Kriegszielpublizistik 1914– 1918. Tübingen: C.J. Rohr, 1965. Stirk, P. Ed. Mitteleuropa. History and prospects. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1994. Seton-Watson, H. The sick heart of modern Europe. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1975. Torke, H.-J., Himka, J.-P. Eds. German-Ukrainian relations in historical perspective. Toronto: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 1994. Volkmann, H.-E. Die deutsche Baltikumpolitik zwischen Best-Litovsk und Compiegne. Cologne and Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 1970. Zetterberg, Seppo. Die Liga der Fremdvölker Russlands. 1916–1918. Helsinki: Finska Historiska Samfundet, 1978. Chapter 2 Bamberger-Stemmann, S. Der Europäische Nationalitäten-kongreß 1925 bis 1938. Nationale Minderheiten zwischen Lobbyistentum und Großmachtinteressen. Marburg: Herder Institut, 2000. Bauer, O. ‘The nation,’ Woolf, S. Ed. Nationalism in Europe. 1815 to the present. A reader. London: Routledge, 1996. Conze, W. Nationalstaat oder Mittleuropa? Die Deutschen des Reichs und die Nationalitätenfrage im Ersten Weltkrieg. Düsseldorf: Droste, 1951. Gütermann, C. Das Minderheitenschutzverfahren vor dem Völkerbund. Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1991.

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Lemberg, H. Ed. Ostmitteleuropa zwischen den beiden Weltkriegen, 1918– 1939. Stärke und Schwäche der neuen Staaten, nationale Minderheiten. Marburg: Herder Institut, 1997. Pearson, R. National minorities in Eastern Europe 1848–1945. London: Longman, 1983. Rauch, G. von. The Baltic States. The years of independence. 1917–1940. London: Hurst, 1974. Renner, K. ‘State and Nation’ in Nimni, E. Ed. National cultural autonomy and its contemporary critics. London: Routledge, 2005. Scheuermann, M. Minderheitenschutz contra Konflikt-verhütung? Die Minderheitenpolitik des Völkerbundes in den zwanziger Jahren. Marburg: Herder Institut, 2000. Schot, B. Nation oder Staat? Deutschland und der Minderheitenschutz. Marburg: Herder Institut, 1988. Tooley, T. Hunt. National identity and Weimar Germany. Upper Silesia and the Eastern Border, 1918–1922. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997. Wright, J. Gustav Stresemann. Weimar politician and statesman. Oxford: OUP, 2002. Zeidler, M. Rechswehr und Rote Armee 1920–1933. Munich: Oldenbourg, 1993. Chapter 3 Aun, K. On the spirit of the Estonian minorities law. Stockholm: Estonian Information Centre, 1950. Fink, C. Defending the rights of others. The great powers, the Jews and international minority protection, 1878–1938. Cambridge: CUP, 2004. Garleff, M. Deutschbaltische Politik zwischen den Weltkriegen. Bonn: Verlag Wissenschaftliches Archiv, 1976. ———. ‘Nationalitätenpolitik zwischen liberalen und völkischem Anspruch. Gleichklang und Spannung bei Paul Schiemann und Werner Hasselblatt,’ Hehn, J. von and Kenez, C.J. Eds. Reval und die Baltischen Länder. Marburg: Herder Institut, 1980, pp. 113–132. Hiden, J. Defender of minorities. Paul Schiemann, 1876–1944. London: Hurst, 2004. ———. The Baltic States and Weimar Ostpolitik. Cambridge: CUP, 2002. ———. and Smith, D.J. ‘Looking beyond the nation state: a Baltic vision for national minorities between the wars,’ Journal of Contemporary History, 41 (2006), pp.387–99. Housden, M. ‘Ewald Ammende and the organisation of national minorities in inter-war Europe,’ German History, 18 (2000), pp.439–60 Jahn, E. K. Die Deutschen in der Slowakei in den Jahren 1918–1929. Ein Beitrag zur Nationalitätenproblematik. Munich: Oldenbourg, 1971.

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MetuzƗle-Kangere, B. Ed. The ethnic dimension in politics and culture in the Baltic countries 1920–1945. Stockholm: Södertörns Högskola, 2004. Pistohlkors, G. von and Weber, M. Eds. Staatliche Einheit und Nationale Vielfalt im Baltikum. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2005. Robinson, J. et al. Were the minority treaties a failure? New York: Antin Press,1943. Smith, D.J. Ed. The Baltic States and their region. New Europe or old? Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005. Wehler, H.-U. Nationalitätenpolitik in Jugoslawien. Die deutsche Minderheit 1918–78. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1980. Chapter 4 Aly, G. and Heim S. Vordenker der Vernichtung. Auschwitz und die deutschen Pläne für eine neue europäische Ordnung. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1993. Brown, M. ‘The Third Reich's mobilisation of the German fifth column in Eastern Europe,’ Journal of Central European Affairs 19 (1959), pp.128–48. Grenzebach, Jr. W. S. Germany’s informal empire in east-central Europe. German economic policy toward Yugoslavia and Rumania 1933–9. Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1988. Hiden, J. and Lane, T. Eds. The Baltic and the outbreak of the Second World War. Cambridge: CUP, 1992. Housden, M. Helmut Nicolai and nazi ideology. London: MacMillan, 1992. Jäckel, E. Hitler’s world view. A blueprint for power. Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 1981. Komjathy, A. and Stockwell, R. German Minorities and the Third Reich. Ethnic Germans of East Central Europe between the Wars. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1980. Lane, B.M. and Rupp, L.J. Nazi ideology before 1933. A Documentation. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1978. Luther, T. Volkstumpolitik des Dritten Reiches, 1933–1938. Die Auslanddeutschen im Spannungsfeld zwischen Traditionalisten und Nationalsozialisten, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2004. Miege, W. Das Dritte Reich und die Deutsche Volksgruppe in Rumänien 1933–1938. Berne and Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1972. Smelser, R. M. ‘Reich National Socialists and Sudeten German party elites: a collective biographical approach,’ Zeitschrift für Ostforschung, 23, 4 (1974), pp. 639–60. Stirk P.M.R. ‘Authoritarian and national socialist conceptions of nation, state and Europe,’ in Stirk, P.M.R. Ed. European Unity in context. The interwar period. London: Pinter, 1989.

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Aly, G. Final Solution. Nazi population policy and the murder of the European Jews. London: Arnold, 1999. Aly, G. Heim, S. Vordenker der Vernichtung. Auschwitz und die deutschen Pläne für eine neue europäische Ordnung. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1993. Arad, Y. et al. Documents on the Holocaust. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem. 1996. Breitman, R. The architect of genocide. Himmler and the Final Solution. London: Bodley Head, 1992. Broszat, M. Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik, 1939–1945. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlages-Anstalt, 1961. Browning, C.R. The path to genocide. Cambridge: CUP, 1992. Burleigh, M. Germany turns eastwards. A study of Ostforschung in the Third Reich. Cambridge: CUP, 1988. Cesarani, D. The Final Solution. Origins and implementation. London: Routledge, 1994. Dallin, A. German rule in Russia 1941–1945. A study of occupation policies. London: Macmillan, 1957. Datner, S. ‘Crimes Committed by the Wehrmacht during the September Campaign and the Period of Military Government (1 Sept 1939—25 Oct 1939),’ Polish Western Affairs, 2–3 (1962–3), 294–338 Ezergailis, A. The Holocaust in Latvia 1941–44: The missing centre. Riga: Historical Institute of Latvia, 1996. Gross, J.T. Polish society under German occupation. The General Government 1939–1944. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979. Herbert, U. Ed. Nationalsozialistische Vernichtungspolitik 1939–1945. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1998. Housden, M. Hans Frank. Lebensraum and the Holocaust. London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004. ———. Hitler. Study of a revolutionary? London: Routledge, 2000. Lukas, R. C. The forgotten Holocaust. The Poles under German occupation, 1939–44. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1986. Lumans, V.O. Latvia in World War II. New York: Fordham University Press, 2006. Madajczyk, C. Die Okkupationspolitik Nazideutschlands in Polen 1939– 1945. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1987 Madajczyk, C. Zamojszczyzna—Sonderlaboratorium SS. Warsaw: Ludowa Spoldzielnia Wydawnicza, 1977. Myllieniemi, S. Die Neuordnung der baltischen Länder 1941–1944. Zum nationalsozialistischen Inhalt der deutschen Besatzungspolitik. Helsinki: Dissertationes Historicae, 1973. Müller, R.-D. and Ueberschär, G.R. Hitler’s war in the East. A critical assessment. Oxford: Berghahn, 1996.

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Golovchansky, A. ‘Ich will raus diesem Wahnsinn.’ Deutsche Briefe von der Ostfront 1941–1945. Aus sowjetischen Archiven. Wuppertal: Peter Hammer, 1991. Gross, J.T. Neighbours. The destruction of the Jewish community in Jedwabne, Poland, 1941. London: Arrow Books, 2003. Herbert, U. Ed. Nationalsozialistische Vernichtungspolitik 1939–1945. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1998. Müller, R.-D. and Volkmann, H.-E. Die Wehrmacht. Mythos und Realität. Munich: Oldenbourg, 1999. Mommsen, H. Ed. The Third Reich Between Vision and Reality: New Perspectives on Cerman History, 1918–1945. London: Berg, 2001. Housden, M. ‘Security policing: a “successful” case from the Government General,’ German History, 14 (1996), pp. 209–216. Palumbo, M. The Waldheim files. Myth and reality. London: Faber and Faber, 1988. Posner, G. Hitler’s children. Inside the families of the Third Reich. London: Random House, 1992. Pehle, W.H. Ed. November 1938. From ‘Kristallnacht’ to genocide. Oxford: Berg, 1991. Safarian, H. Eichmann und seine Gehilfen. Vienna: Europaverlag, 1993. Sereny, G. The German Trauma. Experiences and reflections 1938–2000. London: Allen Lane, 2000. Chapter 7 Ahmann, R. Birke, A.M. and Howard, M. Eds. The quest for stability. Problems of West European security 1918–1957. Oxford: OUP, 1993. Ahonen, P. After the expulsion. West Germany and Eastern Europe 1945– 1990. Oxford: OUP, 2003. Bender, P. Die Ostpolitik Willy Brandts, oder, Die Kunst des Selbstverständlichen. Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1972. Benz, W. Ed. Die Vertreibung der Deutschen aus dem Osten. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch, 1985. Borodziej, W. and Lemberg, H. “Unsere Heimat ist uns fremdes Land geworden.” Die Deutschen östlich von Oder und Neisse, 1945–1950. Dokumente aus polnischen Archive. Marburg: Herder Institut, 2004. Bundeskanzler Brandt. Reden und Interviews. Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1973. Esch, M. G. “Gesunde Verhältnisse.” Deutsche und polnische Bevölkerungspolitik in Ostmitteleuropa 1939–1950. Marburg: Herder Institut, 1998. Evans, R. In Hitler’s shadow. West German historians and the attempt to escape from the Nazi past. London: Tauris, 1989. Frommer, B. National cleansing. Retribution against Nazi collaborators in postwar Czechoslovakia. Cambridge: CUP, 2005.

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Glettler, M. et al. Eds. Geteilt, besetzt, beherrscht: Die Tschechoslowakei 1938–45: Reichsgau Sudetenland, Protektorat Boehmen und Maehren, Slowakei. Essen: Klartext, 2004. Kittel, M. and Moeller, H. ‘Die Benes-Dekree und did Vertgreibung der Deutschen im europäischen Vergleich,’Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 54,: 4 (2006), pp. 541–81. Loeber, D.A. Diktierte Option. Die Umsiedlung der Deutschen aus Estland und Lettland 1939–41. Dokumentation. Neumünster: K. Wachholtz, 1972. Marshall, B. Willy Brandt. Bonn: Bourvier, 1993. Schechtman, J. B. European Population Transfers 1939–1945. New York: Russell and Russell, 1946. Spannenberger, N. Der Volksbund der Deutschen in Ungarn 1938–1944 unter Horthy und Hitler. Munich: Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2005. Schieder, T. Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ostmitteleuropa. 5 Bände. Bonn: Bundesministerium für Vertriebenen, 1953–61. Weinberg, M. Schutz der deutschen Minderheit in Polen nach den Weltkriegen. Ein Vergleich unter Berücksichtigung der aktuellen Rechtslage. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1997. Zayas, A.M. de. Die Anglo–Amerikaner und die Vertreibung der Deutschen. Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1985. Chapter 8 Berger, S. The search for normality. National identity and historical consciousness in Germany since 1800. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2003. ———. Donovan, M. and Passmore, K. Eds. Writing national histories. Western Europe since 1800. London: Routledge, 1999. Budryte, D. Taming nationalism? Political community building in the postsoviet Baltic States. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2005. Dieckmann, C. Das wahre Leben im falschen. Geschichten von ostdeutscher Identität. Berlin: Links, 1999. Fritsch-Bournazel, R., Europe and German unification. New York: Berg Publishers, 1992. Fulbrook, M. and Swales, M. Representing the German nation: History and identity in twentieth century German. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. Garton Ash, T. In Europe’s name. Germany and the divided continent. London: Vintage, 1994. Grabbe, H. and Hughes, K. Eastward enlargement of the European Union. London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1997.

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Hiio, T., Maripuu, M. and Paavle, I. Eds., Estonia 1940–1945: Reports of the Estonian International Commission for the Investigation of Crimes against Humanity. Tallinn: Estonian Foundation for the Investigation of crimes against Humanity, 2006. Latvijas okupƗcijas muzejs. 1940–1991. Museum of the occupation of Latvia. Riga: Museum of Occupation, 2002. Nollendorfs, V. and Oberländer, E. Eds. The hidden and forbidden history of Latvia under Soviet and Nazi occupation, 1940–1991. Riga: Institute of the History of Latvia, 2005. Probst, L. Ed. Differenz in der Einheit. Über die kulturellen Unterschiede der Deutschen in Ost und West. Berlin: Links, 1999. Skultans, V. Narrative and memory in post-Soviet Latvia. London: Routledge, 1998. Stares, P.B. Ed. The new Germany and the new Europe. Washington: Brookings Institute, 1992. Readers can find a good selection of articles in Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte. Beilage zur Wochenzeitung Das Parlament. They provide topical and astute analyses of Germany’s relationship to Eastern Europe. The surviving expellees and their offspring are well-organised in Germany. Their overarching organisation, the Bund der Vertriebenen, has the following interesting web site: www.bund-der-vertriebenen.de. This has links to eleven organsiations, or Landsmannschaften, representing the communities expelled from various regions of Central and Eastern Europe. The community from the Banat publishes an internet newspaper Banater Berglanddeutsche. and Ostpreußen-INFO-Email deals with issues affecting former residents of East Prussia. The Silesian web-site comes complete with the motto, ‘Wir geben Schlesien nicht auf’ (‘We are not giving up Silesia!’). Most of the sites have a link to the text of the Charta der Deutschen Heimatvertriebenen. The Bund also issues an extensive and interesting array of pamphlets dealing with the history of Germans in Central Eastern Europe and Russia.

Index A Action Tannenberg, 92 Adamkus, Valdas, 130 Adenauer, Konrad, 112, 114, 115, 119 Afghanistan, 83 Agrarian reform, 1, 39 Alexander – Sinclair, Edwin, 21 Allied Powers, 19, 20, 21, 22, 38 Alltagsgeschichte, 129 Ammende, Ewald, 20, 41-42, 43, 44, 52 Annexation, 14, 15 Anti-Semitism, 3, 4, 63, 64, 88, 91, 92, 95, 96, 97, 103, 130 ArƗjs, Viktors, 103, 131 Armistice, 1918,, 20, 21 Auslandsdeutsche, 13, 23, 24, 29, 40, 42, 43, 47, 48, 52, 53, 58 Austria, 6, 8, 11, 12, 13, 40, 47, 55, 62 Austro-Hungarian Empire/Austria Hungary, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 19, 26, 64 Auswärtiges Amt, (German Foreign Office), 13, 23, 42, 55 B Backe, Herbert, 60 Baku, 75 Balkans, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 92 Baltenregiment, 38 Baltic campaign, 1919, 16, 21 Baltic Germans 1, 2, 13, 15, 21, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 42, 46, 62, 65, 71, 82, 108, 133, 136 Baltic provinces, 8, 13, 14, 15, 21, 35, 36, 38, 39, 133 Baltic states, 62, 76, 81, 102, 108, 131, 133, 134

Baltische Historische Kommission, 112, 133 Bandera, Stephan, 104 Bauer, Otto, 11, 26, 27, 47, 64 Berlin, Treaty of 1918, 14, 15 Berlin Wall, 114, 115, 119, 120 Belorussia, 81 Bessarabia, 75 Bialystok, 75 Birkernieku, 131 Bismarck, Otto von, 7, 8, 9, 35 Blaskowitz, Johannes, 92, 93, 104 Boehm, Max-Hildebert, 24, 52, 54, 58 Bohemia, 62 Bohle, Ernst, 57 Bolshevism/Bolsheviks, 2, 14, 15, 19, 38, 52, 64, 73, 74, 80, 81, 82, 83, 95, 102, 104 Brandsch, Rudolf, 42 Brandt, Willy, 36, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 126, Brauchitsch, Walther von, 93 Brest-Litovsk, Treaty of 1918, 14, 19, 37, 62 British Empire, 64 Bruns, Carl Georg, 25, 26, 42, 43, 52 Buchenwald, 117 Bundestag, 112, 118 Bund der Vertriebenen (BdV), 117 Bulgaria, 14 C Catalans, 43 Catherine the Great, 2, 8 Caucasus, 76, 81 Celts, 6 ýesis, armistice of 1919, 21 Centre Party, 9, 14 Charter of Germans expelled from their Homeland, 111, 112

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Cold War, 3, 130, 134 Courland, 13, 14, 15, 35 Croatia, 119 Czaja, Herbert, 111 Czechoslovakia, 60, 104, 108, 112, 118 Crimea, 8, 13, 35, 58, 70, 72 Croatia, 127 Cultural autonomy, 3, 11, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47, 52, 55, 57 Cultural Autonomy Law, Estonia, 41, 43

F

D

G

Daluege, Kurt, 93 Dankers, Oskars, 82 Danzig, 70 Darré, Walther, 60 Deutsche National-Zeitung, 117, 119 Deutsche Stiftung, 24, 57 Die Welt, 117 Dissimilation, 56, 58 Domschule, 1, 35 Dubnow, Simon, 26 Dual Alliance, 1879, 8

Gabschik, Josef, 100 Galicia, 75, 76, 77, 88, 94, 104 General Plan East, 76-7 Genoa, World Economic Conference, 22 Genscher, Hans-Dietrich, 126 German Army, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 21, 63, 81, 93, 94, 98, 104, 109 German Confederation, 6 German Democratic Republic (DDR), 110, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117,118, 120, 127, 128, 129, 130 German Empire, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 35, 36, 38, 62 German Foreign Office, see Auswärtiges Amt German re-unification, 114, 116, 120, 121, 125, 129, 130 Germanisation, 10, 13, 36, 37, 76, 81 Globocnik, Odilo, 76, 77, 100 Golke, Friedrich, 89 Göring, Herman, 73, 74 Goltz, Rüdiger von der, 21 Gorbachev, 127

E Ebert, Friedrich, 115 Eichmann, Adolf, 73, 91 Eisner, Kurt, 64 Estonia and Estonians, 14, 15, 38, 42, 45, 52, 62, 71, 75, 81, 127, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135 European Nationalities Congress, 29, 30, 31, 42, 44, 45, 47, 53, 55, 56, 57 European Union, 121, 126, 127, 130,

Falkenhayn, Erich von, 12 Federal Republic of Germany, (FRG), 92, 110, 114, 115, 117, 118, 120, 126 Finland, 75 France, 6, 8, 22, 29, 30 Frank, Hans, 71, 72, 73, 75, 76, 80, 81, 87, 88, 92, 99 Frank, Niklas, 92 Freikorps, 21, 38 Fulfilment, policy of, 23

Neighbours or enemies? Government General, 71, 72, 73, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82

151

Iron Curtain, 113, 115 J

Gregorovius, Ferdinand, 7 Grossdeutschland, 7, 12, 24, 52, 54 Grundlagenvertrag, 127 H Hallstein doctrine, 113 Hasselblatt, Werner, 41, 42, 47, 52, 53, 55 Haushofer, Karl, 59, 60 Henlein, Konrad, 57 Herder, J G. 1, 35 Hess, Rudolf, 60 Heydrich, Reinhard, 70, 88, 93, 100, 102 Himmler, Heinrich, 70, 71, 73, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 94, 99, 108 Hindenburg, und von Beckendorf, Paul von 13, 14, 16, 37, 62, 63, 64 Hintze, Otto von, 15 Historikerstreit, 126 Hitler, Adolf, 2, 4, 24, 35, 55, 56, 57, 58, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 87, 91, 93, 94, 112, 113, 115, 126, 129 Hitler Speaks, 64 Holy Roman Empire, 6, 7 Holocaust, 78, 87, 90, 92, 95, 96, 97, 100, 102, 126, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134 Hungary/Hungarians, 7, 42, 43, 118 Hutten, Ulrich von, 38 I India, 83 Iran, 83

Jews, 41, 56, 57, 62, 63, 64, 65, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 78, 79, 81, 82, 83, 87, 88, 91, 92, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 101, 102, 104, 129, 130, 131 Jodl, Alfred, 74, 94 June Club, 24, 43, 53 K Kaliningrad, 128 Kant, Immanuel, 109 Karelia, 75 Katyn, 80 Katzmann, Friedrich, 88 Kazakstan, 88 Keitel, Wilhelm, 74 Kennedy, Jack, 115 Kirgizia, 83 Kleindeutschland, 7 Kohl, Helmut, 125, 126, 127, 128, 132 Kola peninsula, 75 Krahmer-Möllenberg, Erich, 57 Krüger, Friedrich Wilhelm, 100 Kubish, Jan, 100 Kulturkampf, 9 Kulturwehr, 30 L Landeswehr, 21, 38 Latvia and Latvians, 14, 15, 21, 35, 36, 37, 38, 45, 46, 62, 71, 82, 102, 103, 108, 109, 127, 131, 132, 133, 134 Latvian Legion, 131 Latvian Schooling Law, 40 League of Nations, 23, 24, 25, 29, 30, 31, 43, 44 Lenin, V.I., 14, 19, 21 Liga der Fremdvölker, 13,

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Lithuania and Lithuanians, 13, 15, 77, 102, 103, 127, 131, 132 Living space, 2-4, 12, 16, 57, 61, 63, 75, 76, 77, 82, 118, 133, 134 Livonia, 14, 15, 35, 61 Locarno treaties, 23 Lohse, Hinrich, 81 Lublin, 71, 73, 76, 77, 78 Ludendorff, Erich, 13, 14, 16, 37, 62, 63, 64 Lueger, Karl, 64 Lugano, 31 Luxemburg, Rosa, 64 Lvov, 88 M Madagascar, 73, 74 Maltzan, Ago von, 20 Marx, Karl, 113 Medem, Vladimir, 26 Mein Kampf, 64 Minority rights, 3, 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 30, 31, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 54, 59, 65, 70 Mitteleuropa, 10, 11, 12, 13, 27, 60, 114 Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhaelovich, 127 Mombert, Paul, 63 Moravia, 62 Müller, Helmut, 77 Museum of Occupation, Riga, 136 N Napoleon Bonaparte, 6 National awakening, 14, 36, 37 National self-determination, 14, 37, 46 National Socialism/National Socialists, 3, 4, 37, 48, 52, 53, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 61, 64, 65, 66, 70,

82, 83, 87, 90, 99, 101, 112, 113, 117, 129, 130, 133 NATO, 113, 127, 134 Nazi-Soviet Pact, 1939, 65, 108, 127 Needra, Andrievs, 21 Neo-Nazism, 115 New Nationalist Wave, 48, 55 New Order, 70, 71, 75, 78, 102, 113 Nicolai, Helmut, 58, 59 Nisko project, 73 Nordic countries, 134 North German Confederation, 7 Nuremberg Tribunal, 89, 112, O Oberländer, Theodor, 63 Oder-Neisse Line, 117, 118, 119 Odessa, 75 Oesel, 35 OHL- See German Army Operation Barbarossa, 74, 80, 93, 94, 102, Ostland, 81, 82, 88 P Pan-German, 10, 24, 31, 37, 64 Pan-Slavism, 8, 10 Poland and Poles, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 13, 16, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 29, 30, 43, 53, 54, 58, 62, 65, 70, 71, 72, 73, 76, 77, 78, 80, 81, 82, 92, 93, 95, 101, 102, 109, 114, 117, 118, 119, 120, 126, 133 Polish corridor, 27 Posen, 109 Potsdam Conference, 109 Powell, Charles, 125 Protocols of the Elders of Zion, 63

Neighbours or enemies? Prussia, 6, 7, 9, 10, 15, 60, 70, 110 Putin, Vladimir, 134 R Rademacher, Franz, 74 Rapallo, Treaty of, 1922, 22, 64 Rathenau, Walther, 20, 115 Red Army, 14, 20, 21, 93, 104 Reich Security Head Office, 70 Reichstag, 14, 15, 16, 55, 65, 70 Reichswehr – see German army Renner, Karl, 11, 26, 46, 48, 64 Reserve Police Battalion 101, 95, 96, 97, 99 Revaler Bote, 112 Revolution, 1905, 1, 37 Revolution, 1917, 14, 37 Revolution 1848, 6 Revolution 1789, 45 Rigasche Rundschau, 38, 45 Ribbentrop, 127 Ritterschaften, 11, 15, 35, 38, Rosenberg, Alfred, 37, 48, 59, 63, 71, 75, 76, 80, 81, 82, 103 Rüdiger, Wilhelm von, 109 Rumbula, 131 Russia (See also Soviet Union), 1, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 19, 35, 127, 128 Russification, 11, 36 S Sammlungspolitik, 9 Sarejevo, 12 Scheubner-Richter, Ewald, 37 Seuffert, Walter, 120 Schiemann, Paul, 13, 25, 31, 36, 38, 39, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 61, 62, 65, 66, 101, 108, 112, 134 Schiemann, Theodor, 10, 36, 62 Schirren, Carl, 37, 133

153

Schooling – see cultural autonomy Seeckt, Hans von, 21, 22 Siberia, 73, 74, 76 Siebenbürgen, 110 Skala, Jan, 47 Skirpa, Colonel Karys, 102 Slovenia, 127 Smolensk, 82 Sobibor, 78 Social Democratic Party, 9, 10, 14, 115 South Tyrol, 43 Soviet-Polish war 1920, 21 Soviet Union, 20, 21, 22, 23, 64, 75, 80, 83, 92, 93, 94, 102, 104, 109, 110, 113, 114, 116, 117, 119, 121, 126, 127, 130, 131, 132, 134 Stahlecker, 131 Stalin, Joseph, 108, 113, 126 Stoph, Willi, 117 Stresemann, Gustav 23, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 55, 61, 115 Sudeten Germans. 2, 24, 42, 53, 54, 57 Sudetenland, 27 T Tajikistan, 83 Tartars, 102 Teutonic Order, 1, 35, 45, 60, 61 Thälmann, Ernst, 117 Thatcher, Margaret, 125, 128 Third Reich, 2, 3, 40, 42, 54, 56, 57, 60, 62, 70, 71, 72, 73, 75, 76, 78, 79, 81, 82, 83, 87, 89, 90, 91, 94, 96, 101, 109, 113, 129, 130, 133 Three Emperors’ Alliance, 1881, 8 Turkmenistan, 83

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U Ukraine/Ukrainians, 13, 14, 43, 60, 62, 75, 76, 81, 82, 89, 102, 104, 130, 134 Ulbricht, Walter, 117 Ulex, General, 92, 93, 104 Ulmanis, KƗrlis, 21, 38 Umsiedlung, 108, 112, 133, 134 United Nations, 120 University, Tartu/Juriev, 1,35 Upper Silesia, 25, 27, 58, 70, 110 Urals, 74 USSR, see Soviet Union Uzbekistan, 83 V Verband der deutschen Minderheiten in Europa/Verband der deutschen Volksgruppen in Europe, 25, 26, 29, 31, 42, 43, 47, 52, 53, 55 Versailles, Treaty of 1919, 19, 22, 24, 28, 31, 38, 54, 64 Vike-Freiberga, Vaira, 132 Volga, 20, 60 Volga Germans, 36, 75 Volksgemeinschaft, 46, 47, 58, 65, 91 Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet de, 6, 7 Vries, Axel de, 112 W Wannsee Conference, 72, 82 Warsaw ghetto, 73, 112 Warsaw pact, 119 Warthegau, 77, 104

Weimar Republic, 2, 22, 23, 25, Wilhelm II, 9, 12, 15, 19, 36, 37 Wirth, Josef, 23 World War One, 1, 3, 10, 23, 37, 38, 40, 46, 60, 62, 63, 64 World War Two, 62, 70, 80, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 98, 99, 127, 131, 133 Y Yeltsin, Boris, 127 Yugoslavia, 127, 128 Z Zamosc, 76, 78, 82 Zollverein, 7