Online-Module

Doc 6: Second letter to Hitler

State Secretary Schlegelberger’s letter to Hitler, 24 March 1942

 

My leader!

Worum geht es: 

Unconditional devotion to the "Führer" at the cost of justice.

Doc. 6: Account of a truly helpful policeman

 
Worum geht es: 

In his autobiography, Valentin Senger describes how a policeman obliterated all signs of his family’s Jewishness from the central register.

Eckdaten: 
  • Extract from Valentin Senger: No. 12. Kaiserhofstrasse. The story of an invisible Jew in Nazi Germany, New York 1980, pp. 65-68.

Photos:

  • Valentin Senger: © Manfred Schad, courtesy of  Schöffling & Co.   

  • Otto Kaspar: Police Hessen, Germany, courtesy of Vera Geyer.

 

Doc. 5: Eye-witness report on the behaviour of policemen

Extracts from Dr. Bernhard Landau’s eye-witness report "The hell of Sachsenhausen. My experiences after 10 November 1938". 
Worum geht es: 

The Jewish chemist Dr. Bernhard Landau reports how he experienced the pogrom and how he was arrested. He was later brought to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Released on 7 December 1938 because he had been a frontline soldier in WWI, he emigrated to England where he wrote a detailed report under the title "The hell of Sachsenhausen".

Eckdaten: 
  • Wiener Library London, 058-EA-1279.

Doc 5: Criminal Justice against Poles and Jews

Poland Penal Law Provision, 16 December 1941
Worum geht es: 

Special legislation for the primary adversaries of the "Volksgemeinschaft" ["Community of the German people"]:

Eckdaten: 
  • Poland Penal Law Provision, in: Reichsgesetzblatt I [Governement Gazette], 16 December 1941, p. 759 et seq.

Doc. 4: Article on the "Crystal night" by the Guardian

Article on the "Crystal night" by the Guardian

Worum geht es: 

The correspondent of the British newspaper "The Guardian" gives a detailed report on the November pogrom, in particular in Berlin. He stresses the passivity of the fire-brigades and the police. Instead of stopping the riots they keep the traffic flowing or arrest photographers and Jewish citizens.

Eckdaten: 
  • The Guardian, 11 November 1938.

Doc. 3: Telegram – "Actions against Jews"

Telegram by head of Gestapo, Heinrich Mueller, to all regional Gestapo offices units ordering them not to stop "actions against Jews", 9 November 1938.

Worum geht es: 

In the midst of "Reich Crystal Night" Gestapo Chief Heinrich Müller commands the police to tolerate Storm Troopers’ violence against Jews and Jewish institutions and to arrest up to 30,000 Jews.

Eckdaten: 
  • International Military Tribunal, Vol. XXV, 374-PS, pp. 376-378.

Doc 4: The case of Marcus Luftglas

With the beginning of the war, Hitler intervened to ‘correct’ sentences passed by the courts considered inadequate, ordering the offenders to be transferred to the SS and shot in the ne

Worum geht es: 

Sacrificing the independence of the courts - correcting judgements.

Eckdaten: 
  • Nazism 1919-1945. A documentary reader. Ed. by J. Noakes and G. Pridham. – Repr. Exeter: Univ. of Exeter Pr. Vol. 04. The German home front in World War II. – 1998, pp. 141/142.

Doc 3: "Euthanasia experts"

State Secretary Franz Schlegelberger at a conference of senior court presidents, 23 April 1941 – address introducing “Euthanasia experts” to the judges
Worum geht es: 

Ensuring the "smooth" implementation of the Euthanasia-murders - unhindered by justice.

Eckdaten: 
  • Dokumente zur "Euthanasie". Ed. Ernst Klee. Frankfurt a.M. 1985. pp. 216/218. Translation in: Nazism 1919-1945. A documentary reader. Ed. by J. Noakes and G. Pridham. – Repr. Exeter: Univ. of Exeter Pr. Vol. 03. Foreign Policy, War and Racial Extermination. – 1988, pp. 1032/1033.

Doc 2: First letter to Hitler

State Secretary Schlegelberger’s letter to Hitler attached to a letter, written by Schlegelberger to the Reich Minister and Head of the Reich Chancellery Lammers on 10 March 1941

Worum geht es: 

Working towards the "Führer" - an example of "anticipating obedience": 

Eckdaten: 
  • Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 6 (1958), p. 417.

Doc. 2: Directives by Berlin's Police Chief

Wolf-Heinrich Graf von HelldorffCircular
Worum geht es: 

Some weeks after meeting Goebbels Berlin’s Police Chief Count Helldorff urges all policemen under his command to seize every opportunity to harass Jews in order to expel them from Germany. He inspires the officers by giving more than 70 concrete examples.

Eckdaten: 
  • Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933-1945 [The Persecution and Murder of the European Jews by National Socialist Germany], Vol. 2: Deutsches Reich 1938 – August 1939, Munich 2009, pp. 234-241.

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