History of the Holocaust Heinrich Himmler SS o Gave the SS basic characteristics and style o Exists mainly as a bodyguard for Nazi and officials until 1929 when Heinrich makes the SS the most important organization in the Nazi state o Obsessed with detail difficult relating to people socially very reserved o Efficient bureaucrat knows how to run an organization and make people do efficient competent work master at accumulating power in the Nazi state o By the time Germany goes to war the SS is the center of the state o He Made the SS an Empire of different police organizations he is in charge of the only one above him is Hitler o Political police force Wanted the SS to be an elite force and look like an elite force o An SS member signs the oath of loyalty to Hitler imagined the SS to be a modern day knight hood wanted everyone to swear allegiance to Hitler o SS insignia Social Services symbol o He pushed for black uniforms o SS Deaths head ring Himmler gave these as gifts they look ancient like symbols of power SS is a racial elite Himmler imposed requirements on the SS ex Anyone who wanted to join had to prove their full Aryan status back several centuries also established a racial cult that included marriage SS men had to marry Aryan women o Set itself up to be able to make decisions about other peoples races o Organizers were focused on providing homes and care for racially pure single pregnant women because they were not allowed to have abortions o During the war this expanded and was used in occupied Poland to determine whether or not Polish and German mixed families had enough German in them to be saved An SS Lebensborn Home Himmler was fascinated with ancient German history and myths o Celebrated pre Christian German history o Light a candle to mark the end of the year and felt this was some way Germans o Obsessed with the greatness of medieval German knights wanted SS to be a could reconnect with Christian past continuation of medieval knighthood The SS is not just the SS o The Gestapo the Secret state police o The security Service SD o The Reich Security Main Office RSHA created in 1939 to combat all enemies of the Reich inside and outside Germany o Other branches of police and the SS as a whole that exist outside the law o Example illegal to listen to radio broadcast from other countries Gestapo enforces this law that is repressive o Safeguard the German Volk as an organic total beings its life force and its organizations from destruction and disintegration Two important aspects of the German legal political system 1 In 1933 aftermath of fire that burned down Reichstag parliament gave Hitler a freehand declared a state of emergency and authorized government to take whatever steps necessary to pursue enemies wherever they could be found for as long as they could eliminate all threats Enabling act permanent state of emergency police have extreme powers that cannot be restricted by state law o Furrow law in the world of the Nazi universe carries the force of written law but does not have to be written If Hitler approved policy or suggested something new that could be interpreted as an order even without it being written furrow order o Reinhart Heidrich SS as a political police force according to Himmler and other leaders the SS is not supposed to be Apolitical supposed to be police men cops and bureaucrats that were supposed to evaluate any threat according to ideological Nazi criteria Some important aspects 1 Both real and potential enemies people can be potential enemy that wants to threaten Germany 2 Evaluates threats as threat not to individual Germany but to the organic Volk as a whole the nation as a whole the race as a whole o Fight people who threaten them o Quote about enemies of the organic Volk is written in biological language Not only are the enemies considered opponents but they are infections o How do you fight infection Fight infection by eradicating it must get rid of all of it 3 SS is interested in public security and any threat that can manifest them they are permanently eliminating all threats to German people Permanent safety Who is in the SS o Had to be a little sick and twisted to be in the SS o Not a dumping ground for every pervert in Germany o SS are competent intelligent people often have post graduate educated Nazi Germany Faces East Planning a War of Annihilation Wannsee conference January 20 1942 Conference of Nazi officials meeting lasted 85 minutes where decision to murder Jews in Europe was made o Wannsee is a lake outside the city of Berlin o R Heinrich made conference invited members of the police Gestapo SS many of them were working in areas of occupied Europe o Most well known person who joins conference Adolf Eichmann o Heidrich announced to the 15 men present new general solution to jewish question has been found and that the policy of immigration had been replaced by something that Heidrich called evacuation of Jews to the east o R Heidrich answered all questions with saying the SS would take care of it o Heidrich is letting everyone in the room know about a policy that has been determined somewhere else earlier bringing people up to speed o There was no one moment of decision there was a series of decision that was made each leading from the one before it and what you get from 1939 1941 is a radicalizing by 1942 full scale genocide is on the way 1939 When Germany invades Poland occupation of Poland invasion of Soviet Union in the summer 1941 o These invasions open opportunities to Nazi officials and give them possibilities to think about in ways they hadn t done so explicitly up until that point Invasion of Poland September 1939 o The east was land of limitless possibility and was a place where Germans can grow and spread culture going east is very different for Germans than going West o As soon as army crosses into Poland an incredible violence towards Jews o The front takes place in west Poland o Humiliation Polish Jews blamed for causing the war o Degradation a member of the SD cuts the beard of a jewish man in Warsaw 1939 o Persecuting Polish Jews as Jews o Bureaucratic procreation of jewish businesses and robbing of jewish homes o Preliminary security measure Concentrate Jews in certain areas small locations that can be quarantined and surveilled at all times at the beginning this was considered a temporary measure o Transported Jews from Yenning Austria and still a sense that Jews are supposed to emigrate somewhere else o