The Latest Effort to "Denial", i.e., Holocaust Revisionism (Part II) By Wilfried Heink The first chapter in the book Neue Studien zu nationalsozialistischen Massentötungen durch Giftgas is captioned: "Massentötungen durch Giftgas: Zwischen wissenschaftlicher Einordnung und individueller Erinnerung" (Mass murder by poisonous gas: Amid scientific cataloguing and the recollection by individuals). The chapter contains two essays, the first one by the British historian Richard J. Evans, titled: "Wie einzigartig war die Ermordung der Juden durch die Nationalsozialisten?"(How unique was the killing of the Jews by the National Socialists?). Mr. Evans begins by informing us that a few weeks after the conquest of Poland in September 1939, the victorious power started systematically suppressing Polish culture and language. Polish libraries and other cultural centres were closed, memorials were destroyed and street signs removed. Half a million Poles were incarcerated, many physically abused and killed. About 20 000 officers, among them insurgents, were shot, up to 1.5 million members of the Polish intelligentsia and their families were arrested and later transported out of the country in unheated cattle cars. About one third did not survive, among them 100 000 Jews. Those were the catastrophic results of the conquering of eastern Poland by the Soviets. Comments: This came as a surprise, why would Evans start out by listing Soviet crimes when this is supposed to be about the uniqueness of the mass killing of Jews with poisonous gas by the National Socialists? Evans continues by writing that only after the Germans marched into the Soviet Union (Einmarsch der Wehrmacht) in June 1941 did Soviet repression of Polish nationalism ease, the Poles then seen as potential allies. But at the same time, Stalin started a campaign against ethnic minorities who he believed could help the Germans. From September 1941 on, according Evans, 1.2 million German nationals (Volksdeutsche) from Ukraine, the Volga region and various Soviet cities were deported to Siberia by the Soviet Secret Police - about 175 000 of them died. Members of various other ethnic groups followed the Germans to Siberia, the secret police killed anybody believed to be in the way: more than 100 000 prisoners were murdered in Ukraine alone. Those actions closely resembled the policies of National Socialist Germany, so Evans, but there were differences. The Soviets' true intent, we learn, was to initiate a social revolution: Poland was incorporated into the SU, private property nationalized, Ukrainians and Byelorussian's encouraged to rise up against the Polish ruling class. Thus, according to Evans, Soviet policy was not racist but part of the class struggle and in reality, the Soviet occupation brought about a system of equal rights. For many Jews this in fact meant liberation, whereas in the western, German occupied part, racism was the deciding factor from the start - Polish and Jewish property expropriated but a general nationalization never took place, the capitalist system continued. Comments: Hard to say what all of this has to do with the subject matter, also, the National Socialists never tried to hide their racial policies. Evans intends - even though he admits that crimes were committed by the Soviets - to give their policies a sort of human face, whereas what the Nazis did was in his view purely criminal. He admits that those effected by either policy would probably not have been able to differentiate, but clings to the class struggle theme even when mentioning the years of the Great Terror in the SU. Actual National Socialist policies regarding the new European order, as worked out by Heinrich Himmler, were revealed when German forces occupied Poland in June 1941, so Evans. Half a million German nationals (Volksdeutsche) from Eastern Poland, Rumania, the Soviet Union (SU) and other east European countries were to displace the dispossessed Poles. This so called (Evans's words) Generalplan Ost(Master Plan East) stipulated that 64% of the Ukrainian -, as well as 75% of the Byelorussian population was earmarked for expropriation -, death via hunger/disease or be deported further east. 30 to 45 million were to die and the whole territory populated by millions of German farmers, effectively moving Germanys border 1000 km east. If this plan have been realized, Evans summarizes, it would have resulted in the biggest mass murder of all times. This Generalplan Ost was supposedly based on Hitler's long held ambition to create "Lebensraum"(living space) for Germans. The extermination of the Jews must be seen in the context of this far reaching master plan - and with this Evans has finally made a connection to the actual topic. But, he cautions, the extermination of Jews should not be viewed as just a side show of this Master Plan to re-arrange Eastern Europe along ethnic lines. No, this plan envisioned the starvation/killing of millions of Slavic peoples for economic reasons - their territories intended for future German settlement The Jews on the other hand were mostly poor and therefore of no economic benefit to the Germans. Jews were used as slave labor whenever necessary and allowed to live for a while (even though representatives of the Wehrmacht (German forces) stressed that Jews were "useless eaters"). CONTINUE READING |
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