Short Critical EssayShort Critical Essay ProjectThis project i.docx

Short Critical Essay
Short Critical Essay Project
This project is worth 10% of your final grade, due March 27,
2015. It is an individual assignment. Late assignments are
penalized 5% per day including weekends to a maximum of
50%. Senate regulations require all term work to be submitted
by the last day of classes April 8, 2015, after which work
cannot be accepted and a grade of 0 will be given.
Write a 750-1200 word argumentative essay related to the topic
of the responsibility of affluent nations and their citizens to
people without even basic sustenance, discussed in Peter
Singer’s paper “Famine, Affluence, and Morality.”
In your essay, you must make reference to Singer’s paper
“Famine, Affluence, and Morality” and the paper you read in
producing the annotated bibliography in Assignment #17. Both
papers must be listed in your bibliography. Other sources may
also be referenced but this is not required, though all sources
used must be listed in the bibliography. Your project must begin
with a standard form representation of your argument followed
by a diagram of the argument, using between 10-15 premises.
Your argument must include at least one deductive inference
and one inductive inference and these must be identified (by
type) and indicated on your diagram (i.e. on the arrow
connecting the premises note “disjunctive syllogism” or
“analogy”).
Quotations should be referenced in the text as follows:
“text” (author year, page number(s)). Note the final punctuation
comes after the reference. If a text has to be altered slightly for
grammatical reasons put the changes in square brackets.
E.g. Here we have some text I have written followed by a quote
to verify my interpretation. If you wish to emphasize part of the
quote use italics and note “my emphasis”, otherwise you might
commit the fallacy of accent. In the passage I quote below, the
emphasis was in the original, as noted. Where some text

irrelevant to my purposes was left out I use ellipsis (…).
Fodor’s account of early language learning is an account of
predicate acquisition and it remains the cornerstone for his
thesis that we possess an innate representational system as rich
as any natural language we can learn. “What, then is being
denied?... that one can learn a language whose predicates
express extensions not expressible by predicates of the
representational system whose employment mediates the
learning” (Fodor 1975, p.86, emphasis in original).
Include a bibliography, citing all sources used to write the essay
as instructed for Assignment #17.
Include a word count.
Grading Rubric for Short Critical Essay
The essays is graded out of 10, with points assigned as follows:
Thesis statement: the essay is an argumentative essay with a
thesis statement, i.e. conclusion.
1 point
Standard form and Diagram: standard form and diagram are
included and match each other and the structure of the written
essay.
2 points
Deductive inference: a deductive inference is included in the
essay and correctly identified on the diagram.
1 point
Inductive inference: an inductive inference is included in the
essay and correctly identified on the diagram.
1 point
Sources referenced: Singer’s paper and the article from
assignment #17 are both discussed in the essay.
1 point

Bibliography: all sources referenced in the essay are listed in
the bibliography. This means that at least two entries must
appear in the bibliography: Singer’s paper and the article
summarized in assignment #17.
1 point
Note: the points above are awarded for meeting the
requirements specified. Thus it is possible for everyone to
obtain a grade of 7/10. The remaining 3 points are awarded on a
comparative basis for how compelling the argument is.
Essay strength: these points are awarded by comparing all of the
essays based on how strong the reasoning is, clarity of writing,
choice of words, effectiveness of style. The maximum 3 points
will be awarded to the top 1-2 essays (2-4% of the class); top
10% receive 2 points; top 20% receive 1 point.
0-3 points
Deductions: a deduction of 1 point will be assessed for each of
the following: reasoning commits a fallacy; word count falls
outside of 750-1200 word limit; premise count falls outside of
the 10-15 limit.
Note: Submitting work as your own of which you are not the
author constitutes an academic offense, which will result in a
grade of 0 and a hearing with the philosophy department’s
undergraduate chair for further discipline. Essays will be
submitted to Turnitin through the OWL system.
1
King’s College – Department of History
Western University

History 1401E (570): Modern Europe, 1715 to the Present
Professor Wes Gustavson
Comparative Article Review Guidelines
Due Date 18 March 2015
Historians often reach different conclusions when examining the
same event or subject and even after
examining the same evidence. The purpose of this assignment
is to compare and contrast the views
of two historians on a similar subject or event by addressing the
thesis, content, argument, evidence,
and conclusions of each article.
Guidelines
Choose one of the following categories. All of the articles are
available from the Western Library
System in electronic and/or in print form.
1. The standard of living debate during Britain’s Industrial
Revolution
a. Peter H. Lindert and Jeffrey G. Williamson, “English
Workers Living Standards
during the Industrial Revolution: A New Look,” The Economic
History Review, Vol.
36, No.1 (Feb 1983): 1-25.
b. Charles H. Fenstein, “Pessimism Perpetuated: Real Wages
and the Standard of Living

in Britain during and after the Industrial Revolution,” The
Journal of Economic
History, Vol. 58, No.3 (Sept., 1998): 625-658.
2. An episode of colonial violence
a. Dan Stone, “White men with low moral standards? German
Anthropology and the
Herero Genocide,” Patterns of Prejudice, Vol. 35. No.1 (2001):
33-45.
b. Philipp N. Lehman, “Between Waterberg and Sandveld: An
Environmental
Perspective on the German-Herero War of 1904,” German
History, Vol.32, No. 4
(2014): 533-558.
3. Postwar British feminism
a. Susan Kingsley Kent, “The Politics of Sexual Difference:
World War I and the
Demise of British Feminism,” Journal of British Studies, Vol.
27, No. 3 (July 1988):
232-253.
b. Maria DiCenzo, “Our Freedom and its Results: Measuring
progress in the aftermath
of Suffrage,” Women’s History Review, Vol.23, No.3 (2014):
421-440.
A comparative article review contrasts two related articles that
often address similar themes but from
different perspectives and whose conclusions are often at odds

with one another. As you read the
articles and take notes, remember that this assignment is not a
summary of the articles. Instead, the
object is to analyze the arguments, assess the evidence used,
and then evaluate the interpretations or
arguments.
2
Consider what themes or elements the articles have in common
and where they differ. What types of
analysis do the historians use? Do the historians advance a
particular school of thought or a
particular historiographical approach? In short, do the articles
engage in a form of academic debate?
Structure of the Comparative Article Review:
1. The introductory paragraph should contain the titles of the
articles being reviewed and the
authors’ names. It should also have a few brief words on the
major themes or issues under
discussion.
2. A few paragraphs should be devoted to summarizing the
articles. In your own words,
summarize the content and describe the major themes or issues
of the article. What is the
author’s thesis? What is the purpose and the central argument

or arguments of the articles?
3. Evaluate or critique the article(s) being reviewed. It is
convincing and does the evidence
support the conclusions being drawn? Does the article
contribute to a historiographical
debate or to an established school of thought? Please note that
your critique must be
scholarly. The article may be too long, badly written, and
poorly organized but you need to
express that criticism properly. For example, you might note
that the author listed numerous
examples without properly linking them to their central thesis
and this made the article too
long. Avoid phrases such as “I think this a good/bad article”.
The entire review is your
opinion. In a short review it is also best to use your own words
and avoid long quotations
from the articles.
4. Consider how the articles compare and contrast with one
another. Is one more successful
than the other? Which one did you find more convincing and
why?
5. Conclusion: summarize your evaluation and present a final
assessment of the articles and
your overall impressions. You may also state what
contributions these articles make to their
field, and what readers would find these articles useful or
interesting.

Things to consider when reading and taking notes
1. Can you express in a single sentence precisely what each
author argues in their respective
articles? That is, does the author present a specific thesis?
2. Does the thesis speak to a wider controversy about a
particular subject? Why has the subject
attracted so much attention from historians over the years? Or
are the author(s) breaking new
ground with their research? If so, why was, or why are, the
articles(s) groundbreaking for
their time?
3. Assess the congruence or lack thereof between the author’s
thesis and the evidence proviced
to substantiate the argument? Are you convinced? If so, why?
If not, why not? This
discussion will be central to your own thesis or critique of the
article. Most of your review
should be devoted to your evaluation and conclusions.
Technical Requirements
- Length: The assignment should be 1500 words excluding the
bibliography and self-
evaluation letter. Assignments that either exceed these limits or
fall short of them may be
3

returned to you for revision before marking, or penalized.
Please note the word count on the
title page.
- Assignments should be typed, double-spaced, have a title page
and the pages should be
numbered. Note: The title page is not page one!
- Your assignment should follow the rules of grammar etc
expected in a formal paper. Avoid
clichés, slang, first person tense and conversational language
wherever possible. Please refer
to the attached tips for formal history essays for specific ‘dos
and don’ts’. In addition, you
may want to make use of any number of manuals on style and
form.
- A bibliography is necessary and citations to the articles and to
any other sources should be
made according to the Chicago Manual of Style. Please refer
Mary Lynn Rampolla’s, A
Pocket Guide to Writing in History or the following Chicago
Citation Guide for the correct
format.
- Additional sources are not required but you may integrate
them if you wish. As always,

internet sources are strictly forbidden unless authorized by the
professor (the articles
themselves are, of course, allowed). However, sources
available through Western Libraries’
electronic databases (JSTOR etc) are permitted and students are
encouraged to make use of
these resources.
- The assignment is due by 11:55 pm on 18 March 2015. Please
note that this date is firm. I
will grant extensions only in cases of illness (with proper
documentation) or other urgent
matters of a personal or familial nature. Computer breakdowns
will not be considered
grounds for an academic accommodation. For further
information please see the College’s
Policy Regarding Makeup Exams and Extension of Deadlines
attached to the syllabus and
Western’s Medical Accommodation policy.
- Students are also advised to familiarize themselves with the
History Department’s essay
regulations and plagiarism policies attached to the course
syllabus.
Self-Evaluation Letter
The final aspect to the assignment is a self-evaluation letter or
statement. In a short paragraph(s),
answer the following questions: What are the strengths and

weaknesses of your assignment? What
would you like to improve? What questions would you like
answered in the professor’s comments?
This section does not count towards the word limit of the
assignment.
Turnitin.com
An electronic copy of the review must be submitted to
turnitin.com by 11:55 PM on 18 March
2015. Students may access turnitin.com through the OWL
assignment page. Simply logon to the course
OWL site and click on the Assignments link and then open the
Comparative Article Review link and
scroll down to the submissions section. Once uploaded your
assignment is transmitted to turnitin.com.
Students who experience technical problems with turnitin.com
are encouraged to contact the Information
Technology Services Support Centre (519-661-3800 or ext.
83800).
http://www.uwo.ca/its/helpdesk/
http://library.bresciauc.ca/files/delightful-
downloads/2014/05/Chicago-16.pdf
http://www.uwo.ca/arts/counselling/procedures/medical_accomo
dation.html
4
To protect against loss of your review, or an allegation of
academic fraud, students are advised to keep a
duplicate copy of the assignment (as submitted), and to retain

their rough notes and drafts until the final
grades have been determined.
Finally, please read carefully the Policy on Cheating &
Academic Misconduct attached to the course
syllabus.
5
Writing Tips for Formal History Essays
Composition
1. Omit needless words. As Strunk and White wrote in The
Elements of Style, “A sentence should not have
unnecessary words for the same reason that a machine should
have no unnecessary parts.”
2. Do not overuse the passive voice (“The Russian Revolution
was led by Lenin”) because it tends to be weak
and wordy. Use the active voice wherever possible (“Lenin led
the Russian Revolution”).
3. Proofread your essay for spelling, grammatical, and
typographical errors.

Presentation
4. It is best to write history essays in the past tense. (“In 1933,
Hitler became Chancellor”) as opposed to the
historical present (“In 1933, Hitler becomes Chancellor”) which
is much harder to sustain without making
mistakes.
5. Do not use contractions (e.g. “don’t”).
6. Do not overuse the first person (“I will prove that”).
Generally, the third person conveys more authority.
However, judicious use of the first person is acceptable.
7. In formal essays, avoid colloquialisms or slang.
8. Cliches (e.g. “every cloud has a silver lining”; “reared its
ugly head”; “circumstances beyond there
control.”) are the death of creativity. Do not use them.
9. Titles of books and periodicals (including newspapers) and
the names of ships are italicized (e.g. “The New
York Times, HMS Hood).
10. Spell out numbers under 100.
Technical

11. Number all of your pages, including your bibliography.
Generally it is best to begin numbering with the
second page. The title page is not page one!
12. Remember to staple your essay. No paper clips or folders
please.
13. Do not indent your first paragraph, and do not put an extra
space between your paragraphs.
14. Be wary or very short or very long paragraphs.
Quoting
15. Put all quotations in quotation marks.
16. Use direct quotes from secondary sources very sparingly.
Normally, a ten page essay will contain no
more than one or two such quotations. They are best used to as
evidence to back up points you make in
your own words. It is best to write in your own words, and use
footnotes to acknowledge the source of
your information. It is better to quote from primary, rather than
secondary sources.
17. If you absolutely must use direct quotations from a

secondary source, introduce them properly. Each
quotation should be introduced or contextualized and integrated
into the text. In other words, you should
6
not have a sentence that is entirely a quotation, unless it is part
of a long quotation. Do not “drop” them
into your text to finish a sentence that you have begun. (e.g. Do
not do this: In 1941, “Stalin ignored
warnings of an imminent German attack”; rather if you must
quote, do this: According to leading Stalin
scholar John Doe, in 1941 “Stalin ignored warnings of an
imminent German attack,” etc).
18. Large, indented (offset) quotations (usually reserved for
quotations of more than four lines) are single
spaced, and do not require quotation marks, as the indentation
tells the reader that the passage in question is
a quotation.
19. Note that “quotation” is a noun, while “quote” is a verb.
Grammar
20. In most cases, form the singular possessive with ‘s. Note
that pronominal possessives its, hers, yours, ours,

and theirs are possessive without an apostrophe. “It’s” is
commonly mistaken for the possessive form of
“it”, when in fact it is a contraction for “it is” or “it has’.
21. Under no circumstances does the ‘s indicate the plural form.
“German’s” means belonging to one German.
“Soldier’s” means belonging to a soldier. “Germans” and
“soldiers” are the correct plural form.
22. Do not use sentence fragments, even though they are
sometimes used to good effect in popular writing.
23. Proverbial expressions, colloquialisms (see tip seven) and
familiar phrases do not require quotation marks.
It is also best to avoid using quotation marks to suggest irony as
the same effect can often be achieved by
reworking the sentence.
Words and Phrases, Commonly Misused
24. “Effect” is a noun that means “result” and a verb that means
“to bring about”. “Affect” means “to
influence”.
25. “Disinterested” means impartial, not “uninterested.”
26. “Italians thought” is preferable to “Italy thought”.
Countries do not think.

Punctuation
27. Offset subordinate clauses with commas. “Leon Trotsky, in
exile since 1929, was murdered on Stalin’s
order in 1940.”
28. Use a comma to separate long clauses joined by a
conjunction (and, but, for, since).
29. A semicolon (;) can be used to join two principle clauses not
connected by a conjunction (e.g. “Throughout
his political career Wilfred Laurier showed that he wanted to
avoid splitting Canada into two warring
camps; this was true of his actions throughout the conscription
crisis.”
30. Colons (:) are not the same as semicolons. Normally, they
introduce a long list. (“The Allies forbade the
export to Iraq of key materiel: missiles, tanks, automatic
weapons, ammunition, explosives, land mines, and
aircraft.”) They can also be used before a long quotation.
7

1
HISTORY 1403E (573)
TOTALITARIANISM IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY:
NAZI GERMANY, FASCIST ITALY, AND THE SOVIET
UNION
Assignment #3: Primary Source Analysis
Learning Objectives
After completing this assignment, you should be able to:
x Read primary sources critically and analytically;
x Evaluate primary sources based on their potential bias and
perspective; and,
x Interpret primary source evidence to develop your own thesis.
Instructions
1. Read the background material, guiding questions, and the
documents listed below.
2. Develop a thesis that best explains the contrasting views
presented in the selection of

documents.
3. Write a 1500-word essay that supports your thesis with
evidence from the documents.
4. Submit a digital copy of the assignment via OWL (through
the Assignments tab).
Technical Requirements
x Format: use a standard 12-point font; standard margins (1
inch/2.5 cm); double-spaced.
x Title Page: include a separate title page at the front of your
assignment.
x Word limit: your essay must fall between 1200 and 1800
words.
x Sources: the primary sources below should make up the bulk
of the evidence for your paper;
you are not expected to use all the sources provided, but you
should refer to at least ten of
them within your essay. To situate your argument within its
historiographic context, you will
want to read the two articles listed on the next page; you are
welcome to refer to additional
sources (including your text books) for background information
or other interpretations. You
must reference at least two secondary sources (books or
articles) in your paper.
x Citations: citations to the documents provided may be made in
text. For example: “Guderian
claimed that his troops never carried out the ‘commissar order’
(doc. 1).” Citations to any other
source should be made in footnotes according to the Chicago
Manual of Style.

x Submission: digital submissions should be in Word, PDF,
HTML, RTF, or plain text format (submit
only one and be sure to include the file extension).
Grading
The assignment is worth 25% of the final grade and will be
marked out of 100. You will be evaluated on
the quality of your analysis, on your ability to organize content
in a logical manner, and on the clarity of
your writing.
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org.proxy1.lib.uwo.ca/16/cont
ents.html
2
SOURCES — “CLEAN HANDS”: THE GERMAN ARMY ON
THE EASTERN FRONT
Hitler considered the German armed forces to be the most
important tool for achieving his foreign
policy objectives. However, the Wehrmacht [German armed
forces] was not, strictly speaking, a Nazi
institution. Its senior leadership had been trained and employed
by the Imperial and Weimar
governments long before Hitler’s rise to power. Hitler himself
rejected the formal Nazification of the
armed forces when he purged the SA [Nazi Party militia] in
1934. Following the Second World War, it

was generally accepted in Germany and in the West that the
Wehrmacht had remained apolitical: the
German army had fought an honourable war distinct from the
criminality of the Nazi Party and the SS,
which took responsibility for the exploitation of occupied
Europe and the execution of the Holocaust.
The Wehrmacht exited the war supposedly with “clean hands.”
Your task is to evaluate the accuracy of this prevailing wisdom
using the collection of documents below.
Most of the sources concern the activities of the German army
on the eastern front in 1941 and 1942.
The Germans launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of
the Soviet Union, on 22 June 1941. The
eastern front immediately became the focal point of the Second
World War, not only because of the
numbers of men employed in operations, but because the Soviet
Union was the primary target of
Hitler’s ideology. Hitler’s anti-communism and anti-Semitism,
combined with his concept of Lebensraum
[living space], gave Nazi policies in the east a particularly
sinister character. With Operation Barbarossa,
the Holocaust escalated from the ghettoization of Jews to their
mass murder by the Einsatzgruppen,
paving the way for the establishment of extermination camps in
1942. During the war, more than 15
million Soviet civilians died as the result of Nazi starvation
policies or repression measures.
To what extent was the Wehrmacht involved in these criminal
policies? How much did German
commanders, officers, and soldiers know about them and the
activities of the SS? Did the regular army
participate in war crimes? In part, you will be taking the role of
the prosecution or defence in a legal
case. In fact, many of the documents below were used as

evidence in the Nuremberg Trials of war
criminals held during the aftermath of the Second World War.
But, you should also think about the
sources as a historian, seeking to explain the factors behind
your findings and to account for gray areas
in the evidence. Why did the German high command, officers,
and soldiers behave the way they did?
Did they all behave the same way? If not, were there factors
that help explain the differences? Use
these questions to guide you in developing your own thesis, but
feel free to be creative.
The following documents include a range of source types:
memoirs; official reports, correspondence,
and directives; propaganda; private letters; even bugged
conversations. A small amount of background
information has been provided before each source. Addition
technical information is available in the
appendices that follow the documents. For historiographic
background on the German army’s role in the
east, start with the list of further reading below. Beyond that,
you may choose to refer to other
secondary sources for further clarification. One of the exciting
parts of analyzing primary sources is the
detective work involved in tracking down a name, place, or
event that is not familiar to you!
Further Reading (Historiography)
Madievski, Samson. "The War of Extermination: The Crimes of
the Wehrmacht in 1941 to 1944."
Rethinking History 7, no. 2 (2003): 243–54.
Shepherd, Ben. "The Clean Wehrmacht, the War of
Extermination, and Beyond." Historical Journal 52,
no. 1 (2009): 455–73.

http://journals1.scholarsportal.info.proxy1.lib.uwo.ca/pdf/13642
529/v07i0002/243_twoe.xml
529/v07i0002/243_twoe.xml
46x/v52i0002/455_tcwtwoeab.xml
46x/v52i0002/455_tcwtwoeab.xml
3
Table of Contents
Documents
1. The Memoirs of General Heinz Guderian, 1952
2. Halder’s Notes of Hitler’s Address to German Generals, 30
March 1941
3. The Barbarossa Decree, 13 May 1941
4. The Commissar Decree, 6 June 1941
5. General Jodl’s Order, 7 October 1941
6. Memorandum on Conduct of Troops in Eastern Territories, 10
October 1941
7. Von Manstein Order to Eleventh Army, 20 November 1941
8. Directives on Behaviour towards the Ukrainian Population, 7
December 1941
9. Mitteilungen für die Truppe, June 1940
10. Mitteilungen für die Truppe, July 1941
11. Mitteilungen für das Offizierkorps, April 1942
12. A Letter from Sergeant Karl Fuchs to His Wife, 28 June
1941
13. A Letter from Sergeant Karl Fuchs to His Father, 4 August
1941

14. A Letter from Sergeant Karl Fuchs to His Mother, 15
October 1941
15. A German NCO Writes Home, July 1942
16. A German NCO Writes Home, August 1942
17. General Rudolf Schmundt’s Directive, 31 October 1942
18. A Conversation between Two German POWs, August 1944
19. Letter from Alfred Rosenberg to Wilhelm Keitel, 28
February 1942
20. Affidavit of SS Gruppenführer Otto Ohlendorf, 5 November
1945
21. A Conversation between German POWs, 28 December 1944
22. Testimony of Lieutenant Erwin Bingel, August 1945
23. Major von Gersdorff’s Report, 9 December 1941
Appendix
A. The German Army Chain of Command
B. List of Terms and Abbreviations
C. The German-Occupied East (map)
4
Document 1. The Memoirs of General Heinz Guderian, 19521
General Heinz Guderian was one of the German army’s most
prominent theorists of
mechanized warfare. After participating in the invasions of
Poland and France, he commanded
a Panzer Group during Operation Barbarossa. Following the
failure to capture Moscow in
December 1941, Hitler relieved Guderian of his command.
Guderian was not involved in the

plot of German generals to assassinate Hitler on 20 July 1944.
In the aftermath of the
attempted coup, he was appointed chief of staff of the OKH. He
surrendered to the Americans
in 1945 and was never charged for war crimes. The following
excerpts are taken from
Guderian’s memoirs, published in 1952.
On Criminal Orders:
Finally, an allusion must be made to an event which was to
leave a deep stain on
Germany's reputation.
Shortly before the opening of hostilities the OKW sent an order
direct to all corps and
divisions concerning the treatment that was to be given to the
civilian population and to prisoners
of war in Russia. It specified that in the event of excesses being
committed against civilians or
prisoners, the responsible soldier was not automatically to be
tried and punished according to
military law; disciplinary action was only to be taken at the
discretion of the man's immediate
unit commander. This order was obviously likely to have the
most unfortunate effect on the
preservation of discipline. The Commander-in-Chief of the
Army had apparently realised this
himself, for an appendix to the order, signed by Field-Marshal
von Brauchitsch, stated that the
order would only be carried out if there was no danger of
discipline suffering thereby. Since both
I and my corps commanders were immediately convinced that
discipline must suffer if the order
were published, I forbade its forwarding to the divisions and
ordered that it be returned to Berlin.

This order, which was to play an important part in the post-war
trials of German generals by our
former enemies, was consequently never carried out in my
Panzer Group. At the time I dutifully
informed the Commander-in-Chief of the Army Group that I was
not publishing or obeying this
order.
The equally notorious, so-called 'Commissar Order' never even
reached my Panzer
Group. No doubt Army Group Centre had already decided not to
forward it. Therefore the
'Commissar Order' was never carried out by my troops either.
Looking back, one can only deeply regret that neither the OKW
nor the OKH blocked
these two orders in the first place. Many brave and innocent
soldiers would have thus been saved
bitter suffering, and the good name of Germany would have
been spared a great shame.
Regardless of whether the Russians had signed the Hague
Agreement or not, whether or not they
had approved the Geneva Convention, German soldiers must
accept their international
obligations and must behave according to the dictates of a
Christian conscience. Even without
harsh orders the effects of war on the population of an enemy
country are cruel enough, and the
Russian civilians were as innocent of causing this war as were
our own. [...]
1 Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader, trans. Constantine Fitzgibbon
(1952; repr., London: Penguin, 2000), 152, 440–41,

446–48, 462–65.
5
On Adolf Hitler:
He was, in the summer of 1940, unsure how he might lead his
country back to peace. He
did not know how to deal with the English. His armed forces
were ready. They could not remain
mobilised and inactive for an indefinite length of time. He felt
an itch to act. What was to
happen? The old ideological enemy, against whom he had
struggled throughout his career and
which, by opposing it, had brought him the mass of his
supporters' votes, stood intact on the
eastern frontier. He was tempted to make use of the time
allowed him by the temporary lull on
the Western Front in order to complete the reckoning with the
Soviets. He was clearly aware of
the threat that the Soviet Union and the communist urge to
world hegemony offered both to
Europe and to the whole of Western civilisation: He knew that
in this matter he was in agreement
with the majority of his fellow-countrymen and, indeed, with
many good Europeans in other
lands. The question of whether these ideas of his could in fact
be militarily executed was, of
course, quite another matter.
To begin with perhaps he only toyed with these ideas, but as
time went on he began to
take them more and more seriously. His unusually vivid powers

of imagination led him to under-
estimate the known strength of the Soviet Union. He maintained
that mechanisation on land and
in the air offered fresh chances of success, so that comparison
with the campaigns of Charles XII
of Sweden or Napoleon was no longer relevant. He maintained
that he could rely with certainty
upon the collapse of the Soviet system as soon as his first blows
reached their mark. He believed
the Russian populace would embrace his National-Socialist
ideology. But as soon as the
campaign began almost everything was done to prevent any
such thing from taking place. By
ill-treating the native populations in the occupied Russian
territories that were administered by
high Party functionaries, and by reason of his decision to
dissolve the Russian state and to
incorporate considerable areas into Germany, Hitler succeeded
in uniting all Russians under the
banner of Stalin. They were now fighting for Holy Mother
Russia and against a foreign invader.
In part responsible for this blunder was his habit of under-
estimating other races and
nations. This had become evident before the war, within
Germany, in his significantly short-
sighted and irresponsibly harsh treatment of the Jews. It now
assumed an even more sinister
aspect. If any single fact played a predominant part in the
collapse of National-Socialism and of
Germany it was the folly of this racial policy.
Hitler wished to unite Europe. His failure to understand the
characteristic differences of
the various nations, combined with his methods of centralised
control, doomed this intention

from the start.
The Russian war soon showed the limitations of Germany's
strength. But Hitler did not
conclude from this that he must either break off the undertaking
or at least choose more modest
objectives; on the contrary, he plunged into the unlimited. He
was determined, by means
of reckless violence, to force defeat upon the Russians. With
incomprehensible blindness he was
simultaneously courting war with the United States. It is true
that Roosevelt's order to his ships
that they might open fire on Germany's naval vessels had
produced a state of affairs that was
close to war. But between that and actual, open warfare there
might have lain a very long road
had Hitler's overweening arrogance not closed it.
This frightening gesture on his part coincided with our first
decisive defeat on the
battlefields before Moscow. Hitler's strategy, lacking in
consistency, and subject to continual
vacillation in its execution, had crashed. From now on
ruthlessly harsh treatment of his own
troops was to make up for a failure of capability on the part of
the controlling mind. For a time
this proved successful. But in the long run it was not enough
simply to remind his soldiers of the
6
sacrifices made by Frederick the Great's grenadiers on the
orders of that powerful king and

commander. It was not enough that he should identify himself
with the German people and thus,
because he was prepared for privation, that he should simply
ignore the population's basic
requirements. [...]
On Himmler and the SS:
The most impenetrable of all Hitler's disciples was the National
Leader of the SS,
Heinrich Himmler. An inconspicuous man with all the marks of
racial inferiority, the impression
he made was one of simplicity. He went out of his way to be
polite. In contrast to that of Goering
his private life might be described as positively Spartan in its
austerity.
His imagination was all the more vivid, and even fantastic. He
seemed like a man from
some other planet. His racial doctrine was fallacious and led
him to commit terrible crimes. His
attempt to educate the German people in National-Socialism
resulted only in concentration
camps. As late as 1943, long after Stalingrad, he still believed
that Russia should be colonised by
Germans as far as the Urals, On one occasion, when I said to
him that it was already impossible
to find volunteer colonists for the east, he insisted that the land
as far as the Urals must be
Germanised by compulsory colonisation if necessary and by
planting the land with German
peasants conscripted for that purpose.
As for the consequences of Himmler's racial theories, I have,
from personal observation
and experience, nothing to say. Hitler and Himmler succeeded

in keeping this part of their
programme strictly secret.
Himmler's 'methods of education,' as practised in the
concentration camps, have
meanwhile become sufficiently well known. During his lifetime
the general public knew only a
little about this. The atrocities carried out in those camps were
made known to most people, as to
myself, only after the collapse. The way the concentration camp
methods were kept secret can
only be described as masterly.
After 20th July2 Himmler became filled with military ambition:
this led him to have
himself appointed commander of the Training Army and even
commander of an army group. In
military matters Himmler proved an immediate and total failure.
His appreciation of our enemies
was positively childish. His decisions when in command of
Army Group Vistula, in 1945, were
dictated by fear. Despite this he retained Hitler's confidence
almost up to the end.
Himmler's most notable creation was the SS. After the collapse
this organisation was
accused and condemned in root and branch. And that was
unjust.
The SS originated as Hitler’s bodyguard. A desire to supervise
not only the uninitiated
mass of the populace but also the Party organisation led to its
increase in strength. After the
concentration camps were set up Himmler made the SS
responsible for their control. This marks
the point at which the SS was subdivided into two main groups:

the Waffen-SS, or Armed SS, a
primarily military organisation, and the Allgemeine-SS, or
General SS. The man entrusted with
the Waffen-SS was the former army general, Hausser, formerly
chief of staff of my old division
at Stettin. General Hausser was a first-class officer, a brave and
clever soldier and a man
outstandingly upright and honourable character. [...]
I can therefore assert that to my knowledge the SS divisions
were always remarkable for
a high standard of discipline, of esprit de corps, and of conduct
in the face of the enemy. They
2 On 20 July 1944, a group of German army officers tried to
assassinate Hitler and stage a coup in Berlin. The
attempt failed. In its aftermath, Hitler purged the officer corps
of the Wehrmacht and granted more military
authority to Himmler’s SS.
7
fought shoulder to shoulder with the panzer divisions of the
Army, and the longer the war went
on the less distinguishable they became from the Army.
There can, of course, be no doubt that Himmler had quite other
ends in view when he
arranged for the expansion of the Waffen-SS. Both Hitler and he
distrusted the Army, for their
intentions were dark and there always existed the danger for
them that if the Army recognised
them in time it might resist. [...]

A far different judgment must be passed on the Allgemeine-SS.
Here, too, there were
doubtless idealists to be found, who originally believed that
they had joined an order with special
responsibilities and therefore entitled to special privileges.
There were also many men of good
character and spirit, men drawn from the most varied
professions and careers, who had simply
been appointed members of the SS by Himmler without any
questions being asked. But as time
went on the picture changed; the SS took over numerous police
functions of a most dubious sort.
Then units of the Allgemeine-SS were also armed. The number
of foreign formations was here
also constantly on the increase; these were markedly worse than
the units of the Waffen-SS, as,
for example, was shown by the behaviour of the Kaminski and
Dirlewanger Brigades in the
crushing of the Warsaw uprising.
I never had anything to do with the SD and its
Einsatzkommandos (Operational
commandos) and am therefore not able to give any first-hand
information concerning them.
On the Officer Corps and Nazism:
When National-Socialism, with its new, nationalistic slogans,
appeared upon the scene
the younger elements of the Officer Corps were soon inflamed
by the patriotic theories
propounded by Hitler and his followers. The completely
inadequate state of the country's
armaments had lain like a leaden weight on the Officer Corps
for many long years. It is no

wonder that the first steps towards rearmament inclined them to,
favour the man who promised
to breathe fresh life into the armed forces after fifteen years'
stagnation. The National-Socialist
Party further increased its popularity in military circles since to
begin with Hitler showed himself
to be well disposed towards the Army and refrained from
interfering in its private affairs. The
previous gap in the Army's political life was now filled, and
interest was aroused in political
questions, though hardly in the manner that the democrats seem
to have expected. Be that as it
may, once the National-Socialists had seized power, the leaders
of the armed forces could hardly
remain aloof from National-Socialist politics, even had they
wished to do so. The General Staff
[OKH] certainly played no leading role in this new
development; if anything, the contrary was
true. The prime example of the sceptical attitude of the General
Staff was that of General Beck.
He had a number of adherents at the centre, but no influence
over the Army as a whole and even
less in the other services. Beck and his successor Halder, might
try to put the brake on the swing
towards National-Socialism at the hub of military authority;
their effect on policy in general was
nil and it simply followed its course without the support of, and
in opposition to, the General
Staff. Once again—as before the First World War—Germany
found itself in a political situation
from which there seemed to be no way out and which made the
war look difficult if not hopeless,
before ever it began. Once again the soldiers, led by the
generals and the General Staff Corps
officers, had to find a way out of an impasse for which they
were not responsible.

All the reproaches that have been levelled against the leaders of
the armed forces by their
countrymen and by the international courts have failed to take
into consideration one very simple
fact: that policy is not laid down by soldiers but by politicians.
This has always been the case and
is so today. When war starts the soldiers can only act according
to the political and military
8
situation as it then exists. Unfortunately it is not the habit of
politicians to appear in conspicuous
places when the bullets begin to fly. They prefer to remain in
some safe retreat and to
let the soldiers carry out' the continuation of policy by other
means.' [...]
At this point I should like to say a few words about the OKW.
Field-Marshal Keitel was
basically a decent individual who did his best to perform the
task allotted him. He soon fell under
the sway of Hitler's personality and, as time went on, became
less and less able to shake off the
hypnosis of which he was a victim. He preserved his Lower
Saxon loyalty until the day of his
death. Hitler knew that he could place unlimited confidence in
the man; for that reason he
allowed him to retain his position even when he no longer had
any illusion about his talents as a
strategist. The Field-Marshal exerted no influence on the course
of operations. His chief

activities were in the administrative field, which had previously
been the domain of the War
Ministry. It was Keitel's misfortune that he lacked the strength
necessary to resist Hitler's orders
when such orders ran contrary to international law and to
accepted morality. It was only this
weakness on his part that permitted the issuing to the troops of
the so-called 'Commissar Order'
and other notorious decrees. He paid for this with his life at
Nuremberg. His family were not
permitted to mourn at his grave.
Colonel-General Jodl, the chief of the Armed Forces Command
Staff, had in fact
controlled the operations of the combined armed forces ever
since the Norwegian Campaign of
April, 1940. He like Keitel, was a decent man; originally he too
had fallen under Hitler's spell,
but he had never been so hypnotised as was Keitel and therefore
never became so uncritical.
After his quarrel with Hitler during the Stalingrad period he
withdrew completely into his work,
most of which he did with his own hands and without the
customary office and clerical
assistance. He was silent and resigned on the question of
reforming the military and political
command, and adopted the same attitude towards the
reorganisation and unified leadership of the
General Staff. Only in the last few weeks of the war did he rise
to fresh heights. He was to share
Keitel's bitter fate.
If these two officers had assumed a different point of view in
their dealings with Hitler
they could have prevented much evil from taking place. Hitler
only tended to give in when

confronted by a unified opposition. But such unity in military
matters scarcely ever existed, and
this enabled him to make the OKH increasingly powerless and
to ignore any objections that it
might raise.
For all that—they were my comrades.
Document 2. Halder’s Notes of Hitler’s Address to German
Generals, 30 March 19413
On 30 March 1941 Hitler addressed his military leadership
about the upcoming invasion of the
Soviet Union and the character he expected it to take. General
Franz Halder, Chief of Staff of
the Army [OKH], recorded the following notes from the
meeting.
11.00 Meeting of generals at Führer’s office. Address lasting
almost 2½ hours. [...]
Our tasks concerning Russia. Crush armed forces, break up
state.
3 Reproduced in Jürgen Förster and Evan Mawdsley, “Hitler and
Stalin in Perspective: Secret Speeches on the Eve
of Barbarossa,” War in History 11, no. 1 (2004): 70–78.
9
Future political image of Russia. Northern Russia belongs to
Finland. Protectorates: Baltic

states, Ukraine, White Russia. The new states must be socialist
states, but without intellectual
classes of their own. Formation of a new intellectual class must
be prevented. A primitive
socialist intelligentsia is all that is needed here.
Problem of Russia’s vastness: enormous expanse requires
concentration on decisive points.
Massed planes and tanks must be brought forward to bear on
decisive points. The Russian will
break down under the massive impact of tanks and air force.
[...]
Clash of two ideologies. Crushing denunciation of Bolshevism,
identified with asocial
criminality. Communism is an enormous danger for our future.
We must forget the concept of
comradeship between soldiers. A Communist is no comrade
before or after the battle. This is a
fight of annihilation. If we do not grasp this, we shall still beat
the enemy, but thirty years later
we shall again have to fight the Communist enemy. We do not
wage war to preserve the enemy.
[*Colonial tasks!]4
Fight against Russia. Extermination of the Bolshevik
commissars and of the Communist
intelligentsia. The fight must be directed against the poison of
disintegration. This is no job for
military courts. The individual troop commander must know the
issues at stake. They must be
leaders in this fight. The troops must fight back with methods
with which they are attacked.
Commissars and GPU men are criminals and must be dealt with
as such. This need not mean that
the troops should get out of hand. Rather, the commander must
give orders which express the

common feelings of his men. Commanders must make the
sacrifice of overcoming their personal
scruples. [*This fight will be very different from the fight in
west. In the east, a stitch in time
saves nine.]
Document 3. The Barbarossa Decree, 13 May 19415
The following directive was authored and signed by General
Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the
Wehrmacht [OKW]. It was issued as a “Führer Decree” on
behalf of Hitler.
TOP SECRET
Decree on the jurisdiction of martial law and on special
measures of the troops [written in ink]
The exercise of martial law serves primarily to maintain
military discipline.
The wide extent of operational space in the East, the form of
combat that this offers, and the
peculiarity of the enemy, present tasks to the courts martial [...]
that, with their limited personnel,
they can only solve if military law restricts itself for the time
being to its central task.
That is only possible if the troops themselves defend themselves
against every threat from the
enemy civilian population without mercy.
4 Asterisks signify marginal entries.
5 Two different translations of the decree are available as

“Fuehrer Decree, 13 May 1941,” accessed 13 February
2014, http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/USSR5.htm, and
“Barbarossa Decree of 13 May 1941,” accessed 13
February 2014,
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/ggiles/barbaros.html.
10
Accordingly, the following is decreed for the territory
"Barbarossa" (theater of operation, rear
army area and area of the political administration):
I.
Treatment of criminal acts by enemy civilians
1. Criminal acts of enemy civilians are withdrawn until further
notice from the jurisdiction of
courts-martial and summary courts.
2. Guerrillas are to be dispatched without mercy by the troops
either in combat or while trying to
escape.
3. Furthermore, all other attacks by enemy civilians against the
Wehrmacht, its members and
retinue are to be repelled on the spot by the most extreme
measures up to the destruction of the
attacker.

4. Where measures of this kind were missed or were initially
not possible, the suspicious
elements are to be immediately brought before an officer. He
will decide whether they are to be
shot.
Collective drastic action will be taken immediately against
communities from which treacherous
or insidious attacks against the Wehrmacht are launched, on the
orders of an officer with at least
the rank of battalion commander upwards, if the circumstances
do not permit a speedy
apprehension of individual culprits.
5. It is expressly forbidden to detain suspected culprits, in order
to hand them over to the courts
when jurisdiction over native inhabitants is restored to these.
[...]
II.
Treatment of criminal acts by members of the Wehrmacht or its
retinue against native civilians
1. For acts which members of the Wehrmacht or its retinue
commit against enemy civilians, there
is no compulsion to prosecute, even when the act represents at
the same time a military crime or
offense.
2. In judging such deeds it is to be considered in any
proceedings that the collapse in the year
1918, the later period of suffering of the German people, and
the battle against National
Socialism with the movement’s countless sacrifices of blood are

incontestably to be attributed to
Bolshevik influence, and that no German has forgotten that.
3. The chairman of the court must therefore examine whether a
disciplinary reprimand is
appropriate or whether it is necessary to institute judicial
proceedings. The chairman only orders
court-martial proceedings for acts against native inhabitants,
when the maintenance of discipline
11
or the protection of the troops demands it. That applies, for
example, in the case of serious acts
that result from the loss of sexual restraint, are derived from a
criminal disposition, or are a sign
that the troops are threatening to run wild. Criminal acts, by
which lodgings or supplies or other
plunder are senselessly destroyed to the detriment of our own
troops, are not on the whole to be
judged more leniently. The order of the inquiry proceedings
requires in every individual case the
signature of the judge.
Extreme care must be exercised when judging the authenticity
of the statements of enemy
civilians.
III.
Responsibility of the troop commanders

The troop commanders are, within the sphere of their
competence, personally responsible for the
following:
1. that all officers of the units subordinated to them are very
thoroughly and promptly instructed
about the fundamentals of I,
2. that their legal advisors be promptly informed about these
instructions and about the verbal
statements with which the political intentions of the leadership
had been explained to the
commanders-in-chief,
3. that only such sentences will be confirmed which are in
accord with the political intentions of
the leadership. [...]
[signed] KEITEL
Document 4. The Commissar Decree, 6 June 19416
Two weeks before the invasion of the Soviet Union, the
following decree was issued to German
commanders destined for the eastern front. Keitel’s deputy,
Walter Warlimont, signed the
order on his behalf. Commissars were Communist Party
officials assigned to Red Army units to
ensure the loyalty of officers and to monitor and control morale
among Soviet troops.
TOP SECRET

By hand of officer only!
Further to the Fuhrer decree of 14 May regarding the exercise of
military jurisdiction in the area
of "Barbarossa" ... , the attached document, "General
Instructions on the Treatment of Political
Commissars," is circulated herewith. You are requested to limit
its distribution to the
6 “The Commissar Decree, 6 June 1941,” in The Nazi Germany
Sourcebook, eds. Roderick Stackelberg and Sally A.
Winkle (London: Routledge, 2002), 277–79.
12
Commanders of Armies and Air Force and to arrange for its
further oral communication to lower
commands.
Chief of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW)
[signed] Warlimont
INSTRUCTIONS ON THE TREATMENT OF POLITICAL
COMMISSARS
In the struggle against Bolshevism, we must not assume that the

enemy's conduct will be based
on principles of humanity or of international law. In particular,
hate-inspired, cruel, and inhuman
treatment of prisoners can be expected on the part of all ranks
of political commissars, who are
the real leaders of resistance.
The attention of all units must be drawn to the following:
1. To show consideration to these elements during this struggle
or to act in accordance with
international rules of war is wrong and endangers both our own
security and the rapid
pacification of conquered territory.
2. Political Commissars have initiated barbaric, Asiatic methods
of warfare. Consequently
they will be dealt with immediately and with maximum severity.
As a matter of principle
they will be shot at once whether captured during operations or
otherwise showing
resistance.
The following regulations will apply:
I. THEATER OF OPERATIONS
1. Political commissars who oppose our forces will be treated in
accordance with the decree
on "The Exercise of Military Law in the Area of Barbarossa."
This applies to every kind
and rank of Commissar even if only suspected of resistance or
sabotage or incitement to

resist. In this connection see "General Instructions on the
Conduct of Troops in Russia."
2. Political commissars serving with enemy forces are
recognizable by their distinctive
insignia — a red star interwoven with a hammer and sickle on
the sleeve band (see details
in "Armed Forces of the USSR" ... ). On capture they will be
immediately separated from
other prisoners on the field of battle. This is essential to prevent
them from influencing in
any way the other prisoners. Commissars will not be treated as
soldiers. The protection
afforded by international law to prisoners of war will not apply
in their case. After they
have been segregated they will be liquidated.
3. Political commissars who are neither guilty nor suspected of
being guilty of hostile
actions will be initially exempt from the above measures. Only
as our forces penetrate
further into the country will it be possible to decide whether
remaining officials should be
allowed to stay where they are or whether they should be
handed over to the
Sonderkommandos [special units], who should where possible
carry out the investigation
themselves. In reaching a verdict of "guilty or not guilty,"
greater attention will be paid to
the character and bearing of the commissar in question than to
his offence, for which
corroborative evidence may not be forthcoming.
13

4. Under I. and 2. a short report (on a report form) on the case
will be forwarded
(a) by divisional units to divisional headquarters (Intelligence
Section)
(b) by units directly subordinate to a Corps, Army Group, or
Armored Group to the
Intelligence Section at Corps or higher headquarters.
5. None of the above measure must be allowed to interfere with
operations. Systematic
screening and cleansing operations by combat units will
therefore not take place.
II. IN THE COMMUNICATIONS ZONE
Commissars who are apprehended in the rear areas for acting in
a suspicious manner will be
handed over to the Einsatzgruppen or Einsatzkommandos of the
SD.
III. MODIFICATION OF GENERAL AND REGIMENTAL
COURTS MARTIAL
General and regimental courts martial will not be responsible
for carrying out the measures in
Sections I and II.
Document 5. General Jodl’s Order, 7 October 19417
Alfred Jodl was another of Keitel’s deputies at the OKW. He
sent the following message to the

Army High Command [OKH] when it appeared likely that
Leningrad and Moscow would soon fall
into German hands. Neither city ever did.
MOST SECRET
Supreme Command of Armed Forces
Führer’s Hq., 7 Oct. 41
To Army Supreme Command (Ops. Section)
The Fuhrer has again decided that a capitulation of Leningrad or
later of Moscow is not
to be accepted even if offered by the enemy.
The moral justification for this measure is clear to the whole
world. Just as in Kiev, our
troops were subject to extreme danger through explosions with
time-fuses, the same must be
expected to a still greater degree in Moscow and Leningrad. The
Soviet radio itself has broadcast
that the foundations of Leningrad were mined and the city
would be defended to the last man.
Extreme danger of epidemics is to be expected.
Therefore no German soldier is to enter these cities. Anyone
who tries to leave the city
through our lines is to be forced to return under fire.
The exodus of the population through the smaller, unguarded
gaps towards the interior of
Russia to be allowed. Before all other cities are taken, they are
to be softened up by artillery fire
and airraids and their population forced to flee.

7 “General Jodl’s order, 7 October 1941,” in Stackelberg and
Winkle, The Nazi Germany Sourcebook, 285.
14
We cannot take the responsibility of endangering our soldiers'
lives by fire in order to
save Russian cities, nor that of feeding the population of these
cities at the expense of the
German homeland [...]
Chief of Supreme Command of the Armed Forces
By Order
[signed:] Jodl
Document 6. Memorandum on Conduct of Troops in Eastern
Territories, 10 October 19418
Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau commanded the German
Sixth Army as part of Army Group
South in 1941. He issued the following secret memo to his unit
commanders.
SECRET!
ARMY H.Q., 10.10.41
Army Command 6., Sec. Ia-A.7
Subject: Conduct of Troops in Eastern Territories.

Regarding the conduct of troops towards the bolshevistic
system, vague ideas are still
prevalent in many cases. The most essential aim of war against
the Jewish-bolshevistic system is
a complete destruction of their means of power and the
elimination of asiatic influence from the
European culture. In this connection the troops are facing tasks
which exceed the onesided
routine of soldiering. The soldier in the eastern territories is not
merely a fighter according to the
rules of the art of war but also a bearer of ruthless national
ideology and the avenger of
bestialities which have been inflicted upon German and racially
related nations.
Therefore the soldier must have full understanding for the
necessity of a severe but just
revenge on subhuman Jewry. The Army has to aim at another
purpose, i.e., the annihilation of
revolts in hinterland which, as experience proves, have always
been caused by Jews. The
combating of the enemy behind the front line is still not being
taken seriously enough.
Treacherous, cruel partisans and unnatural women are still
being made prisoners of war and
guerrilla fighters dressed partly in uniforms or plain clothes and
vagabonds are still being treated
as proper soldiers, and sent to prisoner of war camps. In fact,
captured Russian officers talk even
mockingly about Soviet agents moving openly about the roads
and very often eating at German
field kitchens. Such an attitude of the troops can only be
explained by complete thoughtlessness,
so it is now high time for the commanders to clarify the
meaning of the present struggle.

The feeding of the natives and of prisoners of war who are not
working for the Armed
Forces from Army kitchens is an equally misunderstood
humanitarian act as is the giving of
cigarettes and bread. Things which the people at home can spare
under great sacrifices and
things which are being brought by the Command to the front
under great difficulties, should not
be given to the enemy by the soldier not even if they originate
from booty. It is an important part
of our supply.
When retreating the Soviets have often set buildings on fire.
The troops should be
interested in extinguishing of fires only as far as it is necessary
to secure sufficient numbers of
billets. Otherwise the disappearance of symbols of the former
bolshevistic rule even in the form
8 “Conduct of Troops in Eastern Territories,” in The Nazi State
and German Society: A Brief History with Documents,
ed. Robert G, Moeller (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010),
117–19.
15
of buildings is part of the struggle of destruction. Neither
historic nor artistic considerations are
of any importance in the eastern territories [...]
Being far from all political considerations of the future the
soldier has to fulfil two tasks:

1. Complete annihilation of the false bolshevistic doctrine of
the Soviet State and its armed
forces.
2. The pitiless extermination of foreign treachery and cruelty
and thus the protection of the
lives of military personnel in Russia.
This is the only way to fulfil our historic task to liberate the
German people once forever from
the Asiatic-Jewish danger.
Commander in Chief
[signed] von Reichenau
Field Marshal
Document 7. Von Manstein Order to Eleventh Army, 20
November 19419
General Erich von Manstein took over command of the Eleventh
Army in Ukraine in September
1941. After the war, von Manstein was regarded as one of
Germany’s elite field commanders.
The following order, signed by von Manstein, was to be
distributed to all regiments and
battalions in the Eleventh Army.
SECRET
Since the 22nd June the German people have been engaged in a

life-and-death struggle against
the Bolshevist system. This struggle is not being carried on
against the Soviet armed forces alone
in the established form laid down by European rules of warfare.
Behind the front, too, the fighting continues. Partisan snipers
dressed as civilians attack single
soldiers and small units, and try to disrupt our supplies by
sabotage with mines and infernal
machines. Bolshevists left behind keep the population, freed
from Bolshevism, in a state of
unrest by means of terror, and attempt thereby to sabotage the
political and economic
pacification of the country. Harvests and factories are destroyed
and the city population in
particular is thereby ruthlessly delivered to starvation.
Jewry constitutes the middleman between the enemy in the rear
and the remainder of the Red
armed forces which is still fighting and the Red leadership.
More strongly than in Europe it holds
all the key positions in the political leadership and
administration, controls commerce and trade,
and further forms the nucleus for all unrest and possible
uprisings.
The Jewish-Bolshevist system must be exterminated once and
for all. Never again must it
encroach upon our European living-space.
9 The text of the order is available in Trial of the Major War
Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal,
Nuremberg, 14 November 1945–1 October 1946 (Nuremberg,
1947–49), vol. 20, 640–42.

16
The German soldier has therefore not only the task of crushing
the military potential of this
system. He comes also as the bearer of a racial concept and as
the avenger of all the cruelties
which have been perpetrated on him and on the German people.
The fight behind the lines is not
yet being taken seriously enough. Active co-operation of all
soldiers must be demanded in the
disarming of the population, the control and arrest of all roving
soldiers and civilians and the
removal of Bolshevist symbols.
Every instance of sabotage must be punished immediately with
the severest measures, and all
signs thereof must be reported.
The food situation at home makes it essential that the troops
should as far as possible be fed off
the land, and that furthermore the largest possible stocks should
be placed at the disposal of the
homeland. Particularly in enemy cities a large part of the
population will have to go hungry.
Nevertheless nothing which the homeland has sacrificed itself
to contribute may, out of a
misguided sense of humanity, be given to prisoners or to the
population unless they are in the
service of the German Wehrmacht.
The soldier must appreciate the necessity for the harsh
punishment of Jewry, the spiritual bearer

of the Bolshevist terror. This is also necessary in order to nip in
the bud all uprisings, which are
mostly attributable to Jews.
It is the task of leaders at all levels to keep constantly alive the
meaning of the present struggle.
Support for the Bolshevist fight behind the front by way of
thoughtlessness must be prevented.
It is to be expected of the non-Bolshevist Ukrainians, Russians
and Tartars that they will be
converted to the New Order. The non-participation of numerous
alleged anti- Soviet elements
must give place to a definite decision in favour of active co-
operation against Bolshevism.
Where it does not exist it must be forced by suitable measures.
Voluntary co-operation in the reconstruction of occupied
territory is an absolute necessity for the
achievement of our economic and political aims.
It has as its condition a just treatment of all non- Bolshevist
sections of the population, some of
whom have for years fought heroically against Bolshevism.
The ruling of this country demands from us results, strictness
with ourselves and submergence of
the individual. The bearing of every soldier is constantly under
observation. It can make enemy
propaganda ineffective or give it a springboard. If the soldier in
the country takes from the
peasant the last cow, the breeding sow, the last chicken or the
seed, then no restoration of the
economy can be achieved.
In all measures it is not the momentary success which is
decisive. All measures must, therefore,

be judged by their effectiveness over a period of time.
Respect for religious customs, particularly those of
Mohammedan Tartars, must be demanded.
17
In pursuance of these concepts there are other measures besides
to be carried out by the later
administration. The enlightenment of the population by
propaganda, encouragement of personal
initiative, e.g., by prizes, extensive detailing of the population
towards fighting the partisans and
expansion of the local auxiliary police must be given more
significance.
For the achievement of this object the following must be
demanded:
Active co-operation of soldiers in the fight against the enemy in
the rear.
No soldier to go about alone at night.
All motor vehicles to be equipped with adequate armament.
A self-assured but not overbearing attitude from all soldiers.
Restraint towards prisoners and the other sex.
No waste of food.

Severest action to be taken:
Against despotism and self-seeking.
Against lawlessness and lack of discipline.
Against every transgression of the honour of a soldier.
Document 8. Directives on Behaviour towards the Ukrainian
Population, 7 December 194110
General Ewald von Kleist commanded the First Panzer Army as
part of Army Group South. By
December 1941, his units had settled into winter quarters in
southeastern Ukraine. Von Kleist
issued the following directive that month, along with a message
from Alfred Rosenberg, the
Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories (see
Document 19).
Panzer Army 1 HQ, 7.12.41
Subject: Treatment of Ukrainians.
The following orders are for your knowledge and study. The
contents of the directives
can be passed on in writing to regiments, beyond that it is
necessary to instruct the troops and
officers verbally to the extent necessary. [...]
10 An Italian translation of the order is available as
“Trattamento degli ucraini,” 7 December 1941, Archivio
Centrale
dello Stato (Rome), Ministero della Cultura Popolare –

Direzione Generale Servizi della Propaganda, b. 196, fasc.
“Russia – varie,” sf. “Pieghevole per Fronte Russo, settembre–
novembre 1941.” At this time, Italian forces on the
eastern front were attached to von Kleist’s Panzer Army.
18
Directives on behaviour towards the Ukrainian population.
1. The Führer reserves for himself the future political
arrangement of the territories inhabited by
the Ukrainian population. Questions in this regard must not be
handled by military offices. To
Ukrainian complaints about the placement of individual parts of
Ukraine under the
administration of the General Governorate and Romania or the
like, one should reply by
pointing out that Ukraine was rescued with German blood and
that therefore Germany will
reserve for itself the right to make arrangements for the region
according to general and
political necessities.
2. In cases of necessity, the collaboration of suitable Ukrainians
in the civil administration of
towns and districts as trustworthy advisors is permitted.
Individual trustworthy Ukrainians can
be employed in superior administration offices only as advisors
without duties.
3. The final economic aim is the natural development of
Ukraine as the breadbasket of Europe.

The entire East must become the principle marketplace for West
European industry, whose
products will be paid for with agricultural goods and raw
materials. Agriculture and the
production of raw materials must therefore by favoured [...]
4. In accordance with this end goal it is necessary to treat the
Ukrainian population gently as
long as they willingly collaborate under German administration,
especially in agriculture. The
widespread efforts of forcing upon a foreign people one’s own
customs, manners, and
traditions [...] must be stopped.
The Ukrainian press (mail) is permitted to a limited extent
under certain control.
No objection against the opening of schools.
5. The Ukrainian Autocephalous [Orthodox] Church and some
other confessional associations
are permitted as long as they are not political. However, it is
necessary to prevent places of
worship from becoming places of pilgrimage and as such
centres of autonomous movement.
Ecclesiastical representatives from other states will be expelled
from the zones under German
administration.
6. The participation of members of the armed forces in national
Ukrainian celebrations must be
restricted to exceptional cases [...] The arrangement of such
celebrations by German offices
must in any case be discontinued.
[The following memorandum from Rosenberg’s Reich Ministry

was attached to the directive]
The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories
Berlin, 22.11.41
Urgent
To the Army High Command [OKH]
In recent days the Reich Ministry has repeatedly received
questions about the treatment
of Ukrainians. These are sometimes accompanied by
observations that it would be right to treat
Ukrainians as blacks since the region must be exploited as a
colony.
Regarding this one must consider the following: The Ukrainians
belong to the family of
European peoples and are full of Germanic blood. They have
completed notable feats, both
cultural and scientific. If the people have not fully developed
according to their abilities, it is
because for the entire course of their history the Ukrainians
have been oppressed and plundered
19
by foreign peoples. For a long period of time they resisted the
assault of the Tatars on Europe,
until at last they had to succumb before superior forces. Later,

they were oppressed by the Poles
and still later by Tsarist Russia which prohibited the Ukrainian
language and conducted a policy
of Russification. Despite the fertility of the country and its
valuable fields of earth, economic
exploitation only began in the current century. It has been even
worse for Ukrainians under the
Bolsheviks who, in exploiting the economic strengths of the
country for their own ends, have
turned the peasant into a slave through collectivization and
expelled those who had made
progress through their diligence and skill. The fear of being
considered a “kulak” and of being
deported was so great that the peasant intentionally wrecked his
farm to appear poor.
The impression offering itself to who travels through the
country is therefore incorrect.
One does not see the true Ukrainian but a man almost
completely crushed by Bolshevik terror.
This people considers itself liberated from the intolerable yoke
by the German armed
forces and has put itself at our disposition, immediately and
everywhere. The work of the harvest
being attended to despite the lack of machinery and despite very
difficult circumstances has
provoked general admiration.
That opinion of the population must be preserved in every way.
Germany must be faithful to its role that it assumes with the
task of liberating Europe
from Bolshevism. Therefore, it would not be entirely
inconsequential, but would also be short-
sighted to treat men that we have freed from Bolshevism, that

we want to incorporate into the
New European Order and that furthermore are Aryans, as blacks
or slaves. The sympathy of the
population would naturally turn into hatred against Germany.
[...]
This opinion does not mean that, especially during the course of
the war, all the economic
potential of the country cannot be rendered useful to our aims.
The maximum can be achieved
only with a friendly population that wants to work; but never
with draconian measures that
enslave the people.
Document 9. Mitteilungen für die Truppe, June 194011
The Mitteilungen für die Truppe was a news-sheet issued by
OKW’s Propaganda Office and
distributed to all Wehrmacht units.
What the reports of OKW in May 1940 had made known is one
single grand poem of German
heroism and inspired leadership [...] Any attempt to describe the
battles of these three weeks of
the Greater German War of Liberation with one word which
would equal their greatness, must be
admitted to border on the impossible [...] This battle of
annihilation was so great that we can
only accept with shocked silence and thankful hearts this act of
destiny.
Behind the battle of annihilation of May 1940 stands in lone
greatness the name of the
Führer.
All that has been accomplished since he has taken the fate of

our people into his strong
hands! [...]
He gave the people back its unity, smashed the parties and
destroyed the hydra of the
organizations [...] he decontaminated the body of our people
from the Jewish subversion,' created
a stock-proud, race-conscious Volk, which had overcome the
racial death of diminishing births
11 Quoted in Omer Bartov, Hilter’s Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and
War in the Third Reich (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1992), 122–23.
20
and was granted renewed children-prosperity as a carrier of the
great future of the Fatherland. He
subdued the terrible plight of unemployment and granted to
millions of people who had already
despaired of the Volk a new belief in the Volksgemeinschaft
and happiness in a new Fatherland
[...]
His genius, in which the whole strength of Germandom is
embodied with ancient powers,
has animated the souls of 80,000,000 Germans, has filled them
with strength and will, with the
storm and stress of a renewed young people; and, himself the
first soldier of Germany, he has
entered the name of the German soldier into the book of
immortality.

All this we were allowed to experience. Our great duty in this
year of decision is that we
do not accept it as observers, but that we, enchanted, and with
all the passion of which we are
capable, sacrifice ourselves to this Führer and strive to be
worthy of the historical epoch molded
by a heaven-storming will.
Document 10. Mitteilungen für die Truppe, July 194112
Anyone who has ever looked at the face of a red commissar
knows what the Bolsheviks are like.
Here there is no need for theoretical expressions. We would
insult the animals if we described
these mostly Jewish men as beasts. They are the embodiment of
the Satanic and insane hatred
against the whole of noble humanity. The shape of these
commissars reveals to us the rebellion
of the Untermenschen against noble blood. The masses, whom
they have sent to their deaths by
making use of all means at their disposal such as ice-cold terror
and insane incitement, would
have brought an end to all meaningful life, had this eruption not
been dammed at the
last moment.
Document 11. Mitteilungen für das Offizierkorps, April 194213
The Mitteilungen für das Offizierkorps was a news-sheet issued
by OKW’s Propaganda Office
and distributed to all Wehrmacht officers.
In the struggle against the capitalism and imperialism of the
English and the Americans and
against the world-revolutionary theses of the Bolsheviks the

weapons of the Wehrmacht alone
will not achieve victory ... [which can be gained] only ... when
the people ... confronts the
political and ideological theses of the enemy with better
political concepts .... [S]uch an attitude
... is based on the German people's unshakable sense of loyalty
to Führer, Volk and Fatherland,
the kind of loyalty which remains absolutely firm in the face of
all crises and knows no
scepticism .... Not only are the economic and power-political
bases of our life critically
threatened, but the whole spiritual life of the nation, the ethical
basis of our cultural and religious
concept of the world, truly everything which is great and holy
for German men in life and death,
all is threatened at the core if we fail to master the enemy ....
Have the officers burnt this so
deeply into their men's hearts, that each of them knows and sees
fully and clearly against what
devilish game in the world he has been called into action? .. We
know that the Devil has been set
loose against our land ... we are filled with the responsibility to
God to defend the land which
had been given us, to save His property and to multiply it, and
therefore we mobilize not only
12 Bartov, Hitler’s Army, 126.
13 Bartov, Hitler’s Army, 123–24.
21
our weapons ... but also the weapons of the soul. ... The

military-spiritual [or ideological]
leadership of the soldiers has been added to the officers' duties,
because political determination
and soldierly feats are a single unity and are indissolubly bound
to each other. The more German
soldiers are aware of the full extent of the mortal danger which
threatens them, the greater will
be the conviction and the toughness with which they will
confront the dynamics of the Bolshevik
revolution with the whole strength of soul and will of National
Socialist Germany .... In the war,
as the Fuhrer has said ... the nations are being judged in the
Godly court of the Almighty. He
who survives this trial will be seen as worthy of molding a new
life on earth .... What a task! ...
The officers of the Fuhrer, and the German soldiers whom they
lead, a sworn community of the
best men of German blood, carried on by the love, the work and
the belief of the German people,
are marching to the decision. There beyond hell is burning. May
it charge! We shall still win!
Document 12. A Letter from Sergeant Karl Fuchs to His Wife,
28 June 194114
Karl Fuchs was a tank gunner in the 7th Panzer Division. He
participated in Operation Barbarossa
and was killed in combat outside of Moscow on 21 November
1941. The following three
documents consist of letters written by Fuchs to his family in
Germany.
My dearest wife, my dear little Horsti,
... Up to now, all of the troops have had to accomplish quite a
bit. The same goes for our

machines and tanks. But, nevertheless, we're going to show
those Bolshevik bums who's who
around here! They fight like hired hands—not like soldiers, no
matter if they are men, women or
children on the front lines. They're all no better than a bunch of
scoundrels. By now, half of
Europe is mobilized. The entry of Spain and Hungary on our
side against this Bolshevik
archenemy of the world overjoyed us all. Yes, Europe stands
under the leadership of our beloved
Fuhrer Adolph Hitler, and he'll reshape it for a better future.
The entry of all these volunteer
armies into this war will cause the war to be over soon.
The impressions that the battles have left on me will be with me
forever. Believe me,
dearest, when you see me again, you will face quite a different
person, a person who has learned
the harsh command: "I will survive!" You can't afford to be soft
in war; otherwise you will die.
No, you must be tough-indeed, you have to be pitiless and
relentless. Don't I sound like a
different person to you? Deep down in my heart, I remain a
good person and my love for you and
our son will never diminish. Never! This love will increase as
will my longing for you. I kiss you
and remain forever
your Korri
Document 13. A Letter from Sergeant Karl Fuchs to His Father,
4 August 194115
Dear Father,
... The pitiful hordes on the other side are nothing but felons

who are driven by alcohol
and the threat of pistols pointed at their heads. There is no troop
morale and they are at best
cannon fodder. You should read the pamphlets that they drop
from the sky with better accuracy
than their bombs. "Desert! Join the Bolsheviks! You'll be safe
with us!" They are nothing but a
14 “A German Soldier’s Letters from the Eastern Front,” in
Moeller, The Nazi State and German Society, 119–20.
Moeller, The Nazi State and German Society, 121.
22
bunch of assholes! Excuse the expression, but there simply is no
other term for them. Having
encountered these Bolshevik hordes and having seen how they
live has made a lasting
impression on me. Everyone, even the last doubter, knows today
that the battle against these
subhumans, who've been whipped into a frenzy by the Jews, was
not only necessary but came in
the nick of time. Our Führer has saved Europe from certain
chaos. And so we move on to the
final battle and victory. I shake your hand and greet you.
Germany, Sieg Heil!
Your loyal son, Karl
Document 14. A Letter from Sergeant Karl Fuchs to His Mother,
15 October 194116

My dear Mother,
While a terrible snowstorm is howling outside, my comrades
and I are camping in one of
these terrible peasant houses. Although it's not much of a home,
we managed to clean it up
yesterday. Up until now we've always preferred to dig a hole in
the ground and maybe pitch a
tent. Now, however, it's simply too cold outside. If you could
see how these people live here, you
would be horrified!
This present abode is in better shape than most. In one corner
there is even a structure
that looks like a bed. Most Russians don't sleep in beds, but
either behind or on top of their stove.
I won't describe the other facilities, such as water and
sanitation. Suffice it to say that they hardly
exist.
Our duty has been to fight and to free the world from this
Communist disease. One day,
many years hence, the world will thank the Germans and our
beloved Fuhrer for our victories
here in Russia. Those of us who took part in this liberation
battle can look back on those days
with pride and infinite joy. That's all for today. I send you my
greetings.
Your son, Karl
Document 15. A German NCO Writes Home, July 194217
The following excerpts are from a letter written to home by two
different but anonymous non-

commissioned officers [NCOs] of the Wehrmacht.
... The great task given us in the struggle against Bolshevism
lies in the destruction of eternal
Jewry. Once one sees what the Jew has done in Russia, one can
well understand why the Führer
began the struggle against Jewry. What sorrows would have
come to our homeland had this beast
of a man had the upper hand? ... Recently a comrade of ours was
murdered in the night. He was
stabbed in the back. That can only have been the Jew, who
stands behind these crimes. The
revenge taken for that act brought indeed a nice success. The
population itself hates the Jews as
never before. It realizes now, that he is guilty of everything.
Moeller, The Nazi State and German Society, 122.
23
Document 16. A German NCO Writes Home, August 194218
I have received the "Stürmer"19 now for the third time. It makes
me happy with all my heart ....
You could not have made me happier. ... I recognized the
Jewish poison in our people long ago;

how far it might have gone with us, this we see only now in this
campaign. What the Jewish-
regime has done in Russia, we see every day, and even the last
doubters are cured here in view of
the facts. We must and we will liberate the world from this
plague, this is why the German
soldier protects the Eastern Front, and we shall not return
before we have uprooted all evil and
destroyed the center of the Jewish-Bolshevik "world-do-
gooders."
Document 17. General Rudolf Schmundt’s Directive, 31 October
194220
On 1 October 1942, General Rudolf Schmundt became chief of
personnel for OKH, meaning that
he played a key role in assignments and promotions within the
army. Prior to taking this
position, Schmundt had been one of Hitler’s chief adjutants.
The following secret directive was
issued to senior officers of the German army.
Every officer must be fully aware first that the Jewish lobby has
challenged the German people's
claim to Lebensraum and standing in the eyes of the world, and
second has forced our nation to
prevail against a world of enemies by spilling the blood of our
best young men. Officers must
therefore adopt a clear and totally uncompromising stance on
the Jewish question. There is no
difference between supposedly "decent" Jews and the rest. Nor
may any consideration be given
to relationships of whatever nature that existed before the threat
posed by Jews was common
knowledge among the German people. Hence no connection,
even of the most casual sort, may

exist between an officer and a member of the Jewish race. The
present decisive struggle against
the international enemy Jewish Bolshevism has clearly revealed
the true face of Jewry. Every
officer must therefore oppose it on the basis of firm inner
conviction and refuse all association
with it. Any infraction against this uncompromising stance will
make him unviable and result in
expulsion from the army. All officers under your command are
to be instructed accordingly.
Document 18. A Conversation between Two German POWs,
August 194421
During the Second World War, British intelligence agents
systematically eavesdropped on
conversations between German prisoners of war by bugging
their cells. The following
conversation took place between Lieutenant General Georg
Neuffer and Colonel Hans Reimann
in August 1944.
NEUFFER: That transporting of the Russians to the rear from
Vyasma [in autumn 1941] was a
ghastly business.
19 Der Stürmer was a Nazi tabloid-newspaper known for its
anti-Semitic and anti-communist propaganda.
20 Quoted in Wolfram Wette, The Wehrmacht: History, Myth,
Reality, trans. Deborah Lucas Schneider (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 132–33.
21 Quoted in Sönke Neitzel and Haral Welzer, Soldaten: On
Fighting, Killing, and Dying; The Secret WWII Transcripts
of German POWs, trans. Jefferson Chase (Toronto: McClelland

& Stewart, 2011), 95–96.
24
REIMANN: It was really gruesome. I was present when they
were being transported from
Korosten to just outside Lwow. They were driven like cattle
from the trucks to the
drinking troughs and bludgeoned to keep their ranks. There
were troughs at the stations;
they rushed to them and drank like beasts; after that they were
given just a bit of
something to eat. Then they were again driven into the wagons;
there were sixty or
seventy men in one cattle truck! Each time the train halted ten
of them were taken out
dead: they had suffocated for lack of oxygen. I was in the train
with the camp guard and I
heard it from the “Feldwebel” [sergeant], a student, a man with
spectacles, an intellectual,
whom I asked: “How long has this been going on?” — “Well, I
have been doing this for
four weeks; I’ll not be able to stand it much longer, I must get
away; I don’t stick it any
more!” At the stations the prisoners peered out of the narrow
openings and shouted in
Russian to the Russians standing there: “Bread! And God will
bless you,” etc. They three
out their old shirts, their last pairs of stockings and shoes from
the trucks and children
came up and brought them pumpkins to eat. They threw the
pumpkins in, and then all you
heard was a terrific din like the rearing of wild animals in the

trucks. They were probably
killing each other. That finished me. I sat back in a corner and
pulled my coat up over my
ears. I asked the “Feldwebel”: “Haven’t you any food at all?”
He answered: “Sir, how
should we have anything, nothing has been prepared!”
NEUFFER: No, really, all that was incredibly gruesome. Just to
see that column of PW
[prisoners of war] after the twin battle of Vyasma–Bryansk,
when the PW were taken to
the rear on foot, far beyond Smolensk. I often travelled along
that route—the ditches by
the side of the roads were full of shot Russians. Cars had
driven in to them; it was really
ghastly.
Document 19. Letter from Alfred Rosenberg to Wilhelm Keitel,
28 February 194222
Alfred Rosenberg was a prominent Nazi intellectual and
ideologue who was born a Baltic
German in Estonia. Among his prewar writing that equated
Jewry with Bolshevism, Rosenberg
also propounded an anti-Christian Germanic neo-paganism. On
17 July 1941, Hitler placed
Rosenberg in charge of the newly created Reich Ministry for the
Occupied Eastern Territories.
Technically, his Ministry oversaw the civilian administration of
territories in the Baltic,
Belorussia, and Ukraine that were not under direct military rule
by the army. However, in
practice, Rosenberg was unable to control his subordinates
[Reichskommissare] and he soon
lost out in power struggles with other state agencies and the SS,
who implemented their own
policies in the occupied east. Here, Rosenberg writes Keitel

about the army’s treatment of
Soviet prisoners of war and its ramifications for German
occupation policy.
SUBJECT: PRISONERS OF WAR
Since the beginning of its existence, the Reich Ministry for the
Occupied Eastern Territories has
taken the viewpoint that the large number of Soviet prisoners of
war constitute highly valuable
material for propaganda. The treatment of Soviet prisoners of
war must be considered differently
than the treatment of prisoners of war of other nations for
various reasons:
22 “Letter from Alfred Rosenberg, Reich Minister for the
Occupied Eastern Territories, to Field Marshal Wilhelm
Keitel, Chief of the OKW, 28 February 1942,” in Stackelberg
and Winkle, The Nazi Germany Sourcebook, 293–95.
25
1. The war in the East has not been concluded, and the
treatment of the prisoners of war
must have far-reaching effects on the will to desert of the Red
Army soldier who is still
fighting.
2. Germany intends to keep a large part of the former Soviet
Union occupied, even after the
end of the war, and to develop it industrially for our purposes.

Therefore we depend on a
far-reaching cooperation of the population.
3. Germany is conducting the fight against the Soviet Union
because of ideological
differences. Bolshevism must be overthrown and something
better must be put in its
place. Even the prisoners of war themselves must realize that
National Socialism is
willing and in a position to bring them a better future. They
must return later to their
homes from Germany with a feeling of admiration and esteem
for Germany and German
institutions, and thus become propagandists for the cause of
Germany and National
Socialism.
This attempted goal has not been attained so far. The fate of the
Soviet prisoners of war in
Germany is on the contrary a tragedy of the greatest extent. Of
3.6 million prisoners of war, only
several hundred thousand are still able to work fully. A large
part of them have starved, or died,
because of the hazards of the weather. Thousands also died from
typhus. It is understood, of
course, that there are difficulties encountered in the feeding of
such a large number of prisoners
of war. Anyhow, with a certain amount of understanding for
goals aimed at by German politics,
dying and deterioration could have been avoided to the extent
described. For instance, according
to information on hand, the native population within the Soviet
Union are absolutely willing to
put food at the disposal of the prisoners of war. Several
understanding camp commanders have

successfully chosen this course. However, in the majority of
cases, the camp commanders have
forbidden the civilian population to put food at the disposal of
the prisoners, and they have rather
let them starve to death. Even on the march to the camps, the
civilian population was not allowed
to give the prisoners of war food. In many cases, when prisoners
of war could no longer keep up
on the march because of hunger and exhaustion, they were shot
before the eyes of the horrified
civilian population, and the corpses were left. In numerous
camps no shelter for the prisoners of
war was provided at all. They lay under the open sky during
rain or snow. Even tools were not
made available to dig holes or caves. A systematic delousing of
the prisoners of war in the camps
and of the camps themselves has apparently been missed.
Utterances such as these have been
heard: "The more of these prisoners die, the better it is for us."
The consequence of this treatment
now is that typhus is spreading due to the escape and discharge
of prisoners and has claimed its
victims among the Wehrmacht as well as among the civilian
population, even in the old part of
Germany.
Finally, the shooting of prisoners of war must be mentioned.
These were partly carried
out according to viewpoints that ignore all political
understanding. For instance, in various
camps, all the "Asiatics" were shot, although the inhabitants of
the areas, considered belonging
to Asia, of Transcaucasia and Turkestan especially, are among
those people in the Soviet Union
who are most strongly opposed to Russian subjugation and to
Bolshevism. The Reich Ministry of

the Occupied Eastern Territories has repeatedly emphasized
these abuses. However, in
November for instance, a detail appeared in a prisoner of war
camp in Nikolajew, wanting to
liquidate all Asiatics.
26
The treatment of prisoners of war appears to be founded for a
great part on serious
misconceptions about the people of the Soviet Union. One finds
the opinion that the people
become more inferior the further one goes east. If the Poles
already were given harsh treatment,
it is argued, even harsher treatment should be meted out to the
Ukrainians, White Ruthenians,
Russians, and finally the "Asiatics."
It was apparently completely ignored, in the treatment of
prisoners of war, that Germany
found— in contrast to the West (France, Belgium, the
Netherlands, Norway)—a people who
went through all the terror of Bolshevism, and who now, happy
about their liberation, put
themselves willingly at the disposal of Germany. A better gift
could not come to Germany in this
war, which requires every last man. But instead of accepting
this gift, the people of the East are
being treated more contemptibly and worse than the people of
the West, who do not hide their
enmity towards Germany ...
Document 20. Affidavit of SS Gruppenführer Otto Ohlendorf, 5

November 194523
Otto Ohlendorf was a senior figure in the SS who commanded
Einsatzgruppe D in southern
Ukraine in 1941 and 1942. Captured by the Americans at the
end of the war, Ohlendorf signed
the following affidavit in November 1945, outlining the work of
his unit. He was later placed on
trial for war crimes and executed.
I, Otto Ohlendorf, being first duly sworn, declare:
I was chief of the Security Service (SD), Amt III of the Main
Office of the chief of the
Security Police and the SD (RSHA), from 1939 to 1945. In June
1941 I was designated by
Himmler to lead one of the special commitment groups
[Einsatzgruppen], which were then being
formed, to accompany the German armies in the Russian
campaign. I was the chief of the
Einsatzgruppe D ... Himmler stated that an important part of our
task consisted of the
extermination of Jews—women, men, and children—and of
communist functionaries. I was
informed of the attack on Russia about four weeks in advance.
According to an agreement with the armed forces high command
and army high
command, the special commitment detachments
[Einsatzkommandos] within the army group or
the army were assigned to certain army corps and divisions. The
army designated the areas in
which the special commitment detachments had to operate. All
operational directives and orders
for the carrying out of executions were given through the chief
of the SIPO [Security Police] and

the SD (RSHA) in Berlin. Regular courier service and radio
communications existed between the
Einsatzgruppen and the chief of the SIPO and the SD.
The Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos were commanded
by personnel of the
Gestapo, the SD, or the criminal police. Additional men were
detailed from the regular police
[Ordnungspolizei] and the Waffen SS. Einsatzgruppe D
consisted of approximately 400 to 500
men and had about 170 vehicles at its disposal.
When the German army invaded Russia, I was leader of the
Einsatzgruppe D in the
Southern sector, and in the course of the year, during which I
was leader of Einsatzgruppe D, it
liquidated approximately 90,000 men, women, and children. The
majority of those liquidated
were Jews, but there were among them some communist
functionaries too.
23 “Affidavit of SS Gruppenführer Otto Ohlendorf,” in
Stackelberg and Winkle, The Nazi Germany Sourcebook, 342–
43.
27
In the implementation of this extermination program the special
commitment groups
were subdivided into special commitment detachments, and the
Einsatzkommandos into still
smaller units, the so-called Special Purpose Detachments

[Sonderkommandos] and Unit
Detachments [Teilkommandos]. Usually, the smaller units were
led by a member of the SD, the
Gestapo, or the criminal police. The unit selected for this task
would enter a village or city and
order the prominent Jewish citizens to call together all Jews for
the purpose of resettlement. They
were requested to hand over their valuables to the leaders of the
unit, and shortly before the
execution to surrender their outer clothing. The men, women,
and children were led to a place of
execution which in most cases was located next to a more
deeply excavated anti-tank ditch. Then
they were shot, kneeling or standing, and the corpses thrown
into the ditch. I never permitted the
shooting by individuals in group D, but ordered that several of
the men would shoot at the same
time in order to avoid direct, personal responsibility. The
leaders of the unit or especially
designated persons, however, had to fire the last bullet at those
victims who were not dead
immediately. I learned from conversations with other group
leaders that some of them demanded
that the victims lie down flat on the ground to be shot through
the nape of the neck. I did not
approve of these methods.
In the spring of 1942 we received gas vehicles from the chief of
the Security Police and
the SD in Berlin. These vehicles were made available by Amt 11
of the RSHA. The man who
was responsible for the cars of my Einsatzgruppe was Becher.
We had received orders to use the
cars for the killing of women and children. Whenever a unit had
collected a sufficient number of
victims, a car was sent for their liquidation. We also had these

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