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Unless correspondents ask us not to, this Website will post selected letters that it receives and invite open debate. |
Michael
Mills
wrote from Canberra, Australia, on August 20, 2000
Lohse's Remarks at a Göring Conference
I HAVE recently read Nuremberg Document 170-USSR, found on pages 384-427 of Volume XXIX of the Trial of the Major War Criminals ("Blue Series").
This document is the verbatim record of a conference of Reich Commissioners and representatives of the military commanders for the Occupied Territories, held on 6 August 1942 under the chairmanship of Göring. The purpose of the conference was to set the quotas of foodstuffs to be delivered to Germany from the occupied areas.
One of the participants in the conference was Fritz Reinhardt, State Secretary for the Reich Ministry for Nutrition, after whom "Aktion Reinhardt" may have been named (that at least is the opinion of Robert Köhl in his book on the Reichskommissariat für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums).
The impetus for the conference was provided by the worsening food situation in Germany. As Göring stated right at the outset (p, 385):
"Gestern haben die Gauleiter sich hier ausgesprochen. Wenn auch Ton und Gebaren verschieden sein mögen. so klang doch bei allen Gauleitern gleich klar heraus: das deutsche Volk hat zu wenig zu essen".
Göring went on to lay down the principle that the German people was to be fed if necessary at the expense of the conquered peoples. He stated:
"Der Führer hat wiederholt ausgesprochen, und ich habe es ihm nachgesprochen: wenn gehungert wird, dann hungert nicht der Deutsche, sondern andere, wenn gehungert werden muß".
Göring's discussions with the various participants in the conference followed a single pattern; Göring would ask an official how much his territory could deliver, the official would protest that his territory could deliver no more, to which Göring would respond that the local population must go without in order to meet the quota for delivery to Germany.
The part of the record of the conference that most interested me occurs on page 402. It is an exchange between Göring and the Reichskommissar Ostland, Lohse, and it reads as follows:
- Lohse: [. .
.] Die mir vom Vierjahresplan auferlegten Umlagen auf
allen Gebieten im Ostland sind erfüllt worden. Ich
glaube, daß sie auch in Zukunft erfüllt werden
können, wenn wir die notwendigen Arbeitskräfte
dafür behalten.
- Reichsmarschall Göring: Wieviel Butter liefern Sie? 30 000 t?
- (Lohse: Jawohl.) Beliefern außerdem Wehrmachtteile?
- Lohse: Darauf kann ich auch antworten. Die Juden leben nur noch zum kleinen Teil; zigtausend sind weg. Ich darf aber sagen, was die einheimische Bevölkerung bekommt; sie bekommt auf Ihre Anweisung 15% weniger als die deutsche.
- Reichsmarschall Göring: Wir wollen aber nicht die kleine Mitrechnung aufmachen. Was auf Ihren Listen steht, ist die eine Sache, und was die Leute dazu fressen, ist die zweite Sache.
- Lohse: Riga ist eine Stadt von 350 000 Einwohnern. Das sind ungefähr ein Viertel der lettischen Bevölkerung. Diese Menschen bekommen 15% unter den deutschen Sätzen. Ich darf dabei feststellen, daß auch in dortigen Betrieben genau wie im Reich die Menschen mager und schwach werden, soweit sie keine Verbindung zum Lande haben. Auf dem Lande können wir bei der Größe der Gebiete keine Kontrolle durchführen. Ich habe beinahe 500 000 qkm zu verwalten; das ist so viel wie das Deutschland von Versailles. Ich habe keine Polizei und keine anderen Möglichkeiten, das Gebiet überhaupt zu kontrollieren. Wenn ich Gewalt oder Zwang ausüben will, lachen die Leute darüber, denn ich habe ja keine Möglichkeit, da überhaupt nur durchzukommen."
- Reichsmarschall Göring: Wieviel Butter liefern Sie? 30 000 t?
The intriguing element in the above passage is Lohse's throw-away reference to the fact that most of the Jews in his territory are dead, and several tens of thousands are gone, in the midst of a complaint about the reduced rations imposed on the Latvians. Why did he throw in that particular piece of information? As you will be aware, most of the remaining Jews of Riga had been exterminated in two massacres on 30 November and 8 December 1941.
The most likely answer is that Lohse saw the extermination of most of the Jews in his territory as a measure that had reduced the pressure on food resources, making more available for delivery to the Reich, which is of course what the conference was all about. He seems to be making a complaint: the local demand for food has been substantially reduced by killing some tens of thousands of Jews, but still the rations of the Latvians have been cut to 15% below the German level. Göring cuts off the complaint rather abruptly.
It needs to be remembered that in July 1941, when Lohse first took up his position as Reichskommissar Ostland, he issued guidelines for the treatment of the local Jews which laid down that food resources for Jews should be kept to a minimum, and that they should be given only what was not needed for the rest of the population. Now the Jews, being mostly dead, did not need any food at all, but still more was to be screwed out of his bailiwick.
I consider that Lohse's comments give an insight into the driving force behind the mass killing of Jews in the Occupied Eastern Territories. The aim was to free up food resources by killing off part of the local population. The anti-Semitic ideology of National Socialism determined that, given that aim, it would be primarily the Jews who would be killed, rather than some other part of the population. But it was not the anti-Semitic ideology that mandated the killing. Rather, it was the food shortage caused by the war situation, and the need to ensure that the German people would not suffer from that shortage, that created the imperative that a part of the conquered population should die, whether by active killing or simply by being left to starve.
Replies and comments to the above on this website:
David
Irving wrote to Mills on Sunday, August 20,
2000
YES, I have that transcript August 6, 1942 on microfilm and read it twenty years or so ago and used it in my Göring biography. Lohse doesn't say the Jews are dead, he says, "the Jews are gone." (weg: left, gone away). And notice that one page of the transcript (at least on my microfilm copy) immediately preceding that is missing. Why!?
David Irving