⚠️ Historical Documentation Notice
Historical Documentation Notice

This document is part of a historical archive and is presented for scholarly research and educational purposes.

The content reflects historical perspectives and should be understood within its historical context.

The Deportation of
Germany’s Jews, 1941

«««
Heinrich Himmler with Hitler at the Berghof

Stuttgart

Stuttgart’s deported Jews arriving at Riga, November 1941

THE German Jews shipped out to the east at this
time (winter 1941) were, on the evidence, treated no
worse than other rail travelers under the wartime
circumstances.

The intercepted
police telegrams to Berlin headquarters speak of each
train transport that November and December 1941 having
Reichskreditscheine (Reich money orders) of
several hundred thousand marks to cover incidentals, as
well as tons of meal, flour, and gallons of milk
sufficient to provide for about three weeks — given that
each transport was made up of around nine hundred souls;
and at least one transport was

stated to be carrying the
‘Gerät’ of the deportees, the
appliances they would need to start a new life.

Not untypical was the fate of Stuttgart’s German Jews:
Ordered in November 1941 to assemble with their baggage at the well-known Killeberg exhibition complex in the city’s northern suburb, they were loaded into regular passenger trains of the single-compartment, slam-door variety, and carried for two or three days across the
Reich to Riga accompanied by a Kommando der
Schutzpolizei, with an attached SD-Führer.

This photograph from the private album of one of the Stuttgart police officers shows his charges detraining at Riga at the end of November; unaware of the fate possibly awaiting them, the Jews are bustling around their baggage on the platform as though it were a holiday excursion.

The uniforms visible on the photo are of regular
German policemen, an SD officer, and the members of the
Latvian militia who took over the escort of these Jewish arrivals. The German police escort returned to Stuttgart.

The police officer’s family providing the photo point out: “Wie ersichtlich, erfolgte der Transport in heizbaren Abteilwaggons mit einzelnen nach außen
öffnenden Türen.” (as is evident, transportation took place in heatable compartment-carriages, with individual externally opening doors.) [Letter from Klaus E. to David Irving, Aug
29, 2005; photo illustration from “Hitler’s War” (Millennium Edition, 2002)].

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