How Hitler reached the final solution

Nazi villains

After Hitler, the two biggest villains in shaping Nazi Germany's Jewish policy were Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS--or Schutzstaffel, an elite guard created to serve as bodyguard to the Fuhrer that later expanded to take charge of intelligence, central security, policing action, and extermination of undesirables and his deputy Reinhard Heydrich, head of the German secret police (or Gestapo). Remember, though, that they and their underlings received cooperation from all segments of German society, including the civil service and industry. "One should be wary of the postwar alibi that the SS did all of this behind everyone's back and did all of it quite secretively," Browning maintains. "During the war, it was clear that many people were anxious and willing to cooperate with them."

However, few Germans probably knew specifically of the actual mechanics of death camps factories created to murder people on an assembly-line basis in gas chambers--but they certainly knew of the persecution. (Jews were being deprived of their rights and synagogues were being burned down in the middle or every German city.) Browning surmises: "They certainly knew that Jews were being rounded up for deportation, because they were being marched through the streets of every major city. They certainly heard minors of terrible massacres in the east, because virtually every German family had soldiers or occupation officials who were coming back on leave. Certainly, when the Jews left Get many, nobody ever expected to see those people again, and they lined up to get their apartments. So, when people alter the war said, 'We didn't know,' what they meant was, 'We didn't know the details of how they were being killed in gas chambers.'"

From an earlier study of the German occupation of Belorussia by Christian Gerlach, Browning quoted a low-level police secretary writing home to his wife in Vienna following the mass murder in Mogilev. The couple had two children of their own, and the man, Walter Mattner, wanted to convince himself that he was somehow protecting them. In a letter, he described his actions: "When the first truckload [of victims] arrived, my hand was slightly trembling when shooting, but one gets used to this. When the tenth load arrived, I was already aiming more calmly and shot securely at the many women, children, and infants."

Infrequent examples exist of non-Jews who refused to cooperate with the Nazis, Browning points out. No one was in a position--individually, at least--to overthrow the Nazis, but many could have said, "You have to do that without me, and I'm not going to take part." Such citizens were not punished unless they tried to persuade others not to participate.

Browning adds: "'One lesson for the future is that the best line of defense against this kind of thing Is to prevent dictatorial regimes from coming to power in the first place. Once a regime like the Nazis gets in, they mobilize and harness most people to do what they want them to do. Once they've destroyed alternative political movements, then resistance in the modern era is very difficult."