Hitler. Part 13

It was almost eleven o'clock when Chamberlain returned to the Hotel Dreesen. The drama of the late-night meeting was enhanced by the presence of advisers on both sides, fully aware of the peace of Europe hanging by a thread, as Schmidt began to translate Hitler's memorandum. It demanded the complete withdrawal of the Czech army from the territory drawn on a map, to be ceded to Germany by 28 September. Hitler had spoken to Goebbels on 21 September of demands for eight days for Czech withdrawal and German occupation. He was now, late on the evening of 23 September, demanding the beginning of withdrawal in little over two days and completion in four. Chamberlain raised his hands in despair. 'That's an ultimatum,' he protested. 'With great disappointment and deep regret I must register, Herr Reich Chancellor,' he remarked, 'that you have not supported in the slightest my efforts to maintain peace.'

At this tense point, news arrived that Bene had announced the general mobilization of the Czech armed forces. For some moments no one spoke. War now seemed inevitable. Then Hitler, in little more than a whisper, told Chamberlain that despite this provocation he would hold to his word and undertake nothing against Czechoslovakia at least as long as the British Prime Minister remained on German soil. As a special concession, he would agree to 1 October as the date for Czech withdrawal from the Sudeten territory. It was the date he had set weeks earlier as the moment for the attack on Czechoslovakia. He altered the date by hand in the memorandum, adding that the borders would look very different if he were to proceed with force against Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain agreed to take the revised memorandum to the Czechs. After the drama, the meeting ended in relative harmony. Chamberlain flew back, disappointed but not despairing, next morning to London to report to his cabinet.

While Chamberlain was meeting his cabinet, on Sunday, 25 September, Hitler was strolling through the gardens of the Reich Chancellery on a warm, early autumn afternoon, with Goebbels, talking at length about his next moves. 'He doesn't believe that Benesch [Bene] will yield,' noted the Propaganda Minister the following day in his diary. 'But then a terrible judgement will strike him. On 2728 September our military build-up will be ready. The Fuhrer then has 5 days' room for manoeuvre. He already established these dates on 28 May. And things have turned out just as he predicted. The Fuhrer is a divinatory genius. But first comes our mobilization. This will proceed so lightning-fast that the world will experience a miracle. In 810 days all that will be ready. If we attack the Czechs from our borders, the Fuhrer reckons it will take 23 weeks. But if we attack them after our entry, he thinks it will be finished in 8 days. The radical solution is the best. Otherwise, we'll never be rid of the thing.' This somewhat garbled account appears to indicate that Hitler was at this juncture contemplating a two-stage invasion of Czechoslovakia: first the Sudeten area, then at a later, and unspecified, point, the rest of the country. This matches the notion reported by Weizsacker after the first meeting with Chamberlain. Hitler was not bluffing, therefore, in his plans to take the Sudetenland by force on 1 October if it was not conceded beforehand. But he had retreated from the intention, which had existed since the spring, of the destruction of the whole of Czechoslovakia by a single military operation at the beginning of October.

The mood in London was, meanwhile, changing. Following his experience in G.o.desberg, Chamberlain was moving towards a harder line, and the British cabinet with him. After talks with the French, it was decided that the Czechs would not be pressed into accepting the new terms. Sir Horace Wilson, Chamberlain's closest adviser, was to go as the Prime Minister's envoy to Berlin to recommend a supervised territorial transfer and at the same time warn Hitler that in the event of German military action against Czechoslovakia France would honour its alliance commitments and Britain would support France.

On the late afternoon of 26 September, Wilson, accompanied by Sir Nevile Henderson and Ivone Kirkpatrick, first secretary in the British Emba.s.sy, were received by Hitler in his study in the Reich Chancellery. That evening Hitler was to deliver a ferocious attack on Czechoslovakia in the Sportpalast. Wilson had not chosen a good moment to expect rational deliberation of the letter from Chamberlain that he presented to the German dictator. Hitler listened, plainly agitated, to the translation of the letter, informing him that the Czechs had rejected the terms he had laid down at G.o.desberg. Part-way through he exploded with anger, jumping to his feet, shouting: 'There's no point at all in somehow negotiating any further.' He made for the door, as if ending the meeting forthwith with his visitors left in his own study. But he pulled himself together and returned to his seat while the rest of the letter was translated. As soon as it was over, there was another frenzied outburst. The interpreter, Paul Schmidt, later commented that he had never before seen Hitler so incandescent. Wilson's attempts to discuss the issues rationally and his cool warning of the implications of German military action merely provoked him further. 'If France and England want to strike,' he ranted, 'let them go ahead. I don't give a d.a.m.n.' He gave the Czechs till 2 p.m. on Wednesday, 28 September, to accept the terms of the G.o.desberg Memorandum and German occupation of the Sudetenland by 1 October. Otherwise Germany would take it by force. He recommended a visit to the Sportpalast that evening to Wilson, so that he would sense the mood in Germany for himself.

The ears of the world were on Hitler's speech to the tense audience of around 20,000 or so packed into the cavernous Sportpalast. The large number of diplomats and journalists present were glued to every word. The American journalist William s.h.i.+rer, sitting in the balcony directly above the German Chancellor, thought Hitler 'in the worst state of excitement I've ever seen him in'. His speech 'a psychological masterpiece' in Goebbels's judgement was perfectly tuned to the whipped-up anti-Czech mood of the party faithful. He was soon into full swing, launching into endless tirades against Bene and the Czechoslovakian state. He had a.s.sured the British Prime Minister, he stated, that he had no further territorial demands in Europe once the Sudeten problem was solved. The decision for war or peace rested with Bene: 'He will either accept this offer and finally give freedom to the Germans, or we will take this freedom ourselves!' he threatened. 'We are determined. Herr Bene may now choose,' he concluded.

The ma.s.ses in the hall, who had interrupted almost every sentence with their fanatical applause, shouted, cheered, and chanted for minutes when he had ended: 'Fuhrer command, we will follow!' Hitler had worked himself into an almost o.r.g.a.s.mic frenzy by the end of his speech. When Goebbels, closing the meeting, pledged the loyalty of all the German people to him and declared that 'a November 1918 will never be repeated', Hitler, according to s.h.i.+rer, 'looked up to him, a wild, eager expression in his eyes ... leaped to his feet and with a fanatical fire in his eyes ... brought his right hand, after a grand sweep, pounding down on the table and yelled ... "Ja". Then he slumped into his chair exhausted.'

Hitler was in no mood for compromise when Sir Horace Wilson returned next morning to the Reich Chancellery with another letter from Chamberlain guaranteeing, should Germany refrain from force, the implementation of the Czech withdrawal from the Sudeten territory. When Wilson asked whether he should take any message back to London, Hitler replied that the Czechs had the option only of accepting or rejecting the German memorandum. In the event of rejection, he shouted, repeating himself two or three times, 'I will smash the Czechs.' Wilson, a tall figure, then drew himself to his full height and slowly but emphatically delivered a further message from Chamberlain: 'If, in pursuit of her Treaty obligations, France became actively engaged in hostilities against Germany, the United Kingdom would feel obliged to support her.' Enraged, Hitler barked back: 'If France and England strike, let them do so. It's a matter of complete indifference to me. I amprepared for every eventuality. I can only take note of the position. It is Tuesday today, and by next Monday we shall all be at war.' The meeting ended at that point. As Schmidt recalled, it was impossible to talk rationally with Hitler that morning.

Still, Wilson's warnings were not lost on Hitler. In calmer mood, he had Weizsacker draft him a letter to Chamberlain, asking him to persuade the Czechs to see reason and a.s.suring him that he had no further interest in Czechoslovakia once the Sudeten Germans had been incorporated into the Reich.

Late that afternoon a motorized division began its ominous parade through Wilhelmstrae past the government buildings. For three hours, Hitler stood at his window as it rumbled past. According to the recollections of his Luftwaffe adjutant Nicolaus von Below, he had ordered the display not to test the martial spirit of the Berlin people, but to impress foreign diplomats and journalists with German military might and readiness for war. If that was the aim, the attempt misfired. The American journalist William s.h.i.+rer reported on the sullen response of the Berliners ducking into doorways, refusing to look on, ignoring the military display as 'the most striking demonstration against war I've ever seen'. Hitler was reportedly disappointed and angry at the lack of enthusiasm shown by Berliners. The contrast with the reactions of the hand-picked audience in the Sportpalast was vivid. It was a glimpse of the mood throughout the country. Whatever the feelings about the Sudeten Germans, only a small fanaticized minority thought them worth a war against the western powers.

But if Hitler was disappointed that the mood of the people did not resemble that of August 1914, his determination to press ahead with military action on 1 October, if the Czechs did not yield, was unshaken, as he made clear that evening to Ribbentrop and Weizsacker. Ribbentrop was by now, however, practically the only hawkish influence on Hitler. From all other sides, pressures were mounting for him to pull back from the brink.

For Hitler, to retreat from an 'unalterable decision' was tantamount to a loss of face. Even so, for those used to dealing at close quarters with him, the unthinkable happened. The following morning of 28 September, hours before the expiry of the ultimatum to Czechoslovakia, he changed his mind and conceded to the demands for a negotiated settlement. 'One can't grasp this change. Fuhrer has given in, and fundamentally,' noted Helmuth Groscurth.

The decisive intervention was Mussolini's. Feelers for such a move had been put out by an increasingly anxious Goring a fortnight or so earlier. Goring had also tried, through Henderson, to interest the British in the notion of a conference of the major powers to settle the Sudeten question by negotiation. Before Mussolini's critical move, the British and French had also applied maximum pressure. Chamberlain had replied to Hitler's letter, emphasizing his incredulity that the German Chancellor was prepared to risk a world war perhaps bringing the end of civilization 'for the sake of a few days' delay in settling this long-standing problem'. His letter contained proposals, agreed with the French, to press the Czechs into immediate cession of the Sudeten territory, the transfer to be guaranteed by Britain and to begin on 1 October. An International Boundary Commission would work out the details of the territorial settlement. The British Prime Minister indicated that he was prepared to come to Berlin immediately, together with the representatives of France and Italy, to discuss the whole issue. Chamberlain also wrote to Mussolini, urging agreement with his proposal 'which will keep all our peoples out of war'.

The French, too, had been active. The amba.s.sador in Berlin, Andre Francois-Poncet, had been instructed at 4 a.m. to put proposals similar to Chamberlain's before Hitler. His request early next morning for an audience with Hitler was not welcomed by Ribbentrop, still spoiling for war. But after intercession by Goring, prompted by Henderson, Hitler agreed to see the French Amba.s.sador at 11.15 a.m.

Francois-Poncet, when eventually his audience was granted, warned Hitler that he would not be able to localize a military conflict with Czechoslovakia, but would set Europe in flames. Since he could attain almost all his demands without war, the risk seemed senseless. At that point, around 11.40 a.m., the discussion was interrupted by a message that the Italian amba.s.sador Bernardo Attolico wished to see Hitler immediately on a matter of great urgency. Hitler left the room with his interpreter, Schmidt. The tall, stooping, red-faced amba.s.sador lost no time in coming to the point. He breathlessly announced to Hitler that the British government had let Mussolini know that it would welcome his mediation in the Sudeten question. The areas of disagreement were small. The Duce supported Germany, the amba.s.sador went on, but was 'of the opinion that the acceptance of the English proposal would be advantageous' and appealed for a postponement of the planned mobilization. After a moment's pause, Hitler replied: 'Tell the Duce I accept his proposal.' It was shortly before noon. Hitler now had his way of climbing down without losing face. 'We have no jumping-off point for war,' commented Goebbels. 'You can't carry out a world war on account of modalities.'

When the British Amba.s.sador Henderson entered at 12.15 p.m. with Chamberlain's letter, Hitler told him that at the request of his 'great friend and ally, Signor Mussolini', he had postponed mobilization for twenty-four hours. The climax of war-fever had pa.s.sed. During Henderson's hour-long audience, Attolico interrupted once more to tell Hitler that Mussolini had agreed to the British proposals for a meeting of the four major powers. When the dramatic news reached Chamberlain, towards the end of a speech about the crisis he was making to a packed and tense House of Commons, which was expecting an announcement meaning war, the house erupted. 'We stood on our benches, waved our order papers, shouted until we were hoa.r.s.e a scene of indescribable enthusiasm,' recorded one Member of Parliament. 'Peace must now be saved.'

War was averted at least for the present. 'The heavens are beginning to lighten somewhat,' wrote Goebbels. 'We probably still have the possibility of taking the Sudeten German territory peacefully. The major solution still remains open, and we will further rearm for future eventualities.'

Already early the next afternoon, Hitler, Mussolini, Chamberlain, and edouard Daladier, the small, quiet, dapper premier of France, together with Ribbentrop, Weizsacker, Ciano, Wilson, and Alexis Leger, State Secretary in the French Foreign Office, took their seats around a table in the newly constructed Fuhrerbau amid the complex of party buildings centred around the Brown House the large and imposing party headquarters in Munich. There they proceeded to carve up Czechoslovakia.

The four heads of government began by stating their relative positions on the Sudeten issue. They all Hitler, too spoke against a solution by force. The discussions focused upon the written proposal to settle the Sudeten question, by now translated into all four languages, that Mussolini had delivered the previous day (though the text had actually been sketched out by Goring, then formalized in the German Foreign Office under Weizsacker's eye with some input by Neurath but avoiding any involvement by Ribbentrop, before being handed to the Italian amba.s.sador). It provided the basis for what would become known as the notorious Munich Agreement. The circle of those involved in discussions had now widened to include Goring and the Amba.s.sadors of Italy, France, and Great Britain (Attolico, Francois-Poncet, and Henderson), as well as legal advisers, secretaries, and adjutants. But it was now mainly a matter of legal technicalities and complex points of detail. The main work was done. That evening, Hitler invited the partic.i.p.ants to a festive dinner. Chamberlain and Daladier found their excuses. After the dirty work had been done, they had little taste for celebration.

The deliberations had lasted in all for some thirteen hours. But, sensational though the four-power summit meeting was for the outside world, the real decision had already been taken around midday on 28 September, when Hitler had agreed to Mussolini's proposal for a negotiated settlement. Eventually, around 2.30 a.m. on the morning of 30 September, the draft agreement was signed. These terms were in effect those of the G.o.desberg Memorandum, modified by the final Anglo-French proposals, and with dates entered for a progressive German occupation, to be completed within ten days. 'We have then essentially achieved everything that we wanted according to the small plan,' commented Goebbels. 'The big plan is for the moment, given the prevailing circ.u.mstances, not yet realizable.'

Hitler looked pale, tired, and out of sorts when Chamberlain visited him in his apartment in Prinzregentenplatz to present him with a joint declaration of Germany's and Britain's determination never to go to war with one another again. Chamberlain had suggested the private meeting during a lull in proceedings the previous day. Hitler had, the British Prime Minister remarked, 'jumped at the idea'. Chamberlain regarded the meeting as 'a very friendly and pleasant talk'. 'At the end,' he went on, 'I pulled out the declaration which I had prepared beforehand and asked if he would sign it.' After a moment's hesitation, Hitler with some reluctance it seemed to the interpreter Paul Schmidt appended his signature. For him, the doc.u.ment was meaningless. And for him Munich was no great cause for celebration. He felt cheated of the greater triumph which he was certain would have come from the limited war with the Czechs his aim all summer. But when the next crisis duly came, he was even more confident that he knew his adversaries: 'Our enemies are small worms,' he would tell his generals in August 1939. 'I saw them in Munich.'

Hitler was scornful, too, of his generals after Munich. Their opposition to his plans had infuriated him all summer. How he would have reacted had he been aware that no less a person than his new Chief of Staff, General Halder, had been involved in plans for a coup d'etat coup d'etat in the event of war over Czechoslovakia can be left to the imagination. Whether the schemes of the ill-coordinated groups involved in the nascent conspiracy would actually have come to anything is an open question. But with the Munich Agreement, the chance was irredeemably gone. Chamberlain returned home to a hero's welcome. But for German opponents of the n.a.z.i regime, who had hoped to used Hitler's military adventurism as the weapon of his own deposition and destruction, Chamberlain was anything but the hero of the hour. 'Chamberlain saved Hitler,' was how they bitterly regarded the appeas.e.m.e.nt diplomacy of the western powers. in the event of war over Czechoslovakia can be left to the imagination. Whether the schemes of the ill-coordinated groups involved in the nascent conspiracy would actually have come to anything is an open question. But with the Munich Agreement, the chance was irredeemably gone. Chamberlain returned home to a hero's welcome. But for German opponents of the n.a.z.i regime, who had hoped to used Hitler's military adventurism as the weapon of his own deposition and destruction, Chamberlain was anything but the hero of the hour. 'Chamberlain saved Hitler,' was how they bitterly regarded the appeas.e.m.e.nt diplomacy of the western powers.

Hitler's own popularity and prestige reached new heights after Munich. He returned to another triumphant welcome in Berlin. But he was well aware that the elemental tide of euphoria reflected the relief that peace had been preserved. The 'home-coming' of the Sudeten Germans was of only secondary importance. He was being feted not as the 'first soldier of the Reich', but as the saviour of the peace he had not wanted. At the critical hour, the German people, in his eyes, had lacked enthusiasm for war. The spirit of 1914 had been missing. Psychological rearmament had still to take place. A few weeks later, addressing a select audience of several hundred German journalists and editors, he gave a remarkably frank indication of his feelings: 'Circ.u.mstances have compelled me to speak for decades almost solely of peace,' he declared. 'It is natural that such a ... peace propaganda also has its dubious side. It can only too easily lead to the view establis.h.i.+ng itself in the minds of many people that the present regime is identical with the determination and will to preserve peace under all circ.u.mstances. That would not only lead to a wrong a.s.sessment of the aims of this system, but would also above all lead to the German nation, instead of being forearmed in the face of events, being filled with a spirit which, as defeatism, in the long run would take away and must take away the successes of the present regime.' It was necessary, therefore, to transform the psychology of the German people, to make them see that some things could only be attained through force, and to represent foreign-policy issues in such a way that 'the inner voice of the people itself slowly begins to cry out for the use of force'.

The speech is revealing. Popular backing for war had to be manufactured, since war and expansion were irrevocably bound up with the survival of the regime. Successes, unending triumphs, were indispensable for the regime, and for Hitler's own popularity and prestige on which, ultimately, the regime depended. Only through expansion itself impossible without war could Germany, and the National Socialist regime, survive. This was. .h.i.tler's thinking. The gamble for expansion was inescapable. It was not a matter of personal choice.

The legacy of Munich was fatally to weaken those who might even now have constrained Hitler. Any potential limits external and internal on his freedom of action instead disappeared. Hitler's drive to war was unabated. And next time he was determined he would not be blocked by last-minute diplomatic manoeuvres of the western powers, whose weakness he had seen with his own eyes at Munich.

15.

Marks of a Genocidal Mentality

I.

The ideological dynamic of the n.a.z.i regime was by no means solely a matter of Hitler's personalized Weltanschauung Weltanschauung. In fact, Hitler's ideological aims had so far played only a subordinate role in his expansionist policy, and would not figure prominently in the Polish crisis during the summer of 1939. The party and its numerous sub-organizations were, of course, important in sustaining the pressure for ever-new discriminatory measures against ideological target-groups. But little in the way of coherent planning could be expected from the central party office, under the charge of Rudolf He, Hitler's deputy in party affairs. The key agency was not the party, but the SS.

The interest in expansion was self-evident. Buoyed by their successes in Austria and the Sudetenland, Himmler, Heydrich, and the top echelons of the SS were keen to extend naturally, under Hitler's aegis their own empire. Already in August 1938, a decree by Hitler met Himmler's wish to develop an armed wing of the SS. It provided in effect a fourth branch of the armed forces far smaller than the others, but envisaged as a body of ideologically motivated 'political soldiers' standing at the Fuhrer's 'exclusive disposal'. It was little wonder that Himmler had been one of the hawks during the Sudeten crisis, aligning himself with Ribbentrop, and encouraging Hitler's aggression. The leaders of the SS were now looking to territorial gains to provide them with opportunities for ideological experimentation on the way to the fulfilment of the vision of a racially purified Greater German Reich under the heel of the chosen caste of the SS elite. In a world after Hitler, with 'final victory' achieved, the SS were determined to be the masters of Germany and Europe.

They saw their mission as the ruthless eradication of Germany's ideological enemies, who, in Himmler's strange vision, were numerous and menacing. He told top SS leaders in early November 1938: 'We must be clear that in the next ten years we will certainly encounter unheard of critical conflicts. It is not only the struggle of the nations, which in this case are put forward by the opposing side merely as a front, but it is the ideological struggle of the entire Jewry, freemasonry, Marxism, and churches of the world. These forces of which I presume the Jews to be the driving spirit, the origin of all the negatives are clear that if Germany and Italy are not annihilated, they will be annihilated. That is a simple conclusion. In Germany the Jew cannot hold out. This is a question of years. We will drive them out more and more with an unprecedented ruthlessness ...'

The speech was held a day before Germany exploded in an orgy of elemental violence against its Jewish minority in the notorious pogrom of 910 November 1938, cynically dubbed in popular parlance, on account of the millions of fragments of broken gla.s.s littering the pavements of Berlin outside wrecked Jewish shops, 'Reich Crystal Night' (Reichskristallnacht). This night of horror, a retreat in a modern state to the savagery a.s.sociated with bygone ages, laid bare to the world the barbarism of the n.a.z.i regime. Within Germany, it brought immediate draconian measures to exclude Jews from the economy, accompanied by a restructuring of anti-Jewish policy, placing it now directly under the control of the SS, whose leaders linked war, expansion, and eradication of Jewry.

Such a linkage was not only reinforced in the eyes of the SS in the aftermath of 'Crystal Night'. For Hitler, too, the connection between the war he knew was coming and the destruction of Europe's Jews was now beginning to take concrete shape. Since the 1920s he had not deviated from the view that German salvation could only come through a t.i.tanic struggle for supremacy in Europe, and for eventual world power, against mighty enemies backed by the mightiest enemy of all, perhaps more powerful even than the Third Reich itself: international Jewry. It was a colossal gamble. But for Hitler it was a gamble that could not be avoided. And for him, the fate of the Jews was inextricably bound up with that gamble.

The nationwide pogrom carried out by rampaging n.a.z.i mobs on the night of 910 November was the culmination of a third wave of antisemitic violence worse even than those of 1933 and 1935 that had begun in the spring of 1938 and run on as the domestic accompaniment to the foreign-political crisis throughout the summer and autumn. Part of the background to the summer of violence was the open terror on the streets of Vienna in March, and the 'success' that Eichmann had scored in forcing the emigration of the Viennese Jews. n.a.z.i leaders in cities of the 'old Reich', particularly Berlin, took note. The chance to be rid of 'their' Jews seemed to open up. A second strand in the background was the 'aryanization' drive to hound Jews out of German economic life. At the beginning of 1933 there had been some 50,000 Jewish businesses in Germany. By July 1938, there were only 9,000 left. The big push to exclude the Jews came between spring and autumn 1938. The 1,690 businesses in Jewish hands in Munich in February 1938, for instance, had fallen to only 666 (two-thirds of them owned by foreign citizens) by October. The 'aryanization' drive not only closed businesses, or saw them bought out for a pittance by new 'aryan' owners. It also brought a new flood of legislative measures imposing a variety of discriminatory restrictions and occupational bans such as on Jewish doctors and lawyers even to the extent of preventing Jews from trying to eke out a living as pedlars. It was a short step from legislation to pinpoint remaining Jewish businesses to identifying Jewish persons. A decree of 17 August had made it compulsory for male Jews to add the forename 'Israel', females the forename 'Sara', to their existing names and, on pain of imprisonment, to use those names in all official matters. On 5 October, they were compelled to have a 'J' stamped in their pa.s.sports. A few days later, Goring declared that 'the Jewish Question must now be tackled with all means available, for they [the Jews] must get out of the economy'.

Alongside the legislation, inevitably, went the violence. Scores of localized attacks on Jewish property and on individual Jews, usually carried out by members of party formations, punctuated the summer months. Far more than had been the case in the earlier antisemitic waves, attention of party activists increasingly focused on synagogues and Jewish cemeteries, which were repeatedly vandalized. As an indicator of their mood, and an 'ordered' foretaste of what would follow across the land during 'Crystal Night', the main synagogue in Munich was demolished on 9 June, the first in Germany to be destroyed by the n.a.z.is. During a visit to the city a few days earlier, Hitler had taken objection to its proximity to the Deutsches Kunstlerhaus ('House of German Artists'). The official reason given was that the building was a hindrance to traffic.

Hitler saw it as important that he should not be publicly a.s.sociated with the anti-Jewish campaign as it gathered momentum during 1938. No discussion by the press of the 'Jewish Question' was, for example, permitted in connection with his visits to different parts of Germany in that year. Preserving his image, both at home and especially in the light of the developing Czech crisis abroad, through avoiding personal a.s.sociation with distasteful actions towards the Jews appears to have been the motive. Hence, he insisted in September 1938, at the height of the Sudeten crisis, that his signing of the fifth implementation ordinance under the Reich Citizens.h.i.+p Law, to oust Jewish lawyers, should not be publicized at that stage in order to prevent any possible deterioration of Germany's image clearly meaning his own image at such a tense moment.

In fact, he had to do little or nothing to stir the escalating campaign against the Jews. Others made the running, took the initiative, pressed for action always, of course, on the a.s.sumption that this was in line with n.a.z.ism's great mission. It was a cla.s.sic case of 'working towards the Fuhrer' taking for granted (usually on grounds of self-interest) that he approved of measures aimed at the 'removal' of the Jews, measures seen as plainly furthering his long-term goals. Party activists in the Movement's various formations needed no encouragement to unleash further attacks on Jews and their property. 'Aryans' in business, from the smallest to the largest, looked to every opportunity to profit at the expense of their Jewish counterparts. Hundreds of Jewish businesses including long-established private banks such as Warburg and Bleichroder were now forced, often through gangster-like extortion, to sell out for a fraction of their value to 'aryan' buyers. Big business gained most. Giant concerns like Mannesmann, Krupp, Thyssen, Flick, and IG-Farben, and leading banks such as the Deutsche Bank and the Dresdner Bank, were the major beneficiaries, while a variety of business consortia, corrupt party functionaries, and untold numbers of small commercial enterprises grabbed what they could. 'Aryan' pillars of the establishment like doctors and lawyers were equally welcoming of the economic advantages that could come their way with the expulsion of Jews from the medical and legal professions. University professors turned their skills, without prompting, to defining alleged negative characteristics of the Jewish character and pyschology. And all the time, civil servants worked like beavers to hone the legislation that turned Jews into outcasts and pariahs, their lives into torment and misery. The police, particularly the Gestapo helped as always by eager citizens anxious to denounce Jews or those seen as 'friends of Jews' served as a proactive enforcement agency, deploying their 'rational' methods of arrest and internment in concentration camps rather than the crude violence of the party hotheads, though with the same objective. Not least, the SD beginning life as the party's own intelligence organization, but developing into the crucial surveillance and ideological planning agency within the rapidly expanding SS was advancing on its way to adopting the pivotal role in the shaping of anti-Jewish policy.

Each group, agency, or individual involved in pus.h.i.+ng forward the radicalization of anti-Jewish discrimination had vested interests and a specific agenda. Uniting them all and giving justification to them was the vision of racial purification and, in particular, of a 'Jew-free' Germany embodied in the person of the Fuhrer. Hitler's role was, therefore, crucial, even if at times indirect. His broad sanction was needed. But for the most part little more was required.

There is no doubt that Hitler fully approved of and backed the new drive against the Jews, even if he took care to remain out of the limelight. One of the main agitators for radical action against the Jews, Joseph Goebbels, had no difficulty in April 1938 in the immediate wake of the savage persecution of the Jews in Vienna in persuading Hitler to support his plans to 'clean up' Berlin, the seat of his own Gau. Hitler's only stipulation was that nothing should be undertaken before his meetings with Mussolini in early May. A successful outcome of his talks with the Duce was of great importance to him, particularly in the context of his unfolding plans regarding Czechoslovakia. Possible diplomatic repercussions provoked by intensified persecution of Jews in Germany's capital were to be avoided. Goebbels had already discussed his own aims on the 'Jewish Question' with Berlin's Police Chief Wolf Heinrich Graf von h.e.l.ldorf before he broached the matter with Hitler. 'Then we put it to the Fuhrer. He agrees, but only after his trip to Italy. Jewish establishments will be combed out. Jews will then get a swimming-pool, a few cinemas, and restaurants allocated to them. Otherwise entry forbidden. We'll remove the character of a Jew-paradise from Berlin. Jewish businesses will be marked as such. At any rate, we're now proceeding more radically. The Fuhrer wants gradually to push them all out. Negotiate with Poland and Romania. Madagascar would be the most suitable for them.'

The 'Madagascar solution' had been touted among radical antisemites for decades. Reference to it at this juncture seems to signify that Hitler was moving away from any a.s.sumption that emigration would remove the 'Jewish problem' in favour of a solution based upon territorial resettlement. He was conceivably influenced in this by Heydrich, reporting the views of the 'experts' on Jewish policy in the SD. The relative lack of success in 'persuading' Jews to emigrate little short of three-quarters of the Jewish population recorded in 1933 still lived in Germany, despite the persecution, as late as October 1938 together with the mounting obstacles to Jewish immigration created by other countries had compelled the SD to revise its views on future anti-Jewish policy. By the end of 1937 the idea of favouring a Jewish state in Palestine, which Eichmann had developed, partly through secret dealings with Zionist contacts, had cooled markedly. Eichmann's own visit to Palestine, arranged with his Zionist go-between, had been an unmitigated failure. And, more importantly, the German Foreign Office was resolutely hostile to the notion of a Jewish state in Palestine. However, emigration remained the objective.

Hitler, too, favoured Palestine as a targeted territory. In early 1938, he reaffirmed the policy, arrived at almost a year earlier, aimed at promoting with all means available the emigration of Jews to any country willing to take them, though looking to Palestine in the first instance. But he was alert to the perceived dangers of creating a Jewish state to threaten Germany at some future date. In any case, other notions were being mooted. Already in 1937 there had been suggestions in the SD of deporting Jews to barren, unwelcoming parts of the world, scarcely capable of sustaining human life and certainly, in the SD's view, incompatible with a renewed flouris.h.i.+ng of Jewry and revitalized potential of 'world conspiracy'. In addition to Palestine, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela had been mentioned as possibilities. Nothing came of such ideas at the time. But the suggestions were little different in essence from the old notion, later to be revamped, of Madagascar as an inhospitable territory fit to accommodate Jews until, it was implied, they eventually died out. The notion of Jewish resettlement, already aired in the SD, was itself latently genocidal.

Whatever line of policy was favoured, the 'final goal' (as. .h.i.tler's comments to Goebbels indicated) remained indistinct, and as such compatible with all attempts to further the 'removal' of the Jews. This eventual 'removal' was conceived as taking a good number of years to complete. Even following 'Crystal Night', Heydrich was still envisaging an 'emigration action' lasting from eight to ten years. Hitler himself had already inferred to Goebbels towards the end of July 1938 that 'the Jews must be removed from Germany in ten years'. In the meantime, he added, they were to be retained as 'surety'.

Goebbels, meanwhile, was impatient to make headway with the 'racial cleansing' of Berlin. 'A start has to be made somewhere,' he remarked. He thought the removal of Jews from the economy and cultural life of the city could be accomplished within a few months. The programme devised by mid-May for him by h.e.l.ldorf, and given his approval, put forward a variety of discriminatory measures including special ident.i.ty cards for Jews, branding of Jewish shops, bans on Jews using public parks, and special train compartments for Jews most of which, following the November Pogrom, came to be generally implemented. h.e.l.ldorf also envisaged the construction of a ghetto in Berlin to be financed by the richer Jews.

Even if this last aim remained unfulfilled, the poisonous atmosphere stirred by Goebbels's agitation with Hitler's tacit approval had rapid results. Already on 27 May, a 1,000-strong mob roamed parts of Berlin, smas.h.i.+ng windows of shops belonging to Jews, and prompting the police, anxious not to lose the initiative in anti-Jewish policy, to take the owners into 'protective custody'. When in mid-June Jewish stores on the Kurfurstendamm, the prime shopping street in the west of the city, were smeared with antisemitic slogans by party activists, and plundering of some shops took place, concern for Germany's image abroad dictated a halt to the public violence. Hitler intervened directly from Berchtesgaden, following which Goebbels ruefully banned all illegal actions. However, Berlin had set the tone. Similar 'actions', initiated by the local party organizations, were carried out in Frankfurt, Magdeburg, and other towns and cities. The lack of any explicit general ban from above on 'individual actions', as had been imposed in 1935, was taken by party activists in countless localities as a green light to step up their own campaigns. The touchpaper had been lit to the summer and autumn of violence. As the tension in the Czech crisis mounted, local antisemitic initiatives in various regions saw to it that the 'Jewish Question' became a powder-keg, waiting for the spark. The radical tide surged forward. The atmosphere had become menacing in the extreme for the Jews.

Even so, from the perspective of the regime's leaders.h.i.+p, how to get the Jews out of the economy and force them to leave Germany still appeared to be questions without obvious answers. As early as January 1937, Eichmann had suggested, in a lengthy internal memorandum, that pogroms were the most effective way of accelerating the sluggish emigration. Like an answer to a prayer, the shooting of the German Third Legation Secretary Ernst vom Rath in Paris by a seventeen-year-old Polish Jew, Herschel Grynszpan, on the morning of 7 November 1938 opened up an opportunity not to be missed. It was an opportunity eagerly seized upon by Goebbels. He had no difficulty in winning Hitler's full backing.

II.

Grynszpan had meant to kill the Amba.s.sador. Vom Rath just happened to be the first official he saw. The shooting was an act of despair and revenge for his own miserable existence and for the deportation of his family at the end of October from Hanover simply deposited, along with a further 18,000 Polish Jews, over the borders with Poland. Two and a half years earlier, when the Jewish medical student David Frankfurter had killed the n.a.z.i leader in Switzerland Wilhelm Gustloff, in Davos, circ.u.mstances had demanded that the lid be kept firmly on any wild response by party fanatics in Germany. In the threatening climate of autumn 1938, the situation could scarcely have been more different. Now, the n.a.z.i hordes were to be positively encouraged to turn their wrath on the Jews. The death of vom Rath he succ.u.mbed to his wounds on the afternoon of 9 November happened, moreover, to coincide with the fifteenth anniversary of Hitler's attempted putsch of 1923. All over Germany, party members were meeting to celebrate one of the legendary events of the 'time of struggle'. The annual commemoration marked a high point in the n.a.z.i calendar. In Munich, as usual, the party bigwigs were gathering.

On the morning following the fateful shooting, the n.a.z.i press, under Goebbels's orchestration, had been awash with vicious attacks on the Jews, guaranteed to incite violence. Sure enough, that evening, 8 November, pogroms involving the burning of synagogues, destruction of Jewish property, plundering of goods, and maltreatment of individual Jews were instigated in a number of parts of the country through the agitation of local party leaders without any directives from on high. Usually, the local leaders involved were radical antisemites in areas, such as Hessen, with lengthy traditions of antisemitism. Goebbels noted the disturbances with satisfaction in his diary: 'In Hessen big antisemitic demonstrations. The synagogues are burnt down. If only the anger of the people could now be let loose!' The following day, he referred to the 'demonstrations', burning of synagogues, and demolition of shops in Ka.s.sel and Dessau. During the afternoon, news of vom Rath's death came through. 'Now that's done it,' remarked Goebbels.

The party's 'old guard' were meeting that evening in the Old Town Hall in Munich. Hitler, too, was present. On the way there, with Goebbels, he had been told of disturbances against Jews in Munich, but favoured the police taking a lenient line. He could scarcely have avoided being well aware of the anti-Jewish actions in Hessen and elsewhere, as well as the incitements of the press. It was impossible to ignore the fact that, among party radicals, antisemitic tension was running high. But Hitler had given no indication, despite vom Rath's perilous condition at the time and the menacing antisemitic climate, of any intended action when he had spoken to the 'old guard' of the party in his traditional speech at the Burgerbraukeller the previous evening. By the time the party leaders gathered for the reception on the 9th, Hitler was aware of vom Rath's death. With his own doctor, Karl Brandt, dispatched to the bedside, Hitler had doubtless been kept well informed of the Legation Secretary's deteriorating condition and had heard of his demise at the latest by seven o'clock that evening in all probability by telephone some hours earlier. According to his Luftwaffe adjutant, Nicolaus von Below, he had already been given the news which he had received without overt reaction that afternoon while he was engaged in discussions on military matters in his Munich apartment.

Goebbels and Hitler were seen to confer in agitated fas.h.i.+on during the reception, though their conversation could not be overheard. Hitler left shortly afterwards, earlier than usual and without his customary exchanges with those present, to return to his Munich apartment. Around 10 p.m. Goebbels delivered a brief but highly inflammatory speech, reporting the death of vom Rath, pointing out that there had already been 'retaliatory' action against the Jews in Kurhessen and Magdeburg-Anhalt. He made it abundantly plain without explicitly saying so that the party should organize and carry out 'demonstrations' against the Jews throughout the country, though make it appear that they were expressions of spontaneous popular anger.

Goebbels's diary entry leaves no doubt of the content of his discussion with Hitler. 'I go to the party reception in the Old Town Hall. Huge amount going on. I explain the matter to the Fuhrer. He decides: let the demonstrations continue. Pull back the police. The Jews should for once get to feel the anger of the people. That's right. I immediately give corresponding directives to police and party. Then I speak for a short time in that vein to the party leaders.h.i.+p. Storms of applause. All tear straight off to the telephone. Now the people will act.'

Goebbels certainly did his best to make sure 'the people' acted. He put out detailed instructions of what had and had not to be done. He fired up the mood where there was hesitancy. Immediately after he had spoken, the Stotrupp Hitler, an 'a.s.sault squad' whose traditions reached back to the heady days of pre-putsch beerhouse brawls and bore the Fuhrer's name, was launched to wreak havoc on the streets of Munich. Almost immediately they demolished the old synagogue in Herzog-Rudolf-Strae, left standing after the main synagogue had been destroyed in the summer. AdolfWagner, Gauleiter of Munich and Upper Bavaria (who as Bavarian Minister of Interior was supposedly responsible for order in the province), himself no moderate in 'the Jewish Question', got cold feet. But Goebbels pushed him into line. The 'capital city of the Movement' of all places was not going to be spared what was happening already all over Germany. Goebbels then gave direct telephone instructions to Berlin to demolish the synagogue in Fasanenstrae, off the Kurfurstendamm.

The top leaders.h.i.+p of the police and SS, also gathered in Munich but not present when Goebbels had given his speech, learnt of the 'action' only once it had started. Heydrich, at the time in the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten, was informed by the Munich Gestapo Office around 11.20 p.m., after the first orders had already gone out to the party and SA. He immediately sought Himmler's directives on how the police should respond. The Reichsfuhrer-SS was contacted in Hitler's Munich apartment. He asked what orders. .h.i.tler had for him. Hitler replied most likely at Himmler's prompting that he wanted the SS to keep out of the 'action'. Disorder and uncontrolled violence and destruction were not the SS's style. Himmler and Heydrich preferred the 'rational', systematic approach to the 'Jewish Question'. Soon after midnight orders went out that any SS men partic.i.p.ating in the 'demonstrations' were to do so only in civilian clothing. At 1.20 a.m. Heydrich telexed all police chiefs instructing the police not to obstruct the destruction of the synagogues and to arrest as many male Jews, especially wealthy ones, as available prison accommodation could take. The figure of 2030,000 Jews had already been mentioned in a Gestapo directive sent out before midnight.

Meanwhile, across the Reich, party activists especially SA men were suddenly summoned by their local leaders and told to burn down synagogues or were turned loose on other Jewish property. Many of those involved had been celebrating at their own commemoration of the Beerhall Putsch, and some were the worse for wear from drink. The 'action' was usually improvised on the spot.

At midnight, at the Feldherrnhalle in Munich where the attempted putsch in 1923 had met its end, Goebbels had witnessed the swearing-in of the SS to Hitler. The Propaganda Minister was ready to return to his hotel when he saw the sky red from the fire of the burning synagogue in Herzog-Rudolf-Strae. Back he went to Gau headquarters. Instructions were given out that the fire-brigade should extinguish only what was necessary to protect nearby buildings. Otherwise they were to let the synagogue burn down. 'The Stotrupp is doing dreadful damage,' he commented. Reports came in to him of seventy-five synagogues on fire throughout the Reich, fifteen of them in Berlin. He had evidently by this time heard of the Gestapo directive. 'The Fuhrer has ordered,' he noted, 'that 2030,000 Jews are immediately to be arrested.' In fact, it had been a Gestapo order with no reference in it to a directive of the Fuhrer. Clearly, however, though he had instigated the pogrom, Goebbels took it that the key decisions came from Hitler. Goebbels went with Julius Schaub, Hitler's general factotum, into the Artists' Club to wait for further news. Schaub was in fine form. 'His old Stotrupp past has been revived,' commented Goebbels. He went back to his hotel. He could hear the noise of shattering gla.s.s from smashed shop windows. 'Bravo, bravo,' he wrote. After a few hours' s.n.a.t.c.hed sleep, he added: 'The dear Jews will think about it in future before they shoot down German diplomats like that. And that was the meaning of the exercise.'

All morning new reports of the destruction poured in. Goebbels a.s.sessed the situation with Hitler. In the light of the mounting criticism of the 'action', also though naturally not for humanitarian reasons from within the top ranks of the n.a.z.i leaders.h.i.+p, the decision was taken to halt it. Goebbels prepared a decree to end the destruction, cynically commenting that if it were allowed to continue there was the danger 'that the mob would start to appear'. He reported to Hitler, who was, Goebbels claimed, 'in agreement with everything. His opinions are very radical and aggressive.' 'With minor alterations, the Fuhrer approves my edict on the end of the actions ... The Fuhrer wants to move to very severe measures against the Jews. They must get their businesses in order themselves. Insurance will pay them nothing. Then the Fuhrer wants gradually to expropriate the Jewish businesses.'

By that time, the night of horror for Germany's Jews had brought the demolition of around 100 synagogues, the burning of several hundred others, the destruction of at least 8,000 Jews' shops and vandalizing of countless apartments. The pavements of the big cities were strewn with shards of gla.s.s from the display windows of Jewish-owned stores; merchandise, if not looted, had been hurled on to the streets. Private apartments were wrecked, furniture demolished, mirrors and pictures smashed, clothing shredded, treasured possessions wantonly trashed. The material damage was estimated soon afterwards by Heydrich at several hundred million Marks.

The human misery of the victims was incalculable. Beatings and b.e.s.t.i.a.l maltreatment, even of women, children, and the elderly, were commonplace. A hundred or so Jews were murdered. It was little wonder that suicide was commonplace that terrible night. Many more succ.u.mbed to brutalities in the weeks following the pogrom in the concentration camps of Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen, where the 30,000 male Jews rounded up by the police had been sent as a means of forcing their emigration.

The scale and nature of the savagery, and the apparent aim of maximizing degradation and humiliation, reflected the success of propaganda in demonizing the figure of the Jew certainly within the organizations of the party itself and ma.s.sively enhanced the process, under way since Hitler's takeover of power, of dehumanizing Jews and excluding them from German society, a vital step on the way to genocide.

The propaganda line of a spontaneous expression of anger by the people was, however, believed by no one. 'The public knows to the last man,' the party's own court later admitted, 'that political actions like that of 9 November are organized and carried out by the party, whether this is admitted or not. If all the synagogues burn down in a single night, that has somehow to be organized, and can only be organized by the party.'

Ordinary citizens, affected by the climate of hatred and propaganda appealing to base instincts, motivated too by sheer material envy and greed, nevertheless followed the party's lead in many places and joined in the destruction and looting of Jewish property. Sometimes individuals regarded as the pillars of their communities were involved. At the same time, there is no doubt that many ordinary people were appalled at what met them when they emerged on the morning of 10 November. A mixture of motives operated. Some, certainly, felt human revulsion at the behaviour of the n.a.z.i hordes and sympathy for the Jews, even to the extent of offering them material help and comfort. Not all motives for the condemnation were as n.o.ble. Often, it was the shame inflicted by 'hooligans' on Germany's standing as a 'nation of culture' which rankled. Most commonly of all, there was enormous resentment at the unrestrained destruction of material goods at a time when people were told that every little that was saved contributed to the efforts of the Four-Year Plan.

III.

By the morning of 10 November, anger was also rising among leading n.a.z.is responsible for the economy about the material damage which had taken place. Walther Funk, who had replaced Schacht as Economics Minister early in the year, complained directly to Goebbels, but was told, to placate him, that Hitler would soon give Goring an order to exclude the Jews from the economy. Goring himself, who had been in a sleeping-compartment of a train heading from Munich to Berlin as the night of violence had unfolded, was furious when he found out what had happened. His own credibility as economics supremo was at stake. He had exhorted the people, so he told Hitler, to collect discarded toothpaste tubes, rusty nails, and every bit of cast-out material. And now, valuable property had been recklessly destroyed.

When they met at lunchtime on 10 November in his favourite Munich restaurant, the Osteria Bavaria, Hitler made plain to Goebbels his intention to introduce draconian economic measures against the Jews. They were dictated by the perverted notion that the Jews themselves would have to foot the bill for the destruction of their own property by the n.a.z.is. The victims, in other words, were guilty of their own persecution. They would have to repair the damage without any contributions from German insurance firms and would be expropriated. Whether, as Goring later claimed, Goebbels was the initiator of the suggestion to impose a fine of 1,000 million Marks on the Jews is uncertain. More probably Goring, with his direct interest as head of the Four-Year Plan in maximizing the economic exploitation of the Jews, had himself come up with the idea in telephone conversations with Hitler, and perhaps also with Goebbels, that afternoon. Possibly, the idea was. .h.i.tler's own, though Goebbels does not refer to it when speaking of his wish for 'very tough measures' at their lunchtime meeting. At any rate, the suggestion was bound to meet with Hitler's favour. He had, after all, in his 'Memorandum on the Four-Year Plan' in 1936, already stated, in connection with accelerating the economic preparations for war, his intention to make the Jews responsible for any damage to the German economy. With the measures decided upon, Hitler decreed 'that now the economic solution should also be carried out', and 'ordered by and large what had to happen'.

This was effectively achieved in the meeting, attended by over 100 persons, which Goring called for 12 November in the Air Ministry. Goring began by stating that the meeting was of fundamental importance. He had received a letter from Bormann, on behalf of the Fuhrer, desiring a coordinated solution to the 'Jewish Question'. The Fuhrer had informed him, in addition, by telephone the previous day that the decisive steps were now to be centrally synchronized. In essence, he went on, the problem was an economic one. It was there that the issue had to be resolved. He castigated the method of 'demonstrations', which damaged the German economy. Then he concentrated on ways of confiscating Jewish businesses and maximizing the possible gain to the Reich from the Jewish misery. Goebbels raised the need for numerous measures of social discrimination against the Jews, which he had been pressing for in Berlin for months: exclusion from cinemas, theatres, parks, beaches and bathing resorts, 'German' schools, and railway compartments used by 'aryans'. Heydrich suggested a distinctive badge to be worn by Jews, which led on to discussion of whether ghettos would be appropriate. In the event, the idea of establis.h.i.+ng ghettos was not taken up (though Jews would be forced to leave 'aryan' tenement blocks and be banned from certain parts of the cities, so compelling them in effect to congregate together); and the suggestion of badges was rejected by Hitler himself soon afterwards (presumably to avoid possible recurrence of the pogrom-style violence which had provoked criticism even among the regime's leaders). They would not be introduced in the Reich itself until September 1941.

But 'Crystal Night' had nevertheless sp.a.w.ned completely new openings for radical measures. This was most evident in the economic sphere, to which the meeting returned. Insurance companies were told that they would have to cover the losses, if their foreign business was not to suffer. But the payments would be made to the Reich, not, of course, to the Jews. Towards the end of the lengthy meeting, Goring announced, to the approval of the a.s.sembled company, the 'atonement fine' that was to be imposed on the Jews. Later that day, he issued decrees, imposing the billion-Mark fine, excluding Jews from the economy by 1 January 1939, and stipulating that Jews were responsible for paying for the damage to their own property. 'At any rate now a tabula rasa is being made,' commented Goebbels with satisfaction. 'The radical view has triumphed.'

Indeed, the November Pogrom had in the most barbaric way imaginable cleared a pathway through the impa.s.se into which n.a.z.i anti-Jewish policy had manoeuvred itself by 1938. Emigration had been reduced to little more than a trickle, especially since the Evian Conference, where, on the initiative of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, delegates from thirty-two countries had a.s.sembled in the French resort, deliberated from 6 to 14 July, then confirmed the unwillingness of the international community to increase immigration quotas for Jews. Moves to remove the Jews from the economy were still proceeding far too slowly to satisfy party fanatics. And anti-Jewish policy had suffered from complete lack of coordination. Hitler himself had been little involved. Goebbels, a driving-force in pressing for tougher measures against the Jews since the spring, had recognized the opportunity that vom Rath's a.s.sa.s.sination gave him. He sniffed the climate, and knew conditions were ripe. In a personal sense, too, the shooting of vom Rath was timely. Goebbels's marital difficulties and relations.h.i.+p with the Czech film actress Lida Baarova had threatened to lower his standing with Hitler. Now was a chance, by 'working towards the Fuhrer' in such a key area, to win back favour.

One consequence of the night of violence was that the Jews were now desperate to leave Germany. Some 80,000 fled, in the most traumatic circ.u.mstances, between the end of 1938 and the beginning of the war. By whatever desperate means, tens of thousands of Jews were able to escape the clutches of the n.a.z.is and flee across neighbouring borders, to Britain, the USA, Latin America, Palestine (despite British prohibitions), and to the distant refuge with the most lenient policy of all: j.a.panese-occupied Shanghai.

The n.a.z.is' aim of forcing the Jews out had been ma.s.sively boosted. Beyond that, the problem of their slow-moving elimination from the economy had been tackled. Whatever his criticism of Goebbels, Goring had wasted no time in ensuring that the chance was now taken fully to 'aryanize' the economy, and to profit from 'Reichskristallnacht'. When he spoke, a week later, of the 'very critical state of the Reich finances', he was able to add: 'Aid first of all through the billion imposed on the Jews and through the profits to the Reich from the aryanization of Jewish concerns'. Others, too, in the n.a.z.i leaders.h.i.+p seized the chance to push through a flood of new discriminatory measures, intensifying the hopelessness of Jewish existence in Germany. Radicalization fed on radicalization.

The radicalization encountered no opposition of any weight. Ordinary people who expressed their anger, sorrow, distaste, or shame at what had happened were powerless. Those who might have articulated such feelings, such as the leaders of the Christian Churches, among whose precepts was 'love thy neighbour as thyself', kept quiet. Neither major denomination, Protestant or Catholic, raised an official protest or even backing for those courageous individual pastors and priests who did speak out. Within the regime's leaders.h.i.+p, those, like Schacht, who had used economic or otherwise tactical objections to try to combat what they saw as counter-productive, wild 'excesses' of the radical antisemites in the party, were now politically impotent. In any case, such economic arguments lost all force with 'Crystal Night'. The leaders of the armed forces, scandalized though some of them were at the 'cultural disgrace' of what had happened, made no public protest. Beyond that, the deep antisemitism running through the armed forces meant that no opposition worth mentioning to n.a.z.i radicalism could be expected from that quarter. Characteristic of the mentality was a letter which the revered Colonel-General von Fritsch wrote, almost a year after his dismissal and only a month after the November Pogrom. Fritsch was reportedly outraged by 'Crystal Night'. But, as with so many, it was the method not the aim that appalled him. He mentioned in his letter that after the previous war he had concluded that Germany had to succeed in three battles in order to become great again. Hitler had won the battle against the working cla.s.s. The other two battles, against Catholic Ultramontanism, and against the Jews, still continued. 'And the struggle against the Jews is the hardest,' he noted. 'It is to be hoped that the difficulty of this struggle is apparent everywhere.'

'Crystal Night' marked the final fling within Germany of 'pogrom antisemitism'. Willing though he was to make use of the method, Hitler had emphasized as early as 1919 that it could provide no solution to the 'Jewish Question'. The ma.s.sive material damage caused, the public relations disaster reflected in the almost universal condemnation in the international press, and to a lesser extent the criticism levelled at the 'excesses' (though not at the draconian anti-Jewish legislation that followed them) by broad sections of the German population ensured that the ploy of open violence had had its day. Its place was taken by something which turned out to be even more sinister: the handing-over of practical responsibility for a coordinated anti-Jewish policy to the 'rational' antisemites in the SS. On 24 January 1939, Goring established based on the model which had functioned effectively in Vienna a Central Office for Jewish Emigration under the aegis of the Chief of the Security Police, Reinhard Heydrich. The policy was still forced emigration, now transformed into an all-out, accelerated drive to expel the Jews from Germany. But the transfer of overall responsibility to the SS nevertheless began a new phase of anti-Jewish policy. For the victims, it marked a decisive step on the way that was to end in the gas-chambers of the extermination camps.

IV.

The open brutality of the November Pogrom, the round-up and incarceration of some 30,000 Jews that followed it, and the draconian measures to force Jews out of the economy had, Goebbels's diary entries make plain, all been explicitly approved by Hitler even if the initiatives had come from others, above all from the Propaganda Minister himself.

To those who saw him late on the eveni