Polokaust Orwellian Minimization Rutherford

Prelude to the Final Solution: The Nazi Program for Deporting Ethnic Poles, 1939-1941, by Phillip T. Rutherford. 2007

Orwellian Title Relegates the Polokaust To a “Practice Genocide” For the “Real” Genocide That Was to Come–That of the Jews’ Holocaust

The title of this book is not saying anything new. The same rhetorical strategy of Holocaustspeak, used in Rutherford’s book, was previously used to minimize the Armenian Genocide in the way that it was portrayed at the USHMM (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). As pointed out by thoughtful Armenians, the portrayal implied that the Armenian Genocide (Aghet) was not quite a full-fledged genocide: Rather, it was an introductory performance for the “real” genocide that was to come—that of the Jews under the Nazis. See my review of PRESERVING MEMORY, by Linenthal.

If one is willing to overlook the Orwellian title and its implied obeisance to the Shoah, one can find good information in this book.

I organize my review by topics:

LONG BEFORE HITLER: PROTO-NAZI GERMAN CONDUCT AGAINST POLES

The main subject of this book is the once mixed German-Polish population of Wartheland (near Poznan, or Posen). Rutherford observes a close continuity between the Second-Reich’s (Bismarck, von Bulow, etc.) anti-Polish policies and those of the Third Reich. He views the HAKATA movement as a proto-Nazi one (p. 25). In spite of the onerous challenge, the Poles remained indomitable: “Far from eradicating Polish national consciousness and cultural autonomy, Germany’s long-standing anti-Polish stance, laced with Teutonic hubris and ethnocentric nationalism, had only reinforced the Poles’ desire to shake the foreign yoke and reestablish a state of their own.” (p. 32).

HITLER MORE ANTI-POLISH RACIST THAN ANTI-BLACK RACIST

For all his racism, Hitler said that he preferred to rule over Negroes than Poles (p. 244). Heinrich Himmler once planned to kill 30 million Slavs as a byproduct of the upcoming Operation Barbarossa. (p. 297).

REICH TO BE POLENREIN, NOT JUST JUDENREIN

During the German conquest of Poland in 1939, local Germans (the VOLKSDEUTSCHE SELBTSCHUTZ) attempted the expulsion of the Wartheland Poles on their own initiative. (p. 74). Soon this became official German policy. Owing in part to Polish resistance, the Germans fell far short of their goals. (p. 164). Poles resisted expulsion through such means as sleeping in the fields and otherwise avoiding their homes. (p. 159). The endangered Poles also engaged in economic sabotage. They slaughtered their livestock and sold the meat on the black market. (p. 278). If deported, they often returned. (p. 279).

FOR A TIME, POLES AND JEWS WERE EQUAL VICTIMS

For the first year and a half of the German occupation, the Wartheland Poles and Jews were treated much the same (p. 124). In fact, for Himmler, the pursuit of lebensraum policies took precedence over dealing with the Jews (p. 128), and the extermination of the local Jews didn’t begin until late 1941 at Chelmno (Kulm). (p. 172).

POLES CANNOT AND SHOULD NOT BE GERMANIZED

Hitler rejected the notion that ethnic Poles could ever become Germans. However, Polonized Germans could, and should, be re-Germanized. By spring 1941, the growing need of local Poles for forced labor had forced the Germans to discontinue their expulsion of the Wartheland Poles. (p. 193). To rationalize the continued existence of Poles in this Reich-annexed region, the Germans were forced to relax their racist policies (pp. 207-211) over Himmler’s objections. (p. 210). In time, even those Wartheland Poles who simply exhibited “German characteristics” (e. g., cleanliness, sense of order, etc.) were allowed to sign the DVL (DEUTSCHE VOLKSLISTE)! The de-Polonization of Wartheland was relegated to a decades-long postwar project. (p. 203).

SLAVS NOT EXTERMINATED BECAUSE OF CIRCUMSTANCES, AND NOT BECAUSE THEY WERE ESTEEMED MORE THAN JEWS

Owing to the foregoing turn of events, Rutherford’s advanced the premise that, as WWII continued, Nazi policies against Poles became de-radicalized while those against Jews became radicalized. His reasoning is, at best, oversimplified. To begin with, and by his own admission, Hans Ehlich realized that the Nazis could not afford to lose seventy million Slavic workers by exterminating them, even had they won the war. (p. 219). Consequently, they de-radicalized their policies against Slavs because they were forced by circumstances to do so!

In addition, radicalization and de-radicalization are relative terms, and Rutherford overlooks essential facts. Nazi actions against Jews never became so radicalized as to prevent some German full-blooded Jews (e. g., the SCHUTZJUDEN) from being deliberately spared and re-labeled Aryans. Never did Germany invade its reluctant allies, Bulgaria and especially Finland, to kill off their Jews. At no time did Nazi policies go as far as killing Jewish Allied POWs. Nor did Hitler ever compel Sweden or Switzerland to turn over their Jews as a condition of their continued neutrality. As for “de-radicalization”, one must realize the fact that the Germans never stopped murdering Poles (notably the intelligentsia), and that Nazi cultural genocide against Poles never ceased either. In fact, German units attempted to blow up the cultural treasures of Czestochowa and Krakow in the waning hours of the German occupation of Poland.

Unfortunately, Rutherford uncritically cites neo-Stalinist John Connelly, who asserted that, whereas the Germans came to see Slavs as useful, they never came to think of Jews in that way (pp. 219-220). This is another subtle way of minimizing the significance of the Polokaust, and is patently incorrect. The Germans, realizing the usefulness of Jews, diverted a few hundred thousand of them from the gas chambers and into forced labor. (A large fraction of these ended up surviving the war). The successful Kastner-Eichmann deal, as well as attempts to release Jews in exchange for Allied payment in money or trucks, also proves that the Nazis did in fact come to see Jews as an economic commodity.