So Few Jews Saved Intense German Occupation Westermann

Hitler’s Police Battalions: Enforcing Racial War in the East, by Edward B. Westermann (Goodreads Author). 2005

Intense German Occupation of Poland: Why “So Few” Jews Saved. The Nazi German Racial War Against Slavs as Well as Jews

Most books on WWII in Europe typically dwell on the Holocaust, and any mention of non-Jewish victims of the Nazis is an afterthought. They also tend to dichotomize the military actions of Hitler’s regime and its genocidal policies. This work, in contrast, shows that the war-making and genocidal actions of the Nazis formed a seamless garment, as did German attitudes and actions against Jews and Slavs. Instead of focusing on leading Nazi personages, the SS, Gestapo, or even the Wehrmacht, Westermann examines the ordinary German police forces as killers.

THE HUN CHARACTERIZATION ACTIVELY ADOPTED–AND LIVED–BY GERMANS THEMSELVES

In the early 20th century, westerners commonly depicted the Hun as innately warlike, even going back to the FUROR TEUTONICUS of Roman times. Interestingly, the Germans themselves cultivated such a characterization! For instance, well before WWII, Wilhelm Kube, the eventual Reich commissar for Belorussia, commented as follows: “Kube began his article by noting that the love of bearing arms had been in the blood of a northern people like the Germans for thousands of years.” (p. 75). All this was part of the unmistakable trend elaborated by Westermann: “The march towards `social militarization’ did not go unnoticed by contemporary observers. In a diary entry of September 10, 1934, William Shirer, an American radio correspondent in Berlin at the time, reflected that militarism `is something deeply ingrained in all Germans.'” (p. 59).

BYDGOSZCZ YET AGAIN

Although the author does not fall for Goebbels’ propaganda regarding the “Bloody Sunday” events at Bydgoszcz (Bromberg), his citation of “over 1,000” German deaths, including that of innocent bystanders, is still wide of the mark. See the Peczkis review of: Dywersja niemiecka i zbrodnie hitlerowskie w Bydgoszczy na tle wydarzen w dniu 3 IX 1939 (Polish and German Edition).

THE INTENSIVENESS OF THE GERMAN OCCUPATION OF POLAND: WHY “SO FEW” FUGITIVE JEWS WERE SAVED

The low survival rate of Polish Jews compared with those of western European nations is customarily blamed on (what else?) Polish anti-Semitism. In actually, the conditions for Jew rescue in German-occupied Poland were atypically unfavorable at multiple levels.

Few of the critics of Poland realize that the German occupation of Poland was far more intense than that of practically any other German-conquered nation. Westermann thus writes of the situation in August 1940: “In fact, the ratio of policemen to inhabitants ranged from 1:400 in the annexed Polish territories and 1:860 in the General Government to 1:3,323 in the Netherlands.” (p. 87). For comparison: “The ratio within the Reich (including the Sudetenland) was 1:475 with the inclusion of the 91,500-man Police Reserve.” (p. 264).

THE POLOKAUST: POLES DEFINITELY TARGETED BECAUSE THEY WERE POLES

Westermann discusses the expulsion of Poles from those regions of German-conquered Poland directly annexed to the Third Reich. The victims, mostly women and children, underwent transport, for days, in 30 degree below zero weather (C), in cattle cars lacking lavatories, water, or heat. The death toll was very high. (p. 150).

The author also mentions the Germans’ destruction of the Polish intelligentsia and those suspected of involvement in resistance activities (e. g., p. 111, 159), but realizes that Germans murdered Poles, at whim, under ANY pretext. (e.g., p. 158, 227). [This refutes the rather selfish Judeocentric notion that “Whereas Jews were killed because they were Jews, Poles were killed because it was war.”].

However, Westermann does not begin to do justice to the scale and genocidal scope of the 3-5 million non-Jewish Poles murdered by the Nazis. See my review of FORGOTTEN HOLOCAUST, by Lukas.

UKRAINIAN COLLABORATORS WITH THE NAZIS WERE MANY

This book devotes most of its attention to German conduct against the conquered population of the Soviet Union. The scale of Ukrainian-Nazi collaboration was staggering. By the end of 1942, out of some 300,000 auxiliaries serving the Germans in the German-occupied portion of the USSR, there were some 100,000 Ukrainians alone. (p. 196).

“ATROCITIES HAPPEN IN EVERY WAR” IS NO EXCUSE FOR GERMAN BARBARITY

Westermann examines and rejects many of the exculpations advanced to excuse Nazi conduct. For instance, against the “every side commits atrocities” notion, he cites the racially tinged Japanese-American Pacific War, in which individual atrocities did take place on both sides. However, at no time did Presidents Roosevelt or Truman order or condone the indiscriminate slaughter of Japanese. (p. 234).

As for the BEFEHL IST BEFEHL (An order is an order) canned German excuse, the author comments: “There is not a SINGLE documented case of a policeman being shot or imprisoned for refusing to kill Jews in cold blood.” (p. 236; emphasis his).