Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Myth of Long Duration Reitlinger

Final Solution, by Gerald Reitlinger. 1987

“The Warsaw Ghetto Fought Longer Than the Polish Army” Myth. Polokaust Factored. Auschwitz Komandant Hoess Was NOT a Christian

Reitlinger describes the extermination of Jews in great detail, arriving at a probable range of 4.2 to 5.7 million murdered Jews (p. 501), based on then-available data. [My review is based on the original 1953 edition]. He surveys this genocide through time and according to German-occupied nation. He also goes into various technicalities. For instance, he details the failure of the Auschwitz-Birkenau crematoria to consume anywhere near the over-10,000 expected bodies daily (p. 150), and the need to supplement, and then partly replace, the crematoria with open-air pyres.

THE MYTHOLOGIZED WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING (1943): SILLY COMPARISONS WITH THE 1939 POLISH ARMY

Reitlinger’s work also provides a body of information that serves as a corrective for many Holocaust-related distortions that have accreted in recent decades. For instance, in his movie UPRISING (2001), Jon Avnet actually makes the amazing claim that the Jews, during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, fought longer against the Germans than the entire Polish Army did in 1939 (sic)!

Apart from getting the relative durations wrong, Jon Avnet is comparing two entirely different undertakings. In 1939, the widely-dispersed and poorly-armed Polish forces had to face the full brunt of a 1.5 million-man mechanized German Army and Luftwaffe. In contrast, and as demonstrated in the next paragraph, the insurgent Warsaw Jews faced opposition from only a small German police contingent.

The following quotes from Reitlinger (p. 276) describe the minute size of the German police (not military) forces needed to suppress the insurgent Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: “From this angle the Warsaw affair was an anti-partisan action which was conducted by only 1,100 regular troops who were not even reinforced…At Warsaw, no front-line troops were diverted and not for a moment were the communications of the front threatened…”

For further demythologizing of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, see NOT JUST ANOTHER HOLOCAUST BOOK, by Eli Gat. (I have reviewed it).

NOT ONLY THE HOLOCAUST: THE POLOKAUST IN THE MAKING

(The terms Holocaust and Polokaust did not exist at the time Reitlinger wrote this work.) Although his work centers on the genocidal extermination of Jews, Reitlinger (p. 487) recognizes, to some degree, the same fate eventually awaiting the Poles and other Slavs (p. 487): “Of the racial problems with which Hitler’s Reich believed itself confronted, the Jewish problem was apparently the only one that demanded a Final Solution, but there were always advocates for a final solution for the Slavs. Himmler’s Office for the Strengthening of German Folkdom was full of them.”

THE 1939 WAR: POLISH HEROISM RECOGNIZED

Reitlinger (p. 32) provides a corrective to the much-ridiculed (then and now) Polish Army: “On September 1st, 1939, when the first German troops crossed the Polish frontier, ill-founded optimism was rife. The Poles were expected to last out long enough to benefit from the slow mobilization of the West. Few realized that the eighteen days of Polish resistance were a remarkable achievement for a nation which was not equipped for armoured warfare.” In actuality, the last regular Polish army units fought for 35 days, and prewar Polish military planners had recognized the fact that, without substantial French and British assistance (and even without factoring the unexpected joint Soviet-German attack against Poland), organized Polish military resistance could not last more than about six weeks.

NAZISM ANTI-CHRISTIAN: AUSCHWITZ KOMANDANT HOESS WAS NOT A CHRISTIAN

In atheistic literature, Auschwitz Kommandant Hoess (Hoss) is falsely said to have been a practicing Christian. In actuality, Hoess (Hoss) rebelled against his strong Catholic upbringing when a young adult, and joined the then-fledgling Nazi Party (p. 107).