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The Holocaust and the Neo-Nazi Mythomania
© 1978, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
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Heydrich in an article of 1936
(20) explained the task of the SD as
indispensable to the Gestapo:
"The prerequisite to the struggle of the
police against the adversaries is the "ideological struggle" against the
principles of the adversary which can only be led by the National-Socialist
movement. That is why the Police of the State must work in the closest liaison
with the SD of the Reischsführer-SS, [sic] to which the direction of the
NSDAP has entrusted, in its position as an organization of the SS as a whole,
the intelligence work for the investigation and surveillance of the adversaries
on the level of ideas." Much later (May 1944), Himmler defined the
role of men trained in the SD in the exterminatory deportations of Jews to the
East. In a speech pronounced during a course on political ideology
(21) he said:
"Measures taken within the Reich could not
be taken by a police composed only of a civil servants. A corporation which
would be bound only by the oath of a civil servant would not have the necessary
strength. These measures could be adopted and applied only by an organization
composed of National-Socialists moved by a fanatic conviction. The SS is one
and affirms itself as apt and has taken the responsibility for this task."
These words of Himmler express retrospectively what Hitler
indicated at the congress of the Party in 1935: the vocation of the SS to
execute the solution of the Jewish question.
In 1944, Himmler spoke of
the "final solution" in its definitive sense; the direction of it could only be
assumed by men trained in the spirit of the SD. If he considered that these men
in particular were prepared to undertake such an action, it is not because he
believed them to be especially brutal. On the contrary, in this instance it was
rather their flexibility and their intellectual discipline that he judged to be
a favourable condition. Having once established an absolute goal, a flexible
nature is necessary if one is to pursue it not blindly, but in adapting the
action to fluctuating circumstances. The goal was the total elimination of the
Jew from the German vital space. The intellectuals of the SD worked first on
planning the emigration, then on the "territorial solution" (attribution of a
"reserve" to the Jews); and finally they agreed to the process of
extermination. The years of study of the Jewish condition in the world, years
spent within the SD, made them proficient at this task. They knew the
structures of Judaism and were able to set up a system of administrative
collaboration with the Jewish organizations, which in most countries
facilitated the deportations.
We have quoted the words of Heydrich in
an article dating from January 1936 concerning the role of the SD. During the
same month and year, the principal Nazi daily, the "Voelkischer Beobachter,"
explained the SD to the general public:
"Given that the Secret Police of the
State, taken up primarily by tasks of the executive branch, is unable to
fulfill that task of observation of enemies
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The Holocaust and the Neo-Nazi Mythomania
© 1978, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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