War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2002

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-2

Chapters 3-4

Chapters 5-6

Chapter 7-Conclusion

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

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Chapters 5-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 5 Summary: “Experiments in Brutality, 1939-1940: War Against Poland and the So-Called Euthanasia Program”

In 1939, Germany went to war against Poland. Chapter 5 examines “the first year of the war as a period of Nazi experiments in conquest, persecution, and mass killing” (131); it also surveys the Nazis’ “cynical manipulation” of their subjects (102). Bergen introduces the concept of “divide and conquer” in this chapter: “Whenever possible [German decision-makers] stirred up dissention and hatred among those over whom they ruled in order to advance their own cause” (102).

On September 1, 1939, German forces invaded Poland. They staged a mock radio station attack that framed Polish citizens for the death of ethnic Germans. In reality, this hoax left 70,000 Poles dead and 1,000,000 Poles imprisoned by German and Soviet forces. France and Britain declared war on Germany in response. The Soviets invaded Eastern Poland, as previously agreed upon in the Hitler-Stalin NAP, where they maintained control until 1941.

The Germans annexed one portion of Western Poland and treated the other portion as a German colony. They installed a General Government there led by Governor General Dr. Hans Frank. The former Polish government fled and established government-in-exile in Britain. Bergen characterizes Nazi governance in Poland as chaotic and disorganized.

Under Nazi occupation, ethnic Poles were terrorized and brutalized, and Polish Jews were treated even worse. Reinhard Heydrich—a high-ranking SS officer and director of Reich Security, which oversaw the Gestapo and other Nazi agencies—ordered that “[n]obility, clergy, and Jews must be killed” (104). Laws were introduced to differentiate Poles from Germans. Ethnic Poles were not allowed to heil Hitler, befriend Germans, or serve Germans in shops. The Nazis intended to rob the Poles of their national identity and transform them into a race of slaves.

Poles and Jews were deported from Poland to make room for ethnic Germans. However, this mass deportation project proved too unstable and resulted in overcrowding in the General Government’s territories. In response, the Nazis developed the “Final Solution” to the “Jewish Problem,” which called for the extermination of Jews from Europe.

Though Polish clergymen petitioned Pope Pius XII to speak out against Hitler, he remained silent. Some Nazis protested their party’s ruthlessness, including General Johannes Blaskowitz, who regarded the excesses of violence as “counterproductive.” Hitler dismissed his concerns as naïve.

Jewish properties were repossessed across Poland. Polish Jews were crowded into ghettos and forced labor camps. Disease, starvation, and overcrowding were extremely common in these ghettos. Escapees and petty criminals were punished with beatings and death. Strength Through Joy bus tours passed through these ghettos “so that members of the supposed master race could see the degeneracy of their alleged inferiors” (112). Jewish community leaders were appointed as go-betweens by their Nazi overseers. Firsthand anecdotes about these Jewish Councils were mixed. Some were respected by their communities and regarded as helpful protectors; others were accused of collaborationism, megalomania, and self-enrichment at the expense of others.

The Nazis continued to advance their eugenic policies against the disabled. Prior to the war, the T-4 (Tiergartenstrasse 4) program was introduced under the auspices of serving the collective good. It entailed the starvation and lethal injection of handicapped children. In 1939, the T-4 program was expanded to include “institutionalized adults with mental illnesses and disabilities” (126). The T-4 program was shrouded in secrecy to avoid scandal; however, it became impossible to mask. The backlash against this program included a denouncement from Pope Pious. In August 1941, Hitler publicly announced the end of the T-4 program yet continued it in secret.

Chapter 6 Summary: “Expansion and Systematization: Exporting War and Terror, 1940-1941”

Chapter 6 details Nazi Germany’s territorial expansion throughout Europe, particularly the 1940 and 1941 campaigns. It also explores the repercussions of this geopolitical expansion and of the Nazis’ racial purification programs. Bergen labels the period between 1940 and 1941 as “a time of expansion and systematization” (131). It was also a period of mass conquest and war initiated by the German government. By the end of 1941, roughly 1 million Jews were murdered by Nazis and their supporters.

In response to the 1939 attack on Poland, Britain and France officially declared war on Germany. However, little military activity actually took place until mid-1940, earning the early period of the war the nickname “phony war.”

Hitler planned to dominate Britain and France to conquer all of Europe, although he classed Western Europeans as more “racially valuable” than Eastern Europeans. In April 1940, German troops entered and seized Denmark “without a struggle” (133). Despite British and French aid, Germany took Norway the following June. Norwegian leadership fled and established a government-in-exile in London. Germany’s seizure of Norway and Denmark was a tactical move that allowed it to control trade routes and establish naval bases.

In May 1940, Germany invaded and conquered Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium. The Dutch surrendered, and their queen fled to establish government-in-exile in Britain. While assailing the Dutch city of Rotterdam, the Luftwaffe (the German air force) specifically targeted civilians to damage Dutch morale. Bergen writes, “For the Allies, the bombing of Rotterdam provided an early manifestation of German brutality and introduced a new kind of warfare: unlimited war from the air” (134). That same month, German troops invaded France. Around 338,000 Allied soldiers were evacuated and rescued from the French port of Dunkirk under German attack, and they were forced to abandon most of their equipment.

On June 14, 1940, the: Nazis took Paris. That August, the French government signed an armistice with Germany that divided France into two zones: one “occupied” and one “unoccupied” (Vichy France). With France cowed, Hitler came to regard Britain as Germany’s principal enemy. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the British Royal Airforce (RAF) successfully drove off the Luftwaffe on September 15, 1940, forcing Hitler to postpone the invasion of Britain.

Bergen asserts that “Britain became the last refuge for many people fleeing Nazi Germany” (136), including several governments-in-exile and multinational refugees. A privately organized program called Kindertransport (“children’s transport”) helped ferry some 10,000 Jewish children out of Nazi territory and into Great Britain.

Other nations, including Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Sweden, and Turkey, remained neutral parties. Each of these nations played “different roles during the war. Some would provide escape routes for victims of German persecution […] Others, such as Switzerland, turned many refugees away […] Some of the neutrals profited considerably from the war” (139).

In 1940, Germany, Italy, and Japan established the Three-Power Pact. In 1941, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Finland, Bulgaria, and Croatia also joined in hopes of expanding their power. Meanwhile, the Soviets expanded into Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bessarabia (a province of Romania), and Finland. It became impossible for Jews to escape Europe.

Between 1940 and 1941, the Germans launched assaults on the Balkans, Yugoslavia, and Greece. The Yugoslavian king fled to Britain and established government-in-exile; Yugoslavia capitulated to Germany in April 1941, though Yugoslavian forces waylaid their attackers and drained some of their resources. The Nazis responded with mass “retributive” executions of Yugoslavians. In 1941, Germany conquered Greece.

In June 1941, the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union. Bergen discusses the common belief that the Nazis’ attack on the USSR was a miscalculation that cost them the war. Bergen clarifies that Hitler always intended to attack the Soviets: “It was only a question of when […] Like all of Hitler’s diplomatic agreements, [the Hitler-Stalin NAP] was meant to be broken” (146). The Germans invaded several Soviet nations, including Russia, Latvia, the Baltic states, and Ukraine. In response, the USSR joined the Allies.

In late 1941, Nazi leadership convened in the Wannsee Conference to plot out their extermination of the Jews. Gas chambers in death camps were chosen as the most efficient method of killing.

Chapters 5-6 Analysis

Bergen frequently uses both literary and rhetorical craft. This almost goes without saying; as an academic text, War and Genocide naturally presents analysis of the historical events it describes, and that analysis requires argumentation. Likewise, presenting historical events in this format requires the construction of a narrative.

The events recounted in this text actually occurred, of course, famously so. An overwhelming majority of people will know a few key details about World War II and the Holocaust before ever opening this book. Bergen uses this to her advantage, in some cases creating an almost theatrical tone, as in this passage: “German planners always considered ghettoization a temporary measure, a sort of holding pattern until subsequent steps could be taken. But what were those steps to be?” (111). Bergen’s readers will already know the answer to that question. Nazi leadership, however, was not always dead set on installing their now-infamous death camps. In 1939, they were still weighing their options. The rhetorical question—“what were those steps to be?”—creates a grim sense of dramatic irony.

Bergen occasionally challenges popular misinformation and conspiracy theories regarding the events of World War II. When introducing these ideas, she invokes opening phrases such as “You may have heard…” (146). However, in one instance, she challenges other academic sources with the phrase “most textbooks will tell you…” (135). This language is similar to Bergen’s occasional editorializing, which she uses to affirm her outright rejection of Nazi ideology. It is both necessary and expected for scholars of the Holocaust to discredit Nazism. As Bergen points out in a later chapter, “killing was itself a direct goal of the German war effort” (161). Although Bergen’s approach to this history is even-tempered, she understands that genocide is not a topic that can be broached with neutrality. As she points out repeatedly in the book, apathy and nonpartisanship tacitly allowed Nazi extremism to take hold in Germany.