“What is Katyn against this?”: how did Operation Cottbus divide Hitler’s comrades-in-arms?
So, friends, are you ready to dive into the murky waters of surrealism once again? Then you’ve come to the right place. You can wear scuba gear, because right now we are going to go to the Reichskommissariat “Ostland” from the time of the Nazi invasion of the USSR. After all, the undercover passions that boiled among the leaders of this ugly Hitlerite formation will shut up “Santo Barbara”, Kafka, Stephen King and H. P. Lovecraft combined. Probably, paraphrasing, one could even say this: “Whoever has read the internal documents of the top leaders of the Reichskommissariat Ostland does not laugh at Kafka”…
Document
The story I’m about to tell you came across by accident. You see, I have a weakness for periodically reviewing the materials of the Nuremberg Tribunal, and that’s how I stumbled upon a document that struck me with its absurdity. I can’t say that I was very surprised. After all, the Nazi project itself was nothing but absurdity from the very beginning. Used. Still, the document was striking. Taking into account the fact that I was looking through the English collection of materials from the Nuremberg Trials (that is, complete, unlike ours), I immediately realized that it was worth translating into Russian and publishing on the channel. Having once again checked the document on our publications, I was finally convinced that it had never been published in its full form. Only a few excerpts appeared in rare books concerning the fate of the Reich Minister of the so-called “Eastern Ministry,” Alfred Rosenberg, but no more. In general, if you are intrigued, read to the end.
However, first we will have to go through a little background and get acquainted with the three main defendants in this absurd case. But if you don’t have much time and you know who Alfred Rosenberg, Heinrich Lohse, and Wilhelm Kube are, you can skip straight to the third part of the article and read the document.
And with the rest, as promised, we move to the Reichskommissariat “Ostland”, where this story began…
“Three Funny Friends”
The Reichskommissariat “Ostland” was a quasi-colonial entity created by Hitler’s order in the occupied territories of the Baltic States and Belarus in July 1941. Formally, like the Reichskommissariat “Ukraine”, it was subordinate to the Reich Minister “for the Eastern Occupied Territories” Alfred Rosenberg, and was governed by Reichskommissar Heinrich Lohse, a chubby-cheeked Nazi with the face of Winnie-the-Pooh. As the oldest member of the NSDAP, Lohse was appointed to the post by Hitler and, in the first place, queue, obeyed him personally.
Reich Commissariats were created for the maximum exploitation of the occupied territories and to prepare them for “ruthless Germanization.” Moreover, I would like to note that the Hitlerites wanted to “Germanize” the land, not the people living on it. True, they planned to do all this after the victory over the USSR, but in the meantime, as they say, they used the captured population “both in the tail and in the mane”.
Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories Alfred Rosenberg
Head of the Reichskommissariat “Ostland” Heinrich Lohse
At the same time, the Reichskommissariat “Ostland” itself was divided into smaller “general districts”, one of which was the “general district of Belarus” (the “district of White Ruthenia“, as the Nazis called it then). It was managed by Gauleiter Wilhelm Kube. The same one who was blown up right in bed with his pregnant wife by our intelligence officers in September 1943 (she would survive and give birth to a son, who is still alive today).
In fact, the story I want to tell you about was originally initiated by the Commissar General and Gauleiter Kube. But before I get to it, let’s take a closer look at Rosenberg, Lohse, and Kube. This is very important in the context of this story. Moreover, all three stood out from the Nazi milieu…
Head of the “General District of White Ruthenia” Wilhelm Kube
The fact is that Rosenberg, Lohse, and Kube were… “pigeons”. As opposed to “hawks” like Himmler, Koch, Bormann, Goebbels or Hitler himself. Of course, all this is conditional. Of course, they were just as much Nazis and criminals. But at the same time, they tried to be guided by some kind of logic in their affairs. This was expressed in the fact that the trio tried with all their might to hide or disguise the practical ugliness of Nazism and tried to establish contact with the local population in the occupied territories as much as possible. Not out of the goodness of his heart, of course, but solely to facilitate his Nazi activities. In contrast to the Nazi “hawks”, they were more cunning and believed that open barbarism in the style of the SS alienated many potential allies (the same Ukrainians and Balts), strengthened resistance and spoiled Germany’s image in the world. After all, it is the country of Goethe and Kant, after all.
As examples of a glimpse of the Rosenberg-Lohse-Kube mind, I will cite a few documents. I apologize for the length, but this is very important (as I said above, if you don’t have time, you can skip it).
And I’ll start with Rosenberg…
A Nazi to the core and a supporter of the destruction of Russia, he saw his ideology in practice after the start of the “Eastern Campaign”. And he was unpleasantly surprised. He was particularly struck by the senseless and brutal extermination of millions of Soviet prisoners of war. As early as February 28, 1942, he was not afraid to send the following critical letter to the main military Reich (Field Marshal Keitel):
… The fate of Soviet prisoners of war in Germany was a tragedy of the greatest magnitude. Of the 3.6 million prisoners of war, only a few hundred thousand are now fully operational. Most of them died of hunger or cold. Thousands died of typhus.
It goes without saying that the supply of food to such a large number of prisoners of war encounters great difficulties. Still, with a clear understanding of the aims pursued by German policy, the loss of life on the scale described could have been avoided. According to available information, for example, on the territory of the Soviet Union, the local population is quite ready to deliver food to prisoners of war. Some prudent camp commanders take advantage of this. In most cases, the camp commanders forbade the civilian population to deliver food to the prisoners of war and condemned them to starvation. This was not allowed even when prisoners of war were transferred to camps. Moreover, in many cases, when prisoners of war were unable to march because of hunger and exhaustion, they were shot before the eyes of the horrified civilian population, and their corpses were left abandoned. In numerous camps, no care was taken at all to build quarters for prisoners of war. In the rain and snow, they were in the open air. They were not even given the tools to dig holes or burrows for themselves in the ground. Systematic disinfection of prisoners of war and the camps themselves does not appear to have been carried out. One could hear the reasoning: “The more prisoners die, the better for us…” (…)
Mention should be made of the shootings, which at times were carried out for reasons that were completely incomprehensible from a political point of view. Thus, for example, “Asiatics” were shot in various camps, although it is the inhabitants of the Asian regions of the Caucasus and Turkestan who are the most actively opposed to the oppression of Russians and to Bolshevism by the part of the population of the Soviet Union. The Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories has repeatedly pointed out such misunderstandings. But despite this, for example, back in November, a unit appeared in a prisoner-of-war camp near Nikolaev, which intended to liquidate the “Asians.”
The treatment of prisoners of war seems to be largely based on a completely wrong conception of the peoples of the Soviet Union. There is a perception that nations become less and less developed the farther they move to the East. Some believe that if the Poles have been mistreated, then the treatment of Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians and, finally, “Asians” should be even more cruel…
Soviet prisoners of war in one of the countless Dulags. From June 1941 to January 1942, more than 2 million people died in them
As you can see, even in the soul of such a terrible Nazi and criminal, at the sight of the lawlessness committed with prisoners of war, something stirred there…
His “refined” subordinate Heinrich Lohse, who became the head of the Reichskommissariat Ostland, thought in a similar vein. He, too, had an excellent university education and was squeamish about the outright terrorist practices of the SS. The problem was that the SS operated autonomously and reported exclusively to SS Reisführer Himmler. And he had specific and clear orders from Hitler himself.
In general, when in the autumn of 1941 the Einsatzkommando of the sinister SS Gruppenführer Jeckeln came to the Reichskommissariat “Ostland” and managed to make its mark in many other places (including Babi Yar), Lohse by his bold order temporarily stopped its activities in the lands entrusted to him. And no more, no less, he forbade … the extermination of the Jews.
A loud scandal arose…
On October 31, 1941, one of the officials of Rosenberg’s department, after complaints from the SS, sent an indignant inquiry to Lohse, in which he claimed that the RSHA was irritated by his ban on the execution of Jews. The inquiry ended with a demand for immediate clarification.
After a delay of 2 weeks for the sake of propriety, Lohse pulled himself together and answered:
Top Secret
On the Execution of the Jews
15 November 1941
I forbade the savage executions of Jews in Libau [Liepāja] because they were carried out in an irresponsible manner.
Would you be so kind as to inform me whether your order of October 31 is to be understood as a directive for the liquidation of all the Jews of the Ostland? Does it follow that it applies to all Jews, regardless of age, gender, or economic needs, such as the Wehrmacht’s need for skilled labor for the production of armaments? Of course, the cleansing of the Ostland of Jews is a task of the utmost necessity, but it must be carried out in accordance with the needs of war production.
Vine
Reichskommissar “Ostland” Heinrich Lohse
As can be seen from the reply of the Reich Commissioner, he decided to take advantage of an economic loophole. Again, not out of pity. It’s the same pragmatism coupled with squeamishness. Still, he was indeed too refined for such frankly bloody deeds. And he tried with all his might to dissociate himself from them (“not in front of my eyes!”).
But on December 18, 1941, this loophole was closed…
After declaring war on the United States, Hitler finally decided that the time had come to spread the Holocaust to all European occupied territories. On that day, after meeting him, Himmler wrote in his notebook: “The Fuehrer . . . The Jewish Question/To Destroy as a Partisan.”
Apparently, Hitler’s decision became known to the others very quickly. On the same day, Lohse received an answer to his cunning question in a letter dated November 15, 1941:
Top Secret – Berlin, 18.12.1941
On the Jewish Question
The Jewish question has been clarified after a series of consultations. In the solution of the Jewish question, economic interests should not be taken into account in principle. As for the rest, please deal with all questions that arise directly with the superiors of the SS and the police.
On behalf of Brautigam
Friedrich Jeckeln (5th from left, with his hands behind his back, looking defiantly at the camera) with the head of the Reichskommissariat “Ostland” Heinrich Lohse (glasses, frowning), as well as a group of officers at the Riga railway station on February 15, 1944.
The answer was overwhelming. At this point, even the squeamish Lohse could do nothing.
Just a few days after the closure of the “loophole”, he witnessed the mass shooting in Rumbula, where the SS of Jeckeln killed 25,000 Latvian Jews in one “action” in one fell swoop. They did it “in Jeckel’s signature” “method of stacking sardines”. And Lohse watched silently. I’m even sure he suffered through all this. For myself, for my beloved, of course.
Ironically, two days before the final closure of the economic “loophole,” Lohse received a letter from the third “hero” of our story. The Gauleiter of the “White Ruthenia” Wilhelm Kube, who mercilessly exterminated hundreds of thousands of Belarusian Jews on his entrusted territory, suddenly found himself in a terrible dilemma. It was at this time that trains with Jews from Germany began to arrive on its territory. Basically, They were to be treated in the same way as the locals. But Kube hesitated. After all, they were a bit of “Aryans.” And they looked German. They were educated and cultured in German. Is it possible to take them in the same way and stupidly kill them with a machine gun at the dug ditch? Maybe invite Latvian or Lithuanian thugs to eliminate them?
In a letter to Lohse, Kube complained:
Top Secret
Minsk, 16.12.1941
My dear Henry,
I ask you personally to give an official directive on the position of the civil authorities regarding the Jews deported from Germany to Byelorussia. Among these Jews there are people who fought at the front [in the First World War] and were awarded the Iron Cross of the First and Second Class, disabled war veterans, half and even three-quarters Aryans. To date, only 6,000 to 7,000 Jews have arrived, out of the expected 25,000 reported to us. I don’t know what happened to the others. During several official visits to the ghetto, I noted that among these Jews, who differed from the Russian Jews in their cleanliness, there were skilled workers who could do five times as much in a day as Russian Jews.
These Jews are likely to die of cold or starvation in the coming weeks. For us they pose a terrible threat as spreaders of disease, for they, like us Germans, are subject to the 22 epidemic diseases prevalent in Byelorussia.
On my own responsibility, I will not give the SD any instructions as to the treatment of these people, although some Wehrmacht and police units have already laid hands on the property of Jews deported from the Reich. For example, the SD took 400 mattresses from them, as well as confiscated other belongings. I am certainly firm in my opinion and want to contribute to the solution of the Jewish question, but these people who belong to our culture are different from the stupid herd of locals. Is it possible to blame the mass shootings on Lithuanians and Latvians, who are alien to the local population? I can’t do that. I ask you to give precise directives so that the proper action will be carried out in the most humane way.
With cordial greetings
Heil Hitler!
Your Wilhelm Kube
Kube in Minsk in May 1943
As you can see, something has stirred in this one as well…
A kind of Nazi “pity” was characteristic of Kube in general. For example, during the “action” to destroy the Minsk ghetto, he drove his car right up to the dug pit and began throwing chocolates to the screaming children in it (they were waiting for the busy SS men from the firing squad).
In a letter to Lohse from 1941, he wrote vehemently about one of the Jewish “actions” of the SS:
I submit this report in duplicate so that one copy may be sent to the Reich Minister (Kube is referring to Rosenberg). Peace and order in White Ruthenia cannot be maintained by such methods. To bury alive the seriously wounded who have escaped from their graves is such a despicable and filthy act that such incidents must be reported to the Fuehrer and the Reich Marshal without delay.
A naïve person?
The most interesting thing is that in Germany, Cuba had a scandalous reputation as a corrupt official and quarrelsome. At one time, he even lost all his posts and almost flew out of the party. Only thanks to Hitler’s intercession, as an “old fighter”, he was left in the NSDAP. After vacancies appeared “in the east”, under the patronage of Bormann, Kube was hurried to be sent to Belarus.
But as soon as he arrived at his new duty station, he immediately confronted the local SS and military officials. Cuba was infuriated by the fact that the SS and SD were carrying out “actions” in the territory entrusted to him without warning. The Wehrmacht officials were also irritating, as they also did not report to the newly-minted master about their affairs in the “White Ruthenia”. Kube quickly made enemies. It was rumored that if it had not been for his murder by partisans, the Gauleiter would have been arrested on Himmler’s orders.
Be that as it may, the document I mentioned at the very beginning of the article appeared thanks to another “cut” between Cuba and the local Minsk SD, in the person of its head, SS Sturmbannführer Eduard Strauch…
Wilhelm Kube
“What’s Katyn against that?”
In general, the dislike of Kube and Strauch began almost at first sight. It got to the point that the head of the RSHA, Heydrich, flew to Belarus on Strauch’s complaint and reprimanded Cuba. Then Kube “corrected”. In one of his reports to the same Lohse, he wrote that “in the last two weeks, the extremely zealous Strauch and I have liquidated 55,000 Jews in White Ruthenia.”
But soon the scandals between them resumed. Fortunately, the terrible Heydrich was already dead.
In June 1943, Kube once again “reprimanded” Strauch for “barbarism,” which he mentioned in his report to the SS and police leader in Central Russia, SS-Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski (who forwarded the report to Himmler):
… I added that I and my people had been accused again and again of barbarism and sadism. Even the fact that Jews destined for “special treatment” have their gold dental fillings duly removed by specialist doctors has become a topic of conversation. Kube replied that our manner of conduct was unworthy of the German man and the Germany of Kant and Goethe. If Germany’s reputation around the world has been undermined, it has been because of people like us. I vigorously protested against this assertion and stressed that it was regrettable when, in addition to this vile work, we were also vilified by our own people.
Strauch in a prison photo. He was twice sentenced to death in post-war trials, but went insane and died in the prison hospital in 1955 before his sentence could be carried out
The scandal that Strauch described in a letter to his superiors was caused by a report sent to Kube by the head of one of the local SD prisons on June 1, 1943, which described, among other things, the procedure for the extermination of Jews and stated that before each such “action” in a specially designated office, the doomed were to have their gold teeth pulled out. As can be seen, Cuba, upon receiving the report, was furious at this barbarism. After all, he preferred to kill in a “cultured” way.
Coincidentally, around the same time, he received a report on another anti-partisan operation called Cottbus. The report stated that the Germans had killed 4,500 “bandits” (i.e., partisans) and 5,000 “suspected bandits” during the clean-up operation.At the same time, a total of 492 rifles and 28 machine guns were seized during the operation. Thus, it was clear that in fact another senseless destruction of innocent civilians had taken place. To put it simply, a potential workforce.
Cuba, as they say, has finally bombed…
Taking a report from the head of the SD prison dated June 1, 1943 (on the pulling out of the gold teeth of Jews before execution) and attaching to it the report of SS-Brigadeführer Gottberg on Operation Cottbus, Kube sent all this to his immediate superior, the Reichskommissar “Ostland” Heinrich Lohse. Among other things, he angrily wrote in a cover letter:
… The figures cited in the report show that there has once again been a large-scale destruction of the population. If only 492 rifles were seized from the 4,500 bandits killed, this discrepancy shows that many of them were ordinary peasants from the villages. Dirlewanger’s battalion was especially famous, killing many people. Among the 5,000 killed on suspicion of links with bandits, there are many women and children…
Having received a package of documents from Kube, Reichskommissar Lohse sent them even higher, to Reichsleiter Rosenberg in Berlin. Like Kube, he wrote a cover letter. The very thing that amazed me. Here is its full text (for the first time in full form in Russian):
Reichskommissar of Ostland
Riga, June 18, 1943
Tgb.Nr. 3628143
Secretly!
Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, Berlin
The enclosed secret dispatches received from the Commissar-General of Cuba deserve close attention.
The fact that Jews are subjected to “special treatment” does not require further discussion. But I don’t want to believe that things are as they are in the report of June 1, 1943. What is Katyn against this? Just imagine that these facts become known to the other side and will be used by it! Such propaganda probably wouldn’t have been very successful just because people or listeners simply wouldn’t be able to believe it.
The fight against gangs also takes on very dubious forms if the goal of our policy is to pacify and exploit certain areas. Thus the dead suspected of collaborating with the gangs, estimated at 5,000 in the report of Operation Cottbus of June 5, 1943, might, with rare exceptions, have been employed in the Reich with rare exceptions.
At the same time, there is no denying that due to the difficulties with communication during such sweeps, it is very difficult to distinguish friend from foe. But in any case, it is possible to avoid atrocities and bury those who have been liquidated. Locking men, women, and children in barns and burning them does not seem to me to be an appropriate method of fighting gangs, even if the goal is to exterminate the population. This method is unworthy of the German cause and does great damage to our reputation.
I ask you to take action.
Vine
Heinrich Lohse and Alfred Rosenberg in 1942
How!
The surrealism is off the charts…
This “good Nazi” with the face of Winnie the Pooh is genuinely perplexed as to why women and children should be burned in barns when they can simply be shot and buried in a civilized manner. Why break the teeth of the unfortunate Jews if they only need to be “treated in a special way” (i.e., shot in the same way). Why this brutality, unworthy of a German? “They used to think that we were only half a head frostbitten, but now they will think that we are all frostbitten” (and even then, if they believe what they hear).
And really, what does Katyn compare to that?