Sprache:
Englisch
Erscheinungsjahr:
2011
Titel der Quelle:
Central European History
Angaben zur Quelle:
44,2 (2011) 308-337
Schlagwort(e):
Jews History 1939-1945
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
National socialism
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
Jews
Kurzfassung:
With the radicalization of the Final Solution to the "Jewish question" in the East, the SS, which was responsible for this Nazi project, became increasingly interested in drawing the army into the anti-Jewish campaign in the occupied Soviet areas. The task of safeguarding the Wehrmacht's participation in the genocide was laid on the joint SS and army anti-partisan conference held in September 1941 at the HQ of the Army Group Center (Rear) in Mogilyov, Belarus. At this conference, Schenkendorff, Nebe, Bach-Zelewski, and others succeeded in convincing the attending officers that the Jews in the USSR stood behind the partisan warfare and that the mass murder of Jews should be part of the "legitimate" anti-partisan activities. The SS leaders even exaggerated the scope of the partisan warfare in Belarus, which was weak at this time, in order to draw the Wehrmacht into the anti-Jewish campaign. The Mogilyov conference marked a turning point in the involvement of the army in the genocide in Belarus. Some other factors alleviated the Wehrmacht's acceptance of this new task: the German Army had had experience in the murder of civilians since the late 19th century, the belief that the Jews were behind Bolshevism was a well-established myth in Nazi Germany, and many Army commanders were antisemitic. Anti-Jewish actions carried out by the army were organized in a military manner and had the semblance of a standard military operation.
DOI:
10.1017/S0008938911000057
URL:
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