Chapter 145 Chapter 24 "The Door to the Dark Room" (2)

Following the vanguard were four SS special operations teams, each consisting of 3,000 men.Their mission is to secure the theater of operations, that is, prevent civilian revolts.These people are very special policemen, taking on additional tasks assigned by their leader Reinhard Heydrich.That is, rounding up and exterminating the Bolshevik leaders, all Jews, Gypsies, "Asian scumbags", and "big buckets" like insane and incurable diseases. In order to oversee this mass murder, Heydrich and Himmler specially selected people with special knowledge to serve as officers, including a Protestant priest, a physician, a professional singer and many lawyers.Most of them are intellectuals over the age of 20.One might think that these people are not up to the job.Quite the contrary, they put their skills and training to the brutal task and became efficient - though unwilling - executioners.

Most of the victims were Jewish.Because the Soviet press did not report many anti-Semitic atrocities in Germany, many people did not know that Hitler had a plan for "ethnic cleansing".In this way, many people welcomed the Germans as liberation, easily fooled by the special operations team. "The National Socialists believed that the Jews were well-organized. The opposite was true," confirmed von Dem Bash Zeleski, a senior SS officer and police commander in central Russia. "The astonishing truth is that they were totally unprepared and totally caught off guard. The previous narrative that the Jews were conspiring to dominate the world was highly organized. This incident proves that this is all a lie." His own disaster was so unprepared.Nothing was prepared, absolutely nothing. "

The extermination was carried out in a deliberate manner, a crisp, routine operation.The report was in dry official language, as if the executioners were beheading cabbages, not people.Due to careful arrangements, the work of the Killing Squad is rarely hindered by resistance. "The strange thing is that the prisoners were shot with great composure," one commander reported, "as did the Jews, as did the non-Jews. Their fear of death seemed to have been overwhelmed by a certain indifference that had developed during the twenty years of Soviet rule." dilute." The most difficult problem for Heydrich was how to deal with the psychological effect on the execution team.Some soldiers had a nervous breakdown, and some learned to drink too much.Many officers suffered from severe gastroenteritis.Some were overzealous in carrying out their tasks, violating Himmler's order to execute them in as humane a way as possible, beating prisoners for fun.

He himself witnessed the morally corrupt consequences of daily killing.That summer, while on a tour in Minsk, he asked the commander of the special operations unit to shoot and kill 100 prisoners to show him, because he wanted to see with his own eyes how the extermination was carried out.After the firing squad raised their guns, he found a young man among the prisoners, blond and blue-eyed, with features of a true Teutonic man, who seemed very out of harmony among the prisoners.Himmler asked him if he was Jewish.Yes.Where are the parents?also yes.Are there any non-Jewish ancestors?No.Himmler stomped his foot. "Then I can't help you."

The firing squad opened fire.Himmler, who came to watch wholeheartedly, stared at the ground, moving his feet nervously.A second burst of gunfire rang out.He looked away immediately again.He looked up and saw two women wriggling and struggling. "Don't torture these women!" he shouted. "Shoot!" This was the moment Bash Zeleski had been waiting for.He asked Himmler to remember how much the firing squad had been shaken. "The rest of their lives are over!" said the SS officer. "What kind of followers are we building with these methods? Psychopaths or thugs!"

On a whim, Himmler ordered everyone to assemble and listen to his speech.Their job, he said, is a nasty job and, as good German citizens, they should not take pleasure in it.However, their conscience should not be affected in any way, because they are soldiers, and soldiers are expected to carry out every order to the letter.I swear before God and the Führer that he alone bears all the dreadful responsibility that arises from it. They must have noticed that this work also abhorred him, and touched the depths of his soul.However, he is also obeying the highest law and performing his duties.

Rumors of these atrocities troubled Rosenberg.Hitler ordered him to draw up a blueprint for the occupation of the conquered Eastern lands.His plans are quite different, allowing for a degree of autonomy.Because the Führer had earlier agreed to establish a "weak socialist state" in the conquered Russian lands, Rosenberg was optimistic that Hitler had approved his plan in principle and would present it on July 16 at the The special meeting held by Wolf's Lair for this plan was approved. "It is important," Hitler said (according to Bormann's account of the meeting), "that we do not publish our views before the world. There is no need to. The main thing is that we know what we want." If Hitler's words were not enough to wake Rosenberg to realize that Hitler had changed his mind about the establishment of a "weak socialist state", then what he went on to say was enough. "This does not prevent us from taking all necessary measures - shooting, resettlement, etc. - which we will take... In principle, we are faced with the task of dividing the pie according to our needs , the object is, first, to rule it; second, to rule it; third, to exploit it. The Russians have ordered a guerrilla war in our rear. This guerrilla action will also have an advantage for us, enabling us to destroy every opposition our people."

When Rosenberg left the venue, although he wore the title of Minister of the East of the Empire.But this is an empty title, and he also understands that his dream about the East has little hope of being realized.What a tragedy, he thought to himself, that Hitler still had the wrong idea of ​​the Slavs, which had grown up in his youth in Vienna.At that time, he read many inflammatory pamphlets, which described the Slavs as lazy primitives and hopeless second-class peoples.Hitler's complete misunderstanding of the Soviet system was equally disastrous.The Ukrainians and other nationalities under the yoke of the Great Russians, who were potential allies of the Third Reich, could have been a bulwark against Bolshevism if they had been treated right and given a little autonomy.But the Führer listened to Borman and Goering and said that these people should be controlled with a whip.It seemed hopeless to persuade Hitler back from this course, but Rosenberg was determined to try.This determination was weak, too, because no one knew better than himself that if the Fuehrer gave him a stare, as usual, he would be too frightened to make a sound.