South Carolina Voices: Lessons from the Holocaust

Teaching Lesson Ten

Materials: Handout 10A: German Officers State Their Case; Handout 10B: Himmler Speaks To The SS Leaders

Key Terms: Nuremberg Trials, crimes against humanity

PROCEDURE

Motivate: Either the teacher or a student should summarize Overview VII for the class emphasizing the Nuremberg Trials. Point out that although these trials were unique in having an international panel of judges and prosecutors, they were conducted like other criminal trials. The defendants were charged in written indictments, represented by counsel of their own choosing, had the right to argue their own cases, could provide defense witnesses and evidence in their behalf, and could cross-examine prosecution witnesses.

The accused in the Nuremberg Trials were charged with crimes against humanity. Guilt or innocence was determined by a panel of judges from the major Allied powers: the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, and France. Tell students that they are about to read explanations by two German officers who gave testimony at the trials about their reasons for participating in the Holocaust. Before distributing the handouts, have the class speculate on what defense the men will offer for their behavior.

Develop: Divide the class into pairs. Give each pair a copy of Handout 10A. As one student makes a list of the arguments Ohlendorf used to explain his behavior, have the other student create a list of counterarguments. Distribute Handout 10B to each pair and have students repeat this process exchanging roles. Note that Heinrich Himmler, referred to in Handout 10B, was the SS chief with responsibility for supervising the execution of the Final Solution.

When all pairs have completed the assignment, take turns letting each pair write one of the explanations they identified from Handout 10A on the board. Continue until all explanations have been identified and recorded on the board. Among the explanations suggested by the readings are the arguments that the officers were just following orders; to disobey would have been unpatriotic; it was not the responsibility of subordinates to make decisions, but only to carry them out; their military training had not prepared them to make decisions; the officers did not have enough information to make a decision about the rightness of their actions or involvement.

List all arguments on the board. Then have the students supply their counterarguments. If other students have counterarguments that vary significantly from the ones listed, have them state their counterarguments and record them on the board. Can these explanations and arguments be classified into some common categories?

Conclude by asking students whether they think German soldiers share the blame for the atrocities committed by the Nazis with the many millions of civilians who did not resist or protest these activities.

Explain to the class that they are about to hear a part of the speech delivered by Heinrich Himmler, chief of the elite military corps known as the SS. He had much of the responsibility for carrying out the Nazi Final Solution. This speech was given to top SS leaders at a meeting in Poznan, Poland, in 1943. Ask a good reader to read Handout 10B aloud or tape record it and play the tape for the class. Discuss reactions to Himmler's speech. Were students surprised by Himmler's pride in the slaughter? Why or why not?

Distribute Handout 10B before continuing the discussion.

1. What subject does Himmler say he is discussing? (the deportation and extermination of European Jews)

2. Why do you think he said that his topic could be talked about openly at that meeting, but not elsewhere? (The people in this group presumably shared his belief in the Final Solution and his commitment to the annihilation of the Jews.)

3. Why do you think Himmler said that SS leaders should feel proud about their part in the murder of Jews? (They should feel proud, because they remained "decent." It is a "glorious" page in German history.)

Before continuing discussion of Himmler's speech, write the word "decent" on the board.

4. What do you think Himmler meant when he said that the people who did this have remained "decent."

5. How does Himmler's definition of decency differ from what is usually meant by this term? (One definition of decent is morally praiseworthy.)

Have students write a monologue or speech in which a survivor such as Renee, Pincus, Rudy, or one of the other people students have read about responds to Himmler's speech.

Extend: As a class, create a Charter of Rights and Responsibilities for members of the armed forces. Students can define what they believe to be the obligations of soldiers to carry out orders with which they disagree. They can also decide if soldiers will be held responsible for carrying out orders that are later judged to be criminal acts.

Interested students might research and report to the class on some more recent trials of Nazi war criminals, on the explanations given by Serbian soldiers during the war in the former Yugoslavia for their participation in "ethnic cleansing," on the trial of former East German Communist leader Erich Honecker for his shoot-to-kill orders of East Germans attempting to escape across the Berlin Wall, or on the defense of Lieutenant Cally for his behavior at My Lai during the Vietnam War. Students can consult the Reader's Guide for articles on these suggestions or on the trial of Adolph Eichmann or Klaus Barbie. Others might find out about the work of famous Nazi hunters such as Simon Wiesenthal or Beate Klarsfeld.

HANDOUT 10A: GERMAN OFFICERS STATE THEIR CASE

PART ONE

At the Nuremberg War Trials, Otto Ohlendorf, an officer in the German army, was questioned about his leadership of mobile execution squads. These squads moved from place to place killing groups of people beside mass graves. Under Ohlendorf's direction, Special Task Unit D murdered about 90,000 Jews. Ohlendorf was a university-educated officer who held a Ph.D. degree. A part of his testimony at the Nuremberg Trials follows.

Counsel: What were your thoughts when you received the order for the killings?

Ohlendorf: The immediate feeling with me and the other men was one of personal protest, but I was under direct military coercion and carried it out. The order, as such, even now I consider to have been wrong, but there is no question for me whether it was moral or immoral because a leader who has to deal with such serious questions decides on his own responsibility. This is his responsibility. I cannot examine, and I cannot judge. I am not entitled to do so. What I did there is the same as is done in any other army. As a soldier, I got an order, and I obeyed this order as a soldier.

1. Make a list of the main arguments this defendant uses to explain his actions during the Holocaust.

2. Next to each argument you have listed, write three or four sentences describing how you think the prosecutors at the Nuremberg Trial would answer each argument that the defendant has made.

3.What person or group do you think the defendant would blame for the loss of life that occurred in the Holocaust?

PART TWO

Rudolf Hess was the commander of Auschwitz in Poland, the largest of the killing centers built by the Germans. Over 4 million people were systematically put to death at Auschwitz. Hess served as head of this camp from May 1940 until the end of 1943. A part of his explanation of his actions at the camps follows.

Don't you see; we SS men were not supposed to think about these things. It never ever occurred to us, and besides, it was something already taken for granted that the Jews were to blame for everything. We just never heard anything else. Even our military training took for granted that we had to protect Germany from the Jews.

It only started to occur to me after the collapse that maybe it was not quite right, after I had heard what everybody was saying. We were all trained to obey orders without even thinking. The thought of disobeying an order would simply never have occurred to anybody, and somebody else would have done just as well if I hadn't. Himmler had ordered it and had even explained the necessity, and I really never gave much thought to whether it was wrong. It just seemed necessary.

When, in the summer of 1941, Himmler gave me the order to prepare installations at Auschwitz where mass exterminations could take place and personally carry out these exterminations, I did not have the slightest idea of their scale or consequences. It was certainly an extraordinary and monstrous order. Nevertheless, the reasons behind the extermination program seemed to me, right. I did not reflect on it at the time. I had been given an order, and I had to carry it out. Whether this mass extermination was necessary or not was something on which I could not allow myself to form an opinion, for I lacked the necessary breadth of view.

Since my arrest, it has been said to me repeatedly that I could have disobeyed this order, and that I might even have assassinated Himmler. I do not believe that of all the thousands of SS officers there could have been found a single one capable of such a thought. It was completely impossible. Certainly many SS officers grumbled about some of the orders that came from the SS, but they nevertheless always carried them out.

1. Make a list of the main arguments this defendant uses to explain his actions during the Holocaust.

2. Next to each argument you have listed, write three or four sentences describing how the prosecutors at the Nuremberg Trial would answer each argument the defendant has made.

3. On what person or group do you think the defendant would place the blame or responsibility for the persecution and loss of life that occurred in the Holocaust?

HANDOUT 10B: HIMMLER SPEAKS TO THE SS LEADERS*

I want to tell you about a very grave matter in all frankness. We can talk about it quite openly here, but we must never talk about it publicly. I mean the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish people. Most of you will know what it means to see 100 corpses piled up, or 500 or 1000. To have gone through this and, except for instances of human weakness, to have remained decent, that has made us tough. This is an unwritten, never to be written, glorious page of our history.

*(Evidence Presented at the Trial of Major War Criminals at Nuremberg. A speech by Heinrich Himmler, SS Chief, before SS leaders in Poznan, Poland, in 1943.)

Teaching Lesson Eleven

Back to Overview VII—Remembering and Forgetting

Back to Teaching Lesson Nine