Jewish Soldiers in Nazi Captivity

Linenberg, Yorai, Jewish Soldiers in Nazi Captivity: American and British Prisoners of War during the Second World War, Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2023, 288 pp. 9”×6”; ISBN 978-0-198892786

Introduction

The book Jewish Soldiers in Nazi Captivity: American and British Prisoners of War during the Second World War is based on author Yorai Linenberg’s doctoral dissertation submitted in 2021 to the London School of Economics and Political Science. Linenberg writes that approximately 2,200 British Jews and 2,500 American Jews were held as prisoners of war (POWs) by Germany. He writes that these 4,700 British and American Jewish POWs were generally treated properly according to the 1929 Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (the Geneva Convention).[1]

Linenberg, like most Jewish academics, believes in the official Holocaust narrative. In this book, he attempts to explain why these 4,700 Jewish POWs were treated properly, while other Jews under German control were exterminated pursuant to a German policy of genocide. Linenberg argues that, since there was no specific order from Hitler to the contrary, the German POW Office was able to ensure that the Geneva Convention was applied to non-Soviet Jewish POWs.[2]

No Hitler Order

Linenberg is correct that Hitler did not issue an order to execute non-Soviet Jewish POWs. However, Linenberg does not understand that Hitler never issued an order to conduct a program of genocide against Jews during World War II. The 4,700 British and American Jewish POWs survived the war because Hitler had never ordered a program of mass extermination against Jews.

Originally the Holocaust story assumed that Germany had a plan or program for exterminating the Jews. In the 1961 edition of his book The Destruction of European Jews, Raul Hilberg wrote that in 1941 Hitler issued two orders for the extermination of the Jews.[3] However, even though the Allies captured most of Germany’s government and concentration camp records intact, no order or plan has ever been found to exterminate European Jewry.

In the revised 1985 edition of Hilberg’s book, all references to such extermination orders from Hitler were removed. Pro-Holocaust historian Christopher Browning, in a review of the revised edition of The Destruction of European Jews, wrote: “In the new edition, all references in the text to a Hitler decision or Hitler order for the ‘Final Solution’ have been systematically excised. Buried at the bottom of a single footnote stands the solitary reference: ‘Chronology and circumstances point to a Hitler decision before the summer ended.’ In the new edition, decisions were not made and orders were not given.”[4]

When asked in 1983 how the extermination of European Jewry took place without an order, Raul Hilberg replied:[5]

“What began in 1941 was a process of destruction not planned in advance, not organized centrally by any agency. There was no blueprint and there was no budget for destructive measures. They were taken step by step, one step at a time. Thus, came about not so much a plan being carried out, but an incredible meeting of minds, a consensus–mind reading by a far-flung bureaucracy.”

On Jan. 16, 1985, under cross-examination at the first Ernst Zündel trial in Toronto, Raul Hilberg confirmed that he said these words.[6] Thus, Hilberg stated that the genocide of European Jewry was not carried out by a plan or order, but rather by an incredible mind reading among far-flung German bureaucrats.

Other historians have acknowledged that no document of a plan by Germany to exterminate European Jewry has ever been found. In his well-known book on the Holocaust, French-Jewish historian Leon Poliakov wrote that “…the campaign to exterminate the Jews, as regards its conception as well as many other essential aspects, remains shrouded in darkness.” Poliakov adds that no documents of a plan for exterminating the Jews have ever been found because “perhaps none ever existed.”[7]

British historian Ian Kershaw stated that when the Soviet archives were opened in the early 1990s:[8]

“Predictably, a written order by Hitler for the ‘Final Solution’ was not found. The presumption that a single, explicit written order had ever been given had long been dismissed by most historians.”

The lack of a written order from Hitler to exterminate Europe’s Jews has created major problems for supporters of the official “Holocaust” narrative. British historian David Irving was asked at the 1988 Ernst Zündel trial: Do you consider it likely that an enterprise of the magnitude of the extermination of the Jews of Europe could be accomplished by the people [Germans] knowing the way they conducted business from their documents without the existence of explicit orders and plans?

David Irving testified:[9]

“Not only without existence of orders, but also without the existence of any written reference to it. I have to say that the German wartime civil servant was basically a cowardly animal and he would not do something that he considered to be criminal without getting a document clearing himself. He would get his superior to write a letter saying, ‘On the Führer’s orders, we are doing the following,’ which is why there are letters showing Himmler saying, ‘On the Führer’s orders, we are deporting the Jews.’ Which was the extent of the Führer’s orders and which was the extent, to my mind, of the final solution. So, the documents don’t exist where you expect to find them. Hitler’s other crimes, the documents are there: the euthanasia order, the order to kill British commandos, the orders to lynch American airmen, the orders for the killing of the male population of Stalingrad if ever they occupied it. Hitler’s other crimes, simple crimes, the documents are there where you expect to find them. And yet this biggest crime of all, there is no document…I think there would definitely have had to be orders and these orders would have been referred to in countless files of different ministerial bodies. So, it would have been impossible for these documents to have been destroyed at the end of the war. There would always be carbon copies somewhere.”

Evidence also exists that the German authorities responsible for the camps ordered measures to reduce deaths of inmates due to disease. On Dec. 28, 1942, SS officer Richard Glücks, who was the head of the camp administration office, sent a directive to commandants of the concentration camps. It ordered that “…camp physicians must use all means at their disposal to significantly reduce the death rate in the various camps…The camp doctors are to see to it that the working conditions at the various labor sites are improved as much as possible.” The directive also stressed that “the Reichsführer SS [Heinrich Himmler] has ordered that the death rate absolutely must be reduced.”[10] Glücks followed up his directive in January of 1943 by informing the concentration camp commandants, “As I have already pointed out, every means must be used to lower the death rate in the camps.”[11]

German camp administrator Oswald Pohl, in an order dated Oct. 26, 1943, gave specific measures to ensure the health and productivity of the internees of the camps. A copy of the order was sent to Himmler. Pohl began by emphasizing the importance of the camps in the war effort. In addition to stressing the importance of proper nutrition, clothing, and rest, Pohl specified that ill prisoners were to receive a special diet to help restore their health.[12] While such directives were not always implemented as ordered, such directives did help to lower the death rates in the camps. Such orders are inconsistent with a plan to commit genocide against European Jewry.

Many defenders of the Holocaust story claim that the Wannsee conference held on Jan. 20, 1942, was the start of a program to systematically exterminate Europe’s Jews. The documentary evidence of this meeting shows that no extermination program existed; instead, the German policy was to evacuate the Jews to the East. Israeli Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer has declared, “The public still repeats, time after time, the silly story that at Wannsee the extermination of the Jews was arrived at.”[13] Likewise, Israeli Holocaust historian Leni Yahil has stated regarding the Wannsee conference, “[I]t is often assumed that the decision to launch the Final Solution was taken on this occasion, but this is not so.…”[14]

German Treatment of Soviet POWs

Linenberg correctly states that large numbers of Soviet POWs died in German captivity. Linenberg writes:[15]

 “The German invasion of the Soviet Union, in June 1941, resulted in the largest number of POWs from any one country taken into captivity. Between 1941 and 1945, it is estimated that between 5.35 and 5.75 million Soviet soldiers had become POWs. The brutal treatment of these POWs, who Germany claimed were not entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention, resulted in the deaths, by the end of the war, from executions, starvation, diseases, and cold, of 2.5-3.5 million POWs.”

Linenberg further compares the treatment of Jewish Soviet POWs and non-Soviet Jewish POWs:[16]

“The ‘dehumanized image of the enemy,’ which Germany applied to Soviet Jewish POWs and civilian Jews and which excluded them from the ‘norms of behavior and morals of human society,’ was not applied to American and British Jewish POWs; in fact, during the Second World War, it was not applied to non-Soviet Jewish POWs in general.”

Linenberg fails to recognize that Germany attempted to adequately provide for its Soviet POWs, but was blocked from doing so by Stalin and the Soviet government. This is the primary reason why so many Jewish and non-Jewish Soviet POWs died in German captivity during the war.

The Soviet Union was not a party to The Hague Conventions. Nor was the Soviet Union a signatory of the Geneva Convention of 1929, which defined more precisely the conditions to be accorded to POWs. Germany nevertheless approached the Red Cross (ICRC) immediately after war broke out with the Soviet Union to attempt to regulate the conditions of prisoners on both sides. The ICRC contacted Soviet ambassadors in London and Sweden, but the Soviet leaders in Moscow refused to cooperate. Germany also sent lists of their Russian prisoners to the Soviet government until September 1941. The German government eventually stopped sending these lists in response to the Soviet Union’s refusal to reciprocate.[17]

Over the winter Germany made further efforts to establish relations with the Soviets in an attempt to introduce the provisions of The Hague and Geneva Conventions concerning POWs. Germany was rebuffed again. Hitler himself made an appeal to Stalin for prisoners’ postal services and urged Red Cross inspection of the camps. Stalin responded: “There are no Russian prisoners of war. The Russian soldier fights on till death. If he chooses to become a prisoner, he is automatically excluded from the Russian community. We are not interested in a postal service only for Germans.”[18]

The ICRC soon became aware of the Soviet government’s callous abandonment of Soviet soldiers who fell into German hands. In August 1941, Hitler permitted a Red Cross delegation to visit the German camp for Soviet POWs at Hammerstadt. As a result of this visit, the Red Cross requested that the Soviet government send food parcels to the Soviet POWs. The Soviet government adamantly refused. It replied that sending food in this situation and under fascist control was the same as making presents to the enemy.[19]

In February 1942, the ICRC told Molotov that Great Britain had given permission for the Soviet Union to buy food for captured Soviet prisoners in her African colonies. Also, the Canadian Red Cross was offering a gift of 500 vials of vitamins, and Germany had agreed to collective consignments of food for POWs. The Red Cross reported: “All these offers and communications from the ICRC to the Soviet authorities remained unanswered, either directly or indirectly.” All other appeals by the ICRC and parallel negotiations undertaken by neutral or friendly nations met with no better response.[20]

The Soviet refusals to accept aid came as a surprise to the Red Cross. The Red Cross had not read Order No. 270, which was published by Stalin on Aug. 16, 1941. This order states regarding captured Soviet POWs:[21]

“If […] instead of organizing resistance to the enemy, some Red Army men prefer to surrender, they shall be destroyed by all possible means, both ground-based and from the air, whereas the families of the Red Army men who have been taken prisoner shall be deprived of the state allowance and relief.

The commanders and political officers […] who surrender to the enemy shall be considered malicious deserters, whose families are liable to be arrested [the same] as the families of deserters who have violated the oath and betrayed their Motherland.”

Order No. 270 reveals Stalin’s hatred for Soviet soldiers captured by German forces. It also reveals the danger to innocent children and relatives of Soviet POWs. Hundreds of thousands of Russian women and children were murdered simply because their father or son had been taken prisoner. Given Stalin’s attitude, the German leaders resolved to treat Soviet prisoners no better than the Soviet leaders were treating captured German prisoners.[22]

The result was disastrous for surrendered Russian soldiers in German camps. Captured Red Army soldiers had to endure long marches from the field of battle to the camps. Prisoners who were wounded, sick, or exhausted were sometimes shot on the spot. When Soviet prisoners were transported by train, the Germans usually used open freight cars with no protection from the weather. The camps also often provided no shelter from the elements, and the food ration was typically below survival levels. As a result, Russian POWs died in large numbers in German camps. Many Russian survivors of the German camps described them as “pure hell.”[23]

The death of millions of Russian POWs in German captivity constitutes one of the major war crimes of the Second World War. However, much of the blame for the terrible fate of these Soviet soldiers was due to the inflexibly cruel policies of Josef Stalin. A major portion of the Soviet POWs who died from hunger could have been saved had Stalin not called them traitors and denied them the right to live. By preventing the ICRC from distributing food to the Soviet POWs in German captivity, Stalin needlessly caused the death of a large percentage of these Soviet POWs.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn complained of the betrayal of Soviet soldiers by the Russian government. Solzhenitsyn wrote:[24]

“The first time she betrayed them was on the battlefield, through ineptitude…The second time they were heartlessly betrayed by the Motherland was when she abandoned them to die in captivity. And the third time they were unscrupulously betrayed was when, with motherly love, she coaxed them to return home, with such phrases as “The Motherland has forgiven you! The Motherland calls you!” and snared them the moment they reached the frontiers. It would appear that during the one thousand one hundred years of Russia’s existence as a state there have been, ah, how many foul and terrible deeds! But among them was there ever so multimillioned foul a deed as this: to betray one’s own soldiers and proclaim them traitors?”

Conclusion

As the French, American, British, and Canadian POWs left German captivity at the end of World War II, the Red Cross was there to welcome them with food parcels drawn from the millions in storage in their warehouses in Switzerland. The returning prisoners had received about 1,500 calories per day from the Germans. Another life-saving 2,000 calories per day had arrived by mail, mainly from France, Canada, and the United States. According to a news release of the American Red Cross in May 1945, over 98% of the Allied POWs were coming home safe from German captivity.[25]

The approximately 4,700 American and British Jewish POWs had a similar very high survival rate in the German camps. This is because Germany never conducted a program of genocide against Jews during World War II. Linenberg, by ignoring the obvious reason why American and British Jewish POWs had a very high survival rate, has written a book that, in this author’s opinion, is worthless as scholarship.

Endnotes