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The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final Solution

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Heinrich Himmler, one of the most reviled personalities in modern history comes fully to light in this insightful study. What is it that makes a person evil? That is at the heart of Breitman's absorbing book. Unlike a devilish Faustian caricature, the narrative shows the SS Reichsfuehrer, a mundane, pedantic organizer who came terrifyingly close to translating Hitler's vision of of a "racially-pure" Europe into reality.

Heinrich Himmler may be the personification of Hannah Arendt's "banality of evil." A man who fawned over children, stopped to pick flowers and was every thoughtful with those under him, quietly and efficiently produced the machinery to send millions to their death.

(...) Breitman's book is not a "popular biography" in the modern sense, but rather a scholarly and academic treatment. However, this is a weighty subject and the author accomplishes much more with this approach through a fascinating narrative that assures the reader that this is an exquisititely researched picture of one of the most dispised personalities of modern time. Highly recommended.

Not a biography of the Reichsfuhrer, but a carefully researched and annotated analysis of his role in the final solution. Himmler's own office logs and appointment books, where extant, are convincingly used. The most thorough account to date of the so called Madagscar proposal which preoccupied the nazis in the late 1930s as a way of exiling Jews. Himmler's often mutually suspicious dealings with underlings such as Heydrich and Eichmann are particularly well portrayed, although his relationship with Hitler is sometimes sketchy. The years 1944 and 1945 are treated rather briefly, presumably because Himmler's initiatives were mainly restricted to trying to arrange coverup of the atrocities. But Breitman has done a first rate job in showing us how Himmler's bureaucratic mind ticked. The book illustrates that you don't need to be a personal sadist to organize murder on a massive scale.

A common misconception regarding "The Final Solution" is that it was constructed and sought out under the leadership of one man, Adolph Hitler. Richard Breitman, in his well written book, clearly shows his readers the involvement of several brilliant minds that eventually created the horrific answer to the Jewish question. Breitman goes through the progressive steps of Heinrich Himmler's ideas as well as his involvement in the "Final Solution" while keeping his readers full attention. Unlike many authors writing about this issue, Breitman seemed as if he, through his work, was attempting to see Himmler's view points instead of labeling him simply as a "sadist barbarian" as many would do. His ability to put aside the atrocities performed by the Nazi's and give his reader's an alternate route of understanding is just one of the reasons why I consider this book a success and a pleasure to read.

"The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final Solution", Richard Breitman, 250 pgs, Glossary, Notes & Index, 6" x 9".

Author or co-author of 3 prior books on socialist Germany & Jewry issues, this Yale & Harvard degreed Professor Breitman provides a scholarly analysis of Nazi Germany with especial reference to the 3 principals: - the Triumvirate of Hitler, Himmler (SS) & Heydrich (SD) & the roles each played formulating plans of re-Germanization that encompassed comprehesive plans to (1) purify Germanic Nordic blood lines by eugenic measures, (2) eliminate those designated as enemies of the Reich (Jews, Gypsies, Poles, Slavs, etc.) & (3) provide Lebensraum, especially Eastward for expansion of the Fatherland.

The book profiles Heinrich Himmler as a cradle-Catholic turning into a militant anti-Catholic & anti-Semitic who participates in Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch, & in short order becomes Reich Fuehrer SS, Chief of all Police, & confidant of Hitler. In 11 chapters we are introduced to the origin, delineation, & execution of the "Final Solution" to solve the "Jewish Question." The author attempts to demonstrate authorship of the genocide design & of its implementation was really a product more of Himmler's that Hitler's. Diverse details are provided on alternative plans including deportations to Africa or Madagascar, types of gasings, exclusions from euthanasia, labor camps, etc. All in all, the author's arguements are detailed but sufficiently conjectural as to make for good reading but truly falling short of singling out Himmler as chief architect. Of the many books on the Holocaust & Final Solution, Bretman's is the most detailed accounting of alternative plans and details unanticipated problems not forseen in ethnic cleansing & military in-fighting, etc. A good read for the student of genocide.

Unfortunately, Breitman repeats the Nazi-propaganda canard of Poles killing several thousand Germans, at Bydgoszcz (Bromberg) as fact (p. 70). Otherwise, this book seems to be free of obvious errors. The author traces Nazi German policies against various groups, with especial attention paid to the Jews. He also provides information relevant to the Jedwabne massacre without mentioning it. He shows that the Germans tried to disguise their first wave of murders of Jews, at the start of Operation Barbarossa, as the work of locals acting alone (p. 172, 207).

Breitman (pp. 19-21) addresses the debate as to whether the term Holocaust should refer only to the Jewish or to all the victims of the Nazis. He believes that the extermination of the Jews is sui generis in many ways (p. 21), for example, because: "The Nazis are not known to have spoken of the Final Solution of the Polish problem or of the gypsy problem." (p. 20). Yet he demolishes his own argument in several ways. To begin with, he elsewhere tacitly acknowledges that his is an argument from silence: "Other cases of genocide in history have not left much evidence of advance plans either." (p. 27). There is also the problem of semantics: "Could one really say that Hitler had already decided upon genocide? A lot depends on what constitutes a decision. Is it a decision if a person keeps an idea firmly in his mind but tells no one about it and does nothing about it? Or is the decision made only when the individual begins to commit himself--not necessarily to start the executions, but at least to commit time and resources to the preparations?" (p. 27). Finally, there is the question of earnestness: "With mass murder or even genocide, however, there is a huge gulf between talk and action." (p. 63). Considering the many European Jews still left alive at the end of the war, can it definitely be said that the Germans were really serious about exterminating ALL known and accessible European Jews?

Breitman shows that exterminatory plans against Jews developed gradually (p. 206) and, by implication, so did parallel exterminatory plans against Poles: "Anyone planning a campaign of mass murder had to start thinking on a smaller scale than the continent."(p. 65). Also: "If the Polish intelligentsia was now being killed off, could large number of Jews be far behind?" (p. 104). One could just as easily reword this: "If the Polish intelligentsia was now being killed off, could large numbers of other Poles be far behind?"

In many places in his book, Breitman undermines the Holocaust-uniqueness argument by acknowledging that the Poles were seen as a problem (that, by implication, demanded an eventual solution) no less so than the Jews: "[In addressing Mussolini] Himmler added that this also meant solving the Polish question, the Slavic question, and the Jewish question." (p. 92). Also: "Next he [Himmler] explained that the Fuhrer had had given him the task of resolving the Eastern situation, which was not so much a political problem as a racial problem." (p. 113). Finally: "The eastern races posed another major obstacle to Hitler's and Himmler's racial and geopolitical goals." (p. 246).

Pointedly, the destruction of one group (the Jews) cannot be dichotomized from the eventual destruction of other groups: "There was a logical as well as a technological link between Nazi euthanasia and genocide. The Nazi concept of a healthy and pure German Volk excluded a number of groups. Within Germany itself, the misfits were the mentally disturbed and physically deformed, the criminals and those considered socially deviant, and, of course, Jews and gypsies. Outside of Germany or in the annexed territories were Poles, Czechs, and other Slavs, whose racial status was regarded as inferior. Their treatment depended in part on Nazi plans for their territories and in part on how usefully they could serve the Nazi was machine. Actions to clear the Third Reich of all these groups--either by expulsion, sterilization, imprisonment in concentration camps, or mass murder--were part of the same effort to purify and extend the German race." (p. 91).

Ironically, during the early years of the Nazi occupation of Poland, some German officials had recommended that Jews be better treated than Poles because of their economic productivity (p. 85, 119). Otherwise, the Germans never attributed any more inherent worth to Poles than to Jews. For instance, in sharp contrast with the fear of the "race defilement" of Germans, the Nazis saw no problem of interbreeding between Poles and Jews (p. 138).

So Poles and Jews became "unequal victims" owing solely to practical considerations. Already in 1940, Hans Frank had concluded that the Polish population was too large to be exterminated under existing conditions (p. 97). There was also the problem of keeping genocide secret (p. 207). Even the earlier resettlement of Jews to the Lublin region had generated unfavorable publicity for Germany (p. 120). Mass gassings became attractive because of their relative unobtrusiveness compared to the earlier-used mass shootings (p. 92). But if the extermination of a few million Jews couldn't finally be kept secret, how much less the extermination of tens of millions of Poles!

Hitler himself juxtaposed the eventual fate of the Poles at the hands of the Germans with the extermination of the Armenians at the hands of the Turks: "...with the order to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish race or language. Only in such a way will we win the vital space that we need. Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?" (p. 43). In addition: "...a Swiss doctor named Theo Lang...told a British Secret Service agent in December 1941 that he knew definitely that Himmler's staff had been considering `for a long time' the sterilization of all adult Poles." (p. 153). Odilo Globocnik also had plans for the extermination of Poles (p. 186).