Feldman Gerald D. - Networks of Nazi Persecution: Bureaucracy, Business and the Organization of the Holocaust edited

Studies on War and Genocide

General Editor: Omer Bartov, Brown University

Volume 1

The Massacre in History

Edited by Mark Levene and Penny Roberts

Volume 2

National Socialist Extermination Policies: Contemporary
German Perspectives and Controversies Edited by Ulrich Herbert

Volume 3

War of Extermination: The German Military in World War II,
19411944

Edited by Hannes Heer and Klaus Naumann

Volume 4

In God's Name: Genocide and Religion in the
Twentieth Century

Edited by Omer Bartov and Phyllis Mack

Volume 5

Hitler's War in the East: A Critical Assessment
Rolf-Dieter Mller and Gerd R. Ueberschr

Volume 6

Networks of Nazi Persecution: Bureaucracy, Business, and the
Organization of the Holocaust

Edited by Gerald D. Feldman and Wolfgang Seibel

NETWORKS OF
NAZI PERSECUTION

Bureaucracy, Business, and
the Organization of the Holocaust

EDITED BY

GERALD D. FELDMAN AND WOLFGANG SEIBEL

Berghahn Books

New York Oxford

First published in 2005 by

Berghahn Books

www.berghahnbooks.com

2005 Gerald D. Feldman and Wolfgang Seibel
First paperback edition published in 2006

All rights reserved.
Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes
of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,
or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented,
without written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Networks of Nazi persecution : bureaucracy, business, and the organization
of the Holocaust / edited by Gerald D. Feldman and Wolfgang Seibel.

p.cm. -- (Studies on war and genocide)

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 157181177X (alk. paper)

1. Holocaust, Jewish (19391945)--Causes. 2. Holocaust, Jewish

(19391945)--Economic aspects. 3. Germany-Economic policy--19331945.

4. Bureaucracy--Germany--History--20th century. 5. World War, 19391945-

Confiscation and pillage--Europe. 6. Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter

Partei. Schutzstaffel. 7. Jewish property--Europe. I. Feldman, Gerald D. II.

Seibel, Wolfgang, 1953 . III. War and genocide ; 6.

D804.3.N483 2004

940.53'181--dc22

2004043734

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.

ISBN 1-57181-177-X hardback
ISBN 1-84545-163-5 paperback
Printed in the United States on acid-free paper

Dedicated to the Memory of Roger V. Gould,
19622002

CONTENTS

The Holocaust as Division-of-Labor-Based
CrimeEvidence and Analytical Challenges

LIST OF FIGURES

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

INTRODUCTION

THE HOLOCAUST AS
DIVISION-OF-LABOR-BASED CRIME
EVIDENCE AND ANALYTICAL CHALLENGES

Gerald D. Feldman and Wolfgang Seibel

Division of Labor, Networks, and Organized Mass Crime

Organized mass crime is unthinkable without division of labor. The Holocaust is no exception to this rule but, rather, its most horrifying manifestation. Evidence related to the role of government bureaucracy was, to be sure, already part of classic Holocaust research.

Both the planning and the implementation of genocide were carried out in accordance with conventional division-of-labor principles. From 1939 on, the Amt IV, Gegnererforschung und Bekmpfung (Researching and Combating the Enemy) of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office) with its Department IV B 4, run by Adolf Eichmann, was in charge of anti-Jewish policy. The enforcement of the persecutory measures was delegated to the Staatspolizeileitstellen (State Police Head Offices) or, in the German occupied territories outside the Reich, to the Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei und des Sicherheitsdienstes (SD) (Commanders of the Security Police and Security Service) (BdS). These core institutions, however, were dependent on numerous other institutions and individual participants, state and private, German and, in the occupied territories, domestic agents, for the implementation of the final solution. In the occupied territories in particular, anti-Jewish policy implied resource dependency of the occupation administration and the Berlin central offices.