Daniel Brewing - In the Shadow of Auschwitz

In the Shadow of Auschwitz

IN THE SHADOW OF AUSCHWITZ

German Massacres against Polish Civilians, 19391945

Daniel Brewing

Translated by Alex Skinner

Published in 2022 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com English-language edition 2022 Berghahn Books German-language edition 2016 Wissen Bildung Gemeinschaft Originally published in German as Im Schatten von Auschwitz: Deutsche Massaker an polnischen Zivilisten 19391945 The translation of this work was funded by Geisteswissenschaften International Translation Funding for Work in the Humanities and Social Sciences from Germany, a joint initiative of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the German Federal Foreign Office, the collecting society VG WORT and the Brsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (German Publishers & Booksellers Association). 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 Names: Brewing, Daniel, author. | Skinner, Alex, translator.Title: In the shadow of Auschwitz : German massacres against Polish civilians, 1939-1945 / Daniel Brewing ; translated by Alex Skinner.Other titles: German massacres against Polish civilians, 1939-1945Description: English-language edition. | New York : Berghahn Books, 2022. | Originally published in German as: Im Schatten von Auschwitz: Deutsche Massaker an polnischen Zivilisten 1939-1945. | Includes bibliographical references and index.Identifiers: LCCN 2022008121 (print) | LCCN 2022008122 (ebook) | ISBN 9781800730892 (hardback) | ISBN 9781800730908 (ebook)Subjects: LCSH: World War, 1939-1945--Atrocities--Poland. | Massacres--Poland--History--20th century. | Poland--History--Occupation, 1939-1945.Classification: LCC DK4410 .B74 2022 (print) | LCC DK4410 (ebook) | DDC 943.805/3--dc23/eng/20220225LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022008121LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022008122 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-80073-089-2 hardback ISBN 978-1-80073-090-8 ebook https://doi.org/10.3167/9781800730892

C ONTENTS

P REFACE

Looking back over an intensive and formative research journey, it is a great pleasure for me to acknowledge all those who have lent me their support in various ways. My thanks go first of all to Klaus-Michael Mallmann. He is the kind of scholar that you rarely come across nowadays. Having inspired this study, he accompanied it through its various stages with great commitment and unshakable confidence exerting gentle pressure at just the right moments. I thank him wholeheartedly for our period of collaboration and for the opportunities that he has opened up for me.

My research was supported by generous grants from the German Historical Institute Warsaw, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, and the Fondation pour la Mmoire de la Shoah. As representatives of these institutions, I would like to thank Eduard Mhle, Suzanne Brown-Fleming and Dominique Trimbur. For the opportunity to present my study in draft form and discuss the first findings in advanced seminars and colloquia, I thank Stefanie Schler-Springorum, Norbert Frei, Peter Brandt, Armin Heinen and Beate Fieseler.Over the years, many friends and colleagues have helped me by exchanging sources and reading texts or simply by being there at key moments. I am particularly grateful to Jochen Bhler. Since we first met over ten years ago, he has been a benevolent and selfless source of advice and support. Jacek Mynarczyk opened doors in Warsaw that might otherwise have remained closed to me. Wodzimierz Borodziej and Jrg Ganzenmller both furnished me with generous support in the initial stages of this project. Discussions with Jrgen Matthus greatly enriched my time in Washington, DC, while Christian Ingrao was always there when I needed his help. Wolfram Pytas comments were extremely helpful in shaping my argument. I also thank my sister, Inka Merhi, and Thomas Dieter, Robert Fuchs, Dieter Konold, Barbara Manthe, Olena Petrenko, Max Ruland, Johannes Schwartz, Frauke Scheffler, Thomas Strobel, Mia Spiro, Katrin Stoll, Christian Tischer, Pascal Trees, Philipp Tribukait, Stefan Wiederkehr and Patrycja Piekowska-Wiederkehr each of whom contributed to the genesis of this study in their own way.This edition of my book would not have been possible without the generous financial support of the Brsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels. That the Brsenverein selected my book for its Geisteswissenschaften International translation funding programme is a great honour. Alex Skinner did an outstanding job translating the German manuscript into English. Working with him was a pleasure: I am deeply impressed by his accuracy and speed.At Berghahn Books, Chris Chappell, Sulaiman Ahmad, Marion Berghahn and Caroline Kuhtz patiently guided me through the editorial and production process. This was a wonderful experience from start to finish.I owe a special debt of gratitude to my parents, Christiane and Friedo Brewing, who made my studies possible and who have always been there for me with their love and curiosity. This book is for them too. It was my tremendous good fortune to meet Stefanie Coch in the library of the German Historical Institute Warsaw. Without her, this book would never have been written. I dedicate it to her with love and gratitude. Our two wonderful daughters, Ella and Ada, were born after the German edition was published. They couldnt care less about this book. But I hope that someday they might be interested in reading what their father had to say about the terrible past explored in its pages.

Aachen, August 2021

I NTRODUCTION

In the spring of 2008, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published an article on a dark chapter in GermanPolish history, one supposedly over and done with. Konrad Schuller, the newspapers Eastern Europe correspondent, related the story of Winicjusz Natoniewski, a 72-year-old Polish pensioner who had recently brought a lawsuit against the Federal Republic of Germany at the Gdask District Court.

These wounds were inflicted on Natoniewski as a five-year-old boy living in the village of Szczecyn, southeast of Lublin. On 2 February 1944, German troops led by Konrad Rheindorf, commander of the Ordnungspolizei Against this background, German troops encircled Szczecyn in the early hours of 2 February 1944 and shelled the village with mortars.This phase of unfettered violence was followed by a slower pace of action. The survivors were rounded up and underwent selection in accordance with their ability to work. The younger and stronger were obliged to carry out forced labour,The story of Winicjusz Natoniewski, the destruction of the village of Szczecyn and the murder of its inhabitants leads us into the complex history of Nazi massacres of Polish civilians in the context of the drive to crush partisans. It shines a light on the complexity of a violent event that continues to reverberate into the present day, underlining a number of aspects of relevance to the analysis of massacres; brings out the diverse constellation of actors involved and points up the wide spread of responsibility for the planning and carrying out of massacres; highlights the integration of massacres into the objectives and practice of occupation policy, which constituted a framework for action that determined the pace and extent of massacres, provided opportunities to carry them out and created the prerequisites for their occurrence thus providing the good reasons through which massacres were legitimized; and illustrates the cruelty, excess and unfettered violence entailed in the practice of the massacre thus indicating that there is more to massacres than their apparent objectives. Finally, this story reveals both the disastrous consequences of massacres for survivors and how post-Nazi Germany has dealt with this specific legacy of violence.I consider all these aspects and dimensions in the present study, which is dedicated to German massacres of Polish civilians during the Second World War. I work on the assumption that the use of violence in occupied Poland was not fundamentally a deviant form of action. Concept and ApproachNext page