The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact - ELTE BTK Történelem Szakos Portál

esistance […] but of logistics. Not enough trains were available, and
Wehrmacht transports had priority. Lack of cooperation among the SS,
Wehrmacht, and Reichsbahn also inhibited the fledging deportation machinery.
It faltered, then came to a standstill, because its cogs did not yet mesh.” 77
Why the preliminary failure still represents a successful test run, Hans Safrian
explains in that way: „Eichmann’s superiors had reason to be satisfied with his
activities. He had gone into high gear; he and his apparatus had taken the
initiative within the parameters of the assigned task. They had succeeded in tearing
thousands of people from their moorings without attracting undue attention,
fooling them with fraudulent tales of retraining camps and „free settlement”, and
manoeuvring them into a transit camp in Galicia or, more accurately, driving them
across the German-Soviet line of demarcation. By accomplishing all that, in the
eyes of their SS superiors Eichmann and his men had gained status as skilful
organizers and so had qualified themselves to carry out further, even more
ambitious assignments. They were ready to climb the next rung of the career
ladder. Just a few weeks after the failure of additional deportations to Nisko,
Eichmann was appointed head of RSHA Referat IV D 4”. 78
Conclusion
The role of Eichmann in the NS-apparatus and his own initiatives in the
different phases of the Holocaust may be matters of discussion in literature.
Nevertheless, after the cancelled Nisko-plan, Eichmann was at the peak of his
career as head of the Referat IV D 4, which was later transformed into IV B 4
responsible for eviction matters and Reich Central Office for Jewish
Emigration. He was then responsible for the deportation of Jews from the entire
Reich. He coordinated all the transportation, and was responsible for the
observance of timetables and load factor of the trains.
Plans for Jewish reservations still remained in the early stages, but since the
beginning of the German war against the Soviet Union in 1941, the racist
policies entered a new phase. Eichmann and his unit were directly involved in
the process of gradual transition from a policy of spoliation, expulsion and
ghettoization towards organized destruction of human beings. 79 As an organizer
of the transports Eichmann should later be directly responsible not only for the
dispossession and deportation but also the extermination of the European Jews.
77 SAFRIAN, Hans: Eichmann’s Men. 57.
78 Ibid. 57.
79 Ibid. 59-71.
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