The_Holokaust_-_origins,_implementation,_aftermath

GÖTZ ALY
* * *
In the German Reich, in occupied Poland and, finally, in the entire area subject to
German hegemony it was overwhelmingly people designated as being
unproductive—the chronically sick, the so-called asocial, and then the Jews—in
other words, groups who were already discriminated against and who were hence
easy to isolate, who were to be removed from the economic process and denied
any form of social security. This meant that in addition to Jews and Gypsies, vast
parts of the Slav population were to be victims of extermination. The extermination
of the Jews carried out under cover of war was the part of this agenda most fully
realised. These plans were founded upon demographic and economic criteria as
well as theories of racial hierarchy. Their initial premise was that the population of
Europe had to be reduced for medium- and short-term economic and strategic
reasons. The dynamics of extermination and the actual course of decision-making
can be understood only if the demographic and economic goals which underpinned
them are borne in mind.
In destroying the Jews one of the most tangible manifestations of poverty in
Eastern Europe would be destroyed, in other words the poorest parts of the cities
and towns. Genocide was a means of solving the social question. Because most
of the Jews lived in towns, their deportation would set the surplus rural population
moving in the direction of the towns, giving them the possibility of social
advancement into trade and handicrafts. At the same time, these overcrowded
sectors in the towns themselves could be modernised and rationalised, without
creating a discontented, declassé, national petty-bourgeoisie which would have
been a threat to the German occupiers.
Both in Eastern Europe and, above all, in Germany itself, the expropriation of
Jewish property provided an unbureaucratic form of self-help, which provided
household goods, housing, new jobs and so forth. In the case of large-scale capital,
expropriation enabled German banks and industry to consolidate their holdings.
All that remained were unemployed and propertyless people or, in other words,
an artificially achieved population surplus. Liquidified assets set free as a result
of the deportation of Jews and non-Jewish Poles were taken over by the Main
Trustees for the East set up for the purpose and then distributed in the form of
development credits in order to strengthen undercapitalised sectors and regions.
Similar calculations informed the cogitations of virtually every German
economist, agronomist, demographer and statistician. One example from many is
the Berlin economic adviser Alfred Maelicke. Writing in the journal The German
Economy in 1942, Maelicke remarked:
Only the total dejudaisation of economic life will facilitate the solution
of what is still the main problem in many countries, such as southeastern
Europe and elsewhere, namely overpopulation and other social
questions. The elimination of the Jewish trader mentality and profit-
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