The Historiography of the Holocaust

126 Martin Dean
to take the lives of fellow Jewish citizens. 36 Clearly, there is an element of
spontaneity and local initiative involved in these actions that indicates not all
blame can be laid at the door of the Germans.
In explaining these local excesses at the start of ‘Operation Barbarossa’ reference
is frequently made back to the mass deportations conducted by Soviet forces
a few days earlier and the alleged role of Jews in the NKVD and as informers. In
particular, the warm welcome given by many Jews to the Red Army in 1939
(mostly out of relief at escaping German occupation) 37 served to reinforce
German and local propaganda that accused all Jews of sympathizing with the
communists. The work of Bogdan Musial has demonstrated the close links
between the uncovering of victims of the Soviets in towns liberated by the
Germans and the outbreak of local pogroms and massacres against the Jews,
who were often rounded up to bury the corpses. 38 There is a danger, however,
that this explanatory schema can be used to ‘excuse’ the anti-Jewish actions as
an ‘understandable’ revenge measure. The truth is that the vast majority of
those Jews killed had nothing to do with Soviet atrocities. The perpetrators had
mostly fled with the Soviet forces. Yet there was clearly an element of ‘hot
blood’ in some of these early and improvised outbursts.
These ‘spontaneous’ outbursts were, however, short-lived, as the Germans
had little interest in permitting civil unrest in the area of military operations.
The German military and police authorities usually established more organized
local police forces that were directly answerable to them within a matter of
days. This brings us to the question of the service of non-Germans in police and
auxiliary forces and their role in the implementation of the Holocaust: could
the Germans have murdered so many of the Jews of eastern Europe without
active support from members of the local population?
At first glance the detailed reports created by the Einsatzgruppen appear to
give an unequivocal answer to this question. If only some 3,000 German SS and
police troops could murder more than 600,000 people (mostly Jews) within the
first ten months of the occupation of the Soviet Union, then shortage of
personnel and therefore the need for local collaboration could not have been
a major restriction on the implementation of the Holocaust. A more careful
reading of this key source reveals, however, that the Einsatzgruppen did not act
alone, but with considerable support from other SS, police and also local
collaborationist forces. 39
Christopher Browning, in arguing that the Nazis took a key step towards
genocide during late July 1941, points to a massive build-up of forces at this
time. Not only did Himmler assign more than 16,000 men of the SS and police
to the Higher SS and Police Leaders in support of the Einsatzgruppen, but on
25 July 1941 he issued orders for the creation of auxiliary police formations
(Schutzmannschaften), made up of ‘Ukrainians, the inhabitants of the Baltic
States and Belorussians’. 40 By July 1942 the Schutzmannschaften exceeded