Latvijas Vēsturnieku komisijas raksti - 23.sējums

140 Konferences “Baltija Otrajā pasaules karā (1939–1945)” referāti par holokausta tematiku
Himmler’s personal instrument for propelling the Nazi–Soviet Weltanschauungskrieg
(‘war of worldviews’) into an all-out Vernichtungskrieg (‘war of annihilation’). 1 In doing
so, Himmler helped fulfil one of the key goals of the Nazi regime in general and the
SS in particular – namely, the genocidal destruction of “Jewish Bolshevism” at its presumed
source, at the same time rapidly expanding the power and prestige of his SS
organisational empire in the process. 2
Similarly, it can be shown that in 1940 Himmler exhibited a comparable hands-on
approach to staking a personal and ideological claim on newly-conquered territories in
western Europe. Himmler had a particular interest in the so-called “Germanic” lands
(Netherlands, Flanders, Denmark, and Norway), whose supposed racial and cultural
closeness to Germans afforded them a key place in the potential for the SS to extend
its power and influence.
Whereas the mainstream Nazi party (Nationalsozialistische deutsche Arbeiterpartei,
NSDAP), once it achieved power in 1933, exhibited a great degree of exclusivist German
nationalism with imperialist overtones, 3 already in late 1930s Himmler was taking his
elitist SS in the direction of pan-Germanism, opening its ranks to persons of “Germanic
descent”. 4
One of the reasons for this interest in pan-Germanism by the SS was that Himmler
had become won over by the pseudoscientific anthropological theories of Jena Professor
Hans F. K. Günther, who idealised the “Nordic race” as the pinnacle of humanity. In the
mid-1930s, Günther’s Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes (1st ed. 1922) was required
reading within the SS and German police.
Influenced by his many years living in Scandinavia during the glory days of the
racial biological theories emanating from Uppsala, Günther not only placed Nordic man
at the top of his racial hierarchy, but even praised the Norwegians and Swedes as the
purest examples of the Nordic race – much more so than the Germans. 5 Add to this
a romanticisation of the Vikings as the ideal combination of warriors, explorers, and
colonisers, and it becomes clear why Himmler was fascinated with Scandinavia, and with
Norway in particular. Norway, with its pure Nordic bloodstock and cultural heritage, was
therefore ideal for recruiting modern-day warrior-farmers to the SS, in preparation for
the coming conquest and Germanisation of Lebensraum (“living space”) in the East.
Furthermore, Himmler saw an opportunity to extend his political power base by
usurping influence over administrative structures in occupied countries away from
his competitors in the Nazi Party, state, and military. By mobilising its pan-Germanic
ideology in order to take over the collaborationist structures in the Germanic countries,
the balance of power could not only be shifted in favour the SS in these occupied
territories, but also back home in Germany. 6 Norway, with its small population – little
more than Latvia’s at the time – and isolated, peripheral location, provided the SS with