EN
LV
Prof. A. Ezergailis
My correspondence below with Professor Richard J. Evans (Cambridge University), author of the path-breaking mega volume history of Nazi Germany, arose after I read the following paragraphs in his Third Reich At War (page 217):
As he entered Kovno (Kaunas) In Lithuania on 27 June I941, Lieutenant-Colonel Lothar von Bischoffshausen, a regular army officer, noticed a laughing and cheering crowd of men, women and children gathered in the forecourt of a petrol station by the side of the road. Curious, he stopped to see what was going on. Bischoffshausen, a much-decorated career soldier and former Free Corps fighter, born in I897, was no humanitarian liberal, but as he approached the crowd, even he was shocked by what he saw:
On the concrete forecourt of the petrol station a blond man of medium height, aged about twenty-five, stood leaning on a wooden club, resting. The club was as thick as his arm and came up to his chest. At his feet lay about fifteen to twenty dead or dying people. Water flowed continuously from a hose washing blood away into the drainage gully. Just a few steps behind this man some twenty men, guarded by armed civilians, stood waiting for their cruel execution in silent submission. In response to a cursory wave the next man stepped forward silently and was then beaten to death with the wooden club in the most bestial manner, each blow accompanied by enthusiastic shouts from the audience.
Some of the women, he noted, were lifting up their children so that they could see better. Later on, Bischoffshausen was told by army staff officers that the murders were a spontaneous action by local people in retaliation against the collaborators and traitors of the recently ended Russian occupation. In fact, as other eyewitnesses reported, the victims were all Jews. A German photographer managed to take pictures of the event. Waving his army pass, he warded off an SS man's attempt to confiscate the film, thus preserving a record of these events for posterity. Bischoffshausen reported the massacre to his superiors. Although he discovered that members of the SS Security Service had been in the area since 24 June 1941, and it was not hard to guess that they had been instrumental in inciting the massacre, the general commanding the German army in the area said this was an internal matter for the Lithuanians and refused to intervene.
The Kaunas massacre, due to its unusual brutality, has been widely discussed by historians, journalists, and the public in books, in articles, and on the Internet. From a factual viewpoint, I have nothing to add to the story. However, it must be/needs to be remembered that the basic elements of the massacre’s narrative were set at the time of the massacre in 1941 by leaders of the Einsatzgruppe A, the same leaders who organized the massacre. How do we know that? Well—Stahlecker told us so. Stahlecker’s reason for organizing the massacre was to demonstrate that natives have been overcome by revenge and that Germans do not kill Jews, natives in spontaneous pogroms do. Stahlecker’s purpose was broader than Lithuania. In that sense, Lithuania, because it was the first to be occupied, was an “accidental” victim of the Nazis. His plan was to establish a template for a pogrom that like uncontrolled brushfire would sweep through Eastern Europe. The Stahlecker design as an operative model for murdering Jews failed.
After the wide-ranging discussion that has occurred about the massacre since the collapse of the USSR, I was taken aback to see a “modern” account written in an advanced country of our civilization, replicate an antediluvian narrative, one that the Nazis had constructed. In Evans’s account, there is a curiously layered “persistence of memory.” On the surface it may appear that he has dodged the Nazi issue because he relies on a post war (1959) deposition, by a certain Lieutenant-Colonel Lothar von Bischoffshausen, a much decorated and promoted Nazi officer. Once examined, the uniqueness/independence of Bischoffshausen’s deposition dissipates, for in its essential elements, von Bischoffshausen testifies (with some embellishments) like the witnesses who were prepared by Stahlecker in 1941. The narrative’s content is kept intact. My letters to Evans endeavored to probe this “persistence of memory”. And at the end, something good might have come of it.
Seventy years have passed since the Holocaust. It may take another hundred years, if Evans' recalcitrance is typical among historians, to come to a different reading of the event. Instead of seeing it as a thermometer of the soul of the Lithuanian nation, historians may begin to see it as a unique Nazi ploy that, with the help of enemies of Nazism, succeeded too well. An event that Stahlecker intended as a theater of the street, (“To enrage the public against the Jews,” as under similar circumstances he said in Riga), has become an international SRO show. By placing the incident in the anchor position, Evans assures the story’s place in the Holocaust literature for some years to come.
For readers who want to explore the question more deeply I recommend:
- the study by Christoph Dieckmann and Saulius Sužiedelis, “The Persecution And Mass Murder Of Lithuanian Jews During Summer And Fall Of 1941: Sources and Analysis.”, in Lithuanian and English;
- Andrievs Ezergailis “Stahlecker’s Reports: a Basic Source and a Key to the History of the Holocaust,” Latvijas Vēsturnieku komisijas raksti, Vol. 23., starting at page 30 (in Latvian, English summary at page 47);
- The Nazi/German version of the Kaunas massacre story can be found in the U.S. State Department archive: NA—M1185, roll 5.
Correspondence
On Nov 24, 2009, Andrew Ezergailis wrote:
Dear Professor:
I am reading your book on the Third Reich and a question arose. Concerning the Holocaust in Eastern Europe did the Nazis put out a propaganda line? If they did, is it reflected in your book? If they did not, don't you find it curious that they did not?
I am a historian and I would appreciate very much if you could clarify the question?
Andrew Ezergailis
On Nov 25, 2009, at 5:12 AM, Prof. R.J. Evans wrote:
Dear Mr. Ezergailis,
I am not sure I understand your question. If you are referring to my book "The Third Reich at War", there is a whole chapter (chg.) on the extermination of the Jews in Eastern Europe, and the propaganda accompanying it.
RJE
On Nov 25 2009, Andrew Ezergailis wrote:
Dear Professor:
I must have put the question in a clumsy way. I thank you for the prompt answer. You write a lot about anti-Semitism but I do not find anything about Nazi presentation about the killing of the Jews in Eastern Europe. As you must know the Nazis did present a story line about Easter European role in the killings. There were snippets about it in the Wochenschaus, there were "briefings and leaks" to journalists and diplomats in Berlin and embassies in Stockholm, Geneva etc. There were also "phony" eyewitness reports that numerous Nazi officials deposited in the archives. Do you think the Nazis told us the truth or propaganda?
In most of the cases the Nazi line followed that of Hitler which he delivered to the Croatian Marshall Kvaternik on July 22, 1941 who was on a state visit in Berlin.
Hitler speaking:
"The mighty Mongolia is pressing towards us. The old school books knew nothing about racial science and therefore there was no clarity about Russia's racial composition. The proof from the POWs shows that today 70 to 80% of Russians are Mongols. They are short in body structure; among them there are some Slavs and few members of other races. The Marshal interjected that the situation now is much different than during the War. Then the army was made up of Russian peasants. They were destroyed by the Bolsheviks, the Führer said. The way it was done we know from the Lithuanian experience. On the second day when they [Soviets] entered there, in order to cleanse them, they ordered all shopkeepers to assemble on the street at 7 o'clock in the morning. Automatic weapons were positioned on street corners with which all of the people were killed; then the Jewish commissars took over the shops. Jews are the plague of mankind. Therefore now the Lithuanians, Estonians, and Latvians are wreaking bloody revenge on them. The Soviets from these countries deported children; it is to be noted and made clear that they did the same thing in their own regions. When Jews have free hands, as it was in the Soviet paradise, the Jews carry out the craziest plans. That is how Russia became the plague of mankind. "
I would be very eager to hear what parts of Hitler's statement according to your lights were true? If you say that all of it is true, I have nothing further to say, except to congratulate you on writing a successful book. On the other hand if you say that all of it is propaganda, you have a problem, for if you reread your book you will find a lot of Nazi propaganda in it.
Eager to hear about the resolution of your dilemma!
Andrew Ezergailis
On Nov 26, 2009, at 4:07 AM, Prof. R.J. Evans wrote:
Mr. Ezergailis,
I can only assume you have not read my book, or if you have, you are either unable or unwilling to understand it. You will find in Chapter 3 a clear and detailed account of the Nazi mass murder of Jews in Eastern Europe, including both examples of local participation, and, on pages 218-9 evidence, including quotations, of the Nazis' failure to persuade more than a tiny minority of Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians to take part in the murders. The Nazis' propaganda aims in this respect are outlined there as well. Later on I quote Hitler's propaganda claim that people all over Europe were rising up against the Jews. I also explain the role played by NKVD massacres and atrocities in Eastern Europe and the anti-Semitism of some extreme nationalist groups there, especially in the Ukraine.
Of course there is a lot of Nazi propaganda in my book, but your implication that I am repeating it uncritically is as insulting as it is inaccurate, and I must ask you to withdraw it. If you persist in this claim, then I will be unable to take you seriously as a historian any more, and will terminate this correspondence.
On Nov 26 2009, Andrew Ezergailis wrote:
Dear Professor:
My question more directly goes to your gullible use of the Nazi version of the Kaunas massacre. It must be noted that the story was floated during the war and it never has been cross examined by any judiciary. All of the "witnesses" in your presentation were Germans. There are four points I want to communicate to you:
- If the Nazi version is correct, what happened to the Lithuanians? Why did they use blunt implements to kill Jews? Homo sapiens since their earliest progenitors have used specialized tools to perform needed tasks. If the Nazi story is true, the Lithuanians in the 20th Cent regressed to a level that no homo sapiens had ever regressed. Could any anthropologist at your distinguished university come up with an explanation for this unique phenomenon? Even if the Lithuanians did not have shooting weapons, which as a matter of fact they did have, why didn't they use piercing and cutting tools, bayonets and others?
- I can see why the Nazis came up with this grizzly tale, I am not so sure about your use of it. For the Nazis it was important to establish that the motive for killing Jews for East Europeans was REVENGE. You may want to note that Kaunas story, especially in regards the stress on revenge, cleaves close to the Hitler's version of Lithuanian behavior. Revenge is another presumption that you fail to examine! Empirical examination of the evidence would not support the Nazis. Not only in the Kaunas story but in over all Nazi propaganda "revenge" was central. Were they right?
- Every so often you also victimize your readers by an ideological association of "nationalists" with the Nazis. I am no defender of "nationalists", one however needs to know that in Nazi jails there were more "nationalists" than communists.
- Judging from your footnotes you are a historian who almost exclusively, on the Holocaust questions, rely on German sources and historians. Unfortunately the world has passed you by! For example Lithuanian historians convened a special conference in which the Kaunas episode was threshed out and Lithuanian witnesses consulted. Although lot of that material is in English, your work shows no awareness of it.
Ready for the oblivion, sincerely,
ezergailis
On Nov 27, 2009, at 3:23 AM, Prof. R.J. Evans wrote:
Dear Mr. Ezergailis,
Your tone continues to be insulting and uncollegial. I do not engage in correspondence with people who are incapable of behaving in a collegial and scholarly manner. There is a good photographic record of the Kaunas massacre which you should consult. Bischoffshausen is a reliable witness. You are engaging in the equivalent of Holocaust denial, and I don't correspond with Holocaust deniers.
This exchange is closed.
RJE
On Nov 27, 2009, Andrew Ezergailis wrote:
Dear Professor,
Wonderful! You have dodged all questions and you call me unscholarly. In Brooklyn it’s called chutzpah. Bischoffshausen is your Achilles heel. When you will, if ever, pursue the custody of the document you will blush. The quickest way to pulverize your Bischoffshausen is to put his testimony next to Stalecker’s document, if you know what that is. Bischoffshausen’s testimony has parallels with that of Hitler. Ask your secretary to make a comparison. Just because the Germans love the Kaunas pictures it does not mean that their empirical standing is more solid than that of Bischoffshausen’s.
Sayonara, ae
- Letters, Essays, Reviews, INTRODUCTION
- Exchange with Anton Weiss-Wendt — Prof. Ezergailis reflects on his first exchanges with Anton Weiss-Wendt and reviews and observes on Weiss-Wendt's 2009 opus Murder Without Hatred, Estonians and the Holocaust. Weiss-Wendt responds to Ezergailis' points, and Ezergailis closes with observations on perception, language, and collaboration. As a touchstone to the exchange, both acknowledge the massacre at the Lietukis garage in Kovno as a defining event of the Holocaust in the Baltics, but from different perspectives.
- A Letter to German Journalists: Between Judgment and Complexity — Ezergailis identifies the “six formidable renderings of the truth of the Holocaust,” Hitler's among them, none the same—a web of complexity which needs to be unraveled to fully understand the Holocaust.
- A Letter to The Nation's Editors — Mark Ames' piece of May 23, 2005 in The Nation, after President Bush's pointed visit to Latvia prior to attending May 9th festivities in Moscow celebrating the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II, portrays Latvia as a Nazi-sympathetic history-revising state. In his response, Ezergailis methodically discusses the myths and facts of the Holocaust, Latvians in World War II, and the Latvian Legion.
- A Question of Affinities: Shards of Nazism in the Narrative of the Kaunas Massacre — Prof. Ezergails' correspondence with Professor Richard J. Evans (Cambridge University), author of an otherwise path-breaking history of Nazi Germany, regarding Evans's invoking propagandistic accounts of the Kaunas massacre.
- Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin (2011) — Snyder's opus does not bring any new revelations to the peoples of Eastern Europe about the fate they suffered under the Nazis and Soviets, yet one should not underestimate or undervalue its polemical value in taking on the Hitler-Stalin conundrum.