Civil Administration

In the working guidelines of the Reichsminister for the occupied Eastern territories of  3 September 1941, under Section III, the following is found, in part: doc vol V p 343

General
 

“ All measures in regard to the Jewish Question in the occupied Eastern territories must be taken with the viewpoint that after the war, the Jewish Question will be generally solved for all Europe.  They are therefore to be instituted as partial measures and must parallel the decisions generally made for this area.  On the other hands, the experiences gained in the East could be definitive for the solution of the problem in general, as the Jews in this region, along with the Jews in the General Government form the largest contingent of European Jewry.

Pure chicanery is to be avoided as unworthy of Germans.

Occasional actions against Jews on the part of the local population are not to be hindered…

2. Status of the population

… In this region, Jews comprise a widely varying proportion of the population in the individual RCs and these in the General Commissariats.  For example, in Belaurs and in the Ukraine there are millions of Jews who have been settled there for generations…

…In the first line, Jews who have moved into the territories newly occupied from the Soviets within the last two years are, to the extent they have not fled, to be culled out by the harshest measures.  As this group has made itself much hated by the general population through their terrorism, their culling was largely  effected by the local population as soon as German troops appeared.  Such acts or reparation are not to be hindered.  The remaining settled Jewish population is to be caught up at first through the introduction of forced labor.  All Jews are to be identified by a visible symbol (yellow Star of David).

3. Separation of the Jews from the remaining population doc vol V p 344

… One of the first major goals of the German measures must be to separate the Jews from the rest of the population rigorously.

… Generosity toward Jews is to be stopped immediately.  Creation of ghettos is to be attempted, … in Belarus this will be facilitated by the presence of more or less closed Jewish settlements.  These ghettos can be given, under the command of a Jewish self-administration, Jewish police.   Guarding the boundaries between the ghetto and the outside world is a matter for the Commissariat Police….

4. Economic activity (of Jews)

Because of the war-generated importance of the economic assignments of Jews in the East, care must be taken that all measures against them don’t significantly damage the economic circumstances…

The … labor forces freed up are to be employed under guard in productive, largely physical work (road building, railway construction, canal building, agriculture, etc.).  Jewish skilled craftsmen, artisans and home manufacturers (in production units) can continue to ply their accustomed trades, thereby grouping into purely Jewish workshops under supervision by the civil administration is to be striven toward…”
 

C. General Administration:

4. The work up of cases of sabotage is a matter for the higher SS- and Police Leaders, particularly the Police Director in the latter instance.  As far as collective measures against the population of a specific Region appear appropriate, the decision is to be made by the responsible RC at the suggestion of the Police Director.  The local population may be drafted for guard duty on order of the RC.

…An order to take hostages and the shooting of inhabitants of any Region in which acts of sabotage have occurred, can only be done by the General Commissar, to the extent that the RC has not acted.

… In cities, towns… etc…. trusties are to be cultivated as soon as possible.  From these trusties future community leaders (like our mayors) and trusted advisors can be drawn, so that in this way normal life is re-established and the RC (City Commissar) has under him organs who execute his orders.  To the extent such trusted officials have been appointed by the military administration, they are to be taken over into the civil administration at first.  Doc vol V p 347

III. Justice doc vol V p 348

… The supervision of all jails is the responsibility of the General Commissar (Division of Justice) insofar as the RC has not determined otherwise.”

In “interim guidelines” for the treatment of Jews in the region under the control of the Reichs Commissariat for Eastern territories, issued by the Reichscommissar for the Eastern territories, classified “secret”,  it says, in part:  doc vol V p 394 ff, Krausnick p 375, IMT vol 37, p 19 ff
 

“For the Final Solution to the Jewish Questions” in the region under the Reichs Commissarrat for Eastern territories, the directions in my speech of 27 July 1941 in Kovno apply.

So far as the execution of these my oral instructions, particularly by the Security Police, are concerned, they are not affected by these temporary guidelines.  These temporary guidelines serve only to secure minimum measures for General or Regional Commissars, where and as long as further measures in the sense of the Final Solution to the Jewish Question are not possible.

…

A Jew is…. Doc vol V p 395

In doubtful cases the Regional (City) Commissar decides according to conformable measurements, who is a Jew in the sense of these guidelines. Doc vol V p 396

The general commissars are to institute, as soon and insofar as the civil administration has been introduced into their regions, the following measures immediately:  [sic]
 

a) Jews are to be seized by instituting forced labor through name, sex, age, and residence.  As documents for this, lists from the Jewish communities and the statements of trusted local inhabitants will serve.
b) It should be required that Jews identify themselves by yellow 6-pointed stars, visible at all times, of at least 10 cm, on the left side of the chest and on the center of the back.
c) Jews are to be prohibitted:

1) Change of residence and change of locality without permission of the regional (city) commissar
2) The use of sidewalks, public transit (for example railways) and trucks.”

In the guidelines of the Reichs Commissar for the East, further regulations are to be found, by which Jews are prohibitted, in part, the use and visit of public places and cultural events, the ownership of motorized vehicles and radios, and the practice of specific occupations greatly restricted or entirely prohibitted them, among them physician, pharmacist as well as attorney. Doc vol V p 397

Further, these guidelines contain regulations regarding the confiscation, reporting, and delivery of Jewish assets.  Only the most elementary means of support are to be left to the Jewish population.

There then follow regulations on the use of Jews for forced labor, as well as their concentration in ghettos.  (Krausnick p 377) There are the further measures of which Reichs commissar Lohse spoke at the beginning of his temporary guidelines (cf. P 117 of this indictment), and which made the second series of measures significantly easier.  In these regulations it states, in part:  doc vol V p 401
 

“…
V) The following further measures are to be instituted with energy according to local, particularly economic, circumstances:

a) Rural areas are to be cleansed of Jews
b) Jews are to be …removed from trade altogether
c) …
d) The Jews are, as much as possible, to be concentrated in cities or in sections of larger cities, which already have predominantly Jewish populations.  There ghettos are to be instituted.  Jews are to be forbidden to leave the ghettos.

In the ghettos, they are to be left only that nourishment, which the remaining population can spare, but not more than suffices for the minimal nourishment of the inhabitants of the ghetto…

The inhabitants of the ghettos regulate their circumstances in self-administration, which is to be supervised by the regional or city commissar or his delegate.  Jews can be assigned as internal order police.  They are to be armed at most with rubber truncheons or sticks, or to be identified by white armbands with a yellow Jewish star.

For the external hermetic sealing of the ghettos, auxiliary police consisting of local inhabitants are to be used as much as possible. Doc vol V p 402.  Entering the ghettos is to depend on permission of the regional commissar.

e) Able-bodied Jews are to be forced into forced labor according to need.  The economic interests of local inhabitants worthy of assistance cannot be harmed by the use of Jewish forced labor.  The forced labor can be carried out outside the ghettos in work brigades, in the ghetto, or where there are not yet ghettos, outside the ghettos (for example in Jewish workshops).

Remuneration should not correspond to productivity, but should …serve merely … for the most basic support

6) It remains to permit the general commissars to implement the measures mentioned under numeral V uniformly in their area, or to leave it up to the individual regional commissars.  Even so are the general commissars justified in issuing more specific orders in the framework of these guidelines, or to empower the regional commissars to do this.  Doc vol V p 402

Distribution:
 

 Reichscommissariat  12
 Higher SS- & Policefuehrer 20
 General commissars:  Estonia
         Lithuania
         Latvia       ea. 10
                                                 Belarus           60

 Stock  28
 

Thereby able-bodied Jews of 15 – 60 years (separated by sex) are to be enumerated specifically”.  Doc vol V p 394a
 

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