Revisiting the Meeting of the Staatssekretäre on 2 May 1941: A Response to Klaus Jochen Arnold and Gert C. Lübbers

Abstract

In my article 'Germany's Staatssekretaire, Mass Starvation and the Meeting of 2 May 1941',' I posit that the meeting of the Staatssekretire on 2 May 1941 was an official session of the Economic Command Staff East, the management committee responsible for economically administering the occupied Soviet territories. Those present, namely the relevant representatives of the German ministerial bureaucracy and the Wehrmacht, signalled their endorsement of the ruthless exploitation of Soviet foodstuffs for the benefit of the invading troops and the home front, and at a cost of the lives of tens of millions of Soviet civilians. The meeting served to elaborate and co-ordinate the approach already sanctioned by Germany's supreme leadership. In this way, the meeting had massive implications for German occupation policy in the Soviet Union. With their article 'The Meeting of the Staatssekretaire on 2 May 1941 and the Wehrmacht: A Document up for Discussion',2 Klaus Jochen Arnold and Gert C. Liibbers have written a direct response to and critique of my article and the theses contained therein. In writing their article, Arnold and Liibbers have two principal aims. First, they seek to exonerate the Wehrmacht from their participation in the planning that is, the premeditated preparation of atrocities against civilians and prisoners of war in the Soviet territories at all costs. They do this in two ways: by playing down the importance of senior Wehrmacht officers such as General Georg Thomas in endorsing and planning these atrocities; and by giving the responsibility for this criminal intent exclusively to Adolf Hitler, his nominated successor Hermann Goring, and the Staatssekretair in the Ministry for Food and Agriculture, Herbert Backe. Secondly, by laying the blame at the door of a mere few, Arnold and Liubbers contest the centrality of the forced creation of food surpluses in German occupation policy for the Soviet Union, the agreement reached between the Wehrmacht, Party agencies and the German ministerial bureaucracy on this policy and, in particular, the nature and significance