The Nazis and the Jews in Occupied Western Europe, 1940-1944

Abstract

Nazi policy toward the Jews of occupied western Europe evolved in three phases, determined by far-flung strategic concerns of the Third Reich.' In the first, from the outbreak of war in the west in April 1940 until the autumn of 1941, all was provisional: Nazi leaders looked forward to a solution of the Jewish question in Europe, but that final solution was to await the cessation of hostilities and an ultimate peace settlement. No one defined the final solution with precision, but all signs pointed toward some vast and as yet unspecified project of mass emigration. When the war was over, the Jews would leave Europe and the question would be resolved. Until that time, the various German occupation authorities would pursue anti-Jewish objectives by controlling the movements and organizations of Jews, confiscating their property, enumerating them, and sometimes concentrating them in certain regions. Throughout this phase, the circumstances of Jews varied importantly according to various occupation arrangements worked out by Germany following the spectacular Blitzkrieg of 1940. In the second phase, from the autumn of 1941 until the summer of 1942, Hitler drew implications from a gradually faltering campaign in Russia: the war was to last longer than he had planned, and the increasingly desperate struggle against the Bolsheviks prompted a revision of the previous timetable and general approach to the Jewish problem. Now Nazi leaders were told to prepare for the final solution itself, which could not be postponed. The Jewish question had to be solved quickly, before the end of the war. Nazi Jewish experts soon adopted the new rhythm, and began urgent preparations. Henceforth, mass resettlement was taken to be impractical, and Jewish emigration was indeed forbidden. By the end of 1941, in a dramatic reversal of policy, Jews were no longer permitted to leave German-controlled Europe. With the exception of Norway and