action in Poland. What was required was murderous initiative, and in fact
Einsatzgruppe z.b.V. was to carry out numerous pogroms against Jews in its
path through Poland.
34
On 11 September, prompted by Hitler, Himmler
gave Einsatzgruppe IV the order ‘to arrest 500 hostages to be drawn mainly
from the Polish intelligentsia in Bromberg and additionally from commu-
nists and, in the event of the slightest sign of insurrection or attempts at
resistance, to act ruthlessly by shooting the hostages’.
35
After the end of the German–Polish war this terror was systematized.
From the end of October onwards the Einsatzgruppen and the Selbstschutz,
directed by the Reich Security Main Office, carried out the so-called
‘Intelligentsia Operation’,
36
which was in fact a campaign of murder direct-
ed above all at teachers, university graduates, former officers and officials,
clergy, landowners, leading members of Polish nationalist organizations,
and above all Jews.
37
As mentioned already, during the first four months of the German
occupation tens of thousands of people were murdered in this way. The
new Reich Gau of Danzig–West Prussia was a particular focus of the
operation.
38
Here, in addition to members of the Polish elites and Jews,
asylum patients, ‘asocials’, prostitutes, women who allegedly had sexual
diseases, as well as Gypsies were shot; here it became clear to what extent
subordinate bodies, acting on their own initiative, could carry out a ‘cleans-
ing’ of the conquered territories on the basis of ‘racial hygiene’.
39
From mid-September onwards the leader of the Selbstschutz in Danzig–
West Prussia who was responsible for these murders was Ludolf von
Alvensleben, previously Himmler’s adjutant.
40
The ‘reward’ that Himmler
thought up for this mass murder represented not only an expression of his
gratitude to and recognition of von Alvensleben, but also had a pedagogic
purpose. On 20 March 1940 Himmler informed Heydrich that he had
assigned to von Alvensleben, of whose precarious financial position
he had been well aware since the 1930s,
41
two estates in the territory that
had been annexed which until 1918 had belonged to his family. However,
this was only a provisional measure and by no means represented a transfer
of property; he did not intend to give von Alvensleben preferential treat-
ment. Rumours to that effect that had been circulating among ethnic Ger-
mans in the Gau, and had presumably prompted Heydrich to contact
Himmler, were without foundation. Rather, he, Himmler, had agreed to
Alvensleben’s taking over the running of the estates ‘in order to provide SS-
Oberfu
¨
hrer von Alvensleben, who, as leader of the Selbstschutz had played
430 war and settlement in poland