Comrades Betrayed

Tasked with implementing the Final Solution in Belarus, Generalkomissar Wilhelm Kube complained, “I am certainly tough and ready to help solve the Jewish Question, but human beings who come from our cultural sphere are something other than the native bestial hordes.” Kube considered it “dishonorable” to treat German Jewish veterans of the First World War like the “bestial” Eastern European Jews, and he could only assume Hitler would feel the same way (pp. 145–46). Kube was not the only senior Nazi official or Wehrmacht officer to express discomfort with the idea of consigning decorated and wounded Jewish veterans to the same fate as the rest of European Jewry. Reich Security Main Office chief Reinhard Heydrich became increasingly annoyed at fielding complaints, and reluctantly kept certain exemptions in place, although not permanently. Were the bonds of comradeship forged during the First World War strong enough to protect Jewish veterans, if only

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