Into The Grey Zone, Wehrmacht Bystanders, German Labor Market Policy and The Holocaust

Journal of Genocide Research (2008), 10(3),
September, 389 –411
Into the grey zone: Wehrmacht

bystanders, German labor market
policy and the Holocaust
KIM C. PRIEMEL
In 1941, German troops occupied the city of Vilnius. Mass killings started immediately,
reducing the Jewish population by 70% by the end of the year. In the following two years,
genocidal action ceased nearly altogether due to the effects of increasing labor shortages.
Since neither Soviet POWs nor Lithuanian gentiles were available in sufficient numbers,
German offices had to resort to the remaining Jewish workforce. This article explores the
cases of three German officers who used economic rationale extensively in order to save
their workers from mass murder. Their efforts testify to the scope of action that was open
to minor Wehrmacht officers in the occupied territories. By highlighting the institutional
background against which these men were able to provide help to Jews some tentative
conclusions about how passive bystanders turned into active rescuers shall be drawn. Since
the historian’s insight into individual motivations is often frustrated by the limited
availability and reliability of sources, this article stresses the impact of situational factors.
By drawing on sociopsychological research the essay argues that the risks the Wehrmacht
rescuers had to take not only remained fairly limited but were also marked by ambiguity.
Rather than opting for outright resistance, at least two of the three men remained within a
“grey zone” of moral compromise which, however, was vital to the success of their rescue
efforts.
I. Introduction
At the end of the denazification trial in the Hessian town of Darmstadt in 1948, the
jury classified Karl Plagge as a “fellow traveler.”1 As an “old fighter,” i.e. a former
party member of many years’ standing, who had joined the NSDAP as early as
1931, Plagge might well have been placed under the much more severe category
of “activist.” Therefore, the verdict appeared to be a highly convenient outcome
for Plagge. In fact, this was the charge to which he himself had pleaded.
However, the jury’s logic was somewhat peculiar. The mild choice of “fellow tra-
veler” was by and large the result of affidavits of former subordinates of Plagge, as
well as that of an unexpected witness who had been asked to testify by Jewish
inmates of the Ludwigsburg DP camp. All confirmed that Plagge had gone to
great lengths to save Jews from death during his time as a Wehrmacht officer in
Vilnius. The jury accepted these testimonies as exonerating evidence but, in a
ISSN 1462-3528 print; ISSN 1469-9494 online/08/030389-23 # 2008 Research Network in Genocide Studies
DOI: 10.1080/14623520802305743
KIM C. PRIEMEL
remarkable volte d’argumentation, made a slight but significant differentiation.

Although Plagge’s rescue efforts had shown his humanity, so the verdict reads,
this did not necessarily mean that his actions had resulted from any anti-National
Socialist intentions. A complete acquittal was therefore denied.2 The reasoning of
the Hessian jury was less surprising than it may at first sight seem,3 but it is cer-
tainly astonishing how comparably little attention the jury paid to the extraordi-
nary story of Plagge’s actions. The fact that a German Wehrmacht officer had
opposed National Socialist extermination policy and had, indeed, succeeded in
saving a large number of lives does not seem to have impressed the court back
then in the same way that it does today.4
The present article will deal with the unlikely case of Plagge as well as with
those of two other Wehrmacht members, Oskar Schönbrunner and, more promi-
nently, Anton Schmid. They did not only belong to that tiny group of courageous
Germans who helped Jews during the reign of Nazism but also to the even smaller
band of Wehrmacht soldiers who engaged in rescue actions.5 However, this is
neither a story of heroes nor one of pure philanthropy, but rather a tale of
chance occasions and ambiguity. In the first part the essay will outline the
rescue efforts undertaken by the three men, all of them in Vilnius. In a second
step these actions are placed in the wider context of the German war economy.
The focus will be particularly on the links between occupation policy and labor
market problems in order to depict the specific scope of action available to
minor Wehrmacht officers in the occupied territories behind the front. In a final
step the question of the individual motivations of these officers who turned
from bystanders6 to rescuers will be raised by drawing on results of sociopsycho-
logical research.7 Thus, taking the example of three rescuer case studies and
considering them from a “rearview mirror” perspective, this essay intends to
give more nuance to research on bystander behavior during the Holocaust.8
II. Actions
In the first days of the onslaught against the Soviet Union, the German army
advanced rapidly, sweeping away what resistance the Red Army was able or
willing to organize and achieving control over Lithuania within days.9 On June
24 both Kaunas and Vilnius surrendered and military interim commandants
took over executive and legislative powers. With the stabilization of the rear
areas in early July they were replaced by the arrival of those units that were to
remain permanently behind the lines. It was left to them to establish an organiz-
ational and administrative infrastructure for the exploitation of militarily useful
resources and the raising and transfer of supplies to the fighting troops, but also
to take action against possible partisan warfare. Among those Wehrmacht units
was Feldkommandantur 814 under Lieutenant Colonel Max Zehnpfenning,10
which replaced a unit that had initially been assigned to the area, but whose com-
manding officer had subsequently been judged too soft for the difficult situation in
the ethnically divided city with its largely Polish and Jewish population. In prac-
tice, however, the course of racial discrimination immediately pursued by
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Zehnpfenning could build on his predecessors’ policies. His Feldkommandantur

assumed responsibility for anti-Semitic action, both administrative and military.
Several announcements obliged the Jewish population to wear yellow badges
on their clothing and curtailed Jewish civilian rights, while soldiers directly
participated in killing operations such as the execution of allegedly Bolshevist
officials.11
Zehnpfenning’s staff included first paymaster Oskar Schönbrunner who arrived
in Vilnius in early July 1941. So did the Heereskraftfahrpark 562 (HKP 562), a
vehicle repair unit commanded by Captain Karl Plagge. At the end of August,
Landesschützenbataillon 898 arrived in Vilnius, and one of its non-commissioned
officers, Sergeant Anton Schmid, took over the local Versprengtensammelstelle
whose task was to collect, coordinate, and reassign scattered soldiers.12 These
men had little in common. Schönbrunner, born in 1908, was the only regular
officer. He had grown up in a bourgeois Bavarian household and had completed
training as a professional clerk before joining the Wehrmacht in 1926. At
the beginning of the 1941 campaign he had been transferred from France to
Lithuania.13 Plagge, who was then 44 years old and thus considerably older
than Schönbrunner, was a veteran of World War I. Coming from a family of
army physicians, Plagge had studied chemistry and mechanical engineering in
his hometown of Darmstadt after the war. He subsequently established a private
laboratory and had also joined a major local company in the 1930s. Due to his
engineering qualifications he was first assigned to a local vehicle repair unit in
1940 and then placed in charge of HKP 562 the following year.14 Schmid, born
in 1900 and like Plagge a veteran of the Great War, had been raised in the
lower-class, petty-bourgeois milieu of fin-de-siècle Vienna. In the 1920s, he had
completed an apprenticeship in electrical engineering and finally set up a small
shop of his own. In 1939, he was conscripted into a Landesschützen unit,
usually reserved for older or ailing men unfit for front service. Via Poland and
Byelorussia Schmid arrived in Vilnius.15
In addition to their official functions, various Wehrmacht units in Vilnius soon
engaged in other manifold activities according to the pre-devised scheme of econ-
omic exploitation in the east that was meant to ensure supplies and provisions
“from the country.”16 This scheme, according to a conference of high-ranking
government officials held in May 1941, also involved the “establishment of
repair workshops for army purposes [. . .] to a high degree [Aufmachung
von Reparaturwerkstätten für die Truppe [. . .] in erhöhtem Maße].”17 As a
result, not only construction and repair units but also other Wehrmacht sections
started to recruit staff, in most cases artisans and technical experts. Thus, a carpen-
ter’s and upholsterer’s workshop was added to the Versprengtensammelstelle, and
the workers were put in Schmid’s charge, while the Feldkommandantur estab-
lished its own tailor’s workshop on Schönbrunner’s initiative. In the case of
HKP 562 there was no doubt about its dependence on skilled labor for the per-
formance of various jobs in the garages. Since these could not be carried out by
the German members of the Kraftfahrpark alone, large numbers of mechanics,
glaziers, and panel beaters had to be employed. Due to the scarcity of skilled
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KIM C. PRIEMEL
workers and the dominance of Jews among the local artisans, all three sections
relied heavily on Jewish labor.18
From the perspective of the German employers this was an economic necessity
since the tasks assigned to the units could not have been executed without suffi-
ciently qualified workers—many of whom were Jews. Moreover, these had to
accept minimum wages, making their labor unbeatably cheap. Initially, the
Wehrmacht paid no more than 10 Pfennige per hour to male workers; women
and adolescents received 7.5 and 5 Pfennige, respectively. Only later on were
military employers charged the same amount as private firms, i.e. twice as
much, half of it being a rental fee that was demanded by the civil administration
which was responsible for ghetto affairs.19 For the Jews, however, these slave
wages—which did not even pretend to provide an essential minimum—were of
rather minor importance. Since the establishment of the German workshops
coincided with the prelude of extermination, a job at a Wehrmacht office was
often identical with survival. In particular, the skilled-worker certificates, the infa-
mous Gelbe Scheine (printed on yellowish paper), would soon become the only
chance of avoiding the mass murders of the first five months of occupation.
During the initial phase of the so-called Aktionen perpetrated by German SS
and police units and their Lithuanian auxiliaries in the first six weeks of occu-
pation,20 Wehrmacht officers were frequently able to save their workers from
falling victim to the executions. This was by and large due to the fact that the
civil administration had not yet arrived. The administrative vacuum during
these early weeks was filled by the army whose position was thus strengthened
in regard to Security Police and SS Sicherheitsdienst (SD, i.e. the SS secret
service).21
Despite the fact that the Wehrmacht had already paved the way through a
succession of various anti-Semitic measures, German “Judenpolitik” became
considerably more systematic after district commissioner Hans Hingst and his
deputy Franz Murer had taken over control, coinciding with a changeover in
police responsibilities. In early August 1941, Einsatzkommando 9, one of
Himmler’s mobile task forces sent to the east in the wake of the Soviet campaign,
was replaced by its fellow Einsatzkommando 3, headed by SS colonel Karl Jäger,
the author of the notorious Jäger Report.22 Ghettoization plans were drawn up and
implemented in a brutal single-day Aktion on September 6 in which thousands of
Jews perished. Once ghettoization was accomplished, control over the ghetto also
implied responsibility for the distribution of Jewish labor which was centralized in
the German job center. Independent recruitment was henceforth prohibited.23 The
link between ghettoization and labor demands soon became visible when the two
parts of the new Jewish quarter, left and right of Vokieciu gatve (“German Street”),
were used as instruments for the purpose of selection. While the smaller ghetto
was chosen as the dwelling for unskilled or unproductive workers, i.e. a group
ranging from academics to the old and infirm, the large ghetto became the place
for those who were deemed useful by the Germans. In the course of several
successive Aktionen in September and October 1941, the smaller ghetto was liqui-
dated, and its inhabitants were brought to the forest of nearby Paneriai where they
392
INTO THE GREY ZONE
were murdered by the Lithuanian death squad Ypatingasis Būrys, commanded by

German SS and police officers.24
However, people in the big ghetto were not supposed to feel safe for the time
being. In mid-October, during the final mass murders in the small ghetto, new
identity cards were distributed by the job center. Printed on yellowish paper,
these certified that the holder was an indispensable skilled worker who was to
be spared from execution. For those who did not receive a yellow Schein the
new differentiation proved to be a catastrophe since they were no longer shielded
by their older documents. In fact, the number of Facharbeiterscheine was strictly
limited to 3,000; the rest of the population was either doomed to die or forced to go
underground. The holders of the yellow cards, on the other hand, were allowed to
extend the protection of the Scheine to their spouses and two children each or, if
unmarried and under 23, to their parents and one sister, though not to a brother.
Thus, 12,000 was the official number of Jews that were to remain after the
Gelbe-Scheine-Aktionen between October 24 and November 6, 1941.25
The Wehrmacht had an important say in the distribution of the said certificates.
Most of the military workshops fulfilled tasks of supply, repairs, and construction
and were consequently classified kriegswichtig, i.e. essential to war. This label in
turn provided privileged access to Jewish labor. Schmid, Schönbrunner and Plagge
made full use of this opportunity. By January 1942, the Versprengtensammelstelle
registered 103 Jewish men and women, and Schönbrunner’s tailor-shop counted as
many as 292 workers from the ghetto.26 HKP 562 became a workplace for 261
Jews. These numbers are particularly significant when compared with other
employers. Schmid’s office, a minor and rather unimportant one, ranked among
the 20 biggest employers of Jewish labor. The tailor-shop even headed the list
of all Wehrmacht sections and was second only to Vilnius’ most important fur
factory, “Kailis”; Plagge’s garages followed in fourth position in this ranking.27
To a considerable degree, these high scores resulted from the efforts undertaken
by the three officers. While Schönbrunner, who was on good terms with the
local SD officers,28 was able to triple the original number of his employees of
about 100 tailors in these early stages, Schmid managed to secure more working
permissions for his workers than he had initially been granted. Instead of the orig-
inal 15 certificates, he somehow obtained six times as many of the life-saving
documents.29
Although the security of the Wehrmacht employment was by far the most
important benefit for the Jews, the officers’ influence did not stop there.
Schmid was known to instruct those soldiers who escorted the Jews from the
ghetto to the workshop in the morning and back there in the evening to prevent
all assaults on the workers by the guards at the gate and, if possible, their being
frisked for foodstuffs. Likewise, Schönbrunner deliberately ignored the smug-
gling of food into the Schneiderstube which soon became “famous” among the
Ghetto inhabitants, as Yitshkok Rudashevski noted in his diary.30 Finally, the
three officers tried to guarantee the humane treatment of their workers. Thus
Plagge, as head of HKP 562, did not only set the tone that marked the atmosphere
in the Park but also took action to make sure that the more brutal or anti-Semitic
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among his subordinates had as little to do with the Jewish workers as possible.
Schönbrunner was even summoned to district commissioner Hingst for being
too civil with the Jews: someone had denounced him for having shaken hands
with a Jewish employee.31
The use of large Jewish labor forces, however, frequently posed more serious
problems to the officers in charge. This was basically due to the fact that both
German and Lithuanian police often ignored valid papers and arrested individual
workers as well as whole battalions on their way to work. At least once, each of the
three Wehrmacht officers had to intervene in order to free their employees. In
minor cases, Plagge usually instructed some reliable subordinates to request the
liberation of HKP workers. However, the arrest of 70 Jews who belonged to his
Kraftfahrpark in 1941 must have seemed to him a much more serious problem,
since he decided to lodge a personal complaint directly at the Lukiškis prison
which was known as the penultimate station before Paneriai. Plagge refused to
leave without his workers. With some deviation from the exact truth, he
claimed that the prisoners in question were irreplaceable experts without whom
the HKP would be unable to fulfill its tasks. When finally granted access to the
Jewish captives, Plagge also included their families and led the whole group out
of jail.32
Oskar Schönbrunner’s fame is based on a very similar, if more adventurous
episode. One day in autumn 1941, the paymaster was informed by a Jewish
foreman of his tailor-shop, Isaak Glasmann, that 150 workers had been arrested
and were now being held at Lukiškis. At Glasmann’s insistence, Schönbrunner
appeared at the prison the same night and demanded the immediate release of
“his” Jews. At first, the SD officer in charge refused to let the people go and
asked for permission by the head of Vilnius Security Police. Although Schönbrun-
ner had made no such agreement with any SS representative he successfully
bluffed his way through as the guard was not keen on any further investigation.
Schönbrunner was allowed to pick his workers from the crowd of arrested Jews
in the gaol. From a list that had been prepared by Glasmann he read the names
of those people whom he believed to belong to the tailor-shop. Calling out the
names of the first 80 people, however, Schönbrunner soon realized that many of
the faces were unfamiliar to him. Though recognizing that he had been misled
by his foreman, he nevertheless continued to select the remaining 70 men and
women whose names had been listed by Glasmann. In what must have been a
remarkable scene Schönbrunner then led his putative workforce out of Lukiškis
and to the tailor-shop, himself in his staff car crawling at walking speed at the
head of the procession through night-time Vilnius. Later that night, he and Glas-
mann provided the former prisoners with labor certificates in order to legalize their
stay at the Schneiderstube.33
The workshop activities of the three officers came at different times and to
different ends. Anton Schmid was denounced and arrested in February 1942
due to his support of the ghetto resistance movement. In collaboration with the
Jewish underground, Schmid had organized and personally carried out large-
scale transports of Jews in late 1941 to the ghettos of Lida, Grodno, and Białystok,
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which were deemed safer than Vilnius.34 Immediately after his imprisonment, the
number of Jews working at the Versprengtensammelstelle was reduced by 50%.
By the summer of 1942, the office was no longer mentioned among Wehrmacht
employers of Jewish labor.35
The tailor-shop did not encounter any substantial problems until the summer of
1943 when Himmler issued an order to transform all remaining ghettos in the east
into concentration camps. These were to be placed under the control of the Reich-
sicherheitshauptamt where Oswald Pohl’s Economic and Administrative Main
Office would be responsible for economic exploitation of the camps.36 Himmler’s
order did not only require the abandonment of their Jewish labor forces by all civil
and Wehrmacht sections, but also the liquidation of the Vilnius ghetto as a whole.
Unlike Kaunas and Šiauliai, where ghettos were re-labeled camps and transferred
to SS jurisdiction while remaining essentially intact, the Vilnius ghetto was not to
last. In the aftermath of Warsaw, both a ghetto uprising and a substantial strength-
ening of the partisans in the woods by escaping Jews seemed realistic dangers to
the SS. As a perceived hotbed of Jewish resistance, in particular in combination
with its proximity to the border regions of Poland and Byelorussia where partisan
warfare had lately peaked, the Vilnius ghetto was doomed.37
However, four exceptions from the general dissolution of all Jewish workforces
were granted, among them the “Kailis” fur factory, the local Gestapo office,
and the hospital of the Spanish Blue Legion in Vilnius. The fourth and only
Wehrmacht section to be granted continued access to Jewish labor was HKP 562.
Moreover, in the negotiations with the SS, Plagge was able to enlarge his workforce
from 394 Jews in July 1943 to more than 1,000 at the time of the liquidation of the
ghetto.38 Plagge, now holding the rank of major, had been given the permission for a
special “Juden-KZ” by the local head of SD, SS-Obersturmführer Rolf Neugebauer,
as early as August.39 Having scored this initial victory, however, Plagge seems to
have miscalculated the extent of the Security Police’s cooperation and was thus
taken by surprise when the first deportations to Estonia heralded the ultimate liquida-
tion of the ghetto. In the course of the third major deportation on September 1, 1943
some 300 workers of the HKP were arrested by the ghetto-liquidator-to-be, SS-
Scharführer Bruno Kittel, and loaded onto trains that were ready to leave for
Klooga.40 Alarmed by the news, Plagge headed for the station and demanded the
liberation of his workers which was immediately undertaken by the policemen at
hand. The major then left, leaving some of his subordinates behind to protect his
workers. This proved to be a fatal mistake. Soon after, Neugebauer arrived at the
station and ordered the reloading of the just-freed Jews. All subsequent efforts of
both HKP officers and Vilnius’ Wehrwirtschaftsaußenstelle, the local Wehrmacht
economic office, to get into contact with Neugebauer failed. All workers were
deported.41
Plagge, who was furious about the defeat, had learned his lesson and made sure
that he would not be caught unawares a second time. Soon after the confrontation
with the SS, the HKP began recruiting new workers in order to replace the victims
of the deportation. For the remaining Jewish laborers this presented the opportunity
to secure jobs for family members. Among them were several of Schönbrunner’s
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former employees who successfully managed to get into the garages. One week
before the final Aktion in which the ghetto would be liquidated and its inhabitants
either deported or murdered, Plagge removed his workforce from the Jewish
quarter to the new site on Subaucius gatve 37.42 These large tenement buildings
which had originally been erected as “cheap housing” for Jewish people on
welfare now became the HKP-“Betriebsghetto” from which the workers were
driven to the garages in Antakalnis and the Panzerkaserne. In addition, large
numbers of inmates remained on the Subaucius grounds where new workshops
were added to the flats. These basically continued the activities of the former
ghetto workshops and performed jobs that were hardly related to the key tasks
of a vehicle repair unit. Thus, joiners, roofers, masons, and shoemakers were
found among HKP’s indispensable workers as well as doctors and nurses who pro-
vided medical care. Significantly, about 40% of the whole labor force was
employed in the workshops on Subaucius street and not in the HKP garages
proper.43 Remarkably, Plagge had also managed to include large numbers of
women and children arguing that his predominantly male skilled workers could
hardly be expected to show any willingness to work without their families.
However, Plagge did not rely on this psychological reasoning alone but went to
great lengths to secure jobs for the women as well. Efforts to withdraw these
female workers met with his fierce resistance.44
In addition, in the first weeks after the establishment of the HKP camp the
number of inhabitants grew considerably due to the arrival of Jews who had
remained in the ghetto during the liquidation, hiding in malines (secret hiding
places), where they were either discovered by police squads or from where they
moved into temporary refuge at “Kailis.” Taking into consideration those that
were found out and arrested, Plagge convinced the SD head that he could do
with another 100 workers in his garages. At about the same time, roughly the
same number of illegals were secretly transferred by the Jewish underground
from the more vulnerable “Kailis” camp. According to the diary of Grigorij
Šur, this was done with Plagge’s explicit approval.45 As a result, in early 1944
the HKP number of inmates peaked at more than 1,250, all of whom were com-
paratively safe from assaults by the German or Lithuanian police. The major
exception was the outstandingly brutal so-called Kinderaktion in March 1944.
In an unannounced onslaught, more than 200 children and elderly people were
arrested and either killed on the spot or brought to Paneriai where they were
murdered. By April, the number of remaining Jews had been reduced to some
1,000 people.46
The Kinderaktion anticipated the complete extermination of remaining Vilnius
Jewry with military defeat approaching. In July 1944, German occupation came to
an abrupt end when the Wehrmacht started to withdraw its sections. Among them
was HKP 562 whose camp was to be dissolved and its inmates to be left in the
charge of the SS. On July 1, Plagge spoke before a gathering of HKP inmates
and warned them in thinly veiled words of their fate, officially labeled an “evacua-
tion to the west.” He informed them that they would be handed over to the SS and,
more bluntly, reminded them “how well the SS takes care of Jewish prisoners.”
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Luggage, Plagge said in response to questions from the crowd, would not be
needed where they were about to go. Some 400 of the inmates managed to find
hiding places before the final mass murder on July 4; half of them would not be
discovered and survived to see the Red Army enter Vilnius on July 13, 1944.47
III. Options
The stories of the three men are well worth telling and remembering in their own
right. Beyond their anecdotal quality, however, they may serve as a starting point
for further analysis, examining the institutional as well as personal conditions that
provided the framework in which they could take place. How were the officers able
to perform their rescue actions? What made them act the way they did? The first
question looks at the opportunities and chances encountered by Wehrmacht
soldiers such as Schmid, Schönbrunner, and Plagge, whereas the second tackles
more difficult psychological issues. Although neither of the two problems can
be dealt with in depth in the present essay, some tentative conclusions shall
nonetheless be drawn from the three case studies.
The common element of the above-mentioned rescue efforts is tightly linked to
the ubiquitous question of labor supply. As Jewish lives depended increasingly on
their usefulness as (skilled) workers, the role of the Wehrmacht, probably the single
most important employer in the occupied territories, grew proportionally stronger.
Labor shortage was indeed one of the most pressing problems of the German war
economy. In the Reich proper, the massive rearmament boom had led from large-
scale unemployment in the early 1930s to an ever-increasing deficit in available
manpower by 1939. Though preparing for war, the German economy at the same
time lacked the essential prerequisites.48 Even before the attack on Poland,
General Georg Thomas, the Wehrmacht’s leading armaments expert, therefore
stressed the need to boost industrial production, foreign currency reserves, the
production of staple commodities—and the number of “men.”49 While the former
problems could be solved at least partially by sustained internal action, the latter
exceeded the capabilities even of an enlarged Germany. Indeed, these shortcomings
did not only prove to be the precondition but also a major objective of the war
to come.50
In particular, the growing discrepancy between the available human resources
and the various claims on these posed a severe threat to the German war effort.
The recourse to forced labor offered the easiest way out of that dilemma.
POWs from Poland as well as from the west, especially from France, were
drafted by the thousands and were soon joined by predominantly Polish civilians.
By June 1940, 348,000 POWs and 800,000 Polish civilians had been brought to
Germany. However, recruitment for operations “Sealion” (GB) and “Barbarossa”
(SU) caused a further aggravation of the situation at the home front. From May
1939 to May 1941, the German workforce was reduced by six million and
would undergo even further strains once fighting had started. In a mere three
months the Wehrmacht lost 520,000 men in the east and by the end of February
1942 the one-million watermark had been passed. Inevitably, the continual
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replacements led to a breakdown of the Reich’s labor market. The number of male
civilian workers that had peaked at 24.5 million before the Second World War was
down to 13.5 million in September 1944.51
Once more, an extensive forced labor program would have been the easiest
solution to the German economic deficiencies. But due to mistaken hopes for a
rapid victory over the USSR and the ideologically motivated rejection of bringing
both “Bolshevists” and “subhumans” to the Reich, no such plans were made in the
early stages of the war. Only in October, when the dream of a swift Soviet defeat
obviously clashed with reality, did Hitler consent to the recruitment of Red Army
POWs and civilians from the eastern territories.52 As Christian Streit has shown,
this decision came far too late to be of any help in the short term. Anticipating
directives from Berlin, the Wehrmacht had deliberately reduced supplies, housing,
and medical care to less than a bare minimum causing the death of hundreds
of thousands of Russian POWs. Housing literally turned out to be the equivalent
of Göring’s notorious “holes in the ground.” Malnutrition as devised by Herbert
Backe was practiced in all camps.53 Thus, Soviet prisoners of war that were to be
transferred to Lithuanian camps received a bare 100–200 g of bread and 20–30 g
of millet a day while being forced on marches of about 40 kilometers. In Vilnius,
the Armee-Gefangenen-Stelle 10, a temporary POW camp, supplied nothing but
“100 g millet without bread” as the complete daily ration. Predictably, in October
the aerodrome in nearby Kaunas reported a death toll of 130 per day and classified
a mere 10% of all prisoners as fit to work.54
This situation presented the German decision-makers with a dilemma since the
demand for Red Army prisoners was high, both at home and in the eastern terri-
tories where the exploitation of economic resources was now a prime objective of
occupational policy. In the Reichskommissariat Ostland this led to a U-turn in the
way the Jewish population was treated. In contrast to the first months of occu-
pation, when the Wehrmacht economic sections had reduced the numbers of
Jewish employees wherever possible, hoping that they could be replaced by the
Lithuanian gentile population and POWs, the ailing and dying Soviet soldiers
now made way for Jewish workers.55 Realizing that all efforts to exploit the con-
quered territories would prove pointless without a sufficient and adequately
trained labor reservoir on which to draw, the Wehrmacht increasingly pressed
for significant exemptions of Jewish workers from the extermination process.
The only case in which their re-introduction into Wehrmacht production necess-
arily failed was Estonia: here, as the Rüstungsinspektion Ostland laconically
remarked, there were no Jews left.56
However, the fact that the military units fell back on Jewish labor did not indi-
cate a wholehearted, long-term interest of the Wehrmacht to spare the Jewish
population in any of the eastern territories. As there could be no doubt about
the general undesirability of Jewish participation in economic life, in the middle
run these workers would have to be replaced by local gentiles. Therefore, the
availability of the latter would determine the fate of the former. In some cases,
the substitution of Jews by gentiles was rapidly and successfully implemented:
in Anykščiai, in the rayon of Utėna, a felt boot factory had lost 40 to 50 Jewish
398
INTO THE GREY ZONE
workers in a pogrom in the early days of the war. However, to the satisfaction of
the German armaments office in Kaunas, this had not caused a halt in production.
Instead, the immediate employment of Lithuanians had turned the “Jewish dump
[. . .] into an important workshop for the German Wehrmacht.”57
Still, this proved to be the exception to the rule. By spring 1942, a general dis-
trust of German labor policy was virulent among the Lithuanian population, which
had significant repercussions on the question of Jewish labor. Of all people, it was
Fritz Sauckel, the notorious plenipotentiary of labor service and head of the
“biggest slave-labour programme in history,”58 who appeared on the scene just
in time. His ever-increasing demands for “volunteers” for the Reichseinsatz deliv-
ered the decisive blow to the Lithuanian labor market. Shortly after his appoint-
ment, Sauckel fixed the number of men and women to be deported to Germany
by October 1942 at 45,000, and by the end of 1943 at 100,000. More than 200
recruiters were sent east, and police and Wehrmacht were asked for support.59
The results were nonetheless disastrous. Of 235,000 Lithuanians who had been
ordered to muster in spring 1943, no more than 132,000 actually showed up,
most of them after the deadline and only due to the threat and exemplary
implementation of severe penalties. Up to February 12, 1944, no more than
some 33,000 men, women and adolescents were actually deported to Germany.60
Thus bereft of both Russian POWs and a sufficient Lithuanian labor pool, the
German civil and military sections had to rely on Jewish workers to a high
degree. In Vilnius, the local Wehrmacht armaments office consequently justified
the increase in the number of Jewish workers which had reached 7,238 by refer-
ring to the “general employment situation” in July 1942. This trend continued in
the following months so that in November the job center counted 8,824 employed
Jews, of which 4,061 were working for the military forces, 4,319 for the civilian
administration, and another 444 in private companies. Six months later a total of
11,560 Jews were reported to be in employer – employee relationships.61
The liquidation of the ghetto in September 1943 put an abrupt end to the wide-
spread use of Jewish labor. All offices and workshops had to let go of their ghetto
workforce, with the above-mentioned four exceptions. The privileged status of
HKP 562, which became the single most important employer of Jewish workers
in Vilnius for the rest of the war, resulted by and large from the outstanding
importance of its tasks. Since the beginning of the war in the east with its strategy
of mobile warfare, German motorization had proved to be a troubled area of army
equipment. Even in the early days of the attack on the Soviet Union, the German
vehicles had been incomplete in numbers, of diverse origins and inadequate for the
East European roads and tracks. Special stores with about 2,500 tons of spare parts
each had to be established at regular intervals in order to provide a rough overhaul
infrastructure. In Vilnius, the Wehrwirtschaftsaußenstelle termed the availability
of spare parts to be a blatant catastrophe as early as July 1941.62 The already
strained situation deteriorated in the following months. In November 1941 the
German chief of staff, General Franz Halder, had to inform Hitler that some
150,000 out of the original 500,000 motor vehicles were defunct; another
200,000 transporters, cars and motorcycles were in need of a complete overhaul.
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KIM C. PRIEMEL
With an estimated 30,000 repairs per week, German motorization was on the brink
of collapse by winter 1941. Repair facilities such as Plagge’s Heereskraftfahrpark
were therefore essential for the continuation of warfare—a fact on which Plagge
could draw in his negotiations with the SS, whose vehicles, incidentally, were
overhauled at HKP as well.63
IV. Motivations and opportunities

The immense importance of Jewish labor thus provided the background against
which Wehrmacht sections could argue for the indispensability of their workers
and protect these from the grip of the SS. Moreover, in the summer of 1943, it
was possible for Plagge to achieve a special provision and an additional extension
of his workforce due to the fact that the problem of labor scarcity and the critical
situation of Wehrmacht motorization coincided in the institution of the HKP.
These structural prerequisites notwithstanding, it depended on the individual
officers whether, and to what extent and with what intentions, they made use of
the potential of economic rationales. Indeed, in the overwhelming majority of
cases the struggle for Jewish lives undertaken by Wehrmacht sections was due to
strictly utilitarian considerations. Nor did all the protagonists of the present
sample draw a sharp line between philanthropic reasons for their actions and
practical considerations on how their military tasks could best be fulfilled. In fact,
at least two of the three men did not make such a distinction. Both Plagge and
Schönbrunner explicitly intended to further the German war effort which essentially
depended on labor recruitment. Some decades after, in a remarkably self-conscious
analysis, Schönbrunner would call his rescue efforts a “double-edged affair.”64 This
is not to say that the rescuers’ actions were less than extraordinary. Among thousands
of other Wehrmacht soldiers, officers as well as rank and file, they represented a tiny
minority, wholly insignificant in terms of quantity, who developed a sense of respon-
sibility for the Jews left at their command. In Vilnius, Schmid, Schönbrunner, and
Plagge were the only ones who made extensive use of their competences and
who found the courage to help their workers in times of need. Thus, they were the
proverbial exception to the rule.65
Altruism studies in general and research on Holocaust rescuers in particular dis-
tinguish between two broad categories of factors contributing to actual helping
behavior: (1) personality variables (e.g. socialization, religious creed, moral stan-
dards, education) and (2) situational variables (such as relevant skills, the presence
of others, emotions expressed by the victims, availability of resources, networks,
legal and social norms).66 In regard to the first category, however, meaningful
sources on the men considered here are weak and do not allow for an empirically
valid analysis of their character dispositions, even less so for a comparison.
Indeed, the case studies discussed in this essay would suggest a rather skeptical
approach to generalizations about motivations and characteristics of rescuers,
tempting as they are.67 This is in line with sociopsychological studies of rescuers
so far which, despite their professed intentions, have shown that there is hardly
such a thing as a “rescuer personality.”68
400
INTO THE GREY ZONE
The three German officers in Vilnius differed substantially in terms of social

background, education, religious affiliation, or political convictions. Schmid and
Schönbrunner were family men, Plagge was only married. Schmid and Plagge
both had stable civilian lives to which they wanted to return as soon as possible
while Schönbrunner was a regular officer and was looking out for a military
career. Schönbrunner and Schmid adhered to Roman Catholicism, while Plagge
had left the church before the war.69 On the other hand, Plagge had joined the
NSDAP as early as 1931, whereas the other two lacked any specific political
affiliation. Plagge and Schmid had supported Jewish friends before the war,
whereas Schönbrunner had had no personal contacts to Jews prior to his transfer
to Vilnius.70
Therefore, situational factors seem to have been more decisive in turning the men
of the present sample into rescuers. According to the seminal study by psychologists
Bibb Latané and John Darley, the bystander goes through a five-step decision-
making process: the notification of an event, its identification as an emergency,
the acceptance of individual responsibility, the choice of the form of assistance,
and the ultimate implementation of help.71 This process requires a series of decisions
which must be arrived at under threat, urgency, and stress. These inhibitory factors,
however, can be overcome by positive reinforcements such as a plea for help by the
victim, a special competence on the side of the bystander, a relationship between the
two, or the absence of witnesses to the act of helping.72 All of these situational factors
can be attributed to the cases in question.
Judged from this perspective some similarities between the three German offi-
cers come to the fore. The ground for their “rescuer careers” was prepared by their
being eye-witnesses to the atrocities committed against Jews and hearing even
worse stories. The experience of a hitherto unknown degree of brutality—“the
horrors and the hell of this war”73—seems to have been a decisive incentive to
their efforts.74 The dimensions as well as the details of the extermination policy
were well-known facts among German troops in Vilnius. One of Plagge’s men
later reported that the term “liquidation” was frequently used when Jewish
people from the ghetto were imprisoned and subsequently disappeared. Likewise,
the proceedings at Paneriai were talked about rather openly and to the very last
detail: from the ditches dug out in advance to the undressing of the victims.75
Significantly, both Schmid and Schönbrunner referred to the fact that Lithuanian
policemen had been seen smashing the heads of Jewish children against trees at
Paneriai. “I saw such incredible things,” Plagge would state in his post-war
testimony.76
Still, their horror at the crimes did not lead to immediate intervention, and none
of the three men took action on his own initiative. In fact, the initiation of their
rescue efforts uniformly followed a reactive pattern, i.e. the Wehrmacht officials
were asked for help.77 Furthermore, the initial acts of support were rather minor—
usually starting with the most unspecific of all forms of help: decency—and
increased gradually in “an upward curve of risk”78 until they reached a level of
strong commitment and potential peril to the rescuers. Schmid first and rather
spontaneously provided valid documents to two Jews seeking his help. In a
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KIM C. PRIEMEL
second step the ghetto underground contacted Schmid asking for his assistance.79
Schönbrunner started his rescue activities by making his influence felt when
family members of his employees had been arrested. Tellingly, his major feat
would eventually be conceived by the Jewish foreman Glasmann, highlighting
that German rescue efforts and the Jewish struggle for survival were often
rather indistinguishable. Likewise, Plagge gave his support to arrested Jews and
Poles whose names had been indicated to him by their friends and relatives. In
a rather typical case, after a personal conversation, Plagge provided a Jewish phys-
ician and his ageing father with documents, declaring them skilled workers in the
service of the Heereskraftfahrpark.80
In addition, Schmid, Schönbrunner, and Plagge all benefited from their relative
autonomy in their respective fields of action. While the Versprengtensammelstelle
was detached from both Schmid’s battalion and his commanding officers in terms
of tasks and location, Schönbrunner had not only been the guiding spirit behind the
establishment of the tailor-shop but also remained single-handedly in charge of it
until its dissolution. Moreover, Schönbrunner was able to count on his command-
ing officer’s indifference. Zehnpfenning did by no means support Schönbrunner’s
efforts when he learned about them, but neither did he take disciplinary action
against his subordinate.81 In the case of HKP 562, Plagge was the quasi-sovereign
head of the repair unit. His work was hardly ever supervised, provided that every-
thing went smoothly.82 The autonomous disposition over available resources was
thus a trait common to all three cases. Being removed from control, either in terms
of hierarchy or geography or both, meant that the threat of sanction was signifi-
cantly reduced (although a sword of Damocles it remained). One might also
argue that the three protagonists were somewhat less exposed to the influence
of obedience and peer group pressure as highlighted in the well-known exper-
iments by Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo.83
Despite these parallels, the risks taken by each of the three men differed con-
siderably. Schmid went far beyond ordinary support when he decided to assist
the Jewish resistance movement in Vilnius and actively participated in the trans-
ports to other ghettos. Miscalculating the feasibility of his actions he would pay a
high price for them in the end. In February 1942, he was arrested by the military
secret police, tried before a court-martial and sentenced to death. As he remarked
in one of the last letters to his wife, he would die just because he had saved human
beings “which was bad, according to the court.”84 Schönbrunner and Plagge, in
contrast, were certainly more aware of the limits of their respective scopes of
action and moved rather cautiously, if more successfully. Much was at stake,
and Plagge, for instance, was not keen on any confrontation with the SS: “I
always tried to help my conversation partner to see the situation clearly. To that
end I used a certain tactic which consisted of [sic] not provoking my conversation
partner nor enraging him.”85
At times, this careful policy put Plagge in a catch-22 situation with serious moral
implications. When in late 1943 two inhabitants, a married couple who had tried an
unsuccessful escape from the HKP camp, were to be hanged publicly, this was
done “in accord with the Park-leader Major Plagge,” as Neugebauer reported to
402
INTO THE GREY ZONE
his superordinate in Kaunas. Although Plagge left the place of execution before the
hanging took place and is said to have expressed shame for his fellow Germans’
deeds afterwards, he apparently had not thought it worthwhile to protest against
the penalty as such.86 Worse, the Heereskraftfahrpark, under Plagge’s direction,
supplied more than once vehicles and drivers to the SS and Security Police for
the purpose of transporting old and infirm Jews to Paneriai where they were to
be murdered.87 In moral terms this made Plagge as much a collaborator, though
an unwilling one, as he was a rescuer, but it was arguably a rational choice.
Neither Schmid nor Schönbrunner nor any other single officer in Vilnius was
able to protect his workers as long as Plagge did: some 150 to 200 people out of
the original number of 1,250 in HKP 562 would eventually survive the war.
V. Conclusion
In the end, there are no easy categories or types to be applied to the three prota-
gonists. All of them started as mere bystanders who had been ordered accidentally
to one of the most terrible sites of mass murder in the Second World War. Neither
in political nor in sociological or psychological terms did they seem likely to be
singled out from their German compatriots and Wehrmacht comrades to
become rescuers. Still, they did. The only common denominator and the
minimum requirement they met, trite as it may sound, was the fact that they did
not entertain any specifically anti-Semitic prejudices. This, of course, did not
prove to be a sufficient cause for helping behavior. Rather, situational factors
seem to have contributed decisively to the three men’s move from bystander pas-
sivity to rescuer action which meant crossing an inhibitive threshold, i.e. the point
where net benefits exceeded net costs or, in more tangible terms, where the moral
reward of ethical behavior at least matched the level of fear and risk.88 In fact, this
did not take shape as a single decision to embark on a rescuer career but as a
process in which the threshold was gradually lowered.
Four variables sped up the process,89 none of which seem to have been a suffi-
cient cause for rescuer behavior in their own right but rather worked in conjunc-
tion with the other stimuli. First, their being eye-witnesses to the atrocities
prepared the ground for the subsequent actions of the three officers. Second, the
fact that they were asked for help had a significant influence on their involvement
in rescues as it did not require initiative or resolve, but a spontaneous reaction with
little time to weigh consequences and risks. Third, all of the three men relied on
key resources and means to provide help, including personal networks in their
respective units as well as (semi-)autonomous positions. This also meant that
there were few occasions where they were forced to disobey superior orders
directly. In fact, fourthly, there was also little need to disobey instructions since
the officers’ actions could be said to (and actually did) help them fulfill their mili-
tary tasks and assignments.90 What they did was mostly in accord with the needs
of the German war economy, reducing the risk of sanctions substantially. Thus
Plagge said after the war: “I didn’t have the feeling that I was exposing myself
to [any] special danger because my arguments were always reasonable, honorable
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KIM C. PRIEMEL
and undisputable on the humane as well as the technical level. [. . .] [N]o one dared
to interfere with [the] war economy.”91
The latter two variables point to the significance of the institutional framework
in which rescue actions took place, namely the economic dimension of German
occupation policy. The exported problem of labor shortage in the Reich combined
with the effects of German extermination policy in the east, causing the death of
hundreds of thousands of Soviet POWs in the first months of the war, transformed
the significance of Jewish lives from a quantity of negligible worth to a valuable
supply of labor when such was scarce. This gave legitimacy to the requests of mili-
tary units like Schmid’s, Schönbrunner’s, and Plagge’s to sustain or even expand
their Jewish workforce. These could hardly be refused as long as economic reason
had a say in German warfare. It may well be that this utilitarian drive also made
the three men sensitive to the plight of their Jewish laborers in the first place. In
any case, thanks to labor shortage and the dire straits the German war economy
was in, the effective risks the three men had to accept were limited, easing the
transformation from bystander to rescuer.
This was particularly true for Plagge and Schönbrunner who tried to remain on
safe ground for the most part of their actions and who deliberately asserted that
their activities served both humanitarian and military means. Thus, they might
fit into that “grey zone” of individual behavior during the Holocaust described
so poignantly by Primo Levi.92 Although they went beyond the passiveness of
bystanders and did contest the German extermination policy, they fell somewhat
short of being outright resistance fighters. The same cannot be said of Anton
Schmid, however, who paid dearly for his good-hearted, if naı̈ve nature and ulti-
mately fell victim to the regime whose murderous policies he had opposed. But
then, what about Max Zehnpfenning? On the one hand, Vilnius’ military comman-
der contributed significantly to the policies of discrimination and extermination.
On the other, he covered up his paymaster’s actions and thus might also be said
to belong to the grey zone, though occupying a position at its far end.
A “grey zone” may not clear up historical sight, nor does it provide us with a
contrastive picture. But that is what the color grey is all about: ambivalence and
ambiguity, shadows rather than contours. And “[n]ot only is ambivalence difficult
to pigeonhole, but it [is] fluid and dynamic, able to respond to different impulses
and demands in an unpredictable manner.”93 Such, it seems, was individual beha-
vior in the face of the Holocaust. That notwithstanding, there were concrete insti-
tutional settings and frameworks, open to empirical analysis, which created
chances and opportunities that helped bystanders turn into rescuers who otherwise
might not have, and which accounted for a lighter shade of grey.
Epilogue
Anton Schmid was honored posthumously as a hasidei umot ha’olam, Hebrew for
the Righteous Among the Nations, in 1957. He has become one of the best-known
rescuers and certainly the most popular German sergeant ever.94
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INTO THE GREY ZONE
Oskar Schönbrunner returned to Bavaria as well as to civilian life after the war.
In 1978, he too received the honorary title of a Righteous Among the Nations;
several other high decorations in Israel and Germany followed.95
Karl Plagge resumed his former position in a Darmstadt-based company after
the denazification trial. In 1957 he suffered a heart attack and died. A request
by several Holocaust survivors to include Plagge among the Righteous was
agreed to by the Yad Vashem Commission in 2004, so that eventually he too
has been granted a place among the hasidei.96
Acknowledgements
This essay has a long history of its own and the author gladly acknowledges the
contribution the “Plagge research group” made to its genesis. He is deeply
indebted to the painstaking research the members of the group have undertaken
in order to shed light on Karl Plagge’s life with the help of survivors’ memoirs,
documents, and photographs. Likewise he is grateful to two anonymous referees
of the Journal of Genocide Research, whose comments helped to improve his line
of reasoning, and to Therese Teutsch for proofing his English. The essay partially
draws on previous research but builds on a much broader base of archival sources
as well as on a different analytical framework.
Notes and References

1 For the denazification policy in the US occupational zone, see Lutz Niethammer, Die Mitläuferfabrik. Die
Entnazifizierung am Beispiel Bayerns, 2nd ed. (Bonn and Berlin: Dietz, 1982).
2 Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Wiesbaden, Abt. 520 D-Z Nr. 519.760, Spruchkammerakte Karl Plagge (hen-
ceforth referred to as HHStAþdocument), Minutes, 9.2.1948, fol. 9; interview of Konrad Hesse by the author,
July 4, 2001.
3 For a similar case, see Kurt R. Grossmann, Die unbesungenen Helden. Menschen in Deutschlands dunklen
Tagen, 2nd ed. (Berlin: arani, 1961), p 164.
4 When details of Plagge’s story first spread in 2001, public interest increased rapidly. A great number of news-
paper articles as well as several TV documentaries portrayed the “Schindler from Darmstadt”; for a summary
of both Plagge’s deeds and his posthumous career see the account from the perspective of the survivors and
their families: Michael D. Good, The Search for Major Plagge. The Nazi who Saved Jews (New York:
Fordham University Press, 2005).
5 Accounts of rescuers during the Holocaust are abundant although most of them are anecdotal rather than ana-
lytic; cf. Martin Gilbert, The Righteous. The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust (London: Doubleday, 2002); the
most authoritative collection with a wealth of references is The Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the
Nations: Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust, ed.-in-chief Israel Gutman (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem,
2003). For German rescuers, see the unfinished research project by Manfred Wolfson, “Zum Widerstand
gegen Hitler: Umriß eines Gruppenportäts deutscher Retter von Juden,” in: Joachim Hütter, Reinhard
Meyers and Dietrich Papenfuss (Eds.), Tradition und Neubeginn. Internationale Forschungen zur deutschen
Geschichte im 20. Jahrhundert (Cologne: Heymanns, 1975), pp 391 –407. Recently excerpts from the
Wolfson Collection have been published: Beate Kosmala and Revital Ludewig-Kedmi (Eds.), Verbotene
Hilfe. Deutsche Retterinnen und Retter während des Holocaust (Zürich: Auer, 2003); cf. Beate Kosmala
and Claudia Schoppmann (Eds.), Überleben im Untergrund. Hilfe für Juden in Deutschland 1941–1945
(Berlin: Metropol, 2002).
6 Raul Hilberg was among the first to identify bystanders as one of three groups of protagonists in the murder of
European Jewry, adopting the term along with its institutional rather than individual meaning from Michael
Marrus, The Holocaust in History (London: Penguin, 1987), pp 156–183; cf. Raul Hilberg, Perpetrators,
Victims, Bystanders. The Jewish Catastrophe 1933– 1945 (New York: Harper Collins, 1992); in the same
vein, except for the contributions by D. Cesarani and S. Persson: Bystanders to the Holocaust: A
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KIM C. PRIEMEL
Re-evaluation, edited by David Cesarani and Paul A. Levine (Journal of Holocaust Education, Vol 9, Nos 2 –
3, 2000). In the present essay the term applies strictly to individuals. Ervin Staub, “The psychology of bystan-
ders, perpetrators, and heroic helpers,” in: Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (Eds.), Understanding Gen-
ocide: The Social Psychology of the Holocaust (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp 11–42,
distinguishes between internal (in-group) and external (out-group) rescuers. Victoria Barnett, Bystanders.
Conscience and Complicity During the Holocaust (Westport and London: Greenwood Press, 1999) does
not contribute significantly to bystander analysis.
7 Recently, there has been much discussion on the heuristic potential of applying neurobiological findings to the
historical analysis of human behavior; for an overview and a critical assessment see the contributions in:
Christian Geyer (Ed.), Hirnforschung und Willensfreiheit. Zur Deutung der neuesten Experimente (Frankfurt:
Suhrkamp, 2004); see also the critical remarks by Alexander Kraus and Birte Kohtz, “Hirnwindungen—
Quelle einer historiografischen Wende? Zur Relevanz neurowissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisse für die
Geschichtswissenschaft,” Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft (ZfG), Vol 55, No 10, 2007, pp 842– 857.
The following analysis cannot boast a similarly elaborate framework but may suggest one possible field of
study where such concepts might prove useful. On the other hand, this essay points to the limits of the “cog-
nitive turn” (be it psychological, neurological, or both) in regard to the availability as well as the meaningful-
ness of sources.
8 Cf. Tony Kushner, “‘Pissing in the wind?’ The search for nuance in the study of Holocaust ‘bystanders’,”
Journal of Holocaust Education, Vol 9, Nos 2– 3, 2000, pp 57– 76.
9 One of the few exceptions was the Latvian city of Liepāja: Margers Vestermanis, “Ortskommandantur Libau.
Zwei Monate deutscher Besatzung im Sommer 1941,” in: Hannes Heer and Klaus Naumann (Eds.), Vernich-
tungskrieg. Verbrechen der Wehrmacht 1941–1944 (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 1995), pp 241– 259.
10 Born in 1889, Zehnpfenning had fought in World War I, subsequently joining the paramilitary Freikorps.
After a failed commercial career Zehnpfenning re-entered the Reichswehr in 1934, eventually being promoted
to the rank of colonel; Personal file Max Zehnpfenning, Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv (BA-MA) Freiburg,
Pers/6, No 9694.
11 Bericht über die Tätigkeit des Divisionsstabs in Wilna, o.D. [1941], BA-MA, RH 26-403/4a, unfol.; Maßnahmen
zur Sicherung und Befriedung des Gebietes Stadt und Land Wilna, 7.7.1841, BA-MA RH 24-403/4a, unfol.;
Announcements, 7.7. and 8.7.1941, Lietuvos Centrinis Valstybės Archivas (LCVA) R 677-2-91, fol. 7/8;
Correspondence FK 814, 10.7.1941, LCVA R 677-1-1, fol. 57; Bericht über Sonderaktion, 21.7.1941, LCVA
R 677-2-92, fol. 11/12; for the role of the Wehrmacht in the early days of occupation in Lithuania, see also
Kim C. Priemel, “Sommer 1941. Die Wehrmacht in Litauen,” in: Vincas Bartusevičius, Joachim Tauber and
Wolfram Wette (Eds.), Holocaust in Litauen. Krieg, Judenmorde und Kollaboration im Jahre 1941 (Köln:
Böhlau, 2003), pp 26–39.
12 For more details, see Kim C. Priemel, “Rettung durch Arbeit, Handlungsspielräume von Wehrmachtsange-
hörigen im Kontext des Holocausts in Vilnius, Litauen,” unpublished MA thesis, University of Freiburg,
2002.
13 Letter by Oskar Schönbrunner, December 7, 2001; Beförderungsverfügung vom 30.4.1945, Bundesarchiv,
Zentrale Nachweisstelle, card index; Kurzer Bericht und Schilderung persönlicher Erlebnisse über Rettung
von Juden vor Erschießung oder Lagereinweisung, 9.8.1982, BA-MA MSg 2/2822, fol. 1.
14 HHStA, Political CV, 30.7.1947, pp 1– 4; see also Marianne Viefhaus, “Für eine Gemeinschaft der Einsamen
unter ihren Völkern. Major Karl Plagge und der Heereskraftfahrpark 562 in Vilnius,” in: Wolfram Wette
(Ed.), Zivilcourage. Empörte, Retter und Helfer aus Wehrmacht, Polizei und SS (Frankfurt: Fischer, 2003),
pp 97– 113.
15 For more biographical details on Schmid: Manfred Wieninger and Christiane M. Pabst, “Feldwebel Anton
Schmid: Retter in Wilna,” in: Wolfgang Benz and Mona Körte (Eds.), Solidarität und Hilfe Vol 4, Rettung
im Holocaust. Bedingungen und Erfahrungen des überlebens (Berlin: Metropol, 2001), pp 189–190.
16 “Aktennotiz über eine Besprechung der Staatssekretäre vom 2. Mai 1941,” Der Prozeß gegen die Hauptk-
riegsverbrecher vor dem Internationalen Militärgerichtshof (Nürnberg 1947– 49) [henceforth: IMT], Vol
31, p 84; cf. Alex J. Kay, “Germany’s Staatssekretäre, mass starvation and the meeting of 2 May 1941,”
Journal of Contemporary History, Vol 41, No 4, 2006, pp 685– 700. For critical remarks on Kay’s sources
see the somewhat biased response by Klaus Jochen Arnold and Gert C. Lübbers, “The meeting of the Staats-
sekretäre on 2 May 1941 and the Wehrmacht: a document up for discussion,” Journal of Contemporary
History, Vol 42, No 4, 2007, pp 613–626.
17 Aktennotiz, IMT, Vol 31, p 84.
18 Priemel, Rettung durch Arbeit, pp 89, 94, 101.
19 Richtlinien für den Einsatz der jüdischen Arbeitskräfte, 30.9.1941, LCVA R 626-1-4, fol. 11/12.
20 Yithzak Arad, Ghetto in Flames. The Struggle and Destruction of the Jews of Vilna in the Holocaust (Jeru-
salem: Yad Vashem, 1980), pp 41– 79; Christoph Dieckmann, “Der Krieg und die Ermordung der litauischen
406
INTO THE GREY ZONE
Juden,” in: Ulrich Herbert (Ed.), Nationalsozialistische Vernichtungspolitik 1939– 1945. Neue Forschungen
und Kontroversen (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1998), pp 292– 329; Priemel, Rettung durch Arbeit, pp 46–51. For a
comparison see also the Riga case study: Andrej Angrick and Peter Klein, Die “Endlösung” in Riga. Ausbeu-
tung und Vernichtung 1941– 1944 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2006).
21 See Priemel, “Sommer 1941,” pp 26–39, as well as the forthcoming publication of Christoph Dieckmann’s
PhD thesis on the Holocaust in Lithuania (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2008) which will deal extensively
with the interaction of the different German authorities.
22 Jäger’s second and best-known report: Gesamtaufstellung der im Bereich des EK. 3 bis zum 1. Dez. 1941
durchgeführten Exekutionen, 1.12.1941, Bundesarchiv Berlin (BAB) R 70 SU/15, fol. 81– 89 (for a
printed version see Bartusevičius et al., op cit, pp 303– 311). For an analysis of the internal dynamics of
the EK 3 which were crucial for scale, scope, and speed of the extermination process in Lithuania: Alexander
Neumann, Petra Peckl and Kim C. Priemel, “Praxissemester Osteinsatz. Der Führernachwuchs der Sipo und
der Auftakt zur Vernichtung der litauischen Juden,” Zeitschrift für Genozidforschung, Vol 7, 2006, pp 8– 48.
23 Verordnung Nr. 1, 2.8.1941, LCVA R 677-1-1, fol. 34; Verordnung Nr. 11 (Landrat Kreis Wilna), 21.8.1941,
LCVA R 689-1-2, fol. 44; Anordnung über die Behandlung des jüdischen Vermögens im Reichskommissariat
Ostland, 13.10.1941, LCVA R 614-1-3, fol. 73; Arad, op cit, pp 110/111.
24 Gesamtaufstellung der im Bereich des EK. 3 bis zum 1. Dez. 1941 durchgeführten Exekutionen, 1.12.1941,
BAB R 70 SU/15, fol. 81–89; letter by the head of police in Wilna, 9.9.1941, in: B. Baranauskas,
K. Rukšenas and E. Rozauskas (Eds.), Documents accuse (Vilnius: Gintaras, 1970), pp 217– 218; Arad,
op cit, pp 108 –117. On Paneriai see: Rachel Margolis and Jim G. Tobias (Eds.), Die geheimen Notizen
des K. Sakowicz. Dokumente zur Judenvernichtung in Ponary (Nuremberg: Antogo, 2003).
25 Instruktion, o.D., LCVA R 1421-1-2, fol. 2; Yitshkok Rudashevski, The Vilna Ghetto Diary (Tel Aviv:
Ghetto Fighter’s House, 1973), p 36; Marc Dvorjetski, La Victoire du Ghetto (Paris: France-Empire,
1962), pp 58–60; Grigorij Schur, Die Juden von Wilna. Die Aufzeichnungen des Grigorij Schur
1941– 1944 (Munich: dtv, 1999), pp 64– 65.
26 Later, Schönbrunner reported that he had initially employed some 500 Jewish workers. However, these data
are not corroborated by contemporary sources; Interrogation Oskar Schönbrunner, 21.11.1960, Bundesarchiv
Ludwigsburg (BAL) B 162/2522, fol. 7241.
27 Statistische Angaben über beschäftigte Inhaber der gelben und blauen Ausweise, 25.1.1942, LCVA R 626-1-
209, fol. 100–102.
28 Report by O. Schönbrunner, BA-MA MSg 2/2822, fol. 7/8, 10; Interrogation O. Schönbrunner, 12.4.1961,
BAL B 162/2526, fol. 8037/8038.
29 Report by O. Schönbrunner, BA-MA MSg 2/2822, fol. 5/6; Eidesstattliche Erklärung M. Schumelis and
F. Komras [25.5.1947], Yad Vashem (YV), Department of the Righteous, M 31/1167, fol. 6; Testimony
Shlomo Bernovsky, YV M 31/55, fol. 21/22.
30 Rudashevski, Diary, September 13, 1941, pp 51, 165 (fn. 24).
31 HHStA, Affidavit Plagge, July 30, 1947; HHStA, Affirmation Alfred Stumpff, p 2; BA-MA MSg 2/2882, fol.
6; interview with O. Schönbrunner, November 19, 2001.
32 HHStA, Affidavit Georg Raab, 1; HHStA Affirmation Christian Bartholomae, p 1; HHStA, Affidavit Heinz
Zeuner, 1; Affidavit Gita Kamenmann, 12.6.1972, BAL B 162/2576, fol. 1300; Affidavit Lidia Radokwszczyk,
3.6.1970, BAL B 162/2552, fol. illegible; Interrogation Albert Weller, 17.4.1961, BAL B 162/2626, fol. 7903;
similar: Affidavit Elias Gurewicz, 15.6.1959, BAL B 162/2502, fol. 1489/1490.
33 Affirmation, YV M 31/1167, fol. 6, 7, 58; Report by Oskar Schönbrunner, BA-MA MSg 2/2822, fol. 9/10;
Interview Schönbrunner 24.11.2001. Similar efforts by Schmid to free imprisoned Jews have been reported;
however, firm evidence of these actions is still lacking; see e.g. Erika Weinzierl, Zu wenig Gerechte. Öster-
reicher und Judenverfolgung 1938–1945, 2nd ed. (Grazl: Styria, 1985), p 132.
34 Report by Hermann Adler, YV M 31/55, fol. 70; Affidavit Bernowsky, YV M 31/55, fol. 22; Chaika
Grossmann, The Underground Army. Fighters of the Bialystok Ghetto (New York: Holocaust Library,
1987), pp 34– 37; Dvorjetski, Victoire, p 191.
35 Verzeichnis der Arbeitsstellen und der dort beschäftigten jüdischen Arbeitern [sic] per 27. Februar 1942,
27.2.1942; LCVA R 626-1-209, fol. 106; Aufstellung der Arbeitsstellen und der dort eingesetzten jüdischen
Arbeitskräfte zum 26. August 1942, 25.8.1942, LCVA R 626-1-209, fol. 43–46.
36 Befehl des RFSS an den HSSPF Ostland und den Chef des WVHA, 21.6.1943, BAB NS 19/1740, fol. 20.
In Vilnius proper, the first plans to restrict employment of Jewish labor to large work forces and limited
fields of action had been contemplated as early as November 1942: KTB Wwi Kdo Kauen, 4.11.1942,
BA-MA RW 30/19, fol. 14.
37 Lagebericht 7/43 des KdS Litauen, 31.7.1943, BAB R 90/122, fol. 1484; Lagebericht 9/43 des KdS Litauen,
undated, LCVA R 1399-1-62, fol. 60; Aktenvermerk über Besprechung beim Kommandeur der Sipo und des
SD, Wilna, OStuF Neugebauer, 5.8.1943, BA-MA RW 30/85, fol. 32.
407
KIM C. PRIEMEL
38 Abschlußbericht der Kommission zur Nachprüfung des Einsatzes ziviler Arbeitskräfte bei den Wehrmachts-
dienststellen in Wilna, 2.8.1943, BA-MA RW 30/85, fol. 21.
39 Besprechung Hptm. Klipfel mit OStuF Neugebauer vom SD Wilna über Judeneinsatz bei Wehrmachtsferti-
gung im Ghetto, 4.8.1943, BA-MA RW 30/85, fol. 30; Aktennotiz über Besprechung beim Kommandeur des
Wilnaer SD, OStuF Neugebauer, am 3.8.1941, BA-MA RW 30/85, fol. 31. For Neugebauer’s career see his
personal file in Bundesarchiv-Zwischenarchiv Dahlwitz-Hoppegarten, ZR 661A.06, fol. 47– 56.
40 Moshe Feigenberg, Wilne untern Nacy-Joch (Landsberg, 1946), pp 18, 20, 22. For the extermination process
in Estonia see: Ruth-Bettina Birn, Die Sicherheitspolizei in Estland 1941–1944. Eine Studie zur Kollabora-
tion im Osten (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2006).
41 Schur, Juden von Wilna, 182; HHStA, Affirmation Friedrich Asmus, fol. 1; HHStA, Affidavit Georg Raab, 1;
KTB Wwi Außenstelle Wilna, fol. 1, 6. and 7.9.1943, BA-MA RW 30/85, fol. 48, 49, 51. In the aftermath of
the deportation, according to the affidavits of his subordinates, Plagge severely clashed with the local SD
section; Plagge was “desperate and incredibly furious” (Raab).
42 Sollstärken November 1943, LCVA R 1421-1-511, fol. 183; Feigenberg, op cit, S. 23; Samuel Esterowicz,
“The memoirs of Samuel Esterowicz,” ed. Pearl Good, quoted from: Priemel, Rettung durch Arbeit, Materi-
alien, p 28 (the memoirs are available at http://www.hometown.aol.com/michaeldg/memoirssmesterowicz.
doc); Arad, op cit, p 421; Leyzer Ran (Ed.), Jerusalem of Lithuania, Illustrated and Documented, Vol 1
(New York: Vilno Album Committtee, 1974), p 142; Irina Guzenberg, “The 1942 general population
census in Lithuania: the labor camps of Vilnius Ghetto,” in: Vilniaus Getas: Kalinu˛ sarašai/Vilnius
ghetto: List of prisoners, Vol 2 (Vilnius: Valstybinis Vilniaus Gaono Žydu Muziejus, 1998), p 49.
43 Aufstellungen und Facharbeiterlisten, undated, LCVA R 1421-1-511, fol. 51, 51ap, 100ap; Aufstellung
des medizinischen Personals im Arbeitslager K.P. Ost, Subotschstr., undated, LCVA R 1421-1-511,
fol. 60; Affidavit Herbert Müller, 21.4.1961, BAL B 162/2526, fol. 7990.
44 Letters from Plagge to Heeresunterkunftsverwaltung 190, February 14–17, 1944 (copies), published in:
Good, op cit, pp 153–155.
45 Schur, Juden von Wilna, pp 202/203, 207; Esterowicz, op cit, p 31; Sollstärken November 1943, LCVA R
1421-1-511, fol. 160–183; Arad, op cit, p 443.
46 Sollstärken 25.3.1944 und 12.–14.4.1944, LCVA R 1421-1-511, fol. 48, 26–31; Affidavit Mosche Feigen-
berg, 17.1.1960, BAL B 162/2515, fol. 6512/6513; Schur, op cit, pp 202/203.
47 Quoted from “Memoirs of Pearl Good,” available at http://www.members.aol.com/michaeldg/
MemoirsP.rtf; Interview Martin and Liza Taub; Interview Molly Kadan (both used by friendly permission
of Michael D. Good); Affidavit Mosche Feigenberg, 17.1.1960, BAL B 162/2515, fol. 6515.
48 For a comprehensive and well-argued account see Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction. The Making and
Breaking of the Nazi Economy (London: Allen Lane, 2006).
49 Vortrag des General Thomas vor Herren des Auswärtigen Amtes, May 24, 1939, in: IMT, Vol 36, pp 119, 127.
See also: Georg Thomas, Geschichte der deutschen Wehr- und Rüstungswirtschaft (1918–1943/45), ed.
Wolfgang Birkenfeld (Boppard: Boldt, 1966), pp 195– 198.
50 The literature on German labor market policy and the use of forced labor has grown substantially in the past
decades; for the following consult: Edward L. Homze, Foreign Labor in Nazi Germany (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1967), pp 8 –12, 232; Ulrich Herbert, Fremdarbeiter. Politik und Praxis des “Ausländer-
Einsatzes” in der Kriegswirtschaft des Dritten Reiches, 2nd ed. (Bonn: Dietz, 1999), pp 51– 53; Walter
Naasner, Neue Machtzentren in der deutschen Kriegswirtschaft 1942–1945. Die Wirtschaftsorganisation
der SS, das Amt des Generalbevollmächtigten für den Arbeitseinsatz und das Reichsministerium für Bewaff-
nung und Munition/Reichsministerium für Rüstung und Kriegsproduktion im nationalsozialistischen
Herrschaftssystem (Boppard: Boldt, 1994), p 30; Mark Spoerer, Zwangsarbeiter unter dem Hakenkreuz.
Ausländische Zivilarbeiter, Kriegsgefangene und Häftlinge im Deutschen Reich und im besetzten Europa
1939–1945 (Stuttgart: DVA, 2001).
51 Bernhard R. Kroener, “Die personellen Ressourcen des Dritten Reiches im Spannungsfeld zwischen
Wehrmacht, Bürokratie und Kriegswirtschaft 1939–1942,” in: Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt
(MGFA) (Ed.), Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol 5/1. Kriegsverwaltung, Wirtschaft und per-
sonelle Ressourcen, 1939–1941 (Stuttgart: DVA, 1988), pp 746, 758, 877–885, 957–960; Ulrich Herbert,
Geschichte der Ausländerpolitik in Deutschland. Saisonarbeiter, Zwangsarbeiter, Gastarbeiter, Flüchtlinge
(München: Beck, 2001), pp 130–136; Homze, op cit, pp 26– 44, 232; [Franz] Halder, Kriegstagebuch
(Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1964), Vol 3, pp 47, 257, 409; Bernhard R. Kroener, “‘Menschenbewirtschaftung’,
Bevölkerungsverteilung und personelle Rüstung in der Zweiten Kriegshälfte (1942–1944),” in: MGFA
(Ed.), Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol 5/2. Kriegsverwaltung, Wirtschaft und personelle
Ressourcen 1942– 1944/45 (Stuttgart: DVA, 1999), pp 821, 948; Naasner, op cit, p 30.
52 Christian Streit, Keine Kameraden. Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941–1945,
2nd ed. (Bonn: Dietz, 1991), pp 193–200; Herbert, Fremdarbeiter, pp 156–161; Naasner, op cit, pp 54–62.
408
INTO THE GREY ZONE
53 For the German starvation policy see Dieckmann, op cit, pp 310–323; Kay, op cit; Christian Gerlach,
Kalkulierte Morde. Die deutsche Wirtschafts- und Vernichtungspolitik in Weißrußland 1941 bis 1944
(Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 1999); Christian Gerlach, Krieg, Ernährung, Völkermord. Forschungen
zur deutschen Vernichtungspolitik im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 1998); Rolf-
Dieter Müller, “Die Konsequenzen der, Volksgemeinschaft.” Ernährung, Ausbeutung und Vernichtung,”
in: Wolfgang Michalka (Ed.), Der Zweite Weltkrieg. Analysen, Grundzüge, Forschungsbilanz (München
and Zürich: Piper, 1989), pp 245–246.
54 Bericht über Besichtigungsfahrt v. 26.– 29.7.1941 durch Oberst Marschall, 29.7.1941, BA-MA RH 22/251,
fol. 116; KTB Rü Kdo Kauen, Bericht für Monat Oktober, BA-MA RW 30/16, fol. 20; KTB Rü In Ostland,
Bericht für Monat September, BA-MA RW 30/1, fol. 96; Entwurf v. 11.11.1941 zu Vermerk über Ausfüh-
rungen Görings v. 7.11.1941, IMT, Vol 27, p 67.
55 Christoph Dieckmann has referred to these dynamics as “Opfertausch,” i.e. the replacement of one group of
racially defined victims by another; for a detailed discussion see the forthcoming publication of his PhD
thesis.
56 KTB Rü In Ostland, Lagebericht für den Monat Januar 1942; BA-MA RW 30/2, fol. 43.
57 Vortrag des KVR Dipl.-Ing. Weber, V.O. des Wi Kdo Kowno im Gebiet Wilna, Chefingenieur des Rü Kdo
Kauen, 17.11.1941, BA-MA RW 30/79.
58 Ulrich Herbert, Arbeit, Volkstum, Weltanschauung. über Fremde und Deutsche im 20. Jahrhundert (Frank-
furt: Fischer, 1995), p 121.
59 The recruitment policy was usually implemented by force, often by means of sheer brutality; cf. Babette Quin-
kert, “Terror und Propaganda. Die, Ostarbeiteranwerbung’ im Generalkommissariat Weißruthenien,” ZfG,
Vol 47, No 8, 1999, pp 700–721; Markus Eikel, “‘Weil die Menschen fehlen’: Die deutschen Zwangsarbei-
terrekrutierungen und -deportationen in den besetzten Gebieten der Ukraine,” ZfG, Vol 53, No 5, 2005,
pp 405–433.
60 KTB Rü Kdo Kauen, 20.11.1941, BA-MA RW 30/16, fol. 33/34.; KTB Rü Kdo Kauen, 8.10.1942, BA-MA
RW 30/19; Bericht über das 1. Vierteljahr 1944, 4.5.1944, KTB Wwi Kdo Kauen, BA-MA RW 30/21, fol.
65; Statistik der Musterungsaktion bis zum 23.8.1943, LCVA R 1399-1-61, fol. 170/171; Lagebericht für die
Zeit 1. – 31.3.1943 d. KdS Litauen, LCVA R 1399-1-61, fol. 31; Bericht über das 1. Vierteljahr 1944,
4.5.1944, KTB Wwi Kdo Kauen, BA-MA RW 30/21, fol. 65; Priemel, Rettung durch Arbeit, pp 77– 79.
61 Aufstellung der Arbeitsstellen und der dort eingesetzten jüdischen Arbeitskräfte zum 25. November 1942,
LCVA R 626-1-209, fol. 5 –13; Passierscheine und Einsatz in J. 1942 u. 1943, LCVA R 626-1-214, fol. 1.
62 KTB Wwi Außenstelle Wilna, 8.7., 9.7., 22.7., 25.– 28.7., 17.12.1941, BA-MA RW 30/79, fol. 3 –22,72;
Halder, op cit, Vol 2, pp 403, 411/412; Adolf von Schell, “Grundlagen der Motorisierung und ihre Entwick-
lung im Zweiten Weltkrieg,” Wehrwissenschaftliche Rundschau, Vol 13, No 3, 1963, pp 221–223.
63 Halder, op cit, Vol 3, pp 294, 299; Schell, op cit, p 225; for the awareness of his strong position see the letter of
Karl Plagge to Raphael Strauss, April 4, 1956, in: Good, op cit, p 225.
64 Interview with O. Schönbrunner by the author, November 19, 2001.
65 In two other cases information on presumed rescuers—one a German soldier, the other a Reichsbahn
official—is too sketchy to allow for an evaluation of their respective deeds; letter by Wolfram F., January
[19]67, BAL B 162/2574, fol. 684–688. More peculiar is the case of the captain in the medical corps of
FK 814. According to Solon Beinfeld the physician issued skilled-worker certificates to the Jewish
medical staff and displayed a benevolent interest in the ghetto hospital but firmly remained within the
limits of his official scope of action; see Solon Beinfeld, “Health care in the Vilna ghetto,” Holocaust and
Genocide Studies (HGS), Vol 12, No 1, 1998, pp 67– 68, 91– 92 (fn. 4). For rescue efforts by Lithuanians
see the dated synopsis by Sarah Neshamit, “Rescue in Lithuania during the Nazi Occupation,” in: Rescue
Attempts During the Holocaust. Proceedings of the Second Yad Vashem International Historical Conference
(New York and Jerusalem: KTAV/Yad Vashem, 1974), pp 289–331, and Gilbert, op cit, pp 65–86.
66 Pearl M. Oliner, Saving the Forsaken. Religious Culture and the Rescue of Jews in Nazi Europe (New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 2004), p 4, splits the latter category into two aspects, situational and external.
Others draw a sharp line between sociological and psychological variables which are subsumed under the
same denominator for our purposes.
67 The pioneering study was Perry London, “The rescuers: motivational hypotheses about Christians who saved
Jews from the Nazis,” in: J. Macaulay and L. Berkowitz (Eds.), Altruism and Helping Behavior (New York:
Academic Press, 1970), pp 241– 250. Cf. Nechama Tec, When Light Pierced the Darkness. Christian Rescue
of Jews in Nazi-Occupied Poland (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986); Samuel P. Oliner
and Pearl M. Oliner, The Altruistic Personality. Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust (New York and
London: Free Press, 1988); Eva Fogelman, Conscience & Courage. Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust
(London: Cassell, 1995); Eva Fogelman, “The rescuer self,” in: Michael Berenbaum and Abraham J. Peck
(Eds.), The Holocaust and History: The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed and the Reexamined
409
KIM C. PRIEMEL
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), pp 663– 677; Kristen Renwick Monroe, The Hand of
Compassion. Portraits of Moral Choice during the Holocaust (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2004). More balanced is Mordecai Paldiel’s account, The Path of the Righteous: Gentile Rescuers of the
Jews During the Holocaust (Hoboken: KTAV, 1993).
68 Cf. David Gushee, “Many paths to righteousness: an assessment of research on why righteous gentiles helped
Jews,” HGS, Vol 7, No 3, 1993, pp 372–401, who emphasizes that information on personality traits of res-
cuers represent for the most part “soft data,” ibid, p 392.
69 For a general discussion of the significance of religious creed: Oliner, Saving the Forsaken; skeptical
conclusions are drawn by John M. Darley and Daniel C. Batson, “‘From Jerusalem to Jericho’: a study of
situational and dispositional variables in helping behaviour,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
Vol 27, No 1, 1973, pp 100– 108.
70 For biographical details see: Priemel, Rettung durch Arbeit; Good, op cit. As a result of his Vilnius experience
Plagge broke with his National Socialist creed; letter of Karl Plagge to Anke Plagge, June 21, 1944 (private
copy).
71 Bibb Latané and John M. Darley, The Unresponsive Bystander: Why Doesn’t He Help? (New York: Meredith,
1970), pp 31–32. Methodological objections to the experimental designs of Latané and Darley have been put
forward by Russel D. Clark and Larry E. Word, “Where is the apathetic bystander? Situational characteristics of
the emergency,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 29, No 3, 1974, pp 279–287. More general criti-
cism has recently been raised by Rachel Manning, Mark Levine and Alan Collins, “The Kitty Genovese murder and
the social psychology of helping,” American Psychologist, Vol 62, No 6, 2007, pp 555–562. The authors argue that
the distorted representation of the Kitty Genovese case, which triggered bystander research, had a one-sided but
lasting effect on how studies of helping behavior were conducted, and therefore limited their heuristic scope.
72 Latané and Darley, op cit, pp 33– 40. The presence of witnesses, however, has two sides to it. Psychological
research suggests that, depending on the situational norms which define the status of the victim, actual help is
only provided subject to “a cost –reward matrix,” i.e. the social costs associated with helping need to be below
those of non-helping or to be outweighed by social rewards; Irving M. Piliavin, Judith Rodin and Jane
A. Piliavin, “Good Samaritanism: an underground phenomenon?,” Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, Vol 13, No 4, 1969, pp 289– 299.
73 Letter from Plagge to D. Greisdorf, February 20, 1948 (copy), published in: Good, op cit, pp 163 –164.
74 For the impact of visual cues see Piliavin/Rodin/Piliavin, “Good Samaritanism,” pp 290, 298.
75 Interrogation Albert Weller, 17.4.1961, BAL B 162/2526, fol. 7903; Affidavit Alfred Stumpff, 2.11.1961,
BAL B 162/2509, fol. 4401; Interrogation O. Schönbrunner, 21.11.1960, BAL B 162/2522, fol. 7242.
These features mirrored the standard proceedings by the infamous Rollkommando Hamann which was respon-
sible for the murder of the Jewish rural population in Lithuania; Knut Stang, Kollaboration und Massenmord.
Die litauische Hilfspolizei, das Rollkommando Hamann und die Ermordung der litauischen Juden (Frankfurt:
Peter Lang, 1996), pp 257– 268.
76 Quoted from HHStA, Minutes, 9.2.1948, p 2; report by O. Schönbrunner, BA-MA MSg 2/2822, fol. 5, 7;
Interrogation O. Schönbrunner, 12.4.1961, BAL B 162/2526, fol. 8037–8038; cf. Arno Lustiger, “Feldwebel
Anton Schmid. Judenretter in Wilna 1941–1942,” in: Wolfram Wette, Retter in Uniform. Handlungsspiel-
räume im Vernichtungskrieg der Wehrmacht (Frankfurt: Fischer, 2002), p 62.
77 In the Oliner sample some 67% of the interviewed rescuers had been asked for help; Oliner and Oliner,
Altruistic Personality, p 135.
78 Fogelman, Rescuer Self, p 664. This has also been called the “foot in the door phenomenon”; Ervin Staub, The
Roots of Evil. The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1989), pp 80, 167.
79 Priemel, Rettung durch Arbeit, p 89.
80 Letter from Mira Korischky, 2001 (private copy); HHStA, Affidavits Georg Raab, Christian Bartholomae,
Heinz Zeuner; Minutes, 9.2.1948; HHStA, Affidavit Plagge, p 4.
81 Report by O. Schönbrunner, BA-MA MSg 2/2822, fol. 10; letter by O. Schönbrunner to the author, December
7, 2001.
82 Plagge’s only superior in the Ostland rarely visited Vilnius. The major was both aware and proud of his strong
position. To his wife he confided that the HKP was “all mine” and was exclusively based “on my person, and
it will perish when I am gone”; letter of Karl Plagge to Anke Plagge, June 21, 1944 (copy). Significantly, there
are two other cases of HKP officers who were involved in rescue actions; for Captain Hans Hartmann of HKP
547 in Lvov (Galicia) see his file YV M 31/8. Another case in Riga is reported by Margers Vestermanis. Here,
the head of HKP 641 is said to have saved the lives of more than a hundred Jewish women in 1941; Margers
Vestermanis, “Rettung im Land der Handlanger. Zur Geschichte der Hilfe für Juden in Lettland während der
‘Endlösung’,” in: Solidarität und Hilfe. Regionalstudien II: Ukraine, Frankreich, Böhmen und Mähren,
Österreich, Lettland, Litauen, Estland (Berlin: Metropol, 1998), p 236.
410
INTO THE GREY ZONE
83 Cf. Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View (New York: Harper & Row, 1974);
Craig Haney, Curtis Banks and Philip Zimbardo, “Interpersonal dynamics in a simulated prison,” Inter-
national Journal of Criminology and Penology, Vol 1, 1973, pp 69–97.
84 Letter by Anton Schmid, quoted from Lustiger, op cit, p 62; Affidavit Hermann Adler, 19.9.1959, BAL B
162/2507, fol. 3629.
85 Letter of K. Plagge to R. Strauss, April 26, 1956, in: Good, op cit, pp 224–225.
86 Telegram of Security Police Wilna to KdS Litauen, 29.10.1943, LCVA R 1399-1-2, fol. 57; Affidavit Rosa
Perlstein, 31.8.1961, BAL B 162/2528, fol. 8491/8492; Esterowicz, op cit, 35; interview with Harry Sheres
by Michael D. Good (courtesy of Michael D. Good).
87 Interrogation Albert Weller, 17.4.1961, BAL B 162/2526, fol. 7904; Interrogation Heinrich Pröpper,
1.12.1960, BAL B 162/2522, fol. 7282–7283.
88 Cf. Mark Granovetter, “Threshold models of collective behavior,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol 83,
No 6, 1978, pp 1420–1443, in particular p 1424.
89 These are not supposed to form a compulsory list, nor do they represent a complete enumeration.
90 Inversely, this seems to support Ervin Staub’s contention that “helpers of German origins had to distance
themselves from their group” (Staub, Psychology, p 32), i.e. that they had to overcome the psychological
impediment of becoming outsiders. Having little need for acts of outright disobedience and a clear conscience
in regard to their contribution to the war, Plagge and Schönbrunner might have been able to avoid this painful
process of distancing, all the more as there was some backing or tolerance by Plagge’s subordinates and by
Schönbrunner’s superior, respectively.
91 Letter of K. Plagge to R. Strauss, April 26, 1956, in: Good, op cit, pp 225–226.
92 Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved (London: Abacus, 1988 [Reprint 1998]), pp 22– 51. For a wide range
of applications of Levi’s term see the recently published volume Gray Zones. Ambiguity and Compromise in
the Holocaust and its Aftermath, edited by Jonathan Petropoulos and John K. Roth (New York and Oxford:
Berghahn, 2005).
93 Kushner, op cit, p 69.
94 Schmid’s reputation has been boosted by the second Wehrmacht exhibition, see: Hamburger Institut für
Sozialforschung (Ed.), Verbrechen der Wehrmacht. Dimensionen des Vernichtungskrieges 1941–1944
(Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2002), pp 623–627.
95 Letter of the Bundespräsidialamt, Ordenskanzlei, to the author, January 2, 2002.
96 For the survivors’ efforts to honor Plagge see Michael Good’s vivid tale; Good, op cit.
Notes on Contributor
Kim C. Priemel was educated at the Universities of Freiburg, Germany, and St
Andrews, Scotland. He earned his PhD at Freiburg University (2007). He is cur-
rently holding the post of Lecturer at the European University Viadrina, Frankfurt
(Oder). He has published several articles on forced labor, German occupation and
the Holocaust in Eastern Europe, as well as a book-length study on the history of
the Flick combine.
411

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Journal of Genocide Research (2008), 10(3),

September, 389 –411

Into the grey zone: Wehrmacht

remarkable volte d’argumentation, made a slight but significant differentiation.

Zehnpfenning could build on his predecessors’ policies. His Feldkommandantur

were murdered by the Lithuanian death squad Ypatingasis Būrys, commanded by

IV. Motivations and opportunities

The three German officers in Vilnius differed substantially in terms of social

Notes and References

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