“Servant of the Third Reich” and “Bitter Opponent of Hitler”? – Alexander von Falkenhausen, the Murder of the Belgian Jews and Early Holocaust Research
The former German military commander in Belgium and northern France is considered a “man of the resistance.” Yet, early on, attention was drawn to his involvement in the persecution and deportation of Belgium’s Jewish population. On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the 20 July 1944 attempted coup, we wish to address this topic.
In 1956, just one year after the publication of Das Dritte Reich und die Juden (The Third Reich and the Jews), Joseph Wulf and Léon Poliakov published another collection of sources: Das Dritte Reich und seine Diener (The Third Reich and its Servants), which focused on the role the judiciary, Wehrmacht and Foreign Office played in the persecution of European Jews. In their introduction, the authors state that “[...] the entire ‘Gotha’ of German diplomacy was more or less oriented to the Jewish question.” The “Gotha” was a directory of noble families from which many diplomats and generals came. Many of them, “regardless of whether or not they were antisemites, did not agree at all with Hitler’s Jewish policy.” And yet:
“Thanks to their diligence, the individual acts that made up the most monstrous tragedy of our century, from racial legislation to industrialised mass murder, played out smoothly and without any mishaps.”
Taking an example from the Wehrmacht, the authors focus on Alexander Freiherr von Falkenhausen, who was the German military commander in Belgium and northern France from 1940 to 1944. They write that he “had the reputation of being one of the most decent German generals.” However, when Belgian judges protested against the first anti-Jewish decrees in autumn 1940, the baron added a handwritten note in the margin before filing the memo: “They have no idea that we were far too lenient!”1
Poliakov and Wulf comment on this marginalia:
“[...] the general was better informed about the cruel treatment to which the Jews in the East had been subjected since 1940. In comparison, the orders he announced must have seemed like a harmless joke. ‘That we were far too lenient ...’: because in his personal beliefs, he was certainly opposed to the murder of women and children. As an officer of the old Prussian tradition, he was not without reservations concerning the brown usurper and his hordes, which is why he tried to dampen the anti-Jewish policies within his sphere of influence – without ever risking a serious conflict, of course. Like others, the Belgian Jews eventually had to make their way to Auschwitz. However, the general’s timid attempts to soften the blow apparently sufficed to completely assuage his conscience, allowing him to speak of ‘leniency’.”
Military Commander in Belgium and Northern France
Who was Falkenhausen? A graduate of the cadet school in Berlin-Lichterfelde, he was awarded the “Pour le mérite” medal during World War I. He headed the infantry school in Dresden in the late 1920s before retiring in 1930. During the Weimar Republic he was a member of the “Stahlhelm” veterans’ association and the Deutschnationale Volkspartei (German National People’s Party, DNVP). He did not join the NSDAP or any other National Socialist organisation after 1933. In mid-1934, he became a military advisor to Chinese General Chiang Kai-shek until he was recalled to Germany amidst the German-Japanese rapprochement in 1938. Reactivated at the start of the war, he began serving as the military commander in occupied Belgium and northern France in May 1940.2
In some instances, the military administration under Falkenhausen tried to mitigate measures ordered by Berlin, which benefitted the Belgian population. It also successfully resisted Himmler’s attempts to appoint a Higher SS and Police Leader. This, however, probably had less to do with a fundamental rejection of the regime and was based more on warding off interference by other authorities and occupation policy considerations: Measures demanded by Berlin often jeopardised cooperation with local authorities and collaborators, which was based on a balance of interests between the occupiers and the occupied. The military administration, however, used the threat of the SS to exert pressure on Belgian negotiating partners and present itself as the lesser evil.
The differences between the military commander and the SS, however, were less significant than the general wished to admit after the war, especially regarding “Jewish policy.” All anti-Jewish decrees, including the dismissal of civil servants, the expulsion of Jewish students and the introduction of the yellow star, were signed by Falkenhausen. The military administration expressed reservations about introducing the “Jewish stars,” having rightly assumed that the majority of the public would disapprove of stigmatising the Jewish population in this way.3
Falkenhausen also agreed to the deportations, from which Belgian citizens were initially exempt; this was an easy concession for the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Main Security Office) to make as it affected less than 10% of the Jews living in Belgium. In July 1943, however, this restriction was also lifted and Jewish Belgians who had been lulled into a sense of security were also deported.4 Between 4 August 1942 and 31 July 1944, more than 25,000 Jews and 350 Roma were deported from Belgium and northern France, most of whom were murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau. With the exception of the final transport, all deportations took place under Falkenhausen’s authority.
That the general was not particularly concerned about the murder of the Jews even after the war is demonstrated by his assessment of the main perpetrators in his memoirs. He writes that there were also “decent people” in the police force, such as “the good Bavarian criminal director Straub and Mr Ehlers in the security service.”5 Franz Straub had served as head of the Gestapo in Brussels, while Ernst Ehlers, as a Commissioner of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD, was directly responsible for the persecution of the Jews.
Falkenhausen and the Resistance
Falkenhausen was in contact with the military resistance, but the exact role he played there is not clear. In some papers, he was discussed as a possible candidate for a government post after the coup. However, some of the conspirators held reservations about the general. Ulrich von Hassell noted in early 1943 that Falkenhausen was “often rejected because of his participation in the terrorist regime.” His excessive lifestyle was also criticised. Hassell held the view that because “there were too few useful people,” they could not afford to do without someone like Falkenhausen.6
Falkenhausen was replaced by a Reich Commissar shortly before the attempted coup on 20 July 1944, but because of his contact with many of the conspirators, he was imprisoned by the Gestapo as a suspect until the end of the war. The Gestapo, however, categorised him as a mere accomplice, which explains why no charges were brought against him.7
After the war, he was interned by the Allies and extradited to Belgium in 1948, where he was tried with his former head of administration, Eggert Reeder.
His participation in the persecution and murder of the Jews played a subordinate role in the trial. The Belgian court assumed that the deportation order had come directly from the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office) in Berlin. According to the judgement, Falkenhausen knew what had happened to the Jews in Germany, even if he may have been unaware of the mass murder taking place in Eastern Europe. The general, therefore must have assumed that his orders to register, round up and identify the Jews was being done in preparation for mass arrests that had been ongoing since 1942.8
In 1951, Falkenhausen was sentenced to twelve years of forced labour for his responsibility in the execution of hostages, the deportation of forced labourers and the persecution of the Jewish population in Belgium. But just a few days after the verdict, both he and Reeder were deported to Germany, where the time they had already spent in prison was honoured as time served. The case had become a political issue. Falkenhausen’s imprisonment and conviction had caused outrage in West Germany. In the German newspaper Die Zeit, Marion Gräfin Dönhoff portrayed him as a resistance fighter and “bitter opponent of Hitler” since 1933. This depiction raises some doubts given that he had been a member of the DNVP, which was in coalition with the NSDAP.
Unlike most former generals, however, after the war, Falkenhausen defended the attempt to overthrow the regime by force. His motive, however, was not outrage over the crimes committed against the Jews or the war started by Germany. Like the efforts to prepare Germany for war, antisemitism had also helped to unify German nationalists and National Socialists. Falkenhausen was concerned about the future of Germany in the face of imminent defeat.
The Holocaust and the 20th of July after the War
Das Dritte Reich und seine Diener (The Third Reich and its Servants) appeared the same year that a German translation of Gerald Reitlinger’s 1953 book The Final Solution was published. Reitlinger’s book was the first comprehensive account of the murder of European Jews. The British historian described Falkenhausen’s early release as “‘Alice in Wonderland’ justice” and wrote that it did nothing to change the fact that Falkenhausen and Reeder “tore the Jews from their homes, confiscated their assets and made no serious attempt to learn of the fate that threatened these innocent people who passed through their hands.”9 The German translation was published by Colloquium-Verlag in Berlin and supported by the Bundeszentrale für Heimatdienst (the later Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Federal Agency for Civic Education), which had agreed to purchase a part of the print run.
Falkenhausen and his former head of administration, Reeder, must have learned about the Bundeszentrale’s support because they contacted Franz Thedieck, the State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for All-German Affairs, before the book was published. Thedieck, who had served under Falkenhausen and Reeder as Chief War Administrator in Brussels until 1943, was unable to do anything about the publication. The head of the Bundeszentrale at the time told the State Secretary that addressing “the question of antisemitism is one of my office’s tasks” and noted that Reitlinger’s work was “the most important book published abroad to date.”10
Poliakov and Wulf’s decision to focus on Falkenhausen in their source edition probably had to do with events taking place at the time. The general had not only belonged to the military resistance; he had also done his part in organising the murder of European Jews and Roma in a process that was based on a collaborative division of labour. In the young Federal Republic of Germany, this was an uncomfortable truth that involved many. Not only generals of the Bundeswehr, which had been founded a year earlier, but also most diplomats, judges and state secretaries had begun their careers under National Socialism. The narrative claiming that functional elites who were opposed to the regime had only remained in their posts out of a sense of duty was constitutive for German society at this time. The putschists of 20 July 1944, who continued to be reviled as traitors until the early 1950s, became part of the founding myth of the “other Germany.” To mark the tenth anniversary of the attempted putsch on 20 July 1954, a commemorative event attended by heads of state was held for the first time in the Bendlerblock. The myth of the 20th of July concealed the uncomfortable truth that the National Socialists had come to power with the support of German Nationalists. Numerous conspirators like Falkenhausen had participated in the crimes or at least accepted them as a necessary evil that went hand in hand with the alliance with National Socialism. Today, on the 80th anniversary, it is time to ask how their entanglement in this history can be integrated into the memory of the attempted coup.
Léon Poliakov/Joseph Wulf, Das Dritte Reich und seine Diener, Frankfurt 1983 [EA: Berlin, 1956], p. X-XII.
↩For a more detailed account (in German), see Jakob Müller, Kriegsverbrecher und „Mann des Widerstands“. Alexander von Falkenhausens Erinnerungen und der Mord an den Juden in Belgien – Ein Beitrag zur Täterforschung, in: Sebastian Bischoff u.a. (Hg.), Belgien, Deutschland und die ‚Anderen‘. Bilder, Diskurse und Praktiken von Diskriminierung, Ausgrenzung und Verfolgung, Münster 2024, p. 189-204.
↩Falkenhausen had spoken out against the arrest of Belgian Jews, arguing that they would go into hiding and thus strengthen the resistance. Meinen (footnote 3), p. 79.
↩Ulrich von Hassell, Die Hassell-Tagebücher 1938–1944. Aufzeichnungen vom Andern Deutschland. Berlin 1988, Aufzeichnung vom 22.1.1943, p. 345.
↩Linda von Keyserlingk-Rehbein, Nur eine „ganz kleine Clique“? Die NS-Ermittlungen über das Netzwerk vom 20. Juli 1944. Berlin 2018, p. 125-130, p. 536-530.
↩Gerald Reitlinger, Die Endlösung. Hitlers Versuch der Ausrottung der Juden Europas 1939–1945, Berlin 1956, p. 391.
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