Europe in an Age of Total War: World War II,1939–45 593Conference Diplomacy and Peace
in Europe in 1945
No peace or treaty ended World War II in Europe.
Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt had prepared for Ger-
many’s unconditional surrender at a series of summit
conferences during the war. The Tehran Conference of
1943, for example, projected new frontiers for Poland
and discussed the dismemberment of Germany. The
Dumbarton Oaks Conference (in Washington, D.C.)
planned an international organization—the United Na-
tions (UN)—to keep the peace. Churchill and Stalin
met in Moscow in 1944 and agreed to divide eastern
Europe into “spheres of influence”; the USSR would be
preeminent in Romania and Bulgaria and have influence
in Hungary and Yugoslavia.
The most important wartime conference took place
in early 1945 in the Russian resort town of Yalta, on the
Crimean peninsula. Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin
agreed to divide Germany into four zones of military
occupation, with France administering the fourth. They
pledged the “complete disarmament, demilitarization,
and dismemberment” of Germany, including the right
of occupying powers to remove German wealth, such
as dismantling factories. The Potsdam Conference (in
suburban Berlin in the summer of 1945) finalized theDOCUMENT 29.2
The Commandant of Auschwitz Confesses
Rudolf Hoess (1900–47) was a decorated World War I veteran who
spent much of the 1920s in prison for killing a teacher who had in-
sulted the memory of a Nazi hero. He joined the SS and spent his career
working in the concentration camps, rising from a corporal at Dachau
to be the commandant of Auschwitz (1940–43). Under his supervi-
sion, 2.5 million inmates were executed, and Hoess earned an SS com-
mendation for efficiency. At his trial he gave a remarkably calm and
detailed confession of his life as a mass murderer.In the summer of 1941—I can no longer remember the
exact date—I was suddenly summoned to the Reichs-
führer SS [Himmler] in Berlin directly by his adjutant’s
office. Contrary to his normal practice, he received me
without his adjutant being present and told me, in ef-
fect:
“The Führer has ordered the final solution of the Jew-
ish question and we—the SS—have to carry out this or-
der. The existing extermination centers in the east are not
in a position to carry out the major operations which are
envisaged. I have, therefore, earmarked Auschwitz for this
task, both because of its favorable communications and
because the area envisaged can be easily sealed off and
camouflaged....
“You will maintain the strictest silence concerning this
order, even vis-à-vis your superiors. After your meeting
with Eichmann [Himmler’s SS assistant] send me the plans
for the proposed installations at once. The Jews are the
eternal enemies of the German people and must be exter-
minated. Every Jew we can lay our hands on must be ex-
terminated....
Shortly afterwards, Eichmann came to see me in
Auschwitz.... We discussed how the extermination was
to be carried out. Gas was the only feasible method, since
it would be impossible to liquidate by shooting the large
numbers envisaged, and shooting would place too heavy a
burden on the SS men who had to carry it out, particu-
larly in view of the women and children involved.
Eichmann informed me of the method of killing by
exhaust fumes from vans, which had been implemented in
the east hitherto. However, it was out of the question to
use it in Auschwitz on the mass transports that were envis-
aged.... My deputy... [had] used gas to exterminate the
Russian prisoners of war. He crammed individual cells with
Russians and, protected by gas masks, hurled Zyclon-B
into the cells which caused death immediately.... During
Eichmann’s next visit, I reported to him about this use of
Zyclon-B and we decided to employ this gas for the future
mass extermination program....
Auschwitz reached its high point in the spring of
1944.... A triple track railway line leading to the new
crematoria enabled a train to be unloaded while the next
one was arriving.... All four crematoria operated at full
blast.... The last body had hardly been pulled from the
gas chambers and dragged across the yard behind the cre-
matorium, which was covered in corpses, to the burning
pit, when the next lot were already undressing in the hall
for gassing.
Hoess, Rudolph. Nuremburg testimony. In J. Noakes and G. Pridham,
eds. Nazism,1919–1945. A History in Documents and Eyewitness
Accounts,vol. 2. New York: Schocken, 1988.