Daniel Brewing, M.A. In the Shadow of Auschwitz In a recent article ...

Daniel Brewing, M.A. In the Shadow of Auschwitz
transgression and attempts to regulate from above and the self-authorization of
agents defining what is permitted, prohibited and ordered in this area. This
combination produced a constantly high level of violence that left behind destroyed
landscapes and millions of dead.
Preliminary findings and contributions
My dissertation project is an innovative approach to the historical study of the
violent German occupation in Eastern Europe that will broaden, amend, and correct
in many respects the scholarly understanding of German rule in Poland, and “the
East”. In my paper I would like to highlight just six relevant new vistas which my
project discloses.
(1) Violence against ethnic Poles developed within a broader framework of long-,
middle- and short-term objectives which were set by the top level leadership. Over
time, this framework generated both intentional and situational violence against the
civilian population. Within this framework, Nazi violence unfolded through the
entanglement of warfare, racial restructuring, economic, agrarian, and security
policies.
(2) The inherent conflicts and opposing interests within the different branches of the
occupation apparatus caused numerous contradictions, which in turn produced
crucial variations in both the intensity and the focus of violence over time.
(3) Violence against ethnic Poles was a product of transfers between different agents
and institutions all over German occupied Eastern Europe. Know-how on specific
forms and methods of violence was transmitted especially within the SS apparatus
but also included the civilian administration and the German army. This exchange
transcended the classic center/periphery pattern as within and beyond the SS
apparatus traditional elements of hierarchical formalism lost their importance. In the
occupied Polish territories, the German personnel interacted vertically, horizontally
and diagonally. This interaction created a dynamic, ever more borderless exchange of
violent methods and experts on violence.
(4) Violence against ethnic Poles was, at least partially, a product of complex
processes of interaction between the German occupiers and occupied Poles
themselves. A closer look at the local level reveals mechanisms of cooperation in field