58: Crossing the Rubicon
Colonel-General Johannes Blaskowitz wrote the most forthright and courageous denunciations of the horrendous outrages of the SS in Poland. In reports to Colonel-General Walther von Brauchitcsh, the Commander-in-Chief of the German Army, Blaskowitz detailed the "criminal atrocities, maltreatment, and plundering carried out by the SS, police, and administration. He castigated the "animal and pathological instincts" of the SS which had brought the slaughter of tens of thousands of Jews and Poles. Blaskowitz feared "immeasurable brutalization and moral debasement" if the SS could not be brought under control, but this appeared to be increasingly impossible within Poland "since they can well believe themselves officially authorized and justified in committing any act of cruelty." The response by Brauchitsch was weak-kneed and, effectively, a justification for the policy authorized by Hitler, and it was fateful. The general compromised the position of the a...