Five years ago, I wrote a short blog entitled, The Last Train Out of Paris. I never heard from anyone about that blog until 19 June 2020 when Pat V. e-mailed me about her father, Squadron Leader (ret.) Stanley Booker, MBE. While my blog never mentioned any Allied airmen, it seems Stanley enjoyed reading it ⏤ he was one of 168 captured airmen on that last train out of Paris on 15 August 1944.
Flying Officer Stanley Booker. Photo by anonymous (date unknown). Courtesy of Stanley Booker.La Gare de Pantin. Original photo by anonymous. Photo scan by Poudou99 (postcard date prior to 1923). PD-Copyright Expired. Wikimedia Commons.Deportees inside cattle car. Photo by anonymous (date unknown). Courtesy of Stanley Booker.
This has led to a lot of discussions over the past several months with Pat about her father’s war experiences. They live in the UK and Stanley is ninety-eight years young. The reason the story about these men didn’t make it into the original blog was, frankly, I didn’t know about it ⏤ well, now I do. One of Pat’s questions in her original e-mail was whether I knew about Jacques Désoubrie and who his German superior might have been. Her last words in the e-mail were “Can you help please?” I couldn’t resist and quickly entered yet another rabbit hole. Once I came up for air, I had Désoubrie’s story, an idea who he reported to, and I knew I had to repost the 2015 blog albeit in an expanded manner with an abbreviated story about Stanley’s experiences. Stanley wrote a privately published version of his wartime escapades and Pat is completing the book as well as expanding on his post-war exploits ⏤ Stanley’s interesting life didn’t just end with his eventual retirement from the Royal Air Force.
Stanley Booker (left) and Paul McCue (right). Paul, historian and author of “SAS Operation Bulbasket,” is visiting Stanley in his home. Photo by Carol Brown (August 2020). Courtesy of Paul McCue.
An “enabler” is someone who enables another to achieve an end. The term is quite often used in the context of enabling another to persist in self-destructive behavior by providing excuses or by making it possible to avoid the consequences of such behavior.
I think we would all agree that Adolph Hitler was the greatest mass murderer in the history of mankind (Stalin wasn’t too far behind him). Concentration camp deaths are estimated to be eleven million of which, six million were Jews. He was the leader who fomented the hatred and then handed off the problem solving to the first layer of senior Nazi leaders.
In the context of the Nazis’ systematic killing machine, there are two broad groups of enablers: those who “did it” and those who “made it possible.” According to Bartrop and Grimm in their book, Perpetrating the Holocaust, there are the leaders (e.g., Heinrich Himmler, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, Hermann Göring, Josef Goebbels, and Albert Speer to name a few) and then there are the enablers.
The vast scope of murders would never have been achieved without the enthusiastic support of hundreds of thousands of men and women over a period of twelve years. They participated in developing the framework, devising the details, and then implementing the process. Some would carry out the administration of the plan while another set of individuals would be responsible for executing the plan on a day-to-day basis. Other enablers included collaborators (e.g., not only individuals but collaborationist governments of occupied countries such as France and Norway) and the German industrialists.
I believe there were basically four layers of enablers. The first layer was the senior Nazi leaders reporting directly to Hitler. Along with Hitler, many of these men committed suicide before justice caught up to them (e.g. Himmler and Goebbels). Others were put on trial (e.g., Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Speer, and Rosenberg) and unfortunately, too many were never brought to justice. The first layer delegated the formation of details and final implementation to a second layer of enablers (e.g., Adolf Eichmann and Reinhard Heydrich). Then there was the third layer. These were the men and women who were responsible for the administration and ultimately, ensuring the end result met senior Nazi leaders’ expectations. They were the camp commandants, the guards, SS mobile execution units known as the Einsatzgruppen, and various Nazi bureaucratic administration officials in Berlin. Key collaborationists fell into the third layer and included men like Pierre Laval and Marshal Pétain of the French Vichy government as well as Ante Pavelić (1889-1959), leader of the fascist paramilitary Ustaše in Croatia.
SS-Einsatzgruppen mass murder. Photo by anonymous (date unknown).The body of Ernst Kaltenbrunner after his execution, 16 October 1946. Photo by anonymous (16 October 1946). PD-U.S. Government. Wikimedia Commons.
The fourth layer or, “those who made it possible” included the owners, executives, and managers of companies such as I.G. Farben which produced Zyklon B, the gas used in the extermination camps. They were no less guilty than the sadistic camp commander or brutal guard. The industrialists funded the Nazi party when it was broke and gave it the financial legs to take power. These are the people who fueled the Nazi war machine in part by appropriating Jewish businesses as well as using forced slave labor. Read More Hitler’s Enablers – Part One – Wannsee Conference
“Informative and entertaining, Stew Ross’ newest work evokes a difficult and frightening time in the history of the City of Light. The detailed descriptions of sites such as the Vél’ d’hiv’ or Gestapo headquarters reminds us of the choices people made during those years.”
Cynthia Bisson, PhD, Professor of History, Belmont University, French Resistant Expert
Lavishly illustrated, gripping guide to the Paris that existed under Nazi rule.
This is a fantastic new book that provides extensive information for both those planning a trip and for armchair historians. While there are are walks that take you past famous places made infamous by Nazi rule, there is also a lot of detailed information. Stew Ross provides details about many topics that are not necessarily popular, including anti-semitism and collaboration. Photos add poignancy. Paris is haunted by its past, and these pages show you exactly why. The days of the Occupation and the Resistance are not that distant.
