Halder participated in the strategic planning for the Invasion of Poland . His plans authorised the SS to carry out security tasks on behalf of the army that included the imprisonment or execution of Poles , whether Jewish or gentile . On 1 September 1939 , the German offensive began , resulting in declarations of war by France and the British Empire . On 19 September , Halder noted in his diary that he had received information from Reinhard Heydrich . The SS were beginning their campaign to " clean house " in Poland of Jews , intelligentsia , Catholic clergy , and the aristocracy . Halder was aware of The Holocaust but did not object to the murders . He dismissed the crimes as aberrations and refused one general 's request to pursue the SS and police perpetrators
The Holocaust
The Holocaust
Franz Halder