Did Hitler or Himmler ever kill anybody themselves ?

[Scott Smith]

I'm having a hard time seeing any point to your post, Roberto. Höß wrote his memoirs in captivity. Bach-Zelewski was a captive. Perhaps this did not color their accounts in favor of the emerging mythology. As per your quote, what Rudolf said about perverted German justice confirms what I said about Thoughtcrime in the Fatherland. Anyway, back to the topic, do you have any sources for the "Himmler was a chicken as well as a chicken-breeder" argument. Or is that a *statement* from the IMT or some other canonical authority? Wolff, Kersten, Fiddler & Funk, anybody?

[Roberto]

I'm having a hard time seeing any point to your post, Roberto.

That's not surprising, considering Smith's philosophy of life (at least insofar as his beloved Nazis are concerned):

Höß wrote his memoirs in captivity.

So what?

Any evidence that his captors influenced the memoirs?

There's evidence that they did not, as a matter of fact.

Bach-Zelewski was a captive.

So what?

Perhaps this did not color their accounts in favor of the emerging mythology.

Not "perhaps" but certainly.

This only because an "emerging mythology" exists only in the minds of true believers desperately trying to fend off inconvenient evidence, but also because, rather than evidence of such "coloring", there is independent confirmation of the accounts in question by other evidence.

As per your quote, what Rudolf said about perverted German justice confirms what I said about Thoughtcrime in the Fatherland.

It confirms that Mr. Rudolf has a rather weird idea of justice, just like Mr. Smith.

It also confirms that Rudolf is an intellectually dishonest charlatan who sees no problem with cheating and fooling his readers (which of course is not too difficult given that his readership consists mainly of fellow true believers eager to be fooled).

I see that Smith is trying to change the subject to draw attention away from his lie that Rudolf started using pseudonyms to elude his "thoughtcrimes" persecutors, by the way.

Very instructive.

Anyway, back to the topic, do you have any sources for the "Himmler was a chicken as well as a chicken-breeder" argument. Or is that a *statement* from the IMT or some other canonical authority? Wolff, Kersten, Fiddler & Funk, anybody?

Canonical authorities only exist in Smith's fantasy world. In the real world there are criminal justice authorities and historians who reach their conclusions through careful and thorough assessment of evidence. One of them is Raul Hilberg:

Once, in mid-August 1941, Himmler himself visited Minsk. He asked Einsatzgruppe B Commander Nebe to shoot a batch of a hundred people, so that he could see what one of these “liquidations” really looked like. Nebe obliged. All except two of the victims were men. Himmler spotted in the group a youth of about twenty who had blue eyes and blond hair. Just before the firing was to begin, Himmler walked up to the doomed man and put a few questions to him:

Are you a Jew?
Yes.
Are both of your parents Jews?
Yes.
Do you have any ancestors who are not Jews?
No.
Then I can’t help you!

As the firing started, Himmler was even more nervous. During every volley he looked to the ground. When the two women could not die, Himmler yelled to the police sergeant not to torture them.
When the shooting was over, Himmler and a fellow spectator engaged in a conversation. The other witness was Obergruppenführer von dem Bach-Zelewski, the same man who was later delivered to a hospital. Von dem Bach addressed Himmler:

Reichsführer, those were only a hundred.
What do you mean by that?
Look at the eyes of the men in this Kommando, how deeply shaken they are! These men are finished for the rest of their lives. What kind of followers are we training here? Either neurotics or savages!

Himmler was visibly moved and decided to make a speech to all who were assembled there. He pointed out that the Einsatzgruppen were called upon to fulfill a repulsive duty. He would not like it if Germans did such a thing gladly. But their conscience was in no way impaired, for they were soldiers who had to carry out every order unconditionally. He alone had responsibility before God and Hitler for everything that was happening. They had undoubtedly notice that he hated this bloody business and that he had been aroused to the depth of his soul. But he too was obeying the highest law by doing his duty, and he was acting from a deep understanding of the necessity for this operation.
Himmler told the men to look at nature. There was combat everywhere, not only among men but also in the world of animals and plants. Whoever was too tired to fight must go under. The most primitive man says that the horse is good and the bedbug is bad, or wheat is good and the thistle is bad. The human being consequently designates what is useful to him as good and what is harmful as bad. Didn’t bedbugs and rats have a life purpose also? Yes, but this had never meant that man could not defend himself against vermin.

Source of quote: Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, student edition, 1985 Holmes & Meier, pages 136/137

The student edition unfortunately does not contain the footnotes leading to Hilberg's source references. From the preface of this edition:

The following pages contain a brief description of the destruction of the European Jews, with an emphasis on the core of the history. The volume is designed for those who are not familiar with any details, but it is not an outline. All the contents have been taken from the second edition of a larger work, newly published in three volumes of the same title. These, then, are excerpts, pure and simple, tied together to form a smaller coherent whole.
The passages in this volume were chosen on the basis of some experience, inasmuch as several sections and chapters in the first edition of the longer work had already been selected over the years by specialists in various fields for inclusion in readers for use in classes. The same materials, revised and expanded for the new edition, may now be found between the covers of this book. Those who wish to read also the footnotes and all or some of the omitted portions may consult the three-volume work, which is unabridged.

Whoever has the unabridged three-volume work available is hereby kindly requested to look up Hilberg's source references for his account of Himmler's visit at Minsk in August 1941.

Another source on how the Einsatzgruppen killings affected the killers' psyche is a passage in the depostion of former SS Obersturmfuehrer Walter Rauff before the German Embassy in Santiago de Chile on 28 June 1972, which I translated as follows:

Whether at that time I had doubts against the use of gas vans I cannot say. The main issue for me at the time was that the shootings were a considerable burden for the man who were in charge thereof and that this burden was taken off them through the use of the gas vans.

Source of quote:

http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people/r/ ... ranslation

Yet another source on the same subject is the deposition of Otto Ohlendorf at the Nuremberg Trial:

COL. POKROVSKY: You said that mostly women and children were executed in these vans. For what reason?

OHLENDORF: That was a special order from Himmler to the effect that women and children were not to be exposed to the mental strain of the executions; and thus the men of the Kommandos, mostly married men, should not be compelled to aim at women and children.

Source of quote:

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/p ... #ohlendorf