Holocaust Documents

[Hans]

Now, how does Christian Gerlach treat these sources (and others like it)? Has he assessed them at all, even read them?

Of course Gerlach know these sources. What do you think of him?

Gerlach accepts Eichmann's essential statement that Heydrich told him one day that the Führer has ordered the physical extermination of the Jews (page 123) and he thinks that there is evidence that this conversation with Heydrich and his trip to Belzec took place not before December 1941 (for instance, Eichmann says that he meet WIRTH in Belzec immeadiatly after this conversation; Wirth was sent to Belzec in December 1941, p. 247). He argues that Eichmann is known for his poor credibility on dates and details, that his statements have thus to be interpreted with other evidence and therefore that a theory cannot stand stand or fall with Eichmann:

"Auf Eichmanns Aussagen allein kann man nicht bauen, sondern sie können höchstens im Zusammenhang mit anderen Quellen entschlüsselt werden, was noch keinesfalls restlos und zweifelslfrei möglich ist." (p.248)

On Höß, Gerlach writes that "der Lagerkommandant Höss erhielt von Himmler nicht im Sommer 1941 in Berlin den Auftrag, die europäischen Juden zu ermorden, sondern, wenn das fragliche Gespräch überhaupt stattgefunden hat, erst 1942" and refers to the works of Jean-Claude Pressac and Robert Jan Van Pelt/Deborah Dwork. Höß' claim (in all of his writings!) that Himmler told to him in summer 1941 about the order to exterminate the Europan Jews is simply false. Did he try to transfer his responsibility for the mass murder in Auschwitz to Himmler by inventing an early Führer order or did he simply confuse it with a conversation with Himmler about the extermination of Soviet POW's in Auschwitz as Van Pelt thinks? Was his memory manipulated by his interrogators or was it his own idea? I don't know.

regards, Hans

[Hans]

Firstly, one has to acknowledge that the above testimony are independent

I don't think so. Eichmann knew Höß' manuscript as quoted above and he had access to his Nuremberg affidavit. Maybe Eichmann's memory was manipulated a bit by Höß' writings?!

Höss claims that he was ordered to put up extermination facilities at Auschwitz already in June 1941 with inaugeration being made that same summer. A time at which there existed in addition “three other extermination camps: Belzek, Treblinka, and Wolzek”. The last part is bound to be a brow raiser, because no Operation Reinhard camps are normally considered to have been in operation until 1942.

Which tells us that this conversation took place in 1942 - if at all as noted by Gerlach.

The important thing is not however, whether Höss got the years mixed up or not, but that he is again corroborated in this regard - in his ‘error’ so to speak - by Eichmann, who in response to his conference with Heydrich was immediately ordered to take a tour among some of the existing extermination sites.

Which again tells us that this conversation took place later then dated by Eichmann.

Fourthly, both sources corroborate each other in yet another regard, that is they tell of a meeting in Auschwitz between Eichmann and Höss in 1941.

Well, Eichmann's interrogator did, but not Eichmann. Elsewhere, Eichmann wrote that he was not in Auschwitz in 1941, that this is utterly nonsense of Höß. According to Eichmann, he visited Auschwitz for the first time in spring 1942.

According to Höss, they discussed the pace of sending the Jews of several European countries, including France, Belgium and Holland to their deaths and regarding the murder weapon itself it was agreed upon that “nur Gas käme in Frage” (“only gas came into question”), the method being motivated by the ‘traditional’ holocaust argument of higher efficiency and lesser strain on the personell under authority.

The evidence indicates that this conversation took place in spring 1942. As matter of fact, Eichmann had no authorisation to deport the western European Jews prior to this date, according to him.

(Of course any gassing carried out in Auschwitz and elsewhere would have amounted to just the opposite – harder labour and greater psychological strain – as any brief investigation of the physical evidence reveals).

Is it really harder to put 1000 people into a room for 1 hour and to through a fast killing poison gas into it then to shoot them? Reality check!

The context implies in other words a full blown program of destruction of the Jews of Europe already in early Autumn of 1941 at the latest, including deportation of Jews from the France and the Benelux as well as extermination camps already in operation.

Only if you believe what Eichmann and Höß said in this extract word for word. However, if you read other statements of Eichmann and if you take other, more powerfull evidence into account, then a complete different picture emerges.
Gerlach has presented very strong documentary evidence for his thesis. Eichmann's and Höß' false dates - "Fehldatierungen" as Gerlach puts it - do not refute Gerlach's findings, there claims have to be corrected because of it.
Your post assumes somehow that Eichmann and Höß told the truth or not, and if not then everything is a hoax. This is not a very reasonable assumption. Eichmann and Höß could make mistakes, also deliberate mistakes to hide their responsability. When Höß testified, Himmler was dead and Eichmann was away, so he blamed them for everything. And Eichmann did the same but the other way around. Now, the evidence shows that Höß' story is false and Eichmann's has to be put into December 1941. As Gerlach said, their testimonies have to be interpreted with additional evidence, eyewitness accounts do not speak for themselves. Mistakes have to be corrected.
And, both could do the same mistakes of course, especially if one of them (Eichmann) has studied the testimony of the other (Höß).

Gerlach says that you cannot always trust Eichmann's dates. He said two months after Barbarossa started. Okay, perhaps 3 months, but fore sure in late summer 1941. Later, in his manuscript Götzen, he wrote that he was in Belzec in late autumn. According to Gerlach, he moved it elsewhere into March 1942. In other words, Eichmann didn't know anymore or didn't want to know it. You cannot trust his dates.

[michael mills]

Hans wrote:

Gerlach accepts Eichmann's essential statement that Heydrich told him one day that the Führer has ordered the physical extermination of the Jews (page 123) and he thinks that there is evidence that this conversation with Heydrich and his trip to Belzec took place not before December 1941 (for instance, Eichmann says that he meet WIRTH in Belzec immeadiatly after this conversation; Wirth was sent to Belzec in December 1941, p. 247). He argues that Eichmann is known for his poor credibility on dates and details, that his statements have thus to be interpreted with other evidence and therefore that a theory cannot stand stand or fall with Eichmann:

In his description of a visit to a camp being constructed near Lublin, Eichmann stated that he saw a captain of the Ordnungspolizei working outside without his uniform coat, and with his sleeves rolled up.

That indicates that the visit took place in WARM weather, between late Spring and early autumn. It could not have taken place in December 1941; it would have been far too cold for anyone to be working outside in shirtsleeves at that time of year.

By the way, if the person Eichmann saw was a captain of the Ordnungspolizei, could it have been Christian Wirth? As I remember, he was in the Kriminalpolizei, which was not uniformed. One photo of Wirth shows him in Waffen-SS uniform.

[walterkaschner]

I have just finished reading the second part of Christopher R. Browning's "Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers", Cambridge University Press, 2000 (paperback edition), a compilation of the George Macaulay Trevelyan Lectures which Browning gave in Cambridge University in 1999.

With regard to Michael Mills' view expressed in his May 22 post above, Browning is in agreement that Eichmann's trip to Belzec could not have taken place in December 1941. Browning dates it to October, 1941.

In addition to Mr. Mills' point that the captain being in shirtsleeves indicated that the weather was warm, Browning points out that Eichmann stated that there were only two people there and that he saw only 2 or 3 huts, although by December, 1941, a team of 20 Polish construction workers as well as 20 black uniformed Trawniki SS guards were on the scene.

Moreover, Eichmann recalled that the trees were in full color, which could not have been the case in late December. Eichmann also remembered that he stopped in Prague both coming and going, and there is independent evidence that Eichmann was in Prague on October 10, 1941.

Eichmann also recalled that he was there at the time of a double-battle ("Doppelschlacht") which Browning thinks must have been the battles at Vyasma and Bryansk, which were raging between October 2-18, 1941. (Although Eichmann identified the battles as Minsk and Bialystok these occurred in the first days of the war and Browning believes Eichmann's memory had simply failed him on this point.)

The October 1941 date fits with Browning's overall thesis that the decision in principle to exterminate all Jews within control of the Reich was taken in the euphoria of early October, after Kiev had been taken and the great encirclement acheived through the victories of Vyasma and Bryansk had apparently opened the door to Moscow. His thesis is based upon the fact that (a) on October 15 the deportation of Reich Jews began; (b) on October 18 the emmigration gates were closed; and (c) in October the sites for the Belzec and Chelmno death camps were selected.

Browning argues that in July Hitler had solicited a feasibility plan for the extermination of all Jews, which led to Göring's written authorization of July 31, authorizing Heydrich to prepare such a plan. ( A predicate for the Wannsee Conference, as well as for various preparatory and experimental measures that were commenced soon thereafter.) And by October, he argues, in the euphoria of apparent future victory over the Soviets, Hitler had made up his mind as to the basic principle that the Jews were to be exterminated rather than expelled from Reich controlled territory. Browning goes on to explain that:

"This does not mean that some specific plan was approved or that clear-cut and comprehensive orders were given at this point. Rather, it is the point , in my opinion, at which Hitler, Himmler, and Heydrich - and a widening circle of initiates thereafter - were aware that the ultimate goal or vision of Nazi Jewish policy was the systematic destruction and no longer the decimation and expulsion of all European Jews. No clear and uniform plan as to how this would be accomplished was imposed from above, for no such plan yet existed. Much that would happen in the next months would take place on local or regional initiative. but when such initiatives doevetailed with the vision of the Nazi leadership, they were siezed upon with alacrity precisely because they met perceived needs. Those initiatives that did not were rejected or ignored. Berlin was not passive but interacted ina goal directed manner with the local authorities in the surge of killing actions and preparation for killing actions that characterized the fall of 1941." op cit supra at 39

I find Browning's theory persuasive, but not necessarily compelling. I doubt if the dispute among professional and legitimate historians as to the time line for these decisions will ever be conclusively resolved unless a documentary smoking gun remains yet to be found, which I can not muster the optimism to hope for. The evidence available is simply too contradictory and confusing, due IMHO to the the Third Reich organizational structure and the nature of the major players in it, to permit of a definitive and unassailable answer. So I guess we will each have to weigh the arguments of the professionals against our own personal experience of the way humans tick and reach our own conclusions. But I do recommend Browning's book as food for thought. It is not terribly expensive and can probably be purchased through this very site.

Regards, Kaschner