ONLY 3 MILLION JEWS IN EUROPE BEFORE THE WAR?

[Charles Bunch]

It may pass for powerful argument at the air-photo board, but in the real world, normal people will call you on it.

When you call you have to show some cards.

Not when your opponent has none.

[makov25]

Hi! Russians lost 30million in WWII and Jews never say thinks for what wee did for them..If Russians lost the war they all will be dad by now.
Glenn

[Oleg Grigoryev]

Hi! Russians lost 30million in WWII and Jews never say thinks for what wee did for them..If Russians lost the war they all will be dad by now.
Glenn

USSR Lost 26.6 million people (not 30) not RSFSR. Among them were plenty of Jews.

[Roberto]

The policy to murder the Jews of Europe was a policy undertaken during war, but it had nothing to do with wartime policy.

I beg to differ. It had everything to do with the war and even Roberto thinks so.

I suppose that is why Roberto keeps reminding Smith of what exactly a Nazi bigwig like Goebbels considered the relationship between the killing of the Jews and the war to be: war, according to Goebbels, provided the opportunity to do what could not have been done in peacetime.

Beginning with Lublin, the Jews in the General Government are now being evacuated eastward. The procedure is a pretty barbaric one and not to be described here more definitely. Not much will remain of the Jews. On the whole it can be said that about 60 per cent of them will have to be liquidated whereas only about 40 per cent can be used for forced labor.

The former Gauleiter of Vienna, who is to carry this measure through, is doing it with considerable circumspection and according to a method that does not attract too much attention. A judgment is being visited upon the Jews that, while barbaric, is fully deserved by them. The prophesy which the Fuehrer made about them for having brought on a new world war is beginning to come true in a most terrible manner. One must not be sentimental in these matters. If we did not fight the Jews, they would destroy us. It's a life-and-death struggle between the Aryan race and the Jewish bacillus. No other government and no other regime would have the strength for such a global solution of this question. Here, too, the Fuehrer is the undismayed champion of a radical solution necessitated by conditions and therefore inexorable. Fortunately a whole series of possibilities presents itself for us in wartime that would be denied us in peacetime. We shall have to profit by this.[my emphasis]

The ghettoes that will be emptied in the cities of the General Government now will be refilled with Jews thrown out of the Reich. This process is to be repeated from time to time. There is nothing funny in it for the Jews, and the fact that Jewry's representatives in England and America are today organizing and sponsoring the war against Germany must be paid for dearly by its representatives in Europe - and that's only right.

The above translation of Goebbels' diary entry of 27 March 1942 can is transcribed under

http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/g/goe ... ts-02.html

How about making your lies a little less transparent, Mr. Smith?

[Roberto]

Charles Bunch wrote:

And one of the details of history would be that the murder of 6 million Jews had nothing to do with prosecuting a war.

On the contrary, the destruction of the greater part of the Jews under German control had everything to do with prosecuting the war, or at least with maintaining Germany's ability to prosecute it.

The disappearance of x-million Jews who were not food-producers but only consumers meant a reduction in demand for the available food supplies, ie enough food for everybody else.

Though the genocide of the Jews had something to do with occupation and food supply policies, as demonstrated by German historian Christian Gerlach, neither such policies nor anti-Semitic hatred explain the phenomenon all by themselves. Both factors had to come together.
And it was not a question of "enough food for everybody else", but of subsistence level at best for the occupied non-Jewish populations in Eastern Europe and luxury level for the German armed forces and the German home front, the latter with a view to bolstering morale and preventing an eventual repetition of the internal revolts that had put an end to the German war effort in 1918. These considerations led first to the "Hunger Plan", which foresaw the reckless exploitation of food supplies from the Soviet Union, the sealing-off of food deficit areas and thus the starvation death of "umpteen million" people, and then, when the "Hunger Plan" turned out to be impracticable in the manner foreseen, to the targeting of selected segments of the occupied population - non-working Soviet prisoners of war, the population of the encircled city of Leningrad and the Jews.

What follows is my translation from pages 160 and following of Gerlach's book Krieg, Ernährung, Völkermord.

[…]The principle decision of December 1941 is a central missing link in the decision process for the murder of the European Jews. It out the planning for this crime against humanity on a new basis. It does not relieve anybody, however, for it only had the consequence that the many already existing ideas, suggestions and initiatives for extermination actions on a regional level were supported, legitimized, systematized and got a new impulse.

Characteristically the first extermination camp, Chelmno, had initiated its murder activity four days prior to the Führer’s decision and independently of it. Greiser had for this purpose literally obtained a special authorization from Himmler and Heydrich for the killing of 100 000 Jews. It does not seem very probable that Hitler was involved, given that Greiser, had be had the authorization of Hitler, would not have had to thank Himmler for it. This he did, however.

To make it clear: my exposition does not mean that I want to dismiss the results of the past more than twenty years of research on the bases, especially by the so-called Functionalist school. The extermination of the Jews was by no means based simply on this one decision of Hitler’s or only on his decisions, directives and initiatives as a whole, but we are talking about just one, though an important point within the scope of the process that led to the murder of the European Jews. The analysis of this impulse can contribute to also visualize more accurately the role of Hitler. It is surely difficult to understand that Hitler took a principle decision on the murder of all European Jews after the mass murder in a number of countries had already victimized almost a million Jewish people. It is difficult to comprehend that this decision was not taken all at once, but step by step, region by region. Yet especially the case of Chelmno indicates that this is how it was. The prevailing assumption that the basic decision already occurred between the spring and the autumn of 1941 is based on the belief that before crossing the border to mass murder of the Jews there need to have been something like an authorization by the state leadership. Yet for the National Socialists these extermination decisions were political, not moral decisions. They thus could be limited to certain territories or even groups of people (e.g. those “unfit to work”).

How are the contents and consequences of Hitler’s principle decision to be assessed? First of all, his utterances on 12. December were but a relatively short passage of a long speech, and at this time there were political questions that required the German leadership’s attention far more and seemed more urgent to it than the persecution of the Jews. This passage of the speech was already unequivocal, but by itself not yet concrete. The contents of Hitler’s separate meetings with Himmler, Bouhler, Frank, Rosenberg and others we must assume to have been much more concrete. The issue regarding the occurrences in December 1941 is not whether the actors used a more or less radical language (they also did that at other times), but the verifiable results. The three essential results of the speech on 12 December and the ensuing meetings can be summarized as follows:

1.) new principle guidelines for the murder of the Jews by the government of the General Government and the Eastern Ministry – the administrative entities with power of the greatest number of Jews within the German area of influence,
2.) the intensification of the planning and preparations for the murder of Jews in various areas by poison gas,
3.) by announcing the murder of all European Jews, Hitler had also decided on the fate of the German Jews. This is shown e.g. by Hans Frank’s utterance in Cracow on 16 December 1941 that in regard to the murder of the Jews in the General Government “what is happening in the Reich will at the very least have to happen here as well”. This decision contrasts clearly with Himmler’s telegram to Jeckeln fifteen days before. About the systematic murder of Jews in the German Reich only Hitler could decide, for it was he alone who according to the Nuremberg Laws had the right to exempt Jews and so-called half-breeds from the restrictions of these laws and had in 1941 vehemently pointed out that he was the only one to decide on an eventual worsening of the situation of the half-breeds.

Hitler’s decision was necessary for the authorities involved both in regard to the murder of the German Jews an in order to obtain the basis for a central planning of the genocide. Despite all use of camouflage language the indications in Frank’s speech on 16 December in Cracow and in Heydrich’s address after the writing of the protocol of the Wannsee Conference must be taken serious in this respect, for we can see in them the first drafts of an overall planning of the crime. Such an overall planning for short-term murder had obviously not existed before. For the murderous proceeding against the Jews in the occupied Soviet territories the guideline of December 1941 represented only a small step further. The step was somewhat greater in the General Government, where the pressure by the police and parts of the civilian administration was in the direction of a large-scale extermination was already so great that it would have inevitably led to terrible consequences sooner or later.

This shows that with his possibly strongest intervention in the extermination process Hitler by no means decided or had to decide all, and that his intervention had clear-cut but in a certain sense limited consequences. The findings of research on the crucial responsibility of other instances, especially the authorities in the very areas of occupation, is hereby confirmed.

For the understanding of the decision process towards murder an approach via the term of the utopian seems useful. Of course ideas about the annihilation of the Jews and the respective preparedness had been there for many years prior to 1941, especially on the part of Hitler. Yet there was a difference between ideas, firm intentions to commit genocide and the implementation thereof. The first plans for a “final solution” contained strongly destructive aspects of slow decimation through horrible living conditions and impediment of reproduction, but also utopian aspects characterized by the impossibility of carrying out these seriously pursued solutions in practice. This applies to the plans of 1939/40 for the “pushing away” of the Jews to the Lublin district as well as to Madagascar. The destructive elements became stronger in the plan to deport Jews to the Soviet Union after a military victory over that country. The procedure of annihilation only became imaginable gradually – despite the widespread preparedness for it. The steps from utopian resettlement and extermination programs to actually executable murder programs were decisive for the execution of the mass murder. Thus the plan decided upon at the beginning of 1941 to force about 30 million people in the Soviet Union to starve to death in order to guarantee the feeding of German-dominated Europe turned out to be unfeasible. It was thereupon replaced in the autumn of 1941 by programs for the murder of certain segments of the populations, such as millions of Soviet prisoners of war “unfit to work”. For the intentions directed against the Jews the point-settings in December 1941 constituted a crucial step towards the realization, i.e. the implementation of the plans for genocide.[my emphasis]

As little as this monstrous process was normal politics, as much as Hitler produced it – in this respect the decision about the lives of the European Jews were taken almost as in a “normal” political deliberation: the “Führer” did not take the decision all alone, but after a given time, in a given situation and on a given occasion he approved the initiatives from the state and party apparatus. Many insisted on the murder of all European Jews, but before they could begin with it systematically, there was the need in the National Socialist system for a decision taken by Hitler.

Also, the disapperance of large numbers of Jews sitting in ghettos situated athwart the German supply lines running through the Generalgouvernement removed the possibility of an uprising in the German rear. In the spring of 1942, the Communist leadership of the Jewish underground issued calls to the Jewish population to assist the Soviet Union by rising in rebellion and cutting the German supply lines. Such an uprising would have been suicidal, but could have caused a lot of problems for the German forces. As it happened, the Jewish uprisings were delayed until 1943, beginning in Warsaw in the spring and spreading to almost all gettos and camps in the GG and the Occupied Eastern Territories. They failed, bacause by that time the Jewish populations had been much reduced and the Germans were ready.

The danger of Communist-inspired Jewish uprising was really enormous.

[...]So far we have pointed out how the Germans overcame their administrative and psychological obstacles. We have dealt with the problems of the bureaucratic machine. But the internal technocratic and moral conflicts do not fully explain what happened. In a destruction process the perpetrators do not play the only role; the process is shaped by the victims, too. It is the interaction of perpetrators and victims that is “fate”. We must therefore discuss the reactions of the Jewish community and analyze the role of the Jews in their own destruction.
When confronted by a force, a group can react in five ways: by resistance, by an attempt to alleviate or nullify the threat (the undoing reaction), by evasion, by paralysis, or by compliance. Let us consider each in turn.
The reaction pattern of the Jews is characterized by almost complete lack of resistance. In marked contrast to German propaganda, the documentary evidence of Jewish resistance, overt or submerged, is very slight. On the European-wide scale the Jews had no resistance organization, no blueprint for armed action, no plan even for psychological warfare. They were completely unprepared. In the words of Anti-Partisan Chief and Higher SS and Police Leader Russia Center von dem Bach, who observed Jews and killed them from 1941 to the end:

<<Thus the misfortune came about … I am the only living witness but I must say the truth. Contrary to the opinion of the National Socialists that the Jews were a highly organized group, the appalling fact was that they had no organization whatsoever. The mass of the Jewish people were taken completely by surprise. They did not know at all what to do; they had no directives or slogans as to how they should act. That is the greatest lie of anti-Semitism because it gives the lie to the slogan that the Jews are conspiring to dominate the world and that they are so highly organized. In reality they had no organization of their own at all, not even an information service. If they had had some sort of organization, these people could have been saved by the millions; but instead they were taken completely by surprise. Never before has a people gone as unsuspectingly to its disaster. Nothing was prepared. Absolutely nothing. It was not so, as the anti-Semites say, that they were friendly to the Soviets. That is the most appalling misconception of all. The Jews in the old Poland, who were never communistic in their sympathies, were, throughout the area of the Bug eastward, more afraid of Bolshevism than of the Nazis. This was insanity. They could have been saved. There were people among them who had much to lose, business people; they didn’t want to leave. In addition there was love of home and their experience with pogroms in Russia. After the first anti-Jewish actions of the Germans, they thought now the wave was over and so they walked back to their undoing.>>

The Jews were not oriented toward resistance. Even those who contemplated a resort to arms were given pause by the thought that for a limited success of a handful, the multitude would suffer the consequences. Outbreaks of resistance were consequently infrequent, and almost always they were local occurrences that transpired at the last moment. Measured in German casualties, Jewish armed opposition shrinks into insignificance. The most important engagement was fought in the Warsaw ghetto (sixteen dead and eighty-five wounded on the German side, including collaborators). Following the breakout from the Sobibór camp, there was a count of nine SS men killed, one missing, one wounded, and two collaborators killed. In Galicia sporadic resistance resulted in losses also to SS and Police Leader Katzmann (eight dead, twelve wounded). In addition there were clashes between Jewish partisans and German forces in other parts of the east, and occasional acts of resistance by small groups and individuals in the ghettos and killing centers. It is doubtful that the Germans and their collaborators lost more than a few hundred men, dead and wounded, in the course of the destruction process. The number of men who dropped out because of disease, nervous breakdowns, or other court martial proceedings was probably greater. The Jewish resistance effort could not seriously impede or retard the progress of destructive operations. The Germans brushed that resistance aside as a minor obstacle, and in the totality of the destruction process it was of no consequence.[...]

Source of quote: Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, student edition, 1985 Holmes & Meier, pages 293 and following.

The Germans were accordingly scared shitless of Communist-inspired Jewish resistance, and there is documentary evidence to their fears. Such as State Secretary Dr. Bühler's statement at the Wannsee Conference:

State Secretary Dr. Bühler stated that the General Government would welcome it if the final solution of this problem could be begun in the General Government, since on the one hand transportation does not play such a large role here nor would problems of labor supply hamper this action. Jews must be removed from the territory of the General Government as quickly as possible, since it is especially here that the Jew as an epidemic carrier represents an extreme danger and on the other hand he is causing permanent chaos in the economic structure of the country through continued black market dealings. Moreover, of the approximately 2 1/2 million Jews concerned, the majority is unfit for work.

Source of quote:

http://library.byu.edu/~rdh/eurodocs/germ/wanneng.html

[michael mills]

Roberto wrote:

The danger of Communist-inspired Jewish uprising was really enormous.

Indeed. In May 1942, the Communist leadership of the Jewish Underground issued an appeal to the population of the Warsaw Ghetto to rise in revolt for the purpose of assisting the Red Army by cutting the German supply lines which ran through that city. A copy of the appeal (in German translated from the original Yiddish) is in the East German collection of documents "Faschismus _ Getto _ Massenmord". If I get time I will retrieve the document and post it.

As I originally wrote, any uprising by the Jewish population in 1942 would have been suicidal. But the aim of the Communist leadership was not to save lives, but to aid the Soviet Union, whatever the cost to the civilian population, ie the same aim as that of all communist-led resistance movements throughout German-occupied Europe.

As it was, the Gestapo tracked down the communist leadership and eliminated it, nipping the uprising in the bud. After that, the leadership of the Jewish underground was assumed by leftist Zionist youth groups, which adopted a more quiescent posture. As a result, the revolts in the surviving ghettos did not btreak out until the spring of 1943.

As for food policy as a factor leading to the destruction of European Jewry, Roberto is correct in saying that anti-Semitism as well as food policy played a role. But he fails to comprehend the relationship between those two factors.

It was food policy that provided the impetus to eliminate a part of the non-food-producing population in order to conserve available supplies.

It was anti-Semitism that led to the targeting of the Jews as the group to be eliminated, rather than, say, the Greeks.

As I originally wrote, it made sense, once the imperative of eliminating part of population was established, to select the least popular population group for elimination. And throughout Eastern Europe, and to some extent in Western Europe as well, it was the Jews who were by far the least popular group.

If the destructive imperative derived from food policy had not existed, then it is hardly likely that the German authorities would have wasted time and effort killing large numbers of Jews, rather than just letting them vegetate in the ghettos. It is noteworthy that the extermination of the unemployable 60% of the Jewish population of the Generalgouvernement only began after the food-aid from the United States which had contributed so much to keeping them alive until then was cut off after the formal entry of the United States into the war against Germany and the imposition of the blockade on food-aid. Furthermore, the cessation of food imports from the Soviet Union due to the German invasion also reduced available supplies, and reinforced the imperative to eliminate "useless eaters".

Goetz Aly, in his book "Final Solution", shows that in Fiscal Year 1942-43, after the elimination of much of the Polish Jewish population, there was a net flow of food-grains from the Generalgouvernement to Germany, enough to cover the needs of more than one million people; in the previous two years, there had been a net outflow from Germany, or else there was equality.

By the way, Roberto is quite wrong in his assertion that the German population was maintained in luxury while everybody else lived at subsistence level. In fact, certain populations, for example the Danes and the French, had a higher standard of living than the Germans in terms of the amount of food allotted to them. The only groups living at a starvation level were the Polish Jews and the Greeks (the Greeks survived because the British, with German agreement, shipped food to them). In general, the Eastern European peoples received lower rations than those in the West. Even so, until 1944 Germans were very envious of the Hungarians, who seemed to have enough of everything. The German staff at Auschwitz eagerly awaited the arrival of the Hungarian Jews with their abundant supplies of food, which they could loot.

[Roberto]

Roberto wrote:

The danger of Communist-inspired Jewish uprising was really enormous.

Indeed. In May 1942, the Communist leadership of the Jewish Underground issued an appeal to the population of the Warsaw Ghetto to rise in revolt for the purpose of assisting the Red Army by cutting the German supply lines which ran through that city. A copy of the appeal (in German translated from the original Yiddish) is in the East German collection of documents "Faschismus _ Getto _ Massenmord". If I get time I will retrieve the document and post it.

Please do so.

What was the reaction to this appeal ?

How many Jews read it ?

How many of those who read it followed it ?

Is there any evidence that the German administration got to know of it, and that it in any way influenced its actions ?

As it was, the Gestapo tracked down the communist leadership and eliminated it, nipping the uprising in the bud.

Wow, threat eliminated. Why then continue shipping the Warsaw ghetto's Jews to Treblinka, if that supposed threat had anything to do with it?

As for food policy as a factor leading to the destruction of European Jewry, Roberto is correct in saying that anti-Semitism as well as food policy played a role. But he fails to comprehend the relationship between those two factors.

It was food policy that provided the impetus to eliminate a part of the non-food-producing population in order to conserve available supplies.

It was anti-Semitism that led to the targeting of the Jews as the group to be eliminated, rather than, say, the Greeks.

That was basically my statement, unless I failed to express myself clearly enough.

Somewhat simplified, that is also Gerlach's thesis.

As I originally wrote, it made sense, once the imperative of eliminating part of population was established, to select the least popular population group for elimination. And throughout Eastern Europe, and to some extent in Western Europe as well, it was the Jews who were by far the least popular group.

Now that's how Mills would like to see it, but there's no evidence that the Nazis targeted the Jews because they considered them to be the "least popular group" "throughout Eastern Europe, and to some extent in Western Europe as well", rather than because they hated their guts themselves, considered them unworthy of life anyway and thought it a good idea to solve two problems at once by killing of the Jewish "useless eaters" (the "useful" ones, according to the protocol of the Wannsee Conference, were to be worked to death, it being foreseen that the surviving most resitant reminder would be "treated accordingly").

Or can Mills show us any evidence that the Nazis, although having nothing against the Jews in principle, targeted them because they considered them to be the "least popular group" in the countries they occupied?

By the way, Roberto is quite wrong in his assertion that the German population was maintained in luxury while everybody else lived at subsistence level.

I didn't say "everybody else". I said:

And it was not a question of "enough food for everybody else", but of subsistence level at best for the occupied non-Jewish populations in Eastern Europe and luxury level for the German armed forces and the German home front, the latter with a view to bolstering morale and preventing an eventual repetition of the internal revolts that had put an end to the German war effort in 1918.

Read before misrepresenting.

In fact, certain populations, for example the Danes and the French, had a higher standard of living than the Germans in terms of the amount of food allotted to them.

The fat Danes and French didn’t even show up in my statement. As to the latter, I have my doubts and would like to see some evidence. If the Danes were better fed than the Germans, that doesn’t change the fact that German exploitation and food supply policies in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union were meant to feed the Wehrmacht out of the land and

[…]...to make it possible for the German people to enjoy food consumption as in peacetime and, thus, to stabilise wartime morale.[...]

(“Leftist” historian Christian Streit, The Fate of Soviet Prisoners of War, in: A Mosaic of Victims. Non-Jews Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis. Edited by Michael Berenbaum. New York University Press, 1990).

The only groups living at a starvation level were the Polish Jews and the Greeks (the Greeks survived because the British, with German agreement, shipped food to them).

Yeah, sure.

[…]The exact number of Ukrainians who died at the hands of the German occupiers will probably never be known. Death was meted out arbitrarily. Peasants who, when questioned by German officials, admitted to being able to read and write were liable to be shot as ‘intellectuals’. Farmers who withheld food stocks or refused to work in the fields for the Germans were hanged as an example to the rest. In the district of Rivne the German farm administrators introduced flogging for everything from slack work to the failure of peasants to remove their caps in the presence of the Germans; they imposed curfews; the carrying of a knife was punishable by death. Thousands of peasants were hanged or shot for suspected partisan activity. Throughout the Ukraine 250 villages and their populations were deliberately obliterated to encourage good behavior in the rest.
Thousands more died of starvation. The seizure of food supplies to feed the vast German army and its hundreds of thousands of horses left the cities of the conquered regions desperately short of food. In the Ukraine it was decided to eliminate ‘superfluous eaters’, primarily Jews and the populations of the cities. In Kiev the meagre food ration was cut sharply (200 grams of bread per week), roadblocks were set up to prevent food from entering the city and the collective-farm markets supplying the city were suspended. As the supply of food reached famine levels, the peoples of the East were denied effective medical care. In Kharkov around 80,000 died of starvation, in Kiev almost certainly more. […]

In general, the Eastern European peoples received lower rations than those in the West.

The Slav peoples, that is, especially in Poland and the Soviet Union. Don’t know about the others.

[…]The General Government, another center of the destruction of the prisoners, was, like the previously mentioned area Belorussia / Central Russia, a hunger region. The food situation was extremely tense, after the troops of the Eastern Army marching up had fed themselves there until the summer of 1941 and previous food supplies had been cancelled. Thus the civilian population there in the late summer and autumn received lower rations than the inhabitants of the occupied Soviet territories – for non-Jewish “normal consumers” 600, for Jews even as little as 200 calories. Here as there this was not enough to live and forced the population to obtain food on the black market, but the lower rations in the General Government show that the problems of the food administration there may have been even greater.[…]

My translation from Christian Gerlach, Krieg, Ernährung, Völkermord, pages 47 and following.

Even so, until 1944 Germans were very envious of the Hungarians, who seemed to have enough of everything. The German staff at Auschwitz eagerly awaited the arrival of the Hungarian Jews with their abundant supplies of food, which they could loot.

Not surprising.

Hungary was not populated by “sub-human” Slavs and a German ally.

Even so, is the eagerness of the German staff at Auschwitz to loot Hungarian Jews (source?) the only indication that “Germans were very envious of the Hungarians, who seemed to have enough of everything” Mills can offer?

[Roberto]

Hi! Russians lost 30million in WWII and Jews never say thinks for what wee did for them..If Russians lost the war they all will be dad by now.
Glenn

USSR Lost 26.6 million people (not 30) not RSFSR. Among them were plenty of Jews.

Hi Oleg,

Is there such a thing as a breakdown of Soviet casualties by nationality/ethnicity that you know of?

[Harry]

Thanks for the welcome! Scott suggests that the Wansee document fails
to refer to the physical extermination of the Jews of Europe. Countless euphemisms would be used..resettlement etc to cover the actual.One of the Reich Chancellory telephonists recalls Himmler in conversation with Bormann. Himler was rebuked for stating X number of Jews had been killed, Bormann incandescent with rage informed him such talk was "unacceptable" and that Hitler would be informed. Equally why have a meeting with all the Ministries at Wansee to dicuss work programmes?????? Himmlers speech to the SS at Posen in 1943 was , if you like, a follow up to Wansee , one can argue till one is blue in the face
as Eichmann stated at his trial the extermination of the Jews was a top down order, there were 3 million Jews in Poland alone!
Cheers Harry

[michael mills]

Harry from South Wales wrote:

Countless euphemisms would be used..resettlement etc to cover the actual.One of the Reich Chancellory telephonists recalls Himmler in conversation with Bormann. Himler was rebuked for stating X number of Jews had been killed, Bormann incandescent with rage informed him such talk was "unacceptable" and that Hitler would be informed. Equally why have a meeting with all the Ministries at Wansee to dicuss work programmes??????

It would be more correct to write that a telephonist at the Reich Chancellory CLAIMED that another telephonist told him that he had surreptitiously listened into a telephone call from Himmler to Bormann. There is no way of knowing whether the telephonists claim is true; he may merely have been big-noting himself, especially as he did not claim to have heard the conversation himself, but simply to have been told about it.

As to the Wannsee Conference, historians who have made a close study of it, such as Yehuda Bauer or John Fox, have come to the conclusion that its purpose was to inform high-level representatives of the various Reich Ministries that Heydrich had been given total responsibility for all measures involving Jews, and to obtain the assent to that of the ministries represented at the meeting. It was a meeting at which decisions were made on a plan to solve the Jewish Problem. Heydrich merely informed those present of the plan that had already been approved by Hitler, ie deportation of all Jews in the German-occupied area into the Occupied Eastern Territories, where the employables would be put to work on road-building projects (which actually happened to some extent).

John Fox is of the opinion that nothing was said at the meeting about killing, since there would have been absolutely no reason for Heydrich to have said anything about that, given the purpose of the meeting, and there would have been need for the State Secretaries to know. The reference to "appropriate treatment" for the survivors of slave labour reads more like a suggestion than a decision (eg a justification for it is given), and it may be that it was an interpolation by Heydrich into the protocol, in order to record his views, rather than something actually discussed. Certainly the surviving participants who were interrogated after the war, eg Stuckart, strenuously denied that the possibility of killing the deported Jews had been raised at all.

[michael mills]

Roberto wrote:

Hungary was not populated by &#8220;sub-human&#8221; Slavs and a German ally.

Even so, is the eagerness of the German staff at Auschwitz to loot Hungarian Jews (source?) the only indication that &#8220;Germans were very envious of the Hungarians, who seemed to have enough of everything&#8221; Mills can offer?

Slovakia and Croatia were also populated by Slavs, but were also German allies. There was no great starvation in those countries, although the standard of living was reduced. In both countries, the "removal" of the Jews (in Croatia largely at Croat hands) meant that competition for resources was reduced.

German officials loved being posted to Hungary because of the luxuries available there that were exceedingly scarce in Germany.

[Roberto]

Heydrich merely informed those present of the plan that had already been approved by Hitler, ie deportation of all Jews in the German-occupied area into the Occupied Eastern Territories, where the employables would be put to work on road-building projects (which actually happened to some extent).

The wording:

[...]Unter entsprechender Leitung sollen im Zuge der Endlösung die Juden in geeigneter Weise im Osten zum Arbeitseinsatz kommen. In großen Arbeitskolonnen, unter Trennung der Geschlechter, werden die arbeitsfähigen Juden straßenbauend in diese Gebiete geführt, wobei zweifellos ein Großteil durch natürliche Verminderung ausfallen wird.

Der allfällig endlich verbleibende Restbestand wird, da es sich bei diesem zweifellos um den widerstandsfähigsten Teil handelt, entsprechend behandelt werden müssen, da dieser, eine natürliche Auslese darstellend, bei Freilassung als Keimzelle eines neuen jüdischen Aufbaues anzusprechen ist. (Siehe die Erfahrung der Geschichte.)[...]

http://library.byu.edu/~rdh/eurodocs/germ/wanngerm.html

Online translation, accurate AFAIC:

[...]Under proper guidance, in the course of the final solution the Jews are to be allocated for appropriate labor in the East. Able-bodied Jews, separated according to sex, will be taken in large work columns to these areas for work on roads, in the course of which action doubtless a large portion will be eliminated by natural causes.

The possible final remnant will, since it will undoubtedly consist of the most resistant portion, have to be treated accordingly, because it is the product of natural selection and would, if released, act as a the seed of a new Jewish revival (see the experience of history.)[...]

Source of quote:

http://library.byu.edu/~rdh/eurodocs/germ/wanneng.html

John Fox is of the opinion that nothing was said at the meeting about killing, since there would have been absolutely no reason for Heydrich to have said anything about that, given the purpose of the meeting, and there would have been need for the State Secretaries to know. The reference to "appropriate treatment" for the survivors of slave labour reads more like a suggestion than a decision (eg a justification for it is given), and it may be that it was an interpolation by Heydrich into the protocol, in order to record his views, rather than something actually discussed.

There's no indication in this direction, and the statement that the "possible final remnant", after most of the "able-bodied Jews" had been "eliminated by natural causes", would "have to be treated accordingly", can hardly be seen as a mere suggestion; it sounds more like making clear that the purpose was to get rid of all Jews after their usefulness had been spent and that those who didn't vanish "by natural causes" would thus have to be made to vanish.

The statement is nevertheless more significant not for what it mentions but for what it fails to mention: the fate of the Jews not "able-bodied", i.e. not able to work.

If the "useful" Jews were to be "eliminated by natural causes" or "treated accordingly", it is not difficult to imagine what the fate of the "useless" Jews was to be.

It would be interesting, anyway, to see the statements of this Mr. John Fox that Mills based his reading of this author on. Just to make sure that this reading is accurate.

Certainly the surviving participants who were interrogated after the war, eg Stuckart, strenuously denied that the possibility of killing the deported Jews had been raised at all.

Well, according to Eichmann at his trial in Israel, Stuckart had been quite explicit in this respect:

[...]A: I do not remember it in detail, Your Honour. I do not remember the circumstances of this conversation. But I do know that these gentlemen were standing together, or sitting together, and were discussing the subject quite bluntly, quite differently from the language which I had to use later in the record. During the conversation they minced no words about it at all. I might say furthermore, Your Honour, that I would not have remembered this unless I had later remembered that I told myself- Look here, I told myself, even this guy Stuckart, who was known as one of these uncles who was a great stickler for legalities, he too uses language which is not at all in accordance with paragraphs of the law.[my emphasis] This incident remained engraved in my memory and recalled the entire subject to my mind.

Q. What did he say about this subject?

A. In detail I do not-

Q. Not details in general, what did he say about this theme?

A. I cannot remember it in detail Your Honour, but they spoke about methods for killing, about liquidation, about extermination.[my emphasis] I was busy with my records. I had to make the preparations for taking down the minutes. I could not perk up my ears and listen to everything that was said. But it filtered through the small room and I caught fragments of this conversation. It was a small room so from time to time I heard a word or two.[...]

Source of quote:

http://www.aihgs.com/doc22.htm

What does Mr. Fox say about these statements of Eichmann?

[Charles Bunch]

Heydrich merely informed those present of the plan that had already been approved by Hitler, ie deportation of all Jews in the German-occupied area into the Occupied Eastern Territories, where the employables would be put to work on road-building projects (which actually happened to some extent).

The wording:

[...]Unter entsprechender Leitung sollen im Zuge der Endlösung die Juden in geeigneter Weise im Osten zum Arbeitseinsatz kommen. In großen Arbeitskolonnen, unter Trennung der Geschlechter, werden die arbeitsfähigen Juden straßenbauend in diese Gebiete geführt, wobei zweifellos ein Großteil durch natürliche Verminderung ausfallen wird.

Der allfällig endlich verbleibende Restbestand wird, da es sich bei diesem zweifellos um den widerstandsfähigsten Teil handelt, entsprechend behandelt werden müssen, da dieser, eine natürliche Auslese darstellend, bei Freilassung als Keimzelle eines neuen jüdischen Aufbaues anzusprechen ist. (Siehe die Erfahrung der Geschichte.)[...]

http://library.byu.edu/~rdh/eurodocs/germ/wanngerm.html

Online translation, accurate AFAIC:

[...]Under proper guidance, in the course of the final solution the Jews are to be allocated for appropriate labor in the East. Able-bodied Jews, separated according to sex, will be taken in large work columns to these areas for work on roads, in the course of which action doubtless a large portion will be eliminated by natural causes.

The possible final remnant will, since it will undoubtedly consist of the most resistant portion, have to be treated accordingly, because it is the product of natural selection and would, if released, act as a the seed of a new Jewish revival (see the experience of history.)[...]

Source of quote:

http://library.byu.edu/~rdh/eurodocs/germ/wanneng.html

John Fox is of the opinion that nothing was said at the meeting about killing, since there would have been absolutely no reason for Heydrich to have said anything about that, given the purpose of the meeting, and there would have been need for the State Secretaries to know. The reference to "appropriate treatment" for the survivors of slave labour reads more like a suggestion than a decision (eg a justification for it is given), and it may be that it was an interpolation by Heydrich into the protocol, in order to record his views, rather than something actually discussed.

There's no indication in this direction, and the statement that the "possible final remnant", after most of the "able-bodied Jews" had been "eliminated by natural causes", would "have to be treated accordingly", can hardly be seen as a mere suggestion; it sounds more like making clear that the purpose was to get rid of all Jews after their usefulness had been spent and that those who didn't vanish "by natural causes" would thus have to be made to vanish.

The statement is nevertheless more significant not for what it mentions but for what it fails to mention: the fate of the Jews not "able-bodied", i.e. not able to work.

Yes, but let's not forget what else the Protocol says.

http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holoca ... tocol.html

In the meantime the Reichsführer­SS and Chief of the German Police had prohibited emigration of Jews due to the dangers of an emigration in wartime and due to the possibilities of the East.


III.

Another possible solution of the problem has now taken the place of emigration, i.e. the evacuation of the Jews to the East, provided that the Führer gives the appropriate approval in advance.


These actions are, however, only to be considered provisional, but practical experience is already being collected which is of the greatest importance in relation to the future final solution of the Jewish question.

At the time of the conference Chelmno had been in operation for a number of weeks, the gas chambers of Belzec were under construction and would be in operation in less than two months, and experiments with gassing with Zyklon B had occurred at Auschwitz to which the deportations of Jews was about to begin, and at which in the Spring the first of two Birkenau farmhouses was converted into a gas chamber.

[Roberto]

Roberto wrote:

Hungary was not populated by &#8220;sub-human&#8221; Slavs and a German ally.

Even so, is the eagerness of the German staff at Auschwitz to loot Hungarian Jews (source?) the only indication that &#8220;Germans were very envious of the Hungarians, who seemed to have enough of everything&#8221; Mills can offer?

Slovakia and Croatia were also populated by Slavs, but were also German allies. There was no great starvation in those countries, although the standard of living was reduced.

I suppose that’s why they ate more than the Poles and Russians but less than the Hungarians.

In both countries, the "removal" of the Jews (in Croatia largely at Croat hands) meant that competition for resources was reduced.

Evidence that the Slovaks and Croats, who largely took matters into their own hands, were driven only or also by such considerations?

German officials loved being posted to Hungary because of the luxuries available there that were exceedingly scarce in Germany.

Still no backup, but as the contention is without importance, I'll let Mills be happy with it.

[cybercat]

why does it matter exactly how many jews were murdered?

I should imagine that it mattered to them and to the members of their families that survived!