David Irving and the Klessheim Conference

[David Thompson]

Thanks so much, Moulded!

[michael mills]

The essential issue is that, even in the 1977 edition of "Hitler's War" which Evans criticised, Irving did not gloss over Hitler's words of 17 April referring to how the Jews in Poland had been treated. Nor did he delete the comparison with the killing of hares and deer, nor did he delete the description of Jews as "bestial", as Judge Grey claimed in his judgement.

Evans claims that Irving tried to dilute the meaning of Hitler's words on 17 April, which Evans claim show that Hitler knew and approved of the extermination of the Jews of Poland, and was expressing his desire that the Jews of Hungary be likewise killed.

One example of alleged "dilution" that Evans gave was Irving's translation of "mussten verkommen" (in relation to the Polish Jews who could not work) as "had to waste away". Evans claims that Irving is thereby concealing Hitler's revelation that the non-working Jews were killed. However, I note that the excerpt from Schmidt's note of the meeting published in Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, posted by David, translates "verkommen" as "succumb", rather than the "perish" which Evans insists on. Furthermore, my Langenscheidt's dictionary gives for "verkommen" the following meanings:

"Decay, go to wrack and ruin, go to seed; Person: come down in the world, go to the dogs".

None of the above meanings specify death. It seems therefore that Irving's translation of "verkommmen" as "waste away" was an entirely fair rendering of what Hitler said to Horthy, and did not dilute the meaning of his words at all. There is in fact in Hitler's words no indication that Jews who could not work were actively killed, although there is the inference that they were left in the ghettos to their own devices.

Evans also claims that with those words, Hitler revealed his knowledge of "The Holocaust", contrary to Irving's thesis that Hitler had not ordered the extermination of the Jews and did not really have full knowledge of what was being done at lower levels. He also claims that Irving dishonestly distorted that revelation by Hitler, in order to preserve his thesis.

When we look at Schmidt's note of the meeting, the sense of which is fully detailed by Irving, we see that Hitler mentioned two groups of Polish Jews:

1. Those who could work but refused to ("refuse" is a more accurate translation of the German "nicht wollen" rather than the "did not want to" preferred by Evans); these were shot.

2. Those who could not work; these had to "verkommen", or "waste away" as Irving translates it, or "succumb" as it is translated in NCA.

There is a third group that Hitler does not mention; those who could work and did not refuse to do so. Obviously these were not shot, and were not left to "waste away". Presumably Hitler did not mention them since they were taken for granted; his purpose was to detail the strict measures to be taken against those who were a problem, either because they refused to work or were unable to.

Hitler's description of the situation in Poland in fact reflects decisions that were taken almost one year previously, in August 1942. Those decisions are revealed in Hans Frank's official diary, in the entry for 28 August. Frank revealed that a decision had been taken to continue feeding only those Jews who were working in the German interest; in fact, their rations were to be increased. Those who could not work would receive no further rations, and Frank drew the logical conclusion; they were condemned to death by starvation.

It appears that there was a food supply crisis in the summer of 1942, and Hitler was called upon to make a fundamental decision; either to approve a cut in the rations for the German population, or else to conserve food for Germans by cutting off supplies to certain other population groups in the occupied territories, in particular Jews who could not be used for labour in the German war effort. It is evident that Hitler chose the latter course, and that is the decision that is reflected in Frank's official diary and in Hitler's words to Horthy on 17 April 1943.

In making his decision of August 1942, Hitler must have known that those groups from which food was to be withheld would eventually starve, if there was no radical improvement in the food supply situation. Therefore, Evans's use of the word "perish" is a reasonable rendering of the implication of what would happen to the Jews who could not work. However, Hitler did not specifically state that to Horthy, and Irving's rendering as "waste away" is a totally accurate of both the literal meaning of the word Hitler used and the implication in it.

Furthermore, Hitler did not reveal an extermination plan to Horthy, not did he reveal any knowledge of such a plan or its implementation. In fact, the only group of Jews that he specifies as being actively killed consists of those who are able to work but refuse to; presumably these were a small number, and were shot as a punishment and to "encourage the others". Hitler does not show any knowledge of the deportation of non-working Jews to camps where they were killed.

Therefore, there is nothing in what Hitler said on 17 April that disproves Irving's thesis that Hitler did not issue an order to exterminate all Jews. Therefore, it cannot be claimed that Irving distorted Hitler's words in order to maintain that thesis.

To be sure, Hitler does reveal that Jews unable to work are abandoned to their fate, which is to gradually starve. But an order to conserve scarce food supplies by restricting its provision to those Jews who could work, while cutting off supplies to those who could not, thereby implying their eventual death from starvation, is not the same thing as a general extermination order, mandating the active killing of all Jews.

For that reason, I consider that Evans's critique of Irving in relation to the Klessheim is exaggerated, and driven by Evans's own pre-conceived view that Hitler did in fact issue an order to exterminate all Jews and was well-informed as to the progress of the implementation of that order. For that reason, Evans jumps to the conclusion that Hitler was revealing to Horthy that the Jews of Poland were being actively exterminated, and that he wanted the same extermination process applied to the Jews of Hungary. Such a conclusion is not compelled by the actual words recorded at the meeting, and Irving cannot be said to have dishonestly distorted the essence of what was said.

[Scott Smith]

For that reason, I consider that Evans's critique of Irving in relation to the Klessheim is exaggerated, and driven by Evans's own pre-conceived view that Hitler did in fact issue an order to exterminate all Jews and was well-informed as to the progress of the implementation of that order. For that reason, Evans jumps to the conclusion that Hitler was revealing to Horthy that the Jews of Poland were being actively exterminated, and that he wanted the same extermination process applied to the Jews of Hungary. Such a conclusion is not compelled by the actual words recorded at the meeting, and Irving cannot be said to have dishonestly distorted the essence of what was said.

Irving 1
Evans 0

[Roberto]

For that reason, I consider that Evans's critique of Irving in relation to the Klessheim is exaggerated, and driven by Evans's own pre-conceived view that Hitler did in fact issue an order to exterminate all Jews and was well-informed as to the progress of the implementation of that order.

[…]ii) The meeting between Hitler and Horthy on 16 and 17 April 1943.
1. The meeting between Hitler and Horthy on 16 and 17 April 1943 has generally been regarded by historians as one of the few occasions on which Hitler openly admitted the extermination of the Jews in Poland. The minutes of the meeting were taken by Dr. Paul Otto Schmidt, who confirmed them and added his own recollections at the Nuremberg trials. There is no doubt about their authenticity. The minutes for the meeting on 17 April 1943 record a statement by Ribbentrop, in Hitler's presence, to a point made by Horthy:
On Horthy's retort, what should he do with the Jews then, after he had pretty well taken all means of living from them - he surely couldn't beat them to death - The Reich Foreign Minister replied that the Jews must either be annihilated or taken to concentration camps. There was no other way.
2. This blunt statement by Ribbentrop contributed to the conclusion of the judges at the Nuremberg trials in October 1946, that Ribbentrop had played an important part in the 'final solution' and was guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
3. On 17 April 1943, Hitler almost immediately confirmed Ribbentrop's explicitly murderous statement at some length:
Where the Jews were left to themselves, as for example in Poland, gruesome poverty and degeneracy had ruled. They were just pure parasites. One had fundamentally cleared up this state of affairs in Poland. If the Jews there didn't want to work, they were shot. If they couldn't work, they had to perish. They had to be treated like tuberculosis bacilli, from which a healthy body could be infected. That was not cruel, if one remembered that even innocent natural creatures like hares and deer had to be killed so that no harm was caused. Why should one spare the beasts who wanted to bring us Bolshevism more? Nations who did not rid themselves of Jews perished.[my emphasis]
4. Despite this open language, Horthy was clearly not convinced about the need to murder large numbers of Jews, much to Hitler's annoyance.
[…]

Source of quote:

http://www.holocaustdenialontrial.com/e ... ans004.asp

Pre-conceived view ?

[michael mills]

Pre-conceived view ?

Indeed. With his statement that "Hitler openly admitted the extermination of the Jews in Poland", Evans is imposing his own pre-conceived view on Hitler's words as recorded by the interpreter, Schmidt.

Hitler mentions only one group of Polish Jews who are actively killed, by shooting; those who can work, but refuse to (the correct translation of "nicht arbeiten wollten"). This would be a rather small group, and the shooting would be a punishment or an initmidation of the rest, rather than an extermination.

Of those Polish Jews who could not work (a much larger group, in fact 60% according to Goebbels' diary), Hitler said that they "mussten verkommen". Irving's translation as "waste away", and the translation "succumb" in NCA, accurately reflect the meaning of "Verkomen"; Evans' translation as "perish" is tendentious, although in the long term death was the result of being locked up in the ghettos without food.

But the upshot is that Hitler does not say that the non-working Jews were actively exterminated. Whether he knew about the deportations to the death-camps and was hiding that fact from Horthy, or whether all he knew was the state of affairs in August 1942, when he had obviously approved a decision not to feed those Jews not working in the German interest, is something that cannot be determined from the record of the Klessheim meeting.

[VVVVV93]

Hi everyone, I was a Member back at the old site of TRF, over a year ago.
My researches since then have neither convinced me that the "Exterminationists" or the "Revisionists" are in the right. Soem of the most important material - like the pros and cons of the Leuchter report - are honestly way beyond my knowledge and expertise. So I have confined myself to studying the various diaries, documents, and conflicting scores of books on these matters, even fulfilled a 12 year quest to meet David Irving. Mr. Irving was, to my surprise, not merely approachable but came off like a regular Joe who one would just walk up to and converse with. He autographed my copy of Churchill's War (Vol. I), jokingly commenting on the notes I'd scribbled all over the beginning pages, and recommended I read Christopher Hitchens' piece on Churchill in the "Atlantic Weekly" (I think that's it's name) magazine; funny, a friend gave me that same Churchill issue a couple of weeks later.

I have perused, for instance, KErshaw's accalimed "Hitler" biography, and found error after error, that when checked with the diaries and records he cited, usually in his footnotes, amounted to either deliberate fraud and/or extremely shoddy scholarship.

Then we have Robert Payne, an even worse "scholar", and falsifier of history than Kershaw, whom claims that Hitler ordered the Jews to be killed via torture causing as much pain as possible - which John Toland's "Hitler" amusingly says the opposite, i.e. that Hitler ordered teh extermination of the Jews to be doen in the most humintarian way possible.

Everyone knows some of the unscholarly ways of the late Stephen Ambrose. In short, it seems to me that David Irving has been singled out and put under the microscope by a community that, were there work put under such a microsope, they would never show their faces again. Anyone who has read, "Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich" knows that if Irving was a "Holocaust Denier", he never would have written that book -itself perhaps the most authentically challenging piece to some of Irving's own hypotheses.

From the Goebbels diaries, and "Hitler's Table Talk", and corroborated by the Horthy memoirs (thank you so much for whomever gave the links for that in PDF format !!!), and Ribbentrop's and Schmidt's versions of the Klessheim meeting, I find a consistent policy by Hitler:

1. Jews (and Hebrews, too, of course, but since the Nazis didn't distinguish, I won't here) who were capable of work but refused to work were to be killed. Ferdinand Schorner, one of the greatest Generals of the Second World War, would treat his own troops in similar fashion.

2. Jews who could not work would be left to fend for themselves; in Poland meaning death by starvation, save for whomever, by the Law of Struggle, managed to obtain either constant rations or escape. He had no time, will, nor the resources to stamp them all down. (The Warsaw Ghetto was another story, being that thousands of Jews there were engaged in assinations, looting, etc., of the German soldiers and officials. Lidice, home to Czechs, ws treated in like fashion for merely tenuous connections to the assassins of Heydrich, himself at leats half Hebrew, his father being a Hebrew by the name of Suess).

Jews who lived in, say, Hungary, if left to fend for themselves, might not face starvation as certainly as they would in Poland, perhaps they might.

3. Jews who could work were not to be killed, Germany lost WWI (and would lose WWII) in large measure (though WWI was mainly lost through political pacts and manipulations by Bolshevism - whose leadership, I am sorry to say, was monoplized mainly by Hebrews in Germany, Russia, and Hungary) due to manpower inferiority to the enemy.

Now, there appeared to be a faction, represented by Goebbels, for one, who thought in Bolshevik-like terms of "kill as many as you can" shoudl be the policy. I don't think Hitler operated like this. Kill large numbers of Jews as hostages in reprisal for acts of sabotage and enemy terror bombing, sure. But Hitler was also a realist. Longerich has already admitted that Hitler nto only didn;t kill but sent what, 60-70,000 Jews to Palestine (to build a "Jewish State") ... why did HERSCHEL GRYNZSPAN survive the war in a Nazi Concentration Camp? Leon Blum ? survived. All blood-born Rothschilds and Warburgs? Survived. Hans Frank, NAzi Gauleiter of Poland? His father was a Jewish lawyer. Alfred Rosenberg? No Hebrew blood there ... Dr. Bloch ? Unharrassed, as far as I know.

And if you want to talk about falsifying History, the following quote has been "selectively edited" by every Hitler biographer I've ever read -including Irving, though Irving at least retains the flavour of it. The whole quote, though, is even more unsympathetic to the "Exterminationists":

"One must act radically. When one pulls out a tooth, one does it with a single tug, and the pain quickly goes away. The Jew must clear out of Europe. Otherwise no understanding will be possible between Europeans. It's the Jew who prevents everything. When I think about it, I realize that I'm extraordinarily humane. At the time of the rule of the Popes, the Jews were mistreated in Rome. Until 1830, eight Jews mounted on donkeys were led once a year through the streets of Rome. For my part, I restrict myself to telling them they must go away. If they break their pipes on the journey, I can't do anything about it. But if they refuse to go voluntarily, I see no other solution but extermination. Why should I look at a Jew through other eyes than if he were a Russian prisoner-of-war?
In the p.o.w. camps, many are dying. It's not my fault. I didn't want either the war or the p.o.w. camps. Why did the Jew provoke this war?
A good three or four hundred years will go by before the Jews set foot again in Europe. They'll return first of all as commercial travellers, then gradually they'll become emboldened to settle here -the better to exploit us. In the next stage, they become philanthropists, they endow foundations. When a Jew does that, the thing is particularly noticed -for it's known that they're dirty dogs. As a rule, it's the most rascally of them who do that sort of thing. And then you'll hear these poor Aryan boobies telling you: 'You see, there *are* good Jews!'

Let's suppose that one day National Socialism will undergo a change, and become used by a caste of privleged persons who exploit the people and cultivate money. One must hope that in that case a new reformer will arise and clean up the stables."

The date of the above "It's not my fault" quote is 23 January, 1942 - 3 days after the "Wannsee Conference"; Special Guests in attendance were HIMMLER, LAMMERS, and COLONEL ZEITZLER.

Source: "HITLER'S TABLE TALK: 1941 - 1944"; the Trevor-Roper edition, translated by Norman Cameron and R.H. Stevens.

Look at how some "historians" have butchered the above extremely important piece of evidence, and that's just Exhibit A. That quote doesn't prove the "Exterminationists" wrong, but to call Irving a "Falsifier of History" and to keep backign the Kershaws and Bullocks and Payne's of thsi world is downright libelous, not to mention hypocritical.

Glad to be back and sorry for the length here ... chalk it up to enthusiasm.

Marc Cohen

[Roberto]

Hi everyone, I was a Member back at the old site of TRF, over a year ago.

Yes, I remember. You had that interesting personal profile, which I recorded under "Words of a Nazi Herbrew":

I am a Hebrew whom, as a young child, instinctually rejected all religions as absurd nonsense. But I was nonetheless politically brainwashed by Jews in Hebrew School, and by Christists in regular school. At age 21, I realized that although there is no God (I knew that since I was first told of the silly concept as a child), there IS ultimate fulfillment of human potential. In short, we are ALL born GODS (i.e. humans who shine bright like Lucifer, the Bearer of Light), and only Judeo-Christist-Islamic programming makes Westerners forget this. I believe that a small group of Elitist, ignorant, power-mad Jewish financiers and string-pullers invaded human societies approximately 3500 years ago, and spread first the Jewish, next the Christist, and most recently the Bolshevik virus as progressively deadlier strains of dumming down the masses of humanity, to enslave them. I believe that Hitler tried to build a trans-materialistic, nature-oriented and harmonized evolutionary advancement of the Germanic peoples, and that he would have had much greater success if the relatively few Jewish warmongers had not turned the World into a bloodbath to stop him. I use the psychological and experiential symbols and gestalts of Pagan, neo-pagan, and 3.141593 other systems to raise myself beyond the muddle of mere humanness, and regain my birthright as Lord of the Earth; and I hope that others may attain the same perfection of their being. I would that Jews woke up and threw off the shackles of slavery that their parents and institutions have foisted upon them, and tear out the odious spectre of Zionist domination of the Hebrew people, and that reason, beauty, and love replace superstition, fear, and ignorance. I seek this Liberation for all humanity, but I think that Jews and Hebrews need to wake up first because only when the Zionist and Jewish religious-peddlers are known that they are not wanted by the new generations, will their poison be nullified. May the Christists overthrow their Pope, too, and the Moslems stop blowing themselves up for nonsense. The Eastern peoples (Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist) don't have a God, per se, in their original teachings; like the initiated Greek, Egyptian, and Roman teachings, they know that the "GODS" are merely names for the FORCES OF NATURE, and their formulae are THE LAWS OF SCIENCE AS UNDERSTOOD BY ENLIGHTENED, UNBIASED, CREATIVE, REASONABLE MINDS, PERFECTED BY HUMAN EXPERIENCE. As for the myth that Hitler wanted to exterminate all Jews, then explain why Herschel Grynszpan, and all blood-born Rothschilds and Warburgs survived Nazi rule and in some cases imprisonment? Explain why Milch, one of the most poweful military figures of the Third Reich by the end of the war, was a Hebrew. Explain why Hitler, as Fuhrer, remained friends with the Jewish doctor (Doctor Bloch) under whose care Hitler's mother Klara died? Probably a million or so Jews and Hebrews were killed under the Third Reich, a reprehensible thing, but no less or more reprehensible than the million or so German and European civilians murdered by Allied Terror Bombers from 1940-1945. Not to mention Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and everyone's favorite Allie and source for much 'Holocaust' material, Uncle Joe Stalin ... See you on the Third Reich Forum!

http://pub3.ezboard.com/uvvvvv93.showPu ... anguage=EN

The rockers on your hobby horse seem to be more than a little loose, but welcome to the forum anyway.

[Roberto]

Pre-conceived view ?

Indeed. With his statement that "Hitler openly admitted the extermination of the Jews in Poland", Evans is imposing his own pre-conceived view on Hitler's words as recorded by the interpreter, Schmidt.

I don't see Evans "imposing his own pre-conceived view" on Hitler's words. I see him interpreting them in the light of other evidence to what was going on.

Hitler mentions only one group of Polish Jews who are actively killed, by shooting; those who can work, but refuse to (the correct translation of "nicht arbeiten wollten"). This would be a rather small group, and the shooting would be a punishment or an initmidation of the rest, rather than an extermination.

Of those Polish Jews who could not work (a much larger group, in fact 60% according to Goebbels' diary), Hitler said that they "mussten verkommen". Irving's translation as "waste away", and the translation "succumb" in NCA, accurately reflect the meaning of "Verkomen"; Evans' translation as "perish" is tendentious, although in the long term death was the result of being locked up in the ghettos without food.

Given that their death was mostly the result of active killing rather than "being locked up in the ghettos without food", I wouldn't consider the term "perish" to be "tendentious". What Evans can be accused of is interpreting the meaning of the term in the light of other evidence he knows of instead of rendering it literally.

But the upshot is that Hitler does not say that the non-working Jews were actively exterminated. Whether he knew about the deportations to the death-camps and was hiding that fact from Horthy, or whether all he knew was the state of affairs in August 1942, when he had obviously approved a decision not to feed those Jews not working in the German interest, is something that cannot be determined from the record of the Klessheim meeting.

Yeah, sure.

[...]They had to be treated like tuberculosis bacilli, from which a healthy body could be infected. That was not cruel, if one remembered that even innocent natural creatures like hares and deer had to be killed so that no harm was caused. Why should one spare the beasts who wanted to bring us Bolshevism more?[...]

Whence the idea that Hitler "had obviously approved a decision not to feed those Jews not working in the German interest", by the way ?

I presume this is a reference to Frank's declaration of 24 August 1942 quoted on page 220 of Christian Gerlach’s Krieg, Ernährung, Völkermord:

Daß wir 1,2 Millionen Juden zum Hungertod verurteilen, sei nur am Rande festgestellt. Es ist selbstverständlich, daß ein Nichtverhungern der Juden hoffentlich eine Beschleunigung der antijüdischen Maßnahmen zur Folge haben wird.

My translation:

Let it be noted as a mere aside that we herewith condemn 1.2 million Jews to death by starvation. It is understood that a non-starvation of the Jews will hopefully lead to an acceleration of the anti-Jewish measures.

The fact that 1.2 million people were to die was "noted as a mere aside" ("nur am Rande festgestellt"). That Jews were meant to die was already an established and accepted fact deserving no further considerations. The key word of the second sentence is "acceleration". At the time when Frank made this statement, deportations to Belzec and Sobibor were already in full swing, and a large part of the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto had already been killed at Treblinka. Frank was not calling for the commencement of extermination, for which the overall "go ahead" had already been given by Hitler on 12 December 1941. He was only calling for things to go faster.

[VVVVV93]

Thansk for teh welcome back, Roberto, but could you do me a favor?
Cease from slandering me by calling me a "Nazi". I'm glad you quoted my whole profile, because anyone who reads it can see that I call Nazi mass killings of Jews and Hebrews a horrible thing, and that my beef is with the Jewish (and Christist and Islamic) Religion.

Disagree with my views, great, that's part of what makes this Forum so rewarding. Question my sanity, hey, I can laugh that off, just as I would question your sanity for interpreting my profile to mean that I'm a "Nazi Hebrew" ... but don't call me a Nazi. National Socialism was (as I have written elsewhere) a reactionary antidote to Old Testament based societies (Jewish or Christist) in Eurasia; but, like another Reaction to Old-Testament based societies, Islam, Nazi-ism incorporated a lot of the Old Testament mentalities, methodologies, and bigotries, and hence is as condemned to the dustbin of history as these others.

Now ... how on Earth do you come up with Decemeber 12, 1941 as "the" date that Hitler ordered teh extermination of the Jews? If you can prove this you will have saved many of us countles hours of difficult research and cross-referncing of source materials.

Cheers,

Marc
(Not A Nazi; my favorite Political reformers are Marcus Aurelius, Alexander the Great, and Thomas Jefferson)

[Roberto]

Thansk for teh welcome back, Roberto, but could you do me a favor?
Cease from slandering me by calling me a "Nazi". I'm glad you quoted my whole profile, because anyone who reads it can see that I call Nazi mass killings of Jews and Hebrews a horrible thing, and that my beef is with the Jewish (and Christist and Islamic) Religion.

OK, no Nazi. Rest remains.

Now ... how on Earth do you come up with Decemeber 12, 1941 as "the" date that Hitler ordered teh extermination of the Jews? If you can prove this you will have saved many of us countles hours of difficult research and cross-referncing of source materials.

A conclusion based on several pieces of documentary evidence, also endorsed by a German historian of note.

Have a look at some of the documents.

Goebbels' diary entry regading Hitler's statements on 12 December 1941:

Bezüglich der Judenfrage ist der Führer entschlossen, reinen Tisch zu machen. Er hat den Juden prophezeit, daß, wenn sie noch einmal einen Weltkrieg herbeiführen würden, sie dabei ihre Vernichtung erleben würden. Das ist keine Phrase gewesen. Der Weltkrieg ist da, die Vernichtung des Judentums muß die notwendige Folge sein.

Translation:

In respect of the Jewish Question, the Führer has decided to make a clean sweep. He prophesied to the Jews that if they again brought about a world war, they would experience their annihilation in it. That wasn't just a catch-word. The world war is here, and the annihilation of Jewry must be the necessary consequence.

Source:

http://www.holocaust-history.org/nazis-words/

Emphases are mine.

What this "annihilation of Jewry" meant and how it was to be brought about is made clear by the recollections of Hitler's statements by another participant in the meeting, governor of Poland Hans Frank. In a speech to members of his staff on 16 December 1941, he stated the following:

"As far as the Jews are concerned, I want to tell you quite frankly, that they must be done away with in one way or another. The Fuehrer said once: should united Jewry again succeed in provoking a world war, the blood of not only the nations which have been forced into the war by them, will be shed, but the Jew will have found his end in Europe * * *
"Gentlemen, I must ask you to rid yourselves of all feeling of pity. We must annihilate the Jews, wherever we find them and wherever it is possible, in order to maintain here the structure of the Reich as a whole. This will, naturally, be achieved by other methods than those pointed out by Bureau Chief Dr. Hummel. Nor can the judges of the Special Courts be made responsible for it, because of the limitations of the framework of the legal procedure. Such outdated views cannot be applied to such gigantic and unique events. We must find at any rate, a way which leads to the goal, and my thoughts are working in that direction.
"The Jews represent for us also extraordinarily malignant gluttons. We have now approximately 2,500,000 of them in the General Government, perhaps with the Jewish mixtures and everything that goes with it, 3,500,000 Jews. We cannot shoot or poison those 3,500,000 Jews, but we shall nevertheless be able to take measures, which will lead, somehow, to their annihilation, and this in connection with the gigantic measures to be determined in discussions from the Reich. The General Government must become free of Jews, the same as the Reich. Where and how this is to be achieved is a matter for the offices which we must appoint and create here. Their activities will be brought to your attention in due course."

Source:
http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/Frank.htm

Emphases are mine. The first is to point out the similarity with Goebbels' diary entry, which suggests that Frank was referring to the same source as Goebbels - the Führer's utterances on 12 December 1941 in which he harked back to his "prophecy" made years before. The second is to point out a passage where it becomes very clear that "annihilation" was meant in a physical, homicidal sense and that it had been decided upon on an overall and not just regional level, hence Frank's reference to "gigantic measures to be determined in discussions from the Reich". The "discussions from the Reich" that Frank referred to were the so-called Wannsee Conference that took place on 20 January 1942, in which Frank was represented by State Secretary Dr. Bühler and where the intended fate of European Jews was outlined as follows:

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.)

In the course of the practical execution of the final solution, Europe will be combed through from west to east. Germany proper, including the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, will have to be handled first due to the housing problem and additional social and political necessities.

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

While these passages expressly address only the fate of the able-bodied Jews capable of working, the intended fate of non-Jews is implicit. If the working Jews were to be "eliminated by natural causes" (i.e. worked to death) and the survivors were eventually to be "treated accordingly", there can be no doubt that the non-working and therefore useless Jews were to be "treated accordingly" right away.

The original plan to "comb" Europe from west to east suffered an alteration pursuant to the request formulated by State Secretary Dr. Bühler:

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

[Side note for Mark: If you read the Wannsee Protocol, by the way, you may also find the answer to the question in your profile why Milch, a Jewish "half-breed", wasn't bothered.]

Contrary to the original intention, the "final solution of this problem" thus commenced in the General Government, as noted by Goebbels in his diary entry of 27 March 1942, ten days after the deportations from Lublin to Belzec extermination camp. It is worth while to read the whole of Goebbels' diary entry of that day, for Goebbels' notes make clear that the "barbaric process" of deportation and liquidation of the Jews from the General Government was but the beginning of the execution of the "final solution of this problem" outlined at the Wannsee Conference. It also leaves no room for doubt about the genocidal nature of this "final solution":

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.

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.

Source:
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/g/goe ... 942-mar-27

Emphases are mine.

And now have a look at the mentioned German historian's characterization of the Führer’s “go ahead”. The following passages I translated from the book Krieg, Ernährung, Völkermord, by Christian Gerlach.

Page 131:

[…]The ministry’s directive passed on by Bräutigam did not, on the other hand, mean that all Jews were to be killed immediately; it only indicated a line of principle. This is important for the understanding of Hitler’s initiative in December 1941 as a whole, which was not a concrete instruction to begin with the murder of the Jews immediately and everywhere or to conclude it, but a decision of principle. The practical organization and the speed of extermination were to a great extent left to the competent bodies.[…]

Pages 160 and following:

[…]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.

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.[...]

You may also read the following articles on Gerlach's thesis:

December 12, 1941 (2000 words), by Götz Aly (translation by Gord McFee).
http://www.holocaust-history.org/december-12-1941/

When Did Hitler Decide On The Final Solution? (2000 words), by Gord McFee.
http://www.holocaust-history.org/hitler-final-solution/

As we're at it, you stated in your profile that

a million or so Jews and Hebrews were killed under the Third Reich

The documents mentioned hereafter refer only to a part of the process, but they speak 1,274,166 Jews from the Polish General Goverment about whose fate I ask you the questions following the quotes.

The Korherr Report (excerpt)

[...]
4. Transportierung von Juden aus den
Ostprovinzen nach dem russischen
Osten: ............................1 449 692 "
Es wurden durchgeschleust
durch die Lager im General-
gouvernement..................... 1 274 166 Juden
durch die Lager im Warthegau..... 145 301 Juden[...]

My translation:

[...]4. Transportation of Jews from the
eastern provinces to the Russian
East: ............................ 1 449 692 "
The following numbers were sifted
through the camps in the General
government ............. ........ 1 274 166 Jews
through the camps in the Warthegau..... 145 301 Jews[...]

My translation of the whole report and a link to a transcription of the original German text can be found under

http://www.thirdreichforum.com/phpBB2/v ... 2b17fbd73a

Sturmbannführer Höfle's report of 11 January 1943 to Obersturmbannführer Heim

13/15. OLQ de OMQ 1005 83 234 250
Geheime Reichssache! An den Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspol., zu Händen SS Obersturmbannführer HEIM, KRAKAU. Betr. 14-tägige Meldung Einsatz REINHART. Bezug: dort. Fs. Zugang bis 31.12.42, L 12761,B 0, S 515, T 10335 zusammen 23611. Stand ... 31.12.42, L 24733, B 434508, S 101370, T 71355, zusammen 1274166.
SS und Pol.führer LUBLIN, HOEFLE, Sturmbannführer.

Source:

http://www.fpp.co.uk/Auschwitz/docs/dec ... html#Hofle

Translation by the British decoding service at Bletchley Park (which intercepted the message), courtesy of our fellow poster Charles Bunch:

13/15. OLQ de OMQ 1005 83 234 250

State Secret!

To the Senior Commander of the Security Police [and the Security Service], for the attention of SS Obersturmbannfuhrer HEIM, CRACOW.

Subject: fortnightly report Einsatz REINHART.
Reference: radio telegram therefrom.

recorded arrivals until December 31, 42,

L [Lublin] 12,761,
B [Belzec] 0,
S [Sobibor] 515,
T [Treblinka] 10 335 [,]

together 23 611

sum total…[as per] December 31, 42,

L 24 733,
B 434 508,
S 101 370,
T 71 355, read: 713 555]

together 1 274 166

SS and Police Leader Lublin, HOFLE, Sturmbannfuhrer

Any idea what happened to these 1,274,166 Jews from the Polish General Government, Marc ? Do you think they were sent "to the Russian East" after arriving at the mentioned camps, as is stated in the Korherr Report ?

If so, do you know of any evidence to their transportation to and arrival in the "Russian East", and to what happened to them there ?

Another question of mine, which I already asked you on the old forum,
relates to the

million or so German and European civilians murdered by Allied Terror Bombers from 1940-1945

that you mentioned in your profile.

Where did you dig up this figure ?

[Scott Smith]

Hi everyone, I was a Member back at the old site of TRF, over a year ago.

Hi Marc!

...I read Christopher Hitchens' piece on Churchill in the "Atlantic Weekly" (I think that's it's name) magazine; funny, a friend gave me that same Churchill issue a couple of weeks later.

Here it is:

CLICK!

[tonyh]

One mistake in that article...

Norman Shelly voiced Larry the Lamb not whinne the pooh.

Not that it matters a jot, but I always get a chuckle when I imagine that Larry the Lamb urged the British people to "fight on the beaches"



Tony

[michael mills]

Roberto has misunderstood the issue in this thread.

It is not what was actually happening to the Jews in April 1943.

It is whether Hitler revealed to Horthy on 17 April 1943, at their Klessheim meeting, his intention to exterminate the Jews of Hungary, in the same way as the Jews of Poland had been exterminated.

Evans claims that Hitler did reveal such an exterminatory intention. He also claims that Irving dishonestly concealed that revealtion by distorting the record of the meeting. He implies that Irving did so in order to preserve his thesis that Hitler did not order a general extermination of Jews, and that there is no written evidence that he did so.

My analysis of the record of the meeting on 17 April made by Schmidt, shows that Hitler did not reveal the extermination of the Jews of Poland. He revealed that the Jews who could not work had been left to "waste away"; he was not specific about the Jews who could work, except to say that those who refused to work were shot, obviously as an example to the rest. But he said nothing about active mass-killing.

Furthermore, neither Hitler nor Ribbentrop revealed an intention to exterminate the Jews of Hungary. What they were urging Horthy to do was to confine the Hungarian Jews to concentration camps; they said nothing about deporting them. When Ribbentrop referred to "annihilating" the Jews, it is clear that he meant that there was no alternative to confining them in concentration camps.

The upshot of the above is that there is nothing in the record of the Klessheim meeting of 16-17 April that makes it explicit that Hitler had issued an extermination order. Therefore, there is nothing in the record that disproves Irving's thesis that Hitler did not issue such an order. Therefore, Irving did not distort the essence of the record of the meeting, even though in his 1977 edition of "Hitler's War" he did not adequately distinguish between what was said on 16 April and what was said the next day. Accordingly, Evans' criticism of Irving on this point was exaggerated.

[Roberto]

Roberto has misunderstood the issue in this thread.

It is not what was actually happening to the Jews in April 1943.

It is whether Hitler revealed to Horthy on 17 April 1943, at their Klessheim meeting, his intention to exterminate the Jews of Hungary, in the same way as the Jews of Poland had been exterminated.

Threads on this forum have a tendency to move away from the original issue. This one would be a great exception if it had not.

And then, from what statements of mine do you conclude that I "misunderstood the issue in this thread", Mills ?

Evans claims that Hitler did reveal such an exterminatory intention. He also claims that Irving dishonestly concealed that revealtion by distorting the record of the meeting. He implies that Irving did so in order to preserve his thesis that Hitler did not order a general extermination of Jews, and that there is no written evidence that he did so.

My analysis of the record of the meeting on 17 April made by Schmidt, shows that Hitler did not reveal the extermination of the Jews of Poland. He revealed that the Jews who could not work had been left to "waste away"; he was not specific about the Jews who could work, except to say that those who refused to work were shot, obviously as an example to the rest. But he said nothing about active mass-killing.

Furthermore, neither Hitler nor Ribbentrop revealed an intention to exterminate the Jews of Hungary. What they were urging Horthy to do was to confine the Hungarian Jews to concentration camps; they said nothing about deporting them. When Ribbentrop referred to "annihilating" the Jews, it is clear that he meant that there was no alternative to confining them in concentration camps.

The upshot of the above is that there is nothing in the record of the Klessheim meeting of 16-17 April that makes it explicit that Hitler had issued an extermination order. Therefore, there is nothing in the record that disproves Irving's thesis that Hitler did not issue such an order. Therefore, Irving did not distort the essence of the record of the meeting, even though in his 1977 edition of "Hitler's War" he did not adequately distinguish between what was said on 16 April and what was said the next day. Accordingly, Evans' criticism of Irving on this point was exaggerated.

I appreciate your ongoing valiant efforts to defend your old friend Irving.

(An interesting link for the newcomers:

http://www.fpp.co.uk/docs/trial/Forward100300.html )

How your considerations affect those of mine you are obviously referring to:

Pre-conceived view ?

Indeed. With his statement that "Hitler openly admitted the extermination of the Jews in Poland", Evans is imposing his own pre-conceived view on Hitler's words as recorded by the interpreter, Schmidt.

I don't see Evans "imposing his own pre-conceived view" on Hitler's words. I see him interpreting them in the light of other evidence to what was going on.

Hitler mentions only one group of Polish Jews who are actively killed, by shooting; those who can work, but refuse to (the correct translation of "nicht arbeiten wollten"). This would be a rather small group, and the shooting would be a punishment or an initmidation of the rest, rather than an extermination.

Of those Polish Jews who could not work (a much larger group, in fact 60% according to Goebbels' diary), Hitler said that they "mussten verkommen". Irving's translation as "waste away", and the translation "succumb" in NCA, accurately reflect the meaning of "Verkomen"; Evans' translation as "perish" is tendentious, although in the long term death was the result of being locked up in the ghettos without food.

Given that their death was mostly the result of active killing rather than "being locked up in the ghettos without food", I wouldn't consider the term "perish" to be "tendentious". What Evans can be accused of is interpreting the meaning of the term in the light of other evidence he knows of instead of rendering it literally.

But the upshot is that Hitler does not say that the non-working Jews were actively exterminated. Whether he knew about the deportations to the death-camps and was hiding that fact from Horthy, or whether all he knew was the state of affairs in August 1942, when he had obviously approved a decision not to feed those Jews not working in the German interest, is something that cannot be determined from the record of the Klessheim meeting.

Yeah, sure.

[...]They had to be treated like tuberculosis bacilli, from which a healthy body could be infected. That was not cruel, if one remembered that even innocent natural creatures like hares and deer had to be killed so that no harm was caused. Why should one spare the beasts who wanted to bring us Bolshevism more?[...]

I well let our audience decide.

[Tarpon27]

Michael Mills wrote:

Furthermore, neither Hitler nor Ribbentrop revealed an intention to exterminate the Jews of Hungary. What they were urging Horthy to do was to confine the Hungarian Jews to concentration camps; they said nothing about deporting them. When Ribbentrop referred to "annihilating" the Jews, it is clear that he meant that there was no alternative to confining them in concentration camps.

I am obviously confused. It appears that Ribbentrop directly suggests two alternatives.

The passage in question, from three different sources:

“On Horthy’s retort, what should he do with the Jews then, after he had taken pretty well all means of living from them – he surely couldn’t beat them to death – the Reich Foreign Minister replied that the Jews must either be annihilated or taken to concentration camps. There was no other way”.

--Excerpt from the Judgement, as posted on this thread by Michael Mills

To Horthy's counter-question as to what he should do with the Jews now that he had deprived them of almost all possibilities of livelihood, he could not kill them off--the Reich Foreign Minister declared that the Jews must either be exterminated or taken to extermination camps.

Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Vol. 7 pp.190-91, as posted on this thread by David Thompson

On April 16 the interpreter recorded Ribbentrop as advising Horthy that he would have to confine his Jews to concentration camps if he were not to liquidate them: there was no third way.

David Irving, _Hitler's War_, pp. 579-80, 2001 Edition, as posted to this thread by David Thompson

Perhaps I misunderstand, Michael, but it appears from the statement attributed to Ribbentrop that annihilation or concentration camps is what is to be done to the Jews of Hungary.


From the introduction to the Evans Report:

1.5.8 The two researchers compiled transcripts of the salient parts of the audiocassettes and videotapes and went through the material supplied by Irving during the process of Discovery, taking extensive notes. It was of course impossible to cover the whole of Irving’s oeuvre with complete thoroughness, and some principle of selectivity had to be applied. We decided that I would cover Irving’s general reputation as a historian, Irving’s attitude to Hitler, and the central issue of whether or not Irving was a Holocaust denier. On the equally important matter of whether or not Irving distorted and falsified history, we decided to concentrate on the ‘chain of documents’ which Irving on various occasions had claimed proved Hitler’s ignorance and disapproval of the Nazi persecution and extermination of the Jews. Each document was assigned to one or other of the research assistants for preliminary analysis. In this way we covered the entire documentary basis for Irving’s controversial claim.

One of the fundamental purposes of the Evans Report in the context of the lawsuit was to examine what Irving cvalled his "chain of documents" that he (Irving) claimed provided the basis for his claim that Hitler was "probably the biggest friend the Jews had in the Third Reich."

The meat of his report, though, and the pillars of the defense case against Irving, are two sets of case studies. The first examines the nine links in Irving's "chain of documents." The second set, which takes up over 200 pages of the report, looks at Irving's use of evidence at three different stages of his career: his first book on the firebombing of Dresden, his treatment of the testimony of Hitler's adjutants in his book _Hitler's War_, and the explanation Irving gives for Nazi anti-semitism, mostly taken from his Goebbels biography.

D. D. Guttenplan, _The Holocaust on Trial_, ISBN 0-393-02044-4, 2001, p. 225

The lawsuit was served in July, 1996, with trial beginning in January, 2000. It would hardly be possible for Evans to review the 2001 version of _Hitler's War_, since the Judgement was in July of 2000.

Whether or not Mr. Mills is referring to an extermination order for Polish, Hungarian, or all Jews, by Hitler, is immaterial to the point of the Evans Report for the lawsuit. The Horthy/Hitler meeting was examined as part of the "chain of documents" Irving said indicated Hitler was a "negative force" in the matter of the extermination of Jews.

Regards,

Mark