This applies to internal documents as well, such as the Korherr report. Another interesting example is the use of vocab by Aktion 1005 unit http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot. ... 05_11.html
Certainly spies were a concern and probably code breakers as well, do we know if coded documents use any special vocabulary? The one I am familiar with, Hoefle telegram, refrains from use of descriptive language in general. I also just learned of these, which also are barebone. [http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot. ... s-and.html.
But the real thing I'm interested in is secrecy within the the Nazi leadership itself. As main executors of the holocaust, how much did the SS need to involve other departments? From the Nuremberg testimonies (which are obviously unreliable) you get the picture that ONLY the SS knew and they kept this from everyone else. In the face of alarming 'atrocity reports' from the allies, Nuremberg defendants vividly describe extravagant journeys trying to get to the bottom of the issue.
At first one would imagine the holocaust as sort of an open secret, but how clear is the record really on this?I asked Heinrich Himmler for this special permission. He said that he would urge me not to go to the camp. Again some time passed. On 7 February 1944 I succeeded in being received by Adolf Hitler personally-I might add that throughout the war he received me three times only. In the presence of Bormann I put the question to him: "My Fuehrer, rumors about the extermination of the Jews will not be silenced. They are heard everywhere. No one is allowed in anywhere. Once I paid a surprise visit to Auschwitz in order to see the camp, but I was told that there was an epidemic in the camp and my car was diverted before I got there. Tell me, My Fuehrer, is there anything in it?" The Fuehrer said, "You can very well imagine that there are executions going on-of insurgents. Apart from that I do not know anything. Why don't you speak to Heinrich Himmler about it?" And I said. "Well, Himmler made a speech to us in Krakow and declared in front of all the people whom I had officially called to the meeting that these rumors about the systematic extermination of the Jews were false; the Jews were merely being brought to the East." Thereupon the Fuehrer said, "Then you must believe that."
A few passages from the fascinating book 'Tapping Hitler's Generals', which is transcripts of wiretaps of high ranking military personnel, who apparently should have been able to get info on such things
KITTEL: In UPPER SILESIA they simply slaughtered the people
systematically. They were gassed in a big hall.300
SCHAEFER: When was that done?
KITTEL: Up till the spring, then it was stopped.
SCHAEFER: Who are the people concerned?
KITTEL: I don’t know. There’s the greatest secrecy about all those things.
SCHAEFER: One can hardly believe that such a thing could happen in the
world.
In Goebbels two speeches to the propaganda department, which can only be taken as a response to widespread western allegations of mass slaughter of Jews at the AR camps, he presents the case as something wholly different. Deportation rather, might be the alleged crime.THOMA: In the paper today there are details of the mass poisonings, that gas
business. I know it’s true, because the people who did it told me about it
themselves.
BASSENGE: I don’t know, but I presume it is . . . 100 per cent correct.
THOMA: Yes, I heard of it from a man who had to do it. It was SS men and
Gestapo youths who rounded up the Jews and so on, and as they had no
technical experts amongst their own numbers, chemists who were in the
gas department of the Ordnance Branch, had to work with them. One
man told me himself with horror that that time in RUSSIA was the most
appalling time of his life; I said I wouldn’t have done it.
THOMA: When I’ve got both the German and English news service I can
roughly sift out what’s true.
BASSENGE: Obviously everyone lies like a trooper in war-time and here
one has the opportunity of hearing both sides–
THOMA: We get a clearer picture than the Generals in command at the
front.
BASSENGE: We were never so well-informed as we are here.
Since the hostile news reports of the alleged German atrocities against Jews and Poles are coming thick and fast, and since it’s the case that we can’t produce a great deal of proof to the contrary, the Minister recommends, according to the principle that the best defense is a good offense[…] that we start producing some atrocity propaganda on our own side[…]. Just as the English, we too can refer to wholly vague sources which say something like, ‘Trustworthy individuals, just recently arrived in Lisbonfrom Cairo, report that so-and-so many leading Egyptians have been shot,and so on.
The Minister, with all urgency, considers it an absolute necessity tobegin a large-scale campaign to exonerate ourselves in the Jewish question, starting immediately. There is no longer any doubt that the Jewish question must be made an issue in the world generally, in a big way. At themoment, there is no way we can answer these things. If the Jews say, forexample, we shot 2.5 million Jews in Poland or deported them to the East,we can’t of course say, it was only 2.3 million. We are not in a position toenter a discussion of these things, at least not in public.What’s more, the international public is not well enough informed onthe Jewish question for us to be able to say, ‘Yes, we did it, and here’s thereason why.’ We couldn’t even get a word in edgeways. Thus, a relief campaign in the grandest style must now be made. If, for example, TO [Germannews agency Transocean; P. L.] reports that 500 people have been arrested[i.e., by the British] in India, we must not simply repeat the report in thisform, but rather must say: ‘378 have been shot and 82 more have beenhanged; the rest have been sentenced to starvation.’ All reports of this kind[…] must now be greatly exaggerated, even as the enemy does, the otherway around, with his atrocity reports on the Jewish question
Indeed, even within the upper echelons of the SS it's unclear how much information was openly shared. What do you all make of this passage, between Himmler and SS chief Muller?
On first glance, a term like "the great Jewish emigration" seems somewhat like an ironic in-joke, but why does he need to use the word "lies"?(1) I am not surprised that reports like these circulate in the world regarding the great Jewish emigration. We also know that among Jews sent to work, mortality is very high.
(2) Your responsibility is to see that the dead Jewish bodies are buried or cremated. It is forbidden to do anything else with the bodies.
(3) Please investigate whether somebody had misused our intentions according to the above
mentioned first paragraph, and caused the spread of lies around the world. Every such misuse
has to be reported to me under the oath of the SS.
Finally we have the Pozen speech, where according to many SS tried at Nuremberg, they first learned of the extermination plans. Yet in the speech, Himmler says 'every Party member will tell you “perfectly clear, it’s part of our plans, we’re eliminating the Jews, exterminating them, a small matter.”
Yet here is a part of the speech glorifying secrecy and the discreteness.
I am not sure what to make of all this perhaps contradictory information. Personally I doubt the holocaust was exactly an open secret, something much talked about. Rather I think Nazis hid this information from themselves not just to prevent it from falling into foreign hands, but also for their own sake. Certainly not all of them were monsters in the clinical sense. Euphemism can be a valuable thing. The SS may have seen things differently, one gets the sense from the brief passage in the Pozen speech, they viewed themselves as keepers of something approaching a religious secret.I also want to mention a very difficult subject before you here, completely openly. It should be discussed amongst us, and yet, nevertheless, we will never speak about it in public.Just as we did not hesitate on June 30 to carry out our duty, as ordered, and stand comrades who had failed against the wall and shoot them.About which we have never spoken, and never will speak.That was, thank God, a kind of tact natural to us, a foregone conclusion of that tact, that we have never conversed about it amongst ourselves, never spoken about it, everyone shuddered, and everyone was clear that the next time, he would do the same thing again, if it were commanded and necessary.
What are your guys thoughts on how the holocaust was viewed by Nazi leadership? Any interesting books or primary source documents? How about encrypted documents, perhaps some that might be more wordy?
