Reinhard Heydrich

[Michael Miller]

Mr. Mills wrote:

And Earldor's comments on "Sonderbehandlung" simply demonstrate his lack of knowledge on the subject. I suggest he read some books rather than relying on partisan websites.

And WalterS wrote:

Mr Mills's attempt to put a benign face on Heydrich and the Wannsee Conference is exposed for the Nazi apologia and skillful non-denial denial of the Holocaust that it is.

And Earldor wrote:

That is simply mr. Mills distorting the historical facts to whitewash Heydrich.

And I write: Although the topic at hand naturally causes tempers to flare and although it is sometimes difficult to hold back one's emotions in this particular forum, I'd like to remind all participants that this is a research forum. Personal commentary about other visitors has no place here. Make your points with facts, not insults.

Thanks for your cooperation.

~ Mike Miller

[WalterS]

Michael Miller wrote:

Personal commentary about other visitors has no place here. Make your points with facts, not insults.

I did make my point using facts, and I also pointed out Mr Mills's failure to do the same. My characterization of his arguments as Nazi apologia are not an insult, but rather a "warning label."

I'd like to remind all participants that this is a research forum.

That's all well and good. But when posters deliberately distort and fabricate things, they need to be called out on it. That's what I did here, and I stand by it.

[xcalibur]

Mr. Mills wrote:

And Earldor's comments on "Sonderbehandlung" simply demonstrate his lack of knowledge on the subject. I suggest he read some books rather than relying on partisan websites.

And WalterS wrote:

Mr Mills's attempt to put a benign face on Heydrich and the Wannsee Conference is exposed for the Nazi apologia and skillful non-denial denial of the Holocaust that it is.

And Earldor wrote:

That is simply mr. Mills distorting the historical facts to whitewash Heydrich.

And I write: Although the topic at hand naturally causes tempers to flare and although it is sometimes difficult to hold back one's emotions in this particular forum, I'd like to remind all participants that this is a research forum. Personal commentary about other visitors has no place here. Make your points with facts, not insults.

Thanks for your cooperation.

~ Mike Miller

Mike, Whilst appreciating the fact that one wishes to maintain a sense of civility herein this thread, as well as the forum as a whole, Mills has established himself here as "a dissident historian". Fair enough. However, it does set him apart from other's points of view, and lively dissonance with his point of view should be allowed. It does seem therefore likely that there is, and will be, some passionate disagreements with his point of view, as well as other disparate opinions. Sometimes these will be addressed personally. Seems to me that Mills responds to what he wants to and doesn't when so inclined. And he seems fully capable of defending his ideas, speculations, and cetera, in spite of other commentary.



It may seem personal, and after last March's experience seem horrible, yet I'm not sure it's so out of line.

[michael mills]

WalterS wrote:

That's all well and good. But when posters deliberately distort and fabricate things, they need to be called out on it. That's what I did here, and I stand by it.

Perhaps WalterS could state precisely what he claims I have distorted and fabricated, and I will refute his claims.

The claimed incidences have to be real distortions and fabrications, not just differing interpretations of the documentary evidence. For example, to explain references in German documents to a plan to deport Jews to the White Sea as not genuine and just a smokescreen is simply one interpretation of those references, and not an undisputed truth; the contrary explanation, that there was genuine plan that was not implemented, is an alternative explanation and not a distortion.

[WalterS]

Read your own posts. You attempted to put a benign spin on Heydrich and the Wannsee conference by stating he presented a plan to settle Jews on the White Sea. That didn't happen. There is no mention of such a plan in the Wansee notes. And you know it. It is a deliberate distortion when you attempt to present things that are not so.

Your statements are not guided by "reasonable disagreement." They are guided by an effort to diminish the crimes of the German Government in order to establish a "moral equivalency" with everyone else. This is why you attempt to thrust this nonsense about Heydrich presenting a plan for camps on the White Sea at Wannsee, and why you find an Allied war crime under every rock.

I will note that you have not refuted any of the statements I made, merely squirmed around the point. Please point out to us where in the Wannsee notes any discussion of camps on the White Sea occurs. You stated that Heydrich presented such a plan at Wannsee. Show me in the notes where such a plan is discussed.

[michael mills]

All right, I have re-read my own posts, and I see that in my first post I wrote:

From early 1941 onward, Heydrich developed a plan to deport all the Jews of the German area of influence in Europe into the territory to be conquered from the Soviet Union, apparently to camps in the White Sea area. That was the plan he outlined at the Wannsee Conference.

I see that the order of the sentences could be misleading, and I will reformulate it as follows, so as to make the meaning clear to even the most malevolent reader:

From early 1941 onward, Heydrich developed a plan to deport all the Jews of the German area of influence in Europe into the territory to be conquered from the Soviet Union. That was the plan he outlined at the Wannsee Conference.

Apparently the Jews were to be sent to camps in the White Sea area; there are various references to such a destination in the scanty surviving documentation of the deportation plan.

The above formulation makes it clear that Heydrich outlined to the assembled State Secretaries the plan to deport the Jews into the Occupied Eastern Territories (ie the occupied part of the Soviet Union), without mentioning the White Sea area as the intended destination. Or to be more precise, the minutes of the meeting do not mention the White Sea destination.

[michael mills]

Here is some information I posted in Februeary this year, concerning the White Sea plan.

Two weeks after the well-known Wannsee Conference, at a meeting in Prague on 4 February 1942, Heydrich stated that the sector of the Czech population that could not be germanised could be sent to the White Sea region to serve as guard personnel for the European Jews who were to be deported there.

Heydrich's speech is reproduced in the book "Protektoratni Politika Reinharda Heydricha", edited by Miroslav Karny, Prague 1991, document no. 61, pages 212-224, and is quoted in the book "Auschwitz 17. Juli 1942: Der Weg zur europäischen >>Endlösung der Judenfrage<<", by the German historian Professor Emeritus Hans Mommsen.

That statement is entirely consistent with Heydrich's statement at the Wannsee Conference that the Jews of all Europe were to be deported into the occupied Soviet territories. It provides a supplement to what Heydrich said at Wannsee, explaining that the deported Jews were to be held in camps in the White Sea region, and that non-germanisable Czechs rather than Germans were to be used to guard them.

The statement of 4 February 1942 is also consistent with what Heydrich told Goebbels on 23 September 1941; he had said that the Jews were to be deported to the White Sea region, as recorded by Goebbels in his diary (Goebbels Tagebücher, Teil II, Band 1, page 480f, as quoted by Mommsen).

The concept of deporting the European Jews to the White Sea region and keeping them in camps there was from the German point of view a form of poetic justice. The White Sea region was where the new Bolshevik regime in Russia had in 1918 set up its first concentration camps, the so-called "Elephant camps" (the Russian word for "elephant", "slon", is also the acronym for "Severnye Lageria Osobogo Naznachenia" = "Northern Camps of Special Designation").

The Germans regarded the Bolshevik regime as a Jewish tyranny, and the "elephant camps" of the White Sea region as a crime perpetrated by the Jews. Accordingly, it was in their eyes just punishment on the Jews of Europe to send them to suffer in those same camps.

Heydrich's statement of 4 February 1942 is also proof positive that the what Heydrich revealed to the assembled State Secretaries at Wannsee two weeks earlier was a deportation plan, not a plan for mass-gassing in extermination camps. If at Wannsee he had really been talking about killing Jews in extermination camps in Poland, there would have been no sense in his talking two weeks later about sending a sizable proportion of the Czech population to the extreme north of Russia to guard millions of Jews deported there.

Accordingly, it is clear that as of January/February 1942, no decision to exterminate the Jews being deported to the East had yet been reached by the German Government.

However, on 27 March of that year, Goebbels recorded in his diary that the deportation to the East of the Jews of the Generalgouvernment had begun, and that those of them not usable for forced labour, estimated at some 60% of that population, were to be destroyed by a process administered by Globocnik.

It is obvious therefore that between early February and late March 1942, the German Government had decided to put to death the Jews who could not be used for forced labour, deporting into the occupied Soviet territory only those who were fit for labour.

One reason for that decision, whenever and by whomever and however it was made, was probably the growing realisation that due to the failure to take either Moscow or Leningrad, the White Sea region would remain permanently out of German reach, and could no longer serve as a place of imprisonment for European Jewry.

[Michael Miller]

xcalibur wrote:

Mike, Whilst appreciating the fact that one wishes to maintain a sense of civility herein this thread, as well as the forum as a whole, Mills has established himself here as "a dissident historian". Fair enough. However, it does set him apart from other's points of view, and lively dissonance with his point of view should be allowed. It does seem therefore likely that there is, and will be, some passionate disagreements with his point of view, as well as other disparate opinions. Sometimes these will be addressed personally. Seems to me that Mills responds to what he wants to and doesn't when so inclined. And he seems fully capable of defending his ideas, speculations, and cetera, in spite of other commentary.

OK, I'm convinced- sorry to have jumped the gun/interrupted the fun- carry on, [ladies? &] Gentlemen.

Best wishes,
~ Mike

[WalterS]

Far from being a "malevolent reader," I would prefer to view myself as a "discerning reader." Mr Mills, having been caught making a misleading statement still wants us to believe that Heydrich's purpose in calling the Wansee meeting was merely to relocate Jews to the east, once again putting a benign spin on things. The Wannsee Conference was not called, Mr Mills would have us believe, to discuss how to murder the Jews of Europe because he believes no such plan or intent existed. Therefore, everything has to be explained away. Thus the White Sea gaffe.

So, let's be clear about what the purpose of the Wannsee Conference was, and what it wasn't. The purpose was to set into motion, by direction of Göring's July 41 memo to Heydrich, the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question."

From the Notes:

At the beginning of the discussion Chief of the Security Police and of the SD, SS-Obergruppenführer Heydrich, reported that the Reich Marshal had appointed him delegate for the preparations for the final solution of the Jewish question in Europe and pointed out that this discussion had been called for the purpose of clarifying fundamental questions.



We also know that able bodied Jews were to be deliberately worked to death building roads and such in the east, and that the rest would be "dealt with appropriately."

http://www.prorev.com/wannsee.htm

We know from Eichman's testimony at his trial that there was discussion about ways to exterminate Jews, but that part of the discussion was edited out of the notes.

During sessions 106/ 107 of his trial, Eichman was questioned by the Presiding Judge and one of the other judges about this:

From session 106:

Q. Now, the Wannsee Conference. Here in the minutes is a passage which says, "In conclusion the various types of possible solutions were discussed." Do you remember this? Or do you want to see it?

A. I remember that it is there, Your Honour.

Q. Perhaps you still remember what was discussed there?
A. The various types of possible solutions began...there was a review of the...

Q. No, no, before that it says: "The various State Secretaries indicated their various opinions."

A. Yes.

Q. And then it says: "In conclusion, the various types of possible solutions were discussed."

A. That was already after the dispute. No, I remember now, Your Honour. I thought that it was at the beginning, Heydrich's review after the dispute between the State Secretaries.

Q. You had better have a look at this. Well then, perhaps you remember what was talked about there?

A. The various possibilities for killing were discussed.


And from session 107:

Q. Now, in connection with the Wannsee record of proceedings - in connection with the Wannsee Conference - you replied to my colleague, Judge Raveh, that in the part not referred to in the record, methods of killing were talked about.
A. Yes.

Q. Who spoke about this topic there?

A. Today, I no longer have any detailed recollection of this matter, Your Honour, but I know that these gentlemen stood together and sat together, and in very blunt words they referred to the matter, without putting it down in writing. I would definitely not be able to remember this, if I did not know that at that time I said to myself: Look at that...Stuckart, who was always considered to be a very precise and very particular stickler for the law, and here the whole tone and all the manner of speech were totally out of keeping with legal language. That is the only thing, I would say, which has actually remained imprinted on my mind.

Q. What did he say about this topic?

A. In detail, Your Honour, I would like...

Q. Not in detail - in general.

A. There was talk about killing and eliminating and exterminating. I myself had in fact to make my preparations for drawing up the record


and, a little later in the questioning:

Q. And apparently you were instructed not to include that [the discussions about murder and extermination] in the official record of proceedings?

A. Yes, that was the case. The shorthand-typist sat next to me, and I had to ensure that everything was recorded. And after that the shorthand-typist typed this up, and then Heydrich decided what should and what should not be included in the record. And then he, so to speak, polished it further, and then it was ready, this record of proceedings.

http://nizkor.com/hweb/people/e/eichman ... 07-02.html

Heydrich's role at Wannsee was to get the various bureaucracies on board with the plan and secure their participation.

[michael mills]

WalterS wrote:

Heydrich's role at Wannsee was to get the various bureaucracies on board with the plan and secure their participation.

The purpose was not to secure the participation of the various Reich Ministries represented at the Conference in anything.

In fact, the very opposite. Heydrich's aim in calling the conference was to inform those Reich Ministries pursuing their own Jewish policies of his appointment by Goering as the person with the sole authority in that field, and to gain their agreement to leave Jewish policy to him and to discontinue their own programs.

That purpose explains the choice of the Reich Ministries represented at the conference; they were all agencies that had been involved in the development of Jewish policy hitherto eg Dr Stuckart of the Reich Ministry of the Interior, and which needed to be told to butt out.

If the purpose had been to secure the participation of the various bureaucracies to a program of deporting Jews to extermination camps, then there were some surprising omissions from the agencies represented. For example, the participation of the Reich Ministry of Transportation and of the railway administration would have been absolutely vital; yet they were not represented at the conference. Neither was the WVHA, which ran the concentration camps, represented.

Those lacunae demonstrate that the purpose of the conference was not to gain participation to any program, but simply to gain agreement to Heydrich's sole authority.

It is noteworthy that when Eichmann was asked about the particular phrase, he confused it with a dispute between the State Secretaries. That sounds as if the State Secretaries were initially objecting to Heydrich's assumption of sole authority in the field of Jewish policy, and were trying to protect their own programs.

If Heydrich's plan at the time of the conference had been a secret one of extermination campouflaged by deportation, then there would have been absolutely no need to have revealed that secret purpose to the assembled State Secretaries. They did not need to know those sorts of Top Secret matters; all they were required to do was to assent to Heydrich's authority.

Accordingly, it is so unlikely that the representatives of various Reich Ministries discussed such secret matters as killing methodologies at an official conference that the possibility can be excluded with confidence.

Eichmann made his claims about a discussion of killing methodologies only after considerable prodding from the judges. It appears that his aim was to give the impression that if officials at the highest levels of the German Government bureaucracy were involved in discussings ways of exterminating large numbers of people, then his own role would be minimised all the more. But his description of such officials being involved in discussions of secret matters entirely outside their spheres of responsibility is sheer fantasy.

[David Thompson]

Michael -- You said:

If the purpose had been to secure the participation of the various bureaucracies to a program of deporting Jews to extermination camps, then there were some surprising omissions from the agencies represented. For example, the participation of the Reich Ministry of Transportation and of the railway administration would have been absolutely vital; yet they were not represented at the conference. Neither was the WVHA, which ran the concentration camps, represented.

The Wannsee conference took place on 20 Jan 1942. The SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt (Economic-Administrative Main Office or WVHA), under SS-Gruppenfuehrer Oswald Pohl, wasn't represented because that agency did not yet exist. It was established eleven days after the Wannsee conference, on 1 Feb 1942. It wasn't until 16 Mar 1942 that the administration of concentration camps was placed under the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office (WVHA), and SS-Brigadefuehrer Richard Gluecks was named Inspector-General of Concentration Camps. (Mollo IV; 12)

The temporal sequence looked like this:

January 20 1942
In the Berlin suburb of Wannsee a meeting (Wannsee Conference), called by SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Reinhard Heydrich and attended by top Nazi officials, took place to announce and coordinate implementation of the "final solution," or the extermination of the Jews.

January 26, 1942
Reichsfuehrer-SS Heinrich Himmler sent a teleprint to SS-Brigadefuehrer Richard Gluecks, Inspector-General of concentration camps, instructing Gluecks as follows: "As no more Russian prisoners of war are expected in the near future, I shall send to the camps a large number of Jews and Jewesses who will be sent out of Germany. Make the necessary arrangements for the reception of 100,000 male Jews and up to 50,000 Jewesses into the concentration camps during the next 4 weeks. The concentration camps will have to deal with major economic problems and tasks in the next weeks. SS-Gruppenfuehrer [Oswald] Pohl [the head of the SS Main Economic Office or WVHA] will inform you of particulars." (Trials of War Criminals 365)

January 27 1942
In an evening conversation with his intimates and staff, Adolf Hitler said: "The Jews must pack up, disappear from Europe. Let them go to Russia. Where the Jews are concerned, I'm devoid of all sense of pity. They'll always be the ferment that moves peoples one against the other. They sow discord everywhere, as much between individuals as between peoples. . . . It's entirely natural that we should concern ourselves with the question on the European level. It's clearly not enough to expel them from Germany. We cannot allow them to retain bases of withdrawal at our doors. We want to be out of danger of all kinds of infiltration." (Hitler's Secret Conversations 260)

January 30, 1942
In a speech at the Berlin Sports Palace, Adolf Hitler again predicted that the European war would end with the destruction of the Jews:
. . . [T]he war will not end as the Jews imagine it will, namely with the uprooting of the Aryans, but the result of this war will be the complete annihilation of the Jews.
Now for the first time they will not bleed other people to death, but for the first time the old Jewish law of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, will be applied.
And -- world Jewry may as well know this -- the further these battles [of the war] spread, the more anti-Semitism will spread. It will find nourishment in every prison camp and in every family when it discovers the ultimate reason for the sacrifices it has to make. And the hour will come when the most evil universal enemy of all time will be finished, as least for a thousand years. (Gilbert Holo 285)

February 1, 1942
The SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt (Economic-Administrative Main Office or WVHA), was created, under SS-Gruppenfuehrer Oswald Pohl.

February 3-4 1942
In a nighttime conversation with his intimates and staff, Adolf Hitler said:
"A Jew was discovered to whom it occurred that if one presented abstruse ideas to non-Jews, the more abstruse these ideas were, the more the non-Jews would rack their brains to try to understand them. The fact of having their attention fixed on what does not exist must make them blind to what exists. An excellent calculation on the Jew's part. So the Jew smacks his thighs to see how his diabolic strategem has succeeded. He bears in mind that if his victims suddenly became aware of these things, all Jews would be exterminated. But, this time, the Jews will disappear from Europe. The world will breathe freely and recover its sense of joy, when this weight is no longer crushing its shoulders." (Hitler's Secret Conversations 285)

February 22 1942
In an evening conversation with his intimates, staff and Reichsfuehrer-SS Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Hitler said:
"The discovery of the Jewish virus is one of the greatest revolutions that have taken place in the world. The battle in which we are engaged today is of the same sort as the battle waged, during the last century, by Pasteur and Koch. How many diseases have their origin in the Jewish virus! . . . We shall regain our health only by eliminating the Jew. Everything has a cause, nothing comes by chance." (Hitler's Secret Conversations 320)

February 27 1942
In a mid-day conversation with his intimates and staff, Adolf Hitler said: "What is important above all is that we should prevent a greater lie from replacing the lie [Christianity] that is disappearing. The world of Judao-Bolshevism must collapse." (Hitler's Secret Conversations 331)

February 1942
The German Foreign Ministry, under the direction of Joachim von Ribbentrop, formally cancelled the "Madagascar Plan" for the resettlement of European Jews. (Furet 104)

March 16, 1942
The administration of concentration camps was placed under the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office (WVHA), headed by SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Oswald Pohl. SS-Brigadefuehrer Richard Gluecks was named Inspector-General of Concentration Camps, under Pohl's supervision. (Mollo IV; 12)

[michael mills]

An interesting series of events, David, but is there a causal relationship between all of them?

The WVHA was not established until after the Wannsee Conference, but the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps was in existence, and it was not represented there. If the purpose of the conference had been to co-ordinate a plan for sending Jews to extermination camps, then the Inspectorate would have to have been represented, as well as the Ministry of Transport. They were not.

The significant absences were noted by Eberhard Jaeckel, a German historian with a strongly Intentionalist position, in an essay on the purpose of the Wannsee Conference. He came to the conclusion that that purpose was to gain agreement to Heydrich's sole authority in Jewish matters, not to plan the "Final Solution". I will look up the name of the book containing the essay and post it.

I have generally followed Jaeckel's analysis.

The Himmler memorandum to Glücks of 26 January 1942 represents a separate development from the plan to deport Jews into the Occupied Eastern Territories, the plan described by heydrich at the Wannsee Conference, and is in fact the first step in the process of sending Jews to Auschwitz for labour.

You will note that Himmler refers to the major economic tasks that the concentration camps would be required to fulfill; the 100,000 male and 50,000 female Jews were to provide the labour force for accomplishing those tasks. In other words, they were to be sent to the concentration camps as forced labour, not for extermination.

You will also note the reference to Russian POWs being no longer available. Those POWs were originally scheduled to provide the coerced labour force in the concentration camps, and it was envisaged to use Jews for that purpose. According to the existing plan worked out by Heydrich, all the Jews of Germany and other lands under German dominance were to be deported into the occupied Soviet Union.

Now a change was being made to Heydrich's plan. A given number of the Jews to be deported to the Occupied Eastern Territories were to be diverted to the concentration camps (which were located on German territory) as a labour force to replace the Soviet POWs who were no longer available (since on 8 Janauary 1942 Goering as Plenipotentiary of the Four-Year Plan had decreed that all Soviet POWs were to be assigned to the armaments industry and to agriculture, forestry and mining, ie outside the concentration camps system).

The sentence that you have translated "I shall send to the camps a large number of Jews and Jewesses who will be sent out of Germany", is translated a bit differently in other sources. For example, in the book "Anatomy of the SS State", page 483, it is translated "I am sending to the camps a large number of Jews who have emigrated from Germany".

I do not have the German original in front of me, but to the best of my recollection, Himmler's reference was to "Jews who are being expelled from Germany".

At the time Himmler sent his message to Glücks, the deportation of Jews from Germany had been underway for several months, having been ordered by Hitler around the middle of September 1941. The first contingents went to the Lodz Ghetto in October of that year, as a stop-gap measure pending their further transportation into occupied Soviet territory in the Spring of 1942. The next contingent of about 8,000 had been sent to the Minsk Ghetto in November, and since the beginning of December transports of German Jews had been arriving at Riga, and were still arriving at the time of Himmler's message; about 23,000 arrived in total.

Himmler's message represented a change in plan. German Jews capable of labour were now to be sent to concentration camps.

In fact, it was not Jews from Germany who were the first to be sent to Auschwitz. The first contingents arrived there from Slovakia in March 1942, followed by contingents from Western Europe. The most likely reason why it was decided not to send Jews from Germany was that the average age of the latter was quite high, most of the younger German Jews having emigrated before the outbreak of war. Instructions issued by Eichmann to his representatives in France, the Netherlands and Belgium stipulated that the Jews to be transported to Auschwitz were to be fit for labour, of both sexes, and between the ages of 16 and 45.

In the event, Heydrich's plan to deport the Jews of Europe into the Occupied Eastern Territories was not implemented on any scale, due to the failure of Germany to defeat the Soviet Union. Instead, Jews from Western and South-Eastern Europe were sent mainly to Auschwitz; the 60% of the Jews of the Generalgouvernement judged unfit for labour were sent to Globocnik's extermination camps in the Lublin District (these too were a change to Heydrich's original deportation plan).

[WalterS]

Michael Mills wrote:

Accordingly, it is so unlikely that the representatives of various Reich Ministries discussed such secret matters as killing methodologies at an official conference that the possibility can be excluded with confidence.

Once again, Mr Mills, without any evidence, only his own speculation, conveniently dismisses evidence which does not support his version of events. It is not at all unlikely that the people at the Conference discussed various ways of exterminating the Jews because THAT'S WHY THE CONFERENCE WAS CALLED IN THE FIRST PLACE. Once again, Mr Mills is in his non-denial denial mode. He has presented absolutely no basis for dismissing Eichman's testimony other than his own speculation, which is groundless.

It is Mr Mills's statement that can be excluded with confidence.

The purpose was not to secure the participation of the various Reich Ministries represented at the Conference in anything.

Once again, this is not correct. Heydrich did assert the SS's ultimate authority over the "Final Solution," but he did need participation from the ministries involved for two reasons: 1. To get the Jews onto the trains to the camps. This was particularly true of the General Government, and 2. To share the responsibility for what was about to happen.

If Heydrich's plan at the time of the conference had been a secret one of extermination campouflaged by deportation, then there would have been absolutely no need to have revealed that secret purpose to the assembled State Secretaries. They did not need to know those sorts of Top Secret matters; all they were required to do was to assent to Heydrich's authority.

More spin from Mr Mills. No one said anything about a "secret" plan. Most of the ministries involved already had some idea of the measures being prepared, and those that had already been taken, i.e. the Einsatzgruppen, which was also represented.

Eichman was questioned on this subject by his lawyer, Dr Robert Servatius.

From Session 79:

Dr. Servatius: Witness, a record of this type cannot reproduce the atmosphere of this conference, the basic attitude of all the participants. Could you say something about this?

Accused: Certainly. The atmosphere was characterized by Heydrich's relaxed, satisfied behaviour. He most definitely expected the greatest difficulties at this conference.

Dr. Servatius: Witness, the point is what the other participants in the conference expressed.

Accused: Yes, of course. Not only did everybody willingly indicate agreement, but there was something else, entirely unexpected, when they outdid and outbid each other, as regards the demand for a Final Solution to the Jewish Question. The biggest surprise, as far as I remember, was not only Buehler, but above all Stuckart, who was always cautious and hesitant, but who suddenly behaved there with unaccustomed enthusiasm.

Dr. Servatius: Witness, before this conference, you yourself saw something of the preparations being made in the East for these extermination measures. Is that correct?

Accused: Yes.

Dr. Servatius: Did the conference participants also already know something about this form of the Final Solution?

Accused: I must assume that this was known, since, at the time of the Wannsee Conference, the war against Russia had been going on for six months and, as we have seen from the documents, the Special Operations Units were in action in these areas. And, of course, the central key figures in the Reich Government were aware of these facts.

http://nizkor.com/hweb/people/e/eichman ... 79-01.html

Eichmann made his claims about a discussion of killing methodologies only after considerable prodding from the judges. It appears that his aim was to give the impression that if officials at the highest levels of the German Government bureaucracy were involved in discussings ways of exterminating large numbers of people, then his own role would be minimised all the more. But his description of such officials being involved in discussions of secret matters entirely outside their spheres of responsibility is sheer fantasy.

What is fantasy is Mr Mills's spin on things. Once again, he dismisses evidence that doesn't support him based solely on speculative whim. No doubt Eichman, on trial for his life, sought to paint himself as being a minor player, but subsequent events are consistent with his testimony. As shown by Mr David Thompson above, events began to move rapidly after Wannsee. Of course, Mr Mills claims that extermination of large numbers of people was not discussed at Wannsee and, in fact was never the plan of the German Government. So, why then would anyone at Wannsee be talking about it?

Mr Mills dismisses and ignores facts that don't support his Nazi apologia and this is evident here. With fine rhetorical flourish he dismisses uncomfortable realities and presses ahead with his non-denial denials.

[WalterS]

Michael Mills wrote:

From early 1941 onward, Heydrich developed a plan to deport all the Jews of the German area of influence in Europe into the territory to be conquered from the Soviet Union, apparently to camps in the White Sea area. That was the plan he outlined at the Wannsee Conference.

Mr. Mills has repeated this fantasy over and over because he wants readers to believe that the Germans only wanted to deport Jews, not murder them. This is a standard tactic of Holocaust denial.

Here are the notes, scrubbed and edited by Eichmann, of that conference:

Stamp: Top Secret

30 copies
16th copy

Minutes of discussion.
I.
The following persons took part in the discussion about the final solution of the Jewish question which took place in Berlin, am Grossen Wannsee No. 56/58 on 20 January 1942.

Gauleiter Dr. Meyer Reich Ministry for the Occupied
and Reichsamtleiter Eastern territories
Dr. Leibbrandt

Secretary of State Dr. Stuckart Reich Ministry for the Interior

Secretary of State Neumann Plenipotentiary for the
Four Year Plan

Secretary of State Dr. Freisler Reich Ministry of Justice

Secretary of State Dr. Bühler Office of the Government General

Under Secretary of State Foreign Office
Dr. Luther

SS-Oberführer Klopfer Party Chancellery

Ministerialdirektor Kritzinger Reich Chancellery

SS-Gruppenführer Hofmann Race and Settlement Main Office

SS-Gruppenführer Müller Reich Main Security Office
SS-Obersturmbannführer Eichmann

SS-Oberführer Dr. Schöngarth Security Police and SD
Commander of the Security Police
and the SD in the
Government General

SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Lange Security Police and SD
Commander of the Security Police
and the SD for the General-District
Latvia, as deputy of the Commander
of the Security Police and the SD
for the Reich Commissariat "Eastland".

II.
At the beginning of the discussion Chief of the Security Police and of the SD, SS-Obergruppenführer Heydrich, reported that the Reich Marshal had appointed him delegate for the preparations for the final solution of the Jewish question in Europe and pointed out that this discussion had been called for the purpose of clarifying fundamental questions. The wish of the Reich Marshal to have a draft sent to him concerning organizational, factual and material interests in relation to the final solution of the Jewish question in Europe makes necessary an initial common action of all central offices immediately concerned with these questions in order to bring their general activities into line. The Reichsführer-SS and the Chief of the German Police (Chief of the Security Police and the SD) was entrusted with the official central handling of the final solution of the Jewish question without regard to geographic borders. The Chief of the Security Police and the SD then gave a short report of the struggle which has been carried on thus far against this enemy, the essential points being the following:

a) the expulsion of the Jews from every sphere of life of the German people,

b) the expulsion of the Jews from the living space of the German people.

In carrying out these efforts, an increased and planned acceleration of the emigration of the Jews from Reich territory was started, as the only possible present solution.

By order of the Reich Marshal, a Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration was set up in January 1939 and the Chief of the Security Police and SD was entrusted with the management. Its most important tasks were

a) to make all necessary arrangements for the preparation for an increased emigration of the Jews,

b) to direct the flow of emigration,

c) to speed the procedure of emigration in each individual case.

The aim of all this was to cleanse German living space of Jews in a legal manner.

All the offices realized the drawbacks of such enforced accelerated emigration. For the time being they had, however, tolerated it on account of the lack of other possible solutions of the problem.

The work concerned with emigration was, later on, not only a German problem, but also a problem with which the authorities of the countries to which the flow of emigrants was being directed would have to deal. Financial difficulties, such as the demand by various foreign governments for increasing sums of money to be presented at the time of the landing, the lack of shipping space, increasing restriction of entry permits, or the cancelling of such, increased extraordinarily the difficulties of emigration. In spite of these difficulties, 537,000 Jews were sent out of the country between the takeover of power and the deadline of 31 October 1941. Of these

approximately 360,000 were in Germany proper on 30 January 1933

approximately 147,000 were in Austria (Ostmark) on 15 March 1939

approximately 30,000 were in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia on 15 March 1939.

The Jews themselves, or their Jewish political organizations, financed the emigration. In order to avoid impoverished Jews' remaining behind, the principle was followed that wealthy Jews have to finance the emigration of poor Jews; this was arranged by imposing a suitable tax, i.e., an emigration tax, which was used for financial arrangements in connection with the emigration of poor Jews and was imposed according to income.

Apart from the necessary Reichsmark exchange, foreign currency had to presented at the time of landing. In order to save foreign exchange held by Germany, the foreign Jewish financial organizations were - with the help of Jewish organizations in Germany - made responsible for arranging an adequate amount of foreign currency. Up to 30 October 1941, these foreign Jews donated a total of around 9,500,000 dollars.

In the meantime the Reichsführer-SS 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.

Approximately 11 million Jews will be involved in the final solution of the European Jewish question, distributed as follows among the individual countries:



Country Number

A. Germany proper 131,800
Austria 43,700
Eastern territories 420,000
General Government 2,284,000
Bialystok 400,000
Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia 74,200
Estonia - free of Jews -
Latvia 3,500
Lithuania 34,000
Belgium 43,000
Denmark 5,600
France / occupied territory 165,000
unoccupied territory 700,000
Greece 69,600
Netherlands 160,800
Norway 1,300

B. Bulgaria 48,000
England 330,000
Finland 2,300
Ireland 4,000
Italy including Sardinia 58,000
Albania 200
Croatia 40,000
Portugal 3,000
Rumania including Bessarabia 342,000
Sweden 8,000
Switzerland 18,000
Serbia 10,000
Slovakia 88,000
Spain 6,000
Turkey (European portion) 55,500
Hungary 742,800
USSR 5,000,000
Ukraine 2,994,684
White Russia
excluding Bialystok 446,484



Total over 11,000,000



The number of Jews given here for foreign countries includes, however, only those Jews who still adhere to the Jewish faith, since some countries still do not have a definition of the term "Jew" according to racial principles.
The handling of the problem in the individual countries will meet with difficulties due to the attitude and outlook of the people there, especially in Hungary and Rumania. Thus, for example, even today the Jew can buy documents in Rumania that will officially prove his foreign citizenship.

The influence of the Jews in all walks of life in the USSR is well known. Approximately five million Jews live in the European part of the USSR, in the Asian part scarcely 1/4 million.

The breakdown of Jews residing in the European part of the USSR according to trades was approximately as follows:



Agriculture 9.1 %
Urban workers 14.8 %
In trade 20.0 %
Employed by the state 23.4 %
In private occupations such as
medical profession, press, theater, etc. 32. 7%

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.

The evacuated Jews will first be sent, group by group, to so-called transit ghettos, from which they will be transported to the East.

SS-Obergruppenführer Heydrich went on to say that an important prerequisite for the evacuation as such is the exact definition of the persons involved.

It is not intended to evacuate Jews over 65 years old, but to send them to an old-age ghetto - Theresienstadt is being considered for this purpose.

In addition to these age groups - of the approximately 280,000 Jews in Germany proper and Austria on 31 October 1941, approximately 30% are over 65 years old - severely wounded veterans and Jews with war decorations (Iron Cross I) will be accepted in the old-age ghettos. With this expedient solution, in one fell swoop many interventions will be prevented.

The beginning of the individual larger evacuation actions will largely depend on military developments. Regarding the handling of the final solution in those European countries occupied and influenced by us, it was proposed that the appropriate expert of the Foreign Office discuss the matter with the responsible official of the Security Police and SD.

In Slovakia and Croatia the matter is no longer so difficult, since the most substantial problems in this respect have already been brought near a solution. In Rumania the government has in the meantime also appointed a commissioner for Jewish affairs. In order to settle the question in Hungary, it will soon be necessary to force an adviser for Jewish questions onto the Hungarian government.

With regard to taking up preparations for dealing with the problem in Italy, SS-Obergruppenführer Heydrich considers it opportune to contact the chief of police with a view to these problems.

In occupied and unoccupied France, the registration of Jews for evacuation will in all probability proceed without great difficulty.

Under Secretary of State Luther calls attention in this matter to the fact that in some countries, such as the Scandinavian states, difficulties will arise if this problem is dealt with thoroughly and that it will therefore be advisable to defer actions in these countries. Besides, in view of the small numbers of Jews affected, this deferral will not cause any substantial limitation.

The Foreign Office sees no great difficulties for southeast and western Europe.

SS-Gruppenführer Hofmann plans to send an expert to Hungary from the Race and Settlement Main Office for general orientation at the time when the Chief of the Security Police and SD takes up the matter there. It was decided to assign this expert from the Race and Settlement Main Office, who will not work actively, as an assistant to the police attaché.

IV.
In the course of the final solution plans, the Nuremberg Laws should provide a certain foundation, in which a prerequisite for the absolute solution of the problem is also the solution to the problem of mixed marriages and persons of mixed blood.

The Chief of the Security Police and the SD discusses the following points, at first theoretically, in regard to a letter from the chief of the Reich chancellery:

1) Treatment of Persons of Mixed Blood of the First Degree

Persons of mixed blood of the first degree will, as regards the final solution of the Jewish question, be treated as Jews.

From this treatment the following exceptions will be made:

a) Persons of mixed blood of the first degree married to persons of German blood if their marriage has resulted in children (persons of mixed blood of the second degree). These persons of mixed blood of the second degree are to be treated essentially as Germans.

b) Persons of mixed blood of the first degree, for whom the highest offices of the Party and State have already issued exemption permits in any sphere of life. Each individual case must be examined, and it is not ruled out that the decision may be made to the detriment of the person of mixed blood.

The prerequisite for any exemption must always be the personal merit of the person of mixed blood. (Not the merit of the parent or spouse of German blood.)

Persons of mixed blood of the first degree who are exempted from evacuation will be sterilized in order to prevent any offspring and to eliminate the problem of persons of mixed blood once and for all. Such sterilization will be voluntary. But it is required to remain in the Reich. The sterilized "person of mixed blood" is thereafter free of all restrictions to which he was previously subjected.

2) Treatment of Persons of Mixed Blood of the Second Degree

Persons of mixed blood of the second degree will be treated fundamentally as persons of German blood, with the exception of the following cases, in which the persons of mixed blood of the second degree will be considered as Jews:

a) The person of mixed blood of the second degree was born of a marriage in which both parents are persons of mixed blood.

b) The person of mixed blood of the second degree has a racially especially undesirable appearance that marks him outwardly as a Jew.

c) The person of mixed blood of the second degree has a particularly bad police and political record that shows that he feels and behaves like a Jew.

Also in these cases exemptions should not be made if the person of mixed blood of the second degree has married a person of German blood.

3) Marriages between Full Jews and Persons of German Blood.

Here it must be decided from case to case whether the Jewish partner will be evacuated or whether, with regard to the effects of such a step on the German relatives, [this mixed marriage] should be sent to an old-age ghetto.

4) Marriages between Persons of Mixed Blood of the First Degree and Persons of German Blood.

a) Without Children.

If no children have resulted from the marriage, the person of mixed blood of the first degree will be evacuated or sent to an old-age ghetto (same treatment as in the case of marriages between full Jews and persons of German blood, point 3.)

b) With Children.

If children have resulted from the marriage (persons of mixed blood of the second degree), they will, if they are to be treated as Jews, be evacuated or sent to a ghetto along with the parent of mixed blood of the first degree. If these children are to be treated as Germans (regular cases), they are exempted from evacuation as is therefore the parent of mixed blood of the first degree.

5) Marriages between Persons of Mixed Blood of the First Degree and Persons of Mixed Blood of the First Degree or Jews.

In these marriages (including the children) all members of the family will be treated as Jews and therefore be evacuated or sent to an old-age ghetto.

6) Marriages between Persons of Mixed Blood of the First Degree and Persons of Mixed Blood of the Second Degree.

In these marriages both partners will be evacuated or sent to an old-age ghetto without consideration of whether the marriage has produced children, since possible children will as a rule have stronger Jewish blood than the Jewish person of mixed blood of the second degree.

SS-Gruppenführer Hofmann advocates the opinion that sterilization will have to be widely used, since the person of mixed blood who is given the choice whether he will be evacuated or sterilized would rather undergo sterilization.

State Secretary Dr. Stuckart maintains that carrying out in practice of the just mentioned possibilities for solving the problem of mixed marriages and persons of mixed blood will create endless administrative work. In the second place, as the biological facts cannot be disregarded in any case, State Secretary Dr. Stuckart proposed proceeding to forced sterilization.

Furthermore, to simplify the problem of mixed marriages possibilities must be considered with the goal of the legislator saying something like: "These marriages have been dissolved."

With regard to the issue of the effect of the evacuation of Jews on the economy, State Secretary Neumann stated that Jews who are working in industries vital to the war effort, provided that no replacements are available, cannot be evacuated.

SS-Obergruppenführer Heydrich indicated that these Jews would not be evacuated according to the rules he had approved for carrying out the evacuations then underway.

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.

State Secretary Dr. Bühler stated further that the solution to the Jewish question in the General Government is the responsibility of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD and that his efforts would be supported by the officials of the General Government. He had only one request, to solve the Jewish question in this area as quickly as possible.

In conclusion the different types of possible solutions were discussed, during which discussion both Gauleiter Dr. Meyer and State Secretary Dr. Bühler took the position that certain preparatory activities for the final solution should be carried out immediately in the territories in question, in which process alarming the populace must be avoided.

The meeting was closed with the request of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD to the participants that they afford him appropriate support during the carrying out of the tasks involved in the solution.

http://www.prorev.com/wannsee.htm

As you can see, there is no mention of camps on the White Sea. What we have is a discussion, heavily edited and laden with euphemisms, of the intent to murder the Jews of Europe. Mr. Mills has repeatedly and deliberately misrepresented this conference.