Minutes of Wannsee Conference

GFM2000 · Post by **GFM2000** » 15 May 2002 07:56

It had been discussed several times that the minutes of the Wannsee conference in 1942 prepared by Eichmann were altered by Heydrich, and the methods of extermination were discarded and replaced with the usual German euphemisms. However, the only book I have recently read that suggested this occured came from "Fatherland". I wondered if anyone can recommend a better reference, if indeed, there was evidence that Eichmann's minutes were tampered by Heydrich.

Scott Smith · Post by **Scott Smith** » 15 May 2002 09:34

GFM2000 wrote:It had been discussed several times that the minutes of the Wannsee conference in 1942 prepared by Eichmann were altered by Heydrich, and the methods of extermination were discarded and replaced with the usual German euphemisms. However, the only book I have recently read that suggested this occured came from "Fatherland". I wondered if anyone can recommend a better reference, if indeed, there was evidence that Eichmann's minutes were tampered by Heydrich.

Well, the only surviving copy of the minutes comes accidently from Martin Luther's files in the Foreign Office. I think he took the minutes with him following the 90 minute meeting, so that must have been some fancy editing by the stenographer, who, if we are to believe the HBO Conspiracy movie, was scared clueless.

Tarpon27 · Post by **Tarpon27** » 15 May 2002 13:28

Scott wrote:

Well, the only surviving copy of the minutes comes accidently from Martin Luther's files in the Foreign Office. I think he took the minutes with him following the 90 minute meeting, so that must have been some fancy editing by the stenographer, who, if we are to believe the HBO Conspiracy movie, was scared clueless.

There were 30 copies, and the 16th is the surviving copy.

The general history of the document seems to be that the stenographers were supervised by Eichmann at the conference, who testified at his trial that no notes were taken during discussions of methods to kill the Jews.

The original minutes were then rewritten and edited before distribution of the 30 copies, so your contention is in error.

Some spam on the history of the document:

[...]

Following the conference, Eichmann prepared the protocol, which both Muller and Heydrich edited several times before approving it. Thirty copies were made, but only one, the sixteenth, was found after the war. It is presently kept in the archives of German Foreign Office in Bonn.

[...]

http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/text/x34/xm3417.html
------

[...]

It was evidently written by SS Lt. Colonel Adolf Eichmann, head of the "Jewish" desk at the RSHA. There is no explicit reference in it to killing Jews; there are harsh words about working them until they drop, and about "special treatment" for those who survive. Rather oddly, the statistics do not add up, as Eichmann himself points out, reading the document in his Argentina hideout in 1956.

[...]

http://www.fpp.co.uk/Himmler/Wannsee.html
-------
[...]

The minutes of the conference shown below were taken by Adolf Eichmann, but were personally edited by Heydrich after the meeting, substituting the coded language Nazis often used when referring to lethal actions to be taken against Jews.

[...]

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/t ... nnsee2.htm

Roberto · Post by **Roberto** » 15 May 2002 18:07

GFM2000 wrote:It had been discussed several times that the minutes of the Wannsee conference in 1942 prepared by Eichmann were altered by Heydrich, and the methods of extermination were discarded and replaced with the usual German euphemisms. However, the only book I have recently read that suggested this occured came from "Fatherland". I wondered if anyone can recommend a better reference, if indeed, there was evidence that Eichmann's minutes were tampered by Heydrich.

This is what Eichmann said himself about the issue during his interrogation in court on 24.07.1961:

[...]

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 - I could not stand there and just listen - but the words did reach me...got through to me because the room was not, in fact, such a big one that one could not catch single words from the flood of words...

Q. I thought this was in the official part of the meeting?

A. The official part - that did not last very long, that was the...

Q. Was this in the official part or not? I thought it was in the official part, because it appears in the record and...

A. It was also in the official part, Your Honour, but the official part, if you like, in turn consisted of two parts - that is to say, the beginning, where everyone kept quiet and had to listen, and then near the end, where everyone spoke about the matter all at once, and where the whole time the orderlies kept serving cognac or other drinks, and it got to the stage of alcoholic influence...all I mean is that, although it was an official matter, but still, it was not a stiff official matter, where everyone is quiet and everyone lets all the others have their say to the end, but at the end everyone spoke all at once.

Q. But this was also taken down by the male or the female stenographer?

A. Taken down by the male stenographer.

Q. And apparently you were instructed not to include that 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.

Q. And what was said about this important topic, you have no recollection at all of this?

A. Your Honour, this is not the most important point. What is the most important point in the record...

Q. Excuse me, I did not say the most important point, I said "an important topic" - so important that it was then left out.

A. No, on the contrary, Your Honour, Heydrich wanted to make sure that the main points were worked into the record. So it is in fact precisely the other way round. The essential points are in the record, and the non-essential points were then left out by him, because here, so to say - how shall I put it - he created a form of reinsurance, by pinning down the State Secretaries separately.

Q. Does that mean, then, that the methods of killing were an unimportant topic?

A. Oh, the methods of killing?

Q. That is what we are talking about.

A. He did not include those, no, no.

[...]

Source of quote:

http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/e/eic ... 07-02.html

Emphases are mine.

Scott Smith · Post by **Scott Smith** » 16 May 2002 05:10

Tarpon27 wrote:The general history of the document seems to be that the stenographers were supervised by Eichmann at the conference, who testified at his trial that no notes were taken during discussions of methods to kill the Jews.

That's very convenient.

The original minutes were then rewritten and edited before distribution of the 30 copies, so your contention is in error.

Thanks for the information. I don't have all the answers.

Some spam on the history of the document:

I'm not sure you understand the definition of Spam. I have defined it before from the old forum using a lexicon. Would you like me to do so again? Providing a point-of-view with evidence, even from a Holo-Site, is not necessarily Spam, Mark.

GFM2000 · Post by **GFM2000** » 16 May 2002 06:40

Yes, I did forget Eichmann's testimony in Jerusalem... thanks Roberto.

But I guess it is too much to ask for actual documents which showed Heydrich's scrawls of "No! Do not include this!" on the original minutes....

michael mills · Post by **michael mills** » 16 May 2002 11:06

Well, the only surviving copy of the minutes comes accidently from Martin Luther's files in the Foreign Office. I think he took the minutes with him following the 90 minute meeting, so that must have been some fancy editing by the stenographer, who, if we are to believe the HBO Conspiracy movie, was scared clueless.

The one surviving copy of the minutes was found on a file of the German Foreign Ministry that was actually called "The Final Solution of the Jewish Question". The file had been started in 1938, indicating that that formulation was current at that early date. It is unlikely that in 1938 the formulation "Final Solution of the Jewish Problem" was synonymous with mass extermination, since at that time forced emigration was the preferred method of getting the Jews out of Germany. It is likely that the formulation had been coined as a prediction of a time in the foreseeable future when the German Reich would have been made completely "Jew-free", ie there would not be a single Jew left within the boundaries of the state.

Over time, papers related to the measures to make Germany "Jew-free" by whatever method (initially emigration, then deportation to the so-called Jewish reservation in the Lublin District of the Generalgouvernement, finally deportation to the occupied Soviet Union) were attached to that file. That is the reason that the minutes of the Wannsee Conference were stored there; it was apparently seen by the Foreign Ministry as a continuation of the earlier methods of achieving the "Final Solution".

Tarpon27 · Post by **Tarpon27** » 16 May 2002 11:33

Scott wrote:

Tarpon27 wrote:
The general history of the document seems to be that the stenographers were supervised by Eichmann at the conference, who testified at his trial that no notes were taken during discussions of methods to kill the Jews.

That's very convenient.

Unfortunately, I was not very clear as to what I wrote above, and Roberto posting the testimony of Eichmann clearly shows my error. It appears notes were taken, even in the free-for-all discussion in the latter part of the conference but that those were not in the final version of the minutes Heydrich later distributed.

Eichmann appears to state in his testimony which I have read previously, that a male stenographer, referred to in that manner by the Court and Eichmann, and also Eichmann states a "shorthand-typist", recorded what was said, even apparently, when participants began to speak at once.

The notes were then edited; according to Eichmann, by Heydrich.

As far as being "convenient", I assume that Heydrich and most Nazi leadership were not idiots; the political and propanganda problems of Germany's treatment of Jews were potent weapons in the hands of their enemies. I also assume Nazi leadership was well aware that exterminating the Jews of Europe was an act of such proportions that should Germany fail in the war, their actions could lead to retribution by the Allies.

Hence, the euphenisms and language. However, the war required a bureaucracy, and as Michael Mills points out in his above post, that it is impossible to eliminate all the paper involved with such an enterprise. There are also other instances where there is evidence that documents' wording wass altered to reflect the desire to keep secret the Final Solution; Himmler correcting his statistician's reports to use special terms to document the killing of Jews.

Mark

Roberto · Post by **Roberto** » 16 May 2002 12:27

Hence, the euphenisms and language. However, the war required a bureaucracy, and as Michael Mills points out in his above post, that it is impossible to eliminate all the paper involved with such an enterprise. There are also other instances where there is evidence that documents' wording wass altered to reflect the desire to keep secret the Final Solution; Himmler correcting his statistician's reports to use special terms to document the killing of Jews.

I presume that the document Mark is referring to is the following letter that SS-Obersturmbannführer Dr. Brandt of Himmler’s personal staff sent to Himmler’s statistician Richard Korherr on 10.04.1943, in regard to the latter’s report on “The Final Solution of the European Jewish Question”:

An den
Inspekteur für Statistik, PG. Korherr
B e r l i n

Der Reichsführer SS hat Ihren statistischen
Bericht über "Die Endlösung der europäischen Judenfrage"
erhalten. Er wünscht, dass an keiner Stelle von "Sonderbehand-
lung der Juden" gesprochen wird . Auf Seite 9, Punkt 4, muß es
folgendermaßen heißen:

"Transportierung von Juden aus den
Ostprovinzen nach dem russischen Osten:
Es wurden durchgeschleust
durch die Lager im Generalgouvernement .....
durch die Lager im Warthegau ..............."

Eine andere Formulierung darf nicht genommen werden.
Ich sende das vom Reichsführer-SS bereits abgezeichnete Exemplar
des Berichtes zurück mit der Bitte, diese Seite 9 entsprechend
abzuändern und es wieder zurückzusenden.

SS-Obersturmbannführer

Source of quote:

http://www.ns-archiv.de/verfolgung/korh ... ml#himmler

My translation:

To the
Inspector for Statistics, party comrade Korherr
B e r l i n

The Reichsführer SS has received your statistical report about “The Final Solution of the European Jewish Question”. He wishes that in no place a “special treatment of the Jews” is referred to . On page 9, item 4, the wording must be the following

" Transportation of Jews from the
eastern provinces to the Russian
East: ............................
The following numbers were sifted
through the camps in the General
government .............
through the camps in the Warthegau....."

Another wording may not be used.
I send back the sample of the report already signed by the Reichsführer SS with the request to change this page 9 accordingly and to send it back.

SS-Obersturmbannführer

Korherr so did, giving the ominous passage the following wording:

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

However, Korherr (or Himmler/Brandt) failed to spot and replace the term “Sonderbehandlung” in the following passage on page 10:

Evakuierungen insgesamt(einschl.
Theresienstadt und einschl.
Sonderbehandlung)............ 1 873 549 Juden
ohne Theresienstadt.......... 1 786 356 "

My translation:

Evacuations total(incl.
Theresienstadt and incl.
special treatment)........... 1 873 549 Jews
w./o Theresienstadt.......... 1 786 356 "

A complete translation of the Korherr Report (the “long version” for Himmler, there was also a “short version” for Hitler himself) can be found on the following thread of this forum:

The Korherr Report
http://thirdreichforum.com/phpBB2/viewt ... df44df26c4

David Thompson · Post by **David Thompson** » 20 Nov 2004 08:10

Document NG-2586-G, in Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10. Vol. 13: United States of America v. Ernst von Weizsaecker, et al. (Case 11: 'Ministries Case'). US Government Printing Office, District of Columbia: 1952. pp. 210-217.

Translation of Document NG-2586-G, Prosecution Exhibit 1452.

[Stamp] Top Secret. 30 copies--16th copy:

I. The following persons took part in the conference on the Final Solution of the Jewish problem held on 20 January 1942 in Berlin, Am Grossen Wannsee No. 56/58:

Gauleiter Dr. Meyer and Reichsamtsleiter Dr. Leibbrandt: Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories; State Secretary Dr. Stuckart: Reich Ministry of the Interior; State Secretary Neumann: PleniPotentiary for the Four Year Plan; State Secretary Dr. Freisler: Reich Ministry of Justice; State Secretary Dr. Buehler: Office of the Governor General; Under State Secretary Luther: Foreign Office; SS Colonel Klopfer: Party Chancellery; Ministerial Director Kritzinger: Reich Chancellery.

[Handwritten]
D III 29 Top Secret:
SS Major General Hofmann: Race and Settlement Main Office;
SS Major General Mueller,
SS Lieutenant Colonel Eichmann: Reich Security Main Office;
SS Senior Colonel Dr. Schoengarth, Commander of the Security Police and the SD in the Government General: Security Police and SD;
SS Major Dr. Lange, Commander of the Security Police and the SD for the General Security Police and SD Districts Latvia, as representative of the Commander of the Security Police and the SD for the Reich Commissariat for the Ostland.

II. At the beginning of the meeting the Chief of the Security Police and the SD, SS Lieutenant General Heydrich, reported his appointment by the Reich Marshal to service as Commissioner for the Preparation of the Final Solution of the European Jewish Problem, and pointed out that the officials had been invited to this conference in order to clear up the fundamental problems. The Reich Marshal's request to have a draft submitted to him on the organizational, factual, and material requirements with respect to the Final Solution of the European Jewish Problem, [organisatorischen, sachlichen und materiellen Belange im Hinblick auf die Endloesung der europaeischen Judenfrage] necessitated this previous general consultation by all the central offices directly concerned, in order that there should be coordination in the policy [Parallelisierung der Linienfuehrung].

The primary responsibility [Federfuehrung] for the administrative handling of the Final Solution of the Jewish Problem will rest centrally with the Reich Leader SS and the Chief of the German Police (Chief of the Security Police and the SD)--regardless of geographic boundaries.

The Chief of the Security Police and the SD thereafter gave a brief review of the battle conducted up to now against these enemies. The most important aspects are:

a. Forcing the Jews out of the various fields of the community life of the German people.

b. Forcing the Jews out of the living space [Lebensraum] of the German people.

In execution of these efforts there was undertaken -- as the only possible provisional solution -- the acceleration of the emigration of the Jews from Reich territory on an intensified and methodical scale.

By decree of the Reich Marshal, a Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration was set up in January 1939, and the direction of this office was entrusted to the Chief of the Security Police and the SD. It had in particular the task--

(a) Of taking all steps for the preparation for an intensified emigration of the Jews.

(b) Of steering the emigration stream.

(c) Of expediting the emigration in individual cases.

The objective of these tasks [Aufgabenziel] was to clear the German living space of Jews in a legal way.

The disadvantages which such a forcing of emigration brought with it were clear to all the authorities. But in view of the lack of alternative solutions, they had to be accepted in the beginning.

Meanwhile, in view of the dangers of an emigration during the war and in view of the possibilities in the East, the Reich Leader SS and Chief of the German Police had forbidden the emigrating of the Jews.

III. The emigration program has now been replaced by the evacuation of the Jews to the East as a further solution possibility, in accordance with previous authorization by the Fuehrer. [The original shows the paragraph underscored by hand and on the margin a large exclamation point covering the length of the paragraphs.]

These actions are of course to be regarded only as a temporary substitute; nonetheless, here already, the coming Final Solution [Kommende Endloesung] of the Jewish Question is of great importance.

In the course of this Final Solution of the European Jewish Problem, approximately 11 million Jews are involved. They are distributed among the individual countries as follows:

A. Original Reich Territory [Altreich]: 131800 Jews
Austria: 43700 Jews
Eastern Territories: 420000 Jews
Government General: 2.284 million Jews
Bialystok: 400000 Jews
Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia: 74200 Jews
Estonia--free of Jews
Lithuania: 3500 Jews
Belgium: 34000 Jews
Denmark: 43000 Jews
France: Occupied territory: 165000 Jews; Unoccupied territory: 700000 Jews
Greece: 69600 Jews
The Netherlands: 160800 Jews
Norway: 1300 Jews.

B. Bulgaria: 48000 Jews
England: 330000 Jews
Finland: 2300 Jews
Ireland: 4000 Jews
Italy, including Sardinia: 58000 Jews
Albania: 200 Jews
Croatia: 40000 Jews
Portugal: 3000 Jews
Rumania, including Bessarabia: 342000 Jews
Sweden: 8000 Jews
Switzerland: 18000 Jews
Serbia: 10000 Jews
Slovakia: 88000 Jews
Turkey (European part): 55500 Jews
Hungary: 742800 Jews
USSR: 5 million:
Ukraine: 2.994684 million Jews
White Russia, excluding Bialystok: 446484 Jews.

Total: over 11 million Jews.

In the Jewish population figures given for the various foreign countries however, only those of Jewish faith are included as the stipulations for defining Jews along racial lines still are in part lacking there.

Under proper direction the Jews should now in the course of the Final Solution [Endloesung] be brought to the East in a suitable way for use as labor. In big labor gangs, with separation of the sexes, the Jews capable of work are brought to these areas and employed in road building, in which task undoubtedly a great part will fall out through natural diminution [natuerliche Verminderung].

The remnant that finally is able to survive all this--since this is undoubtedly the part with the strongest resistance--must be treated accordingly [entsprechend behandelt werden] since these people, representing a natural selection, are to be regarded as the germ cell of a new Jewish development. (See the experience of history.)

In the program of the practical execution of the Final Solution [Endloesung], Europe is combed through from the West to the East. The Reich area, including the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, will have to be taken in advance, alone, for reasons of the housing problem and other social and political necessities.

The evacuated Jews are brought first group by group into the so-called transit ghettos, in order to be transported from there farther to the East.

An important prerequisite for the whole execution of the evacuation, so SS Lieutenant General Heydrich explained further, is the exact establishment of the category of persons who are to be included.

It is intended not to evacuate Jews over 65 years of age, but to remove them to a ghetto for the aged -- Theresienstadt is under consideration.

Along with these old age classes of the perhaps 280000 Jews who on 31 October 1941 were in Germany proper and in Austria -- perhaps 30% are over 65 years old -- there will also be taken to the ghettos for the aged the Jews who are serious war wounded cases and Jews with war decorations (Iron Cross, First Class). With this appropriate solution the many petitions for exceptions will be eliminated with one blow.

The beginning of the individual larger evacuation actions will be very much dependent on the military development. With regard to the handling of the Final Solution in the European areas occupied and influenced by us, it was proposed that the competent officials in the Foreign Office should confer with the competent specialists of the Security Police and the SD.

In Slovakia and Croatia the matter is no longer too difficult, as the most essential problems in this respect have already been solved there. In Rumania likewise the government has meanwhile appointed a Commissioner for Jewish Affairs. For settling the problem in Hungary it will be necessary in the near future to force upon the Hungarian Government acceptance of an adviser on Jewish problems.

With regard to taking up the preparations for the settling of the problem in Italy, SS Lieutenant General Heydrich thinks a liaison with the Police Chief in these matters is suitable.

In occupied and unoccupied France the taking of the Jews for evacuation can in all probability proceed without great difficulties.

Under State Secretary Luther stated at this point that in a more basic treatment of this problem in a few countries, such as in the northern countries, difficulties would come up, and it is therefore advisable to postpone these countries for the time being. In consideration of the small number of Jews in question here this postponement constitutes no appreciable limitation anyway.

On the other hand, the Foreign Office sees no great difficulties for the south and west of Europe.

SS Major General Hofmann intends to ask to have an official of the Race and Settlement Main Office [See the materials on the RuSHA case, Volumes IV and V, this series.] sent along to Hungary for general orientation, when the affair is started there by the Chief of the Security Police and the SD. It was decided to assign this official of the Race and Settlement Main Office, who is not to be active, temporarily in the official capacity of assistant to the Police Attache.

IV. In the course of the Final Solution plans [Entloesungsvorhaben], the Nuernberg Laws are in a certain degree to form the basis and accordingly the complete settlement of the problem is to include also the solution of the mixed marriage and the Mischling [Persons partly of Jewish descent.] problems.

In connection with a letter of the Chief of the Reich Chancellery, the Chief of the Security Police and the SD discussed the following points, for the time being theoretically:

1. Treatment of the first degree Mischlings: First degree Mischlings are to be treated the same as the Jews as regards the Final Solution of the Jewish Problem. From this treatment exception will be made in the case of:

a. First degree Mischlings married to persons of German blood, from whose marriage there are children (2d degree Mischlings). These second degree Mischlings are to have essentially the same position as Germans.

b. First degree Mischlings for whom the exception approvals for certain groups have been accorded previously by the highest authorities of the Party and the State.

Each individual case must be examined and the possibility is not to be excluded that the decision may be retaken in the Mischling's disfavor.

Conditions for the granting of an exception must always be the fundamental merits of the Mischling concerned himself. (Not merits of the racial German parent or marriage partner.)

The first degree Mischling excepted from the evacuation is to be sterilized in order to prevent any offspring and to settle the Mischling problem once and for all. The sterilization takes place on a voluntary basis. It is, however, the condition for remaining in the Reich. The sterilized Mischling is afterwards to be free from all restrictive stipulations to which he has previously been subject.

2. Treatment of the second degree Mischlings: The second degree Mischlings are to be treated in principle like persons of German blood with exception of the following cases in which the second degree Mischlings are to have the same position as Jews:

a. Derivation of the second degree Mischling from a bastard marriage (both parents Mischlings).

b. Racially especially unfavorable appearance of the second degree Mischling, so that even in appearance he is considered a Jew.

c. Especially bad police and political appraisal of the second degree Mischling which shows that he feels and conducts himself like a Jew.

But even in these cases exceptions are not to be made if the second degree Mischling is married to a person of German blood.

3. Marriages between full Jews and persons of German blood.

4. Marriages between first degree Mischlings and persons of German blood.

5. Marriages between first degree Mischlings and first degree Mischlings or Jews.

6. Marriages between first degree Mischlings and second degree
Mischlings.

SS Gruppenfuehrer Hofmann is of the opinion that extensive use must be made of sterilization; particularly since the Mischling, when confronted with the choice as to whether he is to be evacuated or sterilized, would prefer to submit to sterilization.

State Secretary Dr. Stuckart states that the practical execution of the possibilities just discussed for settling the mixed marriage and the Mischling problems in this way would entail an endless administrative task. On the other hand in order also to take into account in every event the biological actualities, State Secretary Dr. Stuckart suggested that compulsory sterilization be undertaken.

In order to simplify the mixed marriage problem, further possibilities must be considered with the objective that the legislator should perhaps say: "These marriages shall be deemed dissolved" [sind geschieden].

In connection with the problem of the effect of the Jewish evacuation on the economic life, State Secretary Neumann stated that the Jews employed in important war industries could not be evacuated for the present, as long as there were no replacements available.

SS Major [Lieutenant] General Heydrich pointed out that those Jews, in accordance with the directives approved by him for the execution of the current evacuations, would not be evacuated.

State Secretary Dr. Buehler states that the Government General would welcome the initiation of the Final Solution of this problem in the Government General, because here for once the transport problem plays no out of the ordinary role, and here labor commitment considerations would not hinder the course of this action. Jews would have to be removed as quickly as possible from the territory of the Government General because just here the Jew constitutes an eminent danger as a bearer of disease, and he otherwise brings the economic structure of the country constantly into disorder by his black market activities. Furthermore, of the approximately two and one half million Jews here in question, the majority of cases are reported to be unfit for work.

State Secretary Dr. Buehler further states that the solution of the Jewish problem in the Government General is primarily the responsibility of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD and his work is supported by the agencies of the Government General. He had only one request, that the Jewish problem in this territory be solved as quickly as possible.

In conclusion the various kinds of solutions were discussed, and here both Gauleiter Dr. Meyer and also State Secretary Dr. Buehler advocated that certain preparatory tasks in the course of the Final Solution be performed immediately in the territories concerned; in this however, any disturbing of the population must be avoided.

With the request of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD to those participating in the conference to afford him their support in the carrying out of the tasks in connection with the solution, the conference was concluded.

paolosilv · Post by **paolosilv** » 28 Sep 2010 08:13

It has been claimed that the Wannsee Conference decided on no more than the “evacuation” of the Jewish population of Europe to the east, with no reference to killing them.[20] In fact, Heydrich made the ultimate fate intended for the evacuees clear:

“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 the seed of a new Jewish revival”.[21]
source: wiki, wannsee conference

It was not until 1947 that a copy of the minutes (known from the German word for “minutes” as the “Wannsee Protocol”[36]) was found by Robert Kempner in the papers of Undersecretary Martin Luther, who had died in May 1945.here were, however, significant omissions in the minutes. These were not fully elucidated until the interrogation and trial of Eichmann in Israel in 1962. Eichmann told his questioners that towards the end of the meeting cognac was served, and that after that the conversation became less restrained.[37] “The gentlemen were standing together, or sitting together”, he said, “and were discussing the subject quite bluntly, quite differently from the language which I had to use later in the record. During the conversation they minced no words about it at all…they spoke about methods of killing, about liquidation, about extermination”.[31]

Eichmann recorded that Heydrich was pleased with the course of the meeting.

Instructions about what was to appear in the minutes. They were not to be verbatim: Eichmann would “clean them up” so that nothing too explicit appeared in them. He said at his trial: “How shall I put it—certain over-plain talk and jargon expressions had to be rendered into office language by me”. As a result, the last twenty minutes of the meeting, in which, as Eichmann recalled, words like “liquidation” and “extermination” were freely used, were summed up in one bland sentence: “In conclusion the different types of possible solutions were discussed”.[38] Thus the minutes must be read in conjunction with Eichmann’s testimony to get as near as is possible to a full account of what took place.

Eichmann’s biographer David Cesarani says that Heydrich’s main purpose was to impose his own authority on the various ministries and agencies involved in Jewish policy matters, to avoid any repetition of the disputes that had arisen over the killing of the German Jews at Riga in October.
(Hence it is clear that the Holocaust was ongoing already by the time of the Conference).
source: wiki, wannsee conference

Rudolf Lange was one of the few people to be aware of the Führerbefehl or “fundamental orders” for the so-called “Jewish problem” in Latvia.[5] According to Lange himself: “ From the very beginning, the goal of EK2 was that radical solution of the Jewish problem by killing all Jews.[6]

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Lange

Lange attended the Conference, offering his "expertise' on the "Final Solution." Since the Conference minutes show the diminished numbers, by Jan 42, of the Baltic Jews, then this proves the Holocaust happened there, since there was nowhere for them to be 're-settled.' The Wannsee Conference proves Hitler ordered the Holocaust.

also, from wiki, Eichmann: One key witness for the prosecution was an American judge named Michael A. Musmanno, who was a U.S. naval officer in 1945. Musmanno had questioned the Nuremberg defendants and would later go on to become a Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. He testified that the late ***Hermann Göring “made it very clear that Eichmann was the man to determine, in what order, in what countries, the Jews were to die.”

Eichmann, speaking in his own defense, said that he did not dispute the facts of what happened during the Holocaust. During the whole trial, Eichmann insisted that he was only “following orders”—the same Nuremberg Defense used by some of the Nazi war criminals during the 1945–1946 Nuremberg Trials. He explicitly declared that he had abdicated his conscience in order to follow the Führerprinzip. Eichmann claimed that he was merely a “transmitter” with very little power. He testified that: “I never did anything, great or small, without obtaining in advance express instructions from Adolf Hitler or any of my superiors.”

———–
from, Wannsee Conference Minutes

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.

The Nazis’ own statistics on “Jews” including half and Quarter Jews:

USSR 5,000,000
Ukraine 2,994,684
White Russia
excluding Bialystok 446,484

Estonia – free of Jews -
Latvia 3,500
Lithuania 34,000

____

Note: it says that Estonia is “Free of Jews.” Where are the Jews of Estonia? Where are the Jews of Latvia and Lithuania, when we know that there were much more of them living in the Baltics than Heydrich shows us there were? Where were they ‘resettled to’? All of this evidence proves the Holocaust.

uberjude · Post by **uberjude** » 28 Sep 2010 13:28

Reiterating what Paolisilv said, look again at what made into the minutes:

“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 the seed of a new Jewish revival”

So we have three categories of Jews, two explicit, one implicit:

1. "Able bodied" Jews who will be put to work and be worked to death.
2. "Able bodied" Jews who will be put to work, survive the process, and be murdered (unless someone wants, in this context, to come up with another meaning to "treated accordingly."

3. Not mentioned are those Jews who aren't "able bodied." It's hard to envision a scenario in which the Nazis would have been spared those Jews who couldn't perform labor, but would have still had to be fed, housed, and guarded. Moreover, given that by the time of the conference, Chelmno had already been in operation for over a month (and had received the first transports from the Lodz ghetto just a week or so earlier), it's pretty clear that the "Final Solution" was already on some people's minds.

So bottom line is that, even in the edited edition, fit for, if not public consumption, at least official archives, what's being planned is not merely "evacuation," but part of an annihilation policy.

michael mills · Post by **michael mills** » 29 Sep 2010 02:32

Moreover, given that by the time of the conference, Chelmno had already been in operation for over a month (and had received the first transports from the Lodz ghetto just a week or so earlier), it's pretty clear that the "Final Solution" was already on some people's minds.

Incorrect historical interpretation, resulting from insufficient knowledge of the relevant data.

The killing operation centred at Chelmno-nd-Nerem was the result of a request made by Arthur Greiser, Reichsstatthalter of Reichsgau Wartheland, to Himmler and Heydrich, for authorisation to subject 100,000 Jews residing in his Gau to "Sonderbehandlub", that is, execution without a judicial proceeding.

We know of that approach from a letter of 30 May 1942 from Greiser to Himmler, in which he referred to the authorisation granted by Himmler for the Sonderbehandlung of 100,000 Jews, stated that the operation was nearing its end, and requesting further authorisation to apply Sonderbehandlung to some thousands of Poles with infective tuberculosis.

When the original approach from Greiser to Himmler and Heydrich was made is unknown (it is not specified in the letter of 30 May 1942), but is thought to have been in October 1941. It is also thought that the request was linked to the plan to deport 50,000 Reich Jews to the Lodz Ghetto.

From other correspondence and post-war testimony, it is known that Himmler told Gresier to liaise with the HSSPF-Wartheland (whose name I have forgotten; perhaps Koppe)) to organise the Sonderbehandlung, and that the HSSPF delegated the job to the Sonderkommando Lange based at Posen, a unit previously involved in "euthanasia" in the area.

Thus the killing operation at Chelmno was a limited local operation, arising from a local initiative, and with a limited target. It was not part of a grand scheme, and represented an exception from the comprehensive policy, which at the time of the authorisation for Sonderbehandlung was given to Greiser (around October 1941) was still one of deportation into conquered Soviet territory.

At best, the killing operation at Chelmno served as a model for other local initiatives. The German historian Pepter Longerich believes that the killing operation set up at Belzec by Globocnik was a similar limited local initiative, aimed only at the Jews of the Lublin and Lemberg Districts assessed as unfit for work, about 60% of the total. Again it was not a comprehensive extermination program at that time. Longerich considers that the decision to begin a killing operation at Belzec came at the beginning of March 1942, ie after the Wannsee Conference.

Greiser had sought the approval of Heydrich since the latter was the sole person who, as head of the RSHA, had the authority to authorise Sonderbehandlung. It appears that Globocnik, who as SSPF Lublin was not subject to the authority of the RSHA as operated very much as a loose cannon, did not bother to seek the prior approval of Heydrich, since Eichmann in his post-war testimony relates how he took an ex-post-facto authorisation to Globocnik in Lublin.

It appears that neither the Chelmno kiling operation, nor that at Belzec, at least at its commencement, were part of the "Final Solution", which was scheduled to be implemented after a final German victory, and throughout 1941 had been conceived of as a mass deportation of all Jews into occupied Soviet territory, where those of them fit for labour would be used on various projects such as road-building, and the unfit would be kept in camps in the White Sea area, where the first Soviet concentration camps had been located (we know this fronm Goebbels' diary and announcements by Heydrich).

Longerich believes that the decision to replace the mass deportation plan with one of physical extermination of the unfit Jews at killing centres in occupied Poland, and the deployment of the fit Jews for labour at concentration camps, came in May 1942, well after the Wannsee Conference.

uberjude · Post by **uberjude** » 29 Sep 2010 04:38

didn't say it was the initiation of the final solution; simply pointed out that, according to Heydrich, Jews who could work would end up dead, so the question is what would happen to those who couldn't work. As I pointed out, since Jews were already being gassed, perhaps independently of central planning, it doesn't take a great leap to see what the decision would be regarding those Jews who couldn't work.

But I notice you didn't address Heydrich's comments. If "able bodied Jews" would be

A. Worked to death
B. Killed if they survived

What was to be the fate of those Jews who weren't "able-bodied?"

michael mills · Post by **michael mills** » 29 Sep 2010 11:53

What was to be the fate of those Jews who weren't "able-bodied?"

To the extent that the minutes are a true reflection of what was said at the meeting, that question was not raised at all.

The plan outlined by Heydrich implies that all European Jews, whether fit for labour or not,were to be deported into occupied Soviet territory. The minutes do not specify what was to happen to the deportees not usable for road-construction work, so presumably it was not discussed. It may be that the German Government had not yet decided what was to be done with them in the long term, except that the plan being worked on through 1941 was to hold them in camps in the White Sea region.

In any case, Heydrich's words suggest that Hitler had not yet given his authorisation for the deportation plan to be implemented, so in the absence of that authorisation a lot of things were presumably still up in the air as at the time of the conference, including what was to be done with the non-working Jews.

The commencement of the killing operation at Chelmno, which was limited to Jews unfit for labour, while the fit Jews were being concentrated in the Lodz Ghetto, certainly provided a precedent for the treatment of Jews unfit for labour generally, but whether a decision to extend the principle of killing off the unfit to all Jews in German control, beyond the 100,000 Warthegau Jews whose Sonderbehandlung had been authorised, had been made by January 1942 cannot be proved conclusively one way or the other.

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