The Wannsee Conference, the fate of German Jews, and Hitler's decision in principle to exterminate all European Jews

Journal of Modern History

Volumn 70, Issue 4, 1998, Pages 759-812

  Gerlach, Christian ^a  

^a TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITÄT BERLIN   (Germany)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 33645890998     PISSN: 00222801     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/235167     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (316)

1. Eberhard Jäckel, "Die Konferenz am Wannsee," Die Zeit (January 17, 1992), p. 33.
2. Wolfgang Scheffler also noted that "the question has often been raised as to Heydrich's reasons for convening the conference at all." See Scheffler, "Die Wannsee-Konferenz und ihre historische Bedeutung," in Erinnern für die Zukunft (Berlin, 1993), p. 17.
3. Scheffler, Die Wannsee-Konferenz und ihre historische Bedeutung, Erinnern für die Zukunft (1993), 17. Ibid.
4. The authenticity of the document is not in question. See also n. 197 below. Eichmann himself identified it with no reservations. Of the works cited here, see esp. Scheffler; Johannes Tuchel, Am Grossen Wannsee 56-58: Von der Villa Minoux zum Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz (Berlin, 1992);
5. Peter Klein, Die Wannsee-Konferenz vom 20. Januar 1942 (Berlin, n.d.), pp. 5-14.
6. For the General Government of Poland, see, e.g., Dieter Pohl, Von der "Judenpolitik" zum Judenmord: Der Distrikt Lublin des Generalgouvernements 1939-1944 (Frankfurt am Main, 1993),
7. and Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung in Ostgalizien, 1941-1944 (Munich, 1996);
8. Thomas Sandkühler, Die "Endlösung" in Galizien (Bonn, 1996).
9. For Serbia, see Christopher Browning, Fateful Months (New York and London, 1985), pp. 39-56, 68-85;
10. Walter Manoschek, Serbien ist judenfrei (Munich, 1993).
11. See also Yitzhak Arad, "The Holocaust of Soviet Jewry in the Occupied Territories of the USSR," Yad Vashem Studies 21 (1991): 1-47;
12. Andrew Ezergailis, The Holocaust in Latvia, 1941-1944 (Washington and Riga, 1996). Additional studies of Lithuania by Christoph Dieckmann, of Einsatzgruppe D by Andrej Angrick, and of the Reich province Wartheland by Peter Klein and Michael Alberti are in preparation.
13. For completely new approaches, see Götz Aly and Susanne Heim, Vordenker der Vernichtung (Hamburg, 1991);
14. Götz Aly, "Endlösung": Völkerverschiebung und der Mord an den europäischen Juden (Frankfurt am Main, 1995).
15. In addition, see Richard Breitman, The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final Solution (London, 1992);
16. Christopher Browning, The Path to Genocide (Cambridge, Mass., 1992);
17. Hans Safrian, Die Eichmann-Männer (Vienna and Zürich, 1993);
18. Philippe Burrin, Hitler und die Juden: Die Entscheidung für den Völkermord (Frankfurt am Main, 1993).
19. Up until now, the Dutch historian L. J. Hartog (in Der Befehl zum Judenmord: Hitler, Amerika und die Juden [Bodenheim, 1997], Dutch ed., 1994) is the only scholar to have provided documentary evidence in support of this view. I examine his position in detail below.
20. This fundamental political decision has to be distinguished from Hitler's personal, inward decision to destroy the Jews of Europe. The latter would be extremely difficult to date (and this essay does not attempt to do so).
21. During 1940 and in the spring of 1941 several thousand Jews had already been deported from Stettin and Vienna to the Lublin district or from Baden to the south of France.
22. Nationalsozialistische Vernichtungspolitik, 1939 bis 1945: Neue Forschungen und Kontroversen, ed. Ulrich Herbert (Frankfurt am Main, 1998).
23. In occupied Lithuania the transition to total extermination had already occurred by the middle of August. Only in three larger cities did German authorities permit some thirty thousand Jewish workers and their families to survive. See Helmut Krausnick and Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm, Die Truppe des Weltanschauungskrieges: Die Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD, 1938-1942 (Stuttgart, 1981);
24. Arad, "The Holocaust of Soviet Jewry," pp. 1-22;
25. Ralf Ogorreck, Die Einsatzgruppen und die "Genesis der Endlösung" (Berlin, 1996);
26. Christian Gerlach, "Wirtschaftsinteressen, Besatzungspolitik und Judenvernichtung in Weissrussland, 1941-1943," in Herbert, ed., pp. 263-91.
27. Browning, Fateful Months, pp. 39 ff.;
28. Manoschek, Fateful Months, pp. 69 ff.
29. In the former Polish areas that had been annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939, German units began a systematic execution of Jews in early October 1941 in order to reduce their numbers and thus be rid of "useless eaters." As a rule, however, they did not destroy entire Jewish communities until later. In those areas during 1941 approximately 15-25 percent of the Jewish inhabitants were killed. In the territories that had originally been part of the Soviet Union, and in the Baltic countries, virtually all Jews were executed. See Gerlach; Arad, "The Holocaust of Soviet Jewry," esp. pp. 18-22;
30. Shmuel Spector, The Holocaust of Volhynian Jews, 1941-1944 (Jerusalem, 1990);
31. for Galicia, see Pohl, Judenverfolgung, pp. 139 ff.
32. Compare Adalbert Rückerl, Nationalsozialistische Vernichtungslager im Spiegel deutscher Strafprozesse (Munich, 1977), pp. 106 f. and 132 f.;
33. Yitzhak Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps (Bloomington, Ind., 1987), pp. 23-29;
34. Ino Arndt and Wolfgang Scheffler, "Organisierter Massenmord an Juden in nationalsozialistischen Vernichtungslagern," Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (hereafter cited as VfZ) 24 (1976): 105-35, esp. pp. 117-19.
35. It is thought by some that the extermination camp at Sobibor was also under construction at this time. For a summary seePohl, Von der "Judenpolitik," p. 106.
36. Pohl, in Von der "Judenpolitik" p. 101, presents convincing arguments on this point.
37. Arndt and Scheffler, pp. 116 ff.; Rückerl, pp. 259-68; Aly, p. 355;
38. Florian Freund, Bertrand Perz, and Karl Stuhlpfarrer, "Das Getto in Litzmannstadt (Lodz)," in "Unser einziger Weg ist Arbeit." Das Getto Lodz, 1940-1944 (Frankfurt am Main, 1990), pp. 17-31.
39. The best summary, along with new evidence, can be found in Peter Witte, "Two Decisions concerning the 'Final Solution to the Jewish Question': Deportations to Lodz and Mass Murder in Chelmno," Holocaust and Genocide Studies 9, no. 3 (1995): 318-45.
40. Browning, The Path to Genocide (n. 5 above), (July); Ogorreck; and Burrin (n. 5 above), (August).
41. Earlier works date the decision to execute Soviet Jews to the spring of 1941. See Gerald Reitlinger, Die Endlösung: Hitlers Versuch der Ausrottung der Juden Europas, 5th ed. (West Berlin, 1979), pp. 89 ff.;
42. Helmut Krausnick, "Die Einsatzgruppen vom Anschluß Österreichs bis zum Feldzug gegen die Sowjetunion," in Krausnick and Wilhelm, pp. 107 ff. and 150 ff.;
43. Raul Hilberg, Die Vernichtung der europäischen Juden, rev. and expanded ed. (Frankfurt am Main, 1990), pp. 288 ff. (sometime before June 22, 1941).
44. Burrin, pp. 133 ff. (September);
45. Browning, The Path to Genocide (October);
46. Uwe Dietrich Adam, Judenpolitik im Dritten Reich (Düsseldorf, 1979), p. 312 (between September and November);
47. Raul Hilberg, "Die Aktion Reinhard," in Der Mord an den Juden im Zweiten Weltkrieg, ed. Eberhard Jäckel and Jürgen Rohwer (Frankfurt am Main, 1987), pp. 125-36, esp. p. 126 (during the summer).
48. As in Breitman (n. 5 above), pp. 145 ff.;
49. for a more cautious view, see Leni Yahil, The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 1932-1945 (New York and Oxford, 1990), esp. pp. 253 and 320.
50. A facsimile of the original has been published in John Mendelsohn, ed., The Holocaust: Selected Documents in Eighteen Volumes, vol. 11 (New York and London, 1982); and in Tuchel, pp. 121-36 (along with Heydrich's letter of February 26, 1942, to the Foreign Office). Hereafter I cite Tuchel.
51. Reitlinger, pp. 105 ff.
52. Scheffler (n. 2 above), pp. 24 f. and p. 30. The second point is emphasized especially by Jäckel (n. 1 above).
53. Hilberg, Vernichtung, p. 421.
54. The first two aspects are emphasized by Adam, Vernichtung, p. 314, because they were the only issues that had not been resolved beforehand.
55. For a combination of the various elements as more or less equally important, see Aly and Heim, Vernichtung, p. 455;
56. Kurt Pätzold and Erika Schwarz, Tagesordnung: Judenmord. Die Wannsee-Konferenz am 20. Januar 1942, 2d ed. (Berlin, 1992), pp. 33 ff.;
57. Klein; Wolf Kaiser, "Die Wannsee-Konferenz," in Täter-Opfer-Folgen: Der Holocaust in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Heiner Lichtenstein and Otto R. Romberg (Bonn, 1995), pp. 24-37, esp. pp. 28 ff.
58. Interrogation of Georg Heuser, March 18, 1969, Staatsanwaltschaft (StA) Mainz 3 Ks 1/67, Protokolle B, vol. 1 (Hauptverhandlung), fol. 177. It should be emphasized that this statement was made during legal proceedings. There had been no prior preparations in which this formulation could have been suggested to Heuser. Furthermore, this particular issue had nothing to do with the subject of the proceedings, which concerned Jewish executions in Lida.
59. Interrogation of Adolf Eichmann, June 6, 1960, cited in State of Israel, Ministry of Justice, The Trial of Adolf Eichmann: Records of the Proceedings in the District Court of Jerusalem, vol. 7 (Jerusalem, 1995)
60. (cited hereafter as Trial of Adolf Eichmann) (Ton-)Band 5, fol. 5 (p. 169).
61. Trial of Adolf Eichmann) (Ton-)Band 5, fol. 5 (p. 169). Ibid.;
62. and Jäckel, Trial of Adolf Eichmann) (Ton-)Band p. 34.
63. Himmler, notes on telephone conversations, November 30, 1941, Bundesarchiv (BA) NS 19/1438.
64. Gerald Fleming, Hitler und die Endlösung: "Es ist des Führers Wunsch. . ." (Wiesbaden and Munich, 1982), pp. 88 ff.
65. See Martin Broszat, "Hitler und die Genesis der 'Endlösung': Aus Anlass der Thesen von David Irving," VfZ25 (1977): 739-75, esp. pp. 760 ff.;
66. Scheffler, p. 20; Aly and Heim (n. 5 above), p. 465;
67. David Irving, Hitler's War (London, 1977), pp. 330-32. It remains uncertain who called whom and whether the suggestion not to execute the deported German Jews originated with Himmler or with Heydrich.
68. Two radio messages from Himmler to Jeckeln, December 1, 1941, Public Record Office, HW 16/32, GPD 471 Nr. 2 (for December 4, 1941). I am very grateful to Christoph Dieckmann for this reference. See also Himmler, appointment calendar, December 4, 1941, OSOBYi archives Moscow 1372-5-23, fol. 350. Himmler noted three topics for the meeting: "Jewish question | SS Brigade. Business enterprises."
69. Werner Jochmann, ed., Adolf Hitler: Monologe im Führerhauptquartier: Die Aufzeichnungen Heinrich Heims (Munich, 1982), pp. 147-49 (dated December 1-2, 1941).
70. See Hilberg, Vernichtung (n. 17 above), pp. 222-24. Among them were 5,000 gypsies from the Burgenland.
71. See n. 209.
72. Urteil LG Koblenz 9 Ks 2/62, May 21, 1963, in Adelheid L. Rüter-Ehlermann et al., eds., Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, vol. 19 (Amsterdam, 1979), p. 190; undated report of Einsatzgruppe A and of the Commander of the Security Police and the SD in Minsk (January 1942), Institut für Zeitgeschichte (IfZ) Fb 101/34 and Fb 104/2.
73. On November 11 the first transport from Hamburg arrived in Minsk. On November 14, the chief of the general staff of the Army Group Center, Major General Hans von Greiffenberg, issued a communication by telephone to General Walter Braemer, the commander of the armed forces in the Ostland, in Riga, to lodge a protest with the Head of Transportation in the Army's High Command. Braemer did so by November 20 at the latest. His protest led to an immediate cancellation of other scheduled transports, with the exception of one train that left Cologne on November 28. See war diary of Army Group Center, November 11 and November 14, 1941, Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv (BA-MA) RH 19 II/387, fols. 55, 63; Safrian (n. 5 above), p. 150; Chef Sipo/SD, Incident Report Nr. 140, December 1, 1941, BA-MA SF-01/28934.
74. Einsatzkommando 3, Report, December 1, 1941,
75. Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen Ludwigsburg (ZStL), UdSSR, vol. 401, fol. 91,
76. published in facsimile in Heinz Artzt, Mörder in Uniform (Munich, 1979), esp. p. 189.
77. Einsatzgruppe A to the Reich Commissar for the Ostland, November 8, 1941, BA R 90/146. According to a handwritten notation, shortly thereafter the Reich Commissariat for the Ostland (RKO) sent a copy to the General Commissar for Lithuania in Kaunas, who was thus notified in advance as well.
78. Kleist, personal notebook, entry for November 22, 1941, Staatsanwaltschaft Hamburg 147 Js 29/67, vol. 65, fol. 12460. Before handing over his notes to the authorities, Kleist had made one of these lines illegible (as he did in several other sensitive passages). But he overlooked the following passage: "Very good impression by Staf. Jäger. He agrees completely with Lith.[uanian] cooperation. If the local administration can be involved in this sensitive area, then there will be no excuse for other areas." It is known that Jäger made widespread use of Lithuanian commandos in the executions of Jews. On November 21, Kleist made the following notation on his stay in Kaunas: "Afternoon in the ghetto, chicken in the pot, isolation hospital, covered graves next to it."
79. Safrian (n. 5 above), p. 153.
80. See also the interrogation of Friedrich Jeckeln, December 14, 1945, Bundesarchiv-Zwischenarchiv Dahlwitz-Hoppegarten (BA D-H) ZM 1683, vol. 1, fols. 12 f.
81. This was reported the next day to Kleist by officials of the Reich Commissariat Ostland in Riga: "Told about shootings of 10,000's of German and Latvian Jews by SS. Reich Commissar was witness." Kleist, personal notebook, entry for December 1, 1941, StA Hamburg 147 Js 29/67, vol. 65, fol. 12460. Kleist received the news of the massacre of the German Jews with no visible reaction. This, too, suggests agreement by the Ministry for the East. After the war, Lohse voluntarily admitted that he had witnessed a mass execution in Riga in Jeckeln's presence. He put its date at the beginning of December 1941.
82. See interrogation of Hinrich Lohse, April 19, 1950, Staatsanwaltschaft Hannover 2 Js 499/61,
83. Sonderheft 4, fols. 82 ff.
84. Safrian, p. 149.
85. Frank Flechtmann, "November 1944: 'Und nun erst recht!' Ein Hornberger lässt schiessen" (Die Ortenau [1996]: 471-91, esp. p. 482). It is asserted, with no source cited, that reports of the event had been broadcast that same evening by British and Soviet radio. The assertion is based on eyewitness accounts from some of the perpetrators at their trial after the war. I am grateful to Dieter Pohl for calling my attention to this publication. On December 19, a report of the incident reached the Reich interior ministry;
86. see Bernhard Lösener, "Als Rassereferent im Reichsministerium des Innern," VfZ9 (1961): 264-313, esp. p. 310.
87. See Ezergailis (n. 4 above), pp. 352-59;
88. Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm, Die Einsatzgruppe A der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD, 1941/42 (Frankfurt am Main, 1996), pp. 124-31; excerpt from an undated report of Einsatzgruppe A, in Pätzold and Schwarz, eds. (n. 23 above), pp. 99 f.
89. Undated report of Einsatzkommando 2, cited in Wilhelm, p. 130.
90. See also Bernhard Press, Judenmord in Lettland, 1941-1945 (Berlin, 1992), pp. 117-19;
91. Reitlinger (n. 17 above), p. 103.
92. See Kleist, personal notebook, entry for December 8, 1941: "Jew-Kube-shot? Schmitz," StA Hamburg 147 Js 29/67, vol. 65, p. 12460. Schmitz was the relevant official in Section I (Politics) of the Ministry for the East. See also official report of the commander of the Security Service in Minsk, November 29, 1941; and Heydrich's reply to Kube, March 21, 1942, in report of Strauch, Abwehroffizier of the Head of the Anti-partisan Units of the Reichsführer-SS, to his Supervisor, Bach-Zelewski, July 25, 1943, BA NS 19/1770, fols. 15-27
93. (published in Helmut Heiber, "Aus den Akten des Gauleiters Kube," VfZ4 [1956]: 67-92, esp. pp. 83-85 and p. 90 [notation dated December 2, 1941])
94. ; report of Burkhart, adviser on Jewish Affairs for the Commander of the Security Service in Minsk, January 1942, IfZ Fb 104/2. Kube took notice of the matter relatively late because he had been in the Reich between November 10 and November 20. See Kleist, personal notebook, entry of November 17, 1941; interrogation of H. v. R., May 18, 1966, Staatsanwaltschaft Hamburg 147 Js 29/67, fols. 7149 f., and the indictment for the same case,
95. Anklageschrift, ibid., pp. 446 ff.;
96. Kube to Rosenberg, November 4; Marquardt to DAF-Oberführer Zillig, November 18, 1941, BA R 6/27, fols. 23, 26.
97. As mentioned by Eichmann on March 6 at a conference to discuss the new deportation directives, according to notes made by a police inspector from the State Police Office in Düsseldorf, March 9, 1942. See H. G. Adler, Der verwaltete Mensch: Studien zur Deportation der Juden aus Deutschland (Tübingen, 1974), pp. 194 ff.
98. One must concur with Safrian (p. 167, n. 96), who finds it unlikely that Kube's protest following his visit to the ghetto on November 29 would have reached Himmler just twenty-four hours later.
99. Note dated November 10, 1941, in re the "Solution of Jewish Questions," Eichmann Trial Document Nr. 1193, BA F 5493. In Heydrich's opinion, only "a few special Jews under the protection of higher Reich offices" should be spared, "in order to avoid too great a volume of requests for the sake of such Jews."
100. It seems that the RSHA did make exceptions for, among others, decorated war veterans. In a teletype dated April 17, 1942, Eichmann referred to the directive of November 20, 1941, and stated that Jews with decorations for wounds received during the war "are also exempt from deportation to the east" (quoted in Fleming [n. 28 above], p. 129, n. 258 [emphasis added]). In fact the deportation directives had been issued prior to November 20, 1941. See Adam (n. 18 above), p. 316.
101. See entry in Goebbels of November 18, 1941, quoted in Broszat (n. 29 above), p. 752.
102. The individuals were (Hellmuth James) Graf v. Moltke and Lieutenant-Commander Albrecht. See undated memoir by Karl Loewenstein, before June 1, 1956, copy in the Bibliothek des Zentrums für Antisemitismusforschung, Berlin. For violations of the deportation guidelines in the case of the Riga transports see also Fleming, pp. 88 f., n. 188.
103. Quoted in Andreas Seeger, "Gestapo Müller": Die Karriere eines Schreibtischtäters (Berlin, 1996), p. 121.
104. Dr. Wetzel, the racial adviser in the Ministry for the East, wrote to Lohse on October 25, 1941 (draft, Nuremberg Document NO-365). What he wrote can be interpreted to mean that Lohse, too, wanted to eliminate German Jews incapable of work using "Brack's method," i.e., poison gas, and that the Ministry for the East expressed "no reservations." But the meaning is not absolutely clear. I am grateful to Christoph Dieckmann for calling my attention to this reference. The authenticity of the document was confirmed by Erhard Wetzel during his interrogation, September 20, 1961, Staatsanwaltschaft Hannover 2 Js 499/61, vol. 2, fols. 18 ff.
105. Aly and Heim (n. 5 above), pp. 468 ff., have emphasized this issue. See also John A. S. Grenville, "Die 'Endlösung' und die 'Judenmischlinge' im Dritten Reich," in Das Unrechtsregime, vol. 2: Verfolgung, Exil, Belasteter Neubeginn, ed. Ursula Büttner (Hamburg, 1986), pp. 91-121, esp. p. 108; see also Adam, pp. 314 ff.; with regard to the deportations, see Hilberg, Vernichtung (n. 17 above), p. 421.
106. Franz Schlegelberger to Hans-Heinrich Lammers, April 5, 1942, in "Re: The Final Solution of the Jewish Question," published in Mendelsohn, ed. (n. 20 above), vol. 18, p. 201.
107. The Ministry for the East was involved in the issue of the definition of German Jews because the individuals deported to Riga and Minsk had been stripped of their citizenship according to the eleventh ordinance to the Reich Citizenship Law of November 25, 1941, and were thus subject to the guidelines in effect there. For the same reason, the problem of the definition of Jews in the occupied Soviet territories, which had not yet been resolved, was connected with this question. Cf. BA R 6/74. See Ordinance 11 with addendum, December 3, 1941, and its history in BA R 43 II/136a. For the Four-Year Plan Office, see Document 1 with Bernhard Lösener's (Reich interior ministry) notation, December 4, 1941, BA R 18/5519, fols. 483-85. The other participants at the meeting were Undersecretary of State Martin Luther (Reich foreign ministry) and two "practitioners" of mass execution from the occupied territories, Schöngarth and Lange, the heads of the Security Police and the SD in the Government General and in Latvia. See the biographies in Pätzold and Schwarz, eds. (n. 22 above), pp. 201-45.
108. See Bernhard Lösener's notation, December 4, 1941, with two attached documents, BA R 18/5519, fols. 477, and 483-95.
109. Heydrich to Undersecretary of State Luther, November 29, 1941, reproduced in facsimile in Tuchel (n. 3 above), pp. 112 ff.; emphasis added.
110. Undated minutes, fols. 8 f., 10-14 (Tuchel, pp. 129-35).
111. Kube's letter is sometimes interpreted in just the opposite sense; see above all Hilberg, Vernichtung, pp. 371 f. Kube wrote: "I personally request from you an official directive regarding the treatment by the civil administration of Jews being deported from Germany to White Russia. Among these Jews are men who fought at the frontline, . . . individuals who are half-Aryan, and even some who are three-fourths Aryan. . . . These Jews will probably freeze or starve to death in the next few weeks. For us they pose a huge risk of contagion. . . . On my own authority I will not give the SD any order for the treatment of these people [this is referring to the Nazi expression "special treatment," that is, killing] although certain units of the army and of the police have now shown a keen interest in the possessions of these Jews from the Reich. . . . I can be hard, and I stand ready to help solve the Jewish question. But individuals who come from our own cultural milieu are just not the same as the animal hordes from these regions. Do you really want me to have Lithuanians and Latvians slaughter these people? I could not do it.
112. therefore request, keeping in mind the reputation of the Reich and of our party here, that you issue clear directives indicating the most humane way of accomplishing what is necessary." Kube to Lohse, December 16, 1941, reproduced in facsimile in Max Weinrich, Hitler's Professors (New York, 1946), pp. 153 f.
113. So too in Aly (n. 5 above), pp. 362-67.
114. Compare Hilberg, Vernichtung, p. 460; memorandum from the Reich Labor Minister to the Regional Labor Offices, December 19, 1941,
115. quoted in Verfolgung, Vertreibung, Vernichtung. Dokumente des faschistischen Antisemitismus, 1933-1942, ed. Kurt Pätzold (Frankfurt am Main, 1984), pp. 326 f.
116. Minutes, fol. 14 (Tuchel, p. 135).
117. Bormann emphasized that these exceptions were temporary. See memorandum from the head of the NSDAP Party Chancellery 35/42 Re: Employment of Jews in Armaments Plants, March 14, 1942, BA NS 6/337, fols. 68 f.
118. It appears that the labor ministry "made inquiry" and was informed by the Four-Year Plan Office about the discussion of this issue at the Wannsee Conference. Compare the reference to the "directives currently in force and discussions that recently took place," in Reich Labor Minister Va 5431/1936/42g Circular Re: Workforce, March 27, 1942, To: Regional Labor Offices, Heydrich, and General Georg Thomas (WiRü Amt) (copy), Nuremberg Document L-61.
119. Interrogation of Adolf Eichmann by his defense counsel, June 26, 1961, in Trial of Adolf Eichmann (n. 25 above), vol. 4, p. 1423.
120. Notation by Adolf Eichmann, December 1, 1941, reproduced in Pätzold and Schwarz, eds. (n. 23 above), p. 90, facsimile reproduction in Yehoshua Büchler, "A Preparatory Document for the Wannsee 'Conference,' " Holocaust and Genocide Studies 10, no. 1 (1995): 121-27, esp. p. 122. This document had been previously published during the proceedings against Eichmann in Jerusalem, where it appeared as Document No. T/ 182.
121. See Eichmann's remarks on the incident in his interrogation, June 23, 1961, in Trial of Adolf Eichmann, vol. 4, pp. 1421 f.
122. In Adolf Eichmann's letter to Krüger dated December 1, 1941, the invitation formula is absent (Büchler, pp. 123 f.). For an interpretation, see Büchler, p. 126; and Klein (n. 3 above), pp. 13 f.
123. In a letter to Himmler on January 17, 1942 (BA NS 19/2653, fol. 50), just three days before the date of the conference, Krüger mentioned that his upper arm was in a splint and that he had to spend "hours at forced rest." However, just shortly before this, approximately on January 13, Krüger apparently traveled to Lublin to meet Odilo Globocnik. See letter from SS-Hauptsturmführer Max Schuster to SS-Gruppenführer Gottlob Berger, January 27, 1942, BAD-H ZM 1454, A. 1, fol. 263.
124. Krüger to Himmler, January 17, 1942, BA NS 19/2653, fol. 50. Cf. Grothmann, appointment calendar (Grothmann was Himmler's personal adjutant) for January 13, 1942, BA NS 19/3959, with Bühler's request, Himmler, notes of telephone conversations, January 2, 1942, BA NS 19/1439.
125. After the war, Bühler also mentioned a meeting with Heydrich just prior to the Wannsee Conference. With regard to the content of the meeting, he made patently false statements in an effort to exculpate himself. See report by Josef Bühler, February 19, and interrogation, April 23, 1946, in Pätzold and Schwarz, eds., pp. 131 ff., 135 ff.
126. The relevant documents can be found in BA R 6/74.
127. Rosenberg to Lammers, January 8, 1942, and March 25, 1942, with accompanying documents, BA R 43 II/684a, fols. 110-13, 136-47.
128. Speech by Rosenberg, November 18, 1941, BA NS 8/71, esp. fols. 10, 18.
129. The basic study on this subject is Christopher Browning, The Final Solution and the German Foreign Office (New York and London, 1978);
130. see also Hans-Jürgen Döscher, SS und Auswärtiges Amt im Dritten Reich: Diplomatie im Schatten der "Endlösung" (Frankfurt am Main and Berlin, 1991).
131. Notes prepared by Referat D III for Undersecretary of State Luther, in "Re: Suggestions and Ideas from the Foreign Office Regarding the Impending Total Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe," December 8, 1941, reproduced in facsimile in Döscher, SS und Auswärtiges Amt, pp. 222 f. See also the talking paper prepared by Luther for State Secretary Ernst von Weizsäcker (D III 660g, December 4, 1941) with its suggestion to seek a European-wide solution to the Jewish question (Nuremberg Document NG-4667).
132. The respective governments had already signaled their lack of interest in the fate of their Jewish citizens. See the retrospective note for Joachim von Ribbentrop, April 20, 1943, BA F 72891; Browning, Final Solution, pp. 67 f.
133. Browning, Final Solution, pp. 55-67.
134. Reich Führer-SS und Chief of German Police IV D 4 to Lammers, September 30, October 30, and December 5, 1941, BA R43 II/675a, fols. 107, 114, 117; Browning, Final Solution, p. 69; Seeger (n. 51 above), p. 127. These people had been taken as hostages by the SS after the non-Jewish workers' strike in Amsterdam supporting the Jews in early 1941. The Reich foreign ministry had recommended that a relatively high number of hostage deaths not be reported on any one day. They also recommended that the hostages be returned to the Netherlands since Sweden's role as protective power did not apply to affairs inside the home country. They emphasized that, "In principle the position of the Foreign Office is the same as that of the RSHA and for its part the Office recommends repressive measures against the Jews as instigators [in the sense that they were intellectual instigators of conspiracies]" (D III 588g to Heinrich Müller [RSHA], November 5, 1941, Nürnberg Document NG-3700).
135. On the subject of "part Jews," the basic study is Jeremy Noakes, "The Development of Nazi Policy towards the German 'Mischlinge,' 1933-1945," Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 34 (1989): 291-354.
136. See also Grenville (n. 54 above); Hilberg, Vernichtung (n. 17 above), pp. 436-49; Adam (n. 18 above), pp. 316-33.
137. Noakes, pp. 338-41; Adam, pp. 319f.; Burrin (n.5 above), pp. 136 f.
138. Göring's commission to Heydrich, July 31, 1941, contemporary photocopy (with accompanying letter to State Secretary Karl-Hermann Frank, Prague, January 25, 1942), BA D-H M 501, A.3, fols. 4, 7, reproduced in Pätzold and Schwarz, eds. (n. 23 above), p. 79.
139. Communications Office of Armed Forces High Command, Economics and Armaments Office at the Reich Marshall, to General Georg Thomas, July 29, 1941, BA-MA (B ArchP) F 44544, fol. 104.
140. See, e.g., Aly, pp. 306 f.
141. Compare Witte (n. 16 above), pp. 318 ff.; Broszat (n. 29 above), p. 750. On August 7, the RSHA completed its first estimate of the number of Jews living in Europe. Number of Jews, Absolutely and as a Percentage of Population, in the Countries and Regions of Europe, August 7, 1941, Archiwum Glownej Komisji Gadania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, Warschau, CA 362/218, fols. 5-10. The exhibit was presumably prepared by Eichmann.
142. Notation by an official in the Reich Commissariat of the Netherlands, September 19, 1941, regarding a conversation with Bernhard Lösener on September 16, 1941, IfZ, Eichmann Trial Document 1355.
143. Noakes, pp. 341 f.; Adam, pp. 320 f.; notations by Erhard Wetzel and Walter Labs (both of the Ministry for the East), October 27, 1941, and January 16, 1942, BA R 6/74, fols. 24 f. and 54R. For a positive (and thus, in my view, unsupported) evaluation of the positions taken by Lammers and the Reich chancellery in regard to Jewish policy, see Dieter Rebentisch, Führerstaat und Venvaltung im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Stuttgart, 1989), pp. 434-41.
144. According to the First Ordinance of the Reich Citizenship Law, November 14, 1935, Hitler had the power to grant exceptions to the provisions regulating the definition of Jews and part-Jews. See Adler (n. 46 above), p. 280. On the large number of special requests, see Adam, pp. 301 f.; and the file BA 62 Ka 1, Nr. 63.
145. See, in particular, Lösener, "Rassereferent" (n. 42 above), esp. pp. 296 ff. Although this postwar memoir contains elements of self-justification, it agrees for the most part with the files of 1941/42, insofar as these have survived. See also Noakes, pp. 353 f. There must remain some doubt, however, as regards the genuineness of documents cited by Lösener that no longer exist.
146. Notation by Bernhard Lösener, December 4, 1941, with two accompanying documents, BA R 18/5519, fols. 477, 483-95.
147. Noakes (n. 80 above), pp. 353 f.; notation by an official of the Reich Commissariat of the Netherlands, September 19, 1941, concerning a discussion with Lösener on September 16, IfZ, Eichmann Trial Document 1355; notation by Lösener, August 18, 1941, concerning a report by Kritzinger (Reich Chancellery) and outline by Lösener of a Stuckart memo, August 21, 1941 (accompanied by the notation that Heydrich had purportedly communicated Hitler's contrary opinion to Rosenberg), in Lösener, "Rassereferent," pp. 304, 306. The claim made by Adam, p. 321 (cf. p. 330) that at the Wannsee Conference Heydrich put forward a position that had been approved by Hitler is speculation. With regard to the eleventh ordinance, Hitler had rejected the more far-reaching first drafts. Initially, the Reich interior ministry and the Reich justice ministry had sought to deprive German Jews generally of their German citizenship. See R 18/5519 and R 43II/ 136a, esp. a notation by Lammers, May 29, and Lammers's note to Wilhelm Frick, Schlegelberger, and Bormann, June 7, 1941, fols. 122-124R.
148. According to an unsigned note, outcome of a meeting in the main office of the Security Police, in "Re the Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe" (undated; presumably the author was Dr. Werner Feldscher), Hitler rejected the idea. See BA R 18/5519, fol. 485; see also Lammers to Finanzminister Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, June 19, 1941, BA 7.01, Nr. 4112, fol. 270.
149. Lammers to Schwerin v. Krosigk, February 17, 1942, regarding a statement made by Hitler in July 1941, BA 7.01, Nr. 4112, fol. 284.
150. Agitated, Hitler had insisted that any ultimate decision on this issue would be made by him. See Lammers to R. Walther Darré, April 10, 1941, BA R 43 II/598, fol. 60/R; Noakes, p. 340 (September 1941).
151. As far as can be ascertained, he expressed himself in relatively positive terms about individuals in so-called mixed marriages and about "second and third generation part-Jews." He spoke positively about the existing racial laws but opposed the granting of exceptions. See Jochmann, ed. (n. 31 above), pp. 147-49.
152. Recorded in a confidential note by Walter Labs, hand-dated, January 16, 1942, BA R 6/74, fol. 54; emphasis added. Labs was section chief for general administration in the Ministry for the East. Aly and Heim (n. 5 above), p. 469, brought this document to the attention of scholars.
153. Note by Lösener, August 17, with note by Acting State Secretary Pfundtner, August 20, 1941, and the notation, "The Minister has approved this note," in BA R18/3746a, published in Lösener, "Rassereferent," p. 303; notation by Lösener about a meeting in the Propaganda Ministry, August 15, 1941, in "Rassereferent," p. 301 (statements by the Four-Year Plan Office and by the propaganda ministry).
154. Himmler, meeting notes, November 24, 1941, Sonderarchiv Moskau 1372-5-23, fol. 360.
155. Lösener, "Rassereferent" (n. 42 above), p. 311.
156. Meeting notes, "Meeting with the Führer at Wolfsschanze, December 18, 1941, 4 PM, Führer," Himmler, appointment calendar (n. 30 above), fol. 334. A published version of this source, with commentary, is in preparation. To the knowledgeable discussions of its editorial group I owe a deeper insight into the structures of the decision-making process that led to the extermination of European Jews.
157. Odilo Globocnik was SS- and Police Leader in the Lublin district of the Government General from 1939 to 1943.
158. "Bei dieser Gelegenheit vertrat Brigadeführer Globocnik die Auffassung, die ganze Judenaktion so schnell wie nur irgend möglich durchzuführen, damit man nicht eines Tages mitten drin steckenbliebe, wenn irgendwelche Schwierigkeiten ein Abstoppen der Aktion notwendig machen. Sie selbst, Reichsführer, haben mir gegenüber seinerzeit schon die Meinung geäußert, daß man schon aus Gründen der Tarnung so schnell wie möglich arbeiten müsse." Viktor Brack to Himmler, June 23, 1942, BA NS 19/1583, fol. 34; emphasis added.
159. Compare Sonderarchiv Moskau 1372-5-23, esp. fol. 341 (the first short or incomplete word is indecipherable); Grothmann (n. 70 above). The surviving correspondence between Himmler and Brack mentions no other meeting between them during this period.
160. Jochmann, ed., pp. 150, 152.
161. Brack to Himmler; "Sworn Statement of Viktor Brack," October 12, 1946, Nuremberg Document NO-426.
162. "Anders wäre ja nicht zu verstehen, wenn ich einen großen Teil der mir unterstehenden Organisationen dem Reichsführer zu einer bis in die letzte Konsequenz gehenden Endlösung der Judenfrage zur Verfügung gestellt habe." Philipp Bouhler to Bormann, July 10, 1942, BA 62 Ka 1, Nr. 83, fol. 109; emphasis added.
163. According to Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka (n. 13 above), p. 17, it was in 1941, between the end of October and the end of December.
164. It was somewhat later according to Michael Tregenza, "Belzec Death Camp," Wiener Library Bulletin 30 (1977): 8-25, esp. pp. 14-16.
165. According to the account by Eugen Kogon et al. in Nationalsozialistische Massentötungen durch Giftgas (Frankfurt am Main, 1983), pp. 153 f.,
166. Christian Wirth, a member of the Führer chancellery, became commandant of Belzec in the latter half of December. When he arrived there was already snow on the ground. Pohl, Lublin (n. 4 above), p. 105 (cf. p. 101) claims that personnel from the Führer chancellery arrived in November 1941, but he makes erroneous use of statements by Tregenza and Kogon et al. Only Josef Oberhauser and two other individuals were sent as early as September 1941, but that seems to have been for other purposes.
167. See interrogation of Josef Oberhauser, December 14, 1962, in Ernst Klee, Willi Dressen, and Volker Riess, eds., "Schöne Zeiten": Judenmord aus Sicht der Täter und Gaffer, 2d ed. (Frankfurt am Main, 1988), p. 208. The Polish laborers were discharged on December 22, 1941, when the barracks construction was complete. See interrogation of Stanislaw Kozak, in Kogon et al., pp. 152 f.
168. It is possible that Heydrich sent Eichmann to Belzec at this time (see n. 146). One of the "experts" who may have been sent was August Becker, a technician in charge of the gas vans. He said that he was transferred from the Führer Chancellery to the RSHA following a conversation between Himmler and Brack, and then sent on to Riga. Becker stated later that he was involved in an accident in Deutsch-Eylau (East Prussia) on his way to an inspection in Riga on December 14, 1941, but his recollection may be mistaken by several days; he said he came out of the hospital before Christmas. See interrogation of August Becker, March 26, 1960, in Klee, Dreessen, and Riess, eds., p. 71. The exact date of Becker's accident is apparently no longer documented, and it was never checked by any historian or juridical institution at the Wehrmachtauskunftsstelle Berlin, which is in charge of this matter. Information from the Wehrmachtauskunftsstelle Berlin, December 1997. If this general interpretation is correct, it is a further indication that the RSHA first had to gather information about the status of regional planning for extermination efforts.
169. Notes on a discussion with the Führer, December 14, 1941, prepared by Rosenberg on December 16, 1941, BDC, SL 47F (copy), published as Nuremberg Document PS-1517 in IMT, vol. 27, p. 270; emphasis added. Hartog (n. 6 above), p. 71, also draws attention to this passage, connecting its essential elements with Hans Frank's speech in Kraków on December 16, 1941 (see below), and with Hitler's January 30, 1939, prophecy that another world war would lead to the extermination of the Jews in Europe.
170. This is what Rosenberg maintained during his interrogation, April 17, 1946, IMT, vol. 11, pp. 606-8, though he could not explain why that meant that further threats against the Jews should not be made in public. The words "now, after the decision" (jetzt nach der Entscheidung) were not investigated further by the court, since the court believed that any such decision would have been made considerably earlier.
171. The manuscript of the speech still exists, apparently in a version prepared after the discussion with Hitler. (The first version was prepared before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and this version includes a reference to that attack.) In it, Rosenberg threatened the "New York Jews" in response to their supposed "world-wide agitation against Germany and associated policy of military encirclement" with "corresponding German measures against the Jews living in the east." "For in the eastern territories currently under the control of German armed forces, there are more than 6 million Jewish inhabitants. For more than a hundred years, eastern Jewry has been the source and spring of Jewish power throughout the world." Rosenberg talked about "destroying the springs from which the New York Jews had drawn their powers," and about "a negative elimination of these parasitic elements." See "The Great Moment of the East. Speech by Reichsleiter Rosenberg in the Sports Palace," December 18, 1941, BA R6/37, fols. 31 ff., esp. fols. 47-49.
172. See Hitler's speech for the session of January 30, 1939, in Verhandlung des Reichstages, 4th Wahlperiode, 1939, vol. 460. Stenographic Reports, 1939-1942. Photocopy Bad Feilnbach 1986, p. 16; emphasis added.
173. Similarly Hermann Göring, Reichstag Session, December 11, 1941, ibid., p. 106.
174. Hermann Göring, Reichstag Session, Ibid., pp. 93-106. The speech was supposed to be broadcast live outside Germany as well.
175. See Elke Fröhlich, ed., Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, pt. II, vol. 2 (Munich, 1996), p. 476 (for December 11, 1941).
176. On the invitations dated December 9, 1941, the meeting was scheduled for December 10. Later on December 9, the meeting was rescheduled for December 11 and then obviously postponed once again. See two teletype messages from the Party chancellery of the NSDAP, December 9, 1941 (Martin Bormann, 10:45 A.M.; Friedrichs, 3:45 P.M.), BA NS 8/186. I am indebted to Armin Nolzen for this reference.
177. Goebbels, Tagebücher, pt. 2, vol. 2, pp. 498 f. (see entry for December 13, 1941).
178. Breitman (n. 5 above), p. 155 (January 30, 1941); Broszat (n. 29 above), pp. 749 f. (August 18, 1941, based on Goebbels's record); Jochmann, ed., p. 106 (October 25, 1941); Adam (n. 18 above), p. 316 (January 30, 1942); quite clearly in his speech on February 24, 1942 (excerpts published in Pätzold, ed., pp. 345 ff.).
179. Rosenberg and Frank were Reichsleiter; Lohse was Gauleiter in Schleswig-Holstein; Koch was Gauleiter in East Prussia; Goebbels was Gauleiter in Berlin; Meyer was Gauleiter in Westphalia. It has been documented that Greiser, Frank, and Lohse were in the Reich, or in Berlin. We have already discussed Himmler, Rosenberg, and Bouhler; see also Himmler, appointment calendar, fol. 343. See also Schlegelberger to Greiser, December 15, 1941, BA R 22/850, fols. 215R-216 (on December 10, Franz Schlegelberger called Greiser in Berlin). For Lohse, see Göring, appointment calendar, December 8, 1941, IfZ ED 180/5 (I am indebted to Christoph Dieckmann for this reference). Werner Präg and Wolfgang Jacobmeyer, eds., Das Diensttagebuch des deutschen Generalgouverneurs in Polen 1939-1945 (Stuttgart, 1975), p. 449. Wilhelm Kube still held the formal title of Gauleiter but was no longer active as one, and thus he was not invited to the meeting of the Reichsleiter and Gauleiter. I am grateful to Armin Nolzen for this information. This explains why Kube had to write for information in his letter of December 16, 1941, cited above in n. 59.
180. At the same hour Göring was scheduled to meet with Keitel and with General Osterkamp, the head of the army administrative office, at his Carinhall estate. See Göring, appointment calendar, December 12, 1941, IfZED 180/5. On December 9, however, Göring had spoken at length with Hitler (ibid.). For Heydrich, see his report to Bormann, December 30, 1941, which suggests that he was in Prague on December 12, 1941; see Miroslav Kárny et al., eds., Deutsche Politik im "Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren" unter Reinhard Heydrich 1941-1942 (Berlin, 1997), p. 205.
181. This consideration is emphasized by Hartog (n. 6 above), esp. pp. 11 ff., 75 ff.
182. In view of the dates, and of the whole fabric of rationalizations, it cannot be maintained that Hitler decided to exterminate the Jews in the euphoria of victory or because he thought he was invincible. This position has been put forward by Christopher Browning in "The Euphoria of Victory and the Final Solution: Summer-Fall 1941," German Studies Review 17, no. 3 (1994): 473-81.
183. See also Andreas Hillgruber, Hitlers Strategie: Politik und Kriegführung 1940-1941 (Frankfurt am Main, 1965), pp. 524 f.
184. See n. 100. Apparently Himmler made the notation because he considered this the most important result of the discussion. Hitler repeated the phrase often in his justifications. See in addition his conversation with Goebbels the previous day (Goebbels, Tagebücher, pp. 533 ff., for December 18, 1941). In fact, the meeting with Himmler probably concerned some concrete arrangement, unknown to us, for implementing the Jewish extermination.
185. Reinhard Heydrich, "Die Wirtschaft als massgeblicher Faktor der staatlichen und politischen Neuordnung Böhmens und Mährens im Reich," in Tagung der Südosteuropa-Gesellschaft und der Deutschen Gesellschaft der Wirtschaft in Böhmen und Mähren (Berlin, Prague, Vienna, 1942), p. 11 (BA R 63/279). On the question of the dating, see Heydrich's report to Bormann, December 30, 1941, and see Kárny et al., eds., p. 205.
186. On the same day, Rosenberg sent Hitler a letter suggesting that Jewish leaders being held in France as hostages should be shot, because worldwide Jewry was responsible for the assassination attempts and the agitation actions of the French communists. (See Rosenberg to Hitler, December 18, 1941, in Pätzold and Schwarz, eds., pp. 96 f.) Hitler's reaction to the letter was positive, at least in part. See Lammers to Rosenberg, December 31, 1941, BA R43 II/1444, fol. 56.
187. Himmler, speech at the meeting of SS-Group Leaders, October 4, 1943, IMT, vol. 29, pp. 145 f.;
188. for additional examples, see Bradley F. Smith and Agnes F. Peterson, eds., Heinrich Himmler: Geheimreden, 1933-1945 (Frankfurt am Main, 1974), pp. 169, 200-5.
189. Hitler, speech to generals and officers at Platterhof, May 26, 1944, IfZ, MA 316, fol. 5022, cited in Broszat, p. 759, who makes the connection between this address and the crisis in the winter of 1941-42.
190. This suspicion was expressed by Hartog, p. 65. One cannot rule out the possibility that there may have been one or more meetings on the subject. It would be very difficult to prove that there were not (see n. 144). But if it truly is the case that Heydrich first learned about the announcement of the decision from Himmler, then the occurrence of any such meetings is less likely.
191. See Sec. V. The important role of the Führer Chancellery in "Operation Reinhard" should also be kept in mind. Further, the Lublin SS- and Police Leader, Odilo Globocnik, who became the leader of "Operation Reinhard," had himself at one time been a Gauleiter.
192. See Witte (n. 16 above), pp. 318 ff.; Frank Bajohr, "Gauleiter in Hamburg. Zur Person und Tätigkeit Karl Kaufmanns," VfZ 43 (1995): 267-95, esp. pp. 291 f.
193. From the Reichsstaatshalter in Saxony (Martin Mutschmann) to Himmler, July 25, 1944, BA NS 19/1872, fols. 1 f. According to Mutschmann, he had already brought up the "argument" mentioned earlier, namely, that Jews would turn into partisans and create disorder behind the frontlines. This suggests that he had raised the idea between June and December of 1941. Prior to June 1941 there would have been no reason for such a position. After December 12, 1941, the suggestion would have become superfluous. In February 1940 Mutschmann had demanded the wearing of the Jewish star; see Lösener (n. 42 above), p. 302.
194. Günther Rodenburg, "Die letzten 26 Tage in Bremen," in Es geht tatsächlich nach Minsk, ed. Rodenburg and Andreas Röpcke (Bremen, 1992), pp. 7-20, esp. p. 9.
195. See Himmler, Appointment Calendar (n. 30 above). These were Hitler's private rooms in the Old Reich Chancellery, rooms that normally were not used for official meetings such as this. Hitler thus announced his decision just twelve days before he put a final stop, at least according to David Irving, to the extermination of the Jews.
196. Bräutigam to Lohse, December 18, 1941, facsimile reproduction in Weinreich, p. 156; emphasis added.
197. According to his interrogation, November 19, 1948, Staatsanwaltschaft Nürnberg-Fürth 72 Ks 3/50a-b, vol. 1, fol. 53R (in the Bayerisches Staatsarchiv in Nuremberg) Otto Bräutigam was referring to a discussion between Rosenberg or Alfred Meyer and Lohse. Bräutigam's superior, Georg Leibbrandt (interrogation of October 7, 1948, fol. 42R), referred to a meeting between Rosenberg and Lohse that was supposed to have occurred following a conversation between Rosenberg and Hitler. If they had been acquainted with the exact course of events, both of these men would surely have tried to mitigate their guilt at this crucial point in the proceedings by referring to the events of the Reichsleiter's and Gauleiter's meeting and by claiming that they had been obliged to act as they did because of a direct command from Hitler.
198. In his letter to Rosenberg, February 5, 1942 (BA-MA FPF-01/7865, fol. 790), Lohse mentioned a "confidential address to the Reichsleiter and Gauleiter" that Hitler had delivered not long before. The details of his description agree with Goebbels's notes. For the general order to keep silence cf. Rebentisch (n. 87 above), p. 290.
199. Otherwise additional discussions between the civilian authorities in the occupied territories and the Higher SS- and Police Leaders on the subject would have been pointless. The executions of the Jews in the Reich Commissariat Ostland were suspended for several months beginning December 1941. They were not resumed on a large scale in the Baltic until 1943.
200. Speech by Hans Frank, December 16, 1941, in Präg and Jacobmeyer, eds. (n. 119 above), pp. 457 ff.
201. Frank had also conferred with Hitler at some point between December 10 and December 13. See Pohl, Lublin (n. 4 above), p. 103, n. 71.
202. Speech to the SS-district leaders and Main Office heads, June 9, 1942, in Smith and Peterson, eds., p. 159.
203. Goebbels's record, cited by Broszat, p. 758. See also Goebbels, Tagebücher, pt. 2, vol. 2, pp. 533 ff. (December 18, 1941).
204. "Jews are second-class or third-order individuals. Whether or not
205. Artur Eisenbach, "Operation Reinhard: Mass Extermination of the Jewish Population in Poland," Polish Western Affairs 3 (1962): 80-124, esp. p. 83. Eisenbach mentions an enactment by Greiser, dated January 2, 1942, "regarding liquidation of the Jews (Entjudung) in the Wartheland." The enactment is mentioned in another document, but a record of it does not appear to have been preserved.
206. On December 9, 1941, Hitler had a lengthy conversation with Göring (see n. 120). On the evening of December 7, and probably on December 10, he met with Himmler. Himmler himself met with Heydrich on December 9 and on December 11 (Himmler, appointment calendar, December 7-11, 1941, fols. 344-47).
207. During his interrogation (May 31, 1960, in Trial of Adolf Eichmann [n. 25 above], p. 169), Eichmann maintained that this had occurred two months after the June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union. In a handwritten correction he later added, "It might also have been three months afterwards." But abstract dates and temporal sequences of events related by Eichmann must be treated with caution and verified through other sources: his accounts are notoriously inconsistent and cannot in themselves be used to prove or disprove any thesis. Eichmann's statements can, however, be evaluated in the context of other evidence to determine which of these are most likely to be correct.
208. This is another reason making it less likely that Hitler could have issued his order in the Reichstag, perhaps in a closed session following the official meeting on December 11, 1941, for Heydrich was a member of the Reichstag. Rosenberg's assertion during his interrogation on April 17, 1946 (IMT, vol. 11, pp. 607 f.), could be interpreted to mean that Hitler did issue such a statement as part of his December 11, 1941, Reichstag address. But Rosenberg's assertion is ambiguous. For Göring's commission to Heydrich of July 31, 1941, see Pätzold and Schwarz, eds., p. 79.
209. Ibid. For Himmler's information to Heydrich, see Rudolf Aschenauer, ed., Ich, Adolf Eichmann: Ein historischer Zeugenbericht (Leoni, 1980), pp. 177 ff. On another occasion, in his interrogation of July 5, 1960, Eichmann asserted that the visit to Globocnik occurred some two months after the Wannsee Conference
210. (Trial of Adolf Eichmann, vol. 17, fol. 56 [p. 845]).
211. So, too, in Safrian (n. 5 above), p. 171.
212. Hilberg, Vernichtung (n. 17 above), p. 421; Burrin (n. 5 above), pp. 146 ff., maintains that Eichmann is confusing two different things.
213. In a handwritten statement on June 22, 1945, Dr. Rudolf Mildner, the last commander of the Security Police in Vienna, also drew a connection between the United States's entry into the war and the execution of Hitler's threat that the Jews in Europe would "be exterminated for it" (Nuremberg Document PS-2376).
214. Cited in Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitlers willige Vollstrecker (Berlin, 1996), pp. 142 ff., with whose conclusions I concur at this point.
215. For an earlier reference see Raul Hilberg, Täter, Opfer, Zuschauer: Die Vernichtung der Juden, 1933-1945 (Frankfurt am Main, 1992), p. 285.
216. Tuchel (n. 3 above), p. 114.
217. Heydrich to Undersecretary of State Martin Luther, January 8, 1942, facsimile reproduction in Tuchel, p. 115.
218. See Safrian, p. 169.
219. Himmler, appointment calendar, December 9, 1941, 12:40 P.M., fol. 346.
220. For documentation, see n. 96.
221. One should also recall in this connection the meeting between Himmler and Bühler on January 13, which had been arranged on January 2, 1942 (for documentation, see n. 69). Jäckel (n. 1 above), p. 33, suspects that Heydrich was in no hurry because the meeting was to deal primarily with the issues of representation and the establishment of his authority.
222. The contents of the conversation are unknown. The original purpose of Heydrich's visit to Göring had simply been to convey his birthday greetings. But Heydrich "remained with the Reich Marshall for official purposes," and Heydrich's next appointment had to be postponed for an hour. See note by Franz Bentevegni (Armed Forces High Command, Office for Foreign Defense), January 13, 1942 (unsigned), BA-MA RW 5/v.690, fol. 21. The incident is also mentioned in Heydrich to Canaris, February 5, 1942, BA NS 19/ 3514, fols. 141-45.
223. Aly (n. 5 above), p. 364, where the general role in Jewish policy played by the Reich Commission for the Strengthening of the German Folk is also discussed. For more information about the participants, see Sec. II.
224. Scheffler (n. 2 above), p. 25.
225. For more information about the role of the Armed Forces High Command, see Bryan Mark Rigg, "Jüdische Mischlinge in der Wehrmacht" (in press). On the issue generally, see Noakes, pp. 328-36.
226. Undated minutes, fols. 2-5 (Tuchel, pp. 123-26).
227. Minutes, fols. 5-8 (Tuchel, pp. 126-29).
228. Minutes, fols. 9 f. (Tuchel, pp. 130 f.).
229. Notation by Lösener for Stuckart, December 4, 1941, enclosure 1, BA R 18/5519, fols. 483-85.
230. Minutes, fols. 8 f., 10-13 (Tuchel [n. 3 above], pp. 130 f., 132-34).
231. Minutes, B1 13 f. (Tuchel, pp. 134 f.). On this point the accuracy of the minutes is confirmed by Stuckart's letter to some of the conference participants, March 16, 1942, in Pätzold and Schwarz, eds., pp. 121 f.Lösener's Notation for Stuckart, December 4, 1941, BA R 18/5519, fols. 477, 483-95.
232. Minutes, fols. 14 f. (Tuchel, p. 135 f.).
233. In this regard, at least, Eichmann's postwar testimony (e.g., interrogation, June 26, 1961, in Trial of Adolf Eichmann, vol. 4 [Jerusalem, 1993], p. 1423) is confirmed by Heydrich's cover letter accompanying the minutes, February 26, 1942 (reproduced in facsimile in Tuchel, p. 121).
234. Eichmann Document, March 7, 1961, in Pätzold and Schwarz, eds., p. 184; interrogations of Eichmann, June 26 and July 17, 1961, in Trial of Adolf Eichmann, vol. 4, pp. 1423, 1711 ff.
235. Wilhelm Stuckart's role is a matter of dispute. A definitive answer does not seem to me to be possible. He later contended that he made his proposal to substitute compulsory sterilization for deportation knowing that the former was technically impossible to implement, and his assertion is difficult to dispute. Furthermore, with regard to the issue of compulsory divorce, he proposed a legal measure that could be delayed in a great variety of ways, and this is just what did happen later.
236. "The future treatment of this class of individuals [the so-called part-Jews of the first degree] remains undecided," memo of the Party Chancellery, January 29, 1942, cited in a circular letter from the Main Office for National Prosperity (Hauptamt für Volkswohlfahrt), April 13, 1942,
237. in Herwart Vorländer, Die NSV (Boppard, 1988), p. 427;
238. Aly and Heim (n. 5 above), p. 470; see also their source document, undated note by Dr. Wetzel, BA R 6/74, fol. 79.
239. Adler (n. 46 above), p. 304. On this issue, see also record of Franz Rademacher, March 7, and note from the Reich Foreign Ministry D III, June 11, 1942, in Klein (n. 3 above), pp. 57-60.
240. Note by Lindemann (Main Office II, Administration, Ministry of the East), February 11, 1942, BA R 6/74, fol. 78.
241. See Himmler's indignant notation in his meeting notes from his meeting with Hitler, Rosenberg, Lammers, and Wilhelm Keitel on February 15, 1942: "Remark by Bräutigam: [']The war in the east can no longer be won militarily,[']" BA NS 19/1448, fol. 12.
242. As a matter of fact Bräutigam was to escape punishment after the war. In the opinion of the Landgericht of Nürnberg-Fürth, Bräutigam's personal responsibility for the murder of Soviet Jews had not been proven. See the Proceedings Staatsanwaltschaft Nürnberg-Fürth 72 Ks 3/50a-b in the Staatsarchiv Nürnberg. In 1955 Bräutigam became director of the Section for Eastern Affairs (Ostabteilung) in the foreign ministry of the Federal Republic. Public pressure later forced him to retire.
243. In itself that is nothing new. See, e.g., Wolfgang Scheffler, Judenverfolgung im Dritten Reich (West Berlin, 1964), p. 38;
244. Ludolf Herbst, Das nationalsozialistische Deutschland, 1933-1945 (Frankfurt am Main, 1996), p. 387. It must be stressed, however, that this was the most important outcome of the meeting.
245. As a parallel, one might point out Hitler's repeated prohibition against using the inhabitants of the occupied Soviet territories as armed collaborators (e.g., document note by Bormann on the Leadership Conference, July 16, 1941, IMT, vol. 38, p. 88). This was a significant ideological issue in terms of the creation of a German empire in the east. Hitler never succeeded in compelling either the armed forces or the SS to observe his prohibition.
246. Quoted from the facsimile reproduction in Tuchel, p. 121; emphasis added.
247. BA D-H ZR 759, A. 14.
248. Göring's commission of July 31, 1941, is in Pätzold and Schwarz, eds. (n. 23 above), p. 79. The minutes of the Wannsee Conference were not the desired "comprehensive plan" as Pätzold and Schwarz assert (p. 47). This is clear from the fact that on February 26 Heydrich sent out invitations for a "ollow-up conference to be held on March 6 "in order to prepare the necessary document for the Reich Marshall" (facsimile reproduction in Tuchel, p. 121). Hence the "comprehensive plan" could not have been completed in February, and it cannot be identical with the RSHA discussion document that Goebbels read on March 7 (for the opposite view, see Aly and Heim, p. 460). Similarly, the suggestion that Göring appointed Heydrich "Commissar for Jewish Affairs in Europe" (Aly and Heim, p. 460) appears to be not correct (see Scheffler, "Wannsee-Konferenz," p. 33, n. 9).
249. Lammers to Heydrich, May 22, 1942 (copy), BA R 18/5519, fol. 481. A report by Heydrich to Göring was planned but probably never delivered because Göring was able to discuss the issues important to him with Himmler on July 2, 1942. See document from Ministerial Counsellor Dr. Ing. Fritz Görnnert (Göring's personal adviser) "with request for documents for scheduled meeting with Obergruppenführer Heydrich," May 24, 1942, and documents from Görnnert, July 1, 1942, for the meeting with Himmler, B A 34.01 FC Nr. 376, fols. 7569, 7984 f., 7897; Himmler, appointment calendar, July 2, 1942, fol. 182. Strictly speaking, Heydrich could not possibly have presented a "comprehensive plan" to Göring because he had not yet obtained approval from all relevant offices. Because of a clerical error, the RSHA had neglected to send a copy of the minutes from the follow-up meeting held on March 6, 1942, to the foreign office. It only did so on July 3, 1942, some time after Heydrich's death. The reply from the foreign office is dated October 2, 1942. See RSHA IV B 4 (Friedrich Suhr) to the Foreign Office (Franz Rademacher), July 3, 1942, and the reminder, August 12; and Foreign Office D III 67 gRs to RSHA, October 2 and December 7, 1942, BA F 10531.
250. Reitlinger (n. 17 above), p. 108. See also Pätzold and Schwarz, eds., p. 51; interrogation of Adolf Eichmann, July 5, 1960, in Trial of Adolf Eichmann, vol. 7, Band 17, fols. 56 ff. (p. 845 ff.). Eichmann admitted that the "possible solutions" mentioned in the minutes meant methods of execution.
251. Interrogation, July 21, 1961, in Trial of Adolf Eichmann, vol. 4, p. 1810. The "certain preparatory measures" mentioned by Bühler and Alfred Meyer, which were "to be implemented in the relevant territories themselves, in a manner that would not create unrest among the inhabitants" (minutes, fol. 15, in Tuchel, p. 136) were nothing more, in my opinion, than code words for "mass shootings."
252. See Hermann Kaienburg, "Jüdische Arbeitslager an der 'Strasse der SS,'" 1999, no. 1 (1996): 13-39, esp. pp. 13 f.;
253. Sandkühler (n. 4 above), pp. 137 ff. Heydrich is said to have mentioned an "Arctic Ocean camp" in preliminary discussions with Bühler, interrogation of Josef Bühler, April 23, 1946, in Pätzold and Schwarz, eds., p. 135.
254. On the subject generally, see Karl Heinz Roth, "'Generalplan Ost'-'Gesamtplan Ost.' Forschungsstand, Quellenprobleme, neue Ergebnisse," in Der "Generalplan Ost" ed. Mechtild Rössler and Sabine Schleiermacher (Berlin, 1993), pp. 25-117, esp. pp. 40 ff., 62 f.; Burrin, p. 151 (conversation between Heydrich and Goebbels, September 25, 1941); speech by Heydrich, February 4, 1942, in Kárny et al., eds., p. 229; Himmler to Heydrich and to Wilhelm Rediess, the Higher SS- and Police Leader in Norway, February 16, 1942, BA NS 19/2375, fols. 1 f.
255. See Himmler, report notes, February 17, 1942, BA NS 19/1447, fols. 55 f.; Henry Picker, Hitlers Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier, 3d ed. (Stuttgart, 1977), p. 192.
256. Minutes, fol. 8 (Tuchel, p. 129); Goebbels, Tagebücher, pp. 533 f. (December 18, 1941); Hitler, May 29, 1942, in Picker, p. 340.
257. On this subject, see Browning, Final Solution (n. 75 above), p. 79.
258. Minutes, fols. 14 f. (Tuchel, pp. 135 f.).
259. Präg and Jacobmeyer, eds., p. 459.
260. See final comments by SS-Gruppenführer and General Lieutenant of the Waffen-SS, Hofmann, at a Conference of SS-Leaders from the Race and Resettlement Office, September 29-30, 1942, BA 17.03, Nr. 2, fol. 58; emphasis added. At the Wannsee Conference it had been asserted that in Europe there were 11 million Jews, in the European part of the Soviet Union 5 million. The mistake may have been made by the individual who prepared the minutes of the speech.
261. See Himmler, appointment calendar; Grothmann, appointment calendar.
262. Himmler, notes on telephone conversations, January 21, 1942 ("Jewish question. Meeting in Berlin"), BA NS 19/1439; Rosenberg, appointment calendar, January 21, 1942, BA NS 8/133, fol. 8; Globocnik report in Dirlewanger to Friedrich (SS Main Office), January 22, 1942, BA D-H ZM 1454, A. 1, fol. 231; Hitler's antisemitic outbursts in the presence of Himmler and Lammers on January 25, 1942 are documented in Jochmann, ed., pp. 228 f.; on the flow of information in the foreign office, see Browning, Final Solution, pp. 76 ff.
263. An official in the Slovakian Office for Jewish Affairs is said to have remarked in late January of 1942 that Slovakian Jews would soon be deported and executed. See Walter Lacquer, Was niemand wissen wollte: Die Unterdrückung von Nachrichten über Hitlers Endlösung (Frankfurt am Main, 1981), pp. 175 ff.
264. General Commissar for Latvia, IIa-Sch/Hue to the Reich Commissar for the Ostland, July 11, 1942: "In the Reich, the direction of current efforts is not to equate part-Jews of the first degree with Jews; the former are to be sterilized (see the meeting of the state secretaries on January 20, 1942)" (Lettisches Staatsarchiv Riga 69-1a-6, fol. 53). I am indebted to Christoph Dieckmann for calling my attention to this document.
265. RSHA IV B 4, express letter, in re: Evacuation of the Jews, January 31, 1942, in Kurt Pätzold and Erika Schwarz, "Auschwitz war für mich nur ein Bahnhof": Franz Novak, der Transportoffizier Adolf Eichmanns (Berlin, 1994), pp. 119-22.
266. Undated and unsigned report, reproduced in facsimile in Mendelsohn, ed. (n. 20 above), pp. 86-94; undated report by Franz Rademacher, in Mendelsohn, ed., pp. 208 f.
267. For these two prominent participants in the Wannsee meeting, see Wilhelm Stuckart, March 16, and Franz Schlegelberger, April 5, 1942, in Mendelsohn, ed., pp. 201-7; Schlegelberger to Lammers, March 12, 1942, Nuremberg Document NG-839; Noakes, pp. 345 f.; Adam, pp. 324 ff.; Hilberg, Vernichtung, pp. 441 f. In addition, see note by Lösener, December 4, 1941, Anlage 2, BA R 18/5519, fols. 487-95; meeting notes of Lammers, April 10, 1942 (the actual record is missing), BA R 43 II/4023, fol. 2/ R. Stuckart and Schlegelberger referred directly to points in the minutes of the Wannsee Conference. So they were familiar with this document, as was Martin Bormann (see n. 214). Distribution of the minutes was announced on January 21, at the latest; see Rademacher's note, dated January 21, on Heydrich's invitation to the foreign office of January 8, 1942, "Minutes of the meeting are announced to arrive later" (reproduced in facsimile in Tuchel, p. 115). Hence suspicions that have been expressed (see Klein [n. 3 above], pp. 16 f.) that the distribution of the minutes was narrowly limited are unfounded.
268. Stuckart to Himmler, September 1942, in Lösener, "Rassereferent," pp. 298-301;
269. AdamRassereferent," , pp. 327 f.,
270. but see also AdamRassereferent," p. 329, n. 132;
271. AdamGrenville (n. 54 above), pp. 111 f.
272. Note by Otto Thierack, October 26, 1942, BA R 22/4062, fols. 14 f.; Note, in re: Reich Genealogy Office by Hans Ehlich, January 25, 1943, BA RW 42/4, Heft 2. (There were some 24,000 "cases" requiring 140,000 investigations.)
273. See Hilberg, Vernichtung, pp. 446-49;
274. Adler, Vernichtung, p. 299;
275. Adam,Vernichtung, p. 329;
276. Noakes, Vernichtung, p. 348; for the course of events, see BA R 22/460, particularly Wilhelm Frick to Otto Thierack, March 20, 1943, fol. 334; BA R 18/5519, fols. 509 ff.
277. SS Race and Resettlement Main Office, Ancestry Section, to Kurt Steudtner, February 12, 1942. See the additional correspondence between the same parties in February and March, 1942, and the reaction of the applicant, Kurt Steudtner, in a letter to Otto Hofmann, March 2, 1942: "In the midst of my antiquarian historical researches came your job offer, holding out the promise of new struggles in the country beyond the Rhine. . . . The realization of this project is still subject of official discussion. . . . I can assure you that from the very first moment of my arrival at the Paris battle station, I will be ready to apply all my powers and abilities without rest in the struggle against the world's number one enemy!" BA NS 2/1002. In addition, see report by Theodor Dannecker, February 22, 1942, in Pätzold, ed., pp. 343-45.
278. Teletype by Dannecker to Wilhelm Osiander, March 21, and letter, March 31, 1942, BA NS 2/1002; note, in re: Mechanisms for Identifying Concealed Jewish Identities in France, March 24, 1942, BA R 39/762; see notes, November 8 and November 11, 1941 (BA R 39/762).
279. Hanns-Albin Rauter (Higher SS- and Police Leader, Northwest) to Otto Hofmann, December 20, 1941, BA NS 2/83, fol. 8 1/R; SS-Leader in the Race and Resettlement Office to Rauter, July 14, 1942, BA NS 2/81, fol. 122.
280. Safrian, pp. 180 f.; Press, p. 120; Ezergailis, p. 359.
281. Interrogation of Georg Heuser, February 14, 1966, Staatsanwaltschaft Hamburg 147 Js 29/67, Bd. 35, fol. 6803; Wilhelm Kube to Hinrich Lohse, February 6, 1942, StA Hamburg 147 Js 29/67, Sonderband E, fols. 66 f.; Minutes of the Proceedings of the Office and Section Leaders Meeting, January 29, 1942, Zentrales Staatsarchiv Minsk 370-1-53, fols. 164 f. (a document first uncovered by Jürgen Matthäus). In a report by the adviser on Jewish affairs for the Commander of the Security Police, Kurt Burkhart, dated January 1942, it is also hinted that the German Jews are to die (IfZ Fb 104/2). For the period prior to January 20, 1942 there is no sure evidence for any executions of German Jews in Minsk.
282. See Karl Loewenstein, Minsk. Im Lager der deutschen Juden (Bonn, 1956);
283. Heinz Rosenberg, Jahre des Schreckens (Göttingen, 1992);
284. for the date of March 31, see Anna Krasnoperka, Briefe meiner Erinnerung (Haus Villigst, 1991), pp. 56 f.
285. Adler, p. 193 ; Teletype from Himmler to Richard Glücks, Inspector of the Concentration Camps, January 25, 1942, NS 19/1920, fol. 1; Klaus A. Friedrich Schüler, Logistik im Russlandfeldzug (Frankfurt am Main, 1987), pp. 518 ff.
286. Office of the Deputy for the Four-Year Plan, Traffic Office, Activity Report for April, May 18, 1942, BA R26IV/vorl.47; Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, pp. 140, 147;
287. Pohl, Lublin, Sobibor, Treblinka, pp. 107 ff.
288. Proclamation of the Jewish Council, May 1, 1942; Situation Report of the Office of State Police in Litzmannstadt, June 9, 1942; Director of the Office for Railroads and Traffic to Gestapo Office Litzmannstadt, May 19, 1942, all in Adolf Diamant, Getto Litzmannstadt (Frankfurt am Main, 1986), pp. 107, 120, 125;
289. Lucjan Dobroszycki, ed., The Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto, 1941-1944 (New York and New Haven, Conn., 1984), pp. 156-72 (for April 29-May 14, 1942); Freund, Perz, and Stuhlpfarrer, eds., esp. p. 29.
290. Transport Lists of the Vienna Transports, Staatsanwaltschaft Koblenz 9 Ks 2/62, Dok. vol. 5; interrogation of Survivor J.S., April 11, 1948, StA Koblenz 9 Ks 2/62, vol. 71, fol. 10546; Minsk Railway Control Office, Rail Service Telegram, May 7, 1942, ZStA Minsk 378-1 -784, fol. 64; Activity Report of the Second Wing of the Waffen-SS Battalion for Special Projects, May 17, 1942, in Unsere Ehre heisst Treue (Vienna, 1984), p. 246.
291. Christopher Browning, "A Final Hitler Decision for the 'Final Solution'? The Riegner Telegram Reconsidered," Holocaust and Genocide Studies 11, no. 1 (1996): 3-10, esp. p. 4;
292. Aly, Holocaust and Genocide Studies p. 408.
293. It is not certain whether this incident actually occurred. For Himmler, see Witte, p. 335. For Frick's visit to the Landrat's Office in Kolo (Warthbrücken), see Rückerl, p. 277 (for the eyewitness account); aide to the Reich minister of the interior, travel plan, June 15-27, 1942; newspaper article [probably from the Ostdeutschen Beobachter] "Besuch im Osten des Warthelands," BA R 18/5231, fols. 99 ff., 115. According to the schedule and to the report, a visit by Wilhelm Frick to Chelmno itself, as asserted in the witness account, is unlikely. With regard to complaints lodged following the murders in Chelmno in February, see Seeger, p. 121.
294. NSDAP, Party Chancellery, "Reichverfügungsblatt," Ausgabe A, July 1 and July 4, 1942, with Regulations 34/42 and 37/42, in re: Treatment of Part-Jews in the Armed Forces, June 23, and in re: Recommendations for Part-Jews from the Party, July 3, 1942, BA 62 Ka 1, Nr. 83, fols. 128 f.; see also Adler, p. 298.
295. Circular letter from the Party Chancellery, in re: Preliminary Measures for the Final Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe. Rumors concerning the Situation of Jews in the East, October 9, 1942, in Pätzold, ed., pp. 351-53.
296. It is certain, however, that Hitler was well informed about the progress of efforts to exterminate the Jews and never rejected the idea. See Fleming; Burrin; Broszat.
297. See nn. 16 and 17. This is made especially clear in Burrin, pp. 106 ff.; Browning, "Euphoria," p. 476.
298. And it was made after Hitler had approved related plans by military and civilian offices for an unparalleled program of mass murder to be carried out against large segments of the Soviet population for economic and military purposes. For more on this subject, see Gerlach, "Wirtschaftsinteressen" (n. 10 above).
299. Hitler's leadership decision would then have had significant consequences for the Wannsee Conference by putting it, and Heydrich's planning for it, on a new basis and giving it added impulse. This may have contributed to the lengthy delay in rescheduling the conference.
300. For a different interpretation, see Burrin, p. 145. But even Heydrich's letter of November 6, 1941, cited in Burrin, in which he reports that "at the highest level, and with utmost severity, the Jews have been branded as the real incendiary force in Europe," does not provide proof. In addition, see Witte, pp. 327-29; German ambassador in Paris, Carltheo Zeitschel, to the chief of the Security Police for Belgium and France, October 8, 1941, in Pätzold, ed., pp. 309 f.; teletype from Himmler to Heydrich, January 27, 1942, BA NS 19/1920, fol. 2 in regard to the limited number of individuals.
301. Minutes, fol. 5 (Tuchel, p. 126).
302. See Broszat, pp. 766 ff.
303. On one occasion, however, this is said to have occurred after the fact; see Pohl, Lublin, p.125.
304. See Pohl, Lublin, ibid., esp. pp. 101, 115;
305. Aly, Lublin, p. 398.
306. Aly, pp. 339-47; Christian Gerlach, "Failure of Plans for an SS Extermination Camp in Mogilev, Belorussia," Holocaust and Genocide Studies 12, no. 1 (1997): 60-78.
307. A recently discovered document regarding a significant increase in the area included in the town's ghetto could provide some indirect evidence of this. Nearly all of the ghetto's original residents were shot in October. See Jürgen Matthäus, "Perspektiven der NS-Forschung," Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 44 (1996): 991-1005, esp. p. 1002.
308. For Rosenberg's speech, see n. 73. Cf. Jochmann (n. 30 above), p. 140; and Himmler's notes on telephone conversations, November 17, 1941 (n. 27 above). For an interpretation of the latter as a comprehensive agreement with Hitler concerning the liquidation of the Jews, see Breitman, pp. 218 f. (also for the other mentioned contacts). See also Goebbels, Tagebücher, pt. 2, vol. 2, p. 309. I am indebted to Christoph Dieckmann, who referred me to that document.
309. Präg and Jacobmeyer, eds., October 14 and December 16, 1941, pp. 413, 457.
310. "Das Reich" No. 46 of November 16, 1941, p. 1 f. A similar report on some of Hitler's remarks by Goebbels on August 18, 1941 (Broszat, pp. 749 f.) referred only to events "in the east." See in addition an article in the Völkischen Beobachter, Munich ed. (November 12, 1941), referring to Hitler's speech on November 9 (BA NS 22/567, fol. 1).
311. The same is true of the background to Hitler's remarks on November 28, 1941 to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin El Husseini, when Hitler asserted that, in the event of a German advance into the Middle East, the German objective would be the "destruction" of "Judaism" in Palestine. Hitler could have had tactical reasons because El Husseini had asked him for such a statement during the meeting. Note of Gesandter Schütt about the discussion between Hitler and El Husseini of November 28, 1941, in Akten zur deutschen auswärtigen Politik, Ser. D, vol. 13, 2 (Göttingen, 1970), pp. 718-21.
312. See Hans Mommsen, "Die Realisierung des Utopischen: Die 'Endlösung der Judenfrage' im 'Dritten Reich,'" in Der Nationalsozialismus und die deutsche Gesellschaft, ed. Mommsen (Reinbek, 1991, 1st ed., 1983), pp. 184-232, esp. p. 214.
313. Compare Jean-Claude Pressac, Die Krematorien von Auschwitz (Munich and Zurich, 1993), esp. pp. 51-55; in regard to Broszat, see Aly (n. 5), p. 398, for comments typical of the opinions of some scholars who nowadays favor this view.
314. Conversely, Hartog, pp. 65-69, sees a direct connection between the entry of the United States into the war and a decision he believes Hitler made immediately on December 7, 1941. Based on some mistaken dates he concludes that Hitler needed only to "nod his head," since "Himmler and Heydrich had already known for months that Hitler intended to liquidate the Jews throughout Europe" (p. 65). Nonetheless, at a meeting in the Reich labor ministry on November 28, 1941, the representative from the Wartheland noted that "some 300,000 Jews were still living" in his district. He continued that "by the end of March 1942, they should all have been evacuated, with the exception of those able to work." That could only have meant their extermination at Chelmno. If one follows Hartog, the administrative offices in the Wartheland could only have developed this schedule if they had known in advance about the impending Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which they surely did not. See report on the department meeting in RAM (undated [November 28, 1941]), BA R 22/2057, fol. 208. For the date, see fols. 206 f.
315. Greiser to Himmler, May 1, 1942, BA NS 19/1585, fols. 1 f. For the fall of 1942 it has been documented that Arthur Greiser asked Hitler what measures should be taken in his district against the Jews and that Hitler told him to proceed "as he thought appropriate." Greiser to Himmler, November 21, 1942, BA NS 19/1585, fols. 17 f. Aly mistakenly refers to this as the fall of 1941.
316. Hans Frank's speech at the government session in Kraków on December 16, 1941, BA R 52 II/241, fol. 77.