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Feb 24, 2010

The Non-Jewish Stake in the Holocaust Mythology: Why the Continued Success of a Failed Ideology?

 

February 2010

The Non-Jewish Stake in the Holocaust Mythology: Why the Continued Success of a Failed Ideology?

Paul Grubach

The Enigma Surrounding the Holocaust Doctrine

During the past four decades mainstream historians have made some surprising admissions with regard to the traditional Holocaust story, the alleged premeditated mass murder of six million Jews by the Germans during WWII, mainly with the use of "gas chambers." Let us review some of them.

Holocaust historian Leon Poliakov pointed out in the late 1970s that there are no documents to prove that the Nazis ever had any plan to murder the Jews of Europe. He wrote: "[T]he campaign to exterminate the Jews, as regards its conception as well as many other essential aspects, remains shrouded in darkness. Inferences, psychological considerations, and third- or fourth-hand reports enable us to reconstruct its development with considerable accuracy. Certain details, however, must remain forever unknown. The three or four people chiefly involved in the actual drawing up of the plan for total extermination are dead and no documents have survived; perhaps none ever existed."1 In short, the "evidence" that "proves" the existence of an alleged Nazi plan to exterminate the Jews is simply the guesswork of Holocaust historians. Hard documentary proof is missing.

The late Holocaust historian Lucy Dawidowicz would presumably concur with Poliakov. In her The War Against the Jews: 1933-1945, she revealed how weak and flimsy the evidence that supports the traditional view of the Final Solution (the alleged premeditated Nazi plan to exterminate the Jews) really is. Dawidowicz admitted "the abundant documents of the German dictatorship have yielded no written order by Hitler to murder the Jews..."2 Even more importantly, she conceded there is no documentary evidence to prove her orthodox version of the Final Solution: "If Mein Kampf is the terminus ad quem for the conception of the Final Solution, does its beginning indeed go back to November 1918, as Hitler himself claimed? It is a hazardous task to construct a chronology of the evolution of this idea in Hitler's mind. The historical evidence is sparse and no doubt would be inadmissible as courtroom evidence. The very idea of the destruction of the Jews as a political goal demanded, when Hitler first began to advocate it, camouflage and concealment. Its later consummation demanded, within limits, secrecy. Consequently, there is a paucity of documents, and even those we have handicap the search for definitive evidence because of the problem of esoteric language."3

So there you have it. The evidence for the orthodox view of the Final Solution would be inadmissible as courtroom evidence. Nevertheless, in many European countries, courts send people to prison for rejecting this orthodoxy!

Two crucially important pieces of "evidence" for the traditional view of the Holocaust are the testimonies of SS Lieut.-Colonel Adolf Eichmann (Head of the Jewish Office of the Gestapo, 1940-45) and former Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Höss. Christopher Browning, widely considered to be one of the foremost academic experts on the National Socialist Final Solution, admitted that both Eichmann and Höss are unreliable witnesses. Hidden in a footnote of his magnum opus, we learn that "the testimonies of especially Höss and to some extent Eichmann are confused, contradictory, self-serving, and not credible."4 In a 2003 collection of essays, he pointed out Eichmann's testimonials, traditionally considered to be a pillar of the Holocaust story, "contain calculated lies for legal defense."5

At the first, high-profile Holocaust trial of Revisionist publisher Ernst Zündel in Toronto in 1985, the premier Holocaust historian, the late Raul Hilberg, admitted that scientific proof for the existence of the "Hitler gas chambers" is missing. No authentic and genuine autopsy report exists to show that Jews were killed with poison gas.6 Furthermore, no one has ever produced any photographs of Jews being gassed. Just three years later in 1988, Princeton historian Arno Mayer admitted that the evidence supporting the existence of the "Hitler gas chambers" is scant and untrustworthy. In his own words: "Sources for the study of the gas chambers are at once rare and unreliable."7

In his 2008 collection of essays on the Nazi Final Solution and the Holocaust, a British authority on Germany's Third Reich, Professor Ian Kershaw, was just one step away from admitting that credible evidence supporting the "Nazi gas chamber" story is non-existent. "Recorded comments about the murder of Jews refer almost invariably to mass shootings by the Einsatzgruppen [anti-guerilla warfare units of the German army]," the academic historian pointed out, "which in many cases were directly witnessed by members of the Wehrmacht [German army]. The gassing, both in mobile gas-units and then in extermination camps, was carried out much more secretly, and found little echo inside Germany to go by the almost complete absence of documentary sources relating to it."8

Holocaust historian Robert Jan van Pelt conceded that the wartime claims that Jews were electrocuted en masse in "electrocution chambers" at the Belzec concentration camp and on "electric conveyor belts" at Auschwitz are falsehoods.9 If the evidence that "proves" that Jews were electrocuted en masse is bogus, isn't it also possible that the "evidence" that "proves" that Jews were murdered in "gas chambers" is also bogus, or at least very suspect?

In early 2010, Professor van Pelt made another eyebrow raising admission. He stated that there is no physical evidence to prove ninety nine percent of what is known about the alleged Auschwitz extermination camp story.10

At the postwar Nuremberg Tribunal, the Allies declared that the Germans exterminated four million people at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Until 1990, a memorial plaque at Auschwitz read: 'Four Million People Suffered and Died Here at the Hands of the Nazi Murderers Between the Years 1940 and 1945.'"11 During a June 1979 visit to the camp, Pope John Paul II stood before this memorial and prayed for and blessed the alleged four million victims.12

In July 1990, the Polish government's Auschwitz State Museum, along with Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust center, conceded that the four million figure was a gross exaggeration, and references to it were accordingly removed from the Auschwitz monument. Israeli and Polish officials announced a tentative revised toll of at least 1.1 million dead, about 90 percent being Jews from almost every country in Europe.13

Around September of 1989, mainstream Holocaust historians began admitting that the four million figure was a deliberate myth, demonstrating that conspiracy (premeditated distortions introduced for political ends) was involved in the shaping of the Holocaust doctrine. According to Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer, the Poles wanted to create a "national myth," so this "required" that a large number of both Poles and Jews lost their lives at Auschwitz. Polish propagandists intentionally exaggerated the figures, and told the world that 1.5 million Poles and 2.5 million Jews were murdered at Auschwitz concentration camp.14

Professor van Pelt, along with his fellow Holocaust historian Deborah Dwork, concede that the contemporary Auschwitz concentration camp tourist site contains outright falsifications with a controlled ideological message, which mislead visitors.15 This should raise this question in the reader's mind: how much of the Auschwitz extermination story is politically inspired falsehood?

Professor van Pelt also admitted that the "evidence" for the mass killings of Jews at Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec—where allegedly millions were murdered--is sparse at best. In reference to these three camps, he wrote: "There are few eyewitnesses, no confession that can compare to that given by [Auschwitz commandant Rudolf] Höss, no significant remains, and few archival sources."16

Archeological investigations of Belzec concentration camp in the late 1990s found no trace of the alleged homicidal gas chambers. Holocaust researcher Robin O'Neal, a firm believer in the traditional Holocaust narrative and one of those who took part in the archeological investigations of Belzec, admitted: "We found no trace of the gassing barracks dating from either the first or second phase of the camp's construction."17

In 1946-1947, the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland claimed that 250,000 people were murdered at the alleged Nazi extermination camp of Sobibor. Israeli and Polish archeologists who investigated the Sobibor site found no physical evidence to prove the Sobibor "gas chambers" existed, or that hundreds of thousands were massacred there.18 For sure, these forensic scientists (who are firm believers in the traditional Holocaust extermination story) find it difficult to imagine how 250, 000 could have been murdered there.19 To date, archeological science cannot determine the site of the "gas chambers" or even if they existed. The reader is strongly encouraged to read the forensic study to see that this is indeed the case.20

The bitter critic of "Holocaust denial", Professor Deborah Lipstadt, conceded that the story that the Nazis made soap from Jewish corpses is another war time falsehood.21 Another Holocaust era historian, Richard Breitmann, made a similar finding: the claim that the Nazis manufactured fertilizer and fats from corpses is erroneous.22

Dr. Lipstadt also pointed to evidence that casts doubt on the value of Holocaust survivor testimony, the form of "evidence" that comprises most of the "proof" of the traditional view of the Holocaust. She wrote: "For a variety of reasons some [former Nazi concentration camp] inmates did and still do embellish their experiences. Others sometimes adopt the experiences of fellow survivors as their own."23

Although Lipstadt argues that there are ways to vindicate Holocaust eyewitness testimony, she goes on to make this eye opening statement in regard to the testimonies in the possession of Israel's national memorial to the Holocaust, Yad Vashem: "[T]he Institute for Historical Review published a report from the Jerusalem Post in which the director of Yad Vashem's archives reported that more than half of its testimonies from Holocaust survivors are 'unreliable.' According to Yad Vashem officials, these testimonies have never been used as evidence in Nazi war crimes trials because survivors who wanted to be 'part of history' may, in fact, have allowed their imaginations to 'run away with them.'"24 Here we have a prominent Holocaust historian putting forth reasons (perhaps unwittingly) showing that a significant number of Holocaust "eyewitness testimonies" are simply unreliable. Since a large portion of Holocaust "eyewitness testimony" has been labeled "unreliable," it is certainly correct for historians to be, at the very least, skeptical of all such testimony.

Another academic historian provided reasons for the reader to be very skeptical of "eyewitness testimony" to the Holocaust. French-Jewish historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet briefly discussed eyewitnesses who claimed they "saw gas chambers" where there were none.25 He admits "there were imaginary gas chambers."26 That is, many Holocaust survivors gave false testimony, claiming there were "homicidal mass gassings" where it is now known that they never happened. He cites the false testimony "of a Protestant theologian, Charles Hauter, who was deported to Buchenwald, never saw any gas chamber, and who went on to rave about them."27

In a paraphrase of Dr. Robert Faurisson's Holocaust revisionist argument, Vidal-Naquet's translator states the dilemma in the form of a question: "Moreover, since numerous eyewitness reports [about the "homicidal gas chambers"] had already been discredited, on what basis could anyone accept any such testimony?"28 Once again, the reader should ask himself this question. How can the testimony of survivors of the "death camps" prove that the Holocaust and the death of six million Jews is a historical fact when so many of these testimonies have been shown to be unreliable?

In the foregoing discussion, only mainstream and "academically respectable" sources were used to make my case. All material that mainstream academics would label as "Holocaust denialist" was deliberately ignored. This alone should suggest to the reader that there is something seriously amiss with the traditional Holocaust story. Indeed, the list of deceptions, very weak and suspect evidence, highly questionable claims, politically inspired falsehoods, contradictions, and absurdities in the traditional Holocaust doctrine are seemingly endless.29 For all of these reasons, one can rightfully refer to the orthodox Holocaust story as "the Holocaust mythology."

One would think that after all of the damaging admissions and concessions made by official Holocaust sources, the doctrine itself would have undergone world wide scrutiny, questioning and debunking. Yet, this is not the case, and herein is the enigma that surrounds the Holocaust doctrine. Despite the fact that the orthodox Holocaust story is demonstrably weak, it continues to thrive and flourish. Is this state of affairs solely due the enormous power and influence of the International Jewish-Zionist power elite and the state of Israel?

In the early 1980s, the late Revisionist scholar Dr. Charles Weber wrote a very important, but now largely forgotten essay concerning the non-Jewish groups that promote and benefit from the Holocaust mythology. "Obvious though the usefulness of the 'Holocaust' material to Zionists may be, it continuous exploitation by various non-Jewish groups in various lands for various reasons is of a continuing importance that heretofore has not been generally realized. As corrosive, divisive and destructive as the 'Holocaust' material and extermination thesis are, we must certainly not consider Jews exclusively responsible for their continued propagation," Weber stated.30

There are some who operate under the illusion that the sole reason the Holocaust mythology survives and flourishes is because of Jewish-Zionist power and influence. Although Israel and the International Jewish-Zionist power elite are the most important forces behind the Holocaust ideology, there are also non-Jewish groups that promote it and benefit by it, and thus help to insure its continued success. These non-Jewish groups have largely been overlooked.

A Word of Caution Before We Begin

Before we examine the non-Jewish groups that promote the Holocaust mythology, it is important to note that all of them were or still are subject to Jewish pressure and influence. The world Jewish community has played a decisive role in the history of the twentieth and first decade of the twenty first centuries, and all of the governments and non-Jewish factions we are about to discuss have felt their enormous impact. Whether it be the post WWII German governments, the former Communist regimes of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the governments of Britain, Poland and the United States, left-wing liberal or neo-conservative groups of the West, all of them have been subject to Jewish influence.31

As historian Weber rightly pointed out in his 1982 essay, we are confronted with the question as to what extent we are dealing with a non-Jewish group and non-Jewish interests in each case. That is to say: do these non-Jewish factions promote the Holocaust ideology solely because Jews pressured them to do so, contrary to their specific group's best interests? Or, do they promote the Holocaust ideology because it is serving some specific non-Jewish interest that just happens to be congruent with Jewish interests?

Be that as it may, all of these governments and groups had or still have powerful non-Jewish people in them who harbor non-Jewish political interests, and at least some of the latter coincide with Jewish interests on the issue of the Holocaust mythology. Many members of these non-Jewish groups likely believe that the traditional Holocaust story is objectively true, but this in no way nullifies the fact that they also have underlying agendas that motivates them to promote this doctrine.

Germany and the Holocaust Mythology

At the close of WWII, the occupying powers of Germany divided the country up and created two different governments. The West German government was a creation of the United States, Great Britain and France, with East Germany's governing body being a creation of the communist Soviet Union.

The late historian, political analyst and international affairs authority, William Henry Chamberlin, summed up the situation in regard to the former East Germany. In 1963, he observed: "The so-called DDR (initials for German Democratic Republic) is neither German nor democratic nor a republic. It is a totalitarian police regime, completely subservient to the will of a foreign power, the Soviet Union."32

While the government in West Germany was less totalitarian in nature than that in the East, the West German political establishment could still rightly be classified as a colonial government of the United States, Great Britain and France. The occupation powers retained the right to manage German domestic affairs and administration and to nullify German legislation.33

Professor Arthur Butz described the political landscape in his seminal work of Holocaust revisionism: "The entire political structure of West Germany was established by the U.S. government. This includes the control of newspapers and other media, the control of the schools, and the constitution of the Bundesrepublik. As a puppet creation, this 'German' political establishment necessarily had an interest in the lies of the conquerors and behaved accordingly."34

The historical evidence supports Butz's viewpoint. The "Nazi extermination camp" mythology was declared "historical truth" at the Nuremberg trials, and it was then used as an ideological cornerstone for the Allied installed governments in postwar Germany. The conquered Germans were to be fully indoctrinated with the Holocaust ideology. Political analyst Chamberlin pointed out in 1963 that government education ministries ordered that school children receive full information about "Nazi policies of violence and cruelty [real or made up?]."35 In accord with this policy: "Films of Nazi brutalities [real or made up?] have been widely shown in German schools, and the interest of the children is kept alive by discussions and questionnaires."36 Furthermore, the military establishment of West Germany was under the control of the United States and NATO.37 As of 2008, there were 150,000 American troops stationed within southern Germany.38

The government of the former West Germany believed it attained the imprint of legitimacy from numerous Holocaust trials. A historian of Jewish-German relations (who undoubtedly would condemn my views in this essay), Jeffrey Herf, noted: "The Auschwitz trial conducted in Frankfurt-am-Main in 1964, as well as trials of those who had participated in murders in the Einsatzgruppen and at the extermination camps in Belzec, Treblinka, Sobibor, Chelmo, and Maidanek, offered further details to the West German public about the Holocaust and the death camps in Poland."39 In a political culture such as this, prosecutors could advance their careers by aggressively pursuing alleged Nazi war criminals.40

A divided Germany is a now a thing of the past, but the Holocaust mythology still remains an ideological cornerstone of the present German government. Indeed, in April 1999, the German Federal Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer stated: "All democracies have a basis, a cornerstone. For France it is 1789, for Germany it is Auschwitz."41 In the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Patrick Bahners put forth a founding belief of the present German government. If one "denies the murder of the Jews, he repudiates the legitimacy of the Federal Republic."42

At the present time, it is impossible for anyone to contest the traditional Holocaust extermination story within the German legal system. "Holocaust denial" is a criminal offense which is punishable with up to five years of imprisonment. In a German court, no exonerating evidence may be introduced in such trials, since the same evidence would amount to 'denial' as well and would merely lead to another criminal indictment of the defendant and his lawyer.43

It is in this sociopolitical context that we must decipher German motives. Since the governing class's position of power and influence is "justified" and "legitimized" by the Holocaust ideology, it makes sense that they would aggressively indoctrinate the German masses with it. All German politicians must accept and promote the Holocaust mythology, for in the present German political culture they cannot do otherwise.

Since the late 19th century, Germany was incapable of growing sufficient food for its growing population; they were forced to export or starve. This brought them into economic conflict with other European nations that must also compete for overseas markets. This problem became even more acute after the post-war loss of formerly eastern German lands to Poland. We let political analyst Chamberlin describe the dilemma: "In short, Germany, never self-sufficient in food, was first to be deprived much of its best arable land, located in the regions transferred to Poland, and was also to be placed under a multitude of restrictions extremely prejudiced to its industry and foreign trade."44 The present German government is faced with delicate problems with regard to approval from other nations, for the reason of satisfying the basic economic needs of the nation. Thus, as a result of the ongoing, decades long and overwhelming propaganda deluge against National Socialist Germany, successive German governments were forced to disavow everything that Germany of 1933-1945 represented.45

Jewish influence on the American political system would also play a role in determining how German government officials would behave in regard to Jewish interests. Since the United States government had the final control of Germany, Jewish groups could influence American policy toward Germany by way of the United States government. Indeed, President Eisenhowers's Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, stated point blank in the context of the 1956 Suez crisis: "We cannot have all of our policies made in Jerusalem […] I am aware how almost impossible it is in this country to carry out a foreign policy not approved by the Jews. Marshall and Forrestal learned that. I am going to try to have one."46 (Let me give just one small piece of evidence in support of Dulles's statement. In 1952, eighty percent of the Democratic Party presidential campaign funds came from Jewish sources.47)

President Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles 1956.

President Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles in 1956. Dulles is recorded as having said, "We cannot have all of our policies made in Jerusalem."
Source: Wikimedia Commons. 

In 1952, German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer advocated restitution to Israel and Jewish organizations. He argued that if the Germans did not give restitution to Jews, it would be a foreign policy disaster of the first order. For one, Germany would be unable to receive foreign credits. Making restitution payments to Jews, he believed, was an "absolute moral, political, and economic necessity."48 Financial restitution to Jews was the price to pay for German entry into the Western alliance. Adenauer was informed by an influential American official that a German agreement with Israel and Jewish organizations would be a political event on the same level with treaties "establishing German sovereignty," and entry into the European Defense Community.49

With that being said, it is now easier to understand why from 1953 to 1965 West Germany delivered to the Zionist state goods such as ships, machine tools, trains, autos, medical equipment, and telephone technology that were crucial for the construction of infrastructure. These deliveries amounted to between 10 and 15 percent of annual Israeli imports.50 Not only did such a course of action satisfy an alleged "moral necessity" (e.g., assuage a "guilty" German conscience), it also served an economic and political function.

German political and economic subordination to Israel and the Jewish power elite continues to this very day. In a speech to the Israeli Knesset on March 18, 2008, the current German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke of "Germany's Holocaust shame" and pledged its continuing support for the Jewish state in the Middle East.51 This is precisely the psychological reaction that the Holocaust mythology is meant to induce in the German people, because it "wins" mass support for the current German rulers and their relationship with Israel and Zionism.

The current political structure of contemporary Germany, and the political-economic relationship between Germany and Israel, can be explained by some of the basic tenets of Marxism. Political philosopher Roger Scruton explains the function of "ideology" in Marxist theories: "[I]deology' denotes any set of ideas and values which has the social function of consolidating a particular economic order, and which is explained by that fact alone, and not by its inherent truth or reasonableness […] Ideology wins support for class rule, by persuading oppressed classes to accept the description of reality which render their subordination 'natural.' It therefore has three principal functions: to legitimate, to mystify, and to console."52

The contradictions, absurdities, and outright falsehoods in the Holocaust ideology are endless.53 The promotion of the Holocaust ideology in the Federal Republic of Germany is not to be explained because of its inherent truth or reasonableness. Rather, its dominance is largely explained by the fact that it serves to "justify" and "legitimize" the entire sociopolitical structure in the Federal Republic, and the exploitative economic relationship between the Israeli and German people. The Holocaust ideology "persuades" the German masses that "their" government is "good and legitimate" and financial subordination to Israel and Zionism is "wholly morally correct and natural." With the vigorous promotion of the Holocaust ideology, the current German rulers solidify their position of power over the German people.

Yet, the Holocaust doctrine and the sociopolitical status quo that it "justifies" contain with it the seeds of its own destruction. The more the German national identity is assaulted with Holocaust falsehoods, the more the German people are financially exploited by this, so to will more and more Germans come to reject the Holocaust doctrine and the sociopolitical order that is associated with it.

If the current German rulers are truly interested in building a stable democratic society, and one that serves the best interests of the German people, they would allow freedom of debate on the Holocaust issue, and attempt to get at the whole truth. Basing political systems upon demonstrable falsehoods that degrade and exploit the German masses makes for a very politically unstable and volatile situation.

Russia and the Holocaust Mythology

It is well established that Jews played a decisive role in the establishment and functioning of Soviet Communism.54 Yet, Soviet promotion of the Holocaust ideology cannot be totally explained by this fact alone. Hitler realized that as long as the tyrannical dictator Joseph Stalin was in control of the Soviet Union, its foreign policy would be dictated by Soviet Communist interests independently of specifically Jewish interests. In a speech of January 1941, the German dictator stated: "Though we have very favorable political and economic agreements with Russia, I prefer to rely on the powerful means at my disposal…As long as Stalin lives, there is probably no danger; he is intelligent and careful. But should he cease to be there, the Jews, who at present occupy only second- and third-rank positions might move up again into the first-rank."55

In their brutal war against National Socialist Germany, Stalinist Communism utilized the Holocaust mythology as an important propaganda weapon in order to blacken the image of their hated enemy. On December 19, 1942, a "special statement" was issued by the Soviet Bureau of Information from Moscow, which reported on the alleged extermination of the European Jews. It read in part: "The cannibalistic plan elaborated by Hitler in the beginning of the current year provides for the concentration before the end of 1942 in the east of Europe, chiefly in the territory of Poland, of about 4,000,000 Jews for the purpose of murdering them."56

There was, however, a certain ambiguity inherent in the Soviet promotion of the Holocaust ideology. Stalinist Communists promoted it because it served their interests in winning the war. Yet, at times they underplayed the claim that the Germans were attempting to exterminate the Jews, because they did not want to give credence to the National Socialist idea that Bolshevism and World Jewry were virtually identical.57 As we shall see, ambiguity in regard to the Holocaust carries on to this very day in contemporary Russia.

Until the end of communism in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the Holocaust ideology was continually used by communist rulers to attain their ends. Revisionist historian Charles Weber noted that the Holocaust material had proved to be a useful ideological weapon in a number of Russian-Soviet propaganda efforts, including the Nuremberg trials. It enabled the Soviet Union to cover up, hide and obliterate by contrast the awareness of the many crimes the Soviet Union perpetrated against other nations and peoples, such as the Katyn massacre in Poland. Even the anti-Holocaust revisionist historian Jeffrey Herf admits that the Soviets ran concentration camps in which death was brought about by exposure to the elements or slow starvation.58 The Holocaust ideology was very useful in masking the ongoing brutality of the Soviets.

Weber added this astute observation about Soviet Communist use of the Holocaust mythology: "An essential objective of this propaganda effort is the demonstration that in spite of the obvious and continued oppressiveness of the Soviet empire, a German victory would have meant a worse life. The 'Holocaust' material thus plays an essential role in the pacification of the many nations and ethnic groups of the Soviet empire, including a number of lands which fought as sovereign states on the side of Germany during the titanic struggle against Communism during 1941-1945: Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria and Slovakia. The material is continually used as a justification to the outside world for the retention of Eastern Europe in the Soviet empire. A further advantage to the Soviet empire from stressing the 'Holocaust' material lies in its appeal to the Jewish minorities in various lands, especially in the United States."59

The Soviet Union has been consigned to the dustbin of history, but the promotion of the Holocaust ideology still serves the interests of the current Russian government, as they want to instill a sense of national pride in the Russian masses. Here is a statement of the Russian representative to the United Nations in regard to the 2007 United Nations Resolution condemning "Holocaust denial": "[T]he Red Army had freed the Auschwitz death camp, one of the largest. The memory of the heroism of the Soviet soldiers and the many millions of victims in his country could never reconcile itself with those of 'opportunistic political interest' who sought to distort the significance of that history."60 Thus, the Holocaust mythology forms a cornerstone of Russian nationalism, as it casts the Russian people in the role of "heroic liberators" during WWII.

UN Russian Federation representative Vitaly Churkin hinted that this is what is behind Russia's support of the 2007 United Nations Resolution condemning "Holocaust denial": "[M]ember States were bound to include in that condemnation attempts to revise the history of the Second World War and the merits of those who took up arms to fight the Nazis. Any attempt to make heroic the henchmen of fascism must be rejected."61

In an August 2009, Russian-Israeli statement, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Israeli counterpart, Shimon Peres, jointly declared: "We express our deep indignation at attempts to deny the great contribution that the Russian people and other peoples of the Soviet Union brought to the victory over Nazi Germany and also (attempts) to deny the Holocaust of European Jews…No kind of attempt to revise history can diminish the clear facts."62

The "Nazi gas chamber" mythology provides the Russian people with an exaggerated self-image as heroic liberators and freedom fighters. After all, so the propaganda line goes, they "saved the world" from the clutches of the "evil Germans" who were "attempting to exterminate" the "inferior races" who opposed them. Take away the Holocaust mythology, and what do we end up with?

A repudiation of the Holocaust ideology would allow another reappraisal of the crimes, atrocities, genocide and oppression committed by the Stalinist regime. The end result of such historical revisionism would be the demolition of a pillar of Russian patriotic ideology, and the world-wide realization that Stalinist Communism was more oppressive and evil than National Socialism. Indeed, even the bitter intellectual opponent of Holocaust revisionism, Deborah Lipstadt, admits that Stalin killed more people than Hitler ever did.63

But alas! Ambiguity in relation to the Holocaust has reared its head again in post-communist Russia. As Russia authority Jonathan Brent points out: "In 2001, a notion to condemn anti-Semitism was rejected again by the Duma, and in April 2001, Vladimir Zhirinovsky and other deputies protested effectively against observing a minute of silence to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust on Soviet soil—approximately one half of all Jews murdered by the Nazis."64

This suggests that Russians are gradually becoming cognizant of the negative role that the Holocaust mythology plays in world affairs. Keep in mind that Russians are well aware of the negative and destructive role that certain Jewish groups have played in Soviet Communism and contemporary Russia (e.g.., the oligarchs), and that Russia is a major supplier of Israel's enemies, Syria and Iran.65 All of these factors combined could set the stage for a possible future confrontation with Zionist groups and the state of Israel. If this scenario comes to pass, the Russian government may repudiate the Holocaust mythology.

When the Soviet Communists took control of Auschwitz in January 1945, they transported to Moscow hundreds of boxes of war time German documents about the camp, and deposited them in an archive controlled by the secret police.66 In the future, political realities may dictate that Russia should expose the Holocaust mythology for the politically inspired falsehood that it is. If this comes to be, the Russians may reveal formerly hidden documents to the world and deliver the final death blow to the Holocaust mythology. Revisionist historian Jürgen Graf made another interesting suggestion: in a serious future confrontation between the Russian and United States governments, the Kremlin may decide to publish formerly suppressed documents, proving that the "Nazi extermination camps" belong to the realm of propaganda.67

These suggestions by historian Graf and I are not far-fetched at all. During WWII and at the Nuremburg trials in the aftermath of the war, the Soviets claimed that the Germans "committed" the Katyn massacre in Poland. It was not until April 1990 that the former USSR confessed up and admitted that the Soviet secret police were indeed responsible for the atrocity.68 We may live to see a similar scenario play out with the Holocaust mythology. It may be Russians, and not Jews, that will determine the future fate of the Holocaust mythology.

Poland and the Holocaust Mythology

In the August 18, 1967 issue of Time magazine (pp. 28-29), Jewish influence in the former Polish Communist government was highlighted. They wrote: "Though anti-Semitism has a long and virulent history in Poland, Jews form a vital and powerful segment of the present Polish government. As in other countries in Eastern Europe, the roots of the Polish Communist Party go back to 19th century Jewish-led organizations. And as Europe's Communist parties grew after World War I, so did the influence of the Jews within them. During World War II and Nazi occupation, many Polish Communist Jews fled to Russia for sanctuary – and many returned with the Red Army to hold high military, secret police and administrative posts. Thus, though there are only 30,000 Jews in Poland today, they are seeded influentially from the politburo down through the intellectual community and the Polish press. After Party Boss Wladyslaw Gomulka's decision to break off diplomatic ties with Israel last June at Moscow's behest, there was a modicum of wry truth in a gibe that quickly made the rounds in Warsaw: Tel Aviv was going to retaliate by withdrawing the Polish government…" Nevertheless, as in the case of Russia, Polish promotion of the Holocaust mythology cannot be solely explained by Jewish influence.

In 1947, the Polish government enacted a law that commemorated the martyrdom of Poland and other nations at the Auschwitz concentration camp, and the new Auschwitz State Museum was born.69 As Robert Jan van Pelt observed, "Poles and Jews contend for the spiritual ownership of the camp. Auschwitz is the most significant memorial site of the [Jewish Holocaust], and it is also the most significant memorial site of Polish suffering under German rule."70

As in the case of Russia, the Holocaust ideology was made into a cornerstone of Polish nationalism. Indeed, the Poles wanted to create a "national myth," so this "required" that a large number of both Poles and Jews lost their lives at Auschwitz. With this political end in mind, Polish propagandists conspired to intentionally exaggerate the Auschwitz death figures.71

To the credit of the New York Times, they did point out how the Holocaust ideology, inclusive of the falsehood that four million people were murdered at Auschwitz, granted an air of legitimacy to the political landscape in Poland in 1979: "[P]oland's suffering at the hands of Nazi Germany is still viewed as a source of unity, and the country's liberation by the Red Army is regarded as the imprint of the legitimacy of the country's Marxist leadership."72

The "etched in stone fact"—that four million people were murdered at Auschwitz—has been exposed for the intelligently designed lie that it was. Nevertheless, the current Polish government provides more than $3.6 million a year to maintain Auschwitz concentration camp as a memorial site of the Holocaust.73 Does the Polish leadership do this solely because the Jewish lobby wants them to do this? The answer is no.

The need to promote the Auschwitz mythos survives in both Jews and Poles. "The collapse of communism had done nothing to resolve the tensions between Poles and Jews over spiritual ownership of the site," Professors Dwork and van Pelt so rightly noted.74 By the Polish church's calculations, 2,647 Polish Roman Catholic Priests died at the camp, thus providing the Polish nation with a story of martyrdom.75

The Auschwitz-Birkenau complex is a major tourist site that provides the Polish economy with much needed revenue. In 1989, 700,000 people from eighty-nine countries visited the camp.76 In 2008, it experienced more than one million visitors, and in 2009 a record number of 1.3 million toured the site.77

Dutch-Jewish historian Robert Jan van Pelt noted that the falsehood that four million people were murdered at Auschwitz was originally "established" by the Soviets, and then later used by the communist rulers of Poland for their own political goal of laying claim to formerly German territories. He wrote: "As relations between the East and West deteriorated after the war, with the largest part of Germany becoming part of NATO and with that country refusing to recognize the legitimacy of postwar Polish annexation of the former German territories of East Prussia, Pomerania, and Silesia, the number of victims [at Auschwitz concentration camp] became a political issue. The communist rulers of Poland were unwilling to give an inch on their claims against Germany as long as the Bonn government did not recognize the territorial integrity of the People's Republic of Poland, and therefore they continued to maintain, as a matter of policy, that 4 million people had been killed in Auschwitz."78

Whether or not the Polish position vis-à-vis the disputed territories is legitimate or not, Polish authorities still have an ulterior vested interest in promoting the Holocaust ideology. Although Germany and Poland are presently at peace, there is a history of hostility between them. The two countries have quarreled bitterly over war damages, past suffering, and the rights of an estimated 3 million ethnic Germans expelled as Poland became a Soviet communist satellite.79 After the unification of Germany, the issue of lands ceded to Poland after the war was again raised in Germany.80

Polish hostility toward Germany was brought to surface when the late Pope John Paul II visited Auschwitz in June 1979. When asked how he felt about Germans, one Polish citizen was quoted as saying: "As a Christian, it is my duty to forgive, but as a Pole and as a human being I am still thinking it over."81 Just as the Holocaust mythology serves to "justify" Jewish hatred of Germans, so to does it serve to "justify" Polish suspicion and hostility toward Germans.

For the Polish nation, not only does the Holocaust mythology serve as a cornerstone of Polish nationalism, a useful ideological weapon against Germany, a "justification" for anti-German hostility, and a source of much needed revenue for its sometimes sluggish economy, it also provides a "safeguard" against any future German demand that Poland give back the disputed territories to Germany. Many Poles fear in their hearts that the post-war state of Poland stands and falls with Auschwitz.

Yet, again as in the case of Russia, the Holocaust mythology stands on some shaky ground in Poland. The remembrance of the suffering that both Poles and Germans experienced under Communism could be a future unifying force between the two. The finding of mass graves dating from the end of WWII have brought the two together.82 In September 2009, the Polish parliament passed a resolution condemning the Soviet invasion of Poland, which led to a massive loss of Polish lives and prison camps for many. The resolution, which irked Russia, referred to a series of massacres of Poles in Russia, as well as mass deportations of over one million Poles to Siberia. Poland also called on Russia to condemn the crimes.83

The ongoing realization of the devastation that Poland suffered because of Stalinist communism and the significant role that Jews played in the Communist nightmare could help trigger a dramatic reappraisal of the Holocaust mythology in Poland. Indeed, it may have already begun. In January 2010, retired Polish Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek pointed out how Jewish groups exploit the Holocaust ideology for political gain.84

As Revisionists Jürgen Graf and Carlo Mattogno opined, a real and lasting reconciliation between the Polish and German peoples can only flourish on a foundation of complete truth about what really happened in those concentration camps located on Polish soil. The lies and exaggerations in the Holocaust mythology only exacerbate German-Polish hostilities.85

The Holocaust as a Weapon Against European People and Biological Theories of Human Behavior and Race

Jewish intellectual Leon Klinghoffer made an honest admission in the Forward. He pointed out that the Holocaust ideology is not only a "Jewish memory" but also a Jewish weapon against non-Jewish people: ""The world is aware how jealously the Jewish community guards the Holocaust, both as a memory and a weapon."86 Indeed, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, Rabbi Eric Yoffe, used the Holocaust ideology as a weapon against all Europeans. He stated: "And in Europe, which bears the mark of Cain for its complicity in the Holocaust, the Arab-Israeli conflict has become a means of absolving guilt. In turning Israelis from victims into Nazis, they [non-Jewish Europeans] seek to cleanse their consciences by casting their sins upon us [the Jews]."87

It is not only Jews that use the Holocaust as a weapon against Christian White people, for Non-White intellectuals do the same. The Black-American evolutionary biologist and critic of White Culture, Joseph L. Graves Jr., stated: "The roots of the twentieth century Holocaust were planted with the behavior of Christians [read: White Europeans] toward Jews in medieval Europe."88

In addition, the Holocaust mythology is used as an ideological weapon against scientific theories that postulate genetics as playing an important role in determining behavioral differences between individuals and racial groups.89 Once again, we quote Joseph Graves Jr.: "Certainly, eugenics has to take some responsibility for the Holocaust."90

The Holocaust Mythology: A Motivating Force for Liberal Social Action

For many influential non-Jewish, American and European liberals, belief in the Holocaust has replaced belief in God as the supreme virtue. Expressing a widely held sentiment among liberal US political elites, Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of former presidential candidate John Kerry, stated in the highly influential Forward: "Need it be said again? The gas chambers, the bureaucratic system of murder, the efforts to sever an entire people from their place in the world, did happen, did exist and remains a unifying cause for those who choose justice, now and forever more."91 Thus, for left-leaning Gentile liberals, the Holocaust ideology is a motivating force for social action.

In regard to the politically inspired falsehood that four million people were murdered at Auschwitz, here is how the late Pope John Paul II proposed it is to be used. We let the New York Times pick up the story here about his June 1979 visit to the camp: "His voice going hoarse on the sixth day of the visit to his native Poland, the Pope asked that all his listeners commit themselves to the care of human beings and the oppressed, in testimony for the four million—including two and a half million Jews—who died in the camps he could see from the raised altar platform."92 As in the case of Theresa Heinz Kerry, the Pope proposed that the Holocaust mythology should be a motivating force for social action.

The United States, Great Britain and the Holocaust Mythology

It is well established that Jewish groups have had a huge influence upon the American and British governments and societies.93 Yet, as in the case of Russia and Poland, Jewish influence alone cannot explain the success of the Holocaust ideology in these nations.

Quite obviously, as in Russia and Poland the Holocaust story is part and parcel of American and British political culture. After all, the Americans and British also "saved" the world from "the evil Germans" who were "attempting" to "exterminate" the Jews and other "inferior races." This writer was raised in a non-Jewish, patriotic American community, and he clearly remembers how this theme was emphasized by his educators--Catholic nuns and priests, teachers, family members and non-Jewish political officials. It was not exclusively Jewish sources in the mass media who were indoctrinating my young mind with this American patriotic belief.

Non-Jewish American and British power elites also have a vested interest in promoting the Holocaust ideology. As the Holocaust historian Jeffrey Herf revealed in his study, The Jewish Enemy, the Holocaust ideology paints the American and British war effort during WWII in a good and ethical light, and thus "justifies" the entire Allied war effort against Germany.94 In the titanic struggle against Germany, which sacrificed an enormous number of lives and cost a massive amount of resources, the British and American governments had to provide their people with "justifications" for such expenditures of human blood and treasure. Can one find a better "justification" than the story that the "monstrous Germans," if they won the war, would attempt to exterminate all Jews, "inferior races," and anyone else who stood in their way in "gas chambers?"

As anti-Holocaust revisionist historian Herf makes clear, one of the important characteristics of mass propaganda is that it appeals to stark contrasts between good and evil.95 The Holocaust doctrine fits the bill perfectly. He wrote: "Reports of the Final Solution [the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews during WWII] underscored the stark moral dichotomy between Nazi Germany and its allies, on the one hand, and the United Nations [Americans, British, Soviets, etc.,] on the other. They reinforced the Allies' conviction that this was a war between freedom and tyranny, good and evil, civilization and barbarism."96

In a formal declaration reflecting the official view of the United States government, it was stated: "The 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany by the U.S. and its allies finally put a stop to dictator Adolf Hitler's campaign of genocide."97

In a word, take away the Holocaust ideology and one important "justification" of the American and British war effort against Germany is consigned to the dustbin of history. Americans and Britons will start asking uncomfortable questions, such as: Why did we go to war with Germany? Maybe we should not have gone to war with Germany, and maybe it was a huge error to be allied with the murderous Stalinist regime? Questions like this clearly pose a threat to the power and influence of the governing elites in American and British society.

One must also not forget that, just as the Soviet Union did, so to did the American and British governments use the Holocaust mythology to hide and obliterate by contrast the awareness of the brutality and mass killing of innocents that they are responsible for. For example, anti-Holocaust revisionist historian Herf admits that the British bombing campaign against Germany resulted in an estimated 500,000 German civilian deaths, disproportionately among women and children.98 Perhaps now we can understand an underlying motive behind Winston Churchill's statement on the alleged Jewish Holocaust toward the end of the war. He declared: "There is no doubt that this is probably the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world, and it has been done by scientific machinery by nominally civilized men in the name of a great state and one of the leading races of Europe."99

If the alleged mass murder of six million Jews by the Germans is the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world, then the mass killing of hundreds of thousands of German women and children by British government bombs pales in comparison, and is obliterated by contrast. The Holocaust ideology performed its services well for Winston Churchill.

Certainly, economic factors usually play a role in the relationships between nations. As in the case of Poland, Great Britain had an economic motive in their promotion of the Holocaust ideology. There is a history of commercial and industrial rivalry between England and Germany, as they were both long-time competitors for overseas markets. The Holocaust ideology aided England in their psychological discrediting of their economic competitor Germany.100

In March 2006, former US President George W. Bush publicly admitted that concerns about Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program derive largely from the threat it poses to Israel. In his own words: "The threat from Iran is, of course, their stated objective to destroy our strong ally Israel."101 In September of 2007, he invoked the Holocaust ideology in order to "justify" any possible American or Israeli attack upon Iran. A respected British news source, quoting a former Bush aide, claimed his rhetoric was a precise attempt to link Iran's quest for nuclear weapons and desire to wipe Israel off of the map with Hitler's destruction of the Jews. "Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons," Bush was quoted as saying, "threatens to put the region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust."102

The former White House aide clarified the meaning of his statement: "By using the word "holocaust," Mr. Bush has provided a moral reason to allow the Jewish state to do what it needs to do-He is reinvoking the notion of "never again." If you believe that there could be another Holocaust, it becomes morally indefensible to stand back. It is a powerful and loaded term. Those people in Europe who believed that the neo-cons have gone away and shrunk under a rock had better wise up fast."103

In the fall of 2008, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, in her debate with her Democratic rival Joe Biden, also invoked the Holocaust ideology as a "justification" for any future American military action against Iran. Bush and Palin are two influential, Christian Zionist politicians who firmly believe that support for Israel and Zionism is in the best interests of the United States—and they used the Holocaust ideology as a "justification" for their agenda.

Nevertheless, as in the case of Germany, Russia, and Poland, the Holocaust ideology in the United States and Great Britain is on shaky ground. The masses in these nations are gradually becoming aware of the negative role it plays, most notably as a "justification" for the continued oppression of the Palestinian people by Israel, as an ideological weapon against the European-descended portion of the population, and a "justification" for future destructive wars that could threaten the very survival of the two countries. All of these factors coming together could trigger a massive future reappraisal of the Holocaust mythology in the US and Britain.

Jewish Promotion of the Holocaust Mythology: Why the Success?

There are many, even dedicated critics of Zionism and Israel, who reject the findings of Holocaust revisionism for this reason. They say it is just not believable that Israel and Jewish-Zionist groups could make most of the world accept the traditional Holocaust story as a "well established fact" if it actually were a falsehood. Surely, if it were false, it would have been exposed a long time ago by a multitude non-Jewish governments and researchers. This viewpoint is mistaken, as it ignores some salient facts.

One must view Jewish-Zionism's success in elevating the Holocaust ideology to the status an unquestionable religious dogma in the surrounding context of non-Jewish interests. During and after WWII, the interests of powerful international Jewish groups dovetailed with the other most powerful groups on this planet—the victorious Allied governments of the Soviet Union, the United States, Great Britain, France and others. Since the most powerful political forces on this planet had a vested interest in promoting the same story, it would be very difficult for anyone to discover that it is false. This is one important reason why the "Holocaust" became an "established fact" throughout much of world.

There is little question that the Holocaust mythology still thrives and flourishes, for the most part, because it is thrust upon the world by aggressive Jewish-Zionist groups, but this is far from the entire story. Again, the success of Israel and Jewish-Zionist groups in promoting the Holocaust mythology must be placed in the surrounding milieu of non-Jewish interests. Some of the world's other most powerful groups--the American, British and Russian governments, along with "lesser powers" like the German and Polish governments--and other non-Jewish factions, also have a vested interest in promoting the same story. Indeed, time and space considerations did not permit me to discuss many other non-Jewish groups (e.g.., the French government, French political factions) that benefit by promoting the Holocaust ideology.

In short, the most powerful political forces on this planet (both Jewish and non-Jewish) in combination with the enormous influence of the mass communications industry in modern life have, to this day, insured the success of the Holocaust mythology.

The Future of the Holocaust Mythology: What is to be done?

The traditional Holocaust story plays an enormous political, social and economic role in world affairs. It is as if the whole emotional, intellectual, and institutional set-up of the post World War II world has been built around it. It serves as an ideological "justification" for the sociopolitical arrangements in many parts of the world today. Despite the fact that it is a demonstrably weak and flimsy ideology, it has amazing resiliency. The major reason that the traditional Holocaust story still survives is because there are a wide range of powerful groups that benefit from its perpetuation.

The world sociopolitical status quo that the Holocaust ideology "justifies" and "legitimizes" is threatened with collapse. In this world of endless war and violence, it is the duty of politicians, intellectuals and scholars to attempt to come up with peaceful resolutions to the problems humanity faces. It is now up to the powerful interests that are behind the Holocaust mythology to engage its opponents, the revisionists, in free and democratic debate so we may get at the truth about the fate of the Jews during World War II. In this way, we can help to build a more rational and humane world order, one that is based more upon truth and less upon politically inspired propaganda.

Notes:
  1. Leon Poliakov, The Harvest of Hate: The Nazi Program for the Destruction of the Jews of Europe (Holocaust Library, 1979), p.108.
  2. Lucy S. Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews 1933-1945 (Bantam Books, 1981), p. 162.
  3. Ibid, p.202.
  4. Christopher Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942 (University of Nebraska Press and Yad Vashem, 2004), p544n169.
  5. Christopher R. Browning, Collected Memories: Holocaust History and Postwar Testimony (The University of Wisconsin Press, 2003), pp. 4-5.
  6. The Sault Star. (Canada), "Scientific evidence of Holocaust missing," January 18, 1985, p.A11; See Hilberg's testimony in Barbara Kulaszka, ed., Did Six Million Really Die? Report of the Evidence in the Canadian "False News" Trial of Ernst Zundel—1988 (Samisdat, 1992), p. 39. Online: http://zundelsite.org/english/dsmrd/dsmrd09hilberg.html
  7. Arno Mayer, Why Did the Heavens Not Darken?: The "Final Solution" in History (Pantheon, 1988), p.362.
  8. Ian Kershaw, Hitler, the Germans, and the Final Solution (International Institute for Holocaust Research, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, Yale University Press, 2008), p. 203.
  9. Robert Jan van Pelt, The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial (Indiana University Press, 2002), pp. 145, 159.
  10. Brett Popplewell, "A case for letting nature take back Auschwitz," Toronto Star (Canada), 27 December 2009. Online: http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/742965--a-case-for-letting-nature-take-back-auschwitz
  11. Nuremberg document 008-USSR; IMT "blue series," Vol. 39, pp. 24-25. Yisrael Gutman and Michael Berenbaum, eds., Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp (Indiana University Press, 1994), pp. 61-62; Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (The Free Press, 1993), p.188, footnote.
  12. See photograph at http://zundelsite.org/english/antiprop/plaques/pope.jpg Also, see photograph at Paul Grubach, "The Christian Religion and the Iran Holocaust Conference: An Open Letter to Pope Benedict XVI." Online: http://www.codoh.com/viewpoints/vppgpope.html
  13. Gutman and Berenbaum. Lipstadt, p. 188, footnote.
  14. Yehuda Bauer, "Auschwitz: The Dangers of Distortion," Jerusalem Post International Edition, week ending 30 September 2009; Peter Steinfels, "Auschwitz Revisionism: An Israeli Scholar's Case," New York Times, 12 November 1989.
  15. Deborah Dwork and Robert Jan van Pelt, Auschwitz: 1270 to the Present (WW. Norton & Company, 1996), pp. 360, 361, 363, 364, 367, passim.
  16. Robert Jan van Pelt, p. 5.
  17. Robin O'Neil, "Belzec—the 'Forgotten' Death Camp," East European Jewish Affairs, Winter 1998, pp 49-62.
  18. Gilead, I.; Haimi, Y.; Mazurek, W., "Excavating Nazi Extermination Centres," Present Pasts, North America, 110 05 2009, vol. 1, no. 1, 2009. Online: http://presentpasts.info/journal/index.php/pp/article/view/3/7
  19. See the "News and Reports" section of http://www.undersobibor.org/
  20. Gilead, et al.
  21. Lipstadt, p. 188.
  22. Richard Breitman, The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final Solution (Alfred A. Knopf, 1991), p. 6.
  23. Lipstadt, p. 53.
  24. Ibid, p.101.
  25. Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Assassins of Memory: Essays on the Denial of the Holocaust (Columbia University Press, 1992), pp.14, 181fn44.
  26. Ibid, p. 181fn44.
  27. Ibid, p.14.
  28. Ibid, p.xii.
  29. For example, see Ernst Gauss [Germar Rudolf], ed., Dissecting the Holocaust: The Growing Critique of "Truth" and "Memory" (Theses and Dissertations Press, 2000). Online: http://vho.org/GB/Books/dth/
  30. Charles Weber, "Cui Bono? An American Veteran's Views on Non-Jewish Toleration and Propagation of the Extermination Thesis," The Journal of Historical Review, Summer 1982 (Vol. 3, No. 2), p. 115. Online: http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v03/v03p105_Weber.html
  31. For a small selection of works that document Jewish power and influence, see Alexander Bloom, Prodigal Sons: The New York Intellectuals and Their World (Oxford University Press, 1986); Neal Gabler, An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood (Crown Publishers, 1988); Benjamin Ginsberg, The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State (University of Chicago Press, 1993); Ernest van den Haag, The Jewish Mystique (Stein and Day, 1969); Jacob Heilbrunn, They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons (Doubleday, 2008); Paul Findley, They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront the Israeli Lobby (Lawrence Hill & Co., 1985); Arthur Liebman, Jews and the Left (John Wiley & Sons, 1979); Alfred Lilienthal, The Zionist Connection II: What Price Peace? (North American, 1982); Kevin MacDonald, The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements (Praeger, 1998); Kevin MacDonald, Cultural Insurrections: Essays on Western Civilization, Jewish Influence, and Anti-Semitism (The Occidental Press, 2007); Stanley Rothman and S. Robert Lichter, Roots of Radicalism: Jews, Christians, and the New Left (Oxford University Press, 1982); Charles Silberman, A Certain People: American Jews and Their Lives Today (Summit Books, 1985).
  32. William Henry Chamberlin, The German Phoenix (Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1963), p. 129.
  33. Ibid, p.56.
  34. Arthur Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century: The Case Against the Presumed Extermination of European Jewry (Theses & Dissertations Press, 2003), p. 293. Online: http://vho.org/GB/Books/thottc/
  35. Chamberlin, p. 252.
  36. Ibid, p. 253.
  37. Ibid, p. 245.
  38. See "Germany-United States relations," Wikipedia—The Free Encyclopedia. Online: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany_%E2%80%93_United_States_relations
  39. Jeffrey Herf, Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys (Harvard University Press, 1997), pp. 337-338.
  40. Wilhelm Stäglich, The Auschwitz Myth: A Judge Looks at the Evidence (Institute for Historical Review, 1986), p.225.
  41. Quoted in Germar Rudolf, The Rudolf Report: Expert Report on Chemical and Technical Aspects of the 'Gas Chambers' of Auschwitz (Theses & Dissertations Press, 2003), p. 325. Online: http://vho.org/GB/Books/trr/index.html
  42. Ibid, p.326. For more appropriate quotes concerning the traditional Holocaust story as an ideological cornerstone of the present German government, see Ernst Gauss [Germar Rudolf], ed., Dissecting the Holocaust: The Growing Critique of "Truth" and "Memory" (Theses and Dissertations Press, 2000), pp. 49-50. Online: http://vho.org/GB/Books/dth/
  43. See Robert Faurisson's statement in Fred A. Leuchter, Jr., Robert Faurisson, Germar Rudolf, The Leuchter Reports: Critical Edition (Theses & Dissertations Press, 2005), p. 19. Online: http://www.vho.org/GB/Books/tlr/
  44. Chamberlin, p. 33.
  45. Charles Weber, p. 108.
  46. Quoted in George W. Ball and Douglas B. Ball, The Passionate Attachment: America's Involvement with Israel, 1947 to the Present (W.W. Norton & Co., 1992), p. 47.
  47. Ibid, p.218.
  48. See Jeffrey Herf, Divided Memory, pp. 286-287.
  49. Ibid.
  50. Ibid, p.288.
  51. See "German-Israel relations," Wikipedia—The Free Encyclopedia. Online: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany%E2%80%93Israel_relations
  52. Roger Scruton, A Dictionary of Political Thought (Harper & Row, 1982), p. 213.
  53. See Gauss, footnote 29.
  54. Winston Churchill, "A Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People," Illustrated Sunday Herald, 8 February 1920; Online: http://www.codoh.com/zionweb/zionchurch.html Kevin MacDonald, The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements (Praeger, 1998); Kevin MacDonald, "Stalin's Willing Executioners: Jews as a Hostile Elite in the USSR," Online: http://www.codoh.com/zionweb/zionchurch.html Yuri Slezkine, The Jewish Century (Princeton University Press, 2004); Benjamin Pinkus, The Jews of the Soviet Union: The History of a National Minority (Cambridge University Press, 1988); Arkady Vaksberg, Stalin Against the Jews (Knopf, 1994); Mark Weber, "The Jewish Role in the Bolshevik Revolution and Russia's Early Soviet Regime: Assessing the Grim Legacy of Soviet Communism," The Journal of Historical Review, Jan.-Feb. 1994 (Vol. 14, No. 1), pp. 4-22: Online: http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v14/v14n1p-4_Weber.html
  55. Hitler's speech quoted in Alan Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny (Harper Brothers, 1952), p. 576.
  56. "Russia Issues Statement," The New York Times, 20 December 1942, p. 6.
  57. See Pinkus, p. 187.
  58. Jeffrey Herf, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda During WWII and the Holocaust (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006), p. 126. In his Divided Memory, Professor Herf points out the barbaric death rate in Soviet communist concentration camps: "According to Soviet documents released by the Brandenburg Ministry of the Interior just before the collapse of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), of about 122, 671 Germans who were interned in camps in the Soviet Zone between 1945 and 1950, 42, 889 died 'as a result of sickness.' Recent work by Norman Naimark and Karl Wilhelm Fricke indicate that the actual figures are closer to 240,000 internees, of whom between 78,500 and 95, 643 died." See Jeffrey Herf, Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys, p. 73.
  59. Charles Weber, p. 114.
  60. General Assembly, GA/10569, 26 January 2007, "General Assembly Adopts Resolution Condemning Any Denial of Holocaust: United States Representative Says to Deny Events of Holocaust Tantamount to Approval of Genocide in All its Forms." Online: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs//2007/ga10569.doc.htm
  61. Ibid.
  62. "Russia wins Israeli backing over Soviet WWII role," European Jewish Press, 18 August 2009. Online: http://www.ejpress.org/article/38321
  63. Lipstadt, p.213.
  64. Jonathan Brent, Inside the Stalin Archives: Discovering the New Russia (Atlas & Co., 2008), p. 280.
  65. For the Jewish role in post Communist Russia, see Daniel W. Michaels, "Capitalism in the New Russia," The Journal of Historical Review, Vol. 16, no. 3. Online: http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p21_Michaels.html
  66. Dwork and Van Pelt, p. 10.
  67. See Smith's Report On the Holocaust Controversy, February 2008, no. 147, p. 7. Online: http://www.codoh.com/newsite/sr/online/sr_147.pdf
  68. See "Katyn massacre," WIKIPEDIA—The Free Encyclopedia. Online: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn
  69. Dwork and van Pelt, p364: Van Pelt, p. 14.
  70. Ibid, p. 359.
  71. See footnote 14.
  72. John Vinocur, "Pope Prays at Auschwitz: 'Only Peace!,'" The New York Times, 8 June 1979, p.A1.
  73. Judy Dempsey, "More Money for Auschwitz After Theft of Sign," The New York Times, 26 December 2009. Online: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/26/world/europe/26poland.html?_r=1
  74. Dwork and Van Pelt, p. 372.
  75. Vinocur.
  76. Dwork and van Pelt, p. 373.
  77. "Germany donates 60 million euros to Auschwitz upkeep," European Jewish Press, 17 December 2009. Online: http://www.ejpress.org/article/41144 "Former death camp Auschwitz saw record 1.3 million visitors in 2009," HAARETZ.com, 3 January 2010. Online: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1139576.html
  78. Robert Jan van Pelt, p. 109.
  79. Monika Scislowska, "Mass WWII grave brings Poles, Germans together," Associated Press release, 10 August 2009. Online: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g--jMQDnnOxfv7sMvNcOH9tJ8f4gD99VGGF00
  80. Dwork and van Pelt, p. 357.
  81. See Vinocur.
  82. See Scislowska.
  83. "70 years on, Polish resolution condemns crimes under Stalin," Deutsche Welle, DW-WORLD.DE, 25 September 2009. Online: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4722144,00.html
  84. "Catholic Bishop from Poland accuses Jews of exploiting Holocaust," World Jewish Congress, 26 January 2010. Online: http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/main/showFocus/id/58
  85. Jürgen Graf and Carlo Mattogno, Concentration Camp Majdanek: A Historical and Technical Study (Theses & Dissertations Press, 2003), p. 247.
  86. David Klinghoffer, "Our Role in Promoting Holocaust Denial," Forward, 30 December 2005, p. 9.
  87. Quoted in the Forward, 14, November 2003, p.9.
  88. Joseph L. Graves Jr., The Emperor's New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium (Rutgers University Press, 2001), p.22.
  89. J. Philippe Rushton, Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective, 3rd ed., (Charles Darwin Research Institute, 2000), p.256.
  90. Graves Jr., p. 100.
  91. Teresa Heinz Kerry, "The Outrageous Silence of George W. Bush," Forward, 23 December 2005, p. 9.
  92. See Vinocur.
  93. For a small sample of works documenting Jewish influence upon the American and British governments, consult the work in footnote 31. Also see Martin Gilbert, Churchill and the Jews: A Lifelong Friendship (Holt, 2007); Janine Roberts, "The Influence of Israel in Westminster," The Palestine Chronicle, 24 May 2008. Online: http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=13821
  94. Jeffrey Herf, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda During WWII and the Holocaust, p.176.
  95. Ibid, p. 33.
  96. Jeffrey Herf, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda During WWII and the Holocaust, p. 176.
  97. VOA News, Editorials Reflecting the Views of the United States Government, "Holocaust Conference in Iran," 22 December 2006. Online: http://www.voanews.com/uspolicy/2006-12-22-voa5.cfm
  98. Jeffrey Herf, The Jewish Enemy; Nazi Propaganda During WWII and the Holocaust, p. 156.
  99. Churchill quoted in Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, Student Edition, (Holmes & Meier, 1985), p.330.
  100. Charles Weber, pp. 111-112.
  101. Quoted in John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007), p. 72.
  102. Tim Shipman, "Will President Bush bomb Iran?," Sunday Telegraph (Great Britain), 4 September 2007. Online: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/02/wiran102.xml&CMP=ILC-mostviewedbox.
  103. Ibid.

Copyrighted 2010 by Paul Grubach
All rights reserved.




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Israel has annexed the West Bank and Gaza in map featured in Size Doesn't Matter video

 


February 24, 2010 1:51 AM

Size Doesn't Matter: Israel's Porno Tourism Promotion

Israel has annexed the West Bank and Gaza in map featured in Size Doesn't Matter video

Israel's hasbara and tourism promotions are the gift that keeps on giving as far as this blogger is concerned.  I hope you've all seen the atrocious video I offered here a few days ago in which 



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Peace.

Michael Santomauro
Editorial Director
Call anytime: 917-974-6367
ReporterNotebook@Gmail.com
Amazon's: DEBATING THE HOLOCAUST: A New Look At Both Sides by Thomas Dalton

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Feb 23, 2010

Goebbels on the Jews by Thomas Dalton

 


InconvenientHistory.com

A Quarterly Journal for Free Historical Inquiry

Volume 2, Number 1 - Spring 2010

 

Goebbels on the Jews, Part 1

by Thomas Dalton

Joseph Goebbels was nothing if not disciplined. Since his 26th birthday in late 1923, he maintained a near-daily diary until his death more than 21 years later.[1] These entries are at once unique and invaluable in their ability to provide insight into the Nazi hierarchy, ideology, and operation. Nothing else like them exists. No other leading Nazi figure recorded such personal and intimate thoughts on an on-going basis throughout the war. Hitler's Mein Kampf was written in 1923 and 1924, but he published nothing later. The comments recorded in Hitler's Table Talk (1953) are the closest to Goebbels' writings, but these cover in detail only the period July 1941 to September 1942, and they furthermore have not much to add to the topic at hand. We of course have the speeches by Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler and other leading figures, but such words were designed for an intended effect and did not necessarily give an honest and unvarnished representation of ideas or events. Goebbels's diaries were held private for his entire life. He never intended to publish them, although he clearly expected them to survive the war as a permanent record of his thoughts, for posterity. They offer us an irreplaceable look at Nazi history and evolution, the lead-up and conduct of the war, and, especially, Nazi policy on the Jews.

Joseph Goebbels

Joseph Goebbels 1942.In his diary entry for July 26, 1940, he writes: "The big plan for the evacuation (Evakuierung) of the Jews from Berlin was approved. Additionally, all the Jews of Europe are supposed to be deported (deportiert) to Madagascar after the war." 
Photo is in the public domain.Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Having earned his PhD in history and philology at Heidelberg in 1921, Goebbels first encountered Hitler in Munich the next year. He joined the NSDAP in 1924, and began editing an early Nazi newspaper in 1925. Goebbels quickly earned the attention of Hitler, and was named Gauleiter (district leader) of Berlin in October 1926. He founded a major Nazi periodical, Der Angriff, in 1927, and by 1929 was named Reich Propaganda Minister. Goebbels was thus well-placed by the time Hitler and the NSDAP acceded to power in 1933. He was the most intelligent and well-educated of the Nazi leaders.[1] In a very short time Goebbels, along with Hitler and Göring, came to comprise the leadership 'trinity' of the early Nazi party. As the war progressed Göring fell from grace, leaving Goebbels as the de facto second-in-command of the Third Reich. He eclipsed even Himmler, who was in the end more an enforcer than leader. Into the 1940s, Goebbels "was the most important and influential man after Hitler…[B]y 1943, he was virtually running the country while Hitler was running the war."[1] Thus Goebbels was uniquely situated to comment on, and help resolve, the Jewish Question (Judenfrage). To this end, his diaries are absolutely essential for understanding the Jewish holocaust.

The diaries themselves first surfaced a few years after the war. An unknown scavenger came upon the bundles of originals—some 7,000 pages in total—in the ruins of the official German archives. Pages were burned, soaked, and many were missing. They "passed through several hands," eventually becoming acquired by an American diplomat.[1] In 1948 a (very) partial English translation by Louis Lochner appeared, on selected entries from 1942 and 1943. Unknown at the time, the Soviets had acquired a full set of glass plate prints of the entire diary series, amounting to roughly 75,000 individual sheets. By various obscure means, portions leaked out over the years. Then in 1992, David Irving (re)discovered the full set in the Soviet archives, and was able to fill in all the missing gaps. These were put to good use in his 1996 work Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich—the only complete biography published to date.

Today, there are four English translations of different parts of the diary: (1) the original Lochner translation; (2) Oliver Watson's "early entries," from the years 1925-1926; (3) Fred Taylor's translation of the period 1939-1941; and (4) Richard Barry's "final entries" of 1945. These four books combined constitute not more than 10% of the total; a full 90% of the diaries have never appeared in English.

Fortunately, though, with Irving's discovery in 1992, the German publisher Saur was able to produce a complete and authoritative set, in the German original: Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels. The full set runs to 29 volumes of roughly 500 pages each, and is divided into 2 parts (or Teils): Part 1 from 1923-1941, and Part 2 from 1941-1945. The final volume was released only in 2006, and so the complete set is still relatively new to researchers. Very few have made good use of it.

Of particular interest here are Goebbels's disclosures about Nazi policy toward a final solution (Endlösung) of the Jewish Question, which of course directly relate to our conception of the Holocaust. On the standard view, the entire Nazi leadership, Hitler above all, were rabid anti-Semites who would settle for nothing less than the mass murder of every Jew they could get their hands on. They allegedly pursued this objective even to the detriment of the war effort, and rounded up and gassed Jews until the final few months. Their alleged 6 million victims were burned, buried, or otherwise made to vanish, such that traces of a mere fraction of these bodies have ever been found.

There are, as we know, many problems with this account. First is the fact that no 'extermination order' from Hitler has ever been discovered—nor even any tangible reference to such.[1] Hilberg was reduced to nonsense in his "mind reading" statement of 1983,[1] and even as late as 2003 he was compelled to write:

The process of destruction…did not, however, proceed from a basic plan. … The destruction process was a step-by-step operation, and the administrator could seldom see more than one step ahead. … In the final analysis, the destruction of the Jews was not so much a product of laws and commands as it was a matter of spirit, of shared comprehension, of consonance and synchronization. (2003: 50-52)

Even preeminent British Hitler expert Ian Kershaw could not do much better. The Soviet archives were opened up in the early 1990s; "predictably, a written order by Hitler for the 'Final Solution' was not found. The presumption that a single explicit written order had ever been given had long been dismissed by most historians" (2008: 96). Rather, this most momentous destruction of human life occurred via "improvised bureaucratic initiatives whose dynamic prompted a process of 'cumulative radicalization' in the fragmented structures of decision-making in the Third Reich" (p. 94)—a statement hardly more coherent than Hilberg's.

Nothing in Goebbels's diaries changes this situation. As Irving (1996: 388)[1]observes, "Nowhere do the diary's 75,000 pages refer to an explicit order by Hitler for the murder of the Jews." On the contrary: we find repeated and consistent reference only to expulsion and deportation.

Second, and more importantly, once the alleged extermination process was underway, we have no direct evidence that either Hitler or Goebbels knew anything about it—which is inconceivable. Below I consider the account given by Kershaw (2000). He undertakes an amazing series of gyrations to argue that Hitler both planned the genocide of the Jews and knew about its progress, despite the lack of any evidence. His points overlap with the diary entries, which I will cover below. Suffice to say here that, on Kershaw's reading, Hitler was incredibly aloof on the Jewish Question. "Even in his inner circle Hitler could never bring himself to speak with outright frankness about the killing of the Jews" (p. 487)—in other words, he never, ever spoke openly about this most-vital aspect of the entire Nazi program. Hitler's comments were always "confined to generalities," sprinkled in with the "occasional menacing allusion." Thus, with a mere wink and a nod, the mass murder of 6 million Jews was effected.

Given the striking lack of evidence, and the inconceivability that mass murder of millions was underway without awareness at the top, only two alternatives are possible: (1) the Nazi hierarchy knew all about the mass murder but mutually agreed to never discuss it, or to refer to it only in euphemisms and code language—even in the most private of settings; or (2) no systematic mass murder occurred at all, and the reality was in fact just as they said: expulsion and deportation, along with a certain degree of incidental death. I would suggest that a detailed look at Goebbels's diary entries, in conjunction with the alleged 'extermination' actions that were occurring at the same time, may shine some light on this dispute.

* * * * *

To the best of my knowledge only two English books cite the diary in any detail: Irving's Goebbels (1996) and Kershaw's Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis (2000).[1]Irving, especially in the longer Internet version, captures many important passages on the Jewish Question, but this is clearly not his main concern. Kershaw has a large number of quotations, but most are only partial, out of context, and designed to cast a certain light on Hitler. To his credit, and unlike many other works, Kershaw does a good job of including the original German words for the key terms, especially those relating to expulsion, evacuation, 'elimination,' and the like.

There are at least three concerns for any foreign-language translation, and these loom particularly large here. First, inclusion of the original language on key words and phrases is essential; it allows the reader to be fully informed about the actual original text. Second, passages should be cited as fully as possible, in order to retain context. Third is the translation itself, which is always problematic. Again, particularly so in this case, as many traditionalist writers are anxious to portray Goebbels's language—which ranges from benign to ambiguous—in as ominous a light as possible. On these three counts, Irving does a reasonably good job, lacking only the extended quotations that are preferable. Kershaw does well on the first point, but fails on the other two—as I will show. Of the published (partial) translations, Lochner comes in for notable censure, with one excerpt in particular that is an outrageous falsification of the original.

In what follows I cite Goebbels's reflections on the Jews and Jewish policy in full. This is quite easy because, in virtually every case, the entry consists only of a few sentences or a short paragraph or two. I also include the German original for every contentious word or phrase. To maintain context, all entries are in chronological order. Following the date for each entry is original citation information from the Tagebücher: Part # (Teil), Volume # (Band), and page number. Hence, (II.3.478) refers to Part 2, volume 3, page 478.

In total, I include below the entries for 123 different days, ranging from May 1937 to April 1945. Of these, 43 appear in one of the published translation books; the remaining 80 entries are previously unpublished, and appear here for the first time in English. (Of course many scattered portions of these entries do appear elsewhere, primarily in the Irving and Kershaw books. But none in full.) Where the entries are those found in existing translations, I have identified them with asterisks (*=Taylor, **=Lochner, ***=Barry). Furthermore, I have maintained their wording, except when essential corrections were necessary—cited in the subsequent commentary.

To be as thorough as possible, it was my original aim to include every significant entry on the Jews or the Jewish Question. But in a 29-volume set these proved too numerous for the present essay. Hence I will focus on the key time period, bounded by two significant events: Kristallnacht, and the deportation of the Hungarian Jews. Thus for the period from 1 September 1938 through 30 June 1944, I have included literally every noteworthy entry by Goebbels.[1] This exhaustive survey, covering nearly six years, gives the most complete picture possible of his perspective on the Jewish holocaust.

Before addressing the central period I want to mention a few early passages. The first passing reference to the "Jewish Question" (Judenfrage) appears very early in the diary: 15 March 1924 (Part 1, vol. 1)—coincident with the first reference to Hitler. It was clearly a concern from his earliest days in the Party. But serious action against the Jews did not begin until more than a decade later, in the late 1930s. For example:

May 5, 1937 (I.4.124)
The elimination of Jewish influence (Entjudung—lit. 'de-Jewing') in the Reich Chamber of Culture moves forward. I will not be at peace until it is completely free of Jews.
Nov 30, 1937 (I.4.429)
Long discussion on the Jewish Question. My new law is almost finished. But that is not the goal. The Jews must leave Germany, and get completely out (aus…heraus) of Europe. It will still take some time, but it needs to happen. The Führer is determined to do so.

Here we have, I believe, the first reference to the complete removal of the Jews—a full year prior to Kristallnacht. Then into 1938 we find the first mention of the 'Madagascar plan':

Apr 11, 1938 (I.5.256)
Long discussion at breakfast, on the Jewish Question. The Führer wants the Jews completely squeezed out (herausdrängen) of Germany. To Madagascar, or some such place. Right!
Apr 23, 1938 (I.5.269-270)
Speaking with Helldorf on the Jewish Question. … We will take from Berlin the character of a Jewish paradise. Jewish shops will be identified. In any case we will now proceed more radically. Negotiations with Poland and Romania. Madagascar would be the most suitable for [the Jews].

At least into early 1942 (see entry for March 7), it was seriously proposed to round up all the European Jews and ship them to Madagascar, which was to be forcibly acquired from France. This fact, of course, is of central importance to the holocaust: if the Nazis wanted to ship them out, then obviously there was no plan for mass murder. To further complicate the traditional account, we need only observe that Chelmno, Auschwitz, and Belzec were all allegedly underway in March 1942. And in fact it is worse than this, because talk of deportation continues right up until the end of the war.

I would further note Goebbels's use of the word 'radical,' which evidently means the mass expulsion of several million Jews, with little regard for their long-term well being. Also, the focus on Berlin: as local Gauleiter, Goebbels placed top priority on cleansing the city of its Jews. We see this over and over in the entries to follow. In fact this often seems to take priority over a total cleansing of the Reich—which again does not fit well with the exterminationist thesis.

I now begin with the entries from 1 September 1938. The first notable item is an early observation on America:

Sep 17, 1938 (I.6.95)
Afternoon meeting with our diplomat in Washington, Dieckhoff. He expresses a similar situation as Gienandt. At the moment it is hopeless. Everything depends on our position with England. Roosevelt is our enemy. He is surrounded by Jews. In a European conflict, if England stands against us, then so too will America.

In the run-up to Kristallnacht, we find evidence of Goebbels's involvement with anti-Jewish actions the month before:

Oct 12, 1938 (I.6.142)
Helldorf gives me a report on the status of the Jewish action in Berlin. It proceeds systematically. And the Jews now gradually withdraw.

Then we have the event itself, triggered in part by the murder of Ernst von Rath, German diplomat in Paris. He was shot by a Jewish teenager, Herschel Grynszpan.

Nov 10, 1938 (I.6.180-181)
In Kassel and Dessau there were large demonstrations against the Jews, synagogues burned and shops demolished. In the afternoon the death of our [Paris] diplomat von Rath was announced. I go to the Party reception in the old town hall. A huge operation. I present the Führer. He states: let the demonstrations continue. Police are to withdraw. The Jews should feel the public wrath. That is only right. I give appropriate instructions to the police and Party. Then I have a short discussion with Party leadership. Everyone rushes to the phones. Now the people will act.
We must not let this cowardly murder [of von Rath] go unanswered. Let things follow their course. The Hitler Patrol cleans house in Munich. A synagogue is smashed to pieces. I try to save it from the fire; but I fail.
The Patrol has done some vicious work. A message runs out across the Reich: 50-75 synagogues burned. The Führer has ordered the immediate arrest of 25,000-30,000 Jews. That will have an effect. They will now see that our patience has run out.
When I go into the hotel, all the windowpanes rattle. Bravo! Bravo! In all large cities the synagogues burn. German property is not threatened.
The first reports come early in the morning. It has been a raging fury. Just as expected. The whole nation is in turmoil. This murder will be very expensive for the Jews. The dear Jews will think carefully in the future before shooting German diplomats.

To this day it is unclear to what extent the riots were spontaneous outbreaks of anti-Semitism, or well-planned instigations by plain-clothed security men.

Nov 13, 1938 (I.6.185)
Heydrich reports on the actions: 190 synagogues burned and destroyed. Conference with Göring on the Jewish Question. Hot battles over the solution. I argue for a radical solution. Funk is somewhat soft and yielding. The result: a fine of one billion Marks is imposed on the Jews. In the shortest period of time, they will be completely excluded (ausgeschieden) from economic life. They can no longer run businesses. … A whole series of other measures is planned. In any case, a clean sheet has now been made. I work well with Göring. He also attacks this sharply. The radical view has prevailed. I draft a very sharp public communiqué.

Again, more talk of the 'radical' solution as total exclusion from public life. Then two follow-up entries:

Nov 22, 1938 (I.6.195)
We are planning a series of new measures against the Jews. I have a long phone call with Göring, who is coordinating all the actions. He approaches it harshly. In Berlin we do more than anywhere else in the Reich. That's also necessary, because we have so many Jews. But the actions have also destroyed much. Good that it's over.
Nov 26, 1938 (I.6.202)
Situation report: almost exclusively on the Jewish Question. Partly positive, partly negative. We must enlighten the public, and especially the intellectuals, on the Jewish Question.

In late November, two more interesting observations on America:

Nov 27, 1938 (I.6.203)
Roosevelt speaks out ever harsher against us. He is totally in the hands of the Jews. A Jew-slave, perhaps even of Jewish ancestry.
Dec 17, 1938 (I.6.223)
America is strongly against us. On the Jewish Question it makes impertinent remarks. It is surely also a Jew-state!

The year 1939 opened with this entry, as a follow-up to the 5 May 1937 comment:

Jan 26, 1939 (I.6.239) *
The elimination of Jewish influence (Entjudung) in the Reich Chamber of Culture continues. But now considerable financial difficulties are apparent. We shall overcome them.

Four days later, on January 30, Hitler gave his famous Reichstag speech of 1939. This was remarkable on several counts. It was sprinkled with many references to international Jewry (internationale Judentum), the Jewish world-enemy (jüdischen Weltfeind), and the Jewish Question generally. It was a grand event, the equivalent of a presidential joint session of Congress. The cameras and microphones were running. Among some initial remarks on the Jewish Question, he states that the "foreign peoples" must be "pushed out" (abzuschieben) in order to allow the Germans to arise. The key section occurs in the middle of the speech: "Europe cannot find peace until the Jewish Question is resolved." Jewry too often lives off the work of others; unless they begin to perform true, productive work, they will sooner or later "succumb to a crisis of unimaginable proportions." He continues:

Many times in my life I have been a prophet, and was often laughed at. At the time of my struggle for power, it was primarily the Jewish people who accepted my prophecies with laughter. … I believe that this time the laughter of the Jews in Germany is stuck in their throats. Today I will again be a prophet: If the international Jewish financiers in and outside Germany should succeed in plunging the nations once again into a world war, then the result will be not the Bolshevization of the Earth and with it the victory of Jewry, but rather the destruction (Vernichtung) of the Jewish race in Europe.

Here, for all the world to see, Hitler is predicting the 'destruction,' or perhaps 'annihilation,' of the Jews. At issue is the meaning of this word Vernichtung. Its root, nicht, means 'none' or 'nothing'. Bilingual dictionaries translate it as either 'destruction' or 'extermination.'

So what can the "Vernichtung of the Jewish race" mean? On the standard view, of course, this means mass murder: literal genocide, the killing of every Jew. But there are two problems here. First, Vernichtung, along with the English equivalents 'destruction' and 'extermination', are inherently ambiguous. To 'destroy' is literally to 'de-structure' or 'deconstruct' (Latin: de-struere). To destroy an individual person or animal is to kill it, but to destroy a collective—a city, a nation, a race—is to ruin its structural coherence, and cause it to cease to exist as a collective entity.10 [1] This of course would happen if every individual member were killed, but it in no way demands this. Likewise with 'extermination', which means, literally, to 'push beyond the boundaries' (Latin: ex-terminus). To exterminate is simply to 'get rid of completely', by whatever means. And in fact the leading traditionalists evidently agree with these benign interpretations. Kershaw, for example, goes to great pains to argue that there was neither plan nor intention of mass murder prior to September 1941. Browning (2004: 371) comes to a similar conclusion.

The second problem is this: How likely is it that Hitler would declare to the world his intention to murder an entire race? Kershaw (2000: 522) pointedly emphasizes Hitler's "intense preoccupation with secrecy"; the mass murder scheme was "a secret to be carried to the grave." But wait—he already announced it to the world in January 1939! Does it even make sense to then keep such a thing secret? Or perhaps there was no secret to keep.

For some unknown reason, Goebbels does not comment on the Reichstag speech—at least, in the days and months that followed. (Down the road he would see it as something of a milestone.) In fact for the next 10 months one finds no substantial reference to the Jewish Question at all. Perhaps pressing matters of war intervened. Czechoslovakia disintegrated in March and Germany was thereby compelled to occupy the territory. With much inducement from England, Poland undertook a series of belligerent actions, resulting in the German-Polish war that began on September 1. Two days later this regional war became a European one, when France and the UK declared war on Germany. Comments by Goebbels resumed in October:

Oct 7, 1939 (I.7.141) 
The Jewish problem will probably be the hardest to solve. These Jews are no longer human beings. [They are] predators equipped with a cold intellect, which must be counteracted.
Oct 17, 1939 (I.7.157) 
This Jewry must be destroyed (vernichtet).

…taking a cue, perhaps, from Hitler. The remainder of the year includes comments again consistent with removal, and no evidence of contemplated murder. The mention of typhus (December 6) is significant; as we know, this was undoubtedly the cause of death for many in the ghettos and camps, both Jews and non-Jews.

Nov 3, 1939 (I.7.179-180) 
With the Führer. I give him a report on my trip to Poland, which interests him greatly. Above all, my exposition on the Jewish problem earns his full support. Judaism is a waste product. More clinical than social issue.
Dec 5, 1939 (I.7.220-221) 
[The Führer] shares my view on the Jewish and Polish questions. The Jewish danger must be banished (gebannt) by us. But it will still return in a few generations. There is no real panacea.
Dec 6, 1939 (I.7.222) 
Du Prel reports on the situation in the General Government. Horrible! There is still much to do. Nothing has changed in Warsaw. A typhus epidemic and famine have broken out. In Lublin, they're waiting for the expelled (abgeschobenen) Jews.
Dec 19, 1939 (I.7.236-237) *
The Jews are attempting to infiltrate cultural life again. Particularly half-Jews. When they are serving with the armed forces, they have some reason on their side. Nevertheless, I reject all requests in this area.
My thoughts on the Jewish Question in wartime meet with the Führer's approval. He intends to clear (heraushaben) all half-Jews from the Wehrmacht. Otherwise there will be continual 'incidents.'

Through the entire first half of 1940 we find, again, no entries on the Jews. Germany was racking up military successes, culminating in the invasion of the Low Countries on May 10 and the push to the Channel. France was quickly overwhelmed, and German troops marched into Paris on June 14. Things were going very well; the war appeared to be heading toward a rapid conclusion; and then the Jewish Question could be addressed in earnest.

Jun 6, 1940 (I.8.159) 
We will quickly be finished with the Jews after the war.
Jul 6, 1940 (I.8.207) 
The American Jewish press is entirely on Churchill's side. Now, suddenly, France is no longer the ideal democratic nation. Riff-raff that must be eradicated (ausgerottet).
Jul 20, 1940 (I.8.229) 
One must neutralize the habitual criminal before the crime, not after. Our lawyers will never understand that. The Jews also belong in this category, and one must make short shrift (kurzen Prozess) of them.

By July the question of Berlin had again arisen, as had the Madagascar plan:

Jul 26, 1940 (I.8.238) 
The big plan for the evacuation (Evakuierung) of the Jews from Berlin was approved. Additionally, all the Jews of Europe are supposed to be deported (deportiert) to Madagascar after the war.
Aug 17, 1940 (I.8.276) *
Later on, we want to ship (verfrachten) the Jews to Madagascar. There they can build their own state.
Sep 2, 1940 (I.8.301) 
I fly to Kattowitz [Katowice, Poland, near Auschwitz]. … Bracht reports to me on the various concerns of the Province. The Poles are resigned to their fate, and the Jews have been pushed out (abgeschoben).
Nov 2, 1940 (I.8.406) 
With the Führer. Epp has colonial questions. Koch and Forster, questions about the East. All want to unload their trash onto the General Government: Jews, the sick, the lazy, etc. And [Hans] Frank resists. Not entirely without reason. He would like to make Poland a model nation. But that goes too far. He cannot, and should not. According to the Führer, Poland is a large labor pool for us—a place to hold failed people and use them for lowly work. We have to get them from somewhere. Frank does not like this, but he has to. And the Jews will later be moved out (abschieben) of this area.

We see here a growing vocabulary of terms relating to the status of the Jews. The large majority refer to removing, deporting, or expelling: aus-heraus, herausdrängen, ausscheiden, abschieben, evakuieren, verfrachten, deportieren. Later we find other related terms: beseitigen, herausbringen, aufräumen, herausschaffen, and others—some 18 in total, by my count (not including conjugates). This group is the most numerous, and the most benign. Two of these, evakuieren (evacuate) and abschieben (expel or push out), are especially popular with Goebbels.

A second group of terms include those that I will call 'ambiguous', in the sense that they have somewhat more ominous implications: vernichten (verb form of Vernichtung), ausrotten, liquidieren, eliminieren, and auslöschen. I've discussed the first of these already, and in the July 6 entry Goebbels first uses a form of ausrotten. This word, literally meaning 'to root out', translates to the ambiguous 'exterminate' or to 'eradicate' (ex-radix, lit. 'up-root'). Once again, none of these meanings entail death, killing, or murder. A plant that is ausrottet can be replanted and live; a family can be 'up-rooted' and reestablished elsewhere. The exterminationist suggestion that either vernichten or ausrotten necessarily imply murder is, quite literally, nonsense.11 [1]

I should note, by the way, that the German language does indeed have words for 'killing': morden, ermorden, töten, totschlagen, totschiessen. Goebbels had no shortage of alternatives if he wished to discuss literally killing the Jews. This is, after all, a personal and private diary. Consider his situation: Should the Germans win, he has nothing to fear. Should they lose, he must have known that his own death awaited, along with the 'destruction' of greater Germany—again, nothing to fear. Why hold back? So the reader might be wondering: Does Goebbels ever use such explicit terms? In fact he does: once. If I may temporarily leap ahead to one of his final entries, 14 March 1945, we read that certain soon-to-be-victorious Jews are calling for no mercy on the Germans—to which Goebbels replies, "Anyone in a position to do so should kill (totschlagen) these Jews like rats." There we have it—an unambiguous call for murder. Except that it's three years too late. One wonders, though, why, on the exterminationist thesis, Goebbels didn't resort to such language much sooner. Perhaps it was only at the end, when the Jewish-backed Allies were slaughtering innocent Germans by the tens of thousands, that the Nazis began calling for their deaths. And perhaps by then it was justified.12 [1]

Into 1941 we start to move strongly toward—on the traditionalist view—systematic murder. But not until the second half of the year:

Mar 18, 1941 (I.9.193) *
Vienna will soon be entirely Jew-free. And now it is Berlin's turn. I am already discussing the question with the Führer and Dr. Frank. He puts the Jews to work, and they are indeed obedient. Later they will have to get out of Europe altogether (aus…heraus).
Mar 19, 1941 (I.9.195) 
Early flight to Posen. … Here, all sorts have been liquidated (liquidiert), above all the Jewish trash. This has to be. I explain the situation to Greiser.
Mar 22, 1941 (I.9.199) 
I am deeply troubled about the cultural impact of foreign laborers working in the Reich. There are several hundred thousand. The harsh line towards prisoners of war is also somewhat mitigated. The Jews themselves cannot be evacuated (evakuiert) from Berlin because 30,000 are working in the armaments industry. Who, earlier, would have thought this possible?

In the March 19 entry we find the first occurrence of another troublesome word, 'liquidation'. It proves to be rather popular, appearing in eight different entries. The troublesome part is that, in many cases, it means something other than killing. Goebbels speaks of liquidating the "Jewish danger" (30 May 1942) and of liquidating Jewish marriages (6 December 1942). The word 'liquidation' means, primarily, 'to make fluid.' And this in fact is a fairly apt description of the deportation process: a large, entrenched Jewish community who had to be uprooted, made liquid, and then to flow out across the borders. Nothing in this entails killing. Nor at the time, in the 1940s, did the word necessarily mean murder. An article in the London Times had this to say: "The rest of the Jews in the General Government…would be liquidated, which means either transported eastward in cattle trucks to an unknown destination, or killed where they stood" (4 December 1942; p. 3). Holocaust survivor Thomas Buergenthal (2009: 49) writes of his experience in the Kielce ghetto: "The ghetto was being liquidated or, in the words bellowing out of the loudspeakers, Ausseidlung! Ausseidlung! ('Evacuation! Evacuation!')." And later he comments, "After the liquidation of the labor camp…" (p. 56). Clearly the word means, and meant, something other than killing.

Obviously, 'liquidate' can mean killing, as can a huge variety of words under contrived circumstances. In Mafia circles, a 'kiss' can mean death. Movies use a variety of silly terms: whack, pop, bump, waste, take for a ride, off, do in, and so on. In the case of Goebbels, we must ask once again, why would he go to lengths to use euphemisms or silly code words in a personal diary? And one in which, when motivated, he was happy to call a spade a spade?

June 1941 was an important month: the Germans invaded Russia, and theEinsatzgruppen were activated to protect the troops from partisan attacks. Here I refer back to Kershaw's account of events. Through mid-1941, Kershaw admits, there was no true genocidal plan—despite Hitler's infamous prophecy of January 1939. As of June 1941, "shooting or gassing to death all the Jews of Europe…was at this stage not in mind" (p. 463). Even through the end of the year, the alleged physical extermination plan "was still emerging" (p. 492). Hence the plan in mid-1941 was just as Goebbels had recorded: one of confinement, deportation, and ethnic cleansing.

Anti-partisan actions of the Einsatzgruppen began in June and July 1941; Jews were prominent among the partisans, and hence they were prominent among the victims. Then "there was a sharp escalation from around August onward," both in the death toll and in the ranks of the shooters. Allegedly, the 3,000 Einsatzgruppen men recruited large numbers of "native collaborators" to help with the slaughter; Kershaw cites Browning (1995: 106) as stating that the combined troop levels rose to more than 300,000 by January 1943!13 [1]

Jun 20, 1941 (I.9.390)
Dr. Frank talks about the General Government. There one is already happily looking forward to expelling (abschieben) the Jews. Judaism in Poland gradually decays. A just punishment for inciting the people and instigating the war. The Führer has also prophesied that to the Jews.
Jul 13, 1941 (II.1.58) 
We are again getting reports from the eastern front on the terrible atrocities being committed by the Bolsheviks. The Moscow Jews continue to apply their infamous procedure, in order to push the outrages committed by them into our shoes. But the whole world agrees that there is not a word of truth in it.

Kershaw then cites a mysterious meeting between Hitler and Himmler in mid-July, during which the former "effectively…placed the 'Jewish Question'…directly in Himmler's hands" (p. 469). After this, we are to believe that Hitler was content to speak only of deportations, removals, and evacuations, all of which allegedly reconfirmed the implicit genocide command. When Hitler is quoted as saying, "Where the Jews are sent to, whether to Siberia or Madagascar, is immaterial," Kershaw offers an amazing response: "The frame of mind [here] was overtly genocidal. The reference to Madagascar was meaningless." Evacuation to Siberia was "genocide of a kind" (p. 471). But never mind this; as of July 1941, "no decision for the 'Final Solution'—meaning the physical extermination of the Jews throughout Europe—had yet been taken. But genocide was in the air."

Aug 7, 1941 (II.1.189) 
In the Warsaw ghetto there was some increase in typhus; although provisions have been made to ensure that it will not leave the ghetto. The Jews have always been carriers of infectious diseases. They must either be cooped up in a ghetto and left to themselves, or liquidated (liquidieren); otherwise they will always infect the healthy population of the civilized nations.
Aug 11, 1941 (II.1.213) 
In the [occupied] Baltic countries the tendency is to form their own governments, and to shake off the Germans as quickly as possible, in order to become stronger. In the large cities a punishment is inflicted upon the Jews. They are beaten to death en masse in the streets by the self-defense organizations of the Baltic peoples. That which the Führer prophesied comes true: that if the Jews succeeded in provoking a war again, they would thereby cease to exist (seine Existenz verlieren würde).

A very important observation: the deaths of Jews in the Baltics were caused in large part by revenge-seeking natives, not roving German death squads. And in fact there was a good basis for this revenge, namely the murder and torture inflicted by the Jews of Stalin's GPU intelligence unit.14 [1]

In his "Table Talk" discussions of this time, Hitler argued that Germany was justified in deporting the Jews, and that furthermore they were doing it relatively humanely:

If any people has the right to proceed to evacuations, it is we, for we've often had to evacuate our own population. Eight hundred thousand men had to emigrate from East Prussia alone. How humanely sensitive we are is shown by the fact that we consider it a maximum of brutality to have liberated our country from 600,000 Jews. And yet we accepted, without recrimination, and as something inevitable, the evacuation of our own compatriots! (1953/2000: 24)

There seems to be no independent verification of the 600,000 figure, so we cannot identify from where they would have been deported, unfortunately. Meanwhile Goebbels continued his actions in Berlin:

Aug 12, 1941 (II.1.218) 
The Jewish Question has again become especially acute in the capital. We count 70,000 Jews in Berlin at the moment, of which 30,000 are not even working; the others live as parasites off the work of the host nation. This is an intolerable situation. The various departments of the upper-level Reich authorities still oppose a radical solution to this problem. But I won't let it go, for I don't want to experience the Jewish question solved again as it was in 1938—by the mob. But this is prevented in the long run only if we take timely and sweeping measures. … I also think it necessary that the Jews be given a badge. They are active in public life as defeatists and mood-spoilers. It is therefore imperative that they be recognized as Jews. They must not be allowed to speak on behalf of the German people. They have nothing to do with the German people, but rather must be excluded from (ausgeschieden) the German people.

Goebbels clearly does not want a repeat of Kristallnacht. Also, this is the first mention of the "badge", or yellow Star of David, that the Jews were ultimately forced to wear.

Aug 18, 1941 (II.1.254) 
It's different with the Jewish Question. All Germans are presently against the Jews. The Jews must be put back in the box. When one realizes that there are still 75,000 Jews in Berlin, of which only 23,000 are working, it seems a grotesque fact. One cannot even inform the German people, or else there would surely be pogroms. We Germans thus have the honor to conduct the war, and meanwhile the parasitical Jews, who are waiting for our defeat in order to exploit it for themselves, are sustained by our national strength. This condition is absolutely outrageous. I will ensure that it will soon be stopped.
Aug 19, 1941 (II.1.265-266) 
Regarding the Jewish Question, I completely prevail with the Führer. He agrees that we will introduce a large, visible Jew-badge for all the Jews in the Reich, and which must be worn in public; then we can remove (beseitigt) the danger that the Jews will act as defeatists and complainers without being recognized. Also, if in the future they do not work, they will be given smaller rations than the German people. That is only right and proper. He who does not work, should not eat. It's all we need in Berlin, for example, that of 76,000 Jews only 26,000 work, and the rest not only don't work, but they live on the rations of the Berlin population! Additionally, the Führer tells me that, as soon as the first transport opportunity becomes available, the Berlin Jews should be pushed off (abzuschieben) to the East. There they will have to make do under a harsh climate.
We discuss the Jewish problem. The Führer is convinced that his prophecy in the Reichstag—that if Jewry succeeded in provoking yet another world war, it would end with their destruction (Vernichtung)—is confirmed. It is coming true in the following weeks and months with an almost uncanny certainty. In the East, the Jews must pay the price; in Germany they have paid in part already, and they will pay more in the future. Their last resort is North America, and there they will also have to pay before long.
Jewry is a foreign element among civilized nations, and its activities in the past three decades has been so devastating that the people's reaction is understandable—indeed, one might say, a compulsion of nature. In any case, in the world to come the Jews will not have anything to laugh about. In Europe today there is a united front against Jewry. This is already apparent in the entire European press—and not only on this question, but also on many other matters there exists a thoroughly unified opinion.

So here we have a clear and unambiguous statement: that the Vernichtung of the Jewish race meant the complete exclusion from society and, ultimately, its physical removal.

Aug 20, 1941 (II.1.278) 
On the Jewish Question, I am now beginning to take action. Because the Führer has allowed me to introduce a badge for the Jews, I believe I will be able to accomplish this marking very quickly, without carrying out the legal reforms that would normally be required in such a situation. … Public life in Berlin must quickly be cleaned (gereinigt) [of Jews]. If at the moment it is not possible to make Berlin a Jew-free city, at least they should not appear in public any longer. Additionally, the Führer told me that I may expel (abschieben) the Jews from Berlin immediately after the end of our campaign in the East. Berlin must become a Jew-free city. It is outrageous and scandalous that 76,000 Jews, most of whom are parasites, can roam the capital of the German Reich. They destroy not only the streetscape, but also the mood.
Although it will be very different when they wear a badge, we can leave it at that until they are removed. We have to approach this problem without any sentimentality. One need only imagine what the Jews would do to us, if they had the power to do so—as we have the power to do. In any case, I remain alert regarding further action on the Jewish Question. If one must also overcome bureaucratic and partly sentimental resistance in the higher Reich offices, I will be neither surprised nor deterred. I took up the fight against Jewry in Berlin in 1926, and it is my ambition not to rest until the last Jew has left Berlin.

Throughout the summer Hitler resisted mass evacuations. Then, according to Kershaw: "Suddenly, in mid-September, Hitler changed his mind. There was no overt indication of the reason" (p. 477). Here's one overt indication: on September 12 Roosevelt ordered the U.S. navy to begin sinking German ships. This was only the latest in a string of aggressive and provocative actions by the Americans, which began with their shadowing of German freighter and supply ships in late 1939, and included the Lend-Lease Act of March 1941 that authorized military assistance for the Allied nations, explicitly ending U.S. neutrality.

A Himmler letter from this time cites Hitler's authorization to begin with an initial shipment of 60,000 Jews to the Lodz ghetto. This action was key to the "gathering whirlwind of extermination," says Kershaw. But even this was no Final Solution order. "It is doubtful whether a single, comprehensive decision of such a kind was ever made." Instead, "numerous local and regional Nazi leaders…seized on the opportunity…to start killing Jews in their own areas" (p. 481). The killing was as yet haphazard; a "coordinated, comprehensive programme of total genocide…would still take some months to emerge."

Sep 24, 1941 (II.1.480-481, 485) 
Also with respect to the Jewish Question, I have some important things to say to Heydrich. For the Berlin Jews, we will drive away the desire to hide their badges; and anyway, I am of the opinion that the Jews must be evacuated (evakuieren) from Berlin as quickly as possible. This will be the case as soon as we have settled the military issues in the East. In the end, they will all be transported (transportieren) to the camps designed by the Bolsheviks. These camps were built by the Jews; it is only right that they are now populated by the Jews.
The Führer is of the opinion that the Jews must, after all, be removed from (herausgebracht) all of Germany. The first cities to be made Jew-free are Berlin, Vienna, and Prague. Berlin is the first in line, and I am hopeful that in the course of this year we are able to transport out (abzutransportieren) a substantial part of Berlin's Jews to the East.

The first trains left Berlin on 18 October 1941.

Oct 21, 1941 (II.2.169) 
We are also now gradually beginning with the expulsion (Ausweisung) of Jews from Berlin to the East. Several thousand have already been put in motion. At first they go to Lodz [Poland]. Thereupon commences a big excitement. The Jews send anonymous letters to the foreign press seeking help, and in fact some messages seep through to foreign countries. I forbid further information about that for the foreign correspondents. Nevertheless, it will not prevent this from expanding further in the coming days. Nothing will change. While it is, at the moment, unpleasant to see this issue discussed in front of the world stage, one must accept this disadvantage. The main thing is that the capital will become Jew-free. And I will not rest until this goal is fully achieved.

Four days later Hitler made this well-known comment:

From the rostrum of the Reichstag, I prophesied to Jewry that, in the event of war's proving inevitable, the Jew would disappear from Europe. That race of criminals has on its conscience 2 million dead of the First World War, and now already hundreds of thousands more. Let nobody tell me that, all the same, we can't park them in the marshy parts of Russia! Who's worrying about our troops? It's not a bad idea, by the way, that public rumor attributes to us a plan to exterminate the Jews. Terror is a salutary thing. (1953/2000: 87)

So we see here (1) continued endorsement for literal deportation, (2) no talk of killing, murder, gas chambers, etc, (3) an equation between 'extermination' and deportation, and (4) a minimal concern for secrecy. The fact that Hitler finds some use in the rumor mill is interesting, a kind of unanticipated fringe benefit. But he perhaps did not anticipate how talk of extermination would play in the Anglo world. Two months before he made the above comment, the New York Times (August 25; p. 3) reported that, "unless the Nazis were defeated, wholesale extermination would be the lot of all Jews" (…"including those in the United States and Britain"!)—and here, 'extermination' means murder, no doubt.

Then an important Goebbels entry that continues the account from August 11:

Nov 2, 1941 (II.2.221-222) 
We fly early in the morning to Vilnius [Lithuania]. … We were met by Lt Colonel Zehnpfennig, who drove us through the city. Vilnius has a quarter million inhabitants, and nearly one quarter are Jewish. However, the ranks of the Jews have been greatly thinned by the Lithuanians after the invasion of German troops. The Jews were active primarily as [Soviet] GPU spies and informers, and countless Lithuanian intellectuals and citizens owe their deaths to them. The revenge tribunal established by the Lithuanians and Poles, being the majority of the city, has been horrifying. Thousands [of Jews] have been shot, and even now hundreds more as well. They have now all been rounded up into their ghettos. That they have not all been killed is due only to the fact that the Jews control the entire Vilnian handcraft industry, and the Lithuanians are completely dependent on them.
The city shows hardly any traces of war. But on a short drive through the ghetto, the view is horrifying. Here the Jews squat in rows, hideous forms, not to be looked at let alone touched. The Jews have created their own administration, which also has a police function. They stand at the entrance to the ghetto, which is separated from the rest of the city, on guard and at attention. Even 10 years ago I would not have dreamed that something like this would again be the case. Terrible figures lurk in the streets, which I would not like to meet at night. The Jews are the lice of civilized man. They must somehow be eradicated (ausrotten), otherwise they will again play their tormenting and troublesome role. Only if one advances with the necessary brutality can one be finished with them. When they are spared, one will later be their victim.
Nov 17, 1941 (II.2.304) 
In a published telegram, Churchill openly stands on the side of the Jews. He is a consummate servant of the Jews.
Nov 18, 1941 (II.2.309) 
Heydrich told me about his intentions regarding the expulsion (Abschiebung) of Jews from the Reich. The question is more difficult than we had first suspected. In any case, 15,000 Jews will have to stay in Berlin because they are employed in the war effort and other dangerous work. Also, a number of elderly Jews cannot be pushed off (abgeschoben) to the East. For them, a Jewish ghetto in a small town in the protectorate will be arranged. The third phase, which will begin early next year, will follow the procedure I have proposed to clear the area city by city, such that when the evacuation (Evakuierung) in a city begins, it will also be finished as soon as possible, and the effect on public opinion will be neither too long nor too harmful. Heydrich's approach on this question is very consistent. He is something I had not previously realized: a shrewd political thinker.

So no evacuation either for workers or the elderly. One wonders if genocide was still 'in the air'.

Nov 22, 1941 (II.2.340-341) 
Also, regarding the Jewish Question, the Führer fully agrees with my views. He wants an energetic policy against the Jews, but we do not want to cause any unnecessary difficulties. Evacuation (Evakuierung) of the Jews will be undertaken city by city. It is still uncertain when it will be Berlin's turn; but when its turn comes, the evacuation will be carried out as quickly as possible to the very end.

On the first of December, Hitler offered some philosophical thoughts on the social effect of Jewry:

[The] destructive role of the Jew has in a way a providential explanation. If nature wanted the Jew to be the ferment that causes people to decay, thus providing these peoples with an opportunity for a healthy reaction, in that case, people like St. Paul and Trotsky are, from our point of view, the most valuable. By the fact of their presence, they provoke the defensive reaction of the attacked organism. Dietrich Eckart once told me that in all his life he had known just one good Jew: Otto Weininger, who killed himself on the day when he realized that the Jew lives on the decay of peoples. (1953/2000: 141)

It is in this month, as we know, that the European war becomes a truly world war, as Germany—after some two years of provocation—declares war on the U.S. in the wake of Pearl Harbor. Also this month, on the orthodox view, a milestone occurs: Chelmno begins its extermination process, with gas vans powered by diesel engines. Evidently, then, genocide was more than in the air; it was on the ground running. And Goebbels, in truth, does seem to ramp up his rhetoric; he makes his first overt references to the deaths of Jews:

Dec 13, 1941 (II.2.498-499) 
As concerns the Jewish Question, the Führer is determined to make a clean sweep (reinen Tisch—lit. 'clean table'). He had prophesied to the Jews that if they once again brought about a World War they would experience their own destruction (Vernichtung). This was not just an empty phrase. The World War is here, and the destruction of Jewry must be the necessary consequence. This question must be seen without sentimentality. We are not here in order to have sympathy with the Jews, rather we sympathize with our own German people. If the German people have now once again sacrificed as many as 160,000 dead in the Eastern campaign, then the authors of this bloody conflict must pay with their lives (mit ihrem Leben bezahlen müssen).
Dec 14, 1941 (II.2.503) 
The early curfew in Paris has been abolished, but a plethora of Jews remain to be pushed out (abgeschoben) of occupied France to the eastern region. In many cases this is equivalent to a death sentence. The remaining Jews will think hard before stirring up trouble or sabotage against the German troops. Meanwhile General von Stülpnagel can conduct the execution of 100 Jews and communists. That will provide a very plausible and psychologically-adept explanation for the Parisian population, and will not fail to have an effect.

If deportation is sometimes the "equivalent of a death sentence," and many will "pay with their lives," we are left wondering how, exactly, and in what numbers, they will die. I trust that there is a clear difference between (a) many dying from disease, exposure, lack of medical care, periodic shootings, etc, and (b) all dying in a complex and systematic gassing operation. There is no doubt that concentrating and deporting thousands or millions of people in wartime would lead to many deaths. But this is not genocide. The next entry is telling:

Dec 18, 1941 (II.2.533-534) 
I speak with the Führer regarding the Jewish Question. He is determined to take consistent action and not be deterred by bourgeois sentimentality. Above all, the Jews must leave the Reich (aus…heraus). We discuss the possibilities for especially clearing out (räumen) Berlin as quickly as possible. Objections are sure to be raised here—from the Four Year Plan, from the Economics Ministry—because about 13,000 Jews are employed in the armaments industry in Berlin; but, with some good will, they can be replaced by Bolshevik prisoners of war. In any case we will tackle this problem as soon as possible, especially when we have the transport capacity to move this body of people. Berlin cannot count as absolutely consolidated as long as Jews are living and working in the capital. Besides, the bourgeois Schlappmeier has ever-new excuses to save the Jews. Earlier it was Jewish money and influence; now it is the Jewish workers. German intellectuals and elite have no anti-Jewish instinct at all. Their vigilance is not sharp. It is therefore necessary that we solve this problem, since it is likely that, if it remains unsolved, it will lead to the most devastating consequences after we are gone. The Jews should all be pushed off (abgeschoben) to the East. We are not very interested in what becomes of them after that. They have wished this fate upon themselves, they have started the war, and they must now pay the price.

"We are not very interested in what becomes of them after that." Harsh and brutal, perhaps, but clearly far less than genocide. The same thought was echoed by Hans Frank, in a memo of December 16:

What is to happen to the Jews [after evacuation]? … We have in the General Government an estimated 2.5 million Jews—perhaps with those closely related to Jews and what goes with it, now 3.5 million Jews. We can't shoot these 3.5 million Jews, we can't poison them…15 [1]

Obviously he and Goebbels, at least, were unaware of any program of genocide.

Notes:
  1. The first 6 or 7 years of entries were every 2nd or 3rd day. But by 1930 he was rigorously recording his thoughts daily. Until mid-1941 he wrote them himself; afterward he dictated the entries, and they became considerably longer.
  2. Alfred Rosenberg was also well-educated, having earned a PhD in engineering in 1917. But in spite of his role as chief ideologist for the NSDAP, he was not nearly as influential in the Nazi hierarchy as Goebbels was. For most of the war years Rosenberg served as Reichsminister for the occupied Eastern territories.
  3. L. Lochner, in Goebbels (1948: 25).
  4. Ibid., p. viii.
  5. I discount the Eichmann recollection of Heydrich: "The Führer has ordered the physical extermination of the Jews." Virtually no one on either side of the Holocaust debate accepts Eichmann's trial testimony as truth.
  6. "What began in 1941 was a process of destruction not planned in advance, not organized centrally by any agency. There was no blueprint and there was no budget for destructive measures. [These measures] were taken step by step, one step at a time. Thus came about not so much a plan being carried out, but an incredible meeting of minds, a consensus—mind reading by a far-flung bureaucracy." New York Newsday, Feb 23, 1983; Part II, p. 3.
  7. Corresponds to page 694 of the (much-longer) Internet version of the book.
  8. One work notably lacking in much citation of the diary is Browning's The Origins of the Final Solution (2004). This massive work, published four years after Kershaw's comparable book, should have made equally good use of the diaries. But one struggles in vain to find more than a half-dozen quotations. This is revealing: Browning, publishing in the U.S., clearly did not want to draw attention to those many troublesome entries referring to deportations, evacuations, and the like. Kershaw was at least honest enough to cite them, even as he was papering them over.
  9. Obviously this is a judgment call. There are many minor or inconsequential references to Jews, Jewish media or propaganda, Bolshevik Jews, Jewish films, etc. By a rough count, one finds 25-30 entries per volume that mention Jews (about one reference every third day, on average). Thus of the 16 volumes that I cover exhaustively, there are some 450 potentially-relevant entries.
  10. Other definitions include "to ruin structure or condition", "to neutralize", "to defeat."
  11. The diary entry of 6 February 1945 shows this very clearly. Goebbels is discussing the common goal of Germany's enemies, namely, "to destroy (vernichten) Germany and to eradicate (auszurotten) the German people." In neither case is he even faintly contemplating the literal mass murder of the entire German population.
  12. There are other threatening passages, including those referring to 'liquidation' and to the Jews 'paying with their lives.' I address these in due course.
  13. "Units of native collaborators had already played a significant role in the killing process. At the end of 1941, the strength of these units had reached 33,000. By June 1942, it was 165,000; by January 1943, 300,000. As Nebe rightly indicated, the task of killing Russian Jewry with the 3,000 men of the Einsatzgruppen was 'impossible'."
  14. A related event occurred in the Ukraine in the 1930s; this was known as the Holodomor, and was a state-created famine that killed some 5 million people. It was implemented largely by Jews.
  15. As cited in Kershaw (2000: 491).
Sources
  • Browning, C., Path to Genocide, Cambridge University Press, 1995.
  • Buergenthal, T., A Lucky Child, Profile Books, 2009.
  • Dalton, T., Debating the Holocaust: A New Look at Both Sides,Theses and Dissertations Press, 2009.
  • Goebbels, J., The Goebbels Diaries: 1942-1943, L. Lochner, trans. and ed.Doubleday and Company, 1948.
  • Goebbels, J., The Early Goebbels Diaries: 1925-1926, O. Watson, trans.H. Heiber, ed.Praeger, 1962.
  • Goebbels, J., Final Entries 1945: The Diaries of Joseph Goebbels, R. Barry, trans.H. Trevor-Roper, ed.Putnam, 1978.
  • Goebbels, J., Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, E. Fröhlich, ed.K. G. Saur Verlag, 1987-2006.
  • Hilberg, R., The Destruction of the European Jews, Yale University Press, 2003.
  • Hitler, A., Hitler's Table Talk: 1941-1944, Enigma, 1953/2000.
  • Irving, D., Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich, Focal Point Press, 1996.
  • Kershaw, I., Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis, W. W. Norton, 2000.
  • Kershaw, I., Hitler, the Germans, and the Final Solution, Yale University Press, 2008.


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