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The Holocaust and the Neo-Nazi Mythomania
© 1978, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
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the speech of October 6 in Poznan, he insisted upon
explaining the extermination of Jewish women and children. These texts lead one
to think that the extermination of Jewish men was supposed to be already known
and did not necessitate any justification; and that it was a question at the
time of Himmler's providing a "justification" only of the ordered murder of the
mass of Jewish women and children. The memoirs of von Schirach contain the
following quotation from a speech that Himmler allegedly made on May 29, 1944,
in Poznan at the City Hall "before the national and regional leaders":
"I ask that you listen to what I am going
to tell you in this circle and to keep it strictly to yourselves... The
annihilation of the Jews is a harsh and painful task. We found ourselves faced
with the following question: What was to be done with the women and children?
There, too, I endeavoured to find a radical solution. I did not in fact have
the right to exterminate men – I mean to kill (them) or have (them) killed
– and to afterwards allow the proliferation of their breed, which would
take vengeance on our sons and grandsons... It was thus necessary to take the
decision fraught with consequences to act in such a way that this people
disappear from the surface of the earth... We are carrying out this task
without – at least I believe I may say it – our men's suffering in
their minds and souls..." Himmler insisted on this last
affirmation. We have cited it in his oration of October 4, 1943, in Poznan; and
we have also found it in that of May 5, 1944, before the generals.
Two
documents inform us of the manner in which the "final solution" was to appear
to public opinion. One of them was intended at that moment for an ultra-secret
use. The other, on the contrary, regulated the information to be given to the
public, preoccupied by the turn taken by the anti-Jewish movement.
The
Inspector of Statistics Korherr in March-April 1943 (NO-5193-5198) drew up for
Himmler a detailed report and an abridged report (the latter destined to be
presented to Hitler) on the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." Himmler
wrote on April 9, 1943 (NO-5197), to the Chief of the Sipo-SD (Kaltenbrunner)
(133):
"I have received from the Inspector of
Statistics the statistical report on the final solution of the Jewish question.
I consider this report as very good as eventual documentation for future times,
that is, for the purpose of camouflage. Presently it must neither be published
nor communicated. The most important thing for me, now as previously, is that
this time one transport as many Jews as humanly possible to the East. I want to
be informed in the brief monthly reports only of how many of them have been
sent each month and how many Jews still remain at the given time."
It was during a period of great military upheaval that Himmler had
Korherr draw up this statistical balance sheet of the "final solution." At the
beginning of 1943, Hitler was caught up in the whirlwind of the defeats of the
Wehrmacht. His proclamation of February 24, 1943, on the celebration of the
foundation of the Party, was a manifestation his will to compensate himself and
his followers for the military disasters by the certainty that the Reich was in
the process of liquidating, and would succeed in liquidating, the adversary par
excellence, the
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The Holocaust and the Neo-Nazi Mythomania
© 1978, The
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