>The clock was now ticking ever louder for the Jews. On January 5, talking with Colonel Jósef Beck, the Polish foreign minister, Hitler rather speciously regretted that the western powers had not entertained Germany's colonial demands: ‘If they had,’ he said, ‘I might have helped solve the Jewish problem by making a territory available in Africa for resettlement of not only the German but the Polish Jews as well.’ On the twenty-first, he uttered to the Czech foreign minister Chvalkovsky these ominous words: ‘The Jews here are being destroyed [werden vernichtet].’ The Czech replied sympathetically; and Hitler continued: ‘Help can only come from the other countries, like Britain and the United States, who have unlimited areas which they could make available for the Jews.’ >Accelerated by these ugly stimuli, the exodus of Jews from the Reich continued throughout 1939, to stop only in October 1940, by which time Heydrich had successfully evicted about two-thirds of them – about 300,000 from Germany, 130,000 from Austria, and 30,000 from Bohemia/Moravia; some 70,000 of them reached Palestine, through the unholy community of aims that had briefly existed between Heydrich's SD and the Zionists.
>Heydrich had successfully evicted about two-thirds of them >530,000 total
Wait how can several million be killed if at most there was only 750k?
Nathaniel Allen
Don't forget that some have proposed even more fantastical numbers such as 20+ and even 26+ million
Evan Sullivan
>EARLY IN November 1938 Hitler's uncritical loyalty to his Party henchmen was put to its most severe test – by an incident symptomatic of racial troubles that had been festering in Central Europe for many decades. The Jewish problem was at its root. In Czechoslovakia, for instance, there were 259,000 Jews; they were not popular, and the new regime steered a delicate course, pandering to its powerful neighbour. President Emil Hácha, the venerable lawyer who had succeeded Beneš, initiated a series of anti-Jewish measures, obliging Jewish industrialists to resign. The influx of Jewish refugees from the Sudeten territories led to fresh antisemitism, particularly among the Czech academics who publicly demanded the removal of these ‘immigrants.’ In Bohemia and Moravia there were about 99,000 Jews; in Slovakia 87,000, and in the tiny Carpatho-Ukraine no fewer than 66,000 (or 12 percent of the population.) Slovakia eagerly enacted the anti-Jewish decrees that the Reich demanded. A wave of deportations began. Nobody, however, wanted to house these homeless Jews. When Ribbentrop journeyed to Paris with much pomp in December to sign the joint declaration that Hitler had first suggested to François-Poncet, foreign minister Georges Bonnet begged him not to flood France with German Jews, as they already had enough Jews of their own. (‘In fact,’ Ribbentrop
>informed Hitler, ‘they are considering Madagascar for this purpose.’) >Poland's attitude was no more sympathetic. Ambassador Joseph Lipski had assured Hitler as recently as October 21 that if he ever succeeded in solving Europe's Jewish problem, Warsaw would happily erect a statue in honour of his achievement. The Polish government had followed developments throughout 1938 most closely. Fearing, after Hitler's occupation of Austria, that he would repatriate the thousands of Polish Jews from Vienna, in March they had speedily enacted a Law of Expatriation designed to deprive such Jews of their native Polish citizenship. The Munich agreement panicked Warsaw into the further ruling that after October 31 no expatriate Poles would be allowed back into their country without a special entry visa. The last days of October thus saw frenzied scenes on the frontier. While Polish frontier officials slept, the Nazis quietly shunted unscheduled trains loaded with Jews across the line into Poland. >From Hanover alone, 484 Polish Jews were ‘repatriated’ in this demeaning manner. Among them were the parents and sisters of a Jewish youth of seventeen then living in Paris, Herschel Grynszpan. On November 3, as Hitler was subsequently told, Grynszpan received a postcard from his sister briefly describing the family's ‘repatriation’ to Poland. He swore revenge – and decided to murder the German ambassador in Paris, Count von Welczek. Welczek being not available, on November 7 Grynszpan shot at Counsellor Ernst vom Rath instead. >At first the incident had not unduly aroused Hitler's temper. He made no mention at all of it in his speeches of the next few days. On the ninth, the March on the Feldherrnhalle was solemnly re-enacted in the annual ceremony at noon. Wreaths were laid in the temples of honour, where Hitler had decreed that his own body was one day to rest.
>That evening he was in his modestly furnished Munich apartment in Prinzregenten Strasse when word arrived that Counsel lor vom Rath had now died of his gunshot injury. According to Goebbels, he told Hitler that there had been anti-Jewish demonstrations in two provinces. His diary records: ‘The condition of the diplomat Rath shot by the Jew in Paris is still very grave,’ and ‘The German press opens up with a will.’ Then he added that the Jews ‘have a few things coming their way.’ He received word of demonstrations in Kassel and Dessau, and of synagogues being set on fire. At five P.M. the official press agency announced that the diplomat Rath had died of his injuries. As Goebbels and Hitler left to attend the Nazi festivities in the old city hall, news arrived that the Munich police were cracking down on anti-Jewish demonstrations. Hitler ruled, said Goebbels later, that the Party was not to organise any such demonstrations – but under the circumstances it was not to quell them if they should occur spontaneously.
Toward midnight Hitler prepared to leave his apartment for the spectacular SS swearing-in ceremony. Himmler of course was with him. Himmler's chief of staff Karl Wolff arrived with an indignant message from Heydrich at the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten: the local Gestapo HQ had just phoned, reporting that Goebbels's district propaganda offices everywhere were whipping up anti-Jewish demonstrations and ordering the police – Himmler's police – not to intervene. Himmler turned to Hitler for guidance. Hitler replied that the Gestapo were to protect Jewish ish property and lives. It was clear to Himmler that the whole affair had come out of the blue to the Führer. After the midnight ceremony, back at his apartment, Hitler was informed at one A.M. by one of his Wehrmacht adjutants that the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten had now telephoned to ask them to come and retrieve their baggage as the synagogue next door was on fire. >Julius Schaub, Hitler's personal aide-de-camp, wrote after the war a graphic account of the ensuing night of horror, but Goebbels's diary describes Schaub as being in top form, ‘his old Stosstrupp past comes flooding back.’ ‘As I drive back to the hotel,’ continues this entry, ‘there is the sound of breaking glass. Bravo! Bravo! Like gigantic old kilns, the synagogues are blazing.’
>Telephone calls began coming from private citizens reporting fresh outbreaks of arson and Jewish businesses being looted all over Munich. Perplexed, Hitler sent for SS Gruppenführer Friedrich Karl von Eberstein, the city's police chief, and ordered him to restore order at once. He telephoned Goebbels and demanded: ‘What's going on?’ He sent out Schaub and other members of his staff to stop the looting and arson. He ordered special protection for the famous antique dealers, Bernheimer's. At 2:56 A.M. a telex was issued by Rudolf Hess's staff as Deputy of the Führer – and was repeated to all gauleiters as Party Ordinance No. 174 – forbidding the arson: ‘On express orders issued at the highest level of all there is to be no arson or the like, whatever, under any circumstances, against Jewish businesses.’* At 3:45 A.M. the Berlin Gestapo repeated this prohibition. Goebbels, now in no doubt where Hitler's real favour lay, also spent the night on the telephone trying to extinguish the conflagration that his mischievous tongue had ignited.
>The damage had, however, been done, and Ribbentrop left Hitler in no doubt of this. Hitler responded that he could not get rid of Goebbels now – not when he was about to need him more than ever. He did send for Goebbels the next morning, November 10, to discuss ‘what to do next’ – the minister used the word nunmehr, which implied an element of apprehension. Göring protested to Hitler that German insurance firms would have to pay the Jews compensation; the cost in foreign currency would be huge, as the broken plate-glass would have to be replaced with imports from Belgium. Hitler refused to discipline Goebbels as the Reichsführer SS demanded. Nor, except in the most savage instances, were the humble Party members who had actually committed the outrages brought to book, although ninety-one Jews had been murdered that night. Goebbels successfully argued, over lunch with Hitler, that the pogrom had shown international Jewry that Germans abroad were not fair game for Jewish assassins. ‘This is one dead man who is costing the Jews dear,’ Goebbels gloated in his private diary. ‘Our darling Jews will think twice in future before simply gunning down German diplomats.’
you think he didn't kill jews in Poland? Czechoslovakia? Austria, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Crimea, France, Holland, Belgium? that the Romanians didn't kill a quarter million jews? the Yugoslavs at least 80,000? All count to the total for the holocaust.
Tell me you didn't think that they were just in Germany?
>Goebbels, now in no doubt where Hitler's real favour lay, also spent the night on the telephone trying to extinguish the conflagration that his mischievous tongue had ignited.
Irving is lying about that Irving had previously dismissed Wiedemann as an untrustworthywitness, so this change of heart was surprising.61 Whether or not he was untrustworthy, however, what he said was not what Irving claimed it was anyway: “There is absolutely no doubt,” Wiedemann reported, “that this action slipped out of the hands of those who instigated it. It is reliably reported that Gobbels (sic) as well repeatedly telephoned from Munich during the night to stop the worst outrages.”62 So Wiedemann did not actually see Goebbels make any phone calls, he merely repeated one of the many rumors circulating in Germany after the pogrom. In any case, Goebbels was not preoccupied with halting the violence, as Irving surely knew. The Supreme Party Tribunal report of 13 February 1939 stated that Goebbels was phoned at about two in the morning on 10 November 1938 and told of the first death of a Jew in the pogrom. It continued: According to the statement of the deputy Gnuleiter of MunichUpper Bavaria, Party Comrade Dr Goebbels answered to the effect that the man reporting it should not get upset because of one dead Jew; thousands of Jews had better believe it in the coming days. At this moment in time, most of the killings could have been prevented by a supplementary order. If this did not happen, the conclusion has to be drawn from this fact, as from the comment in itself, that the end result was either intended, or at least taken into account as possible and desirable. Then the individual perpetrator had put . . . The correctly recognized, if unclearly expressed will of the leadership into effect.63 Thus Goebbels was explicitly intervening to stop attempts to protect Jews and threatening further violence “in the coming days” with his menacing language.
Wyatt White
anguage. His attitude was underlined in his diary entry for the night of the pogrom, where he noted the excesses with obvious approval: In Berlin 5, then 15 synagogues burn down. Now the people’s anger is raging. Nothing more can be done against it for the night. And I don’t want to do anything either. Should be given free rein. . . . As I drive to the hotel, windows shatter. Bravo! Bravo! The synagogues burn in all big cities. German property is not endangered.@ 60 LYING ABOUT HITLER Yet, according to Irving, Goebbels had been spending the night desperately telephoning all over Germany to get this kind of thing to stop! In fact, Goebbels’ only concern is likely to have been to prevent looting and forestall damage to German property, which must have been what he was referring to when he wrote in the same diary entry for an earlier point in the evening: “I now issue a precise circular in which is set out what may be done and what As the rest of the diary entry and the evidence of the Supreme Party Tribunal both demonstrated, he encouraged attacks on Jewish persons and property and greeted news of their occurrence not with alarm but with jubilation. Ilving also made use of a third telex sent out to the local Nazi Party bosses at 256 A.M. on 10 November 1938 by Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy.
Landon Brown
>Bolshevik & Zionist you can only be one of those
Levi Richardson
Ilving also made use of a third telex sent out to the local Nazi Party bosses at 256 A.M. on 10 November 1938 by Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy. What did this telex say? In 1983, Irving claimed that it read as follows: “On exp-ess orders issued at the very highest level, there are to be no kind of acts of arson or outrages against Jewish property or the like on any account and under any circumstances whatsoever.” This meant, Irving added, italicizing the point, that “AhlfHitler himselfhas ordered that all this outrage 110s got to stop forthwith. But when I looked at the actual text of the telegram, it was immediately clear that the telex merely stated that “on the express command of the highest instance, fire-raising in Jewish shops or the like must in no case and under no circumstances take place.”67 The German original for shops in the telex was Geschizfien. Irving must have deliberately mistranslated Geschhjien. as property in order to give the impression thathe order also covered houses, apartments, and synagogues, instead of shops and similar commercial premises. The telex in fact was entirely consistent with the earlier orders sent out to the police by Muller and by Heydrich and Himmler, imposing only limited restrictions on the scope of the action. The telex referred only to arson, not to any other kind of “outrage.” Other kinds of destruction, such as trashing the shops’ contents, shattering their windows, breaking up their furnishings and fktures, setting fire to synagogues, beating up and killing individual Jews, were exempted and could continue. Irving also used the diaries of the diplomat Ulrich von Hassell, later a prominent member of the resistance movement which culminated in the attempt to kill Hitler on 20 July 1944, to back up his assertion that “Hess confirmed that in his view Goebbels alone was to blame” for the pogrom.68
Samuel Turner
Tell me, have you found the order, where all the Jews are to be killed? How do you think this worked, by telepathy?
Juan Hernandez
8 The diaries were readily available in published form. On con- HITLER AND THE JEWS, 1924-1939 61 sulting them, I discovered that what Hassell wrote in the entry to which Irving referred was as follows: On 83.12 Hess spent two hours at the Bruckmanns’. They said he had been more depressed than ever before. He had left them in no doubt that he completely disapproved ofthe action against the Jews: he had also reported his views in an energetic manner to the ‘Fuhrer’ and begged him to drop the matter, but unfortunately completely in vain. Hess pointed to Goebbels as the actual originator.69 Thus Hassell never reported Hess as saying Goebbels alone was to blame, simply that he was the man who initiated the action. Irving omitted all mention of the crucial sentence which reported Hess as saying his attempt to get Hitler to stop the action had been futile. Irving did not quote the following passage in von Hassell’s diary, relating to a conversation he had on 17 December 1938 with the Prussian finance minister, Johannes Popitz, about the destruction and violence of 9-10 November. “Popitz said to Goring, those responsible must be punished. Answer: ‘My dear Popitz, do you want to punish the Fuhrer?’”’o According to this source, therefore, Goring, who was far closer to Hitler than the old-conservative Popitz, considered that Hitler himself was responsible for the pogrom.
you should be careful about using Irving. he is not a reliable source. He misquotes and manipulates sources, to lie about his hero.
Sebastian Jones
>Hitler was a Jew It doesn't make him any less correct.
Samuel Perez
No, according tothe SWS they did it by face to face meetings.
this was the common way of doing things in the SS. It was a matter of pride and honour among the brotherhood not to have to rely on written orders. Indeed that was a matter of pride in the german army as a whole.
"One of the notable points in their doctrine here is the preference for verbal as against written orders. In training maneuvers, U. S. observers were repeatedly impressed with the fact that from regimental commands down, verbal orders were regularly used. One observer, visiting an Armored Troop School, was struck by the lack of reference in maneuvers to written orders (as well as notebooks, maps, overlays, and compasses): It is believed that the procedure whereby all orders and instructions are given and repeated orally in the presence of all 34 GERMAN MILITARY TRAINING unit commanders concerned is a matter of special training in the German Army. Such procedure enables each unit commander to understand the part his unit is to play in the general action. This facilitates coordination and saves time in the long run. Another observer points out the degree to which German officers are. instilled with the sort of mental habits that fit them for this phase of leadership. As a logical frame for issuing good orders, the commander must make an estimate of the situation in terms of his mission, must arrive at a decision, and must formulate a plan for carrying out this decision.
