The following analysis comes to us from Mike Stein (mstein@access.digex.net). From: greg.ihr@kaiwan.com (Greg Raven) Newsgroups: alt.revisionism Subject: The other Himmler Followup-To: alt.revisionism Date: Fri, 14 Oct 1994 07:25:38 -0800 Organization: Institute for Historical Review Message-ID:May 1940 memo to Hitler: "I hope to see the complete elimination of the concept of the Jew through the possibility of a large-scale emigration of all Jews to Africa or otherwise in a colony;" "out of inner conviction" the idea of "physical elimination of a people [must be rejected] as un-Germanic and impossible." We asked Greg for a source, and he never provided one. I'm going to give a more complete version of this passage now. In mid-May, after German tanks broke through the Ardennes and began their race to the Atlantic coast, the prospect of victory prompted Himmler to draft a memorandum outlining his thoughts "about the treatment of foreign peoples of the east." As part of a wide-ranging discussion of the enslavement of Ukrainians, White Russians, and Poles, Himmler recorded his hope "to see the concept Jew totally extinguished [in Europe] by virtue of the possibility of a great migration of all the Jews to Africa or to some other colony." He stressed that "no matter how cruel and tragic" such a course would be "for the individuals involved," it would be "the mildest and the best _if_ out of inner conviction one ruled out as both un-Germanic and impossible the Bolshevik method of the physical extermination [Ausrottung] of a people." [emphasis mine] Source: Mayer, Arno J.: "Why Did the Heavens Not Darken" (Pantheon, 1990) pp. 195-196. So we see that the quote as Raven presented it has been, as Pressac might put it, >>slightly<< reworked from one where Himmler unequivocally rejected extermination to one where he was somewhat less definite. Greg, once again - what was your source? You didn't dishonestly cut out the "if" yourself, did you? As a special bonus, we see once again our old friend "Ausrottung" used in a context where it is hard to interpret it as anything other than killing (but not impossible; see pp. 111-112 of Richard Breitman's "Architect of Genocide" for the possiblity that it might mean elimination through interbreeding). It definitely cannot mean what Tim McCarthy said, (i.e., uprooting) since deportation is the *alternative* to "Ausrottung." I wonder how David Irving would explain this one? However, Greg Raven isn't the only guilty party here. Arno Mayer himself has done a little >>reworking<<. This is made clear by referring to Richard Breitman's treatment of this same memorandum. Sometime before May 22 Himmler gave Hitler a position paper he had written on the treatment of foreign peoples in the East[....] On May 25 ... Himmler apparently gave Hitler another copy of the six- page memo [which Hitler had not yet read]. Hitler seems to have read it on the spot and announced that he was very much in agreement. He wanted the memo to remain confidential, with a limited number of copies distributed to key individuals. Probably written after Himmler's trip into Poland in early May ... Himmler's position paper was harsher than the 1939 analysis from the Nazi Party's Office of Racial Politics. [...] Himmler's basic notion was to carry out a racial selection in the East to salvage and assimilate the racially valuable inhabitants and to inhibit the growth of national consciousness among Poles and various minorities in the Government General. Their sense of ethnic identity would have to disappear. Virtual elimination of education would help ensure German domination in the East. Non-German children would have no need for any but the simplest primary education - they could be taught to count to five hundred (at the most), to write their names, and, above all, to obey Germans as a divine command. Children of good racial stock might apply for further education, but German authorities would approve only if the parents allowed those children to be sent permanently to Germany. "As inhuman and tragic as each individual case might be," Himmler wrote at the end of this section, "this was nonetheless the mildest and best method if one rejected the Bolshevist method of the physical destruction of a people on grounds of conscience as un-German and impossible." The mere mention of the destruction of an entire people as a possibility showed that Himmler was operating in a different universe from Wetzel and Hecht. He derived his conception not only from extreme racist doctrines but also from his sense of what Hitler was likely to consider and accept. Himmler's use of the term "Bolshevist method" to describe extermination suggests that he was trying to discourage Hitler from pursuing this course with the Poles.... Surprisingly, Jews are almost absent from Himmler's memo. In one section, he wrote that the concept of a Kashubian people would entirely disappear within four to five years; the other nationalities would take longer. In the midst of these musings, Himmler expressed his hope that the concept of Jews would be extinguished through "the possibility of a great emigration of all Jews to Africa or elsewhere in a colony." Wetzel and Hecht had discussed at considerable length the economic productivity of the Eastern Jews and recommended granting them a favored position with respect to the Poles; Himmler grasped for a way to make them disappear from European territory and consciousness. His reference to Jewish emigration to Africa represented something of a departure. Previous plans for dealing with German and Polish Jews had depended upon prior deportation of Jews to a reservation in the far corner of the Government General, where adult males were to be put in labor camps and the remainder of the Jews decimated. But Nazi opponents as diverse as Go"ring, [Governor-General of Poland Hans] Frank, and the military authorities had resisted the deportations to Lublin. It was not that Frank opposed all killing. In a speech to police officials in the Government General on May 30, he observed that atrocity propaganda, perhaps stirred up by the Americans, the French, the Jews, or the Pope, had caused problems within Germany. ... it was terrible in these [past] months to have to listen to the voices from the Propaganda Ministry, from the Foreign Ministry, from the Interior Ministry, yes, even from the Wehrmacht, that this was a regime of murder, that we had to stop these atrocities, and so forth. Of course it was clear that we also had to state that we would not do it any longer. And it was just as clear that, while the world spotlight was on this area, we could not accomplish any- thing substantial of the sort. But now, with the 10th of May, the world has become fully indifferent to this atrocity propaganda. Now we must use the moment that is available to us. [...] Source: Breitman, Richard: "Architect of Genocide" (Knopf, 1991), pp. 117-120. In a footnote on p. 121, Breitman notes "The sentence about the Jews comes well before the statement about rejecting Bolshevist methods; the latter follows the section on educating non-Germans. In any case, Himmler would not have discussed in written form, intended for distribution to some rivals, an actual policy of exterminating Jews." The important point is that in this memo, the "Ausrottung" which has been rejected seems to refer to the *Poles*, not the Jews, as one would assume even when reading Mayer's presentation of the quote. But the Frank quote (which, it must be noted, also deals with the Poles, not the Jews) is also interesting....
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