Chronology:

19 December 1933: The State of Saxony bans Je’ students from enrolling in Teachers’ College Social Work Schools.
9 February 1934: The German Medical Associatic sues new rules governing membership for tors, Dentists and Pharmacists. Henceforth may not receive new licenses or renew their vious licenses.
12 March 1934: The Army prohibits the promoni non-Arvans.
15 May 1934: The Reich Theater Chamber issut regulations prohibiting the employment of Je actors, stage-hands, directors etc.
8 October 1934: Ministry of the Interior creat~ “Ancestry Bureau” to verifx oroof of racia~ gins.
16 October 1934: Special rules are set up gove~ income tax returns by Jews.
13 December 1934: Education Ministry of Prussi nounces that Doctoral Degrees will oni awarded to candidates who produce pro Aryan Descent.
30 May 1935: State Police decree prohibits Jews flying the German flag on their homes or pla business.
 22 February 1936: The President of the German Medi-cal Association orders that no Jew or persons oi mixed Jewish descent be installed as a doctor.
11 June 1937: Tax-exempt status for Jewish Charitable Orgamzanons is removed.
1 January 1933: All Jewish doctors are excluded from payments made under the National Medical In-surance program. In all of Germany, there are still 3000 Jewish doctors.
20 February 1938: The Hamburg Textile Fair an-nounces it has opened “without Jews.”
28 March 1938: Police withdraw all official recogni-tion of Jewish organizations.
12 April 1938: A law reforms the procedure for inher-itance and provides that racial descent should be the key m all legal decisions involving non-citi-zens [i.e. Jewsl.
26 April 1938: Hermann Goring, Head of the Four-Year-Plan. announces the forced registration of all Jewish pro pertv.
5 May 1938: Jewish subjects may not enroll in any Ph.D. program and the renewal of Doctoral diplo-mas is forbidden.
20 June 1938: Economics Minister Funk upholds rul-ing of Stock Exchange that Jews be no longer per-mitted to trade on the exchange.
21 June 1938: The Post Office announces that Jewish pamphlets will no longer be delivered to Ger-mans.
6 July 1938: The government announces that as of 31 December 1938, no Jews will be allowed a license for the following jobs: professional watchmen, in-formation bureaus for financial or personal ad-vice, proressional real estate agents, professional advisory bureaus for loans or rental contracts, ad-ministrators for rented houses or real estate, mar-riage brokers, or tourist guides.
25 July 1938: The Medical Association removes all Jewish doctors from their positions.
27 July 1938: A police order requires that all streets bearing Jewish or Jewish-sounding names be changed.
17 August 1938: Jews are restricted to using only cer-tain first names. All Jewish males must add “Is— rael,” arKI all Jewish females, “Sarah” to their legal names.
5 October 1938: All Jewish passports are declared in-valid. New ones issued with special markings identifying holder as Jewish.
30 October 1938: By a ruling of the Bar Association, all Jewish lawyers are forbidden to practice in German territory... Germans will from now on appear represented only by Germans and advised by German lawyers. For the Jewish population, as
11 March 1939: After Brigette, it was now Hanni’s turn to go to the police in order to have her finger-prints fixed to her identification card. This time too the officials were not only paternalistic, but even gal-lant to the Jewesses and even to the Jews. It is moving to see how Hanni—so simple—admoi’~ishes the daughters to always remember that the National So-cialist government is not Germany, and that even when they are abroad they should not hate Ger-many~-~-—And how naturally and angrily the daughters too reject such an idea.
 

WAR AND THE JEWISH QUESTION

The outbreak of war on 1 September 1939 drastically al-tered the plight of the JezL’s~ Emigration had been extremely difficult in peacetime; now it became impossible. More-over, with the conquest of Poland, Germany suddenly ac-quired two and a half million Jews, nearly twenty times the number of Jews liuing in Germany. Almost immedi-ately, the 55-Race and Immigration Department of the Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst=SD) began imple-menting plans to handle this new situation.

Reinhard Heydrich to all Branches of the Security Service (SD), 21 September 1939 267

Re: Jewish question in the occupied territory

With reference to today’s meeting in Berlin. I wish to stress once again that the over-all measures pro-jected (the ultimate objective) are to be kept strictly se-cret~ Distinction must be made between:

a. The ultimate objective (which is a long-term mea-sure) and,
b~ The stages in the carrying out of the ultimate ob-jective (which will be accomplished without de-lay).

The projected measures require the most thorough
? preparation, both technical and economic.
The first step toward the ultimate objective must be the concentration of the Jews from the countryside into the larger towns- It is to be carried out at all
? speed. It is absolutely necessary that Jewish commu-nities of less than 500 people are broken up and con-centrated in the nearest towns.
A Jewish Council of Elders is to be set up in every Jewish Community. It is to be made fully responsible in the full sense of the word for the exact and prompt
carrying out of all past or current orders ~ ~~ ~ The Coun-cil of Elders are to be notified of the dates and time-limits, the facilities and fin ~~lly the routes of the departure. They are then to be made personally re-sponsible for the departure of the Jews from the coun-tryside. The reason to be given for the concentration of the Jews in the town is that Jews have taken a most prominent part in partisan raids and looting activity.

In this fashion, large Jewish ghettos were set up in the major Polish cities, and Jews from all over the occupied areas were brou7ht to live there.

Diary Entries by Jochen Klepper2”

12 November 1939: From an acquaintance in the Racial Politics Office, Poelchau has heard about the same rumors of planned actions against the [German] Jews which I had heard earlier: namely. forced trans-port to work camps in Poland, in the neighborhood of Lublin: Proscription of all Jews in Germany, and the confiscation of their remaining possessions and prop-erty. Still no one believes such an action will follow immediately after the mysterious assassination at-tempt [against Hitleri in Munich, earlier in the week...

8 December 1939: Despite the destruction of Ger-man Jewrv, the anti-Semitic measures continue to pile up. Not only no clothes, no wash, but also no sewing materials, and no soles for shoes~ Frau Dr. E— came to us today, honestly distraught and concerned, in order to deliver the new food ration cards~ Even in this most decisive area, there are now “special rules” for Hanni and Rem. A large red “J” is now marked on their ra-tion cards, special times for Jews to buy removal of all rations for chocolate and Pfeffernuss [a special German Ch~~istmas treat].

17 and 19 February 1940: Again much telephoning. and again horrifying rumors concerning the evacua-tions of Jews ~~~~ Hanni and Reni visit Pastor Gruber, head of the largest relief organization caring for Jew-ish-Christians ~~ ~~ He is decisively in favor of getting Reni away One can only say, he insisted, that Satan is at work~ All the rumors are true: 1200 Jews from Stettin have been deported to Lublin, without being able to settle their affairs, or to provide necessary pro-visions and luggage. Even very old people are in-cluded, and people living in mixed marriages as well. For the first time Jewish-Christians were taken too~

26 February 1940: Deportations of Jews from west Prussian cities are now scheduled and details of the Stettin action are now known from some eve-wit-

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 358 Chapter Eleven

 nesses (The individuals were given from seven o’clock in the evening to five in the morning to be ready. They were allowed to take 10 Marks, and what-ever hand-luggage each could carry.). Now Franz writes deeply concerned from Konigsberg~ Despite all their efforts, there has been no progress in the attempt to secure permission to emigrate.

29 March 1940: Even more signs of a change of course. Hanni and Reni must report once more to the official bureaus for renewal of their ration cards, which they have just received ~~~~ From Breslau, Kathy Staritz reports ~ ~ ~ that Jewish wives of Aryan men are being called in, even when their husbands are sol-diers: since the men refuse to obtain a divorce, the women must agree to emigrate. They are given eight weeks to arrange all details, and inform the bureau of their plans, or else they will be arrested and placed in an “educational camp.” Certainly this is at present only a local and illegal phenomenon. But haven’t we repeatedly seen duplicated in large that which was first tried out illegaiiy on a small scale?

1 April 1940: Until 3:30 pm occupied with Reni’s affairs. Went to ration bureau. Hanni and Reni had to re-submit their cards. Hanni’s remains at least “un-changed.” Reni’s gets altered at every distribution. Hans Nowak, who belonged to the Writers Guild, not because he was a prominent author, ~ ~~- because he had been badly wounded in the war, has now been placed on the list of those who might write only with special permission. Three old ladies from Stettin, among them an aunt of Ed Nowak’s, were all do-ported to Lublin, and all three are already dead.

It was very difficult to reconcile all the rumors. In fact, the first deportations from Stettin had been spontaneous, or-dered by municipal officials without even notifying Ber-lin. But German defeat of France in the spring of 1940 encouraged officials to “think big” about solving the Jew-ish question in both Germany and its occupied territory. In July. the SS and officials of the Foreign Office came up with the Madagascar Plan.

Franz Rademacher Memorandum, 2 July 1940 ~
PLANNED SOLUTION OF THE JEWISH QUES-TION

In the [forthcoming] peace treaty, France must cede the Island of Madagascar as a colony for Jewish settlers from Europe, and remove and compensate the 25,000 Frenchmen who live on the island. In addi-tion, the 15,000 other non-natives (Europeans, Asiat-ics especially Arabs, Indians. and Japanese, etc., must be removed. The three and a half million na-
tives will remain, for the time being, but a possible exchange for the Jews of South Africa will be kept open as an option.
The Island will be turned over to Germany as a Mandate. The strategic straits of Diego-Suarez Bay, as well as the harbor at Antsirana will become Ger-man naval bases. In addition, certain desirable loca-tions will be cut out from the Jewish territory in order to create German air bases. The remaining portions of the island, which will not be under military control, will be administered by a German Police-Governor, who will be responsible directly to the Reichsftihrer-SS [Himmlerl~ The reason for this is that from the Ger-man point of view, security measures will be the most important aspect [of this administration].
As far as Germany is concerned, the Madagascar solution means the creation of a Super-Ghetto. Only the SD has the necessary experience in this area; they have the means to prevent flight from the island. They have had experience of imposing punishment for deeds carried out by the Jews, on the prompting of Jews in the United States. They already know quite well individual Jews from past investigations. The SD will also supervise and implement the transportation to the island.... From a propaganda point of view, this special solution of a Jewish Mandate [adminis-tered by Germany] can be very advantageous.
In the Jewish territory on Madagascar, the Jews will have their own administration; their own mayors, their own police, their own post office, their own railroads, etc. The whole Jewish community will be responsible for the debts of the island. For this pur-pose, all their European property will be handed over to a European bank (to be specially created). Should this total sum not be sufficient to cover the purchase of the land tin Madagascar] and the acquisition of the necessary goods to improve and construct the com-munities on the island, the Jews may secure credit loans from this same bank. All property and goods on Madagascar will be officially owned by the bank, with the value to be established by experts, who will turn it over to Jewish settlers. The division of the real estate, however, will be handled by the Jews them-selves, according to the amount of credit which indi-vidual Jews have established with the bank through the deposit of their [European] property, goods, and funds....
Since Madagascar will remain only a [German] Mandate, Jews settled there will not become German citizens. All Jews deported to Madagascar will, on the contrary, renounce their citizenship in individual European countries, and from the day of their depar-ture from Europe be considered only as subjects of the Madagascar Mandate. This Madagascar Project will prevent the Jews from establishing there a sort of
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 Vatican State or a new state of their own in Palestine which would take on symbolic importance for the Jews, like Jerusalem has for the Christian and Mo-hammedan world. In addition, the Jews [on Mada-gascar] would continue to be hostages in German hands and thus guarantee the benevolent neutrality of their racial comrades in America.
Propagandistically, we can exploit the generosity that Germany shows in bestowing cultural. eco— nomic, administrative. and legal self-government of the Jews, even while we emphasize that our Germany sense of responsibility toward the world forbids our immediately entrusting an independent state to a race that has had no national independence of its own for thousands of years. Such a move requires the test o:
historical developments.

Over the next six months. SS officials would work out a detailed plan: 4,000,000 Jews from Germany. Poland Belgium. Holland, Luxemburg, Denmark, Nor-way, and France, would beaeimorted by ship; each round trip wow.:
take 60 days. with 1500 Jews on each voyage. ~eckonina harbor facilities, etc., it was suggested that 3000 Jew5 could be processed daily, and should 120 ships be avail-able, 1 million Jews per year could be deportei to Mada-gascar.

Fantastic as the plan seemns, it was accepted without ques-tion by SS authorities, who began to organize huge ghet-tos in Poland in order to have the Jews ready to be shippei out. The following document comes from the o4ice diary of the governor of occupied Poland, called by the Germans the “General Government.”

Hans Frank Office Diary Entry 12 July 1940

Of great importance is the decision of the Fiihrc-which he decreed at my request, that no more lewisi~. transports to tne General Government take place. If general, I would like to state that it is planned tha:
the entire Jewish clan, those in Germany, in the Gen-eral Government, and in the Protectorate [of Bohemia and Moravial will be n~ansported to an Airican or American colony as soon as possible after the Peace Treaty is signed. The present thinking centers ony Madagascar, which will be separated from France for this purpose. With about 500,000 square kilometers of rich land, this area should be sufficient for a iew mis-lion Jews. I have taken pains to include the jews or the General Government in this plan, and thus per-mit them to erect a new life on new soil. This has been approved, and so in a very short time. ;~a’e sha~~ be freed from this colossal burden.

In December 1940, Kiepper entered the arm-a. hopin a thereby to gain some advanra~es for his wire and sr~~-
daughters. In October 1941. he was dismnissed from the army, because he had refused to divorce his Jewish wire. He returned to Germany to find the ZL’hole situation much worse~ A decree clearly aimned at seva rating all Jew’s trom the rest of Germans had just been issued. Obviously the German Jews were to be rounded up like their Polish col-leagues.

Police Order Concerning the Public Badge for Jews, 1 September 1941 242

Article I
Jews (see article 5 of the 14 November 1935 decree) who have completed their sixth year of age are forbid-den to appear in public without a Jewish star. The Jewish Star consists of a black-bordered six-cornered star of yellow fabric, the size of the palm of a hand. with the black inscription “Jude.” It shall be worn us-ibly, and firmly sewn, on the left breast of the cloth-ing... -

Article 7
Jews are forbidden (a) to leave the area of the corn-rnunity in which they reside without carrying with them written permission from the local police author-itv; (b) to wear military decorations and other insigna.

Diary Entries of Jochen Klepper

13 October 1941: Jews have been given notice tha. they must vacate their homes, without being permit-ted to rent new ones. They must hand in a list of all their remaining possessions and keep their bags—and a very limited number at that—packed and ready at all times. What a frightful period of suspense, what torments are again called up. The Yellow Star is al-ready out of date. One reconciles oneself to it. and would forget about it, ~a~a’ere not greater threats present.

23 October 1941: I had an audience with the Minis-ter of the Interior [about Reni] ~~~~ Behind all the mea-sures, [he saidi stood the decisive wish of the Fiihrc-, and as I had expected, without a personal order, noth-ing could be done. [Minister Frick], however, was ready to take my case and that of Reni before the Fiihrer, as soon as my special military position was clarified; this would be the starting point for any dir-cussion ~~~~ Concerning a possible deportation as the most extreme fate. [Minister Frick said] the ‘popula-tion transfer~’ was designed to create new living quar-ters in the face of the shortages of houses and difficulties in construction. Minister Fr-bck insisted that he considered Reni as part of my family and thus no:
threatened by deportation, but was willing ‘in the ii> terest of my work,” to have the matter officially clan-
 
 

 fied, in so far as that was possible. The best solution he saw was emigration to Sweden. He would do the best he could ~~~~ In the meanwhile, Hanni has visited old Talka Gerstel, whose 70 year old sister Nanni has been dragged from her room at three o’clock in the morning and deported to Lodz~ Suicides among the deportees are so frequent, that all scissors, nail-files, etc~, are taken away from the Jews when they are brought to the “collection Svnagogue~” Even so, in many of the apartmnents there are suicides~ In many instances, the Aryan population brings food ~.o the Jews. Before the Synagogue in the Levtzow Street. there were for the first time near demonstrations.
At six-thirty Reni came home, ver-v depressed, be-cause from her factory another person has been picked up and deported. Reni, Hanni and I are to-day—despite the fact that all the despairing calamities continue—in much quieter spirits. The unspeakable does not appear to be yet upon us. Thus Reni can lead a life that, albeit joyless, is still within the protecting parental house and avoids fearful separation and dan-gers. ~ ~

30 October 1941: Once more the day is character-ized by appeals and actions for Reni that remain hopeless. As so often before, things seem to be going well, but the reports still are bad~ Now, out of its own indecisive situation, Sweden has closed her borders to all emigrants ~~~~ We advise, we act—and yet we know
that we can only be passive and wait. Pressure, pres-sure and anxiety The worse is that bribery and cor-ruption might still open the wav~~

17 November 1941: What we had taken to be only
vague rumors within the leading circles of artists has now suddenly proven true. It concerns the mixed marriages of artists, precisely those most privileged individuals, the actors. The case of Joachim Gottschalk (suicide) has revealed everything. He was called to Hinkel and given Goebbel’s alternative: ca-reer or marriage. He answered: Marriage and another career, even if it were a factory worker. Hinkel: That won’t help you at all. He had the police orders in his briefcase. Gottschalk would not be able to keep his wife with him, and would not be able to prevent her deportation. (Gottschalk’s marriage seemed the most favorable: f he was an Arvani, they had one child, all were Christian, and he had a professional special po-sition~)~ The Gottschalks did not want to make a pub-lic nuisance of their deaths. Veronal and gas, done with no noise, took them all away, including their young son~~~
For us, it is a relief that Reni has no one else. Should it come to that, it would be less difficult for us to advise her to take her own life than to undergo the
 fate of deportation. which first consists of forced labor
in great hardship, and then, increasingly, starvation or freezing during the war. Many are shot outright, al-~ though we have not had reliable reports that this in-cluded women as well. The worst is that the families are broken up at the deportation centers~ In one trans-port traii-i from Breslau, the Aryan members, who vol-untarily chose to accompany their families into the camps, were not allowed over the border ~~~
Even a successful emigration to Sweden—that land of ultima ratio for us—would be only a temporary ref-uge should Hitler win the war, and then we would be in no position at all to get out to America, since all our propertv and possessions would have been used up~ Nes, even foreign nations are acting in a horrible fash-ion. But should Hitler—in spite of Germany—lose this war, he would use the collapse to destroy every-thing Jewish which would be caught in his hands
What kind of a world is it, that such a loving daughter as Eva B— can so quietly speak of her parent’s decision to kill themselves as soon as they re-ceive their notices—and it will happen soon. What kind of world is it that parents—and it makes no dif-ference that I am only the stepfather—can wish the death of their beloved daughter, and give no thought to our other daughter who can safely remain alive? [Brigette was in Britain]~~~~
Ever-v evening, we tell Reni what happened today, and she tells us what went on at the factory~ In con-cluding she added that she and 18-year-old Elizabeth A—had resolved that should deportation be ordered, t~nev would take their own lives. Thus the decision was not so difficult for us~ Should the unspeakable happen, and neither Frick nor anyone else can ward it off, we have resolved to use poison gas~ For one mo-ment, Reni cried a little, and like her mother, she never cries. And Hanni joined in out of sympathy for Reni, and this happens frequently now. In the mean-time we will lead our lives, even try to work a little~~~~ Every day, every situation demonstrates that we have only us three. That makes it easier~ Even Hanni would die out of sympathy. Reni would do the same, were we two the threatened ones and not herself. We knOW that God could change everything if He would~

25 November 1941: The day begins and ends with a telephone call from Lotte (Ehrenberg) in Nurnberg~ Hugo—-~-~64 years old, former justice of the provincial court of appeals——-and Lotte are to be deported tomor-row to a Jewish camp in Riga. Lotte is very composed~ in Nurnberg everything came so suddenly, without any preparations, and there the officials who were on government pensions were the first to be depOi~Wd~ Evervthing is closing in~ There is no more opportunity
 
 
 
 

--~ -
 
 

361
 
 
 

Nazism and the Holocaust

 to close our eyes, even for a moment. And we do not want to do so. There is still so much to be thought about should the worst come about.

in early December Reni is called up for deportation. but Klepper’s letter from Frick gets the order delayed.

20 December 1941: Now all Jews who have been living apart from their families—even in mixed mar-riages with children—are being deported. While Hilde remains confident that we will come through. we see step by step the catastrophe closing in. In all this, we have one joy, we haye seen another Advent, we will celebrate one more Christmas together. In the evening, a radio speech of Dr. Goebbels: Winter ap-peals for the soldiers on the Eastern Front. It appears as if they really did not plan for this winter campaign and that there is nothing to be done there to improve the situation. Once more we hear rumors about mass executions of Jews in the East.
 

THE SS POLICY PREVAILS

The rumors which were reaching the Kleppers described the near anarchy which prevailed in the East following the German anny’s attack on the Soviet Union in June 1 Q4J Under the protection of wartime, many groups were pur-suing often contradictory policies towards the Jews. One such group was the so-called Einsatzgruppen (Task Force), fonned out of the 55 and SD, and often recruited from criminals in the Ukraine and elsewhere. Their spe-cial mission is described in the following memorandum by Reinhard Heydrich.

Reinhard Heydrich to SS Officials, 2 July 1941 ~-~

4. Executions: The Einsatzgruppen will seek out, ar-rest and execute on the spot the following persons:
All political commissars attached to the Red Arm~’;
All senior-grade officials of the Communist Party and its Central Committee, as well as all senior grade officials of the Soviet Union, including lower-grade individuals who are well-known activists;
All officials of the Comintern;
All politically active Communists;
All People’s Commissars (local or regional officials);
All Jews holding office in either the Party or the State;
All other radical elements (saboteurs, propagandists, snipers, assassins, agitators, etc.);

but only in so far as in individual cases they are not required, or are no longer required to be kept alive for economic or political intelligence of special impor-tance, for future security police measures, or for the
economic rehabilitation of the occupied territories.
No steps will be taken to interfere with any purges that may be initiated by anti-Communists or anti-Jew-ish elements in the newly occupied territories. On the contrary these are to be SECRETLY ENCOURAGED.
At the same time every precaution must be taken to
ensure that those who engage in “self-defense” ac-tions are not subsequently able to plead that they were acting under orders or had been promised politi-cal protection. Special care must be taken in regard to the shooting of doctors and others engaged in medical practice

Goring also requested the 55 to work on finally solving the Jewish question.

Hermann Goring to Reinhard Heydrich, 31 July 1941 270

As supplement to the task which was entrusted to
you in the decree dated 24 January 1939, namely to solve the Jewish question by emigration and evacua-tion in a way which is the most favorable in connec-tion with the conditions prevailing at the time, I herewith commission you to carry out all prepara-tions with regard to organizational. factual, and finan-cial viewpoints for a total solution of the Jewish question in those territories in Europe under German influence .... I further commission you to submit to me as soon as possibie a draft showing the organiza-tional, factual, and financial measures already taken for the execution of the intended final solution of the Jewish question

No Hitler order for this “final solution” has been found, nor do any documents explain what Goring had in mind. Perhaps no formal decision to murder Jews had as i,’et been taken, but it is clear that in these very weeks Hitler’s gen-eral preoccupation was with the Jewish question, rather than with the war against the Soviet Union. His remarks to the Croatian leader, Marshal Kvaternik, are revealing.

Adolf Hitler to Marshal Kvaternik, 17 July 1941 ~~~

The Jews are the scourge of mankind. Presently, the Lithuanians, as well as the Estonians and Latvians are taking their blood revenge... li.e. in the areas re-cently captured by the German Armyl. As long as a state permits even one Jewish family to live in its midst, it will form a new colony of bacteria and spread new decomposition.

Moreover, from the gruesome tone of the first Einsatzgruppen reports, it is clear that the SS folly ex-pected praise for the murders they were committing, ap-

  p
 362 Chapter Eleven

 parently on orders, even though copies c’f these orders have not been found.

Report of 55 Commander Dr. Franz Stahiecker, Einsatzgruppe A, 15 October 1941 ~

In order to fulfill the tasks of the Security Police, it was necessary for us to enter the large cities together with the attacking forces.... A small forward group at whose head I stood myself, entered Kovno on 25 June 1941. Our first action was to capture Communist ac-tivists and Communist material which the armed forces themselves were usually not able to take care of, owing to their small numbers. For this purpose, immediately after- the town had been captured, the SD formed volunteer detachments from reliable in-habitants in all three Baltic provinces; they carried out their duties successfully under our command.... In the first hours after the entry of the forces, we also persuaded, not without considerable difficulties, lo-cal anti-Semitic elements to start pogroms against Jews. In accordance with orders, the Securitv Police were determined to solve the Jewish question by ev-ery means and with determination. But it was prefer-able that in the first instance at least, the Security Police should not openly appear in this action, be-cause the methods employed were extraordinarily harsh and might have caused reacth ns even in Ger-man circles, it was desirable, outwardly, to show that the first steps were made by the local population on its own initiative, as a natural reaction to their subju-gation at the hands of Jews for decades, and to the re-cent Communist terror....
The commander of the partisans, Klimatas, who was specially recruited for this action, succeeded in organizing a pogrom in accordance with instructions he was given by our forward detachment, and this was activated in Kovno without it appearing out-wardlv that instruction or encouragement had been given by the Germans. In the course of the first night of the pogrom, between 25 and 26 June, the Lithuanian partisans liquidated 1,500 Jews, many synagogues were burned or were destroyed and a Jewish quarter with about 60 homes was burned. During the following night, 2,300 Jews were killed in a similar way.

Sixth Top-Secret Report of Einsaztgruppen Activity, 25 November 1941 273

Ii. EXECUTiONS

Einsatzgruppe A: The Baltic States....

c~ Jews: In 1940, about 4,500 Jews lived in Esto-nia~.. After the occupation of the area by the German
forces, there were still about 2,000 in the country. Most of the others had left the country with the Soviet authorities and the Red Army, moving eastward. Spontaneous anti-Jewish demonstrations with po-groms by the population against the remaining Jews did not occur because adequate enlightenment was lacking. However, the Estonian Citizen Guard, which was formed when the Wehrmacht entered the country began at once its extensive activity with the arrest of all Jews. This action was directed by the Einsatzgruppen. As accomplished, measures are to be listed:
5. Rounding up of all Jews according to age, sex, and working capacity for the purpose of hous-ing them in a camp already under preparation. All male Jews above 16 years of age were killed, with the exception of doctors and Jewish Elders. This procedure is partly still in progress. At the conclu-sion of the operation, there will be only 500 Jewesses and children left in the Baltic States.

Einsatzgruppe B: Ruthenia....

c~ Jews: As before it has to be noted that the popu-lation refrains from taking any steps against the Jews.... So all the more severely the Strike Commands have proceeded against the Jews who made inte~wen-tion in various spheres necessary. At Gorodnya 165 Jewish terrorists and at Tscherigow 19 Jewish Com-munists were liquidated. Another 8 Jewish Commu-nists were shot at Beresna. There have been frequent instances of Jewish women displaying a particularly disobedient attitude. For this reason, 28 Jewesses had to be shot at Krugloje and 337 at Mogilew. At Borisow, 321 Jewish saboteurs and 118 Jewish looters were shot. At Bobruisk, 381 Jews were shot who, un-til the last, carried on a hate campaign and spread atrocity tales against the German occupying forces.
At Tartarsak the Jews, on their own authority, have left the ghetto, returning to their own quarters, try-ing to drive out the [native] Russians who in the meantime had been housed there. All male Jews as well as three Jewesses were shot. When a ghetto was set up at Sadrudubs, the Jews partly resisted, so that 272 Jews and Jewesses had to be shot. Among them was a political commissar. At Mogilew too, the Jews tried to prevent their removal to a ghetto—-113 Jews were liquidated. Besides, four Jews were shot be-cause they refused to work, and two Jews were shot because they had ill-treated wounded German sol-diers, and because they did not wear the prescribed identification badge. At Talka, 222 Jews were shot for carrying on anti-German propaganda, and 996 Jews were shot at Marina Gorka, because they sabotaged the orders issued by the German occupation authori-
 
 

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Nazism and the Holocaust

 ties. A further 627 Jews were shot near Schlklow be-cause they participated in acts of sabotage.
Because the threat of epidemics has become most imminent, the liquidation of Jews housed in the ghetto of Witobsk was started. This concerns about 3000 Jews.

Einsatzgruppe C: The Ukraine....

c. Jews: The animosit of the Ukrainian popula-tion against the Jews is excessive.... As a measure of retribution for the arson at Kiey, all Jews were ar-rested and on 29 and 30 September, altogether 33,771 Jews were shot. Money, valuables, and clothes were secured and placed at the National Socialist People’s Welfare organization for the equipment of racial Ger-mans [living in the Ukraine] and partly given to the provisional local administration for distribution among the needy population. At Zhitomir, 3,145 lews had to be shot, as information had been received that they had to be considered as agents for Bolshevik propaganda and sabotage....
The solution of the Jewish problem was taken up energetically by the Einsatzgruppen of the Security Po-lice and the Security Service especially in the district east of the Dhepr. The districts recently occupied by the Einsatzgruppen were cleared of all Jews. On this occasion, 4,891 Jews were liquidated. In other locali-ties, Jews were identified and registered.

SS-Colonel Jaeger, Commander of Einsatzgruppe III, to SD Headquarters, 1 December 1941

Security Police tasks in Lithuania taken over by cansatzgrup,L III on 2 July 1941
Executions carried out by Lithuanian Partisans upon my instructions and orders:
4Julv
6 July
Kovno 415 Jews, 47 Jewesses
Kovno Jews
Upon formation of a raiding party under the direc-tion of SS First Lieutenant Hamann and 8-10 trustwor-thy men of Einsarz~’ruppe III, the following actions were carried out in cooperation with Lithuanian Parti-sans.

A four-page typed report follows: the total is 137,346 Jew-ish men, women and children killed between 7 July and 29 November 1941

Today I can confirm that Einsatzgruppe III has reached the goal of solving the Jewish problem in Lithuania. The only remaining Jews are laborers and their families: in Shavli, about 4,500; in Kovno, about 15,000; in Vilna, about 15,000. I wanted also to put
these work-jews and their- families to rest, but the civil administrator and the Armed Forces declared war on me and issued the prohibition that these Jews and their families must not be shot!
Lithuania was freed of its Jews only because a spe-cially selected raiding party was set up under SS-First Lieutenant Hamann, who shared my aims in full and who knew how to cooperate with Lithuanian [anti-Communisti Partisans and the appropriate civil of-fices.
The implementation of such actions is in the first instance an organizational problem. The decision to free each district of its Jews necessitated thorough preparation of each Action, as well as acquisition of information about local conditions. The Jews had to be collected in one or more towns, and a ditch had to be dug at the right site for the right number. The marching distance from collecting points to the ditches averaged about 3 miles. The Jews were brought in zroups of 500, separated by at least 1.2 miles, to the place of execution. The sort of difficulties and nerve-scraping work involved in all this, is shown by an arbitrarily selected example.
In Sokiskis, 3,208 people had to be transported 3 miles before they could be liquidated. To manage this job in a 24-hour period, more than 60 of the 80 avail-able Lithuanian partisans had to be detailed to the columns .... Vehicles are seldom available. Escapes, which were attempted here and there, were frustrated solely by my men, often at the risk of their lives. For example, 3 men of the Commando at Mariampole shot 38 escaping Jews and Communist functionaries on a path in the woods, so that no one got away. Dis-tances to and from Actions were never less than 90-120 miles. Only careful planning enabled the Commandos to car-rv out up to five Actions a week, and at the same time continue the work in Kovno
 463 without interruptions. Kovno itself. where trained
 2514 Lithuanian partisans are available in sufficient num-
bers, was comparatively speaking a shooting para-dise. All officers and men of the Commando in Kovno participated in the mabr Actions in the city
I consider the Jewish Actions of Einsatzgruppe III as virtually completed. The remaining working Jews and Jewesses are urgently needed, and I can imagine that they will still be needed after this winter. I am of the opinion, however, that the male working Jews should be sterilized immediately, to prevent any procreation. A Jewess who neverthejess becomes pregnant is to be liquidated at once.

In the horror of the Einsatzgruppen activities, as many as a half-million Jews may have been murdered. but it was a cumbersome process which even offici all reports criticized.
 
 

I
 364 Chapter Eleven

 Report of SD Einsatzgruppen Activity, November 1941 ~

Einsatzgruppe C: Kiev reports:

The difficulties which arise from carrying out such a large Action—especially rounding them up in the first place—were solved in Kiev by putting up posters on the walls ordering the Jews to report for emigra-tion. Although it was expected that only five to six thousand Jews would participate, nearly 30,000 Jews turned up, and as a result of clever organization, continued to believe, right up to the point of their ex-ecution, that they were only being transported.
Although 75,000 Jews have already been liquidated in this fashion, it is nevertheless quite clear that a so-lution of the Jewish problem can not come about like this. True, the ruthless clearing out of the Jewish problem in small cities and villages has been success-ful, but as observers have always pointed out, in the large cities, once executions have been carried out on a large scale, and it appears that all of the Jews have disappeared, after only a short time, should a new Strike Command Action be undertaken in the same city, once again Jews will be seized in numbers which far exceed the executions of the previous Action.

Meanwhile, in other government agencies, official policy continued to emphasize using the Jews as cheap labor in the war industries. Thus, some attempts were made to keep Jews alive, but to little avail, as witness the following docu-ment.

Report by Heinz Auerswald, Commissar for the Jewish Residential District IGhetto] in Warsaw, 26 September 1941 261

The described increase in food supplies could not prevent the rise in the number of deaths, which is due to the overall impoverishment of the Jews that has ex-isted since the beginning of the war. The following figures give a striking picture of the deaths:
 January ‘41 898
 February ‘41 1023
 March’41 1608
 April ‘41 2061
 May ‘41 3821
 June ‘41 4290
 July ‘41 5550
 August ‘41 5560

Another reason for this increase in the mortality rate is the outbreak of spotted fever in the Jewish Residential District. Despite strenuous efforts to com-bat the spotted fever, the curve has risen steadily.
Since about July of this year the weekly notifications of cases of spotted fever have remained fairly con-stant. They vary between 320 and 450 new cases. The figure for last month (August) of 1788 persons is not significantly higher than that for the previous month, with 1736.

Meanwhile within Germany, still other groups were mak-ing plans to deport all the Jews of Europe to these un-healthy and over-crowded Ghettos in Poland.

Reich Finance Minister to Various Officials, 4 November 1941 275

1. In general, Jews who are not occupied in works
important to the political economy will be deported within the next months to a city in the eastern territo-ries. The propertv of the Jews to be deported will be confiscated in favor of the Reich. One hundred RM [c. 100 dollarsi and 50 kilograms of luggage are left to each Jew. The deportations have already begun in the territories of ... Berlin, Hamburg, Weser-Ems, Bremer. Kassel, Cologne, and Dusseldorf. Soon there will be deportation in the kther] districts. It can be assumed that four persons form a household.
2. Execution of the deportation—The deportation of the Jews is executed by the Gestapo. The Gestapi also sees to the first safeguarding of the property. The Jews whose deportation is imminent have to hand in lists of propertv according to prescribed form. The Ge-stapo offices seal the apartments and deposit the keys of the apartments with the apartment managers.— The next deportation of Jews will begin on 7 or 8 No-vem&: 1941. I ask you to inquire at once about the exact date for the various cities at the locally compe-tent Superior State Police Offices (Gestapo).... It is to be expected that further deportations of Jews will follow. I therefore request you to report to me at any giv0i time after an Action is completed as soon as possible on the experiences made on this occasion and the dif ficulties which may have arisen and to add any sug-gestions for changes in the procedure....

Once this bureaucracy started functioning, it was clear that some coordination was necessary. Large numbers of Jews were being carted off to Poland from Germany Aid all the other occupied countries, but there were no piVW sions for adequate housing or labor opportunities, andM agreement on long-range plans. Hitler seems to have gWE no special guidance, but his private conversatiOnS are suggestive.

Hitler Table Conversation, 31 November 1941 m

Probably many Jews have not been
the destructive character of their existence. But
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 ever destroys life is himself risking death, and the Jews will be no exception. Who is to blame, if the cat eats up the mouse? Is it the mouse, who never did anything in its life to harm the cat? We do not know at present the deeper meaning to the fact that we are watching the destruction of the Jewish people. This destructive role of the Jew has in a way a providential explanation. If nature wanted the Jew to be the fer-ment that causes peoples to decay; thus providing these peoples with an opportunity for a healthy reac-tion, in that case people like St. Paul and Trotsky are, from our point of view, the most valuable. By the fact of their activities, they provoked the defensive reac-tion of the attacked organism. Such opposition al-ways arises in response to the activities of Jews, just as an organism reacts to bacteria seeking to destroy it....
One may be repelled by this law of nature which demands that all living things should mutually de-vour one another. The fly is snapped up by a dragon-fly, which itself is swallowed by a bird, which itself falls victim to a larger bird. This last, as it grows old, becomes a prey to microbes, which end by getting the better of it.... What is certain is that in any case one cannot change anything.... That’s why I have the feel-ing that it is useful to know the laws of nature—for that enables us to obey them. To act otherwise wouid be to rise in revolt against Heaven. If I recognize any divine Commandment, it is this one: “Thou shalt preserve thy species.”

In mid-December 1942, shortly after German troops had been stopped outside of Moscow. the so-called “Jewish question” was radicalized even further. Governor Frank returned from a private audience with Hitler with a blunt message for his staff

Hans Frank Office Diary Entry, 16 December 1941 269

Concerning the Jews—and this I would like to say to you quite openly—we must finish them off one way or the other. The Fuhrer once said that if united Jewry ever succeeded in bringing about another world war, then the victims would not only include those people who were forced into that war, but the Jews of Europe would also find their end. I know that at present many people are criticizing the measures being enacted against the Jews in Germany. The Se-cret Police Reports speak of stories [in circulation among the German people] telling of the horrors, the severities, etc. [of the deportations]. May I request that you join with me in agreeing on one principle, before I continue to talk: Compassion should be felt only for our German people and for no one else in this world. The others in this world have no compas-
sion ror us....
In addition, as an old National Socialist, I must say, that if the Jewish clan in Eurupe survive this war, and we have in the process spilled our best blood for the preservation of Europe, then we would emerge from this war only partially successful. I would there-fore proceed against the Jews from one simple pnin-they dis
ciple, one expectation—that appear. They
must go away. I have already introduced negotiations aiming at deporting them all to the East. In January, there will be a major conference in Berlin on this is-sue, and I am sending State Secretary Dr. Bi.ihler as my representative. This conference will be held in the SS Headquarters of SS-General Heydrich. At the very least, a major Jewish migration will take place.
But what should be done with the Jews here? Do you think that someone is going to resettle them in villages in the East? People in Berlin tell us: why make all this fuss; we can’t get involved with settling the Jews in the East or in the Commissaniat for Occu-pied Russian Territories. Liquidate them yourselves:
Gentlemen, I must ask you to arm your selves against any expressions of compassion. We must destroy the Jews, wherelTer we find them, and however it might be possible, in order to preserve the well-being of the Reich.... We have ... perhaps 3.5 million Jews in the General Government. These 3.5 million we cannot shoot; we cannot poison them; yet nevertheless we must undertake some measures which one way or the other leads to their destruction, and that way must be in harmony with whatever greater measures are agreed upon by the Reich. The General Government must be as free of Jews as the Reich. Where and how that will be accomplished is the affair of the commit-tees and organizations which we are now setting up. and must set up. and I will keep you iniormed about their progress....
 

THE FINAL SOLUTION OF THE JEWISH PROBLEM

The meeting Frank referred to in his speech assem bled in a villa of the international Police Commission in Wannsec. a suburb of Berlin. The following is the infamous Wannsee Protocol. which was taken down by Adolf Fichmann.

Minutes of the Wannsee Conference, 2OJanuarv 1942
List of participants

SS Lieutenant General Hevdrich

Gauleiter Dr. Meyer

Sate Sea-etarv Dr. Stuckart

State Seaetarv Newrnann
TOP SECRET

Security Police and SD Chief

Ministry Occuopied Territories

Ministry of the Interior

Ministry for the Four-’Year Plan
 
 

State Secretary Dr. Freisler
State Seaetary Dr. B(ihler
Understate Secretary Luther

SS-Colonel Klopfer

Minister Director Kritzinger

SS-Major-General Hoffinann

SS-Corporal Dr. Schongarth
SS.Captain Dr. Lange
SS-Major-General Mi.iller
SS-Lieutenant-Colonel Eichznann
 
 
 
 

 Justice Ministry
Governor General’s Office
Foreign Office
NSDAP Party Chancellery
Reich Chancellor’s Office
SS Race/ Settlement Office
SS and SD in General Govt
Security Police and SD
SSReich Security Main Office
SSReich Security Main Office
 

At the beginning of the meeting the Chief of the Se-curity Police and the SD, SS Lieutenant General Heydrich, reported his appointment by [Hermann Goring] to serve as Commissioner for the Preparation of the Final Solution of the European Jewish Problem, and pointed out that the officials had been invited to this conference in order to clear up the fundamental problems. The Reich Marshall’s request to have a draft submitted to him on the organizational, factual, and material requirements with respect to the Final Solution of the European Jewish Problem necessitated this previous general consultation by all the central offices directly concerned, in order that there should be coordination in the policy.
The primary responsibility for the administrative handling of the Final Solution of the Jewish Problem will rest centrally with the Reich Lead( r SS [Heinrich Himmler] and the Chief of the Security Force ~e and the SD—regardless of geographic boundaries. The Chief of the Security Police and the SD thereafter gave a brief review of the battle conducted up to now against these enemies. The most important aspects are:

a. forcing the Jews out of the various fields of the community life of the German people.
b. forcing the Jews out of the living space of the Ger-man people.

In execution of these efforts there was under-taken—as the only possible provisional solution— the acceleration of the emigration of Jews trom Reich ter-ritory on an intensified and methodical scale.
By decree of the Reich Marshall, a Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration was set up in January 1939, and the direction of this office was entrusted to the Chief of the Security Police and the SD. It had in particular these tasks:

a. taking all steps for the preparation for an intensi-fied emigration of the Jews.
b. steering the emigration stream.
c. expediting the emigration in individual cases.
The objective of these tasks was to clear the Ger-man Lying space of Jews in a legal way. The disad~ vantages which such a forcing of emigration brought with it were clear to all the authorities. But in view of the lack of alternative solutions, they had to be ac-cepted in the beginning
The emigration program has now been replaced by the evacuation of the Jews to the East as a further so-lution possibility, in accordance with previous autho-rization by the Fuhrer. These actions are of course to be regarded only as a temporary substitute; nonethe-less, here already, the coming Final Solution of the Jewish Question is of great importance. In the final course of this Final Solution approximately 11 million Jews are involved. They are distributed among the in-dividual countries as follows

Here follows a list of 36 countries, including some not occupied by Germany such as Spain and Ireland, with the number of Jews living in those countries. These range from 131,800 in Germany, through the 2,284,000 in Poland, and an estimated 5,000,000 in the Soviet Union.

In the Jewish population figures given for the vari-ous foreign countries, however, only those of Jewish faith are included, as the stipulation for defining Jews along racial lines there are still lacking.
Under proper direction the Jews should now in the course of the Final Solution be brought to the East in a suitable way for use as labor. In big labor gangs, with separation of the sexes, the Jews capable of work are brought to these areas and employed in road build-ing, in which task undoubtedly a great part will fall out through natural diminution. The remnant that fi-nallv is able to survive all this—since this is undoubt-edly the part with the strongest resistance—must be treated accordingly, since these people, representing a natural selection, are to be regarded as the germ cell of a new Jewish development (See the experience of history).
In the program of the practical execution of the Fi-nal Solution, Europe is combed through from the West to the East. The Reich area, including the Protec-torate of Bohemia and Moravia [formerly Czechoslo-vakia], will have to be taken in advance, alone, for reasons of the housing problem and other social and political necessities. The evacuated Jews are brought first, group by group, into the so-called transit ghet-tos, in order to be transported from there farther to the East. An important prerequisite for the whole ex-ecution of the evacuation, so SS Lieutenant-General Heydrich explained, is the exact establishment of the category of persons who are to be included. It is in-tended not to evacuate Jews over 65 years of age, but
 
 

365
 
 

Nazism and the Holocaust

 ever destroys life is himself risking death, and the Jews will be no exception. Who is to blame, if the cat eats up the mouse? Is it the mouse, who never did anything in its life to harm the cat? We do not know at present the deeper meaning to the fact that we are watching the destruction of the Jewish people. This destructive role of the Jew has in a way a providential explanation. If nature wanted the Jew to be the fer-ment that causes peoples to decay, thus providing these peoples with an opportunity for a healthy reac-tion, in that case people like St. Paul and Trotsky are, from our point of view, the most valuable. By the fact of their activities, they provoked the defensive reac-tion of the attacked organism. Such opposition al-ways arises in response to the activities of Jews, just as an organism reacts to bacteria seeking to destroy it....
One may be repelled by this law of nature which demands that all living things should mutually de-vour one another. The fly is snapped up by a dragon-fly, which itself is swallowed by a bird, which itself falls victim to a larger bird. This last, as it grows old, becomes a prey to microbes, which end by getting the better of it.... What is certain is that in any case one cannot change anything.... That’s why I have the feel-ing that it is useful to know the laws of nature—for that enables us to obey them. To act otherwise wouid be to rise in revolt against Heaven. If I recognize any divine Commandment, it is this one: “Thou shalt preserve thy species.”

In mid-December 1941, shortly after German troops had veen stopped outside of Moscow, the so-called “Jewish question” was radicalized even further. Governor Frank return ed from a private audience with Hitler with a blunt message for his staff

Hans Frank Office Diary Entry, 16 December 1941 ~r~

Concerning the Jews—and this I would like to say to you quite openly—we must finish them off one way or the other. The Fuhrer once said that if united Jewry ever succeeded in bringing about another world war, then the victims would not only include those people who were forced into that war, but the Jews of Europe would also find their end. I know that at present many people are criticizing the measures being enacted against the Jews in Germany. The Se-cret Police Reports speak of stories [in circulation among the German people] telling of the horrors, the severities, etc. [ of the deportationsi. May I request that you join with me in agreeing on one principle, before I continue to talk: Compassion should be felt only for our German people and for no one else in this world. The others in this world have no compas-
sion for us....
In addition, as an old National Socialist, 1 must say, that if the Jewish clan in Eurupe survive this war, and we have in the process spilled our best blood for the preservation of Europe, then we would emerge from this war only partially successful. I would there-fore proceed against the Jews from one simple prin-ciple, one expectation—that they disappear. They must go away. I have already introduced negotiations aiming at deporting them all to the East. In January, there will be a major conference in Berlin on this is-sue, and I am sending State Secretary Dr. Buhler as my representative. This conference will be held in the SS Headquarters of 55-General Heydrich. At the very least, a major Jewish migration will take place.
But what should be done with the Jews here? Do you think that someone is going to resettle them in villages in the East? People in Berlin tell us: why make all this fuss; we can’t get involved with settling the Jews in the East or in the Commissariat for Occu-pied Russian Territories. Liquidate them yourselves:
Gentlemen, I must ask you to arm yourselves against any expressions of compassion. We must destroy the Jews, wherever we find them, and however it might be possible, in order to preserve the well-being of the Reich.... We have ... perhaps 3.5 million Jews in the General Government. These 3.5 million we cannot shoot; we cannot poison them; yet nevertheless we must undertake some measures which one way or the other leads to their destruction, and that way must be in harmony with whatever greater measures are agreed upon by the Reich. The General Government must be as free of Jews as the Reich. Where and how that will be accomplished is the affair of the commit-tees and organizations which we are now setting up, and must set up. and I will keep you informed about their progress....
 

THE FINAL SOLUTION OF THE JEWISH
PROBLEM

The meeting Frank referred to in his speech assembled in a villa of the International Police Comnmission in Wannsee, a suburb of Berlin. The following is the infamous Wannse9 Protocol, which was taken down by Adolf Eichmann.

Minutes of the Wanrnsee Conference,
20 Januarry 1942
List of participants

SSLieutenant Generai Hevdrich

Gauleiter Dr. Meyer

State Seaerarv Dr. Stuckart

State Secretary Newmann
TOP SECRET

Security Police and SD Chief

Ministry Occuojed Territories

Ministry of the Interior

Ministry for the Four-Year Plan
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 to remove them to a ghetto for the aged— Theresienstadt is under consideration. Along with these old age classes of the perhaps 280,000 Jews who on 31 October 1941 were in Germany proper and in Austria—perhaps 30 percent are over 65 years old--there will also be taken to the ghettos for the aged the Jews who are serious war-wounded cases and Jews with war decorations (Iron Cross, First Class). With this appropriate solution, the many petitions for ex-ceptions will be eliminated with one blow.
The beginning of the individual larger evacuation actions will be very much dependent on the military development. With regard to handling the Final Solu-tion in the European areas occupied and influenced by us, it was proposed that the competent officials in the foreign office should confer with the specialists of the Security Police and the SD.
In Slovakia and Croatia the matter is no longer too difficult, as the most essential problems in this respect have already been solved there. In Romania likewise the government has appointed a Commissioner for Jewish Affairs. For settling the problem in Hungary it will be necessary in the near future to force an advisor on Jewish problems upon the Hungarian government. With regard to taking up the preparations for the so-lution of the problem in Italy, SS Lieutenant-General Heydrich thinks a liaison with the Police Chief in these matters is suitable. In occupied and unoccupied France the taking of the Jews for evacuation can in all probability proceed without great difficulties.
Under-State-Secretary Luther (of the Foreign Of-fice) stated at this point that in a more basic treatment of this problem in a few countries, such as in the [Scandinaviani countries, difficulties would come up, and it is therefore advisable to postpone these coun-tries for the time being. In consideration of the small number of Jews in question here, this postponement constitutes no appreciable limitation anyway On the other hand, the Foreign Office sees no great difficul-ties for the south and west of Europe
In the course of the Final Solution plans, the Nurnberg Laws are in a certain degree to form the ba-sis, and so the complete settlement of the problem is to include also the solution of the mixed marriages and the Mischling (i.e., mixed Jewish descent) prob-lems
In connection with the problem of the effect of the Jewish deportations on economic life, State Secretary Newmann stated that Jews employed in important war industries could not be evacuated for the present, as long as there were no replacements available. SS Lieutenant-General Heydrich pointed out that these Jews, in accordance with directives approved by him for the current deportations, would not be affected.
State Secretary Dr. Buhler states that the General Government, [i.e., the German-occupied portion of central Poland] would welcome the initiation of the Final Solution in the General Government, because here for once the transportation problem plays no im-portant role, and labor commitments would not hinder the course of the action. Jews would have to be removed as quickly as possible from the territory of the General Government because just here the Jew constitutes an eminent danger as a bearer of disease, and in other ways he brings the economic structure of the country constantly into disorder by his black mar-ket activities. Furthermore, of the approximately two and a half million Jews here under discussion, the ma-jority are reported to be unf it for work.
State Secretary Dr. Buhier further states that the so-lution of the Jewish problem in the General Govern-ment is primarily the responsibility of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD and his work is supported by the agencies of the General Government. He had only one request, that the Jewish problem in this terri-tory be solved as quickly as possible.
Towards the end of the conference, the various kinds of solutions were discussed, and here both Gauleiter Dr. Meyer and also State-Secretary Dr. Buhler advocated that certain preparatory tasks for the Final Solution be performed immediately in then territories; during this, however, any disturbance of the population must be avoided. With the request or the Chief of the Security Police and the SD to those participating in the conference to afford him their support in the carrying out of the tasks assigned, the conference was concluded.
not explicitly tell the group In the meeting, Hei,idrich did
that wholsale executions of Jews had already begun by 55 and SD Einsatzgruppen, strengthened by local po-lice and volunteers. These operations continued, but were encountering difficulties.

Report of Lieutenant Walther of an Einsatzgruppen near Belgrade, 1 November 1941 ~r’i

The excavation of the pits takes up most of the time, whereas the execution itself is very quick (100 persons takes about 40 minutes) .... At first my men were not affected. On the second day, however, it was already apparent that one or two did not have the nerves to carry out executions over a long period. My personal impression is that during the execution one does not have any scruples. These make themselves felt, however, days later when one is quietly thinking about it in the evening.
 
 

 Although no new orders were issued to the Einsatzgruppen, reports make clear that they had now begun to kill those Jews that were being deported from Germany and other parts of Europe.278 Following the Wannsee meeting, the SS introduced”im proved” ways of killing. The first experiment was with specially built trucks which would induce’ carbon monoxide into the vans while travelling from the detention centers. Reports indicated problems with this method as well.

SS-Second Lieutenant Dr. Becker to SS-Headquar-ters, 16May19422”

TOP SECRET
The overhauling of Group D and C’s vans is com-pleted. While the vans of the first series can be em-ployed as long as the weather is not too bad, the vans of the second series (those made by Saurer) won’t function in the rain. If, for example, it has rained for only a half hour, these vans are unusable, because the wheels simply spin out. They can therefore be used only in completely dry weather. Then the ques-tion arose whether we couldn’t use these vans by fix-ing them permanently at the site of the executions. But that would mean that we would have to transport these vans to the spots, and that is possible only in good weather. But in most cases, the execution loca-tions are 10 to 15 kilometers [6-9 miles] off the main roals and are difficult to reach in any case, and im-possible in damp or wet weather. Should we drive or transport the persons who are to be executed to these permanently fixed vans, they will immediately see what is up, and become agitated, which should be avoided if at all possible. It seems that there remains only one way, and that is to load them into vans in one location, and then drive them away.
I have disguised the vans of Group D so that they look like living quarters, and in the small vans I have inserted one window, in the large vans two windows on each side, just like you see here in peasant houses in the countryside. Nevertheless, the vans have be-come so recognized that not only officials, but also the local population call them “Death Vans,” when-ever one of them appears. In my opinion, all attempts to disguise what is going on will in the long run not work.
In this regard, I would like to call attention to the following: After the gassing, various Strike Com-mands use their own men to unload the vans! I have brought to the attention of the commanding officers of these units what terrible spiritual and psvchologi-cal damage such unloading does to the men involved, if not immediately, then certainly later on. Men have complained to me about headaches which occur after every unloading. Nevertheless, the officers don’t want
to deviate from this practice, because they fear that if they use prisoners for this task, it would be used as a fortuitous opportunity to escape. In order to spare our men from these dangers, I request that SS head-quarters issue a suitable command.
Moreover, gassing [of the prisonersi while driving the van is not being properly carried out. In order to get through the Action as soon as possible, the drivers
way with the
frequently drive the whole gas pedal to
the floor. As a result of this, the persons who are to be executed in fact die from suffocation, rather than—as we planned—die after first being put to sleep. My ex-periments have shown that with the proper applica-tion of the gas pedal, death will come more quickly, and the prisoners will peacefully fall asleep. The dis-torted faces and bodily excretions which currently are seen [after the gassingi will, in this process, not be noticeable at all.

Report to 55-Lieutenant General Wolff, 5 June 1942 2~4~

Since December 1941 three vans have been put into service, and more than 97,000 have been worked over in them without causing damage to the machines [i.e. 97,000 Jews have been gassed without incidenti. The famous explosion at Kulmhof must be considered an isolated incident, caused by some mistake during the operation. To prevent such accidents, special rules were sent to all the concerned commands. As a result of observing these guidelines, the safety factor has been substantially enhanced.

The general silence surrounding the fate of the deported Jews was not broken, but still disquieting rumors had leaked back to Germany about the Jews in the East.

Diary Entries of Jochen Klepper ~

18 February 1942: The mass shooting of Jews in the deportation camps is supposed to have stopped, be-cause they need the Jews much more as workers in the East.

5 March 1942: Our child’s twentieth birthday.... I had never thought that we would live to celebrate this day.

8 April 1942~ Trude Weill visits Hanni. Just sixty years old, she has now received her deportation or-ders. How can the Jews bear all this? And with what equanimity they carry their calamity.

30 May 1942: From everywhere it seems we hear reports that 400 more Jews have been rounded up in
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 Concentration Camps. 250 of them have been shot. No one knows why. Hanni visits Trude Weill, who is scheduled to be deported on Monday. It is so horrible to have to witness this from so close. A sixty-year-old sick woman, who has already had her son taken away. Where, oh where does this road of horrors lead? What prayers haven’t we learned this yearl And vet God remains silent.... The heart, the spirit and the will of Germans and Jews are near the breaking point. But still God saves us three, and leads us through all the horrible laws and measures, which seem so un-thinkable. No one knows what happens to those who are deported.

18 August 1942: The deportations become more concentrated and accelerate again. A colleague of Reni’s with two-year-old twins; Harald von Koenigswald’s renter, an 82 year-old lawyer whose son fell in the First World War. Aunt Paula, 82 years old also, after a life so full of brightness, deported! And throughout the procedures, families are ripped apart. From those who have been deported, no news at all. Our conversations and our thoughts can never escape from all this horror that surrounds us. Even news of the wounded and captured soldiers pales be-fore this atrociousness, this cold, organized, calcu-lated program of a decade’s evolved cruelty. Gradually it is destroying us once and for all.
 

THE DEATH CAMPS

By the summer of 7942, SS officials agreed that perma-nent extermination camps should be set up, and poison gas used. In June1942, Kurt Gerstein was an evewitnss to a series of executions, and subsequently wrote an ac-count of what he had seen. What follows here is not the original document but Gerstein’s subsequent reconstruc-tion dated 1945.

Mfidavit of Kurt Gerstein, 26 April 1945 2~

The affidavit begins with a summary of his life: born in 1905; graduate decree in engineering, 1931; member of the Lutheran Church; entered Nazi party in 1933; expelled from Nazi party because of religious and anti-Nazi activi-ties in 1936; arrested and placed in Concentration Camps for bri ef periods in 1936 and 1938; released, but forbidden to speak in public.

As I heard of the beginning of the massacres of in-sane people at Grafeneck and Hadamar and else-where, I decided, at any risk, to attempt to get into these institutions in order to discover what exactly was going on there. I was the more inclined to do so since one of my sisters-in-law by marriage—Bertha
Ebeling—had been murdered in Hadamar. With the help of two ref erer ces written by the two Gestapo offi-cials who had dealt with my case, it was not difficult for me to enter the SS. These gentlemen, who had been amazed by my idealism, believed that this ideal-ism could only help the Nazi cause.... On 10 March 1941, I entered the SS. I received my elementary train-ing at Hamburg-Langehorn, Arnheim (in Holland) and Oranienburg. In Holland I immediately contacted the Dutch resistance movement (Engineer Ubbink of Doesburg). Because of my twin studies—technology and medicine—I was ordered to enter the medical-technology branch of the SS Operational Main Office, Medical branch of the Waffen SS—Division D—Hy-glene Department. I completed my training in a doctor’s course with an enrollment of 40. In the Hy-giene Department, I was allowed to determine my own work, and I began immediately the construction of disinfecting apparatus and filters for drinking wa-ter for the troops, the prison camps, and the Concen-tration Camps. Quite undeservedly, I had great success in these endeavors, and thereafter I was re-garded as a technical genius.
At least I was able to contain, to a certain extent, the horrible epidemic of fevers of 1941 in the camps. On account of my successes, I was soon a lieutenant, and then First-lieutenant. At Christmas time in 1941, the tribunal which had decreed my expulsion from the NSDAP obtained knowledge of my having en-tered, in a high capacity, the SS. There followed a strong persecution against me, but due to my suc-cesses, and to my personality, I was protected and preseryed in my position. In January 1942, I was am pointed chief of the technical-sanitation’s division, and at the same time, received the double appoint-ment covering the same sectors of the SS Reich’s Doc-tors and Police. In this new position, I was in charge of the entire technical branch of disinfection, which also included the branch dealing with poison gases for disinfection.
In this capacity, I received a visit on 8 June 1942 from SS-Sturmbannfiihrer Gunther of RSHA (Reich’s Security Main Office), a man whom I did not know. He came in civilian clothes and ordered me to obtain a hundred kilograms of prussic acid for a top secret assignment. We were to travel to a place which was known only to the driver of the truck. A few weeks later we started out in the direction of Prague. I had some idea of what our assignment was, but I went anyway, because by chance I was now going to be able to have a look into the things which I had long desired to observe. Also, since I was an expert in prussic acids and competent in handling them, I knew that it would be easy for me to label the acid as unus-
 
 

~0
 370 Chapter Eleven

 able, for some reason or other—such as damage in transit or such—and thus prevent their use if intended for murder. We took with us—by chance--Professor Pfannenstiel, Professor of Hygiene at the University of Marburg and an 55-Obersrurmbannftihrer.
We travelled by truck to Lublin, where 55-Gruppenfuhrer Globocnik received us. At the factory in Collin (near Prague), I clearly perceived that the gas was destined to be used to kill men. Shortly after noon, a man appeared who was obviously very inter-ested in the trip, but fled, as soon as he was discov-ered. Globocnik said to us: “This is one of the most secret matters that exists today. We could even say, the most secret. Whoever talks of this shall be immedi-ately shot. Only yesterday, two talkative men were shot.” Then he explained to us that at the present--this was 17 August 1942—there were three installa-tions, namely:

Belcec. on the Lublin-Lvov road, in the sector of the Russian demarc:tion line. Maximum, 15,000 persons a day.
Treblinka, 120 kilometers NNE of Warsaw. Maxi-mum 25,000 persons a day.
Sobibor, also in Poland, but I do not know ex-actly where. 20,000 persons a day.
Maidanek, near Lublin—then still in the state of preparation.

Accompanied by the chief of this area, Police Cap-tain Wirth, I personally visited Belcec, Treblinka, and Maidanek.
Globocnik then turned to me personally and said:
“It is your assignment to carry out the sterilization of the very large quantities of clothes. We have gathered them all together in order to conceal the origin of the clothes from Jews, Poles, Czechs and other ‘Eastern Workers,’ and in order to represent them as the result of voluntary sacrifice by the German people. In reality our collection is 10 to 20 times as large as the entire collection of clothing gathered in drives.
Your other, more important assignment will be to change the method of our gas chambers (which are now operating on the exhaust of Duesel engines) to a better and quicker operation. I am thinking primarily of prussic acid. The Fuhrer and HimmIer, who were here the day before yesterday,* ordered that I should personally accompany all those who are to see the in-
 
 

* There is no evidence whatsoever to support this assertion. Hitler never visited an extermination camp. but Hurimler may have. There are, however, records of Globocnik meeting pnvately with Hitler in Berlin. So Gerstein may have misunderstood the occasion for this conversation.
stallations, and that I should issue no one written per-missic n to enter.
Then Professor Pfannenstiel asked: “What does the Fuhrer say [about this action]?” Globocnik replied:
“Quicker, quicker!” he said. “Carry out the entire ac-tion quickly.” Then Minister-Director Dr. Herbert Lindner, who accompanied the Fuhrer, asked: “Herr Globocnik, do you think it is right and proper to bury the bodies instead of burning them? A future genera-tion might appear who would not understand all this.” Globocnik said he replied: “But Gentlemen, if after us such a cowardly and rotten generation should arise that does not understand our great mission, then all of National Socialism would have been for noth-ing. On the contrary, I am of the opinion that bronze plaques should be erected with the inscription that we had the courage to carry out this gigantic and neces-sary task.” To which the Fiihrer replied: “Good, Globocnik, that is exactly my opinion.”
The next day we left for Belcec, a small special sta-tion built on a hill immediately north of the Lublin-Lvov road, near the left flank of the Demarcation line. To the south, near the road were some houses with the signboard: “Belcec, Seryice Center of the Waffen-55.” Since Police Captain Wirth, head of the combined death camps was not there, Globocnik introduced me to SS-Hauptsturmftihrer Obermeyer (from Pirmasens), who that afternoon allowed me to see only that which he was ordered to show me. On that day, I saw no corpses, but the stench of the entire area on that hot August day was pestilential; millions of flies accom-panied us everywhere.— Next to the small station, with two platforms, stood a large barrack, the so-called “cloakroom,” with a large vault to store valu-ables. Next to that, a chamber with a hundred chairs, the barber shop. Then a small open-air corridor with barbed wire on the left and right. and a signboard:
“To the Disinfectant Stations and Baths.” Before us we saw a house like a bath-house, decorated with gerani-ums; after climbing a small staircase, we entered a hallway. To the left and the right there were three ga-rage-like rooms on each side. Each was about 12 X 15 feet in size and 6 feet high, and closed with wooden doors. In the rear of each room, barely visible in the darkness stood huge exit doors, also made out of wood. On the roof, in a malicious type of humor, stood a Star of David.—At the entrance to the build-ings was the inscription: “Heckenholt Foundation.” That was all I noticed on that particular afternoon.
Next morning, a few minutes before seven o’clock~ I was informed that in 10 minutes the first transport would arrive. And indeed a few minutes later the first train came in from Lvov: 45 cars, containing 6,700 per-sons, of whom 1,450 were already dead on arriVal.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 From behind the barbed-wire covered openings of the train, there stared horribly pale and frightened chil-dren whose eves were filled with the fear of death, as well as many women and men. The train stopped, 200 Ukrainians opened the doors, and drove all the people out of the cars with leather whips. Then a huge loudspeaker gave instructions: they should com-pletely undress, remove even false teeth and eye-glasses. The valuables were to be turned in, with no compensation or certificate. Shoes were to be carefully tied together (because of the collection of clothes) or else no one would have been able to have found the mate to a shoe in the pile which already stood 75 feet high. Then the women and girls were sent to the bar-bers, who cut off their hair in one or two strokes, after which it vanished into huge potato bags “to be used for special submarine equipment, stuffing, or some-thing similar,” as the SS-Unterscha rfz ehrer on duty told me.
Then the march began. Led by a young girl of strik-ing beauty, they marched through the alley, all na-ked—men, women, children—even without teeth. I stood, with Captain Wirth, on a ramp between the buildings. Mothers with their babes at their breast ap-proached, hesitated, and then entered the death chamber! On the corner, a strong SS man, with the voice of a clergyman, spoke to the poor devils: “Not the slightest danger will befall you here! All you have to do in these chambers is breathe deeply; it strength-ens the lungs. This inhalation is a necessary measure against sickness and disease.” To the question of what was to become of them, he answered: “Well, of course, the men will have to work, building houses and roads, but the women do not have to. They can, of course, help in the house or the kitchens, but only if they want to.”—Once more, a little bit of hope for some of these poor people, enough to make them march on without resistance the last few steps into the rooms. Most of them, though, knew everything. The smell had given them a clear indication of their fate. So they climbed the small steps, and then saw every-thing. Mothers with nursing children, small naked ba-bies, grown men and women—all naked. They hesitated, but they entered the death chambers, driven on by the press behind them, or by the whips of the 55. The majority spoke not a word.
But a Jewess of about forty years of age, with eyes like torches, calls down the blood of the victims upon the heads of their murderers. Five lashes in her face, dealt by the whip of Police Captain Wirth himself, drives her into the room.—Many pray. I turn myself into a corner and cry aloud to my and their God. I pray with them. How gladly would I have joined them in that gas chamber; how gladly would I have
died with them. Then they would have found a uni-formed SS officer in that chamber—the discovery of it would have been hushed up, treated as an accident, and suppressed. So I could not do that just yet. I had first to discover what there was to know about all this.
The chambers fill up—packed solidly—as Captain Wirth had ordered. Men stood on each other’s feet. 700 to 800 crushed together in 175 square feet.... Physically, the 55 pack in as many as the chamber can hold, and the doors are closed. Meanwhile the rest of the transport wait outside, naked. Somebody said to me: “They are kept there naked, even when it is win-ter?” “Yes, from the cold weather they could die, then,” I reply. “Well, that’s just what they are here for, isn’t it?” answered an SS man from his position. And now finally, I learned why this complex of buildings was called the Heckenholt Foundation.
Heckenholt, it seems, was the name of the man who was in charge of the diesel engine, a minor tech-nician, who had also built the system. The people in-side were to be gassed from the exhaust of the diesel motor. But the motor would not start. Captain Wirth appeared. It is obvious that he is embarrassed because this delay happened today, when I could witness it. Yes, indeed, I saw everything! And I waited. My watch registered everything. Fifty minutes. Seventy minutes-—and still the motor would not start. The people remained packed into the gas chamber—ir. vain. One could hear them cry and moan. “Just like in a synagogue,” says SS-SturmbannfrThrer Professor Dr. Pfannenstiel, Professor for Public Health at the Uni-versity of Marburg. He is holding his ear close to the wooden door. Furiously Captain Wirth whips the Ukrainians who are helping Heckenholt—12, 13 times in the face. After two hours and 49 minutes—all regis-tered on my stop watch—the motor springs to life. Up to that moment, the people in the four chambers were still alive: four times 750 men, each in 175 square feet! Another 25 minutes tick by. Many indeed were al-ready dead. You could see that through the small win-dow as the electric lamp showed for a moment the inside of the chamber. After 28 minutes only a few were alive. Finally, after 32 minutes, all were dead.
From the other side, Jewish workers open the big exit doors. In return for their terrible job, they have been promised their freedom and a small percentage of the valuables which they find. The dead were still standing like stone statues, for there was no room for them to fall over or bend down. Even in death, fami-lies were still recognizable; their hands still clasped each other and it was difficult to separate them in or-der to clear the chamber for the next load. The bodies were thrown out, blue, wet with sweat and urine, the legs covered with excrement and menstrual blood.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 The bodies of children were literally flung through the air. There was no time; the whips of the Ukraini-ans drove on the workers. Two dozen dentists, with hooks, opened mouths to check for gold. “Gold to the left side, none on the right,” and other dentists, work-ing with chisels, tore out gold teeth, and hammered off bridges or caps.
In the center of everything was Captain Wirth. He was in his element. Some workers searched anus and genitals to look for money, diamonds, gold. Wirth called out to me: “Just lift this tin box full of gold teeth, and that was collected in two days!” And now he led me to a jeweler who was in charge of all these valuables, and let me look through them. Then he showed me a former director of the Western Depart-ment Store in Berlin, and a violinist. ‘This is a Captain in the old Royal and Imperial Austrian Army Knight of the Iron Cross, First Class, and now the ranking el-der of the lewish special work detail in the camp.”
The naked bodies were slid down wooden planks into large ditches about 300 x 60 x 6 feet, located near the gas chambers. After a few days, the bodies would swell up, but after a few more days the bodies would collapse, and a new layer could be put into the ditch on top of them. Ten centimeters of sand would be strewn over them, so that only a single head or arm, here and there, would be visible.--Once I saw several Jews down in such a ditch working among the coi pses. Someone told me that apparently the dead had failed to disrobe after arriving by transport, so naturally, because of the clothing drive and the search for valuables, the bodies had to be stripped or else they would take these things with them into the grave.
Neither at Belcec or Treblinka did anyone pay much attention to keeping a registration or even an exact count of the victims. Estimates were made, based on probable car-loads in the transport. Actually, not only Jews, but many Poles and Czechs who, in the opinion of the Nazis, were of bad stock, were killed. Most of them died anonymously. Commissions of so-called doctors, who were actually nothing but young SS men in white coats, drive in limousines through the towns and villages of Poland and Czechoslovakia to select the old, tubercular, and sick people and have them done away with shortly afterwards in gas cham-bers. These were especially Poles and Czechs of cat-egorv Ill—unable to work and hence not deserving to live. Police Captain Wirth asked me not to prupose any alteration in his camp in my report to Berlin, but to leave everything the way it was, working itself out as best it could. I personally buried the prussic acid, claiming that its destruction was advisable (from damage in transit).
The next day—19 August 1942—Captain Wirth’s ~ car took us to Treblinka, about 75 miles NNE of War-saw. The installations of this death center scarcely dif-fered from those at Belcec, but they were even larger. There were eight gas chambers and a veritable moun.. tain of clothes, suitcases, and underwear. Then a ban-quet, in tvpical “old-German style a Ia Himmler” was given in our honor. The food was simple, but filling. Himmier had personally ordered that the men of this command should have as much meat, butter, and other food, especially alcohol, as they wanted. At the banquet, Professor Pfannenstiel made a speech: “Your task is a great duty, a duty both useful and necessary.” To me alone he talked of this institution in terms of the “beauty of the task,” as a “humane cause,” and in his speech he concluded: “Looking at the bodies of these Jews, one understands the greatness of your good works.”
We then returned to Warsaw by auto, and since I was unable to obtain a Pullman berth, I continued to Berlin in the company of the Secretary of the Swedish Consulate in Berlin, Baron von Otter. Still under the fresh impression of the disgusting experiences in the camps, I told the Baron everything, and asked him to report it to his government and the allies, since even a day’s delay meant the loss of thousands and ten-thou-sands of lives. He asked me for a reference (concern-ing my credibility) and I gave him the name of Dr. Otto Dibelius, a trusted friend of Pastor Martin Niemoller, and a member of the Church resistance movement to Nazism. Later I met Baron von Otter twice in the Swedish Consulate; he had reported ev-erything to Stockholm, and told me that his report had a decisive effect on Swedish-German relations. I also attempted to bring the same report to the Papal Nuncio in Berlin. There I was asked if I was a soldier, and upon my reply, all further conversations were re-fused, and I was ordered out of the Embassy of His Holiness.... Later I reported my experiences to hun-dreds of people, including the Syndikus of the Catho-lic Bishop of Berlin, Dr. Winter, whom I expressly asked to forward the report to the Holy See....
All of my statements are definitely true. Fully aware of the extraordinary importance of my state-ment before God and humanity, I swear that not one event recorded herein has been exaggerated or in-vented. Everything took place exactly as I have de-scribed it.

The Vatican did not publish this information or make pri-vate or public protest. One of the people Gerstein gave his report to was the Dutch Engineer Ubbink, who made copies and handed one to Cornelis Van deri-fooft, a leader of the Dutch resistance. Van der 1-looft could simply nOt
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 The bodies of children were literally flung through the air. There was no time; the whips of the Ukraini-ans drove on the workers. Two dozen dentists, with hooks, opened mouths to check for gold. “Gold to the left side, none on the right,” and other dentists, work-ing with chisels, tore out gold teeth, and hammered off bridges or caps.
In the center of everything was Captain Wirth. He was in his element. Some workers searched anus and genitals to look for money, diamonds, gold. Wirth called out to me: “Just lift this tin box full of gold teeth, and that was collected in two days!” And now he led me to a jeweler who was in charge of all these valuables, and let me look through them. Then he showed me a former director of the Western Depart-ment Store in Berlin, and a violinist. ‘This is a Captain in the old Royal and Imperial Austrian Army, Knight of the Iron Cross, First Class, and now the ranking el-der of the lewish special work detail in the camp.”
The naked bodies were slid down wooden planks into large ditches about 300 x 60 x 6 feet, located near the gas chambers. After a few days, the bodies would swell up, but after a few more days the bodies would collapse, and a new layer could be put into the ditch on top of them. Ten centimeters of sand would be strewn over them, so that only a single head or arm, here and there, would be visible.--Once I saw several Jews down in such a ditch working among the coi pses. Someone told me that apparently the dead had failed to disrobe after arriving by transport, so naturally, because of the clothing drive and the search for valuables, the bodies had to be stripped or else they would take these things with them into the grave.
Neither at Belcec or Treblinka did anyone pay much attention to keeping a registration or even an exact count of the victims. Estimates were made, based on probable car-loads in the transport. Actually, not only Jews, but many Poles and Czechs who, in the opinion of the Nazis, were of bad stock, were killed. Most of them died anonymously. Commissions of so-called doctors, who were actually nothing but young SS men in white coats, drive in limousines through the towns and villages of Poland and Czechoslovakia to select the old, tubercular, and sick people and have them done away with shortly afterwards in gas cham-bers. These were especially Poles and Czechs of cat-egorv Ill—unable to work and hence not deserving to live. Police Captain Wirth asked me not to prcpose any alteration in his camp in my report to Berlin, but to leave everything the way it was, working itself out as best it could. I personally buried the prussic acid, claiming that its destruction was advisable (from damage in transit).
The next day—19 August 1942—Captain Wirth’s ~ car took us to Treblinka, about 75 miles NNE of War-saw. The installations of this death center scarcely dif-fered from those at Belcec, but they were even larger. There were eight gas chambers and a veritable moun.. tain of clothes, suitcases, and underwear. Then a ban-quet, in typical “old-German style a Ia Himmler” was given in our honor. The food was simple, but filling. Himmier had personally ordered that the men of this command should have as much meat, butter, and other food, especially alcohol, as they wanted. At the banquet, Professor Pfannenstiel made a speech: “Your task is a great duty, a duty both useful and necessary.” To me alone he talked of this institution in terms of the “beauty of the task,” as a “humane cause,” and in his speech he concluded: “Looking at the bodies of these Jews, one understands the greatness of your good works.”
We then returned to Warsaw by auto, and since I was unable to obtain a Pullman berth, I continued to Berlin in the company of the Secretary of the Swedish Consulate in Berlin, Baron von Otter. Still under the fresh impression of the disgusting experiences in the camps, I told the Baron everything, and asked him to report it to his government and the allies, since even a day’s delay meant the loss of thousands and ten-thou-sands of lives. He asked me for a reference (concern-ing my credibility) and I gave him the name of Dr. Otto Dibelius, a trusted friend of Pastor Martin Niemoller, and a member of the Church resistance movement to Nazism. Later I met Baron von Otter twice in the Swedish Consulate; he had reported ev-erything to Stockholm, and told me that his report had a decisive effect on Swedish-German relations. I also attempted to bring the same report to the Papal Nuncio in Berlin. There I was asked if I was a soldier, and upon my reply, all further conversations were re-fused, and I was ordered out of the Embassy of His Holiness.... Later I reported my experiences to hun-dreds of people, including the Syndikus of the Catho-lic Bishop of Berlin, Dr. Winter, whom I expressly asked to forward the report to the Holy See....
All of my statements are definitely true. Fully aware of the extraordinary importance of my state-ment before God and humanity, I swear that not one event recorded herein has been exaggerated or in-vented. Everything took place exactly as I have de-scribed it.

The Vatican did not publish this information or make pri-vate or public protest. One of the people Gerstein gave his report to was the Dutch Engineer Ubbink, who made copies and handed one to Cornelis Van der 1-looft, a leader of the Dutch rsistance. Van der 1-looft could simply not
 
 
 

~1
373
 
 

Nazism and the Holocaust

 believe the story 1-fe wrote the following on his copy:
“The following quite ghastly, unspeakably cruel and barbarous story has reached us from Poland, with an urgent request to bring it to the notice of all man-kind. Its truth is vouched for by a high-ranking German SS officer, who made the following declara-tion under oath and with the request to publish it.” But Van der Hxtt could not bring himself to publish Gerstein’s document, for it sounded so unbelievable. 2S2 Thus, Gerstein ‘s report and the accompanying note were buried in a backyard until after the war.

Exact details of the camps did not become public knowl-edge until 1945, but enough rumors were present to spur on the desperate attempts of Herr Klepper to try to save his second step-daughter.

Final Diary Selections by Jochen Klepper ~

11 September 1942: Information from our lawyer
Wergin: By November all Jews will be deported from delay hi
Germany. The Fuhrer will is signature to a law
concerning mixed marriages until after the war. Almqvist (Swedish Consul) requests our presence once more in his attempts to get Reni’s exit visa.... So far, he has achieved nothing; appeals, forms, photos--everything which we had already filled out and filed in Stockholm years ago.

28 September 1942: Deportations, deportations-the old, the sick, and now they are no longer just ru-mors, but men and women whom we know. The war was bad enough by itself, and now all this!

5 October 1942: Still more horrifying but indeci-pherable rumors concerning the fate of those de-ported. I can no longer talk about such things even with visitors.... All conversations collapse in the face of the no longer latent threats.

6 and 12 October 1942: Rem’s former fashion-school director, Miss N— came to tea. Her 71 year old infirm mother has now been deported. Day by day new hardships break upon us.... On Monday Reni re-turns from her factory completely depressed. After the brief respite on the week-ends, all the misfortunes of the Jews have descended on her in even more strong fashion. Jews who are protected by “privileged mixed marriages” will no longer receive any meat at
of how frightful they look as a result of
ll and only a few vegetables. There can be no de-worry, fear, and hunger.

28 November 1942: Still on this evening before the Advent season, new pressures break upon us; a new
decree orders a census of all Jews, even those living in privileged mixLd marriages. Now the protection which the Frick letter has offered to Reni will cer-tainly be challenged.

2 December 1942: Still more terrifying rumors; the total destruction of Jewrv in Germany seems now to have entered its final round. What fears must accom-pany our hearts in this Advent season....

5 December 1942: Another day, in which it seems we hold our hearts in our hands.... This morning a telephone call from Almqvist: the Swedish foreign ministry has given permission for Reni’s visa. We could not hide the good news from the child when she came home, even though the most difficult step is still before us; a second audience with Minister Frick.... What can the coming week bring’   Shall it finally end that frightening self-recrimination we have endured so long, namely that we did not send Reni to England with Brigette in 1939?... Hanni is now be-yond tears.

8 December 1942:1 have been to see Frick [Minister of the Interior]. He remembered everything, and he, one of the most important ministers and general plenipotentiary for the entire civil administration, agrees to stand by what he promised me in October 1941: he will help Renata leave Germany. But he can no longer protect her here. No one can do that. And he can no longer write a letter of protection such as he once did—this time not even for Hanni’ He can only advise and promise to assist me in sending my wife to Sweden after Reni. “Your wife is at present still pro-tected by your marriage. But there are forces at work which would dissolve all such marriages, and there-upon will immediately follow the deportation of the Jewish partner.”
These were his exact words. He was very upset and distressed, and paced up and down behind his desk. “I can no longer protect your wife. I can protect no Jews. Such things can no longer be done in secrecy. They would come to the ear of the Fuhrer, and then all hell would break loose.” Against him! Who at one time helped create the very possibility which permit-ted Hitler to be placed in office [On the eve of the presidential elections of 1932, Frick nationalized Hitler as a German citizen.]. The conversation about the forced dissolution of my marriage would not have taken place had I not asked Frick whether I should undertake similar steps to protect my wife. He had al-ready dismissed me, after sending a police major to Ministerial Advisor Draeger requesting him to under-take the next steps with the Security Service (SD)—
 
 
 
 

 this new power, this most dreaded section of the Ge-stapo. From them we must request that Reni be re-leased from the Jewish labor seryice and granted permission to emigrate. Then this is the new, the most difficult and most impregnable force: Frick as Minis-ter of the Interior can no longer grant visas. This power is removed.
In vain, Draeger tried to telephone the two respon-sible men of the SD. So we must wait in even more horrible tension. And now it has come to the point that I must go to the Swedish Consulate for Hanni. Poor Almqvist has a bad job ahead; only a short time ago we had to deciare that none of Reni’s relatives would try to apply for a visa once she had gotten hers. So now I have had to agree that Hanni will with-draw her application should it endanger Reni’s emi-gration, and I will withdraw mine, if it endangers Hanni’s.... God knows that I could not bear to permit Hanni and the child to be taken in this most terrifying and horrible of all deportations. God knows that I would : ot be able to praise Him like Luther: ‘Take away my life, my property. marnage, my child, my wife. Let them fly from me.” Life, property, marriage, yes.. . But God knows that I will take everything, ev-ery test, every judgment, if only I know that Hanni and the child are protected.
Reni has abandoned her thoughts of flight; many are running now, but what frightful measures are be-ing exacted against them and their protectors Should the SD, despite Frick’s interyention, reject her visa, she will die with us; we too, apparently, have only time left for suffering, so close and great is the danger now that we know there is no power behind our “let-ter of protection,” and that we must fill out new ques-tionnaires. Should Reni’s emigration succeed, the child, despite deep sufferings, will at least continue to live, but we will have little time left. I will arrange through Draeger to get as best I can the exact date when the dissolution of marriages will be proclaimed, even if it is only a distant, veiled hint. He has prom-ised me this much. Today, 1 am writing this in the hope that 1, who have so often in my life seen God’s path guiding my way, may one day be able in peace to re-read it. But what now has begun, no one knows any more how it will end.

9 December 1942: This morning Hanni went to Almqvist at the Swedish Consulate to turn in her per-sonal application. This afternoon, I went to see Eichmann of the SD, after Draeger had succeeded in arranging an interview. He believes Eichmann will grant permission and quickly settle the whole affair. Even Eichmann spoke about an immediate departure. That probably means new decrees are forthcoming.
Tomorrow I will learn for certain. He said he must first establish whether any opposition to Reni’s depar-ture existed in Gestapo files.
Eichmann: “I have not given my final approval, but I think things will work out.” Under penalty of Ge-stapo arrest, I have been forbidden to speak about all of this with anyone, should the emigration be permit-ted. For a moment I enter the world of my dreams. Here were men, voices, rooms. Here, here lay power. I was asked whether Hanni would remain in Germany. Me: “I certainly at present cannot see my wife’s situa-tion very clearly.”
Eichmann: “Well, a common emigration of both will certainly not be permitted.” Riddles, within riddles, and so incomprehensible in total. A man of my position before Frick, before the Security Police? Do they regard Hanni as a hostage for her daughter? Will they deny to my wife that which they might per-mit to my step-daughter? Tomorrow afternoon at 3, I have another appointment with Security Police.

10 December 1942: Afternoon, negotiations with the SD. Now we die, it is all now in God’s hand. To-night we go together to our death. During these last hours a picture of the blessing Christ stands over us, encircles us. At this moment, our lives end.

That night, Jochen Kiepper, his wife and step-daughta’ committed suicide to avoid the nightmare that awaited them.

News of the death camps began to filter out almost as soon as they had been formed. Many higher officials in Gennany must have learned rather soon, especially since they had only recently been receiving copies of the Einsatzgrupnen reports. Joseph Goebbels wrote a rather detailed account in his diary

Diary Entry of Joseph Goebbels, 27 March 1942 ~

Beginning with Lublin, the Jews in [Poland] aiw now being evacuated eastward. The procedure is a pretty barbaric one and not to be described here more definitely. Not much will remain of the Jews. On the whole it can be said that about 60% of them will have to be liquidated whereas only about 40% can be used for forced labor. The former Gauleiter of VieflM lGlobocnikl, who is to carry this measure through is doing it with considerable circumspection and ac-cording to a method that does not attract too much ac-tention. A judgment is being visited upon the Jewes that, while barbaric, is fully deseryed by them. The prophesy which the Fuhrer made about them for hav-ing brought on a new world war is beginning to come true in a most terrible manner. One must not be sent
 
 
 
 

 this new power, this most dreaded section of the Ge-stapo. From them we must request that Reni be re-leased from the Jewish labor seryice and granted permission to emigrate. Then this is the new, the most difficult and most impregnable force: Frick as Minis-ter of the Interior can no longer grant visas. This power is removed.
In vain, Draeger tried to telephone the two respon-sible men of the SDc So we must wait in even more horrible tension. And now it has come to the point that I must go to the Swedish Consulate for Hannic Poor Almqvist has a bad job ahead; only a short time ago we had to deciare that none of Reni’s relatives would try to apply for a visa once she had gotten hers. So now I have had to agree that Hanni will with-draw her application should it endanger Reni’s emi-gration, and I will withdraw mine, if it endangers Hanni’s.... God knows that I could not bear to permit Hanni and the child to be taken in this most terrifylng and horrible of all deportations. God knows that I would : ot be able to praise Him like Luther: “Take away my life, my property, marriage, my child, my wife. Let them fly from me.” Life, property, marriage, yes. c . But God knows that I will take everything, ev-ery test, every judgment, if only I know that Hanni and the child are protected.
Reni has abandoned her thoughts of flight; many are running now, but what frightful measures are be-ing exacted against them and their protectors. Should the SD, despite Frick’s interyention, reject her visa, she will die with us; we too, apparently, have only time left for suffering, so close and great is the danger now that we know there is no power behind our “let-ter of protection,” and that we must fill out new ques-tionnaires. Should Reni’s emigration succeed, the child, despite deep sufferings, will at least continue to live, but we will have little time left. I will arrange through Draeger to get as best I can the exact date when the dissolution of marriages will be proclaimed, even if it is only a distant, veiled hint. He has prom-ised me this muchc Today, 1 am writing this in the hope that I, who have so often in my life seen God’s path guiding my way, may one day be able in peace to re-read it. But what now has begun, no one knows any more how it will end.

9 December 1942: This morning Hanni went to Almqvist at the Swedish Consulate to turn in her per-sonal application. This afternoon, I went to see Eichmann of the SD, after Draeger had succeeded in arranging an interview. He believes Eichmann will grant permission and quickly settle the whole affair. Even Eichrnann spoke about an immediate departure. That probably means new decrees are forthcoming.
Tomorrow I will learn for certain. He said he must first establish whether any opposition to Reni’s depar-ture existed in Gestapo files.
Eichmann: “I have not given my final approval, but I think things will work out.” Under penalty of Ge-stapo arrest, I have been forbidden to speak about all of this with anyone, should the emigration be permit-ted. For a moment I enter the world of my dreams. Here were men, voices, rooms. Here, here lay power. I was asked whether Hanni would remain in Germany. Me: “I certainly at present cannot see my wife’s situa-tion very clearly.”
Eichmann: “Well, a common emigration of both will certainly not be permitted.” Riddles, within riddles, and so incomprehensible in total. A man of my position before Prick, before the Security Police? Do they regard Hanni as a hostage for her daughter? Will they deny to my wife that which they might per-mit to my step-daughter? Tomorrow afternoon at 3, I have another appointment with Security Police.

10 December 1942: Afternoon, negotiations with the SD. Now we die, it is all now in God’s hand. To-night we go together to our death. During these last hours a picture of the blessing Christ stands over us, encircles us. At this moment, our lives end.

That night, Jochen Klepper, his wife and step-daughter committed suicide to avoid the nightmare that awaited them.

News of the death camps began to filter out almost as soon as they had been formed. Many higher officials in Germany must have learned rather sxn, especially since they had only recently been receiving copies of the Einsatzgrupnen reports. Joseph Goebbels wrote a rather detailed account in his diary.

Diar Entry of Joseph Goebbels, 27 March 1942 ~

Beginning with Lublin, the Jews in [Poland] aiw now being evacuated eastward. The procedure is a pretty barbaric one and not to be described here more definitely. Not much will remain of the Jews. On tit whole it can be said that about 60% of them will have to be liquidated whereas only about 40% can be used for forced labor. The former Gauleiter of VieflM fGlobocnik], who is to carry this measure througK is doing it with considerable circumspection and ac-cording to a method that does not attract too much at-tention. A judgment is being visited upon the Jewes that, while barbaric, is fully deseryed by them. The prophesy which the Fuhrer made about them for hav-ing brought on a new world war is beginning to come true in a most terrible manner. One must not be senti-
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 mental in these matters. If we did not fight the Jews, they would destroy us. It’s a life-and-death struggle between the Aryan race and the Jewish bacillus. No other government and no other regime would have the strength for such a global solution of this ques-tion. Here, too, the Fuhrer is the undismayed cham-pion of a radical solution necessitated by conditions and therefore inexorable. Fortunately a whole series of possibilities presents itself for us in war time that would be denied us in peace time. We shall have to profit by this.
The ghettos that will be emptied in the cities of [Po-land] will now be refilled with Jews thrown out of the Reich. This process is to be repeated from time to time. There is nothing funny in it for the Jews, and the fact that Jewry’s representatives in England and America are today organizing and sponsoring the war a2ainst Germany must be paid for dearly by its repre-sentatives in Europe—and that’s only right.

Jewish authorities in Switzerland also informed London and Washington, with very accurate details.

Gerhard Riegner Telegram to Foreign Office and State Department, July 1942 ~‘

RECEIVED ALARMING REPORT THAT IN
FUHRER’S HEADQUARTERS PLAN DISCUSSED
AND UNDER CONSIDERATION ACCORDING TO
WHICH ALL JEWS IN COUNTRIES OCCUPIED OR
CONTROLLED GERMANY NUMBERING 3 1/2-4
MILLIONS SHOULD AFTER DEPORTATION AND
CONCENTRATION IN EAST BE EXTERMINATED
AT ONE BLOW TO RESOLVE ONCE FOR ALL THE
IFWISH QUESTION IN EUROPE stop THE ACTION
REPORTED PLANNED FOR AUTUMN stop METH-ODS UNDER DISCUSSION INCLUDING PRUSSIC
ACID stop WE TRANSMIT INFORMATION WITH
ALL RESERVATION AS EXACTITUDE CANNOT BE
CONFIRMED stop INFORMANT STATED TO HAVE
CLOSE CONNECTIONS WITH HIGHEST GERMAN
AUTHORITIES AND HIS REPORTS GENERALLY
SPEAKING RELIABLE

The Allies also took no action. Reports were also circulat-ing among average Germans. Almost simultaneously with the Gerstein visit and the leak to Switzerland, a young c4ustrian infantryman confided to his diary his experi-ences. Returning to the Russian front, he witnessed a transport of Jews from Warsaw to the Death Camp at Treblinka

Hubert Pfoch Diary Entries

21 August 1942 (Siedlce): We arrive in the evening
and are given soup. From time to time we can hear
shooting, and when I got out to see what was hap-pening, I saw, a little distance from our track, a load-ing platform with a huge crowd of people—I estimated about 7,000 men, women and children. All of them were squatting or lying on the ground and whenever anyone tried to get up, the guards began shooting.

22 August 1942: We heard the rumor that these people were a Jewish Transport. They call out to us that they have been traveling without food or water for two days. And then, when they are being loaded into cattle trucks, we become witnesses of the most ghastly scenes. The corpses of those killed the night before were thrown by Jewish auxiliary police onto a truck that came and went four times. The guards— Ukrainian volunteer SS-.--some of them drunk—cram 180 people into each car, parents into one, children into another, they didn’t care how they separated families. They scream at them, shoot and hit them so viciously that some of their rifle-butts break. When all of them are finally loaded there are cries from all cars —“Water,” they pleaded, “my gold ring for wa-ter.” Others offered us 5,000 zlotys for a cup of water. When some of them manage to climb out through the ventilating holes, they are shot the moment they reach the ground—a massacre that made us sick to our souls, a blood-bath such as I never dreamed of.
A mother jumps down with her baby and calmly looks into a pointing gun-barrel—a moment later we hear the guard who shot them boast to his fellows that he managed to “do” them both with one shot through both their heads. When at last the train leaves the station, at least fifty dead women, men, and children, some of them totally naked, lie along the track.

Pfoch ‘s train was delayed for several more hon rs before it
followed the same route taken by the Transport.

We continued to see corpses on both sides of the track—children and others. They say Treblinka is a “delousing camp.” When we reach Treblinka station the train is next to us again—there is such an awful smell of decomposing corpses in the station, some of us vomit. The begging for water intensifies, the in-discriminate shooting by the guards continues. Three hundred thousand have been assembled here. Every day ten or fifteen thousand are gassed and bumed.
Any comment is totally superfluous.

If an average soldier could write this in his diarcul, rumors of what was going on in the East must have been fairli, common. Of course precise details would have been con-sidered top secret.
 
 

 AUSCHWITZ
Unknown to Gerstein—u’ho never mentioned it in his re-port—and to most Germans. Auschwitz, a tiny village outside of Cracow, became the largest of the extennination camps. Combined with a huge labor camp, run by the 55, the first experiments in using Ziiklon B (Prussic Acid—a common disinfectant used in Military installations) were undertaken here. By the summer ot 1942, the Death Camps were in fidi operation. An unusual diary has survived, kept by an 55 Concentration Camp Doctor who in Au-gust 1942 was sent fora three-month stint in Auschwitz.

Born in 1884, Johann Kremer was probably the oldest 55 man ever on duty at Auschwitz. A veteran of the first world war, he obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Berlin, and, in 1919 a joint Ph.D. in Biology and an MD. In 1929 he became Professor of Anatomyat Mknster University. He joined the party in 1932, thefirstMiinster Professor to do so, and the 55 in 1935 , receiving the rank of Second-Lieutenant. After the war, Dr. Kremer was tried by a Polish War Crimes Tribunal, and this diar~~ was in-troduced into evidence against him. His testimony at the trial is included immediately after the diary entry (with the date of the testimony).

Diary Entries of SS-Second-Lieutenant and Profes-sor Johann Paul Kremer MD, Ph.D 2~5

30 August 1942: Departure from Prague 813 am, through B6hmisch Trubau, Olmutz, Prerau, Oderberg. Arrival at Concentration Camp Auschwitz 5~ pm. Quarantine in camp on account of diseases (typhus, malaria, diarrhea). Received top secret in-struction order through the garrison physician SS-Captain Kurt Uhlenbrock and got accommodations in a room (no. 26) in the VVaffen-SS Club House.

31 August 1942: Tropical climate, 82.4~ degrees in the shade, dust and innumerable flies! Excellent food in the SS-Home. This evening, for 40 pfennige, we had sour duck livers, with stuffed tomatoes, tomato salad, etc. Water is infected, so we drink seltzer wa-ter which is served free. First inoculation for tvphus. Had photo taken for camp identity card.

1 September 1942: Have ordered by letter to Berlin, an 55 officer’s cap, sword-belt and suspenders [since he has lust been promoted to Lieutenantj. In the afternoon was present at the disinfection of a block witi’ Zyklon B against lice.

2 September 1942: Was present for the first time for a Special Action at 3 am. (957 Jews arrived from the Concentration Camp at Drancv. France; 12 men and 27 women were selected for the work camp, the rest were sent
to be gassed.I Auxhwitz is justly called an extermina-tion camp.

18 August 1947: These mass murders took place in small cottages situated outside the Birkenau camp in a wood. These cottages were called bunkers in the SS slang. All SS surgeons on duty in the camp took turns to participate in the gassings which were called Sonderaktion. My part as surgeon in the gassing consisted in remaining in readiness near the bunker. I was brought there in a car and sat in front with the driver, and an SS orderly sat in the back with an oxygen apparatus to revive SS men employed at the gassing, in case any of them should succumb to the poisonous fumes. When the transport with people who were destined for gassing arrived at the railway ramp, the SS officers selected from among the arrivals persons fit to work and the rest—old people, all children, women with children in arms and other persons not deemed fit to work—were loaded upon lorries and dnven to the gas-chambers. I used to follow behind the transport until we reached the bunker. There people were first driven to barracks where the victims undressed and then went naked to the gas-chambers. Very often no incidents occurred, as the SS men kept the people quiet, maintaining that they were to bathe and be deloused. After driving all of them into the gas-chamber the door was closed and an SS man in a gas-mask threw the contents of a Zyklon tin through an opening in the side wall. Shouting and screaming of the victims could be heard through the opening and it was clear that they fought for their lives. These shouts were heard for a very short time, I should say for some minutes, but I am unable to give the exact span of time.

5 September 1942: This noon was present at a Spe-cial Action in the women’s camp (“Moslems”)—the most horrible of all horrors. SS-Captain Dr. Heinz Thilo, military surgeon, is right when he said today to me that we were located here in the “asshole of the world.”

18 July 1947: Particularly unpleasant was the ac-tion of gassing emaciated women from the women’s camp. Such individuals were generally called Moslems. I remember taking part in the gas-sing of such women in daylight.... When I came 10 the bunker they sat clothed on the ground. Since the clothes were in fact worn-out camp clothes they were not let into the undressing barracks but un— dressed in the open. I could deduce from the be-havior of these women that they realized what W88
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 awaiting them. They begged the SS men to be al-lowed to live, they wept, but all of them were driven to the gas chamber and gassed. Being a Pro-fessor of Anatomy, I had seen many horrors having to do with corpses, but what I saw that day was not to be compared with anything I’d seen before. It was under the influence of these impressions that I had used ... this expression because I could not imagine anything more sickening and more hor-rible.

In the evening at about 8 pm another Special Ac-tion with a draft from Holland [774 Jews from Westerbork; 53 women were sent to the work camp, the rest of the transport were dispatched to the gas chambers.]. Men compete to take part in such Actions, since they then get additional rations—I /5 liter of vodka, 5 cigarettes, 100 grams of sausage and bread. Today and tomorrow (Sunday) on duty.

6 September 1942: Today an excellent Sunday din-ner: tomato soup, one half chicken, with potatoes and red cabbage (20 grams of butter), dessert and magnificent vanilla ice-cream. After dinner we wel-comed the new garrison doctor, SS-Captain Wirth from Waldbrol....
It is a week since I came to the camp and I still have not been able to get rid of fleas in my room, in spite of using all kinds of insecticides, such as Flit (Cu prex) etc. ... In the evening at 8 o’clock at another SpeciJ Action outdoors [981 Jews from Drancy, France; 16 men and 38 women of this transport were admitted to the work camp. The rest were killed in the gas-chamber.I.

20 September 1942: This Sunday afternoon I lis-tened from 3 pm till 6 to a concert of the prisoners’ band in glorious sunshine. The bandmaster was a conductor of the State Opera in Warsaw. 80 musi-cians. Roast pork for dinner; baked fish for supper.

23 September 1942: This night was present at the
6th and 7th Special Actions [The first consisted of Jews from Slovalcia, of whom 294 men and 67 women were sent to the work camp; the second was a transport of Jews from Drancy, France, of whom 65 men and I 44 women were admitted to the work details. The rest from both transports were killed.]. SS-Lieutenant General PohI [head of the SS Economic Administration Main Office of the Con-centration Camp Inspectoratel with suite arrived at
the Waffen-SS Clubhouse in the moming. The sentinel at the door presented arms in front of me for the first time. At 8 o’clock in the Home with SS-Lieutenant-General Pohl, a truly festive meal. We had baked pike, as much as we wanted, real coffee, excellent beer and sandwiches.
12 October 1942: My second inoculation against typhus produced a strong reaction in the evening..(fe-ver). In spite of that was present at night at another Special Action with a draft from Holland (1,600 per-sons) [In fact, 1,703 Dutch Jews were brought to Auschwitz of whom 344 men and women were sent to the work camp, and the rest were killed.]. Horrible scene in front of the last bunker! This was my 10th Special Action.

18 July 1947: In connection with this gassing ... I have to explain that about 1,600 Dutch persons were then gassed. This is an approximate number which I put down in my diary after hearing it men-tioned by others. This Action was conducted by SS Officer Hossler. I remember how he had tried to drive the whole group into one bunker. He was successful except for one man whom it was not by any means possible to squeeze inside the bunker. This man was then killed by Hossler with a pistol shot. Therefore I wrote in my diary about horrible scenes in front of the last bunker.

18 October 1942: In wet and cold weather was on this Sunday morning present at my 11th Special Ac-tion (from Holland) [1,710 Dutch Jews, of whom 116 women were sent to the work camp; the rest were killed.I. Terrible scenes when 3 women begged to have their bare lives spared.

18 July 1947: During this Special Action ... three women from Holland refused to enter the gas-chamber and begged for their lives. They were young and healthy women, but their begging was of no avail. SS men taking part in the Action shot them on the spot.

8 November 1942: This night took part in two Spe-cial Actions in rain and murky weather (my 12th and 13th) [Apparently this consisted of Jews from the transit Camp at Lublin. 25 men were sent to work, the rest were gassed.]. In the late morning I welcomed in the hospi-tal, SS-Corporal Kitt, a pupil of mine from Essen. Another Special Action in the afternoon, the 14th so far in which I have participated [This transport con-sisted of 990 Jews fro?n Drancy, France; 145 men and 82 women were sent to the camp as workers and the rest killed.]. In the evening a cozy gathering to which I was invited by Dr. Wirth, now in residence. We had Bulgarian red wine and plum brandy from Croatia.

Far from being ashamed of their brutality, the SS were taught to revel in it. What follows is a remnarkable speech delivered before numerous officers of the SS.
 

 Extract from Heinrich Himmler’s Speech in Posen, 4 October 1943 ~‘

The Evacuation of the Jews

I also want to talk to you, quite frankly, on a very grave matter. Among ourselves it should be men-tioned quite frankly, and yet we will never speak of it publicly. Just as we did not hesitate on 30 June 1934 to do the duty we were bidden, and stand comrades who had lapsed, up against the wall and shoot them [the so-called ROhni putschl, so we have never spoken about it and will never speak of it. It was that tact which is a matter of course and which, I am glad to say, is inherent in us, that made us never discuss it among ourselves, never speak of it. It appalled every-one, and vet everyone was certain that he would do it the next time, ii such orders were issued and if it was necessary.
I mean the evacuation of the Jews, the extermina-tion of the Jewish race. It’s one of those things easy to talk about: “The Jewish race is being exterminated,” says one Party Member, “that’s quite clear. It’s in our program—elimination of the Jews, and we’re doing it, exterminating them.” And then they come, 80 million worthy Germans and each one has his decent Jew. Of course, the others are vermin, but this one of mine is an A-I Jew. Not one of all those who talk this way has watched it, not one of them has gone through it. Most of you must now know what it means when 100 corpses are lying side by side, or 500 or 1,000. To have stuck it out and at the same time—apart from excep-tions caused by human weakness—to have remained decent fellows, that is what has made us hard. This is a page of glory in our history which has never been written and is never to be written, for we know how difficult we should have made it for ourselves, if with the bombing raids, the burdens and the deprivations of war, we still had Jews today in every town as secret saboteurs, agitators. and trouble-mongers. We would now probably have reached the 1917-1918 stage when the Jews were still in the German national body.
We have taken from them what wealth they had. I have issued a strict order, which SS-Lieutenant-Gen-eral PohI has carried out, that this wealth should, as a matter of course, be handed over to the Reich without reserye. We have taken none of it for ourselves. Indi-vidual men who have lapsed will be punished in ac-cordance with an order I issued at the beginning, which gave this warning: whoever takes so much as a Mark of it, is a dead man. A number of SS men—there are not very many of them—have fallen short, and they will die without mercy. We had the moral right, we had the duty to our people, to destroy this people, which wanted to destroy us. But we have not the right
to enrich ourselves with so much as a fur, a watch, a Mark, or a cigarette, or anything else. Because we have exterminated a germ, we do not want, in the end, to be infected by that germ and die of it. I will not see so much as a small area of blood poisoning to appear here or gain a hold. Wherever it may form, we will cauterize it. Altogether, however, we can say that we have fulfilled this most difficult duty for the love of our people. And our spirit, our soul, our character, has not suffered injury from it.

Except for the brief diary of Dr. Kremner, no contemporary description of the extermination process at Auschwitz has come to light. But in addition to the guards, SS soldiers sometimes visited the installations. The next document is a post-war affidavit of one such visitor, a Corporal in the Waffen-SS, who was attached to a transport division. Here, he recalls the day he was invited by his friend Karl 1-Ibblinger to watch an Action at the gas chamber in Auschwitz.

Richard Bock Post-War Affidavit ~

We went into the hall and the so-called prisoners, the new arrivals, had to get undressed. And then the order came: “Prepare for disinfection.” There were enormous great piles of clothing in there, and there was a board running around so that the piles didn’t all collapse. And the new arrivals, Dutch people, they had to stand on top of this great heap of clothes and get undressed. Lots of them hid their children under the clothes and covered them up.
Some of them stood with the clothes pulled up round their legs because it was very cold—it was the beginning of winter. Well, then they shouted “Get ready,” and they all went out. And then they had to run, naked, approximately sixty yards from the hall across to Bunker One. There were two doors there, standing open, and they went in there and when a certain number had gone inside they shut the doors. And that happened three times.
And every time, Hoblinger had to go out to hiS ambulance, and one of the SS block leaders took out a sort of tin ifrom the ambulancel, and then he climbed up the ladder Ion the buildingi and at the top there was a round hole and he opened a little iron door and held the tin there and shook it. And then he shut the little door again. Then a fearful screaming started up—approximately, I would reckon after about ten minutes, it slowly went quiet.
I said to Hoblinger: “Can we get a bit nearer when they take them out?” So we went over a bit closer. They opened the door—that was the prisoner squad who did that—then a blue haze came out. And I looked in, and I saw a pyramid. They had all climbed
 
 

$1
379
 
 

Nazism and the Holocaust

 up on top of each other until the last one stood at the very roof, all one on top of the others. It was a pointed heap, it all came up to a point. And then the [Jewish prisoners] had to go in and tear it apart. I tell you ... all tangled. One had his arm down by another’s foot, and then round it and back up again and his fingers were sticking in someone else’s eve, so deep. They were all so tangled. They had to rug and pull very hard to disentangle all these people.
Then we went back to the hall, and now it was the turn of the last lot to get undressed—the ones who had managed to hang back a bit all the time. One woman said something—meaning perhaps that it was cold—something like that, and then I did understand a word, that she wasn’t used to this sort of thing, and I thought to myself: “Dear Lady, I believe you that you’re not used to this sort of thing!” And one girl with beautiful black hair, a beautiful girl—she was crouching there and didn’t want to get undressed. And an SS man came up and said “I suppose you don’t want to get undressed?” And she tossed her hair back and laughed a little. Then he went away and came back with two [Jewish] prisoners and they literally tore her clothes off her, then they each grabbed an arm and they dragged her out and across to the Bunker and pushed her in there.
Then the prisoners had to check where small chil-dren had been hidden and covered up [in the clothes piles]; they pulled them out and opened the doors quickly again and boooomph! They threw all the chil-dren in and slammed the door. “Brr. I’m going to be sick,” I said. “Oh my,” I said, “Karl, I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. It’s absolutely terrible.”
And just imagine—when they threw the children in how the people inside screamed, because then they suddenly realized what was happening. And I said, “Karl, can we leave soon—i can’t stand it any more. And he said, “Yes, I feel like that too, but I must stay until they have collected all the empty tins and put them in the ambulance —I have to take them back.’~
Hoblinger said he didn’t like doing this duty at all, and he really didn’t enjoy it, and he would prefer be-ing in the transport section to being in the guard corn-panv. “But,” he said, “You do get used to anything in time.”

A second eve-witness was of course Commandant Hoess himself. The following excewt is from his rxjst-u’ar test-mony
1. 1 am forty-six years old, and have been a member of the NSDAP since 1922; a member of the SS since 1934; a member of the VVaffen SS sine 1939. 1 was a member from 1 December 1934 of the SS Guard Unit, the so-called Skull and Crossbones Formation.
2. 1 have been constantly associated with the admin-istration of Concentration Camps since 1934, serv-ing at Dachau until 1938; then as Adjutant in Sachsenhausen from 1938 to 1 May 1940, when I was appointed Commandant at Auschwitz. I commanded Auschwitz until 1 December 1943, and estimate that at least 2,500,000 victims were executed and exterminated there by gassing and burning and at least another half-million suc-cumbed to starvation and disease, making a total dead of 3,000,000. This figure represents about 70 or 80 per cent of all persons sent to Auschwitz as prisoners, the remainder having been selected and used for slave labor in the Concentration Camp industries. Included among the executed and burnt were approximately 20.000 Russian prisoners of war (previously screened out of POW cages by the Gestapo) who were delivered at Auschwitz in Wehrmacht transports operated by regular Wehrmacht officers and men. The remain-der of the total number were citizens, mostly Jew-ish, from Holland, France, Belgium, Poland. Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Greece, or other coun-tries. We executed about 400,000 Hungarian Jews alone at Auschwitz in the summer of 1944....
4. Mass executions by gassing commenced during the summer of 1941 and continued until the fall of 1944. I personally supervised executions at Auschwitz until the first of December 1943, and know by reason of my continued duties in the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps lHeadquar-tersi that these executions continued as stated above....
6. The “Final Solution” of the Jewish question meant the complete extermination of all Jews in Europe. I was ordered to establish exterminauon facilities at Auschwitz in June 1941(19421*. At that time there were already in the General Government [in Poland] three other extermination camps: Belcec, Treblinka, and Wolzek. These camps were under the Einsatzko?nmando of the Security Police and the SD. I visited Treblinka to find out how they car-ried out their exterminations. The Camp Com-mander at Treblinka told me that he had
Affidavit of Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Hoess, Com-mandant of Auschwitz, 5 April 1946 ~

 I, Rudolf Hoess, being first duly sworn, depose and say as follows:
 Hoess seems to nave misdated this report. From otner documents it seems ciear that gassing ot jews began in 1942.
 

I
 

 liquidated 80,000 in the course of one half-year. He was principally concerned with liquidating all the Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto. He used mon-oxide gas and I did not think that his methods were very efficient. So when I set up the extermi-nation buildings at Auschwitz, I used Zyklon B, which was a crystallized Prussic Acid which we dropped from a small opening. It took from 3 to 15 minutes to kill the people in the death cham-ber, depending upon climatic conditioins. We knew when the people were dead because their screaming stopped. We usually waited about one-half hour before we opened the doors and re-moved the bodies. After the bodies were removed, our special commandos took dif the rings and extracted the gold from the teeth of the corpses.
7. Another improvement we made over Treblinka was that we built our gas chambers to accommo-date 2.000 people at one time, whereas at Treblinka their 10 gas chambers only accommo-dated 200 people each. The way we selected our victims was as follows: we had two SS doctors on duty at Auschwitz to examine the incoming trans-ports of prisoners. The prisoners would be
marched by one of the doctors who would make spot decisions as they walked by. Those who were fit for work were sent into the camp. Others were sent immediately to the extermination plants. Children of tender years were invariably extermi-nated since by reason of their youth they were un-able to work. Still another improvement we made over Treblinka was that at Treblinka the victims almost always knew that they were to be extermi-nated, and at Auschwitz we endeavored to fool the victims into thinking that they were going through a delousing process. Of course, fre-quently they realized our true intentions and we sometimes had riots and difficulties due to that fact. Very frequently women would hide their children under their clothes, but of course when we found them we would send the children to be exterminated. We were required to carry out these exterminations in secrecy, but of course the foul and nauseating stench from the continuous burn-ing of bodies permeated the enure area and all of the people living in the surrounding communities knew that exterminations were going on at Auschwitz.

from John Heineman, European History (Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall Publishing, 1994)

 For the financial problems:
a. Heavy progressive tax on capital.
b. Confiscation of all real estate belonging to reli-gious orders....
c. Confiscation of 85% of all war profits.

Led by Mussolini, in its Rome Congress of 1921, the Fas-cist Movement officially combined with the Conservatives to become the National Fascist Party. Significantly, much of the overt Socialism of the earlier days was now muted, as was its anti-Catholicism. Integral Nationalism seemed
to be the new watchword.

Official Program of the National Fascist Party,
7-10 November 1921 227

Foundations
Fascism has been organized into a political party in order to re-inforce its discipline and to distinguish its individual “credo.” The Nation is not the simple sum of living individuals nor the instrument of parties for their own ends, but an organism which includes an indefinite series of generations of whom single indi-viduals are passing elements. It is the supreme syn-thesis of all the material and immaterial values of the race. The State is the juridical incarnation of the Na-tion. Political Institutions are efficacious forms insofar as the national values find in them expression and guidance. The autonomous values of both individual and groups of individuals, expressed in organized, collective persons (families, communes, corporations, etc.) will be promoted, developed, and defended, al-ways within the context of the Nation to which they are subordinate.
The National Fascist Party affirms that, in the present historic moment, the dominant form of social organization in the world is the National Society and that the essential law of life in the world is not the unification of the various Societies into one, single, immense Society, “Humanity” as the internationalistic doctrine believes, but the fertile and auspicious peaceful competition among the various National Societies.

The State
The State is reduced to its essential functions of the Political and judicial order. The State must invest [all Political associations] with ability and responsibility, conferring also to the professional and economic cor-Porations the right of elections to a body of National Technical Councils. Hence the powers and functions currently attributed to Parliament must be limited. In the competence of Parliament are those problems Which regard the individual as citizen of the State and
the State as the organ of realization and guidance of the supreme national interests. In the competence of the National Technical Councils are the problems which refer to the various forms of activity of indi-viduals in their capacity as producers.
The State is sovereign: and that sovereignty can not nor should it be corroded or diminished by the Church to which must be guaranteed the most ample liberty in the exercise of its spiritual mission.

The Corporations
Fascism cannot contest the historic fact of the de-velopment of Corporations, but it wishes to coordi-nate that development in accordance with the national ends. The Corporations will be promoted ac-cording to two fundamental objectives: and that is as the expression of national solidarity and as the means of development of production. The Corporations must not lead to the negation of the individual in the collective, levelling arbitrarily the capacities and ef-forts of the individual; on the contrary. they must lead to the enhancement and development of those capaci-ties and efforts.
The National Fascist Party proposes ... the follow-ing basic principles in favor of the working ... classes:

1. The enactment of a State Law which sanctions for all salaried workers a “legal” average day of eight hours, with eventual exceptions suggested by ag-ricultural or industrial necessities.
2. A social legislation updated according to current necessities, particularly concerning ... accidents, disability and old age, whether the workers be ag-ricultural or industrial, or employees, provided that production is not impeded.
3. A representation of workers in the functioning of every industry, restricted to that which concerns personnel.
4. Assignment of the administration of industries or public services to union organizations which are morally worthy and technically prepared.
5. The diffusion of small private property in those areas and for those crops which will allow it pro-ductively.

Main Points of Domestic Policy
The National Fascist Party intends to elevate politi-cal behavior to full dignity so that public and private morals will cease to find themselves in conflict in the life of the Nation.... The prestige of the National State will be restored, namely, so that the State will not stand by indifferently ... to forces which promote the material or spiritual enfeeblement of the body politic. Instead the State will be the jealous guardian, de-

   294 Chapter Ten

fender, and propagator of the national tradition, na-tional sentiment, national will. The liberty of the citi-zen finds a double limit in the liberty of other juridical persons and in the sovereign right of the Na-tion to live and to develop itself....

Main Points of Foreign Policy
Italy re-affirms the right to her complete historical and geographical unity, even where it is not vet achieved. She will fulfill her function as bulwark of Latin civilization in the Mediterranean; she affirms the sway of her law over peoples of different nation-alities annexed to a solid and stable italy. She will give valid guidance to Italians abroad to whom must be granted the right of political representation.
Fascism does not believe in the vitality or the prin-ciples which inspire the so-called League of Nations, because not all Nations are represented there and those that are do not find themselves on an equal footing.... The commercial expansion and the political influence of international treaties must lead to a greater diffusion of itaiwnita in the world. Interna-tional treaties will be reviewed and modified in those parts which are clearly inapplicable and, therefore, regulated according to the requirements of the na-tional and world economy....

Main Points of Social Policy
Fascism recognizes the social function of private property which is both a right and a responsibility. It is the form of administration which Society has del-egated historically to individuals for the increment of its own patrimony. The National Fascist Party, con-fronted with socialist projects of reconstruction based on a collectivist economy. places itself firmly on the ground of historic and national reality which does not admit to a single form of agricultural or industrial economy and declares itself favorable to those forms—be they individualistic or of any other type— which guarantee the maximum of production and the maximum of well-being.
The National Fascist Party proposes a regime which, prodding the initiatives and energies of indi-viduals (which form the most powerful and hardworking factor of economic production), favors the growth of national wealth with an absolute renun-ciation of all the costly uneconomic machinery of na-tionalizations, socializations, etc.

Educational Policy
The School must have as a general aim the forma-tion of persons capable of guaranteeing the economic and historic progress of the Nation....
To that end are directed the following provisions:
i
1. Intensification of the fight against illiteracy, with the construction of schools and access roads....
3. A rigorously national character for the element~y schools in such a manner that they can prepare physically and morally the future soldiers of ItaIy. Therefore, rigid control of the State over pro-grams, over the choice of teachers and over their work, particularly in those areas dominated by anti-national parties.
4. Free middle school and university education, with State control of programs and the spirit of instruc-tion. [This will not interfere with] the duty of the State to provide for pre-military instruction aimed at facilitating the formation of officers.

Organization
Fascism in action is an organism, comprising three aspects: a) politics, b) economics, and c) combat.... As an organization of combat, the National Fascist Party is indivisible from its squads: the voluntary militia at the service of the national State, the living force in which the Fascist Ideal is incarnated and by which it is defended.

Using the Blackshirts, his protective squads, Mussolini proceeded toalternatively y threaten and woo the Ital ian elec torate, which reeled from one governmental crisis tc another. By 1922, he was demanding full power for him-self and his party.

Benito Mussolini Speech to a Fascist Conference, 20 September 1922

I am sure you would not expect from me a speed that was not exquisitely Fascist:—harsh, frank, tough and cut to the bare bones. ... Let us [begin with one theme—discipline. I am in favor of rigid discipline We must impose on ourselves the most ironclad disci pline, because otherwise we shall not have the right to impose it on the nation. And it is only through disci pline of the nation that Italy can make itself felt in the arena of other nations. Discipline must be accepted and when it is not accepted, it must be imposed....
And now I come to the subject of violence. Violence is not immoral. Violence is sometimes moral. We deny the right of all our enemies to complain about our vio lence, because compared to what was committed dur ing the unhappy years of 1919 and 1920, and compared to what the Bolsheviks did in Russia, where two million people were executed and another two million are languishing in prison, our violence child’s play. On the other hand, our violence is effec tive.... When our violence is effective in a cancerous situation, it is most moral, sacrosanct, and necessary But, oh my Fascist friends, ... violence must b
 

/
‘4’
 

 adapted to the needs of the moment, not made into a cult, a doctrine, or a sport.
Another theme which may lend hope to our en-emies is that of the masses. You know that I do not worship the new divinity—the masses. It is a creation of democracy and of socialism.... History teaches that it is always minorities, small at the beginning, who have produced profound upheavals in human society. We do not worship the masses, even if they come en-dowed with every kind of sacrosanct callus on their hands and brains....
They ask us what is our program. Our program is Italy.... It
simple. We want to govern sn’t programs of
salvation that Italy needs. It is men and determina-tion! (Applause) ...What is the over-all attitude of Fas-cism towards political institutions? Our attitude in the face of political institutions is not binding in any sense. After all, perfect regimes exist only in the books of philosophers.... Political forms cannot be approved or disapproved on permanent grounds, but must be examined in the light of the relationship they have to the state of the economy and to the spiritual outlook of a given people....

The crisis deepened as Mussolini threatened to march on Rome with his Blackshirts unless he were given power. He delivered the following speech on the eve of the proposed march.

Benito Mussolini Speech, 24 October 1922

Fascists! Citizens! ... We have come to Naples from every part of Italy in order to carry out a rite of frater-nity and love.... All of Italy is looking at our conven-tion because—let me say it without that false modesty which is sometimes the umbrella of imbeciles—there does not exist in postwar Europe or the world, a phe-nomenon that is more interesting, more original, more powerful than Italian Fascism....
To the question, “Fascists, what do you want?” we have already replied very simply: We want the disso-lution of the Chamber of Deputies, electoral reform, elections in the very near future. We have asked that the State abandon its grotesque attitude of neutrality toward the national and anti-national forces within it. We have asked for drastic financial measures ... and five [cabinet positions] (Foreign Affairs, War, Navy, Labor, and Public Works). I am sure that none of you will think these demands excessive....
What was the reply? Nothing! Worse still, they an-swered in a ridiculous way ... talked of ministries without portfolio ... of assistant ministries—all of which is contemptible. We Fascists have no intention of getting into the government through the back door, of selling our wonderful birthright for a miserable
 mess of ministerial pottage! (Vigorous, prolonged am plause) For we take what can be termed a historical view of the problem, in contrast to what can be called a purely political and parliamentary one.... In the final analysis, what separates us from democracy is our mentality, our method. Democracy holds that prin-ciples are fixed, that they are applicable at all times, in all places, in all eventualities. We don’t believe that history repeats itself; we don’t believe that history fol-lows a hard and fast itinerary; we don’t believe that after democracy there must ensue super-democracy. If democracy was useful and profitable for the nation in the 19th centurv, it may well be that in the 20th cen-tury some other political system will give greater strength to the national community (“Fine!”).
We have created our own myth. That myth is a faith, it is a passion. It isn’t necessary that it be a real-ity. It is a reality by virtue of the fact that it is a fist, that it is a hope, that it is a faith, that it is courage. Our myth is the nation. Our myth is the greatest of the na-tion. And it is this myth, this grandeur, that we want to translate into a comprehensive reality and subordi-nate everything to it. For us the nation is not just a ter-ritorial thing~ above everything else, it is a spiritual thing. There have been states that possessed immense territories that did not leave behind the slightest trace in human history. It isn’t a mere question of numbers, because there have been in history some very small, microscopic states that have left behind memorable and imperishable documents in art and philosophy. The greatness of the nation is the complex of all these manly virtues, of all these conditions. A nation is great when it translates the strength of its spirit into reality....

Mussolini’s First Speech as Premier, 16 November 1922 ‘~

Gentlemen: ... To the melancholy zealots of the su-per-constitutionalists, I shall leave the task of making their more or less pitiful lamentations about recent events. For my part, I insist that revolution has its rights. And so that everyone may know, I should like to add that I am here to defend and enforce in the highest degree the Blackshirts’ revolution, and to in-ject it into the history of the nation as a force for de-velopment, progress, and equilibrium (Lively applause from the right). I could have abused my victory, but I refused to do so. I imposed limits on myself. I told myself that the better wisdom is that which does not lose control of itself after victory. With 300,000 youths armed to the teeth, fully determined and almost mys-tically ready to act on any command of mine, I could have punished all those who defamed and tried to sully Fascism (Approval from the right). I could have

  , j~t~

.~—
 296 Chapter Ten

 transformed this drab, silent hall into a bivouac for my squads. ... (Loud applause from the right; cries of “Long live Parliament” from the extremne left).... I could have barred the doors of Parliament and formed a government exclusively of Fascists. I could have done so; but I chose not to, at least not for the present.
I have formed a coalition government, not indeed with the object of obtaining a parliamentary major-ity—which I can now get along very well without (Applause from the ext reine right and extreme left)—but in order to rally to the support of this suffocating nation all those who, regardless of nuances of party, wish to save this nation....
Before attaining this position I was asked on all sides for a program. Alas! It is not programs that are lacking in Italy; it is the men and the willingness to apply the programs. All the problems of Italian life, all of them I say. have been solved on paper. What is lacking is the will to translate them into fact. Today the Government represents this firm and decisive will.... Gentlemen: Later communications will inform you of the Fascist program.... So long as it is possible for me, I do not want to govern against the Chamber; but the Chamber must understand its special situa-tion, something which makes it liable to dissolution within maybe two days or maybe two years (Laughter. Applause on the right and extreme left).
We ask for full powers because we wish to assume full responsibility.... All of us have a religious concep-tion of our difficult task. The country encourages us and is waiting for us. Let us not give it mere words but deeds. We formally and solemnly pledge to rebal-ance the budget; and we shall rebalance it. We intend to have a foreign policy of peace but at the same time one of dignity and firmness; and we shall have it. We propose to give discipline to the nation; and we shall do so. Let none of our adversaries of yesterday. today, or tomorrow deceive themselves as to our stay in power (Laughter; applause from the right). That would be a childish and foolish delusion, just as were those of the past. Our government has a formidable base in the nation’s conscience and is upheld by the better and fresh Italian generations....
Gentlemen! Don’t shower the country with any more useless chatter! Fifty-two members scheduled to speak on my remarks today are too many! (Hilarity; comments) Instead, let us get to work with pure hearts and alert minds in order to assure prosperity and grandeur to the fatherland. May God help me bring my arduous task to a victorious end! (Vemy vigorous ap-plause from the right and other benches)

Twelve years after seizing power, Mussolini summarized
his doctrine of Fascism.
 Benito Mussolini, Fascism:Doctrine and Institutions, 1935 ~‘

The years which preceded the march on Rome [19221 were years of great difficulty, during which the necessity for action did not permit of research or an’ complete elaboration of doctrine. The battle had to be fought in the towns and villages. There was much dis cussion, but—what was more important and more sa cred—men died. They knew how to die. Doctrinc beautifully defined and carefully elucidated, with headlines and paragraphs, might be lacking; but there was to take place something more decisive—Faith!.. It was precisely in those years that Fascist though’. armed itself, was refined, and began the great task c organization. [It sought to solve] the problem of the relation between the individual citizen and the State the allied problems of authority and liberty, politics and social problems as well as those specifically n~ tional.... And all the while, it continued its struggle against Liberalism, Democracy, Socialism and Ma sonic bodies.... Fascism is now a completely mdi vidual thing, not only as a regime but as a doctrine This means that today. Fascism ... forms its own dis tinct and peculiar point of view ... which confront the world.
Primarily. Fascism, the more it considers and ob serves the future and the development of humanit quite apart from political considerations of the mc ment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utiuit of perpetual peace. It thus repudiates the doctrine c pacifism—born of a renunciation of the struggle ano~ an act of cowardice in the face of sacrifice. War alon brings up to the highest tension all human energy an puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who hay the courage to meet it. All other trials are substitute’. which never really put men into the position wher they have to make the great decision—the alternatlV of life or death. Thus a doctrine which is founde upon this harmful postulate of peace is hostile to Fa~ cism. And thus hostile to the spirit of Fascism, thousg accepted for what use they can be in dealing with pa~ ticular situations, are all the international leagues an’ societies which, as history will show, can be scattel~’ to the winds when once strong national feeling! aroused by any motive- sentimental, ideal, or pract cal. This anti-pacifist spirit is carried by Fascism eve into the life of the individual; the proud motto of the Squadrista, “Me ne frego” [“I don’t give a damn!” written on the bandage of the wounded, is an act C philosophy not only stoic, the summary of a doctril’. not only political—it is the education to combat, tb acceptation of the risks which combat implies~ and new way of life for Italy. Thus the Fascist accepis leif and loves it, knowing nothing of the despising Sus-.~

   The Appeal of Fascism
cide: he rather conceives of life as duty and struggle and conquest, life which should be high and full, leived for oneself, but above all for others—those who are at hand and those who are far distant, contempo-raries, and those who will come after....
Fascism repudiates any universal embrace, and in order to live worthily in the community of civileized peoples watches its contemporaries with vigilant eves, takes good note of their state of mind and, in the changing trend of their interests, does not allow itselef to be deceived by temporary and falelacious appear-ances.
Such a conception of life makes Fascism the com-plete opposite of that doctrine, the base of so-called scientific and Marxian Socialism, the materialist con-ception of history; according to which the history of human civilization can be explained simply through the conflict of interests among the various social groups and by the change and development in the means and instruments of production. That the changes in the economic field—new discoveries of raw materials, new methods of working them and the inventions of science—have their importance no one can deny; but that these factors are sufficient to ex-plain the history of humanity excluding all others is an absurd delusion. Fascism, now and always, be-lieves in holiness and in heroism; that is to say. in ac-tions influenced by no economic motive, direct or indirect. And if we deny the economic conception of history, according to which men are no more than puppets carried to and fro by the waves of chance, while the real directing forces are quite out of their control, it follows that the existence of an unchange-able and unchanging class-war is also denied—the natural progeny of the economic conception of his-tory. And above all Fascism denies that class-war can be the preponderant force in the transformation of so-ciety. These two fundamental concepts of Socialism being thus refuted, nothing is left of it but the senti-mental aspiration—as old as humanity itself—to-Wards a social convention in which the sorrows and Sufferings of the humblest shalle be alleviated. But here again Fascism repudiates the conception of “eco-nomic” happiness, to be realized by Socialism and, as it were, at a given moment in economic evolution to assure to everyone the maximum of well-being. Fas-cism denies the materialist conception of happiness as a possibility, and abandons it to its inventors, the economists of the first half of the nineteenth century; that~s to say. Fascism denies the validity of the equa-tIQn, well-being = happiness, which would reduce men to the level of animals, caring for one thing Oflly~to be fat and well-fed—and would thus de-grade humanity to a purely physical existence.
-
 
 
 

‘in
297
After Socialism, Fascism combats the whole com-plex system of democratic ideology, and repudiates it, whether in its theoretical premises or in its practical application. Fascism denies that the majority. by the simple fact that it is a majority, can direct human soci-ety; it denies that numbers alone can govern by means of a periodical consultation, and it affirms the immutable, beneficial, and fruitful inequality of man-kind, which can never be permanently leveled through the mere operation of a mechanical process such as universal suffrage. The democratic regime may be defined as from time to time being in the hands of other concealed and irresponsible forces. De-mocracy is a regime nominally without a king, but is ruled by many kings-more absolute, tyrannical, and ruinous than one sole king, even though a tyrant....
Fascism denies, in democracy, the absurd conven-tional untruth of political equality dressed out in the garb of collective irresponsibility, and the myth of “happiness” and infinite progress. But if democracy may be conceived in diverse forms—that is to say, taking democracy to mean a state of society in which the populace is not reduced to impotence in the State—Fascism may write itself down as “an orga-nized, centralized, and authoritative democracy.”
Fascism has taken up an attitude of complete oppo-sition to the doctrines of Liberalism, both in the politi-cal field and in the field of economics. There should be no undue exaggeration (simply with the object of immediate success in controversy) of the importance of Liberalism in the last century, nor should what was but one among many theories which appeared in that period be put forward as a religion for humanity for all time, past, present and to come. Liberalism only flourished for half a century.... The era of Liberalism, after having accumulated an infinity of Gordian knots, tried to untie them in the slaughter of the World War—and never has any religion demanded of its votaries such a monstrous sacrifice. Perhaps the Liberal gods were athirst for blood? But now, today, the Liberal faith must shut the doors of its deserted temples, deserted because the peoples of the world re-alize that its worship—agnostic in the field of eco-nomics and indifference in the field of politics and morals-will lead, as it has already led, to certain ruin.
But the Fascist negation of Socialism, Democracy, and Liberalism must not be taken to mean that Fas-cism desires to lead the world back to the state of af-fairs before 1789, the date which seems to be the opening years of the semi-Liberal century; we do not desire to turn back. Absolute monarchy has been and can never return. As for the privileges of the feudal “have beens” and the division of society into castes impenetrable from outside and with no intercornmu-
 
 
 

 nication among themselves, the Fascist conception of authority has nothing to do with such a policy.... Fas-cism uses whatever elements in the Liberal, Socialist, or Democratic doctrines still have a living value ... but it rejects all the rest.... Political doctrines pass, but hu-manity remains, and it may be expected that this will be a century of authority. If the nineteenth century was a century of individualism (and Liberalism al-ways signifies individualism), it may be expected that this will be a century of collectivism and hence the century of the State.
The foundation of Fascism is the conception of the State, its character, its duty, and its aim. Fascism con-ceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to the State. The “Liberal State” is not a directing force, guiding the play and development (both material and spiritual) of a collec-tive body, but merely a force limited to the function of recording results. On the other hand, the Fascist State is itself conscious, and has itself a will and a personal-ity—thus it may be called the “ethical” State....
The individual in the Fascist State is not annulled but rather multiplied, just in the same way that a sol-dier in a regiment is not diminished but rather in-creased by the number of his comrades. The Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient mar-gin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but re-tains what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone....
The Fascist State is an embodied will to power and government, the idea of force in action. According to Fascism, government is not so much a thing to be ex-pressed in territorial or military terms as in terms of morality and spirit. It is an empire—that is to say. a nation which directly or indirectly rules other nations without the need of conquering a single square yard of territory. The growth of empire, the expansion of the nation is for Fascism an essential manifestation of vitality, and its opposite a sign of decadence. Peoples which are rising ... are always imperialist; any renun-ciation is a sign of decay and of death. Fascism repre-sents the tendencies and the aspirations of a people rising after many centuries of abasement and foreign servitude. But the empire demands discipline, the co-ordination of all forces and a deeply felt sense of duty and sacrifice: this fact explains many aspects of the practical workings of the regime, the character of many forces in the State and the necessarily severe measures taken against those who would oppose this spontaneous and inevitable movement ... by recalling the outworn ideology of the 19th century.
Never before has the nation stood more in need of authority of direction, and of order. If every age has its own characteristic doctrine, there are a thousand signs which point to Fascism as the doctrine of our time. For Fascism has created a living faith, a faith powerful enough in the minds of men that they have suffered and died for it. Fascism represents a stage in the history of the human spirit.

Simultaneously, in Germany, a snwll organization based in Bavaria, offered its own manifesto. These points were read out at a public meeting at the Hofbrauhaus in Munich by Adolf Hitler, an Austrian recently demobilized from the German army.

The Twenty-Five Points of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP = Nazi), 1920 ~

The program of the German Workers’ Party is lim-ited as to period. The leaders have no intention, once the aims announced in it have been achieved, of set-ting up fresh ones merely in order to increase the dis-content of the masses artificially. and so ensure the continued existence of the party.

1. We demand the union of all Germans to form a Great Germany on the basis of the right of self-de-termination enjoyed by nations.
2. We demand equality of rights for the German people in its dealings with other nations, and abo-lition of the peace treaty of Versailles....
3. We demand land and territory (colonies) for the nourishment of our people and for settling our
 excess population. - may
4. None but members of the ~ol~~corflmunity*
be citizens of the state. None but those of German blood, whatever their creed, may be members of the yolk-community. No Jew, therefore, may be a member of the nation.
5. Anyone who is not a citizen of the state may live in Germany only as a guest and must be regarded as being subject to foreign laws.
6. The right of voting on the leadership and legisla-tion is to be enjoyed by citizens of the state alone. We demand therefore that all official appoiflt~ ments, of whatever kind, whether in the Reich, in the states, or in the smaller localities, shall be granted to citizens of the state alone.
7. We demand that the state shall make it i~ first duty to promote the industry and livelihoOd of citizens of the state. If it is not possible to nourIsh the entire population of the state, foreign natiOfl~ als and non-citizens of the state must be exciuded from the Reich....
 
 

 We demand therefore
11. abolition of incomes unearned by work.
12. ... ruthless confiscation of all war gains.
13. nationalization of all business trusts....
14. that profits from wholesale trade shall be shared.
15. extensive development of provision for old age.
16. creation and maintenance of a healthy middle class, immediate communalization of whole-sale business premises, and their lease at a cheap rate to small traders and that extreme consideration shall be shown to all small pur-veyors.
17. land reform suitable to our national require-ments.
18. ruthless prosecution of those whose activities are injurious to the common interest....
21. that the state see to raising the standard of health in the nation by protecting mothers and infants, prohibiting child labor, increasing bodily efficiency by obligatory gymnastics and sports laid down by law and by extensive sup-port of clubs engaged in the bodily develop-ment of the young....
23. legal warfare against conscious political lying and its dissemination in the press.... It must be forbidden to publish papers which do not conduce to the national welfare. We demand legal prosecution of all tendencies in art and literature of a kind likely to disintegrate our life as a nation, and the suppression of institu-tions which militate against the requirements mentioned above.
24. liberty for all religious denominations in the state, so far as they are not a danger to it and do not militate against the moral feelings of the German race.
25. In order that all the foregoing may be realized we demand the creation of a strong central power of
of the politi-the state. Unquestioned authority
cally centralized parliament over the entire Reich and its organization; and formation of chambers for classes and occupations for the purpose of car-rying out the general laws promulgated by the Reich in the various states of the union.

The leaders of the party swear to go forward—if necessary to sacrifice their lives—in securing fulfill-ment of these points.

Like Mussolini’s Fascism, much of what National Social-ism st ood for could not be contained in this programmatic statement, but was expressed in speeches.
Adolf Hitler Speech, 25 Janua.ry 1923 ~~

That which paralyzed the German people [in 1918] and later gnawed it to its very marrow was the poison of a doctrine which had been active forty years previ-ously ... but had continued to gnaw far more effec-tively than ever before. The doctrine was Marxism, the doctrine which denies the value of the great leader, and proposes class warfare. Marxism necessar-ily must become a movement of people who, engaged in nothing but physical labor, do not have the ability to think clearly or as a result of their work have be-come hostile to mental labor. It is a gigantic organiza-tion of working animals without spiritual leadership. Marxism, therefore, must become class warfare, and thereby it becomes what its founders wanted it to be:
an instrument which deprives things of their spirit, an instrument in the service of a race striving for world domination, and deadly opposed to true socialism. It is the weapon needed by the Jew of the international stock exchange in order to conquer this world. Deep are the impressions which this doctrine has made on our people. The idea of authority has been over-thrown; freedom of action and the creative opportuni-ties of the individual are restricted; the genius of leadership is shackled, which paralyzes any free de-velopment. In place of all this there is the democratic principle of decision by the majority, which always signifies the victory of the lower, the more inferior, the weaker, and above all of the cowardly and irrespon-sible. The individual is smothered by the mass....

Bavarian Political Police Report on Hitler Speech in Augs burg, 6 July 1923 ±31

Hitler ended a lengthy speech in the Sdngerhalle with the following restatement of his political program.

Majority resolutions of a parliament cannot save us; only the value of a unique personality can do that. As Fuhrer * of the National Socialist Party, I see my task as assuming full responsibility. We do not rely upon cominittees and majorities. We are aware that our path will be thronged with thorns. National So-cialists demand from their leader that he renounce all vanity and expressions of personal admiration; he must not worry about what the majority of people want him to do, but must carry out whatever his con-science before God and man tells him is necessary. Unlike other parties, we did not write a party plat-
 

* In German the word Volk means people or ‘nation’ but also car-ries a biological and racial connotation. It is sometimes translated as “racial comrade,” but this phrase is too strong. In this collection, the editor has left untranslated the German “Volk” (and the adjec-tive “n~1lkisch”). Readers can thus make their own decision about what speakers mean by the phrase.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 form designed to enlarge the number of iparliamen-taryl mandates without regard to the well-being and even at the expense of the individual and the whole nation. That is not the creative path taken by the great lawgivers such as Christ, Solon, etc., but is the way pursued by little men who worry so much about their parliamentary dignity.
Thus, in our program we did not make promises. Instead we insisted:

1) You are a German. You should treasure your fa-therland higher than anything else in the world. Your first responsibility in this world is to be a good German. You must not beg for the rights of your Volk, but demand them. Heaven blesses only those who use their fists to secure their rights.
2) Citizenship rights belong only to those who are worthy and have German blood. German citizen-ship must become the powerful cement which binds together everything German throughout the world.
3) Our State should not be the plaything of financial interests, but rather should offer to all its citizens the opportunity to maintain themselves honor-ably in this world. We demand that the State be freed from all unworthy interest payments and compulsory obligations.
4) The State must see to it that property and real estate speculation cease. Property belongs only to those who have built. The Reich exists in order to protect its Volk, its race. In our State, the press, art, and literature will not be free, but handmaidens of the State in order to educate the people to a sense of honor and decency. We want this state to be based upon true Christianity. To be a Christian does not mean a cowardly turning of the other cheek, but a struggle for justice and a fighter against all injustice.

On 9 November 1923, Hitler attempted his own version of Mussolini’s March on Rome. The “Beer Hall Putsch” ended with 16 Nazis dead, and Hitler arrested. He was subsequently tried and imprisoned for treason. While in prison, he wrote his own account of what National Social-ism was all about.

Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1925-1926 140

If the vol kisch idea wants to arrive at a clear success from the unclear will of today. it must pick out from the broad world of its ideas certain guiding prin-ciples, suited in their essence and content to binding a broad mass of men, that mass which alone guarantees the struggle for this idea as laid down in our philoso-
phy. Therefore, the program of the new movement was summed up in a few guiding principles, twenty-five in all. They were devised to give, primarily to the man of the people, a rough picture of the movement’s aims. They are in a sense a political creed, which on the one hand recruits for the movement and on the other is suited to unite and weld together by a commonly recognized obligation those who have been recruited.
Here the following insight must never leave us:
Since the so-called program of the movement is abso-lutely correct in its ultimate aims, but in its formula-tion had to take psychological forces into account, in the course of time the conviction may well arise that in individual instances certain of the guiding prin-ciples ought perhaps to be framed differently. given a better formulation. Every attempt to do this, however, usually works out catastrophically. For in this way something which should be unshakable is submitted to discussion, which, as soon as a single point is de-prived of its dogmatic, creed-like formulation, will not automatically yield a new, better, and above all unified, formulation, but will far sooner lead to end-less debates and a general confusion. In such a case, it always remains to be considered which is better: a new, happier formulation which causes an argument within the movement, or a form which at the moment may not be the very best, but which represents a solid, unshakable, inwardly unified organism. And any examination will show that the latter is prefer-able. For, since in changes it is always merely the out-ward formulation that is involved, such corrections will again and again seem possible or desirable. Fi-nally, in view of the superficial character of men, there is the great danger that they will see the essential task ~4~ a movement in this purely outward formulation of a pw-gram. Then the will and the power to fight for an idea recede, and the activity which should turn outward will wear itself out in inner programmatic squabbles.
With a doctrine that is really sound in its broad outlines, it is less harmful to retain a formulation, even if it should not entirely correspond to realit~~ than by improving it to expose what hitherto seemed a granite principle of the movement to general discUS~ sion with all its evil consequences. Above all, it is ilfr possible as long as a movement is still fighting for victory. For how shall we fill people with blind faith in the correctness of a doctrine, if we ourselves speead uncertainty and doubt by constant changes in its out-ward structure? The truth is that the most essenti~ substance must never be sought in the outward for~ mulation, but only and always in the inner sense. ThIS
 

*
The word Fahrer is simply the German word for Leader, or ‘DriV~
 
 

 is immutable; and in the interest of this immutable in-ner sense, we can only wish that the movement pre-serve the necessary strength to fight for it by avoiding all actions that splinter and create uncertainty.
Here, too, we can learn by the example of the Catholic Church. Though its doctrinal edifice, and in part quite superfluously, comes into collision with ex-act science and research, it is none the less unwilling to sacrifice so much as one little syllable of its dog-mas. It has recognized quite correctly that its power of resistance does not lie in its lesser or greater adapta-tion to the scientific findings of the moment, which in reality are always fluctuating, but rather in rigidly holding to dogmas once established, for it is only such dogmas which lend to the whole body the character of a faith. And so today it stands more firmly than ever. It can be prophesied that in exactly the same measure in which appearances evade us, it will gain more and more blind support as a static pole amid the flightof appearances....

The heart of the National Socialist program was racism. In the following sections, in contrast to Mussolini’s em-phasis upon the nation, Hitler defines his mission almost exclusively in racist terms.

The first obligation of a new Movement, standing on the ground of a volkisch world view, is to make sure that its conception of the nature and purpose of the State attains a uniform and clear character.... The State is a means to an end. Its end lies in the preservation and advancement of a community of physically and psychi-cally homogeneous creatures. This preservation itself com-prises first of all existence as a race and thereby penn its the free development of all the forces dormant in this race.... States which do not serve this purpose are misbegotten, monstrosities in fact. The fact of their existence changes this no more than the success of a gang of bandits can jus-tiN robbery.
We National Socialists, as champions of a new phi-losophy of life, must never base ourselves on so-called “accepted facts”—and false ones at that! ... We must distinguish in the sharpest way between the State as a vessel and the race as its content. This ves-sel has meaning only if it can preserye and protect the content; otherwise it is useless.
Thus the highest purpose of a vdlkisch State is con-cern for the preseryation of those original racial ele-ments which bestow culture and create the beauty and dignity of a higher mankind. We, as Arvans, can conceive of the State only as the living organism of a Volk, which not only assures the preseryation of this nationality, but by the development of its spiritual and ideal abilities leads to the highest freedom....
From this, we National Socialists derive a standard for the evaluation of a state: ... A State can be desig-nated as exemplary if it is not only compatible with the living conditions of the Volk it is intended to repre-sent, but if in practice it keeps this Volkness alive by its own very existence—quite regardless of the impor-tance of this state formation within the framework of the outside world. For the function of the State is not to create abilities, but only to open the road for those forces which are present. And, conversely. a State can be designated as bad if, despite a high cultural level, it dcx~ms the bearer of this culture in his racial composition. For thus it destroys to all intents and purposes the premise for the survival of this culture, which the State did not create but which is the fruit of the cul-ture-creating Volkness safeguarded by a living inte-gration through the State....
Anyone who speaks of a mission of the German Volk on earth must know that it can exist only in the formation of a State which sees its highest task in the preservation and promotlon of the most noble elements of our Volkness, in-deed of all mankind, which still remains intact. In this way, for the first time the State achieves a lofty inner goal. Compared to the absurd catchwords about safe-guarding law and order, thus laying a peaceable groundwork for mutual swindles, the task of preserv-ing and advancing the highest humanity, given to this earth by the benevolence of the Almighty, seems a truly high mission. From a dead mechanism which can only claim to exist for its own sake, there must be formed a living organism with the exclusive aim of serving this higher idea.
The Gennan Reich as a State must emnbrace all Germans and has the task, not only of assembling and preserving the most valuable stocks of basic racial elemnents in this people, but slowiu and surely of raising them to a dominant posi-tion.... In general, Nature herself usually makes cer-tain corrective decisions with regard to the racial purity of earthly creatures. She has little love for bas-tards. Especially the first products of such cross-breeding, say in the third, fourth, and fifth generation, suffer bitterly. Not only is the value of the originally highest element of the cross-breeding taken from them, but with their lack of blood unity they lack also unity of will-power and determination to live. In all critical moments in which the racially unified being makes correct, that is, unified decisions, the racially divided one will become uncertain; that is, he will ar-rive at half measures. Taken together, this means not only a certain inferiority of the racially divided being compared with the racially unified one, but in prac-tice also the possibility of a more rapid decline. In in-numerable cases where race holds up, the bastard breaks down. In this, we must see the correction of Nature. But often she goes even further. She limits the fertility
 
 

L
 
 
 
 

 of continued crossings altogether and thus causes them to die out.
If, for example, an individual specimen of a certain race were to enter into a union with a racially lower specimen, the result would at first be a lowering of the standard in itself; but, in addition, there would be a weakening of the offspring as compared to the envi-ronment that had remained racially unmixed. If an in-flux of further blood from the highest race were prevented entirely. the bastards, if they continued mu-tually to cross, would either die out because their power of resistance had been wisely diminished by Nature, or in the course of many millenniums a new mixture would form in which the original individual elements would be completely blended by the thou-sandfold crossing and therefore no longer recogniz-able. Thus a new nationality would have formed with a certain herd resistance, but, compared to the highest race participating in the first crossing, seriously re-duced in spiritual and cultural stature. But in this last case, moreover, the hybrid product would succumb in the mutual struggle for existence as long as a higher racial entity, which has remained unmixed, is still present as an opponent. All the herd solidarity of this new people, formed in the course of thousands of years, would, in consequence of the general lowering of the racial level and the resultant diminution of spiritual elasticity and creative ability, not suffice vic-toriously to withstand the struggle with an equally unified, but spiritually and culturally superior race.
Hence we can establish the following valid state-ment: Every racial crossing leads inevitably sooner or later to the decline of the hybrid product as long as the higher el-eminent of this crossing is itself still existent in any kind~f racial unity. The danger for the hybrid product is eliminated only at the moment when the last higher racial element is bastardized. This is a basis for a natural, even though slow, process of regeneration, which gradually eliminates racial poisonings as long as a basic stock of racially pure elements is still present and a further bastardization does not take place.
Such a process can begin of its own accord in crea-tures with a strong racial instinct, who have only been thrown off the track of normal, racially pure repro-duction by special circumstances or some special compulsion. As soon as this condition of compulsion is ended, the part which has still remained pure will at once strive again for mating among equals, thus calling a halt to further mixture. The results of bastardization spontaneously recede to the back-ground, unless their number has increased so infi-nitelv that serious resistance on the part of those who have remained racially pure is out of the question.
 Man, once he has lost his instinct and fails to recog. nize the obligation imposed upon him by Nature, is on the whole not justified in hoping for such a correc-tion on the part of Nature as long as he has not re-placed his lost instinct by perceptive knowledge; this knowledge must then perform the required work of compensation. Yet the danger is very great that the man who has once grown blind will keep tearing down the racial barriers more and more, until at length even the last remnant of his best part is lost. Then in reality there remains nothing but a unified mash, such as the famous world reformers of our days idealize; but in a short time it would expel all ideals from this world. Indeed: a great herd could be formed in this way; a herd beast can be brewed from all sorts of ingredients, but a man who will be a cul-ture-bearer, or even better, a culture-founder and cul-ture-creator, never arises from such a mixture. The mission of humanity could then be looked upon as finished.
Anyone who does not want the earth to move to-ward this condition must convert himself to call a fundamental halt to any further bastardization. The generation of our present notorious weaklings will obviously cry out against this, and moan and com-plain about assaults on the holiest human rights. No, there is only one holiest human right, and this right is at the same time the holiest obligation to wit: to see to it that the blood is preserved pure and, by preserving the best hu-manity, to create the possibility of a nobler development of these things.
A volkisch state must therefore begin by raising maT-riage from the level of a continuous defilein emit of the race, and give it the consecration of an institution which is called upon to produce images of the Lord and not monstrositi~ halfway between man and ape.... The vblkisch state must make up for what everyone else today has neglected in this field. It must set race in the center of all life. It must take care to keep it pure. It must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. It must see to it that only the healthy beget childrefl~ that there is only one disgrace: despite one’s own sick~ ness and deficiencies, to bring children into the world, and one highest honor: to renounce doing so. And conversely it must be considered reprehensible: to withhold healthy children from the nation. Here the state must act as the guardian of a millennial future in the face of which the wishes and the selfishness of the individual must appear as nothing and submit. It must put the most modem medical means in the sei~ vice of this knowledge. It must declare unfit for propagation all who are in any way visibly sick or who have inherited a disease and can therefore pass it on, and put this into actual practice. Conversely, it must take care that the fertility of the healthy woman”
 
 

 is not limited by the financial irresponsibility of a state regime which turns the blessing of children into a curse for the parents. It must put an end to that lazy. nay criminal, indifference with which the social pre-mises for a fecund family are treated today. and must instead feel itself to be the highest guardian of this most precious blessing of a people. Its concern be-longs more to the child than to the adult.
Those who are physically and mentally unhealthy and unworthy must perpetuate their suffering in the body of their children. In this the vblkisch state must perform the most gigantic educational task. And some day this will seem to be a greater deed than the most victorious wars of our present bourgeois era. By edu-cation it must teach the individual that it is no dis-grace, but only a misfortune deserying of pity, to be sick and weakly. but that it is a crime and hence at the same time a disgrace to dishonor one’s misfortune by one’s own egotism in burdening innocent creatures with it; that by comparison it bespeaks a nobility of highest idealism and the most admirable humanity if the innocently sick, renouncing a child of his own, be-stows his love and tenderness upon a poor, unknown young scion of his own nationality, who with his health promises to become some day a powerful member of a powerful community. And in this educa-tional work the state must perform the purely intellec-tiial complement of its practical activity. It must act in this sense without regard to understanding or lack of understanding, approval or disapproval.
A prevention of the faculty and opportunity to pro-create on the part of the physically degenerate and mentally sick, over a period of only six hundred years, would not only free humanity from an immea-surable misfortune, but would lead to a recovery which today seems scarcely conceivable. If the fertility of the healthiest bearers of the nationality is thus con-sciously and systematically promoted, the result will be a race which at last will have eliminated the germs of our present physical and hence spiritual decay.
For once a people and a state have started on this path, attention will automatically be directed to in-creasing the racially most valuable nucleus of the people and its fertility, in order ultimately to let the entire nationality partake of the blessing of a highly bred racial stock.

Upon his release from prison at Christmas 1925, Hitler
continued to develop his brand of fascism in speeches.

Adolf Hitler Speech, 15 January 1928 230

We see that in mankind individual giants continu-ously tower over the rest. There are always certain na-tions which proceed in advance of all the others,
nations which in the eternal struggle with nature are able to discover her secrets and to make them avail-able for the rest of humanity. These nations are thereby able to open the gates for other people. By means of this eternal struggle, the individual nations are sifted out....
Force determines the way of life. Right exists only when it is created and protected by power and force. It bespeaks the greatness of a people if it can find the strength to raise itself upward. But when a people dances Negro dances and listens only to jazz music, then we need not be surprised if it should perish, and seek out parliamentary monstrosities. He who does not honor his past is not worthy of a better future. A people must be taught to struggle. Struggle must be brought to the realization of a people.

Adolf Hitler Speech, 5 February 1928 “~

The idea of struggle is as old as life itself, for life is only preserved because other living things perish through struggle.... In this struggle, the stronger, the more able win, while the less able, the weak lose. Struggle is the father of all things. Only through struggle has man raised himself above the animal world. Even today it is not by the principles of hu-manity that man lives or is able to preserve himself above the animal world, but solely by means of the most brutal struggle. As it is with the individual so it is in the destiny of nations. Only by struggle are the strong able to raise themselves above the weak. And every people that loses out in this eternally shifting struggle has, according to the laws of nature, received its just desert. A Weltanschauung * that denies the idea of struggle is contrary to nature and will lead a people that is guided by it to destruction. The road that must be traveled by a people which wishes to develop itself still higher is not the road of comfort and ease, but the road of relentless struggle. For if you do not fight for life, then life will never be won.

Adolf Hitler Speech, 2 April 1928 ‘~~

The first fundamental of any rational Welt-anschauung is the fact that on earth and in the uni-verse force alone is decisive. Whatever goal man has reached is due to his originality plus his brutality.... There will never be a solution to the German problem until we return to the three fundamental principles which control the existence of every nation: the con-cept of struggle, the purity of blood, and the ingenu-ity of the individual.

One of the most important aspects of National Socialism
was its emphasis upon activism, rather than reflection.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 Adolf Hitler Speech Before the Duisseldorf Indus-trial Club, January 1932 “~

... People say to me so often: “You are only the drummer of national Germany.” And supposing that I were only the drummer? It would today be a far more statesmanlike achievement to drum once more into this German people a new faith than gradually to squander the only faith they have.... The more you bring a people back into the sphere of faith, of ideals, the more will it cease to regard material distress as the one and only thing that counts. And the weightiest evidence for the truth of that statement is our own German people. We will never forget that the German people waged wars of religion for 150 years with pro-digious devotion, that hundreds of thousands of men once left their plot of land, their property. and their belongings simply for an ideal, simply for a convic-tion. We will never forget that during those 150 years there was no trace of even an ounce of material inter-est. Then you will understand how mighty is the force of an idea, of an ideal. Only so can you comprehend how it is that in our movement today hundreds of thousands of young men are prepared to risk their lives to withstand our opponents.
I know quite well, gentlemen, that when National Socialists march through the streets and suddenly in the evening there arises a tumult and a commotion, then the bourgeois draws back the window-curtain, looks out, and says: “Once again my night’s rest is disturbed: no more sleep for me. Why must these Na-zis always be so provocative and run about the place at night?” Gentlemen, if everyone thought like that, then, true enough, no one’s sleep at night would be disturbed, but then also the bourgeois today would not be able to venture into the street. If everyone thought in that way if these young folk had no ideal to move them and drive them forward, then certainly they would gladly be rid of these nightly fights. But remember that it means sacrifice when today many hundreds of thousands of SA and SS men of the Na-tional Socialist movement have every day to mount on their lorries, protect meetings, undertake marches, sacrifice themselves night after night and then come back in the grey dawn to workshop and factory, or as unemployed to take the pittance of the dole: it means sacrifice when from the little they possess they have further to buy their uniforms, their shirts, their badges, yes and even pay their own fares. Believe me, there is already in all this the force of an ideal—a great ideal! And if the whole German Volk today had the same faith in its vocation as these hundreds of thousands, if the whole Volk possessed this idealism, Germany would stand in the eyes of the world other-wise than she stands now! (Loud applause). For our
situation in the world in its fatal effects is but the re-sult of our own under-estimate of German strength (‘Verii true!’). Only when we have once more changed this fatal undervaluation of ourselves can Germany take advantage of the political possibilities which, if we look far enough into the future, can place German life once more upon a natural and secure basis-—and that means either new living space [Lebensraum] and the development of a great internal market or protec- ?~ tion of German economic life against the world with- -out and utilization of all the concentrated strength of Germany. The labor resources of our people, the cac-pacities, we have them already: no one can deny that -~‘ we are industrious. But we must first refashion the political preconditions: without that, industry and ca-pactv, diligence and economy are in the last resort of no avail; an oppressed nation will not be able to spend on its own welfare even the fruits of its own economy but must sacrifice them on the altar of exacc-tions and of tribute.
And so in contrast to our own official Government, I see no hope for the resurrection of Germany if we re-gard the foreign politics of Germany as the primary factor: our primary need is the restoration of a sound national German body politic armed to strike. In or-der to realize this end, thirteen years ago I founded the National Socialist Movement: that Movement I have led during the last twelve years and I hope that ~ one day it will accomplish this task and that, as the fairest result of its struggle, it will leave behind it a German body politic completely renewed internally, intolerant of anyone who sins against the Volk and itS interests, intolerant of anyone who will not acknowl-edge its vital interests or who opposes them, intoler-ant of and pitiless towards anyone who shall attempt once more to destroy or undermine this body politic~ and vet ready for friendship and peace with anyone who has a wish for peace and friendship (Long and tu-multuous applause).

There were numerous imitators of Mussolini’s Fascisifl. Two of the most successful were in Romania and Spain.

Corneliu Zeleac-Condreanu, “The Legion of
Archangel Michael,” June 1927: A Romanian Fascist
Appeal?2 4

We did not say: “Let us conquer Romania! Go tO the village and cry: We have set up a new political Or-ganization, all join it!” We did not work out a new ~O~ litical program to add to the other 10 now in existence
 

~Weltanschauung means a way of looking at the world,” orii’ words, a philosophy of the way the world is.
 
 

I
 
 
 
 

A
 
 
 
 

 meeting and has thousands and thousands of people of the same opinions around him, when, as a seeker, he is swept away by three or four thousand others into the mighty effect of suggestive intoxication and enthusiasm, when the visible success and agreement of thousands confirm to him the rightness of the new doctrine and for the first time arouse doubt in the truth of his previous conviction—then he himself has succumbed to the magic influence of what we desig-nate as “mass suggestion.” The will, the longing, and also the power of thousands are accumulated in every individual. The man who enters such a meeting doubting and wavering leaves it inwardly reinforced:
he has become a link in the community.

These ideas did not remain just academic musings. As the following letter shows, Hitler became a masterful orator and stage-manager in his rallies.

Letter from Anna, an Eyewitness to Hitler’s Oratory, 22 October 1923 ~i~

My Dear Ones:

I have learned through Hermann that Father is ar-dently interested in the Hitler movement; and there-fore there is something I’d like to pass on to you, for during the past week I attended an evening lecture [at which Hitler spoke].... I don’t want to tell you what was said by Hitler and the other officers; I assume that you can read about that in the (newspaperl. I would much rather tell you about the mood, more correctly, the enthusiasm and deep conviction that dwells in all the adherents of the vol kisch movement. Above all, they consider Hitler the only man who has not yet abused their trust, and therefore they regard him as the only man that they can trust uncondition-ally. A Dr. (I don’t remember his name) begged all the members to subordinate themselves to their FzThrer because he desired only what is best for them; he pointedly suggested to the older members that they ought to think back and try to recall whether Hitler had ever promised too much, whether everything had not always turned out just as he had predicted. And even though he (the speaker) often did not see eve to eye with Hitler, he told himself: Our Fuhrer is more clever and wiser than you—subordinate yourself to him. Then it is a great mistake to think that it is so dif-ficult for an individual to subordinate himself, to learn to obey.
Hitler spoke on this evening only to members—not to the public—and therefore the entire speech had a different tone. I have never heard any other speaker (and I have, after all, heard many) who was so able to penetrate into the soul of the individual, who spoke
 with such a sense of righteousness about those con-fused German brothers and sisters who even today know no Fatherland. To show them the way to the Fa-therland, to teach them to love the Fatherland is the principal, and at the same time, the most difficult task. I believe there is no man on German soil that can do more to awaken in all of us this love of our home-land and loyalty to our Fatherland. His past efforts certainly have not been in vain, for the number of his followers is as great as the faith in him. Unmatched rejoicing breaks out when he enters the hall, and he has to wait a long time until the shouting dies down. I only wish that the good people of [our home town] could experience such an hour as this, in order to be shaken out of the apathy and indifference in which they currently wallow. They are always blabbing about the cost of living and such things, that most of them forget that nothing at all will change if they fail to support these men who sincerely concern them-selves with the possibilities of the future of the Ger-man people. Victory for the Swastika is a real life or death matter in these days, for such a victory would decisively determine a better future for us all. For my part, I have the firmest faith that our good German people will succeed in sweeping away that crew which since the days of the revolution [1918-19191 have brought us ever deeper into misery and confu-sion.

invited to a mass rally celebrating the rel easefrom jail of a
popular Gennan para-militarw leader, Anna gives a good
description of the ceremonies.

The hall was very nicely decorated with the old [Reich] black-white-red flag [instead of that of the Re-public], and the individual units of [the anti-Republi-can para-military groups] threaded their way through the audience and the rows of chairs like a gray-green snake.... A Captain Goring directed a few pithy words to the assembled people, urging all to unite around the Fuhrer in complete loyalty—that inheritance from our forefathers—-since the Fuhrer desires only our best efforts. With him, through thick and thin!
[The recently freed Lieutenant Rossback then spoke.] His words were directed to the military units before him, calling on them to examine their dedica-tion. Were they ready and willing to fight, and were they ready and willing to die if necessary. A single, loud and solemn “Yes” sounded, and one felt that this was not the frivolous enthusiasm of a 1914, but rather that all knew full well what to expect from this battle. I am proud that I have participated in this moment in which such conviction and such resolution prevailed to help the recovery of our homeland from its Sad
 

situation.
 

A
 

311
 

The Appeal of Fascism

 The high point of the evening was not reached un-til Hitler stepped to the podium. His appearance was ~reeted with an endless series of “Heils,” and in a few words, he spoke from his heart into the hearts of all. You cannot imagine how silent it becomes as soon as this man speaks; it is as if all of the thousand listeners are no longer able to breathe. When he angrily con-demns the deeds of those who have ruled our people since the revolution and those who now prevent him and his followers from settling accounts with those November bigwigs, cheers ring throughout the hall for minutes on end. There is no silence until he waves his hands repeatedly to indicate that he wants to con-tinue speaking. We should organize ourselves, he added, only if we have the courage to sacrifice our-selves and fight for our people and our Fatherland. Adolf Hitler is so firmly convinced of the correctness of his vol kisch views that he automatically communi-cates this conviction to his listeners. God grant that, as rrailbreaker to better times, he will be able to gather many more of our brothers and sisters under the Swastika. After all, every class is represented. Workers and lower-ranking civil servants, officers and storm troopers, students and old pensioners all sit together, and all are in agreement with the great concept em-bodied in the person of Adolf Hitler. It is often said that where eleven Germans come together, ten politi-cal parties are represented. Here, however, I have never heard anyone say that Hitler should do this, or that he should have done that. Sometimes it almost seems to me as if Hitler used a magic charm in order to win the unconditional confidence of old and young alike. When one considers, however, that the common man, suffering from the spiritual malaise that goes hand in hand with economic misery, seeks stability and finds it in the one man who will not disappoint him, then one understands the jubilation that is evoked by his very appearance.
I think that all of you, and especially Father, now have a little insight into what I am experiencing....
 

WHY BECOME A NAZI

The impact of these rallies clearly motivated many to join the party. The following two documents are from the re-sponses Dr. Theodore Abel received in 1934 to his adver-tisement for the best essay on “14’7zy Jam a Nazi.”

Autobiographical Essay of Marlene Heder

Born in 1913, she and her sister lost their father in the war, killed on 15 August 1915. Early on thez9’ became at-tracted to the Nazis, largely because of SA parades which they liked to attend. Marlene was 20 years old when she
And then came the day of our greatest experience 11931]. The Fiihrer visited Kassel, Adolf Hitler wanted to speak to us. Feverish excitement pulsated in every-one, and joy shone from the faces of party comrades. For days, we carried entrance tickets around with us Iso as not to lose them], and could scarcely wait for the longed-for day to arrive. And when the day dawned, nothing more on this earth seemed to matter. The Fuhrer was supposed to speak only in the evening, but the rally grounds opened at 3:00 pm, and at 12:30, we were already standing at the gates wait-ing. We were not the first ones, either, and a wall of people already stretched before us. And we all waited, waited with the patience of angels. And it didn’t matter to us that we were almost crushed to death by the press of the masses of people; we were not alone in this, and no harsh words were spoken. Everyone showed only great joy, or at least the best of spirits. When the doors were opened, we all ran for good seats. All three of us—Mother had come along— were lucky. finding places from which we could see and hear well, although we were not seated together. And then came waiting and more waiting. By evening, the hall was packed, the air became even more stuffy. more and more persons fainted, but spir-its improved! We finished our homework, talked with people sitting near us, ate the food we had brought along, sang the old fighting songs, until the time came for [Gauleiteri Freisler to open the rally at 8:00. [Ap-parently there were speeches, but she does not men-tion them.] By 10:00, anticipation had reached its high-point. The Fuhrer must be arriving at any mo-ment. Everyone was standing on the chairs.
And than all at once, cries of jubilation and cheers rang out loudly. and endless “Sieg Heils.” Many stood with tears in their eves; to many old people, the chance to see and hear the Fiihrer fulfilled the dream of a lifetime. Near me sat a 70 year old granny. who was deaf and could no longer hear, but she wanted to see the Fuhrer—nothing more. As he began to speak his rolling and warm-sounding words, a deep silence fell over the room. Never in our lives has an event moved us so deeply as this first speech by the Fuhrer. And how the words flew—devastatingly critical and accusatory, praising and arousing, stirring up every-one, even the doubters in our midst. Impressively, he spoke to the masses and yet his words reached every individual and drew each to his side. His words, pregnant with destiny lodged themselves perma-nently in our hearts. Repeatedly enthusiastic cheers rent the silence, and these cheers were rapidly trans-mitted to the thousands who stood outside the hall listening on outside loud-speakers. And suddenly it came to an end. The Horst Wessel song burst out. We
 
 

~~‘~
 312 Chapter Ten

 now could see only mounds of flowers [thrown at the platform], but the man with the plain brown uniform, with a face that showed unconquerable will, and the small, expressive hands, was gone.
I no longer know how we got home. I remember only that we could not fall asleep that night for a long long time, for the experience had been too great! Many prayers must have ascended to heaven that night, to protect and guide the Fuhrer....

Hitler’s personal magnetism also attracted many who were fascinated by his vision. The following extracts come from the personal diary of Joseph Goebbels, a skilled propagan-dist who had to overcome an initial suspicion of Hitler.

Diary Entry of Joseph Goebbels,
23 November 1925 ~

Arrive Monday at noon in Plauen. Huge meeting, tremendous success. On to Chemnitz, spoke to two thousand Communists; everything proceeded smoothly and orderly. At the end of the meeting, a devastating free-for-all. 1000 beer glasses were smashed. 150 wounded, thirty of them seriously, two dead. My people, woe to anyone who loves you. I stay with Engineer Hallig, an amiable, hospitable camel. They are certainly looking after me, but the conversation was worthy only of women.... Wednes-day. the Lutheran Day of Penance. I am tired and deeply unneryed. Thursday it was on to Zwickau, where it nearly came to blows. Friday our rally in Werdau was prohibited by the police. The Jewish press particularly stirs up hatred against me. Mutschmann, the party’s leader in Saxony (a decent, but brutal leader) invited me to Plauen. I arrive. Hitler is there. Great joy for me. He greets me like an old friend, and really envelops me with kindnesses. How I love him! What a guy! And he tells stories all night long. Could listen to him forever. It was a small meeting, and at his request I speak first. Then he speaks. How small am I really in comparison to him! He gives me his photograph, adding greetings to the Rhineland! Heil Hitler! Saturday. on to the express train to Hanover.... Late evening we return.... I want Hitler to be my friend. His framed picture stands on my table. I could not bear it if I were to lose faith in this man. Good night! I have sleeping-sickness in re-verse.

Diary Entry of Joseph Goebbels, 6 July 1926

Off to the Party Rally at Weimar. ... I give my talk on “propaganda.” I was received with jubilation. My satire, “A Speaker is Coming,” produces endless hilar-ity. Hitler almost laughs himself to death. Then
Hitler speaks. On politics, on our ideas, on our orga-nization. It is deep and mystical. Almost like pro-claiming the gospel. Shuddering, we follow him past the edge of life’s existence. He says everything that needs to be said. I am grateful to the destiny that has given us such a man!

Diary Entry of Joseph Goebbels, 24 July 1926

In the morning to the Hochlenzer. [Hitler] talks about race questions. It is impossible to reproduce what he said. It must be experienced. He is a genius. The natural, creative instrument of a fate determined by God. I am deeply moved. He is like a child: kind, good, merciful. Like a cat: cunning, clever, agile. Like a lion: roaring and great and gigantic. A fellow, a MAN. He talks about the state. In the afternoon about winning over the state and the political revolution. Thoughts which I may well have had, but never yet put into words. After supper we go on sitting in the garden of the naval hostel, and he goes on for a long time preaching about the new state and how we are going to fight for it. It sounds like prophecy. Up in the skies a white cloud takes on the shape of the swastika. There is a blinking light that cannot be a star. A sign of fate?! We go back late! The lights of Salzburg shine in the distance. I am indeed happy. This life is worth living. “My head will not roll in the sand until I have completed my mission.” Those were his last words. That’s what he is like! Indeed! I cannot go to sleep for a long time!

Diary Entry of Joseph Goebbels, 25 July 1926

Sunday! We amble a short distance down the path, sit on a bench, and then he tells about the 9th Novem-ber 11923. the date of the failed Beer Hall Putschl. The Germanic tragedy. Ludendorff acted like a child. The chief is a cunning dog. What followed must not be written about yet. The afternoon we spend in his room and [drink]. He spoils me like a child. The kind friend and master! Outside it is pouring. And Hitler talks! In the evening: he speaks about the country’s future architecture and is nothing but an architect. And he fills in the picture by describing the new Ger-man constitution: and then he is the master of state-craft! Farewell, my Obersalzburg! These days have signposted my road! A star shines leading me from deep misery! I am his to the end. My last doubts have disappeared. Germany will live! Heil Hitler! We walk downhill. He walks with me alone. And he talks tO me as a father talks to his son. About his war serviCe at the front. And always sketching life with bold strokes. Life’s master.
 

313
 

The Appeal of Fascism

 It was widely noted at the time that women were some of the most fanatical supporters of National Socialism. The enthusiasm of this retired school-teacher about a Hitler rally is all the more remarkable because she is mamed to a Jew.

Diary Entry of Luise Solmitz, 23 April 1932 Z3~5

. . The April sun shone hot like in summer and turned everything into a picture of gay expectation. There was immaculate order and discipline, although the police left the whole square to the stewards and stood on the sidelines. Nobody spoke of “Hitler,” al-ways just “the Fiihrer,” “the Fiihrer says,” “the Fiihrer wants,” and what he said and wanted seemed right and good. The hours passed, the sun shone, expecta-tions rose. In the background, at the edge of the track, there were columns of carriers like ammunition carri-ers. What they carried were crates of beer. Airplanes above us. Testing of the loudspeakers, buzzing of the movie-cameras. It was nearly 3 pm. “The Fuhrer is coming!” A ripple went through the crowds. Around the speaker’s platform one could see hands raised in the Hitler salute. A speaker opened the meeting, abused the “system,” nobody listened to him. A sec-ond speaker welcomed Hitler and made way for the man who had drawn 120,000 people of all classes and ages. There stood Hitler in a simple black coat looking over the crowd, waiting—a forest of swastika pen-nants swished up, the jubilation of this moment was given vent in a roaring salute. Main theme: Out of parties shall grow a nation, the German nation. He censured the “system” (“I want to know what there is left to be ruined in this state!”). “On the way here So-cialists confronted me with a poster, ‘Turn back, Adolf Hitler.’ Thirteen years ago I was a simple unknown soldier. I went my way. I never turned back. Nor shall I turn back now.” Otherwise he made no personal at-tacks, nor any promises, vague or definite. His voice was hoarse after all his speaking during the previous days. When the speech was over, there was roaring enthusiasm and applause. Hitler saluted, gave his thanks, the Horst Wessel song sounded out across the course. Hitler was helped into his coat. Then he went.—How many look up to him with touching faith! as their helper, their savior, their deliverer from unbearable distress—to him who rescues the Prussian prince, the scholar, the clergymen, the farmer, the worker, the unemployed, who rescues them from the parties back into the Volk.

Adolf Hider, Speech before National Socialist Woman’s Organization, 8 September 1934 Z3~8
in a meeting of National Socialist women. Ever since its founding, the National Socialist Movement has not only recognized that women were its most loyal help-mates, but also found them to be so. I remember those difficult years of the Movement’s struggles, particu-larly those times when luck seemed to turn its back on us; those times when many of us lingered in jail, and others were in flight to alien lands, when many of us lay wounded in hospitals or were being mur-dered. ... I know that at that time there were innumer-able women who remained unshakably faithful to the Movement and to myself.... Woman has proved to us that she knows best. In those times when the great Movement appeared to many to be faltering, and ev-eryone was sworn against us, depth and certainty of feeling proved to be more stable factors than refined intellect and reputed learning....
The phrase “emancipation of women” is the prod-uct of Jewish intellect, and its content is stamped with that same intellect. During those truly good times in German life, the German woman never found it nec-essary to emancipate herself. She controlled exactly that which nature freely gave her as her due to ad-minister and preserve—just as the man in those good times did not have to fear that woman would oust him from his position. Woman was quite uninterested in threatening man’s position. Only when man be-came uncertain about his own mission, did woman’s eternal instinct for self- and national preservation en-ter into revolt. And following this revolt a reversal be-gan that went against nature and that would last until both sexes returned to the places assigned to them by eternal Providence.
When we say that man’s world is the state, that man’s world is his battle, his stake in the community, we could perhaps also say that woman’s world is a smaller world. Because her world is her husband, her family. her children, and her home. But where would the greater world be without someone to care for that smaller world? How could that greater world survive if there were none who considered the cares of the smaller world their life’s work? . . . These two worlds never conflict. They complement each other, they be-long together just as man and woman belong to-gether.
We feel it is not correct for a woman to invade man’s world—his chief sphere; to the contrary, we be-lieve it is natural for these two worlds to remain di-vided from one another.... It is not true-as Jewish intellectuals would have us believe-that mutual re-spect is based upon the overlapping of sexual spheres of activity. On the contrary, such respect demands that neither sex encroach upon the sphere of the other. Af-ter all, this respect lies in the knowledge of each part-

from John Heineman, European History (Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall Publishing, 1994)