Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Adolf Hitler – speech in the Sportpalast, Berlin, January 30, 1940

Berlin, January 30, 1940

 

 

German Volksgenossen!

 

Seven years are a short time indeed. They are only a fraction of a normal human life-only a second in the life of a people. And yet the seven years lying behind us today seem longer than many decades of the past. Within them we feel the concentrated force of historic evolution: the resurrection of a great nation in danger of extinction. This was an eventful, tumultuous period indeed. We were fortunate not only to witness it, but to fashion it in part. At times we nearly lost sight of it.

 

Today there is much talk about democratic ideals in the outside world. But not in Germany! For here in Germany we had more than enough time-fifteen years-to acquaint ourselves with these democratic ideals. And we ourselves had to pick up the legacy left behind by this democracy.

 

Now we are being credited with many a truly astounding war aim, especially by the English. After all, England is quite experienced in issuing proclamations of objectives in warfare as it has waged the greatest number of wars the world over.

 

Truly astounding are the war aims announced to us today. A new Europe will arise. This Europe will be characterized by justice. This justice will render armament obsolete. This will lead to disarmament at last. This disarmament in turn will bring about an economic blossoming. Change and trade will spring up-much trade-free trade. And with the sponsorship of this trade, culture shall once more blossom, and not only culture will benefit, but religion will also prosper.

 

In other words: we are heading towards a golden age!68 Well, we have heard of this golden age before. Many times precisely the same people attempted to illustrate its virtues to us who are now flooding us with descriptions of its benefits. The records are old ones, played once too often. We can only pity these gentlemen who cannot even come up with a new idea to trap a great people. For all this they had already promised us in 1918.

 

Then, too, England’s objectives in the war were the creation of this “new Europe,” the establishment of a “new justice,” of which the “right to selfdetermination of the peoples” was to form an integral part. Back then already they promised us justice to render obsolete-for all time-the bearing of any sort of weaponry.

 

Back then already they submitted to us a program for disarmament-one for global disarmament. To make this disarmament more evident, it was to be crowned by the establishment of an association of nations bearing no arms.

 

These were to settle their differences in the future-for even back then there was no doubt that differences would still arise-by talking them to death in discussion and debate, just as is the custom in democratic states. There would be no more shooting under any circumstances! In 1918, they declared a blessed and pious age to come! What came to pass in its stead we all lived to see: the old states were destroyed without even as much as asking their citizenry. Historic, ancient structures were severed, not only state bodies but grown economic structures as well, without anything better to take their place. In total disregard of the principle of the right to self-determination of the peoples, the European peoples were hacked to pieces, torn apart. Great states were dissolved.

 

Nations were robbed of their rights, first rendered utterly defenseless and then subjected to a division which left only victors and vanquished in this world.

 

And then there was no more talk of disarmament. To the contrary, armament went on. Nor did any efforts materialize to settle conflicts peacefully. The armed states waged wars just as before. Yet those who had been disarmed were no longer in a position to ward off the aggressions of those well armed.

 

Naturally, this did not herald economic prosperity but, to the contrary, produced a network of lunatic reparations payments which led to increasing destitution for not only the vanquished, but also the so-called victors themselves. The consequences of this economic destitution were felt most acutely by the German Volk.

 

And culture meanwhile received no support. Instead, it was abandoned to the arbitrary reign of crazed ideas and distortions. Religion, too, had to take a back seat. In these fifteen years, not one Englishman recalled the Christian ideals of charity or of love for one’s fellow man. The gentlemen went for walks not with the bible under their arms, but with the Treaty of Versailles in hand as their bible. It contained those 440 articles, all of which represented a burden, an obligation, an indictment, and an extortion of Germany. The League of Nations guaranteed this Versailles. It was not an association of free and equal nations. It was not even a League of Nations; its founding father refused it recognition from the start. It was a so-called League of Nations with the sole intent of guaranteeing this most vile of all Diktats. Its mission was to force us to fulfill this Diktat.

 

This was the age of democratic Germany! Now that foreign statesmen repeatedly act as though they could not possibly trust present-day Germany, one should remark that this cannot possibly be applied to the Germany back then. This former Germany was their own creation, their own work. They should have been able to place trust in it. Yet, instead, just how badly did they treat it! Let us recall the true story of those years: the despondency of the collapse of 1918; the tragedy of the year 1919; all those years of economic decline domestically; the continuation of the enslavement; the misery of our Volk; and, above all, the utter hopelessness of those years! Even today the memory of these years profoundly shakes us. Those were the days when a great nation slowly lost not only its belief in itself, but all hope for justice in this world. During this entire period, democratic Germany hoped in vain, pleaded in vain, and protested in vain.

 

International finance remained brutal and squeezed our Volk ruthlessly.

 

The statesmen of the allied nations closed their hearts to it. In cold blood, they declared that we were twenty million Germans too many.69 In those days when all hope was for naught, all pleas were in vain, and all protests bore no fruits, in those days the National Socialist Movement came forth from the realization that, in this world, one must never stoop to hoping, pleading, or protesting. Instead, in this world, it is imperative first and foremost to help oneself.

 

Belief in our German Volk and the mobilization of its values took the place of hope. We had few real means at our disposal back then. What we regarded as building blocks for our new Reich, besides our willpower, was first our Volk’s ability to work, second its intelligence, and third what our soil, our Lebensraum, afforded us.

 

And thus we began our work and began Germany’s inner uplifting. It did not threaten the world. It was a work of purely inner, domestic reform. And nevertheless, it immediately elicited the hatred of others. These got wind of the renewed rise of the German Volk. And it was because we knew of this that we undertook to mobilize Germany’s strength.

 

You know it well: in the year 1933, the year we assumed power, I was forced to declare our withdrawal from the League of Nations and from the Disarmament Conference. This forum was incapable of according us justice.

 

In 1934, Germany’s rearmament began on a large scale. In 1935, I introduced general conscription. In 1936, I had the Rhineland occupied militarily. In 1937, the Four-Year Plan was launched. In 1938, the Ostmark and the Sudetenland were integrated into the Reich. In 1939, we began to establish protection for the Reich against those enemies who had meanwhile cast aside their masks.

 

The steps taken in 1939 served the defense of the Reich. Everything could have developed quite differently had the outside world had as much as an ounce of understanding for the vital concerns of Germany. Often it is said we should have waited for a negotiated settlement. Remember, my Volksgenossen: did I not repeatedly place the colonial question, for instance, before the world to obtain a negotiated settlement?! Did we ever receive a response? None other than brusque replies and ever new hateful reactions.

 

The moment the Reich began to re-emerge, the leading classes of England and France determined to take up the battle once again. They wanted it thus.

 

For over 300 years, England has sought to prevent a real consolidation of Europe, just as France sought to prevent a consolidation of Germany for many a century. Today Mr. Chamberlain stands up to preach his pious war aims to the outside world. To this, all I can say is: English history has already betrayed your intent, Mr. Chamberlain! For 300 years, your statesmen have spoken just as you do today, Mr.

 

Chamberlain, at the onset of war. They always fought for “the Lord and religion.” They never had “a material goal.” And just because they never fought for such “a material goal,” the Lord so richly rewarded them in material terms! That England always declared itself “a fighter for truth and justice” and “a protagonist of all virtues,” this Dear Lord has not forgotten. Generously He has bestowed His blessings on the English. In those nearly 300 years, they have subjugated forty million square kilometers of soil on this earth. Naturally, they did this not from egotistical motives or because they lusted for mastery, riches, or enjoyment. To the contrary, they were merely fulfilling a mission in the name of the Lord and religion.

 

Of course, England did not wish to be the sole crusader for the Lord’s cause, and thus invited others to partake in this noble exploit. It did not even seek to claim the battle’s greatest burdens for itself. For ventures so pleasing to the Lord one can always find others. And England still does this today. And all this is richly rewarding for England: Forty million square kilometers obtained through conquest: a succession of rape, extortion, tyrannical abuse, oppression, pillaging. Events mark English history inconceivable for any other state or for any other people. The English waged war for any old reason. They waged war to expand trade; they waged war to force others to smoke opium; they waged war for gold mines and for mastery over diamond mines. Their goals were always material in nature, though hidden beneath a cloak of noble ideals.

 

And this last war was led in the service of noble purposes, too. To have pocketed German colonies in the process was the Lord’s will; to have taken our fleet from us; to have pocketed German accounts abroad. All these exploits were mere side effects of the “noble struggle for a holy religion.” When I see Mr.

 

Chamberlain go about, bible in hand, preaching his noble war aims, I cannot help having the impression of watching the devil, bible clasped under his arm, creeping up to a poor soul.

 

All this is no longer original. It is all in exceedingly bad taste. Nobody believes him anymore. Sometimes I fear he is coming to doubt himself.

 

Besides, every Volk burns its fingers only once. Only once were the children of Hamelin herded off by the Pied Piper; only once was the German Volk herded off by that apostle of the international brotherhood of man.70 In this context, I must praise Mr. Churchill. He frankly states what old Mr. Chamberlain only thinks quietly to himself and hopes for secretly. He says, our goal is the dissolution, the destruction of Germany. Our goal is the extermination, if possible, of the German Volk. Believe me, I welcome this openness.

 

And the French generals also freely discuss what is actually at stake. I believe we can understand each other more easily in this manner. Why always fight with lies and empty phrases? Why not be open about things? We should greatly prefer this. We know the objective they are pursuing whether or not Mr. Chamberlain walks about with the bible in hand or not; whether he is acting piously or not; whether he speaks the truth or not. We know their goal: it is the Germany of 1648 which they envision, a Germany disintegrated and torn to pieces. They know only too well that over eighty million Germans sit in this Central Europe. These human beings have a right to live-they have a right to a piece of the pie-and for three hundred years they were cheated out of it.

 

They could only be cheated since their disintegration led to the weight of their numbers being proportionally undervalued. And thus today we have 140 men living on one square kilometer. And when such numbers unite, they have power. When they are divided, they are defenseless and impotent. There is a moral imperative lying within their unity also. What does it matter when thirty, fifty or 200 small states rise to protest or to claim their vital rights? Who takes note? When eighty million men rise up-that is a completely different story! Hence the disinclination against the state-forming activities in Italy, the unity of Germany. They would much prefer to see these states dissolve into their former elements once more.

 

A few days ago, an Englishman wrote: “So it is, indeed. The hasty foundation of the German Empire-that was not right.” Indeed, it was not right. It was not right that eighty million men came together to jointly realize their vital rights.72 Instead, they would much prefer to see us under 200 or 400 different little flags or, if possible, in some 200 or 300 dynasties. Every dynasty would rule some 100,000 odd men and these would be silenced, never to be heard of by the rest of the world. Then we as a Volk could try to survive as a people of poets and philosophers. Besides this, poets and philosophers also need less food than hard laborers do.

 

This is the problem up for discussion today. Here are great nations which in the course of the centuries were cheated out of their right to life in this world due to their divisions. These nations have now overcome their inner divisions.

 

Today they have entered, as young peoples, the circle of all others and are staking their claim. They are opposed by the so-called owners. These latter peoples who today possess and block large sections of the world without sense or purpose; these who pillaged Germany only a few years ago; these now place themselves in the same position as the so-called possessing classes within a society do.

 

On the world stage, the same thing is repeated which we have already witnessed inside the life of a people. Here, too, there were economic analysis and political opinion to the effect that he who has something, has something; he who has nothing, has nothing. It was to please the Lord that the one should possess while the other should not. And it was to remain so for eternity. New forces have come to oppose this. The one simply cries out: “We want only to destroy! What we cannot possess we will destroy!” This nihilistic force has raged in Germany for a decade and a half.73 Constructive National Socialism has overcome this force. It has refused to acknowledge the existing state of affairs and undertaken its modification. It changed the method of eradicating the state of affairs by saying: “We want to change this state of affairs by gradually permitting the non-possessing classes to partake in the national wealth and by educating them to partake in it.” Under no circumstances can the man who possesses everything presume himself to possess all-encompassing rights while the other man has no rights. It is no different in the world either. It is not acceptable for forty-six million Englishmen to simply block forty million square kilometers on this earth and to declare: “The Good Lord gave us this. Twenty years ago we got a little more yet from you. Now this is in our possession, and we shall not give back any of it.” And France? With its truly none-too-fertile people, numbering hardly eighty men per square kilometer, it has set out to conquer over nine million square kilometers of soil. Germany with its eighty million men possesses barely 600,000 square kilometers. This is the problem which must be solved, and it will be solved just as other social questions will be solved.

 

And what we witness today is a larger replay of the same drama we already observed on a smaller stage in the interior when National Socialism launched its struggle for a truly tolerable order and a true community of man for the benefit of the broad masses of the Volk. At the time, liberal and democratic circles-i.e. the possessing classes, and their parties-attempted to destroy National Socialism. “Dissolve the Party! The Party must be outlawed!” This was their eternal battle cry. They saw the Movement’s dissolution or prohibition as the only means of destroying this force which they feared might well prove capable of bringing about a change in the existing state of affairs.

 

National Socialism dealt squarely with these other forces; it survived; it inaugurated a new order in Germany and has persisted in so doing. And today the possessing part of the world is crying: “We must dissolve Germany! We must atomize these eighty million. They should not be allowed to remain within a contiguous state structure. Thereby we can rob them of the force to see their demands through!” And these are the objectives England and France are pursuing in this war! Our answer to them nevertheless remains the very same one with which we replied to our adversaries internally. My Old Party Comrades! You know well that the victory of the year 1933 was not a gift. It was the outcome of an unparalleled struggle which we had to lead for nearly fifteen years; of a nearly hopeless struggle.

 

You will recall that Providence did not all of a sudden bestow a great movement upon us. A handful of people founded it. They had to laboriously fight to attain their position back then and subsequently to expand upon it. This handful of people then became hundreds; then thousands; then tens and hundreds of thousands; and finally the first million. Then they grew into a second million, later into a third and fourth million. And it was thus, in the course of a long struggle against thousandfold resistance and assaults, pillage and violation of our rights, that we grew. And we became strong through this struggle: strong internally. And it was thus we struggled for power in these fifteen years. We received it not as a gift from the Lord, but as recompense for an unequaled, tough struggle; for courageous persistence in the struggle for power.

 

As I took hold of this power in the year 1933 and took over responsibility, along with the National Socialist Movement, for the future of Germany, I realized that the liberty of our Volk must no longer be restricted. I further realized that our struggle had by no means come to an end, but had only begun to be led on a far larger scale. For before us we had not only the victory of the National Socialist Movement, but the delivery of our German Volk! This was our objective! What I have labored for since is but a means to an end: Party; Labor Front; SA and SS; all other organizations like the Wehrmacht, the Army, the Luftwaffe, and the Navy; all these were not ends in themselves, but means to an end.74 The imperative of securing the liberty of our Volk reigns above all of these.

 

Naturally, at home as well as abroad, I have tried to see through the most urgent, inalienable demands by means of negotiations and appeals to reason. I have succeeded in doing so only in a number of cases and instances. In 1938, the realization forced itself upon us that the old war agitators of the World War were beginning once more to get the upper hand in the hostile states. It was then already that I began to issue warnings. For what should we think of these states when they first sit down at Munich to conclude an agreement, only then to depart for London to resume agitation, to denounce this agreement as a disgrace-even to insist such a thing would not be repeated a second time-in other words, to declare a voluntary understanding precluded and inconceivable for all times.

 

It was then that the outsiders appeared on the stage in the so-called democracies. I immediately warned of them. For it was perfectly clear: the German Volk harbored hatred neither against the English nor the French people. The German Volk desired only to live in peace and friendship with them. The demands we make do not do injury to these peoples, they rob them of nothing.

 

Hence the German Volk has never been educated to harbor hatred for them. Yet at this point, in England, certain circles launched an impertinent, intolerable campaign. To me, this indicated the moment had come to say: we cannot stand by silently any longer. For one day these agitators in London might well find themselves in government and realize their plans. And then the German Volk will not know what precisely hit it. And thus I gave orders to enlighten the German Volk regarding this campaign. And from this moment on, I also stood determined to secure the Reich’s defenses in one way or another.

 

In 1939, the Western Powers finally dropped their masks. Despite all our attempts and our advances, they sent us their declaration of war. And today they freely admit: “Indeed, Poland may well have given way, but we did not want it to.” Today they admit it would have been possible to arrive at an understanding. But they wanted war.

 

This was precisely what my domestic opponents used to tell me. I held my hand out in friendship to them. But they also refused it. And they also cried: “No reconciliation. No understanding. Only war!” Well, they got their war! And I can only say to France and England: you, too, shall have your war! The first phase in this war consisted of political action. It freed our rear first of all. For years Germany collaborated with Italy in policy formation. This policy has not changed to this day. The two states are close friends. There is a common denominator to their interests.

 

In the past year, I have tried to rob England of the means to allow the conflict it envisioned to escalate into a general world war. The pious Mr. Chamberlain who studies, reads, and preaches the bible, labored for months to arrive at an understanding with the atheist Stalin. He attempted to conclude a pact with him. In this he failed at the time.

 

I understand that England is raging now that I have done what Mr. Chamberlain in vain sought to do. And I also comprehend that what was pleasing to the Lord in Mr. Chamberlain’s case should be far less pleasing to the Lord in my case. But, nevertheless, I do believe the Lord Almighty to be well pleased that a senseless war on so vast a terrain was prevented.

 

Throughout centuries Germany and Russia have lived next to each other in peace and friendship. Why should this not be possible in the future once again? I believe it to be possible since both peoples so desire! Any attempt on the part of the British and French plutocracies to raise renewed controversy between us will fail as we realize their true intentions.

 

And thus today Germany does not have to worry about its rear politically.

 

The second task of the year 1939 was to secure this rear militarily as well.

 

The strength of our Wehrmacht trampled to the ground the hope of the English military experts that under no circumstances could the war against Poland be decided in less than six months or a year. The state to which England had extended its guarantee was swept from the map within eighteen days.75 Hence the first phase of this war has come to an end, and the second one begins.

 

Mr. Churchill is already dying to start it. He cherishes the hope, as expressed by intermediaries as well as by his own person, that bombardment should finally, and as soon as possible, feature in this war. And already they are crying that this war should not pay heed to women and children. For when has England ever paid heed to women and children?! After all, this entire blockade warfare is nothing other than a war against women and children, just as once was the case in the Boer War. It was then that concentration camps were invented. The English brain gave birth to this idea. We only read about it in the encyclopedias and later copied it-with one crucial difference: England locked up women and children in these camps. Over twenty thousand Boer women died wretchedly at the time.76 Why should England fight differently today? We have anticipated this and we have prepared ourselves.

 

May Mr. Churchill rest assured that we do know what has happened in England within these five months and in France, too. However, he apparently does not know what has happened in Germany within these five months! Evidently these gentlemen are of the conviction that we slept through these past five months. Since the day I stepped onto the political stage, I have never yet slept through a single day of importance, not to speak of five months.

 

I can assure the German Volk of one thing: in these five months, we have scored enormous achievements. What was built within Germany in the previous seven years pales in comparison to the attainments of these five months! Our armament program was launched according to plan. The plan proved its worth. Our foresight is just now beginning to bear fruits. These fruits are of so impressive a nature that our adversaries are beginning to imitate us. Alas-they are poor imitators. Naturally, the English broadcast services know better. According to them, the skies above England are so darkened by British squadrons flying overhead that the sun can no longer shine there today; the world is one immense arsenal, equipped by England, working for England, supplying the massive British armies; Germany is standing on the brink of a total breakdown.

 

I just heard today that we possess only three more U-boats. This is truly disastrous-not for us, however, but for English propaganda, since should these three items be destroyed-and this could be as early as today or tomorrow-what will be left to be destroyed? The English will then be forced to sink U-boats preemptively which we are to build only in the future. And then somehow they will have to come to terms with a method of resurrecting U-boats. Undoubtedly, English ships will continue to be sunk and, as we possess no more U-boats, the U-boats attacking them will have to be U-boats which the English have previously sunk.

 

Further I read that I have succumbed to deep despair and sadness as I had expected us to build two U-boats every day, while we were turning out only two every week. To this I can only say: it is not good to have one’s war reports and especially one’s radio broadcasts authored by members of a people which has not fought for several thousands of years. For after all, the last documented battle involving the Maccabees is slowly losing its instructive value for military history.

 

When I turn to look at this foreign propaganda, my belief in our victory grows to the immeasurable! For this propaganda I experienced once before. For nearly fifteen years, this propaganda was directed against us. My Old Party Comrades, you remember this propaganda! There are the same words, the same phrases-yes-when we look more closely we see the same heads speaking the same dialects.

 

I finished off these people as a lonely, unknown man who gathered but a handful of people about him. Throughout fifteen years I finished off these people. And today Germany is the greatest world power.77 It is not as though age as such results in wisdom. No more are the blind restored to sight by old age. Whoever was afflicted with blindness before remains so today. Whoever is afflicted with blindness will be cursed by the gods.

 

Today the German Wehrmacht, the best of its kind, is fencing off these forces. Above all, the German Volk is fencing off these forces with its insight and its discipline. For seven years, National Socialist work has educated it in all areas. That this is not just a fantasy is something you can see today. This education has overcome differences of classes and ranks. It has eliminated parties, eradicated different Weltanschauungen, and has placed the community in its stead. Today the soul of this community is suffused with a singular, glowing trust and a fanatical will. This time this community will not make the mistake of 1918.

 

When today Monsieur Daladier expresses doubts regarding this community, or when he believes that parts of this community are lamenting their lot, or when he is quoting my own homeland-oh, Monsieur Daladier, you shall yet get to know my men of the Ostmark (Ostmarker)! They shall personally instruct you. You shall get to know their divisions and regiments just as well as the other German ones. Perhaps then you shall be cured of a peculiar form of insanity, namely, the insanity of believing you are faced by the German tribes of old.

 

Monsieur Daladier, you are faced by the entire German Volk today! And it is the National Socialist German Volk! This Volk for which National Socialism has so struggled and which through laborious works has received its present-day education, is immune to these international delusions. And this in fact represents a permanent cure. The National Socialist Party guarantees this.

 

And the hopes they entertain to drive a wedge between Volk and Party, or Party and State, or Party and Wehrmacht, or Party and me, are childishly naive.

 

Fifteen years ago my adversaries clung to exactly the same hopes.

 

As a National Socialist, I have known nothing other than work, struggle, worries, labors. I believe Providence has destined our generation for nothing else. Once, twenty-five years ago, the German Volk set out to fight a war forced upon it. The Volk was not well armed. France applied the power of its people in a fashion quite different from the Germany of the time. Russia was the mightiest adversary. The whole world was successfully mobilized against this Germany. Thus the Volk set out to do battle and wrought many a wondrous heroic deed. And Providence was with our Volk.

 

The year 1914 delivered our homeland from the threat of foreign break-ins.

 

The year 1915 improved the situation of the Reich further still; 1916, 1917; year after year; battle after battle. At times, everything seemed on the verge of collapse when, as though by miracle, the Reich was rescued. Germany then afforded us with truly astounding proofs of its internal strength. Obviously, Providence had blessed it. Then the German Volk became ungrateful. Then it began to listen to the promises of others, instead of looking trustingly to its own strength and hence to its own future. And finally, in its ungratefulness, the German Volk turned against its own Reich, its own leadership. And it was then that Providence turned away from the German Volk.

 

Since then, I have come to regard this catastrophe as something not wholly undeserved. I have never complained that Providence had somehow wronged us.

 

On the contrary, I always supported this thesis: Providence only gave to us what we deserved in the end. The German nation was ungrateful. Therefore it was deprived of its recompense! This will not happen a second time in our history.

 

The National Socialist Movement has already passed through a trial period.

 

The fifteen years of struggle were not only days of glory, of marvelous victories.

 

They were a time of many a worry. At times, our enemies were already jubilantly hailing our destruction. Yet the Movement held its own with a heart filled with strength and joy. Time and time again, trusting in the necessity of our struggle, it leapt up once more to face the enemy and to carry the victory in the end.

 

This is the task of the German nation today. Eighty million men are stepping up to the line now. As many enemies are standing across from them.

 

These, our eighty million today, enjoy an excellent internal organization-the best possible in fact. They have a strong faith. Their leadership is not bad.

 

Rather, as I am convinced, it is the best.

 

Fuhrer and Volk today realize that no understanding is possible if we do not insist upon our rights. We do not wish the struggle for these rights to burst forth anew in two, perhaps three or five years. The rights of eighty million are up for discussion, not those of a party or a movement. For who am I? I am nothing other than your speaker, German Volk, the speaker for your rights! The Volk has vested its trust in me! I will prove myself worthy of this trust.

 

I wish to draw attention not to my own person and my surroundings, but rather to the past and to the future. I wish to stand up in honor before the past and the future, and with me the German Volk shall honorably hold its own.

 

The generation of today-it is the bearer of Germany’s destiny; of Germany’s future or Germany’s fall. Our enemies, they already cry out today: Germany shall fall! Yet Germany can give but one answer: Germany will live, and hence Germany will win! At the beginning of the eighth year of the National Socialist revolution, our hearts turn to our German Volk and its future.

 

We want to serve this future. We want to fight for it and, if necessary, fall for it. We will never capitulate-for Germany must win and it will win.

 

Heil!

Saturday, January 27, 2024

Philosophy – Part II

Part II


„I will explain a great mystery: if thou desirest to live, mortify, for the glory of God, not only thy body but thy soul, thy reason, and even thy conscience. Free thyself from all rules and all laws, all virtues of fasting, of abstinence, and of virginity. Free thyself from holiness. Descend into thyself as into a tomb. Then mysteriously dead thou shalt rise again, and in thee will dwell the Holy Spirit, and thou shalt never lose, it, no matter what thou mayest do. He believed he was flying without knowing where he was flying to, whether it was towards Heaven or towards the abyss, towards God or the Devil!“ (Dmitry Merejkovsky, Pierre le Grand; Light-Bearers of Darkness, Inquire Within, pp. 77-78).


„God (the Creative Principle) is bewitched in the world, and it is his own force that is needed to find Him. This force (sex-force) must be awakened within you. Such were the teachings which the Mystic received before initiation. And now began the great drama of the world, of which he made a living integral part. The aim of the drama was nothing less than the freeing of the hidden God; where is that God? God is not but Nature is. It is in Nature that he must be found. For he is enshrouded in her as in an enchanted tomb.“ (Dr. Rudolf Stiener, The Trail of the Serpent, Miss Stoddard, p. 208).


„Sow a thought and reap an action; sow an inaction and reap a habit; sow a habit and reap character; sow character and reap destiny.“ (Thackeray)


„...in later times Gnosis was the name given to what Porphyry calls Antique and Oriental Philosophy to distinguish it from the Grecian systems. But the term was first used (according to Matter) in its ultimate sense of supernal and celestial (cosmic) knowledge, by the Jewish philosophers of the celebrated Alexandrian School. A very characteristic production of this Jewish Gnosis has come down to our time in the Book of Enoch, of which the main subject is to make known the description of the heavenly bodies and their correct names are revealed to the Patriarch by the angel of Uriel. This profession betrays of itself the main source from which the inspiration was derived.“ (Secret Sects of Syria, Mason Springett)


„Among the early nations a wild enthusiasm and a sensual idolatry of nature soon superseded the simple worship of the Almighty God...The great powers and elements of nature and the vital principle of production and procreation through all generations; then the celestial spirits or heavenly host, the luminous armies of the stars, and the great Sun and mysterious, ever-changing Moon (all of which the whole ancient world regarded, not as mere globes of light or bodies of fire, but as animated living substances, potent over man’s fate and destinies); next the genii and tutelar spirits, and even the souls of the dead, received divine worship..the heavens, earth, and the operations of nature were personified; the good and bad principles personified became also objects of worship.“ (Morals and Dogmas, Albert Pike)


„Alexandrian Jewish Philosophers, were ardent propagandists, eager to make proselytes, and for this purpose endeavored to adapt Judaism to Hellenism, persuaded that without the law and without Israel to practice it, the world would cease to be, the world would be happy only when subject to this universal Law, that is, to the empire of the Jew.“ (Le Problème Juif, Georges Batault)


„Have we to fear the great part of the nation which knows not our projects, and would not be disposed to lend us their support?...If they disapprove of them, it will be only timidly, without clamor. For the rest, does the nation know what it wants? We will make it want and say what it has never thought of...The nation is a large herd which thinks only of browsing, and which, with good dogs, the shepherds lead at will...One will have to impose upon the bourgeoisie who sees nothing to lose, but all to gain by the change. To stir it up one has the most powerful motives: poverty, hunger, money, rumors of alarm and fear, the frenzy of terror and rage with which we will strike their minds...What will we do with all this people while muzzling their principles of honesty and justice? Good men are feeble and timid; it is the blackguards who are determined. It is advantageous to people during revolutions to have no morals...there is not a single one of our old virtues which can serve us...All that is necessary for revolution, all that is useful to it is just - that is the great principle.“ (Memories by Marmontel; The Trail of the Serpent, Inquire Within, Miss Stoddard, p. 73).


„From Ptolemy Philadelphus until the middle of the third century the Alexandria Jews, with the object of maintaining and strengthening their propaganda, devoted themselves to an extraordinary work of falsification of real texts as a support for their cause. The verses of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, of the pretended Oracles of Orpheus, preserved in Aristobulus and the Stromata of Clemens of Alexandria, thus celebrated the One God and the Sabbath. Historians were falsified, still more they attributed entire works to them, and it is thus that they placed a History of the Jews under the name of Hécatée d’Abdère. The most important of these inventions was that of the Sibylline Oracles, fabricated entirely by the Alexandrian Jews, which announced the future era, when the reign of One God would eventuate. The Jews even attempted to ascribe to themselves Greek literature and philosophy. In a commentary on the Pentateuch which Eusebius has preserved to us. Aristobulus endeavored to show how Plato and Aristotle had found their metaphysical and ethical ideas in an old Greek translation of the Pentateuch.“ (L’Antisémitisme, Benard Lazare)


„The exegesis which consists in distorting texts in order to bring out of them what they desired is the only ‘science’ which can be traced to the Jews. It became in the hands of the Judeo-Alexandrians, a formidable arm which, by the perfidious force of their veiled lies, enrolled Hellenism, in spite of itself, into the service of the exclusivism and the religious proselytism of the Israelites. The attempt to ‘Judaïse’ Hellenism, which today appears to us so perfectly absurd and disastrous, has had, nevertheless, the result of obscuring the intelligence of humanity for hundreds of years.“ (Le Problème Juif, Georges Batault)


„Kings, nobles, the aristocracy of money, employees of the police or of the administration, priests, and permanent armies are the enemies of mankind. Against them one has every right and every duty. All is permitted to annihilate them: violence, ruse, shot and shell, poison, and the dagger; the end sanctifies the means.“ (L’Alliance humanitaire universelle; The Trail of the Serpent, Miss Stoddard, p. 107).


„The Cabal is of two kinds, theoretical and practical, with the practical Cabala, which is engaged in the construction of talismans and amulets, we have nothing to do. The theoretical is divided into the lineal and dogmatic. The dogmatic is nothing more than the summary of the metaphysical doctrine taught by the Cabalist doctors. It is, in other words, the system of the Jewish philosophy.“ (Albert Mackay, Lexicon of Freemasonry).


„The turning point in history will be the moment man becomes aware that the only god of man is man himself.“ (Henri de Lubec, Atheistic Humanist, p. 10)


As I earlier explained. It is a lot about action and reaction....Example...When a pendulum is moved to one extreme it will have the tendency to go to the opposite extreme before eventually coming to REST.

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

The Madagascar Plan: Juden aus Europa!

 

Source: https://www.renegadetribune.com/the-madagascar-plan-juden-aus-europa/

 

by Carlo Mattogno

 

The approaching victory gives Germany the possibility, and in my view also the duty, of solving the jewish question in Europe. The desirable solution is: all jews out of Europe.

 

Overview

 

The Madagascar Plan was a proposal for jewish settlement devised by National Socialist Germany in the late 1930’s.

 

On December 9, 1938, French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet informed German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop that in order to rid France of 10,000 jewish refugees it would be necessary to ship them elsewhere. At that time, the National Socialist government considered mass emigration to be the “Final Solution” to the “jewish problem.”

 

On March 5, 1938, the SS officer in charge of forced jewish emigration, Adolf Eichmann, was commissioned to assemble material to provide the chief of the Security Police (SIPO) Reinhard Heydrich with “a foreign policy solution as it had been negotiated between Poland and France,” i.e., the Madagascar Plan. Temporarily shelved in the wake of the war, the project was taken up again after the fall of France in the summer of 1940.

 

Eichmann prepared a detailed official report on the island of Madagascar and its “colonization” possibilities based on information gathered from the French Colonial Office. He added an evacuation plan calling for 4 million jews to be shipped to Madagascar over a period of four years and also advocated the creation of a “police reserve” as a giant ghetto. The plan was to be financed by a special bank managing confiscated jewish property and by contributions exacted from world jewry.

 

The plan leaked out and was published in Italy in July 1940. In August 1940, the Third Reich officially endorsed the Madagascar Plan. Alarmed by the excellent plan, the American Jewish Committee commissioned a special report, published in May 1941, that sought to demonstrate that jews could not survive the conditions on the island. The population of Madagascar in 1900 was 2.2 million, in 1950 4.1 million.

 

On February 10, 1942, only a few weeks after the Wannsee Conference, the Madagascar Plan was officially shelved and replaced in public policy statements with the lexicon of “evacuation to the East.”

 

Text of the Madagascar Proposal

 

The approaching victory gives Germany the possibility, and in my view also the duty, of solving the Jewish question in Europe. The desirable solution is: all Jews out of Europe.

 

The task of the Foreign Ministry in this is:

 

  1. a) To include this demand in the Peace Treaty and to insist on it also by means of separate negotiations with the European countries not involved in the Peace Treaty;

 

  1. b) to secure the territory necessary for the settlement of the Jews in the Peace Treaty, and to determine principles for the cooperation of the enemy countries in this problem;

 

  1. c) to determine the position under international law of the new Jewish overseas settlement;

 

  1. d) as preparatory measures:

 

1) clarification of the wishes and plans of the departments concerned of the Party, State and Research organizations in Germany, and the coordination of these plans with the wishes of the Reich Foreign Minister, including the following:

 

2)  preparation of a survey of the factual data available in various places (number of Jews in the various countries), use of their financial assets through an international bank;

 

3) negotiations with our friend, Italy, on these matters.

 

With regard to beginning the preparatory work, Section D III has already approached the Reich Foreign Minister via the Department Germany [interior affairs], and has been instructed by him to start on the preparatory work without delay. There have already been discussions with the Office of the Reichsfuehrer SS in the Ministry of Interior and several departments of the Party. These departments approve the following plan of Section D III:

 

Section D III proposes as a solution of the Jewish question: In the Peace Treaty France must make the island of Madagascar available for the solution of the Jewish question, and to resettle and compensate the approximately 25,000 French citizens living there. The island will be transferred to Germany under a mandate. Diégo Suarez Bay and the port of Antsirane, which are [sea-] strategically important, will become German naval bases (if the Navy wishes, these naval bases could be extended also to the harbors – open road-steads – Tamatave, Andevorante, Mananjara, etc.). In addition to these naval bases, suitable areas of the country will be excluded from the Jewish territory (Judenterritorium) for the construction of air bases. That part of the island not required for military purposes will be placed under the administration of a German Police Governor, who will be under the administration of the Reichsfuehrer SS. Apart from this, the Jews will have their own administration in this territory: their own mayors, police, postal and railroad administration, etc. The Jews will be jointly liable for the value of the island. For this purpose their former European financial assets will be transferred for use to a European bank to be established for this purpose. Insofar as the assets are not sufficient to pay for the land which they will receive, and for the purchase of necessary commodities in Europe for the development of the island, the Jews will be able to receive bank credits from the same bank.

 

As Madagascar will only be a Mandate, the Jews living there will not acquire German citizenship. On the other hand, the Jews deported to Madagascar will lose their citizenship of European countries from the date of deportation. Instead, they will become residents of the Mandate of Madagascar.

 

This arrangement would prevent the possible establishment in Palestine by the Jews of a Vatican State of their own, and the opportunity for them to exploit for their own purposes the symbolic importance which Jerusalem has for the Christian and Mohammedan parts of the world. Moreover, the Jews will remain in German hands as a pledge for the future good behavior of the members of their race in America.

 

Use can be made for propaganda purposes of the generosity shown by Germany in permitting cultural, economic, administrative and legal self-administration to the Jews; it can be emphasized at the same time that our German sense of responsibility towards the world forbids us to make the gift of a sovereign state to a race which has had no independent state for thousands of years: this would still require the test of history.

 

signed Rademacher

Berlin, July 3, 1940

 

Details

 

“I hope to see the term ‘jew’ extinguished completely through the possibility of large-scale emigration of all jews to Africa or some other colony”  Himmler

 

Shortly after Hitler’s rise to power, the Reich government entered into the so called Haavara Agreement with the Jewish Agency for Palestine, a capital transfer agreement (haavara) for “German” jews emigrating to Palestine. The basis of the agreement was created with “Circular Decree No. 54/33 by the Reich Ministry of Economics of August 28, 1933 to all German foreign-exchange control offices” (Vogel, p. 107). According to statistics of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, 52,463 jews emigrated from Germany to Palestine from 1933 to 1942 on the basis of this agreement. 

 

Until the outbreak of the [jewish] war – and during the [jewish] war, as long as circumstances permitted – emigration to all countries willing to admit the jews was the principal purpose of National Socialist policy, as confirmed by the report of the German Foreign Office titled “The Jewish Question as a Factor in Foreign Affairs in 1938” (“Die Judenfrage als Faktor der Außenpolitik im Jahre 1938”) dated January 25, 1939. The first four points of the document read as follows: 

 

1.      “The German policy on the jews as a prerequisite and consequence of the foreign-policy decisions of 1938 

 

2.      Aim of German policy on the jews: emigration 

 

3.      Means, ways and ends of jewish emigration 

 

4.      The emigrated jew as the best propaganda for the German policy on the jews.”

 

Then, “the necessity for a radical solution of the jewish question” was recognized, which basically consisted in the following:

 

“The ultimate goal of German jewish policy is the emigration of all jews living in Reich territory.”

 

The day before, 24 January, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring had issued a decree establishing the Reich Center for Jewish Emigration (Reichszentrale für jüdische Auswanderung), the administration of which was entrusted to Reinhardt Heydrich. Göring first of all summarized concisely the principle that inspired National-Socialist policy (NG-2586-A):

 

“The emigration of jews from Germany must be encouraged by all means.”

 

Precisely with a view to what he instituted, the above-mentioned “Reichszentrale,” which was responsible for “taking all the measures for the preparation of an intensified emigration of the jews,” to provide for the preferential emigration of poor jews, and finally to facilitate bureaucratic practices for single individuals.

 

On November 25, 1939, Erhard Wetzel and G. Hecht, who occupied official positions in the field of racial policy, wrote a memorandum titled “The Issue of treating the population of the former Polish territory from the point of view of racial politics,” which constituted a first draft of the future “General Plan East.” Among other things, the draft set forth a plan for jewish resettlement in the occupied Polish territories, formulated as follows:

 

“The remaining Polish territory which, at the moment, has a population of 12.7 million, would thus reach 19.3 million.[7] In addition, there would be another 800,000 jews from the Reich (Altreich area, Austria, Sudetenlands, and Protectorate). Finally, another 530,000 jews from the former Polish territories now integrated into the Reich would have to be transferred as well.”

 

The destination of these deportations was no doubt the General Government, which had been officially created on 12 October. The plan was a follow-up to the directives issued by Heydrich to all the Einsatzgruppen leaders on the “Jewish question in the occupied territories” by express letter dated 21 September 1939 (PS-3363), including the Nisko Plan (October 1939), which called for the creation of a jewish reservation in eastern Poland, was a failed attempt at implementation, perhaps on the initiative of SS Sturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann’s (see Goshen; see also Mattogno 2018, pp. 31f.). The idea of Jewish emigration was not abandoned, however (PS-660, p. 35):

 

“In order to make the jew fit for emigration, it would be advisable, if need be, to provide him with a better educational training.”

 

In a memorandum written in May 1940, Himmler wrote (1957, p. 197):

 

“I hope to see the term ‘jew’ extinguished completely through the possibility of large-scale emigration of all jews to Africa or some other colony”

 

On June 24, 1940, Heydrich, who headed the RSHA (Reichssicherheitshauptamt, Reich Security Main Office), requested the Minister for Foreign Affairs Joachim von Ribbentrop to keep him informed of any possible ministerial meetings relating to the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” (Endlösung der Judenfrage), justifying his request as follows (T-173):

 

“Dear Party Comrade Ribbentrop! In 1939, the General Field Marshal [Göring], in his capacity as administrator of the Four-Year-Plan, entrusted me with the implementation of the jewish emigration from the territory of the Reich.

 

Subsequently, it was possible, even during the war and in spite of considerable difficulties, to carry on the jewish emigration successfully. Since 1st January 1939, when my office took over this task, more than 200,000 jews have so far emigrated from the Reich area.

 

However, the whole problem – we are dealing with some 3¼ million jews in the areas presently under German sovereignty – can no longer be solved by emigration. Thus, a final solution on a territorial basis will impose itself.” (Emphases in original)

 

As a follow-up to this letter, the minister for foreign affairs wrote the so-called “Madagascar Project.” On July 3, 1940, Franz Rademacher, head of the jewish section of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, wrote a report titled “The Jewish Question in the Peace Treaty,” which opened with the following declaration:

 

“The impending victory gives Germany the possibility and, I think, makes it our duty, to resolve the jewish question in Europe. The most desirable solution is: All jews out of Europe.”

 

The plan was approved by Ribbentrop and transmitted to the RSHA, which was responsible for implementing the technical preparations for the evacuation of the jews to the island of Madagascar, and supervising the evacuated jews (NG-2586-J). It was precisely this which comprised the “territorial Final Solution” to the jewish Question advocated by Heydrich.

 

On August 30, Rademacher wrote a note “Madagaskar Projekt,” the “financing” paragraph of which opens with the following words (NG-2586-D):

 

“The implementation of the proposed final solution will require considerable resources.”

 

The “Final Solution” of the Jewish Question therefore simply referred to the transfer of the ‘European’ jews to Madagascar.

 

In October of 1940, Alfred Rosenberg wrote an article titled “Jews on Madagascar” (“Juden auf Madagaskar”), in which he reminded his readers that as early as the anti-jewish congress at Budapest in 1927,

 

“[…] the question of a future removal of the jews from Europe [was] discussed, and here, for the first time, the proposal was made to promote Madagascar as the intended homestead of the jews.”

 

Rosenberg himself endorsed this idea and expressed his wish for the “jewish high finance” in Britain and the USA to help with the creation of a “jewish reservation” in Madagascar, which he considered “a worldwide problem.” 

 

According to the testimony of Moritz von Schirmeister, a former official at the German ministry of propaganda, even Joseph Goebbels spoke publicly of the Madagascar Plan several times (IMT, Vol. 17, p. 250), while Ribbentrop recalled the Führer’s intention to deport the “European” jews to North Africa or Madagascar (IMT, Vol. 10, p. 398).

 

The deportation of the “European” jews to Madagascar was not a fictitious plan, but a real and concrete project. In parallel with that plan, the authorities of the Reich continued to promote the emigration of the jews, particularly from Germany, by all means.

 

Zionist circles of Palestine fully supported this German policy. On January 11, 1941, one of their representatives sent a letter to the German Embassy in Ankara containing three attachments, including “a proposal from the National Military Organization of Palestine on the solution of the jewish question in Europe,” which stated:

 

“Germany’s leading National Socialist statesmen have in comments and speeches more than once emphasized that a New Order in Europe requires a radical solution of the jewish question through evacuation (‘jew-free Europe’). The evacuation of the jewish masses from Europe is a prerequisite for solving the jewish question, which is possible only by resettling these masses in the homeland of the jewish people, Palestine, and by establishing the jewish State in its historic boundaries.

 

To solve the jewish problem in this way and once and for all to liberate the jewish people is the aim of the political activity and the ongoing struggle of the israeli freedom movement, the National Military Organization in Palestine (Irgun Zevai Leumi).”

 

In this context, Irgun even offered “to actively take part in the war on Germany’s side.” 

 

On May 20, 1941, Heydrich prohibited the emigration of jews from France and Belgium “in consideration of the doubtlessly approaching final solution of the jewish question,” that is, in view of the implementation of the Madagascar Project, which was considered imminent. First of all, Heydrich basically reaffirmed the principle that inspired National-Socialist policy towards the jews:

 

“In accordance with an instruction emanating from the Reich Marshall of the Greater German Reich [Göring], the emigration of jews from the Reich territory including the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia is to be implemented actively, even under the present state of war, within the conditions prevailing and taking into account the directives for the emigration of the jews.”

 

Heydrich then clearly explained the reasons for the prohibition (ibid.):

 

“As the jews on the territory of the Reich, for example, have only a limited choice of departure [routes], mainly via Spain and Portugal, an emigration of jews from France and Belgium would further reduce these possibilities.”

 

Two months later, on July 31, Göring entrusted Heydrich with the task of undertaking all necessary preparations for the “Final Solution,” that is, emigration or evacuation of all jews under German rule to Madagascar. This letter in fact declared (NG-2586-E, PS-710):

 

“In addition to the task already entrusted to you by the decree of 14 January 1939, viz. to bring about an optimum solution to the jewish question by emigration or evacuation in accordance with the conditions prevailing, I order you herewith to undertake all necessary preparations – organizational, administrative, and material – for a comprehensive solution of the jewish question within the German sphere of influence in Europe.

 

To the extent that the competence of other central agencies is concerned thereby, the latter are [to be requested] to participate. I order you furthermore to submit to me in the near future a comprehensive proposal concerning the organizational, administrative, and material requirements for the implementation of the final solution of the jewish question so envisaged.”

 

This document is fully in accordance with the Madagascar Project. The directives issued by Göring “in addition” to those already issued to Heydrich by means of the decree of 24 January 1939 consisted, in fact, of completing the solution to the jewish question “in the form of emigration or evacuation” of the jews of the Reich only, with a territorial “final solution” through evacuation to Madagascar of all the jews from the territories occupied by the Germans.

 

Precisely because it involved all the “European” jews of the occupied countries, this solution was called the “comprehensive solution” (“Gesamtlösung”), a term which not accidentally recalled the “whole problem” of Heydrich’s letter of June 24, 1940.

 

Writing on November 6, 1941, Heydrich himself, who had been responsible for preparing the “Final Solution” in Europe for years (PS-1624), clearly traced this responsibility back to the decree of January 24, 1939, and identified the “Final Solution” with the solution “in the form of emigration or evacuation” from Göring’s letter dated July 31, 1941.

 

This is also the context of the order conveyed to the foreign ministry by Adolf Eichmann on August 28, 1941, which prohibited “an emigration of jews from the territories occupied by us in view of the impending final solution of the jewish question in Europe now being prepared.” 

 

Over the following months, the difficulties created by the war and the territorial prospects opened up by the Russian campaign led to an important change in destination in National-Socialist policies with regard to the jews: the “Final Solution” through deportation of the “European” jews to Madagascar was succeeded by a “territorial Final Solution” through the deportation of the “European” jews into the German-occupied eastern territories.

 

This change was proposed on August 22, 1941 by SS Sturmbannführer Carl Theo Zeitschel, advisor at the German Embassy in Paris, in a note drawn up by Ambassador Otto Abetz: 

 

“The continuing conquest and occupation of large territories in the East could at present offer us a rapid solution of the jewish problem throughout Europe. As we can see from the cries for help addressed to the ‘American’ jews in the press of all the jews in Palestine, some 6 million jews are living in the regions recently occupied by us, especially in Bessarabia, amounting to one third of world jewry.

 

In the course of any new disposition of the eastern space, these six million jews would in any case have to be grouped and a special territory would have to be staked out for them. It should not be a major problem to include the jews from the remainder of the European states and to move there as well the jews who are presently crammed into the ghettos of Warsaw, Litzmannstadt (Łodź), Lublin etc.

 

As far as the occupied areas are concerned, such as Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Norway, Yugoslavia, Greece, it would be easy to issue military orders for the removal of the jews to the new territory in mass transports; other states could be encouraged to follow this example and to expell their jews to this territory. Within a short period of time, Europe could be made free of jews.”

 

In General Governor Hans Frank’s diary, dated July 17, 1941, we read (Präg/ Jacobmeyer p. 386):

 

“The Governor General does not favor any further ghettos because the Führer expressly declared on 19 June that the jews will soon be removed from the General Government with the latter becoming, as it were, a mere transit camp.”

 

On August 20, 1941, after a visit to the Führer’s headquarters, Goebbels noted in his diary (Reuth, pp. 1660f.):

 

“Furthermore, the Führer promised me that I could remove the jews from Berlin immediately after the termination of the eastern campaign.”

 

Zeitschel’s proposal was approved by Hitler a few months later, who decided to abandon the Madagascar Project temporarily, and deport East all jews found in the occupied territories. The Führer’s decision certainly dates back to September 1941 – according to some to September 17 (Konze et al., p. 185). On October 23, Himmler prohibited jewish emigration effective immediately, 15 and the evacuation of 50,000 western jews to the East was ordered the next day. On October 24, Kurt Daluege, head of the regular police (Ordnungspolizei), issued a decree bearing the subject “Evacuations of Jews from the Old Reich and the Protectorate,” which ordered (PS-3921):

 

“Between November 1 and December 4, 1941, 50,000 jews will be deported by the security police from the Altreich, the Ostmark [Austria], and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia into the region of Minsk and Riga in the East.

 

The deportations will be carried out by Reichsbahn trains of 1000 persons each. The trains will be assembled at Berlin, Hamburg, Hannover, Dortmund, Münster, Düsseldorf, Cologne, Frankfurt/M., Kassel, Stuttgart, Nuremberg, Munich, Vienna, Breslau, Prague, and Brünn.”

 

The new direction given to National-Socialist policies with regard to the jews was officially communicated to the old Party hierarchy at the Wannsee Conference, which was convened for this primary purpose.

 

The conference, initially scheduled for December 9, 1941 (PS-709; NG2586-F), was postponed due to the United States’s entry into the war, and was eventually held in Berlin, at Am Großen Wannsee 56/58, on January 20, 1942. Heydrich was the speaker. The associated minutes open with an extensive recapitulation of National-Socialist policies implemented with regard to the jews up until that time, as a consequence of which approximately 537,000 jews had emigrated by October 31, 1941, including: 

 

– approximately 360,000 from the Old Reich since January 30, 1933 

 

– approximately 147,000 from the Ostmark [Austria] since March 15, 1938 

 

– approximately 30,000 from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia since March 15, 1939.

 

Then we read there, among other things (NG-2586-G):

 

“In the meantime, the Reichsführer-SS and Head of the German Police [= Himmler] has forbidden any further emigration of jews in view of the dangers posed by emigration in wartime and the developing possibilities in the East. As a further possible solution, and with the appropriate prior authorization by the Führer, emigration has now been replaced by evacuation to the East.

 

This operation should be regarded only as a provisional option, though in view of the coming final solution of the jewish question it is already supplying practical experience of vital importance.”

 

By Hitler’s order, therefore, the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” through voluntary or compulsory emigration of all the “European” jews to Madagascar, was replaced by their evacuation to the occupied eastern territories, but only as a “provisional option,” while awaiting the end of the war in order to return to the problem.

 

The Wannsee Conference was therefore convened to inform the authorities concerned of the abandonment of the policy of emigration or evacuation to Madagascar, and the commencement on a vast scale of a policy of deportation to the east, and to discuss the related problems.

 

The Madagascar Project was officially abandoned in early February 1942. An information letter from Rademacher to adjutant Harald Bielfeld of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs dated February 10, 1942 explains the reasons (NG5770):

 

“In August of 1940 I transmitted to you for your files the plan elaborated by my department for the final solution of the jewish question, whereby the island of Madagascar was to be ceded by France, with the practical implementation of this task to be entrusted to the RSHA. In accordance with this plan, Gruppenführer Heydrich was ordered by the Führer to carry out the solution of the jewish question in Europe. 

 

The war against the Soviet Union has meanwhile opened up the possibility of providing other territories for the final solution. The Führer has decided accordingly that the jews will not be deported to Madagascar but to the East. Hence, Madagascar need no longer be considered for the final solution.”

 

The “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” was therefore a territorial solution and consisted of the deportation of the “European” jews into the German-occupied Eastern territories.

 

Another important document, the memorandum by Martin Luther (an official in the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs) dated August 21, 1942. In this document, Luther first recapitulates the essential points of National-Socialist policies with regard to the jews (NG-2586-J):

 

“The basic premise of the German policy in respect of the jews, starting with the seizure of power [by Hitler in 1933], was to promote jewish emigration by all available means. For this purpose, Generalfeldmarschall Göring, in his capacity as head of the Four-Year-Plan, created a Reich central agency for jewish emigration and assigned its leadership to Gruppenführer Heydrich, the chief of the security police.”

 

After setting forth the origins and development of the Madagascar Project, which was now superseded by events, Luther continued by noting that Göring’s letter of July 31, 1941 was a follow-up to Heydrich’s letter of June 24, 1940 according to which the jewish question would no longer be resolved through emigration, but required “a territorial final solution.”

 

“For that reason, Reichsmarschall Göring requested Gruppenführer Heydrich on July 31, 1941 to carry out all necessary preparations for a comprehensive solution of the jewish question within the German sphere of influence in Europe (cf. [Document] DIII 709g).

 

On the basis of this order, Gruppenführer Heydrich convened a meeting of all German agencies involved for January 20, 1942, with secretaries of state from the other ministries and myself from the foreign office attending. Gruppenführer Heydrich explained at the meeting that Reichsmarschall Göring had issued his order being so directed by the Führer, and that the Führer had now approved the evacuation of the jews to the East.”

 

Based on this order, Luther continued, the evacuation of the jews from Germany was undertaken. The destination consisted of the Eastern territories via the General Government:

 

“The removal to the General Government is a temporary measure. The jews will be moved on to the occupied eastern territories as soon as the material means are available.”

 

A circular letter dated October 9, 1942 titled “Preparatory measures for a solution of the jewish problem in Europe. Rumors concerning the situation of the jews in the East” containing “Confidential information” intended for party officials, inspired by the headings related to “very severe measures” in the occupied Eastern territories which began to be spread in Germany and which were “usually in a distorted or exaggerated manner,” summarized the stages and clearly explained the meaning of the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question”: 

 

Since the beginning of the war in 1939, emigration has become increasingly difficult; at the same time, the economic space of the German people has steadily increased in size compared to its living space so that, at the present time, a complete elimination through emigration is no longer possible in view of the large number of jews present in this [economic] space.

 

It is to be expected that already the coming generation will perceive this problem neither as vividly nor as clearly [as we do] on the basis of their own experience. Also, the matter has been set in motion and must be settled; hence, the problem as a whole must be resolved by the present generation. 

 

Therefore, the complete expulsion or elimination of the millions of jews present in the European economic sphere is an imperative task in the fight to guarantee the existence of the German people.

 

Starting in the Reich itself and then extending into the other European countries made part of the final solution, the jews will be moved into large camps in the East, some already in existence, others yet to be set up, where they will be used directly as labor or moved on further east. Elderly jews, as well as those with high military decorations (EK I [Iron Cross], Golden medal for bravery etc.) will be moved continuously to Theresienstadt, a town in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.”

 

In a report dated December 14, 1942 titled “Financing the Measures for the Solution of the Jewish Question,” ministerial advisor Walter Maedel summarized National-Socialist policies regarding the jews in the following terms (NG-4583):

 

“Some time ago, the Reichsmarschall ordered the Reichsführer-SS and Chief of the German Police to prepare the measures aiming at the final solution of the jewish question. The Reichsführer-SS has entrusted the Chief of the Security Police and SD with the execution of this task. The latter initially promoted the legal emigration of jews overseas by special measures.

 

When emigration overseas had become impossible after the outbreak of the war, he implemented the gradual cleansing of jews from the Reich by their deportation to the East. Lately, within the Reich territory, old-age homes (old-age ghettos) for jews have been set up, for example at Theresienstadt. For details see note of August 21, 1942. The establishment of other old-age homes in the eastern territories is being planned.”

 

Therefore, 557,357 jews emigrated from the Old Reich, Austria and Bohemia Moravia, in addition to nearly 600,000 of the 762,593 jews from the General Government and the eastern territories cumulatively indicated by Korherr under the headings “Emigration” and “Excess mortality” (see Subchapter 3.12.).

 

Therefore, the National-Socialist government, from 1933 to 1942, encouraged or induced the emigration of approximately one million jews from the territories under their control.