Part 1, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
Today I will address Hitler’s Obersalzberg speech and the Goebbels diaries.
Hitler’s Obersalzberg Speech: Here you can see that The Genocide Education Project uses an alleged quote from Hitler’s Obersalzberg speech. “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” is often cited as proof of Hitler’s genocidal intents. If you look at the bottom you will see the site got the quote from document L-3. Keep this in mind.
The following are from the Nuremberg Trial transcripts in which the dubious nature of document L-3 is discussed. Mr. Thomas Dodd, a proscuiter for the Americans in the Nuremberg trials, relates how document L-3 was not found among captured documents, but rather was brought in by a newspaperman and was offered only for identification, whatever that means. (A Kindle version of the complete Nuremberg transcripts are available on here on Amazon for $0.99 in case you want to fact check me.)
Dodd goes on to explain how the other two documents were obtained. Several pages later it is made clear that document L-3 was withdrawn.
The following is from a Wikipedia article on the Obersalzberg speech. Here they confirm that document L-3, which was rejected as evidence at the Nuremberg trials, was the only document to have the Armenian quote.
So there you have it. This oft cited Hitler quote is actually from a document with such a dubious origin that they wouldn’t even use it in the Nuremberg show trials.
The Goebbels Diaries: I’m going to assume the meme is referring to these quotes from the following Wikipedia article, Evidence and documentation for the Holocaust. If it’s not the meme needs to be more specific.
Both of these entries are vague and leave room for interpretation. To find the truth it is important to not let preconceived notions dictate your interpretation. It is also important to have context. What we don’t have are any documents ordering or planning a genocide. What we do have are plans, that not even orthodox Holocaust historians dispute, of a territorial solution. One such plan was the Madagascar Plan. A plan to deport Jews out of Europe, not murder them. There’s no reason to automatically interpret these passages as referring to the imminent extermination of the Jews.
Consider this quote from Patton. Are we going to assume that he was talking about the genocide of the Germans because he said ‘we must destroy our enemies’? Of course not. People say they must destroy their enemies all the time, it’s hardly indicative of a plan for genocide.
As for the prophecy that Hitler made I already discussed this in part one when going over the reichstag speeches. Hitler was talking about Jewish people losing their political role in Europe. He was not talking about a genocide.
The Wikipedia article for the Goebbels Diaries makes a perfect segue for part three. I have already covered the Wannsee Conference, but I will still talk about it, and more, in part three.
From Thomas Dalton’s “Goebbels on the Jews”
“27 March 1942 (II.3.561) *L
Beginning with Lublin, the Jews in the General Government are now being deported to the East. A rather barbaric method is used, one not to be described here, and there’s not much left of the Jews themselves. On the whole, one can say that about 60 percent of them will have to be liquidated, while only 40 percent can be used for labor.
The former district leader of Vienna, who is carrying out this action, is doing it with great care and in a way that does not attract too much attention. A judgment is being visited upon the Jews that, while barbaric, is fully deserved by them. The prophesy that the Führer made about them for having brought on a new World War is beginning to come true in a most terrible manner. One must not be sentimental about these things. If we didn’t 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 to solve this question in general. Here, too, the Führer is the undismayed champion of a radical solution, which, judging by the situation, is necessary and therefore seems inexorable. Thank God we now have a whole series of opportunities in wartime that would be denied us in peacetime. We have to profit from this.
The emptied ghettos in the cities of the General Government will now be refilled with Jews deported from the Reich—a process to be repeated from time to time. Jewry has nothing to laugh about; their representatives in England and America are today organizing and sponsoring the war against Germany, and their representatives in Europe must pay dearly—and that’s only right.”
and Dalton’s comment: “Dramatic wording, to be sure. But a few points need to be elaborated. First, if 40 percent are being saved for labor, clearly this is no plan for comprehensive mass murder (at least for the time being). Second, we now understand the likely meanings of ‘liquidation’ and ‘radical solution’; to ‘liquidate’ is to make fluid, in order to cause an entrenched population to flow outward; and the ‘radical solution’ is, by all accounts, a harsh and brutal process of ethnic cleansing rather than systematic mass murder. Third, we have yet more evidence that vernichten means something other than genocidal mass murder, given that the Jews could do no such thing to the German people. But a Jewish-infested and dominated Germany would indeed ‘destroy’ the character and integrity of traditional German society as Goebbels envisioned it. Fourth, the final paragraph is rarely cited by traditionalists; it too clearly indicates a systematic deportation process, including potentially long-term confinement. This is utterly inconsistent with a high-speed, industrialized scheme of gassing and mass murder.
When Goebbels says “Jews will be deported to the East,” it’s grammatically unclear if he means many, most, or all. Based on his subsequent remark, what he likely meant is that 60 percent of the Lublin Jews would be uprooted and shipped out (‘liquidated’) to ghettos in the East, and the other 40 percent would remain as forced laborers. This is his “radical solution,” comprising his “wartime opportunities” that would not have been otherwise possible. Of the remaining labor Jews, many would soon be located at the Majdanek labor camp near Lublin.
On the revisionist view, it’s natural to say that the liquidated Jews would be sent east: first to Belzec, then later in the year to Treblinka and Sobibor. These were the eastern transit camps designed to collect Jews from around the region, to disinfest them, and to ship them on further east to labor camps or ghettos in the newly-captured Russian, Ukrainian, or Baltic territories. This is entirely consistent with Goebbels’s actual words.
Lastly, we should recall that Goebbels had no compunction about speaking frankly. In the entry of March 16 he writes directly that it was “necessary to shoot more Jews.” So why here doesn’t he write, “we found it necessary to gas the Jews,” or some such thing, if that was in fact what was happening? But the text is not even close to this. His words make no sense, on the conventional view. Clearly something else was going on—something like ethnic cleansing and forced labor.”
Thomas Dalton with an excellent analysis, as usual.
L-3 was brought in by a (((newspaperman))) as ID…wtf does that mean? Also, no reference cucking from me when the transcript is 19,626 pages.
What they did was bring in the document so, even it it wasn’t used, it would be a part of the Nuremberg trial documentation. And therefore it could be referenced as such. Pretty sneaky, slimy stuff.
Fortunately the Kindle Nuremberg transcript is searchable.