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The National Socialists planned to exterminate the Jewish people. –A thread🧵
Some people argue that the Holocaust couldn't possibly have happened because there is simply no evidence that National Socialist leaders ever planned to mass murder European Jews. What they actually planned to do was deport them to a foreign land, like Madagascar. Furthermore, they argue, the historical evidence shows that Germans have always believed such an extermination would have been logistically impractical, and that, therefore, it couldn't have been carried out, even if they wanted to. But is this true?
There initially was, indeed, a plan to resolve the "Jewish Question" by deporting Jews to the African island of Madagascar. The plan was first proposed by Himmler on May 25, 1940: Madagascar would have become a sort of "Jewish enclosure" controlled by the German SS where Jews were given a limited local administration but no automous State.
This plan, however, was predicated on the German victory over Britain (which, at the time, seemed probable) as it would have been impossible to ship big numbers of Jews to Africa without having the monopoly of the seaways and access to British ships. After losing the Battle of Britain, on October 31, 1940, the Madagascar Plan was discarded and never implemented. No Jew has ever been deported from Europe to Madagascar.
We will now see that there is actually plenty of evidence from high-ranking National Socialist officials, showing that the planned Final Solution [Endlösung] of the Jewish Question came to be nothing less than the extermination –that is, the mass murder– of the Jewish people. The German words that were most commonly employed to refer to this extermination are: "Vernichtung", "Ausrottung" and "Ausmerzung". Later on, I will get into a semantic and etymological analysis of these words.
In a 1939 speech to the German Parliament, Adolf Hitler claimed that, were the Jews to start another war, such war would end with the "annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe [die Vernichtung der jüdischen Rasse in Europa]" (Collection of Speeches 1922-1945, pp. 543-544).
On November 18, 1941, Alfred Rosenberg stated that the only way the Jewish Question could be solved is with the "biological eradication [biologischen Ausmerzung]" of Jews from Europe.
On December 13, 1941, Goebbels wrote that, regarding the Jewish Question, the Fürher was resolved to "make a clean slate [reinen Tisch zu machen]". Had they started another war, the Jews would live to see their "annihilation [Vernichtung]"; "this", notes Goebbels, "is not a rhetorical figure [Das ist keine Phrase gewesen]". He states that the Jews will have to "pay with their lives [dafur mit ihrem Leben bezahlen müssen]".
In a speech of the same year, General Hans Frank stated that Germany must "finish off" the Jews. Recalling Hitler's Reichstag speech, he states that "were Jews to survive the war" the war would not be a success. He believes Germany must "liquidate them" and "destroy" them wherever they are.
On February 14, 1942 Goebbels mentioned in his Diary Hitler's determination to "pitilessly clean up [aufzuräumen]" Europe from the Jews. Such process must be free from any "sentimentalism" as the Jews deserve the "catastrophy [Katastrophe]" of their "destruction [Vernichtung]".
In speech dated February 24, 1942, Adolf Hitler candidly told his party members that the final goal of his struggle was to "exterminate the Jew", and "eliminate" those "parasites" (Collection of Speeches 1922-1945, p. 856).
On March 27, 1942, Goebbels wrote about the application of a "pretty barbaric procedure", by which "not much will remain of the Jews [von den Juden selbst bleibt nicht mehr viel übrig]": about 60% will have to be "liquidated [liquidiert]", while 40% will be used for forced labour.
In October 1943, Himmler delivered two speeches in the German-occupied city of Posen to his soldiers, which would come to be known as "Posen Speeches". In the first of this speech on October 4th –of which we have the recording– he informed the soldiers of a very difficult subject that was never to be mentioned in public: "the extermination [Ausrottung] of the Jewish people". He claimed that Germans had the "moral duty" to "kill [umzubringen] this people" who wanted to kill them. The Jews had to be exterminated [ausrotten] the same way a bacillus has to be exterminated [ausrotten] to prevent it from killing you.
In his October 6th Posen Speech, Himmler stated that he considered himself justified to kill, not only adult Jewish men, but the women and children too, as the children will one day grow up and try to avenge their fathers. He states that he had to make the difficult decision to have the Jewish people "disappear from the Earth [von der Erde verschwinden]". He concludes by saying that, for that reason, the Jewish Question will be over by the end of the year.
On May 13, 1943, Goebbels wrote that, while in nature the process of natural selection always "takes measures against the parasites", in the life of nations that is not always the case, since the parasitic Jews are still alive. For this reason, he argues, "there is no recourse left for the modern nations except to exterminate the Jews [Es bleibt also den modernen Völkern nichts anderes übrig, als die Juden auszurotten]". He adds that "there is no hope" to bring the Jews back into civilisation, because a Jew will always remain a Jew.
On April 6, 1944, German police stated that the ban on Jews leaving the country was still in force, "in view of the planned Final Solution [Im Hinblick auf die vorgesehene Endlösung]". Such a statement would make no sense if the Final Solution, at that stage, meant forcing Jews out of Germany; if anything, their emigration would have helped the government's solution.
On June 9th 1944, Hans Frank wrote in his diary that "since the extermination [Ausrottung] of the Jews in Poland", where the Jews had the most children, the Jewish future was "completely over, purely in terms of blood [rein blutsmaßig gesehen]".
In a speech to Wehrmacht Generals dated May 5, 1944 –of which we have the recording– Himmler reiterated that the reason he ordered to kill, not just the men, but the women and children too, was that he believed he was "not entitled" to "let the children grow up" just for them to become hate-filled avengers of their fathers. That, he says, would have been irresponsible, as it would have created a problem for the National Socialists' children and grandchildren.
In a speech dated June 21, 1944, Himmler states that he was given the order to "solve the Jewish Question". He then says, once again, that in order to solve it, he had to murder, not only the adult men, but the women and the children too. He reproaches those who objected against it by saying that "the children will one day grow up". He believes that he would have actually been "cowardly" to let the children live.
On March 14, 1945, Goebbels wrote that the Jews must be "killed off like rats [wie die Ratten totschlagen]" whenever one has the capacity to do so. He then gladly adds that, in Germany, this duty has already been "diligently taken care of [redlich besorgt]", and hopes that the rest of the world will eventually follow their example.
