Goebbels' diaries and Nizkor's manipulations

[Hotzenplotz]

Read these excerpts from Goebbels' diaries:

02/14/42

The sufferings of the Russian people under Bolshevisim are indescribable.
This Jewish terrorism must be radically eliminated from all of Europe. That
is our historic task.

World Jewry will suffer a great catastrophe at the same time as Bolshevisim. The Feuhrer once more expressed his determination to clean up the Jews in Europe pitilessly. There must be no squeamish sentimentalism about it. The Jews have deserved the catastrophe that has now overtaken them. Their destruction will go hand in hand with the destruction of our enemies. We must hasten this process with cold ruthlessness. We shall thereby render an inestimable service to a humanity tormented for thousands of years by the Jews. This uncompromising anti-Semitic attitude must prevail among our own people despite all objectors. The Fuehrer express this idea vigorously and repeated it afterward to a group of officers who can put that in their pipes and smoke it.

03/20/42

Finally we talked about the Jewish question. Here the Fuehrer is as uncompromising as ever. The Jews must be got out of Europe, if necessary by applying the most brutal methods.

03/27/42

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 per cent of them will have to be liquidated whereas only 40 per cent can be used for forced labor.

sources:
http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people/g/ ... tracts.001
http://www.nizkor.org/features/qar/qar01.html

The last quote is used on Nizkor's ridiculous 66 questions and answers page to refute revisionism (the second link above). It looks really convincing at first glance, but we have learnt to be suspicious. At Zündelsite, I found the preceding sentence which is dissimulated by Nizkor; in context, the passage looks quite different:

Aus dem Generalgouvernement werden jetzt, bei Lublin beginnend, die Juden nach dem Osten abgeschoben. Es wird hier ein ziemlich barbarisches und nicht näher zu beschreibendes Verfahren angewandt, und von den Juden selbst bleibt nicht mehr viel übrig. Im grossen und ganzen kann man wohl feststellen, dass 60 Prozent davon liquidiert werden müssen, während nur 40 Prozent in die Arbeit eingesetzt werden können... An den Juden wird ein Strafgericht vollzogen, das zwar barbarisch ist, das sie aber vollauf verdient haben

http://www.zundelsite.org/german/graf/graf04.html
(German)

"Beginning in Lublin, the Jews will be deported from the General Government to the east. 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 per cent of them will have to be liquidated whereas only 40 per cent can be used for forced labor... a tribunal is held over the Jews which may be barbaric, but which they totally deserve."

Thus the "procedure" explicitly refers to deportation. But what will "liquidated" mean? On the Zündelsite it is considered the entry might be forged, but I doubt it. I think the term can be explained in a different way. The Nazis referred to the dissolution of ghettos as "liquidation". It's like when you say a company has to be liquidated: It is made "liquid". Thus "60% will have to be liquidated" can simply mean "60% have to be thrown out (and brought to the East)". Then again, the last sentence seems to contradict this interpretation. But consider also that only a couple of weeks earlier Goebbels had noted:

03/07/1942

Die Judenfrage muss jetzt im gesamteuropäischen Rahmen gelöst werden. Es gibt in Europa noch über 11 Millionen Juden. Sie müssen später einmal zuerst im Osten konzentriert werden. Eventuell kann man ihnen nach dem Kriege eine Insel, etwa Madagaskar, zuweisen.

(also on the Zündelsite)

"Die Jewish question must now be solved for all of Europe. There are still more than 11 million Jews in Europe. Later, they have to be preliminarily concentrated in the east. Possibly, an island can be assigned to them after the war, such as Madagascar." - my translation.

Normally, it is claimed the Nazis decided to exterminate the Jews when they realized the war wouldn't be won in the near future. But it is implausible to assume this assessment changed completely during the two weeks from 7th of March to 20th. And in his diary, Goebbels wouldn't have used camouflage terms.

Of course, those passages aren't exactly helpful to revisionists. On the other hand, the fact that Nizkor didn't quote the first sentence seems to indicate they, too, think it's not that clear.

What do you think?

[Richard Perle]

I think you're right in everything you say. The dehumanizing way in which the Nazis talked about Jews leads them to use language such as liquidate to mean clearing out. They speak of liquidating the ghettos but nobody (as far as I know) claims that the entire people of a ghetto such as, say, Warsaw were murdered in this liquidation. The Nazis didn't mince their words and we frequently see Jews described as a collective problem which needs uprooting or liquidating. Where the language appears to describe destruction they are talking about destroying a problem or an influence rather than actual lives.

[elvistheelf]

Possibly, except that in this case the language is quite clear:

"Im grossen und ganzen kann man wohl feststellen, dass 60 Prozent davon liquidiert werden müssen, während nur 40 Prozent in die Arbeit eingesetzt werden können... "

This quite clearly states that 60% of them (the Jews) will have to be liquidated. No matter how much one tries to play with semantics, this is a very clear statement that people (rather then ghettoes) are to be liquidated (killed). The statement that only 40% can be used for forced labour supports this.

This statement is a very tricky one for "revisionists" to deal with as it presents clear deductive evidence from a major player that the Nazis planned to kill large numbers of Jews. This sort of hard problem cannot be solved by claiming that the diaries (or this part of them) are forgeries; that is easily refuted and is, in effect, an admission that the problem is a major one.

Elvis
Elvis

[Richard Perle]

So by your logic the ghettos were killed? Can you not see by my example of the Warsaw ghetto that liquidation could mean to clear out? Is it then so hard to accept that - considering the way in which Jews were talked about by the Nazis - liquidation of 60% of a group of Jews could mean clearing them out/deporting them?

Ghettos were liquidated; groups of Jews were liquidated. The Warsaw ghetto was liquidated; 60% of these Jews will have to be liquidated (the rest are of use and will stay)
The language is quite clear to me.

The document is more of a problem for believers because we are meant to believe that this is a clear case of murder being openly spoken about, and yet this is pretty much the only example of such transparency that exists, even including intercepted German communications. What causes Goebbles to be so lucid with this entry? It is more likely that he is being misinterpreted to prove a pre-determined narrative, as we have seen done so often with Holocaust scholarship.

Regarding the other passage which meantions 11million Jews in Europe. Isn't that an inflated figure only repeated in the Wannsee document which is of questionable authenticity?

[Hannover]

elvis said:

This quite clearly states that 60% of them (the Jews) will have to be liquidated. No matter how much one tries to play with semantics, this is a very clear statement that people (rather then ghettoes) are to be liquidated (killed). The statement that only 40% can be used for forced labour supports this.

This statement is a very tricky one for "revisionists" to deal with as it presents clear deductive evidence from a major player that the Nazis planned to kill large numbers of Jews. This sort of hard problem cannot be solved by claiming that the diaries (or this part of them) are forgeries; that is easily refuted and is, in effect, an admission that the problem is a major one.

Tricky? Hardly.

This a great example of the lack evidence for the 'holocau$t' as it's alleged.

There is no evidence to suppport the 60% "killed" assertion by Elvis (note that HE uses the word 'killed", not Goebbels. Now, who's really playing with semantics anyway?).

Lacking evidence, 'liquidation' is necessarily used in a general, non-homicidal sense. Elvis is relying on the 'codewords' game; desperately used in the face of zero evidence.

If these Jews were in fact 'killed', there would be tons on evidence to support it, not a strained use of 'codewords'.

The percentages are easily handled by logical options; 40% could be used for labor, the remaining 60% were: 1. not needed at the time, and/or, 2. too old, too young, or too ill for labor and sent to non-industrial facilities.

There are always logical explanations for the distortions of the 'holocau$t' Industry, and that is something they need to deal with. Ofcourse, given the obvious financial, political, and social benefits, it's no wonder they arrest people for questioning the lies.

I note that elvistheelf has not/cannot provide evidence for 'extermination of Jews'. Instead, we get 'codewords'.

- Hannover

[Hotzenplotz]

Let's not be to hard on elvis. This is one of the hardest ones for revisionism, though not unsolvable. (Opposition helps us to improve the theory; challenge and response).

I think this problem can't be resolved without considering the larger context; as Richard said, major Nazi figures seem to have used expressions like "extirpation" often without meaning physical extermination (like in that infamous Himmler speech in Danzig, Gdansk (I think)).

Another aspect I thought of is that the word "Liquidierung" must have been fairly new in 1943. Probably it was introduced into German language in relation with companies being liquidated in course of the stockmarkets' rise to international importance. Quite possibly the derivative sense of "killing" had not yet evolved, or was not as dominant as it is today. Generally, words relating to death and killing (like sex) exhibit a great variety and are pretty dynamic. Thus, Goebbels could have meant the more literal sense of "making liquid", "setting in motion".

Anyway, this is only a problem for revisionsm, nothing close to a refutation. There are many a lot more severe problems for believers.

Also funny to see what Nizkor (i.e. Michael Shermer in this case) considers "convergence of evidence":

"Michael Shermer has pointed out that the Nazis' own estimate of the number of European Jews was eleven million, and sixty percent of eleven million is 6.6 million. This is fairly close to the actual figure. (Actually, forty percent was a serious overestimate of the survival rate of Jews who were captured, but there were many Jews who escaped.)"

(from the 66 questions page)

But as we saw, the 60%-quote referred explicitly to the General Government (although Nizkor hid the tell-tale sentence). Surely there weren't 11 million Jews in this area alone?? Also, the calculation would make sense only if the Nazis had captured all 11,000,000, which is of course out of question.

[Hannover]

Let's not be to hard on elvis. This is one of the hardest ones for revisionism, though not unsolvable. (Opposition helps us to improve the theory; challenge and response).

Relax, it's my style to be direct and state the unveiled obvious.
Nobody is being 'too hard' on elvis, we just demand evidence for far fetched interpretations where more logical explanations exist. Since when is requiring evidence deemed 'too hard'?

- Hannover

[Carto's Cutlass Supreme]

But how much can you go by documents and text? I mean if this is a giant hoax, a giant lie, why assume honesty in documents on the part of the allies? I remember Irving mentioning something about how the audio recorded transcripts of Nuremberg are not the same as the written transcripts. He had gone and listened in Washington DC in the 1960's and noticed that.

Isn't it ridiculous to assume that when it comes to documents that the allies are "honest Abe"? That's american colloqual for "honest."

The revisionists are tempted to assume all documents are genuine and real because even with assuming that, it still points that we're right.

We find tainted air photos in the archives, and yet Goebbel's diary has got to be 100% genuine. Uh, o.k.

[Haldan]

''Der Kleine Brockhaus'' of the years 1936 consisting of 4 volumes states
the following ---- LIQUIDATION --
1) a bill detailing the costs of various things (such as the bill in a
restaurant)--2) the finalization of the affairs of a business which has
either failed, or has been closed down for other reasons-- 3) the bill for
services rendered, such as a medical bill--Under LIQUIDATOR it says-- 1) a
person who oversees the dissolution of a business or enterprise-- 2) someone
who mediates a conflict.

-haldan

[croat]

Oh, give me a break.
"Liquidated"???
As someone put here, it can be the same meaning as liquidating a factory. If you liquidate the factory, do you at the same time kill all the workers there. No, in most cases you will compensate them for loss of their workplaces. If not, the state through unemployment office will help them.

[kk]

40% of a population is about the largest number of males capable for work.
(in the 15-65 yrs range).

I think this is the core of the (very generous) estimate.

[Hotzenplotz]

Relax, it's my style to be direct and state the unveiled obvious.

Ok, I'll try

Haldan, good idea to look it up in the lexicon. Have you checked whether it contains "Liquidierung" (not Liquidation) also? Because I think this would be the noun referring to "Killing". Sometimes there are differences in meaning between different ways to form a noun.

If there is no reference to killing, this makes a very good point for our interpretation of the quotation.

[spaceboy]

Although many people seem to think this is a forgery, I think if it was a forgery, the forgers would have been much more explicit in Goebbels describing mass murder without any ambiguity. That's just my own opinion, however, not saying that with 100% certainty.

It seems incredibly obvious to me that the "procedure" mentioned in the second sentence of the entry is referring to the "deportation" that's mentioned in the first sentence, not mass murder. Regardless of the obviousness in this, I remember Shermer making the argument in the debate with Weber that the procedure was referring to extermination because of Goebbels describing the "procedure" as being barbaric. However, here's an excerpt from where Goebbels describes a conversation between him and Hitler on March 20, 1942:

"The Fuhrer remains merciless. The Jews must be driven from Europe, if necessary by using the most brutal means"

Goebbels wasn't referring to any sort of murderous extermination here, but evacuation, yet it's described here as having to be a brutal evacuation, if that's what it comes down to. So, I don't see why Shermer doesn't think that a deportation couldn't be barbaric or brutal, which I think is particularly odd of him, because that would seem to imply that Shermer doesn't even think that the Jews being rounded up, forced and crammed into cattle cars, separated from their families, and having to urinate/defecate in buckets is barbaric. Wow. I think it's fair to say if some random person on the street said that the process of Jews being deported in cattle cars wasn't barbaric, they'd be labelled by people like the ADL as an anti-Semite in a heartbeat.

And although it's already been mentioned, I think that"liquidation" could very well be referring to something such as sending the Jews who were unable to work to non-industrial locations.

From "Goebbels on the Jews, Part 1" by Thomas Dalton:


Holocaust survivor Thomas Buergenthal (2009: 49) writes of his experience in the Kielce ghetto: “The ghetto was being liquidated or, in the words bellowing out of the loudspeakers, Ausseidlung! Ausseidlung! (‘Evacuation! Evacuation!’).” And later he comments, “After the liquidation of the labor camp…” (p. 56). Clearly the word means, and meant, something other than killing.

[Goethe]

It's my understanding that the use of 'cattle cars' is a highly exaggerated in the "Holocaust" lore. Whereas the deportations of Christians by the communists were done in cattle cars, were truly barbaric, were non-stop, and go unmentioned,

And as for the diaries being proof of extermination, well, as said, there are no mass graves to support that notion. Consequently, Goebbels could not have meant 'extermination'. They can't have their cherished "Holocaust" without mass human remains.

documents which refute the notion that Jews were 'exterminated':

'Schlegelberger letter'
viewtopic.php?t=534

translation and excerpt from that thread:

"Mr Reich Minister Lammers informed me that the Führer had repeatedly declared to him that he wants to hear that the Solution of the Jewish Problem has been postponed until after the war is over. That being so, the current discussions are of purely theoretical value, in Mr Reich Minister Lammers' opinion. He will moreover take pains to ensure that, whatever else happens, no fundamental decisions are taken without his knowledge in consequence of a surprise briefing by any third party."

Document's origins. Schlegelberger's undated minute on Lammer's reference to Hitler's ruling is in German Federal Archives (BA) file R.22/52. It was sent to Staatssekretär Freisler and two other officials (bottom left). This document has been published in facsimile in David Irving's books Hitler's War, Goebbels. Mastermind of the Third Reich, and Nuremberg, the Last Battle. It was definitely dated March or April 1942. Lammers was in Berlin on April 26, 1942. See Scheel's report on a talk between Lammers and Meissner after the final Reichstag session that day (T175/139/7479 et seq.).

and:
The 'Luther Memo' - complete text:
http://vho.org/GB/Books/thottc/11.html
excerpt:

"On the occasion of a reception by the Reich Foreign Minister on 26 November 1941 the Bulgarian Foreign Minister Popoff touched on the problem of according like treatment to the Jews of European nationalities and pointed out the difficulties that the Bulgarians had in the application of their Jewish laws to Jews of foreign nationality."

"The Reich Foreign Minister answered that he thought this question brought by Mr. Popoff not uninteresting. Even now he could say one thing to him, that at the end of the war all Jews would have to leave Europe. This was the unalterable decision of the Fuehrer and also the only way to master this problem, as only a global and comprehensive solution could be applied and individual measures would not help very much."

[Hektor]

It's my understanding that the use of 'cattle cars' is a highly exaggerated in the "Holocaust" lore. Whereas the deportations of Christians by the communists were done in cattle cars, were truly barbaric, were non-stop, and go unmentioned,
...

It's my understanding that cattle cars (third class transport) were sometimes used, while passenger train cars were actually common. This can also be seen on some of the pictures. I recall some, but would have to look.

Given that Goebbels diaries have been written by typewriter, they are open to manipulation.