Wannsee Conference minutes debunked

[Hektor]

And THHP's Christian Mentel responds:

The Wannsee Protocol: Object of Revisionist Falsification of History

by Christian Mentel


The Wannsee Conference - which was initially scheduled for December 9, 1941 but postponed on short notice - took place on January 20, 1942 at a suburban villa on the shores of Berlin's Wannsee lake. Chaired by Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt), 15 high-ranking officials of the German bureaucracy, the SS- and police-apparatus discussed the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question", while enjoying the lovely sight of the villa's gardens and the lake. It was only after the Protocol (minutes) of the conference was found in 1947 that the conference was named "Wannsee Conference" after its location.


The Wannsee Conference and Protocol

According to most historians of the Holocaust, the purpose of the conference was to coordinate and make more effective the mass murder operations under the leadership of Heydrich, moreover to solve problems like internal fights over mandates. The mass murder of Jews in the East was well underway since Nazi Germany's attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, but was nevertheless poorly coordinated. The leadership of the SS, and in particular the Reich Security Main Office in these murder operations (which from now on were to be understood as part of the attempt to murder all European Jews), was accepted by the participants at the conference, although disagreements remained around details. Contrary to common and widespread perception, Wannsee was not the time and place of the decision on the Holocaust.


Image 1: Villa at Am Großen Wannsee 56-58, Berlin, seen from the main entrance in January 2012. Since 1952, the villa has been used as a school hostel; only after decades of debate and failed attempts, it was turned into a memorial and educational site on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference in 1992. Photo: Courtesy of Christian Mentel.

On the one hand, the conference protocol constitutes a key document for the understanding of the evolution of the Holocaust. On the other hand, it has become - on a symbolic level - "synonymous with the cold-blooded, administratively organized and delegated Nazi genocide", as historian Peter Longerich has put it. Both the factual and the symbolic aspects are challenged and attacked by a fringe group of writers calling themselves "revisionists". These authors claim to re-evaluate the Wannsee Protocol in a scholarly and fundamental way, and all arrive at the conclusion that the Protocol was either fabricated or that all "established" historians have misinterpreted it completely.

By calling themselves "revisionists", these authors intend to create the impression that they belong to the world-wide community of scholars. Contrary to this, almost none of the self-appointed revisionists are trained historians but rather in most cases, they are simply Holocaust deniers with outright sympathies for Nazi ideology. In scholarly-appearing books, some argue against Nazi Germany's responsibility for the outbreak of World War II, while others deny German war crimes either entirely or claim the numbers to be much lower, or that it involves isolated and regrettable incidents. One goal of most revisionists is to minimize numbers of victims or to relativize and count them with numbers of victims among the German civilian population. In any event, the focus of most revisionist attempts is denial of the systematic persecution and murder of people by the Nazi state, especially of Jews. In their writings, these authors portray themselves as independent "underdog" researchers asking all the critical questions academics and "established" historians allegedly do not dare ask. Revisionists do so by systematically deceiving their readers, while claiming to undertake historical and historiographical research along the lines serious scholarship has established.

The following sections will show how the revisionists' manipulations work, how their main arguments are structured and how they approach the topic. The goal is to provide an overview over decades of revisionist publications on Wannsee, brought forth mostly by German authors like Johannes Peter Ney, Roland Bohlinger, Udo Walendy and Germar Rudolf, but also elaborated by Robert Faurisson and David Irving. Three subject areas will be discussed: First, the transmission and publication of the Wannsee Protocol; second, the bureaucratic formalities and witness reports; and third, linguistics and semantics.


Area I: Transmission and Publication

To this very day, only one of a total of 30 copies of the Wannsee Protocol has been found. This is the copy of Martin Luther, who participated at the Wannsee Conference as Undersecretary of State of the German Foreign Office. And even Luther's copy - marked as "geheime Reichssache" (top secret) - seems to have slipped systematic destruction by the German authorities only by chance. Against this backdrop, the main revisionist line of argumentation is characterized by the statement that - contrary to official statements - there exist not just one, but a few - and different - copies of the Wannsee Protocol.

According to most revisionists, the Wannsee Protocol is a forgery. This forgery allegedly had been fabricated in the late-1940s by the Western Allies for use as evidence in the 1948/49 Ministries Case of the Nuremberg Trials. With forgeries like these, a genocide of European Jews should be ascribed to individuals as well as to the German state and people in general. In support of this claim, revisionists compare two images of the first page of the Wannsee Protocol. One image shows a photo of the one and only found copy (which is filed in the archives of the German Foreign Office; cf. image 2). The other image shows a facsimile of the Protocol, as it is printed in the 1961 book "Eichmann und Komplizen" (Eichmann and Accomplices) by Robert M. W. Kempner (cf. image 3). Comparing these two images, one immediately spots differences: Different rubber-stamps were used, in one image appear SS-runes while in the other "SS" is written using Latin letters, and a reference number has in one case been written by hand, and in the other case by use of a typewriter.


Image 2 (left): Click for an enlargement. Wannsee Protocol, p. 1, PAAA, Akt. Inl. II g 177, l. 166. (A PDF can be downloaded here: http://www.ghwk.de/fileadmin/user_uploa ... ar1942.pdf.)

Image 3 (right): Click for an enlargement.. Wannsee Protocol, p. 1, in: Robert M. W. Kempner, Eichmann und Komplizen. Zürich/Stuttgart/Vienna 1961, p. 133.

How can that be? If only one document has been found, how can two facsimiles of this one document differ? The answer of the revisionists to these questions usually goes like this: To arrive at a convincing final product, the forgers had to produce a number of draft copies that were brought to perfection step by step. Thus, the document filed at the German Foreign Office archives is not the only Wannsee Protocol there is; moreover it is only the best of various drafts that came about during a kind of evolutionary process of forgery. According to the revisionists, the facsimile Kempner has "accidentally" published in his book, merely constitutes one of these earlier drafts.

This line of argumentation is also followed by revisionists, when it comes to other Wannsee documents. Again, two images are compared: on the one hand, a photo of the original document filed at the Foreign Office archives, and on the other hand, the facsimile Kempner published in his 1961 book. In all instances, while there are no differences in respect to the content, there are differences elsewhere. Looking at the two images of the same invitation letter of November 29, 1941 (cf. images 4 and 5), it is clear that while different typewriters have been used, the hand-written notes on top of the typed text is identical. Once more: What was written first (i.e. the typed text), differs; in contrast: what was written afterwards on top of it (i.e. the handwriting), is the same. Evaluating these confusing observations, revisionists claim that only by means of manipulation is such a thing imaginable.


Image 4 (left): Click for an enlargement.. Reinhard Heydrich's Wannsee letter of invitation to Martin Luther, 29.11.1941, p. 1, PAAA, Akt. Inl. II g 177, l. 188. (A PDF can be downloaded here: http://www.ghwk.de/fileadmin/user_uploa ... er1941.pdf.)

Image 5 (right): Click for an enlargement. Reinhard Heydrich's Wannsee letter of invitation to Martin Luther, 29.11.1941, p. 1, in: Robert M. W. Kempner, Eichmann und Komplizen. Zürich/Stuttgart/Vienna 1961, p. 127.

Leaving the revisionist claims aside for a moment, what are the facts here? How can these differences - that ought not to be there - be explained? In fact, what Kempner published in his 1961 Eichmann book are not facsimiles of the original filed documents, but rather facsimiles of copies that were meant to emulate the original documents. In the case of the Wannsee Protocol, Kempner published a retyped copy of the original document. In case of the Wannsee invitation letter and others, Kempner published photomontages. How they were produced can be reconstructed on the basis of a close examination of the facsimiles. In a first step, the typewritten text of the original document had been retyped on a white sheet of paper. In a second step, all features of the original document that could not be copied that easily (i.e. the letterhead, signatures, rubber-stamps, handwritings), were transmitted to the typed copy. This obviously was done by means of retouching a photograph of the original document. While the typed text had been erased, only features like the letterhead and handwriting remained, and only these were copied on the newly typed text. At close inspection, one is able to spot instances where the retouching has been conducted imprecisely.




Image 6 (top) (showing a detail of image 4). Please pay attention to the position of the letter "ä" of "Auswärtiges Amt" (instance 1) and the position of the letter "u" in "Luther" (instance 2) both in relation to the respective hand-written notes on top.

Image 7 (bottom) (showing a detail of image 5). While the whole block of handwriting has been copied from the original document to the newly typed text inaccurately (note that the handwriting is moved a little bit up and further to the right compared to image 6), both instances 1 and 2 show imprecisely retouched remnants of the letters "ä" and "u" in the exact position that can be seen in image 6.

Fifty years after the publication of Kempner's book and given the author's death in 1993, we are not able to know for certain the reasons for doing so. But there are serious arguments that the then existing state of printing and reproduction techniques may be the reason, at least the techniques employed at Kempner's publisher Europa Verlag. Given the numerous images in Kempner's book, it can be stated that reproducing the photograph of a document was only possible within a very limited degree of quality. Also, other reproduction methods could not be applied on a general basis, because documents had to meet certain requirements. These requirements (e.g., black and clearly defined contours of the script) were not met by the Wannsee documents. Instead, they merely offered pale letters on either rough and yellowish paper or on sandwich, paper-thin, translucent paper that had been written upon on both sides. Thus, reproducing the original Wannsee documents in a readable way would not have been possible. Since the goal of Kempner and his publisher was to allow a general readership an authentic impression of what these documents looked like, the only way was to copy them one way or another and reproduce the copy.

Kempner and his publisher deserve to be criticized for this procedure. First, because it is generally highly questionable to alter and manipulate historical documents. Second, because they did not comment in any way on the nature of the facsimiles and the various different reproduction techniques they employed. Thus, readers were indeed deceived when taking the facsimiles as an exact reproduction of the original documents. This lack of transparency is the starting point for revisionists; it offers them the possibility to undertake all kinds of comparisons and to question the authenticity and validity of the documents. Nevertheless, it has to be pointed out that revisionists only compare images of documents - and not documents themselves. Comparing master documents would be the procedure of choice for any serious historian, because only then can certain features be investigated and only then could reliable statements be made on the nature of the documents in question. Because there are no master documents available of the facsimiles in Kempner's book, all revisionist accusations are just unfounded claims.


Image 8 (left): US prosecutor Robert Max Wasilii Kempner (1899-1993) during the Ministries Case 1947-49 at Nuremberg, Germany. Photo: USHMM/courtesy of John W. Mosenthal; Photograph #16820, http://digitalassets.ushmm.org/photoarc ... T&index=29.

Image 9 (right): Cover of the book "Eichmann und Komplizen" by Robert M. W. Kempner, published by Europa Verlag Zürich/Stuttgart/Vienna in 1961.

There are many books out there that deserve harsh criticism; what then makes the facsimiles in this "Eichmann und Komplizen" book special and the revisionist claims so explosive? This is due to the fact that the book's author, Robert M. W. Kempner, was not just any old person. Kempner was part of the prosecution team at the Nuremberg Trial of the Major War Criminals, and later served as US prosecutor in the Ministries Case, which was the second to last of the follow-up Nuremberg Trials. It was Kempner's team that discovered the Wannsee Protocol in March 1947, and it was Kempner who immediately used the document in interrogations and who introduced it at the trial. Thus, damaging the credibility and reliability of Kempner also means damaging the Wannsee Protocol itself. If Kempner (who fought the Nazis by means of the law while being employed as a legal advisor in Prussia's Ministry of the Interior and left Germany for the US in 1935 because he was Jewish) is questionable, then the Protocol is too.


Area II: Bureaucratic Formalities and Witness Reports

To appear trustworthy, revisionists present themselves as critical researchers, questioning all that others take for granted. Revisionists claim to stringently following the rules and methods of the historical profession; by doing so, they allegedly uncover mistakes, falsifications, forgeries and purposeful manipulations by so-called "established" historians. In order to make the point that all historians are wrong and only revisionists are able to get to the suppressed truth, they employ the historiographical tool of Quellenkritik, or the "critical assessment of sources". Usually, historians use Quellenkritik to determine the authenticity of sources and their reliability, and when they want to discover what can be derived from these sources. Pretending to investigate the features of the documents in a reasonable way, revisionists claim that the Protocol could not be authentic. According to them, crucial bureaucratic features that ought to be there are missing. They ask: Where is the rubber-stamp displaying the date when the document arrived at its destination? Where is the obligatory signature? Where is the obligatory reference number? Where is the name of the issuing authority and person and where is the date of issue?

These questions are exactly the questions any serious historians would ask themselves when dealing with any historical document. But the revisionists' intentions are of a different kind - they employ these perfectly legitimate and necessary questions to deceive their readership and to convince them that the Wannsee Protocol is of a somewhat dubious nature. What is suppressed by the revisionists is the simple fact that the Wannsee Protocol was not prepared and not sent out as an isolated document by itself. Instead, it was an attachment to a letter of invitation for a Wannsee follow-up conference. It is on this higher-ranking cover letter (dated February 26, 1942; cf. image 10), where all the features can be found that revisionists complained about on the Protocol.


Image 10 (left): Click for an enlargement. Reinhard Heydrich's letter of invitation to Martin Luther, 26.2.1942, PAAA, Akt. Inl. II g 177, l. 165. (A PDF can be downloaded here: http://www.ghwk.de/fileadmin/user_uploa ... h-1942.pdf.)

Image 11 (right): Click for an enlargement. Wannsee Protocol, p. 1, PAAA, Akt. Inl. II g 177, l. 166. (A PDF can be downloaded here: http://www.ghwk.de/fileadmin/user_uploa ... ar1942.pdf.)

Isolating two documents that need to be seen in context is all there is to this both simple and striking act of sleight of hand. Many years ago, the then director of the memorial site House of the Wannsee Conference Gerhard Schoenberner and historian Peter Klein pointed out this manipulation. The revisionists' response to being debunked is worth mentioning here. While they admitted that all the bureaucratic formalities were indeed to be found on the cover letter, they claimed that the Protocol ought to also show these formalities. Only if this were the case, could one be sure that individual pages or all of them had not been replaced. Moreover, contemporary regulations concerning top secret documents called for such a procedure. To be clear: According to revisionists, an authentic Wannsee Protocol would have to display on every single one of its 15 pages all bureaucratic formalities: all rubber stamps, dates, signatures, reference numbers, names, etc. Some revisionists even claim that because the margin width was not correct and the line pitch were not as they should be, the whole Protocol was not sufficiently authorized, not effective legally, and thus worthless for historiography.

It has to be stressed that all official regulations, norms, requirements and orders adduced by the revisionists against the Wannsee documents were never effective either for the issuing authority (Reich Security Main Office) or the receiving authority (Foreign Office). Again, this revisionist argument has to be considered as a crude attempt to damage the Wannsee documents by use of allegedly objective benchmarks - against the general assumption that Nazi bureaucracy had been perfect. Thus, even the slightest deviations from virtual norms are used as clear-cut "evidence" that the documents were forgeries, not one word is wasted on the question of how general requirements were put into real-life practice in respective areas of competency.

To complement this, another striking pattern of revisionist argumentation is used. It goes like this: Even if all of the - as shown above: absurd - revisionist demands in terms of authenticity and bureaucratic formalities were met, the document in question might still constitute a forgery. Because, after the end of the war, the Allies had access to all papers, rubber-stamps, typewriters and files, therefore all kinds of forged documents are possible - forgeries that are undetectable. In short, while exonerating files were systematically destroyed, incriminating and perfectly fabricated documents were created. With this surprise coup, revisionists consider all German files as potential forgeries, even if these files meet their own demands in terms of authenticity. Using this rationale, there is no possibility to determine the authenticity of any document and historiography is made impossible. However, it is telling that the suspicion that all captured German documents might be forged is only applied to those which are "incriminating". In contrast, captured documents which count for the revisionists as "exonerating" are naturally considered authentic.

Selecting sources in this tendentious way can be best observed when looking at how revisionists deal with witness reports of participants of the Wannsee Conference (some of them gave testimonies during police interrogations and while standing trial after 1945). In general, revisionists consider testimonies to be truthful and convincing when the participants claim not to have been at Wannsee, not to remember anything or to remember things differently and when they deny responsibility or claim not to have received the Protocol in the first place. It is worth looking at how revisionists deal with the testimony of Adolf Eichmann, who was more or less the only participant to deny neither Wannsee nor its purpose. Of course, during his Jerusalem trial and the pre-trial interrogations, Eichmann embedded his testimony on Wannsee in his general defense strategy, and historians should use it very cautiously. Nevertheless, Eichmann contributed valuable information on the development of the Conference as well as details. For example, he admitted his participation, that he was responsible for taking notes and writing the Protocol. He also admitted he contributed to the preparation and follow-up tasks, and confirmed that the topic was the genocide of European Jewry. Revisionists either keep silent about Eichmann's testimony, simply deny it or claim that Eichmann had been tortured and/or brainwashed. It is telling that none of the revisionists mentions that during his stay in Argentina in the 1950s, as a free man and without any constraints, Eichmann told the same things to his former SS comrade Willem Sassen during the course of an interview.


Area III: Linguistics and Semantics

At the center of another line of revisionist argumentation stands the wrong but widespread perception that the murder of all European Jews had been decided at Wannsee. The Protocol's authenticity is not denied, instead it is argued that all historians are misinterpreting it in a negative way without justification. Three steps are employed: First, revisionists suggest that the widespread opinion of the "Wannsee decision" is generally held and advocated by scholars. Second, revisionists try to destroy this very opinion. For example, they point to the fact that none of the participants at Wannsee was in a position to decide upon such a grave matter and, according to the Protocol, no such decision had been discussed or taken. Third, revisionists accuse historians collectively of knowingly misinforming the public and at the same time systematically suppressing the truth that there was no decision at Wannsee. Some revisionists take it even further and suggest that if historians lie about Wannsee, they may also lie about the Holocaust. This leads to the argument that if the Holocaust decision was not taken at Wannsee, there may be no decision at all - and where there is no decision, there can be no implementation. All of that is based upon a simple trick: to claim that the "Wannsee decision" is commonly held by scholars. This is not the case. Since the early 1960s at the latest, historians agree that no decision was taken at Wannsee and in countless books and articles published since, this overrated interpretation of Wannsee is addressed explicitly.

But how can revisionists claim the exact opposite? Again, by using a very simple sleight of hand. They pick out one historian speaking against the "Wannsee decision" and suggest that he is the only historian deviating from the otherwise "Wannsee decision" dogma. Yehuda Bauer is one such historian the revisionists picked. Time and time again, revisionists quote Bauer's statement in the weekly "The Canadian Jewish News" covering a 1992 historians' conference: "The public still repeats, time after time, the silly story that at Wannsee the extermination of the Jews was arrived at." (Cf. image 12.) The newspaper's coverage is not only lurid, it is plain wrong, when it reports the sensation that Bauer, as the first (and maybe only) historian, rejected and debunked an opinion that until this moment was commonly held by historians. Bauer was far from the first scholar who has rejected the "Wannsee decision" - as already said, this was accepted by historians for decades. But for revisionists, the short newspaper article provides a bonanza: referring to a Jewish historian quoted in a Jewish newspaper, revisionists claim that these days even Bauer accepts the revisionist position that Wannsee was fairly marginal and a "silly story" in general. This, of course, is not what Bauer said, and it is hardly surprising that all revisionists keep silent about Bauer's next sentence: "Wannsee was but a stage in the unfolding of the process of mass murder".


Image 12: Cutting from "The Canadian Jewish News", 30.1.1992, p. 8.

Beyond manipulating and omitting quotes in such ways, revisionists focus on the language of the Protocol itself. On the basis of style, vocabulary, syntax and figures of speech, revisionists try to argue that the Protocol could not have been written by a German native speaker. Or, if it was, the author surely must have been a German-Jewish emigrant out of touch with his mother tongue for some time. In other words: when investigating certain words and expressions which are allegedly uncommon in German, revisionists claim the Protocol is either a bad translation from American English, or it is influenced strongly by it. In any event, the Protocol's author could never be Eichmann or one of his staff, and therefore it can not be authentic.

The whole Protocol is scanned for anything that seems questionable in the eyes of the revisionists. Bureaucratic set phrases, figures of speech that are to be found in any official letter issued by authorities are marked as "un-German", just as all other nested, never-ending sentences that are hardly understandable. To linguists and students of German as a foreign language this argument must sound ridiculous - surely they would consider typically German what the revisionists call "un-German". Moreover, revisionists pick out single elements and comment on them in a more than a crude fashion. Among these comments, one can find: "No German man expresses himself like that, much less a high-ranking officer"; "Here we observe the 'New German' butchered by the American English; 49 years forestalled". Or, when commenting on the Protocol's list of Jews to be deported from Italy ("Italy, including Sardinia: 58,000"), one revisionist wrote: "In Europe, it was known what belonged to Italy. The list originated from Northern America, which is uneducated in regard of geography". Furthermore, a figure of speech that is uncommon in German as it is spoken in Germany, is claimed to be a bad translation from American English - disregarding the fact, that this particular figure is a common, and even formal, expression in Austria's variation of German. The absurdity of the revisionist claim is revealed when noting the fact that the author of the Protocol - Adolf Eichmann - lived in Austria during his childhood and worked there for many years thereafter. Thus, from a linguistic point of view, phrasings and expressions here and there typical of Austrian German are evidence for Eichmann's authorship of the Protocol, not against it.

A second revisionist line of argumentation in terms of language advances the notion that the Wannsee Protocol does not contain indicators of an intended genocide, but instead gives evidence that Heydrich had the same noble vision of establishing a Jewish state as the Zionists. The basis for this claim is the camouflage language the Nazis used: Instead of terms like "Ermordung" (murder), softer expressions were adopted: "natürliche Verminderung" (natural attrition), "entsprechende Behandlung" (suitable treatment), "Lösung von Problemen" (solution of problems) and not least "Endlösung der Judenfrage" (Final Solution of the Jewish Question). This technique can be observed best in the following paragraph (p. 7/8 of the Protocol, an English translation of the whole Protocol can be read here):

In the course of the final solution and under approriate [sic] direction, the Jews are to be utilized for work in the East in a suitable manner. In large labor columns and separated by sexes, Jews capable of working will be dispatched to these regions to build roads, and in the process a large number of them will undoubtedly drop out by way of natural attrition. Those who ultimately should possibly get by will have to be given suitable treatment because they unquestionably represent the most resistant segments and therefore constitute a natural elite that, if allowed to go free, would turn into a germ cell of renewed Jewish revival. (Witness the experience of history.)

Image 13: Clippings from the Wannsee Protocol, p. 7 and 8, PAAA, Akt. Inl. II g 177, l. 172 and 173. (A PDF can be downloaded here: http://www.ghwk.de/fileadmin/user_uploa ... ar1942.pdf)

This paragraph of the Protocol is essential and shows what Heydrich had in mind: not only deportation, but also forced labor as a method of murder. The survivors would be especially dangerous because they would be the most resistant. These would then have to be treated accordingly (meaning: killed), because if not, they would constitute the beginning of a new Jewish "super race".

What do revisionists make of this paragraph? They begin with admitting that the forced labor described above surely was hard. Immediately afterward, they relativize by way of arguing that this type of labor had been forced upon everybody by external circumstances during war times, as it always has been in wars. But still, the Nazi forced labor also served a higher end, because it functioned as an evolutionary process of selection. It helped to find a Jewish elite. This elite - the best of the best - would be indispensable, if after the war a Jewish state was to be built in the East according to Nazi plans. So, revisionists put forth that the Nazis intended to assist and train this Jewish elite in preparation for its role; in other words, they should be "treated accordingly".

What revisionists are doing here is transforming a program of murder for eleven million human beings into a process of state building. To accomplish this task, they decontextualize the more or less disguised intentions contained in the Wannsee Protocol and place them in a different context, giving them thereby other meanings. One thing indispensable for this is the - incorrect - claim that the term "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" always meant nothing but resettlement, and never extermination. Another necessary claim is that the so-called forced labor (which would be the reason for "natural attrition") was due to external and almost fateful constraints only, but not too well thought-out policy. Eventually, these alleged constraints are suggested to be "inflicted trials" that existed forever and which were accepted in all kinds of religions and ideologies, especially in Zionism. In the end, these "trials" would be nothing less than the will and an act of God, and thus embraced by Jews and Zionists. It is not difficult to see the parallel revisionists draw here: Basically, World War II and the Flood as well as Noah and Heydrich, are to be compared with one another.


Revisionists and the Wannsee Conference in Context

To conclude, it may be said that in revisionists' attempts to reframe the Wannsee Conference, the Wannsee Protocol as a historical documentary source only played a minor part. Far more important seems to be the "symbol" aspect: Wannsee as a code for systematic murder, for bureaucratically coordinated genocide, for the Holocaust in general. Once the symbolism of Wannsee is undermined or even destroyed, the image of the Holocaust is also affected. It would be too far-reaching to state that when revisionists attack Wannsee, they actually mean the Holocaust and only the Holocaust. Nevertheless, it is clear that before one can deny the Holocaust in a sophisticated way, one first has to deal with Wannsee. If the Holocaust is to be erased from history, the Wannsee Conference and the Wannsee Protocol have to be erased first.

In any case, revisionist attacks on the Wannsee Protocol are but one piece of a bigger puzzle and ought to be seen in this wider context. As indicated before, further pieces of this puzzle are the claims that the German Reich was not responsible for the outbreak of World War II, that the German crimes never had happened, or, if they did, they merely were part of regular warfare of which all war parties are equally guilty. These pieces add up to a revisionist conception of history, in which National Socialism, its leaders and agents are relieved of the burden of that which is morally reprehensible. Or, if they remain burdened by atrocities they committed, the weight should at least appear not heavier than the burden on all the others. Usually, revisionists start where historical research seems to be incomplete, where there are flaws, ambiguities and controversies. Even though the starting points and starting questions of the revisionists are often legitimate (as has been shown), their fallacious answers to these questions serve other purposes. What they intend is to replace the dominant negative image we have of National Socialism, by brushing aside with one sweep what generations of scholars all over the world have established.

It is important to bear in mind that revisionists are anything but a homogeneous group. But the one thing they have in common, no matter how different their methods, political world views and backgrounds, is anti-Semitism. Without the traditional anti-Semitic construct of a Jewish world conspiracy, revisionist writings are not possible. Underlying all revisionist writings is the idea that this alleged conspiracy is using false allegations of all kinds against Germany to dominate it and to gain money for Israel and the Jews. The implicit or explicit claim of a conspiracy of "World Jewry", which has at its command immense power and all means imaginable to make up and fabricate vast quantities of documents (the Wannsee Protocol being just one), is as irrational as the other revisionist line of argumentation: namely that for decades this Jewish conspiracy managed to influence all historians so that they - intentionally or unintentionally - misinterpret the allegedly innocuous Wannsee Protocol as proof of an intended genocide. Thus, irrationality and anti-Semitism constitute the basis of this kind of historical falsification.

http://www.holocaust-history.org/wannseeprotocol/

Still need to analyse everything in detail, but apparently they unrepentantly stick to a forgery

[Hannover]

Mentel does little more than make personal attacks. However, he does mention Martin Luther, a mistake for his laughable cause. Read on and see how Mentel simply steps in his own _____.

The Schlegelberger Document and the Luther Memo.

translation:

"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."

Note that at a HQ dinner July 24, 1942 Hitler said he will tackle Jewish problem ...

"nach Beendigung des Krieges" (after the war's over)

The 'Luther Memo' actually confirms the contents of The Schlegelberger Document.
see:
http://www.codoh.com/viewpoints/vppgluther.html

The Luther Memo is a document that provides a summary of German Jewish population policies as of August, 1942. It references, by enclosure, about a dozen other documents, including the July 1941 Goering letter and the Wannsee Conference minutes, and provides a connected narrative to that point.

It does not describe extermination, but rather ghettoization in the East and labor utilization. It describes the nature of what the official German policy actually was. Desperate True Believers reference it usually by claiming that is is all "code words / euphemisms"" ... laughable.

It was introduced, along with the other documents, during Military Tribunal IV, Case 11 (NMT 11). AKA U.S. vs. Weizaecker (Ministries, or Wilhelmstrasse, Case). This was the last, or second to last NMT trial, and the documentation provided for this trial represented the "last chance" at the story by the American prosecutors. Therefore it is a goldmine of information.

Hitler, the "Final Solution," and the Luther Memorandum:
A Response to Evans and Longerich

by Paul Grubach
http://www.codoh.com/viewpoints/vppgluther.html

In the recent British High Court libel action of historian David Irving against Deborah Lipstadt, one of the most interesting aspects of the trial was the debate about the famous "Schlegelberger Document." This March 1942, memorandum of State Secretary Franz Schlegelberger noted that Hitler's Chief of Chancellery, Dr. Hans Lammers, had informed him: "...The Fuehrer has repeatedly declared to him [Lammers] that he wants to see the solution of the Jewish problem postponed until after the war."

Irving argued this document shows that Hitler had no plans to exterminate European Jewry. British Professor Richard Evans and German Professor Peter Longerich, testifying in behalf of Dr. Lipstadt, both attempted to downplay the memo's significance. While Longerich simply dismissed it as "insignificant," Evans attempted to "explain it away."

In paragraphs 5.155 and 5.161 of Justice Gray's decision, it is noted that Professor Evans expressed the opinion that the subject matter of the "Schlegelberger note" was probably not the Jewish question generally, but rather the narrower issue of mixed marriages between Jews and Gentiles and the children of such marriages. Consequently, this document cannot be used by revisionist historians to prove there was no Nazi policy to exterminate the Jews, because it does not refer to all Jews, only to a small category of Jews.

In volume 13 of the Nuremberg Military Tribunal (NMT) publications, there is a discussion of Nazi Jewish policy. One part, NG-2586-J, a memo written by Nazi official Martin Luther, dated August 21, 1942, is a summary of this policy.1 Under point number 8 it contains this most telling statement: "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."

Clearly, this passage supports the Irving thesis and undermines the rival thesis of Evans and Longerich. Hitler's orders are perfectly clear. Referring to Jews in general (thus contradicting Evan's claim), the German dictator stated they will still be around after the war is over (as he had no plans to exterminate them en masse), and they will have to emigrate to a new land outside Europe. This decision was "unalterable," that is, not subject to change. And, this Luther memo gives no indication that there was any change in policy during the time between the enunciation of Hitler's Jewish policy to Bulgarian Foreign Minister Popoff in November 1941, and the creation of said memo in August 1942.

Nor can one fall back on Longerich's view that the "Schlegelberger memo" is insignificant, for here we have an important August 1942 memorandum underscoring the Hitler orders of the "Schlegelberger note" of March 1942.
NOTES

1. The document is also published in Arthur Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century (Institute for Historical Review, 1976), pp.205-206, 208-210.

This is just too easy.
And we're still waiting for the alleged, but completely phantom, 'enormous mass graves' to be shown.

The 'holocaust' storyline is one of the most easily debunked narratives ever contrived. That is why those who question it are arrested and persecuted. That is why violent racist Jewish supremacists demand that there be no open debate.
Truth needs no protection from scrutiny.

The tide is turning.


- Hannover

[hermod]

http://i1276.photobucket.com/albums/y46 ... 38c4ab.jpg

[Hannover]

C. Mentel proclaims:

According to most historians of the Holocaust, the purpose of the conference was to coordinate and make more effective the mass murder operations under the leadership of Heydrich, moreover to solve problems like internal fights over mandates. The mass murder of Jews in the East was well underway since Nazi Germany's attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, but was nevertheless poorly coordinated. The leadership of the SS, and in particular the Reich Security Main Office in these murder operations (which from now on were to be understood as part of the attempt to murder all European Jews), was accepted by the participants at the conference, although disagreements remained around details.

What utter nonsense, there is no such proof of the "mass murder of Jews" with the German pre-emptive attack on the communist USSR, none. Mentel and his so called "historians of the Holocaust" (read: Jewish supremacist racists making laughable, self-serving accusations) have absolutely nothing that has not been easily refuted. It's all just cliched, hackneyed assertions which cannot withstand scrutiny.

C. Mentel goes on:

To this very day, only one of a total of 30 copies of the Wannsee Protocol has been found. This is the copy of Martin Luther, who participated at the Wannsee Conference as Undersecretary of State of the German Foreign Office. And even Luther's copy - marked as "geheime Reichssache" (top secret) - seems to have slipped systematic destruction by the German authorities only by chance. Against this backdrop, the main revisionist line of argumentation is characterized by the statement that - contrary to official statements - there exist not just one, but a few - and different - copies of the Wannsee Protocol. ...

Yet more problems for his nonsense:
-The existing copy is supposedly 'copy number 16 of 30'. But yet we now know there exists at least five different versions of this alleged 'copy 16'. How does one get different versions of an alleged copy?

And it's interesting since we do have the original document which postponed the conference to a later date, see scan here - http://www.fpp.co.uk/Himmler/Note080142.html - but not the original meeting notes. Anyone seen the original Wannsee Conference minutes?
Mentel's preposterous excuses as to why these copies are different and full of inconsistencies is merely childish rationalizations instead of hard facts.

The source of the Wannsee Protocol document, which claims to be "copy 16 of 30", is none other than Nuremberg prosecutor, arch judeo-supremacist / Zionist, Robert Max Kempner.

Kempner's behaviour with evidence was also highly questionable. He would later turn up in German foreign ministry files the Original Copy No. 16 (SIXTEEN) of the Wannsee Protocol, and bestow upon it a wholly undeserved reputation as a key document in the Final Solution of the Jewish Problem; despite the aura which now surrounds it, the document contains no explicit reference to the killing of Jews. It is complete with 'Geheime Kommandosache' rubber stamps. Not only did the R.H.S.A., the agency supposedly originating the document, use the civilian classification 'Geheime Reichssache' on it's documents, but the statistics contained in the document bore little relation either to each other or to reality.

There is further evidence of skulduggery in the documents collected by Kempner's office on the Final Solution. The Nuremberg document experts routinely produced 'staff evidence analysis sheets' on the documents that came into their hands, indicating where they were found, and which individuals were mentioned or incriminated by them.

The sheet on document 4055-PS, a photostat of parts of the German ministry of the interior file on the Final Solution, shows that when first analysed by the experts it contained four important items relating to discussions on definitions of Jews; one of these four documents originating in the spring of 1942, showed Staatssekretaer Franz Schlegelberger informing his staff at the justice ministry that Dr. Hans Lammers, chief of the Reich chancellery, had phoned to inform him the the Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler, had 'repeatedly' ordered the solution of the Jewish problem 'postponed until after the war was over'. This did not suit Kempner at all, and when the file was returned to the document centre this particular photostat was missing."

from: 'Nuremberg, the Last Battle', 1996, by David Irving; p.91-92.

and:
Auschwitz commandant Hoess allegedly "confessed" that in August, 1941, Himmler told him to start gassing at Auschwitz and that it was already being done at Majdanek. So, we allegedly have mass extermination already in progress at Majdanek in Aug. '41, improved and underway at Auschwitz by October, 1941 and then in January 1942 we have Wannsee supposedly creating plans that have no bearing upon the current accepted timeline of mass extermination. Why hold a conference months after the alleged 'extermination plan' was already in progress?
The 'holocaust' shysters simply cannot keep their lies straight.

And we're still waiting for the alleged, but completely phantom, 'enormous mass graves' to be shown.

The 'holocaust' storyline is one of the most easily debunked narratives ever contrived. That is why those who question it are arrested and persecuted. That is why violent racist Jewish supremacists demand that there be no open debate.
Truth needs no protection from scrutiny.

The tide is turning.

- Hannover

[Hektor]

I got a text by Christian Mentel and I assume that his mother tongue is German:
http://www.ghwk.de/fileadmin/user_uploa ... ter_26.pdf
We can be fair to him that he's more proficient in that then in English, which seems to be the reverse with the author of the protocol.
As for the content of his article first thing that comes to mind that except for Irving or Zuendel (who tmk didn't write on the Wannsee Protocol) he neither names Revisionist authors nor their publications, which exposes his straw-man type of argumentation. More important perhaps is the fact that he completely ignores the absence of Heydrich on the list of participants.

On a side note Christian Mentel is quite young (born 1979) and has no doctorate.
http://www.zeitgeschichte-online.de/aut ... ian-mentel
It seems the other academics found it too risky to do that kind of refutation, since that could backfire in the near future.

[Werd]

Well I sure hope that Roland Bohlinger and Johannes Peter Ney take these absurdities into account when they finish their book on Wansee, which is slated to be released about two years from now.
http://holocausthandbooks.com/index.php?page_id=27

[Thames Darwin]

Werd, that book is 22 years old and both authors are quite dead, so I imagine it won't be much more than a translation into English.

[Werd]

I know there is a German version but I figured it would have been updated in English years later. I guess not if both authors are dead. Just a translation and nothing more. However, I did read what I presume is a condensed version of the German book in article form in Rudolf's DISSECTING THE HOLOCAUST years ago on the web. I only know the main staples of revisionism such as the holocaust handbooks. At least those which are published in English. Mattogno has so many books that have made it into English and I am still busy plowing through a few I haven't yet read such as Auschwitz: Crematorium I, Auschwitz: The First Gassing and his book with Graf on Majdanek. Seen below is just a FRACTION of what he has in Italian going back to the 80's.


Source.

What interests me is how this will not be due in English for another two years if it is just a plain translation. I suppose Rudolf could do the translating. I don't know what his schedule is like or how many other translators could do it if not Rudolf. Graf could probably do it, but on the other hand, he usually works with mattogno translating Italian into German. And from the looks of it, those two are busy finishing their next works.

Upcoming holocaust handbooks

[borjastick]

From Hektor's post -

It is important to bear in mind that revisionists are anything but a homogeneous group. But the one thing they have in common, no matter how different their methods, political world views and backgrounds, is anti-Semitism. Without the traditional anti-Semitic construct of a Jewish world conspiracy, revisionist writings are not possible. Underlying all revisionist writings is the idea that this alleged conspiracy is using false allegations of all kinds against Germany to dominate it and to gain money for Israel and the Jews. The implicit or explicit claim of a conspiracy of "World Jewry", which has at its command immense power and all means imaginable to make up and fabricate vast quantities of documents (the Wannsee Protocol being just one), is as irrational as the other revisionist line of argumentation: namely that for decades this Jewish conspiracy managed to influence all historians so that they - intentionally or unintentionally - misinterpret the allegedly innocuous Wannsee Protocol as proof of an intended genocide. Thus, irrationality and anti-Semitism constitute the basis of this kind of historical falsification.

http://www.holocaust-history.org/wannseeprotocol/

I'd like to make a few remarks about the Wannsee Conference starting with the conclusions and assumptions shown in the above comments by Mentel.

The general position is that all revisionists are jew hating, anti zionist, anti-semites. I beg to differ and would also argue that even if they are it makes no difference whatsoever to the pursuit of truth and detail of the claims within the holocaust. Sure some revisionists dislike jews, I am not one of those. Some would prefer jews to have no homeland and others seem to like the idea of a jewish homeland so long as all the world's jews go there, immediately! Hating jews or not isn't the point and by mentioning it so strongly above somehow weakens their claims.

Additionally he suggests that the holocaust claims are just a way of money grabbing and power control of Germany and the west. Well yes indeed. Given how much money Israel via the holocaust has weedled out of Germany it is hardly rocket science to arrive at that conclusion. Though I have no doubt that many zionists and supporters, be they in Israel or America, do actually believe the holocaust claims. They aren't all deliberately part of some conspiracy against the west, but they all part of the same game indirectly.

My second point about the minutes of the so called Wannsee Conference is the numbers, isn't the holocaust always about the numbers sooner or later? Looking at the numbers on the attached list I wonder how they would know an exact number, and how old the information was. The conference was due to take place in December '41 so it is fair to say these numbers were from an earlier period. But what period? How would anyone know with any accuracy that for example there were 48,000 jews in Bulgaria, how?

Secondly the numbers for Germany are confusing. The document says that in the old Reich areas of saxony and bavaria etc there were 131,800 jews and in eastern germany there were 420,000 jews in 1941. Really? Over 500,000 jews still in Germany in 1941. And why does the document not show a figure for the main part of Germany? Maybe it does but I cannot see one. Where is Ostmark?

Finally the figure for Russia shows 5,000,000 jews. First of all how would they know for a fact such a number and secondly that region as a whole was never under German control and so these 5m were never all in jeopardy.

All in all the minutes for this meeting make little sense.

Any comments would be welcome.

[Occam's Razor]

Secondly the numbers for Germany are confusing. The document says that in the old Reich areas of saxony and bavaria etc there were 131,800 jews and in eastern germany there were 420,000 jews in 1941. Really? Over 500,000 jews still in Germany in 1941. And why does the document not show a figure for the main part of Germany? Maybe it does but I cannot see one. Where is Ostmark?

Finally the figure for Russia shows 5,000,000 jews. First of all how would they know for a fact such a number and secondly that region as a whole was never under German control and so these 5m were never all in jeopardy.

Altreich refers to the pre-war borders of Germany. It may even have included the areas that were lost after WW1. In other words, everything from East Prussia / Ostpreussen (or even the Memelland), Westpreussen / the Danzig corridor, the Sudetenland to Alsace-Lorraine / Elsaß-Lothringen.

Ostmark is another name for the territory of Austria. Isn't Austria Latin for east / eastern? Ostmark literally means s.th. like eastern border province. I believe the name comes from medieval times / from the time of the Holy Roman Empire. The German name for Austria as an independent state is Österreich, literally eastern empire. That didn't make sense since Austria was no longer an independent state (or an empire / Reich) at the time of the Wannsee conference.

Ostgebiete, literally eastern areas, may refer to the area east of the Generalgouvernment that was under German control. Reichskommissariat Ostland, which included parts of Belarus und Ukraine, and maybe even the area under military control behind the front line (which was not part of Reichskommissariat Ostland). It's a little confusing, because indeed the document later references the UdSSR including Belarus and Ukraine, excluding Bialystok. That doesn't leave much room for the Ostgebiete. But I'm pretty certain that Ostgebiete does not refer to proper German territory like East Prussia. In that case the proper German names of these territories in question would have been mentioned.

Another possibility is that Ostgebiete refers to newly annexed parts of Western Poland, like the Warthegau. These areas were neither part of the Altreich, nor of the Generalgouvernment.

[borjastick]

Thank you Occam's Razor.

What you have said suggest that the regions listed separately could also be overlapping and subject to double counting or at least confusion. In which case does this add more weight to the jiggery fakery possibility of it all?

[Hektor]

Altreich refers to the pre-war borders of Germany. It may even have included the areas that were lost after WW1. In other words, everything from East Prussia / Ostpreussen (or even the Memelland), Westpreussen / the Danzig corridor, the Sudetenland to Alsace-Lorraine / Elsaß-Lothringen.

"Altreich" refers to Germany in the borders of 1937. Hence not including Western Prussia, Danzig, Corridor, Austria, Sudetenland or Alsace Lorraine.

Ostmark is another name for the territory of Austria. Isn't Austria Latin for east / eastern? Ostmark literally means s.th. like eastern border province. I believe the name comes from medieval times / from the time of the Holy Roman Empire. The German name for Austria as an independent state is Österreich, literally eastern empire. That didn't make sense since Austria was no longer an independent state (or an empire / Reich) at the time of the Wannsee conference.

Ostmark is generally identical with the territory of Austria.

Ostgebiete, literally eastern areas, may refer to the area east of the Generalgouvernment that was under German control. Reichskommissariat Ostland, which included parts of Belarus und Ukraine, and maybe even the area under military control behind the front line (which was not part of Reichskommissariat Ostland). It's a little confusing, because indeed the document later references the UdSSR including Belarus and Ukraine, excluding Bialystok. That doesn't leave much room for the Ostgebiete. But I'm pretty certain that Ostgebiete does not refer to proper German territory like East Prussia. In that case the proper German names of these territories in question would have been mentioned.

Indeed it can have two meanings:
1. Occupied territories that came under German control with the preventive war against the Soviet Union. Meaning Baltic states. Belarus, Ukraine and what was occupied of Russia proper. This was the usage prior to 1945
2. A colloquial, yet a bit misleading term, for Eastern Germany meaning the German areas East of the Oder-Neisse line: Silesia, Eastern Brandenburg, Pomerania, Eastern Prussia. It excludes territories that were not part of Germany prior to 1914. This usage came up 1945 and later.
Here is a map of the area in question under two:

The remark that these territories were annexed is however false and reflects lack of historical knowledge of the author.

Another possibility is that Ostgebiete refers to newly annexed parts of Western Poland, like the Warthegau. These areas were neither part of the Altreich, nor of the Generalgouvernment.

And I think this is what the author did actually mean.
Here is an indication of the territory in question:

It was to be filled with ethnic Germans from elsewhere in Eastern Europe, while the non-German population was being resettled elsewhere. First and foremost Jews were removed and by early 1942 I suppose that almost all Jews were removed to the Generalgouvernment.
I've never read that the term "Ostgebiete" was used before 1945 for this area. And I think it's unlikely someone would have used it in 1942, because of the potential confusion with occupied soviet territories and the Baltics.

From Hektor's post -

It is important to bear in mind that revisionists are anything but a homogeneous group. But the one thing they have in common, no matter how different their methods, political world views and backgrounds, is anti-Semitism. Without the traditional anti-Semitic construct of a Jewish world conspiracy, revisionist writings are not possible. Underlying all revisionist writings is the idea that this alleged conspiracy is using false allegations of all kinds against Germany to dominate it and to gain money for Israel and the Jews. The implicit or explicit claim of a conspiracy of "World Jewry", which has at its command immense power and all means imaginable to make up and fabricate vast quantities of documents (the Wannsee Protocol being just one), is as irrational as the other revisionist line of argumentation: namely that for decades this Jewish conspiracy managed to influence all historians so that they - intentionally or unintentionally - misinterpret the allegedly innocuous Wannsee Protocol as proof of an intended genocide. Thus, irrationality and anti-Semitism constitute the basis of this kind of historical falsification.

http://www.holocaust-history.org/wannseeprotocol/

I'd like to make a few remarks about the Wannsee Conference starting with the conclusions and assumptions shown in the above comments by Mentel.

The general position is that all revisionists are jew hating, anti zionist, anti-semites. I beg to differ and would also argue that even if they are it makes no difference whatsoever to the pursuit of truth and detail of the claims within the holocaust. Sure some revisionists dislike jews, I am not one of those. Some would prefer jews to have no homeland and others seem to like the idea of a jewish homeland so long as all the world's jews go there, immediately! Hating jews or not isn't the point and by mentioning it so strongly above somehow weakens their claims.

He is, and I think willfully so, completely ignorant of the views and motivations of Revisionists. While some may dislike Jews, most are actually neutral. The attitude towards Jews is hardly a common factor, the common factor is that Revisionists realized that there's something very fishy about the various Holocaust claims. He's building a straw man and then makes the fallacy of relevance.

Additionally he suggests that the holocaust claims are just a way of money grabbing and power control of Germany and the west. Well yes indeed. Given how much money Israel via the holocaust has weedled out of Germany it is hardly rocket science to arrive at that conclusion. Though I have no doubt that many zionists and supporters, be they in Israel or America, do actually believe the holocaust claims. They aren't all deliberately part of some conspiracy against the west, but they all part of the same game indirectly.
...

This relates to this statement by him:

The implicit or explicit claim of a conspiracy of "World Jewry", which has at its command immense power and all means imaginable to make up and fabricate vast quantities of documents (the Wannsee Protocol being just one), is as irrational as the other revisionist line of argumentation: namely that for decades this Jewish conspiracy managed to influence all historians so that they - intentionally or unintentionally - misinterpret the allegedly innocuous Wannsee Protocol as proof of an intended genocide.

His conspiracy-theory claims are another frail attempt to discredit Revisionists. Again this is a straw man and irrelevant. Many are mislead by this, because they think there aren't conspiracies in this world. However people do indirectly cooperate in such issues due to common interest. And in this case it's not only organised Jewry that had a stake in this, the Allies and the left had a strong motive to frame the Germans / National Socialists with war crimes, because they were the enemy. Plain and simply. Atrocity propaganda isn't really something new. It just became more sophisticated during World War two.

Furthermore he implies that "vast quantities of documents" support the extermination thesis. While 99.99% actually don't. That leaves an amount quite manageable for Allied intelligence and psychological warfare services. In fact the "Wannsee Protokoll" doesn't even really support the extermination thesis. That Jews were to be killed isn't mentioned in the document. It deals with policy issues and resettlement. The Holocaustians just jump on a conclusion regarding one sentence:"Der allfällig endlich verbleibende Restbestand wird, da es sich bei diesem zweifellos um den widerstandsfähigsten Teil handelt, entsprechend behandelt werden müssen, da dieser, eine natürliche Auslese darstellend, bei Freilassung als Keimzelle eines neuen jüdischen Aufbaues anzusprechen ist", which is open to some interpretations. The problem is just that the document is riddled with formal mistakes and bad semantics. Heydrich, the most important participant, is missing on the participants list. "Private Berufe" is Freiberufler in German. to name just a view expamples. How does Mentel deal with this? I only read his writings a while ago and do not recall details.

Anyway here is some more info on him:
https://zzf-pdm.academia.edu/ChristianMentel
http://www.clio-online.de/forscherinnen=9657

[Occam's Razor]

"Altreich" refers to Germany in the borders of 1937. Hence not including Western Prussia, Danzig, Corridor, Austria, Sudetenland or Alsace Lorraine.

I am well aware that historians today, and even the authorities of NS Germany, referred to Germany in the borders of 1937 as Altreich. That's what I meant when I wrote "Altreich refers to the pre-war borders of Germany". I mentioned the possibility, that Altreich could also include the German territories that were lost after WWI, only in this specific context. Because the author of the statistic in question (you did notice the link?) does not mention these territories anywhere else. Do you think the Jewish population of the Memelland was subsumed under Litauen / Lithuania, Elsaß-Lothringen / Alsace-Lorraine under Frankreich / Besetztes Gebiet / France / occupied territory and the Sudetenland under Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren? And Danzig? Under Generalgouvernment? Doesn't make sense to me. And don't forget, for a real National Socialist, in other words, for a real German patriot and nationalist, the lost WWI territories were legitimate parts of Germany. I believe the author was simply sloppy and simply subsumed all Jews that lived in regular German territory, including the lost territories from WWI, as Altreich. Even if that was technically wrong, and even if you don't like it. Unless you convince me otherwise.

Ostmark is generally identical with the territory of Austria.

May I ask why you repeated that? I said exactly the same.

Indeed it can have two meanings:
1. Occupied territories that came under German control with the preventive war against the Soviet Union. Meaning Baltic states. Belarus, Ukraine and what was occupied of Russia proper. This was the usage prior to 1945
2. A colloquial, yet a bit misleading term, for Eastern Germany meaning the German areas East of the Oder-Neisse line: Silesia, Eastern Brandenburg, Pomerania, Eastern Prussia. It excludes territories that were not part of Germany prior to 1914. This usage came up 1945 and later.

Yes, if borjastic simply looked up "Ostgebiete", he may have found such a definition. As Hektor says, it's a post-WW2 term. But it's usually phrased as "deutsche Ostgebiete", or "ehemalige deutsche Ostgebiete" = former German eastern territories, not simply "Ostgebiete". I thought this definition was irrelevant in this context, because it's a post WW2 term, but if a non German speaker looks the term up he may indeed find this definition.

The remark that these territories were annexed is however false and reflects lack of historical knowledge of the author.

Another possibility is that Ostgebiete refers to newly annexed parts of Western Poland, like the Warthegau. These areas were neither part of the Altreich, nor of the Generalgouvernment.

Hektor, are you serious?
I never said anywhere that Ostgebiete may refer to the territories east of the Oder-Neisse Line, that where separated from Germany after WW2, and I never said anywhere that these territories were "annexed" by Germany, since most of these territories (Silesia, Pommerania) were already part of Germany. I specifically mentioned "Warthegau", or more correctly, "Reichsgau Wartheland". And this has indeed something to do with the last image you posted and the resettlement program you mention. And this "Reichsgau Wartheland", which was bigger than the former "Provinz Posen", which was part of Germany before WWI, was indeed annexed by Germany. And both the German and English wikipedia pages agree. The territories between Germany in the borders of 1937 and the Generalgouvernment that were annexed by Germany were significantly larger than the German borders before 1914.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsgau_Wartheland

First you make up some nonsense which I allegedly said, probably because you did not read my text carefully, and then you claim this "reflects lack of historical knowledge of the author".

I've never read that the term "Ostgebiete" was used before 1945 for this area. And I think it's unlikely someone would have used it in 1942, because of the potential confusion with occupied soviet territories and the Baltics.

I agree. I've never heard the term Ostgebiete in this context either. I mentioned it only as another possibility, and I explained, why I did that.
Because the parts of the other potential explanation for Ostgebiete, the Reichskommissariat Ostland (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, parts of Belarus and Ukraine), Reichskommissariat Ukraine, Bialystok and Soviet / Russian territory under Military Administration, are all mentioned separately in the statistic in question. Where does that leave the Ostgebiete? Hence I offered an alternative explanation, although I'm not convinced of it either.

[Occam's Razor]

What you have said suggest that the regions listed separately could also be overlapping and subject to double counting or at least confusion.

We can't rule that out. On the other hand, I don't think the author of this statistic was as sloppy as your run-of-the-mill holocaust historian, who counts every Jew several times as gassed in three different camps, murdered by three different Einsatzgruppen units, and starved in a ghetto in three different countries. All statistics have to be taken with a grain of salt, and Jewish population statistics in particular. But does that mean these numbers are significantly wrong? I don't know. Btw., aren't these numbers from the Korherr report?

In which case does this add more weight to the jiggery fakery possibility of it all?

The book by Roland Bohlinger and Johannes Peter Ney that was mentioned earlier in the thread is indeed a good introduction into the Wannsee protocol problem. I read parts of it a couple of years ago. They do raise some really interesting points. Hektor mentioned a few of them. "Private Berufe" instead of "Freiberufler" is one hint, that the document could have been manipulated by a non-native speaker. And they discuss a ton of such things in their book. But the problem is: The Wannsee protocol does not prove homicidal gassings, and except for this one odd sentence that Hektor mentioned, that could mean anything, it doesn't mention any murderous intentions at all. The Wannsee protocol isn't really at odds with the revisionist narrative, rather it supports it.

So why should I as a revisionist try to prove that it is a forgery? Personally I think there are more fruitful areas for revisionists. It's certainly possible to find all kinds of hints that the document might have been tampered with, but unless someone finds a really significant document that can definitely prove that the Wannsee protocol is a forgery, it will be very difficult to convince a true believer. And if we could once and for all prove that it is a forgery? Then what? Does it disprove the gas chamber claims? No. Because the two things don't have that much to do with each other. So for me, the possible gains are not big enough for the time we would have to invest in this problem.

Or in other words: if you're interested in it, do whatever you want, but personally I've never had much interest in the Wannsee protocol problem. Same thing with the Anne Frank Diary. Pretty irrelevant in my opinion.

[Hektor]

Few remarks to Occam:
* I sometimes summarize just what had been said.
* Please attribute correctly what I'm saying. I said something about the captions of a map and you think I say that about what you wrote.
* I agree that an NS or any German patriot before 1945 would consider territories taken away by Versailles still as part of Germany. While Hitler was actually ready to be more pragmatic on that issue.
* Revisionists point out that the Wansee protocol is a forgery, because it obviously is one. Not because it does in any way support the extermination thesis. At best it doesn't contradict it and may contain innuendo useful to exterminationists.

I actually found a map from between September 1939 and June 1941:


Note it says "Aussenstellenkarte der eingegliederten Ostgebiete". So Ostgebiete was used, although with the adjective "eingegliedert" [integrated]. And I still maintain any German author from then would be more specific (i.e.: eingegliedert nach 1939 [integrated after ... 1939]) in order to avoid confusion.