Hektor wrote:It's get even better, as Ernst got a famous son. Also famous for accusing his own people.
hermod wrote:Ernst Weizsäcker (who was opposed to anti-Jewish persecutions), the number 2 of the German Foreign Office from 1938 to 1943, knew nothing of the Big H before the Nuremberg "lynching party".
IMT, Green Series, Vol. XIII, p. 432-433
True, but Ernst's famous son revealed in his memoirs how the American 'interrogators' secured false confessions at the Nuremberg show trials. Better than nothing...
The German Titel seems to be "Vier Zeiten"... Apparently your page was translated from this here:
....Besonders bekannt geworden ist Kempners Versuch, einen Spitzenbeamten des Auswärtigen Amtes, den Ministerialdirektor Friedrich Wilhelm Gaus, vor den eigenen Karren zu spannen. Durch einen Zufall gelang es mir, die Wortprotokolle zu finden, die die Vernehmungen des zunächst inhaftierten Gaus durch Kempner verzeichnen. Wir legten die einschlägigen Auszüge im Gericht als Beweisstücke vor; sie wurden in der deutschen Presse weithin abgedruckt. »Sie müssen uns helfen, die Sache aufzuklären«, hatte Kempner zu Gaus gesagt und hinzugefügt: »Wenn ich meinen Kopf retten könnte, würde ich jeden Meineid schwören.« Ich glaube nicht, daß Gaus später gerichtliche Meineide geleistet hat. Aber er wurde durch Kempner dazu gebracht, die ihm angedrohte Rolle des Angeklagten gegen die eines Mitarbeiters der Anklage einzutauschen. Zwei Tage nach jener protokollarischen Vernehmung wurde er aus der Einzelhaft entlassen. Wenige Tage später publizierte die »Neue Zeitung« auf ihrer ersten Seite eine längere handgeschriebene Erklärung von Gaus, in der er sich, wie die Zeitung selbst kommentierte, zur Kollektivschuld der deutschen Beamten bekannte. Ferner war zu lesen, daß die Zeitung den Text von Kempner erhalten habe.
In den ersten Vernehmungen meines Vaters vor dem Prozeß war es zu ähnlichen Ansinnen der Kooperation von seiten der Anklage gekommen. Befremdet wies er dies von sich. Daraufhin schaltete Kempner sofort auf die Haltung des feindlichen Ermittlers um. Ein tiefer Graben mißtrauischer Abneigung zwischen beiden entstand. Meinem Vater war und blieb es moralisch und menschlich unbegreiflich, was es mit Wahrheitssuche und Gerechtigkeit zu tun haben sollte, einen Untersuchungshäftling zum mehr oder weniger manipulierten Mithelfer der Anklage zu machen und ihn dafür mit Anklageverschonung zu belohnen. Er war selbst auf das lebhafteste an einer profunden und ganz offenen Erörterung mit den Anklagevertretern interessiert, um einer Aufklärung über die politischen und moralischen Bedingungen für einen Widerstand gegen eine Gewaltherrschaft durch Verbleiben im Amt näherzukommen....
So he actually knew what methods were being use and as jurist himself should realize how this would skew the outcome of investigations. That he still got the audacity to rebrand the 8th May 1945 as "Day of Liberation" is quite rich from Richard.
But as you say, he wrote that and the historically interested reader should be able to form his own opinion on matters there. Also should realise that this method came into use during later investigations and trials... Against people of far lower rank and weaker social background, who'd possibly could also be turned easier into "cooperators of the accusation"... Not all of them did though. Unlike Richard presumably they were not able to discern this tactic and would not be able to describe it that well neither.
There is more in the book:
Im Prozeß gegen meinen Vater ging es um seine konkrete Position. Er hatte selbst keinen unmittelbaren Anteil an der Macht gehabt, aber er war den Machtzentren nahe gewesen. Auch wenn seine Informationen, sein Argwohn und seine Phantasie bei weitem nicht ausgereicht hatten, um sich ein wahres Bild vom Holocaust zu machen, so wußte er doch aus den Akten und durch mündliche Informationen für seine Entscheidungen mehr als genug. Er war sich vollkommen bewußt, daß er das Odium auf sich genommen hatte, im Amt eines verruchten Systems geblieben zu sein. Er selber hat die große Anzahl einzelner Menschenschicksale, bei denen er selbst in Berlin und später in Rom beschützend und lebensrettend helfen konnte und die alle öffentlich bezeugt sind, nie als eine Rechtfertigung für das Verbleiben im Amt betrachtet, genausowenig wie er umgekehrt eine Chance dafür gesehen hatte, schwerste Verbrechen vor allem gegen Juden zu verhindern, die im Prozeß zur Sprache kamen, Verbrechen, von denen er wußte oder eine Ahnung haben konnte.
See, if you can find that in your translation. Holocaust is used as a keyword there. About his father... "Even, if his information, his suspicion and his phantasy weren't enough form a 'true picture' of the Holocaust".
It's a nice way to say "My father didn't know about it, as his imagination wasn't enough"... "but he still, intervened on behalf of Jews, rescuing them from the gas chamber"... He affirms and denies there at the same time. He does it so eloquently that most won't notice what he's actually saying, since he uses phrases of condemnation. What he actually does is trying to reconcile reality, real experiences and memory... with the narrative itself. Guess that's a common problem among older Germans... when time passed after the war... they interpreted their own memories of the past in line with the Holocaust Narrative that was being hammered.
Im Prozeß gegen meinen Vater ging es um seine konkrete Position. Er hatte selbst keinen unmittelbaren Anteil an der Macht gehabt, aber er war den Machtzentren nahe gewesen. Auch wenn seine Informationen, sein Argwohn und seine Phantasie bei weitem nicht ausgereicht hatten, um sich ein wahres Bild vom Holocaust zu machen, so wußte er doch aus den Akten und durch mündliche Informationen für seine Entscheidungen mehr als genug. Er war sich vollkommen bewußt, daß er das Odium auf sich genommen hatte, im Amt eines verruchten Systems geblieben zu sein. Er selber hat die große Anzahl einzelner Menschenschicksale, bei denen er selbst in Berlin und später in Rom beschützend und lebensrettend helfen konnte und die alle öffentlich bezeugt sind, nie als eine Rechtfertigung für das Verbleiben im Amt betrachtet, genausowenig wie er umgekehrt eine Chance dafür gesehen hatte, schwerste Verbrechen vor allem gegen Juden zu verhindern, die im Prozeß zur Sprache kamen, Verbrechen, von denen er wußte oder eine Ahnung haben konnte.
See, if you can find that in your translation. Holocaust is used as a keyword there.
Hektor wrote:About his father... "Even, if his information, his suspicion and his phantasy weren't enough form a 'true picture' of the Holocaust".
It's a nice way to say "My father didn't know about it, as his imagination wasn't enough"... "but he still, intervened on behalf of Jews, rescuing them from the gas chamber"... He affirms and denies there at the same time. He does it so eloquently that most won't notice what he's actually saying, since he uses phrases of condemnation. What he actually does is trying to reconcile reality, real experiences and memory... with the narrative itself. Guess that's a common problem among older Germans... when time passed after the war... they interpreted their own memories of the past in line with the Holocaust Narrative that was being hammered.
Also true for old Jews. Probably the reason why so many of them decided to tell the "truth" about their wartime experience only after the Schindler's List blockbuster had been released. The Jewish psychologist Elizabeth Loftus demonstrated how unreliable memory is and she even successfully implanted false memories to a number of tested people, but she hated it when some evil 'deniers' used her discoveries on memory in order to debunk the Holohoax conspiracy theory. She prefers to see her works used to keep Jewish pedophiles out of jail. Tribalism first, isn't it?
"[Austen Chamberlain] has done western civilization a great service by refuting at least one of the slanders against the Germans because a civilization which leaves war lies unchallenged in an atmosphere of hatred and does not produce courage in its leaders to refute them is doomed. " Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, on the public admission by Britain's Foreign Secretary that the WWI corpse-factory story was false, December 4, 1925
Im Prozeß gegen meinen Vater ging es um seine konkrete Position. Er hatte selbst keinen unmittelbaren Anteil an der Macht gehabt, aber er war den Machtzentren nahe gewesen. Auch wenn seine Informationen, sein Argwohn und seine Phantasie bei weitem nicht ausgereicht hatten, um sich ein wahres Bild vom Holocaust zu machen, so wußte er doch aus den Akten und durch mündliche Informationen für seine Entscheidungen mehr als genug. Er war sich vollkommen bewußt, daß er das Odium auf sich genommen hatte, im Amt eines verruchten Systems geblieben zu sein. Er selber hat die große Anzahl einzelner Menschenschicksale, bei denen er selbst in Berlin und später in Rom beschützend und lebensrettend helfen konnte und die alle öffentlich bezeugt sind, nie als eine Rechtfertigung für das Verbleiben im Amt betrachtet, genausowenig wie er umgekehrt eine Chance dafür gesehen hatte, schwerste Verbrechen vor allem gegen Juden zu verhindern, die im Prozeß zur Sprache kamen, Verbrechen, von denen er wußte oder eine Ahnung haben konnte.
IMO, even more interesting in that part of the book is Richard Weizsäcker's reference to what he regarded as the smoking gun that proved the Holocaust. He was referring to Hitler's notorious 1939 warning about the Vernichtung der judischen Rasse in Europa in the event of a second world war. Using it as a proof of mass murder is a big distortion of the word Vernichtung. But one needs to read the whole part about the Jewish question in that speech to realize it.
"[Austen Chamberlain] has done western civilization a great service by refuting at least one of the slanders against the Germans because a civilization which leaves war lies unchallenged in an atmosphere of hatred and does not produce courage in its leaders to refute them is doomed. " Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, on the public admission by Britain's Foreign Secretary that the WWI corpse-factory story was false, December 4, 1925
Postby Hektor » 11 months 6 days ago (Sun Jul 03, 2022 2:32 pm)
hermod wrote:... IMO, even more interesting in that part of the book is Richard Weizsäcker's reference to what he regarded as the smoking gun that proved the Holocaust. He was referring to Hitler's notorious 1939 warning about the Vernichtung der judischen Rasse in Europa in the event of a second world war. Using it as a proof of mass murder is a big distortion of the word Vernichtung. But one needs to read the whole part about the Jewish question in that speech to realize it.
Yes, they like to cite that excerpt from the speech or point the use of strong words there. But they completely ignore that Hitler proposed as solution for he Jewish problem that the Jews would get their own country.
Didn't Weizsaecker realise this? Why doesn't he mention it then?
Postby hermod » 11 months 6 days ago (Sun Jul 03, 2022 6:39 pm)
Hektor wrote:Yes, they like to cite that excerpt from the speech or point the use of strong words there. But they completely ignore that Hitler proposed as solution for he Jewish problem that the Jews would get their own country.
And they also completely 'omit' to mention that Hitler rephrased his notorious Vernichtung warning a few seconds later and unambiguously explained that the Vernichtung der judischen Rasse in Europa, aka The Final Solution of the Jewish Problem, was a mere continentalization of the anti-Jewish measures (anti-Semitic education and laws, and encouraged Jewish emigration) implemented within the borders of the National Socialist Reich between 1933 and 1938.
Hektor wrote:Didn't Weizsaecker realise this? Why doesn't he mention it then?
One couldn't become a leading politician of the US vassal state of subjugated-Germany after WWII without proving a servile traitor to the German people. Wasn't the first postwar chancellor (Konrad Adenauer) already a member of the same Zionist club as the postwar leader of the World Zionist Organization and the World Jewish Congress (Nahum Goldmann) in the 1920s?
"[Austen Chamberlain] has done western civilization a great service by refuting at least one of the slanders against the Germans because a civilization which leaves war lies unchallenged in an atmosphere of hatred and does not produce courage in its leaders to refute them is doomed. " Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, on the public admission by Britain's Foreign Secretary that the WWI corpse-factory story was false, December 4, 1925
Postby Hektor » 11 months 4 days ago (Tue Jul 05, 2022 12:38 pm)
hermod wrote:
Hektor wrote:Yes, they like to cite that excerpt from the speech or point the use of strong words there. But they completely ignore that Hitler proposed as solution for he Jewish problem that the Jews would get their own country.
And they also completely 'omit' to mention that Hitler rephrased his notorious Vernichtung warning a few seconds later and unambiguously explained that the Vernichtung der judischen Rasse in Europa, aka The Final Solution of the Jewish Problem, was a mere continentalization of the anti-Jewish measures (anti-Semitic education and laws, and encouraged Jewish emigration) implemented within the borders of the National Socialist Reich between 1933 and 1938.
Hektor wrote:Didn't Weizsaecker realise this? Why doesn't he mention it then?
One couldn't become a leading politician of the US vassal state of subjugated-Germany after WWII without proving a servile traitor to the German people. Wasn't the first postwar chancellor (Konrad Adenauer) already a member of the same Zionist club as the postwar leader of the World Zionist Organization and the World Jewish Congress (Nahum Goldmann) in the 1920s?
Konrad Adenauer turns out to be a rather strange character on closer look. In his public image he was the nice Uncle that tried to get his country going again. He sort of defined pragmatism and political reason in the post war era. His links to Zionism are virtually unknown. Better known is that he "employed Nazis" in leading positions of the BRD. Well, they obviously were quite qualified for the positions they filled up. Also no surprise in the light of 10% of Germans being NSDAP members and that virtually anybody of some social standing was in some organization close to the party. That was however always the critique against him. When Kurt Schumacher (Social Democrat), caught him the 'chancellor of the Allies' that was however seen as shameful, unfair and faced with some indignancy. It was however the truth. The fact that he also did intervene on behalf of German POW in the USSR and did actually state some uncanny facts embarrassing the Allies should does not change that. It's possible that this was even calculated so he could be portrayed as "someone doing something for his people" polishing his prestige among post-war Germans. What he states in an interview is however quite revealing:
Warum haben Sie die Judenfrage als eine ungemein wichtige Frage immer bezeichnet und sich danach auch verhalten? Erstens aus einem Gefühl der Gerechtigkeit. Wir hatten den Juden so viel Unrecht getan, wir hatten solche Verbrechen an ihnen begangen, dass sie irgendwie gesühnt werden mussten oder wiedergutgemacht werden mussten, wenn wir überhaupt wieder Ansehen unter den Völkern der Erde gewinnen wollten. Und weiter: Die Macht der Juden auch heute noch, insbesondere in Amerika, soll man nicht unterschätzen. Und daher habe ich sehr überlegt und sehr bewusst – und das war von jeher meine Meinung – meine ganze Kraft daran gesetzt, so gut es ging, eine Versöhnung herbeizuführen zwischen dem jüdischen Volk und dem deutschen Volk. https://archive.org/details/AdenauerInterview
He holds the "Injustice to the Jews" in front of the real reason, why he agreed to compensation and reconciliation. The real reason being that "the Jews have influence and power, especially in the US, that should not be underestimated". So he could be candidly honest at Times. Almost impossible nowadays without earning indignant critique from the side of the enforcers of political correctness.
The tribute payments, admission of guilt and reconciliatory gestures did not 'restore prestige' as he insists. Quite to the contrary did Germany still have high prestige in the world, based on the experience non-Germans had with Germans personally. It's true that the outrageous propaganda did damage their esteem at many places. But this didn't change due to backpaddling and making as if you are sorry for the "injustices being done"... As a matter of fact this affirms the view that the narrative presented was 'basically true', despite a lot of claims being preposterous on its face. And that brings us back to the argument we are discussing. We hear they 'admitted everything', when as a matter of fact they disputed to have knowledge of what was alleged in Allied propaganda and rumors being spread.
Postby hermod » 11 months 4 days ago (Tue Jul 05, 2022 3:44 pm)
Hektor wrote:Konrad Adenauer turns out to be a rather strange character on closer look. In his public image he was the nice Uncle that tried to get his country going again. He sort of defined pragmatism and political reason in the post war era.
Going where?!? To the ravine of extinction??? If so, he did a very good job! It seems clear that all the leaders of the countries 'liberated' by the Allies were/are mere governors of the New World Order tasked with the implementation of the Kaufman-Hooton Plan (sterilization + immigration) in the dominions of their Globalist masters. Elections are a joke. The flight plan never changes.
Hektor wrote:And that brings us back to the argument we are discussing. We hear they 'admitted everything', when as a matter of fact they disputed to have knowledge of what was alleged in Allied propaganda and rumors being spread.
More deceptive and subtle than that. We don't hear they (except for a few ones such as Hoess) admitted everything. We rather hear they never denied it, what is true for most of them. But many people fall for that trick because they fail to realize that the orthodox narrative of the Holocaust is a standard conspiracy theory (the terms "Nazi conspiracy" and "Nazi conspirators" were top buzzwords in Nuremberg after WWII) based on top secrecy and a very small number of insiders still alive after the end of WWII. And one can, of course, deny or confirm only what one is aware of. So there were necessarily very few [alleged] Nazi initiated capable of denying the Holocaust at the postwar Soviet-Allied show trials. In this matter, orthodox historians do as they do with the pics of typhic corpses taken in Belsen and Dachau. In both cases, they don't say that those things prove the Holocaust, but they let mainstream mass media dupe people with them. They lie by omission, what is harder to expose.
"[Austen Chamberlain] has done western civilization a great service by refuting at least one of the slanders against the Germans because a civilization which leaves war lies unchallenged in an atmosphere of hatred and does not produce courage in its leaders to refute them is doomed. " Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, on the public admission by Britain's Foreign Secretary that the WWI corpse-factory story was false, December 4, 1925
Postby Hektor » 11 months 4 days ago (Wed Jul 06, 2022 6:16 am)
hermod wrote:
Hektor wrote:Konrad Adenauer turns out to be a rather strange character on closer look. In his public image he was the nice Uncle that tried to get his country going again. He sort of defined pragmatism and political reason in the post war era.
Going where?!? To the ravine of extinction??? If so, he did a very good job! It seems clear that all the leaders of the countries 'liberated' by the Allies were/are mere governors of the New World Order tasked with the implementation of the Kaufman-Hooton Plan (sterilization + immigration) in the dominions of their Globalist masters. Elections are a joke. The flight plan never changes.
While that may be the actual case, this wasn't his public image. Although some German may have known about such 'plans', the vast majority didn't neither did they want to. During the 50s the vast majority wasn't really interested in politics or even the recent past, they were mainly interested in rebuilding their lives, with a larger group of middle class Germans essentially having lost everything up to the clothing on their bodies. Not an atmosphere were rational inquiry in such matters take place. More one were you reason about how you can find a good job, or what business you should engage in. Also: Labor time was much longer then. Children would only see their dad in the evening for dinner briefly and perhaps spend some time on Sunday with them. And I hardly think they'd start lamenting about what happened to them all the time then. Recreation and perhaps some personal education would be the matters of interest then... The NS-Era subjects came only up again during the 1960s and there it was mainly about the 'repressive and dictatorial character of the NS-Regime'... That was merely an enterprise of self-styled intellectuals repeating cliches over and over again.
Neither journalists, nor politicians would bring up the malicious practices and plans of the Allies. First and foremost the entire subject was taboo, since people tried to avoid quarrels among each other. And the focus was on finding missing relatives. At best this may be discussed among people that were in the Wehrmacht or Administration during the NS-Era. And they had no soap box to communicate this from. Second, If a public person would address issues in a way that went against the current, he was playing with his reputation. Those with vested interest would bring up his "Nazi past"... Which can go as far as being accused of "war crimes".
hermod wrote:
Hektor wrote:And that brings us back to the argument we are discussing. We hear they 'admitted everything', when as a matter of fact they disputed to have knowledge of what was alleged in Allied propaganda and rumors being spread.
More deceptive and subtle than that. We don't hear they (except for a few ones such as Hoess) admitted everything. We rather hear they never denied it, what is true for most of them. But many people fall for that trick because they fail to realize that the orthodox narrative of the Holocaust is a standard conspiracy theory (the terms "Nazi conspiracy" and "Nazi conspirators" were top buzzwords in Nuremberg after WWII) based on top secrecy and a very small number of insiders still alive after the end of WWII. And one can, of course, deny or confirm only what one is aware of. So there were necessarily very few [alleged] Nazi initiated capable of denying the Holocaust at the postwar Soviet-Allied show trials. In this matter, orthodox historians do as they do with the pics of typhic corpses taken in Belsen and Dachau. In both cases, they don't say that those things prove the Holocaust, but they let mainstream mass media dupe people with them. They lie by omission, what is harder to expose.
[/quote]
Well, if they disputed this, they would have to be omniscient on each and every aspect of the third Reich. Nobody was. Even high officials only could and would know fragments of what happened in total. The only honest answer there is that they 'knew nothing' about it. Obviously they were more honest than most folks nowadays, that think they know it all.
I mean, if somebody today would claim that Biden abuses kids in his basement... The only honest line an official could come up with would be that he "doesn't know anything about it".
And you are of course right... It's a dog and pony show, were some fragments are shown to people (corpses in camps) after which the audience is left to their own devices "combining the dots". The court historiographers could always say, that they "never said this proves the Holocaust"... at least not in writing this is. If you confront them on evidence, they also will revert to 'those pictures'. They will also point to testimony at trials... that them Nazis were Antisemite... And they can count on ignorance of people about the content of the trials or the lack of physical examination. And people don't approach the affair unprejudiced. There are frequent efforts being done to keep them in a state of prejudice. If they approached the affair without prejudice and with a broad view of what's actually documented, they'd notice that this is mostly a propaganda hoax. The allies had to smear their foes with the most vicious accusations, as to distract from their own conduct of the war.
How sick that got was the fact that people were put on trial for lynching Allied bomber crews. It gets really outrageously idiotic, when German officials erect monuments for bomber crews:
Except a handful of morons (with official appointments), it seems that monument doesn't get any attention from the public though. It really isn't anything else than a Gessler's hat. Find out who was Albrecht Gessler and be a Wilhelm Tell. I presume the locals should use the location as urinal for their dogs.
In his 1988 book Freispruch für Hitler? (Acquittal for Hitler), Gerd Honsik cites, among others, books by Hans Fritsche, Helmut Sündermann and correspondence with Otto Skorzeny, Hans Ulrich Rudel and Wilhelm Hoettl. The letters of Skorzeny and Rudel were published posthumously and Hoettl redacted his not too specific statements. How trustworthy Honsik is as a source I don’t know, judge for yourselves.
Chapter about Hans Fritsche
FRITSCHE Hans, journalist, highest official of Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda. Author of the book "The Sword on the Scales".
CONVICT: Prisoner in the infamous Moscow prison of the Soviet secret police "Lubyanka". Accused in the Nuremberg "Main War Crimes Trial" and finally acquitted.
He spoke with Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring before his suicide: The gas chambers are a propaganda hoax!
In his book "The Sword on the Scales" (London 1953), which my mother gave me to read, Hans Fritsche describes the Nuremberg trial from the point of view of the accused. On the one hand, the master journalist saves his head by not doubting the foundations of the accusation - although he does not believe in them - and skillfully defends himself without incriminating others; on the other hand, he provides posterity with the first hint of the possible dubiousness of the gassing accusation. He describes the incredulous horror of the leading men of the Third Reich when confronted with Alfred Hitchcock's "documentaries" and images.
He describes his last conversation with Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring and passes on to us the unshakable opinion of the second man of the Third Reich that the gas murder of the Jewry could never have met with Hitler's approval. It was impossible for me to get the book "The Sword on the Scales" antiquarian until the printing of this book. According to a tip, all available copies were bought up by unknown parties.
Trial preparations in the "Lubjanka": gold teeth are torn out.
In the book "Es sprach Hans Fritsche" (Hildegard Springer, Thiele-Verlag, Stuttgart) Fritsche's notes from his Moscow prison time in the "Lubjanka" are quoted. There it says on page 82:
The guard stayed. He wished me to undress further. I did it a bit. He became impatient. "Further, further!" - "Further." When he had his way, he took a sack, stuffed everything from shoes to hats into it, and handed it out the door. An invisible hand grasped it and disappeared. The uniformed man turned to me. Placed me in a corner. Carefully he began to examine me. He started with my toes, obviously worried that I was hiding a revolver there. Only behind the ears he stopped, after he had looked into them. But what was in between! I had already been through a dozen body searches. Knife, money, watch - everything had already been searched. Everything honestly against a receipt, which went only with the next time on it. So I believed that nothing could surprise me and I could not lose anything. It was a double mistake. The thoroughness of this examination surprised me too. It was embarrassing. Unfortunately, not for the guard, who didn't seem to mind at all. As he busied himself with my face, he looked long and musingly into my mouth. He felt the outside and inside of my cheeks, but didn't seem satisfied. He probably noticed my two gold crowns and a pontic. Were they suspicious? After a quick reach behind him, he reached into my mouth anew. There was a short pain twice. Then he looked at the gold teeth in his hand. He put them to my fountain pen. I struggled for composure. Thank God I remembered the brash Berlin word, "Can you reach into a naked man's pocket?" I gave myself the answer, "Of course; just don't be embarrassed!" It helped me get over the moment.
Thrust of the Nuremberg Tribunal: disqualification of the whole German people. Fritsche recognizes: Whoever wants to shake the foundations of the indictment is lost. With this he confirms what Dr. Stäglich stated decades later: One was allowed to fight for his own head, but woe to him who questioned the overall accusation. On page 151 it says:
But without exception all speeches of the main prosecutors reached far beyond that to the totality of the German people and to an essential part of its history. The representative of the French chief prosecutor even attempted a one-sided screening of German intellectual history, calling the German branch of the world-spanning tree of philosophy sick and holding it liable for the poisonous fruits of crimes against peace and war crimes. In the beginning, the American prosecutor formulated several times explicitly a total guilt of the whole German people, from which he later retreated, apparently only for trial tactical reasons. The Soviets followed him in his attempt to extend the guilt to an astonishing degree. In any case, the prosecutors sought the roots of all the deeds they castigated deep in the thinking and actions of the entire German people. It is beyond my capacity to give a comprehensive answer to this. I am alone in my cell. I am burdened by daily and nightly observation and the embarrassing restriction of every movement, both of which make concentration difficult. I am equipped only with white paper, some pencils which I must hand in at night, and my memory. Literature is not at my disposal, and it required a difficult work of the defense lawyers to gather even the most important data of the recent history. Moreover, the court has long since moved to limit the defense of each accuser to the charges brought against him personally. It thus omits to discuss the incriminations, which go into the infinite, but which remain as a total burden on all defendants and which will certainly continue to have an effect outside this tribunal. Their refutation is the task of a German in freedom, who can reach into the full material, which is closed to me.
In view of the totality of this accusation, I cannot expect to bring it down by shaking its foundation, which to my mind consists in the easily refutable assertion of my participation in a conspiracy. I cannot even limit myself to proving in detail my ignorance of criminal motives and actions. Both, because I am accused both as a person and as a representative of German journalism and propaganda, would not suffice to protect the many who worked beside, behind or under me from the then rolling wave of accusation. I must be prepared to present every aspect of my actions and knowledge to the court on demand. Yes, I must be prepared to describe the thoughts and feelings that move me in each case. This is the only method by which I can perhaps hope to make the court understand that humanity and all virtue live even in the world in which the prosecution claims to be able to recognize only satanic forces. This hope is not great, because I am facing a real mountain of prejudices. But I want - even in the community of the accused only on me placed - to describe the things as I saw them, even if I meet total disbelief.
The court finally acquitted Fritsche, because he did not publicly doubt the gas accusation, but only stated that the genocide must obviously have been concealed from him. And so he was able to record for posterity the harrowing grand reportage of the Nuremberg show trial and its rules of the game, and his doubts about the veracity of the accusations made.
Chapter about Helmut Sündermann
SÜNDERMANN Helmut, deputy press chief of the former Reich government.
CONVICTION: Imprisoned for his political views. His background can be seen in the following lines:
Hitler knew nothing. Why was Himmler murdered? The pillars of the gas chamber, Poliakov, Reitlinger, Gerstein, Höttl, Höß and Wisliceny are weighed in their statements and found too light.
Helmut Sündermann, with whom the author of this book met once, in the early seventies, in Vienna, doubted the gas chamber. From his numerous books the work "HIER STEHE ICH" / Druffel-Verlag is quoted here in extracts. The mastery with which he doubted the gas chamber very early on, without attacking head-on, seems timid to us today. Those days, however, allowed no other tactics.
Born in the last years of peace of the Wilhelminian era, raised in the storms of the Weimar Republic, matured into a political journalist during the struggle of the early 1930s, Helmut Sündermann followed his teacher and later Reich Press Chief Dr. Otto Dietrich to Berlin in May 1933. In 1937, he became staff chief, later Reichshauptamtsleiter and, from July 1942, "Deputy Press Chief of the Reich Government" - a multifaceted task, since Dr. Dietrich was often working far from Berlin at the Führer's headquarters. Before that, Helmut Sündermann had already distinguished himself as a political publicist; through Dr. Dietrich, he was also introduced into the inner circle of the Reich Chancellery; among other things, he accompanied Hitler on his three trips abroad (Venice 1934, Rome 1938 and Hendaye 1940), was also a direct witness to the triumphal entry into Austria on March 12, 1938, and prepared the referendum there in terms of the press. As an intimate expert and due to his excellent insight into the decisive events of the Third Reich, Helmut Sündermann was able to write his brilliant memoirs, which are not only a faithful mirror of the experiences and happenings of that often dramatic era, but also represent a fascinating historical-political contemporary document at first hand. These brilliantly written memoirs span the epoch of the two German wars from 1914 to 1945; in them, the author traces the stages of his eventful political and journalistic life up to the German collapse in 1945 and the subsequent camp and prison years.
The members of the Reich government knew nothing! (page 249)
The Secret of the Final Solution:
Hans Fritsche, the now deceased defendant acquitted by the Nuremberg Tribunal in the so-called Trial of the "Major War Criminals," convincingly describes in his book "The Sword on the Scales" how surprised and outraged most of his co-defendants at the time were when the Prosecution began to present evidence that a major murder campaign against interned Jews had undoubtedly taken place in the German sphere of power during the last years of the war. It happened to these men on the Nuremberg defendants' bench no differently than to all Germans at that time: they gazed shudderingly into an abyss.
Gas witness No. 1, the Jew Poliakov, is shaken.
Of course, it is indictments that are presented from this side - but what right-thinking person could reproach Jewish writers with that?! The first of these works has been compiled by Léon Poliakov, the scientific director of the "Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine" in Paris, and has been published in German translation by the Arani-Verlag in Berlin under the title "Die Juden im Dritten Reich". This extensive volume is not very conclusive, as will be noted. Even the title is misleading - it is by no means a documentation that encompasses, for example, the overall problem of the treatment of Jewry in the Third Reich from 1933 to 1945, but rather a selection of quotations of varying quality in a polemical preparation that essentially only begins in 1938. Nevertheless, there are some really important documents, such as the report of SS-Hauptsturmführer Wisliceny, written only after the conclusion of the Nuremberg trial on November 18, 1946, as well as the statistical report of Dr. Korherr to Himmler of April 19, 1943, as well as the instruction issued to him on April 20, 1943, in part in facsimile reproduction. Much more informative than the uncritical so-called "document volume" by Poliakov, which is still based on propaganda, is the work by Gerald Reitlinger "Die Endlösung" (The Final Solution), which was prepared with considerably more effort (German translation published by Colloquium-Verlag, Berlin). Reitlinger himself does not disguise himself. He honestly declares that he is writing as a Jew and as an accuser, and from this point of view the nearly 700-page volume, laborious as it is to read, becomes factually noteworthy.
Gas witness No. 2, the Jew Reitlinger is shaken (pp. 252/253).
Of course, Reitlinger does not offer any context either, and he illuminates only one, the German side of the conflict. His account, too, does not begin until 1938, and there is no reference whatsoever, for example, to the official agreement with the British government published by the Zionist leader and later president of Israel, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, at the outbreak of war in 1939, by which the "human-Jewish force" was placed under the "collective direction of the British government" - an astonishing declaration on the basis of which the German government was indeed justified, indeed almost forced, to regard and treat the Jews living in its sphere of influence as enemies of the war. Reitlinger will claim that this established, in the extreme, a German right to intern Jews - and so it did; but his book would have gained if he had at least mentioned this background. Thus the most extensive parts of his work have become only a "postmortem" - he himself uses this word. For all its tragedy, it is less shocking than it is tiring: As if, say, a German writer had us wander once again through Dresden, which had been bombed for days - peering into every cellar where charred bodies lay cramped one inside the other, examining each of the squares where wrecked refugee carts mingle with bloody piles of corpses - and the narrator never allowed us to quicken our pace, but raised his voice again at each gruesome detail, even leading us in circles, wanting to guide us to the most terrible sites over and over again. After Reitlinger has finally finished his wandering through the further east district of death, the author finds that the reader "who has had the patience to follow even a fraction of this grim account will have asked himself dozens of questions." So indeed it is. The Nuremberg prosecutors made things easier for themselves. They operated with some estimated figures and several well-prepared witnesses. These Nuremberg "affidavits" and the publications of the postwar years lose weight for those who - like Reitlinger - process more material. It turned out, for example, that the "imposing crematorium at Maidanek, which has been pictured in the English press," was in fact "not a death factory in the manner of Auschwitz after all." and the Nuremberg declaration of the Auschwitz camp director Höß (which still figures in the Poliakov book as one of the most important documents) compels Reitlinger to comment on the "perverse megalomania" that led Höß to take "responsibility for the murder of two and a half million people upon himself" in a written declaration (p. 115), and with the same skepticism about Höß's "confused and verbose statements" (p. 119) he counters the claim that Höß had received a secret order from Himmler as early as the summer of 1941, whereas in Reitlinger's view Himmler could not have issued such an order until June 1942.
Well, these are details that have as little to do with the overall picture as the dispute over the real number of killings. While Poliakov passionately adheres to the usual propaganda figure of "6 million," Reitlinger calculates a maximum figure of 4.8 million, although he declares, with regard to no less than 3.5 million, that these are not reliable figures. Reitlinger argues that the question of numbers is not of serious importance for the assessment of the overall case. Insofar as no material claims are derived from the calculation experiments, one will agree with him: For the historical and moral judgment it is in fact completely irrelevant whether we are dealing with 6000, 600,000 or 6 million.
Gas witnesses 1 and 2 reluctantly confirm:
Final Solution was meant by Hitler as emigration (page 254).
At least until 1941 - as Wisliceny makes clear convincingly (Poliakov p. 87ff.) and Reitlinger does not deny - the word "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" still had the meaning of an organized emigration of the Jews from the European area even in Himmler's closest circle. Even of Heydrich Reitlinger reports that he "was not always occupied with such a solution" (p. 25). Although Reitlinger, of course, endeavors to fundamentally subordinate the meaning of "racial murder" to the word "Final Solution," he concludes at one point (p. 343) that the "question of the true meaning of the Final Solution is troubling and unanswerable." In our eyes, this is not so "disturbing", because many an otherwise incomprehensible process is explained when we know that within the Reich leadership, the term "final solution" was apparently understood for a long time to mean something quite different from what the whole world understands by it today. Reitlinger's account does not deny that until the first years of the war the emigration of the Jews from the Reich, even the formation of a Jewish state outside the German sphere of power was organized and promoted - i.e. exactly the opposite of what should have happened if a "racial murder" had been planned from the beginning!
The plan to establish a Jewish state on Madagascar was not just a pipe dream. Reitlinger mentions that not only the Polish, but also the French government were already concerned with it in 1937 and 1938. After the German victory but France the project received a new note. Among the peace conditions to be imposed on France was that Madagascar, which belonged to the French colonial empire, was to be made available as Jewish state territory. Himmler's responsible office under the later notorious Sturmbannführer Eichmann dealt with this plan throughout 1940; Hitler mentioned it to Mussolini on June 7, 1941. Hitler mentioned it to Mussolini on June 7, 1941. Reitlinger understandably does not know what to do with the whole process, in which it is proven that Goering and Heydrich were also involved. He saves himself in an ironic remark: "Surely Eichmann has never done less damage in any year of his life." (S. 87)
There is no mistaking it: Obviously, the Madagascar Plan was the "Final Solution" until 1941, and just as obviously, this Final Solution had nothing to do with racial murder; not only was it not contrary to international law, but it corresponded, if not in geographic detail, certainly in principle even to a Jewish demand.
Sündermann doubts that Hitler knew about Jew murders (pages 255/256).
We are here immediately before the strangest question mark of the whole complex, before a doubt which sounds almost grotesque, but which nevertheless exists: "Did Hitler know about the Jew murders?"
When Fritzsche directly addressed Göring on this question still during the Nuremberg trial, the latter told him. "He did not believe that Hitler gave the order." (Springer-Verlag, Fiitzsche: "The Tail on the Scales," p. 118). Later (1952), SS-Obergruppenführer Wolff, who had been chief of Himmler's personal staff for years, testified under oath in a trial against Legationsrat Rademacher that he was "convinced that Hitler knew nothing about the extermination of the Jews" (Reitlinger, p. 126).
Both Poliakov and Reitlinger have done their best to clarify this very point, but their efforts have been fruitless: even in ten years of searching, it has not been possible to find even one order or to get hold of a direct recipient of the order or to establish any other conclusive process that would prove Hitler's direct involvement.
Himmler murdered!
Did he not want to confess? Or was he no longer presentable after his confession? Sündermann writes on page 260:
The series of question marks is not over yet: Reitlinger, too, believes the much spread fairy tale that Himmler committed suicide in May 1945 immediately "after his arrest by a British post in the Lüneburg Heath". It has since become known from officers who accompanied Himmler at the time that Himmler not only had himself reported to the commandant of a British prisoner-of-war camp, but also that he was still alive hours after his capture and after the first conversations with British officers. We do not know more, but it suggests that such a truly "chief culprit" was all the less desirable to the victor at the time, the more connections had previously been cultivated with him.
Letter from Otto Skorzeny
December 14, 1956 Sk/Dy Dipl.-Ing. Otto Skorzeny Mr. Kurt Eigenbrodt H ... F ...
Dear Comrade Eigenbrodt!
Thank you very much for sending me the article from "Heim und Welt". I would be very grateful if I could get the other episodes as well, since I always learn something new from such writing. For example, that I speak perfect Italian. By the way, it is certainly important for you and other comrades in Germany to know who the so silent Walter Hagen = Dr. Wilhelm Hoettl, former Sturmbannführer in the S.D., is. He was the most informative man in Nuremberg, characteristically testifying against many comrades and especially against his protector Dr. Kaltenbrunner. Dr. Hoettl is the German inventor of the fabled 6 million Jews, and it is unfortunately very little known that this testimony of his at Nuremberg is the only written utterance, or as they said in those days, avidavit, about that number. Even meaner is the way he justifies the making of this statement to me when I had him by the throat in a witness cell in Nuremberg because of it (hence his friendship for me). He played thick friendship with the CIC Jews immediately after 45 and played the sick man with stomach ulcers . He even managed to get into a private hospital right after the end of the war, where one of these CIC Jews "touchingly" cared for him (cognac and cigarettes for stomach ulcers). To this friend of his he allegedly told only conversationally that he had heard the figure of 6 million from the famous Eichmann. Allegedly, his new friend came to him in the hospital the next day with a ready prescribed affidavit and then the sensitive Dr. Hoettl, in order not to disappoint his new friend, had to sign this affidavit. After the war, the silent Walter Hagen published several smear books in his own publishing house in Austria, in which he presents himself as the greatest news master, which he never was. In the article you sent me, for example, he lies continuously when he claims to have been in the headquarters several times and to have spoken with Hitler there. As far as I know, he was never there, since he did not have such an important position.
With comradely greetings Yours Otto Skorzeny
Letter from Hans Ulrich Rudel
Asuncion, 13. 4.1958
Dear Mr. Eigenbrodt!
I have just instructed my account to transfer 300 DM, otherwise May will not be clear. Any additional expenses should be covered by other income. But please let me know, because otherwise I will have to do something. The rags of the intern. Press, of course controlled, make here much trouble. What people have written so far is all lies. Except from the people who die daily in the bed. (Only apparently not in Bonn.) They know about the other story. As early as 1952, I learned from Dr. Stuckart, the Secretary of State in the Ministry of the Interior, that the Wannsee Conference had not had the physical extermination of Jews as its goal, either on the surface or in the background. This, he said, was a fistful of lies. Unfortunately, he died a year later in a car accident. (So did Otto Abetz and Ferdinand Marian.) Besides, people who count Beriya, Ehrenburg, Morgenthau and Baruch among their company probably have no right to appear anywhere as prosecutors or judges. Not to mention the outrageous Israeli land grabs in the Middle East. My plan is becoming more and more uncertain as a whole new development has occurred in the "ferostaal." In fact, I had hoped to be able to leave here days ago. On 8. 5. departure to Ca. and from there to Tru. Return just before the meeting. But this program presupposes a smooth course here. Now something else. In the next days or weeks a ...* will arrive from Curitiba/Bras. He is a pilot and wants to join "Lufthansa". He has been ordered to Hamburg. ...* would like to help immediately with his "Lufthansa'" connections. Please let me know who he does it with. ...* has your address and will get in touch with you. He is quite a wall man who needs to be helped.
Best regards and all the best yours
Hans Ulrich Rudel
Correspondence with Wilhelm Hoettl
After forty-three years (July 88), Hoettl recanted his Nuremberg statement by letter and, after studying the manuscript of the present book, declared his willingness to cooperate in writing and orally. Just before going to press, he retracts his agreement, revokes his retraction and now underlines again his statements from Nuremberg, which he wanted to have corrected days before. His letter of July 28, 1988 alone turns Nuremberg's main incriminating witness into a witness for the defense.
First letter from Dr. Hoettl, June 14, 1988.
Re: Your letter of June 1, 1988
Dear Mr. Honsik!
Regarding the above letter of 1.d., which I received only yesterday as an express letter, I would like to inform you of the following. As a matter of principle, I do not contribute to a book whose manuscript I have not read beforehand! I ask for your understanding.
Yours sincerely W. Höttl
Second letter from Dr. Hoettl: Eichmann was not a mass murderer! (July 28, 1988)
Dear Mr. Honsik!
I have thoroughly studied your transmission of 25.d. and would in principle be prepared to make a statement about the prehistory of my AFFIDAVIT at Nuremberg, if I can formulate it as a letter to [two words redacted], whom I hold in high human esteem. A prerequisite would also be, of course, that father [word redacted] has nothing against it, since he bears the same first name.
If I were to write such a letter, then it would mean a study in contemporary history, I would have to go far and above all describe the person EICHMANN with all his background. This was not a mass murderer, but full of inferiority complexes, which can best explain his role in world history, In this form it would therefore become a larger work, which I probably could not complete before mid-August. Please let me know your opinion and that of Ottokar the Younger, upon which I would begin my work.
With kind regards W. Höttl
Third letter from Dr. Höttl: Gas chambers must not be doubted after all
... unfortunately does not go well at all. The "summer flu" I had diagnosed turned out to be a bad case of pneumonia, which is currently being treated with antibiotics; if these do not help, I will have to go to the hospital next week. With this everything is already said about the plans with the letter to Otto!
Immediately in addition. Prerequisite would be an absolute discretion, which you have already not kept in the case [word redacted]! I appreciate this by all means, but it is nobody's business what we are planning there. Another such case would mean automatically the break of the relations by me! Of course, this complete discretion also applies to my private letters to you - not that once in one of your press products the headline appears: "Dr. Höttl states that Eichmann was not a mass murderer"!
How it is possible to distribute national literature without such outrageousness as denying that there were gas chambers is demonstrated to you, for example, by the ASKANIA publishing house in Lindhorst. Publisher Herbert TAEGE, Waffen-SS officer, brings the best things in this field, most recently about the NS opposition in the Third Reich. His book "NS-PERESTROIKA? Reform Goals of National Socialist Leaders" has just been published, i.e. the first part. I can only advise you to get it. What this publisher has for a program, you can best see from the enclosed invoice.
To provide soap for Germany … [Prof. Spanner] used, in the mode of the Shakespearean witches, racially and ethnically diverse corpses in his experiments … This defies the popular perception that the soap was made of “pure Jewish fat.” … We may consider this misperception a curious symptom of a purist and essentialist reading, or, at least, note that the tension between essentialism and utilitarianism reaches its peak in this misreading.
Please note, though I know many here know this. When believers and holocaust promoters and the great unwashed talk about the 'final solution' they often get this in the wrong context. As far as I know it was never meant as a statement of fact/action in itself. It was originally stated thus 'the final solution to the jewish problem' and as such was meant in the general context of the Nazi party's desire to remove jews from Germany.
Thus it was never meant as killing them is the answer and the final solution, but the PROBLEM is something the Nazis wanted to find a solution to and removing jews from Germany would be a one off and final answer to the problem.
If one uses the term The Final Solution it has a certain threat and doom laden feeling to it, even if used in an everyday context such as 'I have found a final solution to the noisy neighbours'. But if you use the full expression as in 'I have found a final solution to the problem of hard water stains on the shower door glass' it sounds altogether more innocent.
The bottom line is Hitler felt there was a massive problem with jews in Germany and wanted a one stop shop final one off answer that would be definitive.
To bring this more into today's world how about this situation and the application of the same phrase. In the UK we have had for many years an illegal immigrant problem with tens of thousands crossing the English channel by rubber boat and landing on the shores of Kent near Dover. The final solution now being planned is to chuck all these wasters on planes to central Africa where they can either apply for their immigration status or start a new life. Or how about President Trump's Final Solution to the Mexico border immigration Problem. His Final Solution to the Problem was to build a wall. Quite a good idea as it would certainly put a stop to all those pesky illegals.
'Of the four million Jews under Nazi control in WW2, six million died and alas only five million survived.'
'We don't need evidence, we have survivors' - israeli politician
"[Austen Chamberlain] has done western civilization a great service by refuting at least one of the slanders against the Germans because a civilization which leaves war lies unchallenged in an atmosphere of hatred and does not produce courage in its leaders to refute them is doomed. " Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, on the public admission by Britain's Foreign Secretary that the WWI corpse-factory story was false, December 4, 1925
Postby Otium » 7 months 4 weeks ago (Tue Oct 11, 2022 8:21 am)
There's a very simple answer to why it seems so few defendants didn't "deny" the Holocaust at Nuremberg, which I explained three years ago in another thread: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11053&p=92874#p92874 I will recount the information again here.First of all, it makes no sense for any of the defendants to have said explicitly that it "never happened" precisely because that question relies on the prerequisite assumption that the event in question occurred at all. The way it actually worked, was that the defendants, having no knowledge of this event, were shown "evidence" to support it and either denied involvement or stated that they were now only hearing about it for the first time in court. This rather lends credence to the revisionists who say that it didn't happen, because none of the defendants admitted to having prior knowledge of it before the trials. Except for Höss whose story is already well known.
What I showed in the above mentioned thread, is that on the basis of the memoirs published by the German defendant Hans Fritzsche who describes in detail the various reactions of the other German defendants to the allegation of mass murder; that rather than deny what it was they didn't know to begin with, they simply accepted the accomplished facts over time. He writes, for example, that many of the defendants "persisted for a considerable time in doubting the authenticity of the evidence", and Kaltenbrunner who described the claims as "absurd" stated that all the "actual perpetrators were now dead". What became clear was that all these men accused of having something to do with the Holocaust were confused and knew nothing. Their attitudes portrayed clearly that they were only learning of these "facts" for the first time, and eventually became convinced of them and thus couldn't deny it. This happened to Fritzsche himself who writes that it was "no longer rationally possible" to doubt the authenticity of the evidence. Yet none of these men claimed to have prior knowledge (which is an important distinction).
The defendants were often stunned, because they should've known something about the alleged "Holocaust", but knew nothing. Yet evidence was being presented to them, so how could they deny it? The proof is in the pudding, and the best evidence that it didn't happen is that so few of the defendants who should've known had any idea what the hell was going on. This amounts, practically, to a denial even if the words "I deny the Holocaust" were not so explicitly spoken.
For example:
There is no more eloquent testimony to the tragedy and tyranny of Nuremberg than the pathetic astonishment or outraged disbelief of the accused persons themselves at the grotesque charges made against them. Such is reflected in the affidavit of S.S. Major- General Heinz Fanslau, who visited most of the German concentration camps during the last years of the war. Although a front line soldier of the Waffen S.S., Fanslau had taken a great interest in concentration camp conditions, and he was selected as a prime target by the Allies for the charge of conspiracy to annihilate the Jews. It was argued, on the basis of his many contacts, that he must have been fully involved. When it was first rumoured that he would be tried and convicted, hundreds of affidavits were produced on his behalf by camp inmates he had visited. When he read the full scope of the indictment against the concentration camp personnel in supplementary Nuremberg Trial No. 4 on May 6th, 1947, Fanslau declared in disbelief: “This cannot be possible, because I, too, would have had to know something about it."
Barbara Kulaszka (ed.), Did Six Million Really Die? Report of the Evidence in the Canadian "False News" Trial of Ernst Zündel, 1988 (Toronto: Samisdat Publishers Ltd. 1992), pp. 519-520.
Similarly, we see this kind of thing from Göring and Ribbentrop. The latter wrote in his memoirs that he couldn't believe Hitler had anything to do with it, and thus had no knowledge of it himself:
In 1944, Hitler spoke even more of his conflict with Jewry and he became fanatically obstinate. But never, down to 22nd April, 1945 when I last saw him in the Reich Chancellery, did he ever mention the killing of Jews. That is why even to-day I cannot believe that the Führer ordered these killings; I believe that Himmler presented him with accomplished facts.
Joachim von Ribbentrop, The Ribbentrop Memoirs (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1954), p. 179.
And in a few notes on the Nuremberg Court as a whole, a few days prior to his execution Ribbentrop wrote to the same effect as Kaltenbrunner:
The defendants are not responsible for the atrocities. Those who committed them, or were responsible for them, are dead. This applies, in particular, to the killing of Jews, which, as was clearly proved at the trial, were kept absolutely secret and were not known to the defendants.
Ibid., pp. 192-193.
Effectively stating that anyone who would have information about them were dead and those present were in no such position to make any claims either way. Göring also concurred with Ribbentrop, according to Fritzsche:
With icy composure Goering cast doubts upon all the documents and all the testimony connected with the subject. He would not venture, he said, to describe them as wholly false, but he did take into account the possibility that they might well be inconclusive or incomplete; in any case they were far too much at variance with everything he knew to be accepted. And even if the events described by the Prosecution had taken place, he did not believe Hitler had given the order; it was more likely to have been Himmler.
Hans Fritzsche, The Sword in the Scales: As told to Hildegard Springer (London: Allan Wingate, 1953), p. 145.
Göring too had no knowledge at first, and practically denied the whole thing, albeit with reservations. He too, like Ribbentrop, thought that if anyone was to be involved it would've been Himmler, not Hitler. Which also means that those actually involved were already dead.
The defendants, rather than try to defend themselves, found it easier to simply roll-over and accept the "facts", because public opinion had already been decided. This also explains the lack of visceral "denials". We again read from Fritzsche:
For the Prosecution at this time it seemed sufficient that the atrocities had been committed. Who was specifically responsible for the orders or for the actual deeds cither came second in their estimation or simply did not interest them. No matter how slight the connection between such an occurrence and any of the prisoners the shadow of disgrace invariably fell on all twenty-one of us; and under its cover various false assertions—such as for instance that there had been a generally prevailing and virulent anti-semitism in Germany—found an all too ready acceptance. No one ventured to dispute such charges; we were too conscious of the horror of that monstrous campaign of extermination. To all outward seeming the matter was closed.
Among ourselves, however, the questions persisted: Who was involved? How was it carried out? Were such atrocious actions the outcome of strong anti-semitic feeling? What had we overlooked? Where did we arrive at wrong conclusions? What were our sins of omission? Some, for example Frick, based their defence on the plea that they knew nothing about the whole business. They were not indifferent to the immeasurable human suffering revealed at each stage of the evidence; but, first and foremost, they wanted to keep out of it—it was not their affair.
Others, like Seyss-Inquart, had more imagination and endured the ghastly statements of the witnesses with new and agonising life. They bowed their heads in shame and declared that it was useless to protest their own ignorance and innocence; that could be left to future historians. The present generation would never believe that any leader of the Third Reich could be unaware of the Birkenau gas chambers and the activities of the “special squads”,
Others again persisted for a considerable time in doubting the authenticity of the evidence, even when this was no longer rationally possible. And a few, such as Dr. Frank, accused themselves of having through sheer indifference been content to know only half the truth, without attempting to draw the obvious conclusions from the information at their disposal.
Kaltenbrunner became unusually talkative at this time and assured us that he could confirm the statements about the mass murders because he himself had put a stop to them. When I asked him why, knowing these things, he had described the general accusation as absurd his answer was that the actual perpetrators were now dead. . . .
Ibid., pp. 137-139.
Fritzsche goes on to describe that an aurora of "profound mutual mistrust grew among the prisoners" because none of them really knew how much information the others actually knew of these allegations. But the ill-fated attempt to collect "every scrap of available material and then, item by item, check the hideous account" was attempted, which in itself shows how utterly confused and unaware they all really were.
Five million persons were stated to have been murdered. Was such a thing technically possible? The capacity of the corpse-factories described by Höss did not seem sufficient.Where were these five million---mostly Jews— supposed to have come from? Not from Germany, where in 1939 they numbered scarcely half a million. But when we got hold of information about the Jewish population of the occupied eastern territories, we saw that the numbers might tally if none had emigrated and none survived. But how had it been possible to conceal this monstrous crime from the public?
At this point every attempt at explanation failed. The majority of the twenty-once prisoners were faced with the task of explaining to the court—or rather, to the world— how it was feasible that in a modern state hundreds of thousands of people could be killed without its coming to the ears of the man in the street, or to the knowledge of all members of the government and others in high places. Those who had the best right to say that such a thing was possible, and had indeed happened, were the least able to prove it. I myself grew so tired of giving answers which always met with disbelief that had it been merely a question of my own ignorance and not one of the innocence of many of my compatriots I should have abstained from giving evidence even in the earlier sessions. As it was I did not do so, and had some unpleasant experiences as a result, Finally confronted with this apparently insoluble problem of the responsibility for these massacres I resolved at the next examination to throw up the sponge; the truth is more easily defeated than the most far-fetched excuses by persistent incredulity.
Ibid., pp. 139-140.
We might conclude from this that some defence, or "denial" would've been mounted by the defendants if it wasn't for the fact that none of the information they could gather made any sense.
What really convinced the defendants was the testimony of the two SS judges Reinicke and Morgen. The strange thing about their accounts is that they claimed to have put a stop to the killings, while the courts sentenced SS men to death for taking part. And the familiar nonsense of the alleged gassing procedure is trotted out, where gas would pour out from the showerheads; Fritzsche writes that "instead of receiving a warm shower they [the Jews] were overpowered by deadly gas." (Fritzsche, p. 142) This story was apparently convincing:
Thus for the first time we saw the road leading from the Germany that we knew to the Germany which had been hidden from many of us. [...] for most of us they [Morgen's statements] were conclusive.
Ibid., pp. 142, 143.
The real question is why none of the defendants said they knew about it beforehand. That none, or very few did, is a contradiction in the claims of those who believe, rather than those who do not.
According to Fritzsche the prosecution "maintained simply that if millions of people had disappeared many others must have been aware of it and that at any rate leading officials could not plead ignorance" (Fritzsche, p. 142) yet this is exactly what happened and did not necessarily mean they were pretending not to know anything, this is a claim which cannot be proven.
The German defendants had no reason to "deny the Holocaust" because many of them had become convinced of the claims there at Nuremberg. They knew nothing going in, and found out what the allegations against them were as they were laid out. This is why there was no "denial" in the form expected by exterminationists. This is a simple answer, and it doesn't require speculation and supposition about motives.
As we've seen, there were many defendants who did deny it. Kaltenbrunner, arguably the most important defendant at the trial in relation to the Holocaust, openly stated that the prosecutions claims were "entirely impossible":
Q. Witness after witness, by testimony and affidavit, has said the gas chamber killings were done on general or special orders of Kaltenbrunner.
A. Show me one of those men or any one of those orders. It is utterly impossible.
Q. The testimony of one of the high officials was that most orders initiated with Himmler, the killings could not happen without order of Hitler or without knowledge of Himmler but practically all of the orders came out through Kaltenbrunner.
A. Entirely impossible.
Excerpts from Testimony of Ernst Kaltenbrunner, taken at Nurnberg, Germany, 3 October 1945 by Lt. Col. Smith W. Brookhart, in: Office of United States Chief of Counsel For Prosecution of Axis Criminality (ed.), Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Supplement B (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1948), p. 1299.
If this isn't a denial, then what is?
It must be said however, that Kaltenbrunner did claim that he was aware of the killings, but not that he had any part in them. He became convinced of them through 'foreign reports', and testified that he took the information to Hitler and Himmler, which resulted in stopping the killing:
Q. When did you first have any knowledge of the use or the planned use or the result of the use of gas through chambers, mobile vans, or other means of exterminating these unwanted people?
A. I don't know the time, but as soon as I got foreign reports about that I showed them to Hitler and Himmler-not to Himmler but to Hitler-and Goebbels.
Q. What did they say?
A. I didn't show it to them personally, but I sent it to them by mail, and a few days later I got word that both of them are going to talk this over with Himmler.
Ibid., p. 1302.
And
COL. AMEN: Very good. You had no personal knowledge of and did nothing personal about the program for the extermination of Jews; is that correct-except to oppose them?
KALTENBRUNNER: No-except that I was against it. From the moment I knew of this as facts and had convinced myself of it, I raised objections with Hitler and Himmler, and the final result was that they were stopped.
COL. AMEN: And therefore you assume no responsibility for anything done in connection with the program for the extermination of the Jews, right?
KALTENBRUNNER: Yes.
IMT, Vol. XI, p. 318.
You can read the transcript of Kaltenbrunner's full testimony during The Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal (Blue Series), in volume 11, starting on page 232 for April 11th and page 289 for April 12th.
Postby hermod » 7 months 3 weeks ago (Wed Oct 12, 2022 7:26 am)
Otium wrote:There's a very simple answer to why it seems so few defendants didn't "deny" the Holocaust at Nuremberg, which I explained three years ago in another thread: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11053&p=92874#p92874 I will recount the information again here.First of all, it makes no sense for any of the defendants to have said explicitly that it "never happened" precisely because that question relies on the prerequisite assumption that the event in question occurred at all. The way it actually worked, was that the defendants, having no knowledge of this event, were shown "evidence" to support it and either denied involvement or stated that they were now only hearing about it for the first time in court. This rather lends credence to the revisionists who say that it didn't happen, because none of the defendants admitted to having prior knowledge of it before the trials. Except for Höss whose story is already well known.
What I showed in the above mentioned thread, is that on the basis of the memoirs published by the German defendant Hans Fritzsche who describes in detail the various reactions of the other German defendants to the allegation of mass murder; that rather than deny what it was they didn't know to begin with, they simply accepted the accomplished facts over time. He writes, for example, that many of the defendants "persisted for a considerable time in doubting the authenticity of the evidence", and Kaltenbrunner who described the claims as "absurd" stated that all the "actual perpetrators were now dead". What became clear was that all these men accused of having something to do with the Holocaust were confused and knew nothing. Their attitudes portrayed clearly that they were only learning of these "facts" for the first time, and eventually became convinced of them and thus couldn't deny it. This happened to Fritzsche himself who writes that it was "no longer rationally possible" to doubt the authenticity of the evidence. Yet none of these men claimed to have prior knowledge (which is an important distinction).
Fritzsche's memoirs also showed that a number of German defendants fell for the very same fake evidence as everybody else did, that is impressive pictures of a big health disaster in German 'death camps' later downgraded as mere concentration camps (especially Belsen, Dachau and Buchenwald) and the Moscow-trials-style 'confession' of Rudolf Hoess and Otto Ohlendorf in Nuremberg. Hocus-pocus at its best. Ripple effect: Such a credulity on the part of a high-ranking member of Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment demonstrates that Nazi propagandists didn't use lies to fool the German people as Allied propagandists have been claiming on and on since the 1930s.
Otium wrote:You can read the transcript of Kaltenbrunner's full testimony during The Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal (Blue Series), in volume 11, starting on page 232 for April 11th and page 289 for April 12th.
"[Austen Chamberlain] has done western civilization a great service by refuting at least one of the slanders against the Germans because a civilization which leaves war lies unchallenged in an atmosphere of hatred and does not produce courage in its leaders to refute them is doomed. " Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, on the public admission by Britain's Foreign Secretary that the WWI corpse-factory story was false, December 4, 1925
Postby fireofice » 7 months 3 weeks ago (Wed Oct 12, 2022 6:20 pm)
Interesting that Kaltenbrunner claims that the only way he figured out gassing was taking place was from "foreign reports" and that he "knew of this as facts and had convinced myself of it". But he doesn't say exactly how he confirmed these supposed facts. This is in line with the rumor that von Thadden wrote down in his notes.
From Kaltenbrunner's perspective, it seems like he just heard rumors of small scale gassings and tried to put a stop to this non existent activity based on rumors he heard. There's no indication that von Thadden's method of determining that a gassing took place was any better.
The fact that some heard about these rumors, but never chalked it up to being official policy may also explain why some didn't deny it.
Postby hermod » 7 months 3 weeks ago (Thu Oct 13, 2022 10:38 pm)
Hieldner wrote:In his 1988 book Freispruch für Hitler? (Acquittal for Hitler), Gerd Honsik cites, among others, books by Hans Fritsche, Helmut Sündermann and correspondence with Otto Skorzeny, Hans Ulrich Rudel and Wilhelm Hoettl.
Final Solution was meant by Hitler as emigration (page 254).
At least until 1941 - as Wisliceny makes clear convincingly (Poliakov p. 87ff.) and Reitlinger does not deny - the word "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" still had the meaning of an organized emigration of the Jews from the European area even in Himmler's closest circle. Even of Heydrich Reitlinger reports that he "was not always occupied with such a solution" (p. 25). Although Reitlinger, of course, endeavors to fundamentally subordinate the meaning of "racial murder" to the word "Final Solution," he concludes at one point (p. 343) that the "question of the true meaning of the Final Solution is troubling and unanswerable." In our eyes, this is not so "disturbing", because many an otherwise incomprehensible process is explained when we know that within the Reich leadership, the term "final solution" was apparently understood for a long time to mean something quite different from what the whole world understands by it today. Reitlinger's account does not deny that until the first years of the war the emigration of the Jews from the Reich, even the formation of a Jewish state outside the German sphere of power was organized and promoted - i.e. exactly the opposite of what should have happened if a "racial murder" had been planned from the beginning!
The plan to establish a Jewish state on Madagascar was not just a pipe dream. Reitlinger mentions that not only the Polish, but also the French government were already concerned with it in 1937 and 1938. After the German victory but France the project received a new note. Among the peace conditions to be imposed on France was that Madagascar, which belonged to the French colonial empire, was to be made available as Jewish state territory. Himmler's responsible office under the later notorious Sturmbannführer Eichmann dealt with this plan throughout 1940; Hitler mentioned it to Mussolini on June 7, 1941. Hitler mentioned it to Mussolini on June 7, 1941. Reitlinger understandably does not know what to do with the whole process, in which it is proven that Goering and Heydrich were also involved. He saves himself in an ironic remark: "Surely Eichmann has never done less damage in any year of his life." (S. 87)
There is no mistaking it: Obviously, the Madagascar Plan was the "Final Solution" until 1941, and just as obviously, this Final Solution had nothing to do with racial murder; not only was it not contrary to international law, but it corresponded, if not in geographic detail, certainly in principle even to a Jewish demand.
The term "final solution of the Jewish question" was coined by some Zionist pioneers in the 19th century to name the mass evacuation and resettlement of Europe's Jewry at the core of their own program. The Zionists called it a final solution because it was supposed to put an end to the age-old circle of Jewish expulsions and returns in various European countries. No sinister meaning, no "terrible term in itself," as Holohoaxers often imply in their usual tricky conspiratorial tone. The National Socialist ideologists and policy-makers merely picked up a trivial term of their time, which meant "continental evacuation of the Jewish people" and suited their own needs. Distorting the original and only meaning of that term is a gross trick of unscrupulous conspiracy theorists.
"[Austen Chamberlain] has done western civilization a great service by refuting at least one of the slanders against the Germans because a civilization which leaves war lies unchallenged in an atmosphere of hatred and does not produce courage in its leaders to refute them is doomed. " Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, on the public admission by Britain's Foreign Secretary that the WWI corpse-factory story was false, December 4, 1925