Albert Speer Letter to Hélène Jeanty - 23 December 1971 - Speer Admits to the Holocaust?

[Otium]

In one of Cockerill's videos attempting to 'debunk' Holocaust denial, he refers to an unpublished letter by Albert Speer from December 23, 1971 as a legitimate source 'proving' that Speer had lied all along about not knowing of the Holocaust, and this means this letter is a devastating piece of evidence which supposedly helps 'prove' the Holocaust, as it is an untarnished perpetrator confession hidden by history. Which is to say, written privately and not revealed until years later, adding to its authenticity.

As said, this letter is unpublished. It came up at auction in 2007 and was reported on at the time along the same lines as Cockerill does in his video. For example, see this short piece in The Guardian from the 13th of March 2007:

In the letter to Jeanty, written on December 23 1971, Speer wrote: "There is no doubt - I was present as Himmler announced on October 6 1943 that all Jews would be killed". He continued: "Who would believe me that I suppressed this, that it would have been easier to have written all of this in my memoirs?"

Letter proves Speer knew of Holocaust plan, The Guardian, 13 March 2007.

A few days prior to this, an article was published by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which is most often referred to in connection to this letter. I will reproduce this article in full:

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German

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Albert Speer
Es besteht kein Zweifel, ich war zugegen
10.03.2007 · War Albert Speer dabei, als Himmler die Ermordung aller Juden ankündigte? In London sind jetzt unbekannte Briefe des Hitler-Architekten aufgetaucht. Die Korrespondenz vertieft und ergänzt das zwiespältige Bild von Hitlers Architekt.

Von GINA THOMAS, LONDON

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Am 27. März kommt beim Londoner Auktionshaus Bonhams eine seltsame Korrespondenz zum Aufruf. Es sind gut hundert Briefe, die Hitlers Rüstungsminister Albert Speer mit der Witwe eines belgischen Widerstandkämpfers wechselte, der von den Deutschen erschossen wurde. Hélène Jeanty Raven, Ninette genannt, hatte Speer 1971 erstmals geschrieben und ihm später das Buch „La peine de vivre“ (1952) geschickt, das sie über ihre Kriegserfahrungen geschrieben hatte.

Ihr Bericht hat Speer offenbar sehr berührt, denn es entwickelte sich zwischen den beiden eine intime, wenn auch äußerst angespannte Freundschaft. Ninettes sanguinisches und mitunter hysterisches Temperament befremdete Speer, und immer wieder standen die beiden vor der Frage, ob sie die Beziehung fortsetzen sollten.

„Wer wird mir glauben?“

Ein Brief, den Speer im Dezember 1971 an Hélène Jeanty schrieb, wird besonders hervorgehoben. Darin vermerkt er: „Es besteht kein Zweifel. Ich war zugegen, als Himmler am 6. Oktober 1943 ankündigte, dass alle Juden umgebracht werden würden.“ Dieser Brief datiert aus den Tagen, in denen die Lektüre des Artikels des Harvard-Professors Erich Goldhagen, „Albert Speer, Himmler und die Endlösung“, in der amerikanischen Zeitung „Mainstream“ Speer zutiefst beunruhigt hatte. Der belgischen Freundin berichtet er, er habe die Zentralstelle zur Aufklärung von NS-Verbrechen in Ludwigsburg durch seinen Anwalt unverzüglich über diese angebliche „Enthüllung“ benachrichtigt, und der Direktor habe versichert, dass diese Beschuldigung Goldhagens in den „zwanzig Jahren“ Haft inbegriffen gewesen seien, zu denen Speer beim Nürnberger Prozess verurteilt worden war.

Voller Reue erzählt Speer, er sei mehr als verzweifelt, weil seine Adressatin es mit jemandem zu tun habe, der offenbar nichts als ein Schwindler sei. „Wer wird mir glauben, dass ich dies unterdrückt habe, dass es leichter gewesen wäre, dieses alles in meinen Erinnerungen zu schreiben, wie Schirach es getan hat? Aber schildert das ganze Buch nicht zwischen den Zeilen diese Wahrheit? Wie viele Jahre arbeitet das in meinem Unterbewusstsein?“

Aufgebracht und unsicher

Einige Monate später ist Speer besseren Mutes. Am 28. Juli meldet er, das Dokument im Bundesarchiv in Koblenz, auf das sich Goldhagen stützte, „ist nicht so negativ wie angekündigt“. Es habe den Anklägern in Nürnberg wahrscheinlich schon vorgelegen. Der Leiter der Zentralstelle in Ludwigsburg habe Speers Anwalt mitgeteilt, die Angelegenheit werde wohl keine weiteren Folgen haben. Joachim Fest schildert in den Aufzeichnungen seiner zahlreichen Gespräche mit Speer („Die unbeantwortbaren Fragen“, Rowohlt 2005), wie dieser ihn wegen des Goldhagen-Artikels angerufen habe. Speer sei sehr aufgebracht gewesen, aber auch unsicher, „und der ganze süddeutsche eingefärbte Gleichmut, der manchmal den Eindruck erweckte, er spräche von einer eher fremden Sache, die ihn nur am Rande betreffe, war wie mit einem Schlage dahin“.

Der Artikel mache ihn „fassungslos“, habe Speer am Telefon mehrfach wiederholt. Mit seiner Erregung habe er klargemacht, dass es wirklich um die „Kardinalfrage“ seines Lebens ging. In diesem Gespräch sagte Speer, er habe ein zuverlässiges Erinnerungsvermögen, aber seit der Attacke Goldhagens, sei ihm der Verdacht gekommen, „ich könne mir selbst nicht mehr glauben“. Er wolle beweisen, dass er nicht zugegen gewesen sei, schon, um „sich selber wieder trauen zu können“. Speer brachte in der Folge zwei Zeugen vor, die in eidesstattlichen Erklärungen versicherten, er sei vor der Rede Himmlers abgereist.

„Es steht alles im Buch“

Gitta Sereny, die das Buch „Albert Speer: Sein Ringen mit der Wahrheit und das deutsche Trauma“ (1995) verfasste, erklärt gegenüber dieser Zeitung, sie habe immer angenommen, dass Speer von Himmlers Posener Rede gewusst habe; enge Freunde von ihm waren an jenem 6. Oktober 1943 anwesend und man könne sich schlechterdings nicht vorstellen, dass die Eröffnungen Himmlers nicht Gegenstand der Gespräche waren. Ihr gegenüber habe Speer indes stets angegeben, zwar in Posen bei der Tagung, jedoch nicht bei Himmlers Rede zugegen gewesen zu sein. Überrascht ist Sereny vor allem über die Adressatin von Speers Briefen, von der sie trotz ihrer Kenntnis von Speers Korrespondenz noch nie gehört hat.

In einem weiteren Brief an Ninette berichtet Speer von einem Anruf seines Verlegers Wolf Jobst Siedler, unmittelbar nachdem die Goldhagen-Geschichte hochgekommen war. Er zitiert Siedler: „Aber ich weiß garnicht, was Sie wollen. Es steht alles im Buch.“ Obwohl diese Korrespondenz ein Licht wirft auf eine Freundschaft Speers, über die in der Öffentlichkeit bislang nichts bekannt war, und obwohl die Briefe, die Speer und Hélène Jeanty über zehn Jahre hinweg meist in französischer Sprache gewechselt haben, unser Bild Speers vertiefen, gilt auch nach der Lektüre weiterhin jene Einschätzung Siedlers von damals.

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English

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Albert Speer
There is no doubt, I was present
10.03.2007 · Was Albert Speer there when Himmler announced the murder of all Jews? Unknown letters from Hitler's architect have now surfaced in London. The correspondence deepens and completes the ambivalent picture of Hitler's architect.

By GINA THOMAS, LONDON

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On 27 March, a strange correspondence will be offered for sale at the London auction house Bonhams. It is a good hundred letters that Hitler's armaments minister Albert Speer exchanged with the widow of a Belgian resistance fighter who was shot by the Germans. Hélène Jeanty Raven, called Ninette, had first written to Speer in 1971 and later sent him the book she had written about her war experiences, La peine de vivre (1952).

Her account apparently touched Speer deeply, for an intimate, if extremely strained, friendship developed between the two. Ninette's sanguine and sometimes hysterical temper alienated Speer, and time and again the two were faced with the question of whether to continue the relationship.

"Who will believe me?"

A letter Speer wrote to Hélène Jeanty in December 1971 is particularly highlighted. In it he notes, "There is no doubt. I was present when Himmler announced on 6 October 1943 that all Jews would be killed." This letter dates from the days when the reading of Harvard professor Erich Goldhagen's article, "Albert Speer, Himmler and the Final Solution", in the American newspaper Mainstream had deeply disturbed Speer. He tells his Belgian girlfriend that he immediately informed the Central Office for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Ludwigsburg through his lawyer about this alleged "revelation", and that the director assured him that this accusation by Goldhagen had been included in the "twenty years" imprisonment to which Speer had been sentenced at the Nuremberg trial.

Full of remorse, Speer tells us that he was more than distressed because his addressee was dealing with someone who was obviously nothing but a fraud. "Who will believe me that I suppressed this, that it would have been easier to write all this in my memoirs as Schirach did? But doesn't the whole book portray this truth between the lines? How many years has this been working in my subconscious?"

Upset and uncertain

A few months later, Speer is of better cheer. On 28 July he reports that the document in the Federal Archives in Koblenz on which Goldhagen relied "is not as negative as advertised". It had probably already been presented to the prosecutors in Nuremberg. The head of the Central Office in Ludwigsburg had told Speer's lawyer that the matter would probably have no further consequences. In the notes of his numerous conversations with Speer ("Die unbeantwortbaren Fragen", Rowohlt 2005), Joachim Fest describes how Speer called him about the Goldhagen article. Speer was very upset, but also uncertain, "and the whole South German dyed-in-the-wool equanimity, which sometimes gave the impression that he was talking about a rather foreign matter that concerned him only marginally, was gone as if in one fell swoop".

Speer repeated several times on the phone that he was "stunned" by the article. His agitation had made it clear that it was really about the "cardinal question" of his life. In this conversation, Speer said that he had a reliable memory, but since Goldhagen's attack, he had come to suspect that "I could no longer believe myself". He wanted to prove that he had not been present, if only to "be able to trust himself again". Speer subsequently produced two witnesses who affirmed in affidavits that he had left before Himmler's speech.

"It's all in the book"

Gitta Sereny, who wrote the book "Albert Speer: His Struggle with the Truth and the German Trauma" (1995), told this newspaper that she had always assumed that Speer had known about Himmler's Poznan speech; close friends of his were present on that 6 October 1943 and one could hardly imagine that Himmler's openings were not the subject of the talks. To her, however, Speer had always stated that he had been present at the conference in Posen, but not at Himmler's speech. Sereny is surprised above all by the addressee of Speer's letters, whom she has never heard of despite her knowledge of Speer's correspondence.

In another letter to Ninette, Speer reports a phone call from his publisher Wolf Jobst Siedler immediately after the Goldhagen story had come up. He quotes Siedler: "But I don't know what you want at all. It's all in the book." Although this correspondence sheds light on a friendship of Speer's that was hitherto unknown to the public, and although the letters that Speer and Hélène Jeanty exchanged over ten years, mostly in French, deepen our picture of Speer, Siedler's assessment of the time still applies after reading it.

Source: F.A.Z., 10.03.2007, Nr. 59 / Page 33

The first thing to notice is that Speer, rather than admitting to knowledge of the Holocaust, only admits to having been at Himmler's Posen Speech on this date at which Himmler allegedly unveiled the 'truth' about what was allegedly 'going on'. So one has to take the claims made about the Posen speech as true before trusting a word Speer says 28 years later. Also, Speer apparently said nothing about the content of Himmler's speech, other than reiterating what it was commonly known to contain; that being Himmler's announcement 'that all Jews would be killed'. There is of course no telling whether this refers to recollected knowledge of the contents of the speech, or simply the colloquial knowledge of its reason for significance. In either case - as stated - he says nothing about the content. This rather lessens the import Cockerill gives to it, that Speer admitted to 'knowing' about the Holocaust. It's not as if Speer is saying: "Oh yes, the Holocaust happened, I knew about it all along, the whole thing was planned, Himmler said it at his speech is Posen and I was actually there even though I lied before!" He gives no details as to his knowledge (and extent) of the Holocaust as a plan, how it was achieved, any of the alleged details. Nothing.

Secondly, is there good reason to have written this admission in a letter and not in his 'memoirs' published in the late 1960s early 1970s? Is there good reason he did not admit this to Gitta Sereny, Joachim Fest, or anyone else? If he was worried about persecution there's little reason to write this in a private letter signed by him. The only logical reason to have done this is because Speer - like he did during the fall of the Third Reich - looked into the future at what the divulgence of this information would eventually do for him. Of course this is speculative, but not incongruent with Speer's character. As the author of the FAZ notes, Speer had told Jeanty that he enquired about the 'revelations' in Goldhagen's article to the authorities to see whether he would be prosecuted if what Goldhagen purported to have 'proven' (that Speer was indeed at Himmler's speech, although this article was not successful in proving this) was true. He admitted to her that there was nothing to fear in this regard. So the question is, if there was no fear of punishment, why did he keep silent? To preserve his reputation? This is not a good enough answer, for the whole point of admitting this 'fact' in the letter to Jeanty was because he was remorseful of having kept this secret. Yet this remorse was not enough for him to divulge this factoid publicly. This in and of itself shows how untrustworthy Speer is, that he was committed to the supposed 'lie' even after he admitted to having lied and felt bad about it. Or rather it shows that Speer was not so convinced of his new 'revelation', as the letter is quite clear that this was something mental that Speer was reckoning with - his own self-doubt.

As said, the phrasing of Speer's letter allows one to conclude that rather than having consciously concealed this unsavoury truth, that he only 'subconsciously' came to undo what he had 'suppressed', proving only that Speer was distorting his memory in some way, making it unreliable. Thus, the letter is more of an exercise in self-doubt rather than substantive admission. This all makes sense when one considers the evidence that Speer was in-fact preoccupied with his faulty memory at this time, and the stress Goldhagen's article had on his which, in his own admission, made him second guess himself, and perhaps even convince himself that he had been there when in truth, he wasn't.

Joachim Fest writes about Speer's mind at this time:

A call from Speer about an article that the Harvard lecturer Erich Goldhagen has published about him in an American journal. Goldhagen tries to demonstrate, in opposition to the account in the Memoirs, that Speer was present for the speech in Poznan in which Himmler made his appalling revelations about the mass murder of the Jews. A momentary suspicion that there are ‘secrets’ after all which Speer, despite his assurances, concealed in our discussions.

Speer complained that Goldhagen was either mistaken or prejudiced against him. He is absolutely certain that he left Poznan before Himmler’s speech. He sounded very upset, but also insecure, and the whole South German calmness that sometimes makes you think he is talking of something rather alien that only marginally affects him was suddenly gone. He kept saying that the article left him ‘stunned’: the word came up six or eight times. At any rate, his agitation made it clear to me that the ‘cardinal question’ of his life was at issue.

When his agitation had subsided a little, Speer said that he has quite a reliable memory; no one knows that better than I. But since reading Goldhagen’s attacks he has suddenly become suspicious: ‘I can no longer believe myself.’ He wants to produce evidence that he was not present for Himmler’s truly appalling speech - which he first heard about only a considerable time later - but he does not yet know how. He must do it, so that he can ‘trust himself again’.

Three days later. Another call from Speer. He is hardly one step further. But he has regained his impassive tone and speaks in a friendly Heidelberg sing-song about the research he is doing. A sense of having heard him once insecure and without a ready answer. But it’s already over. An enigmatic person. Afterwards a telephone conversation with Siedler. He too has received several confused calls from Speer in the past days. He said he could not fully understand his agitated state, but I replied that such a clear-thinking mind must be muddled by the question of whether it can still believe itself (as Speer put it to me). For that is clearly the main reason for his concern. Just imagine, I said, how everything can break down if the reliability of your memory is impaired.

Joachim Fest, Albert Speer: Conversations with Hitler's Architect (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007), pp. 123-124.

And also in his biography of Speer:

The American historian Erich Goldhagen pointed out this discrepancy in 1971, using it as the basis for a fundamental attack on Speer's credibility. Although Speer never denied having taken part in the conference in his memoirs, Goldhagen observed, he said "nothing, absolutely nothing, about Himmler's speech, or even about Himmler's presence. He secretly washed his hands of the blood of those to whose death he contributed and, with seemingly clean hands, his heart beats in repentance: 'I am a murderer even though I never saw, heard, or knew anything about the death of my victims.' It is, to put it mildly, a contemptible performance."''

Goldhagens's accusation affected Speer, as he repeatedly admitted, "in his innermost being," and raised profound doubts about his memory: "Suddenly I was seized by the suspicion that I could no longer believe myself"'" After extensive research he eventually established that on 6 October 1943 he left Posen around noon, shortly after his own report on the armaments situation, whereas Himmler did not begin to speak until around 5.30, by which time Speer had long been en route to the Fuhrer's headquarters. Speer was also able to name several witnesses to confirm his assertion, including Erhard Milch, who had attended the afternoon event and like Donitz had spoken before Himmler, as well as the organizer of the meeting, Harry Siegmund, and, most importantly, Walter Rohland, who declared under oath that he had accompanied Speer on his journey to Rastenburg. Rohland also gave the reason for Speer's immediate departure. As the Gauleiters had been summoned to Hitler's headquarters for the following day, Speer was afraid that they or Bormann would give Hitler a misleading account of what had happened in Posen, especially Speer's sharp remarks, and weaken his demands. He wanted, Rohland wrote, to "induce" Hitler "to remain firm vis-a-vis the Gauleiters."

Goldhagen's accusation certainly would have been more convincing had he not used a few sentences in his article that he suggested also came from the text of Himmler's speech. In fact they had been freely invented. They were intended to give his indictment of Speer a truly devastating finality, and they read as follows: "Speer is not a philo-Semitic politician obstructing the Final Solution. He and I will jointly snatch the last Jew living on Polish territory from the hands of the Wehrmacht generals, send him to his death, and thereby conclude the final chapter of Polish Jewry." Goldhagen later claimed that the addition was simply meant to make clear what Himmler really thought about his agreement with Speer. But this does not explain his use of the first person singular for Himmler's remark. Asked why he had passed off the passage as a quotation, Goldhagen came up with the somewhat unusual explanation that he had wanted to remove the quotation marks at the beginning and at the end of the alleged remark by Himmler but had "not got round to it.'

Joachim Fest, Speer: The Final Verdict (San Diego: Harcourt, 2001), pp. 186-187.

Regarding the affidavits mentioned, Fest writes in a note:

Doubts concerning Spccr's premature departure from Posen, as well as Rohland's and Siegmund's affidavits, are expressed in Sereny. Siegmund, she states, hadtold her that he had been "bombarded" by Speer about the affidavit "with I don't know how many telephone calls, so in the end I gave him what he wanted." But Siegmund told the author that this assertion was invented by Gitta Sereny and that Speer had only written to him once. Since he remembered that the Minister of Armaments was not present he did not hesitate to provide the affidavit he had asked for. On Rohland's affidavit Sereny remarks that "the most probable explanation" was that "Rohland was a good friend," which evidently was intended to mean that, no matter what had really happened, he wanted to help Speer. The evidence she produced does not, however, prove her view.

Ibid., pp. 375-376, note 59.

This time Gitta Sereny didn't get away with her lies like she did when she published her book 'Into that Darkness' which is filled with dubious statements supposedly made to her by Franz Stangl, the first commandant of Sobibór, who conveniently died a day she met with him in prison for the last time; and on this occasion she brought him some soup which 'livened' him up. . . . Although I am not familiar with the particulars regarding Stangl's untimely death, it may just be a very odd coincidence that he 'bit it' the next day, so as to avoid telling any tales upon the release of Sereny's book. Anyway, Sereny is not reliable whatsoever, although I'm sure she only wished she had the chance to give Siegmund some of that special soup as well! Of course, I am only joking.

The evidence Speer gave in response to Goldhagen was printed as 'Antwort an Erich Goldhagen' in Adelbert Reif (ed.), Albert Speer: Kontroversen um ein deutsches Phänomen, Munich, 1978.

The evidence is certainly convincing, and cannot be undone by a simple letter from Speer which is not written in a way that gives confidence to the cognitive fidelity of its author. As Fest writes, Speer gained his composure and went on researching. He then wrote a refutation of Goldhagen's accusation on this question, thus revealing that he in-fact didn't believe he was there and thus abrogated his letter to Jeanty. There is no subsequent evidence I am aware of which proves, as some might say, that Speer had decided to continue lying for some unknown reason, despite the lack of consequences to admitting the alleged 'truth'. If one were to make this claim they would have to admit that Speer lied about his guilty conscience in the letter, and is thus liable to have lied about the whole thing.

The only way this letter fits into the chronology is by taking into account the well documented fact that at the time it was written Speer was not right in his own mind, and began to suffer from delusions about what he did or did not remember. In this moment he wrote a letter, expressing his concern about Goldhagen's article as he had done to Fest, Seidler, and Siegmund et. al. He told this woman that perhaps Goldhagen was right and he was deluding himself in his 'subconscious'. But the strangest thing Speer writes, from what we know of the letter, is that he thinks nobody will believe him! Of course, the minute this letter was revealed the whole world believed him.

Speer cannot have been ignorant of the fact that the world would hardly react negatively to an admission of guilt that would, in their eyes, substantially provide credibility to the 'Holocaust', particularly when he had to defend against this alluring prospect provided by Goldhagen's article and his own fears of potential persecution and re-prosecution. Thus it's this line in the letter which leads me to think Speer 'gave the book away' so to speak; that he was looking to the future, in an attempt to cover his bases in case public opinion turned against him and it was 'discovered' that he had been lying. No! Speer could say, he had actually admitted in this private letter to a friend that he had kept the truth secret because he was concerned nobody would believe him - a poor lie which could only work in his favour with people gullible enough to think that anyone would not actually believe him. Thus he seems to be speaking less to the world at large - who would believe him - and more so to the doubters (the revisionists) who would suggest he was lying (when he actually was), again serving to prop up his reputation by pre-emptively and subtly attacking revisionists. This letter would then serve as 'proof' that he knew it was 'true' but was struggling with himself and felt remorse, rather than being a liar through-and-through.

Although what goes against this is that Speer wrote his response to Goldhagen, which indicates that - as said - he didn't end up believing in what he adamantly described as a 'suppression' of his 'subconscious'. In either case, Speer isn't reliable, nor is this letter. There is too much reason to doubt Speer, and certainly no good reason to think he was telling the truth in this letter particularly when considered against the backdrop of the other evidence provided herein (the affidavits, and Speer's mental state).

[hermod]

And with a forger more skillful than Konrad Kujau, we would be analyzing BS 'quotes' from The Hitler Diaries right now...

https://postimg.cc/3WwdQ63y

[Lamprecht]

The first thing to notice is that Speer, rather than admitting to knowledge of the Holocaust, only admits to having been at Himmler's Posen Speech on this date at which Himmler allegedly unveiled the 'truth' about what was allegedly 'going on'. So one has to take the claims made about the Posen speech as true before trusting a word Speer says 28 years later. Also, Speer apparently said nothing about the content of Himmler's speech, other than reiterating what it was commonly known to contain; that being Himmler's announcement 'that all Jews would be killed'.

Exactly my thoughts. This is, quite obviously, a nothing-burger. Clickbait at best.
The fact that exterminationists have to cling to such weak forms of "Evidence" indicates how untenable their 6m+gas chambers conspiracy theory is.

After extensive research he eventually established that on 6 October 1943 he left Posen around noon, shortly after his own report on the armaments situation, whereas Himmler did not begin to speak until around 5.30, by which time Speer had long been en route to the Fuhrer's headquarters. Speer was also able to name several witnesses to confirm his assertion

Note that it is claimed that Speer was lying here, and the text of the October 6 speech apparently includes Himmler mentioning Speer by name. The text of this speech was discovered only in 1970, without any accompanying audio recording. So, who knows? The Oct. 6 speech is not cited as often as the Oct. 4 speech, which has the "I am thinking now of the evacuation of the Jews, the [Ausrottung] of the Jewish people..."

[Hektor]

And with a forger more skillful than Konrad Kujau, we would be analyzing BS 'quotes' from The Hitler Diaries right now...

https://postimg.cc/3WwdQ63y

"Someone forged the Hitler Diaries? You must be a conspiracy theorist! Our experts can't be fooled, if they say something is genuine, you can believe them."

While it's impossible to forge ALL documents of an enemy nation, it's perfectly possible to forge some of them. It's plausible that they did even do this on a larger scale to confuse the enemies bureaucracy, when needed. The more is at stake, the more is it's likely stuff will be forged.

E.g. the Nuremberg Trial had much more at stake than hanging already disposed political figures that have fallen from grace.

For the accusing (Western) Allies the survival of their political elites was at stake. They had to justify a war of gigantic proportion during which 10s of millions of people got killed, including at least 100.000s of their own citizens or subjects. What better to secure your grip on power than demonizing your enemy as much as possible using circumstantial stuff like camps, arrests, executions to spin an extermination narrative of mega-proportions of it? If you fought the incarnation of the devil, you must be an angel right? Very useful, when people start investigating your conduct of the war during which you murdered millions of civilians, raped them, robbed them, expelled them, imprisoned them, etc.

Not the claim that they "forged documents" obnoxious, it's the belief that they didn't that is really hilarious.

[hermod]

"Someone forged the Hitler Diaries? You must be a conspiracy theorist! Our experts can't be fooled, if they say something is genuine, you can believe them."

While it's impossible to forge ALL documents of an enemy nation, it's perfectly possible to forge some of them. It's plausible that they did even do this on a larger scale to confuse the enemies bureaucracy, when needed. The more is at stake, the more is it's likely stuff will be forged.

E.g. the Nuremberg Trial had much more at stake than hanging already disposed political figures that have fallen from grace.

For the accusing (Western) Allies the survival of their political elites was at stake. They had to justify a war of gigantic proportion during which 10s of millions of people got killed, including at least 100.000s of their own citizens or subjects. What better to secure your grip on power than demonizing your enemy as much as possible using circumstantial stuff like camps, arrests, executions to spin an extermination narrative of mega-proportions of it? If you fought the incarnation of the devil, you must be an angel right? Very useful, when people start investigating your conduct of the war during which you murdered millions of civilians, raped them, robbed them, expelled them, imprisoned them, etc.

Not the claim that they "forged documents" obnoxious, it's the belief that they didn't that is really hilarious.

Forging documents, is that even possible?

https://postimg.cc/Xr12NHTy

https://postimg.cc/RJv8J3G3

From Carlos Whitlock Porter's website:

The standard version of events is that the Allies examined 100,000 documents and chose 1,000 which were introduced into evidence, and that the original documents were then deposited in the Peace Palace at The Hague. This is rather inexact.

The documents used in evidence at Nuremberg consisted largely of "photocopies" of "copies". Many of these original documents were written entirely on plain paper without handwritten markings of any kind, by unknown persons. Occasionally, there is an illegible initial or signature of a more or less unknown person certifying the document as a 'true copy'. Sometimes there are German stamps, sometimes not. Many have been 'found' by the Russians, or 'certified authentic' by Soviet War Crimes Commissions.

The Hague has few, if any, original documents. The Hague has many original postwar 'affidavits', or sworn statements, the Tribunal Commission transcripts, and much valuable defense material. They have the 'human soap', which has never been tested, and the 'original human soap recipe' (Document USSR-196), which is a forgery; but apparently no original wartime German documents.

The Hague has negative photostats of these documents, on extremely brittle paper which has been stapled. To photocopy the photostats, the staples are removed. When they are re-stapled more holes are made. Most of these documents have not been photocopied very often, and officials at The Hague say it is very unusual for anyone to ask to see them.

The National Archives in Washington (see Telford Taylor's Use of Captured German and Related Documents, A National Archive Conference) claim that the original documents are in The Hague. The Hague claims the original documents are in the National Archives.

The Stadtsarchiv Nurnberg and the Bundesarchiv Koblenz also have no original documents, and both say the original documents are in Washington. Since the originals are, in most cases, 'copies', there is often no proof that the documents in question ever existed.

https://www.cwporter.com/gl3.htm

If I can't travel with a photocopy of my passport for obvious reasons, why could I prove the murder of six million people or the war guilt of a whole country with photostats and "certified true copies"???

[Otium]

Note that it is claimed that Speer was lying here, and the text of the October 6 speech apparently includes Himmler mentioning Speer by name. The text of this speech was discovered only in 1970, without any accompanying audio recording. So, who knows? The Oct. 6 speech is not cited as often as the Oct. 4 speech, which has the "I am thinking now of the evacuation of the Jews, the [Ausrottung] of the Jewish people..."

The only consistent thing about Speer is that he is a liar, and if you don't know when he's telling the truth then it means you cannot trust him at all, period. If he lied about leaving the speech convention ear;y then he could also just as easily be lying in his letter to Jeanty. If he was lying after the fact, then like I said in the OP it means he was definitely lying about his sinscerity in the letter, which means we have substantially more reason to doubt its truthfulness and sinscerity. The fact remains, so it seems, that Speer did not even believe what he wrote in the letter and it was written during a mental breakdown on the basis of emotion, faulty memory, and not evidence.

It's true that Himmler mentions Speer in the October 6 Speech, he mentions him 4 times, but so what? There's nothing about what Himmler said which means Speer had to have been there. He doesn't point to Speer and go: "HEY LOOK OVER THERE EVERYBODY, AT MY BUDDY PARTY COMRADE SPEER, THESE JEWS ARE GONNA BE FANTASTIC LABOR!".

[Hektor]

Note that it is claimed that Speer was lying here, and the text of the October 6 speech apparently includes Himmler mentioning Speer by name. The text of this speech was discovered only in 1970, without any accompanying audio recording. So, who knows? The Oct. 6 speech is not cited as often as the Oct. 4 speech, which has the "I am thinking now of the evacuation of the Jews, the [Ausrottung] of the Jewish people..."

The only consistent thing about Speer is that he is a liar, and if you don't know when he's telling the truth then it means you cannot trust him at all, period. If he lied about leaving the speech convention ear;y then he could also just as easily be lying in his letter to Jeanty. If he was lying after the fact, then like I said in the OP it means he was definitely lying about his sinscerity in the letter, which means we have substantially more reason to doubt its truthfulness and sinscerity. The fact remains, so it seems, that Speer did not even believe what he wrote in the letter and it was written during a mental breakdown on the basis of emotion, faulty memory, and not evidence.

It's true that Himmler mentions Speer in the October 6 Speech, he mentions him 4 times, but so what? There's nothing about what Himmler said which means Speer had to have been there. He doesn't point to Speer and go: "HEY LOOK OVER THERE EVERYBODY, AT MY BUDDY PARTY COMRADE SPEER, THESE JEWS ARE GONNA BE FANTASTIC LABOR!".

The thing is, we don't know what happened to Speer or any other prisoners during the captivity. In prison you can isolate people and you control their routines, with whom they have contact etc. And well, it's highly boring there. So you can play things on them by using information, asking questions confronting them with things, etc.

Now assume that Himmler told people at Speech in Posen or elsewhere: "Hey folks, to let you all know, we're exterminating the Jews".
That would for sure have made an impression on the audience. And well, they would at least privately have taken note of this. But there is virtually no entries in notes, letters, etc. on this. It's virtually absent. So obviously that isn't how it happened.

One also needs to ask, why it was so important to them to get statement from leading figures that somehow indicate 'knowledge of the Holocaust'. If you had evidence, e.g. from mass graves that wouldn't be a big concern. It would be a big concern, if you realized that evidence is lacking, regardless whether you believe it happened or not. Many of those pushing the narrative did probably think that it was true OR they wished it was true... Since that would be evidence to them on how evil political movements are that are pro-national and anti-Communist and essentially consist of people that are social conservatives. Resentment against those people is a common denominator of many early Holocaust propagandists. E.g. Thomas Mann, many of the Jews, Paul Tillich and later other theologians. When they could point to 'the Holocaust', they could use it in an argument that essentially claims: "See, I told you how bad you are". It should be noted that it doesn't appear that a well-connected person like Dietrich Bonhoeffer did have any idea of 'the Holocaust' although in letters he appears to be rather opposed to Anti-Semitism and attitudes towards Jews at the time. It's strange that not more people have noticed the absence of the Holocaust in Bonhoeffers letters and statements. Of the resistance accused, some mention executions as argument against Hitler and his regime, but none mentions the Holocaust neither.

[Otium]

The following tweet was made in response to my original post in this thread. It's typically self rightous and rude, clearly from a person who - despite their "reasoned" persona - is one of these people that cannot engage civilly in a discussion about the Holocaust. This person is a self described Ashkenazi Jew, so this is probably the reason for it.

The tweet reads:

"This is probably the most hilariously delusional thing I’ve read.
>Speer only says he was present!
>Speer says nothing about the speech’s contents!!
>…oh also he says that the speech’s contents clarify Himmler’s plans for extermination of European Jewry, nothing big…"

Tweet

---

The point I was making in my original post is that Speer doesn't explicitly say he heard these things from Himmler's speech when he was supposedly "there". To understand what Speer is saying when he says: "There is no doubt. I was present when Himmler announced on 6 October 1943 that all Jews would be killed." You have to first understand that Goldhagen accused Speer of being at the speech, and all Speer is doing is proclaiming in his hysterical state in which he was uncertain and searching through his 'subconscious' that he realised 28 year later that he was actually there. Which is to say Speer is merely saying that he was present at the speech, and nothing more. He doesn't say he recollects anything from it. Nuance is key.

Saying "There is no doubt. I was present when Himmler announced on 6 October 1943 that all Jews would be killed" is a statement about the commonly accepted circumstances (hence Speer's use of the words "when he..." to denote the significance of these cirucmstances), not an admission that he could in-fact confirm what he would've potentially heard because he was there (there is also no reason to think that even if Speer was there that he remembers anything about it); it's like if I were to say: "I was at X place when X thing happened", which could be true, but it doesn't mean I saw what happened. It's just the most significant thing associated with the specific circumstances.

It's quite obvious that Speer isn't saying he heard Himmler say "all Jews would be killed" because Speer's preoccupation with Goldhagen was about how he wanted to remember - and how he could confirm - whether he was actually there in the first place; not whether he heard it or not. If Speer had heard what Himmler said in person, and could recollect and confirm it 28 years later, then he wouldn't need to verify if he was in-fact there or not. That he did try to verify this, and that he denied being there, means he had no recollection of Himmler saying what he's alleged to have supposedly said in the speech.

It's hard to explain, and I'm not surprised this guy doesn't understand the difference. He's mistaken Speer saying he must've been there with an admission that he heard Himmler say these things, when as I said, Speer says nothing about the content of the speech. Speer's whole defense was already predicated on accepting the Holocaust story, so he need only imply that if he was there that he must've heard it, which would be true, but again doesn't mean he remembered anything that was said in order to confirm it. "I was there, so I must've heard it" is not the same as "I was there and I heard it!". There's nothing from what we know of the Jeanty letter which shows Speer admitting he heard anything.

Saying:

">Speer only says he was present!
>Speer says nothing about the speech’s contents!!"

Implying these two things are mutually exclsive is disingenous to say the least because it's literally true that Speer only said he was present and that he said nothing about the content of the speech. There is nothing "delusional" about this, it is simply the facts of the matter.

The fact is that the Jeanty letter isn't proof of anything. Period.

[Lamprecht]

Now assume that Himmler told people at Speech in Posen or elsewhere: "Hey folks, to let you all know, we're exterminating the Jews".
That would for sure have made an impression on the audience. And well, they would at least privately have taken note of this. But there is virtually no entries in notes, letters, etc. on this. It's virtually absent. So obviously that isn't how it happened.

Goebbels' diary, 7 October 1943:
"As to the Jewish Question, [Himmler] gives a very frank and candid picture. He is of the opinion that we can solve the Jewish Question for all of Europe by the end of this year. He advocates the most radical and harshest solution, namely, that the whole of Jewry will be rooted out (auszurotten).This is surely a consistent, if brutal, solution. We must accept the responsibility to completely solve this question in our time. Later generations will surely no longer have the courage or dedication to address this problem, as we do today."

Others would translate "auszurotten" to killed