Himmler's Posen speech of 04 October 1943 - Full version

[EtienneSC]

There are at least a couple of other threads on this speech by SS leader Heinrich Himmler on CODOH Forum:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10278&hilit=Posen
viewtopic.php?t=372
However, the full three hour version now seems to be available:

(I suggest using BitChute for revisionist purposes at the moment)
I have listened to it and have the following impressions:

A. Nothing in it seems out of place or anachronistic. The subject matter (foreign policy, the war and the various theaters of war. fallen comrades, promotions and retirements) is suited to the time and audience. So it sounds genuine.

B. The following passages are pertinent to the famous passage (which starts at 2.03 and goes on for 13 minutes before a change of subject.):
0.4.30 The invasion of Russia was to prevent Stalin's planned incursion into West Europe.
10.00 What he wishes to say is not for all ears.
29.30 Use of umbringen (of Russians) - with reference to General Vlasov's view that only Russians can defeat Russians.
42.00 Character sketch of Russians
46.15 The first principle of SS men must be absolute loyalty to their own blood and to no-one else.
57.00 The one thing the Sicherheitdienst [Security Service] has accomplished this year is the rescue of Mussolini.
1.53.00 Himmler says that all "Jews and Freemasons" are against us (present tense).
2.03-2.16 Famous passage on ausrotten/ right to umbringen of Jews.. Earlier the talk is of millions when analysing the situation on the Eastern front. Here the comparison is with the Night of the Long Knives (30 April 1934) when around 1,000 people were killed and the only gigures given are hundreds and thousands.
2.30 Himmler says that half of all the reports he receives are erroneous. This might tell against the reliability of the Korherr and Einsatzgruppen reports.
Comment about 500-800 Jews (didn't note the time)
Comment about Jews with 12,000 marks (didn't note the time)
2.45 If we are not right, Himmler wants to hear about it.
In private, we have become a corrupt people.
3.04 Concluding remarks about practical tasks begins
3.05 ausrotten used again.

So it sounds to me like people were killed and authority to kill was given retrospectively ("We had the right to kill this people that wanted to kill us") and hence presumably the same was given in advance too. However, the scale of operations is not indicated, so it is not a proof of "the Holocaust".

It would be interesting to hear what a native German speaker makes of it.

[EtienneSC]

A few more comments:
105.00 Umbringen [kill] apparently used in the sense of German military defeat.
1.11.00 Dealing with enemy propaganda.
1.14.30 It is difficult to sign a death sentence.
1.19.00 It is no joy for us to be brutal and merciless (but it has to be...)
1.22.20 It is too warm and they need fresh air (this sounds like real Germans...)
1.28.28 America fears a war on two fronts. It has a large number of Jews and a brutal, plutocratic form of economy.
1.48.10 Joke about a new SS division choosing the name Gotz von Berlichingen.

[Hannover]

Etienne, I'm sure you realize this, but there are many, many questions about the legitimacy, contents, validity, & relevance to this allegedly 'secret 'speech' that was curiously "recorded".

readers should see:

Himmlers Posen speech credible?: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5263

Heinrich Himmler's Posen Speech from 04.10.1943: https://codoh.com/library/document/891/

Himmlers speech "Endloesung ???: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12325

- Hannover

The impossible 'holocau$t' storyline is the classic use of The Big Lie tactic, which says the bigger the lie, the more it will be believed.

[EtienneSC]

Thanks for this further info, especially Carlos Porter's translation. I agree with Richard Widmann's observations about the figurative use of the key terms. You link here:
https://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5263
to material apparently by Wilhelm Staeglich, but the link is broken:
https://codoh.com/trials/tristagch2.html

[Webmaster]

Thanks for this further info, especially Carlos Porter's translation. I agree with Richard Widmann's observations about the figurative use of the key terms. You link here:
https://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5263
to material apparently by Wilhelm Staeglich, but the link is broken:
https://codoh.com/trials/tristagch2.html

The thread has been updated. Please use this link: http://web.archive.org/web/200701130435 ... agch2.html

Webmaster

[Lamprecht]

I just don't see how it really is considered such strong evidence of anything incriminating. Here's the relevant part:

The evacuation of the Jews

I want to mention another very difficult matter here before you in all frankness. Among ourselves, it ought to be spoken of quite openly for once; yet we shall never speak of it in public. Just as little as we hesitated to do our duty as ordered on 30 June 1934, and place comrades who had failed against the wall and shoot them, just as little did we ever speak of it, and we shall never speak of it. It was a matter of course, of tact, for us, thank God, never to speak of it, never to talk of it. It made everybody shudder; yet everyone was clear in his mind that he would do it again if ordered to do so, and if it was necessary.

I am thinking now of the evacuation of the Jews, the extirpation of the Jewish people. It is one of those things that's easy to say: "The Jewish people will be extirpated" , says every Party comrade, "that's quite clear, it's in our programme: elimination of the Jews, extirpation ; that's what we're doing." And then they all come along, these 80 million good Germans, and every one of them has his decent Jew. Of course, it's quite clear that the others are pigs, but this one is one first-class Jew. Of all those who speak this way, not one has looked on; not one has lived through it. Most of you know what it means when 100 bodies lie together, when 500 lie there, or if 1,000 lie there. To have gone through this, and at the same time, apart from exceptions caused by human weaknesses, to have remained decent, that has made us hard. This is a chapter of glory in our history which has never been written, and which never shall be written; since we know how hard it would be for us if we still had the Jews, as secret saboteurs, agitators, and slander-mongers, among us now, in every city — during the bombing raids, with the suffering and deprivations of the war. We would probably already be in the same situation as in 1916/17 if we still had the Jews in the body of the German people.

The riches they had, we've taken away from them. I have given a strict order, which SS Group Leader Pohl has carried out, that these riches shall, of course, be diverted to the Reich without exception. We have taken none of it. Individuals who failed were punished according to an order given by me at the beginning, which threatened: he who takes even one mark of it, that's his death. A number of SS men — not very many — have violated that order, and that will be their death, without mercy. We had the moral right, we had the duty to our own people, to kill this people which wanted to kill us . But we don't have the right to enrich ourselves even with one fur, one watch, one mark, one cigarette, or anything else. Just because we eradicated a bacillus, after all, doesn't mean we want to be infected by the bacillus and die. I will never permit even one little spot of corruption to arise or become established here. Wherever it may form, we shall burn it out together. In general, however, we can say that we have carried out this most difficult task out of love for our own people. And we have suffered no harm to our inner self, our soul, our character in so doing.

German:

Ich will hier vor Ihnen in aller Offenheit auch ein ganz schweres Kapitel erwähnen. Unter uns soll es einmal ganz offen ausgesprochen sein, und trotzdem werden wir in der Öffentlichkeit nie darüber reden. Genau so wenig, wie wir am 30. Juni gezögert haben, die befohlene Pflicht zu tun und Kameraden, die sich verfehlt hatten, an die Wand zu stellen und zu erschießen, genau so wenig haben wir darüber jemals gesprochen und werden je darüber sprechen. Es war eine, Gottseidank in uns wohnende Selbstverständlichkeit des Taktes, dass wir uns untereinander nie darüber unterhalten haben, nie darüber sprachen. Es hat jeden geschaudert und doch war sich jeder klar darüber, dass er es das nächste Mal wieder tun würde, wenn es befohlen wird und wenn es notwendig ist.

Ich meine jetzt die Judenevakuierung, die Ausrottung des jüdischen Volkes. Es gehört zu den Dingen, die man leicht ausspricht. – "Das jüdische Volk wird ausgerottet", sagt ein jeder Parteigenosse, "ganz klar, steht in unserem Programm, Ausschaltung der Juden, Ausrottung, machen wir." Und dann kommen sie alle an, die braven 80 Millionen Deutschen, und jeder hat seinen anständigen Juden. Es ist ja klar, die anderen sind Schweine, aber dieser eine ist ein prima Jude. Von allen, die so REDEn, hat keiner zugesehen, keiner hat es durchgestanden. Von Euch werden die meisten wissen, was es heißt, wenn 100 Leichen beisammen liegen, wenn 500 daliegen oder wenn 1000 daliegen. Dies durchgehalten zu haben, und dabei – abgesehen von Ausnahmen menschlicher Schwächen – anständig geblieben zu sein, das hat uns hart gemacht. Dies ist ein niemals geschriebenes und niemals zu schreiben des Ruhmesblatt unserer Geschichte, denn wir wissen, wie schwer wir uns täten, wenn wir heute noch in jeder Stadt – bei den Bombenangriffen, bei den Lasten und bei den Entbehrungen des Krieges – noch die Juden als Geheimsaboteure, Agitatoren und Hetzer hätten. Wir würden wahrscheinlich jetzt in das Stadium des Jahres 1916/17 gekommen sein, wenn die Juden noch im deutschen Volkskoerper säßen.

Die Reichtümer, die sie hatten, haben wir ihnen abgenommen. Ich habe einen strikten Befehl gegeben, den SS-Obergruppenführer Pohl durchgeführt hat, dass diese Reichtümer selbstverständlich restlos an das Reich abgeführt wurden. Wir haben uns nichts davon genommen. Einzelne, die sich verfehlt haben, werden gemäß einem von mir zu Anfang gegebenen Befehl bestraft, der androhte: Wer sich auch nur eine Mark davon nimmt, der ist des Todes. Eine Anzahl SS-Männer – es sind nicht sehr viele – haben sich dagegen verfehlt und sie werden des Todes sein, gnade[n]los. Wir hatten das moralische Recht, wir hatten die Pflicht gegenüber unserem Volk, dieses Volk, das uns umbringen wollte, umzubringen. Wir haben aber nicht das Recht, uns auch nur mit einem Pelz mit einer Uhr, mit einer Mark oder mit einer Zigarette oder mit sonst etwas zu bereichern. Wir wollen nicht am Schluss, weil wir einen Bazillus ausrotteten, an dem Bazillus krank werden und sterben. Ich werde niemals zusehen, dass hier auch nur eine kleine Fäulnisstelle entsteht oder sich festsetzt. Wo sie sich bilden sollte, werden wir sie gemeinsam ausbrennen. Insgesamt aber können wir sagen, dass wir diese schwerste Aufgabe in Liebe zu unserem Volk erfüllt haben. Und wir haben keinen Schaden in unserem Inneren, in unserer Seele, in unserem Charakter daran genommen.

The following article:
The Improbable and the Impossible in Himmler's Posen Speech
https://archive.is/GfNxG

Does a good job explaining how awkwardly worded the supposedly 'incriminating' sentences are. Possibly they were spliced together from other sentences.

[Werd]

Just use the search function on this board with the phrase "shellac disc" or "shellac discs" You'll get a lot about this Himmler speech.

[EtienneSC]

Just use the search function on this board with the phrase "shellac disc" or "shellac discs" You'll get a lot about this Himmler speech.

The video includes breaks similar to what you would find on an old record player. Talky films and 78 rpm records date from the 1930s, so I don't see that the technicalities of recording would be a difficulty, apart from the problems created by the length of the speech.

[Hektor]

I ju....
The Improbable and the Impossible in Himmler's Posen Speech
https://archive.is/GfNxG

Does a good job explaining how awkwardly worded the supposedly 'incriminating' sentences are. Possibly they were spliced together from other sentences.

Splicing was also something that I suspected. Recombining words and sentences is the easiest way to manipulate. This also may explain the unusual method of recording. It wasn't up to date for Germany of the time.

Can I prove that this was done? Not with the means I got at my disposal.
Can those that consider the Speech genuine prove that it is indeed genuine? They probably could, but chose not to do so, they simply assume it is. Although it was/is in the hands of Germany's enemies.

Does the content of the Speech actually prove the Holocaust? That's debatable. The "incriminating" passages may be in line with Reprisal Killings as well. Himmler himself contradicted the typical Holocaust Allegations when confronted by a Jewish representative in 1945:
https://archive.org/services/img/Norber ... ichHimmler

[Lamprecht]

Yes, the suspiciously awkward wording suggests that sentences could have been cut out. And Irving argued that when looking at the "original" transcript of the speech, the supposedly incriminating section had the page retyped at a later date. Very odd.

A Suspiciously Awkward Transition
We are told that what we hear is unedited, but I am not so sure; some of the transitions in this fragment of a speech are extremely awkward.

I found this to be the most awkward transition. Any SS-man who steals for himself will be executed. “Gnadenlos!” — “Without mercy!” Himmler screams. He then says, “We have the moral right, we had the duty to our people to do it,” clearly referring to the need to execute SS-men who behave corruptly, which he had just been discussing, but then he adds unexpectedly, “to kill this (group of) people who would kill us.” It seems to be a mid-sentence change of topic.**

"Wir haben das moralische Recht, wir hatten die Pflicht unserem Volk gegenüber das zu tun, dieses Volk, das uns umbringen wollte, umzubringen." (4:36-4:45)

The unwarranted change of tense in that sentence is also a problem. He seems to be talking about two different matters when he says, "We have the moral right...." (present tense) and "We had the duty...." (past tense). The use of the past tense there makes no sense, even in terms of the conventional understanding of the speech, since in this context Himmler is talking about a planned future action toward the Jews, or an ongoing action, but not a past action.

Accepting this recording as unedited, one must suppose that Himmler was such a rambling and incoherent speaker that he forgot what he was saying in mid-sentence and could not keep his verb-tenses consistent, and also used the past tense to refer to a future action.


A More Reasonable Explanation

I think that the recording was probably altered as follows. Himmler said, "We had the duty to our people to do it," in one context (probably about a past execution of corrupt SS-men, or the Night of the Long Knives), and in a different context, "We have the moral right to kill this (group of) people who would kill us," implying that the Jews were getting off easy by merely being deprived of wealth and deported. The former statement thus would have been inserted into the latter to change its significance, making it about a deed actually (already!) committed instead of an observation about how restrained and generous the treatment of the Jews was going to be.

It was completely feasible to edit sound recordings after Germany was defeated in 1945, since magnetic recording tape, which unlike wire recording or phonograph record is easily cut and spliced, had already been invented (by a German) in 1928. According to the U.S. National Archives (cited by The Holocaust History Project) the most common method of recording speeches in the Third Reich was direct recording to phonograph disc. Echos in this recording however indicate that the speech was stored for years on tape.*** Unless there is also an original disc-recording that has the same content as the tape, it means that the recording could have been edited.

Editing a sound-recording to make it seem more incriminating would not be the most outrageous thing that the Allies did in their propaganda during and after the war. (Cf. the U.S. Army's Why We Fight series, featuring undeniably fake Hitler quotes that could have been exposed by anybody who bothered to check, and deliberately misrepresented documentary footage from China.)

It makes perfect sense to suppose that some similar shenanigans were committed in this case, because the content of Himmler's Posen speech of 4 October 1943, as it has been presented to us in this recording, makes no sense, even in relation to itself.

[EtienneSC]

One point worth making, aside from the authenticity issue, is that when Himmler talks earlier about General Vlasov killing the Russians (29.30, see Carlos Porter's translation under "The Vlasov ballyhoo", last sentence of first paragraph)),
https://codoh.com/library/document/891/
he uses the same word umbringen that he later [in the version as it now survives] uses about having the right to kill the Jewish people because they wanted to kill the Germans. As it is earlier in the speech, it shows how he expects the word to be taken.

Clearly, he has negative views of the Russians, but he doesn't want to kill them all, merely extend German rule eastwards. So even without the alleged splicing, he falls short of announcing a genocide. This does along with the statement that he is merely following the party program, which was also not genocidal. And nor was the Jewish attitude to the Germans, Eric Kaufmann's book aside.

I don't see a conflict between having a right and having had a duty, once you remove the genocidal assumption. It is still military language applied to a civilian population though.

[Dresden]

EtienneSC said:

"This does along with the statement that he is merely following the party program, which was also not genocidal. And nor was the Jewish attitude to the Germans, Eric Kaufmann's book aside"

Did you mean Theodore Kaufmann?

[EtienneSC]

Did you mean Theodore Kaufmann?

Yes, sorry. I meant, the Germany Must Perish guy:
http://anozin-ofa.de/Vernichtungsplaene.pdf

[Otium]

The following article:
The Improbable and the Impossible in Himmler's Posen Speech
https://archive.is/GfNxG

Does a good job explaining how awkwardly worded the supposedly 'incriminating' sentences are. Possibly they were spliced together from other sentences.

In the comment section of this article the second incriminating speech was brought up.

Dionysus said...

It would be interesting to see your take on the speech Himmler gave two days later to the Reichsleiters and Gauleiters and also a couple of other speeches by Himmler where he is much more explicit with reference to the killing. For example, in the October 6 speech:

"I ask of you that that which I say to you in this circle be really only heard and not ever discussed. We were faced with the question: what about the women and children? – I decided to find a clear solution to this problem too. I did not consider myself justified to exterminate the men – in other words, to kill them or have them killed and allow the avengers of our sons and grandsons in the form of their children to grow up. The difficult decision had to be made to have this people disappear from the earth. For the organisation which had to execute this task, it was the most difficult which we had ever had. [...] I felt obliged to you, as the most superior dignitary, as the most superior dignitary of the party, this political order, this political instrument of the Führer, to also speak about this question quite openly and to say how it has been. The Jewish question in the countries that we occupy will be solved by the end of this year. Only remainders of odd Jews that managed to find hiding places will be left over."

And in a 1943 speech to the Kriegsmarine, he limits the killing to partisans and commisars:

"[...] Thus I have basically given the order to also kill the wives and children of these partisans, and commissars. I would be a weakling and a criminal to our descendants if I allowed the hate-filled sons of the sub-humans we have liquidated in this struggle of humanity against subhumanity to grow up."

(From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posen_speeches)

I know I myself commented on one of these various speeches, but it escape my memory which it was at the moment. I do have the recollection that while talking about the first speech it was a common point against the revisionists (in one of the various threads here on CODOH) that the second speech (one of them at least) was being ignored and simply not being addressed.

I suppose the pertinent question is if all the relevant speeches have been addressed sufficiently by revisionists?

My biggest concern as I've illustrated here: https://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12397&p=93895&hilit#p93895 is that in the case of Irving, and his confirmation that the key pages of one of the Posen speeches was retyped seems to display a contradictory flippy floppy attitude on whether the speech itself is actually legitimate. He does this by essentially saying that it was retyped by German National Socialists and not the allies, when the whole reason this is relevant is because of the possibility that the allies tampered with it. All I could think while reading this section of the transcript was that Irving not wanting to sound 'radical' didn't suggest or say that it's more likely the allies rewrote it if not entirely faked it. Thoughts on this would be appreciated.

[Hannover]

As for the claimed later speeches, note that we see only claimed English 'translations' not the original German text.

And it always comes back to the most basic element necessary to back up the claim that Himmler was talking about 'extermination', that being the alleged enormous human remains of millions upon millions said to be in precisely known locations.

Why don't we see verifiable German original text of the speeches?
Why are the alleged immense human remains that are claimed to exist in known locations simply not there?

We know why.

- Hannover