I beg the moderator's indulgence for the length of this. This will be my last post on the topic.Maybe a helpful way of looking at the current topic of debate is to consider how we might think about the document if it had not yet been found by Irving and discussed ad nauseam since then.
We have a phone log with notes pursuant to a call made by Himmler at the Wolf's Lair to Heydrich in Prague on November 30, 1941. The lines on Jekelius and Molotov can be relatively easily explained (see below). The third and fourth lines are what would interest me personally.
"Jew-transport from Berlin" would want me looking for the transport leaving Berlin for one week before or after. Luckily, we have a list:
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/about/in ... rettyPhotoI think it's fair to assume the note refers to one of the transports on Nov. 27 (more on this below). These both went to Riga. Now I'd want to find out if Jekelius or Motolov's son were involved in these two transports in any way.
It doesn't make any sense that Jekelius has anything to do with the Berlin transport. More likely Himmler is asking Heydrich in the latter's capacity as intelligence chief to investigate him because of his relationship with Hitler's sister. With Himmler at Wolf's Lair, Hitler might even have requested such an investigation.
The line on Molotov's son is mysterious but explicable. Western newspapers had reported a week earlier that a man identified as Molotov's son had been taken prisoner on the Eastern front. See, e.g., here:
http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1941 ... in-reportsWhat we know now is that this was Vasily Kokorin, Molotov's nephew -- he would be sent to Sachsenhausen, where he would be housed with several other prominent prisoners, including Yakov Jughashvili, who had been taken at Smolensk in July. Again, this was a specific RSHA job, so it went to Heydrich. Ergo, it's also not related to the "Jew-transport."
This takes us back to the Jew transport on the third line and now "keine Liquidierung" on the fourth line. As I stated before, there is no reason to assume that the fourth line is separate from the third line. It's possible but not necessary. It is possible, by the way, that it applies to Kokorin. The only line it seems not to apply to is the Jekelius line, since Jekelius hadn't even been taken into custody yet, although I suppose it's possible. It's also possible that it applies to all three preceding lines, as in "don't liquidate any of the above."
If we go with the third line being read in total isolation, we'd want to see what actually happened to these transports that went to Riga from Berlin. What we know is that they arrived in Riga and were shot. However, we also know that these transports were not the first or last from Berlin or the Old Reich in general to go to occupied Soviet territory. If you see the YVA list above, the transports began November 11 and continued into 1942. So we have to ask ourselves what this third line is about in isolation, without considering whether "Keine Liquidierung" refers to something else. So let's do that.We know that transports had gone from Berlin to Lodz already, but it had been almost a month since the last transport from Berlin had gone there, so it's unlikely that it's one of those transports. That leaves Minsk, Kaunas, and Riga, because the transports stop from Berlin and don't pick up again until Jan. 13, 1942. Again, the ones in Riga were shot, as was the single transport that went to Kaunas. The ones sent to Minsk were put in the ghetto there. This doesn't provide us with a lot of information about why one of these transports -- again, given the date of Nov. 30 of the conversation, likely to Riga -- was being discussed. Context thus becomes necessary.
We know from the next day's discussion log that a topic was "Exekutionen in Riga." Further, we know that the Berlin transports to Riga were shot along with the Jews in the Riga ghetto on November 30, maybe as Himmler was making this phone call. This still doesn't give us a lot of context about why this transport and its being executed the next day are under discussion. Luckily, another document does tell us that Himmler ordered a temporary halt to executions in Riga (this in the Bletchley intercepts) and, according to Jeckeln's testimony, he was then summoned by Himmler.
Clearly the execution of Berlin Jews in Riga was important. To summarize, we have Berlin Jews deported to the occupied USSR for the first time earlier in November. Everywhere but Minsk, they are shot. We have a call from Himmler to Heydrich on Nov. 30 to discuss one of these transports, which has already been shot. Then we get a policy change -- albeit a temporary one -- in the next few days, and Jews from the Reich aren't shot for a couple of months. Incidentally, what intervenes between is Wannsee, but that's another topic.
It seems fair, on the basis of the available evidence, that the topic of conversation was that the specific subject of the "Jew transport" conversation of Nov. 30 had to do with how they would be treated -- either shot or put in the ghetto. This interpretation draws neither conclusion, by the way, and is based on the reading of the third line in total isolation from the other three lines but in the context of what we know about the transports under discussion.
That brings us to the fourth line -- "Keine Liquidierung." It's either about this transport or not. My case is that it is, and that the reason for the call was to prevent this specific transport from being shot. The context is Kube's and, more importantly, Lohse's problems with shooting Reich transports, which we know about because Prützmann, Jeckeln's predecessor in Riga, had reported that Lohse, as well as Rosenberg, had objected to the treatment of the Jews in their custody in Riga. To push the policy forward, Prützmann was replaced with Jeckeln, who was more on board with the policy of shooting (Himmler could not replace Lohse or Rosenberg, since he had no authority over them); this is that to which I referred in talking about people being replaced.
Or maybe the fourth line is on a totally new topic. Your suggestion is that it has to do with the autonomy of the Protektorat government.
I actually did a bit of digging over the last day or so and found that Heydrich himself used the term "Liquidierung" regarding the autonomy of B&M, so I concede that point to you -- well done. However, the timeline of events in the Protektorat doesn't really bear out a discussion going in that direction -- not to mention that it wouldn’t be Himmler's bailiwick to discuss w/Heydrich (as I already mentioned).Heydrich had only been assigned to B&M beginning on Sept. 29. His role in going there was to bring the Protektorat under closer control than von Neurath had kept it. Heydrich's biographer Robert Gerwarth writes (p. 239 ff) that Heydrich decreed in November 1941 to himself the power to dismiss ethnic Czechs from B&M government. On November 9, Hitler instructed Heydrich to reduce the number of ministries to seven, all of which would report directly to Heydrich, but that the façade of autonomy should be upheld. Heydrich wrote to Bormann (notice how the point of contact is Bormann -- not Himmler -- which I mentioned before) on November 16 that he would "liquidate" the Protektorat's autonomy from within. Ergo, the matter had been settled for some two weeks before the phone conversation on November 30. The Prague archives do not record correspondence on the matter between November 16 and January 19 of the following year, at least as Gerwarth records.
Finally, lest we run around a final time on the rocks of four lines/four topics or four lines/three topics, I'd call your attention to the notes from Dec. 1:
http://www.fpp.co.uk/Himmler/Note011241.htmlSome explanation from Lipstadt v. Irving on these notes appears here:
http://www.fpp.co.uk/Legal/Penguin/tran ... day004.htmAnd perhaps most importantly, a partial transcription of that page from Google Books:
https://books.google.com/books?id=nNbiA ... +Berger%22Here's how the five lines at the top right read in English, these from a conversation w/Gottlob Berger:
Recruitment numbers
Discussion with Schwarz (presumably party treasurer Franz Schwarz)
Furlough Berger
Meeting of the country services in Munich (presumably of the Hitler Youth)
Berger and Hofmann representatives (presumably Hofmann of RuSHA)It would seem that, at least of these five lines, there are only four subjects: Volksdeutsche recruitment; money matters; and some time away for Berger -- then a meeting in Munich at which Berger and Hofmann will be representatives, presumably to discuss, respectively, SS recruitment and Race and Settlement. Thus, a conversation where two lines were together but the rest of the lines were separate was completely possible. The next day's notes prove it.
I hope this settles the matter. Thanks for approving this.