Lange Report: "The goal... the execution of all Jews"

[fireofice]

According to Christopher Browning's The Origins of the Final Solution, it is said that there was a "fragmentary report" with no official date, but said to be from early 1942, written by Rudolf Lange, which read as follows:

The goal, of which EK 2 had a vague notion from the beginning, was a radical solution to the Jewish problem through the execution of all Jews.

Wikipedia quotes it like this:

From the very beginning, the goal of EK2 was that radical solution of the Jewish problem by killing all Jews.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Lange

The source for that version of the quote comes is said to come from The Holocaust in Latvia 1941–1944—The Missing Center by Andrew Ezergailis

I was able to get what was supposedly the original German of that quote from here:

https://phdn.org/histgen/documents/nazisdoc.html

The German version from that reads:

Das Ziel, das dem EK 2 von Anfang an vorschwebte, war eine Radikale Lösung des Judenproblems durch die Exekution aller Juden

The article from there translated it as:

The goal, which EK 2 envisaged from the beginning, was a radical solution to the Jewish problem through the execution of all Jews.

However, the German word vorschwebte can mean "to be on one's mind, to intend, to envision" in the past tense.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vorschweben

And indeed, plugging that into certain translators does give this result:

The goal that EK 2 had in mind from the beginning was a radical solution to the Jewish problem through the execution of all Jews.

Now something being "in mind" of "EK 2" is pretty vague. Does he mean there were a significant number of people within this group that wanted to execute all Jews, and just put them under the umbrella of EK 2? Since this is supposedly a fragment, what is the context? Did he support or condemn this? Was it hyperbole? Is it authentic? Until we are able to see the original document and see the full context, I don't see this being able to support the extermination story.

[Hektor]

You are right "vorschwebte" isn't equal to a set goal. It's a consideration, something you thought about as a possibility. Well, I'd imagine that the emotions of anger where quite high then. And part of the anger was on Jews.... for a number of reasons. As it goes: If you want to talk about Antisemitism, lets talk about Antigentilism first.

[Archie]

Here's the Browning footnote (pg. 515, note 359)

See fragmentary report by Ek 2 (Lange), no date (early 1942), BA R 70 Sowjetunion/ 20: "The goal, of which EK 2 had a vague notion from the beginning, was a radical solution of the Jewish problem through the execution of all Jews." (Das Ziel, das dem EK 2 von Anfang an vorschwebte, war eine radikale Lösung des Judenproblems durch die Exekution aller Juden.) See also EK 3 (Jäger), "Gesamtaufstellung," December, 1, 1941, USHMMA RG 11.001m, reel 183 (SAM 500-1-25, fol. 115).

The citation he provides is "BA R 70 Sowjetunion/ 20." This is the Bundesarchiv in Germany. I am not sure if it has been digitized yet.

https://www.bundesarchiv.de/DE/Navigation/Home/home.html

The "see also" he mentions is the famous "Jäger report."

[Hektor]

Here's the Browning footnote (pg. 515, note 359)

See fragmentary report by Ek 2 (Lange), no date (early 1942), BA R 70 Sowjetunion/ 20: "The goal, of which EK 2 had a vague notion from the beginning, was a radical solution of the Jewish problem through the execution of all Jews." (Das Ziel, das dem EK 2 von Anfang an vorschwebte, war eine radikale Lösung des Judenproblems durch die Exekution aller Juden.) See also EK 3 (Jäger), "Gesamtaufstellung," December, 1, 1941, USHMMA RG 11.001m, reel 183 (SAM 500-1-25, fol. 115).

The citation he provides is "BA R 70 Sowjetunion/ 20." This is the Bundesarchiv in Germany. I am not sure if it has been digitized yet.

https://www.bundesarchiv.de/DE/Navigation/Home/home.html

The "see also" he mentions is the famous "Jäger report."

Essentially all records that were assumed to be 'authentic' without ever even being tested. And well, in hostile hands for years or even decades. How to distinguish there real from fake won't be easy, but I don't think that has even been tried. It's however useful for innuendo so it will be posted, published, cited over and over again.

[Wilbur]

Here's the Browning footnote (pg. 515, note 359)

See fragmentary report by Ek 2 (Lange), no date (early 1942), BA R 70 Sowjetunion/ 20: "The goal, of which EK 2 had a vague notion from the beginning, was a radical solution of the Jewish problem through the execution of all Jews." (Das Ziel, das dem EK 2 von Anfang an vorschwebte, war eine radikale Lösung des Judenproblems durch die Exekution aller Juden.) See also EK 3 (Jäger), "Gesamtaufstellung," December, 1, 1941, USHMMA RG 11.001m, reel 183 (SAM 500-1-25, fol. 115).

The citation he provides is "BA R 70 Sowjetunion/ 20." This is the Bundesarchiv in Germany. I am not sure if it has been digitized yet.

https://www.bundesarchiv.de/DE/Navigation/Home/home.html

The "see also" he mentions is the famous "Jäger report."

The fragmentary report is reproduced in documents book series VEJ Bd. 7. at S. 558-590. The 1942 document shows towards the end that the policy in Latvia was to accommodate Reich Jews long-term, of whom most transported were allegedly women, children and elderly unable to work. (This is per the document, however I remember some transport rosters from the German side listing most passengers as work-capable.) This is obviously contrary to some December 1941 decision to exterminate all European Jews.

Assuming the Soviet-captured archival partial document is fully authentic, the moneyshot quote is a bit dishonest in how things came about; it's understandably politically correct (in the German context) in its language. They're not going to come out and say that incompetent leadership left them severely undermanned and they had to outsource security decision-making to score-settling Latvian nationalists, then later on Hitler's decision to have them receive Reich Jews blindsided them and some other shootings occurred to break a logistical impasse.. Instead, they did the lawyerly thing of pretending it became their decision all along, developed out of vague prescience from the beginning, under the aegis of eliminating Bolshevism in their operational area which is what they were authorized to do.

Even if the context is ignored, the line should not be misinterpreted as referencing a preexisting general order. The wording precludes it: it's their discretionary goal for a given area of operation (Latvia). Andrew Ezergailis was partly interested in getting in front of things and exculpating Latvians from Holocaust propaganda, which he kosherly couched as attacking/Russian Soviet propaganda. He's a pretty capable researcher, but the translations and interpretations he offers are somewhat shaded to that end.