Critique of the Matt Cockerill vs. Thomas Dalton Debate, Part 5

Matt Cockerill writes on page four:

“Naturally, the extermination operations described above were not ad hoc measures. Copious wartime statements by Nazi leaders corroborate the existence of a general policy – broadly recognized and accepted by German leaders – to murder Jewish civilians.”

Matt adds on page six:

“On the question of a genocide program, as I have shown, leading German statesmen explicitly and repeatedly referred to a wartime policy of exterminating Jews.”

My Response

A major problem with the official Holocaust story is that a written order from Adolf Hitler authorizing the Holocaust has never been found.

Originally the Holocaust story assumed that Germany had a plan or program for exterminating the Jews. In the 1961 edition of his book The Destruction of European Jews, Raul Hilberg wrote that in 1941 Hitler issued two orders for the extermination of the Jews.

In the revised 1985 edition of Hilberg’s book, all references to such extermination orders from Hitler were removed. Pro-Holocaust historian Christopher Browning, in a review of the revised edition of The Destruction of European Jews, wrote:[1]

“In the new edition, all references in the text to a Hitler decision or Hitler order for the ‘Final Solution’ have been systematically excised. Buried at the bottom of a single footnote stands the solitary reference: ‘Chronology and circumstances point to a Hitler decision before the summer ended.’ In the new edition, decisions were not made and orders were not given.”

When asked in 1983 how the extermination of European Jewry took place without an order, Raul Hilberg replied:[2]

“What began in 1941 was a process of destruction not planned in advance, not organized centrally by any agency. There was no blueprint and there was no budget for destructive measures. They were taken step by step, one step at a time. Thus, came about not so much a plan being carried out, but an incredible meeting of minds, a consensus—mind reading by a far-flung bureaucracy.”

On January 16, 1985, under cross-examination at the first Ernst Zündel trial in Toronto, Raul Hilberg confirmed that he said these words.[3] Thus, Hilberg stated that the genocide of European Jewry was not carried out by a plan or order, but rather by an incredible mind reading among far-flung German bureaucrats.

Other historians have acknowledged that no document of a plan by Germany to exterminate European Jewry has ever been found. In his well-known book on the Holocaust, French-Jewish historian Leon Poliakov stated that “[…] the campaign to exterminate the Jews, as regards its conception as well as many other essential aspects, remains shrouded in darkness.” Poliakov added that no documents of a plan for exterminating the Jews have ever been found because “perhaps none ever existed.”[4]

British historian Ian Kershaw stated that when the Soviet archives were opened in the early 1990s:[5]

“Predictably, a written order by Hitler for the ‘Final Solution’ was not found. The presumption that a single, explicit written order had ever been given had long been dismissed by most historians.”

Many defenders of the Holocaust story claim that the Wannsee conference held on January 20, 1942, was the start of a program to systematically exterminate Europe’s Jews. However, the documentary evidence of this meeting shows that no extermination program existed. Instead, the German policy was to evacuate the Jews to the East. Israeli Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer has declared:[6]

“The public still repeats, time after time, the silly story that at Wannsee the extermination of the Jews was arrived at.”

Likewise, Israeli Holocaust historian Leni Yahil has stated regarding the Wannsee conference:[7]

“[I]t is often assumed that the decision to launch the Final Solution was taken on this occasion, but this is not so.”

A gigantic operation such as the deportation of several million Jews into extermination camps and their murder there necessarily presupposes an organization which must have involved the participation of thousands of persons. Such an event does not happen without written orders, especially in a bureaucratically organized state such as the Third Reich.

Orders to exterminate Jews could also not have been transmitted by the German ultra-secret Enigma code because the British broke this ultra-secret code used by the Germans to transmit their secret communications. During 1942 and 1943, British Intelligence intercepted daily coded messages from Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, and seven other camps.[8] Any German orders to exterminate Jews would have been recorded by British Intelligence.

British historian David Irving was asked at the 1988 Ernst Zündel trial: Do you consider it likely that an enterprise of the magnitude of the extermination of the Jews of Europe could be accomplished by the people [Germans] knowing the way they conducted business from their documents without the existence of explicit orders and plans?

David Irving testified:[9]

“Not only without existence of orders, but also without the existence of any written reference to it. I have to say that the German wartime civil servant was basically a cowardly animal, and he would not do something that he considered to be criminal without getting a document clearing himself. He would get his superior to write a letter saying, ‘On the Führer’s orders, we are doing the following,’ which is why there are letters showing Himmler saying, ‘On the Führer’s orders, we are deporting the Jews.’ Which was the extent of the Führer’s orders and which was the extent, to my mind, of the final solution. So, the documents don’t exist where you expect to find them. Hitler’s other crimes, the documents are there: the euthanasia order, the order to kill British commandos, the orders to lynch American airmen, the orders for the killing of the male population of Stalingrad if ever they occupied it. Hitler’s other crimes, simple crimes, the documents are there where you expect to find them. And yet this biggest crime of all, there is no document. […] I think there would definitely have had to be orders, and these orders would have been referred to in countless files of different ministerial bodies. So, it would have been impossible for these documents to have been destroyed at the end of the war. There would always be carbon copies somewhere.”

It should be noted that defenders of the Holocaust claim that the Germans took extreme measures to preserve the secrecy of their extermination program. This is why they say that no one has ever found an order, plan, budget, or organization by Germany to exterminate European Jewry. However, it is untenable and absurd to think that German leaders would be stupid enough to make written and public statements about their genocide of European Jewry, while simultaneously taking extreme measures to hide their program of mass extermination of the Jews.

Most people realize that Raul Hilberg’s claim that the Holocaust was carried out through “an incredible meeting of minds, a consensus–mind reading by a far-flung bureaucracy” is absurd. Thus, absent a written order from Hitler, defenders of the Holocaust story inevitably quote speeches from Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, and Heinrich Himmler or writings from Hitler, Goebbels, Hans Frank, and other German leaders to prove that Germany had an extermination program against Jews. This is what Matt Cockerill does in his debate with Thomas Dalton.

Matt Cockerill writes on page 12:

“Unfortunately for deniers, there are at least two occasions in which Nazi leaders defined Vernichtung and Ausrottung of Jews as literally meaning killing. In Himmler’s 6 October 1943 Posen speech, the Reichsführer SS literally defines the Ausrottung of Jews as ‘killing Jews or having them killed’ (‘umzubringen, oder umbringen zu lassen’), and Robert Ley’s 3 May 1943 speech describes Jews who have been vernichtet (annihilated) as gestorben (dead), while noting that the Nazis will not give up their struggle until the last Jew in Europe is dead.”

My Response

A mass extermination program to kill millions of Jews would have had to come from an order directly from Adolf Hitler. Yet, no such order exists. Heinrich Himmler’s Posen speech of October 4, 1943 has been called “the best evidence” to prove the Holocaust happened.[10] Himmler stated in this speech:[11]

“I am referring here to the evacuation of the Jews, to the extermination of the Jewish people…  it’s in our program, elimination of the Jews, extermination.”

Most translations of Himmler’s Posen speech assume that the German word “ausrotten” means murder or extermination. David Irving, who is very fluent in the German language, testified at the second Ernst Zündel trial in 1988 that this is an incorrect translation of the word “ausrotten.” Irving testified:[12]

“There is no doubt that in modern Germany the word ausrotten now means murder. But we have to look at the meaning of the word ausrotten in the 1930s and 1940s, as used by those who wrote or spoke these documents. In the mouth of Adolf Hitler, the word ausrotten is never once used to mean murder, and I’ve made a study of that particular semantic problem. You can find document after document which Hitler himself spoke or wrote where the word ausrotten cannot possibly mean murder.

I can give one or two examples briefly. In August 1936, Hitler dictated the famous memorandum on the four-year plan which contains the phrase ‘if the Bolsheviks succeed in entering Germany, it will lead to the ausrotten [recte: Ausrottung] of the German people.’ Now, clearly, he doesn’t mean that if the Bolsheviks invade Germany it will lead to the murder of 50 million Germans. He is saying it will lead to the end of Germany as a national state, as a power, as a factor, an end of the German people. He says the same to the Czechoslovakian President Emil Hácha, on March the 15th, 1939. Hácha has just signed away Czechoslovakia’s independence in a midnight session with Hitler and Hitler says to him afterwards: ‘It is a good thing that you signed because otherwise it would have meant the ausrotten [recte: Ausrottung] of the Czechoslovakian people.’ Hitler didn’t mean, ‘If you hadn’t signed, I would have had to kill 8 million Czechs.’ What he is saying [is], ‘If you hadn’t signed, I would have ended Czechoslovakia’s existence as a separate country.’ There are various other examples of that, and I defy anybody to find the meaning of the word differently used by Adolf Hitler to mean the word ‘murder.’ This is the kind of analysis which unfortunately the academic historians have not bothered to conduct.”

Since Hitler never used the word “ausrotten” to mean murder, and since Hitler and Himmler spoke the same language, there is no reason to believe that Himmler was speaking about the murder of the Jews in his Posen speech. The word “ausrotten” did not mean murder or extermination until after World War II.

Matt Cockerill writes on page four:

“Naturally, the extermination operations described above were not ad hoc measures. Copious wartime statements by Nazi leaders corroborate the existence of a general policy – broadly recognized and accepted by German leaders – to murder Jewish civilians. On 12 December 1941, Goebbels reported on a speech given by Hitler the same day, On the Jewish question, the Führer has decided to make a clean sweep. He prophesied to the Jews that, if they yet again brought about a world war, they would experience their own annihilation. That was not just a figure of speech. The world war is here, the destruction of the Jews must be the necessary consequence. Removing any doubt that ‘destruction’ (Vernichtung) of the Jews might be meant metaphorically, Goebbels concludes by noting that, for the crime of allegedly starting the war, the Jews ‘will have to pay […] with their lives.’

Hans Frank, the head of the General Government (German-occupied Poland), attended Hitler’s 12 December 1941 speech and reported to his colleagues back in Poland a few days later: In Berlin we were told, why are you making all this trouble? We don’t want [the Jews] either, not in the Ostland nor in the Reichskommissariat; liquidate them yourselves! Gentlemen, I must ask you to steel yourselves against all considerations of compassion. We must destroy the Jews wherever we find them, and wherever it is at all possible.”

My Response

The attentive reader will notice that Matt Cockerill does not explain why there is no written order from Hitler to exterminate Europe’s Jews. Matt realizes that Raul Hilberg’s claim that the Holocaust was carried out through “an incredible meeting of minds, a consensus–mind reading by a far-flung bureaucracy” is complete nonsense. So, Matt quotes from various German leaders to attempt to convince people that National Socialist Germany had a policy to exterminate Jewish civilians.

Thomas Dalton correctly writes on page eight of this debate about the words Vernichtung and Ausrottung:

“Hitler, Goebbels, and others used words like Vernichtung and Ausrottung, which are flamboyant terms for removal or elimination. But they do not entail murder. The Western press always translated these terms in English as ‘extermination’ or ‘annihilation,’ in a literal or physical sense. But the press was doing that for decades before Hitler. NY Times articles dating back to the 1880s decry the ‘extermination,’ ‘annihilation,’ and even ‘holocaust’ against the Jews in various countries – which never meant their physical killing. It really is striking how persistent this theme is. Again, one sees how any action against Jews is portrayed in the harshest possible terms.”

The two reports Matt uses from Joseph Goebbels and Hans Frank were made shortly after Hitler’s speech on December 11, 1941 to the German nation declaring war on the United States. I will now examine the historical context in which Hitler made his statements reported by Goebbels and Frank.

Hitler stated that U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Soviet Union were controlled by Jews. Hitler mentioned the Jewish control of President Roosevelt and the Soviet Union in his speech on December 11, 1941:[13]

“The circle of Jews around Roosevelt encouraged him [to divert attention to foreign policy]. With Old Testament vindictiveness they regarded the United States as the instrument which they and he could use to prepare a second Purim against the nations of Europe, which were increasingly anti-Jewish. So it was that the Jews, in all of their satanic baseness, gathered around this man, and he relied on them…

We know the power behind Roosevelt. It is the same eternal Jew that believes that his hour has come to impose the same fate on us that we have all seen and experienced with horror in Soviet Russia. We have gotten to know the Jewish paradise on earth first hand. Millions of German soldiers have personally seen the land where this international Jewry has destroyed and annihilated people and property. Perhaps the President of the United States does not understand this. If so, that only speaks for his intellectual narrow-mindedness.”

Hitler is correct that Roosevelt was surrounded by Jewish advisors. Jewish historian Lucy Dawidowicz noted:

“Roosevelt himself brought into his immediate circle more Jews than any other President before or after him.”

A partial list of Jews surrounding Roosevelt include: Bernard Baruch, Felix Frankfurter, David E. Lilienthal, David Niles, Louis Brandeis, Samuel I. Rosenman, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Benjamin V. Cohen, Rabbi Stephen Wise, Francis Perkins, Sidney Hillman, Herbert H. Lehman, Jesse I. Straus, Harold J. Laski, Charles E. Wyzanski, Samuel Untermyer, Edward Filene, David Dubinsky, Mordecai Ezekiel, Abe Fortas, Harold Ickes, Isador Lubin, Harry Dexter White (Weiss), David Weintraub, Nathan G. Silvermaster, Harold Glasser, Irving Kaplan, Solomon Adler, Benjamin Cardozo, Anna Rosenberg, and numerous others, almost to the exclusion of Gentile advisers. Consequently, Roosevelt was surrounded by a milieu of Jewish hate and hostility toward Germany.[14]

Hitler is also correct that Jews had taken control of the Soviet Union. Capt. Montgomery Schuyler, a U.S. Army intelligence officer in Russia during its revolutionary period, stated in a report dated June 9, 1919:

“A table made up in 1918, by Robert Wilton, correspondent of the London Times in Russia, shows at that time there were 384 commissars including two Negroes, 13 Russians, 15 Chinamen, 22 Armenians and more than 300 Jews. Of the latter number 264 had come from the United States since the downfall of the Imperial Government.”

Thus, the “Russian Revolution” had only 13 ethnic Russians and more than 300 Jews in its top governing body of 384 members.[15]

British Intelligence reports also confirm that Jews controlled the Communist revolution in the Soviet Union. The first sentence in a lengthy British Intelligence report dated July 16, 1919, stated:

“There is now definite evidence that Bolshevism is an international movement controlled by Jews.”

Even Winston Churchill, in an article appearing in the Illustrated Sunday Herald on February 8, 1920, wrote:[16]

“There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution by these international and for the most part atheistical Jews […].”

Hitler was convinced that Jews were ultimately responsible for starting World War II, and said so on many occasions.[17] A large body of evidence indicates that Jews had taken control of the American, British, and Soviet governments prior to World War II. Hitler correctly stated that these Jews played a major role in instigating World War II to the detriment of non-Jewish citizens.[18]

So, Hitler’s Final Solution to the Jewish problem was to force every Jew to leave Germany. Such a policy was highly discriminatory and unfair to most German Jews. However, since Jews were the driving force behind Communism, Hitler felt that Jews had to be driven out to eliminate their subversive influence on Germany. Also, Hitler and many commentators believed that Germany’s economic program could not have succeeded by leaving intact the Jewish power structure in Germany.[19] Hitler’s Final Solution did not entail the mass extermination of Jews.

Thomas Dalton correctly states on page 25 of this debate:

“Goebbels is not saying that “all the Jews” must pay with their lives, or even “most of the Jews;” only “the authors of this [war].” That can only refer to the Jewish leadership and top influence-peddlers. And for them, yes, Goebbels says that they must pay.”

Thus, the Goebbels’ quote does not indicate a German policy of genocide against the Jews.

Dalton on page 26 of this debate then quotes the following memo of December 16, 1941 from Hans Frank:[20]

“What is to happen to the Jews [after evacuation]? […] We have in the General Government an estimated 2.5 million Jews – perhaps with those closely related to Jews and what goes with it, now 3.5 million Jews. We can’t shoot these 3.5 million Jews; we can’t poison them […].”

Obviously, Hans Frank and Joseph Goebbels in their statements were not referring to a German program of genocide. They were thinking strictly in terms of the mass evacuation and deportation of Jews rather than of a mass extermination program of Jews.

Matt Cockerill writes on page three:

“Regarding Sobibor, Belzec, and Treblinka II, in the well-known 27 March 1942 entry of Joseph Goebbels’s diary, the Nazi propaganda minister mentioned the process of deporting Jews there, and noted that Aktion Reinhardt director Odilo Globocnik was using a ‘pretty barbaric’ procedure to ‘liquidate’ Jews. At Treblinka II specifically, Nazi documents refer to Jews deported there being systematically killed. On 29 December 1942, Heinrich Himmler wrote a report to Hitler that described the execution of 363,211 Jews in various locations. As Hans Metzner notes, among these Jews listed as executed were the Jews of Bialystok, most of whom we know were sent to Treblinka II. The Stroop Report of May 1943 – which contained many telegrams with information concerning the murder of the remaining Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto – also characterizations deportation to Treblinka II (‘T.II’) as a method of execution. One of the telegrams cited by Stroop even states that ‘6,929 Jews were annihilated (vernichtet)’ by transportation to Treblinka II (‘T. II’).

With respect to Kulmhof, a 16 June 1943 letter from the Secret State Police of Posen to the SS Sonderkommando Kulmhof described the Kulmhof Sonderkommando’s duty as the ‘fight against and annihilation of state enemies,’ requiring ‘in particular a manly and strong mental attitude.’”

My Response

Goebbels’s diary entry of March 27, 1942, reinforces the Revisionist claim that Jews were being deported to the East. Goebbels wrote:[21]

“Beginning with Lublin, the Jews in the General Government are now being deported to the East.”

Goebbels in this entry says nothing about homicidal gas chambers or a German program of genocide against the Jews.

Heinrich Himmler’s report of December 29, 1942 will be discussed in a later article on the “Holocaust by Bullets.” The link Matt provides to Hans Metzner’s analysis has a link to the so-called Franke-Gricksch Report. Germar Rudolf writes about this report:[22]

“Fact is that this translation of the original report supports the revisionist hypothesis that ‘Operation Reinhardt’ had nothing to do with a mass-murder operation, as orthodox historians claim, but was about plundering the possessions of the Jews who had been deported for forced labor or resettlement…  This example shows that and why ‘German’ documents have been fabricated.”

Rudolf was told that in August of 2019 the real and authentic original of this letter had been found. Rudolf responds:[23]

“Well, no, not an original, but a carbon copy of some unknown original, if that ever existed. But this doesn’t change the fact that it’s only a piece of typed-up paper without signature, date, letterhead, stamp or any other element that links it to any person, event or date. Anybody could have typed it at any time. This carbon copy also doesn’t change the fact that its contents is simply a bunch of nonsense. Furthermore, differences between this carbon copy and Lipmann’s ‘transcript’ make it likely that Lipmann’s text is actually the original, whereas the carbon copy is the improved copy, which means that this carbon copy is a re-typed version of Lipmann’s forgery […].”

Thus, the Franke-Gricksch Report does not prove a German program of mass extermination against the Jews.

The Stroop Report of May 1943 is certainly proof that the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising involved extremely vicious fighting in which many thousands of Jews died. German forces engaged in lethal force to quell the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. However, it is not proof that Germany had a program of genocide against the Jews.

Matt refers to the Stroop Report from May 24, 1943. This report reads:

“Of the total of 56,065 [Jews] caught, about 7,000 were destroyed in the former Ghetto during large-scale operation. 6,929 Jews were destroyed during transportation to T.II; the sum total of Jews destroyed is therefore 13,929. Beyond the number of 56,065 an estimated number of 5,000 to 6,000 Jews were destroyed by being blown up or by perishing in the flames.”

Stroop’s calculation of the total number of Jews killed during the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto – 13,929 of the 56,065 caught – indicates the large-scale nature of the fighting in Warsaw. Stroop’s statement that 6,929 Jews died or were killed while being transported to Treblinka (“T.II”) does not mean that these Jews died at the camp itself. It is unknown how these Jews died.[24]

Matt Cockerill’s citation of a letter from SS Sonderkommando Kulmhof describing the Kulmhof Sonderkommando’s duty as the “fight against and annihilation of state enemies,” requiring “in particular a manly and strong mental attitude” is not proof of a German extermination plan against Jews. This letter says nothing about homicidal gas chambers or a German program of genocide against Jews.

Matt Cockerill writes on pages four and five:

“On 3 May, 1943, the director of the German Labor Front Robert Ley proclaimed in a speech at a German armaments factory that ‘we swear we will not give up the struggle until the last Jew in Europe is annihilated and dead!’ The aforementioned Hans Frank announced on 24 August 1942 that, apart from essential workers, Jews in the General Government would no longer be fed. Frank also declared that 1.2 million Polish Jews would be condemned to death by starvation, and commented that it was ‘self-evident’ that if these Jews did not starve to death, that the ‘anti-Jewish measures’ (i.e., deportation to death camps) would hopefully be accelerated.”

My Response

Blood thirsty and inflammatory statements were also made by the Allies during the war. In a war in which many millions of people were killed, emotions ran high and highly provocative and heated statements were made by supposedly responsible people on both sides of the war. Such statements do not prove that Germany had a program of extermination against the Jews. Instead, these statements reflect the fact that German leaders believed that world Jewry had started World War II, and must be defeated.

There is no credible evidence that Robert Ley and the Germans attempted to murder every Jew in Europe. Also, despite Hans Frank’s statement, 1.2 million Polish Jews were not intentionally starved to death during the war.

Hans Frank testified at the International Military Tribunal (IMT) that he had not known of a program of mass killings against the Jews during the war. However, when asked if he had participated in the annihilation of the Jews, Hans Frank stated:[25]

“I say yes […] particularly after hearing the testimony of the witness Höss, my conscience does not allow me to throw the responsibility on these minor people. […] A thousand years will pass and still this guilt of Germany will not have been erased.”

This last sentence has been repeatedly quoted in books and articles by Holocaust historians about the National Socialist period. It does not prove that Germany had a program of genocide against the Jews. It only shows that Hans Frank believed the false testimony given at the IMT from Rudolf Höss that had been obtained through Höss’s torture.

Contrary to what is often claimed or insinuated, none of the defendants at the IMT stated that they knew anything of an extermination plan of Jews during the war. Hermann Göring, Hans Frank, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Albert Speer, Gen. Alfred Jodl, and the other IMT defendants all denied knowing anything of an extermination policy against European Jewry. While such testimony is often dismissed as lying, the categorical and consistent nature of their testimony, sometimes by men who assumed they would be hanged, suggests that they are telling the truth.[26]

Matt Cockerill writes on page five:

“In a meeting with the Hungarian Regent Horthy on 17 April 1943, Adolf Hitler said, of the Polish Jews under German occupation, that if they ‘did not want to work, they were shot’ and ‘if they could not work, they had to perish.’ At the same meeting, the German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop declared that ‘the Jews must be exterminated or taken to concentration camps. There was no other possibility.’ In his notorious Posen Speech on 6 October 1943, Heinrich Himmler spoke explicitly of a German policy to ‘exterminate’ not only Jewish men but also women and children, and clarified that ‘exterminate’ (ausrotten) meant ‘to kill them or have them killed’ (‘umzubringen, oder umbringen zu lassen’). In one of his final diary entries, written near the end of the war on 14 March 1945, Joseph Goebbels wrote that ‘When you have the power to do so, you have to kill these Jews like rats. In Germany we have, thank God, thoroughly taken care of that already. I hope the world will take this as an example.’”

My Response

The documentary evidence indicates that a high percentage of the inmates at Birkenau were disabled. Oswald Pohl, in a secret report to Heinrich Himmler dated April 5, 1944, stated that there were 67,000 inmates in the entire Auschwitz-Birkenau camp complex, of which 18,000 were unable to work. In Birkenau there were a total of 36,000 inmates, of whom “approximately 15,000 are unable to work.”[27] Such high percentages of disabled inmates at Auschwitz-Birkenau are not consistent with a program of mass extermination.

Auschwitz-Birkenau also served as a transit camp for children and detainees unfit for work. This is indicated by a note dated July 21, 1942, concerning a telephone conversation that took place the day before. SS Hauptsturmführer Theodor Dannecker wrote:[28]

“The question of the evacuation of children was discussed with SS-Obersturmbannführer Eichmann. He decided that transports of children are to take place as soon as transports into the General Government are again possible. SS-Obersturmführer Nowak promised to provide about six transports to the General Government at the end of August/beginning of September, which may contain Jews of all kinds (also those unfit for work and old Jews).”

Numerous sick and disabled Jews were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and survived. For example, Primo Levi and Otto Frank were disabled Jews who one would think would have been executed at Auschwitz-Birkenau. However, along with about 7,000 to 8,000 additional disabled Jews, Levi and Frank were left behind in Auschwitz. Although the Germans could have executed Primo Levi, Otto Frank and the other disabled Jews in a few days, the Germans let them survive to tell their stories about Auschwitz-Birkenau.[29]

So, despite what Adolf Hitler might have said to Hungarian Regent Horthy, Jews who could not work were not murdered in German camps.

Regarding German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop’s statement that “the Jews must be exterminated or taken to concentration camps,” clearly millions of Jews were sent to concentration camps. They were not exterminated. Ribbentrop’s statement does not indicate a German program of genocide against Jews.

We have already covered Heinrich Himmler’s Posen Speech on October 6, 1943. As previously mentioned, Himmler did not discuss the mass extermination of Jews in this speech.

Thomas Dalton writes on page 27 of this debate regarding Matt’s citation of Joseph Goebbels’ diary entry on March 14, 1945:

“But then he cites Goebbels’ diary again, from very late in the war (14 Mar 1945). At this point, the outcome was clear. The chief instigators – on the Germans’ view, Jewish capitalists (to the west) and Jewish Bolsheviks (to the east) – were responsible for the deaths of 4.5 or 5 million German soldiers and perhaps 2 million civilians. Finally (and for the only time in his diary!), Goebbels called for Jews to be killed en masse. Where was such talk in 1940 or 1941 or 1942??”

Dalton correctly states that this Goebbels’ diary entry does not prove that Jews had been subject to a program of mass extermination or genocide.

Matt Cockerill writes on page five:

“The calls of German leaders to kill Jews were not merely personal sentiments, but formally codified in the law of the Schutzstaffel (SS). On 26 October 1942, an SS judge reported to the SS Main Legal Office Himmler’s decision that killing Jews would be legal for SS man, provided that their motive was political (i.e., ideological antisemitism) rather than personal (i.e., pecuniary, sexual, or sadistic). This principle was applied in the court-martial of SS man Max Täubner, who was court-martialled and punished for the sadism and exhibitionism he displayed while massacring Jews: The accused shall not be punished because of the actions against the Jews as such. The Jews have to be exterminated and none of the Jews that were killed is any great loss. Although the accused should have recognized that the extermination of the Jews was the duty of Kommandos which were set up especially for this purpose, he should be excused for considering himself to have the authority to take part in the extermination of Jewry himself. While Täubner was condemned for ‘apply[ing] Bolshevik methods during the necessary extermination of the worst enemy of our people’ (emphasis mine), the court-martial emphasized that he was not being condemned for massacring Jews. Thomas, how can you deny that German policy was genocidal when German (SS) law formally sanctioned the murder of Jews by SS men?”

My Response

Max Täubner was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment by the SS and Police Supreme Court of Munich for the arbitrary killing of dozens of Jews. Therefore, the idea that a German soldier in World War II could go out and shoot any Jew whenever he felt like it for any reason is a fantasy, along with the alleged homicidal gas chambers, the fantastic cremation rates, and the 6 million Jewish deaths.

All inmates in the German concentration camps, Jews included, were subject to the following different set of regulations:

“I am aware that only the Führer may decide upon the life and death of an enemy of the state. I may not physically harm or kill any opponent of the state (inmate). Any killing of an inmate in a concentration camp requires the personal authorization of the Reichsführer SS [Himmler].”

A message dated September 1, 1942 intercepted and decrypted by the British confirms the above directive. This is an order from SS Brigadeführer Richard Glücks, Head of Office Group D of the SS WVHA to the concentration camp commanders:

“Camp commanders:

Executions may only be carried out by order of the Reich Security Main Office.

Signed GLUECKS, SS Brigadeführer and Major General of the Waffen SS.”

Thus, Himmler’s order had nothing to do with Jewish inmates in the German camps, and does not indicate a German policy of genocide against the Jews.[30]

Notes