The Second Babylonian Captivity

Foreword

According to orthodox historiography, which is prescribed by penal law in many European countries, about three million European Jews were murdered in homicidal gas chambers between December 1941 and the autumn of 1944. These chambers are said to have been erected in six camps in Poland, in the combined “concentration and extermination camps” Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek (Lublin) and in the “pure extermination camps” in Bełżec, Chełmno (Kulmhof), Sobibór and Treblinka.

Revisionist historians contest this, however. They insist that there is no documentary or material evidence for this assertion. In a series of studies, they have provided evidence based on documentation as well as archaeological-forensic and technical evidence,

• that the alleged homicidal gas chambers never existed in these camps,
• that it would have been technically impossible to burn the alleged quantities of corpses as claimed in crematoria or on pyres,
• that there are no traces of mass graves of the necessary size,
• that the alleged casualties of these camps were, and still are, greatly exaggerated, and
• that the existence of a National Socialist plan for the systematic murder of European Jews cannot be proved.[1]

In essence, there is no dispute as to the fact that well over two million Jews have been deported to the aforementioned camps. If one assumes, as a working hypothesis, that the deportees in these camps were not murdered, the question arises: what else happened to them?

Revisionists posit that the six camps mentioned functioned partially (Auschwitz, Majdanek) or exclusively as transit camps, where the mass of deported Jews stayed only very briefly and then was deported further to the east. This is also Werner’s first hypothesis, as he explains at the very beginning. Over the years, several revisionists have tried to substantiate this thesis.[2] They have shown that this transit-camp hypothesis is fully in line with the documented policies of the Third Reich toward the Jews, as reflected in official and internal reports, documents on Jewish transports, and even in classified exchanges among leading SS members.

However, orthodox historians insist that the terms dominating in these documents, such as transit camps, eastward migration, resettlement, and evacuation, were merely part of a code language used by those in charge of the Third Reich to avoid documenting the ugly, if not highly criminal, reality of mass murders, in order not to create evidence against themselves. Although such tactics are likely to be used by hypothetical mass murderers, the absence of documentary evidence for the mass murder is certainly no proof for it, but rather against it.

While orthodox historians struggle to explain where the corpses or their remnants are that resulted from the mass murder they postulate, the revisionists face the challenge of proving where the Jews went.

There can be no doubt that the deportation of millions of people would have left distinct traces. Even if one assumes that the archives, especially in the former Soviet Union, have been cleansed of all sorts of “inconvenient” documents, it is to be expected that other documentary traces have been preserved. In addition, there should be a multitude of testimonies attesting to the arrival and presence of deported Jews in the occupied eastern territories. It is also to be expected that these settlement activities left material traces as well.

In three lengthy papers published in 2010/2011, Swedish revisionist Thomas Kues put together all the evidence that had been found in support of the revisionist thesis, adding a long list of new evidence to this already substantial list (Kues 2010a&b, 2011).

For many orthodox historians, the revisionist transit-camp hypothesis is a tremendous provocation that they usually ignore studiously. In December 2011, however, five orthodox researchers published a 570-page response to the revisionist thesis (Harrison et al.). This, in turn, triggered a massive response from the criticized revisionist researchers, which was published just two years later, in October 2013, in a two-volume work of nearly 1,400 pages (Mattogno/Kues/Graf).

In the present context, it is of particular interest that on this occasion Thomas Kues and Carlo Mattogno refined their arguments as first laid out in the above-mentioned books and articles, and substantiated them in 140 pages with further arguments and evidence (ibid., Chapter 7: “Where They Went: The Reality of Resettlement”, Vol. 1, pp. 561-703).

Reading these revisionist works on the subject makes one realize that the fate of those deportees who were deported to the East was not very rosy. Although they may not have been killed (“gassed”) in Bełżec, Chełm­no, Sobibór or Treblinka, their lot in Byelorussia and other destinations was not necessarily much better, since accommodating these masses under humane conditions in these areas in such a short period of time and under wartime conditions was logistically impossible. The number of casualties must therefore have been terribly high for this scenario as well.

In spite of all this, orthodox historians still reject the revisionist hypothesis of transit camps. Some of them challenge the revisionists to show them one Jew, one single Jew, who was deported to one of the “extermination camps,” survived and then appeared further east. I responded to this challenge with an article that, in my view, meets this criterion: one single Jew. No, actually two (Rudolf 2017). Both cases were not discovered by me, but by Carlo Mattogno and Jean-Marie Boisdefeu. Here are the two cases:

Case No. 1, Discovered by Carlo Mattogno

A certain Minna Grossova, who was born on September 20, 1874, was deported to Treblinka on October 19, 1942 at age 68, at a time when on average about 5,000 Jews were allegedly killed and buried there every day. But instead of being killed there, she simply passed through Treblinka and from there was sent on to Auschwitz, of all places. At her age, she was certainly classified as “unfit for labor” by the usual selection on arrival and would therefore have been sent to the gas chambers, if the orthodox thesis were correct. But that is not what happened, because she was properly registered in the camp and died there only 14 months later, on 30 December 1943 (Mattogno 2016, p. 165).

If Mrs. Grossova was spared the gas chambers at Treblinka and Ausch­witz at the age of 68 years, then why should many other not have shared the same fate? This fate also underlines that Treblinka was actually used as a transit camp in which not even old, infirm Jews were murdered. In any case, it is unlikely that Mrs. Grossova was the only deportee transferred from Treblinka to Auschwitz. Single transports for Jews in passenger cars did not exist at that time.

Case No. 2, Discovered by Jean-Marie Boisdefeu

This case is based on a memorial book published by a German government agency. It is about the Berlin Jew Siegmund Rothstein, born in 1857, who was deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto in August 1942. However, just over a month later, on 26 September, he was deported to Treblinka at the age of 75. But this was still not his end, because the German authorities recorded another sign of life from him even further east: they determined that Rothstein had died in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. This city is located 286 kilometers east of Treblinka (Boisdefeu 2009, pp. 133-136).

I doubt that the 75-year-old Mr. Rothstein jumped off the train before arriving in Treblinka and drove to the German-occupied Minsk by himself. Therefore, he must have arrived there by train. I also doubt that the German authorities reserved a train just for him or simply took him to Minsk in a military train. He must have made this journey with hundreds or thousands of deportees from Theresienstadt on a deportation train.

This is by no means an isolated incident, for Boisdefeu states that none of the thousands of Jews deported from Theresienstadt are listed in the German memorial book as killed in Treblinka, but that they are all listed as having died or given their last sign of life at different places before any trace of them disappeared. This case also indicates that thousands of Jews were deported through Treblinka as a transit camp to the “East.”

But there were also deportations to the west that ran through Treblinka. On this, several eyewitness accounts of survivors exist which were recorded by orthodox organizations (Hunt, 6 min. 18 sec.). These witnesses confirm that they, along with hundreds of other deportees, were actually transited through the Treblinka Camp. Although these survivors were sent to the Majdanek Labor Camp rather than to the East, they confirm that Treblinka, at least in these cases, served as a transit camp for thousands of Jews.

It follows that Treblinka must in fact have had the logistics enabling it to temporarily – for a few hours or days – house, feed and clean hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals.

Research Desiderata

“These are just isolated cases,” claim our opponents. Sure, but so far nobody has systematically explored this issue. These isolated cases are all it takes, however, to undermine the dogma of the pure extermination camps irreparably. Apparently, Treblinka and thus probably also Bełżec, Chełmno and Sobibór were more than just extermination camps. What remains to be done?

• The thousands of survivor statements taken by various institutions should be systematically scanned for brief references to stays in the “pure extermination camps.”
• Government archives, media archives, museums and other historical collections in cities and towns in the areas considered to be destinations for deportations should be combed for documentary evidence of preparations for expected deportations or for deportees’ arrival and accommodation or any different treatment.

A few years ago, Thomas Kues decided to undertake a longer research trip to the deportation area in order to tackle the second desideratum listed above. However, he met with unexpected resistance, so that he not only had to give up this endeavor, but was also forced to withdraw completely from historical research at least temporarily. To this date, he has not sent us more detailed information.

In the present book, Steffen Werner took a different approach to at least partially unravel the mystery of the fate of Jews deported to the East. He wrote this book when the Soviet Union was in free fall. Werner expressed his hope that the policy of Glasnost and Perestroika initiated by Gorbachev would result in many files and archives that had previously been inaccessible would now be made freely accessible. This, he hoped, would make it possible to further substantiate his thesis that the Jews deported to the East were actually sent “into the morass” of Byelorussia, as Hitler put it.

Unfortunately, the archival spring of free Russia lasted only a few years. Due in part to pressure from the German government, the Russians and other Eastern European countries closed their archives again toward the late 1990s. Since then, independent researchers are no longer able to access these archives. Since 2014, it is moreover potentially punishable with up to five years’ imprisonment in Russia, as it is in Germany, to publicly disseminate theses as they are presented and substantiated here.

Werner’s second thesis is that the Jews deported during the war to the east “into the morass” should still be there today (meaning in 1990). I think that this thesis is somewhat naïve, for several reasons:

1. The Einsatzgruppen

As Werner mentioned several times, the German troops in the East were involved in a brutal partisan war. What Werner does not mention are the German counter-measures, especially the operations of the Einsatzgruppen and associated German units. Werner has an amazing blind spot here, because he does not mention the term Einsatzgruppen even once in his entire text.

According to the orthodox narrative, the Einsatzgruppen committed massacres in the East among the Baltic, Ukrainian, Belorussian and Russian Jews since the very beginning of the Russian campaign, and at least about one million Jews fell victim to them. Jews from other parts of Europe deported to the East are said to have gotten caught up in this maelstrom as well.

Revisionist texts on this complex see the activities of the Einsatzgruppen in a somewhat differentiated light, but even from their perspective it also becomes clear that the Jews in the East had to endure being scapegoated for the escalation of the war (see Rudolf’s “Concluding Remarks” to Siegert, pp. 550-555, as well as Mattogno 2018).

Under these circumstances, it is to be expected that some of the Jews deported to the East sooner or later ended up in mass graves, either because they joined the partisans and were executed as such by the Germans, because they were executed during reprisal killings for crimes perpetrated by – even that would have been legal under martial law, if it did not take on excessive forms (see Siegert) – or because they were “preventively” murdered with kith and kin as alleged bearers of Bolshevism and potential contributors to the partisans warfare. Irrespective of the legal evaluation of the individual actions, the fact remains that Jews deported to the East were by no means safe there, to say the least.

2. Stalin’s Policies Toward Deportees

After these areas had been recaptured by the Red Army, the Jews possibly deported to the East were still not out of danger, however. First of all, one has to keep in mind that no one was liberated who was conquered by the Red Army. The change of the ruling armies brought only a change of the oppressive system, but no liberation. In fact, large parts of the populations temporarily occupied by the German made it very clear by their voting with their feet what they thought about the Red-Army liberation propaganda: When the German units began to retreat, large swaths of the locals wanted to tag along with the Germans to the west but had to be prevented from doing so, because a trek of millions of westward migrants or refugees would have made German military operations impossible.

Although the Jews, as scapegoats of the National Socialists, were most likely to have felt liberated by the Red Army, Stalin was by no means a friend of the Jews as such. His mistrust of all sections of the population that had once been under German influence was so great (and mostly justified) that witch hunts set in on former collaborators in all the reconquered areas. Significant sections of ethnic groups that had collaborated particularly strongly with the Germans disappeared into Siberia. Inmates of liberated camps were not exempt from this, whether they were prisoners of war, labor or concentration camps or even ghettos. In particular, foreign elements with a Western-liberal background were considered suspicious at the time.

After the withdrawal of the Germans, the people who survived not only the deportation itself but also the actions of the Einsatzgruppen and the certainly poor living conditions in “the morass,” saw themselves once more as targets of persecution and oppression. It may therefore be assumed that the number of surviving deportees who were still living in “the morass” when the Soviet Union collapsed was not high.

But even those who were allowed to stay in the deportation areas and later did not follow the general trend of moving to the West or to Israel in order to emigrate, eventually will have become a prisoner of the USSR, just like all other people in this totalitarian empire. Whether Jewish or not, whether deportee, displaced or local, the pressure of assimilation in the USSR at that time was great, and there was virtually no possibility for certain groups – here the former deportees – to organize themselves outside state supervision.

Under these circumstances, it would be almost impossible without help from the authorities or at least their acquiescence to track down survivors of that time or their descendants today. And with every year passing, this gets even more difficult.

In fact, not only is there no help or toleration from the authorities for such hypothetical research projects, but at best a visit from the public prosecutor, see above.

It is therefore not surprising that the earlier editions of this book were confiscated in 1993 by ordered of the Tübingen District Court and subsequently burned in waste incineration plants.[3] When facing such dictatorial conditions, historical scholarship can produce reliable results in this field of study only with the utmost exertion and with sacrifices.

Our thoughts are free, our thinkers are in prison or in exile.

Germar Rudolf
Red Lion, PA, March 10, 2019

* * *

Literature quoted in this book excerpt is listed in the book’s bibliography, which is contained in the full version of this book, available as paperback or eBook (PDF or ePub) from Armreg Ltd, UK: https://armreg.co.uk/product/the-second-babylonian-captivity-the-fate-of-the-jews-in-eastern-europe-since-1941/

I. The Thesis

As this book propounds a most unusual thesis, it requires an unusual introduction. I hesitated to put the thesis to paper because it sounds unbelievable, even outrageous. It seems utterly absurd, but it is – in my honest opinion – true and even can be proven!

This thesis deals with one of the most terrible events of contemporary history, with the so-called Final Solution of the Jewish Question. I maintain that:

1. the Final Solution consisted of the re-settlement of the Jews in the eastern part of Byelorussia and that
2. they are still being kept there as prisoners of the USSR today [1990].

I know that this sounds preposterous, and I don’t expect anybody to simply believe this theory. But I do expect that everyone – or rather those interested in historical truth – scrutinize my theory, at least to that extent that they read this and the next chapter – which are both short – and decide only then whether the thesis is as absurd as it seems initially. I hope that maybe I can captivate the reader to such an extent that he continues reading the ensuing, longer chapters. I am sure that I can convince the conscientious reader who makes an effort to read my study carefully that my theory is correct. I am also sure that all arguments that initially speak against this theory will even be beneficial, once the reader will have become familiar with certain facts which are mostly known to experts in the field, but which are usually considered in isolation. I must also point out, however, that all my evidence is circumstantial in nature, with all the weaknesses and strengths of such evidence.

Before I come to my point, I think it necessary to describe how I came to adopt such a heterodox theory, as I feel that this is helpful for the reader. I am a mathematician, and I work freelance in data processing. During my spare time I tackle scholarly challenges of contemporary history. Due to personal circumstances – I come from Dresden – my focus was on issues of the so-called “DDR Forschung” (Research of the communist German Democratic Republic), and I have published various essays on this subject (e.g. Werner 1977). The “Third Reich” as such did not interest me at all initially. Regarding the Final Solution, I shared the standard opinion of most people interested in politics, meaning that the Jews were killed at Auschwitz and elsewhere. This opinion was based more on general impressions and less on detailed facts.

In 1978 I began studying theories of totalitarianism, as my opinions deviated from the generally accepted theory. In this context, I wanted to use the Final Solution as proof for a certain theory. To me, the National-Socialist worldview seemed responsible for the murder of millions of Jews.

Eichmann, the organizer of this extermination, must have justified himself somehow when he was on trial in Jerusalem. I expected that Eichmann justified his murderous activities with the National-Socialist worldview. I searched for material in a public library, and I found what I was looking for, or so I thought. I quickly found a book with documents on crimes of National Socialism, along with a chapter headlined with something to the effect of “Eichmann and the Final Solution.”[4] At home I began to skim the pertinent chapter, as I wanted to get to the core of the issue, but I was surprised. The text was shocking in its “irrelevance”! Terrible things were addressed for sure, but nothing about Auschwitz, nothing about the mass murder. Only upon reading the text again more-thoroughly, I found a phrasing stating something like “…that was in the east, that’s where the murder took place.”[5] Yet no outcry, no energetic inquiry; the discussion continued as though nothing of significance had been said. At first, I was perplexed, then annoyed because I could not make any progress with my project; after all, I was merely looking for an appropriate quote.

How was I to continue? I pondered and remembered a supplement to the weekly German newspaper Das Parlament. Although this issue dealt with the “ewig Gestrige”[6] who denied the mass murders of the Jews, I still hoped to make some headway with the literature quoted. Then I discovered a paper by Georges Wellers “Die Zahl der Opfer der Endlösung und der Korherr-Bericht” (“The Number of Victims of the ‘Final Solution’ and the Korherr Report”). Wellers was critiquing a book by Paul Rassinier, Was ist Wahrheit?. On the one hand, his paper impressed with its clear, logical statements, but on the other hand I was amazed that the core of the paper mentioned neither Adolf Eichmann nor Rudolf Höss nor anybody else, but in its main part rested its statistics upon the results of Soviet censuses before and after the war. Wellers compared the results of the census before and after the war and came to the following conclusion: millions of Soviet Jews had disappeared. He then addressed to Paul Rassinier the rhetorical question: “Where were they hidden so that they cannot be found anywhere?” (Wellers, p. 36). I found this question just and reasonable, but why was it postulated in the first place? Was the mass murder not an irrefutably proven fact? The matter seemed more complicated and different than I had thought. Hence, the logical chain of arguments involving the Final Solution – as I had seen it – seemed to unravel. And I became curious of what those dubious revisionist books had to say.

Per chance I acquired two such books. One was the already-mentioned Was ist Wahrheit, the other by Arthur R. Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century. Rassinier’s book was not that spectacular, but I was surprised to learn that Rassinier had been an inmate at the Buchenwald Concentration Camp and that he was French. He wrote his book after he had read testimonies of fellow inmates minutely describing the existence of gas chambers at Buchenwald, gas chambers he had never heard of nor seen when he was at Buchenwald. Butz’s book was more substantial. He analyzed numerous documents on the mass murder of Jews, and raised objections. This seemed quite plausible to me. As Butz always gives sources, his claims could be verified, which is quite unusual for the peculiar type of literature it was categorized in.

Even to the question “where have they been hidden,” Butz had an answer. Simplified: The Jews have all survived and, in an act of mass conspiracy, decided to be untraceable so that financial reparations could be claimed from Germany. This seemed quite nonsensical, but I will raise logical objections, since many of my readers may find my postulations just as nonsensical.

If, as the theory implies, all Jews remained in the east, then they were liberated by the Red Army in 1944/45. Furthermore, since the Federal Republic of Germany pays financial compensation mostly to the state of Israel, the implications are that all these people would have to postpone their own claims, so that a not-yet-existing state (Israel) would benefit from a prostrate Germany, which in 1945 needed more help than it could ever be expected to give. From the day-laborer to the professor, from the child to the aged, all would have had to foresee the founding of the state of Israel and the German “Wirtschaftswunder” (economic miracle; note the word miracle!) – a truly incredible feat. In other words: why would a Jewish owner of a department store relinquish his claim for the sake of a non-existing state of Israel? Or why would a mother – and not just one – choose to be untraceable for her child? There were plenty of Jewish children looking for their mothers.

Having had these thoughts, I decided to scrutinize this theory at a later date and to compare Butz’s text with his source material, so that, should Butz’s objections prevail, I could find an answer to the question: What happened to the Jews? I postponed this quest because this is a typical topic with which one can easily get obsessed. The central question, however, what happened to the people, kept me in its thrall. After all, doesn’t this question imply that all governments, including the Third Reich, tried to conceal the answer? How could this be overcome? How could one even find an approach, where could I search for an answer? Was this not hopeless, even foolhardy? At first it seemed impossible.

How I did find an approach and made a discovery is the subject of the next chapter. Starting from this, I have made specific investigations, the results of which are introduced in the chapters Facts I and II.

II. The Discovery

Starting point of my reflections: the undisputable result of the Final Solution was that millions of Jews under German control during World War II seem to have disappeared after the war. The path of many of these Jews, especially those living in Western Europe, can be traced precisely to Auschwitz.[7] The day of their deportation from their home country and the time of their arrival at Auschwitz was noted in transportation lists. After their arrival at Auschwitz, they were subjected to a so-called “selection.” The Jews selected for labor were deployed in enterprises connected to the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. A considerable number of these individuals survived, while no trace of the others can be found. A fact is also that the decision for the Final Solution, whatever this happens to be, was made around the turn of the years 1941/42. So much about the undisputed facts. It is conceivable that this decision was ultimately made by Hitler, because the so-called Jewish question played a major role in his thoughts. But how to continue?

For my essays on totalitarian theories, I dealt extensively with Hitler’s so-called “table talks.” During his stays at the German headquarters, Hitler preferred to eat with a large company. Everybody who was there at that moment participated: German guests, such as Himmler, and employees, starting with Bormann all the way to the wife of Hitler’s chauffeur. On these occasions, Hitler loved to have conversations and to talk about a multitude of topics, whereby he dominated in many of these conversations.

Because matters of principle were also discussed, Bormann saw to it that they were duly recorded. Heinrich Heims (Jochmann) and Dr. Henry Picker were ordered to the headquarters for this job.

I noticed that these dialogs mainly covered the time between mid-1941 and mid-1942, hence generously the time span when the decision for the Final Solution was made.

Another important presupposition arose: One does not decide the fate of millions of human beings without being utterly unaffected by this. Should Hitler be different in this respect? I assumed that I would find some slight implication concerning the Jews, even if concealed, in these table talks or in Hitler’s monologues. It wouldn’t be anything spectacular, as these texts were well known. I myself thought that I had read them thoroughly. Was there perhaps a small remark about the topic, a phrase, something which could easily be overlooked?

With these things in mind, I began to read again. Then I found the following passage in the entry for October 25, 1941 (Jochmann, p. 44):

“In parliament, I prophesized Jewry that the Jew will disappear from Europe if war is not avoided. This criminal race has to account for two million deaths in World War I, and now again hundreds of thousands. Don’t anybody tell me that we cannot send them into the morass! Who cares about our people? It is good if the terror precedes us that we are exterminating Jewry. The attempt to create a Jewish state will be a failure!”

So, Hitler would “send the Jews into the morass.”[8] This was telling, albeit meager. But where was this morass? Probably, as I thought, in the Soviet Union, as the decision was made during the invasion of Russia. I came to consider the Pripet Marshes more closely because of a number of associations: namely that “morass” is a synonym for “swamps” or marshes; further comments from Hitler: “we don’t want to overcome swamps. We will take only the better soil and initially only the best grounds” (ibid., p. 55) and last but not least, references to the Pripet Marshes. The area is vast and was occupied by German troops in the early phase of the war. Maybe this was the “morass?” On the other hand, population movements going into the millions must leave traces! A map of the population density of Europe before 1969 shows the most unusual patterns for this area (see Document 1, p. 152 of the print book).

Conspicuous is a rectangular area between Minsk and Pripet (Pripjet on the map) with an area of some 120 km by 40 km with a population density between 100 to 200 persons per square kilometer. As a rule, however, population agglomerations are found around industrial areas, ports, areas of mineral resources and government centers. According to similar maps of the distribution of mineral resources and industry (Dierke 1969, pp. 78f., 80f.) there appears to be little reason for such an agglomeration of people in this region. An earlier map of the population distribution of this area is shown in Document 2 (see page 153 on the print book).

When comparing the two maps, keep in mind that the classification of the population densities differs. Nevertheless, this area experienced a drastic population growth. This Growth extends beyond the mentioned rectangular area, although the increase is most apparent within this space. The rectangle has an area of some 120 km × 40 km, hence 4800 square kilometers. By comparing the earlier and later minimum population densities, one finds:

earlier: 96,000 inhabitants
later: 480,000 inhabitants.

Thus, the number of inhabitants has quintupled. I cannot explain such a drastic increase by the normal growth rate of a population, because fierce battles were fought in this area during World War II. Therefore, when did this population explosion take place and what caused it? In order to pinpoint this epoch, the peculiarity of this region needs to be pointed out. Until 1939, this region was divided; the west belonged to Poland, and the east to the Soviet Union. It is unlikely that both countries populated this rectangular area together. But such population agglomerations can also be found elsewhere in Byelorussia. Some are distributed randomly, while others may be found around Gomel and Mogilev. So, to repeat the question: when did this increase in population take place?

Surely, population censuses are the basis for these maps. The following censuses were made in this region:

1926 by the Soviet Union
1931 by Poland
1939 by the Soviet Union; the census of 1937 was annulled.
1959 by the Soviet Union

The region was controlled:

1926 – 1939 by Poland
1939 – 1941 by the Soviet Union
1941 – 1944 by Germany
since 1944 by the Soviet Union.

Quite logically, this population increase must have occurred between 1939 and 1959, as the information of the 1969 population map is based probably on 1959 census data. I can think of no other source. Therefore, there are only two possibilities: the influx occurred either during the German occupation or after 1944, through the Soviet Union. Simple logic pleads against the latter: Why should the USSR consider the settlement of this region? Does the USSR not possess more land, especially east of the Urals, where a colonization would seem more appropriate? On the other hand, during the time of the temporary German occupation, this area must have been one of the least-populated regions. But this is no proof.

Thus, again the concrete question: Was there a substantial increase in the population of this region during the years 1941 and 1944? The German files on Byelorussia, as the region was called at that time, ought to throw light upon the matter. Normally, these files should be kept at the federal archive in Koblenz, Germany. However, no records from the General Commissariat of Byelorussia exist (Greiner, p. 156)

Information about any settlements ought to be contained on German army maps as well. But one must ascertain whether existing towns were enlarged, or new ones established. Both measures are capable of increasing the population density. In order to obtain meaningful information, at least two maps of the region are necessary, and both must have been made during the time of the German occupation, because the cartographers had access to the region only at this time.

Obtaining such maps was much more difficult than anticipated. The German Federal Archive in Koblenz only possessed a so-called guide map, which was totally unsuitable for the present purpose. The Military Archive in Freiburg was able to provide a complete set of army maps, but unfortunately the map encompassing the region in question was made in 1941. Finally, through various means, I managed to acquire three separate editions of the Sector U54:Minsk from the general map of the German army 1:300,000.[9] I now possess a map from the year 1941 along with two updates from II.1943[10] and VIII.1943.[11] This map covers the area of interest, even though the above-mentioned rectangle is not or only partially covered by it. Naturally, the updates are of importance. For our purposes, a sector southeast of Minsk is chosen. Please inspect the sector shown in Document 3 from the Map II.43 with the one shown in Document 4, taken from Map VIII.1943 (pp. 154f. of the print book).

The following may be concluded: the number of inhabited places has sharply risen in this sector. While the map of II.1943 shows but 18 towns, the map of VIII.1943 has at least 45. Important among them is the new town Marjina Gorka. It is by far the biggest town in the region, which however was non-existent on the map of II.1943. We can conclude from this that the town was newly founded. Because of the importance of military maps for warfare, it stands to reason that Map II.1943 shows the actual state of affairs at some point of the German occupation. Not only does this sector show a substantial increase of inhabited areas, but also of the surrounding areas.

Consequently, the following can be ascertained: In the areas described above, new towns were founded and inhabited during the German occupation. The question is, by whom, and why?

As a preview I give a hint here, which seems paradoxical at first sight: no Jews! The interested reader will learn more in the next chapter.

Two questions which will certainly jostle the mind of the inclined reader are: Why didn’t anybody involved in this on the German side point mention these settlement activities after the war? And: why didn’t the Jews speak up? I believe that I can answer both questions reasonably well. But because a lot of facts are necessary to substantiate this statement, the response to this query will be dealt with in the chapter “Questions.”

III. Facts I

This chapter discusses material from National-Socialist sources which, in my opinion, prove that the Final Solution meant transporting Jews to the eastern part of Byelorussia, or – to be more precise – to the militarily administered part of Byelorussia. The material is presented in logically cohesive segments. Quotations, especially those of Hitler, are reproduced extensively at times to overcome any suspicion that they have simply been torn out of their contexts. Generally, the translations maintain the same style as found in the original texts.

A. Hitler

As far as I am concerned, Hitler was the central figure in the Third Reich who possessed the power and against whose will no important decision could be made. He was the motor of the Final Solution as well, and saw his life’s work in the realization of this project. Hitler was the matrix of the Weltanschauung (world view) of National Socialism who, as Führer (leader), imprinted this philosophy throughout his realm.

As I found out to my great astonishment, the National-Socialist philosophy did not necessarily call for the extermination of “the Jews.” According to this worldview, the Jew was by nature inferior to the Aryan who abided by the laws of racial purity. Jews can only win against the Aryans in the struggle of the races if they are able to undermine their racial laws (compare Werner 1984, pp. 39f.). The Aryan and the other races regain the upper hand again as soon as they keep themselves racially clean. Without the Jew, who incites the peoples against each other, a lot of things would fall back into place. Hitler said (Picker, pp. 106f.):

“Peace is only possible on the basis of a natural order. Prerequisite to this order is that the nations arrange themselves in such a way that those are leading who are most-capable. Those who are inferior gain more through this than they can ever attain by themselves. This order is destroyed by Jewry. It helps the beast, baseness and stupidity to win. It took Christianity 1400 years to develop its ultimate bestiality. Therefore, we must not assume that we have already overcome Bolshevism. Yet the more thoroughly we expel the Jews, the faster this peril is removed. The Jew is the catalysts that ignites the fuel. A people without Jews is given back to the natural order.”

Hence, “the Jew” needed only be isolated, not murdered; it suffices to allocate a common place to the Jews. In 1941, Hitler even expressed aspects that indicate that “the Jew” must not to be exterminated! Hitler was, in his own way, a religious person. He believed in a creator, in nature and in providence.[12] If one believes in a creator, however, then the question arises, why did He create “the Jews”? Does “the Jew” have a function?

Hitler (ibid., pp. 78f.):

“We don’t know what sense there is in seeing the Jews destroying a nation. Is it so that nature created him so that through his destructive action nations come into motion? Then Paul the Apostle and Trotsky are the Jews most worthy of respect, because they have done the most to achieve this.”

Hitler often mentioned the Jews and the fate that he had in store for them during his “table talks” between August 8, 1941 and July 24, 1942. Quotes:

8th – 11th August 1941:[13]

“If one country has any right to evacuate anybody, then it is our country, because we have evacuated own people many times. From East Prussia alone, 800,000 people were relocated. How sensitive we Germans are can be seen from the fact that to us it seems to be extremely brutal to liberate our country from 600,000 Jews, while we accepted without objection the evacuation of our own kin as something that had to be done. We must not allow any Germanic persons to emigrate from Europe to America. We must divert all the Norwegians, Swedes, Danes and Dutch to the eastern territories; these will become parts of the German Reich. We are facing the great task for the future to carry out racial politics systematically. We must do this already in order to avert incest, which is already taking place here. This Swiss, however, we will be able to use as patrons only.

We don’t want to overcome swamps. We will take only the better soil and initially only the best grounds. We can build a large military training area in the swamp of 350 by 400 km, with rivers and all obstacles which nature can pose to the troops.”

October 17, 1941 (Jochmann, p. 90):

“Compared with the abundance of beauty in the central German region, the eastern area seems desolate and barren today. However, even Flanders, one single plain, is nevertheless beautiful. People? We shall bring them there.”

And (ibid.):

“I probably won’t see it happening, but in twenty years this area will comprise 20 million people. In three hundred years it will be a rich park landscape of extraordinary beauty!

The natives? We will proceed to screen them. The destructive Jew will be relocated altogether. My impression of Byelorussia was better than of the Ukraine. We won’t enter the Russian cities; they should all die out.”

October 25, 1941 (ibid., p. 106):

“In parliament, I prophesized Jewry that the Jew will disappear from Europe if war is not avoided. This criminal race has to account for two million deaths in World War I, and now again hundreds of thousands. Don’t anybody tell me that we cannot send them into the morass! Who cares about our people? It is good if the terror precedes us that we are exterminating Jewry. The attempt to create a Jewish state will be a failure!”

Note: Guests were: Himmler and Heydrich!

November 19, 1941 (ibid., p. 143):

“If today some citizens cried because Jews have to emigrate from Germany, then this throws a light on these types of self-righteous philistines. One ought to ask them whether they also cried earlier when hundreds of thousands of Germans had to emigrate. These Germans had no relatives in the world; they were on their own, while Jews, on the other hand, have enough relatives all over the world: hence, having pity on them is totally inappropriate.”

January 12th – 13th (ibid., p. 195):

“The Jews are the chosen dumbest people: they should, for God’s sake, never have instigated this war. They will disappear from Europe. All because of a few fools!”

January 25, 1942 (ibid., pp. 228f.):

“If I extract one hundred and fifty thousand Wolhynia Germans, then this comes with just as much hardship as evacuating Southern Tyrol. If I extract the Jew today, then our bourgeoisie becomes distressed. What happens to him? But did the same people care what happened to those Germans who had to emigrate? One must do it quickly; it is no good if I extract a tooth a few centimeters a month. The pain stops once the tooth is pulled. The Jew must leave Europe. Otherwise we won’t come to a European understanding. He is inciting the most, everywhere. At the end of it: I don’t know, I’m being so colossally humane. At the time of the papal reign in Rome, Jews were maltreated. Until 1830, eight Jews were chased through the city each year, driven on donkeys. I simply say: they must go. If he goes phut in the process, I can’t help it. I see only one thing: absolute extermination, if they won’t go voluntarily.

Why should I see a Jew differently than a Russian POW? Many die in the PoW camps, because the Jews have forced this situation onto us. What fault is it of mine? Why did the Jews instigate this war? It may take again three or four hundred years, until the Jews return to Europe. First, they’ll come as traders, then they’ll settle in to do mischief in their environment. Finally, they’ll become philanthropists, creating foundations. When a Jew does that, everybody takes notice – because one knows that he is a bastard…, but upon a closer look one notices that these are often the most cunning Jews. The Aryans then say, look, there are good Jews too. I assume that, at some point, the National-Socialist Party will build a firmly established society, will assume government positions, and will maintain the wealth. I hope that then, once again, somebody comes along to start a new club.”

Note: Guests were: Dr. Lammers, Himmler and Colonel Zeitzler.

January 27, 1942 (ibid., p. 249):

“The Jews must get out of Europe! It is best they go to Russia. I don’t have any pity on the Jews. They will always remain an element inciting the nations against each other. They do it to the nations just as much as they do it in private life. They must be taken out of Switzerland and Sweden. They are most dangerous where they are few in numbers. Within a short time, five thousand Jews are in all Swedish positions. It is all the easier to remove them. We have enough reasons; it’s like a vessel with communicating tubes.”

April 4, 1942 (Picker, p. 187):

“As in all areas, nature is also the best teacher on the subject of selection. One cannot conceive a better design of nature than the rise of life caused by it: only through tough struggle. It is therefore indicative that the upper classes, who never cared for the hundreds of thousands of German emigrants and their hardship, now feel pity on the Jews, although the Jews have their accomplices throughout the entire world and are the most climate-resistant species there is. Jews thrive everywhere, even in Lapland and Siberia.”

May 15, 1942 (ibid., pp. 305f.):

“Our so-called bourgeoisie laments over the same Jew who stabbed us in the back in the past when he is deported to the East. The most remarkable thing about this is that this very bourgeoisie didn’t care that every year 250,000 to 300,000 German people emigrated from Germany, and that 75 percent of these German emigrants to Australia died en route.

No part of the population is politically more stupid than this so-called bourgeoisie. If a pronounced population parasite is rendered harmless on behalf of the state by slaying him, for instance, then the entire bourgeoisie screams that this is a brutish state. But if a Jew ruins the professional existence of a German through legal finesse, acquiring his house and property, destroying his family, finally forcing him to emigrate, and then this German dies while en route to his destination abroad, then this bourgeoisie calls the state that makes this possible a state under the rule of law, simply because this entire tragedy took place within legally defined boundaries.

Not a single one of those who shed crocodile tears at the deportation of the Jews to the east considers that the Jew as a parasite is the most climate-resistant individual on the planet who, in contrast to the German, gets accustomed to Lapland as much as to the tropics. However, these philistines are, as a rule, people flattering themselves for being versed in the scriptures but who are unaware that, according to the reports in the Old Testament, the Jew remains untouched both by staying in the desert and by wandering through the Red Sea.

As has happened often throughout history, when the Jew has become arrogant and has bled dry the peoples in whose midst he established himself, one nation after another slowly begins to realize how much damage has been done to it by the Jew. Each will then try with its own ways to cope with him. According to a telegram from Turkey, it is interesting with what speed Turkey goes against the Jews.”

May 29, 1942 (ibid., p. 340):

“All of western Europe must be freed of the Jews within a given period. This is necessary already because there is always a certain percentage of fanatics among the Jews which will attempt to raise Jewry again. It is therefore not recommendable to deport them to Siberia because with their climate-resistance, they would only become even more hardened. It is better – as the Arabs don’t want them in Palestine – to transport them to Africa and thus submit them to a climate which impairs every person of our resilience, thereby eliminating all points of common spheres of interest with the European part of humanity.”

July 24, 1942 (ibid., p. 456):

“In this World War II as a struggle between life and death, one must never forget that world Jewry, according to the declaration of war by the World Zionist Congress and its leader Chaim Weizmann (in his message to England’s Prime Minister Chamberlain), is the unrelenting enemy of National Socialism, is enemy number one. Jewry seeks Europe for economic reasons, but Europe must, in an act of sacred self-preservation, refuse, as Jews are harder as a race. After the end of the war he [Hitler] will rigorously take the position that he will destroy one city after another, if the Jews don’t come out and emigrated to Madagascar or some other Jewish homeland.”

The exegesis of these texts produces some peculiarities. Regarding the resettlement of the Jews, Hitler justifies himself to the bourgeoisie on the following dates:

• 8th – 11th August 1941
• 19th November 1941
• 25th January 1942
• 4th April 1942
• 15th May 1942

He accuses the bourgeoisie of not having cared for the Germans who had to emigrate and who suffered a lot in the process. Thus, according to these texts, Hitler’s Final Solution is comparable to emigration or evacuation. This subject seems to have troubled him deeply, as can be seen by his repeated justifications.

Question: What does it mean: Hitler sends the Jews “into the morass?”

Hitler also names destinations: he would send the Jews into the morass (October 25, 1941) or: it is best that they go to Russia (January 27, 1942), or that they are deported to the East (May 15, 1942). The latter formulation is found later in numerous documents. Was a convention of speech created here?

Question: Why does Hitler compare the Final Solution with emigration?

It is also conspicuous that Hitler repeatedly refers to the climate-resistant nature of the Jews. Jews would thrive everywhere, even in Lapland or Siberia. One should transport them to Africa after the war (May 29, 1942). Notice the minute details, such as: all of Western Europe must be freed of Jews, but that means: not Eastern Europe!

Question: Why does Hitler ponder about the fate of the Jews after the end of the Second World War?

B. Fundamentals on the Final Solution

On March 27, 1941, a meeting of the Institute for Research into the Jewish Question (Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage) took place in Frankfurt upon Main (Seraphim, p. 5). This institute was inaugurated on March 28, 1941 with a speech by Rosenberg (cf. “Der Zionismus…”), and this meeting was obviously part of the inauguration. Discussing the fundamentals, one of the speakers saw three alternatives in dealing with the Jews (Seraphim, p. 13):

1. Dissimilation (without special segregation)
2. Ghettoization (in city ghettos or regional ghettos in Eastern Europe)
3. Removal from Europe

These points were elaborated as follows:

1. Dissimilation

This method, Seraphim states, has been applied by the German Reich up until 1941. The disadvantage was that the Jews continued to exist within the nation as a foreign body. Excerpt (ibid., pp. 13f.):

“The Jewish question remains a question of mass population policy, the only difference being that regrouping within Jewry reduces the number of rich Jews and increases the number of Jews in need of support. Social pauperization and regrouping of the Jews can be the result but never a physical self-dissolution of Jewry, because the death of a people doesn’t come about quickly; it is a process of hundreds of years, especially when not a few thousand, or ten thousand, but about 5 ½ million people in Europe are involved.”

2. Ghettoization

a. City Ghettoes

Creating a city ghetto would be difficult. Cities are organic units: traffic arteries, highways, water, gas and electrical infrastructure crisscross every city. A city ghetto is not self-sufficient. Food, raw materials etc. must always be supplied. (ibid., p. 20)

b. Reservation

Quote:

“In order to forestall difficulties resulting from the creation of city ghettoes, one may suggest to separate a certain large territory and to concentrate the European Jews here. Territories populated mainly by Jews were thought best suited for this purpose, which can be turned into solidly Jewish ethnic areas by settling Jews there and removing the non-Jewish population.” (ibid., p. 21)

These plans were said to have a number of advantages (ibid., pp. 21f.):

• The population displacement operation can be spread out over time.
• The Jews would be radically removed from their present living sites.
• The rural/urban distribution of the Jews can change. They can feed themselves.

The speaker also named disadvantages by referring to the so-called Lublin Plan, i.e., to settle the Jews in the area of Lublin (ibid., pp. 22f.). He specifically pointed out that (ibid., p. 24):

1. Large-scale population displacement would be necessary, whereby 5 million Jews and 2.7 million gentiles would have to be transported.
2. The problem arising is where to put the gentiles?
3. The area of Lublin is too small for the Jews. Having a present area of 26,800 sq. km, a 10-km security zone would have to be deducted, reducing the county to 25,000 sq. km. If all European Jews were to be concentrated here, then a population density of 320 persons per square kilometer would result. In comparison, England has 271, the German Reich 135 persons per square km. A ghetto of that proportion would not be able to sustain itself. He asked if there was no place in Europe suited for Jewish residence.

3. Expulsion from Europe

This alternative possesses all the advantages of a European ghetto solution without its disadvantages (ibid., pp. 24f.). Conclusion (ibid., pp. 26):

“If it were possible to find a suitable settlement area for the Jews of Europe, which can be determined by scientific analysis and practical experiences, then emigration would be the best way both for the nations of Europe and for the Jews themselves. With this, however, the European Jewish question merges with the great question of colonial reorganization and restructuring of the world. Within the framework of this complex, the European Jewish question as an economic and ethnic problem could finally be brought to its final solution.”

Endnotes

Note: References in text and footnotes to literature point to the book’s bibliography, which is not included in this excerpt.