The_Holokaust_-_origins,_implementation,_aftermath

CHRISTIAN GERLACH
1939, had spoken as follows: “If the world of international financial Jewry, both in and
outside of Europe, should succeed in plunging the nations into another world war,
the result will not be the Bolshevization of the world and thus a victory for Judaism.
The result will be the extermination of the Jewish race in Europe.” 113 Hitler announced
his declaration of war against the United States in the Reichstag on December 11,
1941. For Germany, that made the war a world war. 114 Thus the situation Hitler had
envisioned in 1939 had come about. With complete logical consistency— consistent
within the framework of his antisemitic worldview—Hitler then proclaimed his decision
to exterminate all Jews in Europe. He did not, to be sure, include this announcement in
his Reichstag speech of December 11, a speech broadcast on radio. In that speech he
claimed only that Jewish war agitators were behind Roosevelt. 115 But on the following
afternoon, December 12, 1941, Hitler addressed a meeting of the most important sectional
leaders of the National Socialist Party (the Reichsleiter) and of regional party leaders
(the Gauleiter). 116 According to Goebbels’s notes on this meeting of the Reichsleiter
and Gauleiter, Hitler spoke as follows:
Regarding the Jewish question, the Führer is determined to clear the table.
He warned the Jews that if they were to cause another world war, it would
lead to their own destruction. Those were not empty words. Now the world
war has come. The destruction of the Jews must be its necessary
consequence. We cannot be sentimental about it. It is not for us to feel
sympathy for the Jews. We should have sympathy rather with our own
German people. If the German people have to sacrifice 160,000 victims in
yet another campaign in the east, then those responsible for this bloody
conflict will have to pay for it with their lives. 117
There were other occasions, too, both before and after December 1941, when Hitler
made reference to his infamous “prophecy.” But he never before did so as clearly, as
unambiguously, or in such a matter-of-fact way as recorded here by Goebbels. 118 What
Hitler said was not intended metaphorically or as propaganda—that is the meaning of
Goebbels’s phrase, “Those were not empty words.” Above all, Hitler had now spoken
of the beginning of total annihilation. He had made his remarks before a group of
listeners outside his most inner circle of confidants. It was the leadership of the party
that was assembled together. Because attendance at such meetings was mandatory,
we can be virtually certain about which individuals were present: Himmler, Martin
Bormann, Rosenberg, Hans Frank; Arthur Greiser, Fritz Bracht, and Fritz Sauckel (the
Gauleiter in Warthegau, in Upper Silesia, and in Thuringia, respectively); Hinrich Lohse
and Erich Koch (the Reich commissars for the Ostland and for the Ukraine, respectively);
Alfred Meyer, Goebbels, and Philipp Bouhler. 119 These were the decisive political figures
involved in the destruction of the Jews in Europe. They were also the administrative
heads of all the regions containing the centers where, both then and subsequently,
Jews were exterminated. Hermann Göring was not present. He held no party office that
would have required his attendance at the meeting. It is probable, too, that Reinhard
122