The_Holokaust_-_origins,_implementation,_aftermath

HITLER’S DECISION TO EXTERMINATE JEWS
European part of Russia there are a total of some 11 million Jews [!]. So there is still
plenty of work to do. I cannot believe that we have exterminated more than one
million of them thus far. It will take some time until we have freed Europe from this
pestilence.” 190
Hofmann was clearly referring to his recollection, even then somewhat dim, of the
Wannsee Conference. The pace of liquidation had actually been faster than he thought.
For he had not been kept informed about current developments and had just met with
Himmler for the first time since February 1942. 191
V The results of the Wannsee Conference
News about the outcome of the meeting in Wannsee spread quickly. Heydrich gave
Himmler a telephone report on the following day. Alfred Meyer reported to Rosenberg.
Globocnik traveled to Berlin, probably on January 23. Hitler, too, seems to have been
informed without delay. 192 It is possible that reports reached Slovakia as early as the
end of January. 193 By July 1942 German officials in the General Commissariat in Latvia
were fully informed. 194
On the issue of “part-Jews” and “mixed marriages” the discussions soon
deadlocked. The new deportation directives issued by Eichmann on January 31, 1942,
continued to follow the Nuremberg Laws. Jews married to non-Jews, Jewish foreigners,
Jewish workers in armaments plants and in agriculture, and the elderly continued to be
exempted. 195 On March 6 the first official follow-up conference at the expert level was
held. The suggestions Stuckart had made at Wannsee were examined. Sterilization
was rejected as an organizational impossibility, but more detailed plans for compulsory
legal divorce were formulated. 196 On March 16 Stuckart continued to insist that the
class of individuals labeled as part-Jews of the first degree should not receive harsher
treatment than before. At this point he adopted the arguments that had been drafted
for his use at the Wannsee meeting by Lösener. The acting Reich justice minister,
Franz Schlegelberger, wrote two letters in support of Stuckart’s position. Subsequently,
on April 10, Lammers met with Schlegelberger to discuss the “Complete Solution of
the Jewish Question.” 197 By September 1942 Stuckart seems to have succeeded in
convincing Himmler. Consequently, the second follow-up meeting to the Wannsee
Conference, held on October 27, produced no new results. 198 At about this same time
the new Reich justice minister, Otto Thierack, and Goebbels expressed their opinion
that “the issue of part-Jews should not be resolved during the war.” Even the notorious
RSHA chief of Section III B (Foreign Nationalities), Hans Ehlich, declared that the
“lineage investigations” of the Reich Genealogy Office were dispensable “because in
the course of nine years the percentage of cases discovered involving foreign blood
was relatively small” and could be ignored. 199 Further, despite an apparent breakthrough
in March 1943 when Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick obtained Hitler’s approval,
the plans developed by various offices for compulsory legal divorces in cases of “mixed
marriages” came to nothing. 200 The majority of “half Jews,” “quarter Jews,” and Jewish
131