The_Holokaust_-_origins,_implementation,_aftermath

HITLER’S DECISION TO EXTERMINATE JEWS
187. On this subject, see Browning, Final Solution (n. 75 above), p. 79.
188. Minutes, fols. 14 f. (Tuchel, pp. 135 f.).
189. Präg and Jacobmeyer, eds., p. 459.
190. See final comments by SS-Gruppenführer and General Lieutenant of the Waffen-SS,
Hofmann, at a Conference of SS-Leaders from the Race and Resettlement Office, September
29–30, 1942, BA 17.03, Nr. 2, fol. 58; emphasis added. At the Wannsee Conference
it had been asserted that in Europe there were 11 million Jews, in the European part
of the Soviet Union 5 million. The mistake may have been made by the individual who
prepared the minutes of the speech.
191. See Himmler, appointment calendar; Grothmann, appointment calendar.
192. Himmler, notes on telephone conversations, January 21, 1942 (“Jewish question. Meeting
in Berlin”), BA NS 19/1439; Rosenberg, appointment calendar, January 21, 1942, BA
NS 8/133, fol. 8; Globocnik report in Dirlewanger to Friedrich (SS Main Office), January
22, 1942, BA D-H ZM 1454, A. 1, fol. 231; Hitler’s antisemitic outbursts in the presence
of Himmler and Lammers on January 25, 1942 are documented in Jochmann, ed.,
pp. 228 f.; on the flow of information in the foreign office, see Browning, Final Solution,
pp. 76 ff.
193. An official in the Slovakian Office for Jewish Affairs is said to have remarked in late
January of 1942 that Slovakian Jews would soon be deported and executed. See Walter
Lacquer, Was niemand wissen wollte: Die Unterdrückung von Nachrichten über Hitlers
Endlösung (Frankfurt am Main, 1981), pp. 175 ff.
194. General Commissar for Latvia, IIa-Sch/Hue to the Reich Commissar for the Ostland, July
11, 1942: “In the Reich, the direction of current efforts is not to equate part-Jews of the
first degree with Jews; the former are to be sterilized (see the meeting of the state secretaries
on January 20, 1942)” (Lettisches Staatsarchiv Riga 69-1a-6, fol. 53). I am indebted to
Christoph Dieckmann for calling my attention to this document.
195. RSHA IV B 4, express letter, in re: Evacuation of the Jews, January 31, 1942, in Kurt
Pätzold and Erika Schwarz, “Auschwitz war für mich nur ein Bahnhof”: Franz Novak,
der Transportoffizier Adolf Eichmanns (Berlin, 1994), pp. 119–22.
196. Undated and unsigned report, reproduced in facsimile in Mendelsohn, ed. (n. 20 above),
pp. 86–94; undated report by Franz Rademacher, in Mendelsohn, ed., pp. 208 f.
197. For these two prominent participants in the Wannsee meeting, see Wilhelm Stuckart,
March 16, and Franz Schlegelberger, April 5, 1942, in Mendelsohn, ed., pp. 201–7;
Schlegelberger to Lammers, March 12, 1942, Nuremberg Document NG-839; Noakes,
pp. 345 f.; Adam, pp. 324 ff.; Hilberg, Vernichtung, pp. 441 f. In addition, see note by
Lösener, December 4, 1941, Anlage 2, BA R 18/5519, fols. 487–95; meeting notes of
Lammers, April 10, 1942 (the actual record is missing), BA R 43 II/4023, fol. 2/ R.
Stuckart and Schlegelberger referred directly to points in the minutes of the Wannsee
Conference. So they were familiar with this document, as was Martin Bormann (see n.
214). Distribution of the minutes was announced on January 21, at the latest; see
Rademacher’s note, dated January 21, on Heydrich’s invitation to the foreign office of
January 8, 1942, “Minutes of the meeting are announced to arrive later” (reproduced in
facsimile in Tuchel, p. 115). Hence suspicions that have been expressed (see Klein [n. 3
157