18.December.1941
                                         Berlin

 Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories

 To: Reichskommissar for Ostland

 RE: Jewish question

 The Jewish question has presumably been clarified meanwhile by means of
 verbal discussion. In principle, economic considerations are not to be taken
 into account in the settlement of the problem. It is further requested that
 any questions that arise be settled directly with the Higher SS and Police
 Leader.

                                         Braeutigam

---
                                         December.1941

 Reichskommissar for Ostland

 To: Higher SS and Police Leader

 . . . I request most emphatically that the liquidation of Jews employed as
 skilled workers in armament plants and repair workshops of the Wehrmacht who
 cannot be replaced at present by local personnel be prevented. . .

 . . . Provision is to be made as quickly as possible for the training of
 suitable local personnel as skilled workers. . .

                                         Loshe
                                         Reichskommissar for Ostland
----

                                         16.December.1941
                                         Minsk

 Generalkommissar for Byelorussia

 To: Reichskommissar for Ostland

 I wish to ask you personally for an official directive for the conduct of the
 civilian administration towards the Jews deported from Germany to
 Byelorussia. Among these Jews are men who fought at the Front and have the
 Iron Cross, First and Second Class, war invalids, half-Aryans, even three-
 quarter Aryans. . .

 . . .These Jews will probably freeze or starve to death in the coming weeks.
 . . On my own responsibility I will not give the SD any instructions with
 regard to the treatment of these people. . .

 I am certainly a hard [man] and willing to help solve the Jewish question,
 but people who come from our own cultural sphere just are not the same as the
 brutish hordes in this place. Is the slaughter to be carried out by the
 Lithuanians and Letts, who are themselves rejected by the population here? I
 couldn't do it. I beg you to give clear directives [in this matter,] with due
 consideration for the good name of our Reich and our Party, in order that the
 necessary action can be taken in the most humane manner.

                                         Heil Hitler!
                                         Wilhelm Kube

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