Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Holocaust Almanac: David Irving's Hitler, Essay I 
Summary: Eberhard Jaeckel's Essays on David Irving (English translation)
Followup-To: alt.revisionism
Reply-To: kmcvay@nizkor.org
Organization: The Nizkor Project, Vancouver Island, CANADA
Keywords: Irving

Archive/File: pub/people/i/irving.david/jackel/jt-1-4 (Part 4 of 6)
Last-modified: 1996/02/26

But if Himmler really acted without Hitler's will and
knowledge, as Irving wants us to believe, why would he have
referred to an order? Was Hitler not only to accept that
Himmler acted on his own authority, but was he also falsely
to be blamed for it? No,-these statements by Himmler are
quite clear and unequivocal. Nor can we mistake the fact that
Himmler was not happy with the order.[34] It is possible that
the two men had an
argument, a fact that might explain why Hitler did not put
the order in writing.

At first there may have been just a private conversation, its
theme so unusual, with such terrifying perspectives, that  no
one  would have dared to record it. Besides, we know that  in
other  cases  Hitler also ordered: "Let  there  be  no  paper
trail."  Later  on, once Himmler had given in,  he  would  no
longer have been in a position to demand an official order in
writing. Faint-hearted and hesitant, Himmler now had to prove
himself  Hitler's  loyal follower. In that  way  his  earlier
hesitation   may   have   turned   into   an   even   fiercer
determination.
                |
Spring 1941 saw the final preparation. Military planning  was
completed.  The  entire apparatus of conquest and  domination
was established as far as the Caucasus mountains. It was then
that  the  Einsatzgruppen[35] were organized. After  Hitler's
attack on the Soviet Union these forces were deployed, behind
the  ever  moving front, for the mass execution of  Jews  and
Commissars.  At  that time Himmler received a written  decree
dated  March 13, 1941, which empowered him to deal with   the
army:  "On  behalf of the Fuehrer, special tasks  are  to  be
undertaken  arising out of the now pending ultimate  struggle
between two opposing political systems."

The  war  of  conquest and the murder of Jews  had  now  been
coordinated.  Around the same time, and  after  a  discussion
with  Hitler,  Alfred Rosenberg, minister-designate  for  the
occupied  territories in the East, made this entry  into  his
diary:

     "What  I  shall not put in writing today  I  will,
     however,  never  forget." On  June  22,  1941  the
     terrible machine was set in motion.
     
On  July  31  Goering  gave to Heydrich,  the  chief  of  the
security  police and the S ,36 the assignment to prepare  the
long striven-for "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." Now
Heydrich  could organize the Wannsee conference, whereby  all
the  German  territorial acquisitions in the East were  drawn
into the program of mass murder.


Once  again we find that this order was not signed either  by
Hitler  or by Himmler, Heydrich's immediate superior. Because
Goering had been slated to be Hitler's heir, perhaps Hitler's
reticence   to   sign   "sensitive"   documents   was   quite
intentional: Goering, once implicated in and pledged  to  the
work,  would find the Fuehrer's silence a powerful  means  of
compliance.


It Was Hitler After All


There is ample evidence that Hitler was the actual originator
and  that  he was of course fully informed. Nor did he  cloak
himself always in discreet silence. For instance, on December
1,   1941,   he   addressed  his  guests  at  the   Fuehrer's
Headquarters during dinner:
                              
     Many  Jews  are  quite unaware of the  destructive
     nature   of  their  very  existence.  But  whoever
     destroys  life courts death, and that  is  exactly
     what is happening to them!

On  December 14 Rosenberg was with Hitler and spoke  about  a
planned public address. In an annotation he wrote:
                              
     I  am of the opinion that one ought not to discuss
     the  extermination of the Jews. The Fuehrer agrees
     with that standpoint.
     
Naturally  he  agreed. After all, the whole  undertaking  was
secret. But clearly both men were fully aware of what it  was
they were discussing.

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