German History Max P. Quayle

Analysis of Source: “Minutes of the Wannsee Conference about the ‘final solution’”

During the reading of nearly all source documents preserved from The Holocaust, one can’t help but feel an evil and overarching disregard for the sanctity of human life. The example given on pages 132-6, in Hochstadt, “Sources of the Holocaust,” is no exception. Within its 2000 carefully crafted words, are chiseled the cold, apathetic death sentence which would be carried out system-atically upon the House of Judah.

This alleged document is peculiar to most of the preceding documents in the book in one signifi-cant way: Adolph Hitler would likely have been willing to stand by it, in an open public forum. Though he did not sign it, for it is only ratification and not a legislative proposal, it serves as a model of antiseptic German efficiency in its sterility and edge. So clever is the language and so subtle the enigma, that if the reader were to substitute the anti-Semitic words therein with a legit-imate public threat, like over crowded prisons, or an epidemic infestation in a certain population group, it would certainly seem a reasonable and humane plan of action.

As an historical scientist, one may accept the minutes of this meeting between ranking Reich of-ficers and party delegates as evidence of a government finalizing a proposal to help educate their citizenry and provide the skeleton upon which the fatted flesh of future German success might be hung. But the flesh that did, in deed, follow this sinister and clearly understated objective was scorched, shriveled and desecrated. For wherever the words Solution, emigration, evacuation, or Jewish Question are used, the Holocaust in its atrocity is lurking right beneath them.

The document is purported to be a partial facsimile of the minutes of discussion between The Se-curity Police Chief, and Mr. Reinhardt Heydrich, Himmler’s second in command of the SS orga-nization. Also present were 15 top Nazi bureaucrats and members of the SS.1 The meeting’s ob-jective being the coordination of a “Final Solution", or the answer to the Jewish Question; in which the Nazis would attempt to exterminate the 11 million Jews of Europe and the Soviet Union. Everything discussed was veiled in clean, humane speech, and is spoken in significant, albeit fabricated, detail about relocation, emigration, guidance, etc.

The first page of the minutes (Hochstadt, p.132) references a curious pair of similar expulsion is-sues, labeled ‘a’ and ‘b’. The first surmises that Jews are to be expelled “…from every particular sphere of life of the German people”, a very thorough claim. Oddly, the next seems a fractal of the first; a microcosm, as it was, citing specifically the territorial cleansing of the Jewish pres-ence. With the standard set, so far, quite highly for German precision and verbal efficiency, this seems to be an anomaly. Readers can intuit that this ‘short list’ may have at one time been longer, or that the content was toned down for a staged public leak. It is offered as an example of one inconsistency, in a document of otherwise cold finality.

The second page (Hochstadt, p. 133) is very balanced in the setting forth of the preparation, di -rection and acceleration of departure. Three previous emigrations are reviewed, along with some points of interest highlighting allocation of financial resources from Jewish evacuees and Jewish Political Organizations, in a slow crescendo evolving to the final point; hazards and complica-tions of trying to move masses of people during, and in the action area of, the war.

1. www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/ww2time.htm#1942; Copyright © 1996 The History Place™ All Rights Reserved

German History Max P. Quayle

In the following section headed by the Roman numeral III (Hochstadt, p. 133), a patronizing, al-most father like voice (perhaps Heydrich’s) outlines a proposal to evacuate, rather that emigrate 11 million Jews from Europe. Turning the page, an exhaustive list is provided which is dedicated to itemizing destination countries. The table assigns actual figures of displaced Jews to specific locations, the bulk, 5 million plus, are bound for USSR, (which at that time was not under Ger -man Rule). Immediately following the list is found the strongest language of the entire docu-ment, where the speaker says blankly “…In large labor columns, separation of the sexes, able bodied Jews will be taken to [certain] districts for work on roads, in the course of which un-doubtedly a large part will be eliminated by natural causes.” This sentence reeks of propaganda, and is a valuable excerpt for laying the claim that death is unmistakably part of the plan. As an aside, a genetic, or ‘evolutionary,’ mention is made that the hardiest of the Jews (survivors), will have to be “treated accordingly.” An ominous harbinger of human slaughter, to say the least.

Concluding the notes are some rhetoric reminding of the dire need to eliminate the Jews, and the Ghetto system is reviewed. Likewise, the Jew worker program is set forth along with a purpose-fully vague reference to ‘preparations’ in territories in question. Without ceremony the confer-ence is promptly adjourned.

The essential question is, can this document be trusted? After careful scrutiny I am confident that this is indeed a prepared, carefully articulated falsification of the events of that now famous con-ference. The whole understatement of purpose and complete lack of contempt for the Jews which permeates so much of the media and other sources of the time is patently inconsistent. It appears that this careful piece of disinformation was prepared for either one of two, or both of the follow-ing purposes:

1. To continue misrepresentation of the facts to Hitler himself, granting his likely wish expressed after the political disaster of Kristalnacht, that he never again be tied di-rectly to any action of violence against Jews.

2. To misinform the public and continue a campaign based in relatively inflamed Jew ‘blamery,’ and vocal discontent while quietly rendering death at every politically cor-rect opportunity.

A document such as this must be viewed as a masterpiece of illusion, with its strong protective concerns and apparent humane addressing of the problems at hand. Clearly with the inclusion of the political phrase launched by Hitler himself “The Jewish Question” it can be argued that the intended party for the lies was all of the above.

A transcript such as this, regardless of factuality, is of intense importance to the complete under-standing of the Holocaust. To appreciate the confusion it propagates one should lay it carefully next to other more fomented, revealed documents to get a sense that this may have been how the top officials of Nazi Germany wanted their actions to be viewed. It seems that any one source when extracted and let to stand on its own merits doesn’t stand, but crumbles and cannot bear the burden of responsibility that people wish to heap upon it. As one in a litany of contorted voices it can only serve to parameterize a small angle of debate. What it does for me, as a scientist, is re-mind me of how intensely the human race wants to be able to isolate and abhor examples of pure evil among our members, a goal that will never ultimately be realized when dishonesty and the tangled web of differing opinions exist, and serves to portray this desire as not only impractical, but likely impossible.