Hitler and the Einsatzgruppen Reports (my Part II)

[clintongeorge]

I’ve posted something related before, but I’ve read something new. Posting this as a compliment to my other post as much as anything.

“The Führer does not seem to have followed the activities of the Einsatzgruppen in detail. There is no evidence that he was sent or read their reports. It is true that on 1 August 1941, Gestapo Chief Müller asked the Einsatzgruppen commanders to provide him with material with which he could brief Hitler. The order referred explicitly only to ‘particularly interesting visual material, such as photographs, posters, leaflets, and other documents’, in other words objects which could be used for propagandistic purposes; the Führer does not seem to have been sent or studied detailed lists of executions.” [188]

[188] - Thus Klaus-Michael Mallmann, Andrej Angrick, Jürgen Matthäus and Martin Cüppers (eds.), Die 'Ereignismeldungen UdSSR' 1941. Dokumente der Einsatzgruppen in der Sowjetunion (Darmstadt, 2011), p. 17 (with quotations).

- Brendan Simms, Hitler: A Global Biography, 793.

Simms is not a Holocaust historian nor is the book on the topic, but he is failing to mention the record, put forth by Mattogno and others, that Hitler’s eyes once gazed upon Meldung 51 (the deadliest report) and he is stating this passage rather emphatically. I also find Müller’s request interesting.

[Wetzelrad]

“The Führer does not seem to have followed the activities of the Einsatzgruppen in detail. There is no evidence that he was sent or read their reports. It is true that on 1 August 1941, Gestapo Chief Müller asked the Einsatzgruppen commanders to provide him with material with which he could brief Hitler. The order referred explicitly only to ‘particularly interesting visual material, such as photographs, posters, leaflets, and other documents’, in other words objects which could be used for propagandistic purposes; the Führer does not seem to have been sent or studied detailed lists of executions.” [188]

[188] - Thus Klaus-Michael Mallmann, Andrej Angrick, Jürgen Matthäus and Martin Cüppers (eds.), Die 'Ereignismeldungen UdSSR' 1941. Dokumente der Einsatzgruppen in der Sowjetunion (Darmstadt, 2011), p. 17 (with quotations).

- Brendan Simms, Hitler: A Global Biography, 793.

I find this interpretation questionable. Heinrich Müller's request for "illustrative material" to be sent to him does not imply that he would forego using written or numerical material, like that which he already had on hand. Müller was the head of RSHA Office IV which produced the very Situation Reports that are the essential proof of the "Holocaust by bullets", so why would we make the strange assumption that he didn't present any of those numbers in his briefings to Hitler?

It is as if I had said: "I need to sell a house to a client. I need especially interesting visual material for this purpose." And somehow a historian would read that and think that the client only saw photos of the house and was not told what would be the price, the square footage, or the number of bedrooms, because I didn't go out of my way to explicitly say that I would include them.

With that said, what Simms writes is revisionist-adjacent. He implies as David Irving wrote that Hitler was not clued in to the mass executions of Jews, and he suggests these visual materials were for "propagandistic purposes", as if Hitler himself needed to be propagandized by his subordinates.

But you are right. Simms's claims are uninformed.