Himmler's Posen Speeches and the Jews
Here's a large excerpt of the 6 October [1943] Posen speech. Read through it all but pay very close attention to the bolded segments:
All of you gladly take it for granted that there are no longer any Jews in your administrative districts. All Germans — with a few individual exceptions — are aware that we could not have endured the bombings, the hardships of the fourth year of the war, and could not endure fifth and sixth years of war that are perhaps yet to come, if we still had this demoralizing pest in our national body. "The Jews must be eradicated ["ausgerottet"]." This brief sentence is easily said. But for the man who must carry out what it calls for, it is the gravest and hardest thing in existence. Now, look, after all they're Jews, only Jews. That's plain enough. But just think about how many people — including Party comrades — have addressed to me and other officials those famous petitions of theirs in which they say: The Jews are all bastards, of course, but so-and-so is a good Jew and should be left alone. I daresay, judging by the number of such appeals and the number of people who express such opinions, the number of "good Jews" in Germany must have exceeded the total Jewish population! In Germany we have millions and millions of people who each have their "one good Jew." I mention this only because you can see in the vital field of your own administrative districts how many respected and upright National Socialists have their "good Jew."
I ask that you assembled here pay attention to what I have to say, but not repeat it. The question came up: Well, what about the women and children? — I came to a determinedly simple conclusion about that, too. I did not believe that I had the right to wipe out ["auszurotten"] the men — rather I should say, kill ["umzubringen"] them or have them killed — and let their children grow up to avenge themselves on our sons and grandsons. The hard decision to wipe this people ["Volk"] off ["verschwinden"] the face of the earth had to be made. For us, the organization that had to carry out this task, it was the most difficult one we ever had. But it was accomplished, and without — I believe I can say — our men and their leaders suffering any mental or spiritual damage. That was clearly a danger. To become too brutal, too heartless, and lose respect for human life, or to be too soft and bring oneself to the point of a nervous breakdown — the path between these two ever-present possibilities is incredibly narrow, the course between Scylla and Charybdis.
[...]
By the end of the year, the Jewish problem in the lands we have occupied will be solved. There will be left only remnants, individual Jews who are in hiding.
I have carefully chosen the sections above to place emphasis (bold). Consider it, carefully, and you may start to see what this excerpt is really about.
Some key points:
- "in your administrative districts", "in our national body", on "the face of the earth", and "in the lands we have occupied" are all attached to references to Jews, here.
- The reference to Jews being "eradicated" is immediately after a reference to them being a "pest in our national body".
- He mentions this is "easily said". Is he more likely to say this of extermination, or of forced expulsion (which can be
extremely traumatic, in itself, notably for women and children), especially considering he immediately thereafter talks of how frequently Germans find "good Jews" among them? Is
killing all Jews "easily said" by everyone in the room at this point in time?
- He suggests a hypothetical counter-argument that a "good Jew... should be left alone". Not "spared" or "left alive", but "left alone" entirely (i.e. not expelled, imprisoned, etc.).
- Since the Jewish men were very frequently partisans, they became enough of a security risk that a decision to kill them (at some undefined scale) was considered, which he decided against, also for [long-term] security reasons. A decision instead was made to completely remove them from "the lands", the "administrative districts", and the "national body".
- They were able complete this without becoming too brutal or heartless and losing respect for human -- Jewish -- life.
- Himmler repeatedly suggests the task in question has already been done, i.e. past-tense. But no one suggests all Jews in the German sphere were already exterminated (rather than simply expelled or otherwise contained) by this time (October '43).
In short, Himmler and Germany did indeed consider Jews as something of an infestation. But the goal was always about removing them from the national body (consider: I can fumigate my home and I do not care if the bugs die or leave -- my goal is simply for them to be gone).
When understood in-context, it's completely clear that Himmler was in no way referring to a total extermination of Jews, or any policy as such.
While it's entirely plausible that certain documents or other materials have been faked (given we know various powers have had motive, means, and patterns of deception, historically), I do see quite often that people (including Revisionists) do not take long enough to carefully consider everything in proper context. I think the Himmler Posen speech is a prime example of this.
Germans in the room at the Posen speech were not thinking, "hmm... maybe he [Himmler] is proposing here the extermination of each and every Jew?" -- in fact, they would have found such a notion
completely stupid and/or ridiculous. SS leadership giving speeches in 1943 did not feel a need to use soft language in hopes that no one would think they meant an "extermination plan" since such a notion would have been outrageous and unheard of. They could therefore speak openly about the need to remove the Jewish parasitic element, to eradicate it entirely
from within the German national body. This was not about killing every last Jew; it was about wiping them off of the map, erasing them entirely from the German nation and territories, since all other measures had failed. Himmler is simply re-telling the story of how the Jews were removed from German life, not just institutionally, but physically/geographically as well.
This interpretation is 100% compatible with what is said in the speeches and much better aligns with the surrounding context of the period.
Just to add, it is said that the 4 October Posen speech provides contextual support for the 6 October Posen speech (two days later). But what does the 4 October (earlier) speech actually say? Himmler's words:
I want to mention another very difficult matter here before you in all frankness. Among ourselves, it ought to be spoken of quite openly for once; yet we shall never speak of it in public. Just as little as we hesitated to do our duty as ordered on 30 June 1934, and place comrades who had failed against the wall and shoot them, just as little did we ever speak of it, and we shall never speak of it. It was a matter of course, of tact, for us, thank God, never to speak of it, never to talk of it. It made everybody shudder; yet everyone was clear in his mind that he would do it again if ordered to do so, and if it was necessary.
Here, Himmler says, essentially, 'we won’t speak of things that are difficult to talk about because we tend to find them difficult to talk about'. It was a
matter “of tact” not to speak of such a brutal operation --- aggressive rounding up, dispossession of entire [Jewish] families, sometimes entailing violence (where deemed necessary). Such an operation had never been done before and was unprecedented, systematically and morally, and speaking of it "made everybody shudder". Thus, "not speaking of it" had nothing to do with any secret extermination policy as is often suggested by establishment historians.
I am thinking now of the evacuation of the Jews [Judenevakuierung], the extirpation [Ausrottung] of the Jewish people.
Here, Himmler is simply clarifying the nature of the "evacuation": one of extirpation/uprooting Jews wherever they stand.
It is one of those things that's easy to say: "The Jewish people will be extirpated [ausgerottet]", says every Party comrade, "that's quite clear, it's in our programme: elimination [Ausschaltung] of the Jews, extirpation [Ausrottung] ; that's what we're doing." And then they all come along, these 80 million good Germans, and every one of them has his decent Jew. Of course, it's quite clear that the others are pigs, but this one is one first-class Jew.
Here, the entire establishment logic falls apart on two key observations:
- If Himmler is suggesting here "extermination", it's completely untenable that when every single German (80 million) has their own "decent Jew", that "every Party comrade" (some 7 million or so Germans by this time) would at the same time feel it is "easy to say" they are exterminating all Jews.
- The NSDAP Party program (referenced here by Himmler as containing the same policy now being discussed) has no mention whatsoever (nor anything even implied) of “extermination”. It explicitly mentions expulsion, and was published years earlier when no one claims “extermination” was even remotely considered.
Of all those who speak this way, not one has looked on; not one has lived through it. Most of you know what it means when 100 bodies lie together, when 500 lie there, or if 1,000 lie there. To have gone through this, and at the same time, apart from exceptions caused by human weaknesses, to have remained decent, that has made us hard. This is a chapter of glory in our history which has never been written, and which never shall be written; since we know how hard it would be for us if we still had the Jews, as secret saboteurs, agitators, and slander-mongers, among us now, in every city — during the bombing raids, with the suffering and deprivations of the war. We would probably already be in the same situation as in 1916/17 if we still had the Jews in the body of the German people.
Here, Himmler simply explains why those who have not lived through the losses of Germany by that point in time cannot understand what those in the room can: the hardness that comes with having each seen hundreds of dead Germans lying before them. He explains there is no need to even write down this glorious chapter of overcoming the Jewish saboteurs, agitators, etc., since they all already know what it would be like, if that weren't the case: they'd be in the same situation as in 1916/17.
Again, absolutely nothing about any 'secret extermination policy'.
The riches they had, we've taken away from them. I have given a strict order, which SS Group Leader Pohl has carried out, that these riches shall, of course, be diverted to the Reich without exception. We have taken none of it. Individuals who failed were punished according to an order given by me at the beginning, which threatened: he who takes even one mark of it, that's his death. A number of SS men -- not very many -- have violated that order, and that will be their death, without mercy. We had the moral right, we had the duty to our own people, to kill this people which wanted to kill us ["dieses Volk, dass uns umbringen wollte, umzubringen"]. But we don't have the right to enrich ourselves even with one fur, one watch, one mark, one cigarette, or anything else. Just because we eradicated ["ausgerottet"] a bacillus, after all, doesn't mean we want to be infected by the bacillus and die. I will never permit even one little spot of corruption to arise or become established here. Wherever it may form, we shall burn it out together. In general, however, we can say that we have carried out this most difficult task out of love for our own people. And we have suffered no harm to our inner self, our soul, our character in so doing.
Here, the entire bolded portion makes clear what is being discussed: the eradication of a 'bacillus', an infestation [within the body of the German people]. Note the past-tense [eradicated; ausgerottet], suggesting what is being discussed here has already been done (and no one claims all Jews had been "exterminated" by this time, although they had been removed from the body of the German people, even if still imprisoned locally, in some cases). Altogether, it is completely clear that Himmler refers to "kill [umzubringen]" metaphorically here, within the concept of a "bacillus" and greed/corruption. To 'kill the bacillus' was to remove the corruption within Germany; this applied both to removing Jews and to forbidding any corruption within their own German ranks.
