Did Six Million Really
Die?
By Richard E.
Harwood
2
GERMAN POLICY TOWARD THE JEWS
AFTER THE OUTBREAK OF WAR
With the coming of the war, the situation
regarding the Jews altered drastically. It is not widely known that
world Jewry declared itself to be a belligerent party in the Second
World War, and there was therefore ample basis under international
law for the Germans to intern the Jewish population as a hostile
force. On September 5, 1939 Chaim Weizmann, the principle Zionist
leader, had declared war against Germany on behalf of the world's
Jews, stating that "the Jews stand by Great Britain and will fight on
the side of the democracies . . . The Jewish Agency is ready to enter
into immediate arrangements for utilizing Jewish manpower, technical
ability, resources etc . . ." (Jewish Chronicle, September 8,
1939).
DETENTION OF ENEMY ALIENS
All Jews had thus been declared agents
willing to prosecute a war against the German Reich, and as a
consequence, Himmler and Heydrich were eventually to begin the policy
of internment. It is worth noting that the United States and Canada
had already interned all Japanese aliens and citizens of Japanese
descent in detention camps before the Germans applied the same
security measures against the Jews of Europe. Moreover, there had
been no such evidence or declaration of disloyalty by these Japanese
Americans as had been given by Weizmann. The British, too, during the
Boer War, interned all the women and children of the population, and
thousands had died as a result, yet in no sense could the British be
charged with wanting to exterminate the Boers. The detention of Jews
in the occupied territories of Europe served two essential purposes
from the German viewpoint. The first was to prevent unrest and
subversion; Himmler had informed Mussolini on October 11th, 1942,
that German policy towards the Jews had altered during wartime
entirely for reasons of military security. He complained that
thousands of Jews in the occupied regions were conducting partisan
warfare, sabotage and espionage, a view confirmed by official Soviet
information given to Raymond Arthur Davis diat no less than 35,000
European Jews were waging partisan war under Tito in Yugoslavia. As a
result, Jews were to be transported to restricted areas and detention
camps, both in Germany, and especially after March 1942, in the
Government- General of Poland. As the war proceeded, the policy
developed of using Jewish detainees for labour in the war-effort. The
question of labour is fundamental when considering the alleged plan
of genocide against the Jews, for on grounds of logic alone the
latter would entail the most senseless waste of manpower, time and
energy while prosecuting a war of survival on two fronts. Certainly
after the attack on Russia, the idea of compulsory labour had taken
precedence over German plans for Jewisb emigation. The protocol of a
conversation between Hitler and the Hungarian regent Horthy on April
17th, 1943, reveals that the German leader personally requested
Horthy to release 100,000 Hungarian Jews for work in the
"pursuit-plane programme" of the Luftwaffe at a time when the aerial
bombardment of Germany was increasing (Reitlinger, Die
Endlösung, Berlin, 1956, p. 478). This took place at a time
when, supposedly, the Germans were already seeking to exterminate the
Jews, but Hitler's request clearly demonstrates the priority aim of
expanding his labour force. In harmony with this programme,
concentration camps became, in fact, industrial complexes. At every
camp where Jews and other nationalities were detained, there
were.large industrial plants and factories supplying material for the
German war-effort - the Buna rubber factory at Bergen-Belsen, for
example, Buna and I. G. Farben Industrie at Auschwitz and the
electrical firm of Siemens at Ravensbruck. In many cases, special
concentration camp money notes were issued as payment for labour,
enabling prisoners to buy extra rations from camp shops. The Germans
were determined to obtain the maximum economic return from the
concentration camp system, an object wholly at variance with any plan
to exterminate millions of people in them. It was the function of the
S.S. Economy and Administration Office, headed by Oswald Pohl, to see
that the concentration camps became major industrial
producers.
EMIGRATION STILL FAVOURED
It is a remarkable fact, however, that well
into the war period, the Germans continued to implement the policy of
Jewish emigration. The fall of France in 1940 enabled the German
Government to open serious negotiations with the French for the
transfer of European Jews to Madagascar. A memorandum of August, 1942
from Luther, Secretary-of-State in the German Foreign Office, reveals
that he had conducted these negotiations between July and December
1940, when they were terminated by the French. A circular from
Luther's department dated August 15th, 1940 shows that the details of
the German plan had been worked out by Eichmann, for it is signed by
his assistant, Dannecker. Eichmann had in fact been commissioned in
August to draw up a detailed Madagascar Plan, and Dannecker was
employed in research on Madagascar at the French Colonial Office
(Reitlinger, The Final ,Solution, p. 77). The proposals of August
15th were that an inter-European bank was to finance the emigration
of four million Jews throughout a phased programme. Luther's 1942
memorandum shows that Heydrich had obtained Himmler's approval of
this plan before the end of August and had also submitted it to
Goering. It certainly met with Hitler's approval, for as early as
June 17th his interpreter, Schmidt, recalls Hitler observing to
Mussolini that "One could found a State of Israel in Madagascar"
(Schmidt, Hitler's lnterpreter, London,1951, p.178). Although the
French terminated the Madagascar negotiations in December, 1940,
Poliakov, the director of the Centre of Jewish Documentation in
Paris, admits that the Germans nevertheless pursued the scheme, and
that Eichmann was still busy with it throughout 1941. Eventually,
however, it was rendered impractical by the progress of the war, in
particular by the situation after the invasion of Russia, and on
February 10th, 1942, the Foreign Office was informed that the plan
had been temporarily shelved. This ruling, sent to the Foreign Office
by Luther's assistant, Rademacher, is of great importance, because it
demonstrates conclusively that the term "Final Solution" meant only
the emigration of Jews, and also that transportation to the eastern
ghettos and concentration camps such as Auschwitz constituted nothing
but an alternative plan of evacuation. The directive reads: "The war
with the Soviet Union has in the meantime created the possibility of
disposing of other territories for the Final Solution. In consequence
the Führer has decided that the Jews should be evacuated not to
Madagascar but to the East. Madagascar need no longer therefore be
considered in connection with the Final Solution" (Reitlinger, ibid.
p. 79). The details of this evacuation had been discussed a month
earlier at the Wannsee Conference in Berlin, which we shall examine
below. Reitlinger and Poliakov both make the entirely unfounded
supposition that because the Madagascar Plan had been shelved, the
Germans must necessarily have been thinking of "extermination". Only
a month later, however, on March 7th, 1942, Goebbels wrote a
memorandum in favour of the Madagascar Plan as a "final solution" of
the Jewish question (Manvell and Frankl, Dr. Goebbels, London, 1960,
p. 165). In the meantime he approved of the Jews being "concentrated
in the East". Later Goebbels memoranda also stress deportation to the
East (i.e. the Government-General of Poland) and lay emphasis on the
need for compulsory labour there; once the policy of evacuation to
the East had been inaugurated, the use of Jewish labour became a
fundamental part of the operation. It is perfecdy clear from the
foregoing that the term "Final Solution" was applied both to
Madagascar and to the Eastern territories, and that therefore it
meant only the deportation of the Jews. Even as late as May 1944, the
Germans were prepared to allow the emigration of one million European
Jews from Europe. An account of this proposal is given by Alexander
Weissberg, a prominent Soviet Jewish scientist deported during the
Stalin purges, in his book Die Geschichte von Joel Brand (Cologne,
1956). Weissberg, who spent the war in Cracow though he expected the
Germans to intern him in a concentration camp, explains that on the
personal authorisation of Himmler, Eichmann had sent the Budapest
Jewish leader Joel Brand to Istanbul with an offer to the Allies to
permit the transfer of one million European Jews in the midst of the
war. (If the 'extermination' writers are to be believed, there were
scarcely one million Jews left by May, 1944). The Gestapo admitted
that the transportation involved would greatly inconvenience the
German war-effort, but were prepared to allow it in exchange for
10,000 trucks to be used exclusively on the Russian front.
Unfortunately, the plan came to nothing; the British concluded that
Brand must be a dangerous Nazi agent and immediately imprisoned him
in Cairo, while the Press denounced the offer as a Nazi trick.
Winston Churchill, though orating to the effect that the treatment of
the Hungarian Jews was probably "the biggest and most horrible crime
ever committed in the whole history of the world", never- theless
told Chaim Weizmann that acceptance of the Brand offer was
impossible, since it would be a betrayal of his Russian Allies.
Although the plan was fruitless, it well illustrates that no one
allegedly carrying out "thorough" extermination would permit the
emigration of a million Jews, and it demonstrates, too, the prime
importance placed by the Germans on the war-effort.
Index
Introduction
1. German policy toward the Jews prior to the
war
2. German policy toward the Jews after the outbreak
of war
3. Population and Emigration
4. The Six Million: Documentary Evidence
5. The Nuremberg Trials
6. Auschwitz and Polish Jewry
7. Some Concentration Camps Memoires
8. The Nature & Condition of War Time
Concentration Camps
9. The Jews and The Concentrations Camps: A Factual
Appraisal by the Red Cross
10. The truth at last: The work of Paul
Rassinier
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