Eichmann was by no means among the first to be informed of Hitler’s intention. We have seen that Heydrich had been working in this direction for years, presumably since the beginning of the war, and Himmler claimed to have been told (and to have protested against) this “solution” immediately after the defeat of France in the summer of 1940. By March, 1941, about six months before Eichmann had his interview with Heydrich, “it was no secret in higher Party circles that the Jews were to be exterminated,” as Viktor Brack, of the Führer’s Chancellery, testified at Nuremberg.
