Al Owski’s Reviews > Zionism During the Holocaust: The weaponisation of memory in the service of state and nation > Status Update

“The SS established a mental institution in the East for men suffering the effects of murdering women and children by November 1941. Helmut James von Moltke met a nurse who worked in this hospital. After the war, Bach-Zelewski... explained to his American interrogators that ‘(the) death camp was something that the Russians could not accomplish: it reflected the German gift for organization. Bureaucrats created it.’ ”

“The Nazis largely abandoned their previous method of extermination, shooting, because of the psychological effect they were having on the killers. SS Obergruppenfuehrer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski told Himmler that: ‘These men were now finished for the rest of their lives: they would either be neurotics or savages….’ ”

“Almost certainly there was no written order to destroy European Jewry. There didn’t need to be. The word of the Fuhrer had the force of law: Führerworte haben Gesetzeskraft. When one judge, Lothar Kreyssig, complained to Justice Minister Franz Gürtner about the immunity of the SD and Gestapo he was told that ‘the will of the Führer is the source of law’. ”

“Eichmann was told by Heydrich in late summer 1941 that ‘I have just come from the Reichsfuhrer: the Fuhrer has now ordered the physical annihilation of the Jews.’ Radio reports from the field of operations contained exact numerical reports of executions. On 16 December 1941 Hans Frank told leaders of the GG of the need to ‘exterminate the Jews wherever we find them.’ ”

“The Nazis never admitted to the Holocaust. Terms such as ‘special measures’ and ‘resettlement’ were devised as euphemisms for extermination. Occasionally the Nazi leaders let the truth slip. ... Victor Brack, the leading organiser of the Euthanasia programme, admitted it had been an open secret in senior party circles.”

“The Final Solution was a product of fascism, war imperialism and the quest for lebensraum. It was: an economically driven plan of mass population resettlement and extermination to benefit ethnic Germans, which included the state-sponsored starvation of tens of millions of Slavs.”

“It is arguable that the Final Solution in the East, Germany’s India, had been decided upon as soon as Poland was invaded. At Nuremberg Erwin Lahousen of German Counterintelligence testified that, ‘As early as September, 1939, Hitler had decided the murder of Polish Jews.’ ”

“Despite the fact that the leaders of the Reichsvereinigung [RV], the Nazi-imposed Jewish Council, were becoming aware in 1942-43 of what ‘resettlement’ in the East meant, they continued organising the transports. As death notices began arriving back and rumours of mass shootings spread, Jews chose to go into hiding. RV staff were ‘under orders to inform their functionaries… who in turn informed the Gestapo.’ ”

“In their hatred of Jewish ‘assimilation’ the Zionist movement had ended up welcoming the Nuremberg Laws.”

“For most Jews the preservation of life came first. For Zionism, the preservation of the Jewish nation/race was more important. Reinhard Heydrich, who became the head of the Reich Security [RSHA] explained that the Nazis were: in agreement with the great spiritual movement within Jewry itself, Zionism, whose position is based on the recognition of the unity of Jewry... and the rejection of all ideas of mixing in.' "