RSHA report of October 1944: "...the Polish people...fear that, like the Jewish people, their ethnic substance will be destroyed"

The following reproduces a memo of 18 October 1944 by Herbert Strickner, RSHA department III B, on the "reorganization of Poland policy". The written draft makes the revealing side note that "the Polish people feel expelled from the European community of nations and fear that, like the Jewish people, their ethnic substance will be destroyed" (see also The Hagen Letter: "...to deal with 1/3 of the Poles - old people and children under the age of 10 - as with the Jews, that is to kill them.").

The Hagen Letter: "...to deal with 1/3 of the Poles - old people and children under the age of 10 - as with the Jews, that is to kill them."

On 17 February 1943, the Higher SS and Police Leader East Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger forwarded to the Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler correspondence of German officials in the General Gouvernement (BArch NS 19/1210).

The cause was a letter written by Wilhelm Hagen, the medical officer of Warsaw, to Adolf Hitler. In his letter of 7 December 1942, Hagen explained that Lothar Weirauch, head of the Department of Population and Welfare, had revealed that "it is intended or considered, in the course of the resettlement of 200,000 Poles in the east of the General Government...to deal with a third of the Poles - with 70,000 old people and children under the age of 10 - as with the Jews, that is, to kill them" (see document below). He requested Hitler for his intervention and decision on the issue.

Correction Corner #8: the alleged Himmler speech about extermination of Poles is most probably a forgery.

1. Introduction.

In the Eastern Bloc literature as well as in the modern Polish studies on the Nazi policies an alleged speech made by Himmler on March 15, 1940 before the camp commandants in the occupied Poland is quoted quite often. Himmler is reported to have said:

All skilled workers of Polish origin are to be utilized in our war industry; then all Poles will disappear from this world.
In fulfilling this very responsible task, you must destroy Polishness* quickly in prescribed stages. I give all the camp commanders my full authorization...
[...]
The hour is drawing closer when every German will have to stand the test. It is therefore necessary that the great German nation sees its main task in exterminating all Poles...

This claim is peculiar, for at that time the official Nazi policy did not even include wholesale slaughter of Jews (the exterminatory "Final Solution" policies appeared in 1941 and escalated throughout 1941 and 1942), and Jews were on a lower rung of the Nazi "racial hierarchy" than Poles.

Order from the BdS Generalgouvernement That Prisoners and Jews "Are to Be Liquidated" When Evacuation Is Not Possible

The following reproduces an order from the Senior Commander of the Security Police and Security Service (BdS) Generalgouvernement Walther Bierkamp of 20 July 1944 - as it was circulated by the Commander of the Security Police and the Security Service Radom the day later - that "it is to be avoided under all circumstances that prisoners or Jews should be liberated by the enemy...or should fall into their hands alive". In case that the evacuation of the inmates of SD prisons turns out as not possible, these "are to be liquidated, and the bodies of those shot are to be disposed as far as possible (burning, dynamiting of the building, etc.)" and "Jews still employed in the armaments industry or on other work are to be dealt with in the same way".

According to Daniel Blatman, The Death Marches, p. 57ff., the order should be seen in the context of Heinrich Himmler's directive "Security of Concentration Camps in Case A" of 17 June 1944, which handed over the responsibility for the security of the camps from the WVHA to the Higher SS and Police Leaders in case of an emergency situation. The document was cited on this blog in Mattogno's Ineptitude on the Fate of Jewish Workers in the General Government.

"Brought to the Final Solution"

On January 3, 1946, Wisliceny admitted in court that Jews sent to Auschwitz from Hungary were  "brought to the final solution". On February 19, 1944, a document on executions in Piaski gave a list of Jews who were "brought to the final solution." ["der Endlösung zugeführt wurden" [YVA O.53/82, pp.50-52]. These types of executions had been defined by Heydrich as special treatment [Sonderbehandlung], as quoted here. We therefore have a convergence of documentation and testimony that "final solution" in the context of SS operations in Auschwitz and in Poland generally meant killing, albeit disguised as "special treatment" [Sonderbehandlung] in which death was meted out via extralegal executions.