War Crimes in Belorussia, mid-1943

Nuremberg exhibit NO-3028 is a series of reports raising concerns about atrocities committed in anti-partisan operations in White Ruthenia. These were posted here by David Thompson in 2004. The most pertinent is perhaps that of 'party member' Lange:

I am submitting the following private communication for your information. Dr. Walkewitsch, the acting head of WSW came to me.

He was informed by Mr. Sakowitsch, the former territory head [Gebietsvorsitzender] of the WSW Minsk--County that on 27 May 1943 at 1400 hours the SS and/or Ukrainians had driven the inhabitants of Krjvsk together into two houses and afterward set fire to the houses so that those inside burned to death.

The same thing happened to the village of Krashyn on 24 May 1943. Both villages are located in the district of Woloshin of the Vilijka territory.

Typically, Himmler's office dismissed such concerns. In the last document in the exhibit, Brandt states that "[Himmler] requests that the Reich Minister of the East be informed that the campaign against the partisans is going quite according to schedule and Volhynia and Podolia will be the next on the list." The subtext was advising Rosenberg to tell his subordinates to quit their complaining. See Leo Alexander's excellent analysis of this exchange, published here in 1948.

Early 1943: Rosenberg Promises Total Extermination

The USHMM edition of Rosenberg's diaries contains, on pages 407-409, extracts from a speech made by Rosenberg just after Goebbels' Total War speech. The German text is in IMT XXXIX, pp.412-25 as part of exhibit USSR-170: 

We must not content ourselves with the Jews getting pushed around from one country to another and possibly still having a big Jewish ghetto here and there. Instead, our goal can only be the old one: the Jewish question in Europe and in Germany is only solved when there is no longer a single Jew on the European continent [Wir dürfen uns nicht damit begnügen, dass die Juden von einem Staat zum anderen geschoben werden, und dass vielleicht hier und da noch ein großes jüdisches Ghetto steckt, sondern unser Ziel kann nur das alte sein: Die Judenfrage in Europa und in Deutschland ist nur dann gelöst, wenn es keinen Juden mehr auf dem europäischen Kontinent gibt]. 

Rosenberg was thus repeating his declaration of November 18, 1941, but this time, with no possibility of the Jews being pushed militarily over the Urals, the method could only be direct killing.

Context of Rosenberg diary entry 9 Oct 1942

On September 14, 1942, Thierack wrote:

With regard to the destruction of asocial life, Dr Goebbels is of the opinion that the following groups should be exterminated: Jews and gypsies unconditionally, Poles who have to serve 3-4 -years of penal servitude, and Czechs and Germans who are sentenced to death or penal servitude for life or to security custody [Sicherungsvorwahrung] for life. The idea of exterminating them by labor is the best. For the rest however, except in the aforementioned cases, every case has to be dealt with individually. In this case, of course, Czechs and Germans have to be differently judged. There may be cases where a German sentenced to 15 years of penal servitude is not to be considered asocial, but in contrast to this a person sentenced to penal servitude up to 8 years may be.

Jansson Misreads Rosenberg's Diary

Jansson asks:

Rosenberg mentions a proposal that would have put Ukrainians on the same level as Jews and Gypsies.[74] According to the interpretations of holocaust controversies, this means that there was a German proposal to exterminate the Ukrainians. Does Harrison believe that such a proposal existed, and if not how does he explain this diary entry?  [9.10.42].

The proposal was that made by Himmler to Thierack that Ukrainians facing trial should have the same status as Gypsies and Jews. It was not concerned with exterminating racial or national groups, although it could be used as cover by the SS for mass killing. Rosenberg was firmly opposed to the policy [Vorschlag Himmler wird von mir abgelehnt], as he reiterated to Thierack on 27.10.42 [Über die Frage d. Rechtsstellung d. Ukrainer i. D. gebe ich ihm meine Meinung bekannt: dass man sie nicht m. Zigeunern auf eine Stufe stellen könne], presumably because he knew that giving the SS such powers would lead to some mass killing of Ukrainians (as later did occur), albeit not the total extermination that was inflicted on Ukrainian Jews (note that Jews in Ukraine at this point were largely dead so their inclusion on 9.10.42 is moot). 

Due to shortage of time and difficulty of accessing the blog at this time, I have asked Roberto to deal with my other notes, but I will finish for now by noting the diary entries "Stalin hätte doch die
führende Schicht ausgerottet" [29.9.39] and "Von den 2 ½ Millionen Volksdeutschen sind 1 Million sicher ausgerottet, von den 1 ½ Millionen Wolgadeutschen waren 400000 nach geblieben." [12.9.41]

Biological eradication (biologische Ausmerzung)

On page 118 of the Critique, I cited Rosenberg's briefing of November 18, 1941, taken from Christopher Browning's submission to the Irving-Lipstadt trial. Rosenberg spoke of the necessity of "a biological eradication of the entire Jewry of Europe" (eine biologischen Ausmerzung des gesamten Judentums in Europe) by measures that would "expel them over the Urals or eradicate them in some other way." Mattogno replied to this by stating that the "purely figurative meaning of “Ausmerzung des Judentums” (extirpation of Jewry)...designated the eradication of Jewry from the soil of the Reich and from the European soil." However, this can be refuted by two points.

Rosenberg on Reprisals

It seems clear to me that his diary entry of September 12, 1941 (pdf posted by Irving here), can only mean that Rosenberg wished for central European Jews to be killed in reprisal for the "murder" of Volga Germans. Note also that Rosenberg clearly sees Siberia as a place of murder for deportees not resettlement:

12.9.41 Als die Mitteilungen eintrafen, dass Stalin nun auch die noch verbliebenen 400 000 Wolgadeutschen nach Sibirien verschleppen, d.h. morden lassen wird, da ist in uns allen der Hass gegen Moskau erst recht wieder emporgestiegen. Ich gab Anweisung, für eine sehr scharfe Stellungnahme u. sandte sie formuliert an den Führer. Der sie noch verschärfte. Gestern liess ich einen Vorschlag ausarbeiten, durch Rundfunk nach Russland, England u. USA mitteilen zu lassen, dass wenn dieser Massenmord durchgeführt werden sollte, Deutschland die Juden Zentraleuropas dafür büssen lassen würde. Dies mit vollster Berechtigung, da soeben noch der Jude Schertok auf einer Palästinakonferenz erklärt habe, an dem Bündnis zwischen Moskau – London – Washington hätten die Juden besonderen Anteil, da sie stets dafür gearbeitet hätten.

Homeland Security and the Rosenberg Diaries

Richard Widmann here tries to spin a conspiracy around the involvement of Homeland Security in locating the Rosenberg diaries. He says: 

it is certainly surprising, to me at least, that ICE and Homeland Security spend their time looking for lost documents from the Second World War 

However, as can be seen here, a simple Google search would have told him that Homeland Security investigates stolen cultural artifacts, and the diaries clearly qualified as stolen: 

At the conclusion of the Nuremberg Trials, Kempner returned to the United States and lived in Lansdowne, Pa. Contrary to law and proper procedure, Kempner removed various documents, including the Rosenberg Diary, from U.S. government facilities in Nuremberg and retained them until his death in 1993.

HSI investigation

In November 2012, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Delaware and HSI special agents received information from an art security specialist, who was working with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, regarding the search for Rosenberg Diary. The Rosenberg Diary was subsequently located and seized pursuant to a warrant issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.

HSI plays a leading role in criminal investigations that involve the illegal importation and distribution of cultural property, including the illicit trafficking of cultural property, especially objects that have been reported lost or stolen. The HSI Office of International Affairs, through its 75 attaché offices in 48 countries, works closely with foreign governments to conduct joint investigations, when possible.

Should we expect deniers to check such facts before jumping to paranoid conclusions?