44. Reichsführer-SS and Chief of the German Police Heinrich Himmler alongside his right-hand man SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reich Security Head Office. With Hitler’s authorization, the steps were taken under their aegis in 1941–2 to implement the ‘Final Solution of the Jewish Question’.45. ‘Should the international Jewish financiers succeed once again in plunging the nations into a world war, the result will be not the victory of Jews but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe’ — Adolf Hitler. The ‘prophecy’ that Hitler had announced to the Reichstag on 30 January 1939. The poster was produced in September 1941 as a ‘Slogan of the week’ by the central office of the Nazi Party’s Propaganda Department and distributed to Party branches throughout the Reich.46. Hitler salutes the coffin of Reinhard Heydrich, who had been assassinated by Czech patriots flown in from Britain, at the state funeral of the Security Police Chief in the Mosaic Salon of the New Reich Chancellery in Berlin on 9 June 1942.47. Hitler comforts Heydrich’s sons at the state funeral. Privately, he was critical of Heydrich’s carelessness in regard to his own security. Other Nazi leaders in the photo are, Kurt Daluege (head of the Ordnungspolizei); Bernhard Rust (Reich Minister for Education); Alfred Rosenberg (Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories); Viktor Lutze (SA Chief of Staff); Baldur von Schirach (Reich Governor and Gauleiter of Vienna); Robert Ley (Nazi Party Organization Leader and head of the German Labour Front); Himmler; Wilhelm Frick (Reich Minister of the Interior); and Göring.48. Hitler addresses 12,000 officers and officer-candidates in the Sportpalast in Berlin on 28 September 1942.49. Some of the assembled young officers cheering Hitler at the meeting.50. Field-Marshal Fedor von Bock in 1942, as Commander-in-Chief of Army Group South. During the second half of 1941 he had commanded Army Group Centre, which had spearheaded the thrust to Moscow. Though increasingly critical of Hitler’s military leadership, he remained a loyalist.51. Field-Marshal Erich von Manstein, possibly Hitler’s most gifted military commander. Despite his growing differences with Hitler, he refused to join the conspiracy against him, stating: ‘Prussian field-marshals do not mutiny.’52. Hitler speaking on ‘Heroes’ Memorial Day’, 15 March 1942, in the Ehrenhof (‘courtyard of honour’) of the Arsenal on Unter den Linden in Berlin.
