127. Faschismus, 278; Kershaw, ‘Improvised Genocide?’, 71, 73; Longerich, 451–2.
128. BDC, Personalakte Arthur Greiser, Brandt to Koppe, 14 May 1942: ‘Der letzte Entscheid muß ja in dieser Angelegenheit vom Führer gefällt werden.’
129. BDC, Personalakte Arthur Greiser, Greiser to Himmler, 21 November 1942: ‘Ich für meine Person glaube nicht, daß der Führer in dieser Angelegenheit noch einmal befragt werden muß umso mehr, als er mir bei der letzten Rücksprache erst bezüglich der Juden gesagt hat, ich möchte mit diesen nach eigenem Ermessen verfahren.’
130. Kershaw, ‘Improvised Genocide?’, 65ft, 70–74.
131. Hilberg, Destruction, 232; Longerich, Politik, 461–5.
132. TBJG, II.2, 503 (14 December 1941). See Burrin, 124–5, and Ulrich Herbert, ‘Die deutsche Militärverwaltung in Paris und die Deportation der französischen Juden’, in Herbert, Vernichtungs-politik, 170–208, here 185–93, for the background to the deportation of the French Jews; and Leni Yahil, ‘Some Remarks about Hitler’s Impact on the Nazis’ Jewish Policy’, Yad Vashem Studies, 23 (1993), 281–93, here 288–9, for Hitler’s role in the moves leading to the deportation.
133. Krausnick/Wilhelm, 566–70 (Jeckeln testimony), quotation 566; Fleming, Hitler und die Endlösung, 87–104; Longerich, Politik, 464.
134. Gerlach, ‘Wannsee’, 7–44, here 17; Longerich, Politik, 463.
135. Gerlach, ‘Wannsee’, 12; Fleming, Hitler und die Endlôsung, 88 and n.184, 103–4; Longerich, Politik, 464.
136. Longerich, Politik, 466.
137. A point emphasized by Eberhard Jäckel in his hitherto unpublished paper on Heydrich’s role in the genesis of the ‘Final Solution’.
138. Longerich, Politik, 466.
139. IMG, xxix, 145, Doc. PS–1919.
140. Koeppen, 42 (6 October 1941).
141. Monologe, 99; Koeppen, 60–61 (21 October 1941).
142. Himmler visited FHO nineteen times — more frequently than any other guest — between July 1941 and January 1942 (Bullock, Hitler and Stalin, 800–801).
143. Koeppen, 71 (25 October 1941).
144. Monologe, 106. The translation of the passage in Hitler’s Table Talk, 1941–1944, London, 1953, 87, is not wholly accurate, and includes a phrase — ‘Terror is a salutary thing’ — not found in the German text.
145. Himmler had spoken on 1 August about driving female Jews into the Pripet marshes. The SS had done this, but the swamps had proved too shallow for drowning (Burrin, 111–12; Browning, Path, 106).
146. It is difficult to see why Irving, HW, 331, infers from the comments that Hitler did not favour the extermination of the Jews.
147. Monologe, 130.
148. Monologe, 130–31; Koeppen, 78 (5 November 1941).
149. Domarus, 1772–3.
150. Monologe, 148; Picker, 152.
151. Kershaw, ‘Improvised Genocide?’, 66 n.71 for the conflicting evidence about the precise date of the commencement of the gassing; and for the extermination at Chelmno, see above all Adalbert Rückerl (ed.), NS–Vernichtungslager im Spiegel deutscher Strafprozesse, Munich, 1977, Part 2.
152. TBJG, II.2, 498–9 (13 December 1941). Though Hitler’s extreme comments undoubtedly gave further impetus to the gathering momentum of genocide, Gerlach, ‘Wannsee’, 28, in my view goes too far in seeing his speech to the Gauleiter as the announcement of a ‘basic decision’ to murder all the Jews in Europe. See also Kershaw, Nazi Dictatorship, 2000, 126–30.
153. IMG, xxvii.270, Doc.PS–1517; and see Gerlach, ‘Wannsee’, 24.
154. DTB Frank, 457–8 (16 December 1941); trans., slightly amended, N & P, iii.1126–7, Doc.848.
155. IMG, xxxii.435–7, Docs. PS–3663, PS–3666 (quotation, 437).
156. Dienstkalender, 294. It is extremely unlikely that the entry can be equated in the way Gerlach, ‘Wannsee’, 22 interprets it, with a ‘basic decision’ to extend the extermination from Soviet Jewry to the rest of Europe, seeing European Jews in general as ‘imaginary partisans’. As far as is known, Hitler did not use the term ‘partisan’ in connection with Jews in the Reich or in western Europe. (See Longerich, Politik, 467 and 712 n.234.)
157. The following is taken from the minutes of the Conference: Longerich, Ermordung, 83–92; trans., N & P, iii.1127–34, Doc.849. See Eichmann’s comments on the minutes during his interrogation in Jerusalem in 1961 in Longerich, Ermordung, 92–4.
158. See Jeremy Noakes, ‘The Development of Nazi Policy towards the German–Jewish “Mischlinge” 1933–1945’, LBYB, 34 (1989), 291–354, here 341ff.
