Some of the translations in the English section of my Dutch book, De Holocaust in de woorden van de nazi's zelf (2023)

English translations

 

Notes about these translations:

- The first few quotes below, starting in 1938, are of course not about the gassings, as it wasn't until 1941 that the first experiments with Zyklon-B were conducted. I have included these quotes for context and to get a sense of the escalation. The 1941 essay at the bottom of the page has been included here for the same purpose.

- The priority here is to stay as close to the source material as possible. I have therefore made no attempt to make these translations sound more natural or beautiful in English or Dutch. So don't be surprised when some of the sentences or words appear awkward.

- Emphasis in bold type is mine.

 

1) The day after Kristallnacht, November 10, 1938:

 

“I present the matter to the Führer. He decides: let the demonstrations continue. Withdraw the police. The Jews should feel the people's wrath for once. That's true. I will give corresponding instructions to the police and the party immediately.”

 

2) Two days later, November 12, 1938:

 

“At the Osteria [a restaurant in Munich], I report to the Führer. He agrees with everything. His views are quite radical and aggressive. The operation itself went flawlessly. 17 dead. But no German property was damaged.

With minor adjustments, the Führer approves my order pertaining to the termination of the actions. I will release it immediately through the press and radio. The Führer wants to take very harsh measures against the Jews. They will have to put their businesses back in order themselves. The insurance companies will not pay them anything. After that, the Führer wants to gradually expropriate the Jewish businesses and give the owners papers that we can annul at any time.”

 

3) November 2, 1941:

 

“The Jews are the lice of civilized humanity. Somehow they must be exterminated, otherwise they will always play their tormenting and annoying role. To get rid of them, one must employ sufficient brutality. If you spare them, you will later on be their victim.”

 

4) December 13, 1941:

 

“Regarding the Jewish question, the leader is determined to wipe the slate clean. He has prophesied to the Jews that if they were to bring about another world war, they would experience their destruction in it. That was not just a phrase. The world war is here, and the destruction of Jewry must be the necessary consequence. This question must be considered without any sentimentality. We are not here to have sympathy for the Jews but only for our German people. If the German people have now again sacrificed around 160,000 dead in the Eastern campaign, the instigators of this bloody conflict will have to pay for it with their lives.”

 

5) February 14, 1942:

 

“The suffering that the Russian people have had to endure under Bolshevism is indescribable. This Jewish terrorism must be eradicated from all of Europe, root and branch. That is our historical task. Doubtless, with the Bolshevist victory in Russia, Jewish rule will be established throughout the world. This war must be waged to keep that from happening. The Führer once again expressed his determination to ruthlessly cleanse Europe of its Jews. There must be no squeamish sentimentalism about it. The Jews have deserved the catastrophe that has now overtaken them. With the destruction of our enemies, they will also experience their own destruction. We must hasten this process with cold ruthlessness. The more ruthlessly we proceed with this, the better it will be for our own people in the end.

We must hasten this process with cold ruthlessness, and in doing so we are doing an invaluable service to the suffering humanity that has been tormented by Jewry for thousands of years. This clear anti-Jewish attitude must also be enforced upon the recalcitrant circles within our own people. The Führer expressly emphasized this, and again afterwards in a circle of officers who have now taken this to heart.”

 

6) February 19, 1942:

 

“Last evening in a small circle of friends I watched a Polish-Yiddish movie called 'The Dybbuk'. This film is intended as Jewish propaganda but it is so anti-Semitic that one can only wonder how little the Jews know about them­selves and how little they are aware of what is repulsive to a non-Jewish person and what is not. While watching this film, you once again become aware that the Jewish race is the most dangerous one that populates the earth, and that towards it you must show no mercy or indulgence. This riffraff must be eradicated root and branch; without this, it is not possible to bring peace to the world.”

 

7) March 6, 1942:

 

“The Jews everywhere act as agitators and instigators. It is therefore understandable that to a large extent they have to pay for it with their lives. In general, I am of the opinion that the more Jews are liquidated during this war, the more consolidated the situation in Europe will be after the war. False sentimentality should not prevail here. The Jews are the European misfortune; they must somehow be eliminated.”

 

8) March 27, 1942:

 

“From the General Government, starting at Lublin, the Jews are now being deported to the East. A fairly barbaric procedure – that is not to be described in detail – is being employed, and of the Jews not much remains. In general, it can be stated that 60% of them must be liquidated, while only 40% can be put to work. The former Gauleiter of Vienna, who is carrying out this operation, is doing so quite prudently and with a procedure that is not too conspicuous. Upon the Jews a criminal judgment is carried out which is barbaric but they fully deserve. The prophecy that the Führer gave them for bringing about a new world war is beginning to come true in the most terrible way. One should not have sentimentalities in these matters.”

 

“If we do not defend ourselves against the Jews, they will destroy us. It is a fight to the death between the Aryan race and the Jewish bacillus. No other government or regime could muster the strength to solve this problem fully. Here too, the leader is the unwavering champion and spokesman for a radical solution that appears necessary and therefore inevitable. Thank God we now have a whole range of opportunities during the war that would be denied us in peacetime. We must take advantage of them. The ghettos freed up in the cities of the General Government are now being filled with Jews deported from the Reich, and after a certain period of time the process will then repeat itself. Jewry has nothing to laugh about. As its representatives are today organizing and propagating the war against Germany in England and America, its representatives in Europe will have to pay a very high price, which must also be considered justified.”

 

9) April 29, 1942:

 

“The Jews are given short shrift in all occupied Eastern territories. Tens of thousands have to face their demise, and the prophecy of the Führer is fulfilled in them, that a world war sparked by Jewry will have to be paid for with the extermination of its race.”

 

10) May 30, 1942:

 

“Germans only participate in subversive movements when Jews seduce them to do so. That's why the Jewish danger must be liquidated at any cost. It can be seen from the fact that when they are returned to the ghetto, they are quickly ghettoized again, that Jews cannot really adapt to Western European life. Western European civili­zation is only an external paint for them. However, there are also elements among the Jews who act with dangerous brutality and vindictiveness. Therefore, the Führer does not want the Jews to be evacuated to Siberia. There, under the toughest living conditions, they would undoubtedly become a vital element again. He would prefer to resettle them in Central Africa, where they would live in a climate that certainly wouldn't make them strong and resilient. In any case, the Führer's goal is to make Western Europe completely free of Jews.”

 

11) December 11, 1942:

 

“Jewish rabbis in London are organizing a large protest around the theme 'England Awake!' It's hilarious that now, after 15 years, the Jews are forced to steal our slogans. The very same slogan with which we once called on the anti-Semitic world to fight against Jewry, they are now using to call upon the philosemitic world to fight against us. But it won't help the Jews at all. The Jewish race has prepared this war, it is the spiritual author of all the misfortunes that have befallen the world. Jewry must pay for its crime – as the leader prophesied in his Reichstag speech 121 – with the eradication of the Jewish race in Europe and perhaps in the whole world.”

 

12) May 13, 1943:

 

“They will use any means to put up a fight against this gradual campaign of annihilation. One of these means is war. We must be aware that we still have very difficult battles to fight in this conflict between the Aryan race and the Jewish race, because Jewry has succeeded in enlisting large ethnic groups from the Aryan race – consciously or unconsciously – in its service. [...] According to the firm conviction of the Führer, world Jewry is facing a historic downfall. […] The intellectual man does not have the natural defenses against the Jewish danger, because he is fundamentally broken in his instincts. As a result, peoples with a high level of civilization are most exposed and most vulnerable to the danger. In nature, life always acts the same way against parasitism, but in the world of peoples, this is not exclusively the case. The Jewish danger is actually the result of this. Therefore, modern nations have no choice but to exterminate the Jews. […] Those peoples who are most likely to recognize the Jew and who are most likely to fight him will take his place in world domination.”

 

13)  March 15, 1945:

 

“The Jews report back. Their spokesman is the well-known and notorious author Leopold Schwarzschild, who is now arguing in the American press that under no circumstances should Germany be accorded milder treatment. One day these Jews will have be killed like rats, by anyone who has the power to do so. In Germany, thank God, we have already dutifully taken care of that.”

The Goebbels Diaries, by Sir Aaron Richards

 

(mirrored from his Holocaust Documents on Imgur)

 

Holocaust deniers often like to claim there is no physical evidence written on paper that the Nazi regime was planning on physically exterminating European Jews. But they couldn't be further from the truth. From the plethora of documents left that prove this, one such example are the many diary entries and other publications of Joseph Goebbels which make the genocidal intent of the Nazi regime all too clear. =====

 

The history of the diary itself, and how it was found

 

To better understand the importance of the diary, we have to first look at the history of its creation: Goebbels began to keep a diary in October 1923, shortly before his 27th birthday, while unemployed and living in his parents' home at Rheydt in the Ruhr region. He had been given a diary as a present by Else Janke, a young (part-Jewish) woman with whom he had an unsuccessful relationship, and most of his early entries were about her. His biographer Toby Thacker writes: "Writing a diary quickly became a kind of therapy for this troubled young man"[1] From 1923 onwards he wrote his diary almost daily.

 

According to biographer Peter Longerich, Goebbels' diary entries from late 1923 to early 1924 reflected the writings of a man who was isolated, preoccupied by "religious-philosophical" issues, and lacked a sense of direction.[2] Diary entries of mid-December 1923 forward show Goebbels was moving towards the völkisch nationalist movement.[3] Goebbels first took an interest in Adolf Hitler and Nazism in March 1924.[4] In February 1924, Hitler's trial for treason had begun in the wake of his failed attempt to seize power in Munich, Bavaria, during 8–9 November 1923 (this failed coup became known as the Beer Hall Putsch).[5] The trial garnered Hitler much press and gave him a platform for propaganda.[6] After Goebbels first met Hitler in July 1925, however, the Nazi leader increasingly became the central figure in the diary. By July 1926 Goebbels was so enraptured by Hitler speaking on "racial issues", that he wrote: "It is impossible to reproduce what [Hitler] said. It must be experienced. He is a genius. The natural, creative instrument of a fate determined by God. I am deeply moved.".[7]

 

By mid 1941 the diaries had grown to fill twenty thick volumes, and Goebbels realized that they were too valuable a resource to risk their destruction in an air raid. He therefore moved them from his study in his Berlin home to the underground vaults of the Reichsbank in central Berlin.[8] From this time onwards, he no longer wrote the diaries by hand. Instead he dictated them to a stenographer, who later typed up corrected versions.

 

By November 1944 it was evident to Goebbels that Germany was going to lose the war. Realizing that he was unlikely to survive the fall of the Third Reich, he gave orders that his diaries were to be copied for safekeeping, using the new technique of microfilm.[9] A special darkroom was created in Goebbels's apartment in central Berlin, and Goebbels's stenographer, Richard Otte, supervised the work of microfilming the diaries on about 1,700 glass plates in 1944 and 1945.[10] The original handwritten and typed diaries were packed and stored in the Reich Chancellery.[11] After the war, these were originally destined to be sold as 7,000 pages of scrap paper to a German scrap merchant, but rescued in the last moment. Through the hands of different intermediaries, the papers came into the possession of American reporter Frank E. Mason. Mason suspected that they were Goebbels diaries and took them to Louis P. Lochner, former chief of the Berlin bureau of the Associated Press. While some sections were damaged or missing, such as the entries detailing the annexation of Austria and the Kristallnacht in 1938, buried in the scattered manuscript were nevertheless several telling entries from the war years (as translated in Lochner, The Goebbels Diaries, 1948, pp. 86, 147-148) which will follow below.

 

The boxes of glass plates containing the microfilmed diaries however, were sent in April 1945 to Potsdam just west of Berlin, where they were buried. They were discovered by the Soviets and shipped to Moscow, where they sat unopened until they were discovered by German historian Elke Fröhlich from Munich's Institute for Contemporary History in the Moscow archives in 1992. Only then did the publication of the full diaries become possible (in German in 32 volumes).

 

The diary entries proving the Holocaust

 

Now that you have understood the history of the diary, let us begin with the incriminating entries.

 

First, I will begin with a piece that Goebbels wrote for "Das Reich" on November 16th, 1941 in which he stated:

 

"The Jews are receiving a penalty that is certainly hard, but more than deserved. World Jewry erred in adding up the forces available to it for this war, and now is gradually experiencing the destruction that it planned for us, and would have carried out without a second thought if it had possessed the ability. It is perishing according its own law: "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

 

source: "Die Juden sind schuld!" Das eherne Herz: Reden und Aufsätze aus den Jahren 1941/42 von Joseph Goebbels, Munich, 1943, p. 85; English translation by Randall Bytwerk at Calvin College German Propaganda Archive: http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/goeb1.htm

 

Not related to Goebbels, but two days later, on November 18, three days after a meeting with Himmler, Alfred Rosenberg gave a briefing to the German press in which he stated that:

 

"In the east some six million Jews still live, and this question can only be solved in a biological eradication of the entire Jewry of Europe. The Jewish question is only solved for Germany when the last Jew has left German territory, and for Europe when not a single Jew lives on the European continent up to the Urals. ...for this reason it is necessary to expel them over the Urals or eradicate them in some other way."

 

source: Christopher R. Browning, "Evidence for the Implementation of the Final Solution", citing Rosenberg, 18.11.1941, in Political Archives of the Foreign Office, Pol. XIII, VAA Berichte, online at: https://www.phdn.org/archives/www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/browning3.htm

 

Now let's begin with Goebbels' diary entries. One example is Goebbels paraphrasing Hitler, spoken at a meeting of the NSDAP Reichs-and-Gauleiter on 12 December 1941 and recorded in Goebbels' diary entry on the following day:

 

«Bezüglich der Judenfrage ist der Führer entschlossen, reinen Tisch zu machen. Er hat den Juden prophezeit, dass, wenn sie noch einmal einen Weltkrieg herbeiführen würden, sie dabei ihre Vernichtung erleben würden. Das ist keine Phrase gewesen. Der Weltkrieg ist da, die Vernichtung des Judentums muss die notwendige Folge sein. Diese Frage ist ohne jede Sentimentalität zu betrachten. Wir sind nicht dazu da, Mitleid mit den Juden, sondern nur Mitleid mit unserem deutschen Volk zu haben. Wenn das deutsche Volk jetzt wieder im Ostfeldzug an die 160 000 Tote geopfert hat, so werden die Urheber dieses blutigen Konfliktes dafür mit ihrem Leben bezahlen müssen.»

(Quoted after Christian Gerlach, Krieg, Ernährung, Völkermord, page 117)

 

translation:

 

"Regarding the Jewish question, the Führer is determined to make a clean sweep. He prophesied to the Jews that, if they were again to bring about a world war, they would experience their destruction therein. That was no catch-phrase. The world war is here, the destruction of Jewry must be the necessary consequence. This question is to be regarded without any sentimentality. We are not here to have pity with the Jews, but only to have pity with our German Volk. If the German Volk has now again sacrificed about 160 000 dead in the Eastern Campaign, the authors of this bloody conflict must pay for this with their lives."

 

February 14, 1942: "The Führer once again expressed his determination to clean up the Jews in Europe pitilessly. There must be no squeamish sentimentalism about it. The Jews have deserved the catastrophe that has now overtaken them. Their destruction will go hand in hand with the destruction of our enemies. We must hasten this process with cold ruthlessness.”

 

On 27 March 1942, during the height of the war, Goebbels wrote into his diary one of the most explicit recorded references to the Nazi genocide of the Jews: «Aus dem Generalgovernement werden jetzt, bei Lublin beginnend, die Juden nach dem Osten abgeschoben. Es wird hier ein ziemlich barbarisches und nicht näher zu beschreibendes Verfahren angewandt, und von den Juden selbst bleibt nicht mehr viel übrig. Im großen kann man wohl feststellen, daß 60 % davon liquidiert werden müssen, während nur noch 40 % in die Arbeit eingesetzt werden können. Der ehemalige Gauleiter von Wien, der diese Aktion durchführt, tut das mit ziemlicher Umsicht und auch mit einem Verfahren, das nicht allzu auffällig wirkt. An den Juden wird ein Strafgericht vollzogen, das zwar barbarisch ist, das sie aber vollauf verdient haben. Die Prophezeiung, die der Führer ihnen für die Herbeiführung eines neuen Weltkriegs mit auf den Weg gegeben hat, beginnt sich in der furchtbarsten Weise zu verwirklichen. Man darf in diesen Dingen keine Sentimentalitäten obwalten lassen.»

 

translation:

 

"The Jews are now being pushed out of the General Government, beginning near Lublin, to the East. A pretty barbaric procedure is being applied here, and it is not to be described in any more detail, and not much is left of the Jews themselves. In general one may conclude that 60% of them must be liquidated, while only 40% can be put to work. The former Gauleiter of Vienna [Globocnik], who is carrying out this action, is doing it pretty prudently and with a procedure that doesn't work too conspicuously. The Jews are being punished barbarically, to be sure, but they have fully deserved it. The prophesy that the Führer issued to them on the way, for the eventuality that they started a new world war, is beginning to realise itself in the most terrible manner. One must not allow any sentimentalities to rule in these matters."

 

More examples: "...the greater the number of Jews liquidated, the more consolidated will the situation in Europe be after this war." -March 6, 1942

 

"Short shrift ["kurzer Prozess"] is being made of the Jews in all eastern occupied areas. Tens of thousands will 'have to believe in it' [German: "müssen daran glauben", idiom for 'bite the dust'], and the prophecy of the Führer is being fulfilled on them, that Judaism will have to pay for a new world war which it has ignited with the extermination of its race." -April 29, 1942 (German original for reference: "Zehntausend müssen daran glauben, und an ihnen erfüllt sich die Prophezeiung des Führers, dass das Judentum einen von ihm entfachten neuen Weltkrieg mit der Ausrottung seiner Rasse wird bezahlen müssen.") 

 

May 30, 1942 (...and this is where Dr. Joseph Goebbels blows apart the whole transit camp and evacuation to the east theory that holocaust deniers have been touting for decades, in a single diary entry):

 

"Therefore one must liquidate the Jewish danger, cost it what it will. Given how few Jews can in reality adjust themselves to Western European life, one sees that, where they are led back into the ghetto, they quickly revert to form. West European civilization represents only an external coat of paint to them. There is also the Jewish essence, which works with a dangerous brutality and vindictiveness. Therefore the Führer does not at all wish that the Jews should be evacuated ["evakuiert"] to Siberia. There, under the harshest living conditions, they would undoubtedly develop again a strong life-element. [...] At bottom, however, I believe both the English and the Americans are happy that we are exterminating the Jewish riff-raff." -December 13, 1942

 

May 13, 1943: "The intellectual does not have the natural means of resisting the Jewish peril because his instincts have been badly blunted. Because of this fact the nations with a high standard of civilization are exposed to this peril first and foremost. In nature life always takes measures against parasites; in the life of nations that is not always the case. From this fact the Jewish peril actually stems. There is therefore no other recourse left for modern nations except to exterminate the Jew." (Joseph Goebbels' Diaries: Excerpts, 1942-43, Part 2 of 2: May 13, 1943 (pp. 376-377)

 

Revisionists like to claim that the Nazis had absolutely no interest in wasting their time with silly concepts like world domination, and that this is something pinned on them by allied propagandists. But again, Dr. Goebbels humiliates their theories by continuing to say the following in his May 13th, 1943 diary entry:

 

"Sie werden sich mit allen Mitteln gegen diesen allmählichen Vernichtungsfeldzug zur Wehr setzen. Eines dieser Mittel ist der Krieg. Wir müssen uns also darüber klar sein, daß wir in dieser Auseinandersetzung zwischen der arischen Menschheit und der jüdischen Rasse noch sehr schwere Kämpfe zu bestehen haben, weil das Judentum es verstanden hat, große Völkerschaften aus der arischen Rasse bewußt oder unbewußt in seinen Dienst zu bringen . . . Das Weltjudentum steht nach der festen Überzeugung des Führers vor einem geschichtlichen Sturz . . . Die Völker, die den Juden am ehesten erkannt haben und ihn am ehesten bekämpfen, werden an seiner Stelle die Weltherrschaft antreten."

 

translation:

 

"They will resist this campaign of gradual destruction with everything at their disposal. One of these is war. So we have to be aware that in this conflict between Aryan humanity and the Jewish race, we still have to fight very hard battles because Judaism has managed to bring large peoples of the Aryan race consciously or unconsciously into its service. [...] It is the Fuhrer's strong conviction that World Jewry is about to undergo a historic fall [...] Those peoples who have recognized and are most eagerly fighting the Jew, will take over world domination in his place."

 

Speaking of world domination, here's another entry that proves claims of National Socialist world domination weren't far-fetched at all:

 

May 13, 1943: "Aus alledem aber hat der Führer die Konsequenz gezogen, daß das Kleinstaatengerümpel, das heute noch in Europa vorhanden ist, so schnell wie möglich liquidiert werden muß. Es muß das Ziel unseres Kampfes bleiben, ein einheitliches Europa zu schaffen. Europa kann aber eine klare Organisation nur durch die Deutschen erfahren. Eine andere Führungsmacht ist praktisch nicht vorhanden. [...] Wer Europa besitzt, der wird damit die Führung der Welt an sich reißen. In diesem Zusammenhang können wir natürlich Fragen von Recht und Unrecht überhaupt nicht zur Diskussion akzeptieren."

 

source: Fröhlich II, Bd. 8, S. 287ff

 

translation: "From all this, however, the Führer has drawn the conclusion that the plethora of small-states, which still exist in Europe, must be liquidated as soon as possible. It must remain the goal of our struggle to create a united Europe. But Europe can only be clearly organized by Germans. There is practically no other leadership. [...] He who owns Europe will take leadership of the world. In this context we can obviously not accept questions of right and wrong to be brought to the discussion."

 

Revisionists (aka holocaust deniers) are quick to dismiss Goebbels' diaries as a forgery, without, as usual, providing examples as to how, where and by whom it was forged.

 

Several aspects that speak against forgery claims is that first of all, Goebbels began writing his diary in the early 1920s, almost daily entries for YEARS, with most of the diary being quite mundane, and interesting only to political historians. Why would the supposed Jewish conspiracy forge tens of thousands of pages just to insert just a few incriminating lines regarding the final solution in the 1940s? How did they manage to know Goebbels' affairs intimately enough to avoid contradictions, e.g. putting him or his associates in the wrong city at the wrong date? I understand the task of faking minor documents, but I cannot comprehend how one could forge thousands of pages. That is a herculean task for anyone to accomplish, making sure there are no contradictions.

 

Secondly, Goebbels' diary was not used during the Nuremberg Trials even though it had already been in possession of the Russians and the Americans - with the latter even being fully aware about the potential author of those papers. In fact, the reluctance of the American government to (at that time) accept the diary as genuine and therefore enter it as evidence can only be interpreted as proof they did not forge it.

 

Well, how about the Russians? Did they forge it? Remember, the Russians were the ones trying to pin the Katyn forest massacre on the Germans during the Nuremberg Trials - and this is a fact EVERY revisionist will try to hammer into your brain, without telling you that the International Military Tribunal did not accept Katyn and therefore it was not part of the verdict. Still, the point is, the Russians were trying to falsely frame the Germans for Katyn at this point. And yet, they did not enter into evidence the microfilmed glass plates of the Goebbels Diaries they possessed. The only conclsion is, they didnt do this, because they had even less of an idea of what was in their possession until much later. So, maybe the Soviets forged em in the decades that followed? Even that theory is bunk because the incriminating passages were in also in the typewritten pages in the possession of the Americans, allowing Louis P Lochner to publish the war years 1942-1943 of the diary in the initial years after WW2. I hope you understand what I am getting at here.

 

And finally, the fact that several copies of the diary exist in different locations: the handwritten and typewritten papers in Germany, later transferred to America, and the microfilmed plates also found in Germany and then taken to Moscow, corroborating each other. This proves the diary is genuine, as does the plethora of evidence of the diary's existence before the war was over.

 

Sources:

[1]: Thacker, Toby (2010). Joseph Goebbels: Life and Death. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, page 2

[2]: Longerich, Peter (2015). Goebbels: A Biography. New York: Random House, pages 28, 33, 34

[3], [5]: ibid, page 33

[4], [6]: ibid, page 36

[7]: Kershaw, Ian (2008). Hitler: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, pp. 127-131

[8]: ibid, pp. 133-135

[9]: Stroebel, Leslie; Zakia, Richard D. (1993). The Focal Encyclopedia of Photography. Focal Press, p. 482

[10]: Thacker 2010, p. 285

[11]: ibid, p. 295

 

The German originals

 

Published in:

Elke Fröhlich's Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels. Sämtliche Fragmente. K.G. Saur Verlag, München 1987–2000, Band 14-29

 

1) The day after Kristallnacht, November 10, 1938:

 

“Ich trage dem Führer die Angelegenheit vor. Er bestimmt: Demonstrationen weiterlaufen lassen. Polizei zurückziehen. Die Juden sollen einmal den Volkszorn zu verspüren bekommen. Das ist richtig. Ich gebe gleich entsprechende Anweizungen an Polizei und Partei.”

 

2) Two days later, November 12, 1938:

 

“In der Osteria erstatte ich dem Führer Bericht. Er ist mit allem einverstanden. Seine Ansichten sind ganz radikal und agressiv. Die Aktion selbst ist tadellos verlaufen. 17 Tote. Aber kein deutsches Eigentum beschädigt.

Mit kleinen Änderungen billigt der Führer meinen Erlaß betr. Abbruch der Aktionen. Ich gebe ihn gleich durch Presse und Rundfunk heraus. Der Führer will zu sehr scharfen Maßnahmen gegen die Juden schreiten. Sie müssen ihre Geschäfte selbst wieder in Ordnung bringen. Die Versicherungen zahlen ihnen nichts. Dann will der Führer die jüdischen Geschäfte allmählich enteignen und den Inhabern dafür Papiere geben, die wir jederzeit entwerten können.”

 

3) November 2, 1941:

 

“Die Juden sind die Läuse der zivilisierten Menschheit. Man muß sie irgendwie ausrotten, sonst werden sie immer wieder ihre peinigende und lästige Rolle spielen. Nur wenn man mit der nötigen Brutalität gegen sie vorgeht, wird man mit ihnen fertig. Wo man sie schont, wird man später ihr Opfer sein.”

 

4) December 13, 1941:

 

“Bezüglich der Judenfrage ist der Führer entschlossen, reinen Tisch zu machen. Er hat den Juden prophezeit, dass, wenn sie noch einmal einen Weltkrieg herbeiführen würden, sie dabei ihre Vernichtung erleben würden. Das ist keine Phrase gewesen. Der Weltkrieg ist da, die Vernichtung des Judentums muss die notwendige Folge sein. Diese Frage ist ohne jede Sentimentalität zu betrachten. Wir sind nicht dazu da, Mitleid mit den Juden, sondern nur Mitleid mit unserem deutschen Volk zu haben. Wenn das deutsche Volk jetzt wieder im Ostfeldzug an die 160.000 Tote geopfert hat, so werden die Urheber dieses blutigen Konfliktes dafür mit ihrem Leben bezahlen müssen.”

 

5) February 14, 1942:

 

“Die Leiden, die das russische Volk unter dem Bolschewismus hat ausstehen müssen, sind überhaupt unbeschreiblich. Dieser jüdische Terrorismus muß aus ganz Europa mit Stumpf und Stiel ausgerottet werden. Das ist unsere historische Aufgabe. Mit dem Bolschewismus wird zweifellos auch das Judentum seine große Katastrophe erleben. Der Führer gibt noch einmal seiner Meinung Ausdruck, daß er entschlossen ist, rücksichtslos mit den Juden in Europa aufzuräumen. Hier darf man keinerlei sentimentale Anwandlungen haben. Die Juden haben die Katastrophe, die sie heute erleben, verdient. Sie werden mit der Vernichtung unserer Feinde auch ihre eigene Vernichtung erleben. Wir müssen diesen Prozeß mit einer kalten Rücksichtslosigkeit beschleunigen, und wir tun damit der leidenden und seit Jahrtausenden vom Judentum gequälten Menschheit einen unabschätzbaren Dienst. Diese klare judenfeindliche Haltung muß auch im eigenen Volke den widerspenstigen Kreisen gegenüber durchgesetzt werden. Das betont der Führer ausdrücklich, auch nachher noch einmal im Kreise von Offizieren, die sich das hinter die Ohren schreiben können.”

 

6) February 19, 1942:

 

“Abends schaue ich mir in einem kleineren Kreise einen polnisch-jiddischen Film ‘Der Dybuk’ an. Dieser Film ist als jüdischer Propagandafilm gedacht. Er wirkt so antisemitisch, dass man nur staunen kann, wie wenig die Juden über sich selbst Bescheid wissen und wie wenig sie sich klar darüber sind, was auf einen nichtjüdischen Menschen abstoßend wirkt und was nicht. Beim Anschauen dieses Films wird einem wieder einmal klar, daß die jüdische Rasse die gefährlichste ist, die den Erdball bevölkert, und daß man ihr gegenüber keine Gnade und auch keine Nachgiebigkeit kennen darf. Dies Gelichter muß mit Stumpf und Stiel ausgerottet werden; ohne das ist es nicht möglich, die Welt zu befrieden.”

 

7) March 6, 1942:

 

“Die Juden betätigen sich überall als Hetzer und Aufputscher. Es ist deshalb erklärlich, dass sie in grossem Umfange dafür mit dem Leben bezahlen müssen. Überhaupt vertrete ich die Meinung, dass, je mehr Juden während dieses Krieges liquidiert werden, desto konsolidierter die Lage in Europa nach dem Kriege sein wird. Man darf hier keine falsche Sentimentalität obwalten lassen. Die Juden sind das europäische Unglück; sie müssen auf irgendeine Weise beseitigt werden.”

 

8) March 27, 1942:

 

“Aus dem Generalgouvernement werden jetzt, bei Lublin beginnend, die Juden nach dem Osten abgeschoben. Es wird hier ein ziemlich barbarisches und nicht näher zu beschreibendes Verfahren angewandt, und von den Juden selbst bleibt nicht mehr viel übrig. Im großen kann man wohl feststellen, daß 60 % davon liquidiert werden müssen, während nur noch 40 % in die Arbeit eingesetzt werden können. Der ehemalige Gauleiter von Wien, der diese Aktion durchführt, tut das mit ziemlicher Umsicht und auch mit einem Verfahren, das nicht allzu auffällig wirkt. An den Juden wird ein Strafgericht vollzogen, das zwar barbarisch ist, das sie aber vollauf verdient haben. Die Prophezeiung, die der Führer ihnen für die Herbeiführung eines neuen Weltkriegs mit auf den Weg gegeben hat, beginnt sich in der furchtbarsten Weise zu verwirklichen. Man darf in diesen Dingen keine Sentimentalitäten obwalten lassen.

Die Juden würden, wenn wir uns ihrer nicht erwehren würden, uns vernichten. Es ist ein Kampf auf Leben und Tod zwischen der arischen Rasse und dem jüdischen Bazillus. Keine andere Regierung und kein anderes Regime könnte die Kraft aufbringen, diese Frage generell zu lösen. Auch hier ist der Führer der unentwegte Vorkämpfer und Wortführer einer radikalen Lösung, die nach Lage der Dinge geboten ist und deshalb unausweichlich erscheint. Gott sei Dank haben wir jetzt während des Krieges eine ganze Reihe von Möglichkeiten, die uns im Frieden verwehrt wären. Die müssen wir ausnutzen. Die in den Städten des General­gouvernements freiwerdenden Ghettos werden jetzt mit den aus dem Reich abgeschobenen Juden gefüllt, und hier soll sich dann nach einer gewissen Zeit der Prozeß erneuern. Das Judentum hat nichts zu lachen, und daß seine Vertreter heute in England und in Amerika den Krieg gegen Deutschland organisieren und propagieren, das müssen seine Vertreter in Europa sehr teuer bezahlen, was wohl auch als berechtigt angesehen werden muß.”

 

9) April 29, 1942:

 

“Mit den Juden macht man in allen besetzten Ostgebieten kurzen Prozess. Zehntausende müssen daran glauben, und an ihnen erfüllt sich die Prophezeiung des Führers, daß das Judentum einen von ihm entfachten neuen Weltkrieg mit der Ausrottung seiner Rasse wird bezahlen müssen.”

 

10) May 30, 1942:

 

“Die Deutschen beteiligen sich an subversiven Bewegungen immer nur, wenn die Juden sie dazu verführen. Deshalb muss man die jüdische Gefahr liquidieren, koste es, was es wolle. Wie wenig die Juden sich dem westeuropäischen Leben in Wirklichkeit angleichen können, sieht man daran, dass, wo sie ins Ghetto zurückgeführt werden, sie auch sehr schnell wieder ghettoisiert werden. Westeuropäische Zivilisation stellt bei ihnen nur einen äußeren Farbanstrich dar. Es gibt allerdings auch unter den Juden Elemente, die mit einer gefährlichen Brutalität und Rachsucht zu Werke gehen. Deshalb wünscht der Führer auch gar nicht, daß die Juden nach Sibirien evakuiert werden. Dort unter härtesten Lebensbedingungen würden sie zweifellos wieder ein lebenskräftiges Element darstellen. Er möchte sie am liebsten nach Zentralafrika aussiedeln. Dort leben sie in einem Klima, das sie gewiss nicht stark und widerstandsfähig macht. Jedenfalls ist es das Ziel des Führers, Westeuropa gänzlich judenfrei zu machen.”

 

11) December 11, 1942:

 

“Jüdische Rabbiner in London veranstalten eine große Protestversammlung unter dem Thema: 'England erwache!' Es ist zum Schreien komisch, daß die Juden jetzt nach 15 Jahren gezwungen sind, uns unsere Parolen zu stehlen und mit derselben Parole die philosemitische Welt zum Kampf gegen uns aufzurufen, mit der wir einmal die antisemitische Welt zum Kampf gegen das Judentum aufgerufen haben. Aber es nützt den Juden alles nichts. Die jüdische Rasse hat diesen Krieg vorbereitet, sie ist der geistige Urheber des ganzen Unglücks, das über die Welt hereingebrochen ist. Das Judentum muß für sein Verbrechen bezahlen, so wie der Führer es damals in seiner Reichstagsrede 121 prophezeit hat: mit der Auslöschung der jüdischen Rasse in Europa und vielleicht in der ganzen Welt.”

 

12) May 13, 1943:

 

“Sie werden sich mit allen Mitteln gegen diesen allmählichen Vernichtungs­feldzug zur Wehr setzen. Eines dieser Mittel ist der Krieg. Wir müssen uns also darüber klar sein, daß wir in dieser Auseinandersetzung zwischen der arischen Menschheit und der jüdischen Rasse noch sehr schwere Kämpfe zu bestehen haben, weil das Judentum es verstanden hat, große Völkerschaften aus der arischen Rasse bewußt oder unbewußt in seinen Dienst zu bringen. [...]

Das Weltjudentum steht nach der festen Überzeugung des Führers vor einem geschichtlichen Sturz. [...]

Der intellektuele Mensch hat gegenüber der jüdischen Gefahr nicht die natürlichen Abwehrmittel, weil er wesentlich in seinem Instinkt gebrochen ist. Infolgedessen sind Völker mit einem hogen Zivilationsstand am ehesten und am stärksten der Gefahr ausgesetzt. In der Natur handelt das Leben immer gleich gegen den Parasitismus; im Dasein der Völker ist das nicht ausschliesslich der Fall. Daraus resultiert eigentlich die jüdische Gefahr. Es bleibt also den modernen Volkern nichts anderes übrig, als die Juden auszurotten. [...]

Die Völker, die den Juden am ehesten erkannt haben und ihn am ehesten bekämpfen, werden an seiner Stelle die Weltherrschaft antreten.”

 

13) March 15, 1945:

 

“Die Juden melden sich wieder. Ihr Wortführer ist der bekannte und berüchtigte Leopold Schwarzschild, der jetzt in der amerikanischen Presse dafür plädiert, dass Deutschland unter keinen Umständen eine mildere Behandlung zuteil werden dürfte. Diese Juden muss man einmal, wenn man die Macht dazu besitzt, wie die Ratten totschlagen. In Deutschland haben wir das ja Gott sei Dank schon redlich besorgt.”

Nederlandse vertalingen

Introductie uit De Holocaust in de woorden van de nazi's zelf:

 

Rijksminister van Volksvoorlichting en Propaganda Joseph Goebbels begon in oktober 1923 een dagboek bij te houden. Hij was toen 26 jaar oud, werkloos en inwonend bij zijn ouders. Hij had het dagboek gekregen van Else Janke, een half-Joodse vrouw met wie hij een onsuccesvolle relatie had gehad. Veel van zijn eerste schrijfsels gingen over haar. Vanaf maart 1924 begon hij interesse te tonen in Hitler en in juli 1925 zou hij hem voor het eerst persoonlijk ontmoeten.

In 1941 had Goebbels al twintig dikke boeken vol­geschreven en besefte hij zich dat ze beter moesten worden beschermd tegen bombardementen. Hij verhuisde ze van zijn woning naar een ondergrondse kluis van de Reichsbank in Berlijn. Vanaf dat moment dicteerde hij elke nieuwe invulling aan een stenograaf, die vervolgens de gecorri­geerde versie op een typemachine uitschreef.

Rond november 1944 besefte hij zich dat Duitsland de oorlog zou gaan verliezen en dat hij de val van het Derde Rijk waarschijnlijk niet zou overleven. Zodoende gaf hij opdracht om de dagboeken op microfilm vast te leggen, een medium dat veel minder kwetsbaar is dan papier en zodoende beter verborgen kan worden. Er werd een donkere kamer ingericht in de woning van Goebbels, waar stenograaf Richard Otte de leiding had over het kopiëren van de dagboeken naar 1.700 glazen platen.

De handgeschreven en getypte dagboeken werden vervolgens verpakt en opgeslagen in de Rijkskanselarij. Na de oorlog werden deze bijna verkocht aan een handelaar in oud papier maar op het laatste moment gered. Via verschillende tussenpersonen kwamen ze terecht bij de Amerikaanse journalist Frank. E. Mason, die vermoedde dat deze dagboeken van Goebbels waren. Hij nam ze naar Louis P. Lochner, voormalig hoofd van het Berlijnse kantoor van de Associated Press. Hoewel delen van het dagboek beschadigd waren of geheel ontbraken, zoals de delen over de annexatie van Oostenrijk en de Kristallnacht in 1938, werden er al wel een aantal interessante passages ontdekt. De eerste vertalingen door Lochner werden gepubliceerd als The Goebbels Diaries (1948).

De dozen met daarin de glazen platen werden in april 1945 naar Potsdam verstuurd, ten westen van Berlijn, waar ze werden begraven. Ze werden echter gevonden door de Russen en naar Moskou verstuurd, waar de dozen jarenlang ongeopend werden opgeslagen, totdat de Duitse historicus Elke Fröhlich ze daar in 1992 ontdekte. Pas vanaf dat moment werd het mogelijk om alle dagboeken te publiceren, een project dat pas in 2008 voltooid was. De bronteksten in dit boek komen allemaal uit haar Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels – Im Auftrag des Instituts für Zeitgeschichte und mit Unterstützung des Staatlichen Archivdienstes Rußlands in vier delen (2008). Er is via Archive.org ook een andere publicatie beschikbaar, namelijk Joseph Goebbels Tagebücher 1924-1945 in vijf delen (2000) uitgegeven door Ralf Georg Reuth, maar daarin ontbreken veel van deze citaten.

Is het mogelijk dat de dagboeken nep zijn? Dat is in ieder geval zeer onwaarschijnlijk wat de duizenden bladzijden van de eerste jaren betreft. Waarom zou men zoveel blad­zijden vervalsen, en wie wist er genoeg over Goebbels' privéleven en al zijn publieke verschijningen om daarbij succesvol onjuistheden en tegenstrijdigheden te vermijden? Het is al moeilijk genoeg om een enkel document te ver­valsen, laat staan meer dan twintig jaar aan dagboeken. Waarom dan het dagboek laten beginnen vanaf 1923 als er pas vanaf de jaren veertig hier en daar wat uitspraken staan die op de Holocaust betrekking hebben?

En als de dagboeken ten doel hadden om Goebbels een ver­zonnen massamoord aan te rekenen, waarom werden deze dagboeken dan niet gebruikt bij het Proces van Neuren­berg? De Russen hebben bij dat proces geprobeerd om het Bloedbad bij Katyn in de schoenen van de nazi's te schuiven, dus dat ze tot bedrog bereid waren is algemeen bekend, maar toch hebben ze toen geen enkele poging gedaan om de dagboeken als bewijsmateriaal voor te leggen, ook al hadden ze de glazen platen. De Amerikanen hadden de papieren dagboeken, maar hebben daar ook niets mee gedaan.

Er kan ook niet gesteld worden dat de Amerikanen of de Russen de dagboeken in de jaren na het proces hebben vervalst, want dan zouden ze inmiddels op allerlei dagen een afwijkende tekst hebben en dat is niet zo. Juist het feit dat we twee verschillende exemplaren hebben met eenzelfde inhoud, bevestigt de authenticiteit ervan.

Ook van Heinrich Himmler, leider van de SS (Schutzstaffel, een paramilitaire organisatie) en hoofdverant­woordelijke voor het uitvoeren van Hitlers persoonlijke bevel om de Joden uit te roeien, zijn dagboeken terug­gevonden. In 2013 werden zijn dagboeken voor de periodes van 1937-1938 en 1943-1944 ontdekt en in 1990 die voor de periode van 1941-1942.

 

De citaten

 

1) Kristallnacht, 10 november 1938:

 

“Ik leg de zaak voor aan de Führer. Hij besluit: laat de demon­straties doorgaan. Politie terugtrekken. De Joden moeten maar eens de woede van het volk voelen. Zo is het. Ik geef meteen de juiste instructies door aan de politie en de partij.”

 

2) twee dagen later, op 12 november:

“In de Osteria [Hitlers favoriete restaurant in München] meld ik me bij de Führer. Hij is het met alles eens. Zijn opvattingen zijn behoorlijk radicaal en agressief. De actie zelf verliep perfect. 17 doden. Maar geen Duitse eigendommen beschadigd.
Met kleine wijzigingen keurt de Führer mijn besluit goed betreffende de beëindiging van de acties. Ik zal het meteen bekendmaken via de pers en de radio. De Führer wil zeer harde maatregelen nemen tegen de Joden. Ze moeten zelf hun winkels weer op orde brengen. De verzekeringsmaatschappijen zullen niets aan hen uitbetalen. Later wil de Führer geleidelijk de Joodse bedrijven onteigenen door de exploitanten contracten te geven die we op elk moment kunnen opzeggen.”

 

3) 2 november 1941:

 

“De Joden zijn de luizen van de beschaafde mensheid. Ze moeten op de een of andere manier worden uitgeroeid, anders blijven ze hun kwellende en irriterende rol spelen. Alleen als je met de nodige bruutheid tegen ze optreedt, kun je van ze afkomen. Waar je ze spaart, zul je later hun slachtoffer worden.”

 

4) 13 december 1941, enkele dagen na de Japanse aanval op Pearl Harbor waardoor ook de Verenigde Staten de oorlog hadden verklaard:

 

“Wat het Joodse vraagstuk betreft is de Führer vastbesloten om de lei schoon te vegen. Hij had de Joden voorspeld dat als ze een nieuwe wereldoorlog zouden ontketenen, ze daarbij hun eigen vernietiging zouden ervaren. Dat was geen leus. De wereldoorlog is er, en dus moet de vernietiging van het Jodendom het nood­zakelijke gevolg zijn. Deze kwestie moet zonder enige sentimen­taliteit worden be­schouwd. We hoeven geen medelijden te hebben met de Joden, enkel met ons Duitse volk. Als het Duitse volk aan het oostfront op­nieuw zo'n 160.000 doden heeft opgeofferd, dan zullen de daders van dit bloedige conflict dat met hun leven moeten bekopen.”

5) 14 februari 1942:

“Het lijden dat het Russische volk heeft moeten doorstaan onder het bolsjewisme is onbeschrijfelijk. Dit Joodse terrorisme moet in heel Europa met wortel en al worden uitgeroeid. Dat is onze historische taak. Met de ondergang van het bolsjewisme zal ongetwijfeld ook het Jodendom zijn ondergang beleven. De Führer sprak nogmaals zijn mening uit dat hij vastbesloten is om de Joden in Europa meedogenloos op te ruimen. Men dient hieromtrent geen sentimentele gevoelens te koesteren. De Joden verdienen de cata­strofe die ze nu beleven. Ze zullen met de vernietiging van onze vijanden ook zelf vernietigd worden. We moeten dit proces met koel­bloedige meedogenloosheid versnel­len. Daarmee bewijzen we een onschatbare dienst aan de lijdende mensheid die al duizenden jaren door het Jodendom wordt gekweld. Deze duidelijke anti-Joodse houding moet ook worden afgedwongen bij koppige lieden onder ons eigen volk. De Führer heeft dat nadrukkelijk genoemd en later op­nieuw in de oren geknoopt van de officieren.”

6) 19 februari 1942:

“Gisteravond heb ik met enkele vrienden naar de Pools-Jiddische film ‘Der Dybuk’ gekeken. Deze film is bedoeld als Joodse propa­ganda­film. Toch komt het zo antisemitisch over dat het verba­zing­wekkend is hoe weinig zelfkennis de Joden hebben en hoe weinig ze beseffen wat wel en niet weerzinwekkend is voor een niet-Joods persoon. Wie naar deze film kijkt, beseft zich opnieuw waarom het Joodse ras het gevaarlijkste is dat onze aardbol bevolkt, en dat men geen genade of toegeeflijkheid jegens haar mag tonen. Deze kliek moet met wortel en al worden uitgeroeid; dat is de enige manier om vrede op aarde te bereiken.”

7) 6 maart 1942:

“De Joden treden overal op als onruststokers en opruiers. Het is dan ook begrijpelijk dat ze het op grote schaal met hun leven moeten betalen. Ik ben überhaupt van mening dat hoe meer Joden tijdens deze oorlog worden geliquideerd, hoe stabieler de situatie in Europa zal zijn na de oorlog. Men moet zich hierbij niet door valse sentimen­taliteit laten leiden. De Joden zijn het Europese ongeluk; ze moeten op de een of andere manier worden geëlimineerd.”

8) 27 maart 1942:

“De Joden worden nu vanuit het Generaal-gouvernement naar het Oosten gedeporteerd, te beginnen bij Lublin. Hier wordt een vrij barbaars en niet nader te omschrijven proces toegepast, en van de Joden zelf blijft niet veel over. In het algemeen kan men stellen dat 60% van hen moet worden geliquideerd, terwijl slechts 40% aan het werk kan worden gezet. De voormalige gouwleider van Wenen, die deze actie uitvoert, doet dat met grote behoed­zaamheid en met een procedure die niet te veel opvalt. De Joden krijgen een strafoordeel uitgemeten dat barbaars is maar dat ze volledig verdienen. De profetie die de Führer aan hen gaf over het uitbreken van een nieuwe wereldoorlog begint op de meest verschrikkelijke manier uit te komen. Je moet je in deze dingen niet laten leiden door sentimen­taliteit.
Als we ons niet tegen hen verdedigden, zouden de Joden ons vernietigen. Het is een strijd op leven en dood tussen het Arische ras en de Joodse bacil. Geen enkele andere regering en geen enkel ander regime zou de kracht kunnen opbrengen om deze kwestie geheel op te lossen. Ook op dit gebied is de Führer de mee­dogenloze voorvechter en bepleiter van een radicale oplos­sing die de situatie vereist en daardoor onvermijdelijk lijkt. Godzijdank hebben we nu tijdens deze oorlog een aantal kansen die in vredestijd niet beschikbaar waren. Daar moeten we gebruik van maken. De getto's die leeg komen te staan in de steden van het Generaal-gouvernement worden nu gevuld met de Joden die uit het Rijk zijn gedeporteerd, en na een bepaalde tijd moet dat proces worden herhaald. Het lachen is de Joden vergaan, en het feit dat hun vertegenwoordigers in Engeland en Amerika nu de oorlog tegen Duitsland organiseren en propageren, is iets waar hun vertegen­woordigers in Europa een hoge prijs voor moeten betalen, wat dan ook als gerechtvaardigd moet worden beschouwd.”

9) 29 april 1942:

“Er wordt korte metten gemaakt met de Joden in alle bezette oostelijke gebieden. Tienduizenden moeten eraan geloven, en daar­mee brengen ze de profetie van de Führer in vervulling dat het Jodendom voor een door hen ontketende nieuwe wereld­oorlog zal moeten betalen met de uitroeiing van hun ras.”

10) 30 mei 1942:

“De Duitsers nemen alleen deel aan subversieve bewegingen als de Joden hen daartoe verleiden. Daarom moet het Joodse gevaar koste wat kost worden geliquideerd. Hoe weinig de Joden zich echt kunnen aanpassen aan het West-Europese leven blijkt wel uit het feit dat wanneer ze in een getto worden ondergebracht, ze ook heel snel weer gettogedrag vertonen. De West-Europese beschaving is voor hen slechts een uiterlijke verflaag. Maar er bevinden zich onder de Joden ook personen die met een gevaar­lijke wreedheid en wraak­zucht te werk gaan. Daarom wil de Führer ook beslist niet dat de Joden naar Siberië worden geëvacueerd. Want daar zouden ze, onder de zeer zware levens­omstandigheden, ongetwijfeld weer levens­kracht ontwikkelen. Hij zou ze het liefst deporteren naar Centraal-Afrika. Daar leeft men in een klimaat dat beslist niet sterk en opstandig maakt. In elk geval is het doel van de Führer om West-Europa volledig Jodenvrij te maken.”

11) 11 december 1942:

“Joodse rabbijnen in Londen houden een grote protest­bijeen­komst tegen ons onder het motto: 'England Awaken!', de slogan waarmee we ooit de antisemitische wereld hebben opge­roepen om tegen het Jodendom ten strijde te trekken. Maar de Joden zullen er niets mee opschieten. Het Joodse ras heeft deze oorlog voorbereid; het Joodse ras is de geestelijke oorzaak van al het ongeluk dat over de wereld is uitgestort. Het Jodendom zal moeten boeten voor zijn misdaad, precies zoals de Führer profeteerde in zijn Rijksdagrede 121: met de vernietiging van het Joodse ras in Europa en misschien wel in de hele wereld.”

12) 13 mei 1943:

“Ze zullen alle middelen inzetten om zich te weren tegen deze geleidelijke vernietigingscampagne. Een van die middelen is oorlog. We moeten ons daarom goed beseffen dat we nog zeer moeilijke veldslagen moeten doorstaan ​​in dit conflict tussen de Arische mensheid en het Joodse ras, omdat de Joden bewust of onbewust hebben begrepen hoe ze grote bevolkingsgroepen van het Arische ras voor hun karretje kunnen spannen. [...]
Volgens de vaste overtuiging van de Führer staat het Wereld­jodendom op de rand van een historische val. [...]
De intellectuele mens beschikt niet over de natuurlijke weer­stand tegen het Joodse gevaar, omdat zijn instinct wezenlijk gebroken is. Dientengevolge worden volkeren met een hoog beschavingsniveau het meest veelvuldig en het hevigst aan dit gevaar blootgesteld. In de natuur handelt het leven altijd hetzelfde tegen parasitisme; onder volkeren is dit niet altijd het geval. Dat is eigenlijk de oorzaak van het Joodse gevaar. Moderne volkeren hebben daarom geen andere keus dan de Joden uit te roeien. [...] Die volkeren die de grootste kans hebben om de Jood door te hebben en de grootste kans hebben hem te bevechten, zullen zijn plaats innemen in de wereldheerschappij.”

13) 15 maart 1945:

“De Joden laten weer van zich horen. Hun woordvoerder is de bekende en beruchte auteur Leopold Schwarzschild, die nu in de Ameri­kaanse pers betoogt dat Duitsland onder geen beding milder mag worden behandeld. Deze Joden moeten ooit, wan­neer men daar de macht toe heeft, als de ratten worden doodgeslagen. In Duitsland hebben we daar godzijdank al plichts­getrouw voor gezorgd.”

"The Jews are guilty!"

by Joseph Goebbels, published in Das Eherne Herz, November 16, 1941:

 

“The historical guilt of world Jewry for the outbreak and expansion of this war is sufficiently proven that no more words need to be wasted on it. The Jews wanted their war, and now they have it. But through them the prophecy that the Führer spoke in the German Reichstag on January 30, 1939, is also being fulfilled: that if international finance-Jewry should succeed in plunging the peoples into another world war, the result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth and the victory of Jewry, but rather the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.

We are witnessing the fulfillment of this prophecy, and thus a fate that is harsh but well-deserved is befalling the Jews. Pity or even sympathy is completely inappropriate here. World Jewry completely misjudged the forces at its disposal in instigating this war, and it is now undergoing a gradual process of destruction that it had intended for us and would apply to us without hesitation if it had the power. It is now succumbing to its own law: 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.'

In this historical confrontation, every Jew is our enemy, regardless of whether he vegetates in a Polish ghetto or still leads his parasitic existence in Berlin or Hamburg or blows the war trumpet in New York or Washington. All Jews belong, by virtue of their birth and race, to an international conspiracy against National Socialist Germany. They wish for its defeat and destruction and do what is in their power to help achieve it. The fact that they can find only limited opportunities to do so within the Reich is not due to their loyalty but solely due to the fact that we have taken the appropriate measures against them.

One of these measures is the introduction of the yellow Jewish star, which every Jew must visibly wear. We want to mark him outwardly, especially so that at the slightest attempt to go against the German community, he can immediately be recognized as a Jew. It is an extremely humane regulation, a kind of hygienic prophylaxis, which is intended to prevent the Jew from sneaking into our ranks unrecognized, to sow discord.

When the Jews appeared in the streets of Berlin a few weeks ago, adorned with their Jewish star, the first impression among the citizens of the capital of the Reich was one of general amazement. Only very few knew that there were still so many Jews in Berlin. Each person discovered in his surroundings or neighborhood a harmless contemporary who had occasionally stood out by grumbling or being sour, but whom nobody had considered a Jew. He had obviously disguised himself, engaged in mimicry, adapted to the milieu in which he lived in his protective camouflage, and waited for his moment. Who among us even had an inkling that the enemy was standing right beside him, that he was a silent or skillful instigator who listened to conversations on the street, in the subway, or in the lines in front of cigarette shops? There are Jews who can hardly be recognized by their appearance. They have also adjusted themselves in this regard, as far as possible. These are the most dangerous. It is characteristic that every measure we take against the Jews is already reported in English and American newspapers the next day. The Jews still have secret connections with the enemy abroad and use them not only for their own purposes but also in all matters that are essential to the war effort of the Reich. The enemy is therefore sitting right among us. What could be more natural than to make him recognizable, at least outwardly, to every citizen?

In the first few days after the introduction of the Jewish star, newspaper sales in Berlin soared rapidly. Every Jew who had to go out on the street bought a newspaper to shamefully cover up his mark of Cain. When that was forbidden, one could see Jews parading around the streets of West Berlin with non-Jewish foreigners. These lackeys of the Jews should actually be given a Jewish star as well. The arguments they put forward for their provocative behavior are always the same: the Jews are also human beings – as if we had ever claimed otherwise and as if the same did not also apply to robbers, child molesters, thieves and pimps without anyone wanting to take a walk with them on Kurfürstendamm!; their Jew is a decent Jew – every affected Jew has found a foolish and instinctless goy who thought he was decent!; they have known each other for years – as if that were a reason to give the Jew some kind of honorary guard; and what other nonsense there is.

The Jews now increasingly find themselves completely on their own and are trying a new trick. They know the good-natured ‘German Michel’ in us, who is always ready to forget all the injustice done to him for a sentimental tear: suddenly, one gets the impression that there are only cute little babies or frail elderly ladies among the Jews in Berlin, who are supposed to move us with their childish helplessness. The Jews send their sympathy brigade ahead. They may mislead some innocent minds for a moment, but not us. We know exactly what we are dealing with.

We must win the war for this reason alone. If we were to lose it, the seemingly harmless Jewish men of virtue would all of a sudden turn into ravenous wolves. They would pounce on our people, our women and children, to exact a revenge for which there is no precedent in history. That is what they did in Bessarabia and the Baltic States when Bolshevism took hold there; and neither the people nor the governments had inflicted any harm on them. We cannot turn back in our fight against Jewry – even if we wanted to The Jews must be separated from the German national community, for they endanger our national unity. This is an elementary principle of racial, national and social hygiene. They will never give up. And if they could, they would lead one nation after another into war against us. What does the suffering of the people matter to them if they can force the world under their reign of money and blood! The Jews are a parasitic race that, like a festering mold, attaches itself to the cultures of healthy but instinctively poor peoples. There is only one effective remedy against this: to make a cut and repel them. How pathetic are the stupid, thoughtlessly sentimental arguments of some of these backward friends of the Jews in the face of this global problem that has occupied people for millennia! They would probably drop their jaws in shock if they ever saw their beloved Jews in possession of power. But then it would be too late. And that is why it is the duty of a national leadership to ensure, by whatever means it deems appropriate, that this state of affairs never arises. There is a difference between people and people, just as there is a difference between animals and animals. We know good and bad people, just as we know good and bad animals. The fact that the Jew still lives among us is not proof that he belongs to us, just as the flea does not become a pet by staying in the house. If Mr. Bramsig or Mrs. Knöterich feel a pang of pity at the sight of an old woman wearing the Jewish star, then they should not forget that a distant nephew of this old woman named Nathan Kaufman is sitting in New York preparing a plan to sterilize the entire German population under 60 years of age, and that the son of her distant uncle, as a war agitator under the name Baruch or Morgenthau or Untermayer, stands behind Mr. Roosevelt to push him into the war, and that, if he succeeds, a brave but ignorant U.S. soldier might shoot Mr. Bramsig's or Mrs. Knöterich's only son dead, all for the greater glory of Jewry, to which this old woman also belongs, no matter how fragile and pitiable she may seem.

If we Germans exhibit a fatal flaw in our national character, then it is one of all-too-great forgetfulness. This flaw may attest to our human decency and generosity, but not always to our political insight and wisdom. We assume that all people are as good-natured as we are. The French threaten to carve up our country in the winter of 1939/40 so that we would have to queue up with our families in front of their steaming field kitchens to get a hot meal. Our armies defeat France six weeks later, and then we see German soldiers distributing bread and sausages to hungry French women and children along the roadsides, and giving gasoline to Parisian refugees so they can return to their capital as quickly as possible and continue their agitation against the Reich.

That's just how we Germans are. Our national virtue is our national flaw. We wouldn't want to be any different, and as long as our world-renowned sense of fairness doesn't cause any serious harm, there's nothing to be said against it. But even Klopstock gave us good advice when he said one should not be too fair; our enemies don't think nobly enough to see how beautiful our flaw is.

If this word applies anywhere, it is to our relationship with the Jews. Here, softness is not only weakness, but also dereliction of duty and a crime against state security. Because the Jews are only waiting for an opportunity to reward our foolishness with blood and terror. That must never happen. And one of the most effective measures against it is an uncompromising, cold hardness against the corruptors of our people, against the instigators of this war, against its beneficiaries if we lose it, and therefore necessarily also against its victims if we win it.

Therefore, it shall be said once again to make things perfectly clear:

1. The Jews are our downfall. They instigated and brought about this war. They want to destroy the German Reich and our people with it. This plan must be thwarted.

2. There is no difference between Jews and Jews. Every Jew is a sworn enemy of the German people. If he does not show his enmity towards us, it is only out of cowardice and cunning, not because he does not bear it in his heart.

3. Every German soldier who dies in this war is added to the debit account of the Jews. They have him on their conscience, and so they will have to pay for it.

4. If someone wears the Jew star, he is marked as an enemy of the people. Anyone who still maintains private contact with him belongs to him and must be considered and treated like a Jew. He deserves the contempt of all the people for cowardly and meanly letting them down in their most difficult time in order to side with his haters.

5. The Jews enjoy the protection of hostile foreign countries. There is no need for further proof of the pernicious role they play in our folk.

6. The Jews are messengers of the enemy among us. Anyone who joins them in this war is defecting to the enemy.

7. The Jews have no right to pose as equals among us. Where they want to speak on the street, in queues in front of shops, or on public transport, they must be silenced, not only because they are fundamentally wrong, but because they are Jews and have no voice in the community.

8. If the Jews come to you sentimentally, know that this is to test your forgetfulness; show them immediately that you see through them and punish them with contempt.

9. The decent enemy deserves our magnanimity after the defeat. But the Jew is not a decent enemy, he only pretends to be one.

10. The Jews are to blame for the war. They suffer no injustice from the treatment we give them; they have more than earned it.

To finish with them definitively is a matter for the government. No one has the right to act on their own, but everyone has the duty to appreciate the measures of the state against the Jews, to represent them to everyone, and to not be misled by any tricks and maneuvers of the Jews in his clear recognition of their danger.

This is what the security of the state requires of us all.”