The Final Solution And The German Foreign Office

Abteilung Deutschland came about as a department of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs in May 1940, following a reorganization of the Referat Deutschland. The latter was established in 1933, and its first task was justifying German anti-Jewish policies to the outside world. Later its functions expanded, and in 1938-39 Referat Deutschland was instrumental in the policy of "forced emigration" of Jews, launched by the SS. The Referat D III was a desk in the Abteilung Deutschland dealing with Jewish matters. Dwells on the personalities of the chief of the department, Martin Luther; the Referat D III's chief, Franz Rademacher; and its leading "Jewish experts", e.g. Karl Otto Klingenfuss, Herbert Müller, and Fritz-Gebhardt Hahn. In 1940-41 the Referat D III prepared Nazi projects for resettlement of European Jews (e.g. the Madagascar project) and helped the Nazi satellite states (and exerted pressure on them) to introduce anti-Jewish legislation and implement their own anti-Jewish policies. Luther coordinated the Abteilung Deutschland's policies with every turn of the Final Solution. With the start of the deportations and mass murders of Jews, the Abteilung Deutschland became involved in deportations of Jews from satellite and neutral countries. However, the department remained a junior partner of the SS, since the latter did not always consult with the Foreign Office in carrying out its anti-Jewish actions. In March 1943 Abteilung Deutschland was dissolved, following a personal conflict between Luther and Ribbentrop, and its functions passed to the Inland II A department.

The Jewish policy of the Third Reich did not stem solely from Hitler's pronounced anti-Semitism; it also grew out of subdivisions and feuds within the Nazi regime and the failure of earlier attempts to find solutions to ""the Jewish problem"". Christopher Browning exploits heretofore little-used material from the German Foreign Office archives, as well as transcripts from war criminal trials, to reveal the complex forces and motives associated with this contentious issue.

Presents 134 facsimiles of German documents (pp. 195-461), arranged chronologically. Pp. 59-193 contain a list of the documents in English, and translations of one-third of them into English, with summaries of the rest. The documents elucidate the role of the German Foreign Office in facilitating the Nazi racial policy. The introduction (pp. 11-57) presents an account of the events that led to the deportation of Greek Jews. The documents portray the cooperation between the Foreign Office and the Central Office of Reich Security, which resulted in the fact that only 12,000 of over 70,000 Greek Jews survived. The documents relate to five periods and subjects: data gathering, the delay in implementing the racial laws, the carrying out of the regulations and the deportation of Salonika's Jews, Foreign Office concern with the remaining non-Greek Jews, and the deportation of Jews from areas that the Germans took over from the "uncooperative" Italians. Concludes that the documents reveal the importance of personality and motivation in the conduct of the diplomats who participated in implementing the Final Solution.

This groundbreaking work is the most detailed, carefully researched, and comprehensive analysis of the evolution of Nazi policy from the persecution and "ethnic cleansing" of Jews in 1939 to the Final Solution of the Holocaust in 1942.

Explores a little known aspect of the history of the Third Reich. This book presents a study which explores the struggle between Party loyalists, who assumed that with the assumption of power in 1933, total state control was theirs, and entrenched diplomats in the Foreign Office.

“[A] historian’s carefully researched work, based on a vast array of sources, documenting Hitler’s and Himmler’s responsibility for the murder of European Jewry. The book details the planning and the improvisations, but emphasizes the former and Himmler’s fanatical hatred of the Jewish race as the determinative cause of the Holocaust. Dealing with a charged controversy, Breitman makes a powerful case that by March 1941 ‘the Final Solution was just a matter of time — and timing,’ i.e., that the Holocaust was not a reflex of Hitler’s fear that the war in Russia could not be won. Breitman argues that the Wannsee Conference merely ratified the plans and instructed other agencies to cooperate. Breitman records the instances of resistance or opposition, but notes that of course the cooperation of thousands (many still alive and never tried) and the complicity or silence of millions were needed to carry out the murder... the book concludes that Himmler’s ‘brutality was more learned than instinctive or emotional’ — a methodical murderer impelled by racist dogma.” — Foreign Affairs “Breitman’s book is decisively important... [It] should serve for years to come as required reading for all who wish to make sense of the Holocaust.” — Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, The New Republic “Looking nothing like the Nordic ideal he advocated, Heinrich Himmler, chief of the Nazi SS, was short, flabby and balding — his dull, pedantic exterior disguising the caustic, cowardly, Machiavellian, immensely cruel master of deceit within. Breitman... presents compelling evidence that the extermination of Jews was an early goal of Himmler, a Bavarian and lapsed Catholic, and his boss Adolf Hitler. Drawing on previously untapped German records, as well as other source materials... this engrossing, detailed study constitutes a powerful refutation of revisionist scholars who claim that Hitler did not plan the Final Solution in advance but instead improvised it out of either military or political frustration.” — Publishers Weekly “A truly path-breaking book, one of the few that will have a lasting impact on historical research of the period. It shows both the primacy of Hitler as the motivating force in the mass murder, and the way in which his initiatives were accepted and internalized by the SS, on the basis of ideology.” — Holocaust and Genocide Studies “Chilling, expert history.” — Kirkus “[A]n eminently sensible and judicious study that could well serve as a textbook on the topic.” — The Historian “Breitman’s research [is] meticulous. Especially valuable are his novel insights into the full and frequent communication between Himmler and Hitler, who, it is known, seldom signed an order. Mr. Breitman presents his arguments cogently.” — Michael H. Kater, The New York Times “An absorbing, important book [that] addresses the sequence of steps leading to the Final Solution.” — Financial Times “As Breitman persuasively demonstrates, the situation kept changing, but Hitler was always in charge, and his goals always included ridding his empire of the Jews.” — Los Angeles Times “Breitman is on the hunt for smoking guns. He finds the goods littered throughout Himmler’s speeches and conversations... Breitman shows that people knew.” — Washington Post Book World “The book is chillingly good on the uses and abuses of language to mask atrocity.” — Newsday “Breitman’s study is an important addition to [the] literature [on the origins of the Nazi genocide], one that provides the most likely scenario and settles important disputed questions... Breitman’s study is a major step forward in our understanding of how the Nazis initiated mass murder.” — German Studies Review “[An] important book... I much admire this work, particularly for its resourceful combing of primary material... there is much to learn from this book about the Final Solution, its origins, its implementation, and its hate-inspired architect” — The American Historical Review

This book seeks to answer three vital questions about the worldwide response to Hitler's "Final Solution": When did information about the genocide first become known to Jews and non-Jews? Through what channels was this information transmitted? What was the reaction of those who received word of the slaughter? Walter Laqueur's quest focuses on the period between June 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and December 1942, by which time the United Nations had confirmed the news about the mass killings in a common declaration. By the end of 1942, Chelmno, Belzec, Auschwitz, Maidanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka were fully operational and two and a half million Jews had already been killed. According to Laqueur, word started to spread soon after extermination began. But there is no easy, straightforward answer to the wider question of why there was a failure to read and correctly interpret the signs in 1941; why so many individuals and governments actually chose to deny the reality of genocide when faced with incontrovertible evidence. A probing and disturbing work, The Terrible Secret explores one of the most perplexing aspects of the Holocaust, a political and psychological riddle of general significance to the understanding of the history of our times.