Alleged statements by Hitler on the Holocaust

Various alleged statements by Hitler on the Holocaust have been argued to support the politically correct view on the Holocaust. Holocaust revisionists have disputed the politically correct interpretation and/or the authenticity of these statements.

General arguments on the alleged Hitler statements

No official documents signed by Hitler ordering the Holocaust have been found. See Holocaust documentary evidence.

Since no such official documents have been found, non-revisionists have instead quoted speeches, alleged interviews, and so on. See Holocaust documentary evidence: Speeches, diaries, and private conversations by the National Socialist leaders on this topic in general.

See Meanings and translations of German words and Holocaust revisionism regarding translations and meanings of certain German words that are often translated as "extermination" by non-revisionists.

Non-revisionists have in particular quoted some statements made by Hitler before the war. This may however be inconsistent with the politically correct timetable, according to which the decision to kill the Jews was made in 1941-42. See World War II statements argued to support Holocaust revisionism.

Regarding the "mainstream" view on this time period, ""At the Irving-Lipstadt libel trial it was conceded by Lipstadt’s team of anti-revisionist Holocaust experts that prior to 1941 there was no Nazi policy to exterminate Jewry. Justice Gray noted: “It is common ground between the parties [Irving and Lipstadt’s team of Holocaust experts] that, until the latter part of 1941, the solution to the Jewish question which Hitler preferred was their mass deportation.” The anti-revisionist experts at the Irving-Lipstadt libel trial further admitted: “…that in the 1930s Hitler should not be understood to have been speaking in a genocidal terms.”"

Alleged statements lacking sources

Some alleged statements involving Hitler lack any source, even a dubious or a fraudulent one.

Dubious and generally admitted fabricated/edited documents

David Irving in the 1976 introduction to Hitler's War listed a long list of dubious and generally admitted fabricated/edited documents with Hitler as the main or a partial topic. Examples include many alleged diaries by various individuals allegedly having had some contact with Hitler.

Hitler Diaries

The so-called Hitler Diaries were a series of sixty volumes of journals purportedly by Adolf Hitler, but cleverly forged in 1983 by Konrad Paul Kujau (1938 – 2000) a German (but possibly of Slav Sorb origins) forger. He sold them, receiving DM 2.5 million from a journalist, who in turn sold them for DM 9.3 million to the magazine Stern, resulting in a net profit of DM 6.8 million for the journalist. The forgery was exposed and resulted in a four-and-half-year prison sentence for Kujau.

Josef Hell interview

A frequently quoted alleged statement by Hitler is from an alleged interview in 1922 with Josef Hell: "Once I really am in power, my first and foremost task will be the annihilation of the Jews. As soon as I have the power to do so, I will have gallows built in rows - at the Marienplatz in Munich, for example - as many as traffic allows. Then the Jews will be hanged indiscriminately, and they will remain hanging until they stink; they will hang there as long as the principles of hygiene permit. As soon as they have been untied, the next batch will be strung up, and so on down the line, until the last Jew in Munich has been exterminated. Other cities will follow suit, precisely in this fashion, until all Germany has been completely cleansed of Jews."

Less often quoted is the following from the same alleged interview: "When I now broached the question of what the source of his so strongly felt hatred for the Jews was, and why he wanted to destroy this so undeniably intelligent race - a race to which the Germans and all other Aryans, if not the entire world, owed an incalculable debt in virtually all fields of art and knowledge, research and economics - Hitler suddenly calmed down and gave this unexpectedly sober and almost dispassionate explanation:"

"´It is manifestly clear and has been proven in practice and by the facts of all revolutions that a struggle for ideals, for improvements of any kind whatsoever, absolutely must be supplemented with a struggle against some social class or caste.

My object is to create first-rate revolutionary upheavals, regardless of what methods and means I have to use in the process. Earlier revolutions were directed either against the peasants, or the nobility and the clergy, or against dynasties and their network of vassals, but in no case has revolution succeeded without the presence of a lightning rod that could conduct and channel the odium of the general masses.

With this very thing in mind I scanned the revolutionary events of history and put the question to myself against which racial element in Germany can I unleash my propaganda of hate with the greatest prospects of success? I had to find the right kind of victim, and especially one against whom the struggle would make sense, materially speaking. I can assure you that I examined every possible and thinkable solution to this problem, and, weighing every imaginable factor, I came to the conclusion that a campaign against the Jews would be as popular as it would be successful.

Thus, according to this, Hitler allegedly confessed that his anti-Semitism was mostly faked and simply a propaganda method used in order to gain power, which is an unusual view and seldom mentioned by those who selectively quote only the first quote as alleged evidence of Hitler's early, murderously intended anti-Semitism.

Also less often mentioned is that Josef Hell wrote down the alleged quote in its present form only in 1945, more than twenty years later. It is thus not a text published long before the Holocaust but only after the occurrence of widespread Allied atrocity propaganda. Even if assuming no deliberate fabrication by Josef Hell, he is arguably an unreliable source considering the unreliable and easily influenced human memory.

Furthermore, Josef Hell was a journalist who worked with Fritz Gerlich, a major opponent of Hitler and the editor of the anti-National Socialist newspaper Der Gerade Weg. Gerlich was arrested and later killed during the Night of the Long Knives. Josef Hell was thus no impartial witness and may have fabricated the quote or parts of it.

See also World War II statements argued to support Holocaust revisionism regarding early statements by Hitler and actions after he gained power, which are argued to support that Hitler did not want to kill the Jews, but to remove them from Germany by emigration/deportation.

Mein Kampf

Killing "12 or 15 thousand Hebrew corrupters" quote

The following quote from Mein Kampf (1925-1926) is sometimes cited as Holocaust evidence: "If at the beginning of the War and during the War twelve or fifteen thousand of these Hebrew corruptors of the people had been held under poison gas, as happened to hundreds of thousands of our very best German workers in the field, the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain. On the contrary: twelve thousand scoundrels eliminated in time might have saved the lives of a million real Germans, valuable for the future."

The revisionist Wilhelm Stäglich has stated that "Here Hitler was attacking international Marxism, in Germany then led primarily by Jews. He was not attacking the Jews per se, still less advocating their general destruction. These lines, written in 1925, refer exclusively to a situation that existed at the end of World War I. From them one cannot infer that Hitler had some “general idea” of exterminating, let along gassing, the Jews, as Karl Dietrich Bracher, for example, would have us believe. To interpret them objectively, one must bear in mind that Hitler is referring to the past, and, moreover, is discussing a specific situation. These remarks can be explained only in terms of Hitler's view of why Germany collapsed at the end of World War I, as well as his own experience of gas warfare (which the English, by the way, initiated). They should be taken as an emotional outburst, not as an embryonic plan. Indeed, Mein Kampf is for the most part more propagandistic than programmatic."

The phrase "his own experience of gas warfare" refers to Hitler himself having been temporarily blinded due to a British gas attack.

The revisionist Thomas Dalton has written that "Here is one striking point, however: With one minor exception, Hitler never called for killing the Jews. Though his terminology shifted over time, his words always referred to some form of removal: Jews should be “deported,” “expelled,” “rooted out.” Their role and their power in the German Reich must be “destroyed” or “liquidated.” But explicit words like ‘killing,’ ‘shooting,’ ‘murder,’ ‘gassing,’ virtually never appear in his speeches, writings, or even private conversations. The one exception is at the very end of Mein Kampf. There were about 600,000 Jews in Germany at the start of World War I, a war that ended in the deaths of over 2 million Germans. Hitler argues that killing “12 or 15 thousand Hebrew corrupters” at the start of the war, by a poison gas such as fell on the German troops in the battlefield, would have spared a million lives and led to German victory. Not all the Jews, or even most of them; just one or two percent would have sufficed, to derail their pernicious aims. But this seems to be the last such reference by Hitler, in any documented writing or speech. English sources always translate Hitler’s wording as wanting to “exterminate,” “destroy,” or “annihilate” the Jews; but this is another deception. None of his actual words demands mass killing—or even any killing at all. If the Jews have been driven out of Germany, they have indeed been ‘exterminated’ (lit. ‘driven beyond the border’). If their control over the economy has been terminated, their power has indeed been ‘annihilated,’ or ‘reduced to nothing.’ If Jewish society has been removed, it may rightly be said to have been ‘destroyed’ (lit. ‘un-built’ or ‘deconstructed’). Hitler’s tough talk was never any different than that of any world leader when confronting a mortal enemy. President Obama often speaks of “destroying” the “cancer” of the Islamic State, but no one accuses him of attempted genocide."

"Ausrottung" and "Vernichtung" in Mein Kampf

Mein Kampf on several occasions uses the controversial words "Ausrottung" and "Vernichtung".

In general on these words, see Meanings and translations of German words and Holocaust revisionism: Ambiguous words

The revisionist Carlos Porter has listed every usage and argued that "The following is a complete list of Hitler's use of the various forms of the words "Vernichtung" and "Ausrottung" in "Mein Kampf". It will be seen that in almost all cases, these words are used abstractly and figuratively. Nowhere does he advocate exterminating the Jews or anyone else."

A possible ambiguous sentence is "The nationalisation of our people can only succeed when its international poisoners are extirpated/destroyed [Ausgerottet] in a positive struggle for the soul of our people." However, if arguing that "Ausgerottet" (verb form of "Ausrottung") must mean a genocide, then one must argue that Hitler for unclear reasons thought that the Germans would soon be genocided, since he also wrote in Mein Kampf that "if the German nation wishes to end the condition of its pending extirpation/destruction [Ausrottung] in Europe".

Hermann Rauschning's memoir

The revisionist Mark Weber stated at the Nuremberg trials that "Almost forty years after the Tribunal handed down its verdicts, Nuremberg document USSR-378 was definitively exposed as a fraud. It is a purported record of numerous private conversations with Hitler by Hermann Rauschning, a former National Socialist official in Danzig. In brutal language, the Führer supposedly revealed his most intimate thoughts and secret plans for world conquest. Rauschning's "memoir" was published in 1939 in Britain under the title Hitler Speaks, and in the United States in 1940 as The Voice of Destruction. It was this US edition that was accepted in evidence at Nuremberg as proof of the "guiding principles of the Nazi regime." Chief British prosecutor Sir Hartley Shawcross and his Soviet colleagues cited numerous quotations from it. Defendant Baldur von Schirach contested its authenticity, but defense attorney Pelckmann (who did not know any better) accepted this "evidence" as authentic. In 1983 Swiss historian Wolfgang Hänel established that the "memoir" is entirely fraudulent. Rauschning never had even a single private meeting with Hitler."

"The phony memoir was designed to incite public opinion in democratic countries, especially in the United States, in favor of war against Germany. The project was the brainchild of the Hungarian-born journalist Emery Reves, who ran an influential anti-German press and propaganda agency in Paris during the 1930s. Haenel has also found evidence that a prominent British journalist named Henry Wickham-Steele helped to produce the memoir. Wickham-Steele was a right-hand man of Sir Robert Vansittart, perhaps the most vehemently anti-German figure in Britain."

Many false quotations involving Hitler are from the book or derived from it.

1939 Reichstag speech

The most often quoted speech is one made on 30 January 1939 in the Reichstag: "Today I will once more be a prophet: If the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more in to a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation ["Vernichtung"] of the Jewish race in Europe".

Revisionists have argued that "Vernichtung" (literally: "bringing to nothing") does not necessarily mean killing. See Meanings and translations of German words and Holocaust revisionism: Ambiguous words.

Furthermore, revisionists argue that non-revisionists seldom quote what Hitler stated thereafter: "for the time when the non-Jewish nations had no propaganda is at an end. National Socialist Germany and Fascist Italy have institutions which enable them when necessary to enlighten the world about the nature of a question of which many nations are instinctively conscious, but which they have not yet clearly thought out. [...] If this [Jewish] nation should once more succeed in inciting the millions which compose the nations into a conflict which is utterly senseless and only serves Jewish interests, then there will be revealed the effectiveness of an enlightenment which has completely routed the Jews in Germany in the space of a few years. The nations are no longer willing to die on the battlefield so that this unstable international race may profiteer from a war or satisfy its Old Testament vengeance." This is argued to show that Hitler wanted to "annihilate" the Jews by enlightening the world about their alleged evil plans and deeds, which had already led to their routing (=annihilation) in Germany within a few years. Furthermore, it is argued that the speech clearly outlines Hitler's policy of emigration and resettlement of the Jews.

Hitler referred to this speech in a later speech on 30 January 1941, and then stated "And I should like to repeat the warning that I have already once given, on September 1, 1939 [correct: Jan. 30, 1939], in the German Reichstag: namely, the warning that if Jewry drives the world into a general war, the role Jewry plays in Europe will be all over!”

On 25 October 1941, Hitler in another speech stated "From the rostrum of the Reichstag I prophesied to Jewry that if war could not be avoided, the Jews would disappear from Europe. That race of criminals already had on its conscience the two million dead of the Great War, and now it has hundreds of thousands more. Let nobody tell me that despite that [we] cannot park them in the marshy parts of Russia! Our troops are there as well, and who worries about them!"

On 23 November 1942, Himmler stated in a speech in Bad Tölz, before SS-Junkers: "The Jewish question in Europe has completely changed. The Führer once said in a Reichstag speech: If Jewry triggers an international war, for example, to exterminate the Aryan people, then it won’t be the Aryans who will be exterminated, but Jewry. The Jews have been resettled outside Germany, they are living here, in the east, and are working on our roads, railways etc. This is a consistent process, but is conducted without cruelty."

On 3 January 1943, Goebbels’s diary referred to "the Führer’s prophecy, when he explained at the beginning of the war that it would not end with the destruction (Vernichtung) of the Aryan race, but with the expulsion (Austreibung) of Jewry from Europe."

Other "Vernichtung" statements

In addition to the 1939 Reichstag speech, there are also other statements on Jews in which Hitler used the word "Vernichtung". Examples include when on 21 January 1939 Hitler spoke with the Czech foreign minister František Chvalkovský and when Hitler made a public speech at the Sports Palace in Berlin on 30 January 1942. See the section on the 1939 Reichstag speech regarding revisionist arguments.

Considering the extreme secrecy that is claimed to have been used to conceal the Holocaust (oral only orders, "code words", destruction of all corpses, and so on), it is arguably surprising that Hitler is claimed to have confessed the Holocaust to the world in public speeches both before and while the Holocaust allegedly occurred.

Obersalzberg speech

At the Nuremberg trials Hitler was alleged to have made the following statement involving the Armenian Genocide: "Our strength is in our quickness and our brutality. […] For the time being I have sent to the east only Death’s Head units, with the order to kill without pity or mercy all men, women and children. […] Who talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?"

This has been criticized as a forgery: "The statement was supposed to have been made at a meeting of the top German staff of the Obersalzberg on August 22, 1939. The document was released to the international press covering the Nuremberg War Crimes trials on Friday, November 23, 1945. The trials had commenced that Monday. The document was one of several made available to the press that day. Two-hundred-fifty copies were given to press correspondents, but only five copies were given to the 17 defense counsels – 24 hours before the Court convened on Monday! Much later in the trial, the German defense lawyers were able to introduce the most complete account of the address, taken down by German Admiral Hermann Boehm, which runs to 12 pages in translation. There is no mention of the Armenians or the rest of the “quotation.”"

The revisionist Carlos Porter has written on this speech that "1014-PS is a falsified 'Hitler Speech' written on plain paper by an unknown person. The document bears the heading 'Second Speech' although it is known that Hitler gave only one speech on that date. There are four versions of this speech, 3 of them forgeries: 1014-PS, 798-PS, L-3, and an authentic version, Ra-27 (XVII-406-408; XVIII 390-402; XXII 65). The third forgery, Document L-3, bears an FBI laboratory stamp and was never even accepted into evidence (II 286), but 250 copies of it were given to the press as authentic (II 286) [...] L-3 is the source of many statements attributed to Hitler, particularly "who today remembers the fate of the Armenians?" and "our enemies are little worms, I saw them at Munich". 'Hitler' also compares himself to Genghis Khan and says he will exterminate the Poles, and kick Chamberlain in the groin in front of the photographers. The document appears to have been prepared on the same typewriter as many other Nuremberg documents, including the two other versions of the same speech. This typewriter was probably a Martin from the Triumph-Adler-Werke, Nuremberg." Also other revisionists have criticized these documents for argued absurdities and other reasons.

Luther Memorandum

On 21 August 1942, Germany's Under-Secretary of State Martin Luther, in charge of Section D III, which dealt with foreign states in regard to the Jewish question and racial policy, produced a summary (The Luther Memorandum) of the Jewish policy of National Socialism. In it, he referred to the Wannsee Conference as being preparation for “evacuation of the Jews” to the “occupied eastern regions”. He also stated that the number of transported Jews would be inadequate to cover the shortage of labor and that the German government therefore asked the Slovakian government to supply 20,000 young, strong Slovakian Jews for labor in the east.

Excerpts from The Luther Memorandum: "The fact that the Fuehrer intends to evacuate all Jews from Europe was communicated to us as early as August 1940 by Ambassador Otto Abetz after an interview with the Fuehrer (compare D III 2298). Hence the basic instruction of the Reich Foreign Minister to promote the evacuation of the Jews in closest cooperation with the agencies of the Reichsfuehrer-SS, is still in force and will therefore be observed [...] Gruppenfuehrer Heydrich informed the Reich Foreign Minister that the whole problem of the approximately 3.25 million Jews in the areas under German control can no longer be solved by emigration; a territorial final solution would be necessary. In recognition of this Reichsmarschall Goering on 31 July 1941 commissioned Heydrich to make, in conjunction with the proper German agencies, all necessary preparations for a total solution of the Jewish problem in the German sphere of influence in Europe. (Compare D III 709 Secret). On the basis of this instruction Heydrich arranged a session of all the interested German agencies for 20 January 1942 [the Wannsee Conference], at which the State Secretaries were present from the other ministries and I myself from the Foreign Office. In the conference Gruppenfuehrer Heydrich explained that Reichsmarschall Goering's assignment to him had been made on the Fuehrer's instructions and that the Fuehrer instead of emigration has now authorized the evacuation of the Jews to the East as the solution [...] On the basis of the Fuehrer instruction mentioned under 4.), the evacuation of the Jews from Germany was begun [...] The number of the Jews deported in this way to the East did not suffice to cover the labor needs there. [...] The deportation to the General Government is a provisionary measure. The Jews will be moved on further to the occupied Eastern territories as soon as the technical conditions for it are given."

The summary also states that the Reich Foreign Minister in a conversation with the Bulgarian Foreign Minister on 26 November 1941 stated "that at the end of the war all Jews would have to leave Europe. This was the unalterable decision of the Fuehrer and also the only way to master this problem, as only a global and comprehensive solution could be applied and individual measures would not help very much." The revisionist Paul Grubach has argued that "this Luther memo gives no indication that there was any change in policy during the time between the enunciation of Hitler's Jewish policy to Bulgarian Foreign Minister Popoff in November 1941, and the creation of said memo in August 1942."

Meeting with Miklós Horthy

Hitler met the Hungarian leader Miklós Horthy on 17 April 1943. Hitler was critical of Horthy’s lenient Jewish policy and allegedly stated to Horthy that things were different in Poland: “If the Jews there did not want to work, they were shot. If they could not work, they had to be treated like tuberculosis bacilli, with which a healthy body may become infected. This was not cruel if one remembers that even innocent creatures of nature, such as hares and deer, which are infected, have to be killed so that no harm is caused by them.” The revisionist Arthur Butz has stated that "The evidence that Hitler said this is the alleged minutes of the meeting and the supporting IMT testimony of Dr. Paul Otto Schmidt, Hitler’s interpreter, who normally sat in on such conferences and prepared the minutes. Schmidt testified that he was present at the meeting and that the minutes were genuine and prepared by him. However, in his later book, he wrote that he was not present, because Horthy had insisted on his leaving the room!"

See also Holocaust demographics: Argued inconsistencies and absurdities regarding treatment and registration on arrivals to the camps on revisionist views on the treatment of those unable to work at Auschwitz.

On 16 April 1943, also at a meeting with Horthy, Hitler is stated to have stated that Jews should be placed in concentration camps but "If there was talk of murdering the Jews, then he (the Führer) must point out that only one person murdered, namely the Jew who started wars and who by his influence gave the wars their anti-civilian, anti-women and anti-children character."

See also Joachim von Ribbentrop: Ribbentrop and the Holocaust.

Arthur Seyss-Inquart

Arthur Seyss-Inquart stated after the war that "In the course of 1943 I spoke with Hitler and called his attention to this problem in the Netherlands. In his own convincing way he reassured me and at the same time admitted that he was thinking of a permanent evacuation of the Jews, if possible, from all of Europe with which Germany wanted to maintain friendly relations. He wanted to have the Jews settled on the eastern border of the German sphere of interest insofar as they were not able to emigrate to other parts of the earth."

When asked "Before 1943 did you discuss these problems with Hitler?" he answered "I was merely present when Hitler talked about these problems. It was always along this line, to eliminate the Jews from the German population and to send them somewhere abroad." When asked "But there was no talk at all about destruction of the Jews?" he answered "Never".

Hans Frank and Otto Dietrich

Hans Frank and Otto Dietrich stated in the postwar period that they had asked Hitler during the war about the allegations of Jews being exterminated and that Hitler rejected these as false and enemy propaganda.

Hans Lammers

Hans Lammers was head of the Reich Chancellery under Hitler.

In March or April 1942, Lammers stated in a document that Hitler had repeatedly informed Lammers "that he wanted to postpone the solution of the Jewish question until after the war".

Lammers stated in the postwar period on the Holocaust that "The Fuehrer did not say a word about murder; no mention was ever made of such a plan." Lammers also stated that during the war he had investigated rumors of Jews being killed and asked Himmler and Hitler about these. Both rejected the rumors and stated Jews were deported but not killed. Lammers believed the rumors to have been based mostly on foreign broadcasts.

Hitler's adjutants, personal secretary, and personal staff

Nicolaus von Below was an adjutant of Hitler from 1937 until Hitler's death. He stated that he had known nothing about the Holocaust.

Traudl Junge was Hitler's personal secretary. She stated that she only found out about the Holocaust after the war.

David Irving has stated that "On June 9, 1977, I planted Hitler's personal adjutant Richard Schulze-Kossens (you can see him in the background at the Kremlin signing of the Ribbentrop-Stalin pact in August 1939) in the London audience of the live David Frost Programme, and invited this former S.S. colonel, when I was challenged on this point, to stand and tell the multi-million television audience just that: that from 1942-1944 he had been charged by Hitler to attend every single conference, even the most secret ones alone with Heinrich Himmler, and that not once had any extermination of the Jews been discussed or even mentioned in these conclaves."

Irving also stated that "Every one of Hitler's private staff was closely interrogated on precisely this issue by Americans and British after the war, and all of them stated independently of each other that at Hitler's headquarters, in his secret circle, there was never even the slightest hint or mention of anything untoward happening to the Jews in the east or in the concentration camps. I have the interrogation reports."

Goebbels's diary

On 13 December 1941, Goebbels’s diary stated that "As concerns the Jewish Question, the Führer is determined to make a clean sweep (reinen Tisch—lit. ‘clean table’). He had prophesied to the Jews that if they once again brought about a World War they would experience their own destruction (Vernichtung). This was not just an empty phrase. The World War is here, and the destruction of Jewry must be the necessary consequence. This question must be seen without sentimentality. We are not here in order to have sympathy with the Jews, rather we sympathize with our own German people. If the German people have now once again sacrificed as many as 160,000 dead in the Eastern campaign, then the authors of this bloody conflict must pay with their lives (mit ihrem Leben bezahlen müssen)."

This entry, argued to refer to a Reich Chancellery meeting on 12 December 1941, is a frequently cited entry by non-revisionists, who often ignore that as being an informal diary entry, it is unclear exactly what Hitler stated, and that "the authors of this bloody conflict" does not necessarily refer to all Jews. Non-revisionists typically also do not mention non-extermination interpretations of Hitler prophecy (the 1939 Reichstag speech, see above sections), non-extermination interpretations of "Vernichtung" (see above sections), or many other entries in the diary and other statements that arguably contradict an extermination of all Jews (see World War II statements argued to support Holocaust revisionism).

This meeting was possibly referred to by Hans Frank in a speech dated 16 December 1941 and by Himmler in a note dated 18 December 1941. See the articles on Hans Frank and Heinrich Himmler.

Some other entries in the diary on statements by Hitler are mentioned below. All of these are dated after the 13 December 1941 entry.

On 18 December 1941, Goebbels's diary stated that "I speak with the Führer regarding the Jewish Question. He is determined to take consistent action and not be deterred by bourgeois sentimentality. Above all, the Jews must leave the Reich (aus…heraus). [...] The Jews should all be pushed off (abgeschoben) to the East. We are not very interested in what becomes of them after that."

On 30 May 1942, Goebbels's diary stated that "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. He would much prefer to resettle (aussiedeln) them in central Africa. There they would live in a climate that would certainly not make them strong and resistant. In any case, it is the Führer’s goal to make Western Europe completely Jew-free. Here they may no longer have their homeland."

On 1 October 1942, Goebbels's diary stated that "I drive back to the Chancellery with the Führer. Once again we talk through the Jewish Question. Here the Führer takes the same radical standpoint I do. He is also of the opinion that we must completely deport the Jews out of the Reich (restlos herausschaffen), and above all from Berlin."

On 3 January 1943, Goebbels's diary referred to "the Führer’s prophecy" (see the section on the 1939 Reichstag speech). The entry thus refers to "the Führer’s prophecy, when he explained at the beginning of the war that it would not end with the destruction (Vernichtung) of the Aryan race, but with the expulsion (Austreibung) of Jewry from Europe."

Hitler's Table Talk

The revisionist Dr. Thomas Dalton argues regarding Hitler that "From 1941 through late 1944, he conducted long private sessions with friends and party intimates. These discussions—monologues, actually—have been published as “Hitler's Table Talk” (see Hitler 2000). Among a wide range of topics, he makes some 16 references to Jews and the Jewish question, over a period of about three years. Every one of these passages refers, in the German original, to evacuation and removal; not one refers to killing, gassing, or mass murder. For example: [...] Hitler obviously had no reason to hold back his language when speaking amongst such close colleagues. If he had truly wanted to kill the Jews, he would have said so—more than once, and in no uncertain terms. Instead we find not one instance of such talk. Perhaps this is why so few of our traditional historians cite these monologues of Hitler; such passages are hard to explain, on the standard view."

One example is that on 24 June 1942 (when according to politically correct history large scale genocidal mass killings were allegedly occurring), Hitler announced at his headquarters that after the war, he would "rigorously defend his position that he would hammer on one city after another until the Jews came out and emigrated to Madagascar [see Madagascar Plan] or some other national state for the Jews".

Anti-Holocaust revisionists may cite a sentence stated before this, on 21 October 1941, and that they translate as "By exterminating ["ausrotten"] this pest, we shall do humanity a service of which our soldiers can have no idea." However, Holocaust revisionists argue that "ausrotten" (literally: "root out") does not necessarily mean "exterminate". See Meanings and translations of German words and Holocaust revisionism: Ambiguous words.

Similarly, anti-Holocaust revisionists may cite a sentence stated on 25 January 1942, which they translate as "But if they refuse to leave voluntarily, I see no other solution than extermination ["Ausrottung"]." However, Holocaust revisionists argue that "Ausrottung" (literally: "rooting out") does not necessarily mean "extermination", as discussed above.

Hitler’s political testament

Hitler’s political testament stated that "Moreover, I left no one in doubt that this time millions of European children of the Aryan nations were not going to starve, and millions of grown men were not going to suffer death, and hundreds of thousands of women and children were not going to be burned and bombed to death in cities, without the real guilty ones having to atone for their guilt, even if by more humane means."

This statement has sometimes been interpreted as referring the politically correct view on the Holocaust. However, it is ambiguous and may refer to the deportations, imprisonment, and non-genocidal hardships suffered by Jews. If arguing that Hitler was referring to a genocide, then one must argue that Hitler thought that this was something relatively "humane". Furthermore, Hitler's reference to "I left no one in doubt that this time" may refer to his well-known 1939 Reichstag speech, which revisionists argue did not refer to a genocide (see the separate section on this speech).

The testament in some places refers to "Jewry", but in other places refers to "international Jewry" as being responsible for war. The term "international Jewry" was well-known at this time due to the widely read book The International Jew (published by Henry Ford) which also influenced Hitler.

However, the book took care to differentiate between "international Jews"/"international Jewry" (who allegedly exercise international control) and Jews in general (including poor Jews). "International Jews"/"International Jewry" were argued to be a problem not just for non-Jews, but also for other Jews.

The revisionist Wilhelm Stäglich has argued that the testament places the responsibility for the war on "international Jewry" and not on all Jews (which is the politically correct interpretation of the testament). Also, "His remarks could apply to the period after the victory for which he may still have entertained some hope. If so, it should be understood as a warning to the Jewish leaders and an assignment for his successors." Stäglich furthermore argued that "even shortly before his death Hitler apparently knew nothing about a mass extermination of Jews in “death camps” for otherwise he would have worded his Political Testament differently. Second, if Hitler aimed at exterminating the Jews and this had actually been accomplished, it would have been characteristic of him to boast triumphantly of the accomplishment."

A possibility is that the testament has been edited and originally contained, for example, statements explicitly denying any genocide. The revisionist Arthur Butz has stated that "There also exists a possibility that the text of the testament was tampered with, because its discovery by British and American authorities was not announced until December 29, 1945, and because only the last page is signed. Only the typewriter and stationery Hitler’s secretary used would have been required to make an undetectable alteration."

Alleged Hitler statements on the Holocaust discussed in other articles

See Holocaust testimonial evidence: Witnesses rejecting atrocities on all members of the personal staff of Hitler stating that no one knew of the alleged Holocaust mass extermination, even staff present at the most secret meetings alone with Heinrich Himmler.

See the article on Himmler regarding a brief note with the words "No liquidation" which is sometimes argued be an order from Hitler as well as another brief note with the words "als Partisanen auszurotten" also sometimes argued to be an order from Hitler.

See the article on Adolf Eichmann regarding his allegation that Reinhard Heydrich stated that Himmler and Hitler had given the order for the physical destruction of the Jews in July 1941.

See the article on the Einsatzgruppen and in particular the section "Trial confessions" on an alleged Hitler order to exterminate Jews.

See the article on Alfred Franke-Gricksch on another alleged Hitler order to exterminate Jews.

See the article on Kurt Becher regarding an alleged order to stop the Holocaust.

See the article on Albert Speer on Speer's allegedly autobiographical postwar books.

See also World War II statements argued to support Holocaust revisionism.

See also the "External links" section in this article on other discussions of statements by Hitler.

External links

• The Missing Hitler Orders
• The Plum Cake
• Rauschning's Phony 'Conversations With Hitler': An Update
• Fake Nazi Quotations

In books (that can be downloaded)

• Lectures on the Holocaust—Controversial Issues Cross Examined - section 4.1. Confessions of NS Leaders During the War
• Auschwitz Lies—Legends, Lies, and Prejudices on the Holocaust - The chapter "Denying Evidence, The Phony “Holocaust” “Convergence of Evidence”", section 3.7.4. Adolf Hitler
• The Hoax of the Twentieth Century - Chapter 6 Et Cetera: Adolf Hitler
• Auschwitz: A Judge Looks at the Evidence - Chapter Two: Contemporaneous Documents: Speeches and Other Public Statements by Political Leaders of the Third Reich: Adolf Hitler

Article archives

• Codoh: Hitler, Adolf

References

Part of this article consists of modified text from Wikipedia, and the article is therefore licensed under GFDL.