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Principal target

AndyL claims, "Ideologically, the Jews were the principal targets of the Nazis even if they were not the most numerous victims." This is questionable. Communists were a major and long-term target of Hitler and the Nazis. Hitler was introduced to the Nazi party when he agreed to infilitrate the party for German army intelligence and communists were a major enemy in Mein Kampf. Hitler's first major act of repression after seizing power was directed at communists. Of course, in Hitler's mind there was no neat line between Jews and communists.

Also, there were Romany or "Gypsy losses by 1945, proportionately at least matching, and almost certainly exceeding, that of Jewish victims." See Jewish Response to the Porrajmos (The Romani Holocaust). So, how do you rightly decide who the "principal targets" were and how do you do so without diminishing the suffering of others?

The phrase "The Jews of Europe constituted the largest single group of victims of the Holocaust" is factually correct. It better reflects a NPOV and more accurately reflects the reality that the Nazis killed anyone viewed as a threat to ideological or 'racial' purity and nearly as many or more non-Jews than Jews were killed. --Whiterose 05:23, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Actually, Hitler almost always referred to Communists as "Judeo-Bolsheviks" so there indeed was a "neat line between Jews and Communists" in Hitler's brain. I am unaware of any serious historian of the Holocaust who would not assert that the Jews were Hitler's principal target. AndyL 04:42, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence that Hitler "almost always referred to Communists as Judeo-Bolsheviks"? For instance, Volume Two, Chapter VII of Mein Kampf, "The Struggle with the Red Front" contains at least 18 references to Marxism. It contains exactly two references to Jews; one is a reference to "the Jewish Press" and the other is to alleged Jewish conspirators in the events of 1848. Neither explicitly articulates a link between Jews and Marxism. In any event, I have already acknowledged that Hitler often lumped Jews and communists together but my point is that he was also able to and did distinguish between the two groups. FWIW, being a non-Jewish communist was no pass on persecution.

You are "unaware of any serious historian of the Holocaust who would not assert that the Jews were Hitler's principal target." I haven't really researched this but I'll give you two examples. How about Arno J. Mayer of Princeton University, a Holocaust survivor and author of Why Did the Heavens Darken? I haven't read Mayer's book but I trust that Yehuda Bauer got it essentially correct when he disparagingly characterizes Mayer's premise as "the Nazis saw in Marxism and bolshevism their main enemy, and the Jews unfortunately got caught up in this." Norman Finkelstein may not be popular but he is a serious Holocaust scholar at a respected university and he contends in A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth that "Not the Jews but Marxism and Social Democracy served as the prime scapegoats of Nazi propaganda."--Whiterose 06:40, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Whatever Hitler's persecution of communists may have been, it is not generally considered to have been part of "the Holocaust." john k 04:59, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Fine, but perhaps it should be and the fact that it isn't is probably more a reflection of post-WWII anti-communism than anything else. I would also mention that the Wikipedia article on the Holocaust points out that the Nazis killed "1–1.5 million political dissidents." In any event, my point was not to claim that communists (or any other group) were the "principal targets" of the Nazis; rather, I wanted to point out the problems with claiming that "the Jews were the principal targets."--Whiterose 06:40, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"Fine, but perhaps it should be" - it's not our role to change things, that would be original research.

Agreed, and I have not advocated that we should change the characterization of communists in the Holocaust. I am advocating that we adopt more neutral, accurate, and inclusive language regarding the "principals targets" of the Nazis. Communists and the Roma can also be accurately identified as "principal targets" of the Nazis. To implicitly or explicitly characterize Jews as the sole main or principal targets of the Nazis is ahistorical and marginalizes the suffering of other groups. My proposed edit is: "The Jews of Europe constituted the largest single group of victims of the Holocaust." This is factually correct and does not suffer from the problems of the current language.--Whiterose 21:49, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

In any case, you've completely ignored Hitler's well documented views that Communism was a Jewish ideology ("Judeo-Bolshevism"?). AndyL 12:15, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You are quite mistaken, in my first remarks on this thread I noted, "Of course, in Hitler's mind there was no neat line between Jews and communists." Meaning that Hitler often, but not always, conflated the two groups.--Whiterose 21:49, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

My mistake, I misunderstood your comment as meaning he saw no connection between the two when you meant to imply he saw no distinction. Anyway, since we agree on that point, I think you should see that it would follow that Hitler's anti-Communism was, for him, indistinguishable from his anti-Semitism. AndyL 22:32, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm hesitant to accept Whiterose's evidence from such a controversial figure as Finkelstein. Nevertheless, I support his campaign to ensure that we are factually accurate if we assert that there was a principal target in the Holocaust, considering how many groups were targeted. Perhaps if he can produce more evidence that Marxism was a target, we should consider using a more appropriate wording. Acegikmo1 23:59, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Norman Finkelstein is a legitimate scholar and his work should be evaluated on its scholarly merits and not on whether he hews to the "politically correct" version of events or not. In any event, Arno Mayer is a less controversial historian and, as I read Yehuda Bauer, Mayer's main premise is that Hitler's principal target was communism. However, I am not advocating that we adopt Mayer's premise, I am advocating that we adopt the neutral and factually correct statement that, "The Jews of Europe constituted the largest single group of victims of the Holocaust."--Whiterose 21:49, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Finklestein is controversial but he is also a legitimate academic. He's also not some obsure professor who has escaped notice outside of the lunatic fringe. Given the amount of reaction and debate his book on the "Holocaust industry" has generated it's quite legitimate for the article to reference Finklestein though it is also legitimate to refer to his views as controversial and include a referenced counterargument. I'm not a particular fan of the Goldhagen thesis but I wouldn't for a moment suggest that because Goldhagen is controversial and his views contested we shouldn't mention him. (Personally, I think Finklestein is off base on the Holocaust but he is not "beyond the Pale" and certainly not a Holocaust revisionist ie his arguments do not touch on the veracity of the Holocaust, but on its alleged exploitation after the fact. On Whitehorse's other point, since you yourself accept that Hitler blurred the lines between Jews and Communism I don't see why you can't accept that Jews and "Jewish influence" were the principal target of the Nazis and that his anti-Communism was an extension of that. I think there is a consensus on that in the academic community. Mayer's premise simply gives it a different nuance but it certainly doesn't contradict the evidence of the centrality of the Jews in Hitler's world view as Hitler saw Judaism and Communism as indistinguishable from each other. AndyL 22:41, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"Do you have any evidence that Hitler "almost always referred to Communists as Judeo-Bolsheviks"?" He also used the term "Jewish Communism". I might not be literally correct implying he always used the term "Judeo-Bolshevism" instead of Communism but Kershaw amongst others make it quite clear he and the Nazis saw Communism as a creation of the Jews and under their control and used terms like "Judeo Bolshevism" as synonyms for Communism. See, for example, Bolshevism from Moses to Lenin: A dialogue between Adolf Hitler and me which was a Nazi-era pamphelt

Surely the "principal target" is a matter of perception. It is unlikely that Hitler (if the Holocaust is to be be blamed entirely on him) designated a principal target but instead just imprisoned and killed all groups that he did not like. It would appear that an article straining towards a NPOV should not include an issue which is totally subjective. And this is not even mentioning that the horror of one death is not worse or more significant than another death of a group that are not "the principal target." Enough groups died in the Holocaust that it is unneccessary to try and highlight one particular group - especially when one group recieves a far far greater recognition already.

Slizor 16:28, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

"Unlikely Hitler designated a principal target"? Are you familiar with the contents of Mein Kampf, or his speeches, or his party platform? Only a profound ignorance of Hitler, the Nazi party, and the Holocaust would excuse suggesting that there wasn't a "principal target". Jayjg ^(talk) 18:38, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Okay then. Provide a airtight fucking argument for who the principal target was, you arrogant bastard. Clearly with your massive amount of knowledge of "Hitler, the Nazi party and the Holocaust" you can enlighten us poor fools who have been unable to find decisive proof and are yet to resolve the historical disputes about Hitler's positions, the position of the Nazi Party and the nature and causes of the Holocaust. Slizor 23:01, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

Sigh. Well, your inability to find decisive proof does not constitute even indecisive evidence about the absence of said proof. In no particular order (sorry):

In his diary Goebbels recorded a meeting with Hitler on 21 November 1941 in terms which included the following:

"The Fuhrer also completely agrees with my views with reference to the Jewish question. He wants an energetic policy against the Jews, which, however, does not cause us unnecessary difficulties".

In a speech made by Hitler to the Gauleiter on 12 December 1941, according to Goebbels’s diary (in Longerich’s translation):

"As concerns the Jewish question, the Fuhrer is determined to make a clean sweep. He had prophesied to the Jews that if they once again brought about a world war they would experience their own extermination (vernichtung). This was not just an empty phrase. The World War is there, the extermination of Jewry (Judentum) 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 sympathise with our own German people."

In the account of General Governor Hans Frank who was in Berlin when Hitler spoke to the Gauleiter:

“But what is to happen to the Jews? Do you believe that they will be lodged in the settlements in the Ostland? In Berlin we were told: why all this trouble, we cannot use them in the Ostland or the Reichskommissariat either; liquidate them yourselves! Gentlemen, I must ask you: arm yourselves against any thoughts of compassion. We must destroy the Jews, wherever we encounter them and wherever it is possible, in order to preserve the entire structure of the Reich … we cannot shoot these 3.5 million Jews. We can’t poison them. But we will, nonetheless, take some kind of action that will lead to a successful destruction, and indeed in conjunction with the important measures to be discussed in the Reich. The General Government must become just as free of Jews as the Reich is. Where and how that happens is a matter for the institutions which we must put into action and create here and the effectiveness I will report on to you in good time”.

As Frank had told his audience it would be, a meeting was convened in Berlin and took place in Berlin on 20 January 1942 under the chairmanship of Heydrich, known as the Wannsee conference. The invitations to the conference were accompanied by an authorisation, signed by Goering, to prepare a European-wide Final Solution to the Jewish problem. State Secretaries, ranking just below Cabinet ministers, attended, as did amongst others Muller, Hofmann and Eichmann. According to the Defendants, it marks an important milestone in the evolution of the policy of extermination. Shortly after Wannsee the construction of the death camps at Sobibor and Treblinka started and gas chambers were built at Auschwitz.

A manuscript note made by Himmler of a conversation he had with Hitler on 16 December 1941: “Jewish question / to be extirpated (auszurotten) as partisans”. It is consistent with the way in which the killing of 363,211 Jews was treated in report by the Einsatzgruppen of 26 December 1942: in that report the number of Jews killed was included as a separate category under the heading of partisan accomplices. This report is endorsed in manuscript “laid before [vorgelegt] Hitler”.

Statements repeatedly made by Hitler from 1941 onwards that the Jews must be eliminated and that they were a “bacillus” which needed to be eliminated. Examples are to be found in the entries made by Goebbels in his diary on 15 February and 20 March 1942 and in Hitler’s Table Talk on 22 February 1942.

In January 1942 Hitler again confirmed in his New Year’s address that it would be the Jews who would be ausgerottet (exterminated). He spoke in similar terms at the Reichstag on 30 January 1942 and thereafter on 14, 22 and 24 February 1942.

Several references made by Hitler in January and February 1942 to the extermination (ausrottung) of Jews, for example in his Table Talk on 25 January 1942. Hitler is there recorded as having said on that occasion:

“The Jew has to get out of Europe … If he collapses in the course of it, I can’t help there. I can see only one thing: absolute extermination, if they don’t go of their own accord ..”.

Goebbels’s diary entry for 20 March records that on the previous day Hitler had displayed a merciless attitude towards the Jews and had stated that the Jews must be got out of Europe, if necessary by the most brutal means.

On 28 July 1942 Ganzenmuller, a senior official in the Ministry of Transport, reported to Wolff, an SS officer close to Hitler, that trains were regularly transporting Jews in large numbers to both Treblinka and Belzec. On 13 August Wolff, writing from Hitler’s headquarters, wrote to Ganzenmuller expressing his joy at the assurance that for the next two weeks there would be a daily train carrying 5,000 of the “chosen people” to Treblinka.

In a letter written in 1977 to a journalist named Gita Sereny by Christa Schroeder, formerly personal secretary to Hitler, Frau Schroeder wrote: “As far as the Judenfrage, I consider it improbably that Hitler knew nothing. He had frequent conversations with Himmler which took place tete-a-tete”.

Hitler’s statements in the Table Talk for 22 February 1942: “We will get well when we eliminate the Jew”

A similar remark by Hitler to NSDAP party members on 24 February 1942 when Hitler again talked of extermination and removing parasites.

The "Kinna report" dated 16 December 1942, written by an SS corporal from Zamosk in Poland about the transport of Poles to Auschwitz, states “in contrast to the measures applied to the Jews, the Poles must die a natural death”.

On 24 and 27 July 1942 Himmler lunched with Hitler. Three days later Himmler wrote to Berger, a senior officer at the SS Headquarters, that the occupied Eastern territories were to be free of Jews by the end of the year. Himmler added that the “carrying out of this very hard order had been placed on his shoulders by the Fuhrer”.

On 1 May 1942 Greiser wrote to Himmler, following a meeting with Globocnik in May 1942, that “the special treatment” (Sonderbehandlung) of around 100,000 Jews in his district, which had been authorised by Himmler in agreement with Heydrich, could be completed in the next 2-3 months.

Goebbel's diary for March 27 1942:

" 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 Fuhrer 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. If we did not defend ourselves against them, the Jews would annihilate us. It is a struggle for life and death between the Aryan race and the Jewish bacillus. No other government and no other regime could muster the strength for a general solution of the question. Here too the Fuhrer is the persistent pioneer and spokesman of a radical solution, which is demanded by the way things are and thus appears to be unavoidable."

Goebbel's diary for 20 March 1942

“We speak in conclusion about the Jewish question. Here the Fuhrer remains now as before unrelenting. The Jews must get out of Europe, if necessary, with the application of the most brutal means”.

In Himmler’s note for his meeting with Hitler on 10 December 1942 one of the points he lists is “Jews in France 600-700,000”. Alongside those words there appears a tick. Himmler has also added in manuscript the word “abschaffen”. Longerich translated this as “to liquidate”.

On 12/13 April 1943, Hitler met the military dictator of Romania, Antonescu in order to discuss Romania’s position in the war. In the course of their discussion the question of the Jews in Romania was raised. The minutes record him as having said:

“Therefore, in contrast to Marshal Antonescu, the Fuhrer took the view that one must proceed against the Jews, the more radically the better. He … would rather burn all his bridges behind him because the Jewish hatred is so enormously great anyway. In Germany, as a consequence of the clearing up of the Jewish question, one had a united people without opposition at one’s disposal … however, once the way had been embarked on, there was no turning back”.

A meeting was arranged between Hitler, Ribbentrop, and Admiral Horthy, in charge of the Hungarian government (who had already deported thousands of Jews to Germany where they were killed, but were stalling on the remainder) on 16 and 17 April 1943. Minutes of the meeting on 17 April were taken by Dr Paul-Otto Schmidt. They record Ribbentrop saying in the presence of Hitler:

“On Horthy’s retort, what should he do with the Jews then, after he had taken pretty well all means of living from them – he surely couldn’t beat them to death – the Reich Foreign Minister replied that the Jews must either be annihilated or taken to concentration camps. There was no other way”.

and Hitler's saying

“If the Jews [in Poland] didn’t want to work, they were shot. If they couldn’t work, they had to perish. They had to be treated like tuberculosis bacilli, from which a healthy body can be infected. That was not cruel; if one remembered that even innocent natural creatures like hares and deer had to be killed so that no harm was caused. Why should one spare the beasts who wanted to bring us bolshevism? Nations who did not rid themselves of Jews perished”.

On 6 October 1943 the SS chief in Rome received an order to transfer 12,000 Roman Jews to northern Italy (despite strong opposition in Rome) where they would be liquidated. Hitler directed via Ribbentrop that the Roman Jews were to be left in the hands of the SS, i.e. Reichsfuhrer-SS Himmler. They were taken to Auschwitz and killed.

On 6 October 1943 Himmler spoke to a gathering of Reichsleiter and Gauleiter. He said:

“I do ask you to keep secret, to listen to what I am saying and never to speak about it, what I am saying in these circles. We came up against the question, what about the women and children, and I took the decision here too for a clear solution. I did not consider myself justified in liquidating just the men to leave alive the children to act as the avengers against our sons and grandchildren. There had to be taken the grave decision to have this people disappear from the face of the earth”.

On 5 May 1944, Himmler spoke to the generals of the Wehrmacht. According to the transcript of his speech he said:

“The Jewish question has been solved within Germany itself and in general within the countries occupied by Germany. It was solved in an uncompromising fashion in accordance with the life and death struggle of our nation in which the existence of our blood is at stake. You can understand how difficult it was for me to carry out this soldierly order (soldatische Befehl) and which I carried out from obedience and from a sense of complete conviction”.

On 24 May 1944 Himmler spoke to the generals again, saying:

“Another question which was decisive for the inner security of the Reich in Europe was the Jewish question. It was uncompromisingly solved after orders and rational recognition. I believe gentlemen that you know me well enough to know that I am not a bloodthirsty person. I am not a man who takes pleasure or joy when something rough must be done. However, on the other hand I have such good nerves and such a developed sense of duty I could say that much for myself. When I recognise something as necessary, I can implement it without compromise. I have not considered myself entitled, this concerns especially the Jewish women and children, to allow the children to grow into the avengers who will murder our fathers and grandchildren. That would have been cowardly. Consequently, the question was uncompromisingly resolved”.

Hitler addressed senior officers of the Wehrmacht on 26 May 1944 in the following terms:

“By removing the Jew, I abolished in Germany the possibility to build up a revolutionary core or nucleus. One could naturally say to me: Yes, couldn’t you have solved this more simply – or not simply since all other mans would have been more complicated – but more humanely? My dear officers, we are engaged in a life or death struggle. If our opponents win in this struggle, then the German people would be extirpated”.

Notes made by Ribbentrop when incarcerated in the prison at Nuremberg:

“...judging from [Hitler’s] Last Will, one must suppose that he at least knew about it, if, in his fanaticism against the Jews, he didn’t also order [it]”.

The prison psychologist at Nuremberg, Dr Gilbert, reports Ribbentrop conceding that Hitler ordered the extermination of the Jews in 1941.

In correspondence in 1919 Hitler outlined the differences between what he called emotional and rational forms of anti-semitism. The latter form ultimately led Hitler to call for the removal of the Jews altogether. By 1920 he was already using terms such as extirpation, annihilation and extermination in relation to the Jews. He referred to the Jews as a plague, an epidemic, germ carriers, a harmful bacillus, a cancer and as maggots. In his writings and speeches Hitler blamed the situation of Germany at the end of the First World War on an international Jewish conspiracy. His basic wish throughout had been by one means or another to remove the Jews from German soil. As is evident from the Goebbels diaries, Hitler and Goebbels devoted much time to the prosecution of anti-semitic policy.

In Mein Kampf, published in 1926, Hitler developed his anti-semitism by placing his desire to remove the Jews in the context of a wider theory of the struggle between races for living space. In Hitler’s view the Jews, lacking a state of their own, were parasites trying to destroy those states which had been established by superior races. This idea was developed in his ‘Second Book’ which was written in 1927 although not published in his lifetime. In his speeches in the late 1920’s Hitler stated that Jews were not able to work productively because they lacked a proper relationship with the soil. As a consequence they were parasites and spongers. This did not prevent Hitler from claiming that the Jews had achieved economic dominance and the ability to control and manipulate the media to their own advantage. He spoke of the need to eliminate the economic ascendancy of the Jews, if necessary by means of their physical removal. Longerich asserts that anti-semitism was an integral part of Hitler’s Weltanshauung.

From 1935 onwards Hitler’s attitude towards the Jews was reflected in the anti-semitic policies pursued by the Nazi government. Longerich cites Hitler’s role in organising the boycott of Jewish businesses on 1st April 1933 and the enactment between 1935 and 1937 of various discriminatory laws. Jews were excluded from holding public office and the practice of law. Quotas for Jewish pupils and students were brought in.

Hitler’s anti-semitism is evident in his public statements in the 1930s. In his speech to the Reich Party Congress in 1937 Hitler talked of Jewish-Bolshevist subversion. The pogrom of 9th November 1938, Reichskristallnacht, marks the first occasion when Jews and their property were subjected to serious and widespread violence and destruction. Hitler addressed the Reichstag on 30th January 1939 on the topic of the Jewish question. He said:

“During my struggle for power it was mostly the Jewish people who laughed at my prophecies that I would some day assume the leadership of the state and thereby of the entire Volk and them, among many other things, achieve a solution of the Jewish problem. I believe that in the meantime the then resounding laughter of Jewry in Germany is now choking in their throats. Today I will be a prophet again; if international Jewry within Europe and abroad should succeed once more in plunging the peoples into a world war, then the consequence will be not the Bolshevisation of the world and therewith a victory of Jewry, but on the contrary, the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe”.

In a footnote to a report by the leader of an Einsatzkommando, Jager, dated 2 August 1941 (Jager had advocated the ghettoisation of the Jews in the Ostland) his superior, Stahlecker, informed him of the receipt of “general orders from above which cannot be discussed in writing”. Thereafter Jager’s Kommando shot all Jews, including women and children. Jager later reported 134,000 people killed by Einsatzkommando 3 in Lithuania in the period to December 1941, including only 2,042 nonJews (1.5%). Stahlecker, reporting on 15 October 1941, admitted that it had been realised from the start that ghettos would not solve the Jewish problem and that “basic orders” had therefore called for the most complete means possible of the Jews. 33,000 Jews in Kiev were killed on 29-30 September 1941. Not only were the Jewish inhabitants of the ghettos in large cities exterminated, smaller towns and rural areas were also rendered Judenfrei (free of Jews). On 1 August 1941 Muller, the head of the Gestapo within Heydrich’s Security Police, had ordered the Einsatzgruppen “The Fuhrer is to be kept informed continually from here about the work of the Einsatzgruppen in the East” Copies of the reports went to the Reich Chancellery and to Bormann. Report no. 51 dated 26 December 1942 on the campaign against partisans in the Ukraine, Southern Russia and Bialystok, was retyped three days later with the heading “Reports to the Fuhrer on combating partisans submitted 31.12.42” in larger type (Hitler's eyesight was failing at this time). It reports the numbers killed over the preceding four months, including the number of Jews executed in the Ukraine and Bialystok as 363,211; even Jewish labourers who might have made a contribution to the Nazi war effort were not spared.

On 1 August 1941 an “explicit order” was issued to SS units who were preparing to sweep the Pripet marshes by Himmler: “All Jews must be shot. Drive the female Jews into the swamp”.

In the spring of 1941, whilst preparations were under way for Barbarossa (the invasion of Russia), Hitler made clear his view that a war of destruction was about to start and called for the destruction of the Judaeo-Bolshevik intelligentsia. Instructions given by Hitler to General Jodl, Chief of the Army Leadership Staff, on 3 March 1941:

"The Jewish-Bolshevik intelligentsia, the hitherto oppressor of the people must be eliminated (beseitigt)”

On 25 October 1941, according to his table talk Hitler said:

“This criminal race [the Jews] has the two million dead from the World War on its conscience, now again hundreds of thousands. Noone can say to me: we cannot send them in the morass! Who then cares about our people? It is good if the terror (Schrecken) we are exterminating Jewry goes before us”.

An entry in Himmler’s appointment book for 18 December 1941 recorded that one of the proposed topics for discussion between himself and Hitler at their forthcoming meeting was the Judenfrage (the Jewish question). Against that entry, Himmler has noted “als Partisanane auszurotten” (all to be annihilated as if partisans).

An entry in Goebbels’s diary for 24 August 1938:

“We discuss the Jewish question. The Fuhrer approves my procedures in Berlin. What the foreign press writes is insignificant. The main thing is that the Jews be pushed out. In 10 years they must be removed from Germany. But in the interim we still want to keep the Jews here as pawns”.

On 18 September Himmler wrote to the Gauleiter in Warthegau, Greiser, informing him:

“The Fuhrer wishes that the Old Reich and the Protectorate be emptied and freed of Jews from west to east as quickly as possible. I am therefore striving to transport the Jews of the Altreich and the Protektorat in the Eastern territories that became part of the Reich two years ago. It is desirable that this be accomplished by the end of this year, as a first and initial step in deporting them even further to the East next spring. I intend to remove a full 60,000 Jews of the Altreich and the Protektorat to the Litzmannstadt ghetto for the winter. This has, I have heard, the space to accommodate them”.

Deportations, which were initially to ghettoes in Lodz, Rikga and Misk, began in early to mid-October 1941. Six trainloads of Jews were summarily executed on their arrival at Kovno and in Riga.

On 25 October 1941 Wetzel of the Ostministerium in Berlin met, firstly, Brack, a senior official of the Reich Chancellery who had been involved in the euthanasia programme, and later Eichmann. Wetzel drafted a letter to Rosenberg (Reichsminister for the Occupied Eastern Territories) and Lohse (Reichskomissar for the Ostland) that Brack was prepared to help set up gassing apparatuses in Riga and that there were no objections if Jews who were not fit for work were “removed” by these apparatuses. From about that date Hitler made repeated references to the extermination of the Jews and to doing away with them. On 16 November 1941 Rosenberg met Hitler and Himmler, who the next day (according to his Dienstkalendar) told Heydrich by telephone that he had discussed the Beseitigung (doing away with) of the Jews. Two days later Rosenberg gave a confidential briefing to the press in which he spoke of the biological eradication of the whole of Jewry in Europe. From this date onwards, Hitler’s pronouncements on the Jewish question, become more frequent and increasingly blunt.

Well, there's a lot more, but I don't want to monopolize the space here. Gzuckier 07:34, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Offensive comments do not belong anywhere in WP, but in this article they are doubly inappropriate. If some users are unable to restrain themselves to civilized discussion, please at least find another place. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 00:42, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

I was unaware that I was questioning, nor indeed looking for proof of, Hitler's anti-semitism. Did Hitler not also want the extermination of all Communists, or all gypsies or all Homosexuals? So what if he focused more on the issue of the jews then on the communists or homosexuals - jews were a bigger group. Also when considering if there was even a "principal target" we must at least acknowledge the Functionalism versus intentionalism debate. And just because you have provided so much evidence to support you case I just thought I'd bring out a tiny scrap of evidence.

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out-- because I was not a communist; Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out-- because I was not a socialist; Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out-- because I was not a trade unionist; Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-- because I was not a Jew; Then they came for me-- and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Slizor 14:37, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

Well then, shouldn't you be posting "a [sic] airtight fucking argument for who the principal target was, you arrogant bastard", such as at least one quote from Hitler stating that all Gypsies/Rroma must be eradicated for the survival of the German people, or some indication that Hitler received frequent reports detailing the number of deaths of homosexuals? Gzuckier 17:48, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Not at all. My point remains that it is a matter of opinion. Do you take into account the wealth of evidence with regards to his hatred of jews and disregard the fact that they would be seen as a bigger problem because of their size, or do you consider his declaring war on the USSR when there was no need at all (and the fact "first they came for the communists") or do you look at the evidence (provided earlier in this topic) about the nazi treatment of Gypsies, etc, etc.

It is not my intention to suggest a different principal target and never has been. I am saying that there are sufficient grounds for considering this a matter of opinion and therefore not in line with Wikipedia. Slizor 13:33, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but given that Hitler was already writing at the end of World War I about the need to eradicate Jews, and kept reiterating that thought publicly to the point of requiring periodic reports on how many Jews were being killed during 1942, it's not really a matter of opinion to require that consideration of other groups as equally primary targets be backed up with at least some evidence of similar obsession on Hitler's part. I'm not being dogmatic about this, if there is such evidence (and there may well be) I will be more than happy to stuff it into my Big Bag O' Holocaust Facts. Gzuckier 00:05, 18 July 2005 (UTC)