# Questions about Hitler and Nazi Germany's attempted extermination of Europe's Jews **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 18, 2013, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168 "2013-09-18T19:02:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 28
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/541 "2013-09-23T23:07:29Z")
> [@Gack](#): > > 1. addressed in an earlier post: the document explicitly states that it is a plan for relocating Jews to the east, it is 15 pages long and goes into detail on who is a Jew, where the Jews are, etc. There is one sentence that I don’t have an explanation for. Yes and that one sentence makes clear what the real intention is: “Able-bodied Jews, separated according to sex, will be taken in large work columns to these areas for work on roads, in the course of which action doubtless a large portion will be eliminated by natural causes. The possible final remnant will, since it will undoubtedly consist of the most resistant portion, have to be treated accordingly, because it is the product of natural selection and would, if released, act as the seed of a new Jewish revival.” Please tell us what your interpretation is of the sentence: “The possible final remnant will, since it will undoubtedly consist of the most resistant portion, have to be treated accordingly…” ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/542 "2013-09-23T23:15:13Z")
> [@Malden\_Capell](#): > > And the only supposed evidence of Hitler’s body is his upper jaw, which is held by the Russians, and we know how reliable they are with historical artifacts, so…Hitler lives! And without having a photograph, how do we know it’s Hitler’s jaw? It might be a duck’s bill. As an experiment, I cooked a duck in my oven and served it with a nice orange sauce. It was quite tasty. Would a dead Hitler have been equally edible? I find that implausible so I think my experiment proves that Hitler is not dead. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/543 "2013-09-23T23:28:06Z")
> [@Gack](#): > > I am afraid of gas, but did a little experiment today. Put some gas in a small plastic cup and tossed a burning piece of paper into it. It burned pretty impressively but didn’t explode or anything. As the plastic melted it became clear that the gas would spread onto a wooden fixture in the yard that I didn’t want to burn, so I had to quickly fetch the hose, and when I hosed it it was a little like a fireworks display with drops of flaming gas exploding forth, a couple of feet, it was impressive with lots of patches of flame on the yard, but really no biggie. I hosed it down and the wood didn’t catch on fire. If experimentation like this ends up burning down his house, revised history will show that it was the jews that caused the fire. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/544 "2013-09-24T00:04:42Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Or at least his [brain](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Saved_Hitler%27s_Brain). “Abby someone”? Abby who?? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/545 "2013-09-24T00:11:41Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > **Gack,** when I encouraged you to read the eyewitness accounts, I had high hopes you would be emotionally moved, as I was. How can you read about the writer’s experiences of hiding between dead bodies in order to live, hauling dead bodies out of the train, exhuming buried bodies, watching people shot when they got in a guard’s way, or pretending to be one of the designated workers just to stay alive? Well, he doesn’t believe it happened. It’s kind of hard to be emotionally moved by an account if you think it’s a lie. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/546 "2013-09-24T00:12:49Z")
> [@Gack](#): > > I am afraid of gas, but did a little experiment today. Put some gas in a small plastic cup and tossed a burning piece of paper into it. It burned pretty impressively but didn’t explode or anything. As the plastic melted it became clear that the gas would spread onto a wooden fixture in the yard that I didn’t want to burn, so I had to quickly fetch the hose, and when I hosed it it was a little like a fireworks display with drops of flaming gas exploding forth, a couple of feet, it was impressive with lots of patches of flame on the yard, but really no biggie. I hosed it down and the wood didn’t catch on fire. > > So, I think we’re good to go on the experiment. It did appear that the gas would burn for a while, but the melting plastic cut the experiment short. The gas may do some damage to the chicken, we’ll see. This is a bad plan. Seriously. I strongly suggest you don’t do this. It is not worth the risk of property damage and loss of life to attempt to prove something to a bunch of people on the internet. Especially since your experiment is all risk and no gain, as there is no way that chicken pieces and a Weber are a reasonable surrogate for a mass grave in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/547 "2013-09-24T00:26:13Z")
> [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](#): > > there is no way that chicken pieces and a Weber are a reasonable surrogate for a mass grave in the first place. It’s also pointless because no one except Gack is claiming that bodies were burnt with just bare corpses and gasoline. All the descriptions mention additional fuel, wood, clothing, boxes etc as well as gasoline being used. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/548 "2013-09-24T00:30:59Z")
> [@Gack](#): > > I am afraid of gas, but did a little experiment today. Put some gas in a small plastic cup and tossed a burning piece of paper into it. It burned pretty impressively but didn’t explode or anything. As the plastic melted it became clear that the gas would spread onto a wooden fixture in the yard that I didn’t want to burn, so I had to quickly fetch the hose, and when I hosed it it was a little like a fireworks display with drops of flaming gas exploding forth, a couple of feet, it was impressive with lots of patches of flame on the yard, but really no biggie. I hosed it down and the wood didn’t catch on fire. > > So, I think we’re good to go on the experiment. It did appear that the gas would burn for a while, but the melting plastic cut the experiment short. The gas may do some damage to the chicken, we’ll see. I’m torn between recommending you not do this out of fear of personal injury and property damage and hoping you do it. For science’s sake, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/549 "2013-09-24T00:48:23Z")
> [@Gack](#): > > _“I think the Nuremberg trials are a black page in the history of the world…I discussed the legality of these trials with some of the lawyers and some of the judges who participated therein. They did not attempt to justify their action on any legal ground, but rested their position on the fact that in their opinion, the parties convicted were guilty…This action is contrary to the fundamental laws under which this country has lived for many hundreds of years, and I think cannot be justified by any line of reasoning. I think the Israeli trial of Adolf Eichmann is exactly in the same category as the Nuremberg trials. As a lawyer, it has always been my view that a crime must be defined before you can be guilty of committing it. That has not occurred in either of the trials I refer to herein.” > Edgar N. Eisenhower, American Attorney, brother of President Dwight D.Eisenhower_ That’s neither here nor there when it comes to the validity of the testimony and evidence brought up during the trials. The Nuremberg trials were inherently injust and “wrong” because they hinged on judging people based on ex-post facto laws, that is to say laws that were drafted after the crime was committed. In part because, before the Holocaust, it didn’t spring to anyone’s mind what kind of punishment to apply to people who’d go out to systematically murder entire countries’ worth of people for shits and giggles. But the same is true of e.g. crimes against peace, which was a new catch-all category drafted to indict people who were instrumental in starting the war. But Eisenhauer **most emphatically** isn’t saying that the defendants were blameless of the specific \*acts \*they were charged with committing, nor that the court just made shit up to convict people with. Simply that, as a matter of legal procedure, the Nazis shouldn’t have been found guilty of the new kinds of international crimes that their woeful misconduct put in the books for the benefit of future generations, and that they should more rightfully have been tried by pre-war laws only (which would have been horribly injust in its own right, as most would have gotten away Scot free). It’s an important distinction. Of course, I’m sure you’ll either ignore it entirely or handwave it away. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/550 "2013-09-24T01:04:52Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > That’s neither here nor there when it comes to the validity of the testimony and evidence brought up during the trials. Eisenhower’s complaint might be a legitimate one, and I seem to see a host of military types complaining as well about the rejection of the “Nuremburg defense”, but what does crop up in some comments is that the detainees were given “enhanced” treatment, which, arguably, could have colored their testimony. Why they would embellish or exaggerate their deeds, though, would be a perplexing question. Testifying to atrocious acts in light if the fact that the punishment would be severe at best. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/551 "2013-09-24T01:20:09Z")
> [@Gack](#): > > 1. was addressed in an earlier post, at least regarding the Jews that disappeared from Poland, summary: I just linked to a short paper by Butz, the demographic arguments are beyond me Addressed and refuted. Pay attention. Poland’s 3 million Jews did not wind up in the USSR, and if they had wound up anywhere else it would have been noticed. > [@Gack](#): > > 1. this was addressed in a previous post, summary: the World Jewish Congress and the American Jewish Congress were behind many of the fund raising campaigns during WW ONE with holocaust claims, and as documented worked with H. Morgenthau of the War Refuge Board to publish WJC documents as US position papers. We are discussing the **Second** World War. Are you really contending the Holocaust was a hoax perpetrated by Jews? > [@Gack](#): > > 1. The presiding judge at the opening ceremony was Iona T. Nikitchenko who was also the presiding judge at the Moscow show trials. So what? Are you now suggesting the Holocaust was a hoax perpetrated by the **Soviets?** You can’t have that both ways. Stalin was fiercely anti-Semitic and never would have been in league with any Jewish cause, now matter how bad it would make the Nazis look; everybody on the winning side already hated the Nazis anyway. > [@Gack](#): > > I can find 15 quotes by famous jurists, politicians, etc., that the Nuremberg trials were a complete travesty of justice … Be glad there **were** trials. [Churchill wanted to classify the Nazi leaders as “outlaws”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlaw#In_other_countries) and execute them without any legal process. > [@Gack](#): > > 1. addressed in an earlier post: the document explicitly states that it is a plan for relocating Jews to the east, it is 15 pages long and goes into detail on who is a Jew, where the Jews are, etc. There is one sentence that I don’t have an explanation for. Don’t you think that ought to tell you something? “Resettlement” meant “death.” There is no other reasonable construction to put on the Wannsee minutes. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/552 "2013-09-24T01:44:00Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Don’t you think that ought to tell you something? “Resettlement” meant “death.” There is no other reasonable construction to put on the Wannsee minutes. additional proof: Transcript of Himmler’s speech Oct 4, 1943 from an audio recording: "I am talking about the “Jewish evacuation”: the extermination of the Jewish people. It is one of those things that is easily said. “The Jewish people is being exterminated,…” > **[File:Himmler Posen Speech - Extermination of the Jews excerpt, Oct 4, 1943.ogg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Himmler_Posen_Speech_-_Extermination_of_the_Jews_excerpt,_Oct_4,_1943.ogg)** > > Himmler\_Posen\_Speech\_-\_Extermination\_of\_the\_Jews\_excerpt,\_Oct\_4,\_1943.ogg (Ogg Vorbis sound file, length 5 min 28 s, 46 kbps, file size: 1.8 MB) So Gack, please now answer my question in post #540. What is your interpretation of the sentence I highlighted from the Wannsee conference minutes? ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/553 "2013-09-24T02:46:21Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > I’m torn between recommending you not do this out of fear of personal injury and property damage and hoping you do it. For science’s sake, of course. Nah. He has no chance to learn how misguided he’s been if he sets himself alight. Five years from now, he may be saying “why was I all up in arms about that crazy stuff? I was in a bad place in my life, I’m so glad I’m in a better place, and that I didn’t get hurt.” Look at [Derek Black](http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2013/07/17/activist-son-of-key-racist-leader-renounces-white-nationalism/). Also, it’s a horrible way to go. Seriously dude, don’t do this fire/chicken thingy. It is dangerous. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/554 "2013-09-24T05:36:08Z")
> [@Gack](#): > > 1. I can find 15 quotes by famous jurists, politicians, etc., that the Nuremberg trials were a complete travesty of justice … > > [http://codoh.com/library/document/231](http://codoh.com/library/document/231) While it’s hardly a shock that you fail to address the actual question as none of these quotes from your friends at the IHR deny that the holocaust took place, and as noted were objections only to some of the charges being for crimes that only became crimes ex post facto (Count 1.Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of a crime against peace and Count 2.Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crimes against peace, neither of which was an actual crime before WW2), what I find particularly amusing are two things: one is you can’t count, there are 23 quotes in the link you cite, which might explain why you confuse the numbers 6 million and 300,000-400,000. Second is the gall of some of the quotes they use. This one springs to mind: > [@](#): > > 12.“It was clear from the outset that a death sentence would be pronounced against me, as I have always regarded the trial as a purely political act by the victors, but I wanted to see this trial through for my people’s sake and I did at least expect that I should not be denied a soldier’s death. Before God, my country, and my conscience I feel myself free of the blame that an enemy tribunal has attached to me.” > \*\*Reichsmarschall Herman Göring \*\* > David Irving, Göring: A Biography, (New York: William Morrow and Co.,1989) p.506. There you go, \*\*Reichsmarschall Herman Göring \*\* thought the trials were unfair. The hilarity of the quote is only made funnier by the facts that after seeing the trial through for his people’s sake and making this quote he committed suicide by cyanide the night before his execution, and that this quote is being provided in a book by [David Irving](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Irving), known liar, holocaust denier, anti-Semite and racist. Here’s an example [from](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Irving#Racism_and_antisemitism) > [@](#): > > his diary entry for 17 September 1994, in which Irving wrote about a ditty he composed for his young daughter “when halfbreed children are wheeled past”: > > I am a Baby Aryan > Not Jewish or Sectarian > I have no plans to marry an > Ape or Rastafarian. Hey, when he can’t sell books about holocaust denial anymore, at least he might have a future writing poetry for his Neo-Nazi friends. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/555 "2013-09-24T10:33:27Z")
> [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](#): > > Seriously dude, don’t do this fire/chicken thingy. It is dangerous. And pointless. ---
**Author:** ![Gack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecccb3/32.png) [@Gack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gack)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/556 "2013-09-24T11:43:34Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > additional proof: Transcript of Himmler’s speech Oct 4, 1943 from an audio recording: > "I am talking about the “Jewish evacuation”: the extermination of the Jewish people. It is one of those things that is easily said. “The Jewish people is being exterminated,…” > > [File:Himmler Posen Speech - Extermination of the Jews excerpt, Oct 4, 1943.ogg - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Himmler_Posen_Speech_-_Extermination_of_the_Jews_excerpt,_Oct_4,_1943.ogg) > > So Gack, please now answer my question in post #540. What is your interpretation of the sentence I highlighted from the Wannsee conference minutes? I explicitly said that I have no satisfactory explanation for that sentence, and you want me to explain it. Nonetheless, I’ll say that it is an offhand remark made in the informal minutes of a lengthy meeting that is of no significance. It says that the prisoners will be ‘treated accordingly’. That is not a master plan for exterminating anyone, that’s a casual remark that was made and forgotten. It nothing to do with ‘exterminating Jews’ as is does not refer to the old, the young, the less than ‘able bodied’, etc. Here is the final analysis … let’s say that it was really a coded order, as (I just checked) the wiki article on the conference states, OK, then we must proceed to… … wait a minute, we can’t proceed … here is the statement (from the wiki article) _Under proper guidance, in the course of the final solution the Jews are to be allocated for appropriate labor in the East. Able-bodied Jews, separated according to sex, will be taken in large work columns to these areas for work on roads, in the course of which action doubtless a large portion will be eliminated by natural causes. The possible final remnant will, since it will undoubtedly consist of the most resistant portion, have to be treated accordingly, because it is the product of natural selection and would, if released, act as the seed of a new Jewish revival._ Well, did we have Jewish road gangs in the east? No, not to my knowledge. So the statement has no connection with reality at all. The Jewish road gangs did not happen. So immediately, without even getting to your sentence, we see that the paragraph has no connection to reality. It has nothing to do with the camps, nothing to do with the Einsatzgruppen, hence, nothing to do with the holocaust as we normally think of it. Then, in addition, none of it came to pass, so it has nothing to do with anything. The whole paragraph is a flight of fancy that has no significance whatever. ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/557 "2013-09-24T12:52:19Z")
If it wasn’t for the whole “pissing on the memory of 5-6 million dead” aspect, **Gack** could be almost as amusing as the Billy Meier promoters one thread down explaining why Meier is legit despite the aliens in his photos turning out to be members of Dean Martin’s Golddiggers. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/558 "2013-09-24T12:55:04Z")
> [@Gack](#): > > I explicitly said that I have no satisfactory explanation for that sentence, and you want me to explain it. > > Nonetheless, I’ll say that it is an offhand remark made in the informal minutes of a lengthy meeting that is of no significance. It says that the prisoners will be ‘treated accordingly’. That is not a master plan for exterminating anyone, that’s a casual remark that was made and forgotten. It nothing to do with ‘exterminating Jews’ as is does not refer to the old, the young, the less than ‘able bodied’, etc. > > Here is the final analysis … let’s say that it was really a coded order, as (I just checked) the wiki article on the conference states, OK, then we must proceed to… > … > > wait a minute, we can’t proceed … here is the statement (from the wiki article) > > _Under proper guidance, in the course of the final solution the Jews are to be allocated for appropriate labor in the East. Able-bodied Jews, separated according to sex, will be taken in large work columns to these areas for work on roads, in the course of which action doubtless a large portion will be eliminated by natural causes. The possible final remnant will, since it will undoubtedly consist of the most resistant portion, have to be treated accordingly, because it is the product of natural selection and would, if released, act as the seed of a new Jewish revival._ > > Well, did we have Jewish road gangs in the east? No, not to my knowledge. So the statement has no connection with reality at all. The Jewish road gangs did not happen. > > So immediately, without even getting to your sentence, we see that the paragraph has no connection to reality. It has nothing to do with the camps, nothing to do with the Einsatzgruppen, hence, nothing to do with the holocaust as we normally think of it. Then, in addition, none of it came to pass, so it has nothing to do with anything. The whole paragraph is a flight of fancy that has no significance whatever. Nonsense. That sentence makes it pretty clear that the Final Solution was to get rid of all the Jews of Europe- there’s no other way to read it. Even the able-bodied Jews will be “eliminated by natural causes”- and the rest will be “treated accordingly” to prevent a new Jewish revival. I’m sure pretending it is meaningless makes you feel better, but it’s not meaningless at all. This, plus the massive amounts of evidence (witness testimony, confessions, documents, and physical evidence like mass graves etc) makes it incontrovertible. The Nazis wanted to kill all the Jews, and they tried to kill all the Jews. And they killed between 5 and 6 million Jews, and made significant efforts to get rid of the evidence. Luckily, they failed. As you are failing miserably. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/559 "2013-09-24T12:57:08Z")
Many Jews were worked to death- and it’s explicitly stated in that statement that this is part of the Final Solution; no interpretation at all is required. The Nazis planned to work able-bodied Jews to death. How do you explain this? ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/560 "2013-09-24T13:02:09Z")
Fine Gack, thanks for your reply. So what’s your reply to Himmler’s quotation that “evacuation” actually equals “extermination”. This is a recording from a Nazi speech, its not a confession forced under torture, its a historical recording made by the Nazi government for their own historical record and captured by the US as evidence. Do you deny that its a genuine recording? Do you dispute the direct statement by Himmler that “evacuation” = “extermination”. How do you interpret Himmler’s statement? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168.md?page=27) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168.md?page=29)