Nazis Admit Murdering 6 Million Jews In Europe
NOTE:
THIS DECEMBER 16, 1945 REPORT WAS OF THE INITIAL REPORTING, BRFORE MORE ELABORATED EVIDENCES AND TESTIMONIES WERE BEING PUT ON RECORD
The Palestine Post, Sunday, December 16, 1945:
NAZIS ADMIT MURDERING 6 MILLION JEWS IN EUROPE.
NOT ENOUGH TO SATISFY HIMMLER.
By ERIC BOURNE. Reuters Special Correspondent.NUREMBERG, Saturday
The Germans killed 6,000,000 Jews in the East, according to an S.S. Sturm-bann-fuehrer (Major) Dr. Wilhelm Hoettl, whose affidavit was offered as evidence before the War Crimes Tribunal yesterday.
Hoettl's affidavit said that in August last year he talked in Budapest with S.S. Obersturm-bann-fuehrer (Lt.-Col.) Adolf Eichmann... who "certainly had the best record of Jews who had been murdered."
Eichmann told Hoettl that he reported to Himmler that approximately 4,000,000 Jews had been killed in various extermination camps, while an additional 2,000,000 met their deaths in other ways, the majority being shot by the security police.
Himmler was not satisfied with this report since in his opinion the number of Jews who had been killed must have been more that 6,000,000. "I have reasons to believe, however, that Eichmann's information was correct," Hoettl added.
Major Walsh, U.S. Deputy prosecutor cited evidence that 1,765,000 Jews were exterminated at the Auschwitz and Birkenau death-camps between April, 1942 and April, 1944.
According to a document from the US President's War Refugee Board file, the Jews murdered were of the following nationalities:900,000 Poles; 100,000 Dutch; 45,000 Greeks; 150,000 French; 60,000 Germans; 50,000 Belgians; 50,000 Yugoslavs, Italians and Norwegian; 200,000 Latvians, 50,000 Lithuanians; 30,000 Bohemian, Moravian and Austrians; 300,000 Slovaks; and 300,000 of various nationalities taken from scattered camps in Poland.
Starving of MillionsMajor Walsh introduced a new series of German documents and directives clearly showing the calculated plan to starve millions of Jews to death by shutting them off from all sources of supply and certain areas, and forbidding them to participate in agriculture where they might get food.
So widespread did the execution of the Jews become that...
extermination camp at Treblinka intended for mass killings of Jews by suffocating them...
"Their only crime consisted, in fact of belonging to a race condemned by Hitler to death."Major Walsh read an extract from a British War Office stating that during an interrogation a French student deposed: "During July 1944 at the Auschwitz concentration camp, Hungarian Jews were being liquidated at the rate of 12,000 daily and the crematoria could not deal with such numbers. Many bodies were thrown on large pits and covered with quick-lime."
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Front Page Israel: Major Events, 1932-1978, as Reflected in the Front Pages of the Jerusalem Post. (1978). Israel: Palestine post, p.92. [1] [2]
Overview of the article
The Nazis slaughtered 6,000,000 Jews in Europe, including 4,000,000 in extermination institutions like Auschwitz, Maj. Wilhelm Hoettl, former Adjutant to the late SS Chief Heinrich Himmler, told the War Crimes Tribunal on December 15, 1945.
The Austrian, who is appearing for the prosecution, said that in August 1944 Eichmann told him that the Nazis had already murdered 4,000,000 Jews in the various death camps and another 2,000,000 by other means.
Hoettl, who is now interned by the Americans, declared that the estimate was based on figures given to Eichmann by the Gestapo Section Chief for Jewish affairs. Hoettl said Eichmann reported to Himmler directly.
Hoettl was attached to the RSHA (Reichssicherheitshauptamt, Nazi Security Head Office) in Berlin.
Himmler, said Hoettl, was not satisfied with these reports, since he had been informed by his aides that more Jews could have been killed if not for various technical difficulties. “Even though more than 6,000,000 had been exterminated,” said Hoettl, “Himmler expressed disappointment that the figure was not higher.”
“Germanising Europe”.
When Maj. Walsh asked what their only crime was, Hoettl replied: “Their only crime consisted in the fact they were Jews.”
The witness added that he had received full details of the deportation and extermination programme as early as June 1941. The purpose of the programme, he said, was “to remove all Jews from Europe and ‘Germanise’ the territory.”
He said the plan included the destruction of Polish Jewry, and described Poland as the "testing ground" for Nazi extermination.
Hoettl, who appeared in the witness box with a heavily guarded escort, gave his testimony without emotion. He described how entire trainloads of Jews, often numbering thousands, would arrive at extermination camps like Auschwitz, where 90% would be killed immediately, the remainder being used for labour until they too were disposed of.
Poland as Test Ground.
Poland was used as a test ground, he continued, for methods of extermination and mass deportation, and that’s where the Nazis first tested gas chambers and crematoria. He said these were later used throughout occupied Europe.
Asked whether he had ever attempted to intervene, Hoettl said that in one case he raised objections to the execution of Jews, but was threatened with punishment if he persisted.
He also said that the plan was developed jointly by Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, and that Hitler had full knowledge of the programme. The “Final Solution” was seen as a way to secure German dominance.
Jewish Children Killed.
Hoettl stated that children were not spared. “Even the very young,” he said, “were thrown into the flames or shot beside the mass graves.”
At the conclusion of his testimony, Hoettl described in detail the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto and other Jewish communities throughout Hungary, Slovakia, and Greece.
He was asked about the burning of synagogues and cultural institutions, and replied that the SS made a deliberate effort to erase all traces of Jewish existence in occupied Europe.
Cited in:
Phillips, J. (1988). Exploring the World of the Jew. United States: Moody Press, p.108. [3]
Captured in:
Khoroshunova, I. A. (1991). Die Schoáh Von Babij Jar: Das Massaker Deutscher Sonderkommandos an Der Jüdischen Bevölkerung Von Kiew 1941 Fünfzig Jahre Danach Zum Gedenken. Germany: Hartung-Gorre, pp.569-570. [4]
