On this date, October 4, 1943, Heinrich Himmler gave the first of the two Posen Speech. I will post information about this speech from Wikipedia and other links.
The Posen speeches were two secret speeches made by Reichsführer-SSHeinrich Himmler on 4 and 6 October 1943 in the town hall of Posen (Polish: Poznań), in German Nazi-occupied Poland. The recordings are the first known documents in which a high-ranking German member of the Nazi government spoke of the ongoing extermination of the Jews in extermination camps. They demonstrate that the German government wanted, planned and carried out the Holocaust.
Overview
The Posen speeches of October 1943 are two of 132 speeches obtained in various forms, which Himmler conducted before officials of the Nazi party. The first speech was given before 92 SS officers, the second before Reichsleitersand Gauleiters, as well as other government representatives. They constitute some of the most important of Himmler's speeches during the war, as they demonstrate Himmler's role as "Architect of the Final Solution" and a visionary of an elite race to be henceforth supported by the SS state.
Although the genocide of the Jews was not the central topic in either of them, both carry historical significance in reference to it. Himmler did away with the usual camouflage terms and spoke explicitly of the extermination of the Jews via mass murder, which he depicted as a historical mission of the Nazis. This connection became clear in five further speeches made between December 1943 and June 1944 to commanders of the Wehrmacht.
In the literature, only the first speech was known as the "Posen Speech" until 1970. The second speech, uncovered at that time, is often mistaken as the first or equated with it.
Historical context
Himmler gave the speeches at a time when the German war effort sustained constant setbacks, which the Nazi leaders found increasingly disconcerting. At the Casablanca Conference in January, the Allies had decided that the only acceptable outcome of the war was Germany's unconditional surrender. The Soviet victory in the Battle of Stalingrad on 2 February 1943 was a turning point in the war. US President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced the prosecution of those mainly responsible for war and genocide on 12 February, which the US Congress agreed to on 18 March. US and British troops landed on Sicily on 7 July and after the Italian change of sides on 8 September, gradually advanced northward. On 1 October, Naples was freed from German occupation.
The Red Army also ran a successful summer offensive on 17 July, during which partisans blew up many railway connections behind the Eastern Front on 3 August. In the week 27 July – 3 August, Allied air raids attacked Hamburg in Operation Gomorrha, and the armament centre of Peenemünde was destroyed also on 18 August. At the same time resistance against occupying German forces grew, and a state of emergency was declared in Norway (17 August) and Denmark (29 August). Nazi dissidents planned Germany's reorganisation (the Kreisau Circle on 9 August) and assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler ("Operation Walküre", 12 August), on which basis the scorched earth policy was brought in on 4 September for the foreseeable retreat of the Eastern Front, and martial law against those in the armed forces who refused to follow orders, initially introduced by the General Government on 2 October.
In the same period, the destruction of the Jews became the most important goal. In the spring, Sonderaktion 1005 was ordered, demanding the exhumation and incineration of those murdered by the Einsatzgruppen across the whole Eastern Front in order to hide the on-going genocide, whose death toll had so far reached 1.8 million Jews. Himmler ordered the liquidation of all Jewish ghettos in German occupied Poland on 11 June, and all Soviet ones on 21 June. As of 25 June, four new crematoria and gas chamberinstallations were completed in Auschwitz-II Birkenau at Auschwitz concentration camp. On 1 July all Jews in the Reich were placed under police law. On 24 August Himmler was appointed as minister of the interior, and thus all police forces in the Reich and occupied territories were subordinated to him. By 19 October, Operation Reinhard was to be terminated and the affiliated extermination camps dismantled.
Nonetheless, acts of resistance against the destruction of the Jews occurred. There were prisoner rebellions in Treblinka (2 August) and Sobibór (14 October). Jews of the Białystok ghetto mounted an insurrection against their liquidation (16–23 August), and the Danes helped most of the Danish Jews planned for arrest to escape. Inland church representatives condemned the killing of innocent life (Catholic Pastoral, 19 August) for age, disease and race reasons. (Confessing Church, 16 October).
Speech of 4 October 1943
Oral and written record
Himmler did not prepare most of his speeches beforehand, but used terse handwritten notes instead. Since the end of 1942 his verbal lectures were no longer documented in shorthand, but recorded via phonograph onto wax master plates. These recordings were then typed up by SS-Untersturmführer Werner Alfred Wenn, who corrected obvious grammatical errors and supplemented missing words. Himmler then added his own handwritten corrections, and the thus authorised version was copied up via typewriter in large characters and then filed away.
Of Himmler's three-hour speech of 4 October, 115 pages of the final typewritten edition (one page was lost) were discovered among SS files and submitted to the Nuremberg Trials as document 1919-PS. On day 23 of the hearing, a passage (which however did not concern the Holocaust) was read out. A live recording of this speech survives, allowing for the differences between the spoken and the copyedited version to be examined. They are minor, and in no case distortionary.
Addressees, reason and purpose
Himmler gave the first speech in the town hall, and not in the imperial palace as is often erroneously assumed. Of the SS's management, 33 Obergruppenführers, 51 Gruppenführers and eight Brigadeführers from the whole of the Reich were present. Many of these came from areas of occupied eastern Europe. Large parts of the speech therefore concerned the precarious situation on the Eastern Front. War and resistance successes by the supposedly subhuman Slavs required an explanation in order for the SS officers to agree to the imminent and arduous battles in the third winter of the Russian campaign.
Only around two minutes of the speech concerns the destruction of the Jews. Himmler postulates his audience's experiences with mass shootings, ghetto liquidations and extermination camps, and accordingly, their knowledge of them. The speech is to justify the crimes already perpetrated, and to commit its listeners to the "higher purpose" bestowed upon them. Around 50 officers not present were sent a copy of the speech and had to confirm their acknowledgment of it.
On the course of war
After a tribute to the dead, Himmler gave his view of the war so far. The tough Russian resistance could be attributed to the political commissars, a Russian attack was only just anticipated, and due to failure by Germany's allies, a chance for victory in 1942 was wasted. Himmler speculated over the Russian army's potential, spoke disparagingly of the "Vlasov shivaree" (der Wlassow-Rummel), expatiated on the inferiority of the Slavic race, and included thoughts as to how a German minority can prevail over it.
In later passages, Himmler discusses how Italy's army is contaminated with communism and is sympathetic to Anglo-America. He also touches upon the situation in the Balkans and other occupied territories, whose acts of resistance he disregards as irritating pinpricks. The war in the air and sea is also mentioned, as well as the domestic front (die innere Front) and factors from it such as enemy radio broadcastersand defeatism stemming from air raids.
Subsequently, Himmler turns to the situation on the enemy's side, speculating over the relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States and their resilience and readiness for war. He goes into extensive detail about variances in the SS, individual divisions, police organisations, and outlines his duties regarding economic operations of the SS and being a minister of the Reich.
On the treatment of eastern European peoples
In his outline of the course of the war in the east, Himmler comments on the deaths of millions of Soviet prisoners of war and forced labourers. Like in pre-war speeches, and in accordance with Hitler's remarks in Mein Kampf, he speaks of how the eradication of the Slavic Untermensch is a historical and natural necessity. There is to be no place for sentiment:
One basic principle must be the absolute rule for the SS men: We must be honest, decent, loyal and comradely to members of our own blood and to nobody else. What happens to a Russian, to a Czech, does not interest me in the slightest. What other nations can offer in the way of good blood of our type, we will take, if necessary, by kidnapping their children and raising them here with us. Whether nations live in prosperity or starve to death interests me only so far as we need them as slaves for our culture; otherwise, it is of no interest to me. Whether 10,000 Russian females fall down from exhaustion while digging an antitank ditch interests me only insofar as the anti-tank ditch for Germany is finished.
"Extermination of the Jewish people"
Himmler then explicitly speaks of the genocide of the Jews, something which had not been previously done by a representative of the Nazi party up until this point:
I am now referring to the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish people. It's one of those things that is easily said: 'The Jewish people are being exterminated', says every party member, 'this is very obvious, it's in our program, elimination of the Jews, extermination, we're doing it, hah, a small matter.' And then they turn up, the upstanding 80 million Germans, and each one has his decent Jew. They say the others are all swines, but this particular one is a splendid Jew. But none has observed it, endured it. Most of you here know what it means when 100 corpses lie next to each other, when there are 500 or when there are 1,000. To have endured this and at the same time to have remained a decent person — with exceptions due to human weaknesses — has made us tough, and is a glorious chapter that has not and will not be spoken of. Because we know how difficult it would be for us if we still had Jews as secret saboteurs, agitators and rabble-rousers in every city, what with the bombings, with the burden and with the hardships of the war. If the Jews were still part of the German nation, we would most likely arrive now at the state we were at in 1916 and 17 [...]
Himmler then praises the mindset of the SS man, devoting approximately 30 of the 116 pages to their virtues as well as their duty of becoming Europe's ruling class in 20 to 30 years.
INTERNET SOURCE: http://www.holocaust-history.org/himmler-poznan/speech-text.shtml
The Complete Text of the Poznan Speech
Below is the complete text from the QuickTime movie presentation of Heinrich Himmler's Poznan speech of October 4, 1943.
 | OCTOBER 4, 1943 POZNAN, POLAND Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, the second most powerful man in Nazi Germany, speaks to SS officers for three hours in a secret meeting. Himmler's recording survived the war. It is now in the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. What you are hearing has not been edited. Himmler is finishing talking about weapons factories. He is about to remind his officers of the loyalty he expects in their extermination of the Jews. | | ||
| GERMAN Ich will auch ein ganz schweres Kapitel will ich hier vor Ihnen in aller Offenheit nennen. Es soll zwischen uns ausgesprochen sein, und trotzdem werden wir nicht in der Öffentlichkeit nie darüber reden. Genau so wenig, wie wir am 30. Juni gezögert haben, die befohlene Plicht zu tun und Kameraden, die sich verfehlt hatten, an die Wand zu stellen und zu erschiessen. |  | ENGLISH I also want to mention a very difficult subject before you here, completely openly. It should be discussed amongst us, and yet, nevertheless, we will never speak about it in public. Just as we did not hesitate on June 30 to carry out our duty, as ordered, and stand comrades who had failed against the wall and shoot them. | |
| Wie wir darüber niemals gesprochen haben und sprechen werden. Das war so eine Gottseidank in uns wohnende Takt, Selbstverständlichkeit des Taktes, dass wir uns untereinander nie darüber unterhalten haben, nie darüber sprachen, es hat jeden geschauert und jeder war sich klar, dass er es das nächste Mal wieder tun würde, wenn es befohlen wird und wenn es notwendig ist. | | About which we have never spoken, and never will speak. That was, thank God, a kind of tact natural to us, a foregone conclusion of that tact, that we have never conversed about it amongst ourselves, never spoken about it, everyone shuddered, and everyone was clear that the next time, he would do the same thing again, if it were commanded and necessary. | |
| Ich meine die "Judenevakuierung": die Ausrottung des jüdischen Volkes. Es gehört zu den Dingen, die man leicht ausspricht. "Das jüdische Volk wird ausgerottet", sagt Ihnen jeder Parteigenosse, "ganz klar, steht in unserem Programm drin, Ausschaltung der Juden, Ausrottung, machen wir, pfah!, Kleinigkeit". Und dann kommen sie alle, alle die braven 80 Millionen Deutschen, und jeder hat seinen anständigen Juden. Sagt: alle anderen sind Schweine, und hier ist ein prima Jude. | | 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," every Party member will tell you, "perfectly clear, it's part of our plans, we're eliminating the Jews, exterminating them, ha!, a small matter." And then along they all come, all the 80 million upright Germans, and each one has his decent Jew. They say: all the others are swine, but here is a first-class Jew. | |
| Und zugesehen, es durchgestanden hat keiner. Von Euch werden die meisten wissen, was es heisst, wenn 100 Leichen beisammen liegen, wenn 500 daliegen oder wenn 1000 daliegen. Und dies durchgehalten zu haben, und dabei -- abgesehen von menschlichen Ausnahmeschwächen -- anständig geblieben zu sein, hat uns hart gemacht und ist ein niemals genanntes und niemals zu nennendes Ruhmesblatt. | | And none of them has seen it, has endured it. Most of you will know what it means when 100 bodies lie together, when there are 500, or when there are 1000. And to have seen this through, and -- with the exception of human weaknesses -- to have remained decent, has made us hard and is a page of glory never mentioned and never to be mentioned. | |
| Denn wir wissen, wie schwer wir uns täten, wenn wir heute noch in jeder Stadt bei den Bombenangriffen, bei den Lasten des Krieges und bei den Entbehrungen, wenn wir da noch die Juden als geheime Saboteure, Agitatoren und Hetzer hätten. Wir würden wahrscheinlich in das Stadium des Jahres 16/17 jetzt gekommen sein, wenn die Juden noch im deutschen Volkskörper sässen. | | Because we know how difficult things would be, if today in every city during the bomb attacks, the burdens of war and the privations, we still had Jews as secret saboteurs, agitators and instigators. We would probably be at the same stage as 1916-17, if the Jews still resided in the body of the German people. | |
| Die Reichtümer, die sie hatten, haben wir ihnen abgenommen, und ich habe einen strikten Befehl gegeben, den Obergruppenführer Pohl durchgeführt hat, wir haben diese Reichtümer restlos dem Reich, dem Staat abgeführt. Wir haben uns nichts davon genommen. Einzelne, die sich verfehlt haben, die werden gemäss einem von mir gegebenen Befehl, den ich am Anfang gab: Wer sich auch nur eine Mark davon nimmt, ist des Todes. | | We have taken away the riches that they had, and I have given a strict order, which Obergruppenführer Pohl has carried out, we have delivered these riches completely to the Reich, to the State. We have taken nothing from them for ourselves. A few, who have offended against this, will be [judged] in accordance with an order, that I gave at the beginning: He who takes even one Mark of this is a dead man. | |
| Eine Anzahl SS-Männer haben sich dagegen verfehlt. Es sind nicht sehr viele, und sie werden des Todes sein - GNADENLOS! Wir haben das moralische Recht, wir hatten die Pflicht unserem Volk gegenüber das zu tun, dieses Volk, das uns umbringen wollte, umzubringen. Wir haben aber nicht das Recht, uns auch nur mit einem Pelz, mit einer Mark, mit einer Zigarette, mit einer Uhr, mit sonst etwas zu bereichern. Das haben wir nicht. Denn wir wollen nicht am Schluss, weil wir den Bazillus ausrotten, an dem Bazillus krank werden und sterben. | | A number of SS men have offended against this order. There are not very many, and they will be dead men - WITHOUT MERCY! We have the moral right, we had the duty to our people to do it, to kill this people who wanted to kill us. But we do not have the right to enrich ourselves with even one fur, with one Mark, with one cigarette, with one watch, with anything. That we do not have. Because at the end of this, we don't want, because we exterminated the bacillus, to become sick and die from the same bacillus. | |
| Da werde ich niemals zusehen, dass so etwas überhaupt nur auch ein kleine Fäulnisstelle bei uns eintritt oder sich festsetzt. Sondern, wo sich eine festsetzen sollte, werden wir sie gemeinsam ausbrennen. Insgesamt aber können wir sagen: Wir haben diese schwerste Aufgabe in Liebe zu unserem Volk getan. Und wir haben keinen Schaden in unserem Innern, in unserer Seele, in unserem Charakter daran genommen. | | I will never see it happen, that even one bit of putrefaction comes in contact with us, or takes root in us. On the contrary, where it might try to take root, we will burn it out together. But altogether we can say: We have carried out this most difficult task for the love of our people. And we have taken on no defect within us, in our soul, or in our character. | |
Speech of 6 October 1943
Records, discovery and proceedings
Reason, intention and relevance
Beginning of the speech
On the Jewish question
Albert Speer remark
Further contents
Further speeches
Reception
Historical reception
Holocaust denial
"Ausrottung"
Artistic references