108. Peter Longerich (ed.), Die Ermordung der europaischen Juden. Eine umfassende Dokumentation des Holocaust 1941–1945, Munich, 1989, 83.
109. Adam, Judenpolitik, 217–19.
110. Below, 136; IfZ, ZS-317, Bd.II, Fol.28 (Wolff); IfZ, ZS-243, Bd.I (for the comment of Hitler’s adjutant Bruckner, that Hitler was said to have fallen into a rage when told of the burning of the synagogue in Munich). See also Irving, Goebbels, 277, 613 and David Irving, The War Path. Hitler’s Germany, 1933–9, London, 1978, 164–5, for Hitler’s alleged surprise at, or condemnation of, the events.
111. IMG, xxi.392.
112. Below, 136. Below’s account is very sympathetic to Hitler. Below thought Hitler knew nothing about what was going on. He also mentions Schaub’s remark that Goebbels somehow had his finger in the pie. This was something of an understatement. According to Goebbels’s own account, Schaub had been in his element when the pair of them had gone together after midnight to the Artists’ Club (TBJG, I/6, 181 (10 November 1938); Tb Irving, 410 (10 November 1938)). Below’s chronology is also inaccurate. He gives the impression that Hitler’s entourage heard of the destruction on their return from the midnight swearing-in of the SS recruits. But Hitler had been informed before he had set out for this (IMG, xxi.392; IfZ, ZS-317 (Wolff), Bd.II, Fol.28; Adam, in Pehle, 78).
113. Speer, Erinnerungen, 126.
114. Hans-Gunther Seraphim (ed.), Das politische Tagebuch Alfred Rosenbergs 1934/35 und 1939/40, Munich, 1964, 81 (6 February 1939).
115. Muller, Heer, 385–6; Erich Raeder, Mein Leben, Tubingen, 2 vols., 1956–7, ii.133–4.
116. TBJG, I/6, 180 (10 November 1938); Tb Irving, 409 (10 November 1938).
117. IfZ, ZS-243, Bd.I (Heim), Fol.27 (statement by Juttner); Irving, Goebbels, 274.
118. TBJG, I/6, 189–90 (17 November 1938); Tb Irving, 417 (17 November 1938). See also Irving, Goebbels, 282.
119. See, for a contrasting interpretation, Irving, Goebbels, 276–7. The post-war explanation of Heinrich Heim (a lawyer and civil servant employed in Hess’s office, later an adjutant of Martin Bormann, and commissioned by him to make notes of Hitler’s ‘table-talk’ monologues) was that Goebbels had regarded the casual remark by Hitler ‘that the demonstrators (for the time being only relatively harmless) should not be severely dealt with’ (‘dass man die Demonstranten (vorlaufig nur relativ harmlose!) nicht scharf anpacken soll’), as a licence (Freibrief), and believed therefore that he was ‘certainly acting along the lines of what his master wanted’ (‘bestimmt im Sinne seines Herrn zu handeln’) (IfZ, ZS-243, Bd.I (Heim), Fol.29).
120. For Goebbels’s ‘anger’ at the burning of the Munich synagogue and other outrages in publicly berating his Gau Propaganda Leaders at the station in Munich on returning to Berlin, see IfZ, ZS-243, Bd.I (Heim), Fol.28 (post-war statement of Werner Naumann, later State Secretary in the Propaganda Ministry); and see Irving, Goebbels, 280.
121. Domarus, 973; Treue, ‘Rede Hitlers vor der deutschen Presse (10. November 1938)’, 175ff. Nor had Hitler given any indication, despite vom Rath’s perilous condition at the time and the menacing antisemitic climate, of any intended action when he had spoken to the ‘old guard’ of the Party at the Burgerbraukeller on the evening of 8 November. Domarus, 966ff. for the speech. The point is made by Adam, Judenpolitik, 206.
122. Below, 137.
123. MK, 772; MK Watt, 620.
124. IMG, xxviii.538–9.
125. Das Schwarze Korps, 27 October 1938, p.6.
126. Das Schwarze Korps, 3 November 1938, p.2. And see Kochan, 39.
127. Graml, Reichskristallnacht, 185.
128. ADAP, D, IV, Dok.271, 293–5 (quotation, 293); Graml, Reichskristallnacht, 184; Adam, Judenpolitik, 234, n.4. Pirow had raised the possibility of an international loan to finance Jewish emigration and the notion of settling Jews in a former German colony such as Tanganyika — a proposal rejected out of hand by Hitler. See Graml, Reichskristallnacht, 182–3 (and n.4–5) for emigration as a policy, and 184–5 for the hostage notion. For the latter, see also the remarks of Hans Mommsen, ‘Die Realisierung des Utopischen: Die “Endlosung der Judenfrage” im “Dritten Reich”’, GG, 9 (1983), 381–420, here 396.
129. ADAP, D, IV, Dok.158, 170; Graml, Reichskristallnacht, 186; Adam, Judenpolitik, 235. It appears that his association of the Jews with the November Revolution of 1918 had also been reinforced at this time. Hitler referred vaguely to ‘threats from others’ to destroy the Reich in his annual speech to the party faithful on the anniversary of the proclamation of the Party Programme, on 24 February 1939, and immediately followed this by stating: ‘The year 1918 will never repeat itself in German history’ (Domarus, 1086). For Hitler’s ‘November Syndrome’, see Tim Mason, ‘The Legacy of 1918 for National Socialism’, in Anthony Nicholls and Erich Mathias, German Democracy and the Triumph of Hitler, London, 1971, 215–39.
130. Birger Dahlerus, Der letzte Versuch. London-Berlin. Sommer 1939, Munich, 1948,126 (recording Hitler’s comment to him on 1 September 1939); Documents concerning German- Polish Relations and the Outbreak of Hostilities between Great Britain and Germany on September 3,1939, London, 1939, 129, no.75 (Hitler to Henderson, 28 August 1939); Domarus, 1238 (Hitler’s speech to his military leaders, 22 August 1939).
131. Das Schwarze Korps, 24 November 1938, p.1; also cit. in Graml, Reichskristallnacht, 187.
132. Hans Mommsen, ‘Hitler’s Reichstag Speech of 30 January 1939’, History and Memory, 9 (1997), 147–61, emphasizes above all (see especially 157–8) the propaganda component of the speech. He places the speech in its context of the talks between George Rublee, the American Chairman of the Intergovernmental Committee for Refugees (charged by President Roosevelt with trying to find a way out of the crisis of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany) and Helmut Wohltat, one of Goring’s close associates on the Four- Year Plan and on Jewish emigration. The negotiations were aimed at financing the emigration of 150,000 Jews within three years through an international loan of one and a half million Reich Marks. In Mommsen’s view (151), Hitler’s speech was ‘a rhetorical gesture designed to put pressure on the international community’ to accept the Reich’s blackmailing demand. He stresses (154) the need felt by Hitler ‘to promise effective measures on the part of the government in order to calm down the extreme antisemitic activities which endangered the emigration scheme that Goring and Schacht had worked out’. It seems doubtful, however, that Hitler was as serious about the Rublee-Wohltat scheme as Mommsen implies, and not altogether convincing to suggest (156) that it is ‘difficult to believe that [Hitler’s] inclination to exaggerate the issues involved was more than mere camouflage’.
133. Domarus, 1058.
134. Eberhard Jackel, ‘Hitler und der Mord an europaischen Juden’, in Peter Marthesheimer and Ivo Frenzel (eds.), Im Kreuzfeuer: Der Fernsehfilm Holocaust. Eine Nation ist betroffen, Frankfurt am Main, 1979, 151–62, here 160–61.
