20S Heydrich: 'The final solution'
No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory.
I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people ~ when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to die uttermost but 'will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.
Hostilities exist There is no blinking at die fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.
With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbouriding deter- ; mination of our people, we will gain die inevitable triumph. So help, us God,
I ask diat the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.
REINHARD HEYDRICH Wannsee, 20 January 1942
'The final solution'
One of the most injportant events in the history of the tiventieth century occurred at a villa on the hanks of the Wannsee, a lake near Berlin, on 20 January 1942. It was a conference under the chairmanship of Reinhard Heydrich, head of the SS Intelligence Service, at which Hitler's Na^is planned the final solution, the extermination of about eleven million fen's in Europe. Heydrich had been appointed 'Plenipotentiary for the Preparation of the Final Solution of the European Jewish Question'. This was his address to the senior civil servants.
We have the means, the methods, the organization, experience and people. And we have the will. This is a historic moment in the struggle against Jewry. The Führer has declared Iiis determination .. . to destroy European Jewry. The Führer sees himself ... as exterrninating fatal bacteria to save the organism. It is them or us.
Heydrich: 'The final solution' 209
What has happened so far? Step by step we have forced the Jews out of all levels of German life ...
-We have forced them out of the Lebensraum of the people partly by transfers to concentration camps, and pardy due to Obersturmbannführer Ekhmann's organization by permitting 537,000 Jews to emigrate before the war; and finally,..
We have seen since the beginning of the war the liquidation of hundreds of thousands of Polish, Baltic and Russian Jews. You gentlemen from the Party Chancellery, the Reich Chancellery, the Foreign Office, General Government and Ministry for the Easthave been kept informed by Gestapo reports of the Action groups' activities ...
The Reichsführer SS has forbidden any further emigration of Jews. The Jews remaining in the Reich and all European Jews in our present and future spheres of influence will be evacuated to the East for the final solution .. .
We shall work effectively but silentiy. Total cooperation will be required in this matter of life or death for the Reich. So that we can all envisage what the Jewish question in the Reich involves {pointing to a map of Europe) the red area shows the Reich on the eve of war. This is the Eastern front. Behind in white conquered Eastern territories under Germany's civilian rule. In pink territories subject to the Reich - in vertical red stripes occupied territories in the rest of Europe. Horizontal red stripes, our Allies or countries under our influence. The dots on the map like fly spots represent the density of the Jewish population. That is our problem the further we advance between Riga and Odessa.
We must deal with the setdements of our Jewish opponents. They've made themselves comfortable there for centuries. In my own home town of Odessa there are more than 70,000 Jewish inhabitants. There were, used to be {laughter). To sum up gentiemen, our Action groups following-hard on the heels of our troops have virtually eliminated the Jewish concentrations. We have influenced the old anti-Semitism by certain procedural measures.
Now the rough work has been done we begin the period of finer work. We need to work in harmony with the civil administration. We count on you gentiemen as far as the final solution is concerned. What is to be resolved will be resolved here {pointing to the East), at
210
Heydrich: 'The final solution'
Montgomery: 'We will stand and fight hece'
211
die world's arse, as my men say. War and gunsmoke have made immense achievements possible. It is die Reichsfuhrer S S's will that the Jewish question is setded diere in one clean sweep. The total jews concerned - 11,000,000. This breaks down as follows:
In the old Reich - 130,000
In Austria - 43,000
In the Protectorate - 75,000
In die General Government - 2,500,000
In die Balkans - 1,600,000
In Occupied France — 165,000
In Unoccupied France - 740,000 (Quite a task!)
In the New Europe for which we shall be responsible, in
foreign unoccupied countries, like England - 330,000 In neutral countries like Switzerland - 18,000 of die Chosen
People.
In the final solution we will use the Jews as labour in the East. They will be marched, both sexes segregated, in columns, building roads on the way, brealdng rocks, draining marshes. We'll give them every opportunity to find out what work means, on the extensive industrial plants now being constructed by Comrade Pohl of the SS's Economic Office ...
Of course, most of diese jews will succumb to natural wastage: the remainder, the toughest, will have to be processed accordingly. Why? Because it is die survival of the fittest. Odierwise they'd seed a new Jewish resurrection. LodIc at history!
Heydrich was wounded in Prague on 27 May 1942 by tn>o Czechs parachuted in from Britain. He died eight days later. His death was revenged by the massacre at Lidice. Wijereuer Heydrich went, a frail of blood was always left behind He was correctly described as a butcher and a hangman.
GENERAL BERNARD MONTGOMERY Cairo, 13 August 1942
'We will stand andfigbt here'
Thefame of Bernard Montgomery {1887—1976) as a field commander was established with the British Eighth Army from fitly 1942 to January 1944 as the Desert Rats fought Erwin Rommel, the brilliant German general, from Alamein across north Africa and then into Sicily and southern Italy.
Monty, as he was universally known, was an inspiring leader who cared for his soldiers' morale. He conld play with an audience of British troops like a fanatical ecclesiastic launching a crusade, said one contemporary observer. Monty arrived in Cairo on 12 August 1942, and assumed command of the Eighth Ansry the next day, when he made this address to his demoralised officers.
I want first of all to introduce myself to you. You do not know me. I do not know you, But we have got to worlc together; therefore we must understand each odier, and we must have confidence each in the other. I have only been here a few hours. But from what I have seen and heard since I arrived I am prepared to say, here and now, diat I have confidence in you. We will then work togedier as a team; and togedier we will gain the confidence of this great Army and go forward to final victory in Africa.
I believe that one of the first duties of a commander is to create what I call 'atmosphere', and in that atmosphere his staff, subordinate commanders, and troops will live and work and fight.
I do not like the general atmosphere I find here. It is an.atmosphere of doubt, of looking back to select the next place to which to withdraw, of loss of confidence in our ability to defeat Rommel, of desperate defence measures by reserves in preparing positions in Cairo and the Delta.
All that must cease.
Let us have a new atmosphere.
The defence of Egypt lies here at Alamein and on die Ruweisat