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Title: The Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution: A Reconsideration by Mark Roseman ISBN: 0-8050-6810-4 Publisher: Metropolitan Books Pub. Date: 07 May, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.25 (4 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Through a glass, darkly
Comment: Ever since its discovery in 1947 by Robert Kempner, the American Nuremberg prosecutor, this record of a meeting held in Berlin on 20 January 1942 has been considered to be virtual proof of the determination of the Nazis to murder each and every Jew that came within their reach. Roseman presents a much more critical view of the matter.
His book is full of remarks which modify, question, or refute past interpretations. He quotes the German historian Eberhard Jäckel who wonders why this meeting was ever convened, he notes that the documentation concerning this event is far from comprehensive and that we can only speculate on many aspects, he states that there is no single unambiguous document ordering the annihilation of all Jews (David Irving will have noted this with some satisfaction), he deplores the general lack of official documents, and he stresses the absence of important agencies or institutions which should have been present at any sort of decisive meeting of this kind: the German Railways, the Wehrmacht, or the Führer Chancellery. Somehow, though, he manages to overlook the curious lack of Heydrich's name on the list of the persons attending.
In spite of the general vagueness surrounding the gathering, Roseman concludes that from the time of the meeting onward, the word Endlösung" came to signify the death of all European Jews, because the Protokoll" expresses this, albeit in a round-about, bureaucartic fashion. It is important to stress, though, that death", here, is not necessarily identical to killing". The considerations regarding the fate of various groups of Jews bear this out, one half of the 15 pages are devoted, after all, to the fairly difficult question of deciding how Jews and their descendants were to be classified. When all is said and done, Roseman comes to the conclusion that the conference cannot be regarded as a moment of decision; for him, it is merely an indication that something had changed in the political landscape.
The Protokoll" itself has, for decades now, occupied centre stage, obscuring other important aspects of the matter. We must remember that the meeting had been convened by Heydrich on the grounds that Göring had asked him, half a year earlier, in July of 1941, to draw up a comprehensive plan for the final solution of the Jewish question, in the near future". The January meeting was to lay the groundwork for the plan, others were to follow; Roseman mentions two more such dates, March and October 1942 but does not discuss them in detail. In view of the six months which Heydrich let go by before calling a first meeting, one cannot but admire Göring's patience in the matter, or Himmler's lack of concern when the Reichsmarschall intervened without respecting the line of command. In the end, after Heydrich's assassination in May of 1942, no comprehensive plan was ever presented to Göring - nor to anyone else, for that matter.
In this context, Roseman mentions, in a footnote, the so-called Schlegelberger Document" which states that Hitler had rejected the Final Solution" as we perceive it today. He refers the reader to David Irving's homepage for more information while remaining himself quite sceptical in this regard.
The German edition of Roseman's book contains an additional chapter in which Norbert Kampe, the director of the Wannsee Memorial Institute in Berlin, discusses the differences among the reproductions of the various documents that form the basis of our assessment of this event. Kampe strongly crticizes mistakes and unwarranted alterations that appear in every single one of the documents presented by Kempner, but states that the text of these reproductions is always in accordance with the originals. This is not, strictly speaking, a material analysis of the documents themselves. In view, however, of a number of questions concerning the authenticity of some of these papers, that have never been scientifically investigated, a thorough review of these points is still highly desirable.
Aside from this aspect, one should mention a further difficulty which makes an appreciation of the conference cumbersome for the average layman - the problem of the language. The Urtext" is in German, obviously, and in a particularly obscure and bureaucratic lingo at that. Normally, this ought not to make a translation impossible to accomplish, but here we have to fend with the risk that the choice of words, and hence the reader's mind, is influenced by a - possibly unconscious - partiality of the translator. A case in point is the rendering of the German word erfassen" on p. 9 of the original (regarding the Jews in France). The official English version on the Wannsee website (www.ghwk.de) has rounding-up", but this shows that the translator has jumped to a conclusion which is unjustfied, although attractive, because in German bureaucratic language erfassen" quite simply - and innocently - signifies something like identifying and seizing in a list. In connexion with a document which is couched in a very much veiled language, such liberties should not be tolerated.
The Protokoll" has, by now, become public property, as it were, and has served as a basis for two films. A German one, produced in 1984, is a well-made feature, responding nearly 100 % to the traditional requirements of unity in time, place, and action. It is being shown quite regularly both in Germany and abroad. Unfortunately, in the US and possibly elsewhere, it has been made an instrument of what Norman Finkelstein has called the marketing of the Holocaust: even though no verbatim transcript of the conference has ever been found, the film is distributed in those countries with the firm assertion that it is indeed the word-for-word rendering of the meeting. The historian, it would seem, counts for nothing in the global market economy.
Rating: 3
Summary: Interesting Essay
Comment: This is an interesting, thoughtful, and well written essay on the dynamics of the Holocaust. Roseman's preoccupation is with inferring the processes by which the Nazis ultimately reached the decision to exterminate the Jews of Europe, as opposed to removing Jews from Germany. To a considerable extent, this essay is about historiography as much as the events themselves because there has been considerable debate on this issue among historians of the Holocaust. Roseman analyzes and summarizes a good deal of recent scholarship. He discusses explicitly the role of the notorious Wannsee conference but this is not a detailed discussion of that event, which would be impossible given the scanty documentation available, but uses the Wannsee conference as a hook for his general discussion of the decisions to proceed with extermination. Roseman makes a number of important points. There was no plan for extermination of Jews prior to the War. The Nazis initially wanted to remove Jews from Germany but expulsion seems to have been the preferred method. Several factors seems to have propelled the Nazi decision makers along their murderous path. There is no question that Hitler himself came to prefer extermination. The War itself acted as a radicalizing element. Competition among different sectors of the Nazi state was common and there seems to have been a race to see who could achieve murder the fastest. Finally, Roseman is careful to point out the importance of ideology in the motivations of all the major actors. This was not a group of simple functionaries executing orders blindly. Racist ideologies permeated the Civil Service. An important aspect that Roseman may be overlooking in his discussion of the radicalizing effects of the war is the sense of triumphalism that infected the Nazis. In the winter of 1942, they were the masters of Europe, occupying most of France and the eastern Soviet Union, and controlling the major industrial assets of the continent. Perhaps they felt that anything was possible, including the extermination of the European Jews and other perceived racial enemies. This is a good book but really an extended essay rather than a regular monograph. Perhaps best read by individuals with some knowledge of the Holocaust and its historiography.
Rating: 5
Summary: Cigars, cognac and Genocide. A chilling read.
Comment: This compelling, chilling study reveals how the SS, Nazi Party officials and top Civil Servants of the Third Reich, calmly sat down together to plan the Final Solution - the systematic genocide of the Jewish people from Europe.
Read how these representatives of the Nazi regime, sat drinking cognac & smoking cigars, while calmly and in a businesslike manner, discussing & arranging the ethnic cleansing and genocide of an entire people.
The cold blooded efficiency of the Nazi plan, described here as the Wannsee Protocol, will shock many readers who will see the apparatus of genocide being planned to run like a well machine. A machine that would even proceed to see the commercial utilisation of the victims through their hair, body-fat, teeth etc.. Shocking!
The cruelty and indifference of these officials in debating the forthcoming slaughter is likely to send chills down the spines of many whenever the Jewish people are discussed behind closed doors. This extraordinary book looks in detail at the effective procedures decided upon which aimed to murder every single Jew from Ireland to the Urals & from the Arctic to the Mediterranean. A total of some eleven million Jews. Six million of whom would fall victim to the horrific agenda before the war's end.
The author discusses how the rhetoric and propaganda against the Jews throughout the Third Reich provided a fertile ground to facilitate the operation of the machinery of death which the Nazis chose to implement. The political and social climate having been made ready for when the murder of Jews was regarded as a legitimate means of 'political struggle' to further the Reich. The book also discusses why this meeting was in itself necessary, with the slaughter of the Jews having already started.
Recommended read on the Holocaust.
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Title: Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust by Richard Rhodes ISBN: 0375409009 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 07 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
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Title:Conspiracy ASIN: B00005YUO1 Publisher: Warner Home Video Pub. Date: 26 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.98 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $17.98 |
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Title:The Wannsee Conference ASIN: 6302919789 Publisher: Home Vision Entertainment Pub. Date: 27 April, 1999 List Price(USD): $19.95 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $19.95 |
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Title: Interrogations: The Nazi Elite in Allied Hands, 1945 by Richard Overy ISBN: 0142001589 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: October, 2002 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: The Business of Genocide: The SS, Slave Labor, and the Concentration Camps by Michael Thad Allen ISBN: 0807826774 Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr Pub. Date: 01 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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