Friedrich Jansson proudly presents …

... a report by US government official whereby "Ausrottung" does not imply killing. Or so Jansson interprets the official’s statements.



The document was issued in Bern, Switzerland, on 4 July 1944. The official in question, by the name of Landreth M. Harrison, informs one Mr. Huddle that

A Zurich refugee aid organization furnished the American and British press men here last week with a "reliable report" on the German extermination of European Jews at certain camps in Silesia. This report estimated 1,700,000 Jews from all European countries including the most recent contingent of some 400,000 Hungarian Jews have been put to death in Silesia. The report goes into the matter in much detail with a description of the cyanide process allegedly used by the German executioners.

The official muses that the report in question «may in part be based on a mistranslation of the words "Ausrottung" and "Entjudung"» He mentions that the day before he had spoken with one of the men who "planted" the report with the newspaper agencies, who «insisted that the Hungarian policy of "Entjudung" of the Hungarian cities means that the Jewish elements therein are put to death».

Jansson speculates that Landrath’s interlocutor was "presumably Jewish", and assumes that the report mentioned by Landrath was the Vrba-Wetzler report. The former conjecture tells us something about Jansson's world-view. The latter assumption is improbable for several reasons:

1. Vrba and Wetzler escaped from Auschwitz-Birkenau on 7 April 1944, i.e. before the commencement of the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Accordingly their report doesn’t mention the arrival of Hungarian Jews at AB, whereas the report mentioned by L.M. Harrison does.

2. The Vrba-Wetzler report was first written in the Slovakian and German languages, later translated into English. The German version, unless I missed something contains neither the word "Ausrottung" nor the word "Entjudung", nor any declination thereof. It contains the term "Vernichtung" (i.e. destruction, annihilation) on one occasion, on page 11 of this German transcription. It contains the terms "Vergasung" (gassing) and "vergast" (gassed) on a number of occasions, as a description of the killing method.

3. Vrba estimated the number of Jews killed between April 1942 and April 1944 at 1,765,000 (a much too high figure), without including Jews from Hungary (the countries/regions/places of origin mentioned are Poland, Netherlands, Greece, France, Belgium, Germany, Yugoslavia, Italy, Norway, Lithuania, Bohemia, Moravia, Austria and Slovakia, plus "various camps of foreign Jews in Poland" ("div. Lager fremdländischer Juden in Polen"). The report referred to by L.M. Harrison, on the other hand, speaks of "1,700,000 Jews from all European countries including the most recent contingent of some 400,000 Hungarian Jews" (for the avoidance of doubt, the number 1.7 million including Hungarian Jews is also far too high).

Jansson is enthusiastic about L.M. Harrison’s apparent opinion that "Ausrottung", in the context of something done to a group or multitude of people, does not or not necessarily mean killing. He triumphantly proclaims the following:

L.M. Harrison’s statement concerning ‘Ausrottung’, however, hits closer to home for holocaust historians, many of whom have committed themselves to the argument that ‘Ausrottung’ has to mean killing. Harrison, however, knew better – as should we all.

So American citizen Landreth M. Harrison, who apparently felt compelled to inquire with someone "presumably Jewish" (Jansson) about the meaning of the word "Entjudung", and who presumably was not a native speaker of the German language, "knew better" about the meaning of "Ausrottung", according to Jansson.

Better than who, besides "holocaust historians"?

Better than Otto von Bismarck? Bismarck wrote the following, in an 1861 letter to his sister Malwine (emphasis added):

"Haut doch die Polen, daß sie am Leben verzagen; ich habe alles Mitgefühl für ihre Lage, aber wir können, wenn wir bestehn wollen, nichts andres tun, als sie ausrotten; der Wolf kann auch nichts dafür, dass er von Gott geschaffen ist, wie er ist, und man schießt ihn doch dafür tot, wenn man kann."

My translation:

"Let's beat the Poles until they despair of life. I have all pity for their situation, but we can do nothing else, if we want to subsist, than to exterminate them; the wolf also cannot help having been made by God as he is, and yet one shoots him dead for it when one can."

Better than Bernhard Fürst von Bülow, who was Chancellor of the German Reich at the time of the Herero and Namaqua Genocide? On 24 November 1904 von Bülow wrote a letter to Kaiser Wilhelm II, partially cited on this Wikipedia page, in which he stated his opinion that the "complete and planned extermination of the Herero" ("vollständige und planmäßige Ausrottung der Herero", emphasis added) would "exceed all demands of justice and restitution of German authority" ("alles durch die Forderungen der Gerechtigkeit und der Wiederherstellung der deutschen Autorität gebotene Maß überschreiten").

Better than Marine-Oberkriegsgerichtsrat (Navy Higher War Tribunal Counsel) Dr. Schattenberg, who conducted intensive investigations in connection with the massacre of ethnic Germans in Bydgoszcz (German: Bromberg), a Polish city with a sizable German minority, between 3 and 4 September 1939? An excerpt from Dr. Schattenberg’s report is rendered in the contemporary booklet Polnische Blutschuld ("Polish Blood Debt"). The excerpt, which contains graphic descriptions of the atrocities investigated by Dr. Schattenberg, starts with the following statement (emphasis added):

… Insgesamt sind von mir über 40 Volksdeutsche eidlich als Zeugen vernommen worden über die Ermordung ihrer Angehörigen. Jeder Zeuge bekundete die Ermordung von wenigstens zwei oder drei seiner Angehörigen. z.T. wurden ganze Familien ausgerottet.

My translation (emphasis added):

… In total more than 40 ethnic Germans were interrogated by me under oath as witnesses about the murder of their relatives. Each witness reported the murder of at least two or three of his relatives, sometimes whole families were exterminated.

A booklet with the title Dokumente polnischer Grausamkeit ("Documents of Polish Cruelty"), put together at the order of the German Foreign Office by the Deutsche Informationsstelle and published in 1940 (in which the number of German victims, incidentally, was widely exaggerated, claiming 58,000 deaths instead of 5,437 mentioned in another Foreign Office publication; later estimates by German historians range from about 4,000 to 13,000 deaths), includes the following evidence (footnote 1 on page 124 emphasis added):

General Bortnowskis Äußerung "alle Deutschen müssen ausgerottet werden", bekundete der Zeuge Lehrer Otto Leischner aus Slonsk (WR II). Unter Eid bekundete der Zeuge Bürgermeister Heinz Friedrich aus Wonorze (Ostburg), daß der Hauptmann Czaynert vom poln. Res.-Inf.-Regt. 59 in Hohensalza am 28. August 1939 auf dem Kasernenhof u. a. prophezeite, daß die Polen in drei Tagen in Berlin sein wurden, und fortfuhr: „Jungens, wenn wir in Berlin einmarschieren, werden wir alle deutschen Schweine erschlagen und nur so viel leben lassen, wie unter einem Birnbaum Platz haben, mit diesen werden wir dann ein gemeinschaftliches Frühstück essen." Abschließend erklarte er: „AIso, Jungens, wenn ihr Deutsche unterwegs seht, dann wißt ihr, was ihr zu tun habt." (WRII).

My translation (emphasis added):

General Bortnowski‘s utterance, "all Germans must be exterminated", was reported by the witness teacher Otto Leischner from Slonsk (WR II). Under oath the witness Mayor Heinz Friedrich from Wonorze (Ostburg) testified that Captain Czaynert of Polish Reserve Infantry Regiment 59 in Hohensalza had on 28. August 1939 prophesized on the barracks square, among other things, that the Poles would be in Berlin within three days, and continued: "Boys, when we march into Berlin, we will beat all German pigs to death and leave only so many as fit under a pear tree, with these we will then eat a joint breakfast." He concluded as follows: "Well, boys, if you see Germans on the way, you know what you have to do." (WRII).

The document collection mentions a policy of Ausrottung allegedly pursued by the Poles against the ethnic German minority on various other occasions, including a forensic expertise about the weapons used in the killings, from which the following excerpt on p. 297 is taken (emphasis added):

Als weitaus wichtigstes Gesamtergebnis der gerichtsärztlichen Untersuchungen erscheinen letzten Endes im übrigen nicht einmal so sehr die unmenschlichen Roheiten physischer und psychischer Art, wie sie aus den Leichenbefunden eindeutig hervorgehen. Vielmehr muß die größte Bedeutung der Tatsache zugesprochen werden, daß für die weitaus größte Zahl der zur Sektion gelangten Fälle Militärwaffen als Mordmittel einwandfrei nachgewiesen worden sind. Dabei handelte es sich in der Mehrzahl der Fälle um Militärgewehre, gelegentlich um Pistolen, selten um Handgranaten. Diese Feststellungen sind unter anderem durch zahlreiche Steckgeschosse und Geschoßsplitter eindeutig belegt, wie sie in etwa 50 Fällen geborgen werden konnten. Was speziell die Gewehrschüsse angeht, so ergibt sich der Beweis für Militärgewehr im übrigen auch ohne Steckgeschoß aus dem hohen Wirkungsgrade der Geschosse auf das Knochensystem und im besonderen Maße aus dem hydrodynamischen Effekt der Schädelsprengung bei Gehirndurchschüssen.

Die souveräne Mordwaffe bei dem Versuch zur Ausrottung des deutschen Volkstums in Polen und ganz besonders am Bromherger Blutsonntag ist hiernach das p o l n i s c h e M i I i t ä r g e w e h r gewesen. Der Gerichtsarzt muß diese an den Leichen zu treffende Feststellung mit Nachdruck hervorheben, da sie den zur Prüfung der Zusammenhänge berufenen Stellen bei der Feststellung und dem Beweise der Organisation des Massenmordens nützlich sein dürfte. Morde mit Behelfswaffen, Knüppeln und Messern, stellen die Ausnahme dar. Hier ist nicht init Zufallswaffen gemordet worden, wie sie jeder Gartenzaun einem affektgeladenen Täter liefern konnte, sondern mit hochwirksamen Schußwaffen.

My translation (emphasis added):

By far the most important overall result of the forensic medical examinations, in the end, was not even so much the inhuman brutalities of a physical and psychological nature, which clearly become apparent from the examination of the corpses. Rather more importance must be given to the fact that for the by far largest number of cases autopsied it could be proven beyond doubt that military weapons had been the means of murder. In most cases these were military rifles, occasionally pistols, seldom hand grenades. These findings are proven beyond doubt by, among other things, the numerous bullets lodged in the body and shell splinters, which could be recovered in about 50 cases. In what concerns especially the rifle shots, the proof of a military rifle’s use additionally follows, even without bullets lodged in the body, from the high impact of the projectiles on the bone system and especially from the hydrodynamic effect of skull explosion in shots through the brain.

The supreme murder weapon in the attempt to exterminate the German ethnicity in Poland, and especially in the Bromberg Bloody Sunday, was accordingly the Polish military rifle. The specialist in forensic medicine must place special emphasis on this finding made on the corpses, as it should be useful to the entities called upon to examine the context in determining and proving the organization of the mass murder. Here they didn’t murder with weapons of occasion, such as any garden fence can provide to an emotionally charged perpetrator, but with highly effective firearms.

L.M. Harrison must also have understood German better than SS-GruppenführerHermann Fegelein, who gave the following order to his troops on 28.09.1941 (emphasis added):

"Falls eine Einheit längere Zeit in einem Orte liegt, sind unmittelbar Judenviertel bzw. Ghettos anzulegen, falls sie nicht sofort ausgerottet werden können. gez. Fegelein" (Brigadebefehl Nr. 8)

My translation:

"In case a unit is stationed at a location for a longer time, Jewish quarters or ghettos must instantly be created, if they cannot be immediately exterminated. Signed Fegelein" (Brigade Order Nr. 8)

What is more, L.M. Harrison’s German must have been better than that of Hans Frank, Governor-General of occupied Poland's "General Government" territory. Frank, who had a German degree in law, said the following in a speech held on 9 June 1944 (emphasis added):

Für die Bekämpfung der Juden war es unerläßlich, daß wir Polen bekamen; denn hier in Polen lebte ja die natürliche Fruchtbarkeit des jüdischen Volkes, sie bestand ja sonst nirgendwo mehr. Seit der Ausrottung der Juden in Polen ist es, rein blutsmäßig gesehen, mit der jüdischen Zukunft vollkommen vorbei; denn nur hier gab es Juden, die Kinder hatten.

My translation (emphasis added):

For fighting the Jews it was indispensable that we got Poland, for here in Poland lived the natural fertility of the Jewish people, it no longer existed anywhere else. Since the extermination of the Jews in Poland the Jewish future, seen purely under blood aspects, is completely over and out; for only here there were Jews who had children.

L.M. Harrison, the man who "knew better", could also have given German lessons to Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, who in his speech in Posen on 6 October 1943 told his audience the following (emphases added):

Ich bitte Sie, das, was ich Ihnen in diesem Kreise sage, wirklich nur zu hören und nie darüber zu sprechen. Es trat an uns die Frage heran: Wie ist es mit den Frauen und Kindern? Ich habe mich entschlossen, auch hier eine ganz klare Lösung zu finden. Ich hielt mich nämlich nicht für berechtigt, die Männer auszurotten sprich also, umzubringen oder umbringen zu lassen und die Rächer in Gestalt der Kinder für unsere Söhne und Enkel groß werden zu lassen. Es mußte der schwere Entschluß gefaßt werden, dieses Volk von der Erde verschwinden zu lassen. Für die Organisation, die den Auftrag durchführen mute, war es der schwerste, den wir bisher hatten. Er ist durchgeführt worden, ohne daß wie ich glaube sagen zu können unsere Männer und unsere Führer einen Schaden an Geist und Seele erlitten hätten. Der Weg zwischen den hier bestehenden Möglichkeiten, entweder roh zu werden, herzlos zu werden und menschliches Leben nicht mehr zu achten oder weich zu werden und durchzudrehen bis zu Nervenzusammenbrüchen, der Weg zwischen dieser Scylla und Charybdis ist entsetzlich schmal.

My translation (emphases added):

I ask you that what I tell you in this circle you will really only hear and never talk about it. The question came up to us: What do to with the women and children? I decided to find a very clear solution also in this respect. This because I didn’t consider myself entitled to exterminate the men, that is, to kill them or to have them killed, and to let the children grow up as avengers against our sons and grandsons. The difficult decision had to be taken to make this people disappear from the earth. For the organization that had to carry out the task if was the most difficult we had so far. It has been carried out without, as I consider myself entitled to say, our men and our leaders having taken harm to their spirit and soul. The path between the possibilities existing here, to either become crude and heartless and no longer to respect human life or to become weak and collapse to the point of nervous breakdowns, the path between this Scylla and Charybdis is horrendously narrow.

I could provide further examples, but I think the point has been made. No further comments are necessary. The above-quoted statements speak for themselves.