In Part V there is embedded a story that bothers me in this overall thought-provoking tale - and that is that Germany asked the vandalized Jews to pay for their own destroyed windows. It is a story that simply does not fit and has a nasty, vindictive ring to it which, in my mind, is a discord in an otherwise believable story.
I asked Ernst Zundel how such dishonorable action could have been explained, and he said that the government reasoning was that Jews would vastly exaggerate their own suffering and collect on "damages" that weren't supported by evidence - and that, in fact, many insurance companies ignored the government directives and paid for destroyed plate glass windows regardless.
In the wake of those horrendously inflated "Holocaust" claims, that explanation makes sense. Still, I wish the Third Reich government, mindful of public image, would not have been so niggardly.
Just so you know where I stand. The rest makes perfect sense.
Here is the second-to-last Weckert installment:
[start]
You may have heard the widespread allegation that Goebbels started the Crystal Night pogrom with a fiery speech on that evening of 9 November. This widely accepted story is false. The following facts will clarify this point:
1. As Gauleiter for Berlin, Dr. Goebbels had no authority outside of his Berlin district. Although he was also the Propaganda Minister of the German government, this did not give him any authority over Party officials. Furthermore, he had no authority whatsoever over the SA or the SS.
2. Of all the National Socialist leaders, Dr. Goebbels would have understood better than anyone else the immense damage that an anti-Jewish pogrom would cause for Germany. On the morning of 10 November, when he first learned about the extent of the damage and destruction of the previous night, he was furious and shocked at the stupidity of those who had participated. There is substantial evidence for this.
3. How could a speech given after 9 p.m. on the evening of 9 November have possibly incited a "pogrom" which had already begun the day before when the first provocateurs appeared at municipal and Party offices to persuade officials to take action against the Jews?
4. Although we do not know exactly what Dr. Goebbels said in his supposedly fiery speech, we do know what the Gauleiters and the SA commander did after the speech had ended: they went to the telephones and called their espective home offices to order their subordinates to do everything necessary to maintain peace and order. They emphasized that under no circumstances must anyone take part in any demonstrations. These telephone instructions were written down at the home offices by whoever was on duty. The orders from each Gauleiter were then passed on by telex to other offices within the Gau or district. These telex messages are still in various records files and are available to anyone who wishes to examine them. 5.
Orders to Stop the Pogrom
While the Gauleiters were calling their home offices, the head of the SA, Viktor Lutze, ordered all of his immediate subordinates, the SA Gruppenfuehrers, who were together with him in Munich, to call their home offices as well. Lutze ordered that under no circumstances could SA men take part in any demonstrations against Jews, and that furthermore the SA was to intervene to stop any demonstrations already in progress. As a result of these strict orders, SA men began to guard Jewish stores that very night wherever windows had been broken. There is no doubt about this order by Lutze because we have the postwar court testimony of several witnesses confirming it. The SS and the police were given similar orders to restore peace and order. Himmler ordered Reinhard Heydrich to prevent all destruction of property and to protect Jews against demonstrators. The telex communication of this order still exists. It is in the files of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. However, during the Nuremberg trial this telex order was presented in three different forms, with forged amendments to change the original meaning. In my book Feuerzeichen I undertook to restore the original text.
Adolf Hitler joined the midnight celebration at the Feldherrnhalle. It was only after he returned to his apartment about one o'clock in the morning that he learned about the demonstrations which had been taking place in Munich, during which one synagogue had been set on fire. He was furious and immediately ordered the police chief of Munich to come see him. Hitler told him to immediately stop the fire and to make sure that no other outrages took place in Munich. He then called various police and Party officials throughout the Reich to learn the extent of these demonstrations. Finally, he ordered a telex message sent to all Gauleiter offices. It read: "By express order from the very highest authority, arson against Jewish businesses or other property must in no case and under no circumstances take place." Synagogues were not specifically mentioned, apparently because Hitler was still unaware of the burning of synagogues, apart from the one in Munich.
How Did the SA Get Involved Despite the Orders From Its Own Leaders?
How was it possible that in spite of all these emphatic orders, so much damage and destruction could have been done and that so many SA members could have participated? According to the records, at least three of the 28 SA Groups did not obey the orders of SA chief Lutze. Instead, they sent out their men to destroy synagogues and Jewish buildings. In effect they did precisely the opposite of what Lutze had ordered. What actually happened is clear from the testimony and evidence presented at postwar trials against former SA men accused of participating in the riot. The trials, held between 1946 and 1952, were based to a large extent on the report of SA Brigade 50 chief Karl Lucke and begins with these words: "On 10 November 1938, at 3 o'clock in the morning, I received the following order: 'By order of the Gruppenfuehrer, all Jewish synagogues within the Brigade district are to be immediately blown up or set on fire'." Lucke then included in his report a listing of synagogues which had been destroyed by members of his Brigade. This report has been cited by the prosecution at the Nuremberg Tribunal and by practically all of the consensus historians ever since as proof that the SA was given orders to destroy Jewish stores and synagogues.
The contradiction between the orders actually given and the statement made in the Lucke report requires a detailed explanation. On 9 November the leader of SA Group Mannheim, Herbert Fust, was in Munich together with the other SA Group leaders and the SA Chief of Staff, Viktor Lutze. When Lutze ordered the Group leaders to contact their home offices to stop all anti-Jewish demonstrations, Fust, along with the other SA leaders, did just that. He called his office in Mannheim and passed on the orders he had received from Lutze. The man who was on duty that night at the Mannheim SA office telephone and who received Fust's order confirmed that he understood it and then hung up. But he never passed on the order he had received. Instead, he transmitted precisely the opposite order. The normal procedure would have been for the man on duty at the telephone to immediately call the deputy group leader, Lucke, who was in nearby Darmstadt. But instead he called SA Oberfuehrer (senior colonel) Fritsch and asked him to come to the office. Fritsch had a reputation for not being particularly clever. When he arrived, the man who had received the telephone call showed him a small paper slip with a few notes on it which said that the synagogues within the Mannheim SA Group district were to be destroyed. The man who had received the call explained to Fritsch that the order had just arrived from Munich. Slow-minded as he was, Fritsch did not know what to do and called the local Kreisleiter (district Party leader) and his deputy. These two men then arrived at the SA office and discussed the situation, while at the same time the telephone duty man notified other SA leaders, but still not the deputy Group leader Lucke. In the meantime the small paper slip disappeared and the SA men now arriving at the headquarters met only the Kreisleiter, who told them about the order which he thought had come from Munich. No one asked for any further confirmation. The SA men then left to begin the destruction. Hours later, when the whole action was almost finished, the telephone guard finally called Deputy Group Leader Lucke and passed on the false order. He also informed Lucke that the action had already been going on for several hours. Since it was almost all over by this time, Lucke also neglected to ask for confirmation of the order. It was already 3 o'clock in the morning. Lucke then alerted the Standartenfuehrer of his Brigade and carried out the destruction within the Darmstadt district.
At 8 o'clock the next morning Lucke sat down and wrote the report which was later cited at the Nuremberg Tribunal. In fact, as already shown, there was no order to commit arson or carry out destruction against any Jewish property from the Gruppenfuehrer in Munich, but only from the telephone guard. Who he was remains a mystery. During the postwar trials against members of this SA unit, none of the judges asked for the name or identity of this telephone guard. This mysterious man was very probably an agent for those who were actually behind the entire Crystal Night Affair.
The Fine Imposed on the Jews
Early in the morning following the Crystal Night, Propaganda Minister Dr. Goebbels announced in a radio broadcast that any action against Jews was strictly prohibited. He warned that severe penalties would be imposed on anyone who did not obey this order. He also explained that the Jewish question would be resolved only by legal means. As already mentioned, German government and Party officials were furious about what had happened. Hermann Goering, who was responsible for Germany's economy, complained that it would be impossible to replace the special plate glass of the broken store windows because it was not manufactured in Germany. It had to be imported from Belgium and would cost a great deal of precious foreign currency. Because of the Jewish boycott against German goods, the Reich was short of foreign exchange currency. Goering therefore decided that because this shortage was caused by the Jews, it was they who would have to pay for the broken glass. He imposed a fine of one billion Reichsmarks on the German Jews. This fine is always mentioned by anyone who writes about the Crystal Night. But historians and history writers invariably neglect to explain the reason for the fine.
It was certainly unjust to force Jews to pay for damage which they had not caused. Goering understood this. However, in private he justified the fine by citing the fact that the 1933 Jewish declaration of war against Germany was proclaimed in the name of the millions of Jews throughout the world. Therefore they could now help their co-religionists in Germany bear the consequences of the boycott. It should also be pointed out that only German Jews with assets of more than 5,000 Reichsmarks in cash had to contribute to the fine. In 1938, when prices were very low, 5,000 Reichsmarks was a small fortune. Anyone with that much money in cash would certainly have had far more wealth in other assets and could therefore well afford to pay their assessed portion of the fine without being reduced to poverty, despite what history writers have maintained.
[end]
Tomorrow: The Consequences of the Crystal Night - Part VI
Courtesy of the Institute for Historical Review 'Crystal Night' 1938: The Great Anti-German Spectacle - Ingrid Weckert
(Paper Presented to the Sixth International Revisionist Conference.)
This and other Revisionist articles are posted, among many other websites, at www.ihr.org and www.vho.org
Thought for the Day:
"Earth bears no balsam for mistakes; Men crown the knave and scourge the tool that did his will."
(Edward Rowland Sill)