Henrich Himmler’s Posen Speeches

From the Speeches by Himmler Before Senior SS Officers in Poznan, October 4th and October 6th, 1943

These are a series of two speeches given by Heinrich Himmler before SS officers in Posen on October 4th and 6th, 1943. These speeches were the first records of the Hitler Cabinet's intent on carrying out the extermination of the Jewish people.

The October 4th Posen speech was over three hours, but only two minutes of it addressed the Nazi party's ongoing efforts against the Jews. Himmler stated that the extermination of the Jews was necessary for the rise of the Kultur and that any German who hesitated to contribute to the murders would be labeled as traitors. To have witnessed scores upon scores of murders and corpses was what made the Nazi Übermensch "hard" and genuine.

The October 6th Posen speech revealed Himmler's "most difficult decision," in which he spoke about the necessity of murdering Jewish women and children. It was not enough for the Nazis to only murder Jewish men since their children could one day prove detrimental to the Nazi Paradise. He then promises to solve the Jewish Problem by the end of that same year.

Be wary of Neo-Nazis, Nazi apologists, and Holocaust deniers who attempt to cherry-pick phrases and mutilate the German language to further their agenda. For the latter, Holocaust deniers predictably single out the phrase, "Ausrottung des Jüdischen Volkes," claiming that the infinitive "ausrotten" was used by Himmler to merely indicate that he wanted to "root" out the Jews instead of murdering them outright.

Of course, you cannot expect Holocaust deniers to have a reliable grasp of semantic nuance since "ausrotten" only takes the definition "to root out" in the contexts of concepts and theories. When "ausrotten" is used on living beings, it defines extermination. In concordance with the infinitive "umbringen" (to murder, to assassinate) used by Himmler in the same speech, it is safe to say that Holocaust deniers have no contextual awareness.

Udo Walendy and Germar Rudolf have disputed the authenticity of Himmler's Posen speeches, claiming that the recordings were made by the Allies in 1945. They completely ignore the written authorizations Himmler made when the speeches were being proofread and transliterated back in 1943. Furthermore, the second Posen speech that was discovered in the 1970s falsifies their claims since Himmler himself said that it was his decision to make the Jews "disappear." Also, note that Joseph Goebbels was present at the October 6th speech, and he writes in his diary that, "He [Himmler] advocates the most radical and most severe solution, namely to exterminate Jewry, bag and baggage."