Talk:Posen speeches

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A fact from Posen speeches appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 27 July 2009 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that in one of his Posen speeches, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler said that the decision had to be made to make the Jews "disappear from the Earth"?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2009/July.

Wikipedia

spellcheck

I just wrote this article. Since English isn't my native language, you may want to spellcheck the text! OotHb 14:44 (GMT 1) Dez 18 2005

On the Jewish question

Himmler then reveals to "this most secret circle" his thoughts on the Jewish question, which he describes as "the most difficult decision of my life.

Stroop Report original caption: "Forcibly pulled out of dug-outs". Captured Jews are led by German troops to the assembly point for deportation after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 1943

I ask of you that that which I say to you in this circle be really only heard and not ever discussed.

The doubled "that that" looks odd. When I'm writing and this happens, I always look for ways to prevent it. This is translated text, so I don't 1) assume that it's incorrect, and 2) do not want to simply delete one of the "that's" for fear of changing the translated meaning. I think someone who can read the original German will be required to verify that this is either the best translation possible, or fix it.Tym Whittier (talk) 16:12, 31 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Himmler's decision?

I think it is important to discuss in the article that not only do these speeches represent the highest level of unequivocal acknowledgement of genocide by direct killing, but that it seems to establish (particularly when considered alongside Goebbels contemporaneous writings) that Himmler personally chose to pursue the wholesale murder of all Jews that is the most conspicuous element of the Holocaust.

HIMMLER: "How is it with the women and children? I decided to find a clear solution here as well. I did not consider myself justified to exterminate the men - in other words, to kill them or have them killed - and allow the avengers of our sons and grandsons in the form of their children to grow up. The difficult decision had to be taken to make this people disappear from the earth."

GOEBBELS: "Regarding the Jewish question, he [Himmler] gives a very unadorned and frank picture. He is of the conviction that the Jewish question can be solved by the end of this year. He advocates the most radical and most severe solution, namely to exterminate Jewry, bag and baggage. Of course, if brutal, this is a consistent solution. Because we must take on the responsibility of entirely solving this question in our time."

It seems inescapable, if these statements are to be taken for what they clearly say, that the mass extermination of Jewry was a path Himmler, himself, chose. These two individuals (Himmler and Goebbels) certainly know what they are talking about and their frankness is all too palpable. This is not an attempt to let Hitler off the hook as it is certainly plain he delegated the duty of "eliminating" the Jews from Europe to Himmler with the knowledge that this would ultimately entail more than mere sterilization or exile. However, the fact that direct killing (of women and children at least, though its implied the whole approach [direct extermination] was taken on his decision) was an arbitrary choice on Himmler's part is entirely remarkable and one of the most interesting aspects of the speech. I don't see how the article can really avoid a discussion of this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.230.220.236 (talk) 15:27, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Translation

Just to declare that I have expanded this article via translation of this article's entry on the German Wikipedia. WilliamH (talk) 10:01, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

comments

this is very good! Needs a good copy edit by a native speaker. Try the guild of copy editors! Auntieruth55 (talk) 23:46, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ausrottung

I am afraid that the "Ausrottung" section of this article is a bit too smug. It says, ". The 1972 edition of the Sprach-Brockhaus dictionary defines Ausrottung as 'complete annihilation'." I suppose that it didn't occur to the author that usages change over time. There are some older German dictionaries online that have other meanings for Ausrottung, and the interpretation of Ausrottung as mass-murder becomes even more untenable when one makes a philological study of how the word has actually been used.

The Luther Bible has only one instance of the noun Ausrottung, but many, many instances of the verb ausrotten. When one compares corresponding passages in the Luther Bible and English Bibles, one finds that where Luther used forms of ausrotten the English expression typically used is "cut off," which means something like cast out or expel. Here are a couple of examples from the Luther Bible with English translation.

DAS ERSTE BUCH MOSE (GENESIS) [17.14] Wenn aber ein Männlicher nicht beschnitten wird an seiner Vorhaut, wird er ausgerottet werden aus seinem Volk, weil er meinen Bund gebrochen hat. "Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant."

DAS ZWEITE BUCH MOSE (EXODUS) [31.14] Darum haltet meinen Sabbat, denn er soll euch heilig sein. Wer ihn entheiligt, der soll des Todes sterben. Denn wer eine Arbeit am Sabbat tut, der soll ausgerottet werden aus seinem Volk. " 'Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death; whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from his people.

For uses of the noun Ausrottung that was contemporary and part of Himmler's milieu, one can refer to Mein Kampf. That book contains a number of instances in which Ausrottung obviously does not mean killing, like this:

Hitler: Was aber besass dieses Buendnis fuer einen Wert, wenn erst das Deutschtum der Habsburgmonarchie ausgerottet worden waere? (Mein Kampf, 1944 edition, p. 142)

Ralph Mannheim's translation: But what value did this alliance have, once Germanism had been exterminated in the Habsburg monarchy? (129)

My translation: What kind of value did this alliance possess once the Germandom of the Habsburg Monarchy had been eliminated (through amalgamation with the Czechs)?

I think I have demonstrated that the claim, based on a 1972 dictionary, that Ausrottung in 1943 must mean mass-murder, is absurd. It can also mean expulsion or amalgamation. "Expulsion" makes perfect sense given that Himmler juxtaposes Ausrottung with Evakuierung as a synonym.

Hadding (talk) 17:14, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

William Dwight Whitney's A Compendious German and English Dictionary (Henry Holt and Co., New York 1877) defines ausrotten as follows:

aus-rotten, tr. root out, ERADICATE, EXTIRPATE, exterminate, destroy.

"Eradicate" is simply Latin for "root out." "Exterminate," in older dictionaries like the 1910 edition of Webster's Practical Dictionary, has the primary meaning of to place outside (ex) the border (terminus).

Shortly after I incorporated the information that I have which shows that Ausrottung has a range of meanings and is ambiguous, somebody deleted my entire contribution, claiming that ausrotten can only the same as umbringen (to kill), because in one passage Himmler uses umbringen to explain what he means by ausrotten.

There are two problems with this argument.

First, there is another passage wherein Himmler juxtaposes Ausrottung with Evakuierung, which means evacuation, not killing. If a hendiadys is always to be presumed to involve precise synonyms then we have an insoluble contradiction in Himmler's use of ausrotten/Ausrottung.

Second, there is no reason to suppose that Himmler is providing a general definition of ausrotten when he juxtaposes umbringen to specify what he means. Somebody who assumes that ausrotten can only mean one thing is engaging in circular logic, because the argument is precisely about whether ausrotten and Ausrottung have just one meaning or a range of meanings. Himmler put the word umbringen there for a reason: the reason is that ausrotten is vague. Hadding (talk) 03:16, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It was public knowledge that Jews were being expelled, so if Ausrottung meant "expulsion", why would Himmler tell everyone to keep it a secret from the German people? It seems likely Himmler was using the "exterminate" meaning of Ausrottung. Blodcyning (talk) 19:48, 8 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This whole discussion is nonsense to any German speaker. "ausrotten" means "exterminate", "umbringen" (a slightly collquial term originally, I guess, stemming from the phrase "jemanden ums Leben bringen", to deprive someone of his life") means "kill". And besides, the above-cited verses from the Bible always refer to "cutting off" someone from his people by applying the death penalty.--131.159.76.239 (talk) 16:44, 26 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The exact meaning of Himmler's choice of words are colored by how one perceives what the actual goal was. If it's the Holocaust, then it means "kill". If it was in the context of the Transfer Agreement, then it means "excise" as in "to remove." Since Himmler seems to have been a bureaucrat of the highest order, he was given to bureaucratic Newspeak rather than plain talk ("Let's make sure they're all dead (tot)" would have been far simpler). Terms like "collateral damage" would have made perfect sense to him I think. Looking at the etymology of the word, it seems to have originally meant to "uproot".RRskaReb talk 19:03, 4 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

reference.

SS-Untersturmführer Werner Alfred Wenn, footnote 8. Peterson. de.wikipedia, Posener Reder lists him as : Untersturmführer Werner Alfred Venn

1. Please find more info. on this Stormfuehrer Wenn. I can find little or no info on him. Thank you. 2. Please realize there is a tremendous amt of historical value to this page. It really merits an A in importance.74.239.209.92 (talk) 03:29, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The references (13, 14, 41) to 3sat lead to a dead end since 3sat site is inactive. This should be fixed (also in the corresponding article on de.wikipedia) by someone more familiar with the topic than me. 19 April, 2015. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Larry Gay (talk • contribs) 09:18, 19 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

missing 'link'

External links

YouTube clip of the Posen Speech

74.239.209.92 (talk) 07:03, 10 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum:

The website of the Holocaust History Project http://www.holocaust-history.org/himmler-poznan/speech-text.shtml is down and "under cosntruction". There can't be found any relevant content in it. W.ewert (talk) 07:55, 5 July 2016 (UTC) --[reply]

Context and Operation Valkyrie

One item in the Context section is "assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler ("Operation Walküre", 12 August)." This is confusing. There were assassination attempts on Hitler in 1943, but not on August 12. Operation Valkyrie, the plan to continue government in the event of Hitler's death, was modified in August and September of 1943 with a secret view toward facilitating future assassination attempts, but the actual plot that attempted to put it to use wasn't enacted until July 20, 1944. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ggregd (talk • contribs) 21:28, 8 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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The town hall

"Posen's town hall, where the conference took place (the building no longer exists today)"

That is not true. Although it has sustained some damage (the tower has collapsed, fires inside) in 1945 it has been fully restored by 1954. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.163.187.78 (talk) 12:15, 24 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The 115 page 4 Oct speech

" 115 pages of the final typewritten edition (one page was lost) were discovered among SS files and submitted to the Nuremberg Trials as document 1919-PS"Eihawh (talk) 11:41, 24 June 2022 (UTC) do we have it digitalized somewhere?[reply]