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July 9th, 2021 
Awake Goy A JEW SPEAKS TO HIMMLER
Heinrich Himmler’s nocturnal conversation with Norbert Masur in April 1945
November 2004
Feature Image: Felix Kersten, center, with Himmler
At the beginning of 1945 the Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler knew like everyone in Europe that the German Reich had lost the war militarily. Nevertheless, he did not give up hope of “being able to save something for Germany,” as he put it in conversation with confidants. Himmler was convinced that the Anglo-Americans would not accept Soviet hegemony in Europe and would sooner or later seek an understanding with Germany in order to stop the advance of the Red Army and drive the Soviets out of the territories they had conquered. This hope, which of course was completely unrealistic, had been purposefully fanned by Allied agents who had long been supplying Himmler with disinformation about the Western Allies’ plans.
Without informing Adolf Hitler about this, Himmler commissioned his Finnish physical therapist Felix Kersten, who often traveled to Sweden, to initiate contacts there with a representative of the World Jewish Congress. His calculation should have looked as follows: In return for the release of jewish KL prisoners, the Congress would induce the Anglo-Americans to make certain concessions to Germany that would represent the first step towards the hoped-for ceasefire on the Western Front. In doing so, Himmler took a considerable risk: if Hitler, who had mistrusted him for some time, had learned that the Reichsführer was negotiating with jews behind his back, he would probably have arrested him on his next visit to Berlin on the spot and possibly for high treason get shot.
In February 1945 Kersten met in Stockholm with a high-ranking delegate from the World Jewish Congress, Hillel Storch, who gave the jew a list of proposals from Himmler. The most important point of this was the release of at least some of the jews still imprisoned in National Socialist concentration camps, who were then to be brought to Sweden or Switzerland.
Supremacist jew Hillel Storch
After Kersten had handed over the list, Hillel Storch suggested that he receive a representative of the Congress for negotiations. Himmler accepted this suggestion and assured the negotiator concerned a safe journey.
For unknown reasons, Hillel Storch did not make the trip to Germany himself, but commissioned the “German-born” jew Norbert Masur to do so. He and his family emigrated to Sweden in 1938, where he subsequently worked as a successful businessman and soon played an important role in the local jewish community.
Accompanied by Kersten, the jew Masur flew on the afternoon of 19 April 1945 with false papers that Himmler’s personal physician Dr. Brandt had signed from Stockholm to Berlin. A Gestapo car brought the two of them from Tempelhof Airport to Kersten’s country estate in Hartzwalde, 70 km north of the German capital.
SS Dr. Karl Brandt
On the morning of April 20, one of Himmler’s closest employees, SS Brigadier General Walter Schellenberg, paid his respects to the estate and talked to the jew Masur over breakfast about the war situation. Himmler himself was in Berlin at the time to take part in the celebrations for Adolf Hitler’s 56th birthday.
SS Brigadier General Walter Schellenberg
Since the journey on the bombed streets took a lot of time, Himmler – accompanied by Schellenberg, Kersten and Dr. Brandt – only arrived in Hartzwalde at 2.30 a.m. His interview with the jew Masur lasted about two and a half hours. He then left Kersten’s estate because on the morning of April 21 a meeting with Count Folke Bernadotte, President of the Swedish Red Cross, was on his agenda.
Hartzwalde
On his return to Sweden, Masur wrote a brochure entitled En Jude talar med Himmler [A jew speaks to Himmler], which was published in 1945 by Albert Bonniers Förlag, Stockholm. In view of the considerable historical significance of this publication, it would seem reasonable to assume that it was immediately translated into the main European languages, but far from it: it was not until a full forty years after the appearance of the Swedish edition that the “American”-jewish magazine Moment published one in its December 1985 issue with an English translation, in which, of course, several sections of the original were missing without the readers being informed of this abbreviation.
Incomprehensibly, the jew Norbert Masur’s brochure was never translated into German. [Note: this Jürgen Graf article was joogle translated from German to English and needed some minor adjustments] I now want to fill this gap, leaving out the introduction in which the prehistory of Masur’s journey – which I have already summarized; my translation begins at the point where Himmler’s arrival in Hartzwalde is described. I am using the original Swedish version that was kindly sent to me by Carl Nordling, Stockholm.
Supremacist jew Norbert Masur
Excerpt from Norbert Masur’s brochure…
At two-thirty on the dot we heard a car pull up. Kersten went out into the courtyard, and after a few minutes Heinrich Himmler entered, followed by Schellenberg, his adjutant Dr. Brandt and Kersten. Himmler greeted me with “Good afternoon”, not “Heil Hitler”, and explained to me that he was pleased that I had come. We sat at a table and coffee was served for five.
Himmler was elegantly dressed; its well-fitting shape was adorned with insignia and medals. He looked well-groomed, made a lively impression despite the late hour and was outwardly calm and controlled. His appearance looked more advantageous than in the photos. Perhaps his restless, somewhat piercing look was a sign of sadism and harshness. Had I not known his past, I would not have believed that this man was responsible for the largest mass murder in history.
Himmler immediately began to speak. “In our generation,” he said, among other things, “we never had peace. I was fourteen years old when the First World War broke out. As soon as the war was over, the civil war began in Germany, and jews played a leading role in the Spartacus uprising. The jews in our midst were a strange element that always caused unrest. They have been expelled from Germany several times, but they have always returned. After coming to power, we wanted to solve this question once and for all, and I planned a humane solution through emigration. I negotiated with American organizations to arrange for a quick emigration, but not even the countries considered to be friendly to jews wanted to let the jews in.”
I objected that perhaps it would be more convenient for the German people not to have minorities in their midst, but in any case it does not correspond to laboriously won legal concepts that people who lived in a country where their fathers and forefathers usually already had lived were suddenly expelled from their homeland. Nevertheless, the jews submitted to their predicament and tried to emigrate, but within a few years the NAZIS wanted to end a situation that had grown over the generations, and that was impossible.
Himmler continued: “The war brought us into contact with the proletarianized East jewish masses, and that gave rise to completely new problems. We could not have such an enemy behind us. The jewish masses were infected with severe epidemics, especially typhus. I myself lost thousands of my best SS men to these epidemics. And the jews helped the partisans. “
When I asked how the partisans could have received help from the jews who had been locked up in large ghettos, Himmler replied: “The jews passed information on to the partisans. They also shot at our troops in the ghetto. ” So this was Himmler’s version of the heroic struggle of the jews in the Warsaw ghetto. What a terrible distortion of the truth! I tried cautiously to dissuade Himmler from the unfortunate idea of defending German jewish policy against a jew, because this attempt at defense had to force him to say one untruth after another. But that was impossible. It seemed to him a need to deliver this defense speech in front of a jew of all people, because he certainly
He continued, “In order to contain the epidemics, we were forced to build crematoriums where we could cremate the corpses of the innumerable people who fell victim to these diseases. And now they want to spin a rope for us! ” It was his most disgusting attempt at twisting the truth. I was so shocked by this statement by the notorious corpse factories that I could only remain silent.
“The war in the east was incredibly hard,” said Himmler. “We didn’t want a war with Russia. But suddenly we discovered that Russia had 20,000 tanks and we were forced to act. It was a matter of winning or going under. The war on the Eastern Front put our soldiers to the greatest test. An inhospitable nature, bitter cold, endless expanses, a hostile population and partisans in the back everywhere. The German soldier was only able to assert himself with severity. If even a single shot was fired from a village, one could be forced to burn the whole village down. The Russians are not normal opponents, we cannot understand their mentality. They refused to surrender even in the most desperate situation. If the jewish people suffered from the severity of this struggle,
The conversation turned to another topic, the concentration camps.
“These camps got their bad reputation from their unfortunate name”, were Himmler’s introductory words. “They should have been called re-education camps. Not only jews and political prisoners were interned there, but also criminal elements who were not released after serving their sentence. As a result, in 1941, a year of war, Germany had the lowest crime rate in decades. The prisoners had to work hard, but so had the entire German people. The treatment in the vineyards was severe, but fair. “
I interrupted him: “But it cannot be denied that serious misdeeds [svåra illgärningar] occurred in the camps”? He replied, “I must admit that some of these have happened, but I have punished those who were guilty.”
Although I was of course compelled to continue the conversation – solely with a view to my task of freeing jewish and other prisoners – I could not and did not want to contain my excitement at the moment when he spoke of “fair treatment” in the concentration camps . It was a satisfaction for me to be able to tell him at least one thing or the other about the crimes that had been committed in these camps on behalf of the suffering jewish people. At that moment, as an advocate of the bent but never eradicable law, I felt myself as the stronger of the two of us. And I think Himmler felt the weakness of his position.
I now tried again to dissuade him from attempting to defend himself. “Much has happened that cannot be undone and undone,” I began. “But if there is to be a bridge between our peoples in the future, at least all jews who are alive today in the areas ruled by Germany must also stay alive. We therefore request the release of all jews in the camps which are close to Scandinavia or Switzerland so that they can be evacuated to Sweden or Switzerland, and with regard to the other camps we ask that the prisoners be left where they are they are that they are treated well, given enough food, and that the camps are handed over to the Allies without resistance when the front approaches the camp.
Kersten vigorously supported my various wishes. I asked Himmler to give the number of jews still living in concentration camps, and he gave the following figures: Theresienstadt 25,000, Ravensbrück 20,000, Mauthausen 20,000-30,000 and a smaller number in a few other camps. He also claimed that there were 150,000 jews in Auschwitz when that camp fell into the hands of the Russians; 50,000 jews were in Bergen-Belsen and 6,000 in Buchenwald when these camps were handed over to the British and Americans. I knew that his figures were incorrect and, especially in the case of Auschwitz, vastly exaggerated.
In Hungary, said Himmler, he left 450,000 jews behind. “What kind of thanks have I received for that?” he asked hypocritically. “The jews shot our troops in Budapest.” I objected that if 450,000 jews were left behind, 400,000 of the original 850,000 jews must have been deported and faced an uncertain fate. The jews who remained in Hungary could not have known what kind of lot was in store for them, and this had to explain their reaction. Himmler ignored such objections; evidently he argued according to La Fontaine’s famous verse: “This monster is terrible, if you attack it, it defends itself.”
Himmler continued: “It was my intention to hand over the camps without resistance, as I had promised. I also handed over Bergen-Belsen and Buchenwald, but it was badly rewarded. In Bergen-Belsen, one of the guards was tied up with ropes and photographed together with some prisoners who had recently died. And these images are now being spread around the world. I also handed over Buchenwald without resistance, but advancing American tanks suddenly began to fire. The hospital, which consisted of light wooden houses, caught fire and then the bodies were photographed. Atrocity propaganda is now being carried out with these photos. “
When I released 2,700 jews to Switzerland last autumn, this too was used for a press campaign against me personally. It was said that I only released these people to give me an alibi. I don’t need an alibi, I’ve only ever done what I thought was necessary for my people, and I stand by that, I’ve never become a rich man. No one has been pelted with dirt like me in the past twelve years. I never cared about it, even in Germany everyone can write what I want about me. But the publications about the concentration camps are used as agitation against us, and that doesn’t exactly encourage me to continue handing over the camps. A few days ago, for example, I had a camp in Saxony forcibly evacuated, as the tops approached American tank columns. Why should I act differently? “
I feared that Himmler’s repeated complaints about the publication of the horrific discoveries in the concentration camps, which he tried to dismiss as “atrocity propaganda”, could be followed by demands that these publications be stopped in return for consenting to our demands. Undoubtedly, under the years of Goebbels propaganda, Himmler believed that the jews actually controlled the world press, as the NAZI lie propaganda claimed, and perhaps he believed that I, as a representative of the jews – we had let it be known that I came as a private person – influence on the press of allied and neutral countries.
In order to forestall a direct demand, I interrupted him and drew his attention to the freedom of the press in democratic countries. “In a democratic country, not even the government has the power to prevent unwanted publications. In the long term, the facts behind them are decisive. The release of 2,700 jews last year received a favorable response in the press worldwide, as did the fact that those released from Theresienstadt were in relatively good health. I have the impression that Theresienstadt is the best camp. Continuing to release prisoners is the only correct policy no matter what the press writes. It is not just the jewish people who are interested in saving the surviving jews. The Swedish government has expressed its interest by contacting Dr. Kersten and I authorized this trip. Acceptance of our wishes would also leave a beneficial impression on the governments and peoples of the Allied countries. And before history, saving the remaining jews is paramount. A continuation of these forced evacuations can only be detrimental to Germany. The streets have to be cordoned off, the supply has to be ordered, etc.
Himmler remarked that Theresienstadt was not a camp in the true sense of the word, but a city inhabited exclusively by jews, which was administered by them and where they had to do all the work. “This organization was created by me and my friend Heydrich, and we wanted all camps to look like this,” he said hypocritically.
A lengthy discussion ensued. I underlined the need for the proposed rescue measures, supported by Kersten. In particular, we repeatedly emphasized that the evacuation of the Ravensbrück prisoners to Sweden must be approved.
I did not trust Himmler’s general promises. On the other hand, I believed that promises formulated with some precision might be kept, if only for the reason that Himmler’s co-workers would be interested in keeping such assurances. It was also to be feared that the last few weeks of the German struggle could be particularly critical for those imprisoned. The publications on Buchenwald could induce the NAZI leaders, either Himmler himself or the Hitler-Kaltenbrunner group, to raze all remaining concentration camps to the ground in order to remove every trace and every living witness of their crimes. The last days of the death throes of the Third Reich could thus also those few who had so far succeeded
Himmler wanted to meet with his adjutant Dr. Brandt for advice. I went into an adjoining room with Schellenberg. During our absence, Himmler dictated two letters addressed to Kersten. When I returned to the salon after about twenty minutes, Himmler said: “I am ready to release 1000 jewish women from the Ravensbrück concentration camp, and you can have them picked up via the Red Cross. The release of a number of French women from Ravensbrück on the list from the Swedish Foreign Ministry is approved. About 50 jews interned in Norwegian camps are released and taken to the Swedish border. The case of the 20 Swedes convicted by a German court and held in Grini prison will be examined benevolently, and if possible they should be released. The question of the release of a number of captured Norwegians will be benevolently examined. A large number of named jews in Theresienstadt, mostly Dutch, will be released when the Red Cross can pick them up. But the jewesses from Ravensbrück should not be called jewesses; we can, say, call them Polish women. Of course, not only must your visit remain absolutely secret, the arrival of the jews in Sweden must also be kept secret. As for the cessation of the forced evacuations and the handing over of the camps to the Allies, I will do my best to comply with these requests. ” A large number of named jews in Theresienstadt, mostly Dutch, will be released when the Red Cross can pick them up. But the jewesses from Ravensbrück should not be called jewesses; we can, say, call them Polish women. Of course, not only must your visit remain absolutely secret, but the arrival of the jews in Sweden must also be kept secret. As for the cessation of the forced evacuations and the handing over of the camps to the Allies, I will do my best to comply with these requests. ”
Himmler’s fear of letting the released jewish women go under their correct designation was characteristic. This reflected those differences of opinion between Himmler and Hitler that Schellenberg had indicated to me that morning. Even if Himmler certainly had power at the moment, he probably didn’t want any trouble for the sake of the jews. Schellenberg had already indicated, however, that Hitler’s position had been completely subordinated.
General political issues were also raised during the conversation. Himmler let his hatred of Bolshevism run free in the familiar NAZI style; I quote some statements:
“The Americans will see that we served as a protective wall against Bolshevism.” “Hitler will go down in history as a great man because he gave the world the National Socialist solution, the only socio-political form that could have asserted itself against Bolshevism.”
In the whole time he mentioned Hitler’s name only once.
“The American and English soldiers will become infected with the Bolshevik spirit and cause social unrest in their home countries.”
“The German masses are so radicalized that, when National Socialism falls, they will fraternize with the Russians, whose power will increase even further as a result.”
“In Germany there will be famine until autumn and winter.”
Here he added, after a moment of silence, as if to himself: “There will be difficulties that cannot be overlooked; a great deal of wisdom will be needed to rebuild the world. “
“The Americans won their war; German industrial competition has been broken for decades. “
“We are asked to surrender unconditionally. No way. I am not afraid to die.” “In France, order reigned under our occupation, although I only had 2,000 German police there. Everyone had work, everyone got enough to eat. We succeeded in creating order and healthy conditions in the port district of Marseilles, something that no French government had yet managed.” “I understand a people who are fighting for the freedom of their country. We never condescended to resorting to methods like the English who helped the French Maquis by dropping parachutists in the wrong uniforms or civilian clothes. “
Himmler’s understanding of the partisan struggle came a little late. His contemptuous words about the parachutists made me think of Holland and Rotterdam in particular. The mendacity of his argument was typical of the whole conversation.
The meeting lasted exactly two and a half hours. At five in the morning Himmler left the estate in the car. The whole time, with the exception of the twenty minutes I was in another room, we had been talking. I was alone with him for half an hour, a free jew face to face with the feared and merciless Gestapo chief, who had five million jewish lives on his conscience. Himmler usually spoke calmly and did not flare up even if I had sharp objections. Although he kept his outward calm, his nervousness became more and more evident. He talked a lot. What is reproduced here corresponds only to the more important part of the conversation; I have only quoted my own words when they are indispensable for understanding the course of the conversation and the negotiations.
Himmler was undoubtedly both intelligent and educated, but he was no master at the art of pretense. His cynicism was particularly evident when he spoke of the disasters that he believed would happen. The words he said to Kersten on parting were typical: “The valuable part of the German people is going under with us; what happens to the rest is meaningless. ” In contrast to Hitler, he was also a rationalist in his relationship with the jews. Hitler harbored a marked aversion to this. Himmler did not act out of feeling. He let murder in cold blood as long as he saw this as serving his goals, and could choose another route if it was more advantageous for his policy or for himself.
What motives could Himmler have made for the small concessions that he made in the last months of the war and made towards us too? He did not ask for anything in return. He certainly did not believe in being able to save his own life with concessions either. He was too intelligent for that; he knew very well that his register of sins was too large. Perhaps he wanted to appear in a more favorable light than the rest of the people primarily responsible for Germany’s crimes. The weak argumentation in his defense speech was surprising. Actually, all he could bring up in defense was lies. No logic in the constructions, no greatness in the thoughts that even a criminal can have, even if his morals violate the legal consciousness of normal people Only lies and excuses! Only consistent was his cynical view that the end justifies the means. that he was one of the main culprits for the mass murders of the jews came out indirectly from his own words. I remember with certainty that he said, regarding the number of jews in Hungary, “I left 450,000 behind.” Since he gave no further information, one can infer from this that he personally bore a substantial part of the responsibility for the fate of the other “Hungarian” jews. The number he gave of the jews left behind in Hungary was also wrong, at least enormously exaggerated. That he was one of the main culprits for the mass murders of the jews came out indirectly from his own words. I remember with certainty that he said, regarding the number of jews in Hungary, “I left 450,000 behind.” Since he gave no further information, one can infer from this that he personally bore a substantial part of the responsibility for the fate of the other “Hungarian” jews.
During the conversation Himmler did not explicitly say that the war had already been lost for Germany, but he let it be known in everything he said.
After Himmler left us, we slept for a few hours, or at least tried to. My inner tension had subsided. The task now was to get to Berlin as quickly as possible and then to Stockholm to discuss the measures to be taken to carry out the approved evacuation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Red Cross.
At ten o’clock we drove to Berlin by car. On the way there, I saw an image that is deeply imprinted on my memory: the gentlemen on the street. One vehicle at a time. Car full of old household appliances that had been hastily gathered up before the flight. Between the junk: women, children, old people. So this procession drew human misery from city to city, in wind and weather, away from the front. They were not allowed to stop anywhere; After a short stay for food and drink, they were forced to continue their journey, chased by the advancing front and by low-flying planes. The same image of misery that we have often seen in photos and in our imaginations: French, Poles, Russians, jews fleeing from the German Soldateska, images that were accompanied by the German people’s cheering for victory.
Shortly before Oranienburg we drove past long columns of men in civilian clothes, followed by guards. These were prisoners from the Oranienburg concentration camp on their way north, away from the front. Another forced evacuation because the Russians were approaching.
Better to clog the streets with these senseless transports, which are agonizing and life-threatening for the unfortunate victims, than give up the booty!
The proximity of the front made itself felt. The thunder of cannons could be heard. The streets were crowded with vehicles of all kinds. Our car was stopped; we should take the wounded with us. But we were allowed to continue, the road became clearer, and soon we were in Berlin. Now I saw the metropolis in daylight. A ghostly sight! A field of ruins of gigantic proportions. The facades of the houses half destroyed, the inside of the houses burned out. Seldom an intact, habitable house. Even before the battle for Berlin itself, two thirds of the city are said to have been completely destroyed, and yet three million people are said to have continued to live there. How and where is incomprehensible. During the whole trip through town I didn’t see a single real shop. In front of some houses poor and ill-dressed people stood in line, to buy groceries. There was extremely little traffic, few pedestrians, rarely a tram. We drove to the Swedish embassy. The elegant quarter on one side of the Tiergarten was completely “erased”. Only the victory column was undamaged!
We tried to meet Count Bernadotte, but did not find him at the embassy. We knew that Count Bernadotte was near Berlin because he wanted to meet with Himmler shortly after he had left us. We drove to the Gestapo building in West Berlin and spoke to one of Schellenberg’s employees who was monitoring the Red Cross transports on behalf of the German side. He said he knew where the Swedish bus convoy was: the evacuation of the Scandinavians had just been completed and they were on their way to Germany. He wanted to try to reach Count Bernadotte to divert the column to Ravensbrück.
Our task in Berlin was completed. Now it was time to come home. The siege of Berlin had begun; Russian shells hit the city center. A plane was supposed to leave for Copenhagen at two in the afternoon. It seemed uncertain whether the machine would start. The thought of the swarms of airplanes that we had seen the day before didn’t exactly make it feel comfortable. How was a German airplane supposed to escape these rulers of the sky? The air seemed to be pure, of course, as the Germans put it. We were equipped with heavy life jackets and at four o’clock we dropped off in a heavy condor plane, a troop transport plane. After almost two hours we landed safely in Copenhagen. What a liberating feeling, in a city with real houses, to be with calm, well-dressed people! We immediately traveled on to Elsinore by train, and by nine o’clock in the evening we were back on safe ground. We were in Sweden. The journey was over.
In Stockholm we learned on Sunday morning from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that a telegram had already arrived from the Swedish embassy in Berlin on our matter. On behalf of Count Bernadotte, it was stated that the buses were already on their way to Ravensbrück. A few days later we learned from Count Bernadotte that Himmler had agreed to the evacuation of all women from Ravensbriick to Sweden, in addition to the release of a thousand women he had promised us. The Swedish Red Cross was able to save 7,000 women of many different nationalities within a few days, about half of whom were jewish. The 50 or so jews imprisoned in Norwegian concentration camps were released and arrived here a few days later. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also announced that
A visit to the rescued jewish women in camps in southern Sweden was harrowing. What they had suffered for six long years was unspeakable. First imprisoned in ghettos, then in one concentration camp after another, including the worst of them all, Auschwitz. In all this misery, always hungry, always terrified of complete annihilation, working hard, tormented. that they were able to survive is a miracle, and only the strongest could endure all this terrible suffering for years. How are they supposed to get back to a normal life? Most are alone in the world, their families have disappeared, probably destroyed. Their houses, their environment – mostly “Polish” jewish women – have all been destroyed. Dutch, Belgians and others, jews and non-jews, can return to their respective home countries. But there is no turning back for these “Polish” jewish women. In her home region everything would only conjure up memories of the suffering in the ghetto and Auschwitz, memories of families who have disappeared, friends who have been murdered, and communities that have been destroyed. They long to live in a free jewish environment again. Palestine is probably their only chance to return to a normal life with human happiness.
The dramatic nightly meeting between two mortal enemies, the notorious Gestapo chief and a representative of the “tortured” jewish people, enabled the liberation of a small number of the countless victims of NAZISM. Under the given circumstances, a jewish engagement in favor of the jewish part of the population particularly threatened by extermination was only possible in cooperation with other forces working in the same direction. Felix Kersten’s role in facilitating the negotiations and his participation in them has already been mentioned. The practical exploitation of the negotiation results and the actual rescue of the prisoners could, as far as the evacuation from Germany was concerned, only take place through the self-sacrificing work of the Swedish Red Cross, which was in accord with the high ideals of this institution. The execution of the task was made possible as part of the large rescue operation of the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs through its initiatives and active support. No conditions were set, and no restrictions were placed on the number or nationality of those to be rescued. All were welcome as guests of the government. So they were saved for life and freedom.
Jürgen Graf continues…
So much for the Norbert Masur report. Has this given Heinrich Himmler’s statements truthfully?
We do not hesitate to answer this question with a clear yes, because what the jew Masurs’ Himmler said, according to his account, is in accordance with our current, documentary-based knowledge of the events in question. It was true that Himmler and the other NAZI leaders sought a relatively humane solution to the jewish question through emigration, but that even countries that were considered to be friendly to jews were reluctant to accept jewish emigrants. It was true that the jews in the east had supported the partisan movement as much as they could; Last but not least, jewish sources emphasize this appropriately. It was true that the crematoria in the concentration camps had been built as a direct consequence of the epidemic death and that, as Himmler foresaw with no illusions, the lies regarding the SS were twisted from them.
The difference between the jew Norbert Masur’s subsequent comment on Himmler’s statements and the answers and objections which, according to his own words, he himself put forward during the interview is immensely revealing. As was to be expected from a jewish “emigrant” and representative of the World Jewish Congress, in his brochure he represented the image of history that was just emerging at the time: Himmler was responsible for “the greatest mass murder in history”; the concentration camps were “corpse factories.” But in a conversation with the Reichsführer-SS he had merely accused him of undeniably “serious misdeeds” (svåra illgärningar) taking place in the camps – which Himmler also admitted, with the truthful reference to that in some cases he had ordered the guilty to be punished (after all, the Majdanek commandant Hermann Florstedt and the Buchenwald commandant Karl Koch were executed by the SS, and many members of the camp staff were sentenced to varying degrees). Under “serious misdeeds” one can understand, in addition to individual murders and ill-treatment, possibly mass killings of limited scope, but never a factory-like mass murder of hundreds of thousands or even millions.
Masur the jew writes that it gave him satisfaction to tell Himmler at least part of the truth about the crimes committed “in the face,” but is silent in his writing about what he said, in addition to the reference to the “serious misdeeds”, because otherwise had said to the face. He hadn’t mentioned the gas chambers in which millions of jews were supposed to have been murdered. The Soviets had liberated KL Majdanek in July 1944, nine months before Masur’s meeting with Himmler, and soon afterwards claimed that 1.7 million people had been murdered in that camp, a “large part” of them by gassing. On February 2, 1945, Pravda reported on gigantic mass murders in Auschwitz, some of which were carried out by means of an electric conveyor belt, partly in “gas chambers in the eastern part of the camp” (not in Birkenau!). As an influential representative of the World Jewish Congress, Masur was of course very well informed about all these allegations. The fact that he did not bring them up to Himmler allows only one conclusion: in April 1945 Norbert Masur did not believe in the gas chambers and did not want to make a fool of himself with Himmler by offering obvious atrocity propaganda. In his work, which appeared in the same year 1945 (we do not know the month), he also does not mention the gas chambers or the other murder techniques that were still discussed at the time (steam chambers, air extraction chambers, electrical killing systems). He was probably still unsure at the time
Heinrich Himmler only survived the meeting with Norbert Masur by 34 days. According to the official history version, he committed suicide in English captivity using a cyanide capsule, but this is only one of the countless lies about World War II.
In the spring of 1945 preparations for the coming Nuremberg trial had already started, and it was clear that the extermination of jews in “extermination camps” would be the central charge against the defeated. The Reichsführer-SS simply couldn’t be used as a defendant in this trial. A Dönitz, a Göring, even a Hans Frank, none of whom had anything to do with the concentration camps, could defend themselves by not knowing anything about what was going on there – Heinrich Himmler as head of the camp administration Organization was denied this way out from the start. Confronted with charges of systematic mass murder in the KLs, he would have replied with absolute certainty that there had been no such mass murder.
Heinrich Himmler was killed by the British the day after his capture. Proof of this is provided by the American author Joseph Bellinger in his book Himmler’s Death – Suicide or Murder? The last days of the Reichsführer-SS, published by Arndt-Verlag in early 2005.
In this book, Bellinger also goes into Himmler’s conversation with Norbert Masur and comments on it as follows:
“He [Himmler] had spoken almost continuously for two and a half hours. In a sense, this was his plea before the Tribunal of History, before which he defended himself against the charge of having ordered or tolerated numerous atrocities during the twelve years of the Third Reich…that this plea was handed down by a jew whose family was [appropriately] one of the innumerable persecuted for racial or religious reasons is certainly not without irony.”
Notes:
1) On June 8, 1990, Prof. Robert Faurisson wrote to the Swedish author Christopher Jolin, who had offered to help, to compare the Swedish original with the English translation and to report any discrepancies. On August 23, Jolin replied that although the English version was largely correct, it lacked a translation from three pages on which Himmler spoke on political questions; he enclosed these three pages with a translation into English. I am grateful to Prof. Faurisson for sending me copies of the two letters as well as the English text that has just been published.
2) In German in the text.
3) Here Masur apparently misunderstood Himmler’s statement. At most, he could have said that before the start of the evacuation from Auschwitz – which began in autumn 1944 – 150,000 Jews were imprisoned there, although this number would have been too high for that point in time: In August 1944, when the number of inmates at Auschwitz was among its number reached the highest level, 135,000 prisoners were held there (Danuta Czech, Calendar of Events in the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp 1939-1945, Rowolt Verlag, Reinbeck bei Hamburg 1989, p. 860). The proportion of Jews among the prisoners should have been around 80% at that time.
4) “Cet animal est très méchant, quand on l’attaque, il se défend.” (Contrary to Masur’s statements, this Knüttelverse does not come from La Fontaine. As Prof. Faurisson reports, it is taken from a French bankruptcy song of the 19th century.)
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