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It's pretty clear because Himmler says things like:
and
Luckily we have the 6 October speech to take us from "pretty clear" to "crystal clear." Where Himmler says, one more time:
Please explain how "the hard decision to wipe this people off of the face of the earth" can refer to either the killing of partisans or resettlement.
The very first thing he said before the first two passages you posted was "Ich meine die Judenevakuierung": "I mean the evacuation of the Jews." So is he using a euphemism or is he being clear he means extermination? You are saying he is going back and forth, and then in Weimar two months later he's back to the euphemism.
Revisionists don't doubt the brutality of a forced resettlement/deportation operation which would have had a high mortality. Passages like:
Sounds like a recognition of a bloody affair, which the evacuation undoubtedly was. It sounds like a speech a general could have given to troops justifying the firebombing of German or Japanese cities: "You all know what it's like to see mass death, and we know these actions are taking the lives of women and children but we have to be tough or the fascists will conquer the world blah blah". A general giving such a speech would not even consider the possibility of people later trying to infer a secret policy to exterminate all German people from a speech like that.
There is obviously tough talk and recognition of a bloody affair, but inferring a specific policy from such a speech would only be the act of desperation from someone who cannot rely on the documentation to definitively establish the policy being claimed. Especially when the very first sentence completely contradicts your interpretation of the policy inferred from these general words, and when later speeches continue to describe the policy as an evacuation.
Because this:
Sounds like it's trying to convey the same point made in a speech only two months later, where he also describes the policy as resettlement and it's obviously tough talk to rationalize reprisals against partisans and commissars:
I know you want to claim that there's no way these two passages from two different speeches were intended to convey the same idea, you are saying that these two passages had completely different meanings, but just reading them side by side it seems clear the point of this part of the speech is the same: it's tough talk to justify reprisals and the undoubtedly brutal forced resettlement.
Lastly, the dilemma presented in the passage you are leaning on doesn't make sense if you assume he is admitting to an extermination policy. Himmler justifies killing women and children so the children don't grow up and take revenge... but if the plan was to exterminate them all then this would never have entered into the decision calculus. The dilemma between killing children or having them grow up to take revenge (a dilemma also presented in the December speech which describes a policy of resettlement) only makes sense in the context of targeted killings and does not make sense in the context of a policy of extermination, in which case this would be a non-issue.
"Ich meine die Judenevakuierung," and then he clarifies, "die Ausrottung des jüdischen Volkes."
Weird thing to say, considering "evacuation" was what the Nazis told the world they were doing with the Jews.
No, actually they have very similar meanings, I don't know what you are imagining that I am saying.
Five times Himmler refers to this idea of "not allowing avengers to grow up."
In the speech of 6 October, in the December 1943 speech, in his notes for January of 1944, in the Sonthofen speech of 5 May, and in the Sonthofen speech of 24 May, always in the context of the solution to the Jewish question, and only once does he refer to "partisans and commissars."
"No avengers" is a generic policy applied to Jews in general, as evidenced by the fact that 4/5 times that Himmler employs this formulation he makes no reference of partisans or reprisals. Naturally it also includes the families of Jewish partisans and commissars.
I will say once more, partisans are not a "Volk." Himmler uses the word two-dozen times in the speech and every single time it refers to a race or a nation.
What? Killing children to prevent avengers IS the extermination policy.
Your logic isn't new, it was brought up in the Nuremberg Trials as well and Otto Ohlendorf responded to your accusation:
So the prosecutor conceded that he wasn't making a very good argument, but you continue to present that argument as definitive because relying on a narrow interpretation of some speeches, while handwaving large amounts of other speeches and documents as "code" is what you have to work with.
The context of these speeches were in the aftermath the Warsaw uprising where the treatment of partisans was a salient issue. The issue of reprisals was a salient one internally during the war and after the war as well. You are saying that, on the one hand, Himmler made speeches about this controversy, but during this October 6 speech in Posen he was casually admitting to a policy of genocide in between his use of euphemisms, even though he was using identical terms to explain the partisan controversy in other speeches. It's just not a good argument, even the prosecutor had to admit it.
On more aspect of the Posen speeches is that Himmler describes a "strict order" he gave to Pohl to administer the utilization of confiscated property:
Of course this was Operation Reinhardt, whereas Himmler alludes to no such grand orders to Globocnik for secret extermination even though he's ostensibly confessing to an extermination policy in your interpretation.
As I'm sure you know, Operation Reinhardt ended with Himmler ordering Globocnik to submit a report to Pohl on the operation, which reinforces the revisionist interpretation as well. That report has nothing to do with extermination as you know, the report was about the utilization of confiscated property with not even a "euphemistic" reference to extermination. It's amazing there would be so much secrecy and compliance in their own top-secret internal reporting on the operation, where even the final report on Operation Reinhardt contains no direct or even euphemistic reference to extermination, but then Himmler would just casually admit to it in a speech in between other speeches where he continues to use the euphemism. That just doesn't make any sense.
There is rarely "definitive" evidence in history. Several speeches in which he states that the Jewish question is to be solved by killing children to leave "no avengers" is pretty close to definitive though.
Of course there is other evidence to consider, like the various Nazi documents where 'resettlement' is clearly and explicitly a euphemism for 'murder' or the glaring lack of any documentation for an actual eastern 'resettlement.' But let's stay on topic, since not every piece of evidence can be discussed as once.
I am saying Himmler can talk about different, if related, things at different times and the fact that every time but one that he uses the formulation "no avengers" he makes no mentions of partisans (but always to the final solution) makes your argument that if Himmler talks about killing children to prevent the rise of "avengers" he must in every instance be talking about partisans entirely unpersuasive and completely counter to any natural interpretation of the speech.
It does make sense because Himmler explicitly says in several of these speeches that now he's speaking secretly and the "hard task" never be spoken of in public. Which makes absolutely no sense on the revisionist interpretation, because "resettlement" wasn't a secret at all and was exactly what the Nazis announced to the world at large and to the Jews themselves that they were going to do.
Why does Himmler immediately follow up his statement about killing women and children with the statement that "this people ["Volk"] had to disappear from the face of the earth?" Do you think the "Volk" he refers to is 'partisans'? Why does he say that "in the lands we have occupied...there will be left only...individual Jews who are in hiding"? Is "the East" (nebulous as always--'the East' is not a place on a train schedule to which people can be deported) not included in "the lands we have occupied"?
He says he is speaking secretly and of a "hard task" in a passage where he explicitly mentions partisans and commissars. This passage is extremely similar to the passage where you are alleging that he was referring to every Jew:
Do you doubt he's referring to partisans and commissars here? Or are you going to deploy the "euphemism" card again?
Yes, because if you're killing the wives and children of every Jew, that naturally includes every Jewish partisan and commissar. And, presumably, non-Jewish partisans and commissars, since there were plenty.
Himmler isn't an idiot and when he wants to talk about partisan warfare he is perfectly capable of using the term 'partisan' or otherwise indicating that he is talking about partisan warfare. So no he's not using a euphemism, he's speaking about something specific (Commissar order etc. which ofc did not apply to the GG or Germany anyways), whereas in the other speeches he is speaking more generally.
Answer this:
There's a difference between being an idiot and considering that your enemies are going to decades later try to interpret every single word you say to assert the pre-concluded existence of a huge conspiracy that didn't exist. If there were no extermination policy, Himmler would not have been concerned with saying a phrase here or there that would be pounced on by people like you decades later to try to give credibility to the allegedly systematic use of code-words and euphemism across extant documentation.
This speech was in the recent aftermath of the Warsaw uprising which was big news (where the fighters were treated harshly as partisans), and partisans were already part of the earlier subject of his speech. You argue that Himmler says "enough about partisans," but the fact is if a speaker says "enough about X" then it's far more likely that X is going to be revisited later in the speech, particularly vaguely and in passing, because it is already established to be an important topic of the speech and will be fresh in the mind of the audience. This is basic logic that is only thrown out the window because your side really needs to selectively call unambiguous statements in documents "euphemism," and ambiguous statements as "direct confirmation" for your theory.
Good, so he's not using a euphemism here and he's talking about partisans and commissars, agreed. But you are saying he is using a euphemism earlier in that very speech when he describes the migration East of the Jews. The more likely solution than "inconsistent usage of euphemisms" is that he was trying to portray a convey similar idea in slightly different words across two speeches that were only two months apart.
This is exactly what I mean, you pounce on words like "these people", I think he is identifying an enemy in a vague and essentialist sense, like partisans or Bolshevists. For example, in that passage, which you acknowledge was not a euphemism, on partisans and commissars he uses "subhumans". So the identification of "subhumans" with "this people" isn't nearly as unlikely as you are trying to let on. Again, if there is any ambiguity then there should be a bias towards interpreting very similar passages across two speeches two months apart to have a continuity in meaning, rather than assigning the nearly identical passages dramatically different meanings based on a few choice words like "this people."
It's not "a phrase here and there" it's several paragraphs of a speech.
No, when someone says "enough about X" that usually means they're done talking about X. That is quite literally what "enough about X" means. Especially when they move on to talk about a bunch of other unrelated stuff and give no indication they've returned to the topic X. In fact Himmler notes at each point in the speech when he changes topic, and here he says he is going to begin talking about the solution to the Jewish question, nothing so specific as partisans. If he wanted to talk about partisan reprisals, he would have talked about them in the section of the speech specifically dedicated to partisan warfare.
Possibly but not necessarily. Some Jews were in fact sent east to work. Others from the Reich sent east and then shot in the Baltics and Belarus. Not very many, but some.
He doesn't say "these people." That would be quite different. That would probably be "diese Leute" or "diese Menschen." He says "this people." "Dieses Volk." The word should of course be interpreted in context, so see that Himmler uses the word 'Volk' about two-dozen times in this speech, and every time to refer to an ethnicity or a nation. It would be quite strange and unnatural if he made an exception in this sentence, despite no contextual indication that this is the case. In fact the opposite is true, and the obvious natural referent of 'Volk' in this sentence is the Jews, since the Jews are mentioned very many times in the immediate preceding and succeeding paragraphs, unlike partisans. There is no ambiguity.
Yes, they are subhumans who are partisans and commissars. They are not subhuman by virtue of being partisans and commissars. Obviously not because their wives and children are also subhumans, and yet their wives and children obviously aren't partisans and commissars.
Not dramatically different. Very similar. October speech talks about the Jews as a whole, December specifically refers to 'commissars and partisans.' Then again, the Nazis viewed 'partisan' and 'Jew' as more or less interchangeable.
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