The document reproduced below is from page 137 of the book "Auschwitz war für mich nur ein Bahnhof": Franz Novak - der Transportoffizier Adolf Eichmanns, by Kurt Pätzold and Erika Schwarz, published in 1994 by the Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung der Technischen Universität Berlin (Reihe Dokumente, Texte, Materialien, Bd. 13).

It is a telegram (Schnellbrief) of August 17, 1942 from Heinrich Himmler to the Reichminister for Finance. It was used as an exhibit in one of the trials of Franz Novak. Its source is given as PN (Prozess Novak) IX 391 - 393.

Picture shows (l. to r.): Arthur Nebe, Franz Huber, Heinrich Himler, Reinhard Heydrich, Heinrich Muller.

 

August 17, 1942

Im Rahmen der allgemeinen Lösung der Judenfrage und zur Sicherung der Besatzungstruppen in den besetzten französischen Gebieten werden laufend Juden aus Frankreich nach dem Reich transportiert. Zunächst werden die evakuierten Juden im KL. Auschwitz untergebracht, doch soll ein besonderes Auffanglager im westlichen Reichsgebiet errichtet werden. Die hierfür erforderlichen Baracken lagern versandbereit im besetzten französischen Gebiet und können nach Zahlung der Kaufsumme von 340 000,- RM sofort ins Reich transportiert werden.

Es ist beabsichtigt, monatlich 13 Eisenbahnzüge mit Juden in das Reichsgebiet abzufertigen. Bis zum 10.8.1942 sind 18 Züge aus Frankreich nach dem Lager Auschwitz abgegangen, die folgende Transportkosten verursacht haben: a) 76 000,- RM bis zur Reichsgrenze, b) 439 000,- RM von der Reichsgrenze bis zum Lager Auschwitz.

Die Kosten zu b) lassen sich künftig durch Errichtung eines Auffanglagers in Westdeutschland wesentlich verringern.

Der Militärbefehlshaber in Frankreich hat sich bereiterklärt, die Mittel zur Deckung der Transportkosten bis zur Reichsgrenze im Rahmen der monatlichen Betriebsmittelvorschüsse dem Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD in Paris zur Verfügung zu stellen. Die Kosten, die innerhalb des Reichsgebietes durch die Evakuierung der Juden aus Frankreich entstehen, werden zunächst vorschußweise von den Kassenanschlagsstellen der Sicherheitspolizei im Reich geleistet, damit in der Evakuierung keine Unterbrechung eintritt.

Ich bitte zu entscheiden, welche Ausgaben zu Lasten der Besatzungsmittel gehen und welche auf den außerordentlichen Haushalt der Sicherheitspolizei übernommen werden sollen. Gleichzeitig wird um Entscheidung gebeten, ob die vom Militärbefehlshaber in Frankreich an den Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD in Paris gezahlten Betriebsmittelvorschüße (Transportkosten usw. bis zur Reichsgrenze) dem Militärbefehlshaber über die Heeresstandortkasse Stuttgart erstattet werden sollen.

[H Himmler]

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Michael Mills comments from Australia, Friday, February 12, 1999

THE MAIN thrust of Himmler's telegram was to seek a decision on sharing the deportation costs between various agencies. The reference to construction of a camp in Western Germany to receive Jews deported from France seems to have been thrown in as a subsidiary matter.

The question is whether there was ever any intention to build the camp in Western Germany. Certainly the reference is couched in terms of cost reduction, the sort of language that any ministry of finance anywhere in the world wants to hear.

However, it is difficult to identify any reason why Himmler would want to deceive the Minister for Finance in such a way. The nomination of a definite purchase price for the building components suggests that the plan was real, and that it was far advanced.

If the plan was real, it is most likely that the intention was to deport at least some Jews from France directly to the camp in Western Germany, rather than send them all the way to Auschwitz and then back to Germany. Himmler's reference to a "substantial reduction" in the cost of transport from the Franco-German border to Auschwitz supports that interpretation.

I have never seen any reference to this plan in standard histories, or any indication that it was ever built. However, that might merely indicate that historians have not looked for the evidence. I have seen references to the fact that many young male Jews were offloaded from the Auschwitz transports at a place called Kosel in Upper Silesia, and used as forced labour there. It is entirely possible that other Jews were offloaded at the camp in Western Germany, if it was in fact built.

What is clear is that the numbers of Jews arriving at Auschwitz was less than the number despatched from France, and that the calculations made by historians such as Serge Klarsfeld and the late George Wellers were faulty.

The existence in mid-1942 of a plan to deport Jews from France to a camp in Western Germany does not seem consistent with a program of total extermination of all Jews in German power.

It underlines the fact that the German Government did discriminate between different groups of Jews; German and Western European Jews were considered "civilised", unlike the despised "Ostjuden", or the "Jewish Bolsheviks" of the Soviet Union.

The interpretation that at least in 1942 there was no all-inclusive extermination program in place is also consistent with Aumeier's testimony that although Jews began arriving at Auschwitz in mid-1942, the gassing of relatively small numbers of them commenced at the end of that year, and was a reaction to wide-spread epidemics and overcrowding.

It is also consistent with other evidence from 1942. For example, the deportation quotas set by Eichmann (100,000 from France, lesser numbers from Belgium and the Netherlands) that were less than the total Jewish populations of the countries concerned, and his instructions that the deportees should be healthy persons between the ages of 16 and 40. Another example is Höss' request that Jews deported from France should bring with them work-boots, sleeping and eating gear, and that if they did not those items should be forwarded on after them.

This evidence that in 1942 Jews were being deported from Western Europe primarily for forced labour seems to have been accepted by some historians, for example Robert Jan Van Pelt, who has advanced the thesis that Jews were originally sent to Auschwitz as a labour force in place of the Soviet POWs who were no longer available due to high rates of mortality among them.--Michael Mills