Holocaust Exceptional All Jews Die a Myth Wallace

In the Name of Humanity, by Max Wallace. 2017

Bombshell! Nazi Germany Herself, and Not the Victorious Allies, Put an End to the Holocaust

The chief argument advanced for the elevation of the Holocaust over the genocides of all other peoples is the one about the unprecedented attempt to destroy every single member of the targeted group, as well as the Nazi “unique obsession” with destroying Jews, whatever the cost. It does not follow that the Holocaust is deserving of special recognition even if both were true. But, as it turns out, and as this book amply shows, both premises are false. [Note that, in bringing these facts out, I am in no sense questioning the magnitude of Jewish suffering or the fact of 5-6 million murdered European Jews.]

The author identifies himself as a secular Jew. (p. 398). He acknowledges that he has observed the prejudices against ultra-Orthodox Jews, by secular Jews. (pp. 397-398). He suggests that, for this reason, the role of ultra-Orthodox Jews, in the crucial negotiations with the Nazis, has not received the deserved recognition in Holocaust historiography. (pp. 397-398).

As elaborated in the next section of this review, “Final Solution” does not necessarily mean extermination: It consists of any combination of extermination and emigration—so long as Europe ends up JUDENREIN (free of Jews). In fact, throughout the duration of the Third Reich, some Jews were always allowed to go free, and not only during the last half-year precedent to Germany’s military defeat, as is featured in this book.

CONFLICTING NAZI “SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT” ON THE EXTERMINATION OF JEWS

To begin with, there is still no written document, from Hitler, ordering the Shoah itself. (p. 89). There is no agreement, among scholars, as to when the Holocaust itself began. Nor, as elaborated below, was there any consensus among the Germans (Nazis) as to how far it should proceed.
Based on cited archival documents (p. 441), author Max Wallace writes, “One extreme faction of the Gestapo (dubbed Group C) was impatient to continue extermination and had wanted to resume deportations as early as August 19 [1944]. This group, which he [Kasztner] said represented Hitler’s attitude, wanted to liquidate the Jews even if Germany lost the war. The Hungarian regime was either powerless to act or indifferent to the plight of Jews, he explained. This group would permit no emigration whatsoever. Himmler’s faction (Group B), whose attitude toward the Jewish Question was ‘indifferent,’ representing a middle course, he explained. This group didn’t oppose the release of Jews, especially if they could be used to obtain goods of value to the Reich in exchange. Meanwhile, a third faction (Group A) believed extermination as a policy was undesirable. However, it was unclear to Kasztner how large or influential this last group was.” (pp. 267-268).
Moreover, actions speak louder than words. If Hitler was serious about exterminating every single Jewish man, woman, and child, moreover irrespective of the eventual fate of the Third Reich, he surely would have intervened and halted Himmler’s Jewish-release actions. However, author Wallace does not explain this. Note that secret negotiations are one thing. But could something as obvious as the blowing-up of the Auschwitz-Birkenau crematoria on November 25, 1944 (p. 271, 280)—almost a full two months before the arrival of the Red Army—be kept secret from Hitler all this time?

THE KEY FINDING OF THIS BOOK: NAZI DEALS FOR SPARING JEWS

This subject goes beyond the customary attention to the negotiations between Adolf Eichmann and Leonard Brand. (pp. 211-on). Author Max Wallace (p. 275) cites new evidence linking the deliberate Nazi termination of the systematic (as opposed to the ongoing individual) killings of Jews, in November 1944, with the Himmler-centered negotiations regarding goods in exchange for Jews. Pointedly, Wallace adds that, “The significance of these two documents cannot be overstated. It is the first time that the tractor bribe has been linked to a full-scale release of Jews or a promise to halt the exterminations rather than simply the release of the Kasztner train passengers. The promise of three hundred tractors may be small compared to the Germans’ initial demand for ten thousand trucks but it would represent the first time during these extraordinary negotiations that any ransom had ever been paid in high-value goods rather than in cash—goods that the Nazis had long been demanding but had never received because the Allies had explicitly forbidden such transactions.” (pp. 287-288).

MYTH-SHATTERING IMPLICATIONS OF THE NAZI HALTING OF THE HOLOCAUST

Max Wallace quips, “To this day, conventional wisdom and many historians maintain that it was the Allied liberation of the camps that halted the exterminations. This is a convenient argument. But it is difficult to ignore the evidence that suggests the Nazis’ wholesale liquidation of European Jewry ended almost six months before VE Day. The same evidence may well explain why there were any survivors of the camps at all.” (p. 290).

In terms of specifics, author Wallace says that estimates of Jews who survived the Holocaust or the camps range from 300,000 to 500,000. (p. 389). This figure encompasses 200,000 Hungarian Jewish survivors, but not the Polish Jews who were out of reach of the Nazis by virtue of their relocation into the interior of the Soviet Union. Pointedly, Wallace suggests that it is difficult to estimate the number of Jews who survived as a direct fruit of the Jewish-Nazi negotiations featured in this book. (p. 389).