From: tichauer@valpso.hanse.de (Manfredo Tichauer)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast,soc.culture.german
Subject: Re: MEQ #23: Mufti meets Fuehrer (first in Berlin, now in the Hell!)
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 92 00:45:26 +0100
Organization: "The Private site of Manfredo Tichauer"


bdm@cs.anu.edu.au (Brendan McKay) writes:

> 
>       MEQ #23.  Der Fuehrer und der Grossmufti.
       
     [deleted lines]
   
>    The Fuehrer then made the following declaration, requesting
>    the Mufti to lock it deep in his heart:
 
     [deleted lines] 
 
>    3) As soon as this breakthrough was made, the Fuehrer would
>       offer the Arab world his personal assurance that the hour
>       of liberation had struck. Thereafter, Germany's only
>       remaining objective in the region would be limited to the
>       annihilation of the Jews [*] living under British
        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
>       protection in Arab lands...
> 
>    [Excerpts from a meeting between Adolf Hitler and Haj Amin
>    Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, on 28 November 1941.
>    The notes were taken by Dr. Paul Otto Schmidt, a translator
>    in the Foreign Minister's Secretariat.]
> 
>    Source:
>      geheime Reichssache 57 a/41, quoted in G. Fleming, Hitler and
>      the Final Solution (Univ of California Press, 1984) 101-104.
> 
>    [*] "Vernichtung des ...Judentums" in the German original.
>    [Akten zur D. Aus. Pol. 1918-1945, Ser. D, XIII/2, p718]
>    This phrase can reasonably be translated "annihilation of the
>    Jews" as here, but weaker interpretations are possible.
                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>    A query on soc.culture.german failed to resolve this issue
       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^     
>    despite more than 30 responses, ranging from "annihilation
>    of the Jews is the only possible translation" to "a dramatic
>    way to promise elimination of the Jewish national home".
>    What the Mufti considered he had been promised is uncertain,
>    as the only other record of the conversation, the Mufti's
>    diary, says merely "annihilate the power that brings the Jews",
>    maybe meaning Britain. [J. Peters, From Time Immemorial, p438]
>    The strongest known promise ever made to the Mufti in writing
>    was "abolition of the Jewish national home".
> 
>    Acknowledgement: Apart from the note, this MEQ was prepared by
>       Danny Keren.  The note was written by the editor.

    Only a blunt antisemite and/or a nazi would have the guts to 
    put such a theory on the net. "Vernichtung des ... Judentums"
    was not only meant by Hitler: at that time (November 1941)
    the SS and SD troops stationed in the eastern occupied territories
    (like Poland, etc.) were fully doeing their "job" by liquidating
    Jews and other members of "minderwertige Rassen"(inferior races),
    short before the Wansee-Conference (January 20.1942).
    If the "query on soc.culture.german failed to resolve this issue"
    as "professor" Brendan MacKay (from the same school as the
    "historian" David Irving) states, it might be because Mr.McKay wanted to
    interprete it like that (like a failure). The other possibillity
    could be the following reason: many Germans will try to belittle
    the word "Vernichtung" because of shame over their own history or
    because they want to minimize it.

    Any well intentioned German, either educated or not, knows that
    "Vernichtung" was meant and means ANNIHILATION, LIQUIDATION.

    When a German says :

     "Ich werde die Ratten vernichten die bei mir zuhause im Keller
      laufen", he means that he will destroy, annihilate, liquidate
      physically the rats he has in the basement of his house. Period.

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