The Gemlich Letter Started It All for Hitler

The Gemlich Letter can rightfully be considered another “slab” in the “slab stack” that ultimately launched the “Holocaust Avalanche” because in this letter (as sacred to the Nazis as “Mein Kampf”) Adolf Hitler made two crucial statements.

Crucial to the “Holocaust Project” that is. First that it is absolutely necessary to find and implement the “final solution to the Jewish question”. And second, that the end result of this final solution must be the total and irreversible removal of all Jews from Germany. In other words, making Germany Judenfrei… or Judenrein.

He did not specify the specific method for achieving this objective… but it is not surprising – it just was not his style. Initially, Himmler (as the SS was the lead agency in the “Jewish question”) at that time suggested forced emigration – and Hitler agreed (one of the results was the famous Haavara Agreement).

Then Madagascar Plan was suggested… and Hitler agreed again. In April of 1941, Himmler suggested that all Jews who posed any threat on German-occupied territories of the Soviet Union, must be shot – and Hitler agreed again (which made him equally guilty of genocide).

Himmler suggested to expand “Holocaust by Bullets” to ALL Jews -men, women, children and the elderly – and Hitler agreed again. Himmler and Heydrich suggested murdering ALL Jews in German-controlled territories in killing centers (death factories) using poison gas – Hitler approved again.

The Gemlich letter refers to a letter written by Adolf Hitler in September of 1919 (right around the time he joined DAP) at the behest of Karl Mayr (Hitler’s boss at the time) to one Adolf Gemlich, a German Army soldier.

The addressee was not important – the letter was. It was important because it was the first known piece of antisemitic writing by Hitler and his first political piece. And, also because it demonstrates (beyond the reasonable doubt) his firm commitment to finding and implementing the “final solution of Jewish question”.

In the letter, Hitler argues that antisemitism should be based on facts… however, he (as usual) cites no facts – only baseless allegations against the Jews. He states that Jews are Jews were a race and not a religious group which meant that they should be persecuted accordingly (a major departure from established practice of anti-Semitism being religious in nature).

Hitler also called for a “rational antisemitism” which would not resort to pogroms or senseless violence. And delivered on his promise – aside from Kristallnacht (November pogrom of 1938 which was unavoidable), there were no Jewish pogroms in the Third Reich. All violence against the Jews in Nazi Germany (including the lethal one) was rational and even “scientific”- which made the Holocaust even more horrible. Diabolical, actually.

The Gemlich letter, however, is an enigma. Enigma because Hitler’s antisemitism appeared almost “out of nowhere”. In fact, prior to that letter, Hitler got along with Jews pretty well. His family physician was Jewish; his commanding officer in the Army was Jewish; he relied on Jewish middlemen to sell his pictures… and he respected all of the above. And suddenly, out of the blue… this.

Prominent historian Richard J. Evans stated that historians now generally agree that Hitler’s “notorious, murderous anti-Semitism” emerged well after Germany’s defeat in the Great War.

He believed that this was the product of the paranoid “stab-in-the-back” explanation for this catastrophe… which I find highly unlikely. Unlikely because he knew for a fact (he saw it with hie own eyes) that the Jews in the trenches were no less patriotic than Germans – and fought no less bravely or fiercely.

I think that his (at the time not yet murderous) anti-Semitism was the result of indoctrination by fiercely anti-Semitic Thule Society (and integral part of Hitler’s Transformation from a nobody into the most gifted and successful political entrepreneurs and statemen in modern times).