Erich Neumann Saved Productive Jews

Contrary to a very popular misconception, Hermann G;ring was not a diehard anti-Semite (his deputy in Luftwaffe, Erhard Milch who for all practical purposes ran the latter, was half Jewish – and it did not bother G;ring at all).  It was G;ring who coined the famous statement: “I decide, who is the Jew – and who isn’t” – and he pretty much lived by that maxim.

True, it was G;ring who tasked Heydrich with finding and implementing the “final solution to the Jewish question” – but everybody knew, that it was Hitler’s order and G;ring was a mere intermediary (a courier even).

In reality, G;ring did not care much about extermination of the Jews – but he did care a lot about making his Reichswerke (which pretty much controlled German wartime economy) operate at the maximum performance possible.

And when it needed irreplaceable Jewish workers, G;ring wanted them in his employ – not in gas chambers or in shooting ranges. And when G;ring (the second-in-command in the Reich) wanted something, he got it.

Enter Erich Neumann – close associate of G;ring at the Office of a Four-Year Plan and his representative at Wannsee Conference. Like most of the attendees, he was a lawyer by training – he studied law (and economics) at the Universities of Freiburg, Leipzig and Halle-Wittenberg.

He was a Great War veteran – he fought bravely on the Eastern front, rising to the rank of Leutnant of reserves, having earned the Iron Cross, second class, and the Wound Badge (he was honorably discharged due to a severe hand wound).

He had extensive experience in banking, trade and commerce (as well as in government service) and in September of 1933 he was appointed to the Prussian State Council by Hermann G;ring and served as its secretary at the time of Wannsee Conference (thus becoming the close associate of the latter indeed).

At Wannsee Conference, Neumann requested that Jewish workers in firms essential to the war effort not be deported for the time being. His objection was not that they should be spared based on humanitarian or moral grounds, only that they not be deported before replacements could be found, thus temporarily keeping them for their economic benefit to the Reich. Thus, saving thousands of Jews.

After the war, Neumann was arrested by the Allies, but denied all knowledge of the Holocaust, even refusing to admit that he had been an attendee at the Wannsee Conference. No charges were ever brought against him and he was released due to poor health in mid-1948. He died peacefully in 1951 of acute circulatory failure.