British Intelligence on the “Final Solution” in Yad Vashem Studies, Volume XXXII

Conflicting Signals: British Intelligence on the “Final Solution” Through Radio Intercepts and Other Sources, 1941-1942

The release of the so-called German Police Decodes – signals sent by the SS and Police intercepted and decoded by British intelligence – to the British archives in 1997 has offered historians a new source with which to both examine the killing operations of German police battalions behind the Eastern Front in 1941 and the deportations to Auschwitz in 1942 as well as the knowledge of the British government of these crimes. Using these and other sources, this article re-examines the level of knowledge and more importantly, comprehension available to British intelligence in 1941 and 1942 of these crimes and the development of Nazi policy towards European Jews. It argues that contrary to some existing interpretations, the Police Decodes did not provide the British with clear-cut evidence of the Nazi policy of extermination, but in fact contributed to an interpretation of Nazi intentions that failed to acknowledge the genocidal direction of Nazi policy until late 1942.