The Holocaust in NS Rhetoric in Yad Vashem Studies, Volume XVI

The Holocaust in National-Socialist Rhetoric and Writings - Some Evidence against the Thesis that Before 1945 Nothing Was Known about the “Final Solution”

Historians searching for “secret” sources to prove who knew about the Final Solution have overlooked clear and “open” evidence — the public speeches and writings of Nazi leaders. This study discusses two works as examples: an editorial by Joseph Goebbels in the widely distributed newspaper Das Reich, May 9, 1943 (quoted here almost in full), and a pamphlet by Robert Ley Pesthauch der Welt (“Pestilential Miasma of the World”), published in 1944 in Dresden. Millions of readers, then, knew that the Final Solution was in progress, unless they claim “selective perception” as an argument for lack of awareness.