Recently a frequent correspondent and follower on Twitter/X asked me about whether the following infographic was real or not:
The allegation is simple enough: Martin Bormann – head of the NSDAP’s Party Organization and a major player in the politics of the Third Reich – advocated a massive reduction of the Slavic population – it is implied that this is global not specific to a country and/or geographic region – via not providing a decent health service and compulsory vaccination.
The claimed quote runs as follows:
‘The Slavs are to work for us. Insofar as we do not need them, they may die. Therefore, compulsory vaccination and German health service are superfluous. The fertility of the Slavs is undesirable.’
The quote comes from Vol. 11 of the Proceedings of the Nuremberg Trials and is supposed to be from a letter that Bormann sent on 23rd July 1942.
Now this is one of those cases where you can see whoever is creating said infographic is doing so extremely dishonestly since as to find that quote in the Proceedings of the Nuremberg Trials you would have had to have seen the rest of it as well as the context that stipulates what this is.
The context shows the infographic’s claim to be a lie.
The full quote from the Proceedings of the Nuremberg Trials is actually:
‘Moving down a little bit, he says:
“Imagine the formulas of Bormann’s letter translated into the language of a member of the German civilian administration, and you will get, roughly, the following views:
“The Slavs are to work for us. Insofar as we do not need them, they may die. Therefore, compulsory vaccination and German health service are superfluous. The fertility of the Slavs is undesirable. They may use contraceptives or practice abortion, the more the better. Education is dangerous. It is enough if they can count up to 100. At best an education which produces useful coolies for us is admissible. Every educated person is a future enemy. Religion we leave to them as a means of diversion. As for food, they will not get any more than is necessary. We are the masters; we come first.”
Then it goes on to say:
“These sentences are by no means overstatements. On the contrary they are covered, word by word, by the spirit and the text of Bormann’s letter. Already at this point the question arises whether such a result is desirable in the interests of the Reich. It can hardly be doubted that these views would become known to the Ukrainian people. Similar opinions prevail already today.”
Moving on, the next paragraph, with the Number 2, says:
“But there is no real need to assume a fictitious decree as was done in Paragraph 1. The above-mentioned concept of our role in the East already exists in practice. The Reich Commissioner for the Ukraine has expounded his views of the Ukrainian people governed by him in three successive speeches at the inauguration . . . .” — et cetera.’ (1)
What is happening here is that US Nuremberg Prosecutor Thomas Dodd is interrogating German Eastern Ministry head and National Socialist ideologue Alfred Rosenberg about German ‘plans in the East’ and has brought up a letter forwarded to Rosenberg by the head of the Political Office of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (‘Reichsministerium fur die besetzten Ostgebiete’) Georg Leibrandt from one of his subordinates named ‘Dr. Markull’ and about whom I can find no information at present.
We can clearly see that the infographic is being completely dishonest about the quote because the quote isn’t from Bormann at all, but rather from Dr. Markull’s letter to Leibrandt of 19th August 1942. (2)
Further Markull clearly states before stating the words in the quote that:
‘Imagine the formulas of Bormann’s letter translated into the language of a member of the German civilian administration, and you will get, roughly, the following views:’ (3)
He even clarifies what he means after the quote by stating that:
‘But there is no real need to assume a fictitious decree as was done in Paragraph 1.’ (4)
So, what Markull is explicitly saying here is not that these are Bormann’s words but rather these are what Bormann’s words would mean – in his opinion – if they were ‘translated into the language of a member of the German civilian administration’ meaning in terms of actual policy. Basically, what Markull is stating is that ‘Bormann’s claims would mean these lunatic policies if we actually implemented them’ not that they were going to be (or were being) implemented.
We can also see this from the later context referring to the speeches of is that what Markull is criticising to Leibrandt which is the views on the Slavs of Gauleiter Erich Koch – a Bormann appointee – who was then Reichskommissar of the Ukraine.
What is not being stated here is this is German policy or even Bormann’s preferred policy, but rather that this would be the consequences of Bormann’s ideological missive if it was to be actually be implemented which is Markull’s polite way of requesting that Leibrandt – and presumably by proxy Rosenberg – intervene to get Bormann to stop trying to seize responsibility for Eastern policy from Rosenberg by claiming to have more radical policies than Rosenberg.
We don’t have Bormann’s original letter of 23rd July 1942 to my knowledge, so we don’t know what precisely Bormann said or whether Markull’s characterisation of it was in any way accurate or just another piece of ministerial jockeying for political position. Further Markull’s letter to Leibrandt (Exhibit USA-699 036-R at Nuremberg) isn’t one reproduced in the appendices of the Proceedings of the Nuremberg Trials. (5)
This naturally hasn’t stopped overt lies about this document being spouted with the infographic claiming they were Bormann’s words on 23rd July 1942 not Markull’s overtly sarcastic parody of what those words could mean if turned into actual policy, but an American Lutheran named R. Scott Clark – the ‘President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association’ – has reproduced the quote without the first clarifying sentences before and after to make it look like an actual policy advocated by Markull.
He reproduces the quote as follows:
‘The Slavs are to work for us. Insofar as we do not need them, they may die. Therefore, compulsory vaccination and German health service are superfluous. The fertility of the Slavs is undesirable. They may use contraceptives or practice abortion, the more the better. Education is dangerous. It is enough if they can count up to 100. At best an education which produces useful coolies for us is admissible. Every educated person is a future enemy. Religion we leave to them as a means of diversion. As for food, they will not get any more than is necessary. We are the masters; we come first.
—Dr. Markull, Ministry for Occupied Eastern Territories, to Reich Minister Rosenberg 19 August 1942 in the Nuremberg Trial Proceedings, 17 April 1946, 541–42.’ (6)
Aside from (deliberately?) leaving out the two clarifying passages which make it crystal clear Markull is sarcastically parodying Bormann’s letter of 23rd July 1942 not advocating this as an actual policy. Clark also manages to get the reference wrong – it is found on pp. 542-543 of Vol. 11 of the Proceedings not pp. 541-542 – and thinks Markull sent the letter directly to Rosenberg when it was in fact sent to Leibrandt who then forwarded it on to Rosenberg.
Put another way Clark – much as with the infographic – is being completely and utterly dishonest about what Markull’s letter said while claiming to have checked the quote himself (which he clearly didn’t).
So thus, we can see that while the quote is from a real document; it isn’t from Martin Bormann but rather from Dr. Markull who is sarcastically parodying Martin Bormann’s words – which again as far as I know we don’t have – and not advocating for them to be adopted as the Third Reich’s policy in the East.
References
(1) International Military Tribunal, ‘Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 14 November 1945 – 1 October 1946’, Vol. 11, 1st Edition, International Military Tribunal: Nuremberg, pp. 542-543
(2) Ibid., p. 541
(3) Ibid., p. 542
(4) Ibid., p. 543
(5) Should be found (but is not) between International Military Tribunal, Vol. 38, Op. Cit., pp. 236-237
(6) https://heidelblog.net/2015/08/nazi-policy-abort-the-undesirables/
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