Hitler's Obersalzberg Speech

Hitler with Göring and von Schirach at Obersalzberg

The Obersalzberg Speech is a speech which Adolf Hitler delivered in the presence of Wehrmacht commanders at his Obersalzberg home on 22 August 1939, a week before the German invasion of Poland.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Origin of the "Lochner" version of the Obersalzberg speech

In August 1939, American journalist Louis P. Lochner contacted American diplomat Alexander Comstock Kirk and showed him the text, but Kirk was not interested.<ref name="auto">von Klemperer, Klemens The German Resistance Against Hitler: The Search for Allies Abroad, 1938–1945, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993 p. 133.</ref> Lochner next contacted British diplomat George Ogilvie-Forbes, who indeed transmitted it back to London on 25 August 1939.<ref>British Foreign Office, Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919–1939, Great Britain Foreign Office, p. 257.</ref><ref name="auto"/> Canadian historian Michael Marrus wrote that Lochner almost certainly obtained the text from Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, chief of the Abwehr (German intelligence), who was present at the Obersalzberg Conference.<ref>Marrus, Michael The Holocaust In History, Hanover: Brandeis University Press, 1987 pp. 20–21.</ref>

Three documents were grouped together during the Nuremberg trials that contained Hitler's speech on 22 August 1939 (1014-PS,<ref name=1014ps>"Translation of doc 1014-PS"https://library2.lawschool.cornell.edu/donovan/pdf/Batch_2_pdfs/Vol_IV_8_06.pdf</ref> 798-PS,<ref name=789ps>"Translation of doc 780-ps"https://library2.lawschool.cornell.edu/donovan/pdf/Batch_2_pdfs/Vol_IV_8_05.pdf</ref> and L-3,<ref name=GermanArchives/><ref name=GermanFedArch>"L-3 is inside the footnote of the document"http://library.fes.de/library/netzquelle/zwangsmigration/32ansprache.html</ref>) and only document L-3 contained Hitler's reference to the Armenian genocide.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Documents 1014-PS<ref name=GermanArchives/> and 798-PS were seized by U.S. forces inside the headquarters of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW)<ref name=nurnbergtranscp051746>"One Hundred and Thirty-Second Day Friday, 17 May 1946 page 64 " http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/05-17-46.asp</ref> but the documents did not contain the Armenian quote. On 16 May 1946, during the Nuremberg trials, counsel for one of the defendants, Dr. Walter Siemers, requested that the court strike document 1014-PS,<ref name=GermanArchives/> but his request was rejected.<ref name=nurnbergtranscp051646>One Hundred and Thirty-First Day Thursday, 16 May 1946 page 47"http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/05-16-46.asp</ref> Document L-3 was brought to the court by Lochner.<ref name=nurnbergtranscp051746/>

According to Lochner, while he was stationed in Berlin, he received a copy of a speech by Hitler from his informant. Lochner later published the speech (in English translation) in his book What About Germany? (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1942) as being indicative of Hitler's desire to conquer the world. In 1945, Lochner handed over to the Nuremberg prosecution a transcript of the German document he had received, and it was labeled L-3. Hence it is known as the L-3 document. The speech is also found in a footnote to notes about a speech that Hitler held in Obersalzberg on 22 August 1939 and was published in the German foreign policy documents<ref name=GermanArchives>"IMG Nürnberg 1014-ps" http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/A-Hitler-08-22-1939-at-Obersalzberg-on-planned-attack-on-Poland-and-extermination-of-Poles.pdf</ref><ref name=univsouthcaroline>"Portrayals of Hitler Project" http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/projects/hitler/hitler.htm</ref> When later asked at Nuremberg who his source was, Lochner said it was a German named "Herr Maasz" but gave vague information about him.<ref>Reisman, Arnold, Could the US Holocaust Memorial Museum Have Erred in a Major Exhibit? (31 December 2010). p. 18. Available at SSRN: [1]</ref>

The Times quoted from Lochner's version in an unattributed article titled "The War Route of the Nazi Germany" on 24 November 1945. The article stated that the document had been brought forward by the prosecutor on 23 November 1945 as evidence. However, according to the Akten zur deutschen auswärtigen Politik (ser. D, vol. 7, 1961), the document was not introduced as evidence before the International Military Tribunal for undisclosed reasons, and is not included in the official publication of the documents in evidence. Two other documents containing minutes of Hitler's Obersalzberg speech(es) had been found among the seized German documents and were introduced as evidence, both omitting the Armenian quote.<ref>In his scholarly essay published in 2008, the German researcher Dr. Richard Albrecht discussed all five versions of Hitler's second secret speech delivered to his High Commanders on 22 August 1939, at Obersalzberg and republished the first German version of the fifth which later on was named the Lochner- (or L-3-) version, at first published in the German journal in exile, "Deutsche Blätter. Für ein europäisches Deutschland / Gegen ein deutsches Europa" [Santiago de Chile], 2 (1944) 3, 37–39; see Richard Albrecht, "Wer redet heute noch von der Vernichtung der Armenier?" – Kommentierte Wiederveröffentlichung der Erstpublikation von Adolf Hitlers Geheimrede am 22. August 1939; in: Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte, 9 (2008) 2: 115–132</ref>

In Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression (colloquially known as "the Red Set"), a collection of documents related to the Nuremberg trials which was compiled by the prosecutorial team, the editors describe the relationship between the relevant documents as follows:<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In his book What about Germany?, Lochner offered the following English translation of the third paragraph of the document L-3:

See also

• Anti-Armenian sentiment
• Anti-Polish sentiment
• Anti-Slavic sentiment
• Expulsion of Poles by Germany
• Functionalism–intentionalism debate
• Hitler's Armenian reference, reportedly made during the speech
• Occupation of Poland (1939–1945)
• Total war#Germany
• War of annihilation

External links

• Nuremberg Trials, 26 November 1945 session
• 2008 scholarly article by Richard Albrecht (in German): "'Wer redet heute noch von der Vernichtung der Armenier?' Adolf Hitlers Geheimrede am 22. August 1939: Das historische L-3-Dokument," in: Zeitschrift für Genozidforschung 9:1 (2008) (Zeitschrift des Instituts für Diaspora- und Genozidforschung an der Ruhr-Universität Bochum), pp. 93–131.