https://research.calvin.edu/german-prop ... gercke.htm
Here is the original citation:
This is the periodical:The source: Dr. Achim Gercke, “Die Lösung der Judenfrage,” Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte, Heft 38 (May 1933), pp. 195-197, and in the same issue, Dr. Johann von Leers, “Das Ende der jüdischen Wanderung,” pp. 229-231.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationals ... onatshefte
See here for scans
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id= ... 00&seq=203
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000533043
Gercke
This is the same core complaint that is found in 19th century discussions of the "Jewish question."Everyone has seen that the current situation is intolerable. Allowing free development and equality for the Jews has led to an “unfree” situation of exploited competition, and to a handing over of important positions within the German people to those of a foreign race.
The declaration of war is of course a reference to the 1933 boycott.The legal measures that have just been issued by the government are cleansing actions that adroitly respond to Judah’s declaration of war. Primarily, the laws provide a direction in which to move. One should not underestimate the significance of these laws. The entire people will be educated about the Jewish Question and will come to understand that a people’s community is a community of blood. For the first time, they will be reached by racial thinking and will be focused not on theoretical solutions to the Jewish Question, but rather on a real solution.
Nevertheless, these temporary measures cannot be a final solution to the Jewish Question since the time is not yet ripe, although the laws point out the direction and leave room for any future developments.
The really interesting part though is the quite early 1933 reference to the "final solution." This might be the earliest Nazi reference that I am aware of. (There are some Zionist references going back to Herzl).
The original German: Trotzdem können die vorläufig erschienenen Gesetze keine endgültige Lösung der Judenfrage bringen, weil die Zeit dafür noch nicht reif ist, obwohl die Verordnungen schon die Richtung andeuten und insbesondere jede Entwicklung dahin offen lassen.
I believe "final solution" is more commonly "Endlösung" but "endgültige Lösung" seems to the equivalent meaning. Thus Bytwerk's translation, "final solution," appears to be correct.
Gercke's point here is that the 1933 anti-Jewish measures (which were amazingly mild, at least in a "Holocaust" context) were not a satisfactory long-term solution because Jews would still be part of German society. A permanent solution can only be achieved if the Jews leave Germany.All proposals that include a permanent presence, a permanent regulation of the Jews in Germany, do not solve the Jewish Question, for they do not eliminate the Jews from Germany (denn sie lösen die Juden nicht von Deutschland). And that is what we want to do. If the Jews are able to exploit their host peoples forever, they will remain a constant source of the open, destructive flame of Bolshevism, making it easy to repeatedly kindle it again, not to mention the political uncertainties resulting from disunity within the people and the danger to racial unity. Let us swear off such thinking forever, whether it results from poor thinking or evil intentions. To summarize, the state can and must focus on systematical elimination, on emigration.
Notice that some of the language here is exactly the sort of language that Holocaust promoters routinely seize upon as proof of the Holocaust.
"eliminate the Jews" (!)
"systematical elimination" (!)
Indeed, if such language occurred in a Himmler document from 1943 this would be cited as indisputable proof for the Holocaust. But in the above example Gercke helpfully says in explicit terms that he is referring to emigration. Not to mention that the text is too early (1933) to refer to any sort of extermination plan.
Gercke endorses a sort of Zionist solution, arguing that Jews need to have their own nation. The line of thinking here is that if the problem with Jews is that they are a parasitic minority, if you have a nation that's all Jews, this will force them to become "normal." (I suspect what the "Zionist" Nazis had in mind was something more like a supervised reservation rather than a totally autonomous country.)Perhaps the Jews will be able to become a nation, a people. That would require that Jewish workers, craftsmen, and settlers would develop from the Jewish population. If we regulate this plan, then we will create new foundations for such a settlement. Scattering the Jews to the four winds does not solve the Jewish Question, but rather makes it worse. A systematic program of settlement, therefore, is the best solution.
von Leers
Like Gercke, von Leers also endorses a Zionist-ish solution. And he even mentions Madagascar as a possibility (a notably early reference). What is most interesting however is that he explicitly states that only "barbarians" would consider "extermination of this people."What gives some justification to Zionism’s goals is not that they are often either excessively romantic or a peculiar kind of advertising for its thinking (as the old Jewish joke has it: “What is a Zionist? A Jew who wants money from a second Jew so that a third Jew can go to Palestine.”), but rather its claim that there is a question with regards to a Jewish people, and that it must be resolved. Zionism assumes that it can build a new Jewish people from the many Jewish individuals. It has, however, some justice in demanding a territorial foundation for its development.
Palestine is unable to absorb the coming Jewish masses since it cannot support them, nor is it the right location. Furthermore, England has to consider both the native Arabic population and the world-wide Islamic community, which makes it impossible to settle even a reasonably significant part of the Jewish masses there.
Only a barbarian standing outside of the last great divine manifestation of world history would propose a general anti-Semitic battle aimed at the extermination of this people. The goal of the highly developed peoples is not to promote hatred where there is a decent way to solve the problem.
The only imaginable, positive solution that will finally resolve the Jewish problem in Europe and at the same time provide the real possibility of becoming a people, of becoming rooted to land, and even perhaps allowing its less valuable elements to be influenced by the more valuable elements, is a healthy region outside Europe. The Dutchman von Dinghene, in his book Vollzionismus, has proposed the island of Madagascar, but one could also imagine certain other suitable African or South American regions.
Recap
These articles are yet more evidence against the "intentionalist" theories of the Holocaust. (Debunking intentionalism is very much beating a dead horse, but I think it's still worth doing as it paints the Holocaust side into a corner). Murdering all Jews was simply not contemplated at this time. If that ever did become the policy, this idea must have been conceived much later. We see then that language like "eliminate," while routinely interpreted homicidally nowadays, would not have had that interpretation at the time.
