December 12,1941

An analysis of the work of historian Christian Gerlach, who in his 1997 essay discussed proof of an internal speech of Hitler's from December 12 1941 that no other researcher had mentioned before. In this speech, which is reported twice, almost identically, in the diaries of senior members of the Nazi regime, Hitler approved in all clarity that which in many locations had already begun and many had long wanted – complete annihilation of the European Jewry. Only after Hitler's speech of December 12 was Heydrich able, as Gerlach shows, to broaden the theme of the Wannsee conference of January 1942 to "Final Solution of the European Jewish question".