Background & Overview
(August 1942)
The World Jewish Congress (WJC) representative in Geneva,
Gerhard Riegner, obtained information from a German manufacturer, Eduard
Schulte — who had connections in Hitler’s general headquarters
— indicating that Hitler had decided to systematically annihilate all of European Jewry, and
that gas was being used to attain this goal. After Riegner gathered
further information about his source, he approached the American Consulate
in Geneva with the report. He handed the deputy-consul a cable and asked
him to forward it to Stephen
Wise, an American Jewish leader. The cable contained the information
that Riegner had obtained from Schulte concerning the plans for the murder of European Jewry:
Received
alarming report that in Fuhrer's headquarters
plan discussed and under consideration
according to which all Jews in countries
occupied or controlled Germany numbering
3 1/2 - 4 million should after deportation
and concentration in east be exterminated
at one blow to resolve once and for all
the Jewish question in Europe. Action
reported planned for autumn; methods
under discussion including prussic acid.
We transmit information with all necessary
reservation as exactitude cannot be confirmed.
Informant stated to have close connections
with highest German authorities and his
reports generally speaking reliable
The sources of Schulte's
information are not known and the cable contained
some inaccuracies. For example, mass murder
of Jews had been going on since June 1941,
and gassings had been taking place since September 1941.
The cable spoke of a future
“blow” under “consideration,” whereas
the extermination that had been begun was
an ongoing process. Moreover, the cable itself
indicated that the information may not have
been true. The last sentence had been introduced
into the cable at the insistence of Dr. Paul
Guggenheim, a senior member of the WJC living
in Geneva. Nevertheless, the cable was a
breakthrough, because it confirmed seemingly
inconclusive information about the mass
murder that had reached the West previously.
The State
Department received the cable, but
decided not to transmit messages from “private
individuals.” On August
28, the second addressee of the cable, Sidney
Silverman, a member of the British Parliament,
sent a copy
of the cable to Wise. The Assistant
Secretary of State, Sumner
Welles summoned Wise and asked him not to disclose the
information until it could be verified.
Wise agreed, yet he informed a number of cabinet ministers, President
Roosevelt, Court Justice Felix Frankfurter and Christian clergymen.
On November 24, 1942, when the U.S. government was finally convinced, Wise
broke the news of the cable, together with other supporting information
to the press.
Thus, more than another year passed until the information, which was
already available in 1941, led to action.
Sources:Yad Vashem
and the Simon Wiesenthal
Center
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