Himmler's note infers Hitler knew of liquidation ?

[The Warden]

The full notation reads: "Arrest Dr. Jekelius. Presumably Molotov's son. Transport of Jews from Berlin. No Liquidation."14

I was searching for something and came across this thread. Interesting, but I can't help but think the problem with the translation is with the word liquidation. I've seen this term used in a Heydrich memo, and I believe this term to mean removal in the sense of eliminating the presence of.

Reading the part of the memo after thinking in removal terms, I translate the four lines of text as:

1) Arrest Jekelius. (I believe the arrest was an attempt to have the presumed son brought out of any danger in the area, perhaps an impending plan of the Germans, which they would obviously know about beforehand)
2) Presumably Molotov's son. (Not much to debate here)
3. Transport of Jews from Berlin. (I believe this was an order to put him on the train if arrested)
4) No liquidation. (This is where I believe the order means to keep the presumed son from being relocated with the others on the train, as if he was to be brought to a predetermined location for another purpose)

I know it's aloose translation, and it's based purely on opinion, but after reading the thread, that's about the only thing that made sense. And it's as feasible as any other in here.

[Reinhard]

This is the telephone-log we are talking about:



Some people here seem to believe that "Dr. Jekelius" was the son of USSR-Foreign Secretary Molotov and was part of that transport of Jews which therefore had to be saved from execution.

That's complete nonsense.

First of all the proper translation of "Angebl. Sohn Molotow" would not be "Presumably Molotov's son", but rather "Molotov's alleged son".

Neither was Jekelius believed to be Molotov's son (which according to David Irving's research had no son), nor had this Jekelius anything to do with that train of deported Jews.

Jekelius was a Viennese physician involved in the Euthanasia program and Hitler had the suspicion that he was going to marry his sister Paula:

http://www.fpp.co.uk/Hitler/Paula/diary_found.html

http://www.fpp.co.uk/Himmler/Note301141b.html


Moreover David Irving has proved that Himmler had his meeting with Hitler that day, after his phone call with Heydrich on the above quoted topics which had taken place at 1:30 p.m.:

http://www.fpp.co.uk/Himmler/Note301141.html

He met with Hitler for lunch from 2:30 to 4:00 p.m., so the decision not to liquidate that transport had been taken before by himself and Heydrich:

http://www.fpp.co.uk/Himmler/Note301141d.html

[Pappy Yokum]

If I understand this particular document the German phrase used is "kein Liquidierung" or something like that.

That fact that there is a five page discussion of two words used by Himmler in relation to a transport of Jews speaks a lot about the amount of clear documentation linking the upper echelons of the Nazi regime to some imaginary extermination program.

I listened to a discussion of this telephone log entry in the early 1990's. I believe David Irving was present or, at least, his interpretation of the entry was discussed. The argument was made that in the context of the note, it was not the Jews who were not to be killed, but the transport itself. That is, the transport was not being canceled. It was to go ahead. Since Himmler was not around to explain his note, it is subject to interpretation.

People will take their prejudices and preconceived notions to the interpretation of documents and in their desperation to re-enforce those notions are ready to leap on two words and wave them around as proof of something Himmler supposedly mobilized thousands of people to do. Yet they will totally ignore explicit statements made by the Himmler and others that the extermination story was untrue. If the evidence is so clear cut of a Nazi program to kill the Jews of Europe, why is the discussion always about a word in a document here or a phrase there, or some menacing line in a political speech? It is all nonsense. If the program existed, this sort of scriptural microscopic parsing of words in Nazi bureaucratic papers to divine their meaning would not be needed and offered as evidence.

Oh, and the note implies Hitler knew and the reader infers it.

[The Warden]

Some people here seem to believe that "Dr. Jekelius" was the son of USSR-Foreign Secretary Molotov and was part of that transport of Jews which therefore had to be saved from execution.

That's complete nonsense.

First of all the proper translation of "Angebl. Sohn Molotow" would not be "Presumably Molotov's son", but rather "Molotov's alleged son".

Neither was Jekelius believed to be Molotov's son (which according to David Irving's research had no son), nor had this Jekelius anything to do with that train of deported Jews.

Jekelius was a Viennese physician involved in the Euthanasia program and Hitler had the suspicion that he was going to marry his sister Paula:

http://www.fpp.co.uk/Hitler/Paula/diary_found.html

I dislike when credibility becomes the method of disproving, instead of evidence. Very "Leuchter-like".
I only wish there was a different, clearer explanation to the memo than saying "But look at the source".
The article certainly doesn't prove the memo was fake. It states the source is from one of the writers of the fake diaries, but not the fake diaries themself.

Moreover David Irving has proved that Himmler had his meeting with Hitler that day, after his phone call with Heydrich on the above quoted topics which had taken place at 1:30 p.m.:

He met with Hitler for lunch from 2:30 to 4:00 p.m., so the decision not to liquidate that transport had been taken before by himself and Heydrich:

What is your definition of "liquidation" as used above?

[Pappy Yokum]

I dislike when credibility becomes the method of disproving, instead of evidence. Very "Leuchter-like".
I only wish there was a different, clearer explanation to the memo than saying "But look at the source".
The article certainly doesn't prove the memo was fake. It states the source is from one of the writers of the fake diaries, but not the fake diaries themself.

There are several ways to fake a document besides forgery. In this case, I assume the document is authentic, but it is merely its interpretation that is fake or sincerely incorrect.

This is a note taken from a telephone conversation. It may be a list of topics discussed and each line may be unrelated to the others. The "no liquidation" line may have nothing to do at all with the preceding line about the transport. Or it may refer the cancellation of the transport rather than the killing of the people being transported.

I keep a little reminder notebook which I will write a phrase in to remind me to get something from the store or to research something on the internet later. If I go back two weeks and look at my notes I have no idea what I meant by some of them. The phrases in the telephone log were written to remind Himmler of something he talked about on the phone. It was meaningful to him at the time, I am sure. The notes are vague enough someone else can draw multiple inferences from the note. Relating the "no liquidation" line to the transport reference and then concluding Hitler knew Jews were being gassed after they were deported is reading a lot into it in my opinion.

[ASMarques]

I keep a little reminder notebook which I will write a phrase in to remind me to get something from the store or to research something on the internet later. If I go back two weeks and look at my notes I have no idea what I meant by some of them. The phrases in the telephone log were written to remind Himmler of something he talked about on the phone. It was meaningful to him at the time, I am sure. The notes are vague enough someone else can draw multiple inferences from the note. Relating the "no liquidation" line to the transport reference and then concluding Hitler knew Jews were being gassed after they were deported is reading a lot into it in my opinion.

That makes a lot of sense. I find it interesting that interpretations of the agenda entry almost never take into account that the several topics lined up by Himmler may well be entirely unconnected among themselves.

That is indeed what you do when you take short notes in an agenda for the purpose of recollection in a short time delay. You're not writing a diary or whatever. You don't need to write "Oranges, buy a dozen of them / Beware the Cat, order the first novel in English from Amazon / World Cup, see the game on Sunday". What you write is simply: "Oranges / Beware the Cat / Sun game", which of course, makes it rather obscure for readers that haven't got your mental clues.

You're simply writing single words or very short sentences in sequence, on several distinct topics. And if you have just been talking on the phone to someone you share a vast range of duties with, in the cadre of a far-flung political bureaucracy, odds are that more than one immediate topic may have been mentioned.

As I read the written entry by Himmler on his phone talk with Heydrich, what I find legitimate to infer is he wished to recall that the following topics had been broached:

1) There was some talk to be recalled on someone's arrest, concerning in some form Dr. Jekelius, though in what precise form I cannot say.

2) There was some talk to be recalled on an alleged son of Molotov, though why or for what purpose I don't know (perhaps concerning some Soviet prisoner? I simply don't know). As it happens, I ignore whether there is some other kind of connection of the above mentioned Dr. Jekelius, known to have been responsible for part of the euthanasia program, to a Molotov illegitimate paternity, but if this phone-call is the only evidence of such a connection, I will tend to find it laughable.

3) There was some talk to be recalled on the subject of a transport of Jews from Berlin.

4) There was some sort of "liquidation" mentioned that either did not take place, or should not have taken place, or will not take place, or should not take place. I don't know whom or what this "liquidation" concerns. I do note, however, that Himmler is a very thorough fellow who always seems to cross his "tt" and dot his "ii", even in fast short notes such as this, and he does seem to have placed a full-stop at the end of the "Judentransport aus Berlin" item.

It seems to me illegitimate to force a connection between all four lines. Of course, even more laughable are the attempts to "prove the Holocaust" out of this. I think it was Blake who wrote that the entire Universe was contained in a grain of sand. Are we now required to believe that the untold legions of gassed ghosts are also to be forcibly read in every gothic stroke out of Himmler's pen?

[Reinhard]

@ The Warden:

The document is certainly authentic.

What I wanted to say is that at least the first three topics (Jekelius, alleged son of Molotov and transport of Berlin Jews) are not related to each other.

I so far fully agree with Pappy Yokum's and ASMarques' interpretation. Moreover both, Pappy Yokum as well as ASMarques, have made a good point in proposing that the fourth point (no liquidation) may not have been related to the third item either. ASMarques has pointed out that Himmler had made a full stop after "Judentransport aus Berlin". So perhaps "Keine Liquidierung" may have been a separate topic not related to the Berlin transport.

What is your definition of "liquidation" as used above?

I think "Liquidierung" would have meant "shootig". I don't think that it can be explained as "cancellation of the transport". That's not expressed by the German word "Liquidierung".

Relating the "no liquidation" line to the transport reference and then concluding Hitler knew Jews were being gassed after they were deported is reading a lot into it in my opinion.

Well, actually not gassed, but shot.

[The Warden]

I have to agree the lines not being connected makes the most sense. As far as I'm concerned, it's a list of talking points. After I read the thread, I was thinking along the lines of making sense of it if they were connected. Thanks to Reinhard, ASMarques, and Pappy Yokum for walking the newer guy through, what turns out to be, a document that I would have to call "inconclusive" at best in the future. These are the kind of insane connections that need to be exposed. The Hoaxers have set the bar at a level where all you have to do is prove your opponents theory wrong, not supply a feasible alternative.

The only thing that remains even more unclear, as it relates to the topic, is the definition of "liquidation". I don't want to throw a wrench in the works here, but does anyone have other documents showing the term used? I remember reading somewhere in here that trying to make the term mean murder was a desperate attempt, and if it was code, why wasn't it found in more than a few scattered areas? It wouldn't even have to be from German officers. If any explanation can be found in any industry or area, it would be just as credible as trying to prove the Hoax with it. Anything from the pesticide industry, cremation industry, transport industry, etc.?

[pictorex]

I have prepared an short essay on the subject of the Himmler telephone conversation log, which I copy below. I still consider it a draft and comments are of course welcome. I have also forwarded it to David Irving.

In his 1977 publication Hitler’s War, David Irving published a page of handwritten notes by Heinrich Himmler, dated Nov. 30, 1941, including four lines referring to a telephone conversation with Reinhard Heydrich, the Reichsprotektor of Böhmen-Mähren. The note is in two columns: on the left is noted the time of the conversation (13:30) and on the right there are four lines that read as follows:
Verhaftung Dr. Jekelius ----- Imprisonment Dr. Jekelius
Angebl[icher] Sohn Molotow. ----- Alleged son Molotov.
Judentransport aus Berlin. ----- Transport of Jews from Berlin.
Keine Liquidierung. ----- No liquidation.

As I shall show, each of the four lines refers to a separate contemporary event. Applying the fourth line to the third (as attempted by David Irving, in the sense that the Jewish transport from Berlin was not to be liquidated) is as groundless as applying the second line to the first (that Dr. Jekelius was an alleged son of Molotov). Even more fantastic is the speculation, which has appeared in online discussions, that the order not to liquidate the transport of Jews was motivated by the circumstance that Molotov’s alleged, son, Dr. Jekelius, happened to be on it.

The events to which the four lines refer are explained below:
The first line: “Verhaftung Dr. Jekelius”
Refers to the detention Dr. Erwin Jekelius, who was dismissed from his position as head of the Am Spiegelgrund clinic in Vienna in November 1941, following a disciplinary proceeding. He was arrested a briefly imprisoned before being drafted by the Wehrmacht and at the beginning of 1942 sent to the Eastern front. There is speculation that the real cause of his fall from grace was his having become engaged, against Hitler’s wishes, to Hitler’s sister Paula. Dr. Jekelius died in 1952 in a Soviet prison camp.

The second line: “Angebl.[icher] Sohn Molotow.”
Refers to a German propaganda campaign featuring a Soviet prisoner of war who, upon his capture on October 10, 1941 declared himself to be Vyacheslav Molotov’s son, hoping no doubt to receive preferential treatment. The prisoner’s real name was Vasily Gegorgiyevich Tarasov from the city of Voronezh. Though the Germans saw through the ruse (as is clear from Himmler’s use of the word “Angebl.”), they exploited the opportunity for propaganda broadcasts to Soviet troops in November and December 1941, the purpose of which was to assure them that they would be well treated were they to surrender to the German army. For a detailed account of the incident, as well as a transcript of the interview with Molotov’s alleged son, as broadcast by the Germans to Russian troops in the fall and winter of 1941, see the account given to RFE/RL by Sergei Kudryashov of the German Historical Institute in Moscow on December 5, 2009. http://www.svobodanews.ru/content/trans ... 96844.html.

The third line: “Judentransport aus Berlin.”
Refers to a transport of 512 Jewish deportees which left Berlin via Nüremberg on November 27th, 1941, bound for Riga, where it arrived in the morning of November 30th. It is often claimed that all deportees were murdered the same day at Rumbula Forest; however this is contradicted by the testimony of one of the deportees on this train, Klothilde Lehmann (Henry Schwab, The Echoes that Remain, p. 136):

The torturous journey took 3 days and 3 nights. Upon arrival the deportees were confined in the concentration camp Kaiserwald, located near Riga, as well as the KZ camps Spilwe and Jungfernhof, as well as the Riga Ghetto. They performed hard labor in forests, construction and other projects under the Wehrmacht supervision until May 1944. With the approach of the Soviet armies the Germans abandoned these camps, transporting the inmate population by ship to KZ Stutthof (Sztutowo), near the port city of Danzig.

The railroad from Nüremberg to Riga passed through Pilsen, Prague and other cities in the Protectorate, which may be one reason why it was mentioned in a conversation with Heydrich.

The fourth line: “Keine Liquidierung.”
Refers to Hitler’s order to Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt countermanding the retreat of the 1st Panzer Army from Rostov. The Red Army recaptured Rostov on the 28th of November 1941. Von Rundstedt was sacked for refusing to obey the order. In a narrow sense Liquidierung may refer to the clearing out of positions held by the army, with the implication that heavy equipment would be destroyed in order to prevent its falling into enemy hands. But here it evidently refers to the general notion of “giving up the fight”.
On June 1, 1942, speaking in Poltava, Hitler declared: “If I do not get the oil of Maikop and Grozny, then I have to liquidate the war” (“Wenn ich das Öl von Maikop und Grosny nicht bekomme, dann muß ich den Krieg liquidieren”).* In German the word “liquidierung” in the context of a war is a stark expression as in “einen verlorenen Krieg liquidieren zu müssen” — it means to give up, to surrender.

*Aussage von Generalfeldmarschall Paulus in den Hauptverhandlungen des Nürnberger Prozesses, Nachmittagssitzung am Montag, dem 11. Februar 1946 (56. Tag). Veröffentlicht in: Der Prozeß gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher vor dem Internationalen Gerichtshof Nürnberg. Nürnberg 1947, Bd. 7, S. 283-310.

I am convinced the mystery of the Himmler phone conversation jottings is hereby solved. Any comments?

[Lohengrin]

What an imposing entrance, pictorex ! I think you are very close in having solved the mystery of the Himmler phone conversation jottings indeed. My compliments for it.

My only question for the moment regards to the fourth line. Do you think it is possible that "keine liquidierung" refers nevertheless to line three in another way, namely in relation to a recent incidental liquidation of a transport from Berlin near Riga? I have read that earlier 5 transports Jews from Berlin were send to Riga and some nazi's there - not knowing where to settle the 6th transport - decided to kill them all. Himmler heard of - what he thought was an intention - and forbid it. This corresponds with a British deciphered radio-message from one day later, December 1, to the commander in Riga, Jeckeln, which runs: "The in the Ostland resettled Jews must be treated conform the directives from the RSHA given in my name. One sided actions and contraventions will be punished."

[pictorex]

Thank you for your comments Lohengrin. Regarding the transport of German Jews which left for Riga on November 27, 1941, let me cite a more complete account of the testimony of Klothilde Lehmann, who was on the transport and survived. This transport having arrived in the morning of the 30th is surely the one mentioned in the Himmler-Heydrich telephone conversation, which took place at 13:30 that same day. Generally Himmler’s jottings appear to be a list of topics about which he wished to inform Heydrich, i.e. four current news items. They are in no sense orders being conveyed, since Heydrich as Reichsprotektor had nothing to do with the arrest of Dr. Jekelius, or the propaganda campaign on the Eastern Front to reassure Russian troops that it was safe to surrender, or that a transport of Berlin Jews had arrived in Riga or that Hitler had given "no retreat" orders to his generals on the Eastern Front. They are simply news of the day that Himmler thought would be of interest to Heydrich. Now back to Klothilde Lehmann and her first-hand account of the transport of November 27th. Her story is the subject of pages 135 to 142 of Henry Schwab’s The Echoes that Remain, published in 1992 by The Spellman Museum of Stamps & Postal History at Regis College in Weston, Massachusetts, where it is stated on page 136 that:

Clotilde Lehmann and her husband, Hugo, were part of the first transport of 512 Jews that left Nüremberg, Germany by train, on 27 November 1941, destination Riga, Latvia. Only 15 of that number were eventually to survive.

Her name (spelled as Lehmann Klothilde) appears on the list of deportees that traveled to Riga on this train http://www.edwardvictor.com/Holocaust/I ... st_1_1.jpg

The last page of the list of deportees is also of interest: http://www.edwardvictor.com/Holocaust/I ... st_1_2.jpg
A close examination suggests that the transport originally included 509 deportees and that three numbers, but only two names, were added later--there is no name corresponding to no. 512. Under the original final number 509 are two lines of text that are crossed out and that I cannot make out in their entirety. The last word on the list, which is underlined, is "Gerettete!" (secured), meaning that the deportees were to be under armed guard for the duration of their journey.

The information presented by Henry Schwab about the internment of the deportees in the Riga ghetto as well as labour camps in the vicinity, cited in my previous posting, as well as the fact that at least 15 of the deportees are known to have survived the war, proves that the deportees included in this transport were not murdered on arrival, as is so often claimed.

The deciphered message of December 1, 1941 that you cite reads as follows in David Irving's translation: "SS Obergruppenführer JECKELN, Senior SS and Police Commander, Ostland [Baltic Provinces], RIGA. The Jews being resettled in the Ostland region are to be treated only in accordance with the guidelines laid down by myself or by the Reich Security Main Office. I will punish those who act on their own authority or in contravention [of the guidelines]. (Sgd. H HIMMLER)"

The implication is surely that there were standing instructions from Himmler and the Reich Security Main Office governing the treatment of the deportees. The fact that Jeckeln needed reminding of them may indicate that some violations had come to Himmler’s attention. However the most straightforward reading of the decode is that Himmler wished to prevent any violations from occurring; he only speaks of punishment for violations that might occur and makes no mention of any past violations. Surely had so egregious a violation of existing guidelines just occurred the previous day, namely the murder of hundreds of deportees who should instead have been put to work in various concentration camps in the vicinity of Riga, would not have been passed over by Himmler without so much as a reprimand. But this entire point is moot given the information provided by Henry Schwab that I cited in my previous posting, i.e., that "Upon arrival the deportees [from the transport of German Jews which arrived in Riga on the morning of November 30, 1941] were confined in the concentration camp Kaiserwald, located near Riga, as well as the KZ camps Spilwe and Jungfernhof, as well as the Riga Ghetto. They performed hard labor in forests, construction and other projects under the Wehrmacht supervision until May 1944." Since the guidelines had not changed, as Himmler stresses to Jeckeln, it can be safely deduced that previous transports of German Jews to the Ostland were treated in a similar fashion.

Regarding the use of the word "Liquidierung" in a military context, I believe the Hitler citation from June 1942 (“Wenn ich das Öl von Maikop und Grosny nicht bekomme, dann muß ich den Krieg liquidieren”) is a sufficient basis for deducing the true meaning of Himmler's jotting, but let me cite two more examples:

Prof. Karl Barndt in a speech given in Berlin on July 20, 1965, discusses the surrender terms offered to Germany by the Allies at Casablanca in 1943:

Aber am 24. Januar 1943 wurde in Casablanca die bedingungslose Unterwerfung als Kriegsziel deklariert, und als Bonhoeffer erneut, diesmal bis zu Churchill, vorfühlt, unter
welchen Bedingungen eine neue Regierung in Berlin den Krieg liquidieren kann, ist die eiserne Antwort: bedingungslose Unterwerfung.
However on January 24, 1943, unconditional surrender was declared as the war aim in Casablanca, and as Bonhoeffer states, this time even Churchill foresaw that the question as to the conditions under which a new government in Berlin might be able to give up (liquidate) the war, had the iron answer: unconditional surrender.

The other example is from an internet discussion of August 8, 2001 by a German native speaker: (http://www.politik.de/forum/offenes/975 ... all-5.html)

Und Clausewitz schreibt dazu sinngemäß (er ist ein Prophet): was der erste Schwung des Angriffs nicht vermag, vermag der zweite nimmermehr. Das trifft die Situation ganz richtig. Also Moskau mußte 1941 fallen, oder erkonnte den Krieg liquidieren.
And Clausewitz writes perceptively (he is a prophet): what the first sweep of the attack cannot achieve, the second will never accomplish. This is an entirely correct characterisation of the situation. Thus Moscow had to fall in 1941, or one might as well give up (liquidate) the war.

In both of these additional examples, as in the Hitler quote cited in my previous posting, the word liquidieren means "to give up" the war as a lost cause. Thus Kein Liquidierung of Himmler's telephone jottings, written as news reached Berlin that not only had Rostov been retaken by the Red Army, but that the advance toward Moscow had been halted as well, simply means "no giving up" in the face of the recent turn of the tide in Germany’s military fortune. It may well reflect Hitler’s own words, as he used this expression again the following June in a similar context.

[ASMarques]

The deciphered message of December 1, 1941 that you cite reads as follows in David Irving's translation: "SS Obergruppenführer JECKELN, Senior SS and Police Commander, Ostland [Baltic Provinces], RIGA. The Jews being resettled in the Ostland region are to be treated only in accordance with the guidelines laid down by myself or by the Reich Security Main Office. I will punish those who act on their own authority or in contravention [of the guidelines]. (Sgd. H HIMMLER)"

The implication is surely that there were standing instructions from Himmler and the Reich Security Main Office governing the treatment of the deportees. The fact that Jeckeln needed reminding of them may indicate that some violations had come to Himmler’s attention. However the most straightforward reading of the decode is that Himmler wished to prevent any violations from occurring; he only speaks of punishment for violations that might occur and makes no mention of any past violations. Surely had so egregious a violation of existing guidelines just occurred the previous day, namely the murder of hundreds of deportees who should instead have been put to work in various concentration camps in the vicinity of Riga, would not have been passed over by Himmler without so much as a reprimand.

It's interesting to connect the Keine Liquidierung subject broached with Heydrich to what follows to Jeckeln the very next day, i.e."The Jews being resettled in the Ostland region are to be treated only in accordance with the guidelines laid down by myself or by the Reich Security Main Office. I will punish those who act on their own authority or in contravention [of the guidelines]."

The implication to me would be that existing guidelines had been, or were being violated. Hence the menacing tone "I will punish etc.". But what then would have been those guidelines like? If you ask me, in the context of Nov 1941 they would have been something along the lines of "do not interfere too much with the locals going after their own Jewish-Bolshevik collaborators etc., but don't extend that policy to the deported Jews."

In that context the train from Berlin may have been an immediate particular concern (hence the separate notes), and the Keine Liquidierung the wider concern implied by the way the next day's message to Jeckeln is worded.

In short: even if the words Keine Liquidierung were to be understood as referring to deported Jews, the wording of the next day's message would seem to exclude the "keep murdering the Jews but spare that particular train" meaning in favor of the "stop treating the deported Jews as if they were locals" meaning, invoking orders and guidelines.

I don't find it hard to believe that there were indeed "egregious violations" of the accepted standards, or that Himmler on the whole wouldn't have made much of it, but the essential thing, "Holocaust"-wise, so to say, should be the nature of the guidelines.

Note that there is a tone of reprimand in Himmlers' telegram. If the orders had been to murder the deportees -- with the exception of one trainload for some particular reason -- Himmler's tone would have been out of place, and he wouldn't have been brandishing the menace of punishment for not following his own (murderous) guidelines...

[Occam's Razor]

pictorex:

It seems that the list of deportees isn't an authentic document from the time of the war. It's more likely that this list is a reconstructed list and was typed after the war.

Under the original final number 509 are two lines of text that are crossed out and that I cannot make out in their entirety.

The text says, as far as I can read it:
"Die Namen sind nicht mehr feststellbar."

Which means:

"The names can no longer be determined."

Obviously someone managed to figure out at least two missing names, crossed out this sentence and replaced it in handwriting with the names Elisabeth and Anna Schulz

pictorex writes:

Now back to Klothilde Lehmann and her first-hand account of the transport of November 27th. Her story is the subject of pages 135 to 142 of Henry Schwab’s The Echoes that Remain, published in 1992 by The Spellman Museum of Stamps & Postal History at Regis College in Weston, Massachusetts, where it is stated on page 136 that:

Clotilde Lehmann and her husband, Hugo, were part of the first transport of 512 Jews that left Nüremberg, Germany by train, on 27 November 1941, destination Riga, Latvia. Only 15 of that number were eventually to survive.

So according to this information at least 15 persons survived the transport.

pictorex wrote:

The last word on the list, which is underlined, is "Gerettete!" (secured), meaning that the deportees were to be under armed guard for the duration of their journey.

No, "Gerettete" means "saved ones" or "rescued ones". It can only refer to known survivors of the transport.
As far as I can read it, the strange handwritten symbols in front of the word "Gerettete!" are a "10" or a "15", or a "10" that was replaced with a "15" (a "5" that was written over the "0"), and then finally a big "16" above the "G" of "Gerettete!".

So this is a list of known persons who took part in the transport. At first the person who assembled the list was not abe to determine all names, two or three names were missing. The person who prepared the list obviously knew that the transport consisted of 511 or 512 persons, therefore the typewritten remark "Die Namen sind nicht mehr feststellbar /
The names can no longer be determined" behind the last numbers where the names were missing.
At that time it was known that some persons survived the transport, but not how many. Therefore the word "Gerettete!" was typewritten and the currrently known number of survivors was added in handwriting. First 10 survivors were known, then 15, so the entry was corrected, and finally someone found a 16th survivor: 16 Gerettete! = 16 survivors! The known survivors are marked with an "x" in the list, including "Klothilde Lehmann".

I hope everyone agrees that the words "16 survivors!" on a transport list of deported Jews, with the surviving Jews marked with an "x", wouldn't make sense for an authentic official German document from the war time. The exclamation mark after "Gerettete" can be interpreted as an expression of joy, that at least some survived the transport, or as an accusation, that so many perished. But it wouldn't make sense for an authentic official German document from the time of the war. And I don't think that there are any evil intentions behind this list. It seems to be an honest approach to reconstruct the list of the deportees and to find the survivors. And it's certainly possible that even more than 16 persons survived the transport.

[pictorex]

Thank you for the clarifications, Occam’s Razor, my German obviously leaves much to be desired. You are of course right that Gerettete means "saved" and since the word is integral to the document and in the same typeface, the entire list must be a post-war compilation, as you correctly conclude. Incidentally, the number of survivors from this transport is usually reported to be 17, as in http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/nuremberg/nur001.html
This being said, I suspect that this transport may not after all be the one referred to in the Himmler telephone log of November 30th. It is said to have left Nuremberg on the 29th (rather than on the 27th as stated by Henry Schwab). The transport referred to in the telephone log left from Berlin. I had assumed that the transport in question originated in Berlin and was routed through Nuremberg, where it picked up additional deportees, but this assumption appears to be incorrect. The matter, though interesting in itself, is tangential to my main thesis concerning the Himmler telephone jottings.

My main point was that the first three lines of the jottings clearly concern separate and unrelated items of information and therefore it is a priori likely that the information provided in the fourth line is also separate and independent of the first three. To support this notion, I gave several examples of the use of the word "liquidieren" in the context of "giving up" a war as being lost, including a statement by Hitler from June 1942. Therefore I still consider the most plausible interpretation of the fourth line (Keine Liquidierung) to be a reference to the resolve in Hitler’s HQ not to waver in the face of the new ominous developments in the military situation on the Eastern front that occurred in the last days of November 1941.

[pictorex]

Regarding line two of the Himmler notes from (or in preparation for) his telephone conversation with Himmler on the 30th of November 1941 "Angebl[icher] Sohn Molotow." I reproduce below a rough translation of the first part of the Russian-language RFL/RE article clarifying this incident: http://www.svobodanews.ru/content/trans ... 96844.html.

Nazi propaganda, 1941: Molotov’s Fake Son
05/12/2009 10:01
Vladimir Tolts, Olga Edelman
In late November 1941 the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union secretly informed the Soviet leadership of a new Nazi propaganda campaign.
It had been recording the German broadcasts to Soviet territory, as well as translating messages from the German Information Bureau.
Berlin, November 28 (TASS). German Information Bureau transmitted the following message:
Representatives of the foreign press in Berlin were able to attend tonight at Wilhelmstrasse the interrogation of Molotov's son, captured by the Germans during the battles in the East. The interrogation mainly concerned the allegations of his father, Commissioner for Foreign Affairs of the USSR, as set out in the form of notes, about the alleged ill-treatment of Soviet prisoners of war in Germany. The questions addressed to the son of Molotov through an interpreter before the assembled foreign journalists, among whom were people who knew the Russian language, he answered freely and naturally.
Q: Are you the only son of Molotov?
A: Yes.
Q: When and where were you born?
Answer: February 11, 1919 in the Kremlin.
Q: When you were captured?
A: October 10.
Q: Are you satisfied with your food?
A: It is enough, I'm satisfied.
The prisoner was smiling as he was illuminated by the lamps of the photographers and the journalists came closer to better hear what he had to say.
Q: Do you have enough food?
A: We always enough to eat.
Q: Do the cigarettes you also?
A: Yes.
Q: How do you live?
A: I live near Berlin, together with the officers.
Q: How are you being treated?
A: I'm being treated decently.
Q: Were were beaten or ill-treated at any time?
A: I never saw that anyone of us being beaten.
Then the prisoner read some excerpts from the notes of his father, according to which the Soviet prisoners in Germany are being tortured with hot irons, cut into parts, etc. Then he was asked whether he noticed anything like that. The prisoner shook his head and replied with a smile: I have not seen anything like this and I have not heard anyone saying anything of this kind.
Well, let's analyze this. First - and of this there is absolutely no doubt - the son of Molotov did not fall prisoner for the simple reason that Molotov had no son. Unlike, say, Jacob Dzhugashvili, who was really captured in the summer of 1941, George Skriabin was presented by the fascists at a press conference (please recall that Molotov was a revolutionary nickname, his real name was Vyacheslav Mikhailovich - Scriabin). So the question arises: why did the Germans engage in this propaganda stunt?
In another broadcast we dealt with a similar press conference by Yakov Dzhugashvili and his radio address to the Soviet citizens and our listeners who recall this broadcast, will agree that the scenario used in the case of a false son of Molotov was the same. And the statements attributed to him are similar to those given by Yakov.
We also discussed examples of Nazi propaganda, passed off as the broadcasts of anti-Stalinist Communist underground in the Soviet Union, which too were reduced to a similar set of statements: Soviet soldiers are urged to stop their allegedly “useless” resistance to the German troops, to surrender, assuring them that as prisoners of the Germans they will be fine, but that there is no need to protect the murderous Stalin, who sends them to a certain death.
Obviously, the main targets of the radio propaganda were the troops of the Red Army. For German broadcasting simply did not reach further, to the Soviet rear, where receivers had already been confiscated. But the characters of German radio propaganda we are discussing, including pseudo-Leninists, anti-Stalinists and Yakov Dzhugashvili - appeared on the air in the summer of 1941, at a time when the Germans were rapidly advancing. And now a fake son Molotov appears at the end of November, when German troops were already stopped at Moscow, and just days before the beginning of December, when Soviet troops launched an offensive.

For the purposes of this thread, the above should be sufficient to clarify the meaning of line 2 of the Himmler jottings and its complete independence of lines 1 and 3. My argument, as I have explained, is that once it is shown that lines 1, 2, and 3 are thematically unrelated to one another, it becomes much more likely that line 4 is thematically unrelated to line 3.

In case of interest I can provide a fuller account of the "alleged son of Molotov" incident by translating the rest of the article.