SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 201
and material requirements for the implementation of the final solution
of the Jewish question so envisaged.”
This document is in complete agreement with the Madagascar plan.
The instructions given by Göring to Heydrich “in addition” to those already
contained in the decree of 24 January 1939 were for all intents
and purposes the implementation of the solution of the Jewish question
“by emigration or evacuation” 587 of the Jews in the Reich exclusively,
while simultaneously aiming for a territorial “final solution” by resettlement
in Madagascar of all Jews in the European countries occupied by
Germany. For the very reason that it was to include all Jews of the occupied
European states, this solution was labeled a “comprehensive solution”
[Gesamtlösung], a designation which echoes the “problem as a
whole” [Gesamtproblem], the term used in Heydrich’s note of 24 June
1940 (cf. above).
Heydrich clearly alluded to the task entrusted to him by the decree of
24 January 1939 when, on 6 November 1941, he wrote that, years earlier,
he had been given the order to prepare an “Endlösung” in Europe. 588
He himself identified the “Endlösung” with the solution “by emigration
or evacuation” targeted in Göring’s note of 31 st July 1941. This is also
the context of the order conveyed to the foreign ministry by Adolf
Eichmann on 28 August 1941, which prohibited “an emigration of Jews
from the territories occupied by us in view of the impending final solution
of the Jewish question in Europe now being prepared.” 589
7.3. From Madagascar Plan to Deportation to the East
Over the months to follow, with the vision of large territorial gains
appearing on the horizon since the beginning of the Russian campaign,
new perspectives opened up, leading to a significant change of course in
the NS policy in respect of the Jews. The “Endlösung” by deportation to
Madagascar was now replaced by a “territorial final solution” involving
the deportation of the European Jews into the eastern territories occupied
by the Germans.
587 Legal emigration to other countries or deportation to the East (Poland: October 1939
through March 1940) and/or to the West (unoccupied France: October 1940).
588 PS-1624.
589 PA, Inland II A/B, AZ 83-85 Sdh. 4, vol. 59/3.