Historical Context
Himmler gave the speeches at a time when the German war effort sustained constant setbacks, which the Nazi leaders found increasingly disconcerting. At the Casablanca Conference in January, the Allies had decided that the only acceptable outcome of the war was Germany's unconditional surrender. The Soviet victory in the Battle of Stalingrad on 2 February 1943 was a turning point in the war. US President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced the prosecution of those mainly responsible for war and genocide on 12 February, which the US Congress agreed to on 18 March. US troops landed on Sicily on 7 July and after the Italian change of sides on 8 September, gradually advanced northward. On 1 October, Naples was freed from German occupation.
The Red Army also ran a successful summer offensive on 17 July, during which partisans blew up many railway connections behind the Eastern Front on 3 August. In the week 27 July - 3 August, Allied air raids attacked Hamburg in Operation Gomorrha, and the armament centre of Peenemünde was destroyed also on 18 August. At the same time resistance against occupying German forces grew, and a state of emergency was declared in Norway (17 August) and Denmark (29 August). Nazi dissidents planned Germany's reorganisation (the Kreisau Circle on 9 August) and assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler ("Operation Walküre", 12 August), on which basis the scorched earth policy was brought in on 4 September for the foreseeable retreat of the Eastern Front, and martial law against those in the armed forces who refused to follow orders, initially introduced by the General Government on 2 October.
In the same period, the destruction of the Jews became the most important goal. In the spring, Sonderaktion 1005 was ordered, demanding the exhumation and incineration of those murdered by the Einsatzgruppen across the whole Eastern Front in order to hide the on-going genocide, whose death toll had so far reached 1.8 million Jews. Himmler ordered the liquidation of all Polish ghettos on 11 June, and all Soviet ones on 21 June. As of 25 June, four new crematoria and gas chamber installations were completed in Auschwitz-II Birkenau at Auschwitz concentration camp. On 1 July all Jews in the Reich were placed under police law. On 24 August Himmler was appointed as minister of the interior, and thus all police forces in the Reich and occupied territories were subordinated to him. By 19 October, Operation Reinhard was to be terminated and the affiliated extermination camps dismantled.
Nonetheless, acts of resistance against the destruction of the Jews occurred. There were prisoner rebellions in Treblinka (2 August) and Sobibor (14 October). Jews of the Białystok ghetto mounted an insurrection against their liquidation (16–23 August), and the Danes helped most of the Danish Jews planned for arrest to escape. Inland church representatives condemned the killing of innocent life (Catholic Pastoral, 19 August) for age, disease and race reasons.(Confessing Church, 16 October).
Read more about this topic: Posen Speeches
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