I further instruct you to lay before me shortly a
comprehensive draft of the organizational, logistical,
and material advance preparations for carrying out
the desired final solution of the Jewish problem.Göring had no reason to believe that he had signed anything
but a routine administrative directive expanding Heydrich’s ex-
isting powers to the more recently occupied eastern territories.
It is worth bearing in mind, as his defense counsel argued in his
final plea for clemency on October , , that while Göring
had undoubtedly initiated the economic sanctions against the
Jews, it remained unproven that he had even known of their
“biological extermination.” His earlier decree to Heydrich had
been dated January , , at a time when nobody was con-
templating extermination as a “solution.” Moreover, the omi-
nous phrase “final solution” would become synonymous with
extermination only later, and even then only in Himmler’s in-
timate circle.
History cannot, however, exonerate Göring from blame.
Anxious not to be toppled from his post as heir-apparent one
stroke of the pen would have sufficed he was careful not to
probe too deeply into Himmler’s methods. Thirty miles from
Carinhall, recalled Dr. von Ondarza, was the Oranienburg con-
centration camp. “Göring never once set foot in one,” said On-
darza. “He just didn’t have the guts. It was characteristic of
him,” Göring’s aide added, “that when the going got rough he
just scuttled off to Paris or Italy.” No, Göring carefully eschewed
any criticism of the SS. “Whoever attacked Himmler,” he would
explain evasively in May , when taxed with these atrocities,
“was eliminated. Besides, he lied to me.” Prudence replaced pro-
priety in Göring’s demeanor: In August Himmler wrote to
the Air Ministry soliciting assistance with unspecified low-