each letter with the words, “On July , , the Reichsmarschall
of the Greater German Reich instructed me ” etc., and he at-
tached a photocopy of the document with Göring’s signature.
In the entire files of Göring’s Stabsamt and other bureaus
there is no evidence that Göring knew of Heydrich’s ultimate
intentions. At the Wannsee conference on January , , he
would be represented by the sharp-witted, hard-working
Staatssekretär Erich Neumann, of the Four-Year Plan, but the
actual proceedings were more obscure than might be supposed
from the conference’s subsequent notoriety. “Gruppenführer
Heydrich told the conference,” reported Ribbentrop’s repre-
sentative, the arrestingly named Martin Luther, “that
Reichsmarschall Göring’s Auftrag to him had been issued at the
Führer’s behest and that the Führer had now approved evacu-
ating the Jews to the east instead of emigration as a solution.”
What was actually happening in “the east” was never discussed
at the meeting.
The ministries had only to assent to measures specifically
within their own ambit. On January , Fritz Görnnert of
Göring’s Stabsamt notified the SS, “The Reichsmarschall has no
objections to the proposal by [Heydrich] to put signs on Jewish
dwellings.” Heydrich himself was studiously vague about his ul-
terior aims. Asking the SS personnel office to take cognizance of
the Göring Auftrag, he added merely, “Preparatory measures
have been put in hand.” Writing to Luther about the same
Göring document in February, he asked him to delay producing
the draft proposals that the Reichsmarschall had called for until
further discussions. In any case, Heydrich would be assassinated
a few weeks later, before any such document could be drafted.
The documentary record shows that the initiative for specific
atrocities came from Nazi officials in the field. Even Hitler’s own