himself, dated October , : “As her manner appeared to
have become intolerable,” it coldly explained, “the instruction
was issued for her to be relocated as soon as possible to the Old
Age Ghetto at Theresienstadt, regardless of her case pending at
the Reich Genealogical Bureau (Reichssippenamt).” (The Baron-
ess, born June , , was only forty-two.)
Göring appears not to have suspected the character of
Theresienstadt, as a showpiece “clearing station” through which
elderly Jews passed on their final journey to “the east.” On May
, , the Gestapo’s chief (Heinrich Müller himself) had
written him about a Jew, Hans Martin Manasse, and his wife,
Rosa Cohn. Görnnert replied on June , “May I draw your at-
tention to the Reichsmarschall’s handwritten comments and re-
quest a brief word from you before any further steps are taken
re Manasse/Cohn to enable the Reichsmarschall to pronounce
finally on this case.” On September , Görnnert brought
Müller’s decision to Göring, who directed his aide to notify the
Gestapo official “that the Reichsmarschall requests that this cou-
ple should be deported together to Theresienstadt (Juden-
stadt).” The Reichsmarschall, Görnnert continued, had notified
Himmler, and he added, “The deportation to Theresienstadt is
to be carried out as soon as possible and the Jewish couple are to
be enabled to stay there as long as this town is made available for
this. The Reichsmarschall asks to be informed as soon as they
have been deported.” Göring appears to have known of Ausch-
witz only as the gigantic new synthetic rubber plant built there
by Albert Speer. At a central-planning session on July , ,
Pili Körner would mention the current plans to expand Ausch-
witz’s output to twenty-eight thousand tons of rubber.
There is one clue that, by , Göring had learned of Hit-
ler’s systematic “mercy killing” of the population of Germany’s
mental institutions, because on May he instructed Görnnert to