A newly discovered recording of a dying Nazi official could help answer one of the most debated questions about the Holocaust: Did Adolf Hitler personally give the order to kill Europe’s Jews?
Bruno Streckenbach, a top SS officer involved in organizing mass killings in Eastern Europe, claimed in a 1977 interview that Hitler himself gave the command. He said he was told this by Reinhard Heydrich, one of the Holocaust’s main architects, who said the SS had been specifically chosen by Hitler to carry it out.
This claim comes from audio tapes now being made public for the first time. They were recorded by Gerd Heidemann, a controversial journalist later disgraced for promoting the forged “Hitler Diaries.” Despite Heidemann’s tarnished reputation, historians say the Streckenbach tapes appear to be authentic and historically significant.
Streckenbach was a key figure in Nazi operations:
- He helped run the Einsatzgruppen, SS death squads that murdered hundreds of thousands of Jews, mostly by shooting.
- After the war, he was never convicted or jailed, despite his deep involvement.
- He claimed others lied in court during postwar trials to hide their own responsibility and make it seem like they were just following orders.
Streckenbach also expressed doubts that anyone other than Hitler could have initiated the Holocaust, saying, “I simply can’t imagine that any man apart from or below Hitler would have started these things on his own initiative.”
The release of these tapes comes at a time when many Germans say they are tired of confronting the country’s Nazi past. A new study found:
- 85% of Germans couldn’t name a single project related to dealing with Nazi crimes.
- Almost half said they were angry that Germans are still held responsible for the Holocaust today.
- A growing number say it’s “time to draw a line” under this history.
Historian Thomas Weber, who found the tapes, warns that as political stability wavers, these long-held assumptions about how Germany remembers the Holocaust may be unraveling.
