Riegner Telegram
The Riegner telegram ( also called Riegner report ) August 8, 1942 probably the first message to the Allies about the incipient destruction of the Jews ( Holocaust ) by the Nazis. The sender was Gerhart M. Riegner, Staff Director of the World Jewish Congress in Geneva. The German industrialist Eduard Schulte had Riegner informed about the so-called " Final Solution." The first telegram was no faith in the Allies.
About British and American diplomatic channels, he sent to London and Washington following, here translated from the English text:
"Got alarming report in Hitler's headquarters would be discussed plan and considered in German occupied and controlled countries all Jews in the East exterminate number three and a half to four million after deportation and abstract with a hammer, so the Jewish question a stop to solve once and for all action planned for autumn Methods including hydrocyanic acid in the discussion stop. "
Although news of mass executions in Europe to England and the United States already had reached, the telegram judged the American State Department it as " wild, inspired by Jewish fears rumor"; the Foreign Office ( Foreign Ministry ) initiated the message once no further. It was not until 28 August 1942, arrived at the head of the World Jewish Congress in New York, Rabbi Stephen Wise, who then Felix Frankfurter, a Supreme Court Justice informed. This ensured that the report came to the White House. The Vatican and the ICRC have been informed. Both, however, argued that the credibility of the report could not be verified.
However, the then developed and published from December 17, 1942 Inter-Allied Declaration made the now extensive knowledge of the Allies clearly. The Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr. spoke at the beginning of 1944 to U.S. President Roosevelt that " certain officials of our State Department " had failed and it would have been duty " the extermination of Jews in the Europe controlled by Germany to prevent ."
See also: Holocaust knowledge of eyewitness