Berlin, 12 March 1942
In Charge of the Office
of the Reich Minister of Justice
Dear Reich Minister Dr. Lammers :
I am just being informed by my advisor about the result of the meeting of March 6 regarding the treatment of Jews and descendants of mixed marriages. I am now expecting the official transcript. According to the report of my advisor, decisions seem to be under way which I am constrained to consider absolutely impossible for the most part. Since the result of these discussions are to constitute the basis for the decision of thé Fuehrer, and since one of the advisors from your Ministry participated likewise in these discussions, I urgently desire to discuss this matter with you on time. As soon as I have received the transcript of the meeting, I shall take the liberty in calling you to ask you if and when a discussion may take place.
With sincerest regards and Heil Hitler!
Yours devotedly /s/ Dr. Schlegelberger
To the Reich Minister and Chief of the Party Chancellery Dr. LAMMERS, Berlin
In charge of the Office of the Reich Minister of Justice charged with the conduct of official business.
IV b 40 g RE
Berlin W 8, 5 April 1942 Wilhelmstrasse 65 Secret Reich Matter
To: '
1. The Chief of the Party Chancellery SS-Oberfuehrer Klopfer
2. The Reich Minister of the Interior
Attn : The Secretary of State Dr. Stuckart
3. The Chief of the Security Police and the SD SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Heydrich
4. The Deputy for the Four-Year-Plan Attn: State Secretary Mr. Neumann
5. The Foreign Office
Attn: Undersecretary Luther
6. The Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories Attn : Gau Leader and State Secretary Dr. Meyer
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7. The Race and Settlement Main Office of the Reichsfuehrer-SS
Attn: SS-Gruppenfuehrer Hofmann.
RE: Final Solution of the Jewish Question.
1. The final solution of the Jewish question presupposes a clear-cut and permanently applicable definition of the group of persons for whom the projected measures are to be initiated. Such a definition applies only when we desist from the beginning from including descendants of mixed marriages of the second degree in these measures. The measures for the final solution of the Jewish question should extend only to full Jews and descendants of mixed marriages of the first degree, but should not apply to descendants of mixed marriages of the second degree [Note: first degree presumably those with two non-Aryan grandparents, and second degree with only one].
2. With regard to the treatment of Jewish descendants of mixed marriages of the first degree, I agree with the conception of the Reich Minister of the Interior which he expressed in his letter of 16 February 1942, to the effect that the prevention of propagation of these descendants of mixed marriages is to be preferred to their being thrown in with the Jews and evacuated. It follows therefrom that the evacuation of these half-Jews who are no more capable of propagation is obviated from the beginning. There is no national interest in dissolving the marriages between such half-Jews and a full-blooded German.
Those half-Jews who are capable of propagation should be given the choice to submit to sterilization or to be evacuated in the same manner as. Jews. In the case of sterilization, as well as in that of evacuation of the half-Jew, the German-blooded spouse will have to be given the opportunity to effect the dissolution of the marriage. I see no objection to the German spouse's obtaining the possibility of divorcing his sterilized or evacuated spouse in a simplified procedure without the limitations of Par. 53 of the Marriage Law.
3. An exception might be worthy of consideration with respect to those half-Jews who have descendants who are to become a part of the German national community and who are to lose themselves in it, once and for all. If these descendants are to be incorporated into the German folk community as full-fledged members—which has to be the aim in the case of a genuine final solution of the Jewish question—it seems advisable to keep them from being judged as inferiors or from having feelings of in-
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feriority which could arise easily out of the knowledge and the conscience that their immediate ancestors have been affected by the planned defensive measures of the racial brotherhood. It is for this reason that it should be considered whether or not half-Jews whose still-living descendants are likewise half-Jews should be spared from evacuation as well as sterilization.
4; I have no scruples against facilitation of divorce in marriages between racial Germans and Jews. This facilitation should then extend to marriages with those who are considered as Jews. The divorce will have to be granted upon the request of the German-blooded partner in a simplified procedure. I have considerable scruples about compulsory divorces, on motion of the public prosecutor. Such compulsion is unnecessary because the spouses will be separated in any case by the evacuation of the Jewish partner. An enforced divorce, moveover, is without avail, because, though it cuts the marriage ties, it does not cut the inner tie between the spouses; moreover, it does not relieve the German partner from the scorn to which he is exposed by clinging to his marriage. Finally, a clinging to marriage on the part of the German-blooded partner is to be expected only in the case of older marriages which have endured throughout many years. In these cases, in which the Jewish partner as a rule is not evacuated but confined to an old people's ghetto, the German-blooded partner who disclaims his membership in the German community should not be prohibited from being admitted to the ghetto.
[signed] Dr. Schlegelberger