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Nicholas
Terry, “Conflicting Signals: British Intelligence on the ‘Final
Solution’ through Radio Intercepts and Other Sources, 1941-1942”
The release
of the so-called German Police Decodes – signals sent by the SS and
Police intercepted and decoded by British intelligence – to the
British archives in 1997 has offered historians a new source with
which to both examine the killing operations of German police
battalions behind the Eastern Front in 1941 and the deportations to
Auschwitz in 1942 as well as the knowledge of the British government
of these crimes. Using these and other sources, this article
re-examines the level of knowledge and more importantly,
comprehension available to British intelligence in 1941 and 1942 of
these crimes and the development of Nazi policy towards European
Jews. It argues that contrary to some existing interpretations, the
Police Decodes did not provide the British with clear-cut evidence
of the Nazi policy of extermination, but in fact contributed to an
interpretation of Nazi intentions that failed to acknowledge the
genocidal direction of Nazi policy until late 1942. |
