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Himmler’s Secret Speech to High Officials of the Reich Security Main Office [Reichssicherheitshauptamt or RSHA] (January 30, 1943)

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Kaltenbrunner, you are taking over a tried-and-true leadership corps, immaculately trained, spotless and pure in its spirit and character. You are taking over excellent department heads and group chiefs. I know that these men of yours are getting an equally good main division chief. And I know that you will lead this Reich Security Main Office, which was created over the course of twelve years by someone who is now dead, in the spirit of the SS and by continuing the legacy of our comrade Heydrich, so that the SS and the Führer will have in the Security Service an instrument as good as – though better in its character than – what England trained over centuries and has in its service.

With this, Kaltenbrunner, I present to you the document in which the Führer appoints you Main Division Chief [Hauptamtschef] of the Reich Security Main Office, and I hand the Reich Security Main Office over to you. Lead it well!



Source: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD, Record Group 319, IRR Files 1903, Ernst Kaltenbrunner XE 00040; reprinted in Richard Breitman and Shlomo Aronson, "Eine unbekannte Himmler-Rede vom Januar 1943" ["An Unknown Himmler Speech from January 1943"], Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte; 38 (1990) 2, pp. 343-48.

Translation: Thomas Dunlap

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