The War of Extermination

On 25 June 1942, the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported on the Nazi regime’s mass murder of Europe’s Jewish population. Swedish newspapers followed suit cautiously, partly because of doubts regarding the veracity of the reports, but also due to government directives advising against publishing “detailed accounts of atrocities”.

In September 1942, Dagens Nyheter published a leading article stating that “the final objective appears to be the physical extermination” of the deported Jews. In December 1942, the Allied powers issued a joint condemnation of the Nazi mass killings. After that, Swedish press coverage intensified, with more revelations coming to light.

The persecution of the Jews had, according to reports, been extended by the Germans to the conquered territories, and various signs suggested that the methods employed had become increasingly brutal and ruthless. The final goal appeared to be physical annihilation.

One of those who drew attention to the Nazi persecution of the Jews was the historian Hugo Valentin, who also contributed frequently to Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfartstidning. Shortly after the editorial in Dagens Nyheter, he published an article entitled "The War of Extermination Against the Jews", in which he described the situation in the occupied territories. While he acknowledged the difficulty of verifying the exact circumstances, he asserted that what was taking place clearly constituted genocide.

To what extent the Eastern European Jewish civilian population had been decimated through pogroms and mass executions is still difficult to determine.

In December 1942, the Allied governments issued an official protest against Nazi Germany’s genocide. The purpose behind the deportations and persecution thus became widely known. At this point, Valentin wrote another article, "The Greatest Pogrom in World History".

In addition to summarising what was known at the time about the genocide, Valentin remarked that it ought not to have come as a surprise, since as early as 1939, Hitler had publicly declared his intention to annihilate the Jews.

Time and again, from his major speech at the outbreak of war onwards, he not only identified the Jews as the instigators of the conflict, but also proclaimed his aim to eradicate them, at least from the European continent.