Adolf Hitler - and his victims ..

Hitler's very first political statement, his letter to Adolf Gemlich on 16 September 1919, already includes a clear declaration of his anti-Semitic position: "Rational anti-Semitism on the other hand, must lead to a systematic legal opposition and elimination of the special privileges that Jews hold, in contrast to the other aliens living among us (alien's legislation). Its final objective must unswervingly be the removal of the Jews altogether."

In those early days he often spoke of how he would deal with the Jews. His favourite words were Ausrottung (extirpation), Vernichtung (annihilation), Entfernung (removal), Aufräumung (cleaning up). Thus according to a police report of a NSDAP meeting on 6 April 1920 he declared:".. we have no intention of being emotional anti-Semites who want to create the atmosphere of a pogrom. Instead, our hearts are filled with an inexorable determination to attack the evil at its roots and to extirpate it root and branch. In order to reach our goal every means will be justified, even if we have to make a pact with the devil."