JÜRGEN STROOP REPORT. Liquidation of the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw 5.1943 and Kazimierz Moczarsks book

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The Stroop Report is an official report prepared by General Jürgen Stroop for the SS chief Heinrich Himmler, recounting the German suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the liquidation of the ghetto in the spring of 1943. Originally titled The Jewish Quarter of Warsaw Is No More! (Ger. Es gibt keinen jüdischen Wohnbezirk in Warschau mehr!), it was published in the 1960s.

The Report was commissioned by Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger, chief of the SS and police in Kraków and was intended as a souvenir album for Heinrich Himmler. It was prepared in three distinct leather-bound copies for Himmler, Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger and Jürgen Stroop. One unbound "file" copy of the report (das Konzept) remained in Warsaw, in the care of Chief of Staff Max Jesuiter. According to a statement given in 1945 by Stroop's adjutant Karl Kaleshke to US authorities in Wiesbaden, he ordered Stroop's copy of the report burnt with other secret documents in Burg Kranzberg.

After the war only two of the four copies were discovered, those belonging to Himmler and Jesuiter Himmler's copy went to Seventh Army Intelligence Center (SAIC) and Jesuiter's to Military Intelligence Research Section (MIRS) in London. Several sources stated that the German Bundesarchiv also had a copy in Koblenz. But, in reply to inquiries by Richard Raskin, the Bundesarchiv stated that the third copy of report was never in their possession.

The two known copies held by the Allies were introduced as evidence at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, sharing the document number 1061-PS, and used in the trial as "US Exhibit 275". The report was first displayed by the chief U.S. prosecutor Robert H. Jackson for the judges during his opening address.[6] The assistant prosecutor dealing with the persecution of the Jews referred to it as "the finest example of ornate German craftsmanship, leather bound, profusely illustrated, typed on heavy bond paper ... the almost unbelievable recital of the proud accomplishment by Major General of Police Stroop". Both copies were also used in Nuremberg in the 1947 trial of Oswald Pohl, as exhibit 503.

On June 10, 1948, the Himmler/SAIC copy of the Stroop report and Katzmann Report were handed over by Fred Niebergal, head of Office of Chief of Counsel for War Crimes – OCCWC, to Bernard Acht, head of the Polish Military Mission in Nuremberg. It was used in Stroop's trial at Warsaw Criminal District Court in July 1951,[3] and transferred afterwards to the KC PZPR archive. In 1952 it was transferred to the Główna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce (Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Poland) archive and subsequently to its successor, the Institute of National Remembrance (Polish: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej or IPN), where it remains. In 1948 the Jesuiter/MIRS copy of the report went to the National Archives (NARA) in Washington, D.C., where it continues to be held.

The Report was a 125-page typed document, bound in black pebble leather, with 53 photographs. It consisted of the following sections:

Summary, with

Title page

List of soldiers/police killed and wounded

List of combat units involved, and

Introduction, signed by Jürgen Stroop in the IPN copy

Collection of 31 daily reports (German: Tägliche Meldungen), sent from Stroop's Chief of Staff Max Jesuiter to SS Police Leader East Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger. The reports cover the period of 20 April to 16 May 1943, plus a report from 24 May 1943, and all were signed by Jesuiter.

Series of 53 photographs accompanied by hand-written captions in German Sütterlin script

The NARA report also has a fourth section with statistics about human losses, types of recovered weapons, and amounts of money and valuables taken from Jews.

The copies have slight discrepancies in textual and graphical layout, and in the photographs they contain.

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