Hermann Göring et al.: Record of a Conference Regarding the Reich Research Council, July 6, 1942

Abstract

[…] I would like to say one thing right at the start. What the Führer rejects is regimentation per se of science, done on principle: Yes, this product may well be very valuable, extremely valuable and it would take us very far. But we cannot exploit it, simply because the man is married to a Jewess or because he is a half-Jew.—You are shaking your head, Schultze! [²⁰] Your Lecturers League is the worst of all at it.[²¹] I just wanted to say this in passing. It is the living terror at universities in this respect.—But I only wanted to say: Precisely this has to be avoided. I have just presented this personally to the Führer. We have now hitched up a Jew in Vienna for another two years and another one in the field of photography, because they have those particular things we need and which would absolutely take us a step forward at this moment. In this situation it would be madness to say: He has to go! Granted, he was a very great scientist, a fantastic mind, but he has a Jewish wife and cannot be at university, etc. The Führer has granted exceptions in this case in the field of the arts, all the way down to the operetta, in order to preserve it.[²²] He will approve and sanction exceptions even more readily where really very big research projects or scientists are involved. Really, we ought to be punishable for rejecting a man of the highest intellectual capacity in the field of science for such reasons or if we refused him the opportunity to conduct research because, as I said, he has a Sarah[²³] or is perhaps a quarter-Jew or whatever else.[²⁴]