Riegner telegram
Communique on the Holocaust
title: "Riegner telegram" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["telegrams", "holocaust-historical-documents", "the-holocaust-and-the-united-states", "1942-documents"] description: "Communique on the Holocaust" topic_path: "geography/united-states" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riegner_telegram" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Communique on the Holocaust ::
The Riegner telegram was a telegraph message sent on 8 August 1942 from Gerhart Riegner, then Secretary of World Jewish Congress (Geneva), to its New York and London offices. The cable confirmed the alarming reports that had reached the West previously about the German intention to mass murder the European Jews.
Riegner was office manager of the WJC in Geneva. He was indirectly informed about the German plans for the final solution by German industrialist Eduard Schulte. Through his British and American diplomatic channels (Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise of the American Jewish Congress in New York and Sydney Silverman, a Jewish Member of Parliament and Chairman of the British Section, World Jewish Congress) Riegner sent the following message to his contacts via the British Foreign Office and the State Department in Washington: ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Riegner_Telegram.jpg" caption="Original telegram."] ::
However, in England and the United States, Riegner's telegram was met with disbelief. The US State Department considered the telegram "a wild rumor, fueled by Jewish anxieties" while the British Foreign Office did not forward the telegram for some time. Only on 28 August 1942 did it find its way to the President of the World Jewish Congress, Rabbi Stephen Wise. On the advice of Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles, Wise decided to not make it public until confirmation had been received from State Department sources. When that happened in November, Wise held a press conference about it but it received little attention until the Bergson Group began to publicise it.
Notes
References
- 70 Years Ago: Riegner Telegram alerts world about Nazi Holocaust - World Jewish Congress website
- The National Archives UK copy of the Riegner Telegram
- Günter Schubert: Der Fleck auf Uncle Sams weißer Weste. Amerika und die jüdischen Flüchtlinge 1938–1945., Campus Verlag, Frankfurt/New York
- Heiner Lichtenstein: "Warum Auschwitz nicht bombardiert wurde", Köln 1980
- Walter Laqueur: Was niemand wissen wollte. Die Unterdrückung der Nachricht über Hitlers Endlösung", Frankfurt a. M. 1981
- Gerhard M. Riegner: "Niemals verzweifeln. Sechzig Jahre für das jüdische Volk und die Menschenrechte" Gerlingen 2001
- Portraits Parlés: Interview and portraits of Gerhard M. Riegner by Ariane Laroux, éditions of L'Age d'Homme. (2006)
- Michael Berenaum: "A Promise to Remember" Bulfinch Press 2003
References
- Bauer, Yehuda (2001). ''Rethinking the Holocaust'' (Yale University Press, New Haven and London) p.219
- (1990). "Encyclopedia of the Holocaust". Mamillan Publishing Co..
- (2003). "The Destruction of the European Jews". Yale University Press.
- [https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/haventohome/haven-home.html#obj17 "Riegner Telegram".] United States Library of Congress.
- The National Archives, UK copy of the [https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/haventohome/images/hh0171as.jpg Riegner Telegram (colour copy of document).]
- Yehuda Bauer. (2012). "The Holocaust, America, and American Jewry". Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs.
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