Photo: English holding the photograph of Hitler’s Aug 22, 1939 talk

Hitler’s famous Aug. 22, 1939 talk, in which he reportedly quoted the impunity of the annihilation of the Armenians as proof that the Nazis could easily eliminate millions of people, is documented in a photograph not known of until today.

A small newspaper in America’s east cost, iBerkshires, has published an interview with local resident Darrell K. English whose “collection of World War II artifacts numbers in the thousands.”

One of these artifacts is a

photograph [that] was taken Aug. 22, 1939 – 10 days before the invasion of Poland. Essentially, it’s the day World War II began in Europe, the day that Hitler called his commanders to his mountain retreat, the Berghof, to tell them that months of German maneuvering and mobilizing were about to unleashed on Europe.

“We know when it was taken, we know what was said during that meeting,” said English. “Now we have an actual photograph of the actual date and the actual happening.”

The story goes that this was where Hitler made his infamous remark “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” when speaking of the coming destruction of the Polish people.

Since the iBerkshires journalist goes on to wrongly state that “most historians discount [Hitler’s] remark [about the Armenian annihilation]” – referring only to a small number of historians who discount the remark in order to discount the Armenian Genocide – it is worth to note that Hitler’s Aug 22 speech is not the only time when he talks of the extermination of the Armenians.

Eight years prior to the 1939 speech, the editor of “Leipziger Neueste Nachrichter” R. Breiting had two secret interviews with Hitler. In one of the two interviews, Hitler said, “We intend to introduce a great resettlement policy; we do not whish to go on each other’s toes in Germany. In 1923 little Greece could resettle a million men. Think of the biblical deportations and the massacres of the middle Ages and remember the extermination of the Armenians.”

So while there is no available empirical proof – such as a tape – of Hitler’s 1939 speech to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Hitler referred to the annihilation of the Armenians ten days before invading Poland, the 1931 interview with Breiting is an unquestionable fact that Hitler did refer to the impunity of the Armenian genocide.

The fact that a photograph from the 1939 speech exists, nevertheless, gives hope that it might have been taped as well. This reminds me what David Davidian, an Armenian activist, told an online group several months ago. In the 1980s Davidian was approached by a CIA agent who told him there was a tape of the 1939 Hitler speech in Israel which is not released by the Israeli government.

Today we have the photo of Hitler’s speech with no words, but tomorrow we may also get to listen to Hitler’s actual remarks.