From a Zionist movement (Chawewe Zion[433]) came the Polish Jew Zamenhof, at one time an eye doctor in Warsaw. He sought to realize Jewish world rule in accordance with the prophecy of Isaiah 2.4, as a reign of peace under Jewish leadership.[434] All peoples would freely submit to the Jews. This goal would be achieved through the 'peaceful' penetration and subversion of the master peoples. Serving Zamenhof in this effort would be unlimited pacifism, a new religion of his own creation, Homaranismo, as a first step to the Jewish religion and the universal language 'Esperanto' invented by him, which, through application of the same law for all mem- bers of all peoples, colors and climes and through the same education, ideals, convictions and goals, would little by little lead to the same mish- mash of peoples.[435] These three goals together, not simply propaganda for a universal language, constitute Esperantism, which, after around 1905, plays the role of an auxiliary force for the Jews. Among its special resources are anticipated, among other things: an international press at first partially and later entirely in Esperanto; an international literature; international employment and freedom of domicile.
The document goes on to describe the development of Esperanto in the Weimar Republic through the lens of Nazism:
In Germany, leadership was in the hands of the B'nai B'rith Jew [Georg] Arnhold, of Dresden. Esperantism in Germany always had an anti-German attitude and its culturally subversive tendencies have become particularly evident in the period since the end of the war (after 1918). Precisely in the period after 1918, Esperantism was able to establish itself readily in Germany. Left-wing parties and circles made use of the artificial language 'Esperanto'. The leadership of almost all Esperanto associations was in the hands of Jews and Freemasons. The 'progressive' governments of the day advanced this language because it propagated in its literature the ideas of Marxism and communism, forming an excellent international organ for the idea of world brotherhood contained in such world concepts, and used by the Jew to attain his aim—world domination.
Given the above, it comes as no surprise that even the compliant GEA experienced no indulgence from the authorities. Even if a few patrioti- cally minded people wished to advance and disseminate Esperanto 'in a way useful to the state'—the document continued—experience showed that this was 'an entirely erroneous belief'. Despite the Gleichschaltung, even the politically reliable leaders of Esperanto organizations could do nothing to prevent activities hostile to the state within their ranks, given that a large part of their membership came from the working classes who did not know how to use the language professionally 'but employed it for their illegal political activity'. The malign political influence attributed to the German Esperantists was also applied to the Universal Esperanto Association. At first the document, relatively accurately, called it an 'inter- national union of bourgeois liberalist character for the neutral application of Esperanto in the field of tourism etc.' but later it noted that UEA 'par- ticularly in other countries is strongly infiltrated by Jews and pacifists'.
As if to dissolve any hope that, after the destruction of the Esperanto organizations, the Nazis might begin to tolerate Esperanto as a mere hobby, the June 1940 document gave precisely the opposite instructions:
To consider 'Esperanto' merely an auxiliary language for international communication would be incorrect. The artificial language Esperanto is part of Esperantism, the weapon of the Jews.
We can gain a better understanding of the 'scientific research' from read- ing one of Heydrich's memoranda prepared less than a month after the above document. Heydrich proudly reports that the invading troops, most recently in Poland, were accompanied 'under special order of the Fuhrer' by special groups of police operatives who
on the basis of earlier preparations, have delivered a severe blow, by means of arrests, confiscation and the securing of the most important political material, to the worldwide anti-Reich elements in the camp of emigration, freemasonry, Judaism and political-ecclesiastical opposition, and in the Second and Third Internationals.[436]
Not only in Austria and Poland but also in other countries, the Esperantists constituted an often small but always carefully monitored part of these 'anti-Reich elements'.
Soon Theodor Koch received a new task. At the end of July 1940, he traveled to Vienna, on instructions from Six, to look at the contents of the Esperanto Museum.[437] As we have noted, the Gestapo closed the museum immediately after the annexation of Austria. There followed, on Six's orders, more widespread confiscation of archives and libraries, among them Esperanto collections.[438] A few of the museum documents were confiscated, but it was decided to leave its library in Vienna, since it would be too great a burden to transport this material to Berlin, given that it was 'politically unimportant to the Reich'.[439]
Two years later, the RSHA had a different view. It now regarded the contents of the museum as extremely important and for that reason sent
Koch to Vienna. But at that point there arose unexpected difficulties: the new director of the Austrian National Library (to which the museum belonged), Dr. Paul Heigl, himself an SS-Sturmbannfuhrer, categorically refused to agree to the transfer of the museum material to Berlin. Koch was only able to spend a couple of hours in the completely disordered museum and was obliged to conclude, with some consternation, that Heigl had no idea how valuable the contents of the museum really were. Two days later, Koch returned to Berlin empty-handed. In April 1941 he reported:
This library is unique in the world. Through it, the Jews have created a monument for themselves, assembling here everything [...] that attests to their goals of world destruction—and to a degree that probably could not be rivalled by any Freemasonry library.[440]
Reading this report, one has the impression that Koch was seized by a desire to accord the library an importance out of all proportion. He attributed to it major significance for the discovery of biblical secrets, particularly concerning the Messianic goals of the Jews. In sum, Koch proposed that the museum material be dispatched to Berlin, and he also recommended that all public libraries in Germany be refused permission to lend any Esperanto titles, depositing them instead in a special secret storage space. Koch's approach was partly (pseudo-) scientific, partly a hobby; but the responsible parties at the RSHA took it altogether seri- ously. Research since the war has revealed that Six's department in fact appropriated libraries in all of the occupied countries. In line with this interest, it considered putting pressure on Heigl, head of the Vienna library, to separate the museum from the former national library, so that 'anti-German material without exception' be subjected to 'ideological investigation'.[441] Two months later, however, Six explained that, because of Heigl's angry obstructionism, it was necessary to proceed very carefully and that a solution would be possible only after the war was over.[442]
In this case, then, it was impossible to move further because of dis- agreement within the party; but in other respects the RSHA proceeded in accordance with its plans. In September 1941 an internal document noted that 'in connection with the reorganization of Europe, the banning of the Esperanto movement must be achieved in all European states'.[443] As we have seen, in Austria, the Sudetenland and Poland, the movement was duly liquidated. This process continued, but with interesting variations.