Howard Elting; U.S. Diplomat Who Learned of Nazi Plans

Howard Elting, 93, a U.S. diplomat who was among the first American officials to inform the State Department of Nazi plans to eliminate European Jews, died of heart failure in his San Rafael, Calif., home July 1.

Elting was Geneva consulate vice president in 1942 when he forwarded a cable to the State Department from Dr. Gerhart Riegner, representative of the World Jewish Congress in Geneva, according to the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust.

The cable, dated Aug. 11, 1942, was based on “the highest German authorities” and told of Nazi plans “to exterminate at one blow this fall three and a half to four million Jews.”