By Thomas Kues

In November 2010 I published a blog entry on an online video concerning the research activity of a young British archaeologist from the University of Birmingham, Caroline Sturdy Colls, who had set out to refute “Holocaust Deniers” by locating the mass graves at the Treblinka “extermination camp” using “the most up-to-date scientific techniques”.[1] Recently, a news report was published boldly stating that “mass graves at Nazi death camp Treblinka prove Holocaust deniers wrong”. In this we read that

“A British forensic archaeologist has unearthed fresh evidence to prove the existence of mass graves at the Nazi death camp Treblinka. Some 800,000 Jews were killed at the site, in north east Poland, during the Second World War but a lack of physical evidence at the site has been exploited by Holocaust deniers. Forensic archaeologist Caroline Sturdy Colls has now undertaken the first co-ordinated scientific attempt to locate the graves.”[2]

It is worth recalling that the same triumphatory claim that the “Holocaust deniers” finally and once and for all had been “refuted” was heard in connection with Kola’s surveys at Belzec and Sobibór, which in reality turned out to refute the official version of events relating to these two camps.

The above quoted news item was more or less a push for a radio program, “Hidden Graves of the Holocaust”, featuring Sturdy Colls as well as Yitzhak Arad and former Treblinka inmate Kalman Taigman, which was broadcast by BBC Radio 4 on 23 January 2012, 20:00 GMT.[3] In anticipation of this radio program, on the same date, a podcast interview was uploaded by the University of Birmingham “Ideas Lab”.[4] In this we can listen to the following description of the methods employed by Sturdy Colls and her team, as well as some vague descriptions of their findings:

“Interviewer: What technology have you used to investigate the site?

 Sturdy Colls: I used a number of non-invasive techniques at Treblinka and what this means is, as you quite rightly pointed out, the ground wasn’t disturbed due to Jewish burial law so the methods used didn’t involve any form of ground disturbance or excavation and this allowed us to investigate the historic and scientific potential of Treblinka but obviously it was very important that we recognised its religious and commemorative significance as well. So the techniques that were used, there was a process of archival research which involved looking at documentary records, revisiting historical data if you like, looking at known data and assessing it with an archaeological eye, so looking for information about the landscape. Then there was a process of looking for aerial photographs of the site, any ground based photography, accounts by the witnesses, plans that had been created, etc, to build up a database of information so that when I did do the survey all of that could be corroborated against my results. So in the field this involved field walking, so assessing the landscape, topographic survey which used advanced GPS and total station surveying to demarcate features on a plan of the site allowed us to record micro-topographic change which may be indicative of buried features. And also to assess the visibility of other features such as a number of artefacts that were actually identified in quite a remote part of the site. Then moving on from that to look below the ground I used a number of geophysical techniques, so quite often mentioned is ground penetrating radar and this was one of the methods used but this was also corroborated with other methods that detect other physical properties in the soil. So I also used resistance survey and an extension of that which allows 3D imaging of buried remains as well, to ensure that all of the properties of the buried remains could be characterised accurately.

 Interviewer: And what have you discovered?

 Sturdy Colls: Well the survey results when corroborated with historical information have indicated that there are a number of surviving building foundations at Treblinka just below the surface and also a considerable amount of obviously structural debris which the Nazis would have been simply unable to have removed from the site, and this supports accounts written by post-war investigators which commented upon the visibility of artefactual remains, structural remains, at the camp. We’ve also identified a number of pits at the site. Again, all these pits have been mapped and corroborated with witness plans and this is indicative of a number of probable graves at the site. It is recognised as part of the survey that the history of Treblinka didn’t end with its abandonment by the Nazis. Issues such as post-war looting and the construction of the memorial itself and a number of other forms of landscape change that have taken place at the site, you know, could confuse interpretation so it was essential that all of these were considered when the results from the geophysical survey in particular were being assessed. So then all of this data was married up with historical information so we seem to have a situation here where it’s been commonly believed that all of the victims at Treblinka were cremated, they were destroyed without trace, however, the research has revealed a much more complex picture of the disposal patterns used by the Nazis. Looking at it from an offender profiling perspective, so a slightly more forensic point of view, the Nazis worked on, as do most offenders, this principle of least effort where they would actually have a burial method that very much matched the nature of their victims or their locations within the camp and there are a number of photographs and physical evidence that we observed on the ground at Treblinka that demonstrates that these bodies were not reduced to ash, that some survive as mass graves in the truest sense and that also the ashes of the victims were redeposited into the pits that they were originally exhumed from upon Himmler’s order in 1943. Also with the topographic survey we’ve demonstrated that the camp as it’s marked currently on the ground by the modern memorial was actually much larger, that the boundaries of the camp should have been 50 metres further north and this has a knock-on effect for a number of structures within the camp itself. So we can examine it from a spatial point of view and look at all of these features in relation to each other and hopefully eventually start to build up a more detailed map of the camp as it existed during its operation.

 Interviewer: So you’ve now presented your findings to the authorities responsible for the memorial at Treblinka. Does this conclude investigations at the Treblinka site or is it sort of an ongoing project?

 Sturdy Colls: It’s absolutely an ongoing project. The survey demonstrated that the site has got huge potential in terms of what we can learn from the application of archaeological method and very much was the tip of the iceberg in terms of being the first survey of what I hope will be many more to come. I hope to return to the site later on this year and there will be subsequent seasons of fieldwork in coming years. As I mentioned, at the moment what we’ve got is a map of what survived at the camp as a result of my findings. However, in order to build up a map of the camp as it existed we need to do more work, we need to survey the site. Only a small proportion of the site has actually been surveyed so there’s huge potential to find out more about the history of this camp in the future.”

Somewhat more on the findings of Sturdy-Coll could be gleaned from the BBC 4 radio documentary “Hidden Graves of the Holocaust”. Starting at the mark 23:20 minutes we hear:

“Caroline Sturdy Colls: All the history books states that Treblinka was destroyed by the Nazis, in summary, the survey demonstrated that this simply isn’t the case. I have identified a number of buried [sic] pits using geophysical techniques. These are considerable. One in particular is 26 meters by 17 meters.

 Jonathan Charles: That’s huge.

 Sturdy Colls: It is huge. We are talking about a considerable number of bodies [which] could have been contained within pits of that size.

 Charles: That could have contained hundreds, perhaps thousands of bodies, we don’t know deep it is, or do you know how deep it is?

 Sturdy Colls: Unfortunately no. The survey technology does not allow us to go to certain depths. I know that it is over 4 meters, that was the extent of this [inaudible]. It’s a considerable pit.

 Charles: There are quite a few pits that you have discovered?

 Sturdy Colls: Absolutely, there were a number of pits, in particular to the rear of what of what is now the current memorial, five that are actually in a row, again of a considerable size, in an area where witnesses state this was the main body disposal area, this is behind the gas chambers, it was where the majority of victims who were sent there were then subsequently buried, and later where the cremative remains of the victims were also placed.

 Charles: It’s not just pits that you found, there’s also what look like buildings.

 Sturdy Colls: There are, and again, the Nazis claimed they destroyed Treblinka, they certainly levelled the site, but it’s not really possible when buildings have been on a site to actually sterilize the ground, so what I’ve identified is that solid structural remains, we’re talking building foundations, do survive, but in particular two sort of structures that I’ve identified are likely to be the old and new gas chambers at Treblinka.”

While here we learn virtually nothing about the supposed remains of the Treblinka “gas chambers” we are provided with some tantalizing information on the camp’s burial pits. Needless to say, a critical assessment of the findings made by Sturdy Colls can only be made after she has published at least a preliminary report or a detailed article on the same, but we may nonetheless with appropriate caution note down some preliminary observations on what has been revealed so far. The most interesting information, however, is not to be found in the radio interviews, but in a short article wrriten either by Sturdy Colls herself or by BBC editorial staff based on her verbal or written statements, which was published on the website of the BBC on 23 January.[5] In this we read:

“The existence of mass graves was known about from witness testimony, but the failure to provide persuasive physical evidence led some to question whether it could really be true that hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed here.

 Although they lasted only a few days, those post-war investigations [in 1945-1946] remained the most complete studies of the camp until I began my work at Treblinka in 2010.

 This revealed the existence of a number of pits across the site.

 Some may be the result of post-war looting, prompted by myths of buried Jewish gold, but several larger pits were recorded in areas suggested by witnesses as the locations of mass graves and cremation sites.

 One is 26m long, 17m wide and at least four metres deep, with a ramp at the west end and a vertical edge to the east.

 Another five pits of varying sizes and also at least this deep are located nearby. Given their size and location, there is a strong case for arguing that they represent burial areas.

 [...].

 As well as the pits, the survey has located features that appear to be structural, and two of these are likely to be the remains of the gas chambers.

According to witnesses, these were the only structures in the death camp made of brick.”

Even more importantly, this article is illustrated with two composite maps on which the outlines of the findings made by Sturdy Colls have been superimposed on a modern-day aerial photograph of the former camp site and a 1944 aerial photograph of the same area respectively. In the figure below I have placed these two composite maps side by side, moved the main legend and the scale and slightly increased the picture size in order to allow for easier comparison of scale. On the map to the left I have also arbitrarily numbered the “probable burial/cremation pits” from 1 to 10 (click on the picture to view it in full size).

The information furnished by the two interviews, the article and the maps allow us to make the following observations:

1) The pit which Sturdy Colls mentions “in particular” and which is stated to have a surface area of “26 meters by 17 meters”, that is a total of 442 square meters, is, judging by the dimensions, most likely identical with the rather irregular pit #3, located some 25 m south of the large cenotaph. This is clearly the largest in surface of the 10 pits identified.

2) As far as the surface area is concerned, 2 of the 33 mass graves identified by Andrzej Kola at Belzec (pits #1 and 27) were larger (with 480 and 540 square meters respectively), whereas 2 more (#7 and 14) were almost of the same size (364.5 and 370 square meters respectively).[6] Of the 6 burial pits identified by Kola at Sobibór 2 (pit #2 and 4) were larger or even significantly larger (with surface areas of 500 and 1,575 square meters respectively), whereas 2 other graves were nearly of the same surface size (pits #1 and 6, with 400 and 375 square meters respectively).[7] Yet whereas at Belzec some 435,000 and at Sobibór some 80,000 corpses are alleged to have been interred,[8] the number of uncremated bodies buried at Treblinka is supposed to have amounted to at least some 700,000. Would it then not make sense for the Germans to use mass graves of a larger size at Treblinka than at the other two Reinhardt camps?

3) The eyewitnesses Eliahu Rosenberg and Chil Rajchman, who to the knowledge of this author are the only witnesses to have provided detailed statements on the dimensions of the mass graves in the “death camp proper”, claim pits of sizes vastly larger than the largest pit mapped by Sturdy Colls. Eliahu Rosenberg claimed in 1947 that the mass graves measured 120 m × 15 m × 6 m, giving a surface area of 1,800 square meters and a total volume 9,900 cubic meters.[9] Chil Rajchman, whose 1944 testimony [10] is prominently featured in the “Hidden Graves of the Holocaust” radio program – including a particularly bizarre passage from it concerning burning blood – states:

“The pits were enormous, about 50 metres long, about 30 wide and several storeys deep. I estimate that the pits could contain about four storeys.”[11] 

The burial pits thus measured 1,500 square meters according to the witness Rajchman and maybe as much as (1,500 x 12 =) 18,000 cubic meters in volume! How come that the largest of the pits discovered by Sturdy Colls corresponds to less than one third of the surface size claimed by Rajchman and to one fourth of the surface area claimed by Rosenberg?

4) It is indeed unfortunate that the top modern equipment used by Study-Colls for some reason or other was not able to detect depths exceeding 4 meters. Perhaps it would have been wise of her to dispense of some of the piety with regards to “Jewish burial laws” and utilize probe drillings to measure the depth of the pits, as was done by Kola at both Belzec and Sobibór. Of the pits identified by Kola in these two camps, the deepest pit (#3 at Sobibór) measured 5.80 m, whereas the depth of the remaining pits averaged some 4 m.

Generously assuming Rosenberg’s estimate of 6 meters (Rajchman’s estimate of some 12 meters can be safely dismissed as an exaggeration), and even more generously assuming (for the sake of argument) 6 meters to be the effective depth, with the pit walls being vertical instead of sloping (an obviously unrealistic assumption, which is moreover contradicted by Sturdy Colls statement that this pit had a “ramp” at the west end and a “vertical edge to the east”, implying that three out of four side walls were oblique – but again, for the sake of argument…) pit #3 would have a volume of (26 x 17 x 6 =) 2,652 cubic meters. Assuming an average capacity of 8 corpses per cubic meters,[12] this means that the pit in question could have contained in total (2,652 x 8 =) 21,216 corpses. Since the so-called Höfle document from an exterminationist viewpoint shows that nearly 713,555 were murdered at Treblinka up until the end of 1942 – in reality this document only proves that this number of Jews was deported to the camp up until that time – and since virtually all sources maintain that non-experimental cremations on a significant scale did not commence at Treblinka until 1943, at least 700,000 corpses would have had to have been interred in the camp, necessitating no less than (700,000 / 21,216 =) 33 pits of the same size as pit #3, with a total surface area of 14,586 square meter, or nearly 1.5 hectares. Needless to say the mass graves would have had to be separated by soil walls of considerable thickness, thereby increasing the surface area required by the graves.

 
Above: Montage of the 10 identified pits placed within a square 100 x 100 meters. Relative dimensions have been kept unchanged from the maps produced by Caroline Sturdy Colls.

5) Pits #1 and 2, which together appear to have a surface area of some 600-700 square meters, are located in the western part of the camp site, near the torn-up railroad sidespur, clearly outside of the “death camp proper”. These may be identical with the mass graves mentioned by the witness Abraham Kszepicki, in which the bodies of Jews who had died en route to the camp were buried during the first months of operation.[13]

 6) The four pits #5-8 are placed in a (not very straight) row. Sturdy Colls states in the radio documentary that there are “five” pits of “considerable size” “in a row” and in the area which witnesses state “was the main body disposal area, (…) behind the gas chambers”. Either Sturdy Colls mistakenly said five when she meant four, or it may be that one of the pits, perhaps #6, with its “neck” in the middle, is counted by her as two separate pits. Regardless of which, it is clear that the pits #5-8 cover a surface area which corresponds to roughly 175-200 % that of #3, that is, somewhere in the range of 750-900 square meters.

 7) Altogether, pits #3-10 as mapped by Sturdy Colls cover a surface hardly exceeding 1,800 square meters. If again, for the sake of argument, we assume the no doubt overly generous average effective depth of 6 meters with vertical pit walls – and once more I want to remind my readers that the pits identified at Belzec and Sobibór averaged some 4 m in depth – this would mean that the “probable burial/cremation pits” in the “death camp proper”/”upper camp”/”camp 2″ [14] had a total volume of some (1,800 x 6 =) 10,800 cubic meters. The pits at Belzec as identified by Kola have a total estimated volume of 21,310 cubic meters,[15] whereas those at Sobibór have a total estimated volume of 14,718.75 cubic meters.[16] The no doubt greatly exaggerated estimate of 10,800 cubic meters could have contained at most some (10,800 x 8 =) 86,400 corpses (assuming instead a more realistic average effective depth of 5 m this figure would change to 72,000 – and this still disregards the likely enlargement of the original grave volumes due to clandestine diggings and other causes). According to Yitzhak Arad some 312,500 Jews were murdered in Treblinka merely “during the first five weeks of the killing operation”.[17] According to the files of the Jewish Council in Warsaw, 251,545 Jews from the ghetto in that city were deported to Treblinka between 22 July 1942 and 12 September 1942.[18] And as already mentioned, the Höfle document states that 713,555 were deported to Treblinka up until the end of 1942. Judging by the information revealed, only a small fraction of this enormous number of people could have been buried in the identified “probable burial/cremation pits”, even taking into account the two pits in the reception camp, which could not have been used for any hypothetical “gas chamber” victims given the reported structure of the camp.

 8 ) Sturdy Colls’s statement that “the failure to provide persuasive physical evidence [of mass graves] led some to question whether it could really be true that hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed here” implies that the presence of mass graves itself would be enough to refute the “deniers”. However, it is clear that mass graves of considerable size must have existed at Treblinka, even if it was in fact only a transit camp. Holocaust historian Dieter Pohl estimates that up to 5 % of the deportees to the Reinhardt camps perished en route due to suffocation, dehydration, crushing caused by panicking deportees etc.[19] Considering that the reception of transports at Treblinka during the intense initial months of operation is claimed to have been grossly mismanaged by the first camp commandant, Dr. Irmfried Eberl (who, apparently because of this reason, was fired and replaced by Franz Stangl), leading to the delay of transports at way stations – and this in the summer heat of July and August – there is little reason to doubt that a certain number of Jews must haved died en route from Warsaw to Treblinka, but on the other hand the trip from Warsaw to Treblinka when following schedule lasted “only” 3 hours and 55 minutes, so that for this group of deportees (making up roughly one third of the total number of Treblinka deportees) the en route death ratio is unlikely to have reached that posited by Pohl.[20] The en route death ratio for transports originating from more distant parts of Poland and from other German-controlled countries was likely higher than that for the Warsaw deportees due to the longer travel time required. Since somewhere between 750,000 and 800,000 Jews in total were deported to Treblinka during the camp’s period of operation (July 1942 – August 1943), it seems reasonable to assume that the number of Jews who perished en route to this camp amounted to somewhere in the low tens of thousands. Moreover, there are reasons to assume that a smaller percentage of the deportees were subjected to “euthanasia” due to contageous or mental diseases, or for being too weak for further transport. To this should be added a smaller number of deaths among the camp inmates caused by epidemics etc, as well as those killed by guards in connection with attempts at escape or uprisings.

 9) The vague mention of a “more complex picture of the disposal patterns used by the Nazis” is interesting. Were uncremated corpses also detected by the survey, and if so, how many?

 10) Sturdy Colls label the pits “probable burial/cremation pits”, indicating that one or more of the pits may have been used for cremations and not for interment (at Sobibór Kola identified such a pit with an area of 10 x 3 m and a depth of up to 90 cm). In this context the smaller, more rectangular pits #4 and 5 may be the most likely candidates. The dimensions of an identified cremation pit could give important hints about the actual cremation capacity at Treblinka.

 11) It is noteworthy that none of the pits or structural remains are located under the stone/concrete covered memorial areas (cf. the map to the left, where these areas are visible as a bluish gray). Sturdy Colls’s statements does not mention whether or not she was able to map these area with her geophysics equipment.[21] This issue, like many others, will have to await further clarification. The covered area inside the “death camp proper” appears to correspond to roughly 1 hectare.

 12) It may be worth making a quick comparison of the maps of Study-Colls with the “reconstruction” of Treblinka proposed by exterminationist air-photo analyst Alex Bay.[22] Concerning the mass graves Bay writes:

“Unfortunately, the aerial photography does not contain enough information to delineate the boundaries of the graves. The May [1944] coverage is sufficient only for crudely identifying the places where deep disturbances in general are probable, but the exact boundaries cannot be established.

In Figure 42 aerial photography is presented in which nine 50 by 25 meter [164 x 82 feet] pits have been drawn to scale along the east and west sides. The positioning and size of these pits is purely speculative.”[23]

The dimensions of 50 x 25 m for the pits are taken from Bay’s number one eyewitness, Yankiel Wiernik, and his 1944 publication A Year in Treblinka. Wiernik writes indeed that “The dimensions of each ditch were 50 by 25 by 10 meters”[24] but this almost certainly refer to ditches located not in the “death camp proper”, but in the reception camp. The scene wherein Wiernik provides the abovementioned dimensions takes place on the second day after his arrival in the camp, and the following chapters imply that first visited the “death camp proper” or Camp II, as he calls it, only several days later.

In the figure below I have placed Bay’s Figure 42 side by side with the Sturdy Colls composite map based on the 1944 air photo. The scales of the two maps have been harmonized. To Bay’s map I have also added the letters A and B to indicate the solid black outlines drawn by Bay to mark out the two alleged gas chamber buildings. Even considering Bay’s admittal that the positioning and size of his mass graves “is purely speculative” it is clear that his vision of what the “death camp proper” might have looked like differ considerably from the Sturdy Colls map. As for the locations of the two alleged gas chamber buildings, which Bay goes to painstaking length to identify, based on the aerial photos and witness statements, the 4 structures marked out by Sturdy Colls (in blue) and designated “probable location of gas chambers” are located some 100 m south of the sites pinpointed by Bay. The alignment of these structures is also rather different from that asserted by Bay. Together with the considerable difference in surface size between the mass graves posited by Bay and the pits identified by Sturdy Colls, this says something of the competence of Bay as well as the reliability of his star witness Wiernik.   

 Above: Bay’s “reconstruction” of Treblinka compared with the 1944 air photo version of the Sturdy Colls map (click to enlarge)

13) As for the “probable location of gas chambers” we learn virtually nothing other than that Sturdy Colls has identified two brick structures. On the composite maps, however, four structures are marked out, of which the largest (near the eastern exit of the “Road to heaven”) is likely to be the one identified by Sturdy Colls as the “new gas chamber building”. The three other structures, two of which are relatively large, are located close to each other. One must suppose that one of the two larger structures has been identified by Sturdy Colls as the “old gas chamber building”. According to the most elaborate exterminationist effort to map Treblinka based on aerial photos and eyewitness testimony (and in this case one of the ground photos from the Kurt Franz “Schoene Zeiten” album interpreted by Bay and others as taken inside the “death camp proper”), the 2004 map of Peter Laponder,[25] the only structures located adjacent to the “old gas chamber building” were a water pump shelter, a tiny guardhouse, and a watchtower. Yet on the composite map we have two larger structures next to each other. We will have to wait and see if the geophysical survey has revealed anything about the layout of these structures. If that is not the case, we can only hope that Sturdy Colls soon returns to the camp site to excavate the detected structural remains. 

All in all, the information revealed by these interviews about the findings of the 2011 geophysical survey at Treblinka provides us with more questions than answers. We can only wait and hope that a preliminary report on the research results is not too long in coming. One thing is sure, however, namely that little indicates that the findings of Caroline Sturdy Colls have actually “proven Holocaust deniers wrong” with regard to Treblinka. On the contrary: the information revealed seems to hint that the findings of Caroline Sturdy Colls may well spell the doom of the official historiography on Treblinka.

_____________________________________________________________________

[1] Thomas Kues, “UK Forensic Archeologist Sets Out To Refute Treblinka ‘Deniers’”,  http://www.revblog.codoh.com/2010/11/uk-forensic-archeologist-sets-out-to-refute-treblinka-deniers/

[2] “Mass graves at Nazi death camp Treblinka prove Holocaust deniers wrong”, http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/01/16/mass-graves-at-nazi-death-camp-treblinka-holocaust_n_1208814.html

[3] This radio program is temporarily available at  http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b019rlns/The_Hidden_Graves_of_the_Holocaust/

[4] http://www.ideaslab.bham.ac.uk/MP3s/Caroline_Sturdy_Colls_Treblinka_podcast.mp3 A transcript of this podcast can be found at http://www.ideaslab.bham.ac.uk/MP3s/Transcript_Predictor_Podcast_40.doc

[5] “Treblinka: Revealing the hidden graves of the Holocaust”, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16657363 The article carries a heading which concludes with the words “…writes forensic archaeologist Caroline Sturdy Colls” giving the clear impression that what follows is a piece written directly by Sturdy Colls herself; on the other hand the article isn’t signed. Nevertheless it is clear that the contents of the article are derived from Sturdy Colls together with the composite maps.

[6] Cf. Carlo Mattogno, Belzec in Propaganda, Testimonies, Archeological Research, and History, Theses & Dissertations Press, Chicago 2004, p. 73.

[7] Cf. Jürgen Graf, Thomas Kues, Carlo Mattogno, Sobibór: Holocaust Propaganda and Reality, TBR Books 2010, p. 120.

[8] Cf. ibid., p. 117.

[9] Cf. Jürgen Graf, Carlo Mattogno, Treblinka. Extermination Camp or Transit Camp?, Theses & Dissertations Press, Chicago 2004, p. 138.

[10] Discussed in detail in my article Chil Rajchman’s Treblinka Memoirs, Inconvenient History, vol. 2, nr. 1, online: http://www.inconvenienthistory.com/archive/2010/volume_2/number_1/chil_rajchmans_treblinka_memoirs.php

[11] Chil Rajchman, Treblinka. A Survivor’s Memory 1942–1943, MacLehose Press, London 2011, p. 60.

[12] Cf. Carlo Mattogno, Belzec or the Holocaust Controversy of Roberto Muehlenkamp, section 4.1. http://www.codoh.com/gcgv/gcgvhcrm.html

[13] Yitzhak Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. The Operation Reinhard Death Camps, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis 1987, p. 85.

[14] Judging by some of the early maps of the camp, pit #3 would have been located outside of this part of the camp, whereas some later exterminationist efforts to reconstruct the topography of the camp places it within the “death camp proper”, cf. Mapping Treblinka, http://www.deathcamps.org/treblinka/maps.html

[15] C. Mattogno, Belzec…, op.cit., p. 73.

[16] J. Graf, T. Kues, C. Mattogno, Sobibór…, op.cit., p. 120.

[17] Y. Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, op.cit., p. 87.

[18] Ibid., pp. 275-276.

[19] Dieter Pohl, “Massentötungen durch Giftgas im Rahmen der ‘Aktion Reinhardt’: Aufgaben der Forschung” in: Günter Morsch, Betrand Perz (eds.), Neue Studien zu nationalsozialistischen Massentötungen durch Giftgas. Historische Bedeutung, technische Entwicklung, revisionistische Leugnung, Metropol, Berlin 2011, p. 194.

[20] Cf. Y. Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, op.cit., pp. 87-88; J. Graf, C. Mattogno, Treblinka. Extermination Camp or Transit Camp?, op.cit., p. 107.

[21] According to the English-language Wikipedia article on Ground Penetrating Radar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-penetrating_radar) “Good penetration is also achieved in dry sandy soils or massive dry materials such as granite, limestone, and concrete where the depth of penetration could be up to 15 m”, implying that the concrete slabs of the memorial in themselves should pose little problem for a GPR survey. There may of course be other, unrevealed hindering factors. 

[22] The Reconstruction of Treblinka, http://www.holocaust-history.org/Treblinka/

[23] http://www.holocaust-history.org/Treblinka/deathcampinternet/deathcampp7.shtml

[24] Y. Wiernik, A Year in Treblinka, chapter 3, online: http://www.zchor.org/treblink/wiernik.htm

[25] http://www.deathcamps.org/treblinka/pic/bmap9.jpg

By Carlo Mattogno

Butz does not need any introduction; his position as a leading light on the international Revisionist scene is uncontested, but for this very reason what he writes here is somewhat disappointing, as it does not remotely live up to his reputation.

I quote his recent review:

“Carlo Mattogno, together with his long-time colleague Jürgen Graf and, more recently, Thomas Kues (familiar to readers of this newsletter) are among the most energetic and productive revisionists working today. They have accumulated a wealth of documentary material with long, presumably self-financed, trips to the various archives, especially in eastern Europe.

Mattogno has published a number of books and articles on Auschwitz, the core of the ‘Holocaust’ legend, and this two-volume work is the most recent. Past readers of IHR’s Journal of Historical Review and Germar Rudolf’s The Revisionist may recall that I have occasionally clashed with Mattogno. I do have a problem with Mattogno’s writings and, partly because I have already read many of them, and partly for reasons I shall presently elucidate, I did not read these recent two volumes in their entirety.

A major reason I did not read all of Mattogno’s books is simply that I have great trouble following his arguments and, even after taking all that time and trouble, I can feel I have been left in the lurch.

Our most recent clash was on the subject of a document showing the Auschwitz construction department attempting to get cyanide gas detectors from the oven manufacturer Topf for use in a crematorium then under construction. Pressac and others had held this document up as proving the existence of gas chambers in the crematoria. Those wishing to revisit that exchange can see my original article,[ii] Mattogno’s original article, [iii] and the Butz-Mattogno exchange.[iv] It suffices to say that Mattogno’s theory was that the document ‘was falsified by an ignorant forger’, while I speculated that the wish for cyanide gas detectors arose from a waste incinerator that shared ducts with the crematorium ovens. We agreed that Zyklon was not involved, as there was a special department at Auschwitz for that, which had all the cyanide detectors needed for that application.

It was therefore with great interest that I read his new discussion of the alleged gas detectors, which is admirable for its copious documentation. It takes 22 pages but, mainly because Mattogno’s trains of thought contrast so much with mine, I found the going rough. It seemed that Mattogno was coming around to my theory, with the change that a cyanide danger was seen in the cremations (I had never encountered an association of cyanide with cremation). I say it ‘seemed’ because throughout the considerable labor of reading this section it was not clear where he was headed, but that’s okay if the matter is clarified in the end. Twice (pp 94, 107) he promised to ‘furnish an alternative explanation’ to the interpretation of Pressac et.al. He did not consider the possible involvement of the waste incinerator.

I was to be disappointed as he suddenly, and without warning, concluded his analysis with this single paragraph (p. 114):

‘For all these reason [sic] the Topf letter of March 2, 1943, is at least suspicious. Although it seems formally authentic, its content is utterly untenable.’

What does that mean? I don’t know. If anything, Mattogno appears to want to come back to his original claim of falsification, but perhaps understands that the evidence gives no support to such a conclusion, so he has left the matter in confusion. He did not ‘furnish an alternative explanation’.

Thus I warn that the fruits of the reader’s considerable labor may be more in learning the relevant documents than in formulating reliable conclusions. In knowledge of the documents, Mattogno seems to have no peer.”

And this is all that Butz can find to say about a two-volume book of 750 pages!

He does not explain what is its purpose, yet this is clearly indicated in the subtitle: “A Historical & Technical Study of Jean-Claude Pressac’s Criminal Traces and Robert Jan van Pelt’s Convergence of Evidence” It is therefore a critical work that should be evaluated for what it promises, namely to present an exhaustive, radical, systematic and detailed rebuttal of all the arguments put forward by these two exterminationist authors concerning the alleged homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz. A serious review should assess whether the task was performed in an accurate manner, and if the arguments are sound and the demonstration convincing.

Surprisingly, Butz instead pays no attention to all of that. He cites my work without even mentioning the subtitle: What can his reader infer from the simple title Auschwitz: The case for Sanity? In his article van Pelt (to whom over 200 pages are devoted in the book) is not even mentioned, while Pressac, whose theses are, directly or indirectly, the subject of the rest of the book, is mentioned only in passing and in relation to a specific interpretation by him.

The fact that Butz has “problems” with my writings, that he has “great trouble” in following my arguments, that 22 pages are for him a “considerable labor,” are clearly his personal limitations that concern only him[v]: nobody forced him to read this book, but if he really wanted to submit a review of it, he should read it and take account of it in its entirety.

The book is divided into 19 chapters and further subdivided into 110 sections, containing about 170 sub-sections, each of which makes several points.

Butz, however, focuses on one: in quantitative terms, he takes into consideration 22 pages out of more than 750. It is as though someone were to review his famous The Hoax of the Twentieth Century by examining only the twenty pages devoted to this so-called War Refugee Board Report (I will explain below why I have chosen this example), ignoring all the rest, and claiming, from these twenty or so pages to assess the value of the work as a whole.

This section (2.6, pp. 93-114) is divided into 7 sub-sections which cover the following topics: 1) “Pressac’s Interpretation”; 2) “The Destination of the ‘Gasprüfer’”; 3) “The Historical Context”; 4) “The Bureaucratic Context”; 5) “Problems Not Solved by Jean-Claude Pressac”; 6) “What Were the ‘Gasprüfer’?” (in which I give my “alternative explanation”); 7) “Prüfer and the ‘Gasprüfer’”. The argument presented is simple and linear: what is there that is so difficult to understand?

Butz’s exposition is all the more imprecise in that he speaks of “a document” of the Zentralbauleitung relating to alleged “gas detectors, whereas there are two documents in question: the telegram to Topf of 26 February 1943, which contains an order for “10 Gasprüfer” and the letter, also addressed to Topf,  dated 2 March 1943, which mentions the “Anzeigegeräte für Blausäure-Reste” (but which also quotes the above-mentioned telegram). The reason why he insists on this issue is precisely the fact that in this regard, he and I have in the past had a disagreement. But this “our most recent disagreement” goes back to 1998: was it really worth digging it up?

Given that Butz has done so, it would be as well to summarize what this disagreement concerned. Anyone interested in a more thorough examination of the issue can read my updated article “Osservazioni  sull’articolo di A. Butz “Gas Detectors in the Auschwitz Crematorium II” (Observations on A. Butz’s article ‘Gas Detectors in the Auschwitz Crematorium II”)[vi].  I state that Butz starts from two erroneous assumptions which already, in principle, invalidate his arguments. The first is the unfounded conjecture that the Gasprüfer and the Anzeigegeräte für Blausäure-Reste were “gas detectors”, more specifically, hydrocyanic acid vapor detectors. In fact, as I have demonstrated in the above-mentioned work (and earlier in the paper I Gasprüfer di Auschwitz. Analisi storico-tecnica di una “prova definitiva”[vii]), the “Gasprüfer” were straightforward flue-gas analyzers (see figure 1).

Figure 1 – Entry “Gasprüfer” in section “Thermo-technical measurement /Technical gas analyses” in the prestigious Hütte. Des Ingenieurs Taschenbuch. Verlag W. Ernst & Sohn, Berlin, 1931, vol. I, p. 1013. (Click to enlarge).

In the early Forties there existed a number of instruments of this type, from devices to analyze flue gases (Rauchgasanalyse-Anlagen) to % CO₂ detectors (Geber für die % CO₂), to indicators for % CO₂  and for % CO+H₂ (Anzeiger für % CO₂  und für % CO+H_{2) (See Figure 2).}

Figure 2 –  Siemens “Gasprüfer” from the Thirties. From: Alberto Cantagalli, Nozioni  teorico-pratiche per i conduttori di caldaie e generatori di vapore. G. Lavagnolo Editore, Torino, 1940, p. 308. (The captions have been erroneously inverted). (Click to enlarge).

On the other hand, there were no Anzeigegeräte für Blausäure-Reste: these did not exist and could not exist, because the term Anzeigegeräte refers to “indicators”, that is to mechanical instruments functioning on a physical principle (exactly like those shown in Figure 2), but at that time the presence of hydrocyanic acid vapor could only be detected using a residual gas test (Gasrestprobe), which was carried out with the Gasrestnachweisgerät für Zyklon (Zyklon [B] residual-gas testing kit), the process developed by Pertusi  and Gastaldi and perfected by Sieverts and Hermsdorf and carried out with chemical reagents and papers contained in a special box (see Figure 3).

Figure 3 –   “Gasrestnachweisgerät für Zyklon” found by the Soviets at Auschwitz in 1945. Archive of the Auschwitz State Museum, negative no. 627. (Click to enlarge).

This kit was normally sold by the two German distributors of Zyklon B, Heerdt und Lingler (Heli) and Tesch und  Stabenow (Testa) (see Figure 4).

Figura 4 – Letter from Tesch & Stabenow to the KL Lublin administration dated 29 July 1942. Archive of the State Museum of Majdanek, I, d 2, vol. 1, p. 107. (Click to enlarge).

Figure 4a –   Enlargement (Click to enlarge).

Butz’s second assumption is the hypothesis, equally unfounded, that there existed “a gas detector differing from that used in the Zyklon delousing operations” even equipped with an audible alarm.[viii]

Since testing for residual gas could only be done using the chemical procedure of the Gasrestnachweisgerät für Zyklon, in practice Butz’s conjecture that these alleged “gas detectors” were for the waste incinerator (Müllverbrennungsofen) of Crematorium II at Birkenau (assuming that material could be burned there whose combustion produced hydrocyanic acid), is incongruous and in contradiction with his admission that “We agreed that Zyklon was not involved, as there was a special department at Auschwitz for that, which had all the cyanide detectors needed for that application.” In fact, as I have explained in my study (pp. 100-102)  the acquisition and the use of Zyklon B with associated accessories, including apparatus for residual-gas testing, were the responsibility of the SS-Standortartz (garrison physician). This makes complete nonsense of the Zentralbauleitung’s order from Topf for Gasprüfer/Anzeigegeräte für Blausäure-Reste which according to the theory of Pressac and of Butz were Gasrestnachweisgeräte, or apparatus for residual gas testing for hydrocyanic acid: if the Zentralbauleitung had had a requirement for such equipment, either, hypothetically, for homicidal purposes in the alleged gas chambers or for testing waste incinerators, they would have ordered them from the garrison physician, since they fell within his institutional scope and certainly not from Topf, who neither produced nor sold them.

Butz’s conjecture is also not very sensible because it completely ignores historical, technical and documentary reality. There is not even the faintest indication in its favor, and, as I showed in my article on the subject, it is in no way supported by the historical, technical and documentary context.

To Butz it seems that I am turning around his theory, by referring to the danger of production of hydrocyanic acid at cremations. His impression is mistaken, since I have never maintained such an absurdity. He then states that I twice promised to “furnish an alternative explanation” to Pressac’s interpretation, whereas, in fact, I would not have done so. In reality this explanation, as I have already mentioned, can be found in subparagraph 6, specifically on p. 111, where I have concluded that the 10 Gasprüfer were, in fact, simple flue gas analyzers destined for the 10 flues (Rauchkanäle) of Crematories II and III.

Crematory II came into service on February 20, but at reduced capacity, because the electrical power supply only allowed a “limited use of existing machines”. The “Gasprüfer” were, therefore, used to determine whether the limited use of the draft and blower installations would allow  economically viable combustion.

And since they were thermo-technical instruments, it is obvious that the Zentralbauleitung would have ordered them from a firm specializing in combustion equipment.

And the letter of March 2, 1943, with its notional “Anzeigegeräte für Blausäure-Reste”? In that regard, I stated that:

“If a historian affirms that a document furnishes ‘the ultimate proof’ of some fact, he must also address and resolve all the problems which arise in this connection and he must not evade this burdensome task.” (p. 112).

But neither Pressac nor van Pelt, nor Butz, nor anyone else has resolved these problems, which can be summarized as follows:

1) an order for combustion gas analyzers (Gasprüfer) by the Zentralbauleitung to Topf is followed by an offer, by Topf, of Anzeigegeräte für Blausäure-Reste, instruments which did not, and could not, exist;

2) the alleged purpose of the order for these instruments, to test for residual hydrogen cyanide gas,  is nonsensical and impossible, because it could not be carried out either with Gasprüfer, or with  notional Anzeigegeräte für Blausäure-Reste, but only with the Gasrestnachweisgerät für Zyklon;

3) according to Pressac’s interpretation and in effect Butz’s, the order for alleged residual gas-testing equipment for hydrogen cyanide would have been addressed not to the garrison physician, under whose institutional responsibility it fell, not to the companies that produced it and sold it – Degussa (Deutsche Gold-und Silber-Scheideanstalt), Degesch (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung), Heli and Testa – but to a company that dealt with combustion equipment![ix]

And it is clear that, as long as there is no resolution of the mystery of the Anzeigegeräte für Blausäure-Reste, a designation, I repeat, not found in any of the specialist literature on disinfestation and the detection of toxic gases, a designation which in fact appears only in the letter of March 2, 1943, no “alternative explanation” is possible, simply because no explanation is possible. That of Pressac and his associates is in fact a false explanation, because it translates literally (residual hydrogen cyanide gas detectors) from a contrived term for something that has no tangible existence in the real world (Anzeigegeräte für Blausäure-Reste).

As for Butz, his approach to this document is so superficial that he presents only a translation into English, without even mentioning the suspicious novelty of the German expression  “Anzeigegeräte für Blausäure-Reste”[x], relegating it to the literal “residual HCN detection devices”[xi] . In effect he completely sidesteps the key issue in this document. In stressing that  “Mattogno’s theory was that the document ‘was falsified by an ignorant forger’, when I speculated that the order for hydrocyanic gas detectors related to the waste incinerator, without the slightest explanation of the reasons for this hypothesis, and opposing it with his own alleged “alternative” explanation, Butz completely misrepresents my position, painting me, like some Holocaust apologists, as someone who declared a document false because he was unable to explain it, when in fact this hypothesis derived from the manifestly absurd contents of the document.

Regarding the content, in fact, the document in question has no value, no more than a military document that mentioned a flying attack donkey. Precisely what I meant with the conclusion:

“For all these reasons, the Topf letter of 2 March 1943 is at least suspect. Although it seems formally true, its content is completely unreliable.”

Was this so hard to understand?

The military document would be formally true, but what about the flying attack donkey? It would be too facile to solve the riddle (as, by analogy, do Pressac and Butz with regard to “Anzeigegeräte”)  that “flying donkey” means, for example, “helicopter”. This would not be an explanation, but simply a cop-out, as is identifying “Anzeigegeräte für Blausäure-Reste” with residual gas test kits for hydrocyanic acid.

So it is not true that I leave the matter “in confusion”: it is the document that creates confusion. This is admitted by Butz himself, who, in the second edition of his book, wrote:

“The letter from Topf dated March 2, 1943 is strange and for some time I have had doubts as to its authenticity.”[xii]

His suspicion was dispelled by his “alternative interpretation”, but, as I have shown above, this is limited merely to circumventing the problems inherent in the document.

In finally adding to my words a pointless “[sic]”, Butz confirms that he has serious problems in understanding what I wrote, since “for all these reasons”, which I have summarized above, is printed on pp. 111-112.

All this amounts to anything but calm historical criticism. And we wonder why Butz wanted to review a book containing arguments which, by his own admission, he can follow only with “great difficulty”.

In his examination of Crowell’s theses, Butz dwells at length on the so-called War Refugee Board Report, the series of reports by prisoners who escaped from Auschwitz in 1944, also known as the “Auschwitz Protocols.” I have also dealt with this document, devoting a section of just over 14 pages to it (pp. 563-577). The fact that Butz does not speak of this, although obviously interested in the subject, gives rise to the suspicion that, in my book, he has only read the 22 pages mentioned above.

Also surprising is that Butz has left out another important issue on which we disagree: that of “Vergasungskeller“. In the book in question, I examined in depth (pp. 55-69) the problem with this term, which appears in the letter from the Zentralbauleitung to SS-Brigadeführer Kammler, head of Office Group C of the SS-WVHA, dated January 29, 1943 and which translates literally as “gassing cellar”. My conclusion, which is supported by the historical-documentary context, is that this referred to a project for an emergency disinfestation chamber. Butz believes rather that the “Vergasungskeller” was a “gas shelter”, that is a gas-tight air-raid shelter[xiii]. Then[xiv] Samuel Crowell developed the thesis that Pressac’s “criminal traces” could be explained in the context of air defense architectural measures.

In light of the known documents, this interpretation is completely unfounded, as I have abundantly shown in my “clash” with Crowell[xv]. It is enough simply to say that the “Air-raid protection measures for the Auschwitz” garrison (Luftschutzmassnahmen im Standort Auschwitz) were only ordered on November 16, 1943, when the construction of the crematories was already completed (the “criminal traces” date from the first half of 1943); SS-Untersturmführer Heinrich Josten, appointed “Luftschutzleiter”, Head of Air-Raid Protection[xvi], began to handle this task precisely from this date.

With regard to the “Vergasungskeller”, I have demonstrated that in every document from Auschwitz where “Vergasung” appears, this always and exclusively relates to disinfestation (pp. 67-68). What is more, the German term designating anti-gas protection is “Gasschutz” (as is demonstrated by the title of an important specialist review of the Thirties: Gasschutz und Luftschutz, Protection against Gas and Air Raids), so that, in the event, the Zentralbauleitung document would have spoken of a “Gasschutzkeller”, and certainly not a “Vergasungskeller”.

It has been commented that in my book neither Butz nor Crowell is even mentioned, even though van Pelt criticized their theses. The reason is precisely that I consider their arguments irreconcilable with the historical, technical and documentary context; that is that since from a historical, technical and documentary point of view they are unfounded, such arguments can therefore not make a positive contribution to criticizing the positions of Pressac and van Pelt in interpreting documents or ascertaining facts.

These are my interpretations; of course, I do not pretend that they are indisputable; I limit myself to observing that they are the only ones which are reconcilable with the historical, technical and documentary context.

To Butz’s rescue promptly rushes Robert Faurisson, who writes:

“I totally agree with your review of Crowell’s book and Mattogno’s book.

I, for one, had decided not to write anything about Mattogno. For a very long time he appeared to me as a man suffering a terrible complex because he was not a scholar. This already is not a sign of intelligence. I would appreciate more an intelligent mason talking about history than many University professors teaching history. Mattogno wants to show what he thinks is science instead of being simply scientific. He makes everything complicated and this is too bad for our revisionist cause. For example, we do not need pages and pages on the cremation or the crematory ovens. The reader might think: ‘Dear, this is too complicated for me. I cannot decide whether those revisionists are right or wrong’. […]. Congratulations, dear Art”[xvii].

The two best-known revisionists in America and Europe have joined forces against me: I do not know if it is an honor or a disgrace. Is to have carried out in-depth studies on multiple “complicated” issues that Butz and Robert Faurisson have barely mentioned bad for revisionism?

Faurisson’s message seems animated by obvious personal animosity. To someone interested in revisionist issues, personal disagreements are in fact of no interest, so I will not respond on this level. But I must point out that my supposed “terrible complex” is certainly not suggested by the judgments made by Faurisson on me toward the beginning of my revisionist activities. I summarize the most salient ones taken from Écrits révisionnistes (1974-1998):[xviii]

Vol. II, p. 562 (1985): “An Italian revisionist, Carlo Mattogno, the quality of whose work is exceptional…”.

p. 723 (1987): “Carlo Mattogno, who is only 35, is a researcher of exceptional erudition”,

pp. 983-984 (1990): “C. Mattogno shows a type of erudition in the tradition of his ancestors of the Renaissance; he is both meticulous and prolific; in the future he will figure in the first rank among revisionists”.

As for the example cited by Faurisson, if Pressac has devoted “pages and pages” to the question of cremation and crematories at Auschwitz, I do not see how one can refute it without also devoting “pages and pages” to the subject.

I do not think it is up to Faurisson to determine what revisionism needs or does not need. If he believes that his readers need simplification, good for him and good for them. Other readers want instead to go more deeply and to read longer, more articulate works. I hope to satisfy these readers and at the same time pose a few puzzles for holocaust historians.

I do not see why there should be a conflict between these two different approaches, which are simply complementary: do both not contribute to the “cause”?

4 September 2011.

Samuel Crowell; The Gas Chamber of Sherlock Holmes, and Other Writings on the Holocaust, Revisionism, and Historical Understanding; Nine-Banded Books, PO Box 1862, Charleston, WV 25327 (www.ninebandedbooks.com); 2011, 401 pp.

Carlo Mattogno; Auschwitz: The Case for Sanity, two vols.; The Barnes Review, PO Box 15877, Washington, DC 20003 (www.BarnesReview.org), 1-877-773-9077 toll free; 2010, 756 pp. total

These two very recent books evidence the maturity of the field of Holocaust revisionism.

Carlo Mattogno, together with his long-time colleague Jürgen Graf and, more recently, Thomas Kues (familiar to readers of this newsletter) are among the most energetic and productive revisionists working today. They have accumulated a wealth of documentary material with long, presumably self-financed, trips to the various archives, especially in eastern Europe.

Mattogno has published a number of books and articles on Auschwitz, the core of the “Holocaust” legend, and this two-volume work is the most recent. Past readers of IHR’s Journal of Historical Review and Germar Rudolf’s The Revisionist may recall that I have occasionally clashed with Mattogno. I do have a problem with Mattogno’s writings and, partly because I have already read many of them, and partly for reasons I shall presently elucidate, I did not read these recent two volumes in their entirety.

A major reason I did not read all of Mattogno’s books is simply that I have great trouble following his arguments and, even after taking all that time and trouble, I can feel I have been left in the lurch.

Our most recent clash was on the subject of a document showing the Auschwitz construction department attempting to get cyanide gas detectors from the oven manufacturer Topf for use in a crematorium then under construction. Pressac and others had held this document up as proving the existence of gas chambers in the crematoria. Those wishing to revisit that exchange can see my original article[i], Mattogno’s original article[ii], and the Butz-Mattogno exchange.[iii] It suffices to say that Mattogno’s theory was that the document “was falsified by an ignorant forger”, while I speculated that the wish for cyanide gas detectors arose from a waste incinerator that shared ducts with the crematorium ovens. We agreed that Zyklon was not involved, as there was a special department at Auschwitz for that, which had all the cyanide detectors needed for that application.

It was therefore with great interest that I read his new discussion of the alleged gas detectors, which is admirable for its copious documentation. It takes 22 pages but, mainly because Mattogno’s trains of thought contrast so much with mine, I found the going rough. It seemed that Mattogno was coming around to my theory, with the change that a cyanide danger was seen in the cremations (I had never encountered an association of cyanide with cremation). I say it “seemed” because throughout the considerable labor of reading this section it was not clear where he was headed, but that’s okay if the matter is clarified in the end. Twice (pp 94, 107) he promised to “furnish an alternative explanation” to the interpretation of Pressac et.al.. He did not consider the possible involvement of the waste incinerator.

I was to be disappointed as he suddenly, and without warning, concluded his analysis with this single paragraph (p. 114):

For all these reason [sic] the Topf letter of March 2, 1943, is at least suspicious. Although it seems formally authentic, its content is utterly untenable.

What does that mean? I don’t know. If anything, Mattogno appears to want to come back to his original claim of falsification, but perhaps understands that the evidence gives no support to such a conclusion, so he has left the matter in confusion. He did not “furnish an alternative explanation”.

Thus I warn that the fruits of the reader’s considerable labor may be more in learning the relevant documents than in formulating reliable conclusions. In knowledge of the documents, Mattogno seems to have no peer. You will come away from the section I have discussed knowing more about the application of Zyklon at Auschwitz than you ever needed to know.

Much of Samuel Crowell’s book is about Auschwitz, though his aim is to consider all the major features of Holocaust legend; in that respect his work is comparable to my 1976 The Hoax of the Twentieth Century. His book is copiously documented. I read the whole volume, and am much happier with both Crowell’s conclusions and his means of reaching them than I am with Mattogno’s, on those matters common to both works. I believe Crowell’s work is of basic and abiding importance in untangling what I have called the “Hoax”.

Crowell has an additional objective missing in Mattogno. He presents a genesis of the legend, even examining the early 20^th century for cultural developments that could have given rise to fears of gas chambers. His main thrust appears to be (p. 151) “The gassing claim as a mass delusion . . . . as a cultural construct . . . . created by, and reinforced by, delusional pressures of social and cultural change as well as by censorship.” That is, the claim was created by society and history, or a natural evolution of society, rather than by intent of specific persons.

Here I shall, before coming to my main objection, criticize a major point in Crowell’s presentation, namely, his disdain for the “hoax” and “conspiracy” interpretations of the legend, though he gives limited approval to the hoax thesis (p 155):

It would probably be better to say that, if the claim is a hoax, then surely a hoax of limited participation, and we should emphasize the number of those deceived, rather than the small number of those deceiving.

Why? Everybody knows the number of those deceived, namely almost everybody, and the number of those deceiving is therefore necessarily small, and there remains only the questions who, how, and why, questions that this reviewer will further examine.

Earlier in the book Crowell advanced his theory with another concession (p. 42): “while we continue to maintain that most of the elements in the gassing story arose more or less spontaneously and were just as spontaneously believed, at Majdanek we are confronted with grim evidence of a deliberate Soviet hoax.” As for the claim of gas chambers at Auschwitz, he remarks (p. 133) “there is a strong likelihood of a Polish and Soviet communist hoax in developing this particular evidence.” The concession is most interesting in terms of who is missing as a perpetrator, whom I shall presently identify.

Later in the book he denigrates “conspiracy theory” much as our major media do (pp. 357ff):

. . . . the human mind will seek to create causal nexuses for events that seem arbitrary and capricious, especially when they are destructive on a grand scale. To this extent the human mind is always potentially schizophrenic: perceiving a world full of confusing and unpredictable action, yet understood by a mind that refuses to accept a lack of pattern or structure. When Einstein wrote to Max Born and declared that God “does not throw dice,” he was speaking not as a scientist but as Everyman.

I beg to differ: Einstein was speaking as a scientist to another scientist. His resistance as a scientist to much of modern physics, which his remark related to, is well known. Indeed finding “pattern or structure” in creating “causal nexuses for events that seem arbitrary and capricious”, though perceiving only “a world full of confusing and unpredictable action”, is called “science”.

As for definitions, that which is “confidential cooperation” to you may be “conspiracy” to me. That is, the notion of conspiracy depends on point of view. We may say my definition of conspiracy is “confidential cooperation Butz doesn’t like”.

We can agree with Crowell, for the sake of discussion, that “conspiracy theory”, as distinct from “conspiracy”, is a claim, not supported by evidence sufficient for proof, of the existence of some conspiracy. The lack of proof, of course, is the basis for the ridicule that our media heap on the dissident conspiracy theorists. Where I part with Crowell is on the value of conspiracy theory. While some conspiracy theories are of course ridiculous, the possibility of hypothesizing conspiracies is vital to arriving at truth.

Here is an example. A police inspector, trying to solve a crime, conjectures that two or more characters may have collaborated in that crime. How does he investigate the conjecture? An important feature of his conjecture would be a hypothesis on specifically how the two or more suspects collaborated to commit the crime, because that hypothesis would guide him in seeking evidence that would, if it is found, confirm the conjecture. Without the hypothesis, the investigation would be unguided. That hypothesis, of course, is a “conspiracy theory”. The police inspector has two luxuries: official investigative power and that he need not reveal his hypothesis until he has the proof.

Public debate on matters of general concern does not allow that; there is normally no way to test the theory other than by throwing it out into the public arena. Should those who suspected a conspiracy involving President Nixon, before the Watergate tapes were released, have kept their mouths shut? I don’t think so.

I argued in my Hoax book that the “Holocaust”, in its canonical “gas chamber” form, has Auschwitz as its center and the document I called the “WRB Report” (since it was first published by Henry Morgenthau’s War Refugee Board), at its foundation. I made it clear in Hoax, Ch. III, that the War Refugee Board was a Jewish operation designed to help Jews, despite the neutrality of its name.

A preliminary version of the WRB Report had been reported by the NY Times on 3 July 1944 and on 26 Nov. 1944 the Times reported publication of the Report by the WRB, more than two months before the Soviets captured Auschwitz.

The WRB Report is also sometimes referred to, today, as the “Auschwitz Protocol”. In the book and elsewhere I noted the strong presence of truth in the document, e.g. the transport lists, which well approximate those later published by the Auschwitz Museum and which, as I said at the end of my Ch. III,  “is not the sort of information escapees would carry out”. As for the rest of the WRB Report, it closely approximates the present orthodox presentation of the gas chamber yarn, according to which gas chambers employing Zyklon were integrated into the crematoria. The knowledgeable, and I stress “knowledgeable”, authors therefore gave us a hoax.

What does Crowell say about the WRB Report? Very little, but it is important. He considers the document USSR-8 presented by the Soviet Union at the big Nuremberg trial (the IMT), as the foundation of the legend (pp. 58ff), noting the WRB Report was not presented (p 62). However Crowell also remarks that the Soviet report was influenced by the WRB Report, and also by a 2 Feb. 1945 report by the Soviet journalist Boris Polevoi (p. 48). He does not note that Polevoi was a Jew on his mother’s side. The Soviet report, having been written a year after the WRB Report by the Soviets who had captured the camp and many of its documents, of course contained more detail, but the Soviets were well instructed beforehand on what they were supposed to find there.

Actually, one page of the WRB Report was put in evidence in the IMT trial[iv]. Moreover, the Höss testimony, given originally, and under duress, to Jewish interrogators while in British captivity, had far more impact in the trial and in the press, and well into the postwar years, than either the Soviet report or the WRB Report.[v] Crowell notes (p. 77) that Höss’ statements “speak with great authority to most historians”.

The relative inattention to the WRB Report at the IMT could have been due to a number of things, e.g. an impossibility of producing the authors, or a decision to let the Soviet Union star in this matter, or simply because Auschwitz was on territory conquered by the Soviet Union.

It may be asked, why must the happenings at the IMT settle this? A hoax need not be something presented in a trial, but I think Crowell is right to focus in this way on the IMT; it provided the basis for all future presentations of the legend. Indeed trials have always been crucial in advancing or supporting the legend, a situation that alone should arouse suspicion in reflective historians. A recent example is the Irving-Lipstadt trial (2000).

The WRB Report played a role in the Eichmann trial (1961). The names (Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler) later allegedly used by the two escapees were given there.[vi] Vrba was a cousin of Vera Atkins, who was to inspire the Miss Moneypenny character in the James Bond stories, but who was a British intelligence agent during the war, indeed one of Höss’ Jewish interrogators.[vii] Small world! Or perhaps we should say “All In the Family”. Vrba published his alleged memoirs in 1964 and testified at Ernst Zündel’s trial in Canada in 1985.[viii] It is the WRB Report that has had both a wartime and postwar life; the Soviet Union’s report has been forgotten. Interest in the WRB Report faded in the first three postwar decades but has risen in recent years. It is the foundation for what I called the Hoax and it is clear that it was created, and has been sustained, by the Jewish entity, especially in its Zionist manifestation, despite the many absurdities and contradictions in the accounts of Rudolf Vrba.

I have to add that I don’t know what individuals actually composed the WRB Report. What is clear is that it came from Jewish circles.

That brings us to my “main objection”: Crowell does not present the Jews as important actors in the genesis of the legend. Indeed they don’t do much more than get killed. There being no hoaxer identified in this book, it can be difficult to see a hoax.

Reconsider, as Crowell would have us, the Nuremberg trials. They were a Jewish festival, conducted under the auspices of the USA in the US zone of occupation in Germany. At the IMT, the Soviets, British and French were just guests in a US-staged show. President Franklin “Clear It With Sidney” Roosevelt[ix] was closely associated with the Jews. During the war he enlisted the support of the Jewish gangster Meyer Lansky via their mutual friend the Jew Walter Winchell, then the most influential columnist in the US.[x] Roosevelt’s secret emissary to the dictator-gangster Fulgencio Batista in Cuba was Lansky.[xi]

Roosevelt tasked his close Jewish associate Samuel Rosenman to lay the foundation of the “war crimes” trials, fighting off a British preference to just shoot the Nazi leaders unceremoniously, in favor of the show that was eventually staged in Nuremberg.[xii] What the Soviet Union did there, with its variation or embellishment of the basic materials of the WRB Report, was part of this Jewish festival. The star of the show was Rudolf Höss, acting out a script written for him by Jews. I said much about the Jewish involvement in the Nuremberg trials in my Hoax book, especially in Chs. I, III, V.

What is sorely missing in Crowell’s book is the Jew as actor or, in terms Crowell quotes, as exercising “deliberate agency” (p. 358) in creating and sustaining the hoax. This absence seems to be deliberate. In discussing the various statements made by or attributed to Höss (pp. 75-83), Crowell references (note 298 on p. 76) Robert Faurisson’s paper, cited above, on the interrogations of Höss while in British custody. I consider Faurisson’s paper the basic study of the Höss testimony problem, but Crowell remarks with obvious disapproval that Faurisson preferred “to stress the Jewish identity” of the interrogators. I say “obvious disapproval” because only the unusual reader alert to such footnotes could infer from Crowell’s section that Höss’ tormentors were Jews. From that I must infer that Crowell considers it irrelevant or at least unimportant that the Höss testimony was obtained under duress applied by Jews. Moreover to Crowell it seems (p. 81) Höss’ interrogators were “acting more or less in good faith”!

In summary both the Crowell book and the Mattogno volumes, and probably Mattogno’s earlier works, are indispensable additions to the revisionist library, but both must be read with care and reserve, as indeed all historical works should. I have had to criticize Crowell’s treatment of the genesis of the legend, because I think it very seriously flawed. That does not diminish my admiration for his analysis of the documents purporting to prove the existence of “gas chambers”. It’s the bad things the book reviewer has to give space to; the author gives space to the good things.

In concluding I want to express my great satisfaction with developments of the past 40 years, at the outset of which I wandered alone in the desert. We are not yet in the land of milk and honey, but we are in a land of plenty and these books prove it.

On 30 June 2011 the following news item was published by PRNewswire:[1]

Sixty-six years after the notorious Nazi death camp at Auschwitz was liberated and the horrific crimes of Dr. Josef Mengele were first revealed, Alexander Historic Auctions of Stamford, Connecticut (an affiliate of Alexander Autographs, Inc., www.alexautographs.com) has obtained for auction all of the war criminal’s writings, including his autobiography describing his escape from Germany and life in South America, diaries, philosophical tracts, racial and political commentary, poetry, short stories, and travelogues. The archive is composed of over 3,300 pages of handwritten text, some illustrated, largely in bound journals, written while Mengele was in hiding in Paraguay and Brazil between 1960 and 1975.

The archive will be offered in Alexander’s July 21, 2011 auction of historic militaria and autographs.

[...].

The autobiographical material in this archive, about 25% of its content, is of such historical importance, it was quoted and paraphrased in the mid-1980′s by Bundt Magazine and by authors Gerald Posner and John Ware in their biography of Mengele. Bundt and Posner/Ware quoted excerpts very sparingly, leaving the vast majority of this material unpublished and but for Bundt and Posner/Ware, unviewed.

Writing in the third person, or using the pseudonym ‘Andreas,’ Mengele describes his capture by American forces, hiding on a farm while furtively meeting his wife, escape over the Brenner Pass to Italy, arrest, passage to Argentina, and life in Paraguay and Brazil. (…). He also offers his opinions on a myriad of subjects, including race-mixing, the Nuremburg war crimes trials, justification of the concentration camp system, and denial of the conditions at the camps.

[...].

Bill Panagopulos, president of Alexander Historic Auctions, has a strong opinion on the sale of the archive: ‘Scholarly institutions or historic collections should obtain these writings not as a ‘remembrance’ of a horrific period of world history, but more as a learning tool for future generations to recognize the psychopathic mentality that incited the Holocaust so that similar genocides are never repeated.’

What’s most intriguing in this newsreport is the statement that the Auschwitz doctor’s writings include “denial of the conditions at the camps”. What could this mean, exactly?

The very brief excerpts published by Gerald Posner and John Ware in their Mengele biography Mengele: The Complete Story[2] provide us with some clues in this respect.[3] Mengele did not deny that mass death occured at Auschwitz due to epidemics, malnutrition and other “natural causes” (Posner/Ware, p. 73):

“It is natural and understandable that the camps were suffering very bad hunger after all the problems and therefore I saw what was to be expected.”

According to a Munich pharmacist and his wife who met with him soon after the war, Mengele wanted to turn himself in, but was finally persuaded against it. To this couple Mengele declared his innocence (p. 67):

“I don’t have anything to hide. Terrible things happened at Auschwitz, and I did my best to help. One could not do everything. There were terrible disasters there. I could only save so many. I never killed anyone or hurt anyone. I can prove I am innocent of what they could say against me. I am building the facts for my defense. I want to turn myself in and be cleared at a trial.”

If this quote from memory is correct, then it seems unlikely that Mengele was referring to the use of homicidal gas chambers, because the systematic killing of innocent people in chemical slaughterhouses would not be a “disaster”, but pre-meditated mass murder. Epidemic outbreaks, however, could justly be termed “disasters”.

The defense that Mengele was reportedly building may well be included among the papers now to be auctioned off.

Elsewhere (p. 154) Mengele noted that)

“The political lie triumphs and time and history have been warped and bowed.”

This clearly indicates that Mengele believed that victors of WWII had rewritten the history of what transpired during the war in their own favor.

Then there is the title of one of the autobiographical texts, Fiat Lux, “Let there be light”. A suggested by Robert Faurisson, this title clearly implies that Mengele wished to shed light on what had actually transpired at Auschwitz.

If it is true that Mengele’s writings contain “denial of the conditions at the camps” then it seems most likely that “conditions” refer to either claims of gross mistreatment of prisoners in the form of torture, unlawful punishments etc, or to the allegation that Auschwitz functioned as an extermination camp.

One can only hope that the Mengele documents are purchased by an institution that does not place them behind lock and key, but prefer to reveal their contents to the world. After all, we should never underestimate the Holocaust industry’s tendency to shoot itself in the foot.

[1] “Auschwitz ‘Angel of Death’ Josef Mengele’s Unknown Writings to be Auctioned”,

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/auschwitz-angel-of-death-josef-mengeles-unknown-writings-to-be-auctioned-124801054.html

[2] Gerald Posner, John Ware, Mengele: The Complete Story, McGraw-Hill, New York 1986.

[3] For more on this biography see my online review at: http://www.codoh.com/review/revmengele.html

By Thomas Kues

1. Introduction

According to orthodox holocaust historiography, carbon monoxide from engine exhaust was used to kill nearly 2 million Jews in Poland, Serbia and on occupied Soviet territory between late 1941 and the summer of 1944. The majority of these supposed victims were allegedly killed in stationary gas chambers located in three “pure extermination camps” in the Polish General Government – Bełżec, Sobibór and Treblinka – while the remainder is said to have been killed in mobile “gas vans” that were either stationed at the Chełmno (Kulmhof) camp in the Warthegau area of occupied Poland or employed by Einsatzgruppen or SD units operating in Serbia and on occupied Soviet territory. Below is listed the victim figures for each “killing center” as currently held by the orthodox historians.

Bełżec 434,501[1]

Sobibór 170,000[2]

Treblinka 750,000-900,000[3]

Chełmno (Kulmhof) 152,000-360,000[4]

Other “gas vans” 100,000 approx.

Total: 1,606,501-1,964,501

According to most eyewitness testimony, Diesel engines from captured Soviet tanks were used as killing agents Bełżec and Treblinka, while at Sobibór, the historians claim, a petrol (gasoline) engine of unclear origin was used to produce the lethal carbon monoxide gas. As for the “gas vans” supposedly employed at Chełmno, those are commonly held to have been modified Saurer or Diamond trucks.

The danger of Diesel exhaust has long been debated by revisionist scholars. Since the early 1980s, American revisionist writer and engineer F.P. Berg has published a number of articles dealing with this issue. Their conclusion: Because Diesel engines only generate small amounts of carbon monoxide, and since Diesel exhaust contains much oxygen, the use of diesel engines as killing agents in homicidal gas chambers is preposterous. Witness testimony claiming that Diesel engines were utilized for murderous purposes are thus objectively false. To those witnesses belongs Kurt Gerstein, a certified mining engineer.

This article will not further discuss the Diesel engine issue – it will suffice to say that a number of holocaust historians cling on to the notion that Diesel engines were used for killings,[5] at least at Treblinka, while others have tried to cautiously distance themselves from the Diesel claim.[6] Instead, I will for reason of argument follow the assumption that the (hypothetical) German perpetrators used engines capable of producing lethal amounts of carbon monoxide gas. Given this, I will pose a number of questions related to the physical effects of the poison gas. How would the carbon monoxide (CO) affect the bodies of the victims? What would they look like post mortem? And, most importantly: what does the eyewitnesses to the alleged carbon monoxide gas chambers have to say about the appearance of the corpses?

2. Previous research

The main revisionist study on the issue of skin discoloration caused by carbon monoxide consists of an online article by revisionist and engineer F.P. Berg, entitled “Blue Women on the Beach – and the False Toxicity of CO2 in Diesel Exhaust”. It was written as a rebuttal to an article by Charles D. Provan, “The Blue Color of the Jewish Victims at Belzec Death Camp – and Carbon Monoxide Poisoning”, which had previously appeared in the May 2004 issue of The Revisionist. Below I will provide a summary of the relevant articles written by Berg and Provan between 1983 and 2007.

2.1. Berg’s first articles on the issue of Diesel gas chambers

The first of F.P. Berg’s writings to deal with the issue of the alleged carbon monoxide gas chambers, and especially the claim that Diesel engines were used to generate the lethal gas, was an article originally presented at the 1983 International Revisionist Conference and later, in 1984, published in The Journal for Historical Review, “The Diesel Gas Chambers: Myth Within a Myth”. In it he among other things dissected the witness account of a supposed mass gassing at Bełżec in 1942 that was left by the former SS hygiene technician Kurt Gerstein in French prison in 1945. Referring to the text of one of Kurt Gerstein’s “reports”, Berg writes:

“According to the last sentence of the text quoted, ‘the bodies were tossed out blue, wet with sweat and urine.’ Here we have a flaw as far as the death-from-carbon-monoxide theory is concerned because victims of carbon monoxide poisoning are not blue at all. On the contrary, victims of carbon monoxide poisoning are a distinctive ‘cherry red,’ or ‘pink.’ This is clearly stated in most toxicology handbooks and is probably well known to every doctor and to most, if not all, emergency medical personnel. Carbon monoxide poisoning is actually very common because of the automobile and accounts for more incidents of poison gas injury than all other gases combined.”[7]

As sources Berg gave references to two standard works on toxicology.[8] The above argument was then reiterated in a revised and expanded version of the same article which originally appeared in the revisionist anthology Grundlagen zur Zeitgeschichte (1994) under the same title and later in translation (in Germar Rudolf (ed.), Dissecting the Holocaust, Theses & Dissertations Press 2003) as “Diesel Gas Chambers: Ideal for Torture – Absurd for Murder”. In this appearance the above quoted passage was complemented with a further reference to recently published specialist literature.[9]

2.2. The 2004 article by Charles D. Provan

In his article The Blue Color of the Jewish Victims at Belzec Death Camp – and Carbon Monoxide Poisoning[10] Provan asserts that bluish color or bluish tinge attributed to the Bełżec victims by Gerstein and later Pfannenstiel can be explained as cyanosis. “Blue”, Provan writes, “is a regular (and documented) color for carbon monoxide poisoning, especially when the victims are alive, but also when the victims are dead.” In regard to fatal cases of CO poisoning, Provan quotes a number of studies indicating that “in some cases” of fatal poisoning there is “no cherry-red coloring of the skin”, that in some cases the appearance of the victim is instead “cyanotic”, and that the cherry-red discoloration might be “slight” due to low saturation (i.e. low carboxyhemoglobinal level) and in some cases obscured because of “associated cyanosis”. Provan takes the above as evidence that what Gerstein and Pfannenstiel said in regards to the color of the corpses is “possible”, and that Berg in his previous articles had reached the wrong conclusions.

2.3. The rebuttal of F.P. Berg

Berg opens his rebuttal to Provan[11] stating that the assertion of blue corpses “is totally at odds with the claims (…) that the toxic ingredient [in the exhaust gas used as the killing agent] was carbon monoxide.” The texts on cyanosis referenced by Provan, Berg notes, “fail to use the words “blue” or even “bluish” at all”. “The simple fact”, Berg further contends, “is that the blue appearance of “cyanosis” does not correspond at all to the general “blue” appearance of the “blue corpses” that Gerstein or Pfannenstiel allegedly saw (…)”. Corpses may be multi-colored, and thus “blue” cyanosis may appear on one part of the body, while the rest of it displays a cherry-red color. Cyanosis occurring in connection with carbon monoxide poisoning is “associated” with the poisoning and not in itself a product of any reaction between carbon monoxide and the victim’s blood. Reactions of carbon monoxide with blood are more or less bright red, never blue. Provan is wrong in defining cyanosis as a “medical term for blue coloring occurring in a patient or corpse” since “cyanotis” is not simply the medical term for blue coloring, but only applies to some varieties of blue discoloration. One would not be able to conclude a case of CO poisoning from the mere presence of cyanosis; the color of the victim’s blood would also be examined.

While cyanosis may appear in some fatal cases, “the appearance of a generally “blue” corpse is extremely rare if it ever occurs at all” (Berg). Below a carboxyhemoglobin level of 30% a living body or corpse may indeed display cyanosis without accompanying bright red discoloration, but as the lethal level for most individuals lies around 60%, an overwhelming majority of corpses would definitely show some nuance of red. Variations and exceptions to this occur in only around 6% of all cases. Also, the reddish color when occurring “tends to be extremely intense and dramatic whereas cyanosis is an extremely subtle coloring in which most of the skin is merely pale” (Berg). A lay observer would thus have a hard time noticing any cyanotic cases, whereas the red discolored corpses would be immediately noticeable. “There is good reason to believe”, Berg writes, “that a cyanotic description in our context does not really mean blue at all — but merely blue by contrast or in comparison to other parts of the same or other bodies.” In regards to the Pfannenstiel testimony, Berg remarks that Pfannenstiel “noticed nothing special about the corpses” except for a bluish tinge to the face of some of them, and that no mention of any red discoloration is made, two things which combined speaks against the reliability of this witness. Berg also strongly criticizes Provan’s way of mixing fatal and non-fatal cases of poisoning, as well as “immediate” fatal cases with “delayed” ones. Living victims of CO poisoning may be partially cyanotic and partially red (with a “flushed” or pink appearance) or cyanotic with only negligible or unnoticeable red discolorations. Dead CO victims on the other hand are usually red or cherry-red. In the rare cases (around 9% of all cases) when cyanosis appears associated with fatal CO poisoning, it tends to be appear restricted to parts of the body where the skin is more translucent, such as the lips or nasal openings. The alleged observations of Gerstein and Pfannenstiel are thus not reconcilable with known medical facts.

3. The difference between fatal and non-fatal cases of CO poisoning

In discussing the issue of discolorations in the skin of CO gassing victims, it is important to note the difference between fatal and non-fatal (i.e. clinical) cases of CO poisoning. In the writings of anti-revisionists, we often find quotes from medical literature such as:

“The classic findings of cherry-red lips, cyanosis, and retinal hemorrhages occur rarely.”[12]

Or:

“The classic ‘cherry-red’ skin coloration is actually rare, and patients are more likely to appear pale or cyanotic.”[13]

As F.P. Berg points out, statements such those above appears to refer mainly to clinical cases of carbon monoxide poisoning, i.e. cases where the poisoned person was found alive and received treatment before he or she either survived, or died (therefore the word “patients” in the second quote). A statement similar to the ones quoted above can be found in the standard work A guide to general toxicology (1983):

“Carbon monoxide poisoning may result in blisters or bullae over pressure areas but the classic cherry red color of the skin is rare.”[14]

When, however, the text within which this quote appears is read more closely, it becomes evident that the author(s), without stating this explicitly, is referring mainly or even exclusively to clinical cases.[15] In fact, specialist literature on toxicology and emergency medicine by its very nature normally focus on clinical cases, while cases involving untreated fatal cases are normally treated in writings related to forensic medicine.[16] An article from 2007 authored by Nicholas Bateman, a professor in clinical toxicology, indirectly confirms that deep red or “cherry pink” discoloration is rare among surviving victims, but more common in fatal cases (emphasis added):

“Skin blistering may occur if the patient lies unconscious for some hours before being discovered, and the skin is more likely to be cyanosed than to have the cherry-pink colour that is described to be a classical feature of CO poisoning, but rarely seen in living patients.”[17]

The letter by Bruno Simini to The Lancet, often cited by anti-revisionists, in which it is stated that “cherry-red discoloration in CO poisoning is quite rare” and that “most doctors overestimate the frequency of cherry-red discoloration in CO poisoning” is also clearly referring to clinical cases of poisoning, since it only refers to “surveys of patients” i.e. treated victims of CO poisoning.[18]

The case reports and medical papers which I quote and refer to in the next section clearly proves that deep red or cherry red discoloration of the skin is virtually always present among fatal cases of CO poisoning. In the section after that I will contrast the contents of the medical case reports and findings with statements made by professed eyewitnesses to the alleged homicidal gas chambers and “gas vans”.

Illustration 1: Reddish flush in a non-fatal case of CO poisoning.[19]

Illustration 2: Typical red discoloration in victim of fatal CO poisoning.[20]

Illustration 3: A fatal case of CO poisoning displaying distinctive reddish-pink discoloration.[21]

Illustration 4: Bright red lividity in a victim of CO poisoning.[22]

4. Verified cases of discoloration resulting from carbon monoxide poisoning

Below I will provide brief summaries of a number of case reports and medical papers concerned with skin discoloration as an effect of CO poisoning.

Item 1: The man with the red face

The following case from mid-60’s America involved the suicide attempt of a 21-year old white male of Italian descent:[23]

“When seen on the morning following his admission the author was struck by the appearance of the patient’s cherry-red face. Additionally, he was thick-tongued in speech, lethargic and showed impairment of orientation as regards time and place. Confusion as to what had brought about his admission was noted.

The writer’s initial impression was acute brain syndrome but one whose etiology might involve carbon monoxide poisoning. Thus, the patient was questioned closely as regards the circumstances and details of his suicide attempt. Elicited from the patient were additional facts that he had fallen asleep in his car with the engine running and the windows closed. Twelve hours later, he awoke and returned home to tell his parents what he had done. At that time his clothes were covered by vomitus. It became apparent that a most important clinical sign and area of history had been over-looked previously.”

Thus it is apparent that cherry-red skin discoloration can be highly visible even among survivors of carbon monoxide poisoning. Red discoloration of the skin is thus not limited to the lividity of fresh corpses, but appears in the still living victim’s body as the mechanical result of carbon monoxide being absorbed by the bloodstream. This is because, as F.P. Berg writes in his rebuttal to Provan, “when carbon monoxide reacts with human blood, it forms carboxyhemoglobin which above concentrations of 30% is a bright red, becoming brighter and more intense as the concentration increases”, that is, the discoloration begins immediately with the reaction of the blood with the CO, and is then increased by the inflow of CO. Following death the discoloration is then concentrated by the pooling of blood that is livor mortis (post-mortem lividity).

Item 2: A dead girl in Italy

This case involved a 21 year old white female found dead in a country house owned by her family. It was later determined that her death had been unintentionally caused by a gas water heater. We are told by the authors of the case report that “[t]he pale cherry pink colour of the victim immediately suggested a carbon monoxide poisoning.” A spectrophotometric measurement of the blood showed a carboxyhemoglobin level of 60%. The report also mentions that among survivors of CO poisoning, the mean carboxyhemoglobin level is 28.1%, while among fatalities the mean level is 62.3%. At a level of 50%, the probability of survival is more or less 50%.[24]

Item 3: A German report on six “unusual” cases of fatal CO poisoning

This article[25] states that, despite the presence of indicative death scenes and/or characteristic findings of the external (coroners’) examination, about 40% of all unintentional fatal cases of carbon monoxide poisoning remain unrecognized until the autopsy. To illustrate possible reasons for this, the authors describe six individual cases. In case 1 and 2, involving a middle-aged couple, the bodies were found in a state of extreme putrefaction, so that the cause of death could only be recognized through spectrophotometrically analyzing the carboxyhemoglobin level of the oedema fluid that had gathered in the scalps of the victims. Case 3 involved a young truck driver, found dead in the closed cab of his vehicle and not displaying any clear external signs of CO poisoning, despite a carboxyhemoglobin level of 83%. Case 4 involved a 19 year old male found dead in a flat. Despite a carboxyhemoglobin level of 65% his body lacked “the bright pink coloration of livor mortis”. Case 5 involved a 27 year old male discovered dead in his flat with a carboxyhemoglobin level of 80%. His body was found in a state of advanced decomposition. Case 6 involved a 42 year old female found dead in the garage beside her car. The body did not show any clear external signs of CO poisoning despite a carboxyhemoglobin level of 46%. As stated already by the title of this article (“Unusual carbon monoxide poisoning”) these six cases (in particular cases 3, 4 and 6) are to be viewed as anomalous.

Item 4: An American case of CO poisoning without cherry-red discoloration

According to the authors of this article, carbon monoxide poisoning “typically causes so-called cherry-red livor of the skin and viscera.” They then report of a case of CO poisoning in which this cherry-red livor did not develop. It involved a 75 year old white male found dead in his car during a cold winter. His carboxyhemoglobin level was measured as 86%. The authors inform us that “the curious absence of cherry-red livor” was studied and the decedent’s tissue and blood specimens tested at various temperatures. The tests showed that neither the blood nor the tissue of the victim had a tendency to develop cherry-red color, regardless of temperature.[26]

Item 5: An optical study of discolorations

In this South African study of 10 fatal cases of carbon monoxide poisoning, the skin color of the victims’ bodies was analyzed by the help of reflectance spectrophotometry, with the values converted to visual equivalents. It was found that several circumstances contribute to the difficulty of identifying the cherry-red color in the skin, among them low CO concentration in the blood, skin pigmentation, washing-out of previously high CO concentrations, and deep venous dilatation combined with superficial vasoconstriction (narrowing of the blood vessels), producing the impression of cyanosis. It was further found that the color of the altered blood “depends on the way the red cells are massed together, their depths below the surface, and the brightness of the background against which they are viewed.”[27]

Item 6: A study of 15 CO victims at an Indian hospital

This study, published in 2001, was carried out at a hospital in a provincial Indian city which is located on an altitude of 5000 ft above mean sea level. It involved findings in 40 cases of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning, 25 of the clinical, 15 of them post mortem. The autopsy findings revealed “deep red discoloration of skin and serous membranes” in 12 of the 15 corpses.[28] This study is important for the topic of the present article, since it shows that deep red discoloration is displayed by a majority of victims of lethal carbon monoxide poisoning even when the skin of the victims are of a darker pigmentation than the average Caucasian’s.

Item 7: An Austrian study on 182 cases of fatal CO poisoning

This study[29] consists of an analysis of autopsy reports of postmortems performed at the Viennese Institute of Forensic Medicine between 1984 and 1993. The aim of this survey was to determine whether the cherry-pink coloring of livor mortis[30] is a reliable finding for the coroner to suspect a carbon monoxide-related death immediately at the death scene. It involved 182 cases of unintentional carbon monoxide-related deaths: 92 females and 90 males. The authors found a strong association between the carboxyhemoglobin level (i.e. the level of CO concentration in the blood’s hemoglobin) and the cherry-pink coloring of livor mortis: “in 98.4% of unintentional carbon monoxide-related deaths livor mortis was clearly cherry-pink.”[31] It was determined that fresh corpses with carboxyhemoglobin levels greater than 31% show “a clear cherry-pink coloring of livor mortis.”[32] The survey further indicated that the Viennese coroners’ inability to recognize cases of unintentional carbon monoxide fatalities immediately at the death scene was correlated to the age of the victim: the older the victim, the worse the coroner’s recognition.

In conclusion, the authors of the article suggest that coroners should be recommended to examine naked corpses thoroughly, and especially the color of livor mortis. In this way, they write, a carbon monoxide-related death can be recognized immediately and the source of the gas release identified, thus protecting other people from the risk of poisoning.

Item 8: A survey of 388 car exhaust gas suicides in Denmark 1995-1999

This study[33] from 2005 consists of a survey of 388 cases of suicide by means of engine exhaust gas carried out in Denmark between 1995 and 1998. Of the suicides 343 were males and 45 females. It was found that in 11 cases (2.8%) putrefaction or burns were so extensive that livor mortis could not be found, while “the characteristic pink livor mortis” was found in 353 cases (91% of the total cases, 93.6% of those with livor mortis). Only in 9 cases (2.4% of those with livor mortis) did the victims show a normal-colored livor mortis. In 3 of those 9 cases the victim had survived more than a day after the poisoning, implying a positive correlation between the cherry-red discoloration of livor mortis and the carboxyhemoglobin level. In 15 cases the author of the autopsy report had neglected to write down the color of livor mortis.

Summary of the medical evidence

From the above summarized cases we may conclude that:

• Cherry-red discoloration sometimes appears in non-fatal cases of CO poisoning, i.e. it is visible also in ante-mortem states (Item 1). According to available medical literature, such cases are not the rule, but on the other hand not highly exceptional. Such discoloration would appear more or less directly after the blood cells had started absorbed the carbon monoxide. The visibility of the deep red discoloration is related to the concentrations of CO in the blood (i.e. the carboxyhemoglobin level), as well as other factors such as pigmentation (Item 5). In the case of the alleged gas chamber victims it is reasonable to assume that their carboxyhemoglobin level would be much higher than that of the average CO poisoning survivor (that is 28.1%, whereas in fatal cases the concentration averages 62.3%; cf. Item 2), thus greatly increasing the number of individual cases with cherry-red discoloration appearing already ante-mortem or prior to the onset of livor mortis.

• According to Item 7 fresh corpses with carboxyhemoglobin levels greater than 31% shows clear discoloration. This level is only 2.9% above that of the average survivor of CO poisoning (cf. Item 2).

• In cases of fatal CO poisoning, deep red discoloration of the livor mortis is visible in many cases even when the victim’s pigmentation is much darker than that of the average Caucasian (Item 6).

• In fatal cases of CO poisoning, absence of cherry-red lividity is regarded as “curious” or “unusual”. Individuals whose blood and tissue lacks the tendency to develop the cherry-red color are very much an exception (Item 4). In many of the fatal cases where discoloration could not be detected, this was due to the corpse having entered the stage of advanced decomposition, or from having suffered severe burns (Items 3, 8).

• Deep red/cherry-red discoloration of livor mortis is present in at least 95% of all fatal cases of carbon monoxide poisoning (Items 7 and 8).

5. Eyewitness descriptions of alleged carbon monoxide victims at Bełżec, Sobibór, Treblinka, and Chełmno

Witness 1: Kurt Gerstein

As a captive of Allied forces in France, former SS hygiene technician Kurt Gerstein wrote a number of reports in which he claimed to have witnessed a mass gassing at Bełżec in August 1942. In the two reports indisputably written by Gerstein in French on April 26, 1945, the bodies of the gassing victims are described in the following way:

“The blue bodies are thrown, damp with sweat and with urine, the legs full of excrement and menstrual blood.”[34]

In the German-language Gerstein reports which Henri Roques designate T III and T VI the word “blue” is not present. It is likewise not present in the French text T Va, dated to May 6, 1945. The German text T IV contains no corresponding passage.

Regarding the blueness of the Bełżec corpses and the issue of cyanosis, see Section 2 above.

Witness 2: Wilhelm Pfannenstiel

The professor of hygiene at the University of Marburg-Lahn Dr. Wilhelm Pfannenstiel allegedly accompanied the aforementioned Kurt Gerstein on his trip to Bełżec in August 1942. After the war Pfannenstiel was arrested but never sentenced to prison. Instead he was on a number of occasions summoned as a witness for the prosecution in trials dealing with the alleged homicidal gas chambers at the Reinhardt camps. In 1950 he testified before a court in the German city of Darmstadt:

“I noticed nothing special about the corpses, except that some of them showed a bluish puffiness about the face. But this is not surprising since they had died of asphyxiation.”[35]

Since Pfannenstiel was without question familiar with the texts of the Gerstein reports, it is fully possible that he also derived his description of the corpses from one of the two French texts. As an alternative, it cannot be excluded that Pfannenstiel, with his thorough background in medicine and hygiene studies, was familiar with asphyxiation symptoms and thus also able to fabricate a vague description with the ring of authority. As for the Pfannenstiel testimony I once again refer to Berg’s article summarized above.

Witness 3: Karl Alfred Schluch

SS-Unterscharführer Karl Alfred Schluch was posted at Bełżec from June 1942 until early summer 1943. His work at the camp up until December 1942 supposedly involved accompanying the naked Jewish victims through the camouflaged “sluice” which led to the gas chambers. Schluch was acquitted at the trial of former Bełżec camp staff held in Munich in 1963. In connection with this trial the witness made the following statement regarding the bodies of the gas chamber victims:

“The corpses were at least partially besmirched with excrement and urine, others in part with saliva. The lips and nose tips of some of the corpses had turned blue. With some the eyes were closed, with others the eyes had rolled.”[36]

Now it is possible that the lips, and possibly also the nose tips, of carbon monoxide victims would look purple-bluish as a result of cyanosis. The problem is that this is the only kind of discoloration that the witness claims to have been aware of. Are we to believe that Schluch noticed a few purple-bluish lips, but completely missed the large red discolorations?

Witness 4: Adolf Eichmann

Adolf Eichmann testified during his trial in Jerusalem that he had visited three camps were carbon monoxide was allegedly used to exterminate Jews: Chełmno (Kulmhof), Treblinka, and an unidentified camp in the Lublin area commonly assumed to have been Bełżec. Only in regard to the first camp does Eichmann claim to have witnessed the bodies of the alleged victims. This is how Eichmann described the murder of Jews in “gas vans” at Chełmno:

“I went myself to a small wood and just as I got there the omnibus also arrived, it pulled up beside a pit which had been dug up, the doors were opened and out of them poured corpses, down into the pit. One upon the other. It was a ghastly inferno. No, a super-inferno. To me they looked as if they were still alive. But now each and all of them were dead.”[37]

Thus according to Eichmann the corpses of the victims looked the same way as when they had been alive. The vagueness of the description makes the testimony weak evidence in any case, but it might be safely assumed that Eichmann would have noticed and remembered large red discolorations on the corpses from the gas vans, if he had in fact seen any.

Witness 5: “Szlamek”

This key witness to the alleged gas van mass murders in Chełmno, who has been identified as either a certain Jakov Grojanowski or Szlojme Fajner, claims the following in his testimony, reportedly dating from February 1942:

”How did the corpses appear? They were not burned, not black. The complexion of their faces was unchanged. Almost all the dead were lying in their excrement.

[...].

It seemed that they had only been put to sleep; their cheeks were pale and they kept their natural skin color.”[38]

Thus the corpses displayed no skin discoloration whatsoever.

Witness 6: Rudolf Reder

The witness Rudolf Reder, born in 1881, is supposed to have spent a significant portion of his nearly four month long stay at Bełżec dragging corpses from the camp’s alleged gas chambers to massive burial pits. On December 29, 1945, Reder was interrogated by the Polish Judge Jan Sehn. Regarding the physical appearance of the gas chamber victims, the witness stated:

“I was often on the ramp at the moment the doors were opened, but I never smelled any odor, and on entering a chamber right after the doors were opened I never felt any ill effects on my health. The bodies in the chamber did not show any unnatural discoloration. They looked like live persons, most had their eyes open.”[39]

The Bełżec key witness Reder is thus clearly of the opinion that the gassing victims displayed no cherry-red discoloration.

Witness 7: Eliahu Rosenberg

The Jewish witness Eliahu (Elias) Rosenberg supposedly spent several months working in close proximity of the alleged Treblinka gas chambers,[40] dragging thousands of corpses from the “death chambers” to mass graves. In a 12-page typewritten deposition in German which Rosenberg left in Vienna on December 24, 1947, the appearance of the gas chamber victims is described thus:

“The corpses were very bloated, their skin looked gray-white and easily peeled off, so that it hung from them like shreds. Their eyes protruded and the tongues hung out of their mouths.”[41]

Rosenberg’s description of the hue of the corpses is clearly not consistent with the red discoloration resulting from carbon monoxide poisoning.

In addition to Rosenberg, the Jewish writer Rachel Auerbach states in her essay “In the Fields of Treblinka” from 1946 that “the bodies were naked; some of them were white, others were blue and bloated.”[42] Auerbach had not herself been interned at Treblinka, but visited the remains of the camp in 1945 as part of an official inspection tour. Her essay is reportedly based on written testimony and talks she had with former Treblinka inmates. Another secondary account derives from the writings of a certain Jacob Mittelberg, who spent only a few hours in Treblinka before being transferred to Majdanek. Mittelberg visited the site of the “death camp” after the war in the company of Rachel Auerbach and a number of former Treblinka inmates, who told him that “when the doors of the gas chambers were opened, the people were blue and so pressed together as to be unrecognizable.”[43] Soviet-Jewish propagandist Vasily Grossman wrote in 1945 after his visit to the former camp site that “People who were unloading the chambers told me that the faces of dead were very yellow”.[44]

Witness 8: Theodor Friedrich Leidig

As far as I have been able to determine the only eyewitness to an alleged mass murder with exhaust gas to have spoken of corpses with red or reddish coloring was a certain Dr. Theodor Friedrich Leidig of the Kriminaltechnisches Institut (KTI) of the RSHA. Dr. Leidig claimed to have witnessed the murder of Russian POW’s detained at Sachsenhausen using a “gas van”:[45]

“We then went to another place, where we once again encountered the van. It turned out that we were now at the crematorium. I still remember that one could look through a peephole or a small window [Scheibe] into the interior of the van, which was illuminated.

One could see that the people were dead. Then the van was opened. Some corpses fell out, the rest were unloaded by prisoners. The corpses had, as was determined by us chemists, the pinkish-red [rosa-rote] appearance which is typical for people who have died from carbon monoxide poisoning.”

Regardless whether this testimony is reliable or not – and we have in fact not a single shred of documentary or technical evidence that supports it – the following observation is inevitable: Leidig clearly knew from his studies that humans who have died of CO poisoning ought to look “pinkish-red”, so in case he was forced or felt impelled to make up a false story, he would have little problem making it a plausible-sounding one. A testimony from a layman mentioning the presence of reddish-pink discoloration would clearly be of a higher evidentiary value, as the possibility that the witness had drawn from a priori knowledge to embellish his story would be much smaller.

6. Rebuttals to possible counter-arguments

Below I will discuss four possible counter-arguments which may be raised against the revisionist critique of the eye-witness testimony.

Argument 1: The studies cited by revisionists are irrelevant because they refer to livor mortis

As has been explained above, the cherry-red discoloration appears as a mechanical effect soon as the carbon monoxide has been absorbed by the blood cells and is thus visible on post-mortem bodies (especially pronounced in the livor mortis, as during this phase the blood is concentrated due to gravity-induced pooling) as well as in ante-mortem states (to a variable degree) and even in some cases where decomposition has already set in. The medical studies and case reports quoted in this article and others are therefore relevant, whether referring to livor mortis or ante-mortem appearances of red discoloration.

Argument 2: Most or all of the victims were deeply anemic, something which would have prevented visible discoloration from ocurring

Anemia is medically defined as a qualitative or quantitative deficiency of hemoglobin, the molecule found inside red blood cells which causes the blood to look red. Anemia results either from excessive blood loss (due to hemorrhage or chronic loss of smaller volumes of blood), excessive destruction of blood cells, or a deficient production of new red blood cell. The idea of the counter-argument is that severe anemia would prevent the red discoloration from appearing in the gassing victims.

In the case of the Jewish deportees, anemia might have been caused either by inadequate intake of vitamin B12 and/or folic acid (leading to macrocytic anemia), or by iron deficiency (causing microcytic anemia). While mild anemia caused by iron deficiency among women of childbearing age is not uncommon even in the western world of today, it is very rare among men and children.

How common then was anemia among the populations of the wartime Jewish ghettos of Poland, where malnutrition, starvation and epidemics indeed took a heavy toll on the inhabitants? This question is very difficult to give a definitive answer to, but a number of indications may be gleaned from the book Hunger Disease. Studies by the Jewish Physicians in the Warsaw Ghetto, edited the former Director of the Columbia University Institute of Human Nutrition, Dr. Myron Winnick.[46] In this volume, Winick presents a report on nutrition-related diseases prepared by a group of Jewish physicians in the Warsaw Ghetto between 1940 and 1942. The group, led by Dr. Israel Milejkowski, worked out the details of the study in secret meetings, had medical equipment smuggled into the ghetto, and later smuggled the finished manuscript out of it. The small team of 28 Jewish medical experts included Dr. Mieczyslaw Kocen, a specialist in blood diseases who himself was later allegedly exterminated at Treblinka. The manuscript of the report, which escaped the war tumult relatively unscathed, was published in limited Polish and French editions by the American Joint Distribution Committee. It remained most obscure however, until it surfaced in the United States in the late 1970s and was published in edited form by the abovementioned Winnick.[47]

Regarding the changes of blood characteristics in hunger disease victims the ghetto physicians noted the following:

“Red blood cells examined in 80 cases decreased from 3 million per cubic millimeter to between 1.5 and 1 million and in some cases even below. Hemoglobin decreased to 60 to 70% and in some cases ranged as low as 10%. Color index was usually 1 or less, and rarely reached 1.15. Examining a drop of fresh blood we noticed that the red blood cells do not aggregate normally into rolls but remain single or group into small clusters. Anisocytosis and even more often microcytosis are present, macrocytosis is rare, and there are no nucleated red blood cells. Often the red blood cells are colorless and irregularly shaped. These are symptoms of hypochromic anemia in the recovery phase as indicated by a high percentage of reticulocytes.”[48]

The Warsaw doctors pointed out that “hunger disease” does not result in a decrease of the blood volume of the victim:

“In cachexia and hunger edema there is no anemia in the strict sense because blood volume is not decreased in proportion to body weight. Since there is a low percentage of red blood cells in a drop of blood, this would be classified as normovolemic oligocytemia.”[49]

Rather than a decrease of the total number of red blood cells, “hunger disease” tends to cause a dilution of the blood through the increase of the water content:

“In normal specimens plasma contains 89 to 90% water and red blood cells contain 63 to 67% water. In our patients’ specimens plasma contained 93 to 94% water and red blood cells only 58%.

The changes described in the water content of the blood can produce a pseudoanemia in patients with cachexia or hunger edema. The dryness of the red blood cells explains the presence of microcytosis.”[50]

In a study of child victims of hunger disease it was observed:

“Anemia was usually mild (3 to 3.5 million red blood cells, but sometimes under 2 million, or color index about 1). Even in advanced anemia no young red blood cells were found. In evaluating the degree of anemia, we had to consider “blood dilution,” which was present in every case of severe malnutrition, even the dry form without edema. (…) Dr. Apfelbaum’s research on the volume of blood in adults suffering from hunger disease has demonstrated an increase in blood volume per kilogram of body weight. This factor must also be considered in evaluating the degree of anemia.”[51]

On the subject of child victims of malnutrition, Winnick comments:

“One might assume that since these children, especially the older ones, were reasonably well nourished before the war (unlike most children in developing countries) they had built up significant reserves of vitamin A prior to contracting hunger disease. (…). Finally, vitamin A requirements, like those for other vitamins, might decrease during semistarvation.”[52]

Winnick further notes:

“This results not only in hemodilution which, as we shall see, contributed to the anemia and leukopenia reported in the next chapter, but also in a reduction in the efficiency of the blood as a carrier of nutrients. Thus the vascular system is forced to supply more of the ‘poorly nourished’ blood to the ‘hungry’ tissues and organs. The absolute anemia (…) reduces the amount of oxygen carried by the blood and again increases the total blood requirements of the tissues even though they are consuming less oxygen.”[53]

Another study of the Warsaw physicians showed that some degree of anemia was common among patients of hunger disease but that

“of 32 cases only six had 4 to 5 million red blood cells. Thus anemia was prevalent. The largest group of people had 3 to 4 million blood cells. Therefore we consider this number as average for slightly advanced hunger disease.”[54]

However, according to the table following this paragraph 10 of the cases displayed a level of 3-4 million red blood cells per cubic millimeter, while 9 cases displayed a level of 2 million or less. Thus only a minority of the studied cases suffered from what could be defined as severe anemia. Further among the conclusions we read that

“Anemia is normochromic or hyperchromic and only very rarely hypochromic. There is anisocytosis with a predominance of macrocytes.”[55]

Winnick summarizes the post-mortem case studies performed as follows:

“They [the physicians] report on 492 autopsies performed in the 2 ½ years that preceded the deportations. These were cases of ‘pure’ hunger disease with no other complications. This represented about 15% of the total number of autopsies performed in their departments during the same period. They divided their material into four periods beginning in January 1940 and ending on July 22, 1942, and point out that the number of cases of hunger disease increased with time.”[56]

In a series of tables the Warsaw physicians list the following gross changes in the “hunger disease” victims:[57]

1. Pale cadaver-like skin in 82.5% of the cases. Dark brown-colored skin in 17.5%.

2. Edema in one third of the cases. Effusions were most frequent in the abdominal cavity when they occurred.

3. Edema was rare in cases of “brown skin,” whereas the pale skin group had either the edematous or the dry form of the disease.

4. Severe atrophy occurred in heart, liver, spleen, and kidney.

5. Brain weight remained unchanged (these were adult patients).

6. Marked skeletal muscle atrophy.

7. Edema of the small intestinal wall with swollen reddish discolored mucosa and mucus appeared in 27.2% of the cases.

8. Thin watery bile in 77.7% of the cases.

9. Reduced number of fat bodies in the adrenals in 50% of cases.

10. Jellylike consistency in bone marrow of certain cases.

11. Emphysema in 13.8% of cases.

12. Anemia in only 5.5% of cases.

13. Almost 50% of the cases had intestinal changes that could be classified as pseudodysentery. An equal number of these cases fell into the edematous and nonedematous groups.

The above can be taken as a strong indication that even among fatal cases of malnutrition, anemia was far from always present. Even if no definitive answers may found in regards to this question, it seems far-flung to assert that a majority of the Jewish deportees who arrived at Treblinka were afflicted with anemia severe enough to prevent the appearance of a visible livor mortis or other variants of skin discoloration.

Argument 3: The lighting may not have been adequate for the eye-witnesses to see the colors of the corpses properly

This argument is easily dismissed. Rosenberg and Reder claims to have worked not only with removing the corpses from the gas chambers, but also with transporting them to the mass graves. It is generally asserted by holocaust historians that this activity was mainly carried out during the day,[58] so that in most if not all cases the Arbeitsjuden engaged in the corpse-dragging must have been able to observe their macabre burden in full daylight.

Argument 4: The inmates working with transporting the corpses might not have noticed the color of the livor mortis since it would have appeared on the half of the bodied turned towards the ground

There are two obstacles to this argument. On its way from the gas chamber to its final place in one of the mass graves the corpse would have made at least two stops, first close to the gas chambers, where the “dentists” would check its teeth and pull out any gold present, the second at the edge of the burial pit, where it had to be arranged with the other bodies in some fashion. In order to efficiently arrange the huge number of bodies in the mass graves, a portion of them would most likely have had to be turned around. In any case it seems logical to assume that a great many of the hypothetical gassing victims would have been turned over at least once on their way to the burial pits. That the inmates who worked day after day with these routines would have managed to completely miss the large, brightly discoloured portions of skin is simply out of the question – unless we assume that the clever Nazis selected only colorblind Jews for these work commandos!

7. Conclusion

In a medical article from 2004 we find the following stated regarding the appearance of cherry red skin discoloration in cases of carbon monoxide poisoning:

“The classical cherry red appearance is not seen in all cases of acute poisoning, and may not be apparent even in cases of severe toxicity.”[59]

However, in the case of the alleged mass gassings at the Aktion Reinhardt camps and Chełmno, all of the (alleged) victims can safely be regarded as victims of acute poisoning, and since the witnesses to the alleged gassings supposedly observed – often at very closely distance – not only one or two corpses, but hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of corpses, it natural follows that witnesses such as Reder, “Szlamek” and Rosenberg would have observed a very large number of bodies showing cherry red discoloration. That not a single one of the alleged eye-witnesses to mass gassings at the above listed camps mention the highly eye-catching type of discoloration that most often accompany lethal carbon monoxide poisoning is in itself enough to throw doubt upon the alleged truthfulness of their statements.[60] The apparently isolated case of Theodor Friedrich Leidig , not only because of his background but also due to the fact that he describes something not part of the holocaust per se, namely the (alleged) murder of a group of Russian prisoners of war at an “ordinary” concentration camp. When key witnesses from the “extermination camps”, however, reports the corpses to have been blue, white, grayish, or even without any discoloration whatsoever, then we can be certain that something is not right with their gas chamber testimonies.

The third chapter in the book “Neue Studien zu nationalsozialistischen Massentötungen durch Giftgas” (New studies on National Socialist mass murder by poisonous gas) is titled: “Die Tötungsanstalten der ‘Aktion T4’” (The T4 killing facilities).

As the title suggests, this is about the T4 action in six of the facilities, with a sort of foreword “Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens” im Nationalsozialismus: Die “Aktion T4” (Extermination of life unworthy of life under National Socialism. The Action T4), by Brigitte Kepplinger, Dr. Mag., Soziologin und Historikerin, wissenschftliche Beamtin am Institute für Gesellschafts- und Sozialpolitik der Johannes Kepler-Universität Linz.

Since Revisionists do not deny that terminally ill and severely mentally challenged patients were put to death, there is no need to spend much time on this chapter. Kepplinger writes about the early stages of this action: that it was initiated by Hitler who instructed health minister Leonardo Conti to submit a plan. Later, Philipp Bouhler of the chancellery was able to push Conti out, an action typical of the politics of rivalry (Polikratie) in the Third Reich, according to Kepplinger.

Here is what Prof. Dr. Franz Seidler has to say about what took place before the doctors’ trial in which the T4 action played a major role:

– Dr. Conti, who was supposed to be one of the accused, committed suicide in his Nürnberg jail cell;

– The substitute head of the Reich Doctors Association (Reichärztekammer), Prof. Dr. Kurt Blome, who was to be charged in his stead, had to be acquitted because he could prove German doctors refused to participate in experiments on humans without consent of the proband. He stated however that tests are necessary and the Americans in 1951 invited him to participate in experiments re. chemical warfare;

– SS Obergruppenführer Prof. Dr. Ernst Robert Grawitz, CEO of the German Red Cross, committed suicide with his family in April 1945;

– Prof. Dr. August Hirt, head of the institute of military science in Straßburg committed suicide on 2 June 1945;

– Philipp Bouhler, head of the euthanasia program, captured by the Americans but committed suicide before being brought to Dachau;

– A whole group of doctors could not be found, some of them later turned up and were taken to the US to participate in research in their field of expertise, i.e., they continued were they left off just under a differed administration. [1]

This is an unusually high number of “suicides,” with some of the doctors not found for the trial but later invited to come to America to do exactly what they had done in the Third Reich, only now it was deemed “legal.” Prof. Dr. Karl Brandt, until the end of the war head health care official, was the most prominent of the accused. He weighed 44kg (97 pounds) when brought to Nürnberg, a consequence of hardships and torture inflicted on him by the British. The main charge against him was the T4 program, with Dr. Eugene Kogon (Nationalsozialistische Massentötungen…) the chief witness, but Kogon had to admit later that what he told was hearsay. The shenanigans continued, as documents of dubious origin were submitted, but too late for the defense to refute anything. Defense lawyer Dr. Servatuis charged that this program was a domestic (internal) program that foreigners were not competent to judge. He further questioned the affidavits because they contained words like “might have been”, “possibly”, “might be”, etc., and demanded that witnesses be produced for cross-examination. But the prosecution would not allow it for fear that the charges could not be sustained; again, because of phrases in the protocols like “I believe”, I assume”, “as far as I can remember” and “possibly”. It was also pointed out that the British engaged in human experiments – this was published in a medical journal. Dr. Brandt stated that whoever showed mercy for the incurable can never be a murderer, but to no avail — he was hanged on 2 June 1948.[2]

This proves that the illegality of the program was only “established” in a show trial. In fact, discussions about the legality of euthanasia were initiated as early as 1933. During the rearranging  (Neugsataltung) of German penal law, the Prussian minister of justice, Hanns Kerrl, published a memorandum entitled “Nationalsozialistische Srafrecht” in 1933 in which he argued that euthanasia cannot be illegal if an incurable person is asking for it, or if that person is unable to do so has relatives ask on his/her stead. No person shall be prosecuted if a doctor determines that the patient cannot be cured, as confirmed by another medical doctor. The memo then mentions the mentally challenged:

„Sollte der Staat etwa bei unheilbar Geisteskranken ihre Ausschaltung aus dem Leben durch amtliche Organe gesetzmäßig anordnen, so liegt in der Ausführung solcher Maßnahmen nur die Durchführung einer staatlichen Anordnung … Wohl bleibt zu betonen, daß die Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens durch eine nichtamtliche Person stets eine strafbare Handlung darstellt.“[3]

(Should the state pass a decree legalizing the ending of the life of an insane (mentally challenged) person by state officials, participation in this would only be the execution of a state order…It must be stressed however that this action, if performed by anyone other than a state official, is punishable)

This was based on an essay by the expert on penal law (Strafrechtslehrer), Prof. Karl Binding, and psychiatrist Alfred Hoche, published in Leipzig 1920 and titled “Die Freigabe der Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens – Ihr Maß und ihre Form” (The release for extermination of unworthy life – the limits and form). According to the authors, the killing of incurables and insane (Blödsinniger) should be allowed if asked for by relatives, following a thorough examination by two doctors and a legal expert. Economic reasons were given because the persons, who care for these unproductive beings (Ballastexistenzen), are not available for the greater good.[4]

The above essay was published in 1920 – a time in which starvation as a result of the criminal British blockade was still fresh in mind. Only someone who experienced anything like that can dare judge, for the world looks friendlier with a full stomach.

Churches protested, as did the medical profession and as a consequence the new penal law of 1935 did not sanction euthanasia. Later efforts to legalize euthanasia failed, but Hitler claimed that “the well being of the German populace (Volk) is above any paragraph”.[5] And as has been shown in part II of this series, Hitler issued a decree on 1 September 1939, allowing: “…that patients considered incurable according to the best available human judgment [menschlichem Ermessen] of their state of health, can be granted a mercy death [Gnadentod].”[6]

This was not a license to kill. Doctors had to determine if the affected were indeed incurable or mentally challenged beyond hope. Abuses probably happened, but the intent was to end the lives of those who were a burden on society, especially in wartime. But above all, Hitler, as the undisputed head of state, could pass laws, i.e. issue decrees that became de facto laws. And here we have the issue of “consciousness of doing wrong”, as August von Knieriem words it.[7]

Von Knieriem starts out with:

“Under the national legal system concerned, the majority of acts judged at Nuremberg would not have been punishable at all…”.[8]

And that is precisely the issue. A Hitler order – or decree of any kind – was law, period. The doctors examined the patients and found them to be incurable, thus by the decree Hitler had issued they followed the law and were not conscious of wrong doing. Von Knieriem puts it thus:

“This problem is generally designated as that of the “consciousness of unlawfulness” or of doing wrong, and can be expressed in the following terms: Can the guilty intent be imputed to an actor who was not conscious of doing wrong? As the act must first be un­lawful for the problem of the actor’s guilt to be raised at all, the question may also be expressed in the following way: Can anybody be punished for being guilty of intent if he was mistaken about the lawfulness of his act? This is why the problem of the consciousness of doing wrong is generally designated as that of error of law or, since unlawfulness means that the act is prohibited, as the “error of prohibition.” Irrespective of the manner in which the question is formulated, its meaning is always the same; it refers to the determination of the extent, if any, to which the actor was conscious of doing wrong.”[9]

And moral consideration, if even present, cannot make an act unlawful. Also, Dr. Brandt had stated at his trial that showing mercy to the incurable can never be considered murder. These doctors and whoever else that participated in the program were not murderers, but used their judgment to end the sufferings of those who at that time could not be cured. It is therefore folly to refer to the T4 program to make a case for alleged mass killings of Jews with poisonous gas, since the illegality of T4 has never been proven.

Just briefly to the numbers of the T4 action, and we seem to have the same “discrepancies” here as with Shoah numbers. Kogon et al claim 70,273 killed, based on some accounting sheets found.[10] The Kogon book was published in 1983, but only in the years following German unification were a number of the pertinent documents discovered in East German archives. But, the discovery raised more questions as were answered, according to Peter Sandner.[11] Sandner then tells us that for a long time it was assumed that 70,000 had been killed; this number was based on the so-called “Hartheim-Dokument”.[12] But newer research has shown that at most (allenfalls) 25,000 to 30,000 files are on hand, about a third of the total. The questions are, so Sandner: where are the rest of the files, and how did those files end up in the DDR (East Germany)?[13] Sandner then tells us that most of the Hartheim files have been destroyed; he doesn’t say how we know that. In an IfZ essay of 2003, we learn that 30,000 files have since been located, but that the rest were destroyed.[14] And even though it seems that only 30,000 deaths can be confirmed, Sandner hangs on to the 70,000 number, admitting only that the files found in East Germany must be evaluated and that this is happening now.[15]

In conclusion, the illegality of the T4 action was never established and there seem to be some other questions – i.e., the numbers. The many authors of the book under discussion are unable to make a case for mass gassings, and therefore need to try to make their case via T4: quite the admittance. Therefore there’s no need to waste time on this chapter, which offers no evidence at all for the alleged Shoah.

Sources:

1. Franz W. Seidler, Das Recht in Siegerhand. Die 13 Nürnberger Prozesse 1945-1949, Pour le Mérite-Verlag für Militärgeschichte, Selen Austria 2007, pp.212/13
2. Ibid, pp.213-217
3. Lothar Gruchmann, Euthanasie und Justiz im Dritten Reich, IfZ Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 1972, Heft 3, p.235; (Nationalsozialistisches Strafrecht, Denkschrift des Preußischen Justizministers, Berlin 1933, pp.86/87)
4. Ibid, pp.235/36
5. Ibid, p.239
6. Ibid, p.241
7. August von Knieriem, The Nuremberg Trials, Henry Regnery Company, Chicago, Illinois 1959, pp.217ff
8. Ibid, p.217
9. Ibid, pp.218/19
10. Eugen Kogon et al, Nationalsozialistische Massentötungen durch Giftgas, S. Fischer Verlag Frankfurt am Main 1983, pp. 60-62
11. Peter Sander, Die “Euthanasie” Akten im Bundesarchiv, IfZ Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 1999, Heft 3, p.385
12. Ibid, p.386. The document stored in the National Archives, Washington, with a film-copy in the Federal Archive, Koblenz.
13. Ibid, pp.386/87
14. Peter Sandner, Schlüsseldokumente zur Überlieferungsgeschichte der NS “Euthanasie” Akten gefunden, IfZ Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 2003, Heft 2, p.285
15. Ibid. p.290

Chapter four is titled “Giftgas als Mittel zum Völkermord in Gaswagen und Vernichtungslager” (Poisonous gas as means to commit mass murder in gas wagons and extermination camps).

With this we finally seem to be getting to the nitty-gritty of the subject, and we are almost half-way through the book. The first essay is by Mathias Beer, “Gaswagen. Von der “Euthanasie” zum Genozid” (Gas wagons. From euthanasia to genocide). Dr. phil. Mathias Beer is a historian, the head of research into contemporary history and head of the Donau-Swabian institute of history in Tübingen.

Most, if not all, authors place the word “euthanasia” in quotation marks, suggesting that this is the wrong term and that mass murder would be the correct definition. This is then additional evidence that the reader must be conditioned and that a solid Shoah case cannot be made.

Before I address the article by Mr. Beer, allow me to state a few generalities. It appears that gas wagons did exist; called Black Ravens [1]. They were the invention of Isaj Davidovich Berg, a Jew, and were used by the Soviets.[2]

Voslensky writes that the inventor of the gas vans was a certain (gewisser) Berg, the exhaust gasses were routed through the interior of the box (Wagenkasten) and that the vans were already in use in 1936.[3] Solzhenitsyn provides a few more details: Berg had been manager of the economic administration (AchO) of the NKVD in the Moscow district and was ordered to put into practice the decisions made by the “Troika”, a semi judicial body. He did so by having the condemned transported to the place where they were shot (Er transportierte Leute zu Erschiessungen). But with three “Troikas” operating at the same time, the shooting commandos could not handle the load and Berg invented the gas vans. The victims were undressed and thrown into a closed truck, camouflaged as a bread delivery truck. The exhaust gasses were rerouted through the box and by the time the truck arrived at the place of execution, the victims had been dealt with (erledigt). Berg himself was shot in 1939, but not because of that crime. In 1956 he was rehabilitated, and that even though his invention, the gas vans, are recorded in his file and remained there until discovered by journalists.[4]

Now to the German gas vans alleged to have existed. In the summer of 1942, the Germans found evidence of the Katyn massacre, the killing of 27,500 Polish citizens in Katyn and the surrounding area.[5] On 2 November 1942, the Soviets announced the creation of the “Extraordinary State Commission” (ESC)[6] and on 19 April 1943 issued a decree. Mr. Alexander Victor Prusin [7] provides some details:

“The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet signed a decree stipulating public execution or heavy prison sentences for Axis personnel and their accomplices found guilty of crimes [End Page 3] against civilians and POWs. The decree provided no legal definition of war crimes—it used the all-encompassing terms “atrocities” or “evil deeds” (zverstva or zlodeianiia)—but it stated that while the Axis powers and their accomplices had committed horrible crimes against Soviet citizens, “to date the punishment meted out to these criminals and their local hirelings is clearly inadequate to the crimes they have committed.”[…] While some scholars have suggested that the decree was a direct Soviet response to the German discovery of the mass graves of Polish POWs in the Katyn Forest in April 1943, the fact that [End Page 4] the Soviets never published the decree confirms that it was intended for internal purposes[…]”[8]

The Germans had actually discovered the Katyn crime scene in the summer of 1942 [9], but the investigations were not undertaken ‘till the spring of 1943, for obvious reasons — a war was on. Try as Mr. Prusin might, the issuing of the above Soviet decree and the discovery by the Germans of the Katyn crime are just too closely related to dismiss them as coincidence. Also, publishing decisions made by Soviet officials was not common practice, Voslensky goes into detail, see footnote 2. Consequently, and this gets us back to the gas vans, the Krasnodar/Kharkov show trials were conducted by the Soviets in July/December 1943.[10] Gas vans play a large role in those trials, not surprisingly since the Soviets seemed to have been experts on how they worked. As for how the evidence was collected by the Soviets, see the Prusin article. What is of interest is that the experts in both trials established that the vans were diesel powered. From the Krasnodar trial:

“On the basis of the thorough medical, chemical and spectroscopic investigation which was carried out, a Committee of Experts consisting of Dr. V. I. Prozorovsky, Chief Medico-Legal Export of the Commissariat of Public Health of the U.S.S.R.; V. M. Smolyaninov, Chief Medico-Legal Export of the People’s Commissariat of Public Health of the R.S.F.S.R.; Professor M. I. Avdeyev, D. M. Sc., Chief Medico-Legal Expert of the Red Army; Dr. P. S. Semenovsky, Consulting Physician of the Moscow City Medico-Legal Department; and S. M. Sokolov, court chemist, arrived at the conclusion that the cause of death in 523 of the cases examined was carbon monoxide poisoning, and that in 100 cases death was due to firearm wounds inflicted, in the majority of cases, in the head.

In their report the Committee of Experts stated that the carbon monoxide could undoubtedly have had lethal effect if the waste gases from the diesel engine penetrated the closed van”.[11]

And from the Kharkov trial:

“As established by the investigation similar “gas lorries,” which were nicknamed “murder vans,” were used by the Germans for murdering peaceful Soviet citizens not only in Krasnodar but also in Kharkov.

These vans, as testified by the German defendants in the present case and also by witnesses who witnessed the crimes committed by the Germans, are large closed trucks of dark grey colour, driven by diesel engines.

The vans are lined inside with galvanized iron and have air-tight folding doors at the back. The floor is equipped with a wooden grating under which passes a pipe with apertures. This pipe is connected to the exhaust pipe of the engine. The exhaust gases of the diesel engine, containing highly concentrated carbon monoxide, enter the body of the van, causing rapid poisoning and asphyxiation of the people locked up in the van.”[12]

Thus, Achim Trunk is wrong when he writes that reports about murder by gas vans talk of gasoline engines explicitly.[13] Also, in a letter of 16. 5. 42, Walter Rauff (details about him later) is informed that the Saurer truck, allegedly one of the gas vans, had brake problems during the transfer from Simferopol to Taganrog. Now, Taganrog is a little over 200km north of Krasnodar and the Soviets had determined that in Krasnodar the trucks were powered by diesel engines. This then suggests that some Saurer trucks were diesel powered, adding to the confusion. Beer of course never mentions any of this, he starts out by referring to a letter by Greiser to Himmler in which the former praises the Sonderkommando Lange who had served well in Kulmhof (Chelmno). It is not my intention to concentrate on specific camps or locations in which gas vans were allegedly used, as others have done that (for Chelmno see the essay by Ingrid Weckert)[14]; I understand that Carlo Mattogno will publish a book on Chelmno.[15] Also, Ingrid Weckert and Friedrich Berg published a study on the gas vans dealing with most of the issues.[16] I will therefore just make a few general comments on the vans themselves: what is known about them; do we have a precise description of them; could they have been used as testified, etc. – on this too we only have eyewitness testimony. Not one of those vans has ever been found, though we have a picture of a Magirus truck alleged to be a gas van, but the Magirus factory in Ulm only produced trucks with diesel engines.

Back to Herr Beer, who of course ignores Weckert and Berg, and begins with T4 instead, the title of his first sub-chapter: “Kaisers Kaffee Geschäft”: Töten auf Rädern mit reinem CO im Rahmen der „Euthanasie“(Kaisers coffee shop. Killing with pure CO during “euthanasia”) (Beer had already published an essay on the gas vans for the Institute für Zeitgeschichte [Institute for contemporary history] in 1987).[17] Beer writes that the criminological-technical institute of the security police (KTI) had been told to look for a quick and painless method for killing the mentally challenged. It was decided that killing with CO would be the most humane way and some successful tests in the “euthanasia” facility in Brandenburg an der Havel were undertaken, with Dr. Widmann opening the valve and controlling the gas amount. Then some gassings were tried in the concentration camp Fort VII Posen: Untersturmführer Herbert Lange was in charge and the latter were the first killings of persons deemed unfit (unwertes Leben) in the territories of west and north Poland annexed by the Reich. From this two methods evolved: the stationary gas chambers for the T4 action, and the second a prototype of a gas van built with “Sonderkommando Lange” in control. And even though it is not possible to prove the genesis of this killing method for lack of sources, we know that the SS and Police (HSSPF), the RSHA, the KTI, as well as Widmann, were involved.

This first gas van, Beer continues, operated under the same principal as the gas chambers in the “euthanasia” facilities, except that it was a mobile gas chamber. The deadly gasses were routed into an air-tight trailer pulled by a vehicle; thus, the victims did not have to be transported to the killing facilities. As camouflage the trailers had “Kaiser’s Kaffee Geschäft” painted on their sides and from January 1940 to July 1941 the “Sonderkommando Lange” killed several thousand patients in the Warthegau. This was so successful that the gas vans were lent to East Prussia on 21 May to 8 June 1940, and in the transit camp Soldau alone 1,500 were killed by the “Sonderkommando Lange” and their “Kaiser’s Kaffee Geschäft” wagons. This then was the first generation of gas vans: the systematic murder of persons unfit to live, which was later expanded in late fall of 194 to Jewish genocide.[18]

Comments: The “Kaiser Kaffee” story stretches credulity to the breaking point. We are to believe that the “Nazis” first took the patients for a scenic tour, then unloaded their corpses in a room close to a crematoria instead of simply killing them right there? Beer admits that nothing has been found linking the Kaiser Kaffee Company to the gas trailers and provides no real evidence for the existence of those trailers. In his 1987 publication (see footnote 17), Beer tells us that eyewitnesses testified that in 1939/1940 trailers were used in Poland for the transportation of mentally challenged. The trailers had the inscription “Kaisers-Kaffee-Geschäft” painted on their sides and it is alleged that in those trailers the sick were killed with CO (Im Anhänger sollen Kranke mit aus Stahlflaschen eingeleitetem reinen Kohlenmonoxid (CO) getötet worden sein). This does not prevent Beer from repeating this story in this newest publication, needing it to confabulate a link to the killings of the mentally ill to the alleged killing of Jews. Such is the “evidence” for the Shoah.

Beer then continues with the coffee wagon story, writing that the Sonderkommando Lange used them in the Warthegau, and that Lange was very busy. Then, Arthur Nebe, chief of Einsatzgruppe(EG) B, had Dr. Widmann from the KTI meet him to discuss killing methods. Widmann was to bring 400kg of explosives as well as some metal hoses. As a first test some mentally ill were locked into a bunker and the bunker was blown up with explosives, but that didn’t work too well. Then the Widmann metal hoses were put to use, connected to the exhaust of a car or truck with the exhaust directed via the hose into a closed room filled with patients. From this experiment it was learned that killing with exhaust would be the solution, but since the EG did not have buildings at the ready, the killing facilities had to be mobile.

Thus, on instructions from Heydrich, Walter Rauff of group II D 3 (technical matters) ordered that “closed in vehicles” (geschlossenen Kraftfahrzeuge) were to be put at the disposal of the EG. They were to be 3.5 ton vehicles at minimum, powered by gasoline engines and fitted with an airtight box. The exhaust was to be routed via a metal hose into that box.

Comments: First a little about Arthur Nebe. Already in 1938 he was a member of a group of traitors: Canaris, von Witzleben, Gisevius and Count Helldorf: influential people with excellent contacts abroad.[19] Nebe was later shot because of his involvement in the assassination attempt of Hitler in 1944. The traitors were desperately looking for something to discredit Hitler, to turn the German population against him. Why did Nebe not provide Gisevius – or Canaris who was head of military intelligence – with details of the gas vans and all the killings allegedly happening? Why did the gas van story only emerge after the war?

Now to Walter Rauff, the inventor of the “gas vans”.

“In the late 1940s, Walther (Walter) Rauff, an SS officer who was responsible for the murder of at least 100,000 people and was wanted by the Allies as a war criminal, was employed by the Israeli secret service. Instead of bringing him to justice it paid him for his services and helped him escape to South America… compared to Rauff, who was a criminal on the same scale as Eichmann… Klarsfeld wrote in an e-mail. “I doubt that it could have been possible, because Rauff was well-known in the Jewish world for his role in the gassing program by trucks[…]”[20]

Jews knew about Rauff, but the Mossad hired and paid him, and in 1984 he died of cancer in Chile. In the documentary “Nazi Hunters. The Real Story” it is claimed that Chile refused to extradite Rauff. If so, what prevented the Mossad from kidnapping him as they had done to Eichmann? This story also lacks credibility, leaving one to suspect that the gas van story was concocted later. In fact, the documents presented to support the gas van story suggest just that.

As for Widmann and the experiments, this reads like a Keystone Cops operation. First, the Germans, who were so far advanced in weapons technology that to this day the victors are looking for links as to why this was so[21], but these same Germans then had to experiment with killing methods by sticking people into a bunker and blowing it up to see if it worked? Heaven help us! The rest of the story is not much better; surely the Germans were aware of the fact that carbon monoxide is a dangerous killer.

Also, gasoline engines are not explicitly mentioned, only some eyewitnesses refer to them.

Beer continues to insult our intelligence, but there’s no need to suffer any further; thus, to the gas vans. First, what do we know about them, i.e., how were they described? Beer tells us that they were 3.5 ton trucks with an airtight box in which a group of people were loaded and killed with the exhaust produced by a petrol powered engine, the exhaust led into the box via metal hoses. The judges in the Bonn Chelmno trial of 1965 tell us that the trucks were big, painted grey, of foreign manufacture and had a closed-in box in the back. The double doors in the back of the box were sealed with rubber gaskets and the exhaust entered the box via a hose, which could be attached to the exhaust pipe.[22] The judges of the 1966 Hannover trial have it as a special truck with a high, air-tight, box in the back in which 40 – 50 persons could be killed within 10 to 15 minutes.

There’s nothing really of substance and all other descriptions are much the same. Pierre Marais writes that it would be relatively easy to construct a gas van, but that it is strange that no detailed plans have survived, given the Germans penchant for exactness and paperwork. Also, the box needs to be constructed to withstand pressure. A square box was not ideal for that purpose: the pressure issue a “conditio sine qua non” – without which it could not be.[23] Any type of container which has to withstand pressure from within has rounded corners, cylindrical in shape. A square box as described would have been ill-suited to handle the pressure even if vents were provided to allow the air in the box to escape when the exhaust entered, thus allowing the exhaust to vent during operation. If the vents were too small, either the engine would stall or the box would explode. But we have no mention of any calculations concerning this issue, and the square boxes are evidence to the contrary — i.e. they are proof that no pressure could have been applied.

What we have is the letter of June 5 (the date handwritten) 1942, which starts with:

“Seit Dezember 1941 wurden beispielsweise so mit 3 eingesetzten Wagen 97,000 verarbeitet”.

(For instance, since December 1941, 97,000 were processed in this manner)

This is nonsense, for no German starts a letter with “for instance” when no context is provided referring to what instance is meant. The letter then states that to prevent the possible build-up of excess pressure, two slots of 10 x 1 cm are to be added to the back of the box, covered with tin plates on hinges. More nonsense because excess pressure is a certainty, not a possibility, and those two slots, amounting to a 4 inch cut with a saw blade and covered with hinged tin, would not have prevented this. Also, how were the 97,000 “processed” without those slots? In the next letter of 23 June 1942 (handwritten) we learn that the openings in the back door, covered by sliders, were to be eliminated and replaced by the slots: No mention of how big those openings were, but having replaced them with those saw cuts is ridiculous. In both letters the date is added by hand, curious to say the least. Also, the first letter has “Einzigste Ausfertigung” at the top, but “Einzigste” is not a German word.

Back to those openings in the back. Pradl, in his testimony at the Hannover trial stated that a hole of 58-60mm diameter, the size of the exhaust pipe, was drilled into the floor.[24] Thus we have an intake opening of 28 square cm and outflow openings of 20 square cm in total, smaller by almost one third: no go, as the pressure would have built up and blown the box apart or stalled the engine. Then we have the exhaust temperature, not mentioned by any of the witnesses. Marais writes that exhaust exits the engine at 600 to 800 degrees Celsius. He continues by saying that even if we allow for the exhaust to cool down to 200 degrees C by the time it enters the box — unlikely that it would have cooled down that much — the temperature added to the pressure would surely have blown the box apart.[25] At the end of May 1942 an explosion occurred at Chelmno, and it is alleged that this was as a result of excess pressure in a gas van and that consequently the problem was dealt with. Not so. The explosion occurred in the basement of the castle and circumstances remain unknown. [26] And even if this explosion was truck related, as suggested in the letter of 5 June, the 4 inch slots would not have fixed the problem. Also, we have nothing about Jews being cooked; not one witness I am aware of mentions death via temperature.

Final comments: The aforementioned letters contain many oddities, Ingrid Weckert addresses them in her essay (footnote 16). Marais contacted Beer to ask him about the pressure, Beer wrote back that the authorities were aware of it and solved the problem by adding the two 10cm x 1cm slots in the back, which is not so. No gas van has ever been found, although Beer wrote back to Marais that one has survived, displayed at Konin, Poland. Not so, the city authorities wrote back that no such van exists.[27] Smirnov submitted what he deemed to be gas van evidence at the IMT:

“On the floor of the van, under the grating, were two metal pipes. These pipes were connected with a transverse pipe of equal diameter… These pipes had frequent holes a half centimeter in width. From the transverse pipe down through a hole in the galvanized iron floor went a rubber hose with a hexagonal screw at the end, threaded so as to fit the thread on the end of the engine exhaust pipe…which says that in the Stavropol region the murder vans were used for the killing of 660 people who were ill in the local hospital. Further I draw the attention of the Tribunal to the report of the Extraordinary State Commission regarding the Crimes of the German fascist criminals in Krasnodar[…]”[28]

No diameter of the exhaust pipe given, but we learn that a rubber hose was attached to the exhaust pipe: complete nonsense, as the rubber would have gone up in flames. We also have the reference to the Krasnodar trial, and there it was determined that the trucks were powered by diesel engines. Also, the gas vans only came into prominence at the IMT, but partisans were everywhere. A page in an East German atlas shows the location of partisan operations in the east. Some areas around Minsk, for instance, where gas vans were allegedly in operation were controlled by partisans for periods of time. The same is true for Kharkov and other areas[29], and with that many partisans around, why don’t we have any pictures of those gas vans?

Did trucks of this kind even exist? More than likely, but they could not have been used to gas people as described, and all we have are witness testimonies: no genuine shop drawings; just letter that only confuses the issue. Rauff was questioned in Chile, but the whole Rauff story presents more questions than answers. The West German trials established nothing; they never asked for any details as to how the gas vans were operated; no experts were called; just witness testimony was submitted. In an “Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung” article of 29 April 1966, we read, concerning the trial vs. Pradl and Wentritt, that classical witnesses are not available (Es fehlt an klassischen Zeugen). One of the witnesses, name withheld, a member of EG B from June 1941 to June 1942, stated that they had no gas vans and that he never heard of them. Another witness testified that he saw a gas van, but when asked what he was told about it he stated that it was to be used for delousing.[30]   And it matters not if alleged perpetrators admitted to anything. Without expert testimony to prove that the vans could have been used to gas people as described, the testimony is worthless.

Beer provides no solid evidence. His “Kaffee-Wagen” story is amusing, but in general he just believes they existed. Once again we are no further along in proving that Jews were killed with poisonous gas of any kind.

Sources:

1. The Barnes Review, Volume XIV Number 5, September/October 2008, p.49; also Udo Walendy, Historische Tatsachen Nr.48, Verlag für Volkstum und Zeitgeschichtsforschung, Vlotho 1991, pp.35/36; Stéphane Courtois, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Panné, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartosek, Jean-Louis Margolin, The Black Book of Communism, Crimes, Terror, Repression, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, London, England 1999, picture section following p.202, seventh page
2. Michael S. Voslensky, Das Geheimnis wird offenbar, Moskauer Archive erzählen 1917-1991, Langen Müller 1995, F.A. Herbig Verlagsbuchhandlung GmbH, München, pp.28/29; also Alexander Solschenizyn, Zweihundert Jahre zusammen, Die Juden in der Sowjetunion, F.A. Herbig Verlagsbuchhandlung GmbH, München 2007, pp.309/10
3. Voslensky, Das Geheimnis…, pp.28/29 in “Argumenty i fakty”, Nr.17, 1993
4. Solschenizyn, Zweihundert Jahre…, pp.309/10, in Komsomol’skaja Pravda of 28 October 1990, p.2
5. Voslensky, Das Geheimnis…, pp.29ff
6. For an evaluation of the reports issued by the ESC see: People and Procedures. Toward a History of the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in the USSR, by Marina Sorokina. The article is no longer available on-line, reference to it here http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/kritika/v006/6.4sorokina.pdf
7. Alexander Victor Prusin, “Fascist Criminals to the Gallows!”: The Holocaust and Soviet War Crimes Trials, December 1945-February 1946, http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/holocaust_and_genocide_studies/v017/17.1prusin.html
8. Ibid.
9. http://www.revblog.codoh.com/2009/09/katyn/#more-408
10. The People’s Verdict. A full Report of the Proceedings at the Krasnodar and Kharkov German Atrocity Trials, Hutchinson and Co., Ltd.; London, New York: 1944
11. Ibid, p.14
12. Ibid. p.50
13. Günter Morsch et al, Neue Studien zu Nationalsozialistischen Massentötungen durch Giftgas, p.36
14. http://vho.org/tr/2003/4/Weckert400-412.html
15. http://www.revblog.codoh.com/2011/02/facing-a-new-decade/#more-1416
16. http://vho.org/D/gzz/9.html
17. Mathias Beer, Die Entwicklung der Gaswagen beim Mord an den Juden, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (VfZ), 1987, Heft 3, pp.403-417
18. Morsch et al, Neue Studien…, pp.155-158
19. Annelies von Ribbentrop, Deutsch-Englische Geheimverbindungen, Verlag der Deutschen Hochschullehrer-Zeitung, 1967, p.130
20. http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/in-the-service-of-the-jewish-state-1.216923.htm
21. Edgar Mayer/Thomas Mehner, Die Lügen der Alliierten und die deutschen Wunderwaffen, Kopp Verlag 2010; Friedrich Georg, Verrat in der Normandie, Grabert-Verlag, Thüringen 2008
22. Pierre Marais, “Die Gaswagen”, a translation by Jürgen Graf from the original “Les Camions à gaz en question. Polémiques”, Peter Hammer Verlag, Turin, 2008, p.220
23. Ibid, pp.24/25
24. Eugene Kogon et al, Nationalsozialistische Massentötungen durch Giftgas, S. Fischer Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt am Main 1983, p.83
25. Marais, Die Gaswagen, pp.117/18
26. Ibid, p.223
27. Ibid, p.264
28. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/02-19-46.asp , pp.572/73
29. Atlas zur geschichte, Band 2, VEB Hermann Haack, Geographisch-Kartographische Anstalt Gotha/Leipzig 1975, p.46
30. A copy of this article is in my possession.

The second essay in chapter two is titled, “Technische Aspekte des Massenmordes durch Giftgas als Argument vor Gericht”(Technical aspects of mass murder by poisonous gas as presented in court). It is written by two authors, Volker Bieler, Judge at the court in Landau, Palatine – up to 31 August 2010 also department head of the Central Agency for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Ludwigsburg and Kurt Schrimm, head prosecutor and head of the Ludwigsburg Central Agency for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes.

The authors start out by informing us that, when the NS regime had come to an end, mass murder by poisonous gas was the subject of numerous German courts cases (Trials conducted in the DDR are not considered). This contribution will show, by citing examples, how this specific system of murder had been legally evaluated (strafrechtlich bewertet). Paragraph (§) 211 will be discussed, as well as other relevant legalities.

Starting with the planning- and executing NS-authorities, right up to the guard who supervised the burning of the corpses, co-ordination was a characteristic of the mass murder. How this co-ordination, i.e., perpetrator and assistant, played a role in courts’ decisions of determining sentences will also be discussed. To put it all into perspective, we will let the verdicts speak for themselves. How the courts judged the substantial as well as the historical facts is laid out in the other essays contained in this summarizing volume (Sammelband). We will therefore only refer to the findings re. historical events (Historische Vorgänge) – contained in the verdicts – as is necessary for understanding the legal arguments of the courts.

Comments: The authors refer to “historical” events, “historical” facts, the historical significance irrelevant when guilt/innocence of the accused is to be determined. Some generalities concerning legal systems up front first, the differences no doubt known to many but perhaps not all, and since I am no expert just a rough outlay.

The Continental legal system differs from that of England and the US, insofar as in Continental jurisprudence, and I am only somewhat familiar with the German system, a series of laws exist, identified by so-called paragraphs “§”. In the Anglo-American system common law is practiced, judges verdicts become law and is referred to in similar cases. The authors discuss § 211, issued on 4 September 1941, at a time when lawlessness was the norm in Germany, as is claimed. This paragraph, among other issues, defines that person as a murderer who “insidiously or cruelly” (heimtückisch oder grausam) kills another person. A person acts insidiously when taking advantage of another person’s unwariness and defenselessness (Arg- und Wehrlosigkeit). Killing cruelly is when out of malice the victim is made to suffer unnecessarily.

This is an abbreviation of the legal terms as defined by the authors, but it needs to be mentioned to show how the courts wasted time in definitions and were forced to do so because of lack of evidence. Thus, to make all of it appear as legal proceedings, and to be able to convict without any substantial evidence, they had to resort to legal shenanigans. In the verdicts that I have seen, and the authors of this essay confirm this, no mention is ever made of a court ordered investigation of the alleged crime scene, no court ordered investigation of the alleged murder weapons, nothing. In the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials verdict the judges refer to the NSdAP party program, Dr. Broszat and Dr. Krausnick elaborating, the Hitler speech of 30 January 1939, the Wannsee Conference, etc. As for the alleged killings, they state that in the bunkers Jews were killed with gas with no details provided. And concerning the alleged gassings in crematoria II & III they stated:

“Zur Tarnung der in der Decke befindlichen Öffnungen, durch die das Zyklon B von aussen hineingeschüttet wurde, hatte man aus durchlöchertem Blech bestehende hohle Säulen installiert, die vom Boden bis zur Decke reichten und die Öffnungen verdeckten. In den Säulen befanden sich Spiralen, die das gekörnte Zyklon B nach dem Einschütten verteilten.“

(To camouflage the openings in the ceiling, through which the Zyklon B was poured from the outside, columns made from perforated sheet metal were installed, reaching from floor to ceiling and thus covered the openings. Inside the columns were spirals which distributed the Zyklon B granules.)

According to this, the columns were installed to hide the holes in the ceiling and the spiral inside the columns – made from perforated sheet metal – helped to distribute the pellets. None of that nonsense has survived, we now have columns made from wire mesh with a can on a string inside, the latest in German technical ingenuity and know how, equally as ridiculous as pointed out in part IV. The judges admit that no evidence existed when they stated:

“Bei der Feststellung der individuellen Beteiligung der Angeklagten an den in dem Konzentrationslager Auschwitz begangenen Mordtaten, sei es an Massenmorden, sei es an Einzeltötungen, sah sich das Schwurgericht vor ausserordentlich schwierige Aufgaben gestellt. Die Angeklagten selbst trugen zur Aufklärung nur sehr wenig bei. Soweit sie eine Beteiligung zugaben, schwächten sie diese ab, stellten sie verzerrt dar oder hatten stets eine Reihe von Ausreden zur Hand.

Die wenigen zur Verfügung stehenden Urkunden dienten im wesentlichen nur der Aufklärung allgemeiner Dinge, konnten jedoch über die individuelle Schuld der Angeklagten kaum Aufschluss geben.

Das Gericht war somit bei der Aufklärung der von den Angeklagten begangenen Verbrechen fast ausschliesslich auf Zeugenaussagen angewiesen[…]”[1]

(Trying to determine participation of the accused in the mass murder the court was faced with enormous difficulties. The accused refused to assist, if they admitted to participation they distorted what happened and had excuses at the ready.

The few available documents were only useful in clearing up general matters, but were of no help in determining guilt of the accused.

The courts had to therefore depend almost exclusively on the testimony of witnesses)

The verdicts of the Belzec and Sobibor trials are similar: no sign of an attempt to substantiate the charges with investigation reports compiled by experts in the field of crime investigations. In fact, recent trials in Germany, vs. Messrs. Zündel and Rudolf for instance, follow much the same pattern — no evidence is submitted and when the defense tries to submit evidence of its own, it is refused. The authors of this essay are no doubt aware of this, which is why they needed to resort to legal definitions. For, if evidence existed, proving without doubt that the crimes had been committed as alleged, that evidence would have been presented. And to refer to the contributions by others will also not cut it — the authors are legal experts and this essay should be where they make their case, if it can be made then.

The authors then provide excerpts from some of the verdicts, taken from “Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, Sammlung deutscher Strafurteile wegen nationalsozialistischen Tötungsverbrechen 1945-1999“, Amsterdam 1968 ff, by Christian F. Rüter and Dick W. de Mildt, publishers (Justice and NS crimes, A summary of verdicts of NS crimes as submitted 1945-1999). They start out with the gas wagons and a verdict of 23 July 1965 from the Bonn trial. Just a sample:

“Bei den Gaswagen handelte es sich um große, grau angestrichene Lastkraftwagen[...]mit geschlossenem Kastenaufbau[...]Das Innere war mit verzinktem Eisenblech ausgeschlagen. Auf dem Boden lagen Holzroste, unter denen sich Rohre befanden. An die Öffnung der Rohre war unter dem Wagenboden ein Schlauch angeschlossen, der eine konisch zulaufende Spitze besaß. Das Schlauchende konnte in das Auspuffrohr eingeführt und mit einer Überwurfmutter fest verschraubt werden”.[2]

Comments: Gaps are in the original. What this says is that the gas wagons were big trucks, painted grey with a closed-in box at the back. That box was lined with zinc coated sheet metal, at the floor wooden grills under which pipes were placed. A hose was connected to those pipes, the other end of the hose connected to the exhaust pipe. Thus, we have a grey box, no details as to what material this box was made of. And that is important, for it had to withstand pressure, this will be discussed later. Then this: a hose was connected to the exhaust. The German word used is “Schlauch” and at that time no doubt made of rubber or some rubber compound. The exhaust pipe gets scorching hot, any rubber or related material would melt in seconds. And no, Schlauch has no other meaning in German, if a pipe was meant or a hose made from flex material it would have said so. Also, I doubt any material available at that time, other than exhaust pipe related material, would have withstood the heat. All of this evidence that no experts had been consulted, the court relying on witness testimony.

In the verdict of the Düsseldorf Treblinka trial of 3 September 1965 we read:

“Der Boden der Gaskammern war gekachelt[…]An denDecken…befanden sich einige Rohrleitungen und Brauseköpfe. Dadurch sollten die Gaskammern den Eindruck von Duschräumen hervorrufen. Tatsächlich dienten die Rohrleitungen aber zum Einführen der von den Dieselmotoren im Maschinenraum erzeugten Gase[…]”[3]

(The floor of the gas chamber was tiled[…](gap in the original)Pipes with shower heads were fastened to the ceiling, supposed to create the impression that this was a shower room. But in fact the pipes were used to introduce the exhaust gas from the diesel engine, located in the machine room, into the chamber.)

Comments: And here we go again, diesel exhaust. The previous author, Achim Trunk, tried hard to convince us that diesel could have been used, maybe, and that with enough effort it could perhaps even be poisonous, but concludes, sort of, that “serious”, ahem, historians do not assume that diesel exhaust was used exclusively, except for Treblinka. So here we have confirmation, diesel exhaust was allegedly used in Treblinka. But the excerpt of the verdict says nothing about special settings for the diesel engine to make the exhaust poisonous enough to be suitable for mass murder, if this is at all possible, evidence again that the judges did not rely on expert analysis, that the proceedings were mere show trials. And why would the Germans, who had numerous gases at their disposal, among them the highly poisonous and cheaply produced Holzgas (producer gas) even consider diesel? All this is confirmation that what is alleged never happened.

The authors continue to write about the measures taken to fool the alleged victims into thinking that nothing sinister was about to happen, and all of them fell for it, or so we are ordered to believe. We then learn that out of the 70,000 mentally challenged, only a few of those killed in the T4 action were serious enough cases (Endzustände). Again the reference to the T4 action, unable to make a case for the Shoah, as it is referred to throughout the book, on its own. The number is of some importance, however, to be addressed later. They then go into more detail about definitions, i.e., who was considered a perpetrator (Täter) and who an assistant (Gehilfe), followed by how punishment was meted out.

Nothing that helps to prove that “The Shoah” is standing on solid ground, thus of no real benefit.

Sources:

1.    The site, IDGR, I copied this from has since disappeared, all I have is the printout.

2        Günter Morsch et al, Neue Studien zu Nationalsozialistischen Massentötungen durch Giftgas, p.51

3        Ibid, p.53

The third and last essay of chapter II is titled:

“Gewalt und Tod in Konzentrations- und Vernichtungslagern. Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Archäologie“. (Violence and death in the concentration and extermination camps. Possibilities and limits of archeology). The essay is by Dr. Claudia Theune, University professor, institution head of the Institute for Ancient and Early History at the Vienna University. This sounds promising, although by now I would have expected an expert on crime investigations to join in, instead of a professor on ancient/early history. But again, no judging the book by its cover; let’s see what Dr. Theune writes.

In the introduction she informs us that archeology is the science which allows us, by investigating the traces left behind, to learn about the history and culture of peoples of times past. Over time different disciplines have emerged which concentrate on specific time periods. Before, the middle ages, as well as contemporary history, were not considered, it was believed that for that time enough documentation exists. This changed when the bombed out cities were reconstructed, thus in the 1950s archeology of the Middle Ages emerged, as did archeology of contemporary history in the 1980s. An international agreement was reached in 1964, the Charta of Venice, to be followed by the Malta Convention of 1992 and since then memorials are protected – this to include memorials from the time of National Socialism – and are part of archaeological research. Thus we now have four sources to fall back on: documents, photos, archaeological sources and written as well as oral witness testimonies. All of those, taken into context will give us an insight into the history of the former concentration camps and the violence and killings that took place in them. Theune further tells us that archaeology is only able to document the history of building traces found, i.e., basements or building foundations. Buildings that were demolished are lost for research, it is at best possible to determine what a building was used for by analogy.[1]

Comments: Good, we learn what archaeology can and cannot do. Pointing out that conclusions can sometimes only be reached when applying analogy, i.e. “inference that if two or more things agree with one another in some respects they will prob. agree in others” (Webster’s), is a little troubling. For, Webster’s states “prob.”, probably and if all we have are eyewitness tales, as in most cases, that and the “probable” is not solid evidence to determine guilt or innocence. But most important, Theune lists evidence provided in the order of importance: 1. documents, 2. photos, 3. archaeology and 4. eyewitness testimony. No sign here of any mention of reports compiled by experts in the field of crime investigations, unless she included them in the archaeological sources (archäologische Quellen), or in documentary sources (schriftliche Quellen), but that is uncertain. It is however more likely that she is aware of the fact that no such reports exist and she thus ignored them. But, she did put witness testimony at the end, and as we have been told in the new release following the 2008 Berlin Conference, the “gas chambers” rest solely on eyewitness testimonies (see part one), the least reliable source. But, lets keep an open mind and see, perhaps Dr. Theune did find traces of a gas chamber.

The next sub-chapter is titled: Archäologie in ehemaligen Konzentrationslagern (archaeology in the former concentration camps). Archaeological excavations in the former camps have been undertaken for the past 15 years, so Theune. The reason being: construction in the camps, changes made re. the appearance of the camps, as in Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, etc. Or, historical interest was the reason, as was the case in Flossenbürg and Witten-Annen, finding artefacts another possible motive. A few investigations were undertaken in Poland, in the former camp Belzec and Sobibor, as well as in the area around crematoria II in Auschwitz.[2] Archaeological research in the camps is of special importance, for in most cases other sources are not available. Based on those diggings the functions of the camps could be determined.

Theune continues by pointing out that we must perceive archaeological research re. violence and killings in the gas chambers differently (Die archäologischen Erkenntnisse zu Gewalt und Tod durch Tötung in Gaskammern sind jedoch differenziert zu betrachten). In many cases the technical facilities of the gas chambers (technischen Anlagen der Gaskammern) were destroyed by the National Socialists in the last days of the war. Or the structures were changed by the Soviets, as was the case in Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald, which were Soviet special camps, or buildings changed when the camps were turned into memorials. The technical equipment from the Sachsenhausen gas chamber was found in a shed, the blastings of the 1950s destroyed additional evidence. Mauthausen also changed, but the analysis of the walls in the room adjacent to the gas chambers resulted in a discovery: it turned out that tiles were replaced, one of the reasons to cover a round hole, probably the opening where the gas line came through the wall.

Many utensils were found, spoons and the like made from aluminum probably used by the inmates, whereas utensils made from more expensive material was used by the perpetrators. Human ashes were also found, as were teeth. Objects found in refuse sites are of little evidentiary value, as they are instead a telltale sign (deutliche Hinweise). Some comments about Hartheim which has also been altered.

Comments: For the Belzec investigations by Andrzej Kola see “Belzec”, by Carlo Mattogno.[3] For Sobibor see “The Akte Sobibor”, by Jürgen Graf, Thomas Kues and Carlo Mattogno.[4] Some of the controversies re. the recent Sobibor investigations are addressed by Thomas Kues.[5] It is strange, however, that Theune never mentions Treblinka, the camp in witch 880,000 Jews were killed, according to Yad Vashem. Also, witnesses testified that in Belzec and Treblinka the bodies were first buried in huge mass graves, then exhumed and burned. The outlines of those mass graves must still be clearly visible, the graves themselves must of course also still exist, impossible to destroy huge holes. All of this should assist archaeologists in their investigations, but we have nothing, no pictures taken from a plane showing the outlines of the graves, no mention of any of this by Dr. Theune.

Then there is the issue of the investigations themselves. Theune tells us that they only started some 15 years ago, the reason for those investigations not really to substantiate what is alleged but to turn the sites into memorials, and artefacts are found while doing so. But then again she tells us about the hole in the wall in one of the Mauthausen rooms, a small room just ahead of the alleged gas chamber, she calls it “Gaszelle” (gas cell) and assumes that this is the hole where the gas pipe went through the wall. Some time was spent on this investigation; Theune tells us that the tiles were checked as to their origin, as was the plaster, etc., etc. But re. the hole she jumps to a conclusion, she is convinced that this must be the hole through which the gas pipe was routed. How can a hole tell us that? It can’t, but when approaching an investigation with the intend to prove what is alleged, this is the outcome and the inherent problem with all of those so-called investigations. The same approach was/is taken when investigating events depicted in the Old Testament. Julius Wellhausen was one of those taking a closer look and had this to say about some of the researchers: “Für die Deutung werden die Thatsachen vorausgesetzt und aus der Deutung werden sie bewiesen…“(For the interpretation facts are established up front and confirmed by using the interpretation)[6] But the detailed hole in the wall investigations prove that evidence is being looked for, just nothing of substance has ever been found.

The camp Sachsenhausen, forgotten for decades, has, since German unification, come to the fore. In the introduction to the book under discussion here, we learned that Martin Broszat of the Munich Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ) published a letter on 19 August 1960 in which he stated that no gas chambers had existed in Germany proper. This has now been revised, the Institute (IfZ) explained in a publication of 27 June 2001 that recent research has shown that gas chambers did exist inside Germany proper. No additional research is being referred to, only the book “Nationalsozialistische Massentötungen durch Giftgas” by Kogon et al cited as source(pp.240-280).[7] Kogon et al base their conclusions in part on the testimony of Anton Kaindl, former camp commandant, at his trial of 23 October – 1 November 1947 before a Soviet court. The court case not part of this discussion, only to note that it is strange that Broszat was not aware of this. But, in a publication in “Stars and Stripes” of 24 January 1993, Simon Wiesenthal wrote:

“It is true that there were no extermination camps on German soil and thus no mass gassings such as those that took place at Auschwitz, Treblinka and other camps[…]”[8]

Prof. Dr. Yehuda Bauer, of Yad Vashem, confirmed this in a letter of 4 July 2000 in which he wrote that to his knowledge gassings were undertaken in Ravensbrück, and elsewhere in the borders of 1937, on a small scale[9], but no mention of Sachsenhausen et al. This is now interpreted to mean that gassings did take place in most camps, but not mass gassings. Spin everything until it fits. It is however alleged that mass gassings did take place in Sachsenhausen.

Prof. Maser (Fälschung, Dichtung und Wahrheit über Hitler und Stalin) lists the contradicting testimonies re. this gas chamber and at the end refers to an affidavit by Gerhard Schirmer in which the latter states that a replica of a gas chamber had been constructed by him, and several others, on order of the Soviets at about the middle of October 1945.[10] This affidavit was eventually seized by German authorities.[11]

After the war, the Soviets used Sachsenhausen as one of their special camps, scores of Germans were killed there or just died, many interned in the camp just for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. But no building marked “gas chamber” appeared on any of the camp sketches made public by either the Soviets or East German authorities. And even though “Fascist crimes” were referred to daily by the Soviets, no mention of any gas chamber in any of the reports by vice SMAD chief Serov (SMAD=Soviet Military Administration in Germany).[12] [13] And it gets even more peculiar: In 1950, the newly created East German army, at first referred to as “Kasernierte Volks-Polizei” KVP (police housed in barracks), took over the site (later all pretences were dropped and the army called an army, the Nationale Volksarmee [NVA], National peoples Army). An excerpt from the Sachsenhausen Memorial site regarding the gas chamber:

“In 1952/3, without reference to the historical importance of the site, the KVP blew up ‘Station Z’ – the crematorium and killing areas, to make room for a shooting gallery and the local population used the remaining materials of the barracks for building and heating. The Nationale Volksarmee (NVA) were also involved in the destruction of the site[…]”[14]

We are to believe that the Soviets allowed the Germans to destroy a perfectly good gas chamber, and that even though Smirnov stated at the IMT that: “…840,000 Russian prisoners of war in Sachsenhausen were annihilated at one time.”[15] This number has now shrunk somewhat, in the Sachsenhausen memorial write up we read of 12,000 Soviet POW’s.[16] Still, why not preserve the building to commemorate “Fascist crimes”? We must remember that at about the same time, the Soviets were busy re-building the morgue of crematoria I in Auschwitz, to make it appear as a gas chamber! Why then not preserve the alleged Sachsenhausen gas chamber? Because no gas chamber ever existed, except perhaps for the replica built by Schirmer et al.

In addition to this, Theune tells us that the gassing equipment was found in a shed, we don’t know what exactly has been found, but we are asked to believe that the Soviets had the Germans move said equipment out of the room before they started blasting. Anyone interested in a bridge in New York, very reasonably priced? Today all that is shown are some concrete footings of some building, with the proper write-ups of course – more information available at the memorial site, footnotes 14 & 16.

Theune then provides some details about the Sachsenhausen investigations, writing that the ground is saturated with human ashes, evidence that mass murder had been committed, by whom she does not say. Excavations were undertaken when the memorial was erected, but she never again mentions the fact that the Germans had been allowed to blow all of this up in the 1950s! She does get around later to suggest that some ditches filled with human ashes were of Soviet doing.

We are then told that the majority of camp inmates, by far, were Jews and that when digging Jewish burial laws need to be respected. 600,000 Jews were murdered in Belzec, only a few survived, we have hardly any pictures and only two maps drawn from memory. Drillings were done throughout the camp, which allowed the investigators to estimate the size of the mass graves. 33 mass graves were located, some as deep as 5m, with a volume of 21,000 cubic meters. Some building remnants were found, but the function of them remains unclear. The gas chamber, which had to be situated in the extermination camp (die in dem Vernichtungslager gestanden haben muss), could not be located by archaeological methods. The researchers assumed that it must be building G, the gas chamber positioned in the middle of the camp according to eyewitnesses.

Comments: For details about those investigations, please refer to the book by C. Mattogno, mentioned above, see footnote 3. As for the 33 graves allegedly located, here is what Mattogno writes:

“The official map of the camp was drawn by the investigative commission of the German crimes in Poland and appeared in the article “The Belzec extermination camp” by Eugeniusz Szrojt, a member of this group.228 There, the area of the graves is represented by a rectangle placed near the northeastern border of the camp.

In conclusion, we can see that the location given by Kola for the majority of the graves is in disagreement both with Rudolf Reder’s testimony and with the findings of the Polish investigative commission[…]”

( 228 E. Szrojt, “Obóz zaglady w Belzcu,” in Biuletyn Glównej Komisji Badania Zbrodni Niemieckich w Polsce, vol. III, Poznan 1947, insert without page number. A. Kola has also shown this map without any commentary; cf. document 7 in the Appendix.)[17]

The graves were backfilled with the ashes of the corpses cremated, so we are told. It is impossible to compact the backfill to keep it from settling, thus, the outlines of the graves should still be clearly visible, if any graves existed. Also, the “gas chamber” has never been found, Theune writes that it must have existed, well…., yes. But since nothing that really fits has been found, it is assumed that one of the buildings must have been it, not very convincing at all, but then, impossible to find what never existed.

Sobibor is next, and we learn that an estimated 250,000 people (Menschen) were killed there. Because a museum is planned, efforts are made to locate the gas chamber, a number of mass graves have also been found. Here too it has been determined that the bodies were buried first, lime poured over them, and later cremated. In a corner hundreds of bullets were found, an indications that people might have been shot there (anscheinend Menschen erschossen worden). None of the technical equipment of the gas chamber was recovered, removed when the camp was shut down.

Comments: For Sobibor, please refer to the works cited in footnotes 4 & 5. The part about the lime is interesting, however I have not seen it mentioned anywhere else. As for mass graves located, Messrs. Graf, Kues and Mattogno provide details.[18]

The next sub-chapter is titled: “Archäologische Spuren von Gewalt und Tod in ehemaligen Erschießungsstätten“(archaeological traces of violence and death in former shooting locations). Theune writes about excavations in Hebertshausen near Dachau, but most important were the archaeological investigations in Katyn, Miednoje (Russia) and Kharkiv in Ukraine, places where Soviet units murdered Polish citizens. She then writes about the shooting of Soviet POWs in Hebertshausen, irrelevant even if true, but then returns to Katyn. The mass graves were identified by using photos taken from planes (Luftbilder), and drillings were undertaken to determine the size of the graves. It is estimated that some 16,000 were killed in Katyn, et al. The investigation also revealed the efforts made by the National Socialists of 1943, and also that the Soviet secret service had opened the graves.

Comments: This is important, for Theune admits here that it is possible to identify graves by using airplane surveillance photos. Why is that not possible in Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor? Why only drillings in the latter two, with no investigation in Treblinka to locate the huge mass graves alleged to exist? There can only be one plausible explanation: no mass graves exist in those camps, for if they did exist, air surveillance photos would have pinpointed their location.

For Belzec it is now no longer possible to do this, the site having been totally worked over, the same is planned for Sobibor. Treblinka has masses of artifacts cluttering the site, making it almost impossible to investigate. Why is this, what is being hidden? Not the graves, for if they would have been located we would have been able to look at them on one TV channel or another over the years. Jewish burial laws/concerns? Not true either: In 2010 a whole area of the former Sachsenhausen sub-camp Lieberose near Jamlitz was dug up, looking for the graves of 753 Jews allegedly murdered there. A Rabbi was present, giving his blessings to the excavations. The whole site was turned upside-down, no regards for any burial laws, but nothing found.[19] This shows that when it is expected that the diggings will be successful, graves found, Jewish laws are bypassed, the law only enforced in places were it is known that no graves exist.

In her summary, Theune tells us that archaeological research has shown that death was ever present in the camps, it is however not possible to determine how many were killed. It is also possible to prove that violent shootings took place (Gewalt kann besonders bei den Erschiessungsanlagen…belegt werden). However, since the gas chamber equipment has been removed, archaeological research is limited. But, in Mauthausen the location of the gas pipe has been revealed, thus proving that equipment for the gassing of inmates had been installed, even though said equipment is no longer in place.

Final comments: Theune is displaying her stiff upper lip, trying to turn a disaster into success, and fails miserably. What have the investigations by archaeologists revealed, to prove without doubt that Jews were killed with poisonous gas? Nothing! She harps on about this Mauthausen hole in the wall, assuming that this is where the gas pipe entered the room, embarrassing, for she provides no solid evidence. She talks about the Belzec and Sobibor investigations by archaeologists, failures, but never mentions the missing Treblinka graves. Sachsenhausen has been dug up and dusted off, but since the Soviets used the camp to murder Germans and remodeled it, Maser writes about it, it is almost impossible to tell who did what. Unless of course archaeologists approach the subject with the conviction that the stories told about the “Nazis” are true, and that is obviously the case. But “investigations” of that kind do not deserve the term, they are missions undertaken to prove that what is told is fact, efforts to substantiate witness testimonies, tales of impossibilities.

Dr. Theune can thus also be dismissed as someone who contributed nothing to proving that Jews were murdered with poisonous gasses.

To be continued…

Sources:

1. Günter Morsch et al, Neue Studien zu Nationalsozialistischen Massentötungen durch Giftgas, pp.64/65
2. Ibid, pp.65/66, footnotes 9 & 10: 9 Andrzej Kola, Belzec, The Nazi Camp for Jewish in the Light of Archaeological Sources, Excavations 1997-1999, Warsaw/Washington 2000; http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ar/modern/archreview.html (Februar 2009). Zu den archäologischen Forschungen in Polen siehe auch: Anders Otte Stensager, Holocaustarkaeologie – en arkaeologisk funktionsanalysea f udryddelseslejrene in Polen 1941-1945. Magisterarbeit Universität Kobenhavn 2007; http://www.diis.dk/graphics/CVerPersonlige_CVer/Holocaust_and_Genocide/Publikationer/specialer/Holocaustark%E6ologi-Hoveddel.pdf (Januar 2010). 10 http://www.hartford.edu/greenberg/events/sobibor.asp (Februar 2009); Tuwiah Friedman (Hrsg.)Sobibór. Ein NS-Vernichtungslager im Rahmen der Aktion Reinhard. Eine dokumentarische Sammlung, Haifa 1998. No source for Auschwitz.
3. http://vho.org/D/b/
4. http://juergen-graf.vho.org/pdf/graf-kues-mattogno-die-akte-sobibor.pdf
5. http://www.revblog.codoh.com/2009/05/kolas-building-e-at-sobibor-addenda/
6. Julius Wellhausen, Die Pharisäer und dir Sadducäer, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht in Göttingen, 1967 (first edition Verlag Bamberg, Greifswald 1874), p.66
7. Werner Maser, Fälschung, Dichtung und Wahrheit über Hitler und Stalin, Olzog Verlag GmbH, München 2004, p.354
8. http://vho.org/dl/vffg/4_01.pdf
9. http://vho.org/dl/vffg/4_01.pdf
10. Ibid, pp.256/57
11. Personal letter of 23 August 2005 by Maser to the me.
12. Maser, Fälschung, Dichtung…, pp.358-361
13. About the machinations of Ivan Serov, see Marschall Schukow, Lebensweg über Leichen, by Victor Suvorov, Pour le Mérite-Verlag für Militärgeschichte, Selent 2002, pp.257-271
14. http://www.stiftung-bg.de/gums/en/index.htm
15. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/02-19-46.asp, p.586
16. http://www.stiftung-bg.de/gums/en/index.htm
17. Mattogno, Belzec, p.76
18. http://juergen-graf.vho.org/pdf/graf-kues-mattogno-die-akte-sobibor.pdf
19. http://www.mi.brandenburg.de/cms/detail.php/bb1.c.216164.de

The second chapter in the book: “Neue Studien zu nationalsozialistischen Massentötungen durch Giftgas” is captioned: “Technische und pharmakologische Aspekte und der Stellenwert der Überreste” (Technical and pharmacological aspects and how remnands should be rated)

The first essay in this chapter is titled: “Die todbringenden Gase” (The deadly [death carrying] gasses), by Achim Trunk, Dr. phil., historiographer, with a degree in biology – biochemicals.[1]

Mr. Trunk starts out by telling us that mass murder with poisonous gas is a characteristic of the National Socialist policy of mass murder, and that his essay will address the methods used. The questions to be answered: What poisons were used, where did they come from, how were they administered (eingesetzt) and what were the effects? The answer to those questions will allow us to better understand the sufferings of the victims – even though it is impossible to find the words to describe the horror. This will furthermore help us to understand what motivated the perpetrators. And lastly, it will allow us to disparage the chemical and technical assertions put forth by those who relativize or deny the Shoah. The origin-, application and effects of the poisons will be described, as well as some of the counter arguments by Revisionists.

Comments: We are told that it is of relevance to know what type of poison was used, its origin, and effect and how it was all applied. True, some of it we need to know, for instance what type of poison was allegedly used, the origin of same irrelevant. We then have the referral to victims, absolutely irrelevant when establishing guilt is the objective. Only after it has been established without doubt that poisons had been used for mass murder, something the previous authors failed to do, can victims be mentioned. By talking about victim hood up front we again have this attempt to influence readers, to soften them up. One can only hope that Trunk will address the relevant issues first — by referring us to reports compiled by competent authorities, i.e., experts in the field of criminal investigations, to establish that gas chambers in whatever form could have been used as alleged — before going into the obvious effects of poisonous gasses. We are also told that Revisionist arguments will be addressed.

In the introduction Trunk refers us to a chapter in “Nationalsozialistische Massentötung durch Giftgas” by Kogon et al, an essay by George Wellers captioned “Die zwei Giftgase”[2] (The two poisonous gasses). Wellers writes that two gasses were used, carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen cyanide (HCN), detailing the molecular structure of the former first. He tells us that Höß was ordered by Himmler, in the summer of 1941, to organize the destruction of Jews to be undertaken at Auschwitz. We are then informed about the molecular structure of HCN and that exposure to either of the two is deadly, suffocation the consequence.

Comments: Well done, Mr. Wellers, but we know that those two gasses are poisonous, what we are interested in are the exact details as to how they were applied. Thus, Wellers only states the obvious, not a good start.

Trunk now provides an overview of murder methods used:

1. In the T4 facilities bottled CO was used, the method also used at first in the Aktion 14f13 by “Sonderkommando Lange” in the first so-called (sogenannten) gas wagons. Cause of death: acute carbon monoxide poisoning.
2. In the “Action Reinhardt” extermination camps engine exhaust was used as a murder weapon. Cause of death: carbon monoxide poisoning.
3. Since 1941 the pesticide Zyklon B was used, mainly in Auschwitz but also in Mauthausen alongside killings with bottled CO, as well as in Ravensbrück. Cause of death: HCN poisoning.
4. A different form of HCN (common name ‘Prussian acid’[3]) was used from 1943-1945 in Sachsenhausen, and a still different form used for killings in Ravensbrück in 1943. Cause of death: HCN poisoning.

Three million people (Menschen) were killed by the National Socialists with poisonous gasses, about two million of them with engine exhaust, and around one million with Zyklon B. About 100 000 people were killed with pure (bottled) CO, and the number of those killed with different forms of Prussian acid should be in the thousands (dürfte vierstellig sein). Those figures are intended to show the dimensions and to make comparisons possible, the actualizing of them the task of researchers (eine Aufgabe der Forschung).[4]

Comments: Why start out with the T4/14f13 actions, no Revisionist denies them as Trunk later points out. Therefore, when “deniers” are mentioned the reference is to “The Holocaust”, so, why not provide evidence for this alleged crime and let it stand on its own, if it can? By continually mentioning T4 the authors admit that they are unable to make a case for “The Holocaust”, that it is necessary for them to suggest to the reader that if one happened, the T4/14f13 actions, a fact, the other, “The Holocaust” must be a logical extension. Well, it isn’t, so why not get on with substantiating what this is all about: the alleged mass murder of Jews with poisonous gas.

Also, is it necessary to detail all the effects of the gasses allegedly used? No, it has nothing to do with proving that the gasses mentioned were used to kill people, i.e., Jews — so why bother? But Trunk tells us why he ‘bothered’ in the last part about the numbers, the intent again to condition the readers for them to accept uncritically what is to follow. And even though Trunk admits that the numbers he cites are not exact, he is however implying that they are horribly high nevertheless; and that without providing evidence that anyone was killed with poisonous gas!

In the following pages Trunk talks about the effects of poisonous gasses, that they paralyse breathing. We also learn that it has long been known that carbon monoxide will kill. He then goes into detail why that is so, hardly of any interest. Also, CO was picked as gas for T4 because it was a humane gas, allowing the patients to gently fall asleep (sanftes Einschlafen). Some witnesses testified to the patients gently falling asleep [5], but, so Trunk, this killing method had nothing to do with being humane when considering the circumstances.

He then informs us that as to the killing with bottled/pure CO, no objections are raised by deniers based on chemical analyses. Part of the reason for this might be the low numbers and that here we have a Führerbefehl, an order from Hitler. But it is also possible that Negationists are in agreement concerning the killing of life unworthy of life and furthermore the antisemitic background of denial does not exist, because the killed were mostly non-Jews.

Comments: Herr Trunk shows his true colors by asserting that a denier must be an antisemite. With this any pretence of objectivity goes out the window. Thank you for being honest, Herr Trunk.

But the part about the Hitler order is interesting: Trunk claims that it is impossible for deniers, he calls them also Negationists, to deny the T4/14f13 actions because a Hitler order exists, thereby admitting that nothing of the sort has ever been found regarding “The Holocaust”. He has obviously never concerned himself with Revisionism, has never read any of the literature produced by Revisionists. If he had he would know that the absence of a Hitler order, plan, or budget is only part of why Revisionism is alive and well. It is the absence of any substantial evidence that makes the story unbelievable; all is based on documents, some of them of dubious origin and of course witness tales and testimonies of accused perpetrators obtained under who knows what circumstances. And the stories told are not credible: we hear of crematories with ludicrous capacities, able to burn bodies with just a handful of coke, or bodies burning on their own; of never located burning pits where human fat was collected during the burning processes and used as additional fuel; on and on it goes. This is why Revisionists dispute the tale. Also, the T4 action was stopped because of public outcry, “The Holocaust” would also have been stopped had it happened. And the defenders of the story are aware of this, which is why we are told in the introductions that all became known only after the war, with this dismissing Hilberg and one of the newer studies re. the AA, in which it is claimed that officials of the foreign office were willing helpers who must therefore have known about the alleged mass killings of Jews. Another reason why this story comes across as untrue, for only a lie has many versions, the truth but one.

Trunk continues by writing about the T4 action in the annexed Polish territories, patients killed with bottled CO in so-called gas wagons, later with engine exhaust and he refers the reader to an article by Mathias Beer, to be discussed later. With this change of murder method, from pure CO to engine exhaust, the canard about ‘gently falling asleep’ was dropped, notifying the bereaved impossible anyway because of the dimensions, therefore it was just denied (nur noch eine schlichte Leugnung).

Comments: The T4 action again, then going over seamlessly into the alleged mass murder, which was however denied. How anyone can write nonsense as this is beyond me. If Trunk is talking about denial concerning the T4 patients, one has to wonder, for how is it possible to “deny” to a mom, for instance, that their sick child was killed. And if he is talking about the Jews, allegedly killed in gas wagons, this could never have been kept a secret either, and therefore impossible to “deny”.

And now it gets interesting, Trunk informs us that we have testimony about gasoline engines as murder weapon, but diesel engines are also talked about. He mentions the Gerstein testimonies, admitting that different versions exist. He then gets into details re. diesel exhaust, the subtitle: “Zur Giftigkeit von Dieselabgasen” (To the toxicity of diesel exhaust). It is not my intention to go into details here, beyond my knowledge anyway, and also Mr. Friedrich Berg has written about this subject extensively.[6]

Negationist critique centres on the question whether it is possible to produce high enough concentration of carbon monoxide with a diesel engine, they claim that it cannot be done, therefore mass killings in Belzec, Treblinka and Sobibor would not have been possible. This suggests that all reports about the Shoah are manufactured: the murder with diesel exhaust a “Myth within a Myth”. Trunk refers here to Mr. Berg.[7] But, he asserts, those arguments are folly, for, serious researchers are not claiming that diesel exhaust was used exclusively in the Aktion Reinhardt Camps (ARC),[8] therefore this argument is baseless. He admits however (p.32, footnote 28) that in older works diesel did play a role. Raul Hilberg, for instance,[8] writes that in Belzec and Treblinka diesel exhaust was used, gasoline engine exhaust in Sobibor. But nevertheless, the question about the toxicity should be addressed.

Comments: If anyone is confused by now, join the club. Trunk never goes into detail as to why earlier writings by Hilberg, or Martin, talk of diesel exhaust. In fact in the West German Treblinka Trial of 1965 killing by diesel exhaust was established, ditto for the Belzec Trial of the same year. Thus it is not just historians claiming diesel exhaust, judges also accepted that diesel exhaust, as murder weapon, was indeed used exclusively in those two camps. No plausible explanation has been offered to date why this has now been changed to gasoline engine exhaust, as Trunk suggest when he writes that “no serious researcher claims that diesel exhaust was used exclusively”. And whether it was used exclusively or just in some camps is also not the issue, the courts claims it was used, as did some historians. But to add to the confusion, Trunk then attempts to prove that diesel exhaust could indeed be deadly, when used under load (Please refer to the writings of Mr. Berg). So what is it? If diesel exhaust could have been used, in fact established in court proceedings, why not leave the diesel story intact, why make it sound as if “serious” historians — demoting Hilberg to the lower ranks with this — never considered diesel exhaust?

Trunk later tells us — after having tried to make a case for the toxicity of diesel exhaust — that it is most likely (naheliegend) that gasoline engines were used because of greater availability of them, and that they produced deadly gasses even when idling. He refers to Reder again who testified that the motor had been located in a small room next to the gas chamber and that it used 80 to 100 litres of gasoline daily.[10] For Sobibor we have precise testimony for gasoline engines, the only issue unclear whether they were of French or Russian origin. For Treblinka however, the last camp to be erected, research is assuming (geht davon aus) that diesel engines were used, raising the question why a changeover from a successful, uncomplicated method was made to one more complicated. It appears that a mix up could be possible: in every camp a diesel engine was used for generating electricity and that the gasoline engine, used for the killings, was installed right beside it. Trunk refers us to the testimony of SS Franz Hödl, who for a while operated the Sobibor death engine (Todesmotor) and stated: “That two engines were installed in the engine room, one a gasoline engine, possibly from a Russian tank, the other a diesel engine. The latter was never used”.[11] According to Kogon [12] a diesel engine was installed in a room adjacent to the gas chamber which produced poisonous gasses and next to it a generator for producing electricity.

Comments: More confused postulations. In the opinion of Trunk it was most likely that gasoline engines were used, he tries to support this supposition by claiming that they were more easily available and that they produce deadly gasses even when idling, a fact. That in contrast to diesel exhaust which is harmless when the engine is at idle and only toxic when the engine is under load and the injectors somehow manipulated, he refers to a test by Holtz/Elliot (p.33). Whenever machinery for digging, etc., is needed underground, for instance in the construction of underground  parking facilities, equipment with diesel engines is used, those engines nearly always working at full throttle, i.e., under load, with the workers nearby complaining about the soot but showing no ill effects. This is why it is claimed that the engines were manipulated to produce deadly exhaust. More nonsense, for surely the Germans were aware of that and would not have even considered using diesel engines. And Trunk admits this in a roundabout way, he is however unable to explain away the diesel engines mentioned by others. Thus, he is forced to talk out of both sides of his mouth, not making any sense at all doing it. He also admits that changing from gasoline engines to diesel engines, as was supposedly the case for Treblinka, would have been remedial, a technical disadvantage, a fact. He tries to get around it by having us believe that in Sobibor, two engines were used, one a gasoline engine for killing – the other a diesel which was not used (testimony by Hödl, see above). And Kogon et al have it that one diesel engine produced the deadly gas, the other not, also for Sobibor. One has to be mentally unstable to even consider this nonsense, but Trunk, unable to settle the issue, is forced to resort to those mental gymnastics. Demonstrating again that what is told is just not true, and portraying Germans as babbling idiots who would resort to these kinds of shenanigans will just not cut it. Thus, the diesel/gasoline matter still needs to be settled, if we are to accept that Jews were murdered en masse with engine exhaust, and Trunk only confused the issue.

We then learn that reports about gas wagons explicitly talk of gasoline engines, which is not true but will be discussed later. Trunk then goes into detail about “Massenmorde mit Zyklon B”(Mass murder with Zyklon B), an issue addressed by Mr. Germar Rudolf in his “Das Rudolf Gutachten”(The Rudolf Report).[13] A few pages on Trunk makes an effort to debunk deniers (Leugner) and writes that one of the issues raised by deniers is temperature, that it would have been too cold in the gas chambers for the hydrogen cyanide to release fast enough from the carrier substance to kill Jews within the times testified to. The other issue is the absence of Prussian Blue in the ruins of the morgue of Crematoria II, the alleged gas chamber. Revisionists conclude that because no Prussian Blue stains are visible in the remnants of crematorium II, no gassings with Zyklon B could have taken place if this facility. They point to the delousing chambers where the Prussian Blue is clearly visible, penetrating in some cases right through the wall.[14] But, so Trunk, this conclusion is erroneous, for it has not been established that the blue stains in the delousing chambers are indeed Prussian Blue. For instance, those stains could be spots of paint, many paints of that time contained those pigments. Thus, the missing blue coloring could mean that only the walls of the delousing chambers were painted blue, not those of the gas chamber (Rudolf addresses this issue[15]). But even if one assumes that the blue stains in the walls are Prussian Blue, this does not necessarily mean that similar spots must also be visible on the walls of the gas chambers. For there are vast differences between the two: whereas in the delousing chambers the walls were exposed to hydrogen cyanide (Prussian Blue) for many hours — lice die slower than humans — those in the gas chambers were exposed to it for only a short time. And because of less exposure the chances for Prussian Blue to form in the walls diminish, and most important, the gas chambers were hosed down after each gassing, removing blood and excrements, thus removing most of the hydrogen cyanide remnants. In fact, traces of cyanide were found on the walls: using highly sensitive methods of analysis in the 1990s, it was proven that the walls of the gas chamber had been exposed to hydrogen cyanide, see “The Rudolf Report” on that, he explains why the test results were erroneous.[16]

Comments: First the temperature: Trunk claims that the bodies of the victims, standing close together, would have warmed the room sufficiently, but to claim that the body heat of people will warm up a room with concrete floor, walls and ceiling, in the middle of winter and just hosed down with cold water, is a real stretch. He writes that this is why the victims were left standing “a few minutes” (einige Minuten), as is attested to, referring us to “Massentötungen…” by Kogon et al.[17] We read in that book that ten minutes after the doors were closed, the temperature in the room was sufficient for the hydrogen cyanide to release from the carrier substance, but this is about the so-called “Bunkers”, not the morgues of crematoria II and III, thus useless here because of the different construction materials used. But, Trunk is quote mining here again, using only what fits. Höß, whose testimony is also only used when convenient, says nothing about any wait. We read: “The door would be screwed shut and the waiting disinfection squads would immediately pour the gas (crystals) into the vents in the ceiling of the gas chamber, down an air shaft which went to the floor”.[18]  For the intended victims to heat a damp room with concrete walls – in the middle of winter – would only have been remotely possible if for every “gassing” the room would have been filled to capacity, and that is unlikely. This heat problem was considered earlier, the Polish judge Jan Sehn informs us: “…the gas chamber was being heated with portable braziers,”[19] The “Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland’, repeated this in their report of 1946.[20] But, no mention of that by Trunk, why, when this had also been attested to? (The Polish report mentions interviewing witnesses). It is easy to see, however, why this has been dropped: heating the “gas chamber” with coke fired braziers would have filled the room with deadly fumes and if the room would have been vented with the existing ventilation system, the heat would have been sucked out – replaced by cold air from outside. But, it is altogether possible that braziers were used to keep the bodies in the morgue from becoming stiff, no pun intended, and thus harder to cremate. So, reality was mixed in with the story, but that part could not be maintained, and we are now to “body heat”, which is equally ridiculous.

Now to the Prussian Blue issue: No blue spots in the remnants of crema II, but if continued gassings had been undertaken in it, blue spots would be visible, that is the position of Revisionists. A logical conclusion when looking at the walls of the delousing chambers. At first, Trunk tells us that the blue in the delousing chambers could be paint, he refers us to a work by Bailer.[21] This is embarrassing, for I have yet to see paint penetrate a brick wall, right through that wall to make it visible on the other side (see footnote 14).

Trunk seems to realize this and moves on to plan B, i.e. the length of exposure to the cyanide gas. It is true that lice, especially their eggs, nits, are extremely hard to kill, this is why the producer/supplier of Zyklon B, DEGESCH, developed the circular system, i.e., Kreislaufsystem, F. Berg goes into detail about it.[22] Heated air is blown over the Zyklon B crystals, speeding up the release of cyanide from the carrier substance and also distributing the poisonous gasses throughout the room. But, this very simple system was never installed in any of the alleged gas chambers in which according to witness testimony hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed. What we have instead is this:

“Der Doseninhalt wurde in Auschwitz vom Mordpersonal, sogenannten Sanitätsdienstgraden (SDG) der SS, unter Aufsicht eines SS-Arztes über besondere Einfüllöffnungen in die Gaskammern hineingeschüttet. In den beiden Gaskammern, in denen die meisten Menschen vergiftet wurden – den als Keller angelegten Gaskammern der Krematorien II und III in Auschwitz-Birkenau – befanden sich je vier dieser Öffnungen auf ihrem begehbaren Dach. Das Granulat gelangte dann in aus Metallgitter gefertigte Schächte.57 Anschließend gaste die Blausäure im Innern der Kammer aus, was je nach Menge, Temperatur und Luftfeuchte unterschiedlich schnell erfolgte, und sie verteilte sich in ihr, was ebenfalls eine gewisse Zeit brauchte.“[23]

(Under the supervision of a SS Doctor the medical personnel poured the contents of the cans through special openings into the gas chambers. Four holes were present in each of the ceilings of the two chambers in which most of the people (Menschen) were poisoned – the gas chambers of the crematoria II and III, constructed as basements. The granules were delivered into shafts made from metal lattice.[24] The cyanide then outgassed inside the chamber, the time for this varied – depending on quantity, temperature and humidity, the gas dispersed as well, which also took time)

The blue staining issue has been discussed by Rudolf, I’ll just concern myself with the rest here, starting with the “shafts made from metal lattice”, here is one more view of them [25]. Trunk is not very clear on this, for good reason no doubt, for instance when referring to placing the pellets into the columns he writes “gelangte(n)”, why not say ‘poured into the basket’? This could be because we have different descriptions for those columns. The first question that needs to be asked, however, is this: Why would the Germans go to a system as this when they had the above mentioned circulation method already in use, successfully? The answer: They would not have, if mass murder was the intent they would have used the system used in the delousing chambers.

But, back to the columns, allegedly built by a Michal Kula, see footnote 25, here is what the authors of that article wrote:

“At Auschwitz-Birkenau, in the gas chambers of crematoria II and III, Zyklon-B was poured in through holes in the roof. After early experiments with this poison, the camp staff had learned that it was important to allow the pellets of Zyklon to be removed after the victims’ death, and also to spread them to increase the speed of outgassing.

The solution to these problems was a wire mesh column, which ran from the floor up through the roof. An SS man, wearing a gas mask and standing on the roof, would pour the pellets into the top of the column and place a wooden cover over it. The pellets fell into an inner wire mesh basket, which held them as they released their poison into the gas chamber.

After the mass murder was complete, the cover was opened, the basket was pulled up, and the Zyklon expelled the remainder of its poison harmlessly into the open air. Meanwhile, the ventilation of the gas chamber and the cremation of the corpses could begin[…]”

We are told that at first, the pellets were just poured into the room, no columns, leaving no Prussian Blue stains, but then it was “learned” to remove the pellets and also that the pellets needed to be spread. No wonder Trunk provides no details, for the above is rubbish. The pellets were allegedly in a basket, how then does this aid spreading? It doesn’t, pouring them on the heads of the people would have spread them, this method did not. In the verdict of the Auschwitz Trial the judges talk of a column made from perforated tin, with a spiral inside to help spread the pellets.[26] The “judges” believed the nonsense, lies, Filip Müller told them.[27] Just one more description of those columns, this one by Shaul Chazan, who tells us that the columns did not reach the floor, but left a gap so the pellets could be swept up.[28] Not one of those magical (imaginary?) columns has ever been found.

The drawings by Kula (footnote 24), or McCarthy/van Alstine (footnote 25) show that the columns, measuring 70cm x 70cm, went right through the roof, had to, the columns 3m long, the ceiling only 2.40m high (footnote 25). Therefore, holes measuring at least 70cm x 70cm must exist in the roof of the ruins of crema II, no sign of them.[29] Mr. Carlo Mattogno goes into detail about those cracks and blemishes in the roof [30], identified as “Die Löcher des Todes” (The holes of Death) [31], by Sven Felix Kellerhoff in: Die Welt, 23.08.2004. The biggest opening found is 45cm, not nearly enough to accommodate one of those columns. We are now told that only the inner core stuck through the roof, but that is just an attempt to deceive, no evidence exists to back this up. Thus, unless some sense can be made out of this, the columns must be dismissed as a hoax.

The only other part of interest re. what Trunk wrote above is the mention of how much Zyklon B was used — the reference to temperature and humidity. As for the first, he uses Höß as a reference, who stated that 5 to 7 one kilo cans were used for the murder of 1,500 people (Menschen), 2 to 3 cans more in cold and/or humid weather.[32] That per “gassing” and still no signs of Prussian Blue. As for removing the pellets before Prussian Blue can form, how would these people on the roof know when to pull the can up, considering what Trunk/Höß wrote/stated re. cold and humidity? As already pointed out, this column nonsense is rubbish, but impossible for Trunk et al to let go of this column tale for now.

In his conclusion Trunk tells us that both gasses allegedly used, CO and HCN, are very poisonous — continued breathing of either of them is deadly inside of minutes. Both poisons were easy to obtain/manufacture and easy to handle, which is why they were used because their toxicity was known to the perpetrators. The mass murder of over three million Jews (Jews this time, not people) historically verified with overwhelming evidence (durch erdrückende Beweise historisch gesichert). No need therefore to investigate the chemical or technical aspects of the mass murder to debunk Revisionists who question the Shoah, the above only meant as an addition to what is known. But, having experts analyse the historical sources helps to refute Revisionists’ arguments, if only as an aside. Thus, even the most far fetched arguments of Negationists can be disproved.

Final comments: Trunk tells us that both poisons were easy to obtain and use, not so. Zyklon B was in short supply and because of its toxicity dangerous to handle: Especially so when it was used as is alleged — pouring the pellets into baskets, raising them up, and letting them outgas in the open. That is just one example. Fact is the people handling this substance were specially trained. Then the repeated references to “historical” evidence/sources and the admission that there never was an experts involved in the investigation of crimes — a fact. As for overwhelming evidence — where? Trunk skips over this and only tells us that CO and HCN are highly poisonous, stating the obvious. But when it comes to how the Zyklon B was allegedly administered, all he can do is make a few general comments, later claiming that there is no need to look at the technical aspects, pretending that all has been proven.

He is wrong: for the purpose of this book is to fight Revisionism and stating that CO and HCN are poisonous will just not do, as the toxicity is not the issue. The technical and chemical aspects are, but Trunk feels those need not be addressed. A lot of pages filled with words, but nothing that will turn a doubter into a believer.

To be continued…

Sources:

1. Günter Morsch, Bertrand Perz, Neue Studien zu nationalsozialistischen Massentötungen durch Giftgas, Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2011, pp.23-49
2. Eugen Kogon, Hermann Langbein, Adalbert Rückerl, et al, Nationalsozialistische Massentötung durch Giftgas, S. Fischer Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt am Main 1983, pp.281-287
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_cyanide
4. Neue Studien…, pp.23-25
5. Kogon et al, Nationalsozialistische Massentötung…, pp.48f
6. http://www.nazigassings.com/dieselgaschamber.html
7. http://www.codoh.com/gcgv/gcdiesel.html
8. Neue Studien…, p.32, the German wording: “…da die seriöse Forschung überhaupt nicht davon ausgeht, dass in den Vernichtungslagern der „Aktion Reinhardt“ durchgängig mit Dieselmotoren gemordet wurde“.
9. Raul Hilberg, Die Vernichtung der Europäischen Juden, Frankfurt a. M. 1992, p.941
10. Morsch et al, Neue Studien…, p.31, footnote 35: Rudolf Reder, Belzec, Krakow 1946, p.44
11. Ibid, p.35, quote from: Jules Schelvis, Vernichtungslager Sobibor, Münster/Hamburg 2003, p.118
12. Kogon et al, Massentötungen…, p.163
13. Germar Rudolf, The Rudolf Report,  http://www.vho.org/GB/Books/trr/
14. Rudolf, The Rudolf Report,  http://www.vho.org/GB/Books/trr/6.html#6.7.4.
15. http://www.vho.org/GB/Books/trr/8.html#8.4.
16. http://www.vho.org/GB/Books/trr/8.html#8.4.
17. Kogon et al, Nationalsozialistische Massentötungen…, p.211
18. Rudolf Höss, Death Dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz, Prometheus Books, Amherst New York 1992. Edited by Steven Paskuly and translated by Andrew Pollinger, p.43
19. http://www.codoh.com/review/revsehn.html
20. http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/gcpol11.htm#Gas-chambers
21. Josef Bailer, Die “Revisionisten” und die Chemie, in: Brigitte Bailer-Galanda/Wolfgang Benz/Wolfgang Neubauer (publishers), Die Auschwitzleugener. “Revisionistische” Geschichtslüge und historische Wahrheit, Berlin 1996, p.146; pp.142-149
22. http://www.nazigassings.com/zyklondelousing.html
23. Morsch et al, Neue Studien…, p.39
24. Morsch et al, Neue Studien…, p.39; reference to: Jean-Claude Pressac, Auschwitz, Technique and Operation of the Gas chambers, p. 487 http://www.mazal.org/pressac/Pressac0487.htm
25. http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/intro-columns/
26. Zur Tarnung der in der Decke befindlichen Öffnungen, durch die das Zyklon B von aussen hineingeschüttet wurde, hatte man aus durchlöchertem Blech bestehende hohle Säulen installiert, die vom Boden bis zur Decke reichten und die Öffnungen verdeckten. In den Säulen befanden sich Spiralen, die das gekörnte Zyklon B nach dem Einschütten verteilten. (The site this was taken from, IDGR, has since disappeared, all I have is the printout)
27. http://vho.org/GB/c/CM/noholes.html
28. http://vho.org/dl/vffg/3_04.pdf ; Die Einfüllöffnungen für Zyklon B – Teil 2., p. 31
29. The Ruins of the Gas Chambers: A Forensic Investigation of Crematoriums at Auschwitz I and Auschwitz-Birkenau, Daniel Keren, Jamie McCarthy, and Harry W. Mazal, http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/holes-report/holes.shtml
30. http://vho.org/GB/c/CM/noholes.html
31. file:///D:/IDGR%20-%20Die%20L%C3%B6cher%20des%20Todes.htm
32. Morsch et al, Neue Studien…, p.39; Höß affidavit of 20 May 1946, IMT document NI-034, p.2

The second study in chapter one is by Dr. Moshe Zimmermann, Prof. for contemporary history and head of the Richard Koebner Minerva Center for German History at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The essay is titled “Massenmord durch Giftgas in der Wahrnehmung der Überlebenden” (How survivors perceive the mass murder by poisonous gas).

Before we go into this, the book this article is part of is about new studies on killing with poisonous gas by the Nazis, and the denial by Revisionists of said killings. The first article by Mr. Evans contributed nothing to the issue supposedly under discussion, the title of the second seems to follow that trend. One has to wonder why we need to know how the alleged murder by poisonous gas was perceived by the, ahem, survivors. But let’s not judge a book by its cover and see what Mr. Zimmermann has to say.

He starts out by informing us that he will concentrate on how Jewish survivors perceived this mass murder, specifically Israelis, even though only a small percentage of actual survivors live in that country. But, so Zimmermann, the whole of Israeli society, starting with the “Survivors of the second generation”, consider themselves to be a society of survivors. And in their opinion they represent the whole of Jewish society (Doch die gesamte israelische Gesellschaft, mit den „Überlebenden der zweiten Generation“ beginnend, betrachtet sich als eine Gesellschaft von Überlebenden. Darüber hinaus geht diese Gesellschaft davon aus, dass sie die gesamte jüdische Gemeinschaft repräsentiert).[1]

Comments: The last part makes it clear that “surviving the Holocaust” has turned into a social exercise and has nothing to do with actual numbers. But the part about percentages is interesting, because one needs to ask: A percentage of what? In a Ha’aretz article of December 29, 2005, we read: “As of 2005, of the nearly 400,000 Holocaust survivors residing in Israel, 40% live below the poverty line…”. This article has since disappeared, all I have is the printout of a portion of it. Some of it is still available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftermath_of_the_Holocaust — look under “Survivors welfare in Israel” (footnote 7 refers to the disappeared Ha’aretz article). And this article talks about cancer/colon cancer as a result of starvation — clearly just about actual survivors. Thus, if 400 000 is a small percentage of the total of survivors, how many did “survive”? Why do we have no exact figures when they surely must exist because Germany is paying retribution to each of the survivors? I have seen numbers as high as 4 million [2], but it is said that some of those were double claims. Possibly so, but why the big secret?

Fact is, no historian ever concerned himself with the issue of how many survived, and many did survive the war.[3] In this essay, links are provided to works by Messrs. Kulischer and Scheidl, among others, with the latter demonstrating that the numbers we are given – of Jews allegedly murdered by the Germans – are not based on solid research. We also know now that up to 20,000 camps, i.e., detention facilities existed instead of the 5,000 to 7,000 believed to have existed. Mr. Thomas Kues mentions this in his article.[4] So, why is the issue of how many survived seemingly unimportant? It should not be, for only if we know how many Jews were able to flee or make it through the war somehow can we begin to look for those missing.

According to Jewish customs, Zimmermann continues, at the funeral of a diseased, and the anniversary of that day, the “Jahrzeit”, a special prayer is offered: El male Rachamim (merciful God), the merciful God is asked to give eternal peace to the souls of the diseased. On the 10^th day of the Jewish month Tevet, the day of the of remembrance of the Shoah, special versions of El male Rachamin are offered for the six million Jewish victims of the European Shoah. One version inserts the following into the original prayer: “that were killed, butchered, burned and became martyrs through the German Nazi murderers and their helpers” (die getötet, geschlachtet, verbrannt und Märtyrer wurden, durch die deutschen Nazi-Mörder und deren Helfern aus anderen Völkern). The other version adds: „that were killed, butchered, suffocated, burned and buried alive by the German Nazis and their helpers”(die getötet, geschlachtet, erstickt, verbrannt und bei lebendigem Leibe begraben wurden, durch die deutschen Nazis und ihre Helfer). Thus, in this prayer death by gassing is grouped in (zugeordnet) with suffocation, a known punishment in ancient Judaism.

This makes two things clear: the word “gassing” does not exist in the Hebrew language to this day, and second, that burning is implanted more firmly in the collective Jewish conscience than gassings and has become synonymous with the mass murder of Jews during the Shoah. To wit: in one of the prayers the word “suffocating”, as a substitute for gassing, is missing. Thus as monstrous as the killing by poisonous gas was, in the end the expressions “oven” and “burning” have become better known as the word “Gas chamber”.

Comments: This is of some importance, for it is true that in some eyewitness accounts only burnings are mentioned, E. Wiesel for instance never mentions gas chambers – only burnings in ditches. This of course puts the veracity of their testimony in doubt, for Jewish tradition and language are one thing but surely a Jew could never forget the gas chambers in which millions of his compatriots were allegedly killed.

Zimmermann now goes into detail as to why burnings are burned, pardon, implanted into the Jewish subconscious, and tells us that there are various reasons for this. In the descriptions of the persecution of Jews in the middle ages, and beyond that in Jewish historiography — which accentuates (unterstreicht) the difference between the subdued “bent down” (gebückten) Jew of the Diaspora and the proud, allegedly new Jew of Israel – burning pyres (Scheiterhaufen) play a central role. When religious Jews understand the Third Reich as a return to the middle ages, then the killing by fire seems to be (scheint) what connects those killings to the Jewish martyrdom of the middle ages. When looking at pictures which portray the mass murder of Jews in iconographic language (ikonografischer Sprache), we find that ovens are not just used for burning of corpses but become a murder weapon of their own, and this even though burning of live people was the exception. Zimmermann then quotes H. Heine, as a nice touch: “Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen“ (Where books are burned, humans will follow)

Death by suffocation was one form of execution in ancient Judaism, as punishment for patricide for instance, but for obvious reasons one cannot find anything about gassings in the ancient Jewish catalogue of punishments. In fact, gassing, in its implementation, reminds more of the punishment by burning practiced in old Judaism, because it depicts the blocking of the air ways with glowing lead (glühendem Blei), instead of burning on pyres (this makes no sense in German either). This is why the burning facilities, the crematoria (“Misrafot”), as well as the smoking chimney’s (“Arubot”) are mentioned, instead of the gas chambers (“Ta’ei Gisim”) when talking of the Shoah.

And even without going back to the middle ages it would have been possible for flames as icons to displace the invisible gas, for in Palestine hardly any gas pipelines existed before the establishment of Israel. Then, in early summer of 1942, when the news of mass murder methods reached the country, Ha’aretz reported on 30 June 1943: “In November and December of 1941 the Nazis have began to murder Jews with poisonous vapor (Dunst, the word poisonous gas did not exist). They did this in the city Chelm[no[ […] Following this, those poisoned were burned in the forest”. And at a meeting of the Jewish Agency of 22 November 1942 it was reported: “They are destroyed (vernichtet) with gas. Three ovens exist in Oswiezim,[…] in which Jews are burned”. (Als im Frühsommer 1942 dann die ersten Nachrichten über die neue Mordmethode das Land erreichten, meldete die hebräische Tageszeitung Haaretz dies am 30. Juni 1942 mit den Worten: „Im November und Dezember [1941] begannen die Nazis Juden mit Giftdunst [das Wort Giftgas stand damals überhaupt nicht im Wörterbuch] zu ermorden. Sie taten dies in der Stadt Chelm[no],[...]. Danach hat man die Vergifteten in den Wäldern verbrannt.” Und bei einer Sitzung des Direktoriums der Jewish Agency am 22. November 1942 wurde berichtet:  „Man vernichtet sie mit Gas. In Oswiezim gibt es drei Öfen, [...] in denen man Juden verbrennt.”2 (2 Dina Porat/Yehiam Weitz, Between the Star of David and the Yellow Star. The Jewish Community in Palestine and the Holocaust 1939-1945, Tel Aviv 2002, S. 106.)[5]

Comments: One might want to ask what all of this old Jewish history has to do with evidence for the alleged killing of Jews by poisonous gas. Well, nothing, and yet… Zimmermann makes a good case here for how the story came to be. Burning and suffocating, not the gassing, is what is implanted in the Jewish psyche. We must remember here the first reports from the camps, and I’ll start with Treblinka, the area around it conquered by the Red Army in the middle of August 1944:

“The Military Examining Judge of the Military Office of Prosecution First Lieutenant of Justice Jurowski went to work immediately, supported by other officers – Major Kononjuk, Major V.S. Apresjan, First Lieutenant F.A. Rodionov, Major M.E. Golovan, and Lieutenant N.V. Kadalo – and carried out investigations between August 15 and 23 on the grounds of the camps Treblinka I and Treblinka II. He furthermore questioned witnesses: Samuel Rajzman, Lucjan Puchała, Marianna Kobus, Stanisław Zdonek, Barbara Zemkiewicz, Józef Pukaszek, Stanisław Kon, Mieczysław Anyszkiewicz, Tadeusz Kann, Franciszek Wesolowski, Max Lewit, and Kazimierz Skarzyński (GARF, 7021-115-11, pp. 15-43.)[...]

The ‘bath’ was a house, which consisted of 12 cabins, each 6 × 6 m in size. 400 to 500 people were driven at a time into one cabin. It had two doors, which could be sealed hermetically. In the corner, between ceiling and wall, were two openings connected with hoses. Behind the ‘bath’ stood a machine. It pumped the air out of the room. The people suffocated within 6 to 10 minutes. The second door was opened and the dead were brought on wheelbarrows to the special ovens[…]

The oven – this was a large trench 250-300 m in length, 20-25 m in width and 5-6 m deep, excavated by an excavator. Driven into the bottom of the ditch were three rows of reinforced concrete posts, one-and-a-half meters in height each. The posts were connected to one another by cross-beams. On these cross-beams rails were placed at intervals of 5 to 7 cm. That was a gigantic oven grill. A narrow-gage spur track led down to the edge of the trench. (Witness testimony of Abe Kon, Hejnoch Brenner, Samuel Rajzman,

and the content of the book ‘One Year in Treblinka’).[…]

On the basis of the preliminary facts, the cremation of people has been determined with no doubt. The extent of the extermination of people was monstrous: about three million.”[6]

And here we have it all, suffocation – followed by burning. However, the alleged suffocating in vacuum chambers has since been changed to gassings by diesel exhaust, at first, and now to gassings by gasoline engine exhaust. Also, it is no longer claimed that the “ovens” were 5-6m deep ditches. One has to wonder why that has been changed, since the first eyewitnesses surely must have remembered how it was allegedly done, especially the witnesses Samuel Rajzmann and Yankiel Wiernik, who claim to have been in Treblinka during its operation and both participated in the revolt, even though neither mentions the other. The three million cremated has also been downsized somewhat, but no agreement has been reached on a number, Yad Vashem has it as 880,000.

And now to the first report of Oswiezim, or Auschwitz as it is better known. As we know, Auschwitz was ‘liberated’ by the Red Army on 27 January 1945. On 2 February an article appeared in “Pravda”, a Soviet daily, in which the author, Boris Polevoi, writes about what eyewitnesses had told him:

The name of the town “Auschwitz” has long been a synonym for bloody German atrocities in the lexicon of the peoples of the world. Few of its prisoners escaped the fires of its notorious “ovens.” ^[2] […]Last year, when the Red Army revealed to the world the terrible and abominable secrets of Majdanek, the Germans in Auschwitz began to wipe out the traces of their crimes. They leveled the mounds of the so-called “old” ^[3] graves in the Eastern ^[4] part of the camp, tore up and destroyed the traces of the electric conveyor belt, on which hundreds of people were simultaneously electrocuted, their bodies falling onto the slow moving conveyor belt which carried them to the top of the blast furnace ^[5] where they fell in, were completely burned, their bones converted to meal in the rolling mills, and then sent to the surrounding fields.[7]

Ok, no suffocation, but we have this: “Few of its prisoners escaped the fires of its notorious “ovens”. And: “…their bodies falling onto the slow moving conveyor belt which carried them to the top of the blast furnace”. The electrocution, as well as the blast furnaces have also not survived, even though attested to by eyewitnesses. But what we see here is the story in the making, the suffocating in Treblinka and the burnings in both camps, although “details” had to be worked out yet, and were.

As for the persecution of Jews in the middle ages, mentioned by Zimmermann, here is what Bernard Lazare, a Jew himself, had to say about his contemporaries:

“If this hostility, even aversion, had only been shown toward the Jews at one period and in one country, it would be easy to unravel the limited causes of this anger, but this race has been on the contrary an object of hatred to all the peoples among whom it has established itself. It must be therefore, since the enemies of the Jews belonged to the most diverse races, since they lived in countries very distant from each other,

since’ they were ruled by very different laws, governed by opposite principles, since they had neither the same morals, nor the same customs, since they were animated by unlike dispositions which did not permit them to judge of anything in the same way, it must be therefore that the general cause of Anti-Semitism has always resided in Israel itself and not in those who have fought against Israel.[8]

Dr. Theodor Herzl sounds much the same in his “Der Judenstaat”, it is therefore incorrect to refer to Jewish persecution, a fact, and not mention the “why”.

To the News (Nachrichten) about Chelmno. First, we must recall what was said in the introduction to this book: that only after the war had ended did the world as a whole find out what had happened in the concentration camps – were people informed about the mass murder (Völkermord).[9] So, how could Ha’aretz have known about the murder of Jews in Chelmno with poisonous vapor already in 1942? Then the times given, “November and December”. In the same book, on p.153 we read:

“[I]n Chelmno wurde am 8. Dezember 1941, und damit am frühesten, die systematische Ermordung von Juden in einem Vernichtungslager aufgenommen”.(On 8 December the systematic murder of Jews in Chelmno started).

And in “Nationalsozialistische Massentötung durch Giftgas”, by Kogon et al, we read on p.120, a Jozef Czuprynski testifying:

“Während der gesamten Kriegsdauer wohnte ich im Dorf Zawadki, arbeitete jedoch in Powiercie. Am 5. Dezember 1941 kamen die ersten Autotransporte mit Juden aus Kolo nach Chelmno”. (During the whole of the war I lived in Zawadki, and on 5 December 1941 the first transports of Jews arrived in Chelmno).

If, what Ha’aretz reported, is fact based, how could they then talk about gassings in November when the alleged gassings did not start until December? This report was based on rumors, just like any other “report” peddled at that time. Pierre Blet writes about the rumors of Jews killed that reached the Vatican, all dismissed by the Pope because they could not be substantiated.[10]

Other iconographic images, Zimmermann continues, the manufacturing of soap from human fat for instance, are also associated with burnings, not gassings, that particular image has now been largely dropped (aus dem Diskurs verdrängt). Of course the history of the Shoah, the gassings as killing method, is well known to historians and lay persons alike. Therefore it is not possible to separate the gas chamber from the crematoria, but in Israels’ iconography both are depicted as killing devices. For example: The heavy burden of that icon of extermination, the crematoria, played a role in public discussions in Israel. According to the rules of the Jewish “Halacha”, deceased can only be buried, not cremated and by burning Jewish bodies the National Socialists committed sacrilege (Zimmermann continues by talking about a crematorium existing in Israel).

Comments: Ye old soap canard again, and Zimmermann does not dismiss it as a tall tale, oh no, it is just not mentioned as often anymore, according to him. The repeated reference to “iconography” and “Iconic imagery” is also of interest. “The Holocaust” in pictures? Yes indeed, just look at the drawings by David Olère, most of them demonstrate that what is told is untrue. And we must remember that hardly any photographs exist, an abnormality since camps like Treblinka were only fenced off with barbed wire and the alleged Totenlager (killing site) situated on a rise in the camp. We should have albums of pictures, showing the digging of graves, the hauling away of the soil from diggings (we need to remember that at least seven graves were allegedly dug, measuring 50m x 25 x 10m deep) the burnings, etc., etc.

But staying with iconography, we have here also the other meaning of the word ‘icon”, Webster’s defines it as: “3: an object of uncritical devotion”. So when Zimmermann refers to that “icon of extermination” (Ikone der Vernichtung), the crematoria, he refers to it as a religious symbol, an icon, “an object of uncritical devotion”. In fact, by now “The Holocaust” has turned into a quasi religion, as is acknowledged by many.[11]

In the memory of survivors, death by gas and cremation are one and the same (unzertrennbar), understandably so – for there were no survivors of gassings. And if someone survived a camp, he did not survive the gas chamber. Only in films, as in “Schindlers List” could people survive, the twenty children who survived by being asked to help unload potatoes – as mentioned in the Eichmann trial – an exception.

And the few surviving members of the “Sonderkommando” were responsible only for getting rid of the bodies of the gassed by burning them in the ovens. One of my colleagues, the Holocaust survivor and Holocaust historian Otto Dov Kulka, remembers the fire flaming from the crematoria (das Feuer das aus den Krematorien emporflammte) as the crucial point of his remembrance.[12]

Comments: There are accounts of gas chamber survivors, but that is hardly the issue here. Also, flames coming out of crematory chimneys, as in one of the Olère drawings — rubbish.

Ever since the Baby Yar massacre of 1941 has become a symbol of the Shoah, beside the gas chambers, the mass shootings are now also in competition with the image of the gas chamber. The questions asked: Who is holding the rifle? How does a Jew react, does he willingly go to get butchered (Schlachtbank), or does he resist? Thus the image of a Jew, shovelling his own grave, is perhaps more powerful than all other images when considering the necessity of establishing the state of Israel. But at the close, the story of Babi Yar (die Geschichte von Babi Yar) also ends with the burning of bodies.

Comments: Babi Yar has absolutely nothing to do with the subject matter, the Jews of Kiev allegedly shot, so why mention it here, when alleged killings by poisonous gas is the issue? But yes, lately the shootings have moved more and more to the front, because they are harder to dispute. As for the defenceless Jew who never resists, this has been a problem with the story right from the start. In a meeting of 7 February 1961, between Hessian Attorney General Fritz Bauer and American Consul Wayland B. Wuters (Waters?), regarding the Eichmann trial, the latter wrote in his report:

“Bauer did not think that Israel would be in any sort of hurry with the Eichmann trial, on the contrary; nor did he think the trial would be particularly sensational. He seems to feel all parties involved would ‘behave wisely’ and that Ben Gurion’s main aim would be to secure ‘historical light’ for internal educational purposes within Israel. (“Ben Gurion thinks the new generation in Israel is as unbelieving of Jewish passivity in the face of mass murder as the new Generation in Germany is unbelieving of mass German guilt”, Bauer said)

The reporting officer suspects, though he can in no way document his supposition, that Bauer may well be connected in some high-ranking capacity with the Israeli Intelligence Service in West Germany”.[13]

One has to read this slowly to grasp the meaning. First, Ben Gurion only wanted to make “history (historical) light”, why? Was the evidence for “The Holocaust” not convincing enough at that time? And then we have the part about Jews not believing that millions of their compatriots could be murdered without any sign of resistance, and that remains unbelievable to this day. As for Germans not believing the story, this is why the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials had to be conducted from 1963 to 1965, school classes invited to witness the proceedings, with the prosecutor calling the accused “murderers”, reminiscent of the Stalinist trials. And even though no substantial evidence was submitted at that trial, the judges admitting to this in the verdict, the publicity and baseless horror stories told did what it was supposed to do: establish “The Holocaust” in the minds of Germans.

And of course we must never forget that the State of Israel rests on “The Holocaust”.

Zimmermann then writes about Israeli school books (curriculum), and that the Holocaust is, since 1977, a compulsory course. The books of the 1980s concern themselves more  with the shooting by the Einsatzgruppen (EG, task forces) — with issues like the Jewish councils(Judenräte) in the ghettos and the Warsaw uprising in the foreground — the gas chambers mentioned only in passing, ditto for the newer books. In one of the books from 1999 a connection is made between the T4 actions and the killings with gas during the “Endlösung”, this based on newer research, the historian Shulamit Volkov contributed to the book. The only photo in the book, however, is that of a mass shooting, and thus it actually distracts from the T4 story (Geschichte). The selection of photos serves more as corroboration to our actual perception.[14] Zimmermann published the only school book in 1981 which featured a picture of a gas chamber.[15] In a book written for graduates, published in 1999, the change over from mass shootings to extermination camps is addressed, but murder by gas is marginalized, the book sharply criticized for lack of patriotism. The photo shown in the book that of a crematoria in Dachau.[16]

Comments: It always strikes me as odd when I read that “The Holocaust” still needs to be taught in school, not only in Israel but throughout most of the western world. Not only is it taught, but special guidelines for teaching the subject needed to be issued: “Guidelines for Teaching about the Holocaust”.[17] Why is that? By now, the facts should speak for themselves, in fact, there should be no need to publish this book under discussion. So why the continued Holocaust “education”. Because what is presented as evidence is just not convincing. Now to the issues of photos, i.e., the lack of same. Zimmermann tries to induce that photos only serve to convince us of what we already know, he does so in vain (the wording of what he wrote is a little strange, this is why the German original is provided). We know that at least one camera had been smuggled into Auschwitz [18], the pictures leaving much to be desired. Also, the Auschwitz resistance had excellent connections to the outside [19], the question that needs to be asked then: Why not more pictures? And to dismiss the evidentiary value of photos is not convincing in the least, with all the opportunities that no doubt presented themselves, we should have piles of them, if what is alleged really happened.

Zimmermann writes that in the school book he published in 1981, a picture of a Gaskammer is shown, the only book to do so, here is what he wrote in German:

“Das einzige Schulbuch, in dem ein Foto einer Gaskammer gezeigt wird, habe ich bereits im Jahre 1981 herausgegeben”.[20]

No details about which gas chamber he featured, and the book he is referring to (footnote 15) seems to have disappeared. I searched for it in every on-line book store, from ABAA to Zentrales V.A.B., nothing. Why is this important? Well, in the newspaper write up to the Berlin conference of 2008 — attended by 200 scientists from around the world to discuss “the historical significance, the technical development and revisionists denial of the Holocaust”, the book under discussion based on the findings of said scientists — we read that the description of gas chambers is fictional (fictive Darstellung), no pictures exist, all we have is eyewitness testimony. But now we learn that Mr. Zimmermann provided a picture of a gas chamber already in 1981, why not show that picture? Or is it also a picture of a genuine shower room, as shown by Henryk Mandelbaum, and claimed to be the gas chamber of Auschwitz?[21]

Zimmermann then talks more about the cremations, and also about films, “Witness to Murder” a 1954 Hollywood production is mentioned, as is “I want to live”, produced four years later, that film about state sanctioned killings in gas chambers in the USA. But, no connection is made between American and German gas chambers.

We then learn about the distribution of poisonous baby food “Made in Germany” in Israel, some babies died. It turned out that vitamin B1 was missing, not by accident according to a Member of the Knesset. Then, the gas pipeline from Egypt was put into operation, in April 2008, on the day when the Shoah is commemorated in Israel. But the climax of the association with “gas” and Germany was reached in 1991, when Saddam had conquered Kuwait. The discussion in Israel centred around the association between the German chemical industry and Saddam, the fear that the latter would use chemical weapons, built with German expertise, against Israel. The Soviet Scud rockets a modernized version of the German V-2. There was even talk about gassings in Iraq with Zyklon B, but this rumor was discarded.[22]

Comment: Typical Jewish paranoia.

But then, five years later and three years following the gassings of his own Kurdish people, Zimmermann continues, the Iraqi chemical weapons arsenal seems to have (schien) threatened Israel. This brought back the memories of gassings of Jews during the Shoah — Saddam Hussein a Hitler copy and Israel’s worst enemy — and chemical weapons “Made in Germany”, an explosive combination. Michael Bar Zohar gave a detailed speech concerning the participation of German companies and the export of poisonous gas to Iraq. He spoke of: “a devilish formula which goes: Jews – Germans – Gas”. Yitzchak Levi added: “There are things that are implanted in the pedigree (Wurzeln) of a people”, referring to the inclination of Germans – the modern Amaleks — to use poisonous gas against Jews. Two weeks after the start of that war Knesset Member Gershon Shafat summarized: “The father delivers Zyklon B for the extermination of Jews, the son the gas to Iraq so it can be used against Israel”.[23]

Comments: Zimmermann goes on and on, and even though this could be considered a “tongue in cheek” account, one has to ask: What has all of this to do with the subject? Why fill almost four pages with what amounts to Jewish paranoia? Or is it just paranoia? Most likely not, for “The Holocaust” is used by Israelis to justify just about anything, starting with the crimes committed against Palestinians, or to convince the “Coalition of the Willing” that a war against Hussein was necessary to save the world, although some in that coalition did not need much coaxing.

And now, toward the end of his essay, Zimmermann tells us that the attitude in Israel re. the Shoah is not as sacrilegious as before (with this again adding the religious undertone), even though we still have the new addition of Yad Vashem, the yearly “Marches of the Living”, and the ritualizing of the Holocaust Memorial Day. But, on the other side, the number of survivors is dwindling, and voices are heard criticizing the use of the Holocaust for political gains. Even Shoah jokes are told, originating in Germany of 30 years ago. Why this is so — the psychological aspect of this — Zimmermann does not wish to address. But in the jokes burning also plays a major role: “Question: “What do we call a survivor?’ Answer: ‘Schnizolim’ (Schnitzel)”. Hebrew for survivors being “Nizolim”. Be that as it may, even now tear gas is not used against Jewish, right-wing demonstrators because the right immediately points towards the Shoah. Tear gas is used against Arabs, however, and against the left in Israel, no concern here that the Shoah will be evoked.

There is no interest in discussions about facts, the Leuchter Report almost ignored by the media. The naming of an institute for theoretical chemicals (Institutes für theoretische Chemie) as “Fritz Haber” also of no interest. Advertising by Hoover for their vacuum cleaner “Zyklon” was allowed. This shows that the poisonous gas theme can only be brought into the conscience in certain connections, and then used for political purposes. The fight against Shoah deniers is seen as a fight for existence, but in this framework attention is not focused on gassings alone, and that rightly so.

Final comments: Zimmermann convinces us that in the Jewish psyche burnings are what makes the Shoah, not the gassings, unless “Germany” and “Gas” are mentioned in the same context. He, aside from a few deviations into the world of paranoia, addresses the issue, the heading of his essay “How survivors perceive the mass murder by poisonous gas”. But, the question has to be asked again: What has all of this to do with proving that Jews were mass murdered with poisonous gas? This is after all what the title of the book promises, to provide new evidence for said gassings. One could dismiss this article, as well as that of Evans, as irrelevant, but it is not. The intent here is to get the reader conditioned, to soften him/her up to later accept all that is presented without question. And sadly, this tactic will work, most readers having never concerned themselves with details about “The Holocaust”. Zimmermann alludes to this in the last part of his essay in regards to Israel, but the same may be said for most people in the rest of the world.

To be continued…

Sources:

1. Günter Morsch und Bertrand Perz, Neue Studien zu Nationalsozialistischen Massentötungen durch Giftgas, Metropol Verlag Berlin 2011, p.11
2. http://www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/en/Wiedergutmachung
3. http://www.revblog.codoh.com/2010/05/well-where-are-they-then/#more-931
4. http://www.revblog.codoh.com/2011/02/facing-a-new-decade/#more-1416
5. Neue Studien…, p.12
6. Carlo Mattogno, Jürgen Graf, Treblinka. Extermination Camp of Transit Camp, Theses & Dissertations Press, PO Box 257768, Chicago, Illinois 60625 January 2004, pp.77-80
7. http://www.fpp.co.uk/Auschwitz/docs/Pravda020245.html#Anchor3
8. Vicomte Leon De Poncins, Freemasonry & Judaism. Secret Powers Behind Revolution, A&B Publishers Group. 1000 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklym New York (no publishing date given), p.183 (B. Lazare, L’Antisemitism, p.3)
9. Neue Studien…, p. XI
10. Pierre Blet, S.J, Pius XII and the Second War. According to the Archives of the Vatican, Paulist Press, New York, N.Y, Mahwah, N.J. 1997. English translation 1999
11. http://www.stateofnature.org/holocaustReligion.html (this just one example)
12. Neue Studien…, pp.13/14, footnote 4: “These Images of blue skies and columns of people in black swallowed into the confines of the crematoria and disappearing in clouds of smoke.” Zit. in Otto D. Kulka, In Search of History and Memory: Excerpts from „Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death”, in: Moshe Zimmermann (Hrsg.),On Germans and Jews under the Nazi Regime, Jerusalem 2006, S. 401-471, hier S. 411.”
13. All I have is a printout of the document. Page 1 has this number printed on it: PL105-246 and on the bottom of each page a stamp reads “Decalassified, Authority NND 36822, By UB, NARA Date 2-7-05
14. Neue Studien…, p.15: The German original: Die Auswahl der Fotos dient ohnehin als starkes Indiz für die eigentliche Wahrnehmung.
15. Ibid: Moshe Zimmermann (publisher), Von Krieg zu Krieg 1918-1945, Jerusalem 1981, p.182
16. Ibid: Dani Jakobi (publisher), Olam Schel Tmurot (Eine Welt voller wenden. Geschichte für die 9. Klasse [A world full of changes. History for the 9. grade]), Tel Aviv 1999, pp.134-140
17. http://www.revblog.codoh.com/2009/12/guidelines-for-teaching-about-the-holocaust/
18. Bruno Baum, Widerstand in Auschwitz, Kongress-Verlag Berlin 1961, p.88
19. Ibid, p.89f
20. Neue Studien…, p.15
21. http://www.revblog.codoh.com/2011/02/the-latest-sonderkommando-testimony/
22. Neue Studien…, pp.16/17
23. Ibid, p.17

The first chapter in the book Neue Studien zu nationalsozialistischen Massentötungen durch Giftgas is captioned: “Massentötungen durch Giftgas: Zwischen wissenschaftlicher Einordnung und individueller Erinnerung” (Mass murder by poisonous gas: Amid scientific cataloguing and the recollection by individuals).

The chapter contains two essays, the first one by the British historian Richard J. Evans, titled: “Wie einzigartig war die Ermordung der Juden durch die Nationalsozialisten?”(How unique was the killing of the Jews by the National Socialists?).

Mr. Evans begins by informing us that a few weeks after the conquest of Poland in September 1939, the victorious power started systematically suppressing Polish culture and language. Polish libraries and other cultural centres were closed, memorials were destroyed and street signs removed. Half a million Poles were incarcerated, many physically abused and killed. About 20 000 officers, among them insurgents, were shot, up to 1.5 million members of the Polish intelligentsia and their families were arrested and later transported out of the country in unheated cattle cars. About one third did not survive, among them 100 000 Jews. Those were the catastrophic results of the conquering of eastern Poland by the Soviets.

Comments: This came as a surprise, why would Evans start out by listing Soviet crimes when this is supposed to be about the uniqueness of the mass killing of Jews with poisonous gas by the National Socialists?

Evans continues by writing that only after the Germans marched into the Soviet Union (Einmarsch der Wehrmacht) in June 1941 did Soviet repression of Polish nationalism ease, the Poles then seen as potential allies. But at the same time, Stalin started a campaign against ethnic minorities who he believed could help the Germans. From September 1941 on, according Evans, 1.2 million German nationals (Volksdeutsche) from Ukraine, the Volga region and various Soviet cities were deported to Siberia by the Soviet Secret Police — about 175 000 of them died. Members of various other ethnic groups followed the Germans to Siberia, the secret police killed anybody believed to be in the way: more than 100 000 prisoners were murdered in Ukraine alone. Those actions closely resembled the policies of National Socialist Germany, so Evans, but there were differences.

The Soviets’ true intent, we learn, was to initiate a social revolution: Poland was incorporated into the SU, private property nationalized, Ukrainians and Byelorussian’s encouraged to rise up against the Polish ruling class. Thus, according to Evans, Soviet policy was not racist but part of the class struggle and in reality, the Soviet occupation brought about a system of equal rights. For many Jews this in fact meant liberation, whereas in the western, German occupied part, racism was the deciding factor from the start – Polish and Jewish property expropriated but a general nationalization never took place, the capitalist system continued.

Comments: Hard to say what all of this has to do with the subject matter, also, the National Socialists never tried to hide their racial policies. Evans intends – even though he admits that crimes were committed by the Soviets – to give their policies a sort of human face, whereas what the Nazis did was in his view purely criminal. He admits that those effected by either policy would probably not have been able to differentiate, but clings to the class struggle theme even when mentioning the years of the Great Terror in the SU.

Actual National Socialist policies regarding the new European order, as worked out by Heinrich Himmler, were revealed when German forces occupied Poland in June 1941, so Evans. Half a million German nationals (Volksdeutsche) from Eastern Poland, Rumania, the Soviet Union (SU) and other east European countries were to displace the dispossessed Poles. This so called (Evans’s words) Generalplan Ost (Master Plan East) stipulated that 64% of the Ukrainian -, as well as 75% of the Byelorussian population was earmarked for expropriation -, death via hunger/disease or be deported further east. 30 to 45 million were to die and the whole territory populated by millions of German farmers, effectively moving Germanys border 1000 km east. If this plan have been realized, Evans summarizes, it would have resulted in the biggest mass murder of all times. This Generalplan Ost was supposedly based on Hitler’s long held ambition to create “Lebensraum”(living space) for Germans.

The extermination of the Jews must be seen in the context of this far reaching master plan – and with this Evans has finally made a connection to the actual topic. But, he cautions, the extermination of Jews should not be viewed as just a side show of this Master Plan to re-arrange Eastern Europe along ethnic lines. No, this plan envisioned the starvation/killing of millions of Slavic peoples for economic reasons — their territories intended for future German settlement The Jews on the other hand were mostly poor and therefore of no economic benefit to the Germans. Jews were used as slave labor whenever necessary and allowed to live for a while (even though representatives of the Wehrmacht (German forces) stressed that Jews were “useless eaters”).

Comments: Evans claims that this Generalplan Ost was a long held ambition (auf die lang gehegte Ambition) by Hitler to create “Lebensraum” for Germans. We must backtrack some to see if what Evans charges is accurate. Evans no doubt referred to what Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf. While Hitler did desire more living space, he had a legitimate basis for doing so. The British blockade during WWI was still fresh in his mind, hundreds of thousands of Germans had died because of this blockade, a blockade left in place long after hostilities ceased.[1] As for Mein Kampf, Hitler told the French reporter Bertrand de Jouvenel of the “Paris Midi” that when he wrote his book, the Ruhr region was occupied by France, etc., and yes, France and Germany were enemies. When asked by de Jouvenel if he would rewrite what he wrote Hitler answered that he is not an author, corrections will be made in the book of history.[2] And he did just that, never laying claim to Alsace-Lorraine.  Hitler also mentioned that when he wrote his book he could not even dream of becoming chancellor of Germany. But, when Hitler did become chancellor, he wanted the Allies to honor what they had promised at Versailles – and did so from the start – to disarm as agreed to and as stipulated under Article 8 of the Versailles Treaty, which reads:

“The Members of the League recognise that the maintenance of peace requires the reduction of national armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety and the enforcement by common action of international obligations. The Council, taking account of the geographical situation and circumstances of each State, shall formulate plans for such reduction for the consideration and action of the several Governments. Such plans shall be subject to reconsideration and revision at least every ten years. After these plans shall have been adopted by the several Governments, the limits of armaments therein fixed shall not be exceeded without the concurrence of the Council. The Members of the League agree that the manufacture by private enterprise of munitions and implements of war is open to grave objections. The Council shall advise how the evil effects attendant upon such manufacture can be prevented, due regard being had to the necessities of those Members of the League which are not able to manufacture the munitions and implements of war necessary for their safety. The Members of the League undertake to interchange full and frank information as to the scale of their armaments, their military, naval, and air programmes and the condition of such of their industries as are adaptable to war-like purposes”.

The Versailles Treaty (German defense lawyer were never allowed to mention that Treaty at the Nürnberg trial) allowed Germany an army of 100 000 lightly armed troops, and Hitler, in a speech of 17 May 1933 promised to send even those home if the Allies did likewise.[3] In this same speech, Hitler told his audience that he had agreed to the MacDonald Plan, a plan allowing Germany 200 000 troops, about one-fifth of the number of troops allowed other countries surrounding Germany – the Russian army of about 1 million not even included. Also, Germany was not allowed any planes, while Poland was allowed 22, Belgium 150, the Baltic’s 150, the little entente 550, France 500: England and Russia are not mentioned. Again, Hitler agreed to this plan, even though France demanded that Germany be placed under a 4 year prohibition period.[4] The Allies kept stalling – efforts were made to extend the prohibition period by another eight years – and negotiations were finally to resume in 1935,[5] the Allies arming all the while. Those stalling tactics forced Hitler to break off negotiations and on 16 March 1935 he gave the order to re-arm Germany, as any responsible statesman would have done. On 2 May 1935, France and Russia signed a mutual assistance agreement (Beistandspakt), which officially added the Red Army to the list of foes. That was followed on 16 May by the signing of a similar agreement between Moscow and Prague,[6] and Hitler was supposed to wait 12 years before re-arming Germany???

Germany was also concerned with the newly created state of Czechoslovakia. Ribbentrop stated at the IMT:

“I remember that in this connection he (Hitler) quoted especially the former French Minister of Aviation, Pierre Cot, who had called Bohemia and Moravia, that is Czechoslovakia, the “airplane carrier” against Germany. I believe it was Reich Marshal Goering who already mentioned that at that time we received intelligence reports of Russian pilots or Russian missions being on Czech airdromes[…]”[7]

Still, Hitler took no action until the maltreatment of minorities by Czech authorities aroused even the displeasure of the British. To save face they send Lord Runciman to investigate.[8] Thus the Sudetenland was finally allowed to reunite with Germany, and Czechoslovakia was eventually dropped by the British [9].

On 26 January 1934, Germany and Poland signed a non-aggression Treaty, and on 24 October 1938, Ribbentrop had a lengthy talk with the Polish envoy Lipski, to see if outstanding issues could not be settled. His suggestion: Danzig was to be returned to Germany and a rail/road link build connecting East Prussia to Germany. Poland, in return, would get to keep all the German territories given to it at Versailles, with Germany to guarantee the border for 25 years. Lipski promised to relay those proposal to the Polish foreign minister Jozef Beck. Those very reasonable proposals were eventually turned down by the Poles.[10] Negations continued but when the British gave the Poles that unconditional guarantee, against Germany, the Poles – emboldened by the British guarantee – refused to negotiate any further. But even after Britain had given the Poles that guarantee, Hitler, along with other ministers, had worked out a 16 point program in order to try and settle issues peacefully. He had informed the British about this program and waited, right up to 31 August  1939, for a Polish emissary, no one showed up. The 16 points were broadcast on the radio at 21:00 hrs (9:00 o’clock) on 31 August, the Poles ridiculed them and called their people to arms, on 1 September 1939, the German army marched into Poland.[11]

Germanys peace offerings, following the outbreak of war with Poland, are well known, but they fell on deaf ears. Hitler demonstrated again and again that he did not want war, and when the French campaign ended he ordered demobilisation, sending whole divisions home: production of war material changed to production of consumer goods.[12] Thus, if the Generalplan Ost was really a long held ambition of Hitler’s, he sure had a strange way of going about it.

***

Just briefly to the war with the Soviet Union: At the meeting with Molotov in Berlin in November 1940, Hitler told him that because of the war with England, Germany had been forced to advance into territories in which it had no interest in.[13] Hitler than stated that Germanys’ Lebensraum had been greatly expanded, and even though both, Germany and the Soviet Union, might not have achieved what they set out to do, they could be satisfied nevertheless.[14] But Molotov demanded more concessions from Germany[15] and following this meeting Hitler realized that war with the Soviet Union was inevitable. Barbarossa, the strike against the Soviet Union, was a preventive strike, though establishment historians are still loath to admit this in spite of the growing evidence.

***

Given this evidence one cannot possibly see any preconceived notion on Hitlers’ part re. the Generalplan Ost, as claimed by Evans. This plan, if it ever actually existed as stated, was created for administration purposes — after the war against the SU had started and huge territorial and population gains made at first. On 15 July 1941, Konrad Meyer-Hetlich presented this administrative plan to Himmler, who had requested it.[16] Hitler supposedly discussed his plan in a meeting of 16 July 1941: what is known from this discussion was presented at the IMT as L-221.[17] The original document that might prove the malicious intent of Generalplan Ost does not exist or has never been found —  only bits and pieces of related documents were presented at the Nürnberg trials. As such, there is no proof at all that this plan was a long held ambition of Hitler’s, and to try and use it to prove “The Holocaust” is folly.

Hitler openly talked about settling the east and the problems that would have to be overcome. But, he stated, England was controlling 400 million in India with just 250 000 English soldiers and administrators, so it should likewise be possible for Germans to do the same.[18] Hitler outlined how it should be done, by building German cities/villages but explicitly stated that, for the rest of Russia: “…in der wir die Russen leben lassen wie sie wollen, nur daß wir sie beherrschen“ (we will allow the Russians to live as they chose, we will just govern them).[19] Nowhere does he mention  killing tens of millions of Slavs, in fact L-221 – according to Hillgruber the Generalplan Ost per se – never alludes to mass killings. There is, however, something odd about L-221. We read, right at the beginning: “…seems to have been prepared by Bormann, because his initials appear at the top of page one”? Seems to be?

Evans goes on to talk about the Ideology of National Socialist Propaganda concerning Jews. The National Socialists viewed Slavic people, i.e., Poles, Russians, Czechs, etc., as “Untermenschen” (lesser humans), who represented a danger to Germans only when lead by clever and ruthless Jews — as was allegedly the case with Bolshevism. But on their own they were considered primitive, backwards and passive. Thus they were expandable, but never a threat to the existence of Germans. Even in the closing years of the war, when National Socialist propaganda started to warn about Bolshevism as a danger to European culture, Slavs were always depicted as the helpers of international Jewry. The Slavs were a nuisance, but the Jews were a threat: the “Weltfeind” (enemy of the world).

Comments: First, in his speech of 28 April 1939, Hitler spoke highly of the Czech people. As for the Untermenschen, here is what Hans Fritzsche stated at the IMT:

“German propaganda, and under that I understand official German propaganda, did not even preach racial hatred. It only spoke about racial distinctions, and that is something quite different; but I will admit that there was a certain type of German propaganda which went beyond that and which did preach the clear-cut and primitive racial hatred[…]”[20]

While the term Untermenschen was used, it was never officially sanctioned – Alfred Rosenberg confirmed this.[21] As for the anti Jewish propaganda, Evans relied on a book by Jeffrey Herf, “The Jewish Enemy”, who tried to make a case for “The Holocaust” via NS propaganda” and failed miserably. One wonders what all of this has to do with mass murder of Jews by poisonous gas! This ‘context’ is designed to lead the reader (via the power of suggestion and bias) to false conclusions. Assumptions are presented as though they are facts.

According to Evans, Hitlers’ anti-Semitism was based on his perceived (vermeindlichen) experiences of WWI, i.e., from the paranoid interpretation of Germany’s defeat, the ”Dolchstoßlegende“ (stab in the back) — as was other National Socialist propagandists’ anti-Semitism. Jews were to blame for the unrest near the end of that war, since they used food shortages to foment revolution which, in turn, led to Germanys’ defeat.

Comments: Mr. Evans would do well to read some books which address that issue, for starters “The Kings Depart. The Tragedy of Germany, Versailles and the German Revolution”, by Richard M. Watt. Mr. Watt details the Bolshevist involvement in that revolution, the forming of “Soviets” and the like. Also, Jewish contribution to communism/bolshevism is well documented.[22]

Hitler was exposed to Jewish machinations in the Weimar Republik, thus his antisemitism had a “rational core’, as Prof. Nolte calls it (see footnote 34). Jews represented 0.7% of the total German population in the Weimar Republik, but 16.25% of all lawyers and judges were Jews and 10.88% of all medical doctors. They all but controlled the entertainment industry, as well as the press [23]. This is why Hitler spoke of a Jewish Überfremdung, overrepresentation by a foreign people. In Berlin 2,614 out of 6,203 medical doctors were Jews, which is 42%; out of 3,890 lawyers, 1,879 were Jewish…48%.[24] Dr. Willy Glasebock wrote in the NZ (Nürnberger Zeitung) Nr.5 of 2 April 1966, that all restrictions for Jews – i.e., those that existed before – were dropped in the Weimar Republik. Jews pushed their way to the forefront not only in economics, but also in government, literature and media (the press); they were able to fill important positions in entertainment. In politics they associated mostly with the left. The communist Jew Kurt Eisner became minister president of Bavaria, but was received with indignation by the rest of Germany. Glasebock lists many more examples, including some of the dubious financial dealings by Eastern-European Jewish shysters and concludes that it was no wonder anti-Semitism increased in the Weimar Republik and that no Hitler was needed for this.[25] Prof. Ernst Nolte writes extensively about the involvement of Jews in communism in Germany — their attempt to establish a “Soviet Germany”. And, Germans themselves were well aware of the Jewish-Bolsheviks butchering[26] that had happened/was happening in Russia, and therefore not interested in the establishment of a Soviet-Germany.[27]

Now Evans informs us that even though officials, as well as members of the Einsatzgruppen (task forces) mistreated/shot Poles and Slavs, their attitude towards Jews was totally different. Jews beards were cut off [28], girls were forced to clean latrines with their shirts, synagogues were burned down, Jewish men were assembled in public places and forced to do gymnastics till they collapsed, etc. Evans forgets to mention in all of this the following, from the presentation by Smirnov at the IMT:

“Radomsky and Rieder used all kinds of devices for the extermination of Soviet citizens. For instance, they invented the following method of murder: Several Soviet prisoners would be forced to climb a tree and others had to saw it down. The prisoners would fall together with the tree and be killed.”[29]

And although Smirnov refers to “Soviet citizens”, we now know that this was only Tarnsprache for Jews.[30] We then learn a little about the treatment of Jews by Rumanian and Croatian officials, again with the difference that the latter just wanted to get rid of Jews, whereas Germans considered Jews to be the Weltfeind — public enemy #1. The elimination of Jews was of central importance to the Germans, closely tied in with their boundless war aims, their plan to first conquer Europe and then the world.

Comments: So, a nation of some 85 million, that number of course including woman, children and the old, set out to conquer the world? Absolute rubbish. In his speech of December 31, 1941 Hitler reminded the world of his repeated offers to disarm, starting in 1933, and of his many peace offers since. He also told his listeners that England and France declared war on Germany because Germany wanted to conquer the world. Was Danzig the world, Hitler asked? Germany was not allowed an additional 500 000 square kilometers, whereas it was acceptable for 45 million Englishmen to rule over 40 million square kilometers of territory.[31] As mentioned, following the French campaign whole divisions were discharged and production of war material curtailed. Germany likewise never build any long range bombers like the Allies Lancaster (the Flying Fortress). In 1940, less than 15% of Germanys’ GNP was spend on armaments, in 1941 it was still just 19%…reaching 50% in 1944, when “total war” was declared.[32] In contrast, Stalin spend 32.6% of his nations GNP on armaments in 1940, and 43.4% in 1941.[33] This confirms that the threat originated in the Soviet Union: communism intended to conquer the whole world from the start — their emblem was a Hammer and Sichel superimposed over the globe.

Reductionist attempts to explain the National Socialist Jewish policy as rational[34], or economically related, are erroneous, claims Evans. Jews from all over Europe were arrested and send to extermination camps — the Wannsee Protocol makes this clear. With this the German racial wars differs from all other genocidal wars in history. Other wars were wars of conquest: genocides happened as a consequence, like the killing of the Herero by Germans in South West Africa, or the civil wars in Bosnia et al. Hitler, in his ‘Table Talks’, drew parallels to what was planned in the east (Generalplan Ost) and the killing of natives in North America or Australia, but mass murder of Jews by the National Socialists does not fit into this frame.

Comments: The National Socialists accused the Jews of subversive activities, and for being the carriers of the Bolshevik/Communist virus. Thus, they wanted all Jews living within their sphere of influence ousted; the case for mass murder has yet to be made. The Evian Committee stated: “Not one of the participating countries denies the unassailable right of the German government, to take measures in regards to certain citizens, when those measures are within its rights as a sovereign nation”[35] Problem was, nobody wanted the Jews so when war broke out, forced deportation east, or forced labor, became the norm. For the killing of the Herero, what actually happened differs from the official version, but this isn’t a relevant issue, Evans is just stacking the jury. As for the ‘Table Talks’, I searched the talks recorded by Heims and found nothing – the Generalplan Ost discussed above. The Wannsee Conference? It talks of killing Jews being worked to death while building roads, and not even the most ardent defender of “The Holocaust” claims that this is how it happened.

And now we have finally arrived at something that can actually be construed as an attempt, by Evans, to prove Hitlers’ genocidal intend. WWII was always seen as a racial war by Hitler (even though Hitler did everything in his power to avoid war), of which an integrate part was the eugenic upgrading (eugenische “Aufwertung”) of the German populace and the removal of Jews. When Hitler signed the T4 decree (Evans writes order) in October 1939, he backdated this order to 1 September, the beginning of the war. But even more significant is that during the war Hitler recalled his prophesy when he stated on 30 January 1942: “If the international Jewish financiers, inside and outside Europe, succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevisation of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!”

Hitler, in this speech, told his audience that he made this prophesy in his speech of September 1,1939, when in fact it was made on January 30,1939. For Hitler the genocidal re-arrangement of Europe started with the beginning of the war.[36]

Comments: Much ado about the dating of this T4 decree. At the Nürnberg doctor’s Trial, Dr. Georg Fröschmann, defense attorney for Viktor Brack, stated that Brack viewed the oral instructions that  he received on 1 September 1939 from Hitler as the legal basis for this decree.[37] This shows that the decree was issued on 1 September, but since the war had just started, Hitler had other things to do than to put it on paper – he did so later and dated it to the day it was issued, nothing sinister here. The Erlaß (decree) was typed on ordinary stationary showing the German Eagle in Gold and “Adolf Hitler” in print, dated 1 September 1939 with the wording:

„Reichsleiter Bouhler und Dr. med. Brandt sind unter Verantwortung beauftragt, die Befugnisse namentlich zu bestimmender Ärzte so zu erweitern, daß nach menschlichem Ermessen unheilbar Kranken bei kritischster Beurteilung ihres Krankheitszustandes der Gnadentod gewährt werden kann. gez. Adolf Hitler.”

(Reich Leader Bouhler and Dr. Brandt are charged with the responsibility for expanding the authority of physicians, to be designated by name, to the end that patients considered incurable according to the best available human judgment [menschlichem Ermessen] of their state of health, can be granted a mercy death [Gnadentod]. Signed Adolf Hitler)[38]

The legal wrangling is outlined in the VfZ article I quoted from above, the essay titled “Euthenasie und Justiz im Dritten Reich”(Euthanasia and justice in the Third Reich), demonstrating that the TR (Third Reich) was far from being a lawless society. Hitler signed this with the thought of mass starvation of Germans during WWI still in mind, and decided that the life of the incurable must be sacrificed to save the others. Indeed, when the protests became too loud, the action was stopped. Also, before anyone raises the moral forefinger, what about the killings of the unborn sanctioned in our societies? This is done without any basis other than a “woman’s right” to murder her unborn child.

Now for Hitlers’ prophesy: Evans lifted this from “Hitler, 1936-1945”, by Ian Kershaw, in which the caption to chapter 10 “Fulfilling ‘The Prophesy’” reads:

“‘I already stated on 1 September 1939 in the German Reichstag — and I refrain from over-hasty prophecies — that this war will not come to an end as the Jews imagine, with the extermination of the European—Aryan peoples, but that the result of this war will be the annihilation of Jewry. For the first time the old Jewish law will now be applied: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’

Hitler, speaking in the Sportpalast, Berlin, 30 January 1942

Kershaw seems to ignore the date issue, he remarks on p.464:

“Goebbels registered his satisfaction, when he received a detailed report in mid-August, at the information that ‘vengeance was being wreaked on the Jews in the big towns’ of the Baltic, and that they were ‘being slain in their masses on the streets by the self-protection organizations’. He connected the killing directly with Hitler’s ‘prophecy’ of January 1939. ‘What the Fuhrer prophesied is now taking place,’ he wrote, ‘that if Jewry succeeded in provoking another war, it would lose its existence[…]”

While Evans is correct that Hitler made that prophesy on 30 January 1939, not on 1 September 1939, he neglected to provide the part about “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. Hitler added this element in his speech of 30 January 1942, which was not part of his 30 January 1939 speech. Also, why would Hitler refer to a prophesy he had made on 1 September 1939, when that which he had prophesized, on 30 January 1939, has already happened, the war had started? It seems that Hitler mixed his dates/speeches up, horror upon horror. But then, in lieu of real evidence, anything will have to do for Mr. Evans.

Evans then tells us that the upgrading (Ertüchtigung) of the “so called Arian race” (his words), and the elimination of the unfit was an important part of waging this war. The efforts to eliminate unwanted included “extermination by work” (Vernichtung durch Arbeit) — the Sinti and Roma were effected by this also as many were shipped to Auschwitz and killed in gas chambers.

He again refers to the elusive Generalplan Ost, Hitlers’ table talks and anti-Jewish propaganda (referring to Herf), all of which supposedly created a genocidal climate – and he finally arrives at the Einsatzgruppen (task forces). We learn from Evans that in September 1941, the RSHA (Reich Main Security Office) had already come to the conclusion that mass shootings were not sufficient and that the experiences gained by the T4 program will have to be utilized. By the end of December 1941, we are told that all four Einsatzgruppen(EG) utilized one gas wagon in which Jewish men, woman and children were murdered via re-routing the exhaust through the box in the back. In March-, and later May and June 1942, the mass murder of Jews had begun in the three Action Reinhardt extermination camps, by routing exhaust gas into air tight chambers. At the same time Jews were killed en masse in Auschwitz by the use of Zyklon B, which was then followed by killings in Majdanek: gas chambers also existed in other camps but were not used for mass killings. For evidence, Evans refers us to the articles in this book.

Comments: Here again we see an attempt to connect T4 to the alleged mass killings of Jews, with no evidence offered, just assumptions. As for the EG, no independent body of experts has ever undertaken an investigation to find out whether what was reported and claimed can actually be confirmed. Prof. Maser writes that large areas of the east are still ‘terra incognita’, as historians appear unwilling to investigate for fear of not finding what is allegedly there.[39] Prof Seidler wrote of “documents of dubious origin” when referring to reports allegedly issued by the EG, the whole of Allied allegations based on those reports.[40] As for the rest of it, we will have to wait and see what the other authors have to offer.

Evans continues by writing that poisonous gas was used in three international conflicts: in the first World War, against subversives in Morocco, and by the Italians in Ethiopia; but never to murder millions of helpless, defenceless civilians. Just the same, one can not reduce the singularity of the National Socialist mass murder of Jews to the technical aspect of gassings alone. One can certainly differentiate between work- and extermination camps, but regarding the singularity of the crime it is not a matter of ‘how’ but ‘why’. Up to the end of the war, 5.5 to 6 million Jews were killed by the National Socialists. 3.5 million of them died in gas chambers; 1.3 million were shot by units of the SS, the police and the armed forces; 700 000 died in gas wagons; and up to 1 million starved or died of sicknesses or as a result of maltreatment in the camps erected by the National Socialists in Poland and elsewhere in eastern Europe (Evans refers here to the book by Saul Friedländer, ‘Jahre der Vernichtung’).

Thus, poisonous gas was only one method used for mass murder by the National Socialists. Posterity concentrates on that method because poisonous gas has never been used before. Never before has mass murder been committed in facilities erected for this purpose alone, but it would be erroneous to assume that this mechanized killing was something impersonal. In Belzec, for instance, the gas chambers did often not work, until improvements were made. In Auschwitz, Crematorium IV broke down during the Hungarian action in the spring of 1944, but those problems were solved also. The arrests and mistreatments in the ghettos continued, and all attempts by the SS to calm the Jews failed. The brutal treatment they had to endure left no doubt about their fate.

It is therefore time to again confront the many misunderstandings and legends circulating around the mass murder of Jews by poisonous gas. For the first time international historiography addresses the issues in this book, and as an aside, counters the attempts by self-styled revisionists to deny the existence of the gas chambers.

Final comments: Evans accuses the National Socialists (by now I wish they would call them “Nazis”) of inciting the masses via propaganda, using Herf as a reference, to condition them to accept the mass murder of Jews allegedly undertaken — but of which nobody knew (see part I). Evans just conditions the reader to accept that the National Socialists were nothing but a bunch of mass murderers who cultivated their killers via propaganda. Hitler is supposed to have planned the destruction of tens of millions of Slaves well in advance of the start of WWII, but evidence shows otherwise. Jews were to be killed, something that was planned all along, but evidence shows otherwise. Nowhere does he mention the declaration of war by “Jews of the world” on 24 March 1933 — mere weeks after Hitler came to power — proving that a “World Jewry” actually exists. In this declaration of war, Jews around the world were told to boycott German goods, this boycott having a severe affect. Here is what Rolf Vogel, a decided anti-Nazi, had to say:

“Ein weltweiter Boykott deutscher Exporte setzte ein, unterstützt von ausländischen Juden wie Nichtjuden. Dieser Boykott war so stark, daß Vizekanzler von Papen am 27. März 1933 einen flehentlichen Brief an die deutsch-amerikanische Handelskammer schrieb[…] “.[41]

(A worldwide boycott of German exports started, supported by foreign Jews as well as non Jews. This boycott was so strong that vice chancellor von Papen was forced to write a letter to the German-American trade commission)

Nor does Evans mention anything about the efforts made to get Jews to emigrate, right up to the spring of 1942, when the Madagascar plan was finally dropped.[42] And there’s no mention of the renewed declaration of war by Jewry of August 1941, this time from Moscow.[43] Following this latest declaration, Hitler had to consider Jews to be a fifth column, and since there was no way to differentiate between who was a good Jew (prima Jude) and who was not, evacuation to the east was ordered. As for ‘specially erected’ facilities, van Pelt tells us re. Auschwitz [44]:

“The two crematoria under development (2 and 3), were retro-actively fitted with homicidal gas chambers.”

And that in the spring of 1942, rather late I would suggest if Hitler really intended to kill Jews all along, as Evans tries to convince us. For Treblinka we have conflicting stories about killing methods [45]: it will be interesting to see if the authors of the essays addressing Treblinka acknowledge this and explain how this was possible, since those were also eyewitness testimonies.

Mr. Evans offers no evidence, just rhetoric.

To be continued…

Wilfried Heink

Sources

1. Wilhelm Ziegler, Versailles, die geschichte eines mißglückten Friedens, Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg, 1933, pp.91ff
2. Heinrich Härtle, Die Kriegsschuld der Sieger, Verlag K.W. Schütz, Göttingen 1966, pp.107/108 (the interview published on February 21, 1936, Ibid, p.107)
3. Ibid, p.64
4. Ibid, pp.63-66
5. Ibid, pp.62ff
6. Ibid, p.73
7. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/03-29-46.asp#ribbentrop2, p.259; H. Härtle, Die Kriegsschuld…, p.182
8. Laurence Thompson, The Greatest Treason, The Untold Story of Munich, William Morrow & Company, Inc. New York 1968, pp.98/99 and 116ff; H. Härtle, Die Kriegsschuld…, pp.205ff
9. Annelies von Ribbentrop, Die Kriegsschuld des Widerstandes, Aus Britischen Geheimdokumenten 1938/39, Duffel-Verlag, Leoni am Starnberger See 1974, pp.242ff
10. Walter Post, Unternehmen Barbarossa, Verlag E.S. Mittler & Sohn GmbH, Hamburg-Berlin-Bonn 2001, p.104
11. Ribbentrop, Die Kriegsschuld…, pp.335-357; 360-368; 369-381
12. Werner Maser, Der Wortbruch, Hitler, Stalin und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, München 2001, p.230
13. Ernst Topitsch, Stalins Krieg, Moskaus Griff nach der Weltherrschaft, Strategie und Scheiterm, Verlag Busse + Seewald GmbH, Herford 1993, p.141
14. Maser, Der Wortbruch…, pp.236/237
15. Ibid, pp.233-246; Topitsch, Stalins Krieg…, pp.139-152
16. Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (VfZ), 1972, Heft 2: Andreas Hillgruber, Die “Endlösung” und das deutsche Ostimperium als Kernstück des rassenideologischen Programms des Nationalsozialismus, p.141, also footnote 24
17. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/chap_13.asp
18. Adolf Hitler, Monologe im Führerhauptquartier 1941-1944, Die Aufzeichnungen Heinrich Heims, Herausgegeben von Werner Jochmann, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, München1982, p.48
19. Ibid, p.55
20. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/06-28-46.asp, p.196
21. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/04-15-46.asp, p.450
22. Alexander Solschenizyn, “Zweihundert Jahre zusammen”. Die Juden in der Sowjetunion, F.A. Herbig Verlagsbuchhandlung GmbH, München 2003
23. Rolf Vogel, Ein Stempel hat gefehlt. Dokumente zur Emigration deutscher Juden, Droemersche Verlagsanstalt Th. Knaur, München/Zürich 1977, p.36
24. Dr. jur., Dr. phil., Dr. pol., Franz J. Scheidl, Deutschland und die Juden in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, II Teil, p.9
25. Ibid, p.12
26. Ernst Nolte, Der europäische Bürgerkrieg 1917-1945, Nationalsozialismus und Bolschewismus, Propyläen Verlag, 1987 Verlag Ullstein GmbH, Frankfurt/Main, Berlin, p. 139. Also pp.69-143
27. Ibid, p.141
28. Evans no doubt referring to the well known picture, reproduced in Faschismus, Ghetto Massenmord, p.41. The picture looks suspect, the face of the soldier on the right, for instance, just a blur, as well as that of the soldier next to him.
29. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/02-19-46.asp, p.582
30. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/holocaust_and_genocide_studies/v017/17.1prusin.html
31. http://der-fuehrer.org/reden/deutsch/Der%20Grossdeutsche%20Freiheitskampf%20-%20Reden%20Adolf%20Hitlers%20-%20Band%203.pdf, p.87
32. Maser, Der Wortbruch…, p.132, also footnote **
33. Ibid, p.230, also footnote **
34. Ernst Nolte, Feindliche Nähe, Herbig München 1998, p.12; p.28; pp.41ff
35. Vogel, Ein Stempel…, p.193
36. Morsch et al, Neue Studien…, p.7
37. Franz W. Seidler, Das Recht in Siegerhand. Die 13 Nürnberger Prozesse 1945-1949, Pour le Mérite-Verlag für Militärgeschichte, Postfach 52, D-24236 Selent, p.219
38. VfZ, 1972, Heft 3, p.241
39. Werner Maser, Fälschung Dichtung und Wahrheit über Hitler und Stalin, Olzog Verlag GmbH, München 2004, p.232
40. Seidler, Das Recht…, p.272/73
41. Vogel, Ein Stempel…, p.43
42. Ibid, pp.334-336
43. Solschenizyn, zweihundert Jahre…, p.368; Heinrich Härtle, Freispruch für Deutschland, Verlag K.W. Schütz, Göttingen 1965, pp.249-255; This declaration was published in November 1941 by the „Anglo-Russian Parliamentary Committee, Buckingham House 6-7, Buckingham Street, Adelphi, London, W.C.2 (Härtle, p.255)
44. http://www.hdot.org/en/trial/defense/van/1, the last part of 8
45. Carlo Mattogno, Jürgen Graf, Treblinka. Vernichtungslager oder Durchgangslager?, Castle Hill Publishers, Hastings Great Britain 2002, pp.87ff