Legend and Reality
by Jürgen Graf
Published: 2003-08-01
1. Starting Position
On April 11,
1945, American troops entered Buchenwald concentration camp. Four days later,
British troops reached Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. In the weeks that
followed, the Anglo-Americans liberated other camps, including Dachau (April
29) and Mauthausen (May 5). To the victorious soldiers, all these concentration
camps represented scenes of horror. The Jewish historian Walter Laqueur reports
in this regard:[1]
"On April 15, units of a
British regiment entered Bergen-Belsen concentration camp following a ceasefire
negotiated with the local German commander. Colonel Taylor, who commanded the
regiment, wrote following an initial investigation of the camp in the laconic
language of an official report:
'As we walked along the main street
of the camp, we were greeted with jubilation by prisoners and saw the condition
of the inmates for the first time. Many were little more than living skeletons.
Men and women lay in rows on both sides of the street. Others crawled slowly
and aimlessly around with emaciated, expressionless faces.'
Tens of thousands of corpses, many
in advanced stages of decomposition, lay piled on top of each other."
Following the soldiers came a swarm
of photographers and journalists; the world was immediately filled with
horrifying images of piles of bodies and walking skeletons. Now, at long last,
the Allies had the long-sought proof that the Americans had been fighting the
embodiment of Evil, a diabolical enemy against whom any and all methods of
warfare had been permitted, including the barbaric terror bombings of German
cities.
From the very outset, to be sure, a
few sober observers recognized that the mass deaths in the recently liberated
National Socialist concentration camps were not the result of an extermination
policy on the part of the Germans, but were due to mass epidemics. The
Chicago-based Journal of the
American Medical Association, for example, reported on May 19, 1945:[2]
"By
negotiations between British and German officers, British troops took over from
the SS and the Wehrmacht the task of guarding the vast concentration camp at
Belsen, a few miles northwest of Celle, which contains 60,000 prisoners, many
of them political. This has been done because typhus is rampant in the camp and
it is vital that no prisoners be released until the infection is checked."
But the voices of reason were
drowned out in the maelstrom of atrocity propaganda unleashed by the media. In
the following months, the anti-German atrocity machine went into high gear, the
newspapers dishing up fantastic figures of the numbers of people allegedly
exterminated in National Socialist concentration camps.
A Swiss newspaper, for example,
screamed in August 1945:[3]
"Hitler-Germany
Heads the World. Twenty Six Million People Murdered in German Concentration
Camps!"
The prosecutors at Nuremberg did not
go as far as this in terms of numbers, but they did their best. The Soviets
claimed at Nuremberg 4 million deaths at Auschwitz[4] and
1.5 million at Majdanek,[5] while 840,000 Russian prisoners
of war were said to have been murdered at Sachsenhausen and their bodies
cremated in four mobile
crematoria![6]
Sir Hartley Shawcross, British head
prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trial, summarized the accusations raised against
vanquished Germany in the following words:[7]
"The
murders were carried on like any other mass production industry, in which gas
chambers and ovens of Auschwitz, Dachau, Treblinka, of Buchenwald, Mauthausen,
Majdanek and Oranienburg."
Revisionist author Wilhelm Stäglich
hit the nail on the head in this regard when he wrote:[8]
"Whenever
[in the immediate post-war period] there was any talk of
the 'Final Solution of the Jewish Question' in the sense of an alleged physical
extermination of the Jews ordered by the leadership of the Third Reich, no
distinction was made between the individual concentration camps. All were supposed
to have been used in this monstrous murder program, since – as was explained –
every concentration camps was alleged to have possessed one or more gas
chambers, in which Jews were said to have been killed using Zyklon B or carbon
monoxide."
For a large proportion of the public
– in Stäglich's words – "no
distinction is made between the individual concentration camps", even today. The average
citizen presumably still believes that Jews and other inmates were gassed in
Dachau, Bergen-Belsen and Buchenwald. The principal reason for this situation,
in particular, is that photos of victims of epidemic disease (both Jewish and
non-Jewish) are regularly shown on television and reproduced in the press as
'proof' of an alleged "systematic
extermination of the Jews"; on the other hand, the media, half a century after the end of
the war, continue unashamedly to speak of gassings in western concentration
camps. For example, a Canadian newspaper in 1993 featured the story of one
Moshe Peer, who claimed to have survived no less than six gassing actions as a
boy in Bergen-Belsen:[9]
"Each
time he survived, watching with horror as many of the women and children gassed
with him collapsed and died. To this day, Peer does not know how he was able to
survive."
Another 'Holocaust survivor,' Elisa
Springer, claimed in her memoirs, which appeared 42 years after the war(!),
that "the gas chambers
and ovens"[10] had started to operate in Bergen-Belsen after Josef
Kramer had become camp commandant.[11]
The media may occasionally peddle
this type of horror story, even today. Historical writers with any claim to
seriousness, however, realized that the legend about the purpose of the western
camps – to carry out a program of deliberate mass extermination – could not
stand scrutiny for long, because it was in overly crass contradiction to the
obvious facts. Walter Laqueur states in the appendix to the excerpt about
Bergen-Belsen quoted at the beginning:[12]
"The
Belsen case was unbelievable for more than one reason. Three years had passed
since the world first heard of the existence of the extermination camps for the
first time. There were detailed individual reports on the names of these camps,
their locations, on the millions of human beings who were killed there – even the
names of the camp commandants were known. […] Thus Belsen
set off a wave of the most violent indignation although paradoxically it was in
no way an extermination camp […]."
In fact, the orthodox historians, i.e., those who defend the allegation that a physical
extermination of the Jews took place, abandoned the claim of any mass
exterminations in Bergen-Belsen or other western concentration camps soon after
the end of the war. While a part of the these historians until today are of the
opinion that unsystematic gassing actions took place on a small scale in these
camps, others no longer speak of gassings in the western camps at all (see
section 5).
This does not, of course, mean that
the accusation that millions of people – mostly Jews – were murdered in German
concentration camps has in any way been dropped. To mark the defeated enemy
with an indelible mark of Cain, for a "crime unique in world history", to break German morale and
self-respect for all time, the victorious powers – with their German vassals –
continued their campaign of anti-German atrocity stories, but shifted the scene
of the mass killings to a few locations east of the Iron Curtain, inaccessible
to western observers. The result was the gradual crystallization of the version
of the 'Holocaust' familiar to most people today. According to this version,
National Socialist concentration camps fell into three categories:
'Normal' concentration camps, i.e., work camps, where executions – and, according
to a few authorities, gassings on a small scale – are alleged to have taken
place, but where most of the victims are said to have died 'natural' deaths, i.e., in particular, from disease and exhaustion.
Auschwitz and Majdanek. The claim is
made that these two camps were used as both work camps and extermination camps.
Jews unable to work are said to have been exploited for slave labor, while
those unable to work were purportedly killed.
Finally, the "pure extermination camps" of Treblinka, Sobibor,
Belzec, and Chelmno, are alleged to have been founded exclusively for the
purpose of carrying out a mass extermination of Jews. Apart from a few "working Jews" required to operate the
camps, every Jew in these camps was allegedly gassed, regardless of age or
state of health, without being registered.
That the above classification of
National Socialist concentration camps is found in the entire body of orthodox
literature on 'Holocaust' itself, even today, should in no way be allowed to
conceal the fact that the classification is entirely arbitrary and is based
upon no documentary evidence whatsoever. All the German wartime documents
relating to Auschwitz and Majdanek (Lublin) refer to them simply as "concentration camps" in exactly the same manner
as, for example, Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen. As we shall soon see,
Auschwitz and Majdanek were governed by the same German regulations as the
other camps, and the reasons for the high mortality rates were essentially the
same.
The situation with regards to the
so-called "pure
extermination camps"
is a different one; the present article restricts itself to a few comments only
in this regard. First, Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, and Chelmno were not
concentration camps. There are very few surviving documents relating to these
four camps, and there is no material evidence at all. There is not the
slightest proof that any program of mass extermination was carried out in these
camps at all: all the allegations made in this regard are based solely on
unreliable 'eyewitness' testimony. On the basis of the few available documents
and a great deal of other evidence, it may be deduced that Treblinka and
Sobibor were transit camps, via which some Jews were sent east – into the
occupied Soviet zones – while others were sent, in transit, via these camps, to
a variety of work camps.[13] It is highly probable that
Belzec was a transit camp as well.[14] Of Chelmno, we know
next to nothing. These four camps are not the topic of the present paper, and
we shall not, therefore, discuss them in any further detail below.
With regards to the other camps, we
have taken the trouble to compare the many myths about National Socialist
concentration camps against the documented facts. Inevitably, many
long-cherished preconceptions will be abandoned along the way.
2. Development and function of the National Socialist camp system
2.1. Historical Precedents and Parallels
That concentration camp systems were
not invented by Germans has become fairly well known as a result of Alexander
Solzhenitzyn's Gulag Archipelago. But they were not invented by the
totalitarian Soviet system either: many democracies have also interned
prisoners of war, allegedly disloyal civilians, and unpopular minorities in
similar camps. The following are a few major examples only:
During the American Civil War, both
the North and South maintained concentration camps for prisoners of war and
civilian enemy sympathizers; a considerable percentage of these inmates died,
mostly from epidemics. In the Northern prison camps of Camp Douglas and Rock
Island, the mortality rates ranged from 2 to 4%. At the Southern prison camp of
Andersonville, there were 13,000 deaths out of a total of 52,000 Union
prisoners, i.e., a death rate of 25%.[15] As we shall see, the mortality rate at Andersonville was
entirely comparable, in terms of percentages, with many National Socialist
concentration camps.
During the Second Boer War
(1900-1902), the British built approximately 40 camps in Boer territory,
interning a total of 115,000 Boer civilians, of whom 26,251 women and children
died, a mortality rate of 25%.[16]
During the Second World War, the
United States government ordered the interment in concentration camps of many
Americans of German descent[17] and virtually all persons
of Japanese ancestry resident in the United States, including American
citizens,[18] regardless of the fact that there had never
been a single case of subversion or sabotage by Japanese-Americans. During the
same war, the National Socialists interned large numbers of Jews. Though this
cannot be legally justfied, they had at least a reason for it, since –
understandably so – Jews constituted a disproportionately large proportion of
resistance members and partisans in all German-occupied territories.[19]
2.2. National Socialist Concentration Camps During the pre-War Period
The interment camps erected soon
after Hitler's assumption of power on 30 January 1933 – including the
well-known "Moor
camps" such
as Papenburg and Esterwegen – were used to neutralize the militant political
opposition: most of the inmates were Communists. The first regular
concentration camp was opened at Dachau, near Munich, in 1933. In addition, by
the beginning of the war, five additional camps were also opened
(Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Flossenbürg, and Ravensbrück).
While the number of internees in the
camps still amounted to 27,000 in October of 1933, their numbers fell to 7,000
by February 1934 as a result of the rapidly relaxing political situation[20] and then remained quite stable, although in addition to
political prisoners hardened criminals ("Berufsverbrecher") and "Asocials" (tramps, beggars etc.) were interned too. The Jewish historian
Arno Mayer gives the number of concentration camp inmates for the summer of
1937 as 7,500.[21] Another Jewish historian, Joseph Billig,
emphasizes that the number of deaths in camps was very low throughout this
period:[22]
"In
the early years of the regime, the death of inmates caused problems for the
Nazi leaders. An avalanche of deaths was unacceptable for their policies which
had to take account of public opinion. The stability [of the
number of camp inmates] was therefore chiefly attributable to the number
of released inmates, as well as the arrival of new inmates, which maintained
the stability of the total camp population."
In August 1938, the Swiss divisional
commander J.-C. Favez, Delegate of the International Red Cross, visited Dachau
concentration camp. In his final report, he wrote:[23]
"There
are over 6,000 prisoners in the camp. […] Conditions of
interment: Solidly built, well-illuminated and well-ventilated barracks. […] Every barracks contained a modern and quite clean water
closet, in addition to wash basins. […] Work in the
summer from 7 to 11 A.M., and from 1 to 6 P.M., in the winter from 8 to 11 A.M.
and from 1 to 5 P.M. No work on Saturday afternoon and Sunday. […]
Rations: The meals were prepared in roomy, very clean kitchens. It is simple,
but different every day of the week, plentiful and of sufficient quality. […] Every inmate is permitted to receive 15 Marks per week from
his relatives, to improve his care. […] The tone of the
officers is correct. The inmates are permitted to write to their families, and
are permitted to send, of course alternatively, one letter and one card per
week. […] The discipline is however very strict. The
guards and soldiers do not hesitate to use their weapons in the event of attempted
escape. […] Solitary confinement takes place in roomy,
well-illuminated cells. […] The bastinade can also be
inflicted as an extraordinary punishment. This punishment is supposed to be
used in the most extremely unusual cases only. […] It is
apparently quite painful and is much feared. […] When a
soldier-guard strikes an inmate, he is severely punished, and expelled from the
SS. […] The treatment of the prisoners is of course very
strict, but cannot not be characterized as inhumane. The sick in particular are
treated with kindness, understanding, and proper professionalism."
Until 1938, Jews were only interned
in the camps if they were political enemies of the National Socialist regime
(or criminals); after the murder of a German diplomat in Paris and the
so-called "Crystal
Night" in
November 1938, approximately 30,000 Jews were interned, but the overwhelming
majority were soon released.
In the last years before the war,
the number of inmates as well as the number of fatalities rose continually. In
Buchenwald 48 inmates died in 1937; in 1938, the number of deaths rose to 771,
and in 1939 to 1,235.[24] In Sachsenhausen, there were 6
deaths in 1936, 38 in 1937, and 229 in 1938.[25]
2.3. The Function of Concentration Camps During the War
After the beginning of the war, a
number of new concentration camps were rapidly established, from Natzweiler in
Alsace to Majdanek near the Polish city of Lublin; the number of inmates rose
dramatically. The number of prisoners increased to 110,000 by September 1942,
225,000 by August 1943, and 524,000 by August 1944.[26]
The peak number of inmates was reached in early 1945, with a total of 635,586
prisoners in all concentration camps combined.[27] All
concentration camps had a network of auxiliary camps (up to approximately 100).
In the Generalgouvernement, i.e., occupied Poland, a dense system of labor camps, in which the inmates,
mostly Jews, performed compulsory labor, was created parallel to the official
concentration camp system.[28]
One reason for this rapid
development of the concentration camp system was the spread of active
resistance movements, particularly in German-occupied territories. A Polish
source remarks in this regard:[29]
"From
the beginning of 1942, a partisan movement also began to develop, reaching
approximately 20,000 armed soldiers fighting in several dozen different
underground formations by 1944. […] Although the
occupying power took the most drastic steps in the struggle against the
resistance movements (reprisals, burning villages, executions, deportations,
etc.), it was unable to bring the situation under control. We will merely state
at this point that, according to German documents, between July 1942 and
December 1943, on the territory of the District [of Lublin],
no fewer than 27,250 attacks were carried out and several large partisan
battles fought […]; that, during the first months of 1944
alone, 254 trains were derailed or blown up, 116 railway stations and railway
installations attacked, and 19 transports held up or shot at."
No occupation authority can tolerate
such a situation. Terror tactics of the partisan movement led, inevitably, to
increasingly severe reprisals on the part of the Germans. The camps formed a
chief instrument of this repression.
An even more important reason for
the constant expansion of the concentration camp system was the lack of
manpower. At a time when almost every German fit for service was on the front,
the concentration camp system acquired an increasingly greater economic
significance, particularly with regards to the war effort. Many German
documents attest to this fact; the following are a few particularly important
examples only.
On January 25, 1942, five days after
the Wannsee Conference, where – according to a stubborn historical myth[30] – the decision was allegedly made to order a physical
extermination of the Jews, SS-Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler wrote a letter to
Concentration Camp Inspector Richard Glücks:[31]
"Be
prepared to accept 100,000 male and up to 50,000 female Jews in the
concentration camps over the next few weeks. Great economic tasks will arise
for the concentration camps in the next few weeks."
"The
war has brought about a visible change in the structure of the concentration
camps and their tasks with regards to the utilization of inmates. The increase
in the number of inmates on the grounds of security, educational, or preventive
measures alone is no longer one of the primary purposes. The chief emphasis has
shifted to the economic aspect. The mobilization of inmate labor first for
military purposes (increased armaments) and later for peaceful tasks is
increasingly shifting to the foreground. Based on recognition of this fact necessary
measures result which demand a gradual transfer of the concentration camps from
their early one-sided political form into an organization reflecting their
economic tasks."
On August 21, 1942, Martin Luther, a
Foreign Ministry Official, stated in a memorandum that the number of Jews
transported to the east was insufficient to cover the requirements for
manpower.[34]
The extremely high mortality rates
in the camps, due chiefly to diseases, but also to poor nourishment and
clothing (see section 4), naturally influenced the economic efficiency of the
camps in a highly negative way. On December 28, 1942, Concentration Camp
Inspector Richard Glücks sent the following instructions in a circular letter
to the commandants of 19 concentration camps:[35]
"The
first camp doctors must strive with all means available to them to ensure that
the mortality figures in the individual camps are to be considerably reduced. […] The camp doctors must supervise the nourishment of the
inmates more than in the past, and submit suggestions for improvement in
conformity with the administrations. Such measures must exist, not merely on
paper, but must rather be regularly controlled by the camp doctors. […] The Reichsführer SS has ordered that the mortality must be
reduced at all costs."
These instructions had concrete
results: within eight months the mortality in the concentration camps fell by
almost 80%.[36]
On October 26, 1943,
SS-Obergruppenführer and Leader of the of the SS-WVHA Oswald Pohl sent all
concentration camp commandants a circular letter in which he remarked:[37]
"Within the framework of the
armaments production the concentration camps have become […]
a factor of decisive military significance. We have created incomparable
armaments factories where nothing existed before.
In earlier years, within the
framework of the then applicable educational tasks it could be a matter of
indifference whether an inmate performed useful work or not. Now, however, the
working power of the inmates is of significance and all measures of the
commander, leaders of the V Service and doctors must apply themselves to the
maintaining the health and efficiency of the inmates. Not from reasons of
sentimentality, but rather because we need them, with their arms and legs,
because they must contribute to the achievement of a great victory by the
German people, therefore we must be attentive to the well-being of the inmates.
I set the following objective: No
more than a maximum of 10% of all inmates may be unable to work as a result of
disease. This objective must be reached in a common task of all responsible
officials. The following are necessary for this purpose:
1.
Correct and adequate food.
2.
Correct and adequate clothing.
3.
The utilization of all natural
remedies.
4.
Avoidance of all effort not
immediately necessary for the performance of needed work.
5.
Premiums for efficiency. [...]
I will bear personal responsibility
for the supervision of the measures repeatedly described in the present
letter."
The following are a few concrete
examples of the significance of inmate labor to the war effort.
In Auschwitz, the largest camp, a
considerable proportion of the inmates were assigned to work in I.G.
Farbenindustrie factories for the manufacture of Buna – synthetic rubber – used
for the production of tires and therefore a very important product. In his
standard work on the 'Holocaust,' Raul Hilberg reports:[38]
"On 19 March and 24 April 1941, the TEA [Technische Ausschuß der I.G.
Farbenindustrie AG; Technical
Committee] decided upon the details of
production in Auschwitz. Two factories were to be created, one for synthetic
rubber (Buna IV) and one for acetic acid. […] Investment
in Auschwitz initially amounted to over 500,000,000 Reichsmarks, but, in the
end, to over 700,000,000 Reichsmarks. Approximately 170 sub-contractors were
assigned to the work. The factory was erected; streets were built; barracks for
the inmates were constructed; barbed wire was used for 'factory fencing'; when
the city of Auschwitz was finally completely filled with I.G. personnel, two
company towns were built. To ensure that I.G. Auschwitz received all the needed
materials, [I.G. official] Krauch ordered 'Emergency
Classification I' for all materials required for the manufacture of Buna. In
the meantime, and in addition, I.G. Auschwitz assured itself of its own coal
supplies, from the Fürsten mine and Janina mine. Both mines were operated using
Jews."
In
the Dora-Mittelbau camp, especially feared for its hard working conditions and
administered as an auxiliary camp of Buchenwald until 1944, but then promoted
to the rank of a concentration camp in its own right, inmates in underground
factories manufactured the rockets by means of which Germany still hoped to
bring about a turning point in the war.
On
11 May 1944, Hitler personally ordered the employment of 200,000 Jews within
the framework of the fighter-plane construction program.[39]
On
15 August 1944, the SS-WVHA announced the immediately forthcoming delivery of
612,000 inmates to the concentration camp.[40] However,
this number was never even remotely reached in actual fact.
3. Conditions in the Camps
3.1. Various Inmate Categories
After
the beginning of the war, new inmates categories were added to the political
prisoners (known as "Reds"
in camp jargon due to the red identifying triangles sewn on their uniforms),
the "Greens"
and "Asocials"
(or "Blacks").
Prisoners of war – particularly Soviets – were interned in several camps;
another group consisted of Jehova's Witnesses, who were punished for refusal to
do military service.[41]
From
1942 onwards, the mass deportation of Jews to concentration camps occurred from
all German-occupied territories. The percentage of deported Jews varied greatly
from country to country; thus, 75,721 Jews, a quarter of the total Jewish
population of that country were deported from France, predominantly those with
foreign passports.[42] The country with the highest
percentage of deportees (over three quarters of all Jewish residents) was
Holland.
In
addition to the Jews, there were two further inmate categories who are
repeatedly alleged to have been the target of a systematic program of
extermination, i.e.,
gypsies and homosexuals. A brief correction of fact is called for at this point.
3.1.1. Gypsies
Political
leaders speaking on behalf of German gypsies (or "Sinti
and Roma") claim that members of this
racial group were murdered by the hundreds of thousands in the National
Socialist concentration camps. The figure of 500,000 purportedly exterminated
gypsies is regularly seen in the relevant literature and repeated in the media.[43] That this figure is purely a figment of the imagination
and there is no evidence of a mass murder of gypsies under the Third Reich was
proven by Udo Walendy, as early as 1985, in his periodical Historische
Tatsachen.[44] A body of
supplementary evidence against the claim was produced by Otward Müller in 1999.[45] – Representatives of the official historiography have
also drastically reduced the number of one half million murdered gypsies: in
1997, German historians were talking about 50,000 'murdered' "Sinti
und Romas."[46]
It
is a fact that Heinrich Himmler order the internment of "Gypsies
of mixed race, Roman Gypsies and Gypsies from the Balkans"
on 16 December 1942. At the same time, however, he excepted a number of other
categories of gypsies, those classed as "socially
adjusted" gypsies, from internment.
According to the Auschwitz Death Books,
containing a record of every instance of mortality in Auschwitz, 11,843 Gypsies
died of what amounted to natural causes, i.e.,
mostly as a result of disease.[47] That the gassing of
more than 2,000 gypsy women in Auschwitz on 2 August 1944 claimed by the
official historiography is another myth lacking all basis in fact, has been
unimpeachably shown by Carlo Mattogno.[48]
3.1.2. Homosexuals
The
growing acceptance of homosexuality in western society, and the increasing
influence of gay organizations, have led to intensified efforts to attribute to
homosexuals the 'martyr status' of a minority "systematically
exterminated" during the Third Reich. The
number of homosexuals alleged to have died in National Socialist concentration
camps is stated by special interest groups to amount to as many as 500,000 – or
even more.[49] What is indisputable is that homosexuality
in National Socialist Germany – and in a great many other countries at the same
time, for example, Great Britain and the USSR – was a criminal offence. Between
50,000 and 60,000 homosexual males were sentenced by German courts between 1933
and 1944. A minority of these – presumably 10,000 to 15,000 – were sent to
concentration camps after finishing their prison sentences in ordinary prisons;
these were mostly repeat offenders, male prostitutes, transvestites and
seducers of minors.[50]
3.2. Food
There
is no doubt that poor food contributed to the high mortality rates of the early
war years, and it is in no way our intent to whitewash the camp administration
in this regard. But it should be noted that serious efforts were taken to
improve conditions. In the circular letter to all concentration camp
commandants quoted above, referring to the necessity for "correct
and adequate food", SS Obergruppenführer O. Pohl
gave precise instructions as to how the food was to be prepared and served,
stating, among other things:[51]
"Vegetables should be served at mealtimes,
both raw, in the form of salad, or unprocessed (carrots, sauerkraut). […] The quantity of food served at midday meals must amount to
1.25 – 1.5 l. No thin soups, but heavy, nourishing dishes. […]
The receipt of additional food is to be encouraged. […]
If sick persons are to recover more rapidly as a result of special diets, then
such special diets must be served, but in hospitals only."
Tadeusz
Iwaszko, former head of the Auschwitz Memorial, in an article on inmate food at
Auschwitz, writes as follows:[52]
"At midday meal, 'meat soup' was served
four times a week, and 'vegetable soup' three times a week, the latter
consisting of vegetables including potatoes and beets or carrots [Rüben]."
According
to Iwaszko, the soup possessed a nutritional value of 350-400 calories. At
midday meal, the inmates were served approximately 300 grams of bread,
approximately 25 grams of sausage or margarine as well as a spoonful of
marmalade or cheese with a nourishment value of 900 to 1000 calories. Could
German front line soldiers be assured of receiving similar rations every day of
the week?
The
Polish resistance movement, which certainly had no vested interest in whitewashing
the conditions in the camp, had the following to say on the food in Majdanek
concentration camp in early 1943:[53]
"The food was rather meager at first, but
has recently improved and is of higher quality than in the prisoner of war
camps in 1940, for example. In the morning, the inmates receive approximately
half a liter of broth at 6:00 A.M. (two days a week herbal tea with a
peppermint taste). At midday meal, 1:00 P.M., half a liter of quite nourishing
soup is served, even enriched with fat or meal. Evening meal was served at 5:00
P.M., and consists of 200 grams of bread with spread (marmalade, cheese or
margarine, twice a week 300 grams of sausage) as well as half a liter of broth
or soup from the meal of unpeeled potatoes."
3.3. Medical Care
In
a strongly anti-National Socialist monograph on Groß-Rosen concentration camp,
the author, Isabell Sprenger, writes as follows:[54]
"A continual collection of disease reports
from the years 1943-1945 with very detailed daily tasks on the treatment of individual
patients shows that at least in some cases time and effort could be expended on
healing the inmates."
The objection that Groß-Rosen was an "ordinary concentration camp" and not an "extermination camp" collapses immediately when it
is seen that a great quantity of documents relating to the medical care of
inmates have survived even for Auschwitz, the best-known of the alleged
extermination camps. For example, a report on the medical treatment of 3,138
Hungarian Jewish internees was drawn up on June 28, 1944, – when the 'gas
chambers' were allegedly being operated at full capacity – establishes
precisely the illnesses for which the persons concerned are to be treated:[55]
"Surgical cases
|
1426
|
Diarrhea
|
327
|
Constipation
|
253
|
Angina
|
79
|
Diabetes mell.
|
4
|
Weak heart
|
25
|
Scabies
|
62
|
Pneumonia
|
75
|
Flu
|
136
|
Intertrig. [sore spots]
|
59,268
|
Other
|
449
|
Infectious diseases:
|
|
Scarlet fever
|
5
|
Mumps
|
16
|
Measles
|
5
|
Eryspel
|
5"
|
In
another "extermination camp",
Majdanek, there was a hospital for wounded Soviet prisoners of war, the
construction of which was personally ordered by Himmler on 6 January 1943.[56]
3.4. Punishments and Mistreatment
The
widespread idea that limitless arbitrary cruelty prevailed in the National
Socialist concentration camps and that sadistic mistreatment was a common
occurrence is simply not confirmed by surviving German wartime documentation.
We are aware that regulations may exist only on paper, and we do not doubt that
acts of cruelty often occurred in the camps. But that such acts in no way
reflected official policy is clearly obvious from the regulations for the camp
administration. In Auschwitz, every SS man had to sign a declaration reading
word for word as follows:[57]
"I am aware that only the Führer possesses
life and death decision-making powers over enemies of the State. I am not
permitted to injure or kill any enemy of the State (inmate). Any killing of an inmate
in a concentration camp requires the personal approval of the Reichsführer SS.
I am aware that I will be severely called to account for any violation of this
regulation."
Kazimierz
Smoleń, former Director of the Auschwitz-Museum, wrote an article on the
punishment system at Auschwitz based on German documents, in which the various
punishments provided for by the regulation are listed in order of severity:[58]
·
Warning with threat of punishment
·
Additional work
·
Temporary transfer to a punishment
company
·
Arrest
·
Severe arrest with withdrawal of
food
·
Arrest in solitary confinement
·
Beating (25 blows).
Prior
to execution of the beating punishment an examination by a physician was
required. Death sentences required approval by the RSHA prior to execution.[59]
Severe
steps were occasionally taken against SS men guilty of committing crimes
against inmates: two camp commandants – Karl Koch of Buchenwald and Hermann
Florstedt of Majdanek – were executed by the National Socialists themselves.
3.5. Terror by Criminals and Communists
The
mixing of political and criminal inmates could have frightful consequences for
the politicals, since the criminal inmates were often the dregs of the
underworld, creating a veritable reign of terror in many camps. Whether the
camp administration recruited the "Kapos"
(trustees) from the "Reds"
or "Greens"
was a matter of life or death to many inmates. Austrian Jewish Socialist
Benedikt Kautsky, who spent the years between 1938 and 1945 in a number of
different concentration camps (Dachau, Buchenwald, Auschwitz and, once again,
Buchenwald), wrote the following in relation to terror by criminal inmates:[60]
"Whether the criminals or political
prisoners ruled a camp was a matter of life and death for ordinary inmates. In
Buchenwald or Dachau camps, the responsibility incumbent upon the camp
officials [recruited from] the ranks of the politicals
was allocated as skillfully as possible; many SS – attacks were nipped in the
bud, sabotaged or robbed of their effectiveness by passive resistance. Other
camps under the leadership of criminals, such as Auschwitz and Mauthausen were
hotbeds of corruption, where the inmates were cheated out of their rightful
allocations of rations in food, clothing, etc. and furthermore mistreated in
the grossest manner by their fellow inmates."
Other
former concentration camp inmates have painted a darker picture of the camp
officials recruited from the ranks of the political prisoners. Paul Rassinier,
French resistance fighter and founder of Holocaust revisionism, described the
terror of Communist inmates in Buchenwald in his book Le
Mensonge d'Ulysse, written in 1950. Those inmates
tyrannized other, non-Communist inmates and robbed them of their food packages,
which was equivalent to a death sentence for many of them.[61]
In a U.S. Army report drawn up following the liberation of Buchenwald states
that the Communists gradually took power away from the criminal Kapos and – to
some extent in collaboration with the SS – killed many inmates. They were said
to have been responsible for a large proportion of the brutalities in the camp
and were said to have controlled the distribution of food packages.[62] That the camp administration failed to take sufficiently
energetic steps to put an end to the actions of the criminals and Communists
must be considered a serious act of negligence.
3.6. Releases
Large
numbers of inmates were released, even after the beginning of the war.
According to Polish sources, 5,000 inmates were released from Stutthof concentration
camp,[64] while the incredible number of 20,000 inmates
were released from the alleged "extermination
camp" of Majdanek[65].
The total number of inmates released from Auschwitz is unknown, but must have
been considerably high. Danuta Czech, in her Kalendarium,
for the period between February 1942 and February 1945 indicates a total of
1,100 released inmates;[66] the very fragmentary release
records which have survived, however – records found by C. Mattogno and myself
and covering the period between June and December 1943 alone – show almost 300
releases; suggesting that the actual number of total releases must have been
far higher. Most of the releases involved educational inmates transferred to
Birkenau "work education camp"
for 56 days in punishment for violation of their labor contracts (this practice
resulted from a Himmler order dated 28 May 1942[67]). Many
of these short-term inmates were released in the summer of 1944, at the same
time as the alleged mass extermination of the Hungarian Jews. We are therefore
supposed to believe that the National Socialists continually released witnesses
to their own mass extermination program, so that the witnesses, in turn, could
inform the world about German atrocities at Auschwitz! Prior to the evacuation
of the camp, the German authorities at Birkenau left 4,299 inmates behind to
await the arrival of the Soviets.[68]
3.7. Comparisons
Some
of the German concentration camps continued operation after the war, this time
with allied personnel and German prisoners who were considered a threat to
allied security or who were opposed to occupational policies. Especially
infamous in this regard is the Sachenshausen camp under Soviet control,[69] but even the American operated Dachau camp served as a
concentration camp after the war. One of the prisoners held captive by the
Americans in Dachau published a diary,[70] which is
interesting reading especially when compared with the diary of a prisoner who
was in the same camp under German rule, i.e.,
during the war.[71] In an analysis, Ingrid Weckert has
juxtaposed both diaries and by so doing, was able to show that conditions in
the Dachau camp were considerably better under German rule than they were under
U.S. military rule – except for the very last months of the war, when the
German infrastructure had broken down and the inmates, like everybody in
Germany, suffered terribly due to lack of all supplies.[72]
4. Mortality Rates in Concentration Camps and their Causes
4.1. Number of Victims of the Camps
How
many people died in the National Socialist concentration camps? Quite precise,
and, in some cases, highly precise, statistics are available for seven
different concentration camps, based on documentation of the individual camp
authorities for these camps, which were, in turn, practically equivalent to the
seven largest camps. In addition to the number of the inmates who died in the
concentration camps, we also know the number of total arrivals, which, with the
exception of Majdanek, are also known with complete or almost perfect
precision. In addition, it should be noted that many inmates were often
interned in several different camps, being frequently transferred from one camp
to another (it should be recalled, in this regard that B. Kautsky, for example,
spent the years between 1938 and 1945 in Dachau, Buchenwald, Auschwitz and,
once again, Buchenwald). This means that the total number of inmates interned
in the camps was much less than a mere addition of the figures for individual
camps would tend to indicate. It also means that one must take care to avoid
drawing the false conclusion that an inmate who survived one camp, must
necessarily have survived the war: of the approximately 365,000 inmates
registered at Auschwitz and subsequently transferred to other camps, to cite
merely one example, a considerable proportion died in another camp.
The
statistics for the seven camps are as follows:
Auschwitz:[73]
|
|
1940/1941:
|
ca. 19,500
|
1942:
|
ca. 48,500
|
1943:
|
ca. 37,000
|
1944:
|
ca. 30,000
|
1945:[74]
|
ca. 500
|
Total:
|
ca. 135,500 of ca. 500,100
registered inmates.[75]
|
Buchenwald:[78]
|
|
1937:
|
48
|
1938:
|
771
|
1939:
|
1,235
|
1940:
|
1,772
|
1941:
|
1,522
|
1942:
|
2,898
|
1943:
|
3,516
|
1944:
|
8,644
|
1945:
|
13,056
|
Total:
|
33,462 of 238,979 inmates.
|
Dachau:[76]
|
|
1940:
|
1,515
|
1941:
|
2,576
|
1942:
|
2,470
|
1943:
|
1,100
|
1944:
|
4,794
|
1945:
|
15,384
|
Total:
|
27,839 of ca. 168,000 inmates.[77]
|
Majdanek:[79]
|
||
1941:
|
ca. 700
|
|
1942:
|
ca. 17,244
|
|
1943:
|
ca. 22,339
|
|
1944:
|
ca. 1,900
|
|
Total:
|
ca. 42,200 of an unknown amount of
registered inmates.[80]
|
|
Mauthausen:[81]
|
||
1938:
|
36
|
|
1939:
|
445
|
|
1940:
|
3,846
|
|
1941:
|
8,114
|
|
1942:
|
14,293
|
|
1943:
|
8,481
|
|
1944:
|
14,766
|
|
1945:
|
36,214
|
|
Total:
|
86,195 of ca. 230,000 inmates.
|
|
Sachsenhausen:[82]
|
|
1940:
|
3,788
|
1941:
|
1,187
|
1942:
|
4,175
|
1943:
|
3,563
|
1944:
|
2,366
|
1945:
|
4,821
|
Liquidated
and executed:[83]
|
675
|
Total:
|
20,575 of 132,196 inmates.
|
Stutthof:[84]
|
|
1939:
|
47
|
1940:
|
ca. 860
|
1941:
|
268
|
1942:
|
2,276
|
1943:
|
3,980
|
1944:
|
ca. 7,500
|
1945:
|
ca. 11,200
|
Total:
|
ca. 26,100 of 105,302 inmates.[85]
|
If one adds the numbers of victims for these
seven camps, one arrives at a total figure of approximately 372,000 victims.
For the other concentration camps, we must refer to the statistics of the
Special Registry Office for Marriages, Births, and Deaths at Arolsen
(Sonderstandesamt Arolsen, Germany), which are, however, incomplete, partly
because some of the documentation is missing for certain camps, and partly
because certain deaths registered at other municipal registries of births,
marriages, and deaths have not been certified at Arolsen. In 1990, the
situation was as follows:[86]
Flossenbürg:
|
18,334 deaths
|
Neuengamme:
|
5,780 deaths
|
Groß-Rosen:
|
10,950 deaths
|
Natzweiler:
|
4,431 deaths
|
Dora-Mittelbau:
|
7,467 deaths
|
Ravensbrück:
|
3,640 deaths
|
Bergen-Belsen:
|
6,853 deaths
|
Total:
|
53,445 deaths
|
How incomplete are these statistics?
For each of the previously listed seven camps, the mortality figures are more
or less well known. However, for these camps Arolsen gave only the following
numbers of certified deaths in 1990:[86]
Mauthausen:
|
78,851 deaths
|
Dachau:
|
18,455 deaths
|
Auschwitz:
|
57,353 deaths
|
Stutthof:
|
12,628 deaths
|
Majdanek:
|
8,826 deaths
|
Sachsenhausen:
|
5,013 deaths
|
Buchenwald:
|
20,686 deaths
|
Total:
|
201,812 deaths
|
This
figure reflects approximately 55% of the actual figures of approximately
372,000 victims. This suggests that the number of 53,445 victims for the seven
other camps registered at Arolsen should be doubled; in this case one arrives
at approximately (372,000 + 107,000 =) 479,000 victims for the fourteen
concentration camps.
The
mortality figures for inmates having died in the work camps – mostly located in
Polish territory – must be added to the above, but no reliable statistics are
available to us in this regard. Raul Hilberg estimates the number of Jews
having died in these work camps at 100,000, but fails to back up the estimate
with any source references.[87] If we accept Hilberg's
figure, at least as a working hypothesis, and if we assume an equally high
mortality figure for non-Jews having died in these same camps as well, we
arrive at approximately (479,000 + 200,000 =) 679,000 or almost 700,000 human
beings having perished in National Socialist concentration camps and work
camps. In our view, this would have to be the maximum figure; it is probable
that the actual figure was lower. The number of Jews among the victims cannot
be determined exactly under present circumstances, but was presumably no lower
than 50%.
4.2. Reasons for High Mortality Rates
The
worst mortality figures for Auschwitz occur during the second half of 1942,
when a typhus epidemic was raging, killing a large percentage of the total camp
population. The epidemic peaked between the 7th and 11th
of September 1942, with an average death rate of 375 inmates per day.[88] In Majdanek, the mortality rate peaked in August 1943, a
month in which 6.84% of all camp inmates died.[89] The
principal cause of the mass mortality rate lay in the bad hygienic conditions
caused by the absence of any connection to the sewer system of the city of
Lublin, a failing which was catastrophic for the camp, encouraging the spread
of epidemics.[90]
The
situation in the western camps was different. For example, as we have seen,
over 15,000 people died in Dachau between January and April 1945, more than in
all the previous war years put together. Statistics for the other western camps
are usually similar. The extremely high mortality rate was the immediate result
of the German collapse, for which the Allies themselves were partially
responsible. In his autobiography, the famous American aviator, Chuck Yeager,
recalls that his squadron was ordered to machine gun "everything
that moved" over a 50-square mile area:[91]
"Germany cannot be so easily divided into innocent
civilians and military personnel. The farmer on his potato patch was, after
all, feeding German troops."
The
Allied terror bombings destroyed the German infrastructure, with the result
that concentration camp inmates could no longer be supplied during the closing
phase of the war. The main reason for the mass deaths in 1945, however, was not
starvation, but epidemics, caused by the evacuation of the eastern camps, which
in turn spread epidemic diseases to the overcrowded western concentration camps
and could not be brought under control as a result of wartime conditions.
The
British physician Dr. Russell Barton spent a month in Bergen-Belsen as a young
medical student and drew up a report on the conditions in the camp, in which he
remarked:[92]
"Most people attributed the conditions of
the inmates to deliberate intention on the part of the Germans. […]
Inmates were eager to cite examples of brutality and neglect, and visiting
journalists from different countries interpreted the situation according to the
needs of propaganda at home. […] German medical officers
told me that it had been increasingly difficult to transport food to the camp
for some months. Anything that moved on the autobahns was likely to be bombed. […] I was surprised to find records, going back for two or
three years, of large quantities of food cooked daily for distribution. At that
time I became convinced, contrary to popular opinion, that there had never been
a policy of deliberate starvation. This was confirmed by the large number of
well-fed inmates. […] The major reasons for the state at
Belsen were disease, gross overcrowding by central authority, lack of law and
order in the huts, and inadequate supplies of food, water and drugs."
The
Allied propagandists of 1945 were naturally uninterested in such facts, and the
media of the western world are equally uninterested in these same facts today.
In the distorted picture of the diabolical SS men who supposedly allowed the
inmates to starve to death, Bergen-Belsen Camp Commandant Josef Kramer – who
was executed after a judicial farce,[93] although he did
everything in his power to bring about an improvement in desperate camp
conditions – went down in history as the "Beast
of Belsen", a history written by the
victors, as is always the case.
5. 'Gas Chambers'
5.1. Gas Chamber Stories Relating to Western Camps
All
allegations of 'gas chambers' – by which we mean gas chambers intended for the
killing of human beings – in National Socialist camps are based on 'eyewitness'
testimonies and are not supported by German wartime documents (which survived
the war by the thousands of tons). The 'gas chambers' of the "extermination
camps" at Auschwitz and Majdanek are discussed
by Germar Rudolf and Carlo Mattogno in the present book. The same authors prove
that the structures in question, by reason of their architectural features,
were unsuited for the killing of human beings with poison gas and, as a result,
could never have been used for that purpose. The following comments are
restricted to the claims of the 'gas chambers' in the western camps only.
There
were numerous 'eyewitness' testimonies relating to these 'gas chambers' as
well. At the Nuremberg Trial, a former camp doctor at Dachau, a Czech named Dr.
Franz Blaha, testified as follows:[94]
"The gas chamber was finished in 1944, and
I was summoned by Dr. Rascher to examine the first victims. Of the 8-9 persons
in the gas chamber, three were still alive, and the others appeared to be dead.
Their eyes were red, and their faces were puffed"
A
fantastic description of the 'gas chamber' at Buchenwald was provided by a
Frenchman named Georges Hénocque in 1947:[95]
"The
room was perhaps five square meter wide and three to three and a half meters
high. On the ceiling at irregular intervals were seventeen air-tight, sealed
shower heads. They looked like ordinary shower heads. The deportees assigned to
the crematorium had warned me of the manner in which the victims, to mock them,
were all given a towel and a small bar of soap before entering the shower. The
unfortunates were thus brought to believe that they were entering a shower.
The
heavy iron door shut behind them – a door sealed by a half centimeter thick
insulation strip of rubber, so that no air could get in. Inside, the walls were
smooth, without cracks and looked as if they were lacquered. On the outside,
next to the door frame, one could see four buttons, each one of which lay
beneath the others: one red, one yellow, one green, and one white.
But
one detail disturbed me: I didn't understand how the gas could descend from the
shower heads. Next to the room in which I was standing, was a passageway. I
entered it and saw a gigantic pipe, so big that I could not reach all the way
around it with my arms, a pipe that was covered with a rubber lining
approximately one centimeter thick.
Next
to the pipe was a crank, which turned from left to right, to cause the gas to
enter the room. The pressure was so strong that the gas descended to the floor,
so that none of the victims could escape what the Germans called the 'slow and
sweet death'.
Beneath
the spot where the pipe entered the gas chamber were the same buttons as on the
exterior door: one red, one green, one yellow, and one white. They were
obviously used to measure the sinking of the gas. Everything was organized on a
strictly scientific basis. The Devil himself could not have planned it
better."
Many
revisionists are of the view that orthodox historians have finally banished the
'gas chambers' of the western camps to the rubbish dump of history, but that is
an inaccurate oversimplification.[96] In justification of
this argument, they cite a letter to the editor written in 1960 by Martin
Broszat, at that time an employee and later the head of Institut für
Zeitgeschichte in Munich, in which he stated:[97]
"No Jews or other inmates were gassed in
Dachau or Bergen-Belsen or Buchenwald. […] The mass
extermination of the Jews by gassing began in 1941/1942 and took place
exclusively in a few locations selected for this purpose and equipped with
technical installations, particularly in occupied Polish territory (but nowhere
in the Old Reich): in Auschwitz-Birkenau, in Sobibor am Bug, in Treblinka,
Chelmno und Belzec."
Anyone
who reads Broszat's letter attentively recognizes that Broszat only expressly
disputes any and all gassings for three camps (Dachau, Bergen-Belsen and
Buchenwald). In relation to all other camps, he rules out "mass
gassings" only, thus leaving open the
possibility of gassing actions on a smaller scale. Such small-scale gassing
actions are alleged in the well-known anthology Nationalsozialistische
Massentötungen durch Giftgas (National Socialist Mass Killings
with Poison Gas) edited by Kogon, Langbein, Rückerl, and others.[98] According to the same source, such gassings occurred in
the camps of Ravensbrück, Sachsenhausen, Neuengamme, Mauthausen, Natzweiler,
and Stutthof. In relation to Dachau, the editors are uncertain; no gassings are
reported for Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen, although numerous eyewitness
testimonies confirming such gassings are available for precisely these camps.
All such 'eyewitness' testimony, therefore, in the view of the editors, is
false. Why the 'eyewitness' testimonies on gassings in Ravensbrück, Natzweiler,
or any other camp should be any more credible, remains a mystery.
The
intellectual level of the anthology is indicated, among other things, by the
quoted description of the "gas chamber"
(singular) at Mauthausen. As proof of their existence a sentence of a U.S.
court is quoted, according to which the "gas
cells" (plural) were pre-heated with a hot
brick and then the gas was introduced "on
paper strips"![99]
In
addition to eyewitness reports by former concentration camp inmates, numerous
"perpetrator confessions"
are also quoted. All these confessions were given under duress and are not
worth the paper they are printed on. That members of the SS imprisoned in the
western camps could be compelled to make any kind of 'confession' one wanted,
is proven quite obviously by the deathbed 'confession' of Mauthausen commandant
Franz Ziereis, who – dying from three bullet wounds in the stomach – stated the
following on the 'gas chamber' at Hartheim castle near Linz:[100]
"SS-Gruppenführer Glücks has given the
order to declare weak inmates as insane and to kill them in a large
installation with gas. Approximately 1 to 1.5 million were killed there. This
place is known as Hartheim and lies 10 kilometers from Linz in the direction of
Passau. These inmates were reported as having died of natural causes in the camp
[Mauthausen]."
Kogon,
Langbein, Rückerl, and company are naturally not stupid enough to quote this
passage from the Ziereis confession in their book. But if the Mauthausen
commandant had spoken of a few thousand instead of "1
to 1.5 million" gassing victims at Hartheim,
this part of the confession would certainly have been included as 'irrefutable
proof' of the murders at Hartheim.
The
number of gassing victims in all western camps, if we add up all the figures
quoted in the above mentioned anthology, amount to some thousands only, and
therefore, numerically speaking, are not necessary for the 'Holocaust', i.e.,
the alleged systematic gassing of several million Jews. That the editors
stubbornly insist upon these killings by means of poison gas can perhaps be
explained by a desire to prove that National Socialist concentration camps, by
their very nature, were fundamentally different from Russian, Chinese, French,
and American concentration camps, etc., and were therefore simply diabolical.
The diabolical nature of the camps is lent to them by the 'gas chambers' and,
therefore, as many National Socialist concentration camps as possible must
necessarily have possessed such installations.
On
the other hand, mainstream historiography knows pretty well that abandoning any
'gas chamber' in any camp could be disastrous for other 'gas chamber' claims as
well. After all, why should one believe any 'eyewitness' and any mainstream
historian that there were 'gas chambers' in camps A and B, if it is a proven
and acknowledged fact that all the 'eyewitness' testimonies and other evidence
for camps C and D are fraudulent? Raul Hilberg, on the other hand, who never
mentions any gassings in western camps in his 1,300-page work on the
'Holocaust,'[38]
is more pragmatic than the editors of the above mentioned anthology.
The most detailed documentation on
the eyewitness testimonies on the gassings in the western camps so far is the Second Leuchter Report,[101]
prepared under the leadership of Robert Faurisson. This booklet is an
indispensable source of information for anyone interested in this matter.
5.2. A Revealing Example: The 'Gas Chamber' of Sachsenhausen
In his excellent study on
Sachsenhausen,[102] Carlo Mattogno describes the origins
of the legend of the homicidal 'gas chamber' in that camp. According to Nationalsozialistische Massentötungen
durch Giftgas,
Sachsenhausen commandant Anton Kaindl was assigned by Concentration Camp
Inspector Richard Glücks to the construction of a gas chamber for the
liquidation of inmates. The editors of the anthology quote a 'confession' to
this effect by Kaindl, made in Soviet imprisonment, and continue:[103]
"During
the trial both Kaindl and former inmate Sakowski, who worked as executioner in
the crematorium complex and was present during the gassings, described the gas
chamber, which had an installation for the mechanical opening of the gas
containers, a so-called 'pressure ventilator'. He stood next to the outside
wall of the gas chamber. The gas container was mechanically opened and the
ventilator propelled the gas through a system of pipes, which could be heated,
into the gas chamber."
A report drawn up by a group of
Soviet experts in June 1945 contains a detailed description of the functions of
this chamber.[104] As shown by Mattogno, every detail of
the description corresponds to the features of an adapted Degesch circulation
delousing installation using Zyklon B: the Soviet propagandists therefore
turned a disinfestation installation intended for the destruction of vermin
into a homicidal gas chamber! The dimensions of the chamber are indicated in
the report as 2.75 × 3 m², reducing to an absurdity any notion that the chamber
could have been used for the killing of large numbers of people. And if the SS
had wanted to kill individual inmates, they could have simply shot them,
instead of killing them in a highly complicated manner using a dangerous poison
gas.
After the war, the Soviets used
Sachsenhausen as a concentration camp for themselves. Gerhart Schirmer was a
former German soldier who ended up in that camp right at the end of the war
until he was transferred to a forced labor camp in Siberia in 1950. In his
memoirs, Schirmer described briefly how he and other prisoners were forced by
the Soviets to build a 'gas chamber' in Sachsenhausen half a year after World
War II had ended:[105]
"There
exists a notarized, sworn affidavit about the construction of a gas chamber and
a shooting facility during October/November 1945 by eight prisoners, of whom I
was one (appendix 4). Briefly described, this 'gas chamber' was a shower room
with 25 showerheads in the ceiling. This was supposed to give the impression
that the gassing was conducted in it. Attached to this, we erected a separate
chamber with an opening, in front of which the executee would sit facing the
opposite side in order to receive a shot in his neck. At least this was what
the guide had to tell [to Soviet visitors]. This [guide] was our Fritz Dörrbeck, a translator who had to play
this theater because – born in Russia – he spoke perfect Russian."
This preposterous 'gas chamber' was
obviously something of a headache to the Soviets and their puppets in the
Communist, former German Democratic Republic, since the building in which it
was allegedly located was torn down in 1952, thus destroying all incriminating
and exonerating evidence.
5.3. Origins of the Gas Chamber Lie
The book Le Mensonge d'Ulysse by Paul Rassinier, later to become
the founder of Holocaust revisionism, by means of an impressive example, shows
the manner in which even the most improbable rumors were believed in the
panic-stricken, hatred-impregnated atmosphere of the concentration camps. Over
the entrance gate to Buchenwald camp, there was an inscription reading "Jedem das Seine," a principle of ancient Roman
law meaning: the principle of justice is to give each person that to which he
is rightfully entitled.[106] Rassinier, who knew German,
understood the inscription. But among the other French inmates, a rumor quickly
spread that the inscription in fact meant "Abandon hope, all ye that enter here."[107]
Benedikt Kautsky, who experienced
three concentration camps, described the witch's brew of camp rumor-mongering
as follows:[108]
"The
frivolity in the camp was incredibly great. Rumors, called 'parolen' by the
Aryans and 'bonkes' by the Jews, swarmed around constantly and found willing
listeners, no matter how nonsensical they might be. No matter how much the
rumor-mongering ridiculed the camp (a common joke was 'Will trade two old
whoppers for one new one'), most people fell for the so-called 'good old
whoppers' every time".
Dionys Lenard, former Majdanek
inmate, had the following to say about rumor-mongering at Majdanek:[109]
"I
remember how I learned in the newspapers that the British had landed at
Bologna. Great hope was placed in this occurrence. Everyone expected a
collapse. But the hope refused to become reality. Most of the time, we didn't
believe the rumors. It was impossible to test all these unreal reports. […] Once, somebody told me that the Russians were already in
Lvov. It was said that artillery fire could already be heard. Another time,
they told me that the German front in the north had collapsed and the Russians were
already in Königsberg. They also told me that the Hungarians had laid down
their arms and that the Italians had joined them. The Czechs and Serbs were
fashionable for a certain time. They were said to have begun resistance on such
a scale that the Germans had had to bring up 40 divisions against them. The
Japanese on the other hand, were said to have concluded a peace treaty with the
United States and Great Britain."
Very often, rumors like this did not
arise spontaneously, but were the result of false reports deliberately spread
throughout the camps by the resistance movement. That the reports on deliberate
mass exterminations in the camps lack any real basis is obvious from the mere
fact that the versions spread during the war often failed to accord with the
post-war versions in any way. The following is an example.
In Auschwitz concentration camp, the
resistance movement, beginning in 1941, fabricated an endless stream of horror
stories and reports of mass killings of inmates. But the pesticide Zyklon B was
never even mentioned; instead, in a constantly changing manner, the killings
were said to being committed by means of "electrical baths", combat gases and a "pneumatic hammer."[110]
Even after the liberation of the camp by the Red Army, the Soviet-Jewish war
correspondent Boris Polevoi published a report on an "electric conveyor belt" upon which inmates were
killed with "electrical
current."[111] The version in which Zyklon B became the murder weapon
only became current during the following months.
The German-Jewish Communist Bruno
Baum, in 1935 sentenced to ten years imprisonment for anti-government activity
together with Erich Honecker, later president of Communist East Germany, and
transferred to Auschwitz from Brandenburg prison in 1943,[112]
was, by his own admission, one of the most active fabricators of camp
propaganda. After the end of the war, Baum wrote his memoirs,[113]
which appeared in
three different editions (published in 1949, 1957, 1961). The first edition,
published in 1949, states as follows on page 34:
"It is
no exaggeration when I say that the majority of all Auschwitz propaganda, which
was spread at that time all over the world, was written by ourselves in the
camp."
One page later, Baum raises the
ante:
"We
carried out this propaganda in [for] the world public
until our very last day of presence in Auschwitz."
Baum thus generously admits that the
reports were resistance movement "propaganda". In the next edition, published in 1957,
however, he states:
"It is
no exaggeration when I say that the greatest part of the publications on
Auschwitz spread all over the world originated from ourselves […]
We informed the world in this manner until the very last day of our stay in
Auschwitz." (p. 89)
Thus, "propaganda" became "publications," by means of which the world
was "informed"! Baum was transferred from
Auschwitz to Mauthausen, where he assiduously continued his propaganda activity
in the local camp resistance movement.
Just how industriously Germany's
military enemies propagated their atrocity stories becomes obvious from the
following report by the Norwegian Erling Bauck, who was transferred from
Sachsenhausen to Majdanek together with 13 other Norwegian inmates, where they
were liberated:[114]
"In
the early fall of 1944, it was possible to read in the American newspapers and
illegal Norwegian newspapers, that fourteen Norwegians had been executed in
Lublin on orders from Berlin. That we were supposed to be the fourteen executed
Norwegians proves that the order must have been issued at least four months
earlier, when there were still fourteen of us.[115]
We were all mentioned by name and inmate serial number. In November, the priest
from Notodden received a letter signed by Ilya Ehrenburg in which the priest
was requested to inform the father of the Brattli brothers that his sons were
among the fourteen executed men. Papers found in the camp by the Russians
stated that we were killed with Zyklon gas and then laid in an acid bath so
that no mortal remains could be found."
Immediately after the liberation of
Majdanek by the Red Army (on July 23, 1944) the Soviet-Jewish reporter
Constantin Simonov wrote a report describing, among other things, the murder of
former French Prime Minister Léon Blum in the same camp in the spring of 1943.
In writing his report, Simonov relied on two eyewitnesses, P. Mikhailovic and
C. Elinski, who described Blum's last moments "in great detail".[116]
Radio Moscow gave solemn credence to this story. The French Communist newspaper
Fraternité reported in August 1944:[117]
"Radio
Moscow reported the death of former Prime Minister Léon Blum, seventy years of
age, who fell a victim to racist barbarism like so many of his fellow
faithful."
The report of Léon Blum's murder in
Majdanek was a total fabrication. In reality, Blum was deported to Buchenwald
in 1943 and then transferred to Dachau, where he was liberated on May 4, 1945.[118]
The inmates took atrocity propaganda
about the 'gas chambers' very seriously. The Polish historian Zofia Murawska
writes as follows about Majdanek:[119]
"In
the fall of 1943 (September or October) trucks entered Field V, into which the
SS men began to load the children; they tore them out of the hands of their
unsuspecting mothers. Although the SS assured the mothers that their children
would be cared for in homes under the protection of the Polish Red Cross, the
mothers became desperately frightened, claiming that the destination of the
journey was the gas chambers. In reality, the young inmates were placed in the
children's camp in Lodz."
In the judgment of the Majdanek
Trial, the District Court of Düsseldorf stated as follows:[120]
"The
mass selection of human beings for killing by gassings was generally known in
Majdanek concentration camp by the beginning of 1943 at the latest. The result
of this was that a large number of inmates considered selections under similar
circumstances – but in reality for other purposes, chiefly for transfer to
other camps – to be selections for gassings."
Carlo Mattogno comments in this
regard:[121]
"In
fact, matters were the reverse of what the court assumed: since the selected
inmates who were transferred elsewhere did actually disappear from the camp,
those who remained behind became convinced that their departed comrades had
been murdered. This conviction was strengthened by the fact that before leaving
the camp, the selected inmates went through the showers and delousing, i.e.,
through Barracks 41 and 42 where delousing gas chambers were known to exist.
This procedure left the remaining inmates with one powerful impression: their
fellow prisoners had been sent to where the gas chambers were; they had not
returned; consequently, they had been gassed."
There is, therefore, no doubt that
many former concentration camp inmates believed in the reality of the homicidal
gassings in good faith. Let us quote B. Kautsky, who states the following in
regards to the 'gas chambers' of Auschwitz:[122]
"At
this point I would like to give a short description of the gas chambers, which
I never saw myself, but which were described to me so credibly by so many
people that I cannot help but repeat their description here."
Kautsky then proceeds to describe
the 'gas chambers' which he never saw. This is not without irony, since he
himself describes the camp rumor-mongering, hitting the nail right on the head:
"No
matter how much the camp ridiculed the rumor-mongering […],
most people fell for the so-called 'good old whoppers'."
To the end of his life, Kautsky
probably never imagined that he had himself fallen for the biggest of the
"good old whoppers" in mentioning the 'gas
chambers' and even described them!
6. Summary
6.1. Fiasco of Official Historiography
In view of these obvious facts,
orthodox historians were unable to continue to uphold the claim of the
extermination character of all National Socialist concentration camps. They
were compelled to shift the scene of the alleged mass killings away from nearby
locations, such as Dachau, Bergen-Belsen and Buchenwald, to more remote alleged
extermination camps located in the east, which was then in the Soviet sphere of
influence and thus inaccessible to critical observers. In addition to the four
so-called "pure
extermination camps"
of Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, and Chelmno, in regards to which there is almost
no surviving documentary or physical evidence, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek
were alleged to have been "combined
extermination and work camps" in which Jews were killed in gas chambers in huge numbers. These
claims are in direct contradiction to many verifiable facts destined to bring
about the utter defeat of the orthodox historians:
As in the western camps, most of the
deaths in Auschwitz and Majdanek were due to epidemics, with the difference
that the death rate in both of the last two camps peaked in 1942 or 1943,
while, in the western camps, the death rate peaked shortly before the end of
the war, as a result of the German collapse.
Like the camp administrations of
Dachau, Buchenwald, etc., the camp administrations of Auschwitz and Majdanek
received repeated instructions to reduce the mortality rate at all costs and to
improve inmate living conditions.
Large numbers of surviving documents
from Auschwitz – the "death
camp" par
excellence – describe the medical care provided to keep the Jews alive who were
allegedly destined for death.
In 'proof' of the exterminations in
the eastern camps, the orthodox historians can produce only 'eyewitness'
testimonies and 'confessions.' which are qualitatively no better than the
corresponding, but discredited, testimonies and 'confessions' from the western
camps. There is no discernible reason why the 'confession' of Auschwitz
commandant Rudolf Höß relating to the gassing of 2.5 million people by November
1943 in Auschwitz alone[123] should be any more credible
than that of Mauthausen commandant Franz Ziereis relating to the gassing of one
to one and a half million people at Schloß Hartheim.
The orthodox historians are unable
to explain why Jewish inmates who were allegedly destined for extermination
were, in many cases, nevertheless transferred from one camp to another, without
succumbing to extermination; or why Benedikt Kautsky, who, as a left-wing
Socialist and Jew was doubly marked for extermination, survived Dachau,
Buchenwald, Auschwitz, and, once again, Buchenwald; or why Israel Gutman, later
co-editor of the Encyclopadia
of the Holocaust,
survived not only the "extermination
camps" of
Majdanek and Auschwitz but the "ordinary concentration camps" of Mauthausen and Gunskirchen
as well;[124] or why the Polish Jew Samuel Zylbersztain
survived to write a report entitled Memoirs of an Inmate of Ten Camps, describing his experiences in
Majdanek, Auschwitz, and eight (!) other concentration camps.[125]
The orthodox historians must be
deeply embarrassed by the release of 20,000 inmates from Majdanek "extermination camp," each one of which must have
been a witness to the cruelty of the "mass exterminations," if any such exterminations ever took
place there; or by the fact that the National Socialists released large numbers
of inmates in the summer of 1944, in the midst of the alleged extermination of
the Hungarian Jews. They cannot explain either why the Germans, during their
withdrawal from Auschwitz-Birkenau, left 4,299 inmates behind, almost all of
them Jewish, each of whom would have been an accuser of the Third Reich if the
official version of Auschwitz squared with the historical facts.
In short: the orthodox history of
the National Socialist concentration camps has reached the point of collapse.
6.2. Breakdown in Civilization?
The orthodox historians and
journalists never tire of yammering about an alleged "breakdown in civilization" represented by National
Socialist concentration camps generally, and Auschwitz in particular. The
alleged "breakdown in
civilization"
was also mentioned by Spiegel
editor Fritjof
Meyer in his now famous article on the number of Auschwitz victims.[126] In his reply to Meyer, Germar Rudolf raised the
question of whether or not the existence, at Auschwitz, of choir groups,
orchestras, kindergartens, a dental clinic, a large kitchen, a microwave
delousing installation, a swimming pool, and football field, truly represents a
"breakdown in
civilization."[127]
After the war, the Jewish professor
of medicine Marc Klein had the following to say, among other things, about his
imprisonment at Auschwitz:[128]
"To
the loud applause of the viewers, football, basketball and water ball games
were held on Sunday afternoon: men need very little to distract them from the
threat of danger! The SS administration allowed the prisoners regular
pleasures, even on weekdays. The prisoners were shown Nazi newsreels and
sentimental films in a cinema, in addition to which a saucy cabaret put on
shows which were often viewed by SS men. Finally, there was a very respectable
orchestra initially composed exclusively of Polish musicians, but replaced,
over time, by a team of first-class musicians of all nationalities, mostly
Jews."
A "breakdown in civilization"? Anyone who reads James Bacque's
documentation Other Losses,[129] in
which he describes the manner in which Eisenhower's soldiers allowed German
soldiers to die miserably by the hundreds of thousands, after the war, in camps
without any infrastructures of any kind, without barracks, without medical
care, totally exposed to rain and cold weather, dying of starvation because
they were deliberately deprived of food – food which was available in large
quantities – must wonder whether the "breakdown in civilization" was, in actual fact, a German
phenomenon, or whether, on the contrary, it occurred as the result of the
actions of quite different people.
Notes:
I am indebted to my friend Carlo
Mattogno of Italy for supplying me with important source references. J. Graf.
[1] Walter
Laqueur, Was niemand wissen wollte. Die Unterdrückung der Nachrichten über
Hitlers "Endlösung", Ullstein Verlag, Frankfurt
a.M./Berlin/Vienna 1981, p. 1ff.
[2] Quoted according to M. Weber, "'Extermination' Camp Propaganda
Myths", in: E. Gauss (ed.), Dissecting the Holocaust, Theses
& Dissertations Press, Capshaw, AL, 2000, p. 305 (online:
vho.org/GB/Books/dth/fndWeber.html).
[3] Berner Tagwacht, August 26, 1945. No historian with any claim
to a minimum of seriousness has ever cited such figures of victims. Nevertheless,
47 years after the end of the war, a madman was permitted to claim, in the
highly respected Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, without any
contradiction by the editors, that 26 million people were murdered in German
concentration camps (FAZ, Sept. 21, 1992, p. 13).
[4] URSS-008.
[5] IMG, vol. VII, p. 648, German edition.
[6] IMG, vol. VII, p. 644, German edition.
[7] IMG, vol. XIX, p. 483, German edition.
[8] Wilhelm Stäglich, Der Auschwitz-Mythos, Grabert Verlag,
Tübingen 1979, p. 6 (online: vho.org/D/dam/index.html).
[9] The Gazette, Montreal, 5. August 1993.
[10] There was only one oven in Bergen-Belsen, which had started to
operate long before Kramer became camp commandant.
[11] Elisa
Springer, Il silenzio dei vivi. All'ombra di Auschwitz, un racconto di
morte e di risurrezione, Marsilio Editore, Venedig 1997, p. 88.
[12] W.
Laqueur, op. cit. (note 1), p. 8.
[13] See,
in this regard, Carlo Mattogno, Jürgen Graf, Treblinka: Vernichtungslager
oder Durchgangslager?, Castle Hill Publishers, Hastings 2002 (online:
vho.org/D/Treblinka; soon also available in English from Theses &
Dissertations Press, Chicago; online: vho.org/GB/Books/t). On Sobibor, please see Chapter 9 of the same book.
[14] On March 17, 1942, Fritz Reuter, an official in Lublin, following a
conversation with SS-Hauptsturmführer Hans Höfle, informed the Official
Responsible for Jewish Resettlement in the District of Lublin that he was
receiving four to five transports per day, filled with Jews intended for
Belzec. These Jews were transported across the border and were never
re-transported to the Generalgouvernement. (Józef Kermisz, Dokumenty i
materiały do dziejów okupacji niemieckiej w Polsce. Vol. II: Akce' i
'wysiedlenia', Warsaw/Lodz/Krakow 1946, pp. 32 ff.)
[15] Arthur Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century, Historical
Review Press, Brighton 1977, p. 127f.
[16] Claus
Nordbruch, Die europäischen Freiwilligen im Burenkrieg, Contact,
Pretoria 1999.
[17] Arnold Krammer, Undue Process: The Untold Story of America's German
Alien Internees, Rowman and Littlefiled, Lanham, MD, 1997.
[18] Udo
Walendy, US-amerikanische Konzentrationslager, Historische
Tatsachen No. 41, Vlotho/Weser 1990.
[19] The Jewish publicist Arno Lustiger, himself a former member of the
Résistance, has pointed out that the Jewish population of France made up
approximately 15% of all Résistance military operatives (despite the fact that
Jews made up less than 1% of the total population of France). Der Spiegel, 7/1993, p.
54.
[20] Joseph
Billig, Les camps de concentration dans l'économie du Reich hitlérien,
Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 1973, p. 20.
[21] Arno
J. Mayer, Der Krieg als Kreuzzug, Rowohlt, Reinbek 1989, p. 245.
[22] Joseph
Billig, op. cit. (note 20), p. 20.
[23] Jean-Claude
Favez, Das IKRK und das Dritte Reich. War der Holocaust aufzuhalten?, Verlag
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zürich 1989, p. 538 ff.
[24] Eugen
Kogon, Der SS-Staat. Das System der deutschen Konzentrationslager, Karl
Alber, München 1946, p. 120.
[25] Winfried
Meyer, "Britischer oder sowjetischer Sachenhausen-Prozeß?", Zeitschrift
für Geschichtswissenschaft, Nr. 45 (1997), p. 987.
[26] 1469-PS.
[27] Survey of the SS-Wirtschaftsverwaltungshauptamtes, "Situation
of SS Guard Personnel and Inmates in all Concentration Camps, 1 and 15 January
1945." Reproduced in Hans Marsalek, Die Geschichte des
Konzentrationslagers Mauthausen, Eine Dokumentation. Österreichische
Lagergemeinschaft Mauthausen, Vienna 1980, p. 130.
[28] A
complete table of these camps is found in Główna Komisja Badania Zbrodni
Hitlerowskich w Polsce (ed.), Obozy hitlerowskie na ziemiach polskich
1939-1945, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warsaw 1979.
[29] Tadeusz
Mencel (ed.), Majdanek 1941-1944, Wydawnictwo Lubelskie, Lublin 1991,
p. 35.
[30] According to the Canadian Jewish News of January 30, 1942, the
leading Israeli 'Holocaust' expert Yehuda Bauer called the allegation that the
Wannsee Conference had decided upon the extermination of the Jews a "silly
story".
[31] NO-500.
[32] Wirtschaftsverwaltungshauptamt
(Economic Administration Main Office)
[33] R-129.
[34] NG-2586.
[35] NO-1523. More exactly, 15 concentration camps (Natzweiler, Dachau,
Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, Flossenbürg, Groß-Rosen, Mauthausen, Ravensbrück,
Neuengamme, Niederhagen, Auschwitz, Gusen, Stutthof, Herzogenbusch and Lublin),
two "Special Camps" (SS Special Camp Hinzert, SS Special
Camp Moringen) and two penal institutions (Straubig Prison, Danzig/Matzkau
Prison Camp).
[36] PS-1469.
[37] Archiwum
Muzeum Stutthof, 1-1b-8, S. 53 ff.
[38] Raul
Hilberg, Die Vernichtung der europäischen Juden. 3 vols., Fischer
Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt 1997, p. 992.
[39] NO-5689.
[40] NO-1990.
[41] Their refusal to do military service caused the Jehova's Witnesses to
be imprisoned in many countries. In Switzerland, widely considered a highly
democratic country, Jehova's Witnesses were regularly imprisoned until the
1990s. The repression of Jehova's Witnesses in the Third Reich was thus no act
of religious persecution.
[42] Serge
Klarsfeld, Le Mémorial de la Déportation des Juifs de France, Paris
1978.
[43] The New Yorker State Newspaper of August 7, 1999, carried a
report (on page 6) that the Central Council of the German Sinti und Roma had demanded
the construction of a monument to the "500,000 Holocaust Sinti and
Roma Victims". Roman Herzog, ex-Chancellor of the German Federal
Republic, expressly recognized the figure of 500,000 murdered gypsies as "historical
fact" in 1997: Bulletin des Presse- und Informationsamt der
Bundesregierung, March 19, 1997, no. 234, p. 259.
[44] "Zigeuner
bewältigen 1/2 Million", in: Historische Tatsachen No. 23,
Verlag für Volkstum und Zeitgeschichtsforschung, Vlotho 1985.
[45] Otward
Müller, "Sinti und Roma – Geschichte, Legenden und Tatsachen",
in: Vierteljahreshefte für freie Geschichtsforschung 3(4) (1999), pp.
437-442 (online: vho.org/VffG/1999/4/Mueller437-442.html).
[46] Under the headline "Korrekturen an Goldhagen: Vorträge über
den Holocaust an der Universität Freiburg," the Frankfurter
Rundschau reported on February 13, 1997: "Assiduous study of the
documentation permits the conclusion that the figure of the murdered Sinti und
Roma is far lower than the figure commonly cited in the media: 50,000 instead
of 500,000 [...]"
[47] Memorial Book. The Gipsies at Auschwitz-Birkenau. K.G. Sauer,
München-London-New York-Paris 1993, volume II, p. 1476.
[48] Carlo
Mattogno, "Die 'Vergasung' der Zigeuner in Auschwitz am 2. August 1944",
in: Vierteljahreshefte für freie Geschichtsforschung, 7(1) (2003), pp.
28f. (online: : vho.org/VffG/2003/1/Mattogno28f.html)
[49] For example, Franc Rector, in his book The Nazi Extermination of
Homosexuals, Stern and Day, New York 1981, speaks of "at least
500,000" homosexual victims of National Socialism.
[50] Jack Wickoff, "Der Mythos von der Vernichtung Homosexueller im
Dritten Reich", Vierteljahreshefte für freie Geschichtsforschung
2(2) (1998), pp. 135-139 (online: vho.org/VffG/1998/2/Wikoff2.html), a
translation of "The Myth of a Nazi Extermination of Homosexuals",
Remarks, no. 22, April 20, 1997.
[51] Archiwum
Muzeum Stutthof, I-Ib-8, p. 53 ff.
[52] T.
Iwaszko, "Le condizioni di vita dei prigionieri", in:
Auschwitz. Il campo nazista della morte, State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau,
1997, p. 70f.
[53] Krystyna
Marczewska, Władysław Waźniewski, "Obóz koncentracyjny na Majdanku w
świetle akt Delegatury rządu na Kraj", in: Zeszyty Majdanka,
VII, 1973, p. 222f.
[54] Isabell
Sprenger, Groß-Rosen. Ein Konzentrationslager in Schlesien, Böhlau
Verlag, Köln/Weimar/Wien 1996, p. 151.
[55] Gosudarstvenny Arkhiv Rossiskoi Federatsii (GARF), Moscow, 7021-108-32,
p. 76; see illustration on next page.
[56] T. Mencel (ed.), op. cit., p. 88ff.
[57] GARF,
7021-107-11, p. 130.
[58] Kazimierz
Smoleń, "Systeme de punition infligées par la SS dans le camp de concentration
d'Auschwitz", in: Contribution à l'histoire du KL-Auschwitz, Edition
du Musée d'Etat à Oswiecim, w/o year, p. 67f.
[59] Franciszek
Piper, "I metodi di assassinio diretto dei prigionieri", in:
Auschwitz. Il campo nazista della morte, Edizioni del Museo Statale di
Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1997, p. 137.
[60] Benedikt
Kautsky, Teufel und Verdammte, Büchergilde Gutenberg, Zürich 1946, p.
9.
[61] Paul
Rassinier, Le Mensonge d'Ulysse, La Vielle Taupe, Paris 1979, p. 162
ff. (online:
www.vho.org/aaargh/fran/archRassi/prmu/prmu.html); cf. Engl.: Rassinier, The
Holocaust Story and the Lies of Ulysses, 2nd ed., Institute for
Historical Review, New Port Beach 1990.
[62] Egon W. Fleck and Edward A. Tenenbaum, Buchenwald: A Preliminary
Report, U.S. Army, 12th Army Group, 24 April 1945. National Archives,
Record Group 331, SHAEF, G-5, 17.11, Jacket 10, Box 151 (8929/163-8929/180),
quoted according to M. Weber, op. cit. (note 2), p. 293f.
[63] Rossiski Gosudarstvenni Vojenny Arkhiv, Moscow (RGVA),
502-1-438, p. 116.
[64] Stutthof. Das Konzentrationslager, Wydawnictwo Marpress, Danzig 1996, p.
120.
[65] Anna
Wiśniewska, Czesław Rajca, Majdanek Lubelski obóz koncentracyjny, Państwowe
Muzeum na Majdanku, Lublin 1996, p. 32.
[66] D.
Czech, Kalendarium der Ereignisse im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-Birkenau
1939-1945, Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek 1989, p. 165-178.
[67] RGVA,
1323-2-140, p. 4.
[68] Andrzej
Strzelecki, "Wyzwolenie KL Auschwitz", in: Zeszyty
Oświęcimskie, special issue, 1974, p. 57.
[69] Günter
Agde, Sachsenhausen bei Berlin. Speziallager Nr. 7, 1945 – 1950;
Aufbau-Taschenbuch-Verl., Berlin 1994; Barbara Kühle, Wolfgang Titz, Speziallager
Nr. 7 Sachsenhausen : 1945 – 1950, Brandenburgisches Verl.-Haus, Berlin
1990.
[70] Gert
Naumann, Besiegt und "befreit". Ein Tagebuch hinter Stacheldraht
in Deutschland 1945-1947, Druffel, Leoni 1984.
[71] "Arthur
Haulot, Lagertagebuch. Januar 1943 – Juni 1945," Dachauer Hefte.
Studien und Dokumente zur Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen
Konzentrationslager, 1(1) (1985), pp. 129-203.
[72] Ingrid
Weckert, "Zweimal Dachau," Vierteljahreshefte für freie
Geschichtsforschung 2(1) 1998, pp. 22-34 (online:
vho.org/D/Sleipnir/RauWe3_2.html). An earlier version of this essay,
published in the Berlin periodical Sleipnir, 3(2) (1997), pp. 14-27,
was confiscated by the German authorities because of this comparing article
(County Court Berlin-Tiergarten, ref. 271 Ds 155/96).
[73] Carlo
Mattogno, "Franciszek Piper und 'die Zahl der Opfer von Auschwitz'",
Vierteljahreshefte für freie Geschichtsforschung, 7(1) (2003), pp. 21-27
(vho.org/VffG/2003/1/Mattogno21-27.html). Among
orthodox historians, i.e., those who believe in the existence of the
gas chambers and the extermination of the Jews, the number of estimated victims
for Auschwitz have ranged from 9 million down to 514,000. F. Piper, Head of the
Historical Division of the Auschwitz-Museums, indicates 1,077,000 as the number
of victims (F. Piper, Die Zahl der Opfer von Auschwitz, State Museum
Auschwitz, 1993). The manner in which Piper arrives at these fantastic figures
is described by C. Mattogno in the article cited above.
[74] Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army on 27 January 1945. Most of the
inmates were evacuated beforehand.
[75] In Auschwitz approximately 401,500 inmates were registered in the camp
inventory in a regular manner, i.e., after allocation of a
registration number. Approximately another 98,600 were lodged in the transit
camp of Birkenau for a certain length of time, whence they were subsequently
transferred to other camps. For details, see C. Mattogno, "Franciszek
Piper und 'die Zahl der Opfer von Auschwitz'", op. cit. (note 73).
[76] Johann
Neuhäusler, Wie war das im KZ Dachau? Ein Versuch, der Wahrheit näher zu
kommen. Kuratorium für Sühnemal KZ Dachau, Dachau 1981, p. 27.
[77] Paul
Berben, Dachau. The Official History, The Norfolk Press, 1975, p. 186.
[78] Eugen
Kogon, op. cit. (note 24), p. 120.
[79] Jürgen Graf, Carlo Mattogno, Concentration Camp Majdanek. A
Historical and Technical Study, Theses & Dissertations Press Castle,
Chicago, IL, 2003, Chapter 4 (online: vho.org/GB/Books/ccm). The Polish
historiography postulates 360,000 as the number of victims from 1948 until
1992. The official camp historian, J. Marszałek, gives this figure in his book Majdanek.
The Concentration Camp in Lublin, Interpress, Warsaw 1986, p. 142. In
1992, the number of victims at Majdanek was reduced by the official Polish
historiography to approximately 235,000 (C. Rajca, "Problem liczby
ofiar w obozie na Majdanku", in: Zeszyty Majdanka, XIV,
1992, p. 127). The book by Graf and Mattogno quoted above shows the
manipulations with which the two Polish historians arrive at their figures.
[80] The number of inmates arriving at Majdanek is unknown. In the Polish
standard work on Majdanek the number is given by Zofia Leszyńska as "over
275,000" (in: Tadeusz Mencel (ed.), Majdanek 1941-1944,
Wydawnictwo Lubelskie, Lublin 1991, p. 93), but this figure is certainly
exaggerated (in this regard, see J. Graf, C. Mattogno, Majdanek, op.
cit. (note 79), Chapter 3).
[81] Hans
Marsalek, Die Geschichte des Konzentrationslagers Mauthausen.
Dokumentation. Österreichische Lagergemeinschaft Mauthausen, Vienna 1980,
p. 156-158.
[82] Carlo
Mattogno, "KL Sachsenhausen: Stärkemeldungen und
'Vernichtungsaktionen' 1940 bis 1945", in: Vierteljahreshefte für
freie Geschichtsforschung, 7(2) (2003) (online: vho.org/VffG/2003/2). The figures indicated by Mattogno are from the original documentation of
the Sachsenhausen camp administration in the State Archive of the Russian
Federation in Moscow (GARF, Dossier 7021-104-4, p. 39ff.).
[83] The figures for liquidations and executions at Sachsenhausen were
separated from those relating to inmates having died natural deaths. See C.
Mattogno, ibid.
[84] Jürgen Graf, Carlo Mattogno, Concentration Camp Stutthof and its
Function in National Socialist Jewish Policy, Theses &
Dissertations Press, Chicago, IL, 2003, pp. 79-85 (online:
vho.org/GB/Books/ccs).
[85] Elżbeta Grot, Rejs Śmierci, Muzeum Stutthof w Sztutowie,
Danzig 1993, p. 13.
[86] Source: The brochure sent to the author by the Sonderstandesamt Arolsen
in 1991; G. Rudolf has listed the updated figures published by the same
authority in 1993, that is, two years later. The numbers hardly changed; see
his contribution "Holocaust Victims: A Statistical Analysis"
in this book. Since the mid 1990s, Arolsen does no longer publish such figures,
since they do not like the way they are used by independent historians.
[87] Raul
Hilberg, op. cit. (note 38), p. 1299.
[88] Jean-Claude
Pressac, Die Krematorien von Auschwitz. Die Technik des Massenmordes, Piper
Verlag, München/Zürich 1994, p. 193.
[89] PS-1469, p. 4.
[90] See J. Graf, C. Mattogno, op. cit. (note 79).
[91] Chuck Yeager, Yeager. An Autobiography, Bantam Books, New York
1985, p. 79.
[92] Quoted according to Robert Lenski, The Holocaust on Trial: The Case
of Ernst Zündel, Reporter Press, Decatur 1990, p. 157f.
[93] At the Bergen-Belsen Trial, British defence council spoke very
disparagingly about the prosecution witnesses and came to the conclusion that
their testimony relating to the atrocities at Bergen-Belsen were lies. Raymond
Phillips (ed.), Trial of Josef Kramer and 44 Others (The Belsen-Trial), William
Hodge and Company, London/Edinburg/Glasgow 1949, p. 76, 82, 89, 141, 244, 518,
524, 535, 544.
[94] IMT,
vol. V, p. 198.
[95] G.
Hénocque, Les Antres de la bête, G. Duraissie, Paris 1947, quoted
according to Robert Faurisson, Mémoire en défense, La Vieille Taupe,
Paris 1980, p. 192ff.
[96] In
this regard, see the comments by Reinhold Schwertfeger, "Gab es
Gaskammern im Altreich?", Vierteljahreshefte für freie
Geschichtsforschung 5(4) (2001), pp. 446-449 (online:
vho.org/VffG/2001/4/Schwertfeger446-449.html).
[97] Die
Zeit, August 19, 1960.
[98] Eugen
Kogon, Hermann Langbein, A. Rückerl, et al. (ed.), Fischer Taschenbuch
Verlag, Frankfurt a.M. 1983; Engl.: Nazi Mass Murder, Yale University
Press, New Haven 1993.
[99] Ibid.,
p. 247.
[100] Simon
Wiesenthal, KZ Mauthausen, Ibis-Verlag, 1946, p. 7f.
[101] Frederick A. Leuchter, The Second Leuchter Report, Samisdat,
Toronto 1989 (online: www.zundelsite.org/english/leuchter/report2/leucha.html).
[102] C. Mattogno, op. cit., (note 82).
[103] E.
Kogon et al., op. cit. (note 98), p. 255.
[104] GARF,
7021-104-3, p. 2-4.
[105] Gerhart
Schirmer, Sachsenhausen – Workuta. Zehn Jahre in den Fängen der Sowjets,
Grabert, Tübingen 1992, p. 9, similar p. 36. Because
of these passages, Schirmer's memoirs were confiscated and destroyed by the
German authorities in 2002 (tis brochure will soon be posted online at
vho.org/D/sw).
[106] It also was the national motto of Prussia.
[107] Paul
Rassinier, op. cit. (note 61), p. 26. The sentence "Abandon hope, all ye that enter here"
appears over the gate to hell in Dante's Inferno.
[108] B. Kautsky, op. cit. (note 60), p. 182f.
[109] Tomasz
Kranz (ed.), Unser Schicksal – eine Mahnung für Euch. Berichte und
Erinnerungen der Häftlinge von Majdanek. Państwowe Muzeum na Majdanku,
Lublin 1994, p. 65.
[110] The text of the reports spread by the resistance movement relating to
mass killings in Auschwitz have been reproduced by Enrique Aynat, Estudios
sobre el 'Holocausto', Graficas Hurtado, Valencia 1994.
[111] Pravda, February 2, 1945.
[112] I am grateful to Knud Bäcker's article, "Ein Kommentar ist an
dieser Stelle überflüssig", Vierteljahreshefte für freie Geschichtsforschung
2(2) (1998), notes 26, 29, for the information on Bruno Baum (online:
vho.org/VffG/1998/2/Baecker2.html).
[113] Widerstand
in Auschwitz, East Berlin.
[114] T.
Kranz, op. cit. (note 109), p. 197.
[115] One of the Norwegians had died in the meantime, one was sent to the
hospital and another was sent back to Sachsenhausen.
[116] K. Simonov, Il campo dello sterminio, Edizioni
in lingue estere, Moscow 1944, p. 7.
[117] Stéphan
Courtois, Qui savait quoi? L'extermination des juifs 1941-1944, Editions
la Découverte, Paris 1987, p. 225.
[118] E.
Jäckel, P. Longerich, J. H. Schoeps (eds.), Enzyklopädie des Holocaust,
Argon, Berlin 1993, vol. I, p. 223.
[119] Z.
Murawka, "Dzieci w obozie koncentracyjnym na Majdanku", in: Zeszyty
Majdanka, X, 1980, p. 243.
[120] Landgericht
Düsseldorf, vol. I, Urteil Hackmann u.a., XVII 1/75, p. 88.
[121] J. Graf, C. Mattogno, op. cit. (note 79), p. 184.
[122] B. Kautsky, op. cit., p. 272f.
[123] NO
3868-PS.
[124] Nordwestzeitung,
Oldenburg, April 13, 1994.
[125] Samuel
Zylbersztain, "Pamiętnik więznia dziesięciu obozów", in: Biuletyn
Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego w Polsce, no. 68 (1968), pp.
53-56.
[126] F.
Meyer, "Die Zahl der Opfer von Auschwitz – neue Erkenntnisse durch
neue Archivfunde", in: Osteuropa, 52(5) (2002), pp. 631-641
(online: vho.org/D/Beitraege/FritjofMeyerOsteuropa.html).
[127] G. Rudolf, "Cautious Mainstream Revisionism", in: The
Revisionist 1(1) (2003), pp. 23-30 (online: vho.org/tr/2003/1/Rudolf23-30.html).
[128] M.
Klein, Observations et Réflexions sur les camps de concentration nazis.
Extrait de la revue "Etudes Germaniques", Caen 1948, p. 31.
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