That we sentence 1.2 million Jews to die of hunger should be noted only marginally. It is a matter, of course, that should the Jews not starve to death it would, we hope, result in a speeding up of anti-Jewish measures [2233-E-PS, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression Volume IV, p.900].
This quote appears in page 15 of the meeting, a scan of which is here:
Figure 1: Regierungssitzung, 24.8.42, p.15, Vol. 24; Regierungssitzungen From 11 March-9 December 1942; And Hauptabteilungsleitersitzungen (Main Section Leaders' Meetings) From 13 April-8 December 1942. Record Group 238: National Archives Collection of World War II War Crimes Records, Diary of Hans Frank, 1939-1945. National Archives (U.S.). Archives Unbound. Web. 6 Feb. 2017.
Frank not only revealed a "death sentence" but also admitted that a death sentence was already being carried out, namely the "anti-Jewish measures" that he wanted to be "speeded up."
The following translation of remarks made by Frank on June 9, 1944, was posted here by Roberto in 2015:
For fighting the Jews it was indispensable that we got Poland, for here in Poland lived the natural fertility of the Jewish people, it no longer existed anywhere else. Since the extermination of the Jews in Poland the Jewish future, seen purely under blood aspects, is completely over and out; for only here there were Jews who had children.
The German was extracted from the Diensttagebuch pp.868-869 here.
A scan from the NARA folder containing the diary is below.
Figure 1: Rede Franks zum Abschluss des 38. Lehrganges der Schulungsburg, p.10a. Vol. 36; Tagebuch 1944 From 1 June-27 July 1944, image 98. Record Group 238: National Archives Collection of World War II War Crimes Records, Diary of Hans Frank, 1939-1945. National Archives (U.S.). Archives Unbound. Web. 7 Feb. 2017.
The same is true for the resettlement, which of all things had been carried out after the Jews had been liquidated, partly so that the Poles, starting with the child to the oldest woman, were witnesses of this evacuation of the Jews.
The full German paragraph from which this has been translated reads as follows:
Daß die illegale Propaganda eine viel leichtere Arbeit habe als die deutsche, sei am besten durch die Argumente bewiesen, die die Vorredner in den verschiedenen Referaten gebracht hätten. Das gelte zunächst von der Arbeitererfassung. Hier bestehe der Mißstand, daß die Angehörigen der ins Reich vermittelten Arbeiter insofern in schwierigen Verhältnissen zurückgelassen würden, als sie nicht die nötige Verbindung mit den Arbeitern im Reich hätten, keine ausreichenden Geldzuweisungen erhielten usw. Dazu kämen die Maßnahmen, die im Rahmen der Arbeitererfassung durchgeführt worden seien, daß man Kinos umstellt und Leute aus ihnen zum Arbeitseinsatz herausgeholt habe, daß teilweise sogar Kirchen umstellt worden seien. Daß alle solche Dinge der deutschen Propaganda den Boden entzögen, liege auf der Hand. Es sei eben unmöglich, mit einer rein geistigen Propaganda diese praktischen Begebenheiten aus der Welt zu schaffen. Genau so sei es mit der Erzeugungsschlacht, die ja nicht im polnischen, sondern im deutschen Interesse durchgeführt werde. Das gleiche gelte von der Umsiedlung, die ausgerechnet durchgeführt worden sei, nachdem man die Juden liquidiert hatte, teilweise so, daß die Polen angefangen beim Kind bis zur ältesten Greisin Augenzeugen dieser Judenevakuation waren.
Hans has helped me translate this as:
That the illegal propaganda has a much easier job than the German one is best shown by the arguments put forward in the various presentations of the previous speakers. First of all, this is the case for the acquisition of the workers. There exists the grievance that the relatives of the workers transferred to the Reich are left behind in difficult circumstances, inasmuch as they do not have the necessary connection to the workers in the Reich, do not receive sufficient money allocations, etc. The measures taken in the context of the acquisition of the workers: that cinemas were surrounded and that people were taken out for labour deployment, that even some churches had been surrounded. It is obvious that all such things undermine German propaganda. It is impossible to eliminate these practical occurrences by purely psychological propaganda. This is precisely the case with the battle for production, which is carried out not in the Polish but in the German interest. The same is true for the resettlement, which of all things had been carried out after the Jews had been liquidated, partly so that the Poles, starting with the child to the oldest woman, were witnesses of this evacuation of the Jews.
A scan of this passage is below:
Figure 1: Arbeitstagung der Distriktverwaltung, 18.6.43. Vol. 27; Tagebuch 1943 From 1-30 June 1943, p.516, image 97. Record Group 238: National Archives Collection of World War II War Crimes Records, Diary of Hans Frank, 1939-1945. National Archives (U.S.). Archives Unbound. Web. 8 Feb. 2017.
In his "classic" denial pamphlet "Auschwitz: Myth and Facts" the IHR official and later director Mark Weber published the following claim:
In fact, a very high percentage of the Jewish inmates were not able to work, and were nevertheless not killed. For example, an internal German telex message dated Sept. 4, 1943, from the chief of the Labor Allocation department of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office (WVHA), reported that of 25,000 Jews held in Auschwitz, only 3,581 were able to work, and that all of the remaining Jewish inmates — some 21,500, or about 86 percent — were unable to work.[11]
11. Archives of the Jewish Historical Institute of Warsaw, German document No. 128. Cited in: H. Eschwege, ed., Kennzeichen J (Berlin [East]: 1966), p. 264.
For example, an internal German telex message dated September 4, 1943, from the chief of the Labor Allocation Department of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office (WVHA), reported that of 25,000 Jewish inmates in Auschwitz, only 3,581 were able to work...
David Irving links to the image of the document on his site with a comment:
Berlin complains Sep. 1943 to Auschwitz commandant Höss that of 25,000 Jews at Auschwitz in August 1943 only 3,581 are fit for work
Mark Weber cites a document that appears to support this claim. It is an internal telex message of September 4, 1943 from SS-Standartenführer Gerhardt Maurer, the chief of Amt D-II (Arbeitseinsatz der Häftlinge – Prisoner Labour Allocation) of the WVHA. This document stales that only around 3,500 of the 25,000 Jews interned in Auschwitz at that time were able to work. [269]
269 / German Document No. 128, Archives of the Jewish Historical Institute of Warsaw (H. Eschwege (ed.), Kennzeichen J (East Berlin: 1966), p. 264). Cited in M. Weber, Auschwitz: Myths and Facts, p. 3. Maurer, as head of Amt D-II, was superbly informed about the labour situation in Auschwitz. Of all the WVHA leaders, he would have known best who was and who was not working in that camp. Cf. Broszat, et al., Anatomie des SS-Staates, Band II, pp. 134-137; Höß, Kommandant in Auschwitz, p. 132, 138ff, 143ff, 158-164, 170, 181.
Finally, Carlo Mattogno in Healthcare in Auschwitz (2016) writes (p. 74), no longer relying on Weber:
On September 4, 1943 SS Obersturmbannführer Gerhard Maurer, head of Agency DII of the WVHA (Prisoner Deployment), wrote the following letter to Höß (Berenstein 1960, p. 365):
“There are at this time about 25,000 Jewish prisoners in CC Auschwitz. On Aug. 25, 43 I told SS Hauptsturmführer Schwarz that I must know the number of fully work- and deployment-capable Jews, because I had in mind to transfer Jews from the concentration camp in order to put them work to in the Reich in arms production. I renewed this inquiry by teletype on Aug. 26, 43. According to the reply teletype message of Aug. 29, 43, of the 25,000 Jews in custody, only 3,581 are fit for labor. These, however, are in constant utilization in arms production and cannot be given up. What are the other 21,500 Jews doing? Something here doesn’t add up! Please review this situation once more and report back to me.”
Since the number of prisoners in Birkenau who were unfit for labor or deployment in June 1943 lay at about 34% of the total camp population, the number mentioned by Maurer was probably correct: of the 25,000 Jews in Auschwitz at the end of August 1943, only about 3,581 were fit for labor, from which follows that about 21,400 were unfit for labor.
The deniers cite this document with an obvious intent: they think that if they can show that not only at some point in Auschwitz's history, already after the start of the "claimed" Jewish extermination, there were some Jews unable to work that were kept alive, but also that in this period the majority of the Jews were unable to work, then the "orthodox version" is false.
Now, it is actually wrong to claim that at all times Jews unfit for labor in Auschwitz were quickly murdered. For example, someone unable to work today may recover tomorrow, so especially in times of workforce deficit there was an incentive to keep more people alive, even Jews. Yes, according to the Nazi policy all Jews had to die - but not all of them had to die immediately. Ideology and practical needs had to be balanced against each other.
And of course from time to time there were exceptions to the general policy on various scales (e.g. the so-called family camp), so finding an exception in, say, 10% of cases doesn't mean that as a rule, Jews unfit to work were not murdered in Auschwitz. So, for example, if some Jewish transports, like the so-called "Philips transport" on 06.06.1944, were spared the selection upon arrival and thus all children and ill adults were registered in the camp due to exceptional circumstances, it does not mean that most transports did not undergo selections.
That said, it is true that if out of 25,000 Jews about 21,400 were unable to work and still were in the camp and were not killed, this would indeed look somewhat strange in context of an extermination camp. But is the claim true?
The problem with the denier treatment is that they never attempt to put Maurer's message into the immediate historico-documentary context. So let's do their job for them and restore this context. First of all let's quote all the relevant documents.
26.08.1943: Maurer to Höß
Germant text (spelling irregularities left intact; APMO, D.Au I-3a, k. 357; cf. D. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 26.08.43 entry; also published in J. Balcke, Verantwortungsentlastung durch Organisation.: Die 'Inspektion der Konzentrationslager' und der KZ-Terror, 2001, S. 133):
+ Oranienburg Nr. 5294 26.8.43 1500=GR=. An den Kommandante KL. Auschwitz SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer Hoess. Betrifft: Abgabe von Judenhaeftlingen. Wie ich bereits am 25. ds. M. SS-Hauptsturmfuehrer Schwarz gesagt habe, benoetige ich baldigst die Zahl derjenigen juedischen Haeftlinge die an andere KL abgegeben werden koennen. Es kommen nur voll arbeits- und einsatzfaehige Juden in Frage und zwar vornehmlich Westjuden. Baldige Nachricht erwarte ich.
Translation:
+ Oranienburg No. 5294 26.8.43 1500=Top secret=. To the commandant of CC Auschwitz SS-Obersturmbannführer Hoess. Subject: Handing over of Jewish prisoners. As I have already told SS-Hauptsturmführer Schwarz on the 25th of this month, I need as soon as possible the number of those Jewish prisoners that can be handed over to other CCs. Only fully work- and deployment-capable Jews are eligible, and that means above all Western Jews. I expect a report soon.
28.08.1943: Sell to Maurer Germant text (APMO, D.Au I-3a, k. 358; the text in brackets stricken out in the original document; cf. D. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 28.08.43 entry; also published in J. Balcke, op. cit, S. 134):
3143 28.8.43. Betreff: Abgabe von Juden-Häftlingen Bezug: DortFS v.26.8.43. Nr.4294 Von den im KL Auschwitz einsitzenden Juden sind 446 deutsche, 700 französische, 198 slowakische, 162 tschechische, 37 kroatische, 127 holländische, 184 belgische, 5 norwegische, 1722 griechische Juden arbeitsfähig und restlos bei den Rüstungsbetrieben beschäftigt (und können nicht abgegeben werden.)
Translation:
3143 28.8.43. Subject: Handing over of Jewish prisoners Reference: your teletype message from 26.8.43. No. 4,294 Of the Jews in the Auschwitz concentration camp 446 are German, 700 French, 198 Slovak, 162 Czech, 37 Croatian, 127 Dutch, 184 Belgian, 5 Norwegian, 1722 Greek were fit for work and all engaged in armaments plants (and can not be handed over).
31.08.1943: Maurer to Commandant's office Germant text (APMO, D.Au I-3a, k. 359; cf. D. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 31.08.43 entry):
+ Oranienburg Nr. 5420 31.8.43 1520 =KOE= An die Kommandantur KL. Auschwitz.= = Betr.: Abgabe von Juden-Haeftlingen.= = Bezug.: Dort, FS,- Nr. 20329 vom 29.8.43.= Es ist mir zu melden, in welchen Ruestungsbetrieben (zahlenmaessig) die insgesamt 3,581 arbeitsfaehigen Juden eingesetzt sind.==
Translation:
+ Oranienburg No. 5420 31.8.43 1520 = KOE = To the commandant's office of CC Auschwitz Subject: Handing over of Jewish prisoners Reference: your teletype message No. 20329 from 29.8.43 It is to be reported to me in which armaments plants (numerically) a total of 3,581 Jews fit for work are employed.
01.09.1943: Sell to Maurer Germant text (APMO, D.Au I-3a, k. 361; cf. D. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 01.09.43 entry):
3242 Betreff: Abgabe von Juden-Häftlingen 1.9.43. Bezug: DortFS vom 31.8.43, Nr.5420 Die mit hiesigem FS v.28.8.43. gemeldeten 3.581 arbeitsfähigen Juden teilen sich, wie folgt, auf: Buna 1.996 Eintrachthütte 83 Jaworzno 606 Krupp 22 Jawischowitz 726 Golleschau 148
Translation:
3242 Subject: Handing over of Jewish prisoners 1.9.43. Reference: your teletype message from 31.8.43, No.5420 The 3.581 Jews fit for work, reported in our teletype message from 28.8.43, are distributed as follows: Buna 1.996 Eintrachthütte 83 Jaworzno 606 Krupp 22 Jawischowitz 726 Golleschau 148
04.09.1943: Maurer to Höß
Germant text (from T. Berenstein, A. Eisenbach, A. Rutkowski, Eksterminacja Żydów na ziemiach Polskich w okresie okupacji hitlerowskiej, 1957, k. 253; also published in J. Balcke, ibid.):
Im KL Auschwitz sitzen zur Zeit rund 25.000 jüdische Häftlinge ein. Ich habe am 25.8.43 SS-Hauptsturmführer Schwarz gesagt, dass ich die Zahl der voll arbeits- und einsatzfähigen Juden wissen muss, da ich beabsichtige, Juden vom KL Auschwitz abzuziehen, um sie bei Rüstungsfertigungen im Reich einzusetzen. Am 26.8.43 habe ich dies durch FS noch einmal mitgeteilt. Nach dem dortigen FS vom 29.8.43 sind von den einsitzenden 25.000 Juden nur 3.581 arbeitsfähig. Diese sind aber restlos bei Rüstungsvorhaben eingesetzt und können nicht abgegeben werden. Was machen die restlichen 21.500 Juden? Irgend etwas kann hier nicht stimmen! Ich bitte den Vorgang erneut zu überprüfen und mir zu berichten.
Translation:
In CC Auschwitz at this time there are about 25,000 Jewish prisoners. On 25.8.43 I told SS-Hauptsturmführer Schwarz that I must know the number of the fully work- and deployment-capable Jews, as I intend to withdraw Jews from CC Auschwitz in order to put them to use in the armaments production in the Reich. On 26.8.43 I communicated this once more by teletype. According to the 29.8.43 teletype message from there, only 3,581 of the 25,000 Jews there are capable of work. All of these however are used in armaments projects and can not be given up.
What are the remaining 21,500 Jews doing?
Something isn't right here! Please check the situation again and report back to me.
Now that we see the full context, several things become clear.
First of all, Maurer depended on Auschwitz to provide him with the actual number of Jews fit for labor. Weber omitted this crucial nuance and thus misled his readers into thinking that these are some sort of objective final numbers from Maurer himself. In reality, Maurer was shocked by the numbers and was demanding an explanation! Most blatantly, Weber presented the number 21,500 as "reported" by Maurer, whereas it was merely Maurer's logical conclusion based on the data provided by Auschwitz - the conclusion that was based on a false assumption about the data, as we'll see shortly.
Hayward's comment about the "superbly informed" Maurer who "would have known best" looks pretty comical in this context. Of course, Hayward fully relied on Weber without having checked the original text. Mattogno cited the full text but did not stop to think what it meant.
Second, from Sell's 28.08.43 message it becomes painfully clear that he only provided the numbers of the non-Polish Jews. Polish Jews are simply absent from his statistics. Basically, he mostly provides the statistics for the "Westjuden" (incl. in this instance the Czech Jews, who were often seen as different from the typical "Ostjuden").
Why? Well, for starters, Maurer himself wrote that he wanted above all the Western Jews. True, he didn't say "only", but Sell chose to interpret it more or less this way because obviously the Auschwitz administration wanted to have their work Jews for themselves, so it's a good example of a bureaucratic craftiness. Sell could always say, "Well, as I understood it, you didn't really want those Polish Ostjuden, so I didn't report them". Maybe that's how he explained this in the end - we don't know since a response to Maurer apparently didn't survive.
The Holocaust deniers simply haven't done their homework. And Mattogno's example is the most egregious one since he, of all people, had to have studied these documents. Indeed, even the information summarized in Czech's book would have been enough to understand what's going on. Berenstein, on whom he relies, also lists the nationalities of these Jews, from which it follows that there were no Polish Jews among them. This is not scholarship.
One further consideration: on 31.05.1943 there were 58,584 prisoners in Auschwitz, of them 14,743 unable to work (25,2%), on 01.11.1943 there were 87,573 prisoners, 14,548 of them unable to work (16,6%) (AGK, NTN, 134, k. 254, 258). We don't know the exact numbers in-between, but this indicates that in August-September probably about 20% of all prisoners, give or take several percentage points, were unable to work (as a side note: assuming an average of 74,000 for August, as per PS-1469, and 15,000 unfit for labor gives us the same result as the ballpark averaging of the percentages). Notably, the number of the prisoners unable to work was pretty stable in this period: around 14-15,000. And at least a few thousand of these prisoners had to be non-Jewish. Therefore the number of 21,400 Jews alone(!) unable to work in August-September 1943 is completely and utterly unrealistic.
Indeed, Mattogno, who cited numbers from the same source, should have noticed this anomaly, but instead he incoherently and incomprehensibly used the numbers to "support" the ridiculous statistic!
Since we're on this topic let's quickly take a look at yet another argument about the Jews unfit for work in Auschwitz. Weber, in the pamphlet cited above:
This is also confirmed in a secret report dated April 5, 1944, on "security measures in Auschwitz" by Oswald Pohl, head of the SS concentration camp system, to SS chief Heinrich Himmler. Pohl reported that there was a total of 67,000 inmates in the entire Auschwitz camp complex, of whom 18,000 were hospitalized or disabled. In the Auschwitz II camp (Birkenau), supposedly the main extermination center, there were 36,000 inmates, mostly female, of whom "approximately 15,000 are unable to work." [12]
12. Nuremberg document NO-021. Nuremberg Military Tribunal (NMT) "green series," Vol. 5. pp. 384-385;
This was parroted by Rudolf (in the same footnote cited above). The document (also known as NI-317) was also cited by Arthur Butz in The Hoax of the Twentieth Century (p. 175) and was then repeated by Hayward (same page as cited above). So these two distortions go hand in hand, more or less.
The supposed "problem" here though is even more pathetic than the alleged one with the Maurer letter: Pohl never says or implies that all of those 18,000 were Jews. Since it was Jews who were, as a rule, to be exterminated upon becoming so sick that there remained no chance of recovery (and, to repeat, such a chance - a couple of weeks in the hospital - was often given, Jewish workforce being valuable) and extermination didn't apply to most non-Jews at that time (cf. the Kinna report as well as NO-1007) one tries in vain to understand what exactly the deniers want to prove with this document.
All of this is very illustrative: deniers not checking the original sources, parroting each other, taking documents out of context and severely misinterpreting them. Pretty typical. Some of them are quite industrious, visiting numerous archives and publishing books at astounding rates. But they show no sign of being able to actually analyze what they find in the archives and the books, they're utterly incompetent when it comes to history, so their industriousness in the end produces nothing but a big pile of nonsense.
PS: I would like to thank Nick Terry for providing me with the documents from the Polish archives.
Documents submitted at Nuremberg clearly show the degree of local knowledge and political controversy that existed in the second half of 1940 concerning the killing of mental patients at Grafeneck. Harvard's Nuremberg site has scans of these documents, from which the information in this article is taken. I have also relied upon the account given by Henry Friedlander, especially pages 107-111 of this edition.
I have already discussed here how the American consul in Stuttgart was already aware by March 1940 that mental patients were being taken from Rottweil to an unknown destination, and that by July 2, 1940, that person had received inside information from Grafeneck about the killing of Jews at the site. The Nuremberg documents enter that sequence with a transport list from Winnental to Grafeneck dated June 11, 1940 (NO-817, scan here; English translation of supporting affadavit here) and a report from July 25 on rumours in the local population (NO-830, English translation here). On August 1, the Chief Prosecutor of Stuttgart wrote to the Reich Minister of Justice about the "unnatural deaths" at Grafeneck (NO-829 Betreff: Anzeige wegen unnatuerlichen Todes von Anstaltsinsassen (Fall Grafeneck), scan here; English translation here).
The process escalated all the way to Himmler in December 1940. Else von Loewiss had written this letter to the wife of Walter Buch (NO-001, English translation here), which had then resulted in a letter from Buch to Himmler, who replied to Buch on the same day as he had written to Brack to inform him of his concerns about the Grafeneck being so widely known. Buch's letter to Himmler (7.12.40) and Himmler's reply (19.12.40) are NO-002 (scan here and translation here) whilst Himmler to Brack (19.12.40) is NO-018 (scan here and translation here).
Conclusion: Himmler's reference to the "constantly smoking crematorium" ("dauernd rauchenden Krematorium") is particularly telling, as is the speed with which operations were suspended at Grafeneck, to be picked up elsewhere. The embarrassment that this incident caused Himmler may help to explain his subsequent exercise of control over information about the Aktion Reinhard camps.
Faurisson's old maxim, "no holes, no Holocaust", seems not to have impressed the likes of David Irving, David Cole and Mark Weber, who, although denying the gassings in the Auschwitz crematoria (though possibly accepting some in the Bunkers), nevertheless seem to have come to accept the gassings in the Aktion Reinhardt camps, the shootings as well as "millions" of Jewish deaths. Irving and Weber, in particular, seem to have softened their previous stances.
In other words, we have the dogmatic "no holes, no Holocaust" school of denial, and the more wobbly "no holes, some Holocaust" group.
Now, to be honest, while this latter position might seem to be superficially more "reasonable" compared to the hardcore deniers, I don't find it to be coherent. If you think that the Auschwitz crematoria gassings are a gigantic hoax you have to agree that the victim and bystander witnesses lied on a grand scale, the perpetrator witnesses were coerced on a grand scale. And since the Bunkers cannot account for all the missing Jews, they still have the missing Jews problem. So the crematoria denial basically implies a huge conspiracy, and once you accept this conspiracy, why would you accept the AR camps evidence, which might have been forged by the conspiracy as well?
This is sort of similar to the dilemma that Butz posed to Mattogno and Graf in regard to the Hungarian Jews: Butz denies the full-scale Hungarian deportations as such, while M&G don't. M&G's position is superficially more reasonable, but, as Butz pointed out, if they assume that these Jews arrived in Auschwitz, they have no way of accounting for their whereabouts.
But that aside, how should we call this group? They're still deniers. Yet there is a clear need to distinguish between them and the more dogmatic loonies like Faurisson and Mattogno. Semi-deniers? Weak deniers?
The Nazis usually used the term "special treatment" (Sonderbehandlung) to designate the legal extrajudicial killings. They were seen as "legal" because they were sanctioned by Hitler's authority (the will of the Führer being seen as the highest law), despite their extrajudicial nature. The mass murder of Jews was the biggest instance of such "special treatment".
In Auschwitz an additional term was used for such extrajudicial killings: "separate accommodation"/"special accommodation"/"special lodging" (gesonderte Unterbringung, Sonderunterbringung). The people thus killed were designated as "separately accommodated" (gesondert untergebracht). This term seems to have been fully interchangeable with "Sonderbehandlung".
Holocaust deniers of course say that it's just an assumption. When Auschwitz Political Department functionaries like Maximillian Grabner, Hans Stark and Pery Broad testify that "separate accommodation" meant killing, their testimonies are dismissed as coerced, the usual evidence-free denier m.o. According to the deniers "separate accommodation" was some sort of a literal accommodation somewhere in the camp.
However there is a series of documents that proves beyond any reasonable doubt that to have been "separately accommodated" in Auschwitz meant to have been killed.
These are the documents from the NG-series concerning the case of two incurably ill Russian "activists" of Unternehmen Zeppelin (Operation Zeppelin, UZ - an operation to recruit Soviet POWs to spy for the Germans behind the Soviet lines). The documents are accessible, for example, in the T1139 collection at NARA. For NG-5220 - NG-5223 I used the copies in BArch, B162/22055 and 5881.
Here is the story as it unfolded chronologically. Note that the terms "reception camp Auschwitz" (Vorlager Auschwitz), "special SS camp Auschwitz" (SS-Sonderlager Auschwitz) and "special detachment Auschwitz" (Sondereinheit Auschwitz) all refer to Sonderkommando Zeppelin in Auschwitz (to be more exact, SK Zeppelin in Auschwitz AKA Sondereinheit Auschwitz resided in Vorlager Auschwitz AKA SS-Sonderlager Auschwitz). The full text of the documents is in the Appendix 1.
1. 28.01.1943 (NG-5220): physician Rasumovski of the special detachment in Breslau writes to the commandant of the special camp in Breslau Weissgerber that the two sick Russian activists Gachkov (German transliteration: Gatschkow) and Semyonov (German transliteration: Semjenow) have pulmonary tuberculosis in the second to third stage.
2. 28.01.1943 (NG-5221): SS-Hauptsturmführer Weissgerber writes to SS-Obersturmführer Huhn at the special detachment in Auschwitz that Gachkov and Semyonov suffer from TB of the third degree, that any further treatment is impossible in the camp, and requests, on the basis of an RSHA administrative order, that these activists be "specially treated".
3. 29.01.1943 (NG-5222): SS-Oberscharführer Graf from Sonderkommando Zeppelin at the reception camp Auschwitz writes to the head of the Auschwitz Political Department SS-Untersturmführer Grabner under diary no. (Tagebuchnummer) 174/43, informing him that two agents are being brought to Auschwitz to receive special treatment and requests a report upon carrying out of the action.
4. 01.02.1943 (NG-5467): SS-Oberscharführer Brunngräber leaves a note in the Breslau camp files, according to which on 29.01.1943 he brought Gachkov and Semyonov to Auschwitz for special treatment. Special treatment was carried out in his presence. Both uniforms after a complete disinfection would be sent to the special SS camp Auschwitz.
5. 06.02.1943 (NG-5223): the Auschwitz Political Department reports to Sonderkommando Zeppelin in the reception camp Auschwitz that the activists have been "separately accommodated". Huhn forwards this message to Weissgerber as the requested carrying-out report using the same diary no. 174/43 as in the 29.01.1943 message.
6. 13.02.1943 (NG-5466): Weissgerber writes a summary report to Dr. Rohrmann at the RSHA: Gachkov and Semyonov had TB of the 2nd or 3rd degree, on 29.01.1943 they were transferred to the special SS camp Auschwitz with the accompanying letter requesting special treatment. According to Brunngräber's report they died on the evening of the same day.
While deniers argue that there were other uses of Sonderbehandlung in the Nazi vocabulary (and a rare exception indeed appeared now and then), "special treatment" specifically in the official RSHA jargon and without modifiers meant exclusively extrajudicial executions.
Furthermore, there are UZ documents that show that "special treatment" was used this way specifically in the context of Unternehmen Zeppelin, which was a part of the RSHA. E.g. there is a series of documents about several UZ agents - Kopyt, Koshilev and Plevako - who were "given the special treatment on 25 November by order of SS Brigadeführer Naumann of Einsatzgruppe B" as a result of "various things which happened in the meantime at the special camp Vissokoje" (see NO-5444, NO-5445, NO-5446; NMT, vol. XIII, pp. 562ff.). More specifically they were accused of hatching assassination plans (K.-M. Mallman, "Der Krieg im Dunkeln. Das Unternehmen "Zeppelin" 1942-1945", in M. Wildt (Hg.), Nachrichtendienst, politische Elite und Mordeinheit: Der Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers SS, 2003/2016). One other UZ activist, Kosin, was "sent by order of the RSHA, Amt VI, to Einsatzgruppe B, Smolensk, for special treatment" because earlier he and two other agents had escaped and he was the one that got recaptured (see NG-4724; NMT, vol. XIII, pp. 560ff.). Needless to say, Einsatzgruppe B did not send all these people to a luxury hotel with princely treatment...
Since in the documents about the activists cited above "separate accommodation" is equated to "special treatment", as a result of which both activists died, it is thus documentarily proven that the terms "separate accommodation", "separately accommodated" (gesonderte Unterbringung, gesondert untergebracht) meant extrajudicial killings. The SS-men's testimonies are thereby amply confirmed.
One could look at this from another angle too: Weissgerber's summary report established the deaths of these activists (with a reference to Brunngräber's report). Neither the written report by Brunngräber about special treatment, nor the report by the Auschwitz Political Department about separate accommodation of these activists mention their deaths explicitly, though they obviously had to report on them. This means that both "special treatment" and "special accommodation" in these documents presupposed their deaths.
For further context it is necessary to mention that there exist at least two testimonies about this event which further confirm that the activists were executed in Auschwitz (see Appendix 2). The first testimony belongs to Willi Brunngräber who escorted the activists to Auschwitz and witnessed their shooting (BArch B162/5882, Bl. 422ff.). The second testimony is by Walter Weissgerber who remembered what Brunngräber had told him upon returning from Auschwitz (BArch B162/5882, Bl. 446ff.). Both of them claimed innocence and referred to orders from above and/or their alleged ignorance, a usual defense strategy. Weissgerber confirmed the authenticity of his letters from 28.01.1943 and 13.02.1943 (op. cit., Bl. 464, 467). Guido Huhn was also interrogated on 27.09.1966 (BArch B162/5882, Bl. 846ff.). He pretended not to remember much, but even he had to admit that from the documents it follows "that the order of the RSHA was known to us and that we knew exactly what was to do with the people", that "it especially had to be known to us, that the people were to be sent to the concentration camp Auschwitz for special treatment" (op. cit., Bl. 852).
The fact that "separate accommodation" was used as a code word for extrajudicial killing in Auschwitz spells doom for the Holocaust deniers, since there are documents about whole groups of Jewish prisoners, including children, that use these terms. (On the denier objections to this interpretation of separate accommodation see Appendix 3.)
Telex of SS-Obersturmführer Schwarz to the WVHA of 20.02.1943 (N. Blumental, Dokumenty i materiały z czasów okupacji niemieckiej w Polsce: Obozy, 1946, s. 117):
Subject: Transfer of 5022 Jews from Theresienstadt Reference: Your telex from 17.2.43 no. 1023 Overall number of arrivals on 21.1.43 2,000 Jews, from them selected for labor deployment 418 = 254 men and 164 women = 20.9%. On 24.1.43 2029 Jews, of them for labor deployment 228 = 148 men and 80 women = 11.2%. On 27.1.43 993 Jews, of them for labor deployment 284 = 212 men and 72 women = 22.5%. Separately accommodated [gesondert untergebracht] on 21.1.43 1582 = 602 men and 980 women and children, on 24.1,43 1801 = 623 men and 1178 women and children, on 27.1.43 709 = 197 men and 512 women and children. The special accommodation [Sonderunterbringung] of the men was due to too much frailty, that of women because most were children.
That means that 4092 Jews were killed in these 3 days.
Telex of Schwarz to the WVHA of 15.3.1943 (ibid.):
Concentration camp Auschwitz reports Jew-transport from Berlin. Arrival on 13.3.43. Total strength 964 Jews. For labor deployment came 218 men and 147 women. The men were transferred to Buna. Separately accommodated were 126 men and 473 women and children.
That means that 599 Jews were killed on this occasion.
There is also a list with 498 female Jewish prisoners with the heading "G.U.v.21.8.43", that is, "separate accommodation on 21.08.1943" ("G.U." being an abbreviation of "gesonderte Unterbringung").
PS: The documents described here obviously also play a role in interpreting the Auschwitz documents containing the terms "Sonderbehandlung", "sonderbehandelt", but that is a separate topic. Appendix 1: Documents.
Please note that I tried to preserve the spelling and punctuation irregularities of the originals (e.g. "Besein", "Lugentuberculose", etc.). The translations of NG-5220 - NG-5223 are based on the official Ministries Case translations (NMT, vol. XIII, pp. 571ff.) with several corrections.
NG-5220: German text:
An den Kommandanten des SS-Sonderlagers Breslau Die beiden kranken Aktivisten Gatschkow, der sich z.Zt. im Lager befindet und Somjenow, der im Allerheiligen Hospital liegt, haben nach meiner Diagnose TbC Pulmomum II-III Stadium. [Rasumovski] Arzt der Sondereinheit Oberleutnant
Breslau, den 28.1.43 Zu den Akten: IA-232
Translation:
To the Commandant of the SS Special Camp, Breslau The two sick activists - Gachkov, who is at this time in the camp, and Semyonov, who is at the All Saints' Hospital, have, according to my diagnosis, pulmonary tuberculosis in the second to third stage.
[Rasumovski] Physician of the Special Unit First Lieutenant
Chef der SicherheitspolizeiBreslau 10, den 28.1.1943 und des SD Schiesswerderplatz 25. Tel.: 41252
SS-Sonderkommando "Zeppelin"
IA-212/43
An die SS-Sondereinheit Auschwitz z.Hd. von SS-Obersturmführer H u h n A u s c h w i t z
Betr.: Abgabe kranker Aktivisten Vorg.: Schreiben des RSHA VI C 1 B.Nr. 54120/42 vom 1.12.1942 Die nachstehend aufgeführten Aktivisten:
1) S e m j e n o w, Jakow, geb. 30.9.1916 2) G a t s c h k o w, Wassili, geb. 20.10.18
sind hier in stationierter Behandlung gewesen und leiden an Lugentuberculose dritten Grades. Eine weitere stationierte Behandlung ist hier nicht mehr durchführbar. Unter Bezugnahme auf die Verfügung des RSHA VI C 1 vom 1.12.1942 betreffs Abgabe kranker Aktivisten, Absatz III (Unheilbare Kranke) wird gebeten, selbige sonder zu behandeln. Über Abgabe ergeht gleichzeitig von hieraus Meldung an das RSHA. I.A. [Weissgerber] SS-Hauptsturmführer
Translation:
Chief of the Security PoliceBreslau 10, 28.1.1943 and the SD Schiesswerderplatz 25. Tel.: 41252
SS-Sonderkommando "Zeppelin" IA-212/43
To the SS Special Detachment Auschwitz
For the attention of SS-Obersturmführer Huhn Auschwitz Subject: Delivery of sick activists Reference: Letter of the RSHA VI C 1 B. No. 54120/42 of 1.12.1942 The following activists:
1) Semyonov, Jakov, born 30.9.1916 2) Gatshkov, Vasily, born 20.10.18
have been here in stationary treatment and suffer from the pulmonary tuberculosis in the third stage. Further stationary treatment here is not achievable. Referring to the order of the RSHA VI C 1 of 1.12.1942, regarding the delivery of sick agents, paragraph III (incurably ill), it is asked to specially treat them.
At the same time notice of the delivery is given from here to the RSHA.
By order [Weissgerber] SS-Hauptsturmführer NG-5222: German text:
Sicherheitspolizei und SD Sonderkommando ZeppelinAuschwitz, den 29.Januar 1943
An das K.L. Auschwitz - Politische Abteilung - Z.H.v. SS-Untersturmführer Grabner Auschwitz Die in der Beilage angeführten Aktivisten werden mit der Bitte um Sonderbehandlung vorgeführt. Um Vollzugsmeldung wird gebeten. I.A. [Graf] SS-Oberscharführer
Note: the name Graf (instead of "Draf" in NMT) was reconstructed on the basis of Guido Huhn's 27.09.1966 testimony, see BArch, B162/5882, S. 853.
English text:
Security Police and SD Sonderkommando ZeppelinAuschwitz, January 29, 1943
Reception Camp Auschwitz Journal no. 174/43-II Original Top SecretSECRET!
To the Auschwitz concentration camp, Political Department
For the attention of SS-Untersturmführer Grabner Auschwitz The agents whose names appear in the enclosure are being brought here with request that they receive special treatment. A carrying-out report is requested.
By order [Graf] SS-Oberscharführer
NG-5467:
German text:
Breslau, den 1.Februar 1943
Meldung
Am 29.1.43 brachte ich befehlsmäßig, die beiden SS-Sondereinheitsangehörige (Gatschkow und Semjenow) zur Sonderbehandlung nach Auschwitz. Die Sonderbehandlung wurde in meinem Besein durchgeführt. Die beiden Uniformen werden nach vollzogener Desinfektion vom K.L. dem SS-Sonderlager Auschwitz zugewiesen. [Brunngräber] SS-Oberscharführer Zu den Akten: IA-232
English text:
Breslau, February 1, 1943
Report
On April 29, 1943 according to the order I took the two special SS detachment members (Gachkov and Semyonov) to Auschwitz for special treatment. The special treatment was carried out in my presence. The two uniforms will be assigned to the special SS camp Auschwitz after a completed disinfection.
[Brunngräber] SS-Oberscharführer To the files: IA-232
NG-5233:
German text:
Konzentrationslager Auschwitz Auschwitz, den 6.Februar 1943 Abteilung II Az.: KL 14 k 4/2.43/Ki. Urschriftlich mit 1 Anlage der Sicherheitspolizei und SD Sonderkommando Zeppelin Vorlager Auschwitz in Auschwitz O/S mit dem Bemerken zurückgesandt, dass die umstehend Genannten gesondert untergebracht wurden. I.A. [???]
Chef der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD VI/C/3 Vorlager Auschwitz GEHEIM! Tgb. Nr. 174/43-g.VI. Urschriftlich dem Chef d. Sipo u. SD Breslau - SS-Sonderkommando Zeppelin - z.Hd.v. SS-Hauptsturmführer Weißgerber in Breslau mit obiger Vollzugsmeldung zurückgesandt [Huhn] SS-Obersturmführer
Note: the BArch copy omits the name in the first document entirely, the NMT version has "Pflaum" (but also puts the signature in the wrong line, into the next document - the cover letter), whereas D. Czech in Auschwitz Chronicle (entry for 06.02.1943) and P. Setkiewicz in "Sonderkommando Zeppelin - Vorlager Auschwitz" in Łambinowicki Rocznik Muzealny, T. 29 (2006) (who used the originals from BA Koblenz) say that the document was signed by Grabner. The second name (Huhn) which is omitted in NMT is present in the BArch version. English text:
Concentration Camp Auschwitz Auschwitz, February 6, 1943 Department II File reference: KL 14 k 4/2.43/Ki. In original with 1 enclosure to the Security Police and SD Sonderkommando Zeppelin Reception Camp Auschwitz in Auschwitz, Upper Silesia sent back with the notification that the persons previously referred to have been separately accommodated.
By order [???]
Chief of the Security Police and the SD VI/C/3 Reception Camp Auschwitz GEHEIM! Journal No. 174/43-g.VI. In original to the Chief of the Sipo and SD Breslau - SS-Sonderkommando Zeppelin - for the attention of SS-Hauptsturmführer Weißgerber in Breslau sent back with the above carrying-out report.
[Huhn] SS-Obersturmführer
NG-5466:
German text:
13. Februar 1943 IA-212/43 We/Kru. An das Reichssicherheitshauptamt Amt VI C/Z - z.Hd.v.SS-Hauptsturmführer Dr. R o h r m a n n Berlin Betrifft: Abgabe kranker Aktivisten Vorgang: Verfg.RSHA VI C I v.1.12.1942 Die nachstehend aufgeführten Aktivisten
G a t s c h k o w Wassilij geb.20.10.1918 S e m j e n o w Jakow geb.30.9.1916
litten lt. ärztlicher Bescheinigung an Tbc-Pulmomum II-III Stadium. Sie wurden vom Krankenhospital zum Allerheiligen Breslau nach erfolgloser Behandlung entlassen und dem Lager wieder zugestellt. Die beiden Sondereinheitsangehörigen wurden am 29.1.1943 unter Beifügung eines Begleitschreibens, in dem auf Grund der Verfügung des RSHA VI C I v.1.12.1942 Abs.III um Sonderbehandlung gebeten wurde, dem SS-Sonderlager Auschwitz überstellt. Beide sind lt. Meldung des Begleitmannes SS-Oberscharführer Brunngräber am gleichen Tage abends verstorben. I.A. [Weissgerber] SS-Hauptsturmführer Zu den Akten: IA-232
English text:
February 13, 1943 IA-212/43 We/Kru. To the Reich Main Security Office Department VI C/Z - for the attention of SS-Hauptsturmführer Dr. Rohrmann Berlin Subject: Delivery of sick activists Reference: RSHA order VI C I from 1.12.1942 The activists listed below
Gachkov Vasily, born on 20.10.1918 Semyonov Yakov, born on 30.9.1916
according to a medical certificate suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis of the II-III stage. They were dismissed from the All Saints' Breslau hospital after unsuccessful treatment and were returned to the camp. Both special detachment members were transferred on 29.1.1943 to the special SS camp Auschwitz accompanied by a letter, in which, on the basis of the order of the RSHA VI C I from 1.12.1942, paragraph III, special treatment was requested. According to the report of the escort SS-Oberscharführer Brunngräber both died on the same day in the evening. By order [Weissgerber] SS-Hauptsturmführer To the files: IA-232
Appendix 2: Testimonies.
Testimony of Willi Brunngräber on 23.04.1963 in BArch B162/5882, S. 434-437; published in A. Streim, Die Behandlung sowjetischer Kriegsgefangener im "Fall Barbarossa", 1981, S. 186-187. bzw. Sowjetische Gefangene in Hitlers Vernichtungskrieg: Berichte und Dokumente, 1941-1945, 1982, S. 135-137.
As I reported to the Auschwitz reception camp in the evening hours and said that I also had the two Russians with me, I was informed in the writing room that the Russians still had to be taken away. After a stay of 1 to 1 1/2 hours, I boarded the provided truck with the Russians, whose driver brought us to Auschwitz concentration camp. I would like to expressly mention the fact that at this time I was not yet aware of the goal of the trip and of the intended fate of the Russians. I can no longer remember whether aside from the driver there some other member of the Auschwitz reception camp traveled with us to the concentration camp Auschwitz. In the Auschwitz concentration camp we had to report at a certain place, which was obviously known to the driver of the truck. It is not known to me whether it was the Political Department of the concentration camp Auschwitz. All I know is that I reported to an SS-Untersturmführer. I remember that I gave this Untersutrmführer a letter which I had received from my unit at Schießwerder. What was written in this letter is beyond my knowledge. If, on the basis of the present documents, I am told here that the accompanying letter of my unit was directed to the commander of the Sonderkommando in the reception camp, and that a letter of the Sonderkommando had been sent to the political department of KL Auschwitz, I admit that it is possible that I handed over the letter given to me in Schießwerder in the reception camp and received a new letter for the Auschwitz concentration camp there. I do not know this today with such certainty. It is true in any case, and I expressly stand by that, that neither the contents of the letter of my office nor of the further letter shown to me now, from the reception camp to the Political Department of the concentration camp, were known to me. I had received the sealed envelopes with the order to hand them over unopened to the listed recipients, and I had no reason at all to familiarize myself with the contents of these envelopes. At the instigation of the aforementioned Untersturmführer, whose name is unknown to me, the two Russians were now taken down from the truck and led through the concentration camp to a certain block. I myself went along, although I had no order to do so. It was more curiosity that drove me, because I wanted to see where the Russians went. It is also the case that I had never been to Auschwitz before, but had already heard the name several times. I wanted to see the operation of such a concentration camp with my own eyes. When, accompanied by the Russians and a member of the camp staff, I arrived at a certain block, the designation of which I no longer remember, the Russians were told to walk into a certain room, called washroom, and to undress. I myself remained outside in the corridor, but could later ascertain that the room in question actually gave the impression of a washroom on the inside. After a few minutes, while the Russians were undressing in the washroom, a new member of the SS, whom I had not yet met, entered the corridor, with a gun in his hand. It was not a common model, nor a machine gun. It was a small rifle, shorter than the usual model 98 K. When this SS member went into the washroom, the realization of the imminent came upon me and I shouted, "What is going on here?" or something like that. The SS man gave me some unfriendly answer, which is no longer in my memory, entered the door of the washroom, and fired two shots without any word, obviously two targeted shots at the two undressed Russians. I remember that the weapon gave out a strange dull banging sound, not like a normal rifle at all, and it sounded something like "blupp, blupp", as if the rifle was fitted with a silencer. The shooter turned around and went away immediately. I myself went to the door of the washroom and looked inside, noting that both Russians lay lifeless on the floor and it seemed like they were dead. I myself was extremely shocked by the experience, especially because I had no idea what would happen until the moment of the incident. The truck driver took me back to the reception camp where I stayed overnight. The next day I went back to Breslau. In Breslau-Schießwerder I reported, as far as I remember, personally to Weissgerber. On this occasion I reproached him for having assigned me to this task, me having been as clueless as the two Russians had been. I never received a real answer...
Testimony of Walter Weissgerber on 29.04.1963 in BArch B162/5882, S. 461. He testified about what Brunngräber told him after returning from Auschwitz:
Both activists objected that they had already been searched, they did not want to undress. But then they began to undress. He [Brunngräber] himself was then shown out of the room and suddenly heard shots from outside. He was convinced that the two Russians were killed by shots of a machine gun.
Appendix 3: Denier objections.
The only denier who, to our knowledge, has tried to explain these documents away was Carlo Mattogno in his comic book Healthcare in Auschwitz (2016, pp. 174ff.). Unfortunately for him he knew neither of the documents NG-5466 and NG-5467, nor of the relevant testimonies. Let's take a look at what he had to say about these events.
1. He complains that the RSHA order mentioned in NG-5221 is unknown and its existence is assumed on the basis of this document.
Naturally, the fact that the document mentions the administrative order means that the existence of this administrative order is proven by this document. Just because because the text of this Verfügung apparently hasn't been discovered (yet) doesn't mean that it can be somehow dismissed. Moreover, Mattogno is utterly unaware of NG-5466, which mentions the same administrative order.
2. The term Sondereinheit Auschwitz is unusual and appears only here. The usual term was "Garrison physician Auschwitz" or "SS Garrison Administration Auschwitz".
Mattogno is hopelessly confused. The term referred to specific units of Unternehmen Zeppelin. Sondereinheit Auschwitz is the same as Sonderkommando Zeppelin in Auschwitz. Doctor Rasumovski, on the other hand, was a physician of the Sondereinheit in Breslau and had nothing to do with Auschwitz.
3. "An Obersturmführer Huhn is completely unknown", his name was not mentioned during the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial or in Auschwitz Museum's 5 volume history of the camp.
Mattogno once again confirms his gross incompetence as a researcher. Let's even ignore the fact that not finding an UZ-related name in the body of material that touched only very slightly on the topic of UZ doesn't mean anything whatsoever. Because it gets worse.
Mattogno fancies himself to be some sort of an Auschwitz expert and is even writing a book called Garrison and Headquarter Orders of the Auschwitz Concentrations Camp—A Critically Commented Selection. So he should be very familiar with the collection of these orders published as Standort- und Kommandanturbefehle des Konzentrationslagers Auschwitz 1940-1945 (2000). Indeed, he even quotes from the book. Yet he seems to be blissfully unaware of a circular on pp. 222-223 from 18.02.1943 about courses in German language and shorthand writing, which states:
The classes for both courses will be held by SS-Obersturmführer Huhn.
Will he ever learn that "completely unknown to me" is not the same as "completely unknown"?
(Then again, he also totally missed the mention of Sonderkommando 1005 in the very same book, which blew his denial of its existence out of the water.)
Piotr Setkiewicz in his article "Sonderkommando Zeppelin - Vorlager Auschwitz" in Łambinowicki Rocznik Muzealny, T. 29 (2006) also describes other documents that mention Huhn (one of them, the first appearance of Huhn in the extant Auschwitz files, is dated 21.09.1942). Mattogno had to read Setkiewicz's article, given that it was directly relevant to what he was writing about. But he never did (just like he never bothered to read Shmuel Spector's classic article on SK1005 before blithely denying the said action, or Stanislaw Klodzinski's classic article on the first gassing before writing the completely inept "The First Gassing at Auschwitz: Genesis of a Myth"; this list can go on and on...).
Needless to say, Mattogno is also utterly ignorant about the interrogation of Guido Huhn by the German investigators.
4. He quotes Schellenberg who claimed that the UZ activists were treated excellently.
Of course Schellenberg would claim this, he was on trial. What Mattogno fails to mention is this exchange (NMT, vol. XIII, p. 595):
JUDGE MAGUIRE, Presiding: Defendant, the matter of the disposition of sick prisoners, by giving them special treatment, would not be a matter of ordinary routine in Amt VI, would it? DEFENDANT SCHELLENBERG: No, Your Honor. But really, such a directive issued by the responsible Gruppen chief of VI-C was never reported to me, nor was it ever approved of by me. Q. If you had known of such a thing being done, would the man who gave that order without your approval have been subjected to severe punishment by you? A. First of all, I would not have permitted this order to be issued, and I would have reprimanded him. Q. You would have given him a reprimand for murder? Would there be no other punishment? A. Yes, Your Honor, I would have reported this to my superiors, and I would have pointed out to them that the necessary consequences would have to be drawn and a disciplinary case would have ensued.
In other words, Schellenberg confirmed that "special treatment" in this case meant execution. He merely claimed not to have known anything about it. Mattogno accepts what is most probably a self-exculpatory statement since it fits his religious dogma, but ignores a statement that was not in Schellenberg's own interest (and is thus much stronger as evidence) because it's very inconvenient for Mattogno.
Mattogno concludes from Schellenberg's self-serving statement that "in practice, therefore, particularly favorable treatment was afforded the "Special Unit Zeppelin" because of their duties". Mattogno relying solely on witness evidence to reach a conclusion is, of course, nothing short of remarkable. However this claim need not be completely untrue: the UZ people might have been treated favorably as long as they were useful, but they could also be exterminated once becoming disabled or for other reasons. For example, one activist was (citation from a German war-time document) "specially treated because ... he showed no commitment anymore" (K.-M. Mallman, "Der Krieg im Dunkeln. Das Unternehmen "Zeppelin" 1942-1945", in M. Wildt (Hg.), Nachrichtendienst, politische Elite und Mordeinheit: Der Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers SS, 2003/2016).
Oh, and transferring two sick activists to the typhus-infested Auschwitz and basically turning them into prisoners, was hardly "excellent" treatment. Why not let them die peacefully in the Breslau hospital?
5. If the RSHA order existed, the killing of the activists was legal, so there was no need for code words.
Since "special treatment" and "separate accommodation" were code words for killings that were legal in the Nazi eyes Mattogno's argument makes no sense whatsoever. The code words were needed simply because the extrajudicial nature of the killings was controversial despite their alleged formal legality. Another example of this was the mass murder of Jews which was both seen as formally legal and was kept a top state secret.
6. Auschwitz was far from Breslau, why bring them there and not kill them in Breslau? And even then, why bring them to Auschwitz and not Groß-Rosen, which is nearer?
Maybe the Breslau physician(s) did not practice murder extrajudicial killings while the Auschwitz killers were used to it? And there was no SK Zeppelin in Groß-Rosen, unlike in Auschwitz. That was a good enough reason for various purposes (whether bureaucratic, or practical, e.g. the deception of the activists). The local SK Zeppelin in Auschwitz apparently had an arrangement about such executions (and body disposal) with the Political Department, whereas there was likely no such arrangement with the other nearby camps, so bureaucratically things would have probably been quite slow, trying to get someone at a random camp to execute some outsiders and burn their bodies.
On the other hand, on Mattogno's scenario there was no reason to transport the allegedly "excellently" treated activists to another camp at all rather than letting them die peacefully in the hospital.
7. SK Zeppelin was subordinated to Auschwitz.
Actually it was subordinated to the RSHA (Amt VI), while Auschwitz was subordinated to the WVHA. Though of course, being located on the grounds of the camp complex meant that it did have to abide by certain administrative rules of the camp.
8. "The article from Der Spiegel carries unmistakable propagandistic features".
Actually it is simply based on the testimony the great "researcher" Mattogno is strangely unaware of.
9. "The "guard's" duty (who was this, and why just one guard for two prisoners?) would have been ended with the turning over of the prisoners at the entrance to the camp."
Too bad Mattogno is entirely ignorant of NG-5467, in which the guard - Brunngräber - reports that he was actually present during the "special treatment". And why would one guard be sufficient for two prisoners mortally sick with tuberculosis? Now that's a million dollar question.
Then again, it is simply more likely that the activists saw the guard as an escort and had no idea of the fate awaiting them. It should be noted in this regard that Brunngräber himself claimed not to have known that he was leading the activists to their deaths, albeit that could be a self-serving statement.
10. Ill patients were supposed to have been killed by phenol injections.
That's registered Auschwitz prisoners during selections. Doesn't necessarily apply to the outsiders brought in for an execution.
11. The prisoners would have been entered into the Morgue Registry, they weren't.
They weren't registered Auschwitz prisoners. Duh. But further problem for Mattogno is that according to Weissgerber's report they did die that day, which would make Mattogno's argument null and void had it already not been such.
12. The term "separately accommodated" meant they were to be isolated.
The term "separately accommodated" was in this case equivalent to the term "specially treated". We know from Brunngräber's report that he was present while this special treatment was carried out. Therefore it cannot mean isolation, since isolation is a continuous process which would not have been completed in Brunngräber's presence, whereas Brunngräber witnessed how a one-time action he called "special treatment" was completed (carried out) by someone (as signified by "wurde ... durchgeführt").
Moreover, Weissgerber reports that according to Brunngräber's report both prisoners died. However in Brunngräber's written report we only see that they were specially treated. Neither do we see any explicit mention of their death in the Auschwitz Political Department report, only that they were separately accommodated. This means that special treatment/separate accommodation automatically entailed their death. Ergo: special treatment AKA separate accommodation was a form of killing.
13. "The person who advised that these two prisoner were "separately accommodated" was Sturmbannführer Guntram Pflaum, who was the head of the Disinfestation Department, of all things."
It is not entirely clear who signed the document (see the note to the document above), but even if it was someone named Pflaum, it certainly wasn't Guntram Pflaum, who only moved to Auschwitz in January 1944 (P. Weindling, Epidemics and Genocide in Eastern Europe, 1890-1945, 2000, p. 378; G. Lilienthal, Der "Lebensborn e.V.": ein Instrument nationalsozialistischer Rassenpolitik, 2003, S. 49). Something Mattogno should have checked.
Also, this person didn't "advise" that these two prisoner be separately accommodated, he reported on the fact of them having been separately accommodated, nothing more, nothing less.
14. The registration number of the Auschwitz PA letter has "14 k 4", while normally death-related letters had "14 f".
Bureaucratically speaking, the letter wasn't about death. It was about sending an enclosure somewhere with a comment. What that comment was (it happened to be about killing) was a secondary matter. So there is nothing surprising about the lack of "14 f". E.g. Richard Glücks' 11.07.1942 letter (NO-394) with instructions to concentration camp commandants concerning the disposition of the clothing of deceased inmates had the code "14 d 3" for the same reason, even if it arguably had to do with deaths (as a secondary matter).
It is not entirely clear what exactly "14 k" meant, but it was apparently used bureaucratically to designate some sort of informational correspondence. For example, a 20.08.1943 cover letter by Liebehenschel to concentration camp commandants with the enclosed instructions by Kaltenbrunner to SS and police officials for restricting the use of Jewish workers (NO-1247) bears the code "14 k Allg." ("14 k general"). A 1944 letter with the file reference KL 14 k 4/5230/44.Bd. by the Auschwitz Political Department informed a youth welfare office about deaths of several Roma children in the so-called "Gypsy camp" ("Den Rauch hatten wir täglich vor Augen": der nationalsozialistische Völkermord an den Sinti und Roma, 1999, S. 291). Then there is a letter from Flossenbürg to Neustadt/Waldnaab head of district authority, Department of Military Monitoring, with the topic "Ascertainment of conscripts born in 1894 - 1896" with the code "14 k 4". The description states that a list was thereby delivered. The Auschwitz letter fits nicely among these documents.
15. In yet another book, Special Treatment in Auschwitz (2016, 2nd edn.) on pp. 59-60 Mattogno cites a British decode of a German 10.10.1942 message and claims that this message proves the existence of special facilities used for a literal special accommodation.
Here is this message:
Secret! SS-Hauptsturmführer AUMEIER personally. During the next week, from Monday through Thursday, a French construction commission will inspect work facilities in AU[schwitz]. Inspection of the camp is not planned. The special facilities (special accommodation) are not to be shown. If possible, no shootings of escapees are to be carried out at the external work site AU[schwitz].
Signed LIEBEHENSCHEL
Mattogno rejects the hypothesis that this may refer to the crematoria because Liebehenschel would have called them by their name. However Mattogno never considers the possibility that the Bunkers were meant here. Why? It would make perfect sense: they were special facilities outside of the camp ("inspection of the camp is not planned", "external work site") for extrajudicial killings that were sometimes referred to as "separate accommodation", and thus could not be shown to any commission (and why would one prohibit to show any real accommodation facilities anyway)? Now, I'm not making a positive claim here, albeit it's a interesting possibility worthy of further exploration. But if Mattogno does insist that the term "gesonderte Unterbringung" from the other documents had something to do with the special facilities mentioned here, he has to exclude the possibility that this document speaks of the Bunkers. (And I hope not to hear "but I debunked the Bunkers elsewhere!" as a response. First of all, it would totally miss the point: does this interpretation fit the mainstream history of the camp or not? Second, he has never debunked the Bunkers. If he has shown anything at all it is that they were not converted by the ZBL. But we already knew that.)
Conclusion: far from refuting the murderous sense of the term "separate accommodation", Mattogno has only shown his astounding incompetence and ignorance once again; his whole mass murder denial thesis crumbles because the documentary evidence with this term proves mass murder of Jews in Auschwitz.
I'm indebted to Nick Terry and Hans for valuable suggestions.
The 'Revisionist' scene increasingly has a problem: while its videos, spam and other propaganda keep the flame alive on the far right and in at least some parts of the conspiracy theory world, the 'movement' seemingly cannot retain its activists. It's almost a year since Committe for Open Debate on the Holocaust founder Bradley R. Smith passed away, prompting zero newspaper obituaries and little acknowledgement from anti-defamationwatchdogs, leaving the CODOH empire in the hands of the 'Holocaust Handbooks' publisher Germar Rudolf.
Despite revamping and rebranding many parts of the portfolio, it's been increasingly obvious for some time that the denier scene lacks enough researchers and writers to do more than put lipstick on an increasingly doddery pig. Worse still, the small number of newer stars drop out of the scene almost as fast as they become known, as happened for example with Thomas Kues and Friedrich Jansson. Or, like The Black Rabbit of Inlé, they openly admit that they no longer believe in the core tenets of 'Holocaust revisionism'.
The latest apostate? None other than video-maker Eric Hunt.
It's not much of an exaggeration to say that Hunt's five documentary videos, produced between May 2011 and May 2016, have done more to keep Holocaust denial alive this decade than the entire output of Mattogno, Graf and Kues. Along with 'denierbud's documentaries, produced between 2006 and 2012, Hunt's videos have been touted across what we'd now call the alt-right blogosphere and uploaded by dozens of different 'revisionist', alt-right and conspiracist groups onto their websites or YouTube channels, as the ADL was forced to note back in 2014. If you had asked me on January 20 who the leading Holocaust revisionist activists were, then I'd have unhesitatingly put Eric Hunt in the top ten.
Given the fractiousness of the 'revisionist' scene, the well-known tendency of alternative movements to suffer from personality clashes and infighting, and the extremely limited amount of money to be made from Holocaust denial, it wasn't a total surprise to learn at the end of January that Hunt had parted ways with CODOH. In an appeal to the CODOH mailing list for volunteers, Germar Rudolf noted in his typically frank-verging-on-indiscreet style that "a short while ago, our Video Manager Eric Hunt decided to throw in the towel as well. Although he did receive a remuneration for his efforts, it wasn't as much as a professional of that level usually receives, so he, too, was a volunteer to some degree. Eric's decision was not surprising. Tensions had been rising for quite a while."
"Tensions" was evidently a major understatement. It turned out that three days before the CODOH circular went out, on January 27, Eric Hunt had posted a nearly 14,000 word long rejection of the core claims of 'Holocaust Revisionism' onto the website of the 'Questioning the Holocaust' video series. Yet no one, revisionist or anti-revisionist, noticed this until this morning when a thread was started at RODOH.
Reactions from deniers have been a model of cognitive dissonance, with many posters at CODOH and RODOH convinced that someone had "gotten to" Hunt. Denier webmaster k0nsl apparently restricted Hunt's bandwidth in retaliation for posting "exterminationalist bull shit", taking Hunt's website offline this afternoon for several hours. (We've archived the page here, should the website go offline in the near future. ETA 14.2.2017, midday GMT: k0nsl's server shut it down again) Anti-deniers wondered aloud whether Hunt's website had been hacked, before concluding from style, tone, language and continued digs at David Cole, with whom Hunt had a fairly publicspat in 2014, that Hunt had indeed reached 'The End of the Line'.
While the volte-face is relatively sudden, and there's much we don't know about the background to this (Hunt promises more details soon), the main reasons Hunt gives for his change of heart seem completely genuine. First and foremost among these reasons is Hunt's admission that the denier 'resettlement' thesis is completely untenable:
All along, I claimed I was looking for the truth and out to tell the truth. I have determined I have reached “the end of the line” in the extent relevant research in the central issue of the “Holocaust denial” debate is able to go. I have come to what can be called a conclusion regarding the central issue of “Holocaust denial” which is –
Where did the Jews declared unable to work (small children and the elderly, etc.) sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Chelmno, go if they were not gassed at these sites?
Through the years, I have asked several prominent “Revisionists” this question. The most common response is “I don’t know.”
Does this answer sound like it would win a public debate let alone get laughed out of an auditorium? Instead it is undoubtedly a losing position. And this is precisely why Revisionists have not and are, without additional miraculous, earth-shattering new data, unable to ever “win” the “Holocaust denial” debate.
Back in 2014, Hunt had an extended argument on Skeptics Society Forum about 'transit' via Treblinka, in which I took part - one of my few interactions with him over the years. He then appealed to fellow 'revisionists' to help him solve the 'resettlement' conundrum (comment on defunct website, preserved here):
I would like to form a team to get as much new information about where did the Warsaw Jews go from July 22nd - September 21st 1942, specifically individuals talking about being transited during this time period ANYWHERE and surviving.
This is one of the perceived holes in the Revisionist case and if we can help plug it up more than has been done by Mattogno, Graf, Kues, it will do a great service to our cause. In fact if we could get enough information it'd be all over for the Treblinka hoax.
Holocaust researcher Roberto Muehlenkamp’s offer of a financial reward for proof of one Jew transited to the “Russian East”, stopping at Treblinka, Belzec, and Sobibor is out there for anyone who can find even one Jew out of the approximately 1.5 million alleged “transited” through Treblinka, Belzec, and Sobibor that fits the proposed Revisionist “transit camp theory.” This potent challenge is proof of how strong the accepted history is and how phenomenally weak and untenable the Revisionist / denier “transit camp” theory is.
This isn't the only place where Hunt cites HC arguments; he does so about:
It would be convenient for deniers to think that Hunt simply lifted these arguments from HC, but it's quite obvious that the nearly 14,000 words he wrote for his article are his own, and that he arrived at these conclusions himself, from reading and rereading Pressac, visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau and examining the visual evidence in particular ("I’m a visual learner, and just visually minded in general"). Nonetheless, we're glad that our articles evidently helped him change his mind.
Another reason Hunt gives for his disenchantment with 'Revisionism' is as he puts it, the "intertwining of “Revisionism” with other increasingly bizarre conspiracy theories", which he says "exposes Nazi mass murder denial as similar nonsense". As I noted when interviewed in The Observer recently, the conspiracy theory milieu and the 'revisionist' scene have increasingly overlapped in recent years, although the crossover is not entirely new. The Spotlight and its successor American Free Press, both published by the late Willis Carto, promoted conspiracy theories alongside antisemitism, Holocaust denial and far-right politics from the 1970s onwards, with AFP jumping on the 9/11 conspiracy bandwagon in the early 2000s in a deliberate attempt to proselytise among the youthful Truth Movement activists. Younger white nationalists often seem to think 9/11 conspiracy theories go without saying, and nearly a quarter of Stormfront's 'Revisionism' forum is dedicated to the subject of 9/11.
What seems to have disturbed Hunt most is the welcome extended by the 'Revisionist' movement and its leadership, especially Germar Rudolf, to serial conspiracy theorists like James Fetzer and Nicholas Kollerstrom, both of whom added Holocaust denial to their repertoire of beliefs in the late 2000s or early 2010s. The final straw appears to have been the resurgence of flat-earthism and its crossover with 'Revisionism'. The prime mover in the current flat earth revival, Eric Dubay, is also a Holocaust denier, while a number of prominent social media white nationalists have decided to embrace flat-earthism:
Recently, some involved with the production of Revisionist material have promoted the concept of a literal “flat earth.” Yes, really. That the earth is not round, but is actually flat. Deborah Lipstadt must love that. In particular, Sinead McCarthy, chosen as a narrator by Germar Rudolf for a video for his Holocaust Handbooks series believes the earth is flat. McCarthy was involved with the creation of a series of videos, articles, and internet radio shows promoting the concept of a literal flat earth. Since then, McCarthy has appeared in videos and filmed supposed “earth curvature experiments” affirming her belief that the earth is literally flat.
Before seeing evidence of McCarthy being completely unhinged, I originally thought McCarthy would make a good narrator for my “Questioning” video. I wanted a female narrator to make the subject more approachable. With a background in singing, she had a pleasing voice. McCarthy narrated Kyle Hunt’s “Hellstorm” video. Evidence of McCarthy being completely being unhinged started to emerge, such as the following audio clip.
After only recording the first few minutes of “Questioning The Holocaust : Why We Believed” I was exposed to a video of McCarthy vehemently proclaiming the earth is literally flat. Eric Dubay, a literal flat earther, apparently persuaded her. It was as disturbing and as as unhinged as the video above. I told McCarthy I could never be associated with Lipstadt’s dream of associating literal flat earthers with “Revisionism.” That and other embarrassing videos of McCarthy’s promoting her own belief in a literal flat earth have since been deleted, although traces remain.
In spite of warning Germar Rudolf of Sinead McCarthy’s flat earth absurdity, Rudolf decided to go ahead and have someone who believed and promoted the concept of a flat earth, Sinead McCarthy herself, narrate the following “scholarly” video for his Holocaust Handbooks series.
Hunt is far from alone on the right in expressing his disgust with the full-blown conspiraloon brigade, but it shouldn't be thought that his rejection of Holocaust 'Revisionism' means he has changed his fundamental politics. The dirty little secret of the far right, white nationalist, 'race realist', new right, alt-right scene nexus is how fundamentally split they all are on Holocaust denial and the 'Hitler question'. While below-the-line commenters are quite often committed Holocaust deniers, the above-the-line writers often simply aren't interested. (The Daily Stormer is the most prominent exception to this rule.) As I've pointed out in a forthcoming essay in the collection Holocaust and Genocide Denial: A Contextual Perspective, many prominent figures in these overlapping scenes simply don't see the tactical or strategic relevance of 'Revisionism', even if they remain thoroughly committed to antisemitism as an ideology. Hunt has evidently come around to the same position as new right luminaries such as Matt Parrott, Greg Johnson and Kevin Macdonald:
Dr. Kevin MacDonald, on the other hand, who even testified at the David Irving / Deborah Lipstadt libel trial, has smartly stayed away from denying Nazi mass murders. MacDonald’s work on Jewish subversive movements in the West as a group evolutionary strategy is highly successful and persuasive, and his leadership within the growing “alt-right” movement has shown real signs of bearing fruit. MacDonald has blazed a pathway to success for those who care about the same things as Revisionists / deniers without denying the Nazis mass murdered Jews.
After appealing for donations to continue his work, Hunt tellingly concludes:
In many ways I feel the “denial” issue held me back from tackling other issues essential to the survival of Western Civilization. Especially Nationalism, race realism, and opposing the very real Jewish-led white genocide campaign.
So I doubt he'll be on the ADL holiday greetings card list any time soon.
Much else could be said about Hunt's deconversion, and since he promises further articles explaining what "took so long" and other details, we'll wait until those appear to comment more. In the meantime, there's no denying the sheer inconvenience of this bombshell to the 'Revisionist' cause, since Hunt has disavowed and disowned his video work as they are currently edited ("I ask that copies of my old videos, recordings, or writings be deleted, as it is misleading, especially to young people"). Whatever led Hunt to this point, whatever his precise motives, whatever his true sincerity, whatever happens with his website, there's really no going back on this. As Monty Python might have put it:
'E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! This revisionist is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-REVISIONIST!!
Still stunned that Eric Hunt, who used to be one of the leading and most prominent deniers active on the internet, quit Holocaut denial. As Sergey has pointed out, while his main arguments to reject Holocaust denial (lack of evidence to account for the missing Jews and generally the wide range of evidence on Nazi atrocities) are no doubt good ones, some of his minor points he raised still have potential for improvement, so to say.
One such example is his treatment of the Auschwitz Album photograph showing a Jewish woman held by Jewish men near the crematorium 5. In the known context of the extermination of unfit Jews in Auschwitz-Birkenau it is likely that they were about to get murdered at crematorium 5. Quite possibly, the woman remembered rumors or sensed what was about to come and refused to advance further. Not unlikely given the close proximity to the killing site where they are.
Das Auschwitz Album, Wallstein Verlag, p. 240
According to Hunt, the three men who "almost look like gangsters" are Sonderkommando prisoners working at the extermination site. But it's probably more simple than that.
"This is an elderly Jewish woman being forcibly restrained and forced into the entrance of Auschwitz-Birkenau’s Crematorium 5 to be gassed. The cameraman is steps in front of Auschwitz II – Birkenau’s Crematorium 5, the entrance is close to his back. Crematorium 4 is and a pathway is in the background. Various armed guards and a truck are visible. I put forward that an uncomfortable hidden truth of this photograph is that those manhandling the woman are apparently the “Sonderkommando” Jews. These were Jews forced to work in the process of gassing and cremating doomed Jews.
...
This woman may have heard the rumors, or otherwise realized she was going to be executed. She may have heard screams from inside the crematorium. She is being dragged towards a gas chamber in Crematorium 5 by three Jewish “sonderkommando” against her will and resisting with her might and last breaths. Look at those restraining her. They almost look like gangsters, don’t they? Look at their clothing, possibly assembled in accordance with sonderkommando testimony from the former dress of those rich Jews gassed beforehand. Judging from body language, the “Nosferatu” looking man on the left have tried to calm her with lies, such as “it’s just a shower” which lines up with sonderkommando testimony."
The three men are dressed pretty much like many other men selected as unfit for work from the Jewish transports from Hungary. The entire transport would have been made up of "gangsters" - yet this was apparently just the the dress code among Hungarian Jews for their journey at the time.
So why not go for the explanation that the three men are just that - Jewish deportees selected as unfit for work at the ramp and sent to crematorium 5? It is entirely conceivable that victims - either not seeing the danger or realizing the helpless situation - were trying to calm down other victims who were getting hysterical. It's not that the scene could not be properly explained without the Sonderkommando hypothesis. Nothing is gained by assigning these men as members of the Jewish Sonderkommando, but one encounters some other problems instead.
Suppose the Sonderkommando men were allowed to "camouflage" themselves as deportees selected as unfit for work, just how would the SS or the Kapos or the Sonderkommandos themselves discriminate between the Jewish victims to kill and the Sonderkommandos? It would not have been a bright idea from the Nazis. We know from the secretly made photographs of the crematorium 5 extermination site (see here and here) that the Sonderkommando prisoners were rather uniformly dressed in light shirts and prisoners' caps in the Summer of 1944 (similar to the so called Kanada detail sorting the effects of the deported people):
It's these kind of guys we would expect to see if the three men on the Auschwitz Album photograph were actually Sonderkommando prisoners.
The Auschwitz SS did select mostly the young and strong men for the Jewish Sonderkommando, many known survivors were in their 20s or early 30s in 1944 (some of the SKs who died in the camp were supposedly around 50 years though; Friedler, Zeugen aus der Todeszone, p. 371ff.). The men on the Auschwitz Album photo were elderly, of similar age and shape as those selected as unfit for work at the Birkenau ramp. In fact, the picture in question was placed right into the chapter "men not fit for work" by the SS man compiling the album (ignoring the woman) - he did not recognize Sonderkommando prisoners on the photograph either.
We have already written on the crypto-denial website "Scrapbookpages". Now a thread appeared at CODOH where its denizens offer praise, as well as benign criticisms, of the site and the blog.
Here is a selection of what the CODOH zombies (so-called due to their brainless nature) have to say about it (excerpts):
Zombie #1:
I've been reading this lady's blogs on the holocaust for some years. They are never less than well written and engaging and usually I learn something and that's got to be a good thing. If you are new to the subject or haven't heard of her work you will be pleasantly entertained and informed.
Zombie #2:
I've seen this blog too, and I agree that it looks like it's a great revisionist resource.
Zombie #3:
I've read the blog off an on over the years. Borjastick is up on things because he knows it's run by a woman. That wasn't known till a couple of months ago. Everyone thought she was a man and she said she cultivated that image in the tradition of other writers who have done that. Scrapbookpages website and furtherglory blog has valuable information on many holocaust topics. Particularly on the Americans coming into Dachau and other camps and issues in the West. Lots of original content and often the best source anywhere. The author has corresponded with people who went into the camps who found the furtherglory website and then contacted her. It's a trove of important investigations. But lamentably, with the strategy of being crypto-revisionist in hopes of not turning people off, (and quite possibly out of fear of being honest about what you really think on this taboo subject) the crypto element just ends up being confusing. This topic is hard enough to understand with direct speech; so if one is being crypto: Throwing out a little piece of evidence here and there about what a myth the holocaust is, and in the same article reiterating that the holocaust happened. Well I don't think it works that well, and is confusing, and that was her modus operandi. The subtlety of crypto revisionism: I don't think it's a tactic that leads that many people to realize the holocaust is a myth. I think ultimately there were many teens that found her website for the holocaust report they were writing for social studies class, because it is often the first or second google result for a lot of holocaust related topics. And even though the bones were thrown in, that is the hints that the holocaust is a myth, my guess is it was so crypto that students used the site for reports and never doubted the holocaust in the process.
Note: that the Holocaust-denying author of Scrapbookpages is a woman hasn't been a secret for over a decade. But nice of this zombie admitting that the woman is a damned liar.
Zombie #4 points out a recent post in which the Scrapbookpages author confesses to being a denier:
The website page, cited above, was written before I became a Holocaust denier.
However the Scrapbookpages author is being deceptive, since we've known her as a denier for far longer than 7 years.
PS: As a bonus, here is what the old neo-Nazi wrote in another recent posting:
Today I read a news article, which tells about a “Twitter account which lists hundreds of Jews who were killed after being refused entry to the US”. I knew that this was a reference to the Jews on the ship named the Saint Louis, which was turned away from the USA and forced to return to Europe. In the past, I have written about the ship named the St. Louis, but I can’t find the link now. Back then, no country wanted the Jews. I wonder why? Is it because Jews lie, steal and cheat? Why not blame the Jews for their behavior instead of blaming the people who don’t like being cheated and lied to.
In October 1940, Hitler gave this reply to a proposal by Karl Hermann Frank regarding population policy in the Protectorate. Frank used the term Sonderbehandlung ("special treatment") in a way that seemed to advocate the biological elimination of certain elements. Hitler's reply echoed this with the phrase "Diese Kategorie sei auszumerzen", meaning eliminated or eradicated. Whilst it may be tempting to equate Frank's use of Sonderbehandlung with later ones by Greiser and Katzmann describing the extermination of Jews in an entire region, the argument below offers a more nuanced interpretation.
The Nazi use of the term Sonderbehandlung [hereafter SB] to mean 'killing' originated with Reinhard Heydrich (see here) at the RHSA in the context of extrajudicial executions in "circumstances that because of their degradation, their danger or their propaganda consequences, it is appropriate without regard to the person, to eliminate him through a ruthless procedure (namely by execution) [translation by Hans here]." Its use by K.H. Frank may be related to Frank's rank as SS-Gruppenfuehrer and his working relationship with Heydrich, who approved Frank's proposal on September 14, 1940. It is likely that Frank was applying Heydrich's term to the policy of "decapitation": the killing of the intelligentsia. This had occurred in Poland and would follow in Lvov, Minsk [see Operational Situation Report USSR No. 32] and elsewhere. This inference is supported by the fact that Frank's proposal included "the expulsion of racially unassimilable Czechs and of the intelligentsia who are enemies of the Reich or special treatment for these and all destructive elements [translation read during the examination of von Neurath at Nuremberg here]." This was clarified further by Frank on October 9, 1940, when he stated that "Elements which counteract the planned Germanization are to be handled roughly and should be eliminated [862-PS, Nuremberg translation]." On December 18, 1940, there was a further clarification about the fate of the intelligentsia, which was to be "ruthlessly assigned to special treatment." The lethal nature of these sentences is confirmed by the fact that von Neurath claimed in court that he had disagreed with Frank's proposal.
The real opinion held by von Neurath in 1940 can be found in his own proposal of July 13, which he included in the letter he sent to Lammers which enclosed Frank's proposal. Von Neurath refers to "repelling" the anti-German elements and "racially useless", but he envisages that this will take a slow pace in the Protectorate, whereas Czech minorities in other German-occupied regions could be eliminated (Ausscheidung) at a faster pace. This implies that, at least for the Protectorate, von Neurath could have interpreted Sonderbehandlung to involve longer-term measures of elimination, such as sterilization, and that Frank deliberately left that possibility open in his own proposal. Indeed, this is implied in Frank's proposal to use the health service to classify the population into categories of racially useful and unfit. If the health service could be used to classify the racially inferior, this would seem to enable the usage of medical intervention to eliminate them by eugenic means.
This is far less radical than the formulation used by Heydrich a year later, in his speech of October 2, 1941, by which time the Final Solution was a far more developed idea. Here Heydrich used far more explicit terms. Whereas Frank had used the term Sonderbehandlung and Hitler had replied with auszumerzen, Heydrich stated that those categories should be "put up against the wall" ["sie endgültig an die Wand zu stellen"]. He also explicitly ruled out resettlement to the East because "they would form a leadership class in the East, which would be directed against us" ["denn aussiedeln kann ich sie nicht, weil sie drüben im Osten eine Führerschicht bilden würden, die sich gegen uns richtet."] The lethal nature of this sentence is shown by the fact that Holocaust denier Carlo Mattogno quotes from this speech and thus has access to the source (here, pp.254-255) but typically omits the inconvenient passage. Heydrich had already used the phrase"put up against the wall" when speaking to Goering on March 26, 1941 (see my citation of Browning, in note 17, here).
Although Heydrich did not explicitly include Jews in the passage of October 2, 1941, it clearly anticipates the plan he declared at Wannsee three months later:
Able-bodied Jews, separated according to sex, will be taken in large work columns to these areas for work on roads, in the course of which action doubtless a large portion will be eliminated by natural causes. The possible final remnant will, since it will undoubtedly consist of the most resistant portion, have to be treated accordingly, because it is the product of natural selection and would, if released, act as a the seed of a new Jewish revival (see the experience of history.)
Conclusion: Heydrich was the successor of von Neurath as Acting Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. It can be seen that Heydrich's language was far more radical than that of von Neurath and Frank had been in 1940. For example, Heydrich had no qualms about imposing terror, but von Neurath felt that fast-paced violent measures should be reserved for Czech minorities in other territories. Frank's usage of Sonderbehandlung was sufficiently open to interpretation to avoid appearing to von Neurath as openly advocating extermination by shooting, whilst Hitler's reply also left open the methods that could be used to eliminate inferior and/or hostile groups. In contrast, even Mattogno admits that Heydrich was referring to shooting in 1941 (here, pp.254-255), so all ambiguity had been removed by then. The changed context since 1940 (German soldiers were now dying in far larger numbers, often at the hands of Red Army soldiers whom the Nazis believed to be "Judeo-Bolsheviks") meant that Heydrich could assume that his inner circle knew he was referring to all Jews within the criterion of "hostile elements", whereas Frank's comments of 1940 were open to a range of interpretations and did not specify that all Jews in the Protectorate were destined for imminent extermination.
Carlo Mattogno denies the established fact that Jewish workers were massacred in the General Government in early November 1943 and claims instead that there was "a mass transfer of Jewish inmates to the west [Majdanek, p.230]." As we noted in the Critique (pp.233-238), Mattogno's knowledge of this event is woefully inadequate, and he has clearly failed to read the literature on the shootings or the real labour transfers that took place in 1943. His only source for "a mass transfer of Jewish inmates" is "the November 20, 1943, issue of the Polish newspaper-in-exile Dziennik Polski, printed in England." He quotes numbers from Hilberg showing that "22,444 Jews worked in the armaments industries of the General Government in October 1943" but "it had increased to 26,296" by January 1944, but fails to address the true sources of that increase, which we showed on page 237 of the Critique (note 430). Below I examine a further source of documents ignored by Mattogno: Nuremberg exhibits whose authors documented the fate of the plants that were closed down in the "special action" on November 3, 1943, and bemoaned the fact that the "withdrawal" of Jewish workers caused irreparable losses to the economy.
A typical example of Mattogno's dishonesty is the way he overlooks evidence in his own sources that disproves his denial claims. His citation of the increase in armament workers from 22,444 to 26,296 omits the fact that, as Hilberg noted, "4,000 Jews from the Kraków-Plaszów camp (not part of the Lublin complex)" were transferred to the armaments industry (Hilberg, 2003, p.565, n.209). This accounts for the increase that Mattogno identifies, but the workers came west to east, not east to west. Mattogno also ignores the Polish literature on these transfers.
With regard to the loss of Jewish workers, Hilberg cites one of the key Nuremberg documents that audited the Osti camps that were liquidated in the murder action, namely the report by Dr. Horn, March 13, 1944, NO-2187, which bemoaned the fact that "16,000 Jews" had been withdrawn on November 3, 1943. However, Hilberg omits the equally revealing report of the same month signed by Opperbeck and Niemann, NO-555, which Sergey Romanov has brought to my attention. This states:
The large increase in the turn-over, compared to the previous years, is due above all to the introduction of shift work wherever working conditions would allow it. The turn-over figure of 23,204,032.87 RM does not comprise the value of the half-manufactured and manufactured articles, which amount as at 31 December 1943, to RM 2,393,560,49~ The figure of the turn-over, besides, is greatly influenced by the special action carried through in the Lublin and Lvov Plants at the beginning of November 1943, which brought these plants to a complete standstill. A turn-over of about 2,000,000.00 RM was lost through the closing-down of these works and the ensuing loss of about 8,000 workers for the months of November and December [p.38 of document].
Mattogno has the gall to write incredulously that the Germans would not conduct "economically irrational" acts [Majdanek, pp.226-229] yet Horn here outlines economic irrationality to a massive degree: "turn-over of about 2,000,000.00 RM" was squandered and many items were left half-completed, with orders still on the books awaiting fulfillment. An enterprise that had been amassing huge profits was liquidated without warning through an action prepared in high secrecy.
Moreover document NO-1271, written by auditor Fischer, lists capital transfers to Cracow and Lodz but no transfer of workers. The iron foundry in Lublin was to use machinery from the Warsaw ghetto but on 3/11/43 manufacture was stopped, and machines sold. It had employed 1500 Jewish workers. The capital was transferred to the Lodz administration but the workers were not. The Trawniki fur manufacturing works employed 6000 Jews (NO-1271, pp.10-11). They do not show up as being alive in any subsequent accounting.
A further refutation of Mattogno's argument is that, when DAW opened a new plant in Lublin in early 1944, it partially used labour from the Reich, therefore the Jewish labour power available in Lublin must have been minimal to non-existent at that time (NO-555, p.23).
Lublin SSPF Globocnik commented negatively on the killing action of November 3 (NO-57, 18.1.44, p.4) and noted that the killing broke a promise from Krueger to Schindler about the transfer of 10,000 Jews to the armaments industry. However, Globocnik held a double standard on the issue of killing workers because on June 21, 1943, he had suggested to Brandt that Jews in Lodz (Litzmannstadt) should be liquidated given that most of them did not do armaments work, which could be transferred to Poniatowa in Lublin. He alluded to this same proposal in his report of January 18, 1944, noting that he had wanted to include Lodz in the Aktion Reinhard deportations. Moreover, on September 16, 1942, Globocnik had dropped a big hint about the murderous nature of Aktion Reinhard by placing "Umsiedlung" in inverted commas (YVA O.53/68, p.364); this was simply one of many euphemisms for mass murder used in this period, as discussed in the Critique here (see text covered by footnotes 294 to 314).
These murderous desires were most clearly expressed by Himmler, whose statements leave no doubt that he ordered the killing for motives of extermination. When Himmler announced the collection of armament workers into concentration camps, on October 9, 1942, he stated that ""Nevertheless, the Jews are supposed to disappear from there as well, according to the wishes of the Führer [source]." On October 6, 1943, four weeks before the Lublin killing operation, Himmler had stated in Posen:
The difficult decision had to be taken to have this people disappear from the earth [source and source].
These motives were shared by Hans Frank, who stated, "My attitude towards the Jews will, therefore, be based only on the expectation that they must disappear. They must be done away with [source]." Yet Mattogno claims absurdly that Krueger could not have implemented Himmler's order to kill the work Jews without Frank's express permission, despite the clear policy having been in place for two years that these Jews must eventually "disappear." Moreover, Frank had signaled his compliance with further killing by noting in his diary on October 19, 1943 that the Jews were an "acute danger", probably in response to the escape from Sobibor (see Hilberg, p.560 and the Critique, p.233). This imperative was repeatedly hammered home by Hitler. For example, Longerich notes that:
On the occasion of an address by Hitler on 19 June 1943, Himmler learned of his decision "that the evacuation of the Jews, despite the disturbances this will cause in the next 3 to 4 months, is to be radically expedited and must be endured" ['daß die Evakuierung der Juden trotz der dadurch in den nächsten 3 bis 4 Monaten noch entstehenden Unruhen radikal durchzuführen sei und durchsgestanden werden müßte". BAB, NS 19/1432].
The distribution of orders and instructions for the action in Lublin is quoted in detail by Robin O'Neil here, taken from the British interrogation of Sporrenberg, which was also cited in the Critique [PRO, File No. WO 208/4673: Statement of Jakub Sporrenberg, 25 February 1946]. Sporrenberg received the Himmler order from Wirth. We gave detailed sources in the Critique concerning the sites where the massacres took place. O'Neil also notes that the massacre was reported by the Underground press [PRO/FO371/42790: Report from the Jewish National Committee Warsaw, dated 15 November 1943]. The shootings also appear in the testimonies of ex-Sobibor guard Robert Juhrs (interrogation of 23.5.62, Frankfurt-am-Main, p.5 in NIOD 804/49, p.60) and survivor Ludwika Fiszer.
On July 21, 1944, the KdS for Distrikt Radom passed on an order from the KdS for the General Government which stated that:
In case of the approach of enemy troops, precaution has to be taken for a complete evacuation of the prisons. If, however, an evacuation is not possible, all prisoners are to be killed and their remains disposed afterwards. The same applies for Jewish forced laborers. In any case, care must be taken that no prisoner or Jew is to fall into the hands of the enemy alive (the western Allied Forces or the Red Army, alike) [YVA O.53/129 (listed as O.53/120), p.61)].
Conclusion: The extermination of forced labourers in the General Government had been held in reserve as a latent option throughout the two-year period before November 1943, always capable of being deployed in cases of security alert, partisan incursion, escapes from death camps, the need to retreat in the face of the Red Army, reprisal shootings, and jumps from trains during deportations. Moreover, as was documented above, the impetus to kill Jewish forced labourers came from the top and was expressed as an ultimate goal by Hitler (19/6/43), Himmler (e.g. 9/10/42 and 6/10/43), Frank (16/12/41) and Globocnik (in the case of Lodz, 21/6/43). The fact that economic irrationality predominated during the November 1943 murders was noted in the summary reports of Horn, Opperbeck and Niemann (NO-2187 and NO-555 discussed above). The process by which the November 1943 murders were activated is clearly laid out in Sporrenberg's testimony, whilst the results were reported at the time in German and Polish sources. The labour transfers that occurred around this period are well documented and totally refute any possibility that tens of thousands of Jews were simply shuffled around around rather than killed. The idea that the Nazis, growing increasingly fearful of partisans and escapees, would transfer 25,000 Jews farther west at this moment in the war is risible in its face, let alone the economic absurdity of leaving orders uncompleted and the costs having to move labour, plant and capital. Clearly the economic effects of the liquidations were forced on the firms and planners, not planned as a strategic economic measure, and this is proven by the deception and lack of warning documented by, for example, Globocnik and Horn. The fact that labour was still needed in Lublin is shown by DAW opening a plant in early 1944 with the use of labour from the Reich (NO-555, p.23).
Typically, none of this appeared in Mattogno's screed. Mattogno had neither the aptitude nor desire to do the necessary homework.
On January 3, 1946, Wisliceny admitted in court that Jews sent to Auschwitz from Hungary were "brought to the final solution". On February 19, 1944, a document on executions in Piaski gave a list of Jews who were "brought to the final solution." ["der Endlösung zugeführt wurden" [YVA O.53/82, pp.50-52]. These types of executions had been defined by Heydrich as special treatment [Sonderbehandlung], as quoted here. We therefore have a convergence of documentation and testimony that "final solution" in the context of SS operations in Auschwitz and in Poland generally meant killing, albeit disguised as "special treatment" [Sonderbehandlung] in which death was meted out via extralegal executions.
Below I present two documents written by Hans Gewecke, Gebietskommissar in Schaulen, Lithuania, on September 3 and September 10, 1941. The first describes how he refused to implement an order from Jaeger, transmitted to him verbally by Hamann, to kill all the Jews in the city. This document appears to show Gewecke in a favourable light. The second document, however, shows Gewecke's complicity in the murder of Jews across his region. On August 13, his boss Lohse had drafted directives which included the statement that"The countryside is to be cleansed of Jews." The September 10 document shows Gewecke pursuing that objective vigorously, such that all areas are "almost free of Jews" except for essential labourers in the city of Schaulen itself, in addition to implementing executions for sabotage and savage reprisal measures. Moreover, Gewecke reveals that young Lithuanians are being trained so that they can eventually replace the Jews, whom he hints can then be killed. This hardly makes Gewecke a protector of those Jews.
Figure 1: Gewecke, Vermerk, 3.9.41, 3660-PS, copy at YVA O.18/139
Figure 2: Gewecke an den Generalkommissar in Kauen, Betr.: Judenangelegenheiten in Schaulen, 10.9.41, 3662-PS, copy at YVA O.18/142
Gewecke was brought to trial in the 1960s but portrayed himself as being benign to the Jews, a pose he maintained when interviewed by Lanzmann in 1979. A careful reading of the interview reveals his true character. For example, on page 51, he says that he could have reached a deal that would have killed thousands of ghetto Jews and produced "a few thousand gluttons less (after all, I also had to take care of that)." His most uncomfortable moment in the interview is when discussing the Kinderaktion of November 5, 1943, when the ghetto's children were removed and murdered. Gewecke denies he had any forewarning.
Perhaps the most telling fact about Gewecke is exposed in Stahlecker's report of 15.10.41 (reproduced in the Ulm trial) which revealed that, in the Schaulen district, 41,382 Jews had been murdered as of that date. Gewecke claimed in his Lanzmann interview that all these deaths were prior to his arrival, yet he admits that he arrived on July 10, 1941, spent four weeks touring his district and received reports from his local chiefs. Gewecke was complicit because he was the official face of his district at that point in the escalation of killing. He only protested when his work Jews were due to be killed, and his letter of September 10, 1941, seems to be approve of the fact that only 4,000 Jews are left in his district, which in all areas except the ghetto is almost free of Jews. Finally, his prevention of the work Jews being killed is only meant to be temporary, until the Lithuanians have been trained to the point where they can replace them. Gewecke therefore supports total extermination as the end goal.
I've revived the old Statcounter account and lo and behold, it contains the almost complete traffic stats from the creation of our blog to some point in time in early 2016.
The Blogger counter that you see on the right only contains the pageviews since some moment in May 2010.
When I set the Statcounter to show the data from March 23, 2006 to May 1, 2010 it gives the following results:
Page Views
Unique Visits
First Time Visits
Returning Visits
Total
718,252
353,989
284,359
69,630
Daily Average
479
236
190
47
Stats by week. Green - page views, blue - unique visits, orange - returning visits.
There was a period in Feb-Mar 2007 when the counter didn't function for some reason. It is also not clear now exactly when in May the new page views counter began functioning. So we may be missing a few tens of thousands of page views here. Nevertheless it is clear that to the current value on the right (2,049,989 as of this moment) you can add about 720K more page views.
It is however not clear if the counter also appeared on the mobile devices in this period, so 720K should be seen as the minimum.
A major theme of the literature on the Ostland is the disputes between the civil administration and the SS over the scope and methods of killing operations. In the Autumn of 1941, Lohse prohibited the killing of work Jews in both Schaulen (at the instigation his subordinate Gewecke) and Libau. In the summer of 1943, he expressed disgust at the methods used to kill partisans. Kube and Strauch meanwhile had an ongoing feud that lasted throughout Strauch's time as KdS Weissruthenien and only concluded when Kube was assassinated (see extract from Hilberg here). The following article updates the material presented in the Critique on these issues (here and here) and adds links to sources that have come to our attention since 2011.
On November 1, 1941, Kube wrote two letters to Lohse (1104-PS; YVA O.18/107). The first complained that Police Battalion 11 had carried out an action in Slutsk without Kube's agreement. It also expressed a grievance that an officer arrested by Kube had been immediately released by the court martial officer. The second enclosed a report by Slutsk Gebietskommissar (regional commissioner) Carl on the atrocities committed, which included the fact that "persons shot have worked themselves out of their graves some time after they had been covered." Carl echoed the complaints of Gewecke in Schaulen and Lohse over Libau by noting that essential tradesmen had been liquidated.
On December 2, 1941, Lohse requested "most emphatically that the liquidation of Jews employed as skilled workers in armament plants and repair workshops of the Wehrmacht who cannot be replaced at present by local personnel be prevented" (3664-PS. Scan in O.18/203, translation here). However, as with Gewecke's similar prohibition in Schaulen, this was only a temporary reprieve until non-Jewish replacements had been trained, so Lohse was not opposing total extermination, merely amending the timetable.
Kube re-entered the fray on December 16 by expressing his concerns to Lohse about the Reich Jews who had been deported to Minsk. He asked, "Is the slaughter to be carried out by the Lithuanians and Letts, who are themselves rejected by the population here?" (3665-PS; O.18/204; translation here). Kube was expressing the wish that Reich Jews, whom he regarded as culturally superior to Russian Jews, should be killed in a more humane manner than those Ostjuden had been, and should not be left to die of cold, starvation and disease.
In June 1942, Lohse signaled a new phase of killing by noting that the disadvantages of employing skilled, professional Jewish labour outweighed the benefits (O.18/178 and here). Kube agreed (O.18/179) and sent an order to his subordinates to make strict inspections and to segregate Jews by sex (O.18/180). This led eventually to the Grossaktion of July 1942 (3428-PS; O.18/181), which I discuss extensively in my refutation of Mattogno here:
Mattogno then commits multiple dishonesties in his treatment of Kube's report to Lohse of July 31 [1942]. He gives the impression that he is quoting the whole of the document in the text that he quotes on pages 345-346 of the Riposte, taken from pages 192-193 of NMT IV. However, Mattogno's quotation stops abruptly, with no explanation, at the words "cease to exist." He thus omits the remainder of that paragraph, and the whole of the following paragraph, which are crucial to the document's meaning:
I myself and the SD would certainly much prefer that the Jewish population in the district general of White Ruthenia should be eliminated once and for all when the economic requirements of the Wehrmacht have fallen off. For the time being, the necessary requirements of the Wehrmacht who is the main employer of the Jewish population are still being considered. The clear anti-Jewish attitude of the SD and the difficult task of the units in White Ruthenia to deliver again and again new Jewish transports from the Reich to their destination, both put an undue strain on the physical and spiritual strength of men of the SD and diverts them from their real purpose, which lies in the White Ruthenian region itself.
I should therefore be grateful if the Reich Commissioner could see his way to stop further Jewish transports until the partisan threat has finally been overcome. I must make 100 percent use of the SD against partisans and against the Polish Resistance Movement, both of which demand the use of the full strength of the SD units, which are none too strong as it is.
This is crystal clear and unambiguous about the killing of Jews in two ways. Firstly, the personnel of the SD were suffering undue stress from their role in the killing process. The passage can have no other plausible meaning, unless Mattogno would like us to believe that brave SD men would suffer "an undue strain on [their] physical and spiritual strength" when they delivered a train to a terminal. Secondly, there were no units available for dealing with transports because they were needed "100 per cent" for anti-partisan actions. This would clearly rule out their use in resettlement actions east of Minsk.
The passages Mattogno does quote also cause him severe problems that he ignores. Most of the 3,500 Reich Jews killed in the Grossaktion of July 28-29 were from the 7,000 deported in the Autumn, leaving only 2,600 remaining in the ghetto. This leaves a huge hole where those deported in the second wave seem to be absent from the ghetto population. If these had been transported east, why weren't the 3,500 Reich Jews shot on July 28-29 transported east with them instead of being shot? If the second wave deportees were not transported east, where were they located, if not killed?
On November 23, 1942, the remaining Jewish population and future anti-Jewish policy were described:
Jewry in the General District Minsk has in the first year of civilian administration been reduced to the number of about 30 000 in the whole General District. The flat land can be considered completely cleaned of Jews. Jewish ghettoes there are only in a number of larger cities of the General District. The inmates are under strict surveillance and consist only of indispensable skilled workers and labor forces that cannot be replaced by locals for the time being. Not a single Jew is being employed as an interpreter in White Ruthenia anymore. In the service of the German authorities and military entities there are only artisans and skilled workers left. In agreement with the Security Service the possibilities of further rolling back Jewry are constantly examined and initiated. Some attempts to accommodate new Jews in White Ruthenia through further Jewish transports from the Reich I have always rejected. In this context I call attention to the fact that the Reich Commissar refuses to protest against further Jewish transports to the Eastern Territories, as this question is the exclusive competence of the Security Police. As the Commander of the Security Police and the Security Service claims the exclusive decision-making in all Jewish matters also in White Ruthenia, I am restricted to suggestions from the Security Police in handling the Jewish question [YVA O.53/49, p.1, translation by Roberto Muehlenkamp here].
Strauch's complaint to Bach-Zelewski of July 25, 1943 (NO-2662) reveals that the use of the word 'resettlement' was a deception:
On 1 March 1942 an action was to take place against the Russian ghetto in Minsk. The Generalkommissar received prior notification. In order to disguise the action the Council of Elders was to be informed that 5,000 Jews from the Minsk ghetto were to be resettled.
Strauch then states that "It is clear, however, that the Gauleiter used his knowledge to save his Jews."
Strauch's orders for the February 1943 action in Slutsk noted that:
Resettlement site (Umsiedlungsgelände): At the resettlement site there are 2 pits. At each pit there work two groups of 10 leaders and men each, which relieve each other every 2 hours. (An jeder Grube arbeitet je eine Gruppe von 10 Führern und Männern, die sich alle 2 Stunden ablösen.) Times 8-10 hours, 10-12 hours, 12-14 hours, 14-16 hours (translation by Roberto Muehlenkamp).
Finally, Strauch had used the notorious phrase Sonderbehandlung on at least three occasions. The first two were in a file memo of July 20, 1943, where he stated that "Even the fact that expert physicians had removed, in a proper way, the gold fillings from the teeth of Jews who were designated for special treatment had been made the topic of conversations" and:
On Tuesday, 20 July 1943, pursuant to orders, I arrested and subjected to special treatment [Sonderbehandlung] 70 Jews employed by the Commissioner for White Ruthenia.
The second was in the complaint to Bach-Zelewski and stated:
During a major ghetto action it was made known by informants that the German Jewish Ordnungsdienst made up predominantly of former World War I servicemen, was intending to put up armed resistance. In order to avoid bloodshed on the German side the Ordnungsdienst was made to assemble and was told that a fire had broken out in the town and they should be at the ready for fire duty. The Jews were then loaded on to trucks and sonderbehandelt.
This was mirrored by Lohse, who had written to Rosenberg that "The fact that Jews receive special treatment requires no further discussion."
The following reproduces an order from the Senior Commander of the Security Police and Security Service (BdS) GeneralgouvernementWalther Bierkamp of 20 July 1944 - as it was circulated by the Commander of the Security Police and the Security Service Radom the day later - that "it is to be avoided under all circumstances that prisoners or Jews should be liberated by the enemy...or should fall into their hands alive". In case that the evacuation of the inmates of SD prisons turns out as not possible, these "are to be liquidated, and the bodies of those shot are to be disposed as far as possible (burning, dynamiting of the building, etc.)" and "Jews still employed in the armaments industry or on other work are to be dealt with in the same way".
Der Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD im Generalgouvernement hat mit FS. Nr. 14 002 vom 20.7.1944, IV 6 Nr. 82/44 gRs. folgendes angeordnet:
"Ich weise zum wiederholten Male darauf hin, dass die Insassenzahl der Gefängnisse der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD nach Möglichkeit niedrig gehalten werden muß. Bei der zurzeit gegebenen Lage können insbesondere von der Ordnungspolizei zugeführte Verdächtige, soweit keine ernstlichen Verdachtsgründe gegen sie vorliegen, nur noch abgekürzt formularmässig vernommen werden. Sie sind alsdann auf dem schnellsten Wege einem KZ zuzuführen, falls nicht ein Standgerichtsverfahren erforderlich wird oder eine Entlassung infrage kommt. Mit Entlassungen bitte ich sehr zurückhaltend zu sein. Soweit es die Frontlage erforderlich macht, sind rechtzeitig Vorkehrungen für eine Totalräumung der Gefängnisse zu treffen. Bei überraschender Entwicklung der Lage, die einen Abtransport der Häftlinge unmöglich macht, sind die Gefängnisinsassen zu liquidieren, wobei die Erschossenen nach Möglichkeit beseitigt werden müssen. (Verbrennen, Sprengung der Gebäude u.Ä.). Gleichermaßen ist eintretendenfalls mit den noch in der Rüstungsindustrie oder an anderen Stellen beschäftigten Juden zu verfahren.
-2-
Unter allen Umständen muß vermieden werden, dass Gefängnisinsassen oder Juden vom Gegner, sei es WB oder Rote Armee, befreit werden bezw. ihnen lebend in die Hände fallen."
Ich ersuche um Kenntnisnahme und strikte Beachtung.
Koe
[Unterschrift]
TRANSCRIPTION FILED AS NUREMBERG EVIDENCE 035-L
TRANSLATION
Commander of the Security Police and Security Service in the district Radom
IV 6b — 4/43 gRs
Radom, 21 July 1944
11 copies
4th copy
Secret State Affair!
To the
outpost
for the attention of SS-Hauptsturmführer Thiel - o.V.i.A. -
in Tomaschow
Subject: Clearance of prisons
Procedure: none.
The Senior Commander of the Security Police and the Security Service in the Generalgouvernement issued the following order in his telephonic message no 14002 of 20 July 1944, IV 6 Nr. 82/44 gRs:
"I again stress the fact that the number of inmates of the Sipo and SD prisons must be kept as low as possible. In the present situation particularly suspects handed over by the orderly police need only be subjected to a short, formal interrogation as long as there are no serious grounds for suspicion. They are then to be sent by the quickest route to a concentration camp, should no court proceedings be necessary or should be no question of discharge. Please keep the number of discharges to an absolute minimum. Should the situation at the front necessitate this, early preparations are to be made for the total clearance of the prisons. In the case of sudden emergency, which precludes the evacuation of the prisoners, they are to be liquidated, and the bodies of those shot are to be disposed as far as possible (burning, dynamiting of the building, etc.). In similar circumstances Jews still employed in the armaments industry or on other work are to be dealt with in the same way.
-2-
It is to be avoided under all circumstances that prisoners or Jews should be liberated by the enemy, whether it be the WB or the Red Army, or should fall into their hands alive."
The above is to be noted and strictly compiled with.
Koe [signature]
(negative of document from Yad Vashem Archives, O.53/129, p. 62; transcription from ns-archiv.de; transcription in 053-L from Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, volume 38; translation based on Yad Vashem Archives, O.18/13, p. 5)
… as has been and continues being amply demonstrated on this blog site.
Unfortunately, nonsense is also produced on occasion (though less egregiously) by serious and respected historians. Two examples of such nonsense shall be addressed in this blog.
The first example is not so serious and related to military historiography rather than to the subject matter of Holocaust Controversies. I’m referring to the overblown estimates of German military fatalities in World War II by German military historian Rüdiger Overmans, in his book Deutsche Militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg. An examination of Overmans’ figures regarding three theaters of operations – the Western Front in 1944/45, the Balkans, and Italy – has shown Overmans figures to be unrealistically high in light of the available records and the military historiography regarding these theaters. This applies especially to his claim on p. 265 that of 1,230,045 deaths in the "Final Battles" in Germany between January and May 1945 (contrary to what their last-digit precision might suggest, Overmans’ figures are not mentioned in any military records but are Overmans’ extrapolations from a statistical sample), two-thirds occurred in the Eastern Front and one-third occurred on the Western Front. The resulting figure for the Western Front, 410,015 deaths, is easily an exaggeration by a factor of four. The aforementioned 1,230,045 figure includes 697,319 missing, thereof about 180,000 in the West (p. 287) and the remaining ca. 517,000 in the East. Despite reckoning that many of those missing in the West may have died in French captivity or as mercenaries of the French Foreign Legion in Indochina, and that about 700,000 of the ca. 1.5 million missing in the East (which include the aforementioned 517,000) possibly died in Soviet captivity, Overman claims on several occasions (e.g. pp. 275, 279 and 283) that 1,230,045 German servicemen died between January and May 1945, pointing out that this means 300,000 deaths per month and 10,000 every day.
The second example is more serious and directly related to one of the topics of HC articles, the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. It is to be found in Max Hastings’ Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944-1945, a book widely acclaimed by peers and critics (cover quotes: "One of the finest historians of the Second World War" (Michael Burleigh); "A grand achievement. Max Hastings is a brilliant military historian who enthralls the reader by combining mastery of high strategy and low tactics with poignant understanding of individual combat experiences. This is the last word on the last year of the greatest war in history." (Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.); "Gripping … Hastings, already a supreme exponent of important arguments in military history to a general readership, finds a new dimension" (Hew Strachan, Sunday Times); "Filled with valuable insights and good judgment … In this grand overview Hastings has again made a magnificent contribution to our understanding of the period." (Antony Beevor, Sunday Telegraph).
The book is indeed a good read, transmits a fairly good idea of "what it was like" from the perspective of individual participants in the events narrated, and contains some "valuable insights" such as highlighting the much larger scale and intensity of the war on Eastern Front versus the Western Front. But when it comes to certain facts – namely numbers – it is not so commendable. The author, who in the introduction (page xii) prides himself on having done archival research and met 170 contemporary witnesses in Russia, Germany, Britain, the United States and Holland, and assures his readers (page xvii) that the statistics given in the text are "the best available", disgraces his book with the following blatantly false information on p. 439:
Two million Soviet prisoners, Poles, gypsies and other ‘anti-social elements’ were killed at Auschwitz alone, in addition to two million Jews.
There is no source reference for this claim, which is included in the book’s chapter 13 headed "Prisoners of the Reich" (pp. 438-480). I had to read the above several times before I believed that it had indeed been written by someone held to be a historian of note, in a book published in 2005, a full 15 years after Auschwitz historian Franciszek Piper made known to the international community his estimate of ca. 1,082,000 victims of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp (thereof 960,000 Jews, 860,000 unregistered and 100,000 registered inmates), which "has been endorsed by all serious, professional historians who have studied the complex history of Auschwitz in some detail, and by the Holocaust research institutes at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C." (Van Pelt).
Research by German historians Christian Gerlach and Götz Aly on deportations from Hungary, published in their 2002 book Das letzte Kapitel, calls for revising Piper’s figure downward by about 100,000, as pointed out in Sergey’s blog The number of Hungarian Jews gassed upon arrival at Auschwitz. Otherwise there have been no serious challenges to Piper’s assessment, especially no substantiated demonstration that it might be too low.
Hastings may be forgiven for not reading Holocaust Controversies blog. As he is not a historian of the Holocaust, he may also be forgiven for not being familiar with Gerlach and Aly’s Das letzte Kapitel. But the Van Pelt Report on Auschwitz-Birkenau was part of the evidence submitted at a widely publicized trial that took place in the UK five years before Hastings published his book, and in which Auschwitz-Birkenau was widely discussed. So the least thing that should be expected of a historian writing about Auschwitz-Birkenau in a chapter of a book is that he made himself familiar with the historiography of that camp presented at that trial. Hastings obviously didn’t bother to do that.
What is more, Hastings needed to do nothing more than consult an encyclopedia (say, the Encyclopedia Britannica or Wikipedia), or the respective entry of the USHMM, to learn that the death toll of this concentration camp was about a quarter of the order of magnitude he claimed.
He obviously didn’t even bother to do that, instead postulating as "the best available" a blatantly exaggerated figure that was decried as such already by camp commandant Rudolf Höss in his notes written in Polish captivity. Needless to say, Hastings also forgot to read the English translation of Höss’ memoirs and notes (Death Dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz).
But it gets even better (or worse, depending on the perspective). Where did Hastings get his split of the camp’s claimed 4 million death toll into 2 million non-Jews and 2 million Jews? Not from the Soviet War Crimes Report on Auschwitz, Document USSR-8, translated here by "Revisionist"Carlos Porter, which contains no such subdivision. Neither from the indictment at the Nuremberg Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, which merely claims that "about 4,000,000 persons were exterminated in Auschwitz, among whom were citizens of Poland, the U.S.S.R., the United States of America, Great Britain, Czechoslovakia, France, and other countries" (a claim that was not repeated in the IMT’s judgment). A subdivision of the Auschwitz death toll into an equal number of Jews and non-Jews is also not to be found in the records of the trial of Obersturmbannführer Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Höss before the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland. Unless I missed something, the conclusion seems to be warranted that Hastings simply invented this split.
Such sloppy (or dishonest?) behavior on the part of Hastings is a serious matter, insofar as his book is widely read, and a number of readers far in excess of those who read the mendacious "Revisionist" screeds known as "Holocaust Handbooks" is thus misinformed about important historical facts. Less serious, but also unpleasant, is the fact that Hastings’ false numbers feed the "4 million" meme that is a mainstay of "Revisionist" argumentation.
On September 4, 1940, a decision was taken to kill Jews who were in the care of German asylums. The decision is referenced here by Pfannmueller. This led to a transport on September 20, 1940, to a gassing site, camouflaged here. However, the Nazis did not wish the public to know that these Jews died on German soil, so they fabricated a story that these Jews died in an asylum in Chelm [also known as Cholm], Lublin, Poland, despite no such asylum existing there (see Henry Friedlander here, pp.17-20). Examples of such deceit are the cases of Hilda Sara Buchbinder (here) and Mirjam Sara P. (here, based on Tom Lampert's research using her German case file held at the Hessian State Archive, Darmstadt). Viktor Brack maintained this deception in his Nuremberg testimony as did Pfannmueller (see here) because they knew that the policy specifically targeted Jews, and they wished to maintain the fiction that Jews were never specifically murdered by T4 on racial grounds.
