German Footage of a Homicidal Gassing with Engine Exhaust. Part 5: Responsibility (III).

The previous part proposed that the Mogilev gassing footage displays the experimental gassing carried out by the Einsatzgruppe B leader Arthur Nebe, Einsatzkommando 8 and Albrecht Widmann of the Criminal Technical Institute of the Security Police in September 1941. The following part will outline some conflicting evidence and evaluate alternative interpretations.

His deputy Nikolaj Pugach, medical specialist for psychiatry, confirmed the incident and dated it "at the end of September 1941" (interrogation of N. Pugach of 13 July 1944, in Istoriya mogilyovskogo evrejstva. Dokumenty i lyudi, book 2, part 2 (2nd. edn.), 2010, p. 196 and Grundmann, Georg Frentzel, p. 84). The former nurse Valentina Moskina also testified on this gassing in course of the Soviet investigations in the late 40s/early 50s against the former Einsatzkommando 8 member (?)  Georg Medler (Friedman et al, Diskriminiert - vernichtet - vergessen. Behinderte in der Sowjetunion, unter nationalsozialistischer Besatzung und im Ostblock 1917 - 1991, p. 489).

In the early 70s, Georg Frentzel was put on trial in East-Germany for his actions as member of Einsatzkommando 8. Among other things, he also admitted his participation in the gassing of several hundreds of mentally ill in Mogilev:

"During the action in the months September/October 1941, mentally ill were poisoned in the Mogilev asylum by exhaust gases of vehicles. While I waited for Prieb in the car on the street, he was in the asylum for some time. I don't know and he did not tell me, what he did in the asylum. On the day of the action, we drove with 6-8 cars to the asylum site and were directed backwards to a building by Prieb. There were two pipe nipples connected with a hose. The hose was connected to two cars by Kelling or Schirrmeister. The engines were started at the order of Prieb and he decided upon hearing how to open the throttle, i.e. we regulated the hand throttle. The engine run on quite low rotations. The mentioned nipples led into the gas room...The sick were killed by the inflowing exhaust gases....approximately 20 to 30 minutes. The gas room was opened and the Jewish citizens brought by Einsatzkommando 8 had to load the corpses on trucks. The corpses were buried near Mogilev. This procedure was repeated until the late afternoon or evening....The corpses were partly only dressed with a shirt or coat and heavily emaciated, yes you can say only skin and bones...It had to be many hundreds. I accept the figure, which follows from the hospital records....At a time, two cars were were connected to the hoses of the nipples....As the engines of the cars were running almost idle, they were changed now and then to avoid them running hot."

(interrogation of Frentzel of 1970, in Grundmann, Georg Frentzel, p. 87f.; my translation)

The large scale mass killing is further corroborated by contemporary documents. On 3 September 1941, the asylum had an inmate strength of 910 persons, which dropped to 217 by 2 November 1941 according to its records (Winkler & Hohendorf, Die Ermordung der Psychiatriepatientinnen in Mogilew 1941/42, p. 97). The Einsatzgruppe B reported that  "863  mentally ill people were specially treated", i.e. killed, in Mogilev up to 9 October 1941 (Activity Report of the Einsatzgruppen no. 108, in Cüppers et al., Die Ereignismeldungen UdSSR 1941, p. 663). Note that the Operation and Situation Report no. 6 of the Einsatzgruppen states that these victims were actually "shot" (reproduced in Klein, Die Einsatzgruppen in der besetzten Sowjetunion 1941/42, p. 229) -  in the light of the above cited testimonies this was apparently meant to obfuscate the actual killing method.

The Russian doctors did not mention an experimental gassing prior the large scale killing. It is conceivable that both took place right after the other, i.e. the Einsatzkommando 8 men continued the action after the KTI/RKPA team left the scene. The killing of 600 - 700 mentally people in this single gas chamber in batches of 60 to 80 people on a single day sounds ambitious, but not impossible.

The remaining inmates of the asylum were shot in January 1942 and the facility was closed down on 22 January 1942 to be used as military hospital for the German army (letter A. Stepanov to N. Stepanov of 6 March 1942 & interrogation of A. Stepanov of 20 July 1944, in Istoriya mogilyovskogo evrejstva. Dokumenty i lyudi, book 2, part 2, 2nd. edn., 2010, p. 195 f.).


Yet another gassing action of mentally ill people in a stationary gas chamber in Mogilev by Einsatzkommando 8 occurred in the Summer of 1942. Here's how the deputy of the commando leader, Hans Hasse, described what happened:

"In Summer 1942, I had to get 100 to 120 mentally ill Russians gassed at the order of Gruppenführer Naumann....Von dem Bach-Zelewksi wished that a mentally asylum not far from our office should be cleared. The Higher SS and Police leader intended to install a military hospital for Germans in this asylum occupied by Russian patients...As ordered by Naumann, the mentally were to be killed with the gas van...The next moring, I drove to the asylum together with Prieb. I'm sure the gas van driver was with us...Prieb explained to the Russians that the mentall ill people shall be gassed. He told them how the killing was to supposed to proceed. He informed them that the mentally ill should be brought into a room and that this room should be sealed. The asylum consisted of 2 - 3 one story stone buildings. As far as I remember there were two big rooms in each building. The mentally ill laid on the floor....Then we drove [again] to the asylum with the gas van  and one or two cars. Perhaps there were three cars. This second time we went to the asylum, the mentally ill people had already been brought to the room  and this room was sealed. A hose of about 5 m length as put through an opening in the wall or the door into the room. The gas hose was connected to the engine of the gas van."

(interrogation of Hasse of 10 January 1963, YVA TR10 1118 folder 5, p. 271)

In a later interrogation, he changed the gassing set-up from a gas van connected to the room to "one connection to the exhaust tube of a car and another connection to the exhaust of a truck". (interrogation of Hasse of 2 July 1963, YVA TR10 1118 volume 5, p. 435; the mind change occurred after the stills from the footage were shown to him again).

This gassing was also confirmed by Heinz Schlechte, Karl Strohhammer and Adolf Prieb (interrogation of Schlechte of 29 January 1963, YVA TR.10 File 1118 5, p. 551; interrogation of  Strohhammer of 10 August 1961, BArch B 162 / 3297, p. 169; interrogation of Prieb of 2 July 1962, BArch B 162 / 3298,  p. 253 f.). Schlechte agreed that it was tried to gas the mentally ill with engine exhaust in a room, but believed that the people were ultimately loaded on the gas van.

This gassing followed a similar scheme than those back in 1941. Could the Einsatzkommando 8 men have misdated a gassing in September/October 1941 as Summer 1942? The testimonies place the gassing under the group and commando leaders Erich Naumann and Heinz Richter, who had replaced their successors Nebe and Bradfisch in November 1941 and March 1942, respectively. The gas van mentioned by Hasse and Schlechte reached Einsatzkommando 8 in February 1942. Hence, the dating to Summer 1942 neatly fits to the provided context.

Strohammer, Schlechte and Prieb were already members of Einsatzkommando 8 in September 1941 and so could have had been present at the 1941 gassings. In fact, Strohhammer himself vaguely testified on a prior gassing of mentally ill under Bradfisch in 1941 and Prieb has been identified by the asylum's doctors and Georg Frentzel on the spot. However, Hans Hasse joined Einsatzkommando 8 only in November 1941. Thus, he could not have participated in the gassing earlier the year.

It is not known where exactly this Summer 1942 gassing took place in Mogilev. Probably, mentally ill people, who turned up in the Mogilev area between the closure of the central asylum in January and Summer 1942, were concentrated at some site and killed during this action.

If the test gassing by the KTI/RKPA team is not shown on the film sequences, the next nearest explanation would be that the footage shows the large scale gassing of the Mogilev asylum inmates described by Stepanov et al., so that both the test gassing by Widmann and the large scale gassing in the asylum were necessarily two separate actions at different sites. The testimonies of the Russian witnesses and Frentzel do not include concrete evidence that Nebe's staff and the KTI/RKPA team had been at the site on this day. The datings are too vague (September vs. End of September) or even conflicting (3rd October according to Frentzel's trial vs. 15 September inferred from Widmann, Bauer and Bach's diary entry) to conclude there were one and the same action.

The possible change of the gas chamber between the experimental and the large scale gassing could have made sense if the test gas chamber was considered too small or if it was located in the colony complex some kilometres away from the main asylum or in yet another still unknown location with mentally ill people in Mogilev. If the test gassing was carried out in another site or the colony of the Mogilev asylum, then this raises the question why this was not reported by Stepanov at el. If it was done at another place near Mogilev, it leaves the open question where this was and where the mentally ill came from.

Another possible interpretation is that the footage shows the Summer 1942 action mentioned by Hasse et al. The main drawbacks of this explanation are that the most significant testimonies are either little robust or diverging on relevant details (Hasse, Schlechte) and that the asylum shown on the footage was closed down in January 1942. One would have to presume - without further evidence - that the site in question was only partially closed down or reopened for mentally ill people in Spring and Summer 1942. Nebe was not in charge of Einsatzgruppe B at the time either.

The following features five interpretations of might be shown on the footage and its relation to other gassings with its benefits and drawbacks compared to the others.

Interpretation A: the Mogilev gassing footage shows the test run by the KTI/RKPA team, Nebe's staff and Einsatzkommando 8 in the central asylum in Mogilev followed by the liquidation of the most of the mentally ill described by the asylum's doctors and Georg Frenzel.

• benefits
• Nebe's attested presence & the finding of the footage in his house
• consistency to the asylum doctor's testimony 
• most simple and straightforward 

• drawback
• contradicts testimony of Widmann, Bauer and Schmidt

Mentally ill people were killed with vehicle exhaust in stationary homicidal gas chambers in Mogilev on 2-3 occasions. The first was the experimental gassing in September 1941 by Einsatzgruppe B, Einsatzkommando 8 and the chemist Albert Widmann from the Criminal Technical Institute of the Security Police. If it took place in the central asylum in Mogilev, it is conceivable that it was immediatly followed by the large scale killing of most the inmates described by the asylum's doctors and Einsatzkommando 8 member Georg Frentzel. Alternatively, this was a second, separate action different in time and possibly place. In Summer 1942, Einsatzkommando 8 tried to kill another group of mentally ill people in Mogilev with a similar set-up.

One of those above is depicted on the gassing footage which was taken in the central asylum in Mogilev during an action of Einsatzkommando 8. Neither of the mentioned actions comes along without conflicting or lacking evidence in order to establish beyond reasonable doubt its identity to the film scenes. However, depending on how the benefits and drawbacks of the explanations are weighted, some can be favoured over others.

Despite being denied by the three eyewitnesses, interpretation A that the gassing footage shows the experimental gassing described by Widmann el al. detailed in part 4, seems to have the greatest explanatory power and makes the most simple additional assumptions to favour it as most plausible explanation.