Holocaust Controversies

Twenty years of HC blog

2026-03-23T21:47:00.004+00:00

Happy birthday to us: exactly twenty years ago, the Holocaust Controversies blog was kicked off with the first of over 1,500 posts. It's a strange anniversary given how much time has elapsed and how different the world now is.

Back then, the HC team met online at the original Real Open Debate on the Holocaust forum, an old-fashioned bulletin board, before any of today's social media platforms existed. While Holocaust 'revisionism' had been dealt a huge blow in 2000 with the defeat of David Irving's libel suit against Deborah Lipstadt in London, it seemed to be surging online, largely ignored by the mainstream media. Many of the HC team had been arguing with Holocaust deniers online for years. I myself stumbled across it when googling for materials on Auschwitz, and could scarcely avoid what seemed like a barrage of revisionist propaganda materials. Thus the decision to found the blog.

Twenty years on, the landscape is entirely different. Holocaust denial in 2026 presents an even more paradoxical picture: it has surged once again on various social media platforms, but in a largely headless form, part of a wider upsurge in antisemitism online in the past two to three years. And with that surge, HC's views have as well, passing six million since May 2010 in July 2015 and seven million in February 2026.

Organised revisionism, meanwhile, has come closer than ever to dying a death entirely. In 2009, Mark Weber, the director of the Institute for Historical Review, announced that he no longer saw a point in 'revisionist' activities; in those years also David Irving and David Cole, two of the bigger names from the early 1990s heyday, publicly rejected most of the key tenets of 'revisionism'. Nearly all of the promoters, publishers, authors and activists who stuck to hardcore negationism despite these declarations of apostasy then proceeded to drop like flies: Willis Carto, Bradley Smith, Ernst Zündel, Robert Faurisson, Serge Thion, Samuel Crowell, Fredrick Töben, and Jürgen Graf all passed away, alongside lesser figures who had made names for themselves without really publishing anything, such as Richard Williamson and Ursula Haverbeck. Many of the revisionists we've sparred with online at RODOH and elsewhere have likewise passed away: Fabian 'Sailor' Eschen, Wilfried 'neugierig' Heink, Charles Wing Krafft, Friedrich Paul Berg, and likely others - Carlos Porter's website went offline several years ago, being archived elsewhere, for example.

This near-death experience for organised revisionism hasn't silenced them entirely: Germar Rudolf has kept the lights on at CODOH, despite an attempted coup by Michael Santomauro in December 2023. Rudolf even recently organised 'the first revisionist conference in twenty years' at the start of February 2026. The catch being, there are now only a handful of living revisionists associated with the core enterprise who can contribute to the flagship 'Holocaust Handbooks' series. When HC blog started, this ran to twenty brochures; a further 34 have been published since 2006. Of those, three have recycled older books by now-dead or missing authors (Henri Roques, Walter Sanning, John Ball), two were revisions of earlier books also by now-dead authors (Pierre Marais and Jürgen Graf), and a whopping 22 of the new 34 titles were authored by our old friend Carlo Mattogno, now a venerable 75 years of age. With 21 titles from Mattogno just on Auschwitz across 54 volumes in the series, prolixity becomes self-refuting: who has the time to wade through that much verbiage? Why can't he sum up his arguments concisely?

Chances are, if you've come across HC in the past few years, it's because we've been linked to for our resources, especially Sergey Romanov's Rebutting the Twitter Denial round-up (337K views since May 2017), Roberto Mühlenkamp's Photographic documentation of Nazi crimes (151K views since 2009), and Hans Metzner's index of published evidence on Auschwitz (107K views since 2012). Or downloaded our 2011 white paper on Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka (26K views on archive.org many thousands more on academia.edu and on other online libraries). Numerous Substackers, Redditors, tweeters and others have pointed to HC's resources over the years - we thank everyone for making use of the work we've done.

Other anti-denial websites, especially Gilles Karmasyn's phdn.org, have provided similar resources, archiving the Holocaust History Project website (still a going concern when HC began in 2006) and many others.

The biggest change since 2006, however, has been in the possibilities of digitisation across archives and libraries. Consider this: in 2004, the archives in Washington, DC area, USHMM and the US National Archives at College Park, MD, were relying on microfilm reader-printers; by 2007 these had become reader-scanners. When HC began twenty years ago, digital cameras were only just becoming cheap enough to be used by researchers, so twenty-five years ago, one would take notes in pencil or on laptops. Archives had yet to invest in scanners to digitise their holdings; by the start of the 2010s that had started to change.

While HC blog has regularly posted transcriptions and scans of key sources, our own Hans Metzner has recently set up the Holocaust History Site to post scans, transcriptions *and* translations of key sources in especially German. Both sets of materials see use in classrooms. On HC blog, I have been maintaining a directory of open access sources since 2016, with 59.9K views since then - a resource which has been appreciated by researchers into WWII and the Holocaust with otherwise zero interest in Holocaust denial. Since 2020, with systematic digitisation at the Bundesarchiv, US National Archives and other European archives, from Switzerland to Poland and Ukraine, the volume of historical sources from the 1930s and 1940s has increased exponentially. The oldest and largest Holocaust archives - the Wiener Library, Ghetto Fighters' House, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem - have been either early adopters of digitisation or have embraced it wholeheartedly when they took the plunge. This has supported yet more reference sites such as Yad Vashem's Untold Stories project, documenting over 1,200 localities within the borders of the wartime Soviet Union where Jews were murdered, with translated sources for all of them.

In 2006, HC blogged about the then brand new agreement to open up the archives of the International Tracing Service at Arolsen, Germany. The following summer in 2007, I watched as a procession of hard drives arrived at USHMM with the digital copies of the archive being shared around the world. By the end of the 2010s, much of the Arolsen Archives were made open access online.

The range of open access literature and published sources has likewise exploded, to the point where it's difficult to keep fully on top of what is and isn't on an open access library, or has been uploaded to a historian's academia.edu page. The first four volumes of USHMM's Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos are now fully open access both on JSTOR as well as a convenient subsite at Project Muse. All West and East German trial judgements - 63 volumes worth - have been open access at Justiz und NS-Verbrechen for over three years now. All sixteen volumes of the Persecution and Murder of European Jews series are open access in German, the English translations are following behind with only a short moving wall; the full published edition of the Goebbels diaries is likewise now open access. Hundreds of yizkor books, memorial books to destroyed Jewish communities in Eastern Europe, have been translated to English and can be found on JewishGen.

So, what to do with all of this material? This anniversary post goes up almost exactly eight months since we last made a new post on HC. While none of the regular HC bloggers have been scythed down in the way that revisionist authors have been in the past twenty years, it's nonetheless true that the core team has largely moved on. Roberto Mühlenkamp and Jonathan Harrison are both inactive; Hans Metzner is concentrating on the aforementioned Holocaust History Site, while Sergey Romanov is focused on his research on the Katyn and Vinnytsia Soviet killing sites and debunking of Russian Katyn deniers; you can read his work at the Katyn Files (and browser translators mean you don't need to know Russian to do so). Andrew Mathis is around, but less active. Our guest bloggers and white paper contributors - Jason Willis Myers, Joachim Neander, Statistical Mechanic - have likewise moved on or retired. I myself devote most of my time to teaching history at university level, on themes far broader than the Holocaust, having devised courses on comparative histories of violence, on the German occupation of Poland and the Soviet Union in WWII - thus concerned 50:50 with the fates of Jews and non-Jews, and now also contributing to a course on the Second World War as a global war.

Sustaining interest in 'debunking' is a long-term impossibility, and we have never monetised the blog or sought to profit from the work on display here. There just isn't as much 'activity' from Holocaust deniers as there is from pseudoarchaeologists, pseudohistorians and ancient aliens enthusiasts, which has kept a debunker/researcher like Jason Colavito busy for decades.

Passing the twenty year anniversary, at a time when Holocaust denial has surged in some parts of social media, despite the near-death of 'organised revisionism', does however make me resolved to revive HC. That could be posting more often about the new digital resources, or exploring older denial texts that remain inexplicably popular. Arthur Butz's The Hoax of the Twentieth Century is about to, or has just had, its fiftieth anniversary.

As the founder of HC blog, I'd also like to open up the possibility of recruiting new contributors, who might pick up the baton and who can respond to denial as it currently is, in its vague, diffuse form. Voicing denier sentiments might well be simply a form of vice signalling, or just another tool in the antisemitic repertoire and another way of attacking and trying to hurt Jews, 'libtards', and the other enemies of the terminally online contrarians. Perhaps pop over to Skeptics Society Forum, where Hans and I still post, and where other veterans of anti-denier arguments online still post, to introduce yourself if you might be interested in helping out.

In the meantime, a huge thank you once again to all our readers and everyone who's ever made use of the Holocaust Controversies blog.

German Footage of a Homicidal Gassing with Engine Exhaust. Part 7: Tactical Symbol & Homicidal Gas Van

2025-07-25T22:22:00.013+01:00

German Footage of a Homicidal Gassing with Engine Exhaust

Part 1: Provenance

Part 2: Location

Part 3: Responsibility (I)

Part 4: Responsibility (II)

Part 5: Responsibility (III)

Part 6: Forgery Allegation

Part 7: Tactical Symbol & Homicidal Gas Van

If there were still anyone in the world who harbored even the slightest doubt about the authenticity of the film footage showing the Nazi gas killing operation at the psychiatric hospital in Mogilev, those doubts should now be dispelled.

Mogilev gassing footage

Recall that the truck, whose exhaust pipe is connected to the building wall, bears a tactical symbol and a numerical designation on the rear side of the flatbed (see Figure 1). Until now, these markings could not be clearly identified - but that has changed.

Figure 1: Still of Mogilev gassing footage with tactical sign on the truck

As reported in another blog post, the only known photographic evidence of a Nazi gas van using engine exhaust for killing was recently published. In one of these photos, the gas van used by Sonderkommando 7a of Einsatzgruppe B is seen from behind with its doors closed. On the left rear door of the box body, a tactical symbol and the designation "VIIa" are clearly visible (see Figure 2).


Figure 2: Photograph of homicidal gas van of SK 7a (from: Cameron Munro, "Engineered for Mass Murder – The Nazi Gas Vans: 1939–1945")

Here is the crucial point: The exact same tactical symbol appears on the truck shown in the Mogilev gassing footage - just in that case, it is followed by "IX" (see Figure 2). The symbol was apparently used to mark vehicles of Einsatzgruppe B, while the number denoted the specific Einsatzkommando or Sonderkommando.

Figure 3: Comparison between rear of Mogilev gassing truck (left) and SK 7a gas van (right)

The truck used in Mogilev therefore belonged - at least temporarily - to Einsatzkommando 9 of Einsatzgruppe B. Since the license plate visible on the vehicle can be linked to Einsatzkommando 8, it may be that the truck originally served with Kommando 9 and was later transferred to Kommando 8.

The tactical symbol on the truck provide further evidence that it belonged to Einsatzgruppe B - and thus confirm that the footage is indeed authentic documentation of a gassing operation carried out by Einsatzgruppe B at the psychiatric institution in Mogilev.

First Published Photographs of Nazi Homicidal Gas Van with Engine Exhaust

2025-07-11T22:11:00.013+01:00

Cameron A. Munro has recently published "Engineered for Mass Murder – The Nazi Gas Vans: 1939–1945", a book in which he presents 15 photographs depicting a homicidal gas van built on a petrol-powered Diamond T chassis.

These photographs were taken in April 1942 by SS-Rottenführer August Vielkind of the Waffen-SS reserve, who was part of the advance detachment of Sonderkommando 7a of Einsatzgruppe B, marching from Klintsy via Gomel to Sychyovka. The images were used by prosecutors in Dortmund during investigations into members of Sonderkommando 7a. However, as Munro notes, it seems they "did not forward the photographs to West-German investigators of other units" and "the photographs then lay forgotten in the files of the Landesarchiv Nordrhein-Westfalen in Münster for many years".

It’s remarkable that such historically significant material can still be discovered after so many years. And fittingly - characteristic of authentic historical research - the deeper one digs, the more corroborating rather than contradicting evidence tends to emerge.

I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the history and mechanics of the Nazi homicidal gas vans.

Saurer Company or Why even Rudolf has shown the Diesel Issue is irrelevant on Gas Vans ("Rebuttal of "Holocaust Encyclopedia")

2025-05-24T21:45:00.028+01:00

For decades, Holocaust deniers have claimed that the Saurer gas vans had to have diesel engines, and since diesel exhaust has lower carbon monoxide, they conclude the vans couldn’t have been used for murder. The argument is irrelevant as the RSHA turned chassis with gasoline engines into gas vans. A detailed refutation of the "diesel issue" argument was published ten years ago and has never been answered in substance to my knowledge (see Rebuttal of Alvarez on Gas Vans: Why the Diesel Issue is Still Irrelevant). Denier Alvarez’s new edition (2023) of his book "The Gas Vans" continues to repeat it, without a single source, counter-argument, or whisper of a rebuttal to the refutations that already exist.

Germar Rudolf’s entry "Saurer Company" in CODOH's Holocaust Encyclopedia tries a fresh variation:

He notes that the RSHA motor pool acquired a number of Saurer 5-ton chassis in 1942 and the company Gaubschat in Berlin built a cargo box on each chassis - "for an unspecified purpose". The historical consensus (or as Rudolf like to call it "orthodoxy") holds that these were mobile gas chambers. Rudolf argues that because gasoline-engined trucks were supposedly "much easier" to obtain from other manufacturers, the RSHA’s Saurers “must have had diesel engines".

Here’s where the things get interesting.

Rudolf concedes for the first time what deniers once swore was impossible and what we have pointed out at this blog: that Saurer did, in fact, produce gasoline-engine trucks during the war - in the French factory in Suresnes near Paris

But just when you think he might finally stumble into truth, he goes back to form and claims - without evidence - that the French factory "phased out the last gasoline-engine trucks in 1941".

The Saurer branch in Suresnes produced 3.766 vehicles between 1940 and 1944 with "production focused primarily on five-tonners with gasoline engines, which accounted for no less than three-quarters of total production" ("Saurer. Vom Ostschweizer Kleinbetrieb zum internationalen Technologiekonzern", p. 198).

There is therefore no factual basis that the gasoline Saurer were phased out in 1941.

So Rudolf claims the RSHA would have found it "much easier" to buy gasoline trucks from other makers. That assumes knowledge he does not have. In reality, we have no clue which five-ton gasoline-powered chassis would have been easier for the Security Police to acquire - because answering that would require analysis and actual expertise in wartime logistics, procurement procedures, agencies, institutional hierarchies, and the personalities involved.

The reality of wartime vehicle procurement was far more complex than determining the production output of a manufacturer. For example, the Security Police in Berlin was equipped with a various makes of trucks confiscated from occupied France - hardly a sign that they had their pick of new vehicles rolling off the lines at major domestic plants (Bundesarchiv R 58/7658).

As Friedrich Pradel, the Security Police’s vehicle procurement officer, later testified on the gas vans, the Wehrmacht's motor pool office refused to allocate truck chassis to the RSHA. His superior, Walter Rauff was forced to source the first batch of vehicles through the motor pool department of the Security Service (SD) instead (interrogation of Pradel of 26 April 1966, NHStA NDS. 721 Hannover Acc. 97/99 Nr.10/32).

These initial gas vans weren't acquired through standard military supply channels; they were cobbled together through internal networks and Party stock. Only later did the Wehrmacht finally approve a second batch of trucks: gasoline-powered Saurer chassis from the Suresnes factory in occupied France. The fact that they were not offered domestic vehicles might be no accident. Perhaps the army preferred to keep German-built vehicles for its own operations and was content to pass the heavy, French-made gasoline trucks to the Security Police. Who knows.

On top of that, the argument is beside the point. Even if - for the sake of argument - there were some general preference or higher likelihood for using Saurer diesels or non-Saurer petrols for unspecified purposes, that probability drops straight to zero the moment we consider the documented use of the Saurer "special vehicles" as gas vans. Or in other words, it is more likely that the Security Police was purchasing gasoline-powered Saurer from the French factory than trying to kill people with Diesel engine exhaust. Rudolf's modified diesel argument is useless as a defense - it doesn't help the deniers case one bit.

So, on the positive side, Rudolf finally admits that Saurer was producing chassis with gasoline engines during the war years. That’s progress - a step in the right direction and a slap to the "Saurer-were-all-diesels" choir of revisionists.

Why Producer Gas Wasn’t Used (Rebuttal of "Holocaust Encyclopedia")

2025-04-19T13:03:00.012+01:00

Holocaust deniers often fixate on fringe technicalities or imagined inconsistencies to avoid confronting the overwhelming documentary, testimonial, and forensic evidence. One of their rhetorical questions goes something like this: "If gas chambers were real, why didn't the Nazis use producer gas?"

Well, challenge accepted.

What is Producer Gas?

Producer gas, also known as wood gas, is generated through the gasification of solid biomass - typically wood or charcoal - in a low-oxygen environment. The result is a mix of gases including carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen (H₂), carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), and a large portion of nitrogen (N₂).

According to Imbert company - Germany's leading producer gas generator manufacturer during the war - the typical gas composition was as follows: [1]

47% nitrogen
23% carbon monoxide
18% hydrogen
10% carbon dioxide
2% methane

With its high level of carbon monoxide, producer gas is highly toxic to humans.

During World War II, wood gas generators were used in Germany as emergency substitutes for liquid fuels. Vehicles, particularly in the rear areas, were retrofitted with these bulky devices out of necessity, due to fuel shortages and rationing.

The "Revisionist" Argument

When Germany and her allies were cut off from foreign oil supplies by the Allied naval blockade during World War Two, producer-gas generators became an important technology for the Axis powers in Europe. These devices could be fired with wood, coal or coke, and could be tweaked to contain as much as 35% of CO.
[...]
Therefore, when the so-called “Final Solution” was reaching its peak in 1942 and 1943, Germany had tens of thousands of engineers and mechanics familiar with this lethal-gas technology, hundreds of thousands of drivers capable of operating these devices, and an equal number of these poison-gas devices present literally everywhere, with no limitation on fuel.

Yet no one has ever claimed that this technology was used to kill even one single person.

(Holocaust Encyclopedia. uncensored and unconstrained)

This line of argument has appeared in various iterations from Holocaust deniers like Friedrich Berg, Jürgen Graf, Santiago Alvarez, Thomas Dalton, and Nicholas Kollerstrom [2], and in discussions on the CODOH revisionist forum. This argument has become part of the canon of Holocaust denial.

The logic runs like this:

Producer gas was widely used in Germany and easily produced.
It was highly toxic with lethal levels of CO.
It required no strategic fuel.
Therefore, it would have been the most "logical" method for mass killing.
And since it wasn’t used, the narrative of homicidal gassings must be false.

Please note that this argument is often paired with the so-called "diesel issue" - the claim that diesel engines couldn’t produce enough carbon monoxide to kill efficiently. But this line of reasoning collapses immediately, because it’s based on a false premise: the Nazis didn’t use diesel engines for homicidal gassings - they used gasoline engines (see on this blog Why the "diesel issue" is irrelevant and Rebuttal of Alvarez on Gas Vans: Why the Diesel Issue is Still Irrelevant ).

Engine Exhaust Was Used. Here’s Why.

The Nazis went for carbon monoxide as "silent killer" as early as 1939, during the Aktion T4 euthanasia program. In that context, they used pure carbon monoxide delivered in steel cylinders. But scaling that method to the mass murder operations in the East wasn’t logistically viable - gas delivery was too limited, too centralized, and too slow for mobile killing operations.

The alternative was carbon monoxide from gasoline engines:

Gasoline engines are known to produce lethal levels of carbon monoxide (in fact, a well known method of suicide).

They were readily available, state-of-the-art technology, and could be literally operated by anyone with a driver’s license

There is no evidence that the Security Police operated any producer gas fuelled vehicles around late 1941 and early 1942. The Security Police did not need producer gas, when gas vans were deployed to the Einsatzgruppen and Chełmno extermination camp and stationary gas chambers began operating in places like Belzec. At that point in the war, the Third Reich had access to roughly 8 million tons of liquid fuel, and that level held steady through 1943. The fuel crisis only truly hit in 1944 after the Allied bombing of synthetic fuel plants and the loss of Romanian oil.

Moreover, the Security Police and its mobile Einsatzgruppen were fuel-privileged institutions. These weren’t rural officials driving along on wood gas - they were well-equipped, fully motorized units with dedicated fuel allocations or direct access to Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS supply networks.

The Gestapo offices alone had monthly allocations of 250,000 liters of gasoline (BArch R 58/856/91). Sonderkommando Kulmhof burned 15,000 liters just to run a few trucks deporting Jews between January and May 1942. The Einsatzgruppen had their own mobile fuel tankers.

There was no shortage that forced a switch to alternative fuels, no political directive pushing for it within the Security Police until as late as 1944, and no technical motivation. Thus, there was no incentive to use producer gas, when gasoline-powered engines worked just fine.

Producer Gas - And Why It Wasn’t Used

While workable in rear logistics or agricultural vehicles, producer gas was largely unsuitable for frontline or police operations. Converting vehicles to run on producer gas came with serious drawbacks, it meant "reduced performance, poorer efficiency, cumbersome handling, [and] higher maintenance". [3]

Startup time: Gasifiers had to be heated before they could produce usable gas.

Power loss: Vehicles retrofitted for wood gas suffered from reduced engine performance

Bulky: The gasifier units were heavy and took up valuable space, reducing capacity
Maintenance: Producer gas generators required frequent cleaning, careful operation, and constant monitoring

Explosion risk: The flames of the gasifier unit and combustible gas mix (high in CO and hydrogen) posed a danger - especially in enclosed spaces like gas chambers. Producer gas generators were forbidden near explosive mixtures.

These limitations made producer gas a more challenging choice for mass killing operations - for the gas vans and - though to a bit lesser extent - also for stationary use in extermination camps such as Treblinka, Belzec, and Sobibor during Operation Reinhard.

In fact, it is all but certain that had the Nazis actually used producer gas, Holocaust deniers would likely be arguing the exact opposite - that gasoline engines would have been more practical, more safe, and more believable all along. That game is all too familiar.

Best Method? Flex method

The Nazis employed a wide range of killing methods - starvation, beatings, shootings, lethal injections, carbon monoxide from gas cylinders, engine exhaust, and Zyklon B. These methods often coexisted. This diversity was not random; it reflected the fact that what was considered "best" varied across different killing sites and operational contexts.

What is perceived as the "best" method depends on many factors. There is no universal formula in state-sponsored mass murder, where decisions are made in real time under constrained conditions, with the tools and knowledge at hand.

The decision to use gasoline engine exhaust as a killing method was not the result of a prestigious expert panel or a broad expert consensus. It was a practical solution developed within a small inner circle of the Nazi police apparatus, specifically for use by the Security Police and the Einsatzgruppen. That’s why Auschwitz - administered separately by the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office (WVHA) - was not part of this initiative and developed its own Zyklon B route, just in case you were wondering.

Footnotes:

[1] Eckermann, Fahren mit Holz, p. 17.

[2] Friedrich Berg in: Germar Rudolf (ed.), Dissecting the Holocaust, 2019, p. 465 - 467: "The vast numbers of producer gas vehicles as well as the fervor with which the Germans developed new vehicles and uses for this gas technology, which is so evident throughout their wartime automotive literature, undermine the Holocaust story in general. If the Germans had ever intended to commit mass murder with carbon monoxide, they certainly would have had enough brains to employ this superb poison-gas technology long before using anything as idiotic as Diesel exhaust. [...] Another irony is the fact that the same producer-gas technology was actually used to gas rats and other vermin. According to the public-health literature from the Third Reich, producer-gas equipment from the firm of Nocht-Giemsa for killing rats was “very common.”And yet, no one thought of using this obvious, practical, effective, simple and cheap technology on humans – even Jews who had sometimes been compared to rats as in the film Der Ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew). [...] What argues most strongly against all such gas-van stories is that the use of any kind of liquid fuel in medium and heavy trucks had already been prohibited a year earlier by Speer on September 22, 1942; smaller vehicles were still exempt until a year later (see Chapter 9). Assuming that anyone would have broken the law for a few percent of CO from gasoline engine exhaust – or even only a fraction of a percent from Diesel engine exhaust – when the legally required fuel was far more lethal, is too ridiculous. It never happened! "

Nicholas Kollerstrom, 2014, Breaking the Spell, p. 63: "If you believe that Germany had a wish to exterminate a particular ethnic group – for no discernible reason – and if you wish to believe they did so by herding crowds into a large room that would not have looked at all like a washroom (i.e. it could not have had any windows, or they would be smashed, and would have needed large, metallic outward-opening doors that clanged shut, and could not have had drains in the floor) then, clearly, mass murder would have been simple and efficient using the readily-available producer gas, because it has one-third carbon monoxide by volume;"

Santiago Alvarez, The Gas Vans: "But not even gasoline engines would have been the choice of a potential mass murder, since Germany had an even cheaper, less complicated, and more efficient method readily at hand: wood gas or producer gas generators." (p. 101) "Hence, if the Germans had used the Saurer trucks mentioned in the Gaubschat exchange as gas vans – or any other truck – they would have been equipped with wood gas generators, and this very gas – before(!) entering the engine – would have been used to kill the inmates locked up on the cargo box." (p. 272)

Thomas Dalton, Debating the Holocaust, 2015, p. 116: "A second option, though, was much better: producer- or wood-gas generators. These devices burned wood or colce/coal in a small stove in order to create COgas, which was then used as fuel in the engine. Producer-gas generators were very efficient at producing high-concentration carbon monoxide—typically in the range of 18-35%. At these levels, anyone exposed to this gas would die very quickly. [... ] Though hazardous, such devices were well-known to the Germans, who mass-produced them; some 500,000 were in use throughout the Reich. And obviously a producer-gas homicidal chamberwould have been a potential fire hazard—given that high levels of CO are flammable—but the Germans would have had no problem engineering such a system, if they desired."

Jürgen Graf in: Carlo Mattogno & Jürgen Graf, Treblinka. Extermination Camp or Transit Camp?, 2016, p.123: "But that would have by no means been the ‘best’ source of CO available during World War II: due to a lack of gasoline, the German government passed laws that made it compulsory to equip all diesel-driven vehicles with producer gas generators, which generate a gas with up to 35% of CO from wood or coke. Hundreds of thousands of these truly poisonous generators operated in wartime Germany and in the occupied territories, and this technology was well-known to all major German politicians at that time, as Berg shows."

[3] Eckermann, Fahren mit Holz, p. 126.

How We Already Debunked Your Franke-Gricksch Report Denial Before You Even Hit 'Publish'

2024-12-18T09:31:00.013+00:00

There’s a relatively new holocaust denier blog called Holocaust Claims (https://www.holocaust.claims) churning out posts every other day in 2023. While the pace slowed considerably in 2024, the quality refused to improve.

There is piece titled The Franke–Gricksch Report from September 2023 which quotes fellow denier Jürgen Graf and tosses in another shaky point gleaned from some video clip. The arguments have been dismantled right here on this blog back in 2019:

- number of muffles in the crematorium, here and here and here.

- coke consumption and freshly burnt, here and here

- ventilation duration, here and here

- death time, here

- cremation capacity, here and here and here and here

- hiding jewelry, here and here

- special tracks in specially designated districts of the camp, here and here and here

It's also telling that, in 2023, a Holocaust denier still harps on Eric Lipman’s quick and dirty typed copy of the report as if the clean carbon copy we discovered and published in 2019 doesn’t exist.

Never Change a Winning Method: How the Nazis Planned to Gas a French General with Carbon Monoxide

2024-12-14T08:32:00.016+00:00

On October 28, 1944, the German General Fritz von Brodowski was shot in Allied captivity. Three months later, on 19 January 1945, the Nazis retaliated by shooting the French General Gustave Mesny in a staged escape attempt.

Given the foreign policy implications, the German Foreign Office was involved in planning the killing and left behind a paper trail, see Kaltenbrunner’s Execution Proposal to Himmler: "Carbon Monoxide Introduced Via an Apparatus Operated From the Driver’s Seat". On December 30, 1944, RSHA chief Ernst Kaltenbrunner sent Himmler two murder options:

1) During the relocation of 5 individuals in 3 vehicles with Wehrmacht insignia, an escape scenario arises when the last vehicle breaks down, or

2) Carbon monoxide is introduced into the sealed rear compartment of the vehicle via an apparatus operated from the driver's seat. The device can be installed with the simplest means and removed immediately afterward. A suitable vehicle has now been obtained after significant difficulties.

The very next bright idea after shooting was gassing with carbon monoxide? It’s almost as if the Security Police had some prior experience with this method. Oh right - they had:

Before deniers start questioning why a suitable vehicle was needed despite the existence of gas vans, let’s set the record straight: First, by this stage of the war, the gas vans employed for mass gassings may have already been dismantled. Secondly, the plan was to gas the French General in a car befitting his rank, not in the cargo compartment of a truck.

Review of Holocaust Handbooks Volume 23 - Carlo Mattogno, Chełmno (Part IV - Testimony of Chełmno Escapee Szlama Winer)

2024-11-29T19:12:00.001+00:00

Part I - Method

Part II - Scholarly Avoidance

Part III - Systematic Analysis of One Example

Part IV - Testimony of Chełmno Escapee Szlama Winer

Szlama Winer escaped Chełmno extermination camp on January 19, 1942 and upon arriving in the Warsaw Ghetto, provided a detailed account of the atrocities committed there. His report is extensive, comprising approximately 15,450 words and 692 sentences in its English translation. Carlo Mattogno even mocks the "extraordinary wealth of detail" and a "truly prodigious memory". It's remarkable that detailed recollection is now considered as a flaw in eyewitness testimony.

Slzama Winer

One might think that such a detailed testimony would provide ample material for a thorough analysis. Yet, Mattogno, in his critique, chooses to come up with a mere handful of points - six, to be precise - in an attempt to discredit the entire account as "completely unreliable".

Timekeeping

Mattogno ponders, "We should first note that, as soon as they arrived at Chełmno, the “diggers,” including “Szlamek,” had to hand over “all money and valuables”, and therefore watches. How could he then always be so sure about the time?" (p.52)

Ah, yes, genius, because without a wristwatch, one must be utterly lost in time. Even as Jewish prisoner in Chelmno extermination camp, one could estimate time through various means.

It is plausible that a prisoner managed to conceal a watch during the initial confiscations. Prisoners tasked with sorting through the belongings of victims may have come across watches or clocks and discreetly kept them. Guards may have even provided a clock to help prisoners adhere to the camp's strict schedules. In other instances, prisoners could have been directly informed of the time by guards issuing orders.

The routines imposed by the guards would also allow prisoners to estimate the time based on these recurring activities. Guards themselves might have openly discussed the time, checked their own watches, or followed visible routines that signaled time changes. Winer might also have relied on natural indicators, such as the position of the sun, to approximate the time.

Gassing Procedures

Mattogno asserts "What is certain is that the description of the witness is in stark contrast to the orthodox version on two essential points. First, according to this orthodox version, the victims were loaded into the “gas vans” at Chełmno Castle and murdered on the way to the camp, whereas the testimony reviewed here claims that the assassination was carried out directly at the camp in a hermetically closed “gas van” and even in the absence of the driver." (p. 54)

The "stark contrast" Mattogno perceives is easily resolved when one considers that the gassing procedures at Chełmno could have evolved over time. According to Winer's account, during the earliest weeks of the camp’s activity, the process involved transporting victims from the so called "palace" directly to the nearby forest camp, where the gassing procedure was conducted.

However, after the events of December 1941 and January 1942 - possibly influenced by the escapes of Jewish prisoners - the Sonderkommando Kulmhof likely revised their methods. They may have recognized that transporting live victims increased the risk of resistance or escape or attention and so prioritized killing the victims at the palace grounds before transporting the corpses to the forest for burial.

Witnesses who testified after the war recalled the later and more frequent gassings conducted at the palace grounds, either because they arrived at the scene after January 1942 or because this phase of the operation lasted longer and left a stronger impression. Both accounts - gassing at the palace and gassing at the forest camp - are compatible when viewed in the context of an extermination process that adapted to practical challenges over time.

Exhaust Pipe Connection

Mattogno notes, "Second, according to the orthodox version it was necessary to connect the exhaust pipe of the engine with a special flexible pipe to the interior of the cargo box, an operation that was performed outside the vehicle." (p. 55)

First, it is essential to recognize that this detail comes from hearsay knowledge passed on to Winer by other prisoners. Judging Winer's reliability based on secondhand information seems a bit of a stretch Historical sources often include elements relayed by others, which does not detract from their core accuracy but rather reflects the fragmented way in which information was shared.

As for the specific claim about the exhaust pipe connection, it is entirely plausible that the Jewish prisoner who passed on this description to Winer overlooked the detail of the driver quickly bending over to attach the flexible exhaust tube to the cargo box. Such technical details might not have been consistently observed or described under the circumstances on-site.

This emphasizes why corroborating multiple sources from different perspectives and provenances is crucial in reconstructing historical events. Each source, report, testimony, artifact etc. provides a piece of information, and together they form a more complete picture of what occurred.

Overpressure

Mattogno claims, "in the history of the “gas vans,” if one thing is certain it is that the system of piping engine-exhaust gases into a hermetically sealed cargo box cannot work, because the pressure inside the sealed cargo box would either shut down the engine or burst the cargo box (see Alvarez 2011, Subsection 1.3.2.)." (p. 55)

While Winer stated that the doors were "hermetically sealed," let's not pretend he was providing an engineering blueprint. Based solely on his account, one cannot rule out the possibility of design features such as overpressure flaps or vents located elsewhere on the vehicle that could have allowed excess pressure to escape.

Now, there is no significant evidence that the two gas vans employed in Chelmno in January 1942 were equipped with any specific pressure relief mechanisms. Interestingly, one of the designs included a "drain opening with closure in the right front box bottom," a feature that could, in principle, also have functioned for pressure relief. Overpressure flaps were explicitly requested for planned modifications of Saurer gas vans scheduled for fabrication after September 1942.

However, most importantly Holocaust deniers like Mattogno and his comrade Alvarez have yet to grace us with any mechanical stress calculations or empirical evidence to back up their bursting van theory. How much exhaust gas was emitted into the cargo box per minute by the engine in question? What's the failure threshold of a steel-reinforced hardboard box of the dimensions used in the gas vans? What were the leakage currents, especially as the box became pressurized? Leaks around joints, seals, or imperfect closures would naturally allow some pressure to escape.

The argument that the system "could not have worked" hinges on assertions not supported by rigorous technical analysis.

Corpse Color

Mattogno argues, "So the alleged victims of “gas vans” murdering with carbon monoxide should normally have a “cherry-pink” color, but, as we have seen, according to the witness, they had a “natural skin tone.” Therefore, if the witness described a reality in this case, the corpses he witnessed had not died of poisoning by exhaust gas." (p. 57)

Not all victims of carbon monoxide poisoning exhibit the "cherry red" skin coloration. The appearance of carbon monoxide poisoning can vary based on numerous factors, including concentration levels, duration of exposure, oxygen deprivation, state of shock of being crammed into a gas van, environmental conditions, individual physiological differences, health, nutritional state. In cold temperatures, as noted by Winer, vasoconstriction can reduce peripheral blood flow and diminish skin discoloration. In cases of mass gassing, especially under the brutal conditions described, the physical symptoms visible to a layman may not align perfectly with textbook cases.

An update about diesel and gas vans at the Krasnodar trial

2024-11-26T07:22:00.005+00:00

In the article "Why the "diesel issue" is irrelevant" I pointed out:

"Deniers also like to point to the two 1943 Soviet gas vans trials in Krasnodar and Kharkov. It was claimed by the Soviets that the gas van engines were diesels. Nick checked out the published English translations of trial transcripts (The People's Verdict), and found only one place where a witness mentions specifically diesel engine (p. 17, interrogation of accused Tishchenko). Given the Soviet propensity for tampering with the published transcripts, one should check the unedited version to see if it mentions "diesel" in this place. Anyway, one swallow does not make a summer, and Tishchenko wasn't even a gas van driver. The rest of the mentions were prosecution's statements, etc. - not the relevant kind of evidence."

I have now gone through the pretrial interrogations of the Krasnodar trial, as well as its original transcript, and found interesting and useful information.

During the interrogation of 08.06.1943 Tischenko indeed mentions a diesel engine. But in the same breath he mentions the use of бензин - gasoline - for gassings:

"As the German translator [Ivan] SHERTERLAN told me, this vehicle had a carrying capacity of up to 15 tons and could hold up to 100 people. SHERTERLAN also confirmed to me that the vehicle was designed for killing people, explaining that during the engine's operation, part of the gasoline and oil was directed directly into the muffler, where it transformed under the influence of high temperatures into a vaporous state and, along with poisonous gases, was directed through pipes into the body."

Same statement was first made on 28.02.1943.

Clearly, he was not well-versed technically and his testimony could just as easily be used to support the gasoline gassings, given that all the technical details, even if later distorted, were given to Tishchenko by the translator.

During the trial Pushkaryov, who helped loading corpses into the gas vans, actually provided an interesting description of them, omitted in the published version:

"Once, I went to the garage to get gasoline for a lighter, and there was this vehicle. I examined it in detail.
It was a large 7-8 ton vehicle with a diesel engine, painted dark gray. Fake windows were made by hand. The planks were nailed in such a way that it could not be seen whether there were windows. The interior of the vehicle was lined with galvanized iron, and the iron sheets were soldered together.
The doors of the vehicle were hermetically sealed with the help of rubber gaskets. On the floor, there was a wooden grid. At the bottom of the vehicle, there was a hose connected to the exhaust pipe."

"Expert [Prozorovsky]: I have one. The expert commission requests to specify the dimensions of the "dushegubka": its length, width, and height of the body.
Defendant: I understand the question. Its length was 8 meters, its height was2-2.5 meters, and its width was 2 meters.
Expert: How many axles did this vehicle have?
Defendant: I know that it was six-wheeled.
Expert: How many horsepower did the engine have?
Defendant: I don’t know for sure. I know it had 12 cylinders, but I don’t know how many horsepower.
Expert: Was it the same vehicle you observed from the second-floor window, which was under repair?
Defendant: The same one.
Presiding Officer: How can you confirm this?
Defendant: By its external appearance, length, and size — it was the same.
Expert: In this vehicle, where were the openings located: along the edges or in the middle of the floor of the body?
Defendant: The openings were located in the center of the body, closer to the sides.
Expert: How many openings?
Defendant: I saw two openings, approximately 4 centimeters in size, round in diameter."

During the pretrial interrogation of 10.06.1943 some details were different:

"The vehicle was a 7-ton truck with a body painted in gray, featuring fake windows on the sides. According to my observations, the vehicle had a 6-8 cylinder engine."

"Here I saw that after the boarding of Soviet citizens into the vehicle was completed, the vehicle door closed and the engine was started. After idling with the engine running for 10-15 minutes, the vehicle drove out of the Gestapo yard, in which direction - I do not know. But in the same month, I saw this vehicle standing for repairs in garage No. 1 on Ordzhonikidze St. No. 52. The repairs were carried out by German and Russian drivers (I do not know their names).

When the vehicle was in the garage yard, I examined it in detail and can say the following:

The vehicle had a long body with double walls, with a double-leaf door at the back, covered with iron. Inside, the vehicle was lined with iron. There were no seats in the vehicle, on the floor was a wooden grate. Under the grate, there were holes that were connected by a hose to the engine."

No mention of diesel yet. Also no mention of diesel in the 17.06.1943 or 27.06.1843 interrogations, where the van is described again. Thus the possibility should not be excluded that Pushkaryov's trial testimony could be influenced by the prior testimony by Tishchenko.

Rechkalov was asked whether he had seen reddish or pinkish corpses and described the color of the corpses fresh out of the van as pale yellow and as if with bruises as well as claimed to have seen feces in the van (and said that maybe there was also urine). This indicates that at the time Rechkalov saw this, the people probably died of pure asphyxiation rather than CO poisoning. This was the problem described by Becker in his infamous letter. Interestingly, Becker notes that after the problem was fixed, "distorted faces and excretions, such as could be seen before, are no longer noticed."

In Rechkalov's apparently first written statement he describes the van thus:

"Mass suffocation of prisoners was carried out in the following manner: stripped people were herded into a large vehicle, which could hold 100-200 individuals. The interior was lined with iron, and the dense floor was covered with a wooden grating. The door was securely locked, and the vehicle's engine was started. A hose was connected to the exhaust pipe, through which the processed exhaust gases entered an opening in the vehicle's floor. The hot gas spread beneath the grating throughout the vehicle. In convulsions and due to lack of air, accompanied by heart-rending screams, within 10 minutes, everyone inside dies."

Diesel engine is mentioned during the 01.03.1943 interrogation:

"Once, I had the opportunity to be present during the execution of one group of prisoners; I briefly inspected it [dueshegubka] and can report the following:

The 'dushegubka' as it was called in the 'Sonderkommando,' was a 15-ton vehicle equipped with a powerful diesel engine. It had a sealed body of large size, capable of holding up to 100 people, which could be hermetically sealed. Inside the body, along the front and left sides, there was a Г-shaped pipe with multiple drilled holes. One end of this pipe was connected to the muffler of the engine and extended under the vehicle body."

During the 05.03.1943 interrogation Rechkalov clarified, that the details of the functioning of the gas van he learned not only from own observations, but also from the Sonderkommando's shoemaker (?), who described the technical part. And later he also said that Tishchenko told him a lot of technical details about the van after their arrest. His diesel claim is therefore not necessarily an eyewitness claim in the first place and can be an assumption, also influenced by Tishchenko.

An interesting description appears during the 10.06.1943 interrogation:

"The policemen accompanying the 'dushegubka', including myself, rode behind it on horseback. While the road was good, the vehicle overtook us, and at one point, we completely lost sight of it. Upon approaching the 'ZIP' area, the road became muddy and impassable, and the gas van got stuck there. Catching up to it, we helped to pull it out."

This corresponds to the description in Becker's letter, that the gas vans were almost unusable in bad weather.

Rechkalov provided more details when confronted with the witness Ivanova on 03.05.1943:

"When the 'dushegubka' was loaded and drove out of the Gestapo yard, we accompanied it on horseback to the anti-tank ditch, which is located behind the 'ZIP', and due to the heavy mud on the way, we often had to pull it out, hearing the groans of suffocating people.
Not reaching the anti-tank ditch, the vehicle stopped because it was impossible to go further due to the mud. From a nearby farm, they brought a cart, into which they transferred the suffocated people from the 'dushegubka' and thus delivered them the remaining 200 meters to the ditch, and there they were thrown.
I told IVANOVA about this case."

This was confirmed by the witness Pereligina on 18.06.1943:

"The residents of our state farm, including me, began to wonder what kind of vehicle it was and why it was driving to the anti-tank ditch.
For a long time we could not find out, but one day in rainy weather the vehicle got stuck in the mud near our state farm and could not get directly to the anti-tank ditch. Then the Germans began to drive up to the vehicle with a cart. When the cart drove up to the vehicle for the first time, I saw the doors open at the back of the vehicle and smoke or steam poured out. When the smoke or steam cleared, they began to take the bodies of people out of the vehicle, strip them naked and then put them on the cart.
I watched this whole scene together with my neighbor KOROLCHUK Gorpina. We both started counting how many corpses were taken out of the vehicle and saw that each time 10 corpses were put on the cart, but I don't remember how many times the cart drove up
Among the corpses that were placed on the carts were both large and small - obviously children.
Since then, whenever there was mud, the vehicle stopped in the same place and the corpses were transported to the anti-tank ditch on a cart. When the weather was dry, the vehicles drove directly to the anti-tank ditch and I did not see what was happening there."

There was some further testimony about that, including by the mentioned Korolchuk.

Witnesses who did not know much about the gas van could still confirm some important details, like Tuchkov's claim that the gas van, about which he did not want to go in depth, had fake windows, a common claim at that trial.

Kladov's trial description of the gas van is also worth translating:

Defendant: Peklo stood in the yard, so I went inside and looked at the vehicle. The vehicle was closed. I was with a rifle which was slung across.
President: From what distance were you observing it?
Defendant: I approached the vehicle itself and even probed the fake windows with the bayonet.
President: How bold of you.
Defendant: I slung the rifle and measured the width of the vehicle. It was two rifles wide. It does not look like a bus. A bus has a semi-oval shape, but this was a [unclear] vehicle. On the left side, it had some kind of corrugated pipes, then a cylinder, followed by expansions [?] about a quarter meter wide. At the back, it had a two-leaf door running with a bolt from top to bottom, which acted as a latch. There was also a hinge, it turned to the left.
President: It turns out you know all the details of this vehicle's structure.
Defendant: There was a red cross painted on the front of the glass.

(He uses the dialectal adjective "уборчатый" to refer to the vehicle and to the pipes. When the word refers to the pipes, it means corrugated, in this context - flexible; indeed, there is evidence of the use of such pipes in the gas vans. The meaning of calling a vehicle this word is not clear to me. Could be a transcription mistake or a wrong turn of phrase by the accused. On the whole it's not a very clear description - what are the "expansions" or "thickenings" etc.?)

During the pretrial interrogation of 27.06.1943:

"I did not see the internal structure of this vehicle, but I can describe its external appearance, as I repeatedly saw the 'dushegubka' in the Gestapo garage, which I had to guard.
It was a large vehicle, resembling a wagon, dark gray in color, with a closed body at the back, having a double-leaf door with a latch on a hanging lock.
The sides of the body had false windows, in the form of wooden slats placed next to each other.
I was convinced that the windows were false because, by pushing a bayonet between the slats, supposedly covering the windows, I felt that under the slats there was an iron lining of the body. At the front of the vehicle, on the windshield, there was a painted image of the Red Cross."

Some testimonies about the woman named Natalya Lapukh, whose suspected fate had been gassing, and whose corpse was then found by her friends and acquaintances in a mass grave - all crimson in color and without any wounds that could be the cause of death - are of some interest.

Nadezhda Makarova, who was forced to lead her psychiatric patients into the van testified on 10.06.1943:

"The inside of the vehicle was painted yellow, there were no benches, there were wooden grates on the floor, there were pipes on top, but their purpose is unknown to me. The vehicle had thick walls, 10-12 cm thick, and on both sides of the vehicle in the upper part of the body there were small windows, square of about 10 cm, covered with an iron grate on the outside of the vehicle, through which light did not penetrate into the vehicle."

Could those squares be overpressure openings covered with flaps, like those discussed in the Just memo?

I haven't found any other testimonies about diesel.

One more point though. The published Soviet description of the trial, both in Russian and in English, says:

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

However, the expert report never mentioned diesel. Neither was diesel mentioned when the expert testified in court. So the text in the book is an extrapolation.

The primary materials of the Krasnodar trial contain very interesting evidence. The evidence for diesel engines in gas vans, that appears in the trial materials, is extremely weak and cannot serve to disprove the fact that all engine-based gas vans ran on gasoline.

Debunking the World Almanac meme directly

2024-11-24T19:08:00.001+00:00

Our reader Jiří Fojtík has pointed out the most probable actual source of the World Almanac's figures for Jews, and that source is from 1937, thus allowing us to debunk the WA claim directly. Earlier we relied on the fact that the WA numbers were unsourced and thus useless. Boy, were we right.

The article has been updated accordingly.

Review of Holocaust Handbooks Volume 23 - Carlo Mattogno, Chelmno (Part III - Systematic Analysis of One Example)

2024-11-20T14:43:00.020+00:00

Part I - Method

Part II - Scholarly Avoidance

Part III - Systematic Analysis of One Example

There is consensus among researchers that the Chełmno extermination camp began operations in early December 1941.

Mattogno states that Krakowski claims the camp was inaugurated on 8 December 1941 without providing "any documentary evidence, not even a single testimony" (p.29, 2nd edition). While Krakowski does indeed fail to cite sources for this specific assertion, this shortcoming is unique to his work (see also Part II). Other scholars, including Montague, Klein, Alberti, and Pawlicka-Nowak, provide sources to confirm the camp’s start-up date.

Mattogno attempts to discredit this consensus by citing Andrzej Miszczak’s testimony from Blumental, Dokumenty i materiały tom I (1946) that the first transport arrived at the camp on 9 December 1941 and dismesses it as “a simple claim without any documentary confirmation.” This highlights the fundamental methodological flaw in Mattogno’s approach that was pointed out in the Part 1 of this review: his refusal to treat testimonies as historical sources unless confirmed by official Nazi documents.

Let us now move beyond theoretical critiques and examine how Mattogno’s flawed methodology impacts the specific question of Chełmno’s start-up operations.

Mattogno himself references the following testimony:

Andrzej Miszczak: "Only on December 9, 1941, the first trucks carrying Jews arrived from the direction of Kolo." (AIPN GK 165/271, volume 1, p. 51)

Several additional witnesses also testified shortly after the war to Polish investigators:

Jozef Czuprynski: "In 1941, on December 5, truck transports of Jews from Koło began arriving in Chełmno" (AIPN GK 165/271, tom 2, p. 19)
Leopold Fjalkowski : "In early December 1941, transports of Jews began arriving in Chełmno." (AIPN GK 165/271, tom 3, p. 61)
Adam Milewski: "Transports began arriving in Chełmno from December 8, and from that date, the area was guarded." (AIPN GK 165/271, volume 3, p. 13)
Czeslaw Potyralski: The first transport arrived during the night of December 7 to 8 (AIPN GK 165/271, volume 2, p. 95 - 96)
Zofja Potyralska "The Sonderkommando arrived in Chełmno at the end of November 1941, while the first transport of Jews arrived on December 8." (AIPN GK 165/271, volume 3, p. 102)

Further knowledge comes from contemporary reports written by Jewish communities in 1942:

Testimony of Lajwe Wołkowicz of 26 February 1942: "On Sunday, December 9, 1941, the Jews in Dąbie learned about the deportations from Koło. The Judenrat sent a messenger (a Christian) to Koło with a letter to find out if it was true. The messenger returned with written confirmation; in the letter, the Koło Judenrat wrote that already on December 7, thirty strong Jews had been captured on the street and sent to Chełmno. On Sabbath, December 8, 1941, the SA and gendarmerie began gathering Jews in the bet ha-midrash (according to a list)." (Ringelblum Archive Tom 9, Tereny wcielone do Rzeszy: Kraj Warty, p. 70 - 74)
Uszer Taube in 1942: "On Saturday, December 5, 1941, at 11 a.m., two SS men from Poznań arrived at the Landratsamt in Koło. Half an hour later, they caught 30 healthy Jewish men on the street and transported them by truck. At 2 p.m., the systematic deportation action began. [...] On Monday morning, December 7, trucks arrived, and each was loaded with 50 people. [...] Everyone knew they were being taken to Chełmno (a village between Koło and Dąbie, known as Kulmhof in German)." (AZIH Ring. I/394)

Finally, contemporary Nazi documents provide further insight into Chełmno’s operations:

Memo of Willy Just of 5 June 1942: "Since December 1941, ninety-seven thousand have been processed for example, using three vans, without any defects showing up in the vehicles. The explosion that we know took place at Kulmhof is to be considered an isolated case."
Civilians' trucks used to transport people to Chełmno were fueled by Sonderkommando Kulmhof starting on December 7, 1941. This is documented in the fuel consumption logs for trucks loaned by Sonderkommando Kulmhof from the Reichsstraßenbauamt Hohensalza, covering the period from December 7, 1941, to July 3, 1942, see Document 175 here.
Proposal for the Award of the War Merit Cross II Class with Swords by the Gestapo Headquarters in Posen, dated June 16, 1943: "In the SS-Sonderkommando Kulmhof served [...] SS-O’scharf. KAng. (K) Hering 8.12.1941 – 5.4.1943 and SS-O’scharf. KAng. (K) Laabs 8.12.1941 – 5.4.1943".

Let’s recap the situation. Andrzej Miszczak, a reliable witness who provided a detailed and corroborated account of the camp's operations as an outsider and bystander, places the start of Chełmno’s activities around December 9, 1941. While a single source is not definitive, Miszczak’s testimony provides a decent basis for understanding the camp’s timeline. Importantly, his account is not the sole piece of evidence on the matter.

Testimonies from other witnesses converge on a timeline, give or take a few days. Further corroboration comes from contemporary reports written by Jewish communities. Together, these sources of diverse provenance - eyewitness testimonies and Jewish reports - and their cumulative weight paints a robust picture of Chełmno’s start-up operations around December 8, 1941.

Yet, by Mattogno’s "method", such sources hold no value and are dismissed outright because they are not official Nazi documents. His approach demands a pretense of ignorance, even when the facts are well-supported.

The Nazi documents also date Chełmno's operations back to December 1941. These documents enhance illuminate some more facet of the narrative. However, they are not necessary to establish the basic facts. The absence of these documents would not plunge the timeline into darkness - it would simply leave the narrative less detailed.

The memo by Willy Just is known to Mattogno, yet he fails to connect the dots. Later, he dismisses the Just memo as a forgery - a claim that has been thoroughly rebutted here. This pattern of denial was already pointed out in the part I: demanding official Nazi documents as evidence but resorting to all manner of mental gymnastics when they contradict his preconceived conclusions.

Mattogno's restrictive methodology doesn’t just tie one hand behind his back - it blindfolds him and spins him in circles. By dismissing testimonies and contemporary reports, he's essentially trying to assemble a puzzle after tossing out half of the pieces. Such an approach does not contribute meaningful to historical reconstruction; rather, it obstructs the pursuit of historical truth. But perhaps that's precisely the goal - after all, Holocaust denial thrives on not knowing.

Review of Holocaust Handbooks Volume 23 - Carlo Mattogno, Chelmno (Part II - Scholarly Avoidance)

2024-11-17T11:14:00.010+00:00

Part I - Method

Part II - Scholarly Avoidance

Part III - Systematic Analysis of One Example

Mattogno’s Holocaust Handbooks Volume 23 on Chełmno was first published in 2009 (Italian) and in 2011 (English), with a "2nd revised edition" in 2017.

Key scholarly works on the extermination of Jews in the Reichsgau Warthegau include

Michael Alberti’s Die Verfolgung und Vernichtung der Juden im Reichsgau Warthegau (2006)
Shmuel Krakowski’s Das Todeslager Chelmno/Kulmhof: Der Beginn der 'Endlösung' (2007)
Peter Klein’s Die Gettoverwaltung Litzmannstadt 1940-1944 (2009)
Patrick Montague’s Chelmno and the Holocaust: The History of Hitler’s First Death Camp (2012).

Of these four major studies, Mattogno references only Krakowski's work, which is arguably the least comprehensive of the group, rather than engaging with the strongest and most recent scholarship. Furthermore, Mattogno appears unaware of Łucja Pawlicka-Nowak’s Chełmno Witnesses Speak (2004), a critical source collection. As a result, his work was already outdated at the time of its first publication and even more obsolete by the time of the revised edition.

This omission is not merely a matter of quantity, but it has a significant qualitative impact. Montague's research, for instance, offers more thoroughly sourced and detailed synthesis of Chełmno's history than Krakowski's book. Alberti and Klein, meanwhile, provide nuanced analyses of Nazi policies connected to Chełmno and leverage official Nazi documents effectively.

On pages 23 to 29, Mattogno touches Nazi policy with tons of full quotes - he seems to take the view that the extermination of Jews in the Warthegau would have required an overarching, pre-existing plan to kill all European Jews. Mattogno appears oblivious to the regional and situational policies and of escalation and shifts over time - and of decades of historical scholarship that examines the evolution and nuances of Nazi policy toward Jews.

In conclusion, Mattogno's approach to literature research and keeping his work up-to-date is nothing short of abysmal. His refusal to engage with the extensive body of scholarship on Chełmno / Nazi policy suggests he might have spent more time avoiding books than actually reading them.

Still Waiting: Where Did The Jews "Evacuated to The East" Go?

2024-11-13T21:42:00.008+00:00

It's been a while since I published Seriously Now, Where Did The Jews "Evacuated to The East" Go? - and honestly, I consider it the clinical precise knockout for any so-called "transit camp hypothesis". So here is the question to those who believe the Nazis did not seize the opportunity of a brutal war to make their wet dreams come true. If I were you, I’d be asking a very serious question about those 2.3 million Jews who were "evacuated to the East" according to the Korherr report. Where did they go?

Option A) They were shipped off to the swamps and forests of the Reichskommissariats Ostland and Ukraine. Just imagine - over 2 million "state enemies" casually relocated into hostile, partisan-infested territory, where German forces were chronically understaffed and barely holding control. What could possibly go wrong?

Or maybe...

Option B) Over 2 Million "dangerous elements" were cozily settled in the German army’s rear - right between unstable frontline, partisan warfare, hungry locals and overstretched supply lines. Doesn’t that just scream military brilliance?

By the way, the correct answer in the sample solution is "neither option is true." For further details, refer to the original post.

Review of Holocaust Handbooks Volume 23 - Carlo Mattogno, Chelmno (Part I - Method)

2024-11-11T13:01:00.021+00:00

Part I - Method

Part II - Scholarly Avoidance

Part III - Systematic Analysis of One Example

Nearly two-thirds of the Holocaust Handbooks - based on page volume and principal authorship - can be credited to a single figure. If this weren't bad enough, it's none other than Carlo Mattogno, a prime example in the "How Not To Do History" playbook. It's truly comforting to know that the bulk of revisionist historiography rests on him.

Take Holocaust Handbook no. 23 on the Chełmno (Kulmhof) extermination camp, for instance. It's one of Mattogno's worst contributions, though the competition is fierce. In this work, a lack of proper historical method combines with near-total avoidance of research of the subject and unfortunate timing.

Mattogno sums up his approach in a single statement, which begs to be quoted in its full beauty:

"As there are no documents which can be used as a basis of comparison, this means that for Chełmno the testimonies cannot constitute historical sources, so that there cannot even exist a genuine historiography for this camp."

(Mattogno, Chelmno, p.9)

There's more than half a million words of witness accounts, hundreds of wartime documents, photos, and archaeological studies on the camp. Among all events of mass violence in human history, the extermination camp Chełmno (Kulmhof) is relatively well documented. But why let overwhelming evidence get in the way?

And what does he mean by "genuine historiography" anyway? Historiography, by definition, means that historians have written about a topic, which - spoiler alert - has been the case for Chełmno. Scholars like Shmuel Krakowski, Patrick Montague, Janusz Gulczyński, Michael Alberti, Peter Klein and others have examined the history of this camp.

Now, we come to what is, in my opinion, one of the most absurd remarks ever made by a leading Holocaust denier. Mattogno claims "that for Chełmno the testimonies cannot constitute historical sources" and the related gem a page later that "these legal testimonies have no historiographic value".

A historical source is essentially any source of information about the past:

"…The concept of historical source covers all sources of historical cognition (whether direct or indirect), that is, all information (in the sense of information theory) about the human past, wherever such information can be found, together with the ways in which such information has been transmitted (information channels)."

(Topolski, Methodology of History, p.388).

But Mattogno, ever the innovator, pre-emptively tosses thousands of pages of testimonies right out the window - without even reading them. Any legitimate historian would welcome more evidence, would examine each piece carefully for insights into what truly happened; Mattogno does the opposite, brushes off the most abundant source material on Chelmno with the flick of a pen.

Mattogno tries to salvage his "historian" image by selectively nitpicking through a few witness statements. Of course, with his pre-conviction that testimonies "have no historiographic value," this whole exercise is pure spectacle and the result known beforehand.

He keeps piling on the nonsense - layer upon layer - and we're still in the same sentence. He asserts that "there are no documents which can be used as a basis of comparison". In Mattogno's world, if there's no "document" mirroring a testimony, then the testimony has "no historiographic value". It's a distortion of the historical method, which usually relies on corroboration, plausibility, and common sense, not an arbitrary demand for matching documents. By Mattogno's logic, we'd need a "supporting document" for every single testimony before we could take it seriously, which makes testimonies redundant to begin with. The reason for this bizarre twist is obvious: he needs a pretext to discard inconvenient evidence he'd prefer to ignore.

A "document" is not inherently superior to a "testimony". An official report from a biased individual can be riddled with falsehoods, while an honest observer's account can be remarkably precise. The true value of a source depends on the specific context and the questions asked, making source analysis anything but black and white.

Mattogno, however, dismisses the basics of the historical method. He disregards well-established techniques and practices of the discipline. If one chooses to abandon the field's established methods, the bare minimum expectation would be to provide a solid theoretical framework, justification, and scope for the new approach - that is, to start with a detailed discussion on methodology, rather than just doing things differently.

Mattogno does bring up one piece of literature for his grand theory: a 1987 article on gas vans by German historian Mathias Beer, who at the time was early in his career and not specializing in historical methodology.

Mattogno did not bother to consult modern textbooks on historical methodology and methods. Or read Beer properly in the first place. According to Mattogno, Beer supposedly supports the idea that testimonies "have no historiographic value". However, Beer actually says the opposite and argues that witness statements can establish "probable facts" even on their own. But when you're pioneering the anti-method, who needs accuracy?

Mattogno further distorts Beer's work by claiming that a source's "historiographic value" only exists with direct confirmation from "documents". In reality, Beer suggests that "whenever possible" testimonies should be linked to "critically validated documents" - not that this is a strict requirement. Beer actually argues that even a single document, like one confirming a witness's presence at a location, can strengthen the reliability of the testimony. This approach values a broad spectrum of corroboration, something Mattogno pointedly ignores

In Mattogno's version of history, only an official Nazi document - preferably stamped and signed in triplicate - counts as legitimate (unless it’s incriminating, in which case he dismisses it as a forgery or otherwise flawed). Historiography embraces a much broader concept of what constitutes a document, considering any written source as valuable. Or it utilizes varied classifications, such as distinguishing between intentional and unintentional sources or those consciously versus unconsciously transmitted:

"We have observed that one definition of document is any written language. [...] Documents sometimes are categorized in terms of (a) time of composition in relation to observation of the matter observed, or (b) the audience for which the document is intended, or (c) the intent of the composer."

Shafer, A guide to historical method, p. 47 & p. 51.

Mattogno exhibits an extreme bias in favor of the Nazis and implies that only Nazi documents can serve as proof of their atrocities. The argument is one of his most frequently used gems with some 400 counts throughout his Holocaust Handbooks ("no documents", "no documentary evidence", "not any docoument", "not the slightest document" etc.). If his approach were a serious historical method rather than a tactic of Holocaust denial, it would ease perpetrators' ability to evade responsibility by just arguing we did not document it or we destroyed all our documentation, so it did not happen.

Notably, Mattogno has never applied his method beyond the Holocaust. This fixation on perpetrators' documents, however, does not contribute meaningfully to historical study; it simply reduces the available sources and heavily biases the narrative in favor of perpetrators. The motive behind Mattogno's method is clear: to deny evidence of Nazi atrocities.

If Mattogno had engaged with Beer's work more thoroughly, he would have encountered Beer's subsequent research on the expulsion of Germans from the East. In 1998, Beer reviewed a study from the 1950s on this topic, offering insights into the historical project:

"For the first time, almost exclusively witness reports formed the basis for such an extensive research project. Based on the historical method, a multi-stage process for the source-critical review of witness reports was developed."

(Beer, Im Spannungsfeld von Politik und Zeitgeschichte. Das Großforschungsprojekt "Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa", p. 385)

It is worthwhile to examine the perspective and methodology developed over six decades ago on a topic researched "almost exclusively through witness reports". The German historian Martin Broszat’s paper, Massendokumentation als Methode zeitgeschichtlicher Forschung, elaborates on the method in detail.

Broszat observed that "only a small fraction of the official material is available to the German historian of contemporary history" and that "language regulations of a propagandistic or ideological kind, even within internal communications" had "devalued" official documents of the time. He noted that "official documents on this event are almost entirely missing" and that "diaries and letters are only available in relatively small numbers" so the "main reliance was on information later recalled from memory".

Broszat acknowledged that such reports "often refer to incidents and conditions which, in their singularity, cannot be easily classified as correct or incorrect". However, he emphasized that "almost all experience reports contain some statements that can be precisely verified" and that "the comparison of the various accounts with one another is of decisive importance".

In terms of "the comparative examination of testimonies", Broszat advised against a mechanical approach, emphasizing instead that "all individual circumstances must be taken into account". He argued for assessing the "greater or lesser probability of statements" by considering the relationship of witnesses to the events they reported: whether they played an active, responsible role or were passively involved, whether they observed the events directly or received information from third parties.

When specific details could be confirmed as either accurate or inaccurate, "an essential criterion for assessing other information" could be established. In cases where accuracy could not be definitively determined, credibility was assessed "based primarily on internal criteria - how an incident is presented, the gravity with which it's treated, the clarity and consistency of expression, and other factors".

Ultimately, Broszat concluded that "it has indeed proven possible to separate the reliable from the unreliable, the positive from the negative, and to arrive at a set of sources which, in its entirety, can justifiably be described as not only uncontestable but also as historically valuable."

Thus, six decades ago, German historians were able to establish historical facts on the expulsion of Germans from the East primarily from information subsequently given from memory. Yet Holocaust deniers like Mattogno still struggle to accept such evidence on Nazi atrocities today.

Mattogno claims that "there are no documents which can be used as a basis of comparison" for Kulmhof. But this is simply untrue. Numerous wartime Nazi documents detail the activities of the camp (see Sonderkommando Kulmhof – Documents and Sonderkommando Kulmhof in German Documents). Ironically, Mattogno himself includes photographs of correspondence related to Sonderkommando Kulmhof (documents 6 and 6a in his book).

In short, every bit of his central claim on method is completely, spectacularly false.

Lampshades and shrunken heads: an update

2024-10-05T20:54:00.000+01:00

Somebody has called our attention to some relatively new items at the website of the Buchenwald Memorial, namely, a dossier about the artefacts allegedly made from human bodies.

Some notable new information:

- a small lampshade, thought to have been a fake for decades (after a forensic test claimed it could not have been made from human skin) has been retested in 2023 and was proven to have been produced from human skin after all;

- a piece of the lampshade in Pister's office has been found and ordered to be tested, the results are pending (our previous conclusion was that it's unlikely to be human skin, but the test results can refute it, of course);

- some barely known shrunken head imitation has finally been shown to be a fake in 2023 (this has nothing to do with the original shrunken heads found in Buchenwald, of course);

- a pocket knife case alleged to have been made from human skin has been ordered to be tested, with results pending;

- three tattooed skin pieces were tested, with the expert concluding two of them were of human origin, the third probably not (possibly pig skin), albeit the Memorial disagrees with the latter conclusion since this piece is also documented to have come from the camp pathology department; and indeed, pigs don't have tattoos in the first place.

The article "Nazi shrunken heads, human skin lampshades, human soap, textiles from human hair? Sorting out the truth from the legends" has been updated accordingly.

Reality Check and Cutting Through 'Uncensored and Unconstrained' Nonsense in CODOH's "Holocaust Encyclopedia": Burmeister, Walter

2024-06-28T20:15:00.006+01:00

There is literally nothing that the denier's "Holocaust Encyclopedia" does not get wrong in the entry "Burmeister, Walter".

Starting with the identity:

"Walter Burmeister (14 Nov. 1894 – 23 Feb. 1980), SS Oberscharführer"

Walter Burmeister born 14 November 1894 was a school teacher / inspector and not member of the Nazi paramilitary forces. He had no involvement with Kulmhof / Chełmno extermination camp.

Denazification file of Walter Burmeister (born 14 November 1894),

LA-NRW Abteilung Rheinland, NW 1039-B/3939

The Walter Burmeister associated with Kulmhof was born on 2 May 1906. This mistaken identity has been plagiarized from a Wikipedia entry that erroneously combined the biographies of two Burmeisters. The notion that a school inspector would be drafted to drive a gas van should raise immediate red flags.

Furthermore, it is misleading to state that Burmeister "is said to have served as a driver of one of the gas vans at the Chełmno Camp", as Burmeister was not a dedicated driver of a gas van, but the "girl for everything" (jack of all trades), only stepping in to operate gas vans if the regular drivers were unavailable.

The claim that Burmeister was "interrogated by Investigating Judge Władysław Bednarz after the war in Poland" and that he "made up when put under pressure by his Polish investigators to come up with something" is absurd. Burmeister was never captured and interrogated by the Poles. It is also incorrect to assert "there is no trace of any Renault truck ever used as a gas van". Evidence (little, but there is) including Burmeister's testimony might indicate that Renault chassis were part of the gas van pool. See Rebuttal of Alvarez of Gas Vans: Misreading the Fine Print for further reading.

The argument that there is no trace of the "fanciful piping system" is also wrong. The pipe system in the gas vans, used to feed in the gasoline engine exhaust, is well-established and supported by numerous eyewitness accounts. For instance:

"We looked inside the gas van and noticed that under the wooden floor grid, there were thin pipes running through, which were perforated."

(interrogation of Walter Bock on May 16, 1961, LAS, Abt. 353.3, Nr. 16510)

It is anchronistic to say that "15 years later in Germany...Burmeister had learned enough about the orthodox narrative to adjust it to what was expected of him". In reality, the testimony where he supposedly "adjusted" to "what was expected of him" was provided before the testimony discussed previously. It is misleading to say he was "no longer claiming a Renault", as in the testimony he mentioned that the gas vans were "French vehicles".

Finally, Burmeister was not trialed for "for aiding in the murder of at least 130,000 people" but actually 145,000 (first period of Kulmhof extermination camp) + 7,100 (2nd period of Kulmhof extermination camp) people - thus 152,100 in total (Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, Lfd.Nr.594a LG Bonn 23.07.1965 JuNSV Bd.XXI S.227)

Lessons learnt:

1. Be cautios with Wikipedia

2. Hands off denier's "Holocaust Encyclopedia"

Rebuttal of Alvarez of Gas Vans: Misreading the Fine Print

2024-06-22T09:15:00.006+01:00

Rebuttal of Alvarez on Gas Vans

Part I: Why the Diesel Issue is Still Irrelevant (update 1, 2)
Part II: Producer Gas

Part III: The Ford Gas Wagon (update)
Part IV: The Becker Letter (update)
Part V: The Rauff Letter to the Criminal Technical Institute (update 1, 2, 3, cf. on Mattogno & here)

Part VI: The Turner Letter

Part VII: The Schäfer, Trühe & Rauff Telexes

Part VIII: The Einsatzgruppe B Activity & Situation Report (cf. on Mattogno)

Part IX: The Just Memo

Part X: The West-German Trials Against Members of Einsatzkommando 8

Part XI: Einsatzgruppe D in Simferopol

Part XII: Material Evidence

Part XIII: Misreading the Fine Print

Footnote Fun

For those who appreaciate deciphering these results of meticulous research, footnotes are an art form on its right. For others, like the Holocaust denier Santiago Alvarez, it's an opportunity to dig themselves deeper into misinformation. Case in point: he stumbled over the footnotes of the book Nazi Mass Murder by Kogon, Langbein, Rückerl (see Alvarez, The Gas Vans. A Critical Investigation, page 149).

Alvarez states that the former member of Sonderkommando Kulmhof Walter Burmeister was interrogated "after the war in Poland". However, here's the kicker: Burmeister was not interrogated by the Poles. He spent in British internement / near Flensburg after war:

"When I was wounded shortly before the end of the war (on May 2, 1945), I was admitted to a Flensburg hospital. As a former member of the SS – I was an Unterscharführer at the time – I was sent to the internment camp at Neuengamme. I was interned there for 2 1/2 years. After my release, I took up residence in the Flensburg district. For several years, I have been self-employed in Flensburg and own a plumbing and installation business here."

https://holocausthistory.site/testimony-of-burmeister-walter-on-kulmhof-extermination-camp/

This interrogation in question took place in West-Germany, not in the late 40s, but more than a full decade later, on 23 March 1961. This mistake now turns Alvarez' timeline into a muddled mess.

He claims that Burmeister was "merely parroting what the Poles put on his platter". Well, that's a bit awkward as Burmeister never dined with them in the first place. He then adds that "during an interrogation some 15 years later in Germany on January 24, 1961, Burmeister described the piping device differently" and concludes that "Burmeister’s knowledge had been 'streamlined" over the years". Except, this interrogation of January 24, 1961 took place before the one of March 23, 1961. So, if anything, we're observing a process of testimonies getting less "streamlined" over time.

According to Alvarez, Burmeister described the gas vans with such minutae that it could only mean he was coerced by the Poles. However, the details Burmeister provided actually align with German records - only exploited years after the Polish investigation. If Alvarez timeline were correct, Burmeister could not have been fed with the German records. It’s almost as if Burmeister was, you know, telling the truth.

The root-cause of the whole confusion is Alvarez careless reading of the footnotes. Burmeister's testimony of 23 March 1961 is cited in reference 7 of Kogon et al., Nazi mass murder. It refers to "vol. 6" of ZSL AZ 203 AR-Z 69/59. The Polish investigations are cited in footnote 6, which refers to "special vol. A" of ZSL AZ 203 AR-Z 69/59. For whatever reason, Alvarez presumed that footnote 7 also cites "special vol. A" without performing any proof-reading or plausibility check. If Burmeister had been interrogated by the Poles after the war, it is all but certain that this would have been mentioned in the judgement of his trial.

Kogon et al. Nazi Mass Murder, p. 262

Renault or Not Renault: That is the Question

Burmeister stated the gas vans were Renault trucks. According to Alvarez, "there is no documentary or anecdotal evidence that a Renault truck was ever used by the RSHA for anything". It's always puzzling how someone with limited knowledge of the RSHA can make such a definitive statement. In fact, there is substantial evidence that Renault trucks were used by the RSHA. For instance, during the early stages of Operation Barbarossa, numerous Renault trucks were acquired by the RSHA from army depots in France.

Transfer of trucks from Heeresfahrpark 511 to the RSHA motor pool, BArch 58/7658

There is also at least one testimony that one of the gas vans provided to the Einsatzgruppen in the occupied Soviet Union was based on a Renault chassis:

"The G-van was was a french make, according to my memory a Renault."

(interrogation of Gustav Lauster of 24 October 1967, BArch B 162/2266)

Now, the larger gas vans were built on Saurer chassis, while the smaller gas vans used Diamond T chassis and likely other makes. Regarding Kulmhof, the gas van driver Gustav Laabs stated the smaller gas vans were based on Dodge chassis and Walter Burmeister described them as French and Renault. Generally, Burmeister can be considered as the more reliable witness. Both were in excellent positions to know the make of the vehicles. It's possible that one of them was mistaken, or they may have been describing different gas vans from the two operational periods (1942 vs. 1944). Although this topic needs some further study, it is not central to the question of whether gas vans existed in the first place.

Reality Check and Cutting Through 'Uncensored and Unconstrained' Nonsense in CODOH's "Holocaust Encyclopedia": Auschwitz Death Books

2024-04-30T11:18:00.009+01:00

Let's look into the arguments presented in CODOH's Holocaust Encyclopedia - Auschwitz Death Books. We'll take on a couple of the key points:

More Christians than Jews died at Auschwitz according to the death books

The Auschwitz death books only represent a fraction of the camp’s reality. They are capturing a limited time-frame and especially excluding those directly sent to homicidal gas-chambers upon arrival. The majority of Jews were killed immediately upon arrival and they were thus not recorded in the camp books, as established by numerous perpetrator and surviver testimonies and contemporary documents.
Very young and very old people in the death books

The argument that the presence of young and old people contradicts the "orthodox narrative" of immediate gassing is misleading. Testimonies and historical records document that while the vast majority of deported people was immediately gassed, some groups were occasionally selected for labour or other purposes, including medical experiments, and could survive for varying period.
High death rates during typhus epidemics as proof of natural causes of death

While typhus and other diseases did cause high mortality rates, this argument overlooks the intentional harsh conditions created by the Nazis, such as starvation, forced labor, and inhumane living conditions, which exacerbated these outbreaks and increased mortality. The implication that the catastrophic conditions were purely incidental rather than a result of deliberate policies is historically inaccurate.

Further Reading:

The Kinna Report - German Document on the Killing of Unfit Jews in Auschwitz

Nazi Document on Mass Extermination of Jews in Auschwitz-Birkenau: The Franke-Gricksch Report

Open Letter to Nick Kollerstrom on the Auschwitz Death Books

Carlo Mattogno's Scholarly Death Certificate

Evidence on the systematic falsification of death causes in Auschwitz

Sonderkommando Lange shown on footage in 1939/1940?

2024-04-24T21:02:00.018+01:00

Recently, a documentary about the Nazi extermination camp Kulmhof was shared (Polish and English) on YouTube. In addition to current footage of the former Nazi extermination camp, the documentary also features contemporary photographs from a permanent exhibition. At minute 1:43, a German officer and three soldiers with a motorcycle sidecar can be seen in front of a building.

The English caption reads:

"Members of the Sonderkommando Lange in front of one of the buildings of the psychiatric hospital in Dziekanka in Gniezno, December 1939 - January 1940."

The photograph is thus a unique piece of contemporary history, depicting the mobile Sonderkommando Lange (i.e. before Kulmhof) during an operation.

If it shows what the caption suggests...

One may question why a killer commando that otherwise operated under high secrecy would openly appear like this from the beginning while being captured on camera.

Or why Lange would use a motorcycle with sidecar in the first place. It's not as though the Gestapo in annexed or occupied territory wasn't motorized with larger horsepower.

On the other hand, it could also be the Luftwaffe number plate of the motorcycle or the Luftwaffe officer's uniform, indicating that this is more likely a photo in the context of the Luftwaffe reserve hospital in Gnesen rather than the deportation of inmates of an asylum by the Secret State Police.

Last but not least, the scene doesn't align with what witnesses of the operation reported:

"The first transports of patients were picked up in the winter of 1939/40 by an SS command using ordinary trucks. At that time, the institution had approximately 1100 patients. It involved two or three trucks."

(interrogation of Bogdan Orlicki of 21 June 1971, BArch B162/17388, ca. p. 2073)

New Website holocausthistory.site Launched

2024-03-30T20:01:00.006+00:00

I'm thrilled to announce the launch of a new website aimed at serving as a platform to display evidence of Nazi atrocities. While still under construction, visitors can catch a glimpse of its future direction.

One of the advantages, albeit requiring additional time and effort, is its complete configurability and extensibility to accommodate any conceivable functionality that may emerge in the future.

There is is no strict topic limitation, however, the start will be made on Kulmhof / Chelmno extermination camp and gas vans in general, as I have some high quality material on these topics that will give the site some outstanding content.

This website serves as a complementary resource to HolocaustControversies, focusing on documenting historical evidence without engaging in discussions regarding Holocaust denial.

Feel free to have a look at https://holocausthistory.site/.

Carlo Mattogno and the Franke-Gricksch Report

2024-03-09T16:30:00.014+00:00

Carlo Mattogno is an Italian Holocaust denier and a revisionist historian who is known for promoting discredited and fringe views regarding the Holocaust.

Statement by ChatGPT 3.5 on the question "who is Carlo Mattogno". Given such precision like a skilled archer hitting the bullseye, what can potentially go wrong to let some AI chatbot assist to write a blog posting. Maybe it can help me to understand why Mattogno writes "in general, I only consider in my books what has been published in paper form" (Mattogno, Deliveries of Coke, Wood and Zyklon B to Auschwitz: Neither Proof Nor Trace for the Holocaust, p. 107).

Where I would have simply thought "well, maybe because you are afraid to face your critics", we get a more sophisticated analysis by the chatbot (one that only our own Nick Terry would consider inadequate and add minimum 10 - 15 more elaborated bullet points on the fly):

Mattogno's preference for critiques in paper form rather than internet articles or blogs could be influenced by several factors, although it's speculative to pinpoint his exact motivations. Some possible reasons might include:
Credibility Concerns: Mattogno may perceive printed materials as having more credibility than online content. Traditional publishing in reputable journals or books often involves peer review and editorial scrutiny, which could be seen as a more rigorous validation process compared to self-published internet articles or blogs.
Selective Engagement: Requiring critiques in a specific format may allow Mattogno to choose which criticisms to engage with. This could be a way of avoiding less formal or rigorously researched critiques that may be more common in online spaces.
Appeal to Authority: Insisting on critiques in print form might be an attempt to lend an air of legitimacy to his work by associating it with established academic practices. This could be an effort to position his views as scholarly and deserving of consideration.
Control of Narrative: Printed materials are typically less transient than online content. By limiting critiques to traditional publications, Mattogno might seek to control the narrative around his work, as print materials often have a more enduring presence and may be considered more carefully curated.

(Point 4. I don't understand even after translating into my native tongue German - and several times back and forth again hoping something gets added in translation.)

Mattogno's approach of "only considering in my books what has been published in paper form" led to an awkard situation. To most academics, especially those in the vast landscape of Holocaust history, he's seen as such a lackluster researcher that many refuse to dignify his work with a response. It's like setting up for a showdown, but no one bothers to show up. Some avoid it because they don't want to waste a bullet, while the other guy steers clear just because his choice of weapon is not met. Nobody? Well, not quite nobody! A small group of indomitable bloggers remains, standing at high noon armed with arguments as sharp as Gallic swords...or something.

Anyway, rules are made to be broken. In 2019, I published Nazi Document on Mass Extermination of Jews in Auschwitz-Birkenau: The Franke-Gricksch Report and Mattogno explains that "in this case I make an exception". An exception to a rule that does not make sense in the first place. Most of Holocaust denial activities take place online. Almost all of Holocaust denial debunking takes place online (unless David Irving goes on trial). If we publish all blog postings with books on demand, then they are suddenly qualified to get considered?

On the other hand, the rule reduces workload. Mattogno does not have to write another 50,000 pages which nobody except us will really read anyway. We do not have to produce a couple of postings. Win-Win. Personally, I think we should keep this working model.

But now that there is an exeption, I just have to reply. It's almost pathological. My apologies, but I cannot let Mattogno's unsubstantiated assertions go unchallenged.

1.Mental decline

How does this blog work? Since 2006 (I guess) postings on holocaustcontroversies have the same structure:

- Date

- Headline

- Main text

- Author

- Comments

If you're seeking information about the author of the post, you simply need to scroll past the main text. Mattogno is familiar with our blog, having read and cited it in the past; he is not a newcomer who would be encountering it for the first time while examining the Franke-Gricksch post.

However, despite his familiarity with the blog's structure, Mattogno asserts that Nazi Document on Mass Extermination of Jews in Auschwitz-Birkenau: The Franke-Gricksch Report was published "without attribution to any author" (p. 107). I already raised the question about his mental decline elsewhere.

2. Parroting

Rather than engaging with presented arguments, he reiterates points that have already been thoroughly addressed in the blog post. Might be a result of reading comprehension issues or cognitive challenges.

Examples:

Item 1. on p.109. Arrival of the Jews in "a special area of the camp" and alleged anachronism.

This matter has been extensively covered in Appendix C, titled "Special tracks in specially designated districts of the camp," and in Appendix D, which focuses on Brian Renk. Furthermore, a more detailed exploration is available in a separate post titled Vincent Reynouard And The Franke-Gricksch Report (Part 1) . To summarize, there is no anachronism in the report; Franke-Gricksch did not state that the special ramp for the Jews was in Birkenau.

Item 2.) on p. 109. Not using the term "crematorium". This is has been addressed in appendix C section ""biggish house" [größeres Haus]"...

"It is in accordance with his take-home message that the victims are tricked into their fate and do not suffer that he does call the crematorium what he presumed how an ignorant person and victim would see it, a biggish house."

...and in appendix D section on Carlo Mattogno:

[...]
But what it is clear is that the author of the report did not want to use the term and decided to describe the site as "biggish house". His possible motive? The report describes the mass extermination in the most positive way, for the victims as well as, implicitly, for the perpetrators. The reason for calling the crematorium a "biggish house" might have been to emphasise that the victims do not realise from the outside they are really led to their slaughterhouse.

Item 6 on p.113. "500000 Jews". Already addressed in the blog posting in section"The result to date of this “resettlement action”: 500,000 Jews.":

[...]
500,000 seems like an inflated figure disseminated by the Auschwitz SS at the time (possibly based on operation time, capacity, estimated transports, instead of actual records they were not allowed to keep). The Auschwitz SS Administration did not have to know about exact figures since they were responsible for the (registered) inmates, but not for those sent immediately to the gas chambers without registration in the camp's books.

Another point: the Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höß may have felt like boasting about the Auschwitz death toll to catch up with the reports on those of the Aktion Reinhardt camps Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor.

In his post-war manuscript on the Final Solution of the Jewish Question, Höß provided more or less decent totals for the Jewish deportations to Auschwitz. According to him, he learnt the figures "from Eichmann or his staff" - quite possible only in 1944.

The death toll of 500,000 up to May 1943 is far too low for a post-war forgery with much higher figures floating around at the end and after the war. The Soviets claimed some 4 Million deaths for Auschwitz. The Auschwitz escapees Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler reported that 1.765 million Jews were gassed in Auschwitz between "April 1942 to April 1944".

3. Circular source firing squad

In reference to Item 3 on page 109, Mattogno cites Jewish Sonderkommando member Henryk Tauber as evidence against the existence of shower heads in Crematorium 2 in May 1943, leading to the conclusion, "how is it possible that the Pseudo-Franke-Gricksch 'saw' non-existing showers in the alleged gas chamber?" Yet, Tauber is simultaneously dismissed as a "blatantly false witness" and "deliberate impostor" by Mattogno (Mattogno, Sonderkommando Auschwitz II, p.149). It's randomly throwing in stuff that serves your agenda, without assessing whether the approach is methodically sound and rational.

Tauber mentioned that the shower heads were installed "in the fall of 1943." While Tauber is considered a strong eyewitness in general, if Franke-Gricksch described shower heads in the crematorium in May 1943, it stands as compelling evidence.

However, upon closer examination, Franke-Gricksch did not explicitly mention shower heads; rather, he described a "big basement room that resembles a shower room." Presuming Tauber's dating is reliable, this description aligns with what victims were told and the general appearance of the gas chamber. It suggests an innocent-looking room with a piping system and drainage, resembling a shower room. Franke-Gricksch might have been informed by his tour guide that shower heads were planned for future installation.

4. Theory without evidence

According to Mattogno, the crude post-war copy of the report by Eric M. Lipman of the U.S. Third Army is the "original" text, while the actual war-time carbon is a "retyped, cleaned-up, improved version". Mattogno spins a theory that explains nothing and is not backed by evidence. If anyone were to propose a theory of this nature supporting Nazi atrocities, Mattogno would likely promptly criticize and vent, highlighting the unsubstantiated nature of such conjecture.

5. "F" grade for linguistic analysis

It is supposed to be "striking" that Lipman changed the grammar of one sentence and "grammatically speaking, Lipmann‘s way of arranging the words in this sentence is wrong". However, from a grammatical perspective, the sentence is not incorrect (usage of a prepositional attribute).

Furthermore, there's no compelling reason why someone carelessly / in a hurry retyping a text, as Lipman did, should be expected to flawlessly maintain the word order in every single sentence. It should not happen when working with care and proof-reading, but this was not the case here.

6. No expert at work

The Italian denier has barely any more expertise then the rest of us, yet he boldly assumes the role of an authority on countless subjects, now extending his claims to typescripts. He contends that the similarities in the matching system and type features between the Franke-Gricksch report and the letter to Krüger might be attributed to an "entire series of certain typewriters of the time having some 'defective' types due to manufacturing imperfections." However, the point of obtaining an expert opinion for the blog post was to check for the possibility of coincidence or such systematic issues. While Mattogno is entitled to seek advice from a typescript expert, his own conjecture appears amateurish and fails to contribute meaningfully to the debate.

He further argues that "the verification criterion adopted by the bloggers is completely insufficient" because it does not establish "who used a certain typewriter to write a certain text." That's a no brainer, and it underscores precisely why the blog post did not solely focus on the typewriter question, as that would have been a relatively straightforward task. Instead, the post presented numerous arguments collectively establishing the authenticity of the document. Mattogno chose to overlook the majority of these arguments, rendering his rebuttal wholly inadequate.

7. Arrogance meets Ignorance

If arrogance is your trait, excel in something remarkable. If ignorance prevails, adopt humility. If you embody both, consider forming a tag team with Mattogno.

Mattogno crafts an image of himself as the crème de la crème, the cream of the crop, an elite figure at the pinnacle of Holocaust research. His viewpoint posits others, particularly "the bloggers," as inferior, lacking, mere losers.

This self-perception may have solidified in the 90s when Mattogno, alongside Graf, secured a significant coup by obtaining Auschwitz files from Moscow's special archives. Despite the fallacious nature of his arguments, the extensive use of unpublished contemporary documents somewhat justified his arrogance.

However, Mattogno failed to evolve and rapidly fell behind, failing to keep pace with historians and even "the bloggers." What persisted was not expertise but ignorance. Now coupled with the same arrogance.

"In their childish superficiality, the bloggers do not even ask themselves what was the reason for the journey of von Herff and Franke-Gricksch." (Mattogno, Deliveries of Coke, Wood and Zyklon B to Auschwitz, p.118)

Says he who has done no research on the SS Personnel Main Office other than referring to the "1943 Organisationsbuch of the NSDAP" and provides no analysis of the journey undertaken by von Herff and Franke-Gricksch,

"The bloggers" systematically studied numerous personnel and matter files of the SS Personnel Main Office and other sources. There is a whole section "context" in the main part of the posting trying to make sense out of the trip. While one can dispute the findings, the assertion that "the blogger" did "not even ask themselves what was the reason for the journey of von Herff and Franke-Gricksch" is just absurd. Mattogno, despite citing from the relevant section (p.116), appears incapable of recognizing that his purported deficiency has been addressed in the post.

8. See no evil

In his concluding remarks, Mattono references an excerpt from the extensive Franke-Gricksch report concerning the "special enterprise REINHARD. This branch has had the task of realising all mobile Jewish property in the Gouvernement Poland". With a sense of satisfaction, Mattogno asserts that "the real Franke-Gricksch knew nothing of a Sonderaktion “Reinhard” consisting of an extermination operation of Jews".

The "real Franke-Gricksch" knew apparently nothing of the whereabouts of the Jews unfit for work either. It's all about working camps and "all Jewish possions and mobile property". And the "scum" in Warsaw ghetto getting "liquidated". What about the much bigger task to deal with hundreds of thousands Jews unfit for work? He inspected the SS personnel involved in the operation, but does not report about the operation.

Yet drops genocidal statements like "either this generation of ours succeeds in clearing up the Jewish problem completely and it its last consequences or, if their liquidation is not completely achieved, the Jewish people will rise again after this wave of oppression" and "this problem has to be cleared up completely to free the world once and for all of this pestilence...".

Holocaust deniers will need to explain all of this, victory dancing on semantics of "Sonderaktion Reinhard" does little to address the underlying historical reality.

As I pointed out in blog article, the Franke-Gricksch report on the mass extermination of Jews in Auschwitz serves as a critical component, filling the void left by the lengthy report.

9. Flying attack donkey fallacy

According to Mattogno "the problem of the formal authenticity of the document is entirely secondary to that of its veracity". Not really, not in the context of a trip report by an SS officer.

If Franke-Gricksch wrote a detailed report on mass extermination of Jews in Auschwitz, then probably because there had been mass extermination of Jews in Auschwitz. It's really simple as that and precisely why Holocaust deniers try everything to make it appear not authentic. Because they know else they are done. Nobody wants to argue, yeah Franke-Gricksch wrote it, but he did not mean it. It's not a defendable position, everybody knows.

Except Mattogno. He developed the idea that German contemporary documents on Nazi atrocities can be authentic, but have no real meaning. On the Gasprüfer document he argued while it "seems formally authentic...the document in question has no value, no more than a military document that mentioned a flying attack donkey".

And Mattogno is supposed to be their best donkey in the barn.

Kaltenbrunner on Aktion 1005: "...to avoid that another group of persons gains insight into the operation of the Sonderkommando."

2024-03-08T19:49:00.006+00:00

On February 3, 1944, Eichmann's office dispatched a letter, signed by the head of the RSHA, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. The letter requested a decision on how to handle the SS and police personnel responsible for the escape of Jewish prisoners from Sonderkommando 1005 at Fort Kauen.

Kaltenbrunner proposed "the matter should be concluded within our jurisdiction" instead of involving the SS and police court "to avoid another group of persons gaining insight into the operation of the Sonderkommando".

By the way, I have yet to come across any explanation from Holocaust deniers regarding the true nature of Aktion 1005. It remains a top-secret operation involving the clearance of mass graves containing evidence of Nazi atrocities.

If any deniers possess information on an alternative interpretation, I invite them to share their insights in the comments along with supporting evidence.

DOCUMENT

TRANSCRIPTION

An den

Reichsführer-SS

z.Z. Feldkommandostelle

Betrifft: Flucht jüdischer Arbeitskräfte aus Kauen

Abschließend berichte ich zu der Flucht der 64 jüdischen Arbeitskräfte aus dem Fort Kauen, daß bisher 37 Juden wieder ergriffen werden konnten.

Der Führer des Sonderkommmandos 1005 - SS-Obersturmführer Radif - und der Führer des eingesetzten Wachkommandos - Gendarmeriemeister Apelt - wurden nach dem Ausbruch wegen fahrlässigen Verhaltens in Haft genommen. Da die Ermittlungen inzwischen abgeschlossen sind, habe ich die Haft in Hausarrest umgewandelt.

Ich bitte um Entscheidung, ob

1./ noch eine SS- und polizeigerichtliche Untersuchung erfolgen soll oder

2./ die Angelegenheit in eigener Zuständigkeit abgeschlossen werden soll.

Ich schlage vor, die Angelegenheit, nachdem Radif und Apelt seit Ende 1943 einsitzen, und um zu vermeiden, daß ein weiterer Personenkreis Einblick in die Arbeitsweise des Sonderkommandos erhält, abzuschließen.

Bei SS-Obersturmführer Radif handelt es sich um einen alten erprobten Nationalsozialisten, der während der Kampfzeit in der Ostmark zu 19 Monaten Kerker verurteilt war.

Gendarmeriemeister Apelt hat bisher in anerkennswerter Weise seinen Dienst versehen und war stets bestrebt, die Arbeiten auf der Baustelle vorwärts zu treiben.

[Kaltenbrunner]

TRANSLATION

To the

Reichsführer-SS

Currently at the Field Command Post

Subject: Escape of Jewish laborers from Kovno

In conclusion, I report on the escape of the 64 Jewish laborers from Fort Kovno that so far, 37 Jews have been recaptured.

The leader of Sonderkommando 1005 - SS-Obersturmführer Radif - and the leader of the deployed guard detachment - Gendarmeriemeister Apelt - were taken into custody after the breakout for negligent behavior.

As the investigations have been completed, I have converted the custody into house arrest.

I request a decision on whether

1./ there should still be an SS and police judicial investigation or

2./ the matter should be concluded within our jurisdiction.

I suggest closing the matter, as Radif and Apelt have been in custody since the end of 1943, and to avoid another group of persons gaining insight into the operation of the Sonderkommando.

SS-Obersturmführer Radif is an old, proven National Socialist who was sentenced to 19 months in prison during the fighting in the Ostmark.

Gendarmeriemeister Apelt has hitherto commendably fulfilled his duties and has always been striving to advance the work at the construction site.

[Kaltenbrunner]

(BArch R 9361-III/840355, first page of the document already posted here Once More, With Feeling: Deniers And Aktion 1005, 10 Years Later )

CODOH: Chronology of a Meltdown

2024-01-21T11:54:00.002+00:00

The CODOH website, forum and all associated websites have been offline for approaching two weeks. The cause? An internal dispute between Michael Santomauro and the other four board members of the CODOH Trust, including Germar Rudolf.

Presented below without comment is a chronology of statements on websites and from email mailing lists.

May 22, 2023

Excerpt from Germar Rudolf, 'Talking Turkey', on his personal website

Disenchantment
For years my wife has been telling me that the revisionist community – whatever that is – is misusing me as a slave laborer, as their shield against persecution, and as the authorities’ whipping boy. If there is any project that needed attention, it was thrown at me, and I sure picked it up and did as expected – mostly. When Bradley Smith started plans to transition CODOH to a new man at the helm, I was his man, and I felt honored – initially. When Richard Widmann bailed out of Inconvenient History, I ended up holding that baby, too – and badly so. When the decade-long Master of the CODOH Forum was looking for a successor, he zoomed in on me, but I refused, since I hate discussion fora with a passion. Apart, there was just no way to shoulder that burden as well.
With three school-age children, a household to run, a grumpy wife to assuage, I was stretching my resources to make things work somehow. No time was left anymore for any of the things I wanted to do. And I wasn’t getting much of anything out of it financially either.
Then shit hit the fan in early 2022, when Ingram threw Castle Hill Publishers out of their print, warehouse and distribution system. Who was going to organize printing, warehousing and shipping/distribution in the US and in Europe? Clearly, Germar will. Because Germar does it all, so that the remaining 8.5 billion people on this planet don’t have to lift a finger!
No. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Well, actually, I tried. But then it bent, it buckled, it squeaked, and finally, it broke.
With little to no experience in publishing, printing, warehousing and distribution, Michael Santomauro has taken over the helm at both Castle Hill and CODOH. I have become a mere spectator of what has been unfolding since late 2022. Anyone complaining that things don’t run as smoothly anymore as they once did; that the option of free eBook downloads is disappearing; that all hardcover books have been discontinued; that no German print books are available anymore at all – all this is a result of the 8.5 billion lazy onlookers on this planet no longer having at their disposal a slave laborer called Germar.

Source

December 20, 2023

Merry Christmas From Castle Hill!
Note: Castle Hill has suspended any and all operations until further notice. We are restructuring the business, and will be back soon.

Wayback Machine

December 21, 2023

To all,
A board member should never compromise his integrity for anyone or anything.
Either Mr. Germar Rudolf moves out of the home of the man who threatened my life or Germar Rudolf needs to resign from CODOH.
And I will continue full control of CHP and use the proceeds to beef up my security system estimates from $5,000-$30,000.
If he continues to live with the man that threatened my life and the board does not dismiss him and not support my security needs for my protection, I have no recourse but to sue CODOH for damages and for harboring a fellow board member whose housemate threatened my life at the behest of Germar Rudolf.
Sincerely,
Michael Santomauro

Source

An identical text was emailed to HC's contact email an hour and a half after this tweet was sent out.

January 7, 2024

CODOH email list

We have risen, indeed! Like Phoenix from the Ashes
Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust
Dear friends, supporters, patrons, and customers!
As you may have noticed, things got awfully quiet at CODOH lately, and our publishing outlet's website at https://CastleHill.shop even got suspended a few days before Christmas. The site is still down, and we do not yet know whether, and if so when, it will resume activities. We hope to be able to have some news to share with you on Monday, after CODOH's Board of Trustees will have had a meeting to decide how to move forward.
Until then, there is at least a silver lining at the revisionist horizon. The British company "Academic Reseach Media Review Education Group LTD" (what a mouth full!), abbreviated as ARMREG LTD, has entered a licensing agreement with Castlehill Publishing LLC, allowing ARMREG to republish under their own imprint Castlehill's entire book program.
ARMREG is the group who published the sensational revisionist Holocaust Encyclopedia, first online in September 2023, then also in print this past December. You can find this valuable resource at www.HolocaustEncyclopedia.com, where you can also purchase various ebook and print versions of this new revisionist opus magnum. They even offer a free ebook download.
ARMREG's general online bookstore, built with the help of Castlehill's staff to accelerate the process, was switched free yesterday late night (EST time). All books once published by Castlehill are back in print, ARMREG style, and can be bought at their webstore at https://armreg.co.uk. This store offers not only all of Castlehill's books (currently only the print editions), but also ARMREG's own Encyclopedia, of course.
While CODOH and Castlehill are currently unable to offer anything for sale, ARMREG is picking up the slack to make sure Holocaust revisionism doesn't go belly up.
We wholeheartedly recommend that you visit their website, sign up for their newsletter, and support them in this moment of crisis. Supporting them also helps CODOH and Castlehill; in fact, it helps all of revisionism:
Thank you very much for your continued support and solidarity. We will get through this crisis together, and we will come out stronger!
Germar Rudolf, Trustee
Bradley Smith Charitable Trust
aka CODOH

[street address omitted]

January 7, 2024

Around the same time as the CODOH mailing list announcement of the licensing deal with ARMREG went out, all CODOH-associated websites went offline with Cloudflare errors: codoh.com, the forum, Inconvenient History, Holocaust Handbooks, Castle Hill shop, while the Holocaust Encyclopedia website's domain name was soon up for sale from GoDaddy.

January 14, 2024

Life Sign
The Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust and related publishing companies have suffered a major attack, with all our Internet servers disconnected. As you have noticed, we are unable to maintain our valuable Revisionist Forum, our Library of articles and research material, or any of the many services CODOH provided. Castle Hill Publishing is unable to fill orders for books. (You can order their range of books, published under license, at www.armreg.co.uk, though). At this point, CODOH has been forced into the dark.
But we at CODOH will fight hard to defeat this attack, and we will recover from the damage inflicted. Truth will prevail!
We are currently scrambling to recover and preserve the CODOH archives. But we will need support and help in the next months for an expected legal battle. If you want to see how you can help, please do not hesitate to contact us using the contact data provided at the top of this website.
If you want to help CODOH, do NOT send funds to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.

Source via Wayback Machine

January 19, 2024

added to the 'Life Sign' at codoh.com

We are currently scrambling to recover and preserve the CODOH archives and forum. The website Holocaust Handbooks is being prepared for relaunch in a new format, but without any data loss. We do have a complete backup of the vho.org archives, and we managed to locate a recent backup of the CODOH Forum, as well as one of the library, although the latter may be a few years old. Getting all this backed-up data back online will take some time and considerable effort, as we may have to first create a framework for it, then extract and reformat tons of the data.
We will need support and help in the next months for this work, but also unfortunately for an expected legal battle against those trying to force us into the dark. If you want to see how you can help, please do not hesitate to contact us using the contact data provided at the top of this website.
Note that the trust is located in California. Our new postal address is:
CODOH
PO Box 2355
Healdsburg, CA 95448
USA
Please do do NOT send mail or funds to any other address, as it will most likely not reach us.

Source via Wayback Machine

January 20, 2024

CODOH email mailing list

Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust
Dear fellow revisionists, friends, patrons and supporters!
We, the trustees of the Bradley Smith Charitable Trust, aka Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH), owe you all an explanation as to what happened, what is going on right now, and what we expect from the near future regarding CODOH and its various operations.
We need to clarify that the current crisis is the result of an INTERNAL dispute. It has apparently nothing to do with outside forces. The reason that all our websites are offline is the simple fact that the servers have been turned off by the hosting company due to unpaid bills in the order of two hundred dollars ($200). Access to the hosting account where payments are managed is currently controlled by one CODOH trustee. Without consulting with CODOH's Board of Trustees, he turned this hosting account from a company account to his personal account by changing the account information to reflect only his personal contact information. He currently refuses access to anyone else. He moreover refuses to update any payment information or pay the outstanding bills himself. He has done the same thing with CODOH's domain name account. He has turned off some domain names, resulting in websites not hosted by CODOH no longer being reachable with those domain names. This trustee demands a payment of three hundred thirty thousand US dollars ($330,000) from the CODOH Trust before giving access to that account, so that the outstanding bills can be paid, and web services restored.
CODOH currently has some four thousand dollars in its bank account, and no other financial assets. Hence, paying $330,000 is impossible. No one can expect that the other trustees step up and pay $330,000. Furthermore, no donation from the personal assets of our generous supporters should be used.
The trustee in question furthermore demands that, for the next 24 years, 3% of all proceeds of the CODOH Trust are paid to him. However, CODOH is a charitable trust whose Declaration of Trust of December 2014 states clearly that "[n]o part of the net earnings of this trust shall inure or be payable to or for the benefit of any private shareholder or individual."
The trustee in question made numerous public or private statements about this ongoing conflict over the past several weeks. None of the other CODOH trustees have signed up to volunteer for this organization in order to engage in infighting and public mud-slinging. We will therefore not respond to any of this trustee's missives. We only remark that anyone willing to engage him should insist on him presenting evidence for his claims. That is what revisionism is ultimately all about: we do not accept claims at face value but demand verifiable evidence. Our private appeals to him to provide such evidence have remained unheeded.
We hope that the trustee in question becomes reasonable, thus allowing a peaceful resolution of this unnecessary conflict and preventing any litigation.
Meanwhile, we regroup and try to reestablish all web services as best and as fast as possible. If you want to be of assistance in this regard, or if you wish to learn more about this conflict, please get in touch using our NEW contact information provided below.
DO NOT USE ANY OTHER ADDRESS!
Sincerely
The other Four of the Five Trustees of the Bradley Smith Charitable Trust
(We do not reveal the names of any of the trustees here for their own protection.)

Further statements will be updated to this post.

Debunking of the video "Jews tell the truth about the Holocaust" (an excerpt from Eric Hunt's film)

2023-09-04T06:19:00.001+01:00

Added this debunking to the YouTube section. Lots about sport in the camps, "canteens", postcards etc.

On the SS judge Konrad Morgen's Monowitz confusion

2023-05-29T12:13:00.006+01:00

During the Nuremberg trial on 08.08.1946 the former SS judge Dr. Konrad Morgen testified:

MORGEN: Yesterday I described the four camps of the Kriminalkommissar Wirth and referred to the Camp Auschwitz. By "Extermination Camp Auschwitz" I did not mean the concentration camp. It did not exist there. I meant a separate extermination camp near Auschwitz, called "Monowitz."
[...]
MORGEN: The prisoners who marched off to the concentration camp had no inkling of where the other prisoners were taken. The Extermination Camp Monowitz lay far away from the concentration camp. It was situated on an extensive industrial site and was not recognizable as such and everywhere on the horizon there were smoking chimneys. The camp itself was guarded on the outside by special troops of men from the Baltic, Estonians, Lithuanians, Latvians, and also Ukrainians. The entire technical arrangement was almost exclusively in the hands of the prisoners who were assigned for this job and they were only supervised each time by an Unterfuehrer. The actual killing was done by another Unterfuehrer who let the gas into this room. Thus the number of those who knew about these things was extremely limited. This circle had to take a special oath...

Etc. Holocaust deniers have naturally carped on this ever since, given that the extermination camp was actually called Birkenau, so Morgen must have been coerced or was lying for another reason.

However, it follows from the 1944 protocol of interrogation by Morgen of the Auschwitz inmate Eleonore Hodys that Morgen knew that the extermination camp was Birkenau:

While there the civilian employee, Dr. Gobel, of the Glauberg station, gave the order that I shall have to be sent to Birkenau for gas.

Moreover, Morgen corrected the record at least twice afterwards.

In the interrogation of 04.09.1946 (NARA, RG 238, M1019, roll 47), he still repeated the Monowitz version:

This extermination camp was near Monowitz [bei Monowitz], therefore it was spatially separated from the actual concentration camp [i. e. Auschwitz 1 - SR].

But when confronted with this claim on 13.12.1946 (ibid.) he reacted:

That's a mistake. It occurred to me later: it was not Monowitz, but Birkenau, camp II.

Then:

Q.: Did you perhaps see the Monowitz camp?
A.: I cannot remember it consciously. The Auschwitz camp is so huge and I was so impressed by the Birkenau camp that I don't remember details.
Q.: Was there an I.G.Farben plant in Auschwitz?
A.: Yes. That was the so-called Bunawerk. The investigation I conducted there into the whole gassing affair, some threads went to Monowitz to these Buna plants. What that was, however, I no longer know. In any case, it had nothing to do with the [...] [? "Versuchungen" - temptations, untranslatable in this context; possibly distorted "Versuchen" - experiments; another option is the confusion with "Verschiebungen", referring to misappropriations of property - SR] in Birkenau.

A bit later a following exchange took place:

Q: Do you know where Monowitz was?
A: To my recollection east of the main Auschwitz camp.
Q: From your investigations in Auschwitz, do you know whether the entire population around Auschwitz and all the people who lived around Auschwitz knew that gassings were taking place in the concentration camp?
A: I don't think so. This Birkenau camp was located in such a way that one could not even think about it. It was adapted to the whole industrial landscape. These gassing houses, including the crematoria and the undressing and bathing rooms, were set one story deep into the ground, so that the building did not appear to be as large as it actually was. The chimneys were extraordinarily massive and wide, and the smoke emission was low. By the way, everywhere was a scattered industrial area. There were open fields in between, so that one had no clue at all from these facilities as an outsider, which terrible happening took place there.

This shows that Morgen ascribed the industrial landscape to the whole camp, including Birkenau, which explains his description at the IMT.

During the Pohl trial the following exchange took place on 22.08.1947:

BY DR. SEIDL (For Defendant Oswald Pohl):

Q Witness, you testified that the extermination camp at Auschwitz was the camp of Birkenau. Now, I can recall that you testified already before the International Military Tribunal that the extermination camp of Auschwitz was the camp of Monowitz. May I assume at the time when you gave your testimony before the I. M. T. it was a mistake?

A It was a mistake on my part. When I say Monowitz I mean Birkenau.

During the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial Morgen testified at length about his visit to Birkenau on 09.03.1964. Given the nature of the West-German investigation and trial proceedings, where no coercion has ever been established, Morgen could have easily said the truth, had he indeed been coerced during the IMT.

Moreover, his testimony was confirmed on 01.10.1964 by Gerhard Wiebeck, who had been investigating Auschwitz together with Morgen.

And further confirmation comes from Helmuth Reimers in his interrogation on 06.06.1961 (during the preparation to the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial). He served in the so-called Criminal Police (Kripo) and around Nov. 1943 he was given the task of investigating the misappropriation of the Jewish property by the SS in the camps. He remained in Auschwitz (according to him) until Jan. 1944 and was able to visit the crematoria with their ovens and gas chambers. He had to report to Morgen, and although he says that Morgen did not visit the gas chambers together with him, obviously him knowing in some detail about the extermination specifically in Birkenau automatically means that his boss, Morgen, also knew.

I'm publishing long excerpts and a translation of the testimony here (HHStAW 461/37638/52, Bl. 9129-9136).

TRANSCRIPTION

Im November 1943 wurde ich als Kriminalkommissar der Kriminalpolizeistelle Bochum - ich hatte dort das 1. Kommissariat (Kapitalverbrechen) geleitet - zum Reichskriminalpolizeiamt Berlin durch Fernschreiben beordert. Hier hatte ich mich bei einem Kriminalrat Schulz zu melden. Von dem Kriminalrat Schulz und dem SS-Richter Dr. Morgen wurde ich in mein neues Arbeitsgebiet eingewiesen, nämlich der Bearbeitung von Fällen der Verschiebung und des Diebstahls jüdischen Vermögens in den Konzentrationslagern. Von Dr. Morgen bekam ich eine Sondervollmacht des Reichsführers SS für das KL Auschwitz und fuhr nach etwa 8 Tagen nach Auschwitz. Als Mitarbeiter wurde mir ein Kriminalsekretär des Reichskriminalpolizeiamts Berlin zugeteilt, an dessen Namen ich mich jedoch nicht mehr erinnern kann. Es ist möglich, daß er Schwarz hieß. In Auschwitz meldete ich mich bei dem Kommandanten Höss, der gerade an diesem Tag seine Dienstgeschäfte an seinen Nachfolger Liebehenschel übergab. Liebehenschel hat dann von mir nur gesagt bekommen, daß ich zur Aufklärung krimineller Delikte nach Auschwitz beordert sein. Um was es dabei im einzelnen ging, hat er nicht erfahren.

Meine Ermittlungen richteten sich auftragsgemäß gegen Gestapo und SS in Auschwitz, und zwar insbesondere gegen die Politische Abteilung, die zu dieser Zeit dem Gestapoangehörigen Grabner unterstand. G. war gleichzeitig im Angleichungsdienstgrad als Kriminalsekretär SS-Untersturmführer. Bei der Politischen Abteilung waren meine Ermittlungen insbesondere auf Fälle der illegalen Tötung von Häftlingen gerichtet. In diesem Zusammenhang muß ich erwähnen, daß ich von Dr. Morgen bereits den Auftrag hatte, auch Fälle der illegalen Tötung von Häftlingen zu ermitteln. Aus diesem Grund habe ich mir zunächst die Verstorbenen-Kartei in der Politischen Abteilung angesehen. Bei der Vernehmung von einem Angehörigen der Politischen Abteilung gab dieser an, daß die Todesursachen auf den Karteikarten falsch angegeben seien, denn die meisten der verstorbenen Häftlinge seien erschossen worden. Dabei stellte sich gleichzeitig heraus, daß dies auf Veranlassung von Grabner geschehen war, der nach Erschießungen den SS-Ärzten Todesbescheinigungen vorlegte, die von diesen unterschrieben werden mußten, und auf denen bereits die jeweiligen Personalien und die "Todesursache" eingetragen waren. Daraufhin habe ich nach Rücksprache mit Dr. Morgen den Leiter der Politischen Abteilung in Auschwitz, Grabner, vorläufig festgenommen und in das Untersuchungsgefängnis Kattowitz eingeliefert. Von mir wurde Grabner nicht vernommen; lediglich eine informatorische Befragung wurde von mir durchgeführt. Die Vernehmung wurden von Dr. Morgen vorgenommen. Was sich bei dieser Vernehmung ergeben hat, kann ich nicht sagen.

[...]

Da ich mir in Auschwitz alles ansehen konnte und vor allem auch die Diebstähle und Schiebungen zu bearbeiten hatte, habe ich auch einen ankommenden Güterzug mit etwa 50 Waggons gesehen, der im Lager Birkenau auf der Rampe ausgeladen wurde. Nach dem Ausladen wurden sofort die Arbeitsunfähigen aussortiert und zu einem Krematorium geführt. Hier mußten sich die Menschen nackt ausziehen und gingen dann in den Vergasungsraum. Ausgezogen wurde sich in einem Raum, der vor der Gaskammer lag.

Nachdem alle Menschen im Vergasungsraum waren, wurden die Eisentüren verschlossen. Daraufhin kletterte ein Assistenzarzt auf den Vergasungsraum und schüttete aus einer Büchse das Gas in zwei Schächte, die in die Gaskammer führten. Anschließend verschloss er die Schächte mit einer Klappe. Von den Menschen in der Gaskammer hörte man keinen Ton. Etwa 10 Minuten später wurde die Eisentür geöffnet und man hörte einen Ventilator laufen, der das Gas absaugte

Ich konnte nun die Leichen der Vergasten liegen sehen, die völlig normal aussahen. Die Gesichter waren nicht verzerrt und die Gliedmaßen auch nicht verkrampft. Sie sahen ganz natürlich aus, genauso, als seien sie eines natürlichen Todes gestorben. Ich schätze, daß es sich dabei um mehrere hundert Menschen - Männer, Frauen und Kinder - gehandelt hat. Es waren aber nicht alle Arbeitsunfähigen dieses Transportes, die in meiner Anwesenheit vergast worden sind. Bei der Aussortierung waren es nämlich mehr Menschen, die zur Vergasung bestimmt wurden. Wo man diese hingeführt hatte, kann ich nicht sagen.

Bei dieser Aussortierung habe ich auch den SS-Arzt Dr. Mengele auf der Rampe gesehen, der jedoch keine Aussortierungen vornahm. Dies wurde von 3 oder 4 jüngeren Ärzten gemacht, die allerdings keine regelrechten Untersuchungen vornahmen, sondern nur vom kurzen Ansehen entschieden.

Den Dr. Mengele hatte ich im Kasino beim gemeinsamen Mittagessen kennengelernt. Ich hatte ihn bei dieser Gelegenheit auch gefragt, was er hier in Auschwitz machen würde, worauf er mir zur Antwort gab, daß er zu medizinischen Versuchen in das KL abgestellt sei. Welcher Art seine Versuche waren, ist mir nicht bekannt.

[...]

Frage: Handelte es sich nach ihren damaligen Richtlinien bei den Aussortierungen und Vergasungen auch um "illegale Tötungen", die in ihr Aufgabengebiet fielen?

Antw.: Nein. Mit der sog. "Judenaktion" hatte ich gar nichts zu tun. Ich habe diese Vorkommisse natürlich sofort Dr. Morgen berichtet, der mir sagte, daß mich diese Sache nicht angehen würde. Mein Aufgabenbereich sei lediglich Judeneigentum, das gestohlen oder verschoben würde. Aus diesem Grund hatte ich auch beim Ausladen von Transporten auf der Rampe zu sein, um das Einsammeln der Wertsachen zu beobachten. Beim Ausladen auf der Rampe entledigten sich viele Juden ihrer mitgebrachten Wertsachen, indem sie diese einfach auf die Rampe warfen oder im Waggon liegen ließen. Diese Gegenstände wurden dann von SS-Leuten aufgesammelt und bei einem Angehörigen der Wertsachenabteilung der Kommandantur abgegeben. Vor dem Auskleideraum am Krematorium stand noch eine Kiste mit einem Schlitz im Deckel, in welche die Juden ihre Schmuckstücke und das Bargeld werfen mußten. Diese Kiste wurde dann jeweils von Angehörigen der Wertsachenabteilung abgeholt. Diese Schmucksachen wurden dann in der Wertsachenabteilung in der Kommandantur sortiert. Dabei habe ich gesehen, wie aus Geschmeide die Edelsteine herausgebrochen und besonders aussortiert wurden. In dieser Abteilung standen große Kisten mit Wertsachen und Geld, die zunächst dort aufbewahrt wurden.

Besondere Devisen mußten allerdings sofort nach Berlin geschickt werden. Es handelte sich dabei hauptsächlich um amerikanische Dollars, schweizer Franken und englische Pfunde A.B.: Mir ist auch bekanntgeworden, daß den Leichen nach der Vergasung die Goldzähne ausgebrochen wurden, die man anschließend eingeschmolzen hat. Diese Scheideanstalt bzw. Schmelzerei befand sich in einer kleinen Baracke in der Nähe des Effektenlagers. Ich habe auch einmal einen SS-Mann gesehen, der die Goldzähne vom Krematorium in einem Pappkarton auf dem Fahrrad dort hin beförderte. In dieser Schmelzerei wurde das Zahngold in kleine Barren eingeschmolzen und kam anschließend zur Wertsachenabteilung.

A.B.: Das Ausbrechen der Goldzähne der Vergasten habe ich selbst nicht gesehen, sondern nur davon gehört, da ich mich ja damit zu befassen hatte. Es waren nämlich irgendwo plötzlich Goldbarren aufgetaucht, die nachweislich aus Zahngold bestanden und verschoben worden waren.

Einige Tage nach der Vergasung, der ich mitzugesehen hatte, habe ich mir das Krematorium bzw. eines der vier Krematorien einmal angesehen, als dieses nicht in Betrieb war. Dabei habe ich die Verbrennungsöfen gesehen, und zwar waren es nach meiner Erinnerung etwa 5-Muffelöfen. Mir wurde dieses Krematorium von einem Unterscharführer gezeigt, dessen Namen ich nicht gekannt habe. Er erklärte mir dabei, wie die Leichen aus der Gaskammer in die Öfen transportiert werden und wo man ihnen die Goldzähne ausbricht. Ich habe dabei auch eine Art zahnärztliche Zange liegen sehen. In einem Krematorium lag der Vergasungsraum tiefer als die Verbrennungsöfen, während er bei einem anderen etwa in gleicher Höhe lag. Genau kann ich das aber nicht mehr angeben. Die Krematorien habe ich nur besichtigt, um den Gang des ausgebrochenen Zahngoldes zu verfolgen.

[...]

Der Leiter der Untersuchungskommission, Gerichts-SS-Führer und Hauptsturmführer Dr. Morgen hat meines Wissens Vergasungen in Auschwitz in meiner Gegenwart nicht gesehen. Er war auch nicht ständig in Auschwitz, sondern kam nur von Zeit zu Zeit von Berlin und hat sich informiert. Er fuhr auch in die anderen Konzentrationslager, wo gleichgelagerte Ermittlungen geführt wurden.

[...]

Mein Sonderausweis für die Ermittlungen in Auschwitz hatte in etwa zum Inhalt, daß ich kriminalpolizeiliche Ermittlungen durchzuführen hätte, und daß mir alle Einrichtungen des Lagers und der Gestapo zur Einsichtnahme freigestellt werden müßten. Auf Grund dieses Ausweises konnte ich somit auch die Vergasungsanlagen und Krematorien besichtigen.

TRANSLATION

In November 1943 I was ordered by telex to the Reich Criminal Police Office in Berlin as a detective superintendent of the Bochum Criminal Police Office, where I had headed the 1st Commissariat (capital crimes). Here I had to report to a Criminal Counselor Schulz. Criminal Counselor Schulz and SS Judge Dr. Morgen introduced me to my new field of work, namely the handling of cases of misappropriation and theft of Jewish property in the concentration camps. From Dr. Morgen I received a special warrant from the Reichsführer SS for concentration camp Auschwitz, and after about 8 days I left for Auschwitz. A criminal secretary of the Reich Criminal Police Office in Berlin was assigned to me as a co-worker, but I cannot remember his name. It is possible that his name was Schwarz. In Auschwitz, I reported to Commandant Höss, who was handing over his official duties to his successor Liebehenschel on that very day. Liebehenschel was told by me only that I had been ordered to Auschwitz to investigate criminal offenses. He did not find out what this involved in detail.

My investigations were directed against the Gestapo and the SS in Auschwitz, in particular against the Political Department, which at that time was under the command of Grabner, a member of the Gestapo. At the same time, G. held the rank of Criminal Secretary and SS-Untersturmführer. In the Political Department my investigations were directed in particular at cases of the illegal killing of prisoners. In this connection I must mention that I had already been instructed by Dr. Morgen to also investigate cases of illegal killing of prisoners. For this reason, I first looked at the index of deceased persons in the Political Department. During the interrogation of a member of the Political Department, he stated that the causes of death on the index cards were wrong, because most of the deceased prisoners had been shot. At the same time it turned out that this had been done at the instigation of Grabner, who after shootings presented death certificates to the SS doctors, which had to be signed by them, and on which the respective personal data and the "cause of death" had already been entered. Thereupon, after consultation with Dr. Morgen, I provisionally arrested Grabner, the head of the Political Department in Auschwitz, and sent him to the Kattowitz remand prison. Grabner was not questioned by me; only an informative questioning was carried out by me. The interrogation was conducted by Dr. Morgen. What emerged from this interrogation I cannot say.

[...]

Since I was able to look at everything in Auschwitz and especially had to deal with the thefts and misappropriations, I also saw an arriving freight train with about 50 wagons being unloaded on the ramp in the Birkenau camp. After unloading, those unable to work were immediately sorted out and led to a crematorium. Here the people had to undress naked and then went to the gassing room. Undressing took place in a room located in front of the gas chamber.

After all the people were in the gassing room, the iron doors were closed. Then an assistant doctor climbed onto the gassing room and poured gas from a can into two shafts leading into the gas chamber. He then closed the shafts with a flap. No sound was heard from the people in the gas chamber. About 10 minutes later, the iron door was opened and a fan was heard running, extracting the gas.

I could now see the bodies of the gassed lying there, looking completely normal. Their faces were not distorted and their limbs were not cramped. They looked perfectly natural, just as if they had died a natural death. I estimate that there were several hundred people - men, women and children. However, not all of those who were unable to work were gassed in my presence. When they were sorted out, there were more people who were designated for gassing. I cannot say where they were taken.

During this selection, I also saw the SS doctor Dr. Mengele on the ramp, but he did not carry out any selections. This was done by 3 or 4 younger doctors, who, however, did not carry out any regular examinations, but decided only from a brief glance.

I had met Dr. Mengele in the mess hall at lunch. On this occasion I asked him what he was doing here in Auschwitz, to which he replied that he had been sent to the KL for medical experiments. I do not know what kind of experiments he was conducting.

[...]

Question: According to your guidelines at that time, were the selections and gassings also "illegal killings" which fell within your area of responsibility?

Answer: No. I had nothing whatsoever to do with the so-called "Jewish Action". Of course, I immediately reported these incidents to Dr. Morgen, who told me that this matter did not concern me. My area of responsibility was only Jewish property that was stolen or misappropriated. For this reason I also had to be on the ramp when transports were unloaded, in order to observe the collection of valuables. When unloading on the ramp, many Jews got rid of the valuables they had brought with them by simply throwing them onto the ramp or leaving them in the wagon. These items were then collected by SS men and handed over to a member of the valuables department of the commandant's office. In front of the undressing room at the crematorium there was a box with a slit in the lid into which the Jews had to throw their jewelry and cash. This box was then collected by members of the valuables department. These jewelry items were then sorted in the valuables department in the Commandant's Office. I saw how precious stones were broken out of the jewelry and sorted out. In this department there were large boxes with valuables and money, which were initially kept there.

However, special foreign currency had to be sent to Berlin immediately. These were mainly American dollars, Swiss francs and English pounds.

[answering a question]: I also learned that after gassing, gold teeth of the corpses were broken out and then melted down. This refinery or smelter was located in a small barrack near the effects camp. I once saw an SS man who transported gold teeth from the crematorium in a cardboard box on his bicycle. In this smelter dental gold was melted down into small ingots and then came to the valuables department.

[answering a question]: I did not see the breaking out of gold teeth of the gassed people myself, but only heard about it, since I had to deal with it. Gold bars had suddenly appeared somewhere, which demonstrably consisted of dental gold and had been misappropriated.

A few days after the gassing, which I had witnessed, I took a look at the crematorium, or rather one of the four crematoria, when it was not in operation. There I saw the incineration ovens, and according to my recollection there were about 5 muffle ovens. I was shown this crematorium by a Unterscharführer whose name I did not know. He explained to me how corpses were transported from the gas chamber to the ovens and where their gold teeth were broken out. I also saw a kind of dental forceps lying there. In one crematorium the gassing room was lower than the incinerators, while in another it was about the same height. However, I can no longer provide exact details. I visited the crematoria only to follow the course of the broken-out dental gold.

[...]

The head of the investigating commission, SS-court leader and Hauptsturmführer Dr. Morgen did not, to my knowledge, see gassings in Auschwitz in my presence. He was also not constantly in Auschwitz, but only came from time to time from Berlin and informed himself. He also went to the other concentration camps, where investigations of the same nature were being conducted.

[...]

My special pass for the investigations in Auschwitz roughly stated that I had to carry out criminal investigations and that all camp and Gestapo facilities had to be made available to me for inspection. On the basis of this pass, I could thus also visit the gassing facilities and crematoria.

(A couple of brief comments: the doors he saw could have been iron-reinforced wooden doors, misremembered or misinterpreted as iron doors; on the other hand at that time the Birkenau Kremas 2 and 3 had their gas chambers divided into two parts, so the description of the usage of two shafts is correct - and we don't really know how the inner door in the dividing wall looked like, it could as well have been an iron one, after all not all doors had to have the same construction; how corpses looked like after gassings differed from one time to another and no visible skin discoloration was likely a short time after the gassing as described here.)

Some mainstream authors put forth the hypothesis that Morgen intentionally confused things in order to defend the SS. But this explanation makes no sense whatsoever - surely Morgen knew that almost any other Auschwitz-related witness could destroy his testimony, had that been the case.

The best explanation therefore is that Morgen's mention of Birkenau was a memory aberration. How did it happen?

During the interrogation on 13.12.1946 (NARA, RG 238, M1019, roll 47) Morgen said concerning another matter:

I handled 800 cases in one year and it was such a workload, I can't remember those details.

Had Auschwitz been his only case, the confusion would have been strange. But with hundreds of cases such mistakes are no longer improbable.