Sunday, June 25, 2006

Why the "diesel issue" is irrelevant

Note: a more complete treatment of the evidence can now be found here.

According to a widespread meme, the Nazis used diesel engines to gas people in Aktion Reinhard(t) camps (either in all, or in some of them) and in gas vans. Many sources repeat this claim and many courts (inculding the West-German and Israeli ones) also accepted that diesel engines were used for homicidal gassings.

Holocaust deniers have been disputing this detail for a long time. The main critic of the "diesel story" is an American denier Friedrich Berg (his site is http://www.nazigassings.com/).

Berg strives to prove, through detailed technical discussion, that diesel engines cannot used for mass gassings efficiently. Therefore, there were no diesel gas chambers. Therefore, there was no Holocaust.

Read more!

I'm not qualified to dissect Berg's technical arguments. Roberto may wish to post some details, as he has been dealing with Berg's arguments for years. Apparently, diesel engines can be used for gassings in stationary chambers with some tweaking, though it seems the same does not apply to gas vans. It also seems to me that it is simply not feasible to use diesel engines for gassings, even if they can kill, when one has access to petrol engines.

The point of this posting is that if Berg is correct about technical infeasibility of using diesel engines for mass gassings, this in no way constitutes an argument against the historicity of the gas chambers in which these engines were supposed to be used.

First of all, one must explore the source of the identification of homicidal engines as diesels.

The most prominent source is, of course, Kurt Gerstein's testimony. Or, rather, testimonies. His testimonies certainly contain the core of truth. Yet, they contain many implausible details and internal contradictions as well. One simply cannot take any detail of Gerstein's testimony and use it without corroboration - as has been done (unfortunately) by some historians. Christopher Browning characterizes Gerstein thus:

Many aspects of Gerstein's testimony are unquestionably problematic. Several statements he attributes to Globocnik are clearly exagerrated or false, and it is not clear whether Gerstein or Globocnik was the faulty source. In other statements, such as the height of the piles of shoes and clothing at Belzec and Treblinka, Gerstein himself is clearly the source of exaggeration. Gerstein also added grossly exaggerated claims about matters to which he was not an eyewitness, such as that a total of 25 million Jews and others were gassed. But in the essential issue, namely that he was in Belzec and witnessed the gassing of a transport of Jews from Lwow, his testimony is fully corroborated by Pfannenstiel. It is also corroborated by other categories of witnesses from Belzec.
It is not even clear if Gerstein ever saw the engine himself. So Gerstein's testimony alone cannot be used to establish the type of the engine.

But what about Prof. Pfannenstiel's testimony? He traveled with Gerstein to Belzec, and later testified about the gassing he had witnessed. He told about the diesel engine which was used for gassings, and which he saw with his own eyes. Interestingly, he told about it without any imaginable coercion involved, to no less that a patriarch of Holocaust denial, Paul Rassinier, who described their meeting in one of his books. Here's how Rassinier relates the part about the engine:
My interlocutor told me that, upon being informed of the expected train, he decided to stay. Accompanied by Wirth and his S.S. aide, he again visited the little house that had been fixed up for exterminations, and he described it to me. It had a raised ground floor, and a hallway with three small rooms on each side, which he did not measure, but which he thought had an area of surely less than 5 x 5 meters, perhaps 4 x 5 maximum, and all of them were rectangular, not square. At the end of the hall was the room where the Diesel motor was located in the center on a cement base and a little below floor level. I asked about this motor and how it was connected up to exhaust outlets in each of the six rooms. It was a truck motor, about 1.50 meters long, a little less than 1 meter wide, and a good meter in height, including the concrete base. Its power he did not know; perhaps it had 200 horsepower, he said. I pointed out to him that it was said to have been a marine engine, and, therefore, it must have been much bigger if it had been built for a ship. "Surely not," he said. "it was a truck motor, at least its dimensions led me to visualize it on a truck." He remembered the number of cylinders, six in one row. As for the connection with the exhaust pipes, in order to proceed faster, he made a drawing for me, which showed that the motor exhaust was introduced into each room by means of a pipe that was connected to an outlet in the floor.
Given that this testimony was given voluntarily, by an unsympathetic witness (just read his other comments to Rassinier; Pfannenstiel also wrote to Rassinier that fiction in Gerstein's report prevails over reality), we can be certain that it corroborates Gerstein's basic description about the Belzec gassing. It does not corroborate many details of this description, but it also mentions the diesel engine used for gassings. But, considering that Pfannenstiel was an outsider, and a hygienist, not a technician, one may suppose that he could have gotten the type of the engine wrong.

Yet another witness who testified about the diesel engine in Belzec was Karl Alfred Schluch. Carlo Mattogno quotes him in his Belzec book as follows (p. 68):
For the gassings an engine was started up. I cannot give a more detailed description of the engine, because I never saw it. I am not a specialist, but I would say that, judging from the sound, it was a medium-size diesel engine.
This description speaks for itself.

So, the above testimonies for the type of engine at Belzec are not iron-clad evidence on this specific issue. There is also a testimony of Rudolf Reder, who described the Belzec gassing engine as running on petrol. Mattogno cites an early testimony of Reder, which is quite problematic in its description of the homicidal apparatus (if the translation is correct, that is), so Reder might not qualify as a good witness on this issue. But in any case, at worst we don't have any hard data about the type of engine. It could be either petrol or diesel engine. So Berg's technical arguments don't affect this camp in any way. That the witnesses might have gotten the type of engine wrong does not necessarily discredit the rest of their testimonies (this is decided on a case-by-case basis).

(I don't discuss Eichmann's submarine engine claim here, since Christopher Browning plausibly argues that it was not Belzec that Eichmann visited, as is usually assumed, but rather an experimental gassing site nearby. Eichmann's claim about the type of engine is only a hearsay, and is not worth much either way.)

Now let's move to Sobibor. Luckily, we have a testimony of the person who had personally installed a gassing engine there. It was SS-Scharfuehrer Erich Fuchs, who testified on April 8, 1963:
We unloaded the motor. It was a heavy Russian benzine engine, at least 200 horsepower. We installed the engine on a concrete foundation and set up the connection between the exhaust and the tube.

So, in case of Sobibor we have unequivocal evidence that the engine ran on petrol.

Now Treblinka. Jewish inmate Eli Rosenberg told in 1947 affidavit about "exhaust fumes of a single diesel engine". At least two Ukrainian guards - Leleko and Malagon - also said that diesels were used.

It is important to remember that, just as in case of Belzec, none of these people testifying about diesels were directly involved with them. So, in principle, they could have been easily mistaken. Especially when one considers that there was a diesel engine for generation of electricity, which could have been mistaken for the homicidal engine.

There are also testimonies about Soviet tank engine being used. Yankel Wiernik writes in A Year in Treblinka:
A motor taken from a dismantled Soviet tank stood in the power plant. This motor was used to pump the gas, which was let into the chambers by connecting the motor with the inflow pipes.
Note that he did not say "diesel engine". Erich Fuchs claimed that his engine was also from a Soviet tank (though this was disputed by Erich Bauer, who said it was a Renault engine), and yet it was a petrol engine. In fact, quite a lot of Soviet tanks had petrol engines.

I have also seen claims that T-34 tank's engine was used. I have seen this claim ascribed to Kurt Franz, though I can't tell if the reference is true. I've seen deniers argue that since T-34 tanks had diesel engines, the Treblinka engine had to be diesel too. For the sake of the argument, let us assume that Treblinka engine was indeed from T-34 tank. Now, it is simply not true that all T-34s were diesels. Because of shortage of V-2 diesels in the autumn of 1941 it was ordered to implement the ways to install old carburetor engines M17-T in T-34 tanks (I. Shmelyov, "Tank T-34", Tekhnika i vooruzhenije, no. 11-12, 1998). Another author confirms that some T-34s had M-17, a powerful aviation motor, installed (E. Zubov, Dvigateli tankov (iz istorii tankostrojenija), 1991).

Now, if you visually compare petrol M-17 and diesel V-2, both used in T-34s (though the latter used in the majority of them), you will see why some people might confuse the two. Further source of confusion might stem from that incorrect belief that T-34s had only diesel engines.

As a general rule, the people who did not operate or install the engine could have been mistaken about the type of engine.

If the people who installed/operated the engines were to testify about them being diesels and Berg's technical arguments are true, that would present a problem. But we have already seen Fuchs testifying about a petrol engine. More information comes from German historian Peter Witte:
In this case even three former Gasmeister (“Gasmasters” / Erich Bauer, Erich Fuchs, and Franz Hödl), who must have really have known the facts, since they all killed with the same motor, confirmed in court that it was definitely a petrol motor. Bauer and Fuchs, having been professional motor mechanics, simply quarrelled during the trial about whether it was a Renault motor or a heavy Russian tank motor (probably a tank motor or a tractor motor) having at least 200 PS. They also disputed whether the method of ignition was a starter or an impact magnet, which diesel motors obviously do not have, being self-igniting...
He adds:
Hödl reported that they once tried a Diesel motor for the the gas chambers, but it did not work!
Witte's claims should be checked, of course, but in any case Berg's diesel arguments simply don't work for Aktion Reinhard(t) camps - the people that really mattered apparently testified only about petrol engines. All the witnesses who mentioned diesels would be simply mistaken, and there's nothing surprising or sinister about that.

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.

Now let's see what other evidence we have, to establish the types of engines used in gas vans. Roberto supplies us with the following information: Zalman Levinbuck testified about the petrol engine ("The people are poisoned during the drive by gases and exhaust fumes that are created by the combustion of gasoline in the motor.", Kogon/Langbein/Rückerl et al., Nationalsozialistische Massentötungen durch Giftgas, p. 91); Friedrich Jeckeln "mentioned too high gasoline consumption" as one of the problems with gas vans (Christian Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, p. 767); Chelmno gas van driver Walter Burmeister testified about "Renault trucks with Otto engines" (i.e. petrol motors; Kogon et al.); SS-Oberscharfuehrer Walter Piller who served in Chelmno mentioned "gases that had been created by the gasoline motor" (Kogon et al., p. 138).

And it seems that most witnesses simply don't mention the engine type. But the preponderance of evidence is clearly on the side of petrol engines.

Finally, we know that some gas vans were Saurers. Denier Ingrid Weckert states:
What the writer claims with regard to the problems encountered during 'gassing' must be read in conjunction with Friedrich Berg's chapter in this volume. For as long as there is no proof that the RSHA's Saurer vehicles were not equipped with Diesel engines, as was normally the case, the gassing tales cannot be given any credence.
Well, it's easy, then. Since we do know from extensive documentation and eyewitness statements that there were gas vans, and if we assume that Berg is correct, then Saurer gas vans were Saurers with petrol engines.

Also, Nick pointed out that old, 1920s models had petrol motors, so maybe old RSHA vehicles were converted. Otherwise, it is also possible that only Saurer chassis were ordered, and petrol engines were installed afterwards.

Be that as it may, it is clear that until deniers will dig up eyewitness statements of the people who were "in the know", who simply had to be informed about the type of engine (such as those who ran the engines in the camps, or gas vans and gas chambers inventors), and who mention the alleged successful use of diesel motors, they have no case whatsoever. They still haven't found any such statements. Thus, the "diesel issue" is moot.

Update: Nick provided me with the following document:
'Motor Wkw Pol. 51140 ausbauen und nach Lublin schaffen. Reparatur wird von hier veranlasst'

SSPF Lublin an Aussenstelle Minsk, Stubaf Dolp, 1.11.41, GPD 438 (10.11.41), item 21, PRO HW 16/32
I'm quoting it only to show that engines for the camps did not have to come from Poland proper - they could have come from any of the occupied territories.

Update 2: Previous version of this article (including one of the updates) relied on two unreliable sources from a usually reliable site. Authenticity of these sources is in question, so I have removed references to them. The sources insisted on diesel engines in Treblinka, so their initial inclusion would not help my thesis in any way, so don't complain. Maybe I will tell a more detailed story about these sources some time...

46 comments:

  1. The Israelis also said diesels at the Demjanjuk trial.

    I guess we can just make up the details on the fly as long as we keep to the essentials.

    Yes, the notion of mass-murder by diesel exhaust is so absurd that it strains gullibility. It is not a mere matter of inefficiency but of tragicomedy.

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  2. > The Israelis also said diesels at the Demjanjuk trial.

    Yep. Not relevant, as explained.

    > I guess we can just make up the details on the fly as long as we keep to the essentials.

    No, it's just only relevant witnesses give relevant details, as explained.

    > Yes, the notion of mass-murder by diesel exhaust is so absurd that it strains gullibility. It is not a mere matter of inefficiency but of tragicomedy.

    Maybe. But this is also irrelevant to what did happen, as explained.

    It may be relevant to critical evaluation of historians' approaches, but that is another topic.

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  3. A Diesel engine smells ... it is a rather easily distinguished smell. Maybe one should have asked the eyewitnesses about that?

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  4. "A Diesel engine smells ... it is a rather easily distinguished smell. Maybe one should have asked the eyewitnesses about that?"

    Maybe. Though only those of them in direct contact with the GCs would know.

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  5. For a perspective on Mr. Berg's claims, I invite you to examine Friedrich Berg & the Diesel Issue on Nizkor.org.

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  6. Sergey, you wrote something like if we found someone with direct contact to the engine that said diesel, then you'd be in trouble. Go to deathcamps.org. Click on gas chambers and go to the Muenzberger statement, the guy that started the engine. He said DIESEL.

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  7. Sergey, munzberger would'nt have gotten the type of fuel wrong. Maybe he mixed up the engine type, but he wouldn't have gotten the wrong type of fuel. Petrols don't run on diesel fuel. So:monkey ass

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  8. Dear Anonymous, if you didn't notice, his statement has been quoted in the update long ago.

    ---

    Dear Monkey Ass, he might have gotten the type of fuel wrong, if he thought that the fuel was for the gassing engine AND he thought that the engine was diesel. Alternatively, the fuel might have been for the electricity generator which was placed nearby.

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  9. Why didn’t Stangle, Oberhauser, Suchomel or even Hoess tell us long time ago what kind of engine it was?

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  10. Who asked them about the type? Also, why would they know?

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  11. In Debating the Holocaust Thomas Dalton states:

    “The [diesel engine] topic is almost completely avoided by every anti-revisionist writer. […] This is a strong implicit admission that traditionalism has no reply to Berg and the revisionists. [...] Most recently the bloggers have attempted to address this issue. After admitting that ‘it is simply not feasible to use diesel engines for gassings… when one has acess to petrol engines’, Romanov20 claims that the diesel issue is ‘irrelevant’ because, in his view, anyone who claimed that the gassing engine was a diesel was simply mistaken. He argues that the ‘most knowledgeable’ witnesses mentioned gasoline, but he can cite only two: Fuchs (for Sobibor only), and Reder, who said the exhaust gas was sent into the open air!”21

    Let me add that the argument of the ridiculous blogger S. Romanov (“The diesel issue is irrelevant”) reveals the queer mindset of this individual: There is neither documentary nor material evidence for the “Aktion Reinhardt” holocaust, and there are no trustworthy witnesses either (for what credit can be given to witnesses who “were simply mistaken” as the murder weapon?), but nonetheless the Aktion Reinhardt holocaust is a proven and indisputable fact! In other words: The pillars on which the edifice once rested are gone, but the edifice is still standing, or rather hovering in the air! A major miracle!

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  12. Mr Santomauro, you quote Dalton as follows:

    "[Romanov] argues that the ‘most knowledgeable’ witnesses mentioned gasoline, but he can cite only two"

    This is a lie. As can clearly be seen in the above blog, Sergey also cites gasoline testimonies by Bauer, Hödl, Levinbuck, Burmeister, Piller and Jeckeln.

    If this crude dishonesty is typical of Dalton's book, you won't be fooling anybody.

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  13. Hi Mr. Santomauro,

    You wrote:

    «In Debating the Holocaust Thomas Dalton states:

    “The [diesel engine] topic is almost completely avoided by every anti-revisionist writer. […] This is a strong implicit admission that traditionalism has no reply to Berg and the revisionists. [...] Most recently the bloggers have attempted to address this issue. After admitting that ‘it is simply not feasible to use diesel engines for gassings… when one has acess to petrol engines’, Romanov20 claims that the diesel issue is ‘irrelevant’ because, in his view, anyone who claimed that the gassing engine was a diesel was simply mistaken. He argues that the ‘most knowledgeable’ witnesses mentioned gasoline, but he can cite only two: Fuchs (for Sobibor only), and Reder, who said the exhaust gas was sent into the open air!”21»
    If Mr. Dalton wrote this, he has either not read Sergey Romanov's article or not understood it. Or then he is simply a liar.

    First, the claim that Sergey can "cite only two" eyewitnesses: Actually Sergey also mentions Erich Bauer and Franz Hödl for Sobibor, Levinbuck and Jeckeln for Einsatzgruppen gas vans, Burmeister and Piller for gas vans at Chelmno. And he could furthermore have mentioned, from among the witnesses referred to by Peter Witte, "the Polish electrician Kasimierz Czerniak, who helped to establishing the motor room [at Belzec] in 1942; he described a petrol motor of approximately 200 or more PS, from which exhaust fumes were led away over ground pipes (18 Nov 1945). Confusion with a diesel engine is out of the question because diesel fuel is called olej napedowy in Polish", as well as some further witnesses listed in my collection of Testimonies about Engines used for Homicidal Gassing. Looking at that collection, it is easy to identify the following pattern:
    1. Most eyewitnesses said nothing about the type of engine.
    2. Those eyewitnesses who either operated the engine or were otherwise familiar with it, the people "in the know", spoke of a gasoline engine.
    3. Some casual eyewitnesses, who neither operated the engine nor were otherwise familiar with it, mentioned a diesel engine (though there are also two Treblinka eyewitnesses, Oskar Strawczynski and Ivan Shevchenko, who mentioned a gasoline engine).
    So the preponderance of testimony mentioning the type of engine, and especially of knowledgeable testimony, is clearly on diesel and not gasoline.

    Second, if Mr. Dalton calls Sergey's statement «It also seems to me that it is simply not feasible to use diesel engines for gassings, even if they can kill, when one has access to petrol engines.» an admission of something, he is misrepresenting said statement on that account alone, apart from having conveniently omitted the "even if they can kill" part. For Sergey is not admitting anything, only reasoning that there would have been no point in using diesel engines when gasoline engines were available, and that this speaks for the use of gasoline rather than diesel engines.

    I hope that Mr. Dalton at least provides a link to Sergey's article in his book, so that readers can check behind him and see how he misrepresented the source he is criticizing.

    Now to your own additions:

    «Let me add that the argument of the ridiculous blogger S. Romanov (“The diesel issue is irrelevant”) reveals the queer mindset of this individual:Letting fly with ad hominems in your very first post on this blog already, Mr. Santomauro? We must have badly rattled your cage, then, especially Sergey. I think you owe him an apology for these uncalled-for insults.

    «There is neither documentary nor material evidence for the “Aktion Reinhardt” holocaust,If that is your conviction, you haven't been doing your homework, Mr. Santomauro. Should you be interested in doing something about your ignorance, I can point you to some articles on this blog and elsewhere in which documentary and/or "material" (I guess you mean "physical") evidence to the Aktion Reinhard(t) killings are discussed.

    and there are no trustworthy witnesses either (for what credit can be given to witnesses who “were simply mistaken” as the murder weapon?)

    Apart from the fact that a number of eyewitnesses mentioned gasoline engines, your remark is as false a false dilemma as I have ever seen. For it's not like the eyewitnesses who spoke of diesel engines were hanging around the gas chamber building all the time watching the people getting killed. None of them necessarily saw much of the gassing process let alone the gassing engine, and as there were also diesel engines for other purposes in both camps and the witnesses were not exactly trained mechanics, they can be forgiven for having confounded the gassing engine with another engine used for another purpose, especially if that engine was standing in the same engine room (the witnesses' lack of technical knowledge, by the way, is also the reason why it is stupid to make a fuss about their having not understood correctly how the gassing process worked, like when Mr. Dalton mocks Reder in your above quote). This does not in any way affect the credibility of the respective witness in other respects, especially insofar as there is corroboration by other testimonies independent of that witness's testimony. Your reasoning is simply fallacious, Mr. Santomauro.

    , but nonetheless the Aktion Reinhardt holocaust is a proven and indisputable fact! In other words: The pillars on which the edifice once rested are gone, but the edifice is still standing, or rather hovering in the air! A major miracle!That's just hollow rhetoric, my dear Sir. It may impress fellow "Revisionists", but outside "Revisionist" cloud-cuckoo-land it just looks foolish.

    Now, if you want to discuss Mr. Dalton's book with me and my fellow bloggers (Mr. Dalton, needless to say, is also cordially invited), I hereby kindly ask you to send me an MS Word file PDF copy of Mr. Dalton's book free of charge to my e-mail address, which you find under my profile. You see, I don't feel like paying the prohibitively high sum of $ 35 for such a book, also considering who I would be thereby financing, and it may still be a while before the book is available for free download on the VHO website. You shouldn't have a problem in sending me what you want to discuss with me and my fellow bloggers, unless of course you are aware that it is as full of holes as the sample you quoted suggests.

    Best regards, also to Mr. Dalton,

    Roberto Muehlenkamp

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  14. Reply to Muehlenkamp, from Thomas Dalton:

    Regarding the excerpt from my book, "Debating the Holocaust", Muehlenkamp is being disingenuous at best. First, the context is obviously relevant. The quote (p. 111 of my book) is from a chapter on the Reinhardt camps, and so witnesses for gas vans (Levinbruck, Jeckeln, Burmeister, and Piller) are irrelevant here.

    Second, the mere mention of a name, or of a claim, by Romanov is valueless unless it is substantiated. Reference to Bauer and Hoedl comes from "German historian Peter Witte", who apparently is an amateur. We have no information on the source of the quote, other than from deathcamps.org, which likewise contains the unsourced quotation. (The authors of this web site are also unknown, incidentally.) Witte says that Bauer, Fuchs, and Hoedl "confirmed in court" that the engines were gasoline, but there is no reference to an original source, nor even a quotation. Furthermore, Romanov confuses the reader by not making clear that when Witte says "In this case...", he means, the case of Sobibor.

    So, I think I can hardly be faulted for avoiding reference to Bauer and Hoedl, the only two further names vaguely applicable here. (Should someone find the original court transcripts, I will be happy to revise my text accordingly.)

    Furthermore, the quote from my book continues: "Romanov ignores the entire producer-gas argument, which is much more effective even than gasoline. He ignores as well the 'blue corpse' claims, which argue against any CO poisoning scheme. [CO-gassed corpses would be red or pink, not blue.] ... Finally, if the case for gasoline is so compelling, why don't we hear this from the leading Holocaust researchers? Hilberg, Laqueur, Arad, Yad Vashem, USHMM et al have continued to speak of diesel engines." Lots of unanswered questions here.

    And yes, I do indeed reference Romanov's web article in the bibliography, along with 2 of Muehlenkamp's. (He would know this if he actually read the book.)

    Finally, I highly doubt that my book is "full of holes", but there may well be room for correction and improvement, and I am more than willing to do so. Unlike many in this debate, I am happy to present the best arguments on all sides. Let the best argument win.

    TD.

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  15. Reply to Muehlenkamp, from Thomas Dalton:I wonder why Thomas Dalton doesn’t come here himself to discuss his writings but sends a message through his publisher.

    I hope the messenger doesn’t mind if I nevertheless address the author directly in the following.
    (Well, I frankly couldn't care less if he does.)

    Regarding the excerpt from my book, "Debating the Holocaust", Muehlenkamp is being disingenuous at best. First, the context is obviously relevant. The quote (p. 111 of my book) is from a chapter on the Reinhardt camps, and so witnesses for gas vans (Levinbruck, Jeckeln, Burmeister, and Piller) are irrelevant here.Sorry, Mr. Dalton, but I haven't read your book and don't intend to unless you or your publisher send it to me free of charge or it is made available for free download on a "Revisionist" website. That is why I only had your publisher's quote to go by, which in turn means that your accusation of my being disingenuous is inappropriate. If you think the context vindicates your statement, you should complain to your publisher for having quoted you out of context, instead of accusing me of having been disingenuous.

    As to testimonies from mobile gas van operations and from Chelmno extermination camp being irrelevant in a discussion of gassing procedures at the Aktion Reinhardt camps, please allow me to take exception to this position of yours. For if the Nazis used gasoline engines in mobile gas van operations and at Chelmno, from which the fixed gas chambers of the Aktion Reinhardt camps were derived, there is no reason why they should have changed the procedure and the type of engine used for gassing, apart from there being evidence from Belzec, Sobibor and even Treblinka that they did not. So no, the argument that testimonies about the type of gassing engine used outside the Aktion Reinhardt camps are irrelevant to the latter is fallacious. And the very least thing you should have done is to state in your book that and why you consider the testimonies of Levinbruck, Jeckeln, Burmeister, and Piller irrelevant to determining the type of engine used at Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka. But you simply ignored those testimonies. That, Mr. Dalton, is what I would call disingenuous behavior.

    Second, the mere mention of a name, or of a claim, by Romanov is valueless unless it is substantiated.Aha. And how does he fail to substantiate it?

    Reference to Bauer and Hoedl comes from "German historian Peter Witte", who apparently is an amateur.Who told you so? I have seen references to several academic publications by Peter Witte, alone or together with renowned historians like Dieter Pohl from the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich (who I hope you have mentioned in your book, for having failed to do so wouldn’t bode well for the scholarship you apparently claim), so I presume he is a professional historian. He is the co-author, together with Stephen Tyas (who I also hope you haven't failed to mention), of the article "A New Document on the Deportation and Murder of Jews during 'Einsatz Reinhard(t)'", Holocaust and Genocide Studies, V15 N3, Winter 2001, pp. 468-486, which I hope for you that you have discussed in your book, for omission of this essential source would be a devastating verdict against the scholarship you apparently claim. From footnote 15 to that article we learn that Witte is also the co-author of a critique to Robin O’Neill’s "reassessment" of the number of victims of Belzec extermination camp (Dieter Pohl and Peter Witte, "The Number of Victims of Belzec Extermination Camp. A Faulty Reassessment," EEJA 31 1 [2001] p. 19). According to footnote 42 of the same article, Witte is furthermore the co-author, together with Michael Wildt, Martina Voigt, Dieter Pohl, Peter Klein, Christian Gerlach, Christoph Diekmann and Andrej Angrick (I hope for you that you have at least mentioned Pohl, Gerlach and Angrick, all three authors of important studies about Nazi occupation and genocide policies), of an analysis of Heinrich Himmler's appointments calendar: Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42 (Hamburg Christians, 1999), pp 233-34. So it seems that we are talking about someone who is not only a professional historian, but also one that has thoroughly researched aspects pertaining to the subject matter of this discussion. Calling such a person an "amateur" suggests at best the ignorance of someone who hasn’t done his homework.

    And as we’re at it, please explain what exactly you mean by the word "amateur" in this context, what your definition is based on, why "Revisionist" writers like Germar Rudolf, Friedrich Paul Berg, Jürgen Graf and Carlo Mattogno would not qualify as "amateurs" in the light of this definition and how you see yourself according to the same. What are you, Mr. Dalton?

    Ah, and on this occasion you might also tell us where you got that Ph.D. you seem to be so proud of that you even parade it on the cover of your book, and at what "prominent American university" you have "taught humanities", as you claim in the Introduction of your book. I’m definitely curious, Mr. Dalton. I want to know who you are to call whosoever (and especially someone like Peter Witte) an "amateur".

    We have no information on the source of the quote, other than from deathcamps.org, which likewise contains the unsourced quotation.

    (The authors of this web site are also unknown, incidentally.)
    The authors are known to me and include researchers of note, but that’s beside the point here. Proceed.

    Witte says that Bauer, Fuchs, and Hoedl "confirmed in court" that the engines were gasoline, but there is no reference to an original source, nor even a quotation.

    That may be so and is obviously related to the nature of the medium, but I submit that Peter Witte is enough of an authority on the matter for his writings to deserve consideration even without a "reference to an original source".

    Furthermore, Romanov confuses the reader by not making clear that when Witte says "In this case...", he means, the case of Sobibor.To the extent that it matters which of the camps is being referred to, readers who haven’t inferred that from Sergey’s previous reference to Fuchs and the mention of Fuchs in the quote from Witte’s article only need to follow the link provided in Sergey’s article to discover that Sobibor is being referred to. You don’t seem very confident of your argument to include such a feeble objection therein.

    So, I think I can hardly be faulted for avoiding reference to Bauer and Hoedl, the only two further names vaguely applicable here.

    The very least you should have done, Mr. Dalton, is to point out that Sergey mentions further witnesses besides Fuchs and Reder but you are not satisfied with the substantiation of these mentions and therefore didn't take them into consideration. But your claiming that "he can cite only two: Fuchs (for Sobibor only), and Reder, who said the exhaust gas was sent into the open air!" leaves any reader who doesn’t bother to check your footnotes (and many people don’t do that) with the impression that Sergey based his theory on the testimonies of only two witnesses, one of whom you furthermore deride as dubious. That impression is clearly wrong, and your statement thus misleading.

    (Should someone find the original court transcripts, I will be happy to revise my text accordingly.)

    That should be possible, but your calling for primary sources raises two important questions:

    First, according to what rules or standards of historiography do you proclaim that only primary sources, but no however reputable secondary sources, will satisfy you?

    Second, do you live up to such standards yourself in your book? Are all your claims of fact supported by primary sources, or at least by reputable secondary sources identifying the primary source?

    As you may understand, proclaiming standards that you don't comply with yourself is not exactly an honest researcher's behavior.

    Furthermore, the quote from my book continues: "Romanov ignores the entire producer-gas argument, which is much more effective even than gasoline. He ignores as well the 'blue corpse' claims, which argue against any CO poisoning scheme. [CO-gassed corpses would be red or pink, not blue.] ...Well, there we may have a case in point for my above questions. Given that you are so demanding as concerns sources, I would expect you to have relied on primary sources, or on reputable secondary sources, for your claim that producer-gas (which I've learned had some significant safety inconveniences from the user’s point of view, apart from the possibility of using producer gas being a moot issue where all evidence points to the use of engine exhaust, independently of that being or not the "best" solution) would have been "much more effective" than gasoline exhaust. I would also expect you to have a sufficiently large data base (not just one or two eyewitness testimonies) to support your apparent claim that the corpses were generally described as "blue", and that this data-base is derived from either primary sources or reputable secondary sources identifying the primary source. And I would expect a solid demonstration, again based on primary sources or reputable secondary sources identifying the primary source, whereby a) death from carbon monoxide poisoning always leads to "pink" discoloration and an alternative or concomitant "blue" discoloration must be ruled out and b) suffocation must be excluded as an alternative or concomitant cause of death in the gas chambers of the Aktion Reinhard(t) camps.

    If you cannot demonstrate that you live up to the standards you expect critics of "Revisionism" to live up to, your hand-waving remarks about Sergey’s article must be considered hypocritical at best.

    Finally, if the case for gasoline is so compelling, why don't we hear this from the leading Holocaust researchers? Hilberg, Laqueur, Arad, Yad Vashem, USHMM et al have continued to speak of diesel engines."

    Let’s assume that the people you mentioned have continued to "speak of diesel engines"; I haven’t checked. What conclusions should one reasonably derive from this, other than their being either unaware of or indifferent to what "Revisionists" consider such a big problem? I wouldn’t blame historians for considering the detail of what type of engines were used a minor issue, for with all known evidence from different sources and of different categories pointing to mass murder, and no evidence whatsoever pointing to an alternative scenario, the alleged impracticability or inconveniency of using diesel exhaust for gassing would at worst mean that the eyewitnesses on whose testimonies this notion was based were mistaken about the nature and mechanics of the killing method or at least about the type of engine used. If diesel engines are out of the question, then they must have used something else, and as an engine figures in the related testimonies of all former SS supervisors, guards and inmates that I have read, that "something else" can only have been a gasoline engine. The whole issue is no big deal, Mr. Dalton. It takes the small, illogical minds of "Revisionist" hagglers to make a big deal out of it.

    As to who you call the "leading Holocaust researchers", why am I missing such important names as Christopher Browning, Dieter Pohl, Peter Longerich, Christian Gerlach and Bogdan Musial in that list? Most of what I know about the Holocaust comes from these and other also unmentioned sources rather than from Hilberg, Laqueur, Arad, Yad Vashem and the USHMM. Could it be that your list of "leading Holocaust researchers" is a little, err, outdated?

    Lots of unanswered questions here.

    I can think of only one at this moment: Why do "Revisionists" make such a big deal about what is at worst an understandable observation and recollection mistake by casual eyewitnesses? Why don't they focus their attention and efforts on what could really help against their theses being looked upon as the ramblings of a lunatic fringe of ideologically motivated fanatics, which in the context of the Aktion Reinhardt camps would be producing evidence (evidence one can reasonably expect to be plentiful) whereby these camps were actually not extermination camps but what "Revisionists" claim them to have been, i.e. "transit camps" for Jews being resettled to the Nazi-occupied territories of the Soviet Union?

    That's another question I would especially like you to answer, Mr. Dalton.

    And yes, I do indeed reference Romanov's web article in the bibliography, along with 2 of Muehlenkamp's. (He would know this if he actually read the book.)So the reader has to look up the bibliography to find a link to Sergey’s article and 2 of mine (which of them, by the way, and why only these two?), or how am I supposed to understand the above remark?

    As to my reading the book, I have already told your publisher what my position in this respect is: I do not intend to spend what I consider a prohibitively high sum for what my impressions so far show to be propagandistic nonsense, also considering that I would thereby finance an avowedly "Revisionist" publisher, and that I expect this book to be eventually available for free download on a "Revisionist" website like many of its predecessors. However, I’ll be glad to not only read but also analyze and dissect the book if you or your publisher were to send a word file or PDF copy thereof to my e-mail address, which is cortagravatas@yahoo.com . As an obvious critic of the book and someone who is referred to therein (presumably in the same unfavorable hand-waving manner as Sergey Romanov), I consider myself entitled to a free copy. And if you and your publisher are as confident of the quality of the book as you claim you are, you should have no problem whatsoever in making such copy available to me.

    Finally, I highly doubt that my book is "full of holes", but there may well be room for correction and improvement, and I am more than willing to do so.Fine, then please send me your book free of charge so I can tell you what "correction and improvement" you should introduce. From what I have seen so far I expect the list to be a long one.

    Unlike many in this debate, I am happy to present the best arguments on all sides. Let the best argument win.Having read the Introduction and Chapter 1 of your book, Mr. Dalton, I have to tell you that I consider you claim of impartiality to be false. As I shall further detail in future blog articles, the parts of your book you have made available online are sufficient to recognize a thinly disguised eulogy of "Revisionism" and putting down of what you call the "traditionalist" record of events, and an attempt to sell old "Revisionist" herrings and straw-men in a new package.

    I don't know who you think you're fooling, Mr. Dalton, but you're certainly not fooling me.

    I’m looking forward to your answering my above questions, and to finding that free copy of your book in my mailbox.

    Best regards, also to your publisher,

    Roberto Muehlenkamp

    ReplyDelete
  16. P.S.

    I consider this conversation with Messrs. Dalton and Santomauro to be sufficiently interesting to our readers to deserve a blog of its own, rather than be confined to the comments section of another blog.

    I shall therefore open such blog and request the above mentioned and whoever else would like to comment to post their comments under that new blog.

    ReplyDelete
  17. http://paolosilv.wordpress.com/2009/06/15/47/

    Hi, I have come into contact with CODOH, and would be glad to be of help in defeating their lies. Yours, Paolosilv

    ReplyDelete
  18. This has got to be the most funny bummer Ive ever read. Lets put in other words what Sergey just scribbled very unconvincingly: "Eyewitness 'evidence'" is so nonsensical, unreliable, contradictory, ridiculous = worthless, that real "Holocaust 'Scholars'" analyzed the "evidence" and concluded that about 2 million Jews were "killed" with ineffective diesel killing method; and here come "Robertos" et al. and look at the same "evidence" and conclude that "eyewitness evidence" is so beyond worthless that one cannot even know what the murder weapon of 2 million was, based on the "evidence". So no matter how one looks at this nonsense the conclusion remains the same: gassings were propaganda lies of WW2.

    ReplyDelete
  19. >This has got to be the most funny >bummer Ive ever read. Lets put in >other words what Sergey just >scribbled very unconvincingly: >"Eyewitness 'evidence'" is so >nonsensical, unreliable, >contradictory, ridiculous = >worthless, that real "Holocaust >'Scholars'" analyzed the >"evidence" and concluded that >about 2 million Jews were >"killed" with ineffective diesel >killing method; and here come >"Robertos" et al. and look at the >same "evidence" and conclude that >"eyewitness evidence" is so >beyond worthless that one cannot >even know what the murder weapon >of 2 million was, based on the >"evidence". So no matter how one >looks at this nonsense the >conclusion remains the same: >gassings were propaganda lies of >WW2.

    You didn't understand a thing, did you, moron?

    Gassing with diesel engines, although claimed by some witnesses who must have mixed up the gassing engine with some other engine used for power generation or so, must be ruled out not because it would have been impossible to gas people with engine exhaust, but because those witnesses who either operated the gassing engines or were otherwise familiar with them, i.e. the ones one would expect to know what they were talking about, mentioned not diesel but gasoline engines as having been used for gassing. That's the point.

    Historians other than Peter Witte haven't paid attention to this detail and thus introduced into historiography a minor error that "Revisionists" made an overblown fuss about. Sergey's article and its references correct this mistaken notion. Correcting mistakes in the historical record is what revisionism (in the proper sense of the term) is all about.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Mr. Muehlenkamp:
    Whether it was diesel or gasoline engines is not an inconsequential point. It is something that is obvious and could have been addressed years ago. Instead Hillberg, the holocaust museum and others went around telling people something that wasn't true. It shows that they did not do the technical research they should have done, and it weakens their whole authority. Now you come along with some information to show it was gasoline, but this has not been put through the academic process sufficiently to present to the public. So, even criminal trials and museums present the diesel story, which you have conceded is not possible. Were it not for the revisionists pursuing the issue it wouldn't even have achieved this much clarity.

    So what else will you concede, and what else can yo u help us with. Do you believe Zyklon B was used in Auschwitz? What about the amount of coke necessary for mass cremations?

    On the other hand thank you for entering the debate, unlike Deborah Lipstadt and others who are afraid to address the scientific realities of the holocaust because they only want to use their version of the story for present day political agendas.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Pro Peace,

    First paragraph: Historians make mistakes like everybody else, and this particular mistake was a small matter considering the overwhelming evidence to mass murder, however much you insist in showing that small matters worry the small minds of small people like you. Now it has been corrected because some people, including German historian Peter Witte, took a closer look at the pertinent evidence, and that is so independently of how long it takes for (other) historians to accept those people's conclusions or even care about them. The evidence is what counts, not whether any big names have assessed it correctly.

    Second paragraph: I can't help your kind of pathetic true believers, but I enjoy dissecting your rubbish in the part of my free time I dedicate to the internet.

    Third paragraph: whoever refuses to debate you jokers does so as a matter of principle and not because he or she is afraid of "scientific realities", which only pseudo-scientific charlatans like those "science"-toting "Revisionists" need to be afraid of. As to myself, I entered the debate more than eight years ago but am by no means the only one to have entered the debate or even the only contributor of this blog. Whoever thanks me for "entering the debate" hasn't been paying attention, and the same applies to whoever addresses me as if the HC blogspot were mine alone.

    ReplyDelete
  22. What part of the concept of DISHONESTY are you "believers" unable to understand?

    Why do you repeatedly cling to the fragments of testimonies of people who have been DISCREDITED through their own lies (that were not, I might add, obtained through torture or coercion) presumably because they suit your agenda.

    Just try this crap in an normal courtroom and see what happens - their entire testimony is considered UNRELIABLE and as such is not acknowledged by the court as evidence.

    Oh, except in Israel that was, where hearsay evidence and repeated leading of the witnesses by the prosecution was allowed and the defense NEVER cross-examined witnesses who were clearly making up fairy-tales.

    Hmmm...

    Just wait until this new database that cross-references ALL the witness testimonies about these topics in one report goes online - the gross inconsistencies will be exposed once and for all.

    We will see exactly "who said what" about the means of gas production in one report - all source-referenced to eliminate disputes.

    I cant wait...

    ReplyDelete
  23. > What part of the concept of DISHONESTY are you "believers" unable to understand?

    Excuse me, but why do you think we, true skeptics, don't understand it? You, denial believers, are dishonest indeed. It's the core of your HD religion.

    > Why do you repeatedly cling to the fragments of testimonies of people who have been DISCREDITED through their own lies (that were not, I might add, obtained through torture or coercion) presumably because they suit your agenda.

    Discredited by whom? By an anonymous shitstain? :)))

    > Just try this crap in an normal courtroom and see what happens - their entire testimony is considered UNRELIABLE and as such is not acknowledged by the court as evidence.

    Nope, as was shown by many real trials in West Germany and elsewhere. You know nothing.

    > Just wait until this new database that cross-references ALL the witness testimonies about these topics in one report goes online - the gross inconsistencies will be exposed once and for all.

    Oooh, "just you wait" rhetoric. I'm trembling, trembling! By the way, do you have the statements from the Israeli Demjanjuk trial? I'm told several witnesses said that the engines were gasoline. So why don't you put all the statements online, and we'll check :)

    ReplyDelete
  24. Where excatly does he claim that he is trying to prove "through detailed technical discussion, that diesel engines cannot used for mass gassings efficiently. Therefore, there were no diesel gas chambers. Therefore, there was no Holocaust." as YOU claim?

    Maybe he is just trying to prove that there are some really BAD LIARS who's "stories" are used still used to this day to "prove" the Holocaust to the gullible despite the other evidence?

    The next question is WHY? WHY? WHY?

    ReplyDelete
  25. As I wrote elsewhere, they shouldn't have left this "Richard" loony out of the asylum in Prague.

    ReplyDelete
  26. A forensic examination of the alleged murder weapon is not "irrelevant."

    The liars can not even get their lies straight, why should we believe any of it.

    Moreover, it's not practical to kill ppl with louse disinfestant as alleged. If the Nazis were to use Zyklon, they would-have used a Zyklon dispersing apparatus such as was in the delousing chambers.

    ReplyDelete
  27. A forensic examination of the alleged murder weapon is not "irrelevant."

    You obviously didn't read the article, idiot. Read it before hitting the keyboard next time.

    The liars can not even get their lies straight, why should we believe any of it.

    What liars?

    Moreover, it's not practical to kill ppl with louse disinfestant as alleged. If the Nazis were to use Zyklon, they would-have used a Zyklon dispersing apparatus such as was in the delousing chambers

    Coulda-woulda-shoulda dooda. Your Nazi hereoes were practical people, my friend. They didn't have a dispersing apparatus in the homicidal gas chambers because none was needed. They were gassing living beings who in their death panic would provide for whatever circulation was required, not inanimate objects like in the delousing chambers. Think before writing.

    ReplyDelete
  28. If that's the case, Ur title for the article is "irrelevant" and Ur the "idiot." (Notice in Ur tag-cloud "idiot" is one of Ur fav words.) A dispersing apparatus is necessary because it is safer & more efficient. See this jpeg I made: http://666ismoney.com/sitebuilder/images/ZyklonDachau-1045x1408.jpg

    ReplyDelete
  29. So where does the article say that forensic investigations of the murder weapon are irrelevant? Nowhere. It such investigations were possible (which unfortunately is not the case here because the killers had all the time in the world to remove the murder weapon), their results would of course be relevant in that they would provide additional knowledge about the murder.

    What is irrelevant is the "Revisionist" whining about diesel engines not being suitable for mass murder. It's irrelevant for the simple reason that knowledgeable witnesses spoke of gasoline engines and not diesel engines, whereas casual witnesses not familiar with the device may well have been in error about its particulars, big deal.

    You apparently also haven't yet understood the difference between gassing inanimate objects (for which your circulation contraptions might be recommendable) and gassing living, moving and screaming beings (for which they were not necessary).

    ReplyDelete
  30. There's many more practical, safer ways to exterminate ppl than with louse disinfestant and diesel exhaust: Gas 'em in a tunnel with the locomotive fumes, gas 'em in a railroad-car delousing facility, back the train into a water-filled trench on a railroad siding, gas 'em with the fumes from the crematoria, gas 'em with the 'producer-gas," which was used to run Nazi trucks & buses (35% carbon monoxide) . . .

    Some of the holohoaxers said the zyklon was dumped in through holes in the ceiling and swept out the doors. (IMT testimony of Vaillant-Couturier, 28 jan 1946.)

    ReplyDelete
  31. «There's many more practical, safer ways to exterminate ppl than with louse disinfestant and diesel exhaust: Gas 'em in a tunnel with the locomotive fumes, gas 'em in a railroad-car delousing facility, back the train into a water-filled trench on a railroad siding, gas 'em with the fumes from the crematoria, gas 'em with the 'producer-gas," which was used to run Nazi trucks & buses (35% carbon monoxide) . . .

    Actually the methods you are suggesting were far less practical than gassing in a closed room with engine exhaust or Zyklon B. Producer gas, for instance, was so toxic and explosive that the killers would have risked gassing themselves or blowing themselves up. It's also not like dragging the corpses out of a tunnel or a railway delousing facility would have been easier than dragging them out of a gas chamber, apart from the fact that either method would have been hard to implement in a secluded camp on a regular basis. And submerging a train to drown the people inside ... are you kidding me?

    Now, let's assume that there would have been easier and more practical methods. What makes you think that mass killers at all times applied the easiest and most practical methods, and that your Nazi heroes were not error-prone mortals like anyone else? History is full of inconceivably stupid things that people have done.

    «Some of the holohoaxers said the zyklon was dumped in through holes in the ceiling and swept out the doors. (IMT testimony of Vaillant-Couturier, 28 jan 1946.)»

    The witness in question was obviously mistaken about certain details, as witnesses often are without this meaning that they are lying or that everything in their testimony is wrong. Big fucking deal.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Zyklon B is very toxic & explosive too. If the Nazis were to gas ppl in a tunnel or railroad delousing facility, they would be dead in the railroad car & could be transported anywhere to be removed with a conveyor-belt.

    Another witness "obviously mistaken," lol . . . why should we believe any of these malicious liars?! Eyewitness testimony is unreliable. Forensic & logistic evidence is best. Logistics of the body-disposal is a good topic to discuss too: like where was all the necessary fuel to cremate hundreds of thousands of corpses?! (Especially during the Hungarian evacuation at Auschwitz.) What do the aerial reconnaissance photos show? (Hint, no huge piles of coke, no outdoor pit burning.)

    ReplyDelete
  33. «Zyklon B is very toxic & explosive too.»

    Explosive in concentrations far above those required to kill human beings, yeah. Just use lower concentrations, and you have no problem. With PG the concentration cannot be dosed, you get what the machine produces. Against toxicity of Zyklon B the SS could protect themselves with gas masks. And it was something they needed to have in the camp for disinfestation anyway, so why not use it for a dual purpose?

    «If the Nazis were to gas ppl in a tunnel or railroad delousing facility, they would be dead in the railroad car & could be transported anywhere to be removed with a conveyor-belt.»

    Dragged out of railway car after railway in rigor mortis? Not a very practical alternative to a gas chamber, and also difficult to implement in a secluded camp area, apart from it being more difficult to take the bodies to places of cremation. But let's assume they could have this, could have that: what the hell does this matter in the face of evidence that they did it the way they did?

    «Another witness "obviously mistaken," lol . . . why should we believe any of these malicious liars?!»

    Witnesses may be mistaken about lots of details without this meaning that they are "malicious liars". The witness that is 100% right or 100% wrong doesn't exist, which is why eyewitness testimonies are compared with each other, and with other evidence if possible, to see where there are matches.

    «Eyewitness testimony is unreliable.»

    Some is, other is not. Eyewitness testimony needs to be handled carefully, the wheat must be sifted from the chaff. Historians and legal professionals know how to do that, so no problem.

    «Forensic & logistic evidence is best.»

    No evidence is "best", every category has its advantages and shortcomings. What is "logistic evidence", by the way?

    «Logistics of the body-disposal is a good topic to discuss too: like where was all the necessary fuel to cremate hundreds of thousands of corpses?! (Especially during the Hungarian evacuation at Auschwitz.)»

    What fuel was necessary was brought along as required, big deal. Requirements weren't so huge as to warrant assuming logistical bottlenecks.

    «What do the aerial reconnaissance photos show? (Hint, no huge piles of coke, no outdoor pit burning.)»

    Actually air photos do show outdoor pit burning, though only a few split seconds thereof as there was no systematic aerial surveillance of the camp, just a few air photos taken now and then in connection with bombing missions against industry. There's no reason why huge piles of coke, or wood for that matter, should have been stored outside in a manner visible on the few aerial photos that were taken. Besides, the resolution of air photography at the time did not compare to what is possible at present.

    ReplyDelete
  34. What fuel was necessary was brought along as required, big deal. Requirements weren't so huge as to warrant assuming logistical bottlenecks.

    How many kilograms of coke do U think was necessary to cremate one corpse? (Hint: It takes longer than 20 minutes to cremate a body and much more than 3.5kg coke, which the mythologists allege.) David Irving points out: "it takes 30 kilograms of coke to incinerate one body -- it would take many trainloads of coke to incinerate 120,000 corpses.

    During Hungarian evacuation many thousands were killed/day. There are no requisition orders for the necessary coke. The aerial photos would show mounds of coke.

    Ur so-called witnesses said the Hungarian evacuations did cause a bottleneck, which required burning in pits where, "human fat was scooped up in buckets on long, curved rods and poured all over the sizzling pyre."

    The "huge smoldering pits" and crematoria "belching smoke & flame" at Auschwitz, during the evacuation did not show up in the aerial photos, taken during that time.

    Particularly from May to August 1944, during the time of the alleged destruction of the Hungarian Jews and the Jews from the Lodz ghetto, fires are said to have been burning in the fire pits day and night.[33] But the air photo of May 31, 1944, is the only one to show even relatively small drifts of smoke rising behind crematorium V.[34]

    Read more: http://www.vho.org/GB/Books/dth/fndaerial.html

    http://www.air-photo.org/english/

    Those "relatively small drifts of smoke" was probably from clothes or trash burning.

    ReplyDelete
  35. «How many kilograms of coke do U think was necessary to cremate one corpse? (Hint: It takes longer than 20 minutes to cremate a body and much more than 3.5kg coke, which the mythologists allege.) David Irving points out: "it takes 30 kilograms of coke to incinerate one body -- it would take many trainloads of coke to incinerate 120,000 corpses.»

    Cremating one body is one thing, cremating hundreds or thousands on a continuous or near-continuous basis is something entirely different. It takes a lot of coke to heat up the oven, but once it is heated only small amounts of coke have to be added, so the larger the number of bodies burned on a continous or near-continuous basis, the lower the average amount of coke per body required. The triple-muffle ovens of Birkenau crematoria II and III used 15.5 kg of coke per hour in continuous operation, according to Jährlings memo of 17 March 1943. This means that if more than one corpse per hour could be burned in those ovens, contentions regarding coke consumption and the incompatibility of coke deliveries in 1943 with the number of deportees known to have been gassed at Auschwitz-Birkenau in that year go down the drain. I demonstrated that up to 3 or 4 corpses per hour could be burned in the Birkenau ovens due to the fact that many of the victims were women and children, see here. And even if coke deliveries had been insufficient, this would only mean that open-air cremation with wood and liquid fuel had to complement the crematoria. In this respect see the blog Open-Air Cremations in Auschwitz, August 1943.

    "During Hungarian evacuation many thousands were killed/day.
    There are no requisition orders for the necessary coke."


    How do you know? The surviving records might be incomplete. And how much coke would have been required, considering large-scale recourse to open-air cremation?

    "The aerial photos would show mounds of coke."

    Because you say so or for some reason worth considering? Coke wouldn't necessarily be stored in the open, air photo quality was not what it is today, and air photos captured only a few split seconds of camp life.

    "Ur so-called witnesses said the Hungarian evacuations did cause a bottleneck, which required burning in pits where, "human fat was scooped up in buckets on long, curved rods and poured all over the sizzling pyre."

    A bottleneck as concerns crematorium capacity, not as concerns fuel. The use of human fat to help the burning of the corpses is entirely plausible, contrary to the claims of "Revisisionist" propagandists.

    «The "huge smoldering pits" and crematoria "belching smoke & flame" at Auschwitz, during the evacuation did not show up in the aerial photos, taken during that time.»

    As the photos captured only a few split seconds of camp life, that would be nothing to write home about. The chimneys would hardly have been belching smoke and flame all the time.

    ReplyDelete
  36. "Particularly from May to August 1944, during the time of the alleged destruction of the Hungarian Jews and the Jews from the Lodz ghetto, fires are said to have been burning in the fire pits day and night.[33] But the air photo of May 31, 1944, is the only one to show even relatively small drifts of smoke rising behind crematorium V.[34]"

    "Day and night" is likely to be the subjective perception of eyewitnesses, like when combat soldiers talk about incessant shellfire day and night whereas military reports show that the fire wasn't incessant. So if a a split-second photo doesn't capture indoor or outdoor cremation at it's height, that doesn't mean anything. There were far more telling photos than the one of May 31, by the way. See this blog.

    ReplyDelete
  37. "Those "relatively small drifts of smoke" was probably from clothes or trash burning."

    There's no evidence to "clothes or trash burning" at the time and place in question but significant evidence to the burning of people, so what Mr. Ball considers "probable" is actually rather improbable. A corpse fire in its beginnings or close to finish is more probable.

    ReplyDelete
  38. The Independent on Sunday
    17th Jan 2010:

    Sobibor survivor: Thomas Blatt

    "We heard the whine of the generator that started the submarine engine which made the gas that killed them."

    There you go, recent testimony from a survivor, that a submarine engine was used at Sobibor to gas Jews.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/sobibor-survivor-i-polished-ss-boots-as-dying-people-screamed-1870221.html

    ReplyDelete
  39. That testimony was not from a gassing engine operator or anyone else closely familiar with the gassing engine, but from someone who never set foot in Sobibór Camp III and knew about the engine only from hearsay. You should have read the article with more attention.

    Besides, Sobibor survivor Thomas Blatt has clarified the matter.

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  40. The engine used in Hitler's bunker was a submarine engine, according to "History's mysteries" on the History Channel. So even if they didn't use a submarine engine in the camps, they did put this one to good use.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Oh, look, another journalist misquoted Blatt about the submarine engine as well.
    http://news.scotsman.com/world/True-hell-of-life-inside.5968715.jp

    What's the chances?

    And Simon Wiesenthal wrote about submarine engine gassings back in 1967
    http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_ANnAAAAMAAJ&q=%22gases+of+submarine+engines+for+extermination%22&dq=%22gases+of+submarine+engines+for+extermination%22&hl=en&ei=T5PxTc37F8ao8QPA55mjBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA

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  42. The Black Rabbit of Inlé wrote:
    "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)"

    Well, Nick's either lying or he's not very thorough.

    Diesel engines are also mentioned on pages 9 & 49."

    -------

    LOL, you moron freak. Can't you read? These two other quotes are not quotes from witnesses' statements.

    ReplyDelete
  43. The Israelis also said diesels at the Demjanjuk trial.
    Second Hand Vans

    ReplyDelete
  44. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18643868

    Diesel fumes do kill: a case of fatal carbon monoxide poisoning directly attributed to diesel fuel exhaust with a 10-year retrospective case and literature review*.

    "Lastly, an extensive literature review produced no scientifically reported cases of fatal CO poisoning attributed to diesel fuel exhaust."

    Great article and interesting discussion.

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