Friday, June 30, 2006

Gauleiter Arthur Greiser

On 1 May 1942, Gauleiter Arthur Greiser, head of the district known as the Warthegau in the former Polish territories annexed to Germany after the campaign in September 1939, wrote a letter to Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler, which is partially transcribed on page 18 of Kogon/Langbein/Rückerl et al, Nationalsozialistische Massentötungen durch Giftgas. The transcription reads as follows:

Read more!


Die von Ihnen im Einvernehmen mit dem Chef des Reichssicherheitshauptamtes SS-Obergruppenführer Heydrich genehmigte Aktion der Sonderbehandlung von rund 100,000 Juden in meinem Gaugebiet wird in den nächsten 2-3 Monaten abgeschlossen werden können. Ich bitte Sie um die Genehmigung, mit dem vorhandenen und eingearbeiteten Sonderkommando im Anschluß an die Judenaktion den Gau von einer Gefahr befreien zu dürfen, die mit jeder Woche katastrophalere Formen annimmt.
Es befinden sich im Gaugebiet ca. 230,000 erkannte Tbc-Kranke polnischer Volkszugehörigkeit. Von diesen wird die Zahl der mit offener Tuberkulose behafteten Polen auf ca. 35 000 geschätzt. […]
Wenngleich auch im Altreich mit entsprechenden drakonischen Maßnahmen gegenüber dieser Volkspest nicht durchgegriffen werden kann, glaube ich es dennoch verantworten zu können, Ihnen vorzuschlagen, hier im Warthegau die Fälle der offenen Tbc innerhalb des polnischen Volkstums ausmerzen zu lassen.


My translation:

It will be possible to conclude the action of special treatment of about 100,000 Jews in the area of my Gau, authorized by yourself with the agreement of the head of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, SS-Obergruppenführer Heydrich, within the next 2-3 months. I hereby ask for authorization to use the existing and trained special detachment after the Jewish action in order to free the Gau of a danger that takes a more catastrophic shape every week.
There are 230,000 identified ethnic Poles with tuberculosis in the Gau area. The number of Poles with open tuberculosis is estimated at ca. 35 000. […]
Though it is not possible to tackle this popular plague in the Old Reich with corresponding draconian measures, I think I can take the responsibility of proposing to you that here in the Warthegau the cases of open tuberculosis among the Polish people are extirpated.


I wonder if any "Revisionist" has ever commented on this document, which leaves little if any room for an innocuous interpretation.

For how did Greiser intend to "extirpate" the "cases of open tuberculosis among the Polish people" in the area of his Gau, other than by killing the ca. 35,000 Poles he had identified as suffering from this disease?

And why did he for this purpose request permission to use the "existing and trained special detachment" which at the time was taking care of the "special treatment of about 100,000 Jews in the area of my Gau" ? What could the "special treatment" that this "special detachment" had "trained" itself in have been, other than the same kind of activity that Greiser would have liked to see it perform in regard to the Poles with open tuberculosis within the area of his jurisdiction?

Any takers?

Update: cf. documents about the murderous purpose of Sonderkommando Lange.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

How (Not) To Read A Document Literally

When confronted by documents they don't like, deniers opt for one of two strategies. Either they declare the document a forgery, or they question its meaning. Given that most of the documents are in German, there's plenty of opportunity to reach for the dictionaries and declare that x does not mean x but in fact means y and z. The classic instance, of course, is in the pitiful attempts to reinterpret 'Ausrottung' as anything other than extermination.

When this tactic falls flat on its face, deniers will often insist that a 'literal' reading of the document does not indicate that mass murder took place. Yet when pressed, these supposedly literal readings often turn out to be remarkably creative in their lunatic attempts to get the document to say something other than proof of mass murder.

A case in point: a directive from the Sicherheitspolizei in Minsk concerning the organisation of the mass shooting of the remaining Jews in Slutsk. I recently confronted an internet Nutzi with this document, with the following results.

Read more...


The document in question (Kommandeur der Sicherheitspolizei Weissruthenien, Einsatzbefehl v. 5.2.43, gez. Strauch, SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer, RGVA 500-1-769, pp.113-116) is well-known to the literature, being cited by among others Christian Gerlach in Kalkulierte Morde. Here is how Gerlach excerpted it, and how I originally presented the document to the Nutzi for comment:
Am 8. und 9. Februar 1943 wird in der Stadt Sluzk von dem hiesigen Kommando eine Umsiedlung der dortigen Juden vorgenommen....
Der Abtransport der Juden zum Umsiedlungsplatz geschieht mittels 6 Lkws, die von je 4 Letten begleitet werden...
Auf dem Umsiedlungsgelaende befinden sich 2 Gruben. An jeder Grube arbeitet je eine Gruppe von 10 Fuehrern und Maennern, die sich alle 2 Stunde abloesen. Zeiten 8-10 Uhr, 10-12 Uhr, 12-14 Uhr, 14- 16 Uhr....

Translation:
On 8 and 9 February 1943 there will be a resettlement in the town Sluzk by the local command the resettlement of the Jews there.
The evacuation of the Jews to the resettlement place happens by means of 6 trucks, each to be accompanied by 4 Latvians.
At the resettlement area are 2 pits. At each pit a group of 10 leaders and men will work, to be relieved every 2 hours. Times 8-10 o'clock, 10-12 o'clock, 12-14 o'clock, 14-16 o'clock.

So the Jews were going to be 'resettled' into a pit at which groups of 10 men were working, to be relieved every two hours. Hmmm....

Now, to any sane person familiar with the subject matter, the document is a bit of a giveaway. 'Resettlement' is clearly a euphemism, as it was in many other contexts, for mass murder. The mention of pits ought to silence the last doubters. But oh no, this wasn't good enough. Here is how the Nutzi tried to rationalise the document. To be fair to him, I originally rather flippantly and casually translated 'Grube' as 'ditch', so he did get a little confused.
What I can make of this text with my poor German skills (you could have given me a translation too) is this :
Commandos have hauled away a bunch of jews from the city of Sluzk. These people were sent for forced labor to a relocation facility in 6 trucks. In this relocation facility, there are 2 workings. Of each of the workings, groups of 10 people work who for two hours after which they are relieved by another group. This text makes perfect sense when taking literally. Of course, it does sound a bit strange if you translate the word "Grube" as ditch, but an online dictionary I checked does not even mention this word as a possible translation. Rather, it translates the word as pit, workings or pothole.

Yet Umsiedlungsgelaende is resettlement ground. It is not a facility. There is no industrial function present. All there is, is a stream of trucks guarded by Latvians bringing Jews to pits, in front of which 10 men will 'work' for two hour shifts.

Let's also take his dictionary definition. 'Pothole' - were they kicking them down a cavern? 'Workings' isn't even listed in my German-English dictionary, though 'mine' is. Again, were they kicking them down a mine? More importantly, what does employing someone down a mine have to do with 'resettlement'? The response:
How do you KNOW there is no industrial function present? The description in the text gives the impression that we're dealing with a quarry of some kind.Jews did work in most of the concentration camps and ghettoes, even though the primary reason for them being their was not working. Why shouldn't they be working in facilities designated as "resettlement grounds"?

Because there is no mention of such facilities in the document, that's why.

Later on, he plaintively asked:
What is so crazy about taking a text literally?

Which is precisely what he did not do. Notice how his 'literal' reading has suddenly become very florid indeed. Well, anything to avoid the obvious, one presumes.

Indeed, the little dhimmi managed to screw up who was working at what:
Where you read "10 people working in 2 hours shifts", you think "10 people being killed every two hours".

No, it means 10 people killing for two hour shifts.
You think all this, even when there is no objective reason to believe that "10 people working in 2 hours shifts" doesn't mean "10 people working in 2 hours shifts", "relocation area" doesn't mean "relocation area" and where "special treatment" or "special wagen" can mean anything.

Except they don't mean 'anything', as this blog has discussed before, and 10 people working in 2 hour shifts in front of pits on a 'resettlement area' means nothing nice at all.

In any case, the trap is now baited. So I give him a slightly fuller excerpt from the document, taken from Eugen Kogon and Adalbert Rückerl's Nationalsozialistische Massentötungen durch Giftgas:
Am 8. und 9. Februar 1943 wird in der Stadt Sluzk von dem hiesigen Kommando die Umsiedlung der dortigen Juden vorgenommen. An der Aktion nehmen die unten namentlich aufgefuehrten Angehoerigen des Kommandos sowie rund 110 Angehoerige der lettischen Freiwilligenkomp. teil....
Auf dem Umsiedlungsgelaende befinden sich 2 Gruben. An jeder Grube arbeitet je einer Gruppe von 10 Fuehrern und Maennern, die sich alle 2 Stunden abloesen....
Als Patronenausgeber auf dem Umsiedlungsgelaende sind SS-Mann Kraft und Rottwachtmeister Altmann zustaendig....

The crucial addition reads 'responsible for giving out rounds are'. Surely by now our Nutzi friend will give up and concede defeat?
The proper translation would be "cartridge". Now, I don't happen to be an expert in mining or quarry labor, but I do tend to know that this word in English is used for many things from shotgun bullets to carriers of printer ink. Again, you just interpret the word the way you like. Besides.... why would anyone be handing out bullets all the time? Aren't they carrying enough ammo with them? Can't they just take it from the storage themselves? It makes more sense from an industrial context, although I have to admit that I don't really know what "cartidges" are used for in mining or quarry labor.

Except in a police or military context, as we have here, 'Patronen' means those round shiny things inserted into guns and fired from them, otherwise known as bullets. Yep, you read it correctly, a denier is so desperate to avoid the obvious that he will even deny that 'Patronen' meant bullets.

So I then draw his attention to the preceding sentence of the original document:
Gleichzeitig ist Vorgenannter fuer die Gestellung der Munition zustaendig.

Translation: At the same time the aforementioned are responsible for the provision of ammunition.

At this point, finally, there was silence.

In case anyone is still in any doubt as to what was intended, here's the document in full. Bolds are underlinings in the original.

Der Kommander der Sicherheitspolizei u.d. SD Weissruthenien

Kommandobefehl

Minsk, den 5. Februar 1943

Am 8. und 9. Februar 1943 wird in der Stadt Sluzk von dem hiesigen Kommando die Umsiedlung der dortigen Juden vorgenommen. An der Aktion nehmen die unten namentlich aufgefuehrten Angehoerigen des Kommandos sowie rund 110 Angehoerige der lettischen Freiwilligenkomp. teil.
Die Leitung der Aktion liegt in den Haenden von SS-Obersturmfuehrer Mueller.
Die Teilnehmer der Aktion treten am 7. Februar 1943 um 11.15 Uhr in unteren Korridor des Dienstgebaeudes zur Abfahrt an. Die Leitung der Kraftwagenkolonne uebernimmt SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Breder. Von den Abteilungen nahmen folgende Fuehrer, Unterfuehrer und Maenner an der Aktion teil:
Abteilung I/II
Die SS-Obersturmfuehrer Kaul, Merbach,
SS-Hauptsturmfuehrer Madecker und Schneider,
die SS-Unterstuf. Wertholz, Mueller, Junker, Schmidt, Wiechert,
SS-Sturmscharfuehrer Krause, Zehmann.
SS-Scharfuehrer Kruse,
Rottwachtmeister Altmann,
die SS-Rottenfuehrer Nikol, Geiger, Gruener, Stroessinger, Egger, Fischer,
SS-Oberscharfuehrer Gennert,
SS-Mann Kraft,
Wachtmeister Krahnke, Mischke
Abteilung III
Die SS-Hauptsturmfuehrer Schlegel, Friedrich,
SS-Untersturmfuehrer Eck,
SS-Hauptscharfuehrer v.d. Golz,
SS-Rottenfuehrer Schramm,
die Dolmetscher Julik und Krowetz. [p.2]
Umsiedlungsgelaende:
Auf dem Umsiedlungsgelaende befinden sich 2 Gruben. An jeder Grube arbeitet je einer Gruppe von 10 Fuehrern und Maennern, die sich alle 2 Stunden abloesen. Zeiten 8-10 Uhr, 10-12 Uhr, 12-14 Uhr, 14-16 Uhr.

Grube I:
1. Gruppe:
SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Breder (Leitung),
SS-Oberstuf. Kaul, Merbach, SS-Hauptstuf. Schneider,
SS-Unterstuf. Wertholz, SS-Unterstuf. Mueller, SS-Unterstuf. Junker, SS-Sturmscharfuehrer Fritz, SS-Rottenfuehrer Geiger und Gruener.
2. Gruppe
SS-Hauptstuf. Schlegel, SS-Oberscharfuehrer Burger, Seckinger, Brandlmeier, SS-Hauptscharfuehrer Huettner, SS-Oberscharf. Weller, SS-Unterscharf. v. Toll, SS-Scharfuehrer Rexhauser, Zugwachtmstr. Exner und SS-Unterscharrfuehrer Hoerner.

Grube II:
1. Gruppe:
SS-Obersturmfuehrer Meuller, SS-Unterstuf. Eck, SS-Hauptstuf. Friedrich, Wachtmstr. Krahnke, SS-Hauptscharfuehrer v.d. Golz, SS-Rottenfuehrer Schramm, Stroessinger, Egger, Zehmann, Fischer.
2. Gruppe:
SS-Oberstuf. Oswald, SS-Hauptscharfuehrer Ruebe. SS-Unterstuf. Schmidt, SS-Hauptscharfuehrer Kreimann, SS-Oberscharf. Schuth, Gersberger, Poeckler, die SS-Unterscharf. Strathmann und SS-Oberscharf. Kremer, SS-Unterscharf. Gothmann.

Die Sicherung auf dem Umsiedlungsgelaende uebernimmt SS-Untersturmfuehrer Pierre mit 10 Letten.
Fuer das Kraftfahrwesens waehrend der Vorbereitungen in Minsk, waehrend des Transportes nach Sluzk und fuer die Aufsicht der Juden vom Ghetto zum Umsiedlungsgelaende ist SS-Unterstuf. Wiechert verantwortlich. Gleichzeitig ist Vorgenannter fuer die Gestellung der Munition zustaendig. Als Patronenausgeber auf dem Umsiedlungsgelaende sind SS-Mann Kraft und Rottwachtmeister Altmann zustaendig. [p.3]
Abteilung IV
SS-Obersturmfuehrer Mueller,
SS-Sturmscharfuehrer Fritz,
SS-Hauptscharfuehrer Ehrig,
die SS-Oberscharf. Buchner, Kramer, Burger, Sockinger, Gethmann,
die SS-Unterscharf. v. Toll, Rexhauser, Hoerner,
SS-Obersturmfuehrer Oswald,
SS-Oberscharfuehrer Rumschewitz, Brandlmeier,
SS-Unterscharfuehrer Strathmann,
die Dolmetscher Siesse, Sokolowski, Natarow, Aisupe, Gorschkow, Michelson,
die Hilfsbeamten: Bunte, Santz, Tomson, Sipols
und die Hilfskraefte: Meschek, Roniz, Eglitis, Kublimech, Auschkaps und Wikams.

Abteilung V
Die SS-Hauptscharf. Kreimann, Zeuschel und Huettner,
die SS-Oberscharf. Weller, Gersberger, Schuth, Pockler,
SS-Hauptscharf. Ruebe,
Dolmetscher Kraskowski und
die Hilfsbeamten Osols und Pleuks.

Durchfuehrung der Aktion in Sluzk:
Ghetto:
Die Sicherung und Bewachung des Ghettos uebernimmt die Ordnungspolizei.
Die Auswertung des anfallenden Judeneigentums liegt in den Haenden vom SS-Hauptstuf. Madecker, den fuer diese Aufgabe ein Kommando von 2 Beamten (Kruse, Buchner), 2 Dolmetschern (Michelson, Natarow) und 10 Letten zur Verfuegung stehen.
Die Aufbringung der Juden im Ghetto steht unter der Leitung des SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Graaf, dem hierzu 6 Kommandos in Staerke von je einen Beamten und je 8 Letten zur Verfuegung stehen. Fuer diese Kommandos sind folgende Unterfuehrer vorgesehen:
Krause, Nikol, Gennert, Ehrig, Weller, Zeuschel.
Der Abtransport der Juden zum Umsiedlungsplatz geschieht mittels 6 Lkw, die von je 4 Letten begleitet werden. [p.4]
Fuer die Verpflegung und die Unterbringung der Fuehrer und Maenner ist SS-Oberstuf, Kaul verantwortlich.
An der Sonderaktion nehmen saemtl. Fuehrer und Maenner der hiesigen Dienststelle, ausser folgenden Fuehrern und Maennern, die in Minsk bleiben, teil:
SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Bohnendorfer, SS-Oberstuf. Dr. Heuser, SS-Hauptsturmfuehrer Hartmann, SS-Oberstuf. Feder, SS-Sturmscharfuehrer Much, SS-Oberscharf. Edel, SS-Hauptscharf. Zug, SS-Unterscharf. Koch, SS-Oberscharf, Frolik, SS-Oberscharf. Kunzengruber, SS-Oberscharf. Friedl, SS-Scharf. Wimmer, SS-Scharf. Rau, Wachtmsts. Ruediger, SS-Oberscharf. Kuhnenberger, SS-Oberscharf. Knot. Die Dolmetscher: Eiche, Goile, Schire und Wohlfahrt. Ausserdem bleibt SS-Unterscharf. Wolf, der fuer die Juden im hiesigen Dienstgebaeude verantwortlich ist, zurueck. Die Fernschreibestube, Telefonzentrale und die Kueche bleiben wie ueblich besetzt.
Die nichteingeteilten Fuehrer, Unterfuehrer und Maenner (Aussendienststellen) in Sluzk unterstehen SS-Haupsturmfuehrer Wilke.
Die Rueckkehr fuer die nicht zum Unternehmen 'Hornung' vorgesehenen Fuehrer und Maenner wird in Sluzk bekannt gegeben.

gez. Strauch
SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer


If anyone can identify the mysterious 'industrial facilities' or 'mines' which the Nutzi claimed must have been referred to in this document, I'd be very grateful for the pointer.

Nowhere in the document are the words 'execution', 'shooting', 'liquidation' or 'extermination' to be found, yet there is simply no other possible reading of the document. Alas for the Nutzi, and alas for revisionism, what we have here is a unit tasking order detailing, by name, the officers and men assigned to four firing-squads who are to shoot the Jews of the ghetto in Slutsk in such a way that their bodies fall into two mass graves. Which, incidentally, the Soviets exhumed after the war, but that's another story.

As is the existence of a diary entry from one officer involved (Wilke), interrogations postwar of another NCO (Buchner), a report recording the execution of 3,300 Jews during Operation 'Hornung' alongside 2,219 partisans killed in battle and 7,378 'partisan supporters' shot after battle (Meldungen aus den besetzen Ostgebieten Nr. 46, 19.3.43, NA T175/236/2725678-9), not to mention interrogations and eyewitness accounts from other participants in the mass-execution as well as Belorussian bystanders who witnessed the events of February 8 and 9 1943 in their hometown of Slutsk.

Of course, silly old me should have spammed the entire original to begin with, but it was almost worth it just to extract the laughable nonsense above from the Nutzi.

And of course, feel free to spam the above document in full next time you run across an internet Nazi with a shaky grasp on reality. If you get a 'literal reading' any more whacky than the above example of creative reinterpretation, do let us know!

Monday, June 26, 2006

And That's Why We Call It "Denial"

Holocaust denier Paul Grubach wrote back in 2003 that "Holocaust revisionists do not deny that atrocities were committed against Jews during WWII."

But over the weekend, he sent out this letter regarding the imprisonment of Germar Rudolf in what he called a "Nazi concentration camp."

Let's see. Is Rudolf given three meals a day? Yes, he is. Has he been put to hard labor? No, he has not. Do they even carry out capital punishment in the prison where he's being held? Nope: They don't have the death penalty in Germany anymore.

So clearly Grubach's comparison is false. The thing that grings my gears, however, is that, at one time, Grubach will talk a bullshit line about now denying that Jews suffering a tragedy suffered by Jews during WWII and then will minimize the scale of suffering at Auschwitz by making this comparison.

That's why no one takes the label "revisionist" seriously, Paul. You and your little friends are deniers; there's no two ways about it.

Sunday, June 25, 2006

"polardude" (aka "Lurkerthe") pwns CODOH

Someone going under nickname "polardude" (he is known as "Lurkerthe" at RODOH, "Colonel Blandish" at alt.revisionism, and, probably, by other names) writes at CODOH:
A quick background on this image (there also a few others) in response to interest of where they came from (well, actually there has been no such interest but anyway).

I obtained them from an amateur historian Sergey Romanov in late 2004. I had infiltrated a holocau$t online community using a false identity. Sergey was passing around some of these images from early soviet propaganda archives he had access to. He was openly boasting about how bad some of the early soviet agitprop was and how lazy and incompetent revisionists were for not hunting it down and exposing them. He said, I think he is correct, that in this shot and others not only is it clear that the chimney has just finished being built, but there aren't even any ovens installed yet!!

I wonder if Mr Romanov is feeling so pleased and cocky now?
Each (yes, each) claim here is a lie, of course, and "polardude" is a well-known troll, whose shtick is denial of existence of crematoria in Nazi camps (incl. Auschwitz, Dachau and Sachsenhausen). I don't know whether it is a mentally ill person, or just someone with too much free time on his hands.

Anyway, what is interesting is how other deniers quickly swallowed his claims. But then, CODOH crowd has always consisted mostly of gullible fools, and some outright liars. And, as we know, "revisionist" forgers are nothing new - Myroslaw Dragan, Emil Lachout, "Gregory Douglas", etc.

So in this case, thanks to a liar "polardude", gullibility of some CODOH pond life has been exposed once again.

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...

Friday, June 23, 2006

Videos, a must see!

So yelled "Revisionist" true believer "neugierig" on a RODOH thread. And his brother-in-spirit "ClaudiaRothenbach" dutifully provided the link to this multi-episode video film and praised it in the highest tones, claiming that it "plucks apart the standard fairy tale books of Hilberg and Arad about the H-Cheese or the Reinhardt-Camps" ("Der Film zerpflückt die Standard-Märchenbücher von Hilberg und Arad über den H-Käse bzw. die Reinhardt-Camps", see "ClaudiaRothenbach"’s post # 2402).

So I had a look at Episode 11: Treblinka Burial Space [YouTube version] of this video, where it is supposedly proven that there was not enough space available in the mass graves of Treblinka extermination camp to bury ca. 700,000 or more dead bodies. What I found was nothing to write home about.

Believe it or not, the "Revisionist" creator of this video episode assumes that no more than 3 corpses per cubic meter could fit into the mass graves of the "Aktion Reinhard(t)" camps (470,304 cubic meters for 1.38 million corpses in the three camps Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka or 11.250 cubic meters for 33,010 corpses in an average mass grave of Treblinka, as described by witnesses). The underlying calculations are based on a presumably deliberate misunderstanding of the following description on page 112 of Yitzhak Arad’s book Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. The Operation Reinhard Death Camps:

This group of several dozen men worked at the burial ditches. After the victims' bodies were thrown into a pit by the body-transport workers, the corpses were arranged in rows by the burial detail. To save space, the bodies were arranged head to foot; each head lay between the feet of two other corpses, and each pair of feet between two heads. Sand or chlorine was scattered between the layers of bodies. Approximately half the team worked inside the ditches arranging the corpses at the same time that the other half was covering a layer of bodies with sand. When a ditch filled up, it was topped off with earth and a new ditch was opened.


Arad obviously refers to a head-to-foot arrangement of the bodies in the sense that the head of the second body was placed next to the feet of the first one, the feet of the third body were placed next to the head of the second body, the head of the fourth body was placed next to the feet of the third body, and so on. For only thus would the arrangement lead to saving space, which Arad states to have been the purpose, by creating a partial overlap between the widths of the bodies and avoiding empty lateral spaces in between them. What the "Revisionist" video genius made of this, on the other hand, cannot be called a head-to-foot arrangement; it rather looks like a human pyramid formed by athletes at a sporting event standing on each other’s shoulders. Neither does it save space, for whatever space is gained by partially overlapping one body’s head with the lower limbs and feet of the bodies next to it is lost by enlarging the empty lateral spaces between the bodies in relation to what they would be if the bodies were simply placed shoulder to shoulder. It may even be argued that this arrangement wastes space rather than saving any.

After thus misrepresenting the arrangement of the bodies described by Arad, the genius calculates length, width and height – making allowance for the aforementioned overlap between one body’s head and the adjacent bodies’ lower limbs and feet – as if the bodies were encased in a virtual box the measurements of which correspond to their length minus head, their width at the widest body part (the shoulders) and their height at the highest body part (the chest). This calculation, of course, assumes a lot of empty space, particularly around the legs and neck, as if the body were in a tightly-fitting coffin. Given that these empty spaces were minimized or avoided altogether by the horizontal arrangement described by Arad, as well as a presumably similar head to foot – arrangement in the vertical, including them in the measurements unduly increases the calculated volume of space occupied by a body.

The measurements thus obtained are: 50 inches or 1.27 meters for length, 26 inches or 0.6604 meters for width and 9 inches or 0.2286 meters for height. The shoulder width considered, 26 inches or 0.6604 cm, seems to be somewhat generous, to say the least. 26 inches, according to R&D Ergonomics, is the threshold to very wide shoulders. The largest shoulder width for football shoulder pads available at Dick’s Sporting Goods is 23 – 24 inches or 0.5842 to 0.6096 meters. It seems rather implausible that even the adult males among the Jews deported to Treblinka, after years of ghetto hunger and hardship, had anything like what is apparently considered a large shoulder width for well-fed American adult males.

Multiplying these values leads to a volume of 0.1917 cubic meters, which would mean a density of about 5 bodies per cubic meter (5.2157). This apparently is still too much for the genius, so he adds a layer of sand or chlorine no less than 7 inches or 17.78 cm thick supposedly placed over each layer of bodies. This addition is arbitrary and in contradiction with Arad’s description, which speaks of some sand or chlorine being scattered between the layers of bodies. By converting what seems to have been a negligibly thick amount of sand or chlorine scattered over the bodies into a layer 17.78 cm thick, in addition to his previous manipulations, the genius then arrives at the ridiculously high volume-per-body and correspondingly low density of bodies in the grave that he expects his gullible readers to swallow: 0.3408 cubic meters occupied by one body plus the sand or chlorine topping it and roughly 3 (2.9338) bodies per cubic meter.

The fallacies of this showpiece of "Revisionist" science thus exposed, let’s now have a look at what the actual density of corpses in the Treblinka mass graves can be expected to have been, considering that

i) the bodies were arranged in the space-saving manner described above, and not like what the video genius made out of Arad’s description, and

ii) the bodies were mostly those of women and children or elderly men, who unlike young adult males were of little or no use as forced laborers and therefore the first the Nazis wanted to get rid of.

"Revisionist" guru Carlo Mattogno, see the quote in Section 4.1 of my article Carlo Mattogno on Belzec Archaeological Research, writes that

On the basis of experimental data, the maximum capacity of a mass grave can be set at 8 corpses per cubic meter, assuming that one third of them are children.


According to the calculations of Alex Bay, the volume displacement of the "ideal man" is 3.3 cubic feet, which equals 0.093445594 cubic meters. This would mean a density of ca. 11 bodies (10.7014) per cubic meter.

Regarding a "population" of the Belzec gas chambers that consisted mostly of children, Charles Provan experimentally proved that 703 people could fit into a room with 5 x 5 x 1.9 = 47.5 cubic meters, which corresponds to a density of ca. 15 persons (14.8) per cubic meter.

As was to be expected, the "Revisionist" genius furthermore based his claim of an insufficient grave volume at Treblinka on drawings or models of the camp, which even where scaled do not necessarily show all parts and objects of the camp presented therein true to their actual relative sizes and distances (the drawings or models rely heavily on eyewitness recollections, which apart from the general problems of this source of evidence when it comes to measurements, quantities and distances are affected by difficulties particular to the Treblinka camp that are referred to on the Aktion Reinhard Camps site). So it seems more appropriate, in order to determine the size of the graves area and the presumable size of the graves, to rely on the only measurements by a land surveyor that, to my knowledge, have so far been carried out in regard to Treblinka. These were mentioned by the Central Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland in their 1946 report on Treblinka. In the English translation of this report , the following is stated:

The evidence on which this account relies is in the first place the testimony of 13 Jews, former prisoners at Treblinka, who succeeded in escaping during the armed revolt of August 2, 1943. Their names are: Jankiel Wiernik, Henryk Poswolski, Abe Kon, Aron Czechowicz, Oskar Strawczynski, Samuel Reisman, Aleksander Kudlik, Hejnoch Brener, Starisław Kon, Eugeniusz Turowski, Henryk Reichman, Szyja Warszawsski, and Leon Finkelsztejn.

Additional facts concerning particularly the number of railway transports, is to be found in the evidence of 11 Polish railway workers.

The railway records at Treblinka station have a1so been consulted, as well as documents and coins dug out during the levelling of the surface; and the results of legal and medical inquiries, as well was the sworn evidence of a land surveyor, were used by the prosecutors.

[…]

There are also other traces. For example, in the north-eastern part, over a surface covering about 2 ha. (5 acres),

p.97

there are large quantities of ashes mixed with sand, among which are numerous human bones, often with the remains of decomposing tissues.

As a result of an examination made by an expert it was found that ashes were the remains of burnt human bones. The examination of numerous human skulls found in the camp has shown that they bear no traces of external injuries. Within a radius of several hundred yards from the camp site an unpleasant smell of burnt ash and decay is noticeable, growing stronger as one approaches.


If we assume that the area covered with "large quantities of ashes mixed with sand, among which are numerous human bones" was the area of the mass graves, which seems a reasonable thing to do, then the size of this area was 2 ha or 20,000 square meters. If on this area there were ten graves with the measurements 50 x 25 x 10 meters, or a smaller number of larger graves covering an equivalent area, there were still 7,500 square meters left to enable movement in between the graves. Assuming 9 meters depth available for burial, as the video’s creator does, this would mean that 12,500 x 9 = 112,500 cubic meters of grave space were available, and assuming an average density of 8 corpses per cubic meter – which considering Alex Bay's calculations and Provan’s experiment seems a rather conservative estimate – this space would be enough to bury 112,500 x 8 = 900,000 corpses. This order of magnitude is in line with the statements of defendant Franz Suchomel at the first Treblinka trial, who is referred to in the judgment as having recalled that, according to his comrade Pötzinger, one alone of the mass graves opened in the spring of 1943 had about 80,000 dead bodies in it. It is also in line with the documentary and demographic evidence to the deportations to Treblinka, which includes but is not limited to the report sent by SS-Sturmbannführer Höfle in Lublin on 11 January 1943 to Obersturmbannführer Heim in Krakow, according to which 713,555 people had been delivered at Treblinka on 31.12.1942 already. There is no evidence that these people, or any that followed, were ever taken anywhere further, and no more than a few dozen survivors from among these deportees ever showed up.

So what is this video episode, which supposedly proves that there was not enough burial space for 700,000 corpses at Treblinka? What I expected it to be: more of the beaten old "Revisionist" hoaxing in a new package, with nice computer pictures and models to mask its fallacies and impress a public of gullible true believers. Of the other episodes I expect nothing better.

A few words about Episode 12: Belzec Burial Space [YouTube version], which is based on Episode 11: Treblinka Burial Space: the archaeological investigation led by Prof. Andrzej Kola on the area of Belzec between 1997 and 1999, during which 33 mass graves with a total volume of ca. 21,000 cubic meters were identified, is not even mentioned in that episode, where instead a fuss is made about a drawing of Belzec extermination camp in Yitzhak Arad’s book about the camps of "Aktion Reinhard(t)", which states no scale, makes no pretension to be an accurate representation of the relative sizes and distances of the objects in the camp, and is overruled by the results of Kola’s investigation in what concerns the depiction of the mass graves. Why the grave volume established by Prof. Kola was sufficient, considering the circumstances present at Belzec, to bury the corpses of the 434,508 deportees to that camp mentioned in Höfle’s report to Heim of 11 January 1943, is explained in Section 4.1 of my article Carlo Mattogno on Belzec Archaeological Research .


Click here to read refutations of other Ugly Voice Productions videoclips.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Who Created The 'Hoax'? Inquiring Minds Are Still None The Wiser

Continuing yesterday's experiment with tuning out the rantings of internet Nazis, here's the second and hopefully final part of an increasingly hilarious attempt to persuade a raggle-taggle group of racialists, Holocaust deniers and Holocaust sceptics at The Phora to name the author of the alleged 'Hoax'.

As our good friend Xcalibur of the valiant RODOH Watch found out to his cost when he actually read through the original thread, and complained about in the comments below, there's much to be said for this hearing-one-side-of-a-telephone-conversation approach. Above all, you don't have to listen to the deniers ranting, rambling and drooling. Oh, the things we spare you, dear readers...

With that, over to the action.

Read more...


After a hard day's work, Sulla the Dictator returns circa 7pm Californian time to find that the shambling jelly monsters have been ululating in his absence. But first, a bit of thread housekeeping.
I ignored your post because you repeated yourself. You didn't seem to understand my reply. When there are documents and evidence which support 'exaggerations', then either they ARE NOT exaggerations or they have been fabricated (the evidence). This thread isn't about how much of the Holocaust you believe in, its about who is doing the actual leg work of fabricating evidence in your people's world. If you don't think that happened, then I don't see what your point is here.

This done, it's time for a new angle on the question. Might the Evil Commies have hoaxed the Hoax? Let's find out...
Well it looks like the Illuminati, the Templars and the New York Times are the best we can come up with at the moment, so I have another question that might get a more clear response.

The shadows of the Cold War were already being cast over Europe in late 1945 and 1946. Why would the Soviets support a charade about this genocide of European Jews in 1946? The Soviets were FAR less comitted to any consistant theme or government message to its own people than the West was, since there were really no consequences for lying to its public. The Soviets also had an interest in delegitimizing the West German regime, and beyond that the victorious leaders of both England and the United States. What better way to do that than expose this massive conspiracy to frame the German people?

And why would this conspiracy to cover up the Holocaust continue from one General Secretary to the next? Revolving members of the party apparatus had an interest in 'sweeping away' the mistakes of the last, 'exposing lies and crimes'. Why would Nikita Khrushchev reveal the atrocities of Joseph Stalin, and NOT his conspiracy to frame the West German workers who the Soviets were interested in swaying?

Why would the Soviets engage in a pro-Jewish conspiracy while they were arming the states of the Arab league, or considering military intervention against Israel in 1967?

Why would the Soviets be training members of the PLO while hiding this bombshell?

Of course, there's always the Illuminati. The Soviets need to be concerned with their wrath. (rofl) But why wouldn't the Soviets LEAK this information to someone else? There were plenty of neutral powers, such as the Indians, or the Swiss, or the South Africans. Why wouldn't the Soviet educational system allow an exchange program of academics to 'stumble across' this evidence? Why wouldn't the Soviets leak this information to the Egyptians? We scoff at these Arab Holocaust deniers because they're just angrier versions of ours. But if they had documents in hand, that would be a different story.

Does this prod more of a response from the deniers? No, of course not. The shambling jellymonsters want to talk about their pre-programmed debating 'points' instead:
This is an academic claim? Did you ever consider how....childish....it is to suggest that illustrative metaphor be interpreted as literal fact? Do you believe that there were 10,000 tribes of Gaul? Or that Pickett's Charge was resulted in a literal bath of blood?

And again, you don't seem to understand the point of this post. The levels of blood seeping out of the ground in a Nazi killing field is not relevant. That isn't "the Holocaust". Thats a testament to the horror of the aftermath of such butchery.

What you don't seem to realize, however, is that there is PLENTY of evidence for the slaughter at Babi Yar. This is, in fact, one of the Eastern front actions that I don't think even Holocaust deniers on this board would say didn't happen.

The action was done by Sonderkommando 4a. The report reads as follows:
"Berlin, October 2, 1941
Chief of the Security Police and the Security Service
48 copies (36th copy)
OPERATIONAL SITUATION REPORT USSR No.101
Einsatzgruppe C, Location: Kiev
Sonderkommando 4a in collaboration with Einsatzgruppe HQ and two Kommandos of police regiment South, executed 33,771 Jews in Kiev on September 29 and 30, 1941.
Einsatzgruppe D, Location: Nikolayev
The Kommandos continued the liberation of the area from Jews and Communist elements. In the period covered by the report, the towns of Nikolayev and Kherson in particular were freed of Jews. Remaining officials there were appropriately treated. From September 16 to 30, 22,467 Jews and Communists were executed. Total number 35,782. Investigations again show that the high Communist officials everywhere have fled to safety. On the whole, leading partisans or leaders of sabotage detachments have been seized."


I mean, to deny this is simply ridiculous. But if you're going to do it, the purpose of this thread is to identify who made it up, who ordered it to be made up, and who continues to force people to believe it.

Thats not a claim that historians have ever made. I believe that was in an editorial written by some fellow who was at Buchenwald. How is that at all relevant?

This is a ridiculous way to talk about history. Were we to apply it, we would have to stop believing in half of the battles that took place in the Classical world, as someone would say that he was 'imbued with the strength of Mars'.

Identify it. I no longer deal with generalities.

Well, lets start with a quesiton. How many books have you read on the Holocaust?

No reply. Next up, the increasingly obnoxious Wintermute, spewing venom, runs charging at Sulla and impales himself on the usual contradictions.
Except that you ignored specific cited examples. Thats not surprising, indeed its par for course with people like you. To make the above statement you quite simply must ignore the flood of Soviet revisions, retractions, and policy shifts as well as admissions, inquiries, and falsehoods. But thats fine. Ignoring facts is what you do. Of course, its quite possible you never learned them.

One of the things that seems so convenient for people like you is that since you don't believe in "Orthodox" history, you never have to bother to learn it. Which allows for all your website fiction. Much easier to browse, and how fortunate! It conforms with your pre-existing biases!

Thats how someone like you can come here and say "The Soviets had to be concerned with a loss of legitimacy" or "the Soviets were worried about public lies". Which is utter rubbish. The Soviet leadership could care less about the 'public reaction' to what it did. You would know that if you bothered to actually learn about the USSR.

"Nothing stretched the creative powers of the politruks more than the job of explaining the news. Looking at Soviet foreign policy in the last few months of peace, one almost feels sorry for them. Most troops were not sophisticated men, and many could not reas a paper for themselves, but even a semiliterate drunk would have noticed a curious change of police in 1939. On 23 August the Soviet foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany.
Red Army men had been forced to sit through sermons on the threat of Fascism for a decade. Now, suddenly, they were told that the Germans had become their allies. On Stalin's sixtieth birthday in December 1939, the telegrams of congratulation included one from Adolf Hitler. The Fuehrer included his best wishes "for the happy future of the friendly people of the Soviet Union:.
Neither civilians nor troops knew what to think about the news of the pact. When their turn came to explain it, political staff were forced to draw upon the revolutionary rhetoric of historic progress. It was always possible to talk of international proletarian solidarity, and the German working class held a special place in Soviet imaginations, not least because its industry was so admired. But the idea of a treaty with Hitler could only be a shock. Cadets in one staff college thought the story was a spoof. Elsewhere, a politruk simply gave up when someone asked him if the next war would be an imperialist one. "There's no point," he answered, "in counting imperialist wars...When the war's over, a party congress will convene, and they'll tell us what type of war it was"."

Ivan's War, Catherine Merridale, Page 72

And thats just one example of a Soviet leadership indifferent to how policy related to public opinion. Those details were left to the political officers and party vizhods spread across the USSR.

No one would have been hurt more than the West by the revelation that the Holocaust was a fraud. The Soviets were the most anti-semitic power on Earth after the end of WWII, and in the Cold War era their allies were composed of minor anti-semitic powers. There is no motive for hiding this 'conspiracy', especially as Israel fell more and more under the American sphere of influence. Of course, in your 'reply' (Which was not a response) you ignored all but 4 lines of my post. I suppose that you do a lot better when you're simply talking to yourself.

The Russians were under no obligation to invent the issue in the first place. And moreover, they could have BLAMED the West for the forging of documents.

Moreover, this Illuminati Holocaust conspiracy could have been exposed by Khruschev when he brought Stalin's other dealings to light. Why would he specifically HIDE this event? There's no reason he would, of course, which is another glaring whole in this Soviet-Illuminati connection.

So then the Soviets didn't lose more than 13 million soldiers and civilians in the war? Wintermute might be the only Holocaust denier LEFT who denies EASTERN atrocities as well as concentration camps!

As I've already told you, the Soviets were more than willing to blame the West for fabrications, tricks, and academic traps.

Yeah, thats really funny.

But please, be more of a Nazi cheerleader. It really goes over well when reading it. It does suit you though. Its 'funny' how the death camps were in the East, and its 'funny' how the war criminals ran West.

But since you have claimed that its all just a bunch of lies, then why would the 'war criminals' be in the West, since the Soviets could throw anyone in a uniform and claim he was the group leader for a death squad which never existed?

Oh, thats right. Wintermute SELECTIVELY believes in Soviet academic and historic integrity.

Well you see, thats just the thing. The Russians allowed unprecedented access to the Soviet archives throughout the 1990s. I must have missed the revelations about the Great Holocaust Code, starring Tom Hanks.

ROFLMAO This is Wintermute using the PC nutter's approach to what Illusion already told us: The Illuminati, the Templars, Freemasons, and Rothschilds. Different names for the same thing.

I would ask the 'fence sitter' to examine his experience of the world. Consider what you've read of history, economics, and politics. Is this how the world works? Shadowy smoke filled rooms inventing historical events, plotting against nations, conspiring against you?

We used to give people psychiatric care for paranoia. Now, with the Internet, they're free to spew their sickness all over our computer screens. Its all cute at first, and weird. But after a while, it just becomes boring.

Let me guess: You have absolutely no evidence of this whatsoever.

Start a thread about Barbarossa and I'll happily thrash you on that issue as well. You've already taken this thread off topic enough. We won't be discussing the "defensive barbarossa operation" here.

If there are 'forged Holocaust documents' in that book, share them. Then identify what Western history books they have been used in. I suspect that there are not, otherwise I wouldn't have to ask you for them.

Evidence?

Evidence?

Evidence?

Evidence?

The reader is again invited to evaluate. Here we have a rather vulgar bigot in wintermute (Notice the unnecessary 'kike' statement, for shock value and to 'prove' himself to his fellow anti-smites. He's 'one of them'), who alternately suggests that the Soviets were the greatest evil in human history and 'alright guys, after all is said and done'. They 'took it easy' on the East Germans, they 'gave the major part of access' (?) to a German historian. Barbarossa saved the world.....but things wern't that bad after the Germans LOST that campaign.

This is an inconsistant worldview. Why though? The answer is quite clear. They have no answers to the question. They don't know WHY the Soviets would do this thing they claim they did, they just 'believe' they did it. They don't know WHO did it, they just 'believe' it was done.

They aren't interested in learning things, or achieving accurate conclusions. No crimes in history meet the burden of proof Holocaust deniers require. Wintermute believes in mass rapes and murders when the Soviets occupied Germany. Why though? There is less evidence of that than there is for the Holocaust. Virtually ALL of those claims are from 'eye witness testimony' by Germans, who have the same anti-Soviet motivation to lie that the Holocaust deniers claim Jewish victims of the Holocaust did.

Holocaust deniers are rabid believers in Stalinist atrocities. Why though? The estimates of those deaths vary by MILLIONS, not hundreds of thousands like the Holocaust. And yet while Holocaust deniers claim that such a variance of estimates means the thing never happened, they'll simper and whine about "Allied atrocities" ala gulags until you give them a pacifier.

But you have claimed that the Soviets were responsible for most of the fabricating. Why would the Soviets fabricate evidence to indict a subject population and then not use that? Why would the Soviets indict a West German population they were trying to seduce?

Wintermute is pretty much making this up as he goes along, folks, so be patient with him. Lets take stock of where he's 'led' us. The Soviets were planning on invading Europe, and the Germans bravely invaded them first! They saved Europe! But....then they lost the war, and as the Soviets advanced they fabricated evidence of the Holocaust (Simultaneously, the Western Allies were doing the same thing).

Then, they occupied Germany, and absolved the people they had framed of any responsibility for these atrocities they fabricated. Then they launched an anti-semitic purge, started arming the Arab neighbors of Israel, and considered launching an airborne and amphibious invasion of Israel. Israel, the nation they had conspired with the Rothschilds (I'm sorry, the "World Bank") to create.

They began to train and arm PLO terrorists while they secretly held the documents ordering the fabrication of the Holocaust.

Then, the Soviet Union fell apart. And as new Russians took the jobs of Soviet party hacks, they found these documents and independantly decided to hide them from academic view at the same time they cleverly allowed unprecedented acces to old Soviet archives. The Russians were willing to allow Westerners to look at documents where Stalin is signing off on executions, but were utterly unwilling to allow the documents ordering the forging of documents to be seen.

I assume that these documents were sent to the Vatican for safe keeping, right next to the secret birth certificate for Mary's love baby with Christ.

Troll #2 returns, still whining about Elie Wiesel:
Thats really interesting George, and thanks for your input. I notice, however, that you go on to say alternately:....

Of course, and if you reference my previous post, you'll see that one of my points is that to question some claims made about the 'Holocaust' is not to question all such claims.

Which, I guess, leads me to believe that you are 'so wise' that you didn't know that this 'geysers of blood' business refers to Babi Yar. So when I told you about Babi Yar, I was referring to this specific event. So your 'revision' is the idiotic point that a 'geyser of blood' didn't happen (Which is illustrative language), but you don't deny that Babi Yar happened. Thats really interesting. How is the CONSEQUENCE of the slaughter as relayed in illustrative langauge supposed to be 'some claim' about the Holocaust thats relevant to the actual Holocaust? The murder of people at Babi Yar is whats relevant. The height of blood squirting out of the ground where they're buried is not relevant.

By the way, you didn't answer the question. How many books on the Holocaust have you read?

The rest of your post is trolling, so I'll ignore it.

George, is your trolling due to the fact that you have nothing to contribute, but need to have my attention?

Except that the troll ignored the fact that I was asking for evidence:
"b.) Other items often held up as pieces of 'evidence' are not necessarily fabrications, but the interpretation of their significance as 'evidence' is fundamentally flawed, predicated as it is on the inherent biases and preexisting beliefs of the investigators."
Identify it. I no longer deal with generalities
Meaning: "Other items" and "pieces of evidence" and "interpretations". How am I supposed to deal with "Other items", unnamed?

Its strange how off topic this thread needs to go. Why can't we get some answers to the two basic questions? Is this the best you people can do?

Is your lack of knowledge about the Holocaust and your inability to answer a few simple questions the reason you want to talk about WMD and the war in Iraq?

Is that how this works?

This topic isn't about racial matters. Its about facts regarding history. George referred to some vague, nebulous 'facts' in dispute. I asked for specifics, because I can't rebutt 'evidence' that he won't share.

Still waiting, BTW.

You noticed that it had been changed to Jews (By people unable to answer questions), which is why those posts have been moved to the Race forum. Under the title of "The Jews".

Back to Wintermute, who tries the ol' Burden-of-Proof Table Tennis tactic, and gets the ball thwacked back onto his side of the net.
Can anyone see an actual reply to my post in Wintermute's response?

We'll wait and see. I doubt we'll be hearing you address any substantial portion of the post. I can see how replying like this appeals to you. How about we try this: Why don't you prove to us that the US State Department, the World Bank, and the Harvard Economics Department equals Jewry. And why don't you prove that somewhere else than this thread, which isn't about your Jew fetish?

It must be nice to have a cheering section of preinstalled idiots who can keep applauding your tripe, Wintermute. It allows you to keep your illusions about how you're doing intact. Fortunately, I don't care about your Neo-Nazi cheering squad. Your inability to answer simple questions has been shown again and again. Why would you expect me to be familiar with the details of your particular lunacy regarding conspiracies to destroy Aryan Russia?

"I am a despicable troll, and I'm sorry for willfully misrepresenting your words"
You're forgiven. Maybe you're not as despicable a troll as you appear.

"This is false.
Please answer the question as asked above: do you continue to maintain that my account of the IMF/Harvard/the Clinton Administration is tantamount to Illuminism, Templarism, and the like?
It would seem you are the one here who does not wish to answer questions.
Wintermute"

I'm not going to discuss the IMF/World Bank/Harvard economics department/Clinton State Department/Soros conspiracy absent its relevance in to this thread. If you can relate it to the Holocaust, we'll discuss it. If not, take it elsewhere. Preferably, to the swamp hut.

After which, the thread degenerates into whines, complaints and insults as the shambling jellymonsters (since reduced to two in number from the original 11) realised they have been pwn3d, again.
Well, I guess thats it. I'm sorry I was hard on you, Wintermute. After your spamming of reported posts, I've come to realize that I've deeply wounded you. You and George Clark both. Terrible thing. Between my harshness and my apparent 'moderator abuse', maybe I should just let you folks have this forum as an echo chamber.

Obviously Holocaust Deniers can't handle scrutiny.

Please stop trolling, George Rogers Clark. You've shown through your excessive neg repping, complaining about recieving negative reputation, and reported posts that you have a great deal of concern for the civility of the forum. If you have anything to add to the topic, please contribute. If you do not, please save it for the lounge.

Report the post, Dan, or start a thread in the Help Desk.

Backing away from my claims? Not at all. Everything I said stands, unassailed, since you ignored the entire post. Its just that it means a great deal to you. Enough, obviously, for you to suggest that just by replying to you I'm violating my job as a moderator. You made something like 3 or 4 reports in the span of twenty minutes. I hadn't realized I was being so hard on you.

I try not to excite emotional people. Its unnecessarily cruel. I just thought you fellows had thicker skin. My mistake. I'm quite sorry if I upset you, Wintermute.

Are you going to be ok if I answer you? I want to make sure of that before I go into detail.

Cue Wintermute storming off in a huff, vowing never to post on The Phora until it is 'cleaned up' (one assumes, code for cleansed of Jews, communists and fellow-travellers).

The final word, as of the time of this posting, goes to Petr, a college student and convinced Creationist. There's an irony in there somewhere.
You can be quite a drama queen, Winnie. Does this mean that you are not going to answer to my posts on these threads either?


Our prediction of where this thread will go... well, it's not actually our prediction, just something someone observed a good ten years ago about how these moonbats argue:
17. Although all of your arguments will be consistently blown to smithereens, just wait a few days or weeks and then re-post them.

Do they know how predictable they are?

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Who Created The 'Hoax'? Inquiring Minds Would Like To Know

Over at The Phora, playground of demented young pseudo-intellectual racialist fruitloops the world over, one of the few sane people still in possession of their marbles asks a salient question of the assembled horde of 'Revisionists':

Who created the 'Holohoax' they like talking about so much?

Cue much earnest rumination and cud-chewing from the bovine herd of deniers, much passing of gas and very little enlightenment.

Since discussing these things with internet Nazis is like talking to a brick wall, I'll give you Sulla the Dictator's questions and responses and you can fill in the blanks. Believe me, it makes much more sense that way...

Read more...

Here is how Sulla began:

What shadowy group is responsible for creating this 'myth', and then KEEPING IT IN PLACE like Opus Dei in the Da Vinci Code, "Revisionists" of the Phora? I would like to discuss this specific issue, gentlemen. Now that you have a forum dedicated to this...business...we can afford to discuss these subjects individually rather than the whole topic in single threads.

Cue the first shambling jellymonster attack, and the rest is internet history, in both senses of the term:

I'm sure that there are those on this board who are 'on the fence', as it were, regarding the Holocaust. I'm also certain that THIS question, in particular, is one they would like answered. The massive conspiracy to INVENT a historical event and then catalogue it in such detail is unprecedented in human history. So I'm sure that they are very curious about the details of this. Certainly there must be an answer.
...
So the Jews, is that your answer?
...
So a Jewish reporter, the New York times, and the lawyers of 'several Jewish organizations' are responsible for fabricating the Holocaust, forcing the governments of Britain, France, the United States, the USSR, and the rest of Europe to falsify evidence, plant bodies, and fabricate documents?
And then this Jewish reporter, the New York Times, and the lawyers of 'several Jewish organizations' created a shadowy unit of enforcers to KEEP the governments of Britain, France, the United States, the USSR, and the rest of Europe in compliance with this fabrication, as well as penetrating academia to force them to go along with it as well?
Are you sure this is the best you can do?
BTW, this is NOT a thread about "The Holocaust didn't happen". This is a thread about who supposedly is responsible for 'making it up' and keeping it as "orthodox history". Don't tell me thats the best you can do.
...
This doesn't address the question that I'm sure 'everyone on the fence' about this issue would like answered. Who made it up?
The genocide of European Jews certainly existed in HISTORY before 1967, Tom, and had an influence in both American and European politics in the shadow it cast over the far right on both continents. This is not an issue for this thread, however.
I'm curious where this diabloical scheme was hatched, and who carried it out.
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You would agree that what you just described has no bearing on the events happening between 1939 and 1947, correct?
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Ok George, thats great. And in some other thread, I'm sure that will be an answer to SOME question. But that isn't the answer to mine, in this thread. I would like to know WHO fabricated the Holocaust, and who ordered them to do it, and how they went about it. I'd be happy to hear your theories on that. So far, we've got a Jewish reporter, a Beltway paper, and a dozen lawyers.
...
Its hardly a strawman, since I didn't direct the question at you. There are:
1) People who DO subscribe to a conspiracy theory
2) Such people on this board
3) posts by NeoNietzsche in this thread making the argument
Your statement implied that you had some objection. I would like to clarify the matter. You don't SEEM to have an objection, or atleast, you don't seem to be interesting in stating it. Therefore I assume you don't believe that there was any fabrication of the Holocaust. Correct?
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Who are you, again?
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Thats interesting. Now lets see if you can grasp this. The Holocaust is not a story we read in books of fiction or see on stage or watch in movies, 'a tale woven by storytellers or entertainers'. Its a topic taught in universities, studied by scholars, written about by historians, and serves as an example to governments.
If it happened (Which most people know it did), then thats all well and good. If it DID NOT HAPPEN, then its a bit beyond the realm of "Fiddler on the Roof", George. The purpose of this thread, then, is to identify those people who FABRICATED the 'exaggerations' that we're studying in academia, not the 'dramatics' of the Pianist. This isn't a critique of film making. Its a view at those parties responsible for taking what you suggest are exaggerations and then manufacturing evidence which support them.
...
Why would anyone forge a document if they believe an event happened? How does a Soviet and an American forge thousands of documents "on their own" which just happen to serve as evidence for the same exact crime, and indeed, indict specific people on specific charges?
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Great. Thats fine. Thanks.
...
Well then, we come to the original question. Who ordered the fabrication of the evidence that they DID that very thing, in the way you dismissively describe, who fabricated it, and who continues to force others to lie about that being very real?
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Why would they fabricate things about gas chambers? They could have said that 6 million were simply shot.
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Who ordered these lies? Then who fabricated the evidence which supports them as fact? Then who forces historians to continue to regard them as fact?
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Now THATS more like it! THATS what I've been expecting to see!
Now are the NWO and the Illuminati the same organization, and are they composed of Jews?
...
Ok. Well here's the problem with that, George. They're academics. An academic who is handed a piece of fake evidence doesn't say "I'm a Jew, I better support this fake evidence". He investigates it, because thats his job. Careers are built on that type of historical discovery. You've said that there is no conspiracy. So then you would have us believe that ON THEIR OWN, the academic community are passing on falsehoods and exaggerations.
...
Your theory seems to be that Jews (Who you seem to think are the only people allowed in academia) operate off of a Hive Mind, instead of a conspiracy like Illusion believes.
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Well if you read about the Holocaust, you would know that its not a series of pictures of shoes.
But maybe you'd like to explain how a 'skilled storyteller' has to spin a German document saying they've killed such and such amount of Jews, or another that says their goal is to kill such and such amount of Jews.
That needs spinning? Or is it true?
...
You believe that there is a group of people who conspire to fabricate evidence and enforce its teaching, 60 years after the end of WWII?
...
Well yeah it does Tom, because we have evidence. And that evidence is either true, or its fabricated. Which is the point of this thread. That doesn't have anything to do with 'spinning' a thing. The Wanssee Protocol is either real or it isn't. It can't be 'spun'.
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Ask who?
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Wait a second, didn't you claim that there was no conspiracy to fabricate the Holocaust in the 1940s? Now there was, huh?
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Actually Illusion, fabricating stamps is a bit different than fabricating millions of documents. A stamp, or a coin, or a dollar, or a document, are different areas of specialty. So no, I don't think people who forge stamps are capable of forging documents of any quality.
But ok, we finally have an answer as to who is actually doing the dirty work!
Those members of the Allies who were forging stamps were sent to the field to forge millions of records. Because if you can forge stamps, you can forge ANYTHING. Thats really interesting. I can't wait until we get to the illumanti.
...
Oh so its a mystery, to boot. Well done Dan Brown.
...
I don't know if you're just completely unfamiliar with the material and thus making an honest mistake, or if you're just deliberately lying. The West has never believed that the Germans were responsible for the Katyn massacre. The Western Allies REFUSED to allow that to be entered as a charge for the German warcriminals at Nuremberg. Two US investigations on the subject in 1944 (!) and several British intelligence reports confirmed that the Soviets were responsible. I invite you to QUOTE A HISTORIAN that isn't a Soviet citizen who says the Germans were responsible for Katyn.
In 1952 the US Congress had a public hearing on the subject, and concluded that the Soviets were responsible. So no, this was never 'debunked' since it was never part of the history of the Holocaust. German atrocities in the field, by the way, are not usually considered a part of the Holocaust. Otherwise we'd be throwing Malmedy into the mix, which we're not.
Furthermore, saying that a gas chamber is a reconstruction is not 'propaganda'. Also, no one was ever charged with steam chambers, and I'd like you to source reference to them in historical texts teaching about the Holocaust, and not just eye witness testimony from Polish partisans looking at gas chambers in a Polish winter and mistaking heat or gas for steam....as they watch from the forest.
Finally, you just disproved your case, even though you're absolutely wrong about everything you said. If this Orthodox Templar Illuminati New World Order imposed this 'story', why are these charges allowed to be 'overturned' (Even though they never existed)?
...
What are you babbling about? No serious person considers the Nazis innocent of the crimes they were charged with NOW.
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Holocaust Deniers can't stand scrutiny, or people arguing with them. Thats why they belong in little echo chambers like "Revisionist Forum", where they moderate or ban anyone who argues with their stupid little lies.
...
Ok. I'll happily LIST the people who you say are responsible:
1. The House of Rothschild
2. The Middle Temple of London
3. The Illuminati, AKA, the Templars
I'm more than happy to nominate Illusion to be THE SOLE representative of Holocaust Denial on this board. Do any Holocaust deniers take exception to his theory of events?
...
What does this have to do with the Illuminati, the NWO, the Secret Jewish Overlords, or any other of the hobgoblins you and your little friends believe in?
...
Yes, I have one. In the middle of your bizzare rant, why didn't you take any time to discuss the issue of this thread? This thread isn't about your silly theories on the Holocaust. This is about who faked it. And it isn't about laughable (Insane) broad strokes, either, such as "The Jews" or "England". Its about hard tacks. Organizations or government officials who ordered it, individuals or units who forged documents, and then organizations, individuals, or units which are forcing people to teach it now.
I've noticed that you folks seem utterly incapable of answering these questions, with the exception of Illusion, who fingers the Illuminati.
...
Can you be more specific?
...
So Dan, do you buy into either of our two theories for who 'invented' the Holocaust? So far its the Illuminati, the Templars, and the Rothschilds versus the New York times and a dozen Jewish lawyers. Do you subscribe to either of these theories or do you have your own?
...
I'm sorry, I just can't discuss this illuminati/templar/freemason business. I just can't take it seriously. So we'll just accept that as a theory for the reader to consider.


N.B. it took 11 'revisionists' and 'sceptics' to reach this conclusion. This, after one accuses the entirety of academic of possessing a Hive Mind...

If you really insist on wading through the conspiracy theories, click through to read the thread in full).

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Savage rhetoric

No postings for some time, huh? Been busy. Still busy, actually, and it might take a couple of weeks before I return to full-scale blogging.

But I couldn't let this nasty piece of rhetoric go uncommented:
Hey George, let me tell you something, I don't have as much money as you. I have 50,000 times the influence that you do, you punk, lying, coward, Satanist, backstabbing freak. You're the people -- people like you give Jews a bad name, Soros. It's people like you who brought about the Holocaust, Soros. I stand by those words. I stand by those words. I would debate you tomorrow, Soros, on any platform, anywhere. I'll debate you anywhere. It's people like you who brought about the Holocaust, Soros. That's why I need you to shut your mouth and understand the damage you're doing to this world and to the Jewish people, George Soros.
I've already mentioned this shit-for-brains before. Apparently, he is crazy (literally). Basically, he blames "bad" Jews for the Holocaust. How nice. So maybe one should let the Nazis off the hook, if it were Jews like Soros who were responsible for the Holocaust?

Interestingly, Savage uses the "backstabbing" rhetoric, which, of course, was also succesfully used by the Nazis. And that "Satanist" epithet reminds one of "Satanic Jew" meme, which was also used by them, especially by a noted Nazi pundit Julius Streicher.

Come to think of it, shave Savage and you'll get a Streicher look-alike (he already is a Streicher "think-alike" and "talk-alike").

Monday, June 05, 2006

This watchblogging lark, it's clearly catching

Never let it be said that we are alone in taking an interest in the bizarre little world of Holocaust Denial. Nor that we are the only ones to take part in the spectator-sport of watchblogging, a term that if it doesn't already exist, should definitely be invented. Let's see what Google has to say: okay, 251 hits, people are claiming they invented it first, but it came to me entirely independently. Honest. Who the hell cares anyhow?

Ahem. Anyway... Just when you thought the dust had settled from the discovery of our mirror-blog CODOH Watch, along comes
Xcalibur and takes watchblogging to a new level: RODOH Watch.

As he writes in his opening post:
RODOH stands for Real Open Debate of the Holocaust(*). Yes, there are some folks out there in internetland who don't believe in Nazi gas chambers, Einsatzgruppen killings and such-like. The site's owner is an amiable Holocaust denier from Arizona called Scott Smith. He would probably prefer to be thought of as a "Revisionist". Scott doesn't like Nazi gas chambers unless they were used for fumigation puposes. No homicidal gas chambers in Scott's world. You might be tempted to ask at this point, "Hey Xcalibur, is Scott an anti-semite"? Hmm. More on that at some future date. Scott does like free speech, however. And so he is a champion of David Irving, Ernst Zundel, Germar Rudolph and other Holocaust Deniers who have run afoul of the laws of distant lands which prohibit such denial. I agree with Scott on this point but not necessarily for the same reasons. Anyway, he runs RODOH as a free speech forum.

Free Speech. Interesting concept that. A value to be held dear. Yet the practicalities of it are often not so lofty as the notion. This is the essence of RODOH's problem: How does one maintain a free speech forum on the internet and yet deal with all the mental patients, day-dreamers, idiots, cranks, fucktards, trolls, morons, anti-semites, fools, and garden-variety motherfuckers who make up a slice of the human population who would really be better off exiled to their own island? Madagascar, anyone? Since it is RODOH's problem, it is Scott's problem. And up 'til very recently he hasn't dealt with it. Last week he has begun to take baby-steps toward moderating the boards. Unfortunately Scott decided to announce long ago that he would never ban anyone from the boards on a permanent basis. Sounds good, for a free speech forum. On the other hand, Scott painted himself into a corner with this announcement. This is good news for Scott's nemesis, Jonnie A. Hargis, aka "Hannover" of the CODOH forum. Jonnie doesn't like free speech. In fact, he's a racist, fascist cunt and runs his forum accordingly. And he'd love to see Scott forced into banning someone permanently from RODOH. So Scott is boxed: He forgot that one of the basic rules of strategy is that you never announce to your opponent what you "never" intend doing.

Indeed. We look forward to seeing what Xcalibur makes of 'the antics of the mental patients inhabiting the RODOH forum', and who he diagnoses as deranged. Who will feel his barbs? Stay tuned to find out. Now all that remains is for Xcalibur and us to blogroll each other and the incestuous circle will be complete....

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Carlo Mattogno on Belzec Archaeological Research - Part 5 and Conclusion

Carlo Mattogno on Belzec Archaeological Research

1. Nature and Purpose of Kola’s Archaeological Investigation


2. Location and Form of the Mass Graves

3. Corpses Found

4. Volume of the Mass Graves, Human and Wood Ashes
4.1 The Capacity of the Graves

4.2 Wood Requirements
4.3 Duration of the Cremations

4.4 The Soil removed from the Graves
4.5 The Ash

4.6 The "Actual" Surface Area of the Graves
4.7 Density of Corpses in the Graves


5. Alternative Explanations

Last but not least, a few words about Mattogno’s attempts to put together another explanation for the mass graves found by Kola and his team than the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of people.

Read more!


Contrary to Mattogno’s triumphant claim:

In conclusion, the mass graves at Belzec are absolutely incompatible with the burial of 600,000 bodies, even if we include a large number of children among the dead. Mass extermination excluded, there is thus only one assumption which could explain the presence at Belzec of mass graves and corpses: the revisionist thesis.


the conclusions of historiography (to which I don’t think Mattogno belongs) about the murder of at least 434,000 people at Belzec extermination camp are compatible not only with the mass graves located by and described by Kola, but also with all the remaining evidence, consisting of eyewitness testimonies, defendants’ depositions, documents and demographic data. Mattogno’s thesis, on the other hand, is based on unproven or wrong assumptions alone. Let us have a look at them (pages 91 f):

As we will see in the following chapter, at Belzec deaths of detainees from epidemics (such as typhus) were recorded as early as the spring of 1940, and many other deaths were recorded in succeeding months, when the site became a very harsh hard labor camp. In later phases of the story of Belzec, the arrival of transports under disastrous conditions – such as the one from Kolomea on September 10, 1942, with 2,000 dead on board – added thousands of bodies to the mass graves of the camp. To this we must add the natural mortality among the approximate 434,000 Jews transferred to Belzec. Although it is impossible to establish the number of these deaths, it is nonetheless possible to infer, from what has been discussed above, an order of magnitude of several thousands, perhaps even some tens of thousands.

4.9. Reasons for Cremation

The cremation of the bodies of the dead constitutes in and of itself neither proof nor evidence in favor of the official theses, because this was the practice in all concentration camps and had a well-established hygienic function. In the area of the Belzec camp, Kola’s findings show that, along a line linking grave 3 and grave 10, about two-thirds of the length of the camp,284 the groundwater level was at a depth of 4.80 meters.285 In the area below, toward the railroad, this level was obviously at a smaller depth; in the area of grave 1, it was 4.10 meters.286 It is probable that the cremation had to do with the danger of contamination of the ground water, as I have discussed elsewhere.287 Fundamentally, however, one cannot exclude the explanation adopted by the official historiography, while giving it a different interpretation. If the Soviets had discovered mass graves full of corpses dead of disease or malnutrition, then they would certainly have exploited them for propaganda against the Germans, as the latter did in Katyn and Vinnytsya against the Soviets.


First of all, why would the SS, for only "several thousands, perhaps even some tens of thousands" of dead bodies, have needed 33 mass graves with a total area of 5,919 square meters and a volume of 21,310 cubic meters, which already according to Mattogno’s own calculations could take in about 170,000 corpses? Why would the SS with considerable effort have created so much grave volume to then use only a fraction of it and therefore waste it? Why would they especially have dug the graves as deep as becomes apparent from Kola’s investigation, down to the ground water level and in places even beyond that? The mass graves from Treblinka I that are the subject of Mattogno’s apples and oranges comparison (see section 4.7 of this commentary) were only about 2 meters deep, little more than the proverbial 6 feet below ground.

Second, what could have been the intended fate of people taken to Belzec in the manner described by Mattogno regarding a transport from Kolomea, in overfilled trains in which a large part of the deportees perished during the voyage already? Was this how one would treat people one intended to "resettle" or use as a labor force? Apparently aware that this question might arise among his readers, Mattogno tried to present this transport as an isolated case and the horrors of the journey from Kolomea as the result of bad organization, while invoking the fact that Jews too old or sick to be transported were shot on the spot as an indication against the destination being an extermination camp (pages 100 f):

On September 14, 1942, Zugwachtmann der Schutzpolizei (railroad guard of the protection police) Josef Jäcklein wrote a report, “Resettlement from Kolomea to Belzec.” He escorted a train of 51 cars loaded with 8,200 Jews that left Kolomea at 20:50 hours on September 10. The Jews quickly sought ways to escape, ripping the barbed wire from the openings of the cars and opening up holes in the walls, which caused Jäcklein to cable ahead to Stanislau station to have boards and nails ready. On arrival at that station, the train stopped one hour and a half for the repairs. A few stations farther along, the Jews had again ripped out the barbed wire and made new holes, so the train stopped again. Jäcklein relates:
“When the train left, I even noticed that in one car hammers and pliers were being used. Questioning the Jews as to why they still had these tools, they declared that they had been told that they would be able to put them to good use at their next destination.”
Again and again, at every stop, the train had to stop for repairs to the car walls. Finally the train arrived at Lemberg/Lwów, where Jäcklein turned over “9 cars marked L and destined for the forced labor camp at Lemberg” to SS Obersturmführer (senior lieutenant) Schulte, but another 1,000 Jews came on board. When the train moved on, escape attempts resumed. As the escort had expended all their ammunition, they had to use “stones” and “bayonets” to prevent escapes. The transport took place under catastrophic conditions. Jäcklein writes in this respect:
“The ever increasing panic among the Jews, caused by the strong heat, overloading of the cars with up to 220 Jews, the smell of corpses – 2,000 dead were counted when the train was unloaded – made the transport nearly impossible.”
The train arrived at Belzec at 6:45 p.m. the following day and was turned over to the camp authorities at 7:30 p.m.. Unloading the cars took until 10 p.m.324
324 RGVA, 1323-2-292b, pp. 61f.
This transport was also the topic of another report, drawn up at Lemberg on September 14, 1942, by Leutnant der Schutzpolizei der Reserve (lieutenant of the reserve protection police) Wassermann.325 The train carried 8,205 Jews, and most cars contained 180 to 200 persons. The guard detail traveled in 2 passenger cars so that the average load per car was (8,205÷49=) 167 persons. In the first portion of his report, Wassermann describes a transport from Kolomea to Belzec on September 7, 1942. The security police gathered some 5,300 Jews at the “Sammelplatz des Arbeitsamtes” (collection site of the labor office), and another 300 were rounded up in the Jewish sector. Wassermann “The transport was fully loaded at 19 hours. Altogether, 4,769 Jews have been resettled, once the security police had released about 1,000 of the Jews who had been rounded up.”
Each car was loaded with 100 persons. Other Jews were, however, shot: “On September 7, 300 old, infected, frail, or untransportable Jews were executed.”
During the days following there were more shootings:
“During the actions in the Kolomea area on September 8, 9, and 10, 1942, about 400 Jews had to be liquidated by shooting for the usual reasons.”
The catastrophic transport of September 10-11, 1942, was caused by logistical deficiencies rather than homicidal intent; when it was possible, transports took place under more humane conditions, like the one on September 7, when the deportees traveled 100 per car. Before the transport left, the security police released about 1,000 Jews who could have easily been transported on the train, by simply increasing the load from 100 to 123 persons. During thetransport of September 10-11, 1942, nine cars with detainees were unloaded “for the forced labor camp.” This does not jibe with an alleged program for the total extermination of the Jews.
The shootings of various groups of Jews were motivated by the fact that they were “old, infected, frail, or untransportable” persons – but if the direct transports to Belzec were carried out for the purpose of extermination, then why these preliminary shootings?


In case anyone was still in doubt where Mr. Mattogno comes from, the fellow considers the above as showing a very "severe" German attitude towards the Jews (page 99).

Apparently it didn’t occur to someone who uses the euphemism "severe" for the charnel-house of the Kolomea transport that

• The killing on the spot of the "old, infected, frail, or untransportable Jews" might have served the purpose of speeding up both the loading of the train and the unloading and "processing" of the deportees at Belzec extermination camp, while the fact that the infirm were killed and not just left behinds indicates a policy of extermination towards those Jews deemed "useless" by the Nazis;

• There is nothing "humane" about transporting 100 people in a railroad car as in the transport on 7 September 1942, especially when they are given no and even kept from receiving water during the whole journey (See Cornides’ description, quoted in section 4.1, of what Mattogno would probably consider one of the more "humane" transports to Belzec: «As soon as the train halted, the Jews attempted to pass out bottles in order to get water. The train, however, was surrounded by SS guards, so that no one could come near.». Ever travelled like that, Mr. Mattogno?), the likely reason why the cars were not loaded further on that transport being an endeavor to carry out the deportations as quickly and efficiently as possible, to which the overloaded and crawling Kolomea transport did not exactly contribute;

• The unloading of the deportees deemed able to work at a forced labor camp is no indication against an extermination policy but merely emphasizes the fact that the Jews taken to Belzec were those considered unable to work and therefore useless;

• The constant and desperate breakout attempts in the Kolomea transport, to such an extent that the train guards had fired all their ammunition well before the train arrived at its final destination, is an indication not only of the horrendous conditions of the transport itself but also of a certain awareness or suspicion on the part of the Jews that they were being taken to their deaths.

One wonders why Mattogno would shoot himself in the foot as he did with his detailed and lamely apologetic descriptions of what transports reflecting the Germans "severe" attitude towards the Jews looked like. The possible reason is that a lack of basic humanity, which is especially suggested by his invoking the shooting of the infirm on the spot as an indication against exterminatory intent, kept Mattogno from realizing the horror of these descriptions and what they revealed about the Nazis’ intentions towards the Jews deported to Belzec. One of Mattogno’s problems, apparently, is that he can’t help being who he is.

Now to another of Mattogno’s poor arguments in trying to explain away the Belzec mass graves and their contents: if, as Mattogno claims, the incineration was related to avoiding contamination of the ground water (this was actually one of the reasons for the incineration operations at the camps of Aktion Reinhard(t), according to evidence presented at trials before West German courts), why were the mass graves dug as deep as the ground water level in the first place, although for "several thousands, perhaps even some tens of thousands" of dead bodies one really didn’t need pits that deep?

Next one: if, as Mattogno also surmises, concern about the Soviets using for propaganda purposes "mass graves full of corpses dead of disease or malnutrition" was what led to the incineration operation, what other cases are known of work-, transit or POW camps with a high mortality at which this measure was adopted? Why, then, were the corpses of Soviet prisoners of war at a number of camps where there were tens of thousands of them, victims of executions, starvation or exposure, not removed by incineration? Why were the mass graves found by the Soviets or Poles at Treblinka I labor camp, which Mattogno mentions, not removed by incineration? Why would the Germans at Belzec make an effort they obviously didn’t consider necessary at Treblinka I, in the face of considerations that according to Mattogno’s thesis would have been exactly the same?

Finally, why would ca. 434,000 Jews have been transferred to Belzec, a camp with an area of no more than 6 ha? And where are they supposed to have been taken from there?

This is an essential question one would expect Mattogno to dedicate most of his book to answering, for unless he is able to plausibly account otherwise for the fate of ca. 434,000 deportees he claims were not murdered at Belzec, all his nitpicking against his selection of the evidence to Belzec extermination camp is rather pointless. Yet Mattogno dedicates a full six pages (103 to 106) to "Belzec as Part of the German Policy of Deporting Jews to the East", and nowhere in this chapter does he even attempt to trace the trajectory of any part of those 434,000 "to the East" he claims they went to, i.e. to the occupied territories of the Soviet Union. Most of this chapter is filled with irrelevant mumbling about "western" Jews having ended up in places other than Belzec or one of the other Aktion Reinhard(t) camps, as if that were an indication against the exterminatory purpose of these camps which, as the "official historical version" has documented, were essentially meant for wiping out the Jews of the General Government. Of the few documents Mattogno quotes, one obviously relates to the settlement of Jews from the Reich at places in the General Government from which local Jews had been previously "evacuated", while another on pages 103 f. – Fritz Reuter’s notes of 17 March 1942 about a conversation with Hauptsturmführer Höfle on the previous day – is one more shot in Mattogno’s own foot:

"I arranged for a talk with Hstuf. Höfle for Monday, the 16th of March 1942, namely at 17:30 hours. In the course of the discussion the following It would be expedient to divide the transports of Jews arriving in the Lublin district at the station of origin into employable and unemployable Jews. If it is not possible to make this distinction at the departure station, then the transport will have to be divided in Lublin in the manner mentioned above.
All unemployable Jews are to come to Bezec [Belzec], the outermost border station in the Zamosc district.
Hstuf. Höfle is thinking of building a large camp in which the employable Jews can be registered in a file system according to their occupations and requisitioned from there.
Piaski is being made Jew-free and will be the collection point for the Jews coming out of the Reich.
Trawnicki [Trawniki] is not at present occupied by Jews.
H. asks where on the D blin-Trawnicki route 60,000 Jews can be unloaded. Informed of the Jewish transports now departing from here, H. explained that of the 500 Jews arriving in Susiec, those who were unemployable could be sorted out and sent to Bezec. According to a government teletype dated March 4, 1942, a Jewish transport, whose destination was the Trawnicki station, is rolling out of the Protectorate. These Jews are not unloaded in Trawnicki, but have been brought to Izbiza. An inquiry of the Zamosz district, asking to be able to request 200 Jews from there for work, was answered in the affirmative by H.
In conclusion he stated that he could accept 4-5 transports of 1,000 Jews to the terminal station Bezec daily. These Jews would cross the border and never return to the General Government."


Emphases in the above quote are mine.

Despite Mattogno’s feeble attempts to relate the statement "Hstuf. Höfle is thinking of building a large camp in which the employable Jews can be registered in a file system according to their occupations and requisitioned from there." to Belzec and sell his readers the idea that

Belzec was to become a camp in which the Jews fit to work were “registered in a file system according to their occupations.”


(page 104), what becomes clear from the document is that Belzec had nothing to do with labor employment, but was a place to where the unemployable were sent, ostensibly to "cross the border and never return to the General Government" – a feeble euphemism for their actual fate considering that beyond the "border" there were the Nazi-occupied territories of the Soviet Union, whose governing officials would not exactly have been delighted to receive hundreds of thousands of unemployable Jews as additional useless mouths to feed on top of the local Jews they were already saddled with, quite apart from the fact that these local Jews, insofar as they could not be used for forced labor, were being bumped off by SS and police formations at that time. The pretense that Belzec was some sort of transit station for Jews from the General Government bound for "the East" is also belied by the fact that Jews were being shipped to Belzec also from places east of there, as Prof. Browning pointed out in his previously quoted expert opinion submitted in the course of the Irving-Lipstadt lawsuit:

[…]5.3.6 In short, the German documents make clear that tens of thousands of Jews were being sent to the camp at Belzec in the spring months of 1942. There was no pretense that this was a work camp, for only non-working Jews were sent there. There was no pretense that such numbers of Jews could all remain in Belzec, in a tiny village guarded by a mere 60 men. Thus the explanation given by the SS was that these Jews were "expelled over the Bug," that is sent across the border into the district of Galicia, with the guarantee that they would never return. Two factors make the acceptance of such an explanation utterly untenable.

5.3.7 First, on March 27, 1942, shortly after the clearing of the Lublin ghetto began, Josef Goebbels confided to his diary about the fate of the non-working Jews, i.e. precisely those sent to Belzec:

Beginning with Lublin, the Jews in the General Government are now being evacuated eastward. The procedure is a pretty barbaric one and not to be described here more definitely. Not much will remain of the Jews. On the whole it can be said about 60 percent of them will have to be liquidated whereas only about 40 percent can be used for forced labor.

5.3.8 Second, German documents from the district of Galicia make clear that not only were Jews not arriving in their district from the Lublin district via Belzec, but on the contrary, Jews were simultaneously being deported from the district of Galicia westward to Belzec. The Oberfeldkommandant in Lwow (Lemberg) reported on March 19, 1942:

Within the Jewish population of Lemberg a noticeable unrest has spread in regard to a deportation action that has begun, through which some 30,[000] elderly and other unemployed Jews shall be seized and allegedly transferred to a territory near Lublin. To what extent this evacuation can be equated with a decimation remains to be seen.

5.3.9 The Oberfeldkommandant reported the following month:

The Jewish population displays the deepest depression, which is completely understandable because on the one hand in various locations in the district the well-known actions against the Jews occur again and on the other hand in Lemberg the temporarily interrupted resettlement of Jews resumes; in the meantime it is whispered also among the Jews that the evacuees never reach the resettlement territory that is alleged to them as the destination.

5.3.10 The deportations from Galicia broke off during the months of May, June, and July 1942, but resumed in August. In October the Oberfeldkommandant reported again:

The resettlement actions continue undiminished. The Jews are informed of their fate. Indicative is the statement of a member of the Lwow Jewish council: We all carry our death certificates in our pocket--only the date of death is not yet filled out.

5.3.11 The trains deporting Jews from Galicia did indeed go to Belzec, as can be seen in the report of Reserve Lieutenant Westermann of the 7th company of Police Regiment 24, whose men helped round up the Jews in Kolomyja and nearby towns and then guarded two transports to Belzec on September 7 and 10, 1942. The first contained 4,769 Jews in 50 train cars and went without incident. The second involved 8,205 Jews. Many had been held for days without food and force-marched 35-50 kilometers to the train in blistering heat. They were then packed into train cars, in many cases 180-200 per car, virtually without ventilation. As Lieutenant Westermann concluded: "The ever greater panic spreading among the Jews due to the great heat, overloading of the train cars, and stink of the dead--when unloading the train cars some 2,[000] Jews were found dead in the train--made the transport almost unworkable." Nevertheless the train that left Kolomyja at 8:50 pm. on September 10 finally crawled into Belzec at 6:45 pm on September 11.[…]


Emphases in the above quote are mine. Mattogno mentioned neither Goebbels diary entry of 27 March 1942 (for reasons that should be easy to understand for who reads Browning’s translation of its first paragraph) nor the other documents quoted by Browning, except for the report by Reserve Lieutenant Westermann, who seems to be the same person as "Leutnant der Schutzpolizei der Reserve (lieutenant of the reserve protection police) Wassermann" quoted on page 101 of Mattogno’s book. Apparently Mattogno didn’t realize that Kolomea is located in Galicia, to the east of Belzec, and that the reports on this transport are therefore documents showing the pretense that Belzec was a place from where unemployable Jews would "cross the border and never return to the General Government" to be the cynical lie that it was.

Of course there is a reason why Mattogno fumbles and fudges with supposed documentary indications that Belzec was not an extermination camp, instead of trying to account for the fate of ca. 434,000 Jews deported there, as he should: except for a possible transport of 1,700 people mentioned on page 107 of his book, which according to a 1969 Polish source would have left Belzec for Majdanek in October 1942 (i.e. at a time when Belzec was about to finish gassing operations to start with the cleanup of the graves while Majdanek started operating homicidal gassing installations, according to what Mattogno calls the "official historical version"), Mattogno seems to have found no evidence, or even indication, that any number of the Jews deported to Belzec in 1942, mentioned in Höfle’s report to Heim of 11 January 1943 , ever left the place to "the East" or in any direction at all.

It stands to reason that the transportation of hundreds of thousands of people from Belzec to any other destination, especially across "the border" to the Nazi-occupied territories of the Soviet Union, would have left behind a huge paper trail and a very large number of witnesses to tell the story. Thus the absence of any such evidence, despite presumable painstaking attempts by Mattogno to find it throughout archives in Eastern Europe, leaves room for only one conclusion: that such transports out of Belzec never took place.

This, in turn, is further evidence that shows the "official historical version" to be right, and Mr. Mattogno to be full of shit.


Conclusion

I am confident to have sufficiently demonstrated that Mattogno’s assessment of the results of Prof. Kola’s archaeological investigation of the Belzec mass graves is what I consider it to be: a charlatan’s attempt to sell to a gullible-faithful readership apologetically distorted descriptions and interpretations of a certain historical event or phenomenon in support of "Revisionist" articles of faith.

Which is not surprising, of course, for Mr. Mattogno, comparatively talented though some may consider him to be, is just another hoaxing "Revisionist".


Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all who contributed to the making of this commentary, especially my fellow bloggers Nick Terry and Sergey Romanov, who provided much useful constructive criticism, and all "Revisionsists" who helped to "battle test" this commentary on the thread Mattogno on Prof. Kola’s Belzec archaeology of the RODOH forum, where previous versions of the commentary were published.

I would also like to thank the "Revisionist" RODOH poster "ClaudiaRothenbach" for his spam-posting, on the RODOH thread Belzec, of the German text of Mattogno’s "analysis" of Prof. Kola’s archaeological investigation, because it was this spam-posting that unleashed my undertaking. I’m not sure, though, if Mr. Mattogno will also be grateful to Mr. "ClaudiaRothenbach" for having spurred this initiative.