A discussion with Michael Santomauro and Thomas Dalton, Ph.D.

Almost three years after it was written, Sergey Romanov’s article Why the "diesel issue" is irrelevant was graced with the comment of an illustrious "Revisionist", Michael Santomauro.

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Mr. Santomauro is the publisher of a recent "Revisionist" book with the title Debating the Holocaust. A New Look at Both Sides, by one Thomas Dalton Ph.D., who in the Introduction to his book claims to be "a scholar and academic" who has "taught humanities at a prominent American university for several years now" and wishes to take "an impartial look" at the "clash of views" regarding the series of historical events commonly known as the Holocaust, between the people I call "Revisionists" (quote marks indicating that revisionists is not what I consider them to be) and those he refers to as "traditionalists". He claims that he is "not concerned with befriending either camp", that he is "not a revisionist", and that he does not "endorse their claims". I consider this claim of impartiality to be false and have expressed my view on the book in a review on Amazon; substantiation of my assessment and further analysis will follow in future blog articles.

If I’m not mistaken (and please correct me if I’m wrong) Mr. Santomauro also is or was the man in charge of the VHO "Revisionist" website in the absence of Germar Rudolf, who is currently serving a prison sentence for Holocaust denial in Germany (my opinion about laws allowing for such sentences is expressed in, among other statements, my Petition to the German Legislator, which disappointingly received much fewer signatures than I hoped it would – may that’s still going to change).

Such distinguished "Revisionist" attention to this modest blog (Mr. Dalton professes a low opinion of blogs and online sources in general, yet some articles by Sergey and me seem to have worried him enough to merit mention in his book) would by itself have been reason enough to warrant front page mention, but things got even more interesting as Jonathan Harrison and I responded to Mr. Santomauro’s comment about Sergey’s blog, whereupon Mr. Santomauro transmitted a answer from Thomas Dalton himself, to which I have in turn responded.

As said in a P.S. to my last response, I consider this conversation with Messrs. Dalton and Santomauro to be sufficiently interesting to our readers to deserve a blog of its own, rather than be confined to the comments section of another blog. Therefore I shall hereinafter copy the posts of Michael Santomauro, Jonathan Harrison, Thomas Dalton and myself under Sergey’s aforementioned article.

Michael Santomauro, Thursday, April 30, 2009 9:11:00 AM

In Debating the Holocaust Thomas Dalton states:

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

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

Jonathan Harrison, Friday, May 08, 2009 9:46:00 PM

Mr Santomauro, you quote Dalton as follows:

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

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

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

Roberto Muehlenkamp, Friday, May 08, 2009 10:43:00 PM, quotes in italics

Hi Mr. Santomauro,

You wrote:

«In Debating the Holocaust Thomas Dalton states:

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

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

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

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

Now to your own additions:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best regards, also to Mr. Dalton,

Roberto Muehlenkamp

Michael Santomauro, Sunday, May 10, 2009 1:35:00 AM

Reply to Muehlenkamp, from Thomas Dalton:

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

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

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

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

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

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

TD.

Roberto Muehlenkamp, Sunday, May 10, 2009 2:44:00 PM (quotes in italics)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lots of unanswered questions here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best regards, also to your publisher,

Roberto Muehlenkamp

Roberto Muehlenkamp, Sunday, May 10, 2009 2:48:00 PM

P.S.

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

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

The discussion should continue in the comments section of the present blog article. I especially expect replies from Mr. Santomauro and/or Mr. Dalton (and it would be good if the latter appeared here in person instead of sending messages through his publisher), but every reader is invited to join in as well.

I look forward to a lively and instructive debate.