Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Contemporary German Documents on Homicidal Gas Vans

[last updated on 1 February 2020]

The following is a compilation of photographs/photostats, transcriptions and translations of the published contemporary German documents on homicidal gas vans. The documents are powerful evidence on homicidal gassings by German paramilitary forces and provide insight into the construction, dispatch and use of the gas vans as well into technical modifications planned after extensive field experience.

On gas vans and Holocaust denial, see the series of postings Rebuttal of Alvarez on Gas Vans and  Mattogno, his Einsatzgruppen book and the Gas Vans.

List of documents

1.) Draft of a letter Erhard Wetzel to Hinrich Lohse of 25 October 1941 on "gassing apparatuses" and "Jews who are not capable of work, are eliminated with the Brackian remedy"; this may refer either to gas vans or euthanasia-like gas chambers.

2.) Radio telegram from Arthur Nebe to Einsatzgruppe B of 13 December 1941 on "special vehicles".

3.) Report from Einsatzgruppe B of 1 March 1942 on "gas vans".

4.) Letter from Walther Rauff to the Criminal Technical Institute at the Reich Criminal Police Office of 26 March 1942 on "special wagons" and "gas bottles with carbon monoxide" for concentration camp Mauthausen.

5.) Letter from Harald Turner to Karl Wolff of 11 April 1942 on "I shot dead all the Jews I could get my hands on in this area, concentrated all the Jewish women and children in a camp and with the help of the SD got my hands on a 'delousing van', that in about 14 days to 4 weeks will have brought about the definitive clearing out of the camp".

6.) Memo of 27 April 1942 on a "fast unloading device for the special vehicles".

7.) Letter from Walther Rauff to the Gaubschat company of 30 April 1942 on "extractable grates for the 10 delivered Saurer chassis".

8.) Letter from the Gaubschat company to Walther Rauff of 14 May 1942 on "10 yet to be delivered special vehicles".

9.) Letter from August Becker to Walther Rauff of 16 May 1942 on "death van" and "the persons to be executed suffer death from suffocation and not death by dozing off as was planned".

10.) Memo of Willy Just of 5 June 1942 on "ninety-seven thousand have been processed using three vans", "to facilitate the rapid distribution of CO" and "when the back door is closed and it gets dark inside, the load pushes hard against the door".

11.) Telegram from Emanuel Schäfer to Friedrich Pradel of 9 June 1942 on "the special order" with "a special wagon Saurer".

12.) Telegram from Heinz Truehe to the RSHA of 15 June 1942 on "special treatment" of Jews with "S-wagons" and "20 exhaust hoses for the existing 3 S-wagons (2 Daimond, 1 Saurer), as those available are already leaky".

13.) Telegram from the RSHA to the commander of Security Police and Security Service Ostland of 22 June 1942 on "S wagon...transfer of a 5 t Saurer...100 m hose will be sent along.

14.) Memo of 23 June 1942 on "30 special coachworks for the delivered chassis...changes which cannot be considered there for reasons of secrecy are to be made in an in-house workshop".

15.) Letter from the Gaubschat company to the RSHA of 18 September 1942 on "Coachwork f. delivered 10 Saurer Chassis".

16.) Letter from the Gaubschat company to the RSHA of 24 September 1942 on "Coachwork f. delivered 10 Saurer Chassis".

17.) Radio Message from Walther Bierkamp to Ernst Kaltenbrunner of 18 February 1943 on "a g-van was blown up and burned on march".

18.) Note by Eberhard von Thadden of 15 May 1943 on "Kube had shown the Italians a gas chamber in which the killing of the Jews was allegedly carried out" in Minsk

19.) Letter from Eberhard von Thadden to Adolf Windecker of 17 May 1943 on "the last remnants of deported Jews who had been killed in a gas chamber. Allegedly, the fascists were then shown such a gas chamber" in Minsk

20.) Report of the Ghetto Lodz administration of 2 September 1944 on "truck 71449" driven by "Laabs" refueling 90 liters of gasoline.


Photographs/Photostats, Transcriptions and Translations


Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Kollerstrom and the 1948 Report of the International Committee of the Red Cross on the Holocaust

Nicholas Kollerstrom presented the three-volume Report of the International Committee of the Red Cross on its Activities During the Second World War (hereafter 1948 ICRC report) as a highly relevant source on the fate of the European Jews during World War 2 and on Auschwitz even as an "authentic eyewitness account" (Kollerstrom, Breaking the Spell, p. 233) supporting his Holocaust denial. But this publication is not an "eyewitness account", last on Auschwitz, it's a report compiled by people of the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1948 based on (usually not referenced) other sources. The report was never studied by Kollerstrom, it does neither really say what he claims, nor is it a historically reliable and competent source on the fate of most Jews during the war. In short, this episode illustrates the disturbingly low level of research and study in Breaking the Spell.

Monday, October 05, 2015

Goebbels: "Mauer reports massive shootings of Jews in the Ukraine"

I am grateful to Jason for spotting this quote, translated from this German text of 19.10.41, also noted in Herf.
Mauer reports massive shootings of Jews in the Ukraine.

He urgently requests explanatory material for the Ukrainian population because they don't understand the need for such severe measures against the Jews.

Bolshevism has weakened the anti-Semitic instinct in the people of the Soviet Union; in many ways we'll have to start from the beginning here.

Goebbels, Total War and Extermination, December 1942 to October 1943

Goebbels' rants about Jews in 1941 and 1942 are well-known, and can be found in my previous article here. In the article below, I focus on the less-explored period from late 1942 when Goebbels made numerous written and verbal remarks about the totality of the anti-Jewish struggle, whereby all bridges were being burned and there were no possibilities of half-measures. Although extermination decisions were made earlier than this period, the frenzy to include as much of Europe as possible in such measures reached a new momentum, and the language that Goebbels used to justify those actions took on a global scale that had not been present to the same degree previously.