Mattogno, his Einsatzgruppen book and the Gas Vans. Part V: Nazi Foreign Office Documents vs. Holocaust Denial

 Mattogno, his Einsatzgruppen book and the Gas Vans

Part I: A Dilettante at Work

Part II:  Mental Degeneration or Dishonesty, Your Choice!

Part III: Genesis and Pictures That Say it All

Part IV: The "Enormous Contradiction" That Is None

 Part V: Nazi Foreign Office Documents vs. Holocaust Denial

Part VI: Gas Van Arithmetic

Part VII: Semantics

 Part VIII: Little More Than Hot Gas

In mid-May 1943, the German Foreign office was troubled by a story that the Generalkommissar for Weissruthenien, Wilhelm Kube, showed an Italian delegation of fascists "a gas chamber in which the killing of the Jews was allegedly carried out" in Minsk. It was a mobile "gas chamber", since only gas vans are known to have operated in Minsk (see also here).

Seminar Talk of SS leader Franz Six on "the Physical Elimination of the Jewry in the East"

On 3 and 4 April 1944, the German Foreign Office and the RSHA organized in a Hotel in Karpacz in Lower Silesia a seminar on anti-Jewish measures and propaganda outside the German Reich. One of the lead speakers was Franz Six, previously head of the RSHA office VII (Ideological Research and Evaluation) and leader of the so called Vorkommando Moskau of Einsatzgruppe B. Although details on the Jewish measures from the talks of Eberhard von Thadden and Heinz Ballensiefen were "not taken up into the protocol because of their secret character" (accompanying letter from Rudolf Schleier of 20 April 1944), the Nazi policy was indicated in the protocol of the talk from Six, who explained that "Jewry in Europe has ended its biological and at the same time political role" and that "the physical elimination of the Jewry in the East deprives Jewry of its biological reserves."

"Thereafter Kube had shown the Italians a gas chamber in which the killing of the Jews was allegedly carried out."

The German Foreign Office document below was an exhibit T/341 in the Eichmann trial. It is also cited in Nationalsozialistische Massentötungen durch Giftgas. Eine Dokumentation (S.92). The author of the note is Eberhard von Thadden, who became an expert on Jewish affairs in the Foreign Office in April 1943. Franz Rademacher was his predecessor and is a well-known figure in the history of the "Final Solution". Werner Koeppen was Alfred Rosenberg's adjutant and his permanent representative to Hitler. Wilhelm Kube was the infamous Gauleiter of Belorussia.

Mr. Legation Counselor Rademacher informed me that on occasion of a visit by Fascist representatives in Minsk Gauleiter Kube had also shown a church that had been used by the Communists for worldly purposes. Asked by the Italians what the little parcels and suitcases piled up there meant, Kube had explained that these were the only leftovers of Jews deported to Minsk. Thereafter Kube had shown the Italians a gas chamber in which the killing of the Jews was allegedly carried out. Supposedly, the Fascists had been most deeply shocked.

Mr. Rademacher learned of this incident through Mr. Koeppen, adjutant of Reichsleiter Rosenberg. In his opinion General Consul Windecker in Riga is likely to also be informed about this incident, for as far as he, Rademacher, could remember, the incident had occurred on occasion of the Fascist representatives sent east to take care of Italian workers.

Berlin, May 15, 1943

(Translation by Roberto Muehlenkamp with small changes by me.)