How We Already Debunked Your Franke-Gricksch Report Denial Before You Even Hit 'Publish'

There’s a relatively new holocaust denier blog called Holocaust Claims (https://www.holocaust.claims) churning out posts every other day in 2023. While the pace slowed considerably in 2024, the quality refused to improve.

There is piece titled The Franke–Gricksch Report from September 2023 which quotes  fellow denier Jürgen Graf and tosses in another shaky point gleaned from some video clip. The arguments have been dismantled right here on this blog back in 2019:

- number of muffles in the crematorium, here and here and here.

- coke consumption and freshly burnt, here  and here

- ventilation duration, here and here

 - death time, here

- cremation capacity, here and here and here and here

 - hiding jewelry, here and here

- special tracks in specially designated districts of the camp, here and here and here

It's also telling that, in 2023, a Holocaust denier still harps on Eric Lipman’s quick and dirty typed copy of the report as if the clean carbon copy we discovered and published in 2019 doesn’t exist.

Never Change a Winning Method: How the Nazis Planned to Gas a French General with Carbon Monoxide

On October 28, 1944, the German General Fritz von Brodowski was shot in Allied captivity. Three months later, on 19 January 1945, the Nazis retaliated by shooting the French General Gustave Mesny in a staged escape attempt. 

Given the foreign policy implications, the German Foreign Office was involved in planning the killing and left behind a paper trail, see Kaltenbrunner’s Execution Proposal to Himmler: "Carbon Monoxide Introduced Via an Apparatus Operated From the Driver’s Seat". On December 30, 1944, RSHA chief Ernst Kaltenbrunner sent Himmler two murder options:

1) During the relocation of 5 individuals in 3 vehicles with Wehrmacht insignia, an escape scenario arises when the last vehicle breaks down, or

2) Carbon monoxide is introduced into the sealed rear compartment of the vehicle via an apparatus operated from the driver's seat. The device can be installed with the simplest means and removed immediately afterward. A suitable vehicle has now been obtained after significant difficulties.

The very next bright idea after shooting was gassing with carbon monoxide? It’s almost as if the Security Police had some prior experience with this method. Oh right - they had:

• Contemporary German Documents on Carbon Monoxide Gas and Bottles Employed for the Nazi Euthanasia
  
  
• Contemporary German Documents on Homicidal Gas Vans

Before deniers start questioning why a suitable vehicle was needed despite the existence of gas vans, let’s set the record straight: First, by this stage of the war, the gas vans employed for mass gassings may have already been dismantled. Secondly, the plan was to gas the French General in a car befitting his rank, not in the cargo compartment of a truck.

Review of Holocaust Handbooks Volume 23 - Carlo Mattogno, Chełmno (Part IV - Testimony of Chełmno Escapee Szlama Winer)

Part I - Method

Part II - Scholarly Avoidance

Part III - Systematic Analysis of One Example

Part IV - Testimony of Chełmno Escapee Szlama Winer

Szlama Winer escaped Chełmno extermination camp on January 19, 1942 and upon arriving in the Warsaw Ghetto, provided a detailed account of the atrocities committed there. His report is extensive, comprising approximately 15,450 words and 692 sentences in its English translation. Carlo Mattogno even mocks the "extraordinary wealth of detail" and a "truly prodigious memory". It's remarkable that detailed recollection is now considered as a flaw in eyewitness testimony.  

Slzama Winer

One might think that such a detailed testimony would provide ample material for a thorough analysis. Yet, Mattogno, in his critique, chooses to come up with a mere handful of points - six, to be precise - in an attempt to discredit the entire account as "completely unreliable".

An update about diesel and gas vans at the Krasnodar trial

 In the article "Why the "diesel issue" is irrelevant" I pointed out:

"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."

I have now gone through the pretrial interrogations of the Krasnodar trial, as well as its original transcript, and found interesting and useful information.

Debunking the World Almanac meme directly

Our reader Jiří Fojtík has pointed out the most probable actual source of the World Almanac's figures for Jews, and that source is from 1937, thus allowing us to debunk the WA claim directly. Earlier we relied on the fact that the WA numbers were unsourced and thus useless. Boy, were we right.

The article has been updated accordingly.

Review of Holocaust Handbooks Volume 23 - Carlo Mattogno, Chelmno (Part III - Systematic Analysis of One Example)

Part I - Method

Part II - Scholarly Avoidance

Part III - Systematic Analysis of One Example

There is consensus among researchers that the Chełmno extermination camp began operations in early December 1941. 

Mattogno states that Krakowski claims the camp was inaugurated on 8 December 1941 without providing "any documentary evidence, not even a single testimony" (p.29, 2nd edition). While Krakowski does indeed fail to cite sources for this specific assertion, this shortcoming is unique to his work (see also Part II). Other scholars, including Montague, Klein, Alberti, and Pawlicka-Nowak, provide sources to confirm the camp’s start-up date.

Mattogno attempts to discredit this consensus by citing Andrzej Miszczak’s testimony from Blumental, Dokumenty i materiały tom I (1946) that the first transport arrived at the camp on 9 December 1941 and dismesses it as “a simple claim without any documentary confirmation.” This highlights the fundamental methodological flaw in Mattogno’s approach that was pointed out in the Part 1 of this review: his refusal to treat testimonies as historical sources unless confirmed by official Nazi documents. 

Let us now move beyond theoretical critiques and examine how Mattogno’s flawed methodology impacts the specific question of Chełmno’s start-up operations.

Review of Holocaust Handbooks Volume 23 - Carlo Mattogno, Chelmno (Part II - Scholarly Avoidance)

Part I - Method

Part II - Scholarly Avoidance

Part III - Systematic Analysis of One Example

Mattogno’s Holocaust Handbooks Volume 23 on Chełmno was first published in 2009 (Italian) and in 2011 (English), with a "2nd revised edition" in 2017. 

Key scholarly works on the extermination of Jews in the Reichsgau Warthegau include 

• Michael Alberti’s Die Verfolgung und Vernichtung der Juden im Reichsgau Warthegau (2006)
• Shmuel Krakowski’s Das Todeslager Chelmno/Kulmhof: Der Beginn der 'Endlösung' (2007)
• Peter Klein’s Die Gettoverwaltung Litzmannstadt 1940-1944 (2009)
• Patrick Montague’s Chelmno and the Holocaust: The History of Hitler’s First Death Camp (2012). 

Of these four major studies, Mattogno references only Krakowski's work, which is arguably the least comprehensive of the group, rather than engaging with the strongest and most recent scholarship. Furthermore, Mattogno appears unaware of Łucja Pawlicka-Nowak’s Chełmno Witnesses Speak (2004), a critical source collection. As a result, his work was already outdated at the time of its first publication and even more obsolete by the time of the revised edition.

This omission is not merely a matter of quantity, but it has a significant qualitative impact. Montague's research, for instance, offers more thoroughly sourced and detailed synthesis of Chełmno's history than Krakowski's book. Alberti and Klein, meanwhile, provide nuanced analyses of Nazi policies connected to Chełmno and leverage official Nazi documents effectively. 

On pages 23 to 29, Mattogno touches Nazi policy with tons of full quotes - he seems to take the view that the extermination of Jews in the Warthegau would have required an overarching, pre-existing plan to kill all European Jews. Mattogno appears oblivious to the regional and situational policies and of escalation and shifts over time -  and of decades of historical scholarship that examines the evolution and nuances of Nazi policy toward Jews. 

In conclusion, Mattogno's approach to literature research and keeping his work up-to-date is nothing short of abysmal. His refusal to engage with the extensive body of scholarship on Chełmno / Nazi policy suggests he might have spent more time avoiding books than actually reading them.

Still Waiting: Where Did The Jews "Evacuated to The East" Go?

It's been a while since I published Seriously Now, Where Did The Jews "Evacuated to The East" Go?  - and honestly, I consider it the clinical precise knockout for any so-called "transit camp hypothesis". So here is the question to those who believe the Nazis did not seize the opportunity of a brutal war to make their wet dreams come true. If I were you, I’d be asking a very serious question about those 2.3 million Jews who were "evacuated to the East" according to the Korherr report. Where did they go? 

Option A) They were shipped off to the swamps and forests of the Reichskommissariats Ostland and Ukraine. Just imagine - over 2 million "state enemies" casually relocated into hostile, partisan-infested territory, where German forces were chronically understaffed and barely holding control. What could possibly go wrong?

Or maybe...

Option B) Over 2 Million "dangerous elements" were cozily settled in the German army’s rear - right between unstable frontline, partisan warfare, hungry locals and overstretched supply lines. Doesn’t that just scream military brilliance?

By the way, the correct answer in the sample solution is "neither option is true." For further details, refer to the original post.

Review of Holocaust Handbooks Volume 23 - Carlo Mattogno, Chelmno (Part I - Method)

Part I - Method

Part II - Scholarly Avoidance

Part III - Systematic Analysis of One Example

 
Nearly two-thirds of the Holocaust Handbooks - based on page volume and principal authorship - can be credited to a single figure. If this weren't bad enough, it's none other than Carlo Mattogno, a prime example in the "How Not To Do History" playbook. It's truly comforting to know that the bulk of revisionist historiography rests on him.

Take Holocaust Handbook no. 23 on the Chełmno (Kulmhof) extermination camp, for instance. It's one of Mattogno's worst contributions, though the competition is fierce. In this work, a lack of proper historical method combines with near-total avoidance of research of the subject and unfortunate timing. 

Mattogno sums up his approach in a single statement, which begs to be quoted in its full beauty:

"As there are no documents which can be used as a basis of comparison, this means that for Chełmno the testimonies cannot constitute historical sources, so that there cannot even exist a genuine historiography for this camp."

(Mattogno, Chelmno, p.9)

There's more than half a million words of witness accounts, hundreds of wartime documents, photos, and archaeological studies on the camp. Among all events of mass violence in human history, the extermination camp Chełmno (Kulmhof) is relatively well documented. But why let overwhelming evidence get in the way?

Lampshades and shrunken heads: an update

Somebody has called our attention to some relatively new items at the website of the Buchenwald Memorial, namely, a dossier about the artefacts allegedly made from human bodies.

Some notable new information:

- a small lampshade, thought to have been a fake for decades (after a forensic test claimed it could not have been made from human skin) has been retested in 2023 and was proven to have been produced from human skin after all;

- a piece of the lampshade in Pister's office has been found and ordered to be tested, the results are pending (our previous conclusion was that it's unlikely to be human skin, but the test results can refute it, of course);

- some barely known shrunken head imitation has finally been shown to be a fake in 2023 (this has nothing to do with the original shrunken heads found in Buchenwald, of course);

- a pocket knife case alleged to have been made from human skin has been ordered to be tested, with results pending;

- three tattooed skin pieces were tested, with the expert concluding two of them were of human origin, the third probably not (possibly pig skin), albeit the Memorial disagrees with the latter conclusion since this piece is also documented to have come from the camp pathology department; and indeed, pigs don't have tattoos in the first place.

The article "Nazi shrunken heads, human skin lampshades, human soap, textiles from human hair? Sorting out the truth from the legends" has been updated accordingly.