Rebuttal of Mattogno on Auschwitz, Part 5: Construction Documents, A: Introduction

Rebuttal of Mattogno on Auschwitz:

Part 1: Indoor Cremation

Part 2: Gas Introduction at the Crematoria

Part 3: Eyewitnesses (Supplement)
Part 4: Sonderkommando Handwritings
Part 5: Construction Documents:
A: Introduction
B: Ventilation & Elevators
C: Undressing Rooms
D: Outwards Opening Door & Removal of Corpse Chute 

E: Gas Detectors

F: Cremation with Simultaneous Special Treatment

G: Gas Chambers

The so-called "criminal traces" in the files of the Auschwitz construction office are strong inferential evidence on homicidal gassing in Auschwitz and corroborate contemporary Polish and Jewish sources as well as numerous post-liberation testimonies. In this sub-series of blog postings, I will show that Mattogno was not successful in pointing out documents (or rather arguments on construction documents) that seriously challenge mass extermination in Auschwitz. Furthermore, he was not even able to offer a plausible alternative interpretation that explains all the relevant documentary evidence (let aside other types of sources). 

The term "criminal trace" was coined by the Auschwitz researcher Jean-Claude Pressac as "material proof [evidence] of the existence of gas chambers in the Birkenau crematoriums" (Pressac, Technique, p. 431). One may say more generally that it is a contemporary German (construction) document explained by mass extermination/gassing in Auschwitz. 

His exercise to compile 39 "criminal traces" was a response to his former companion the French Revisionist Robert Faurisson, who asked for "one single clear-cut proof, of the actual existence of a 'gas chamber,' of a single 'gas chamber'". Pressac argued that since human testimony is fallible and unreliable, such a proof could only be provided by "incontestable and irrefutable documents". While a direct proof was not available according to Pressac, he argued that an indirect proof may also suffice:

"By 'indirect' proof, I mean a German document that does not state in black and white that a gas chamber is for HOMICIDAL purposes, but one containing evidence that logically it is impossible for it to be anything else."

 (Pressac, Technique, p. 429)

Such an indirect proof Pressac claimed to have found in the hand-over inventory of crematorium 3 of 24 June 1943 with its references to a "gas-tight door" and "14 showers" (+ drawing 2197): an "absolute and irrefutable proof of the existence of a gas chamber fitted with dummy showers... implying the deliberate intention to cause them to die by inhaling a deadly gas" (Technique, p. 429). The handover inventory of crematorium 2 of 31 March 1943 with its references to 4 wire mesh slide in devices and wooden covers (+ the gassing cellar letter of 29 January 1943) was considered by him "an almost incredible supplementary proof".

However, the argument is not as logical sound as Pressac thought. A room equipped with a gas tight door and 14 showerheads (dummy or not) may be (more or less strong) inferential evidence for a homicidal gas chamber, but it's not definitive and irrefutable proof. Pressac has stretched here the strength of inductive reasoning far beyond its limit. 

The concept of historical proof adapted by Pressac is somewhat naive anyway. Most scholars would disagree that there is something like a "definitive", "indisputable", "absolute", "irrefutable" historical proof as historical knowledge is probative in nature. Pressac's assumption that "human testimony is fallible", but German letters and documents are not, is quickly challenged. Any piece of historical evidence (or more precisely, its researcher's interpretation) can be considered fallible. 

For instance, a single and isolated document stating that people are mass gassed at someplace may be a forgery, it may be a joke (thanks to Fred "the gas chamber...may be a joke" from someone "flatulent during that period" Leuchter) or just a misunderstanding. In fact, one may argue that the joint testimony of say 100 people is more compelling evidence on homicidal gassing than a single, isolated document, since the latter is more easy and more likely to fabricate, to misunderstand or simply to err than the corroborating testimony of 100 people. Only in connection with other evidence on mass murder in Auschwitz, such a direct and explicit piece of documentary evidence would gain enough probative strength and become powerful evidence.

Fortunately, Pressac's study was not as methodologically flawed as one might fear from his idealisation of German documents as historical proof. In practise, he often cross checked German documents with testimonies and vice versa, and treated both as complementary evidence, no doubt the most reasonable approach.

Holocaust deniers have devoted several rebuttals to Pressac's collection of "criminal traces", the latest and most comprehensive one being Carlo Mattogno's Auschwitz: The Case for Sanity (2010; hereafter ATCFS). Mattogno too is idealising contemporary German documents. But unlike Pressac, he is disturbingly consequent in this and pushes it to the extreme to rely almost exclusively on files produced by the SS - despite the abundant availability of other types of sources. This obsession with a single type of source is a slippery slope for any researcher as it increases the risk of introducing a systematic bias in ones narrative. This is especially obvious for German documents from the Auschwitz concentration camp interpreted by a Holocaust denier.

Most German records, especially the most relevant one from the political department, the camp administration or the sanitary department, were destroyed and are lost. In fact, Mattogno himself points out that the "documentation on the Auschwitz camp is notoriously incomplete" (ATCFS, p. 531). The most intact archive available comes from the construction office, but which is obviously focused on construction activities and not on the operation of the camp. And there are significant gaps even in the files of the construction office that makes it difficult to understand some of the activities, especially with regards to the crematoria or other suspicious sites without relying on other sources. Mattogno even concedes this when he says for example that "all documents which could have shed light on the matter on [gassing cellar letter of 29 January 1943], seem to have disappeared" (ATCFS, p. 57). But instead of filling the incomplete picture left by the German documents by other sources (as any reasonable researcher would do), he sticks to his imagination and conjectures or simply prefers not to know.

Moreover, German documents are demonstrable unreliable with regards to atrocities committed by the SS in Auschwitz. One of the most important surviving source on this matter, the Auschwitz death books, was systematically falsified by the SS to suppress unnatural deaths. Such a massive cover up of atrocities just cries for extreme caution with German documents especially on atrocities and to take into account other sources as much as it is possible. Furthermore, it can be shown that heavy camouflage language was employed by the Germans on atrocities in documents on the operation of the camp. The policy of smoke screening and silence was pointed out and put into practice by the chief of the WVHA (in charge of the Auschwitz concentration camp) Oswald Pohl on 23 September 1942 in Auschwitz:

"During today's observations I have silently noticed that you have an ideal inner relation to the issue at stake and an ideal attitude towards the tasks at hand. This conclusion is especially necessary in relation with the issues and the special tasks, about which we do not have to speak words--issues that belong however to your responsibilities."

(Report of Robert Jan Van Pelt)

Hence, whether the German files spoke openly about atrocities is an extremely poor indicator if atrocities actually occurred in Auschwitz. A Holocaust denier writing about German atrocities using almost only incomplete files, which are deliberately unreliable and nebulous on German atrocities - this just has to go wrong.

In the following blog postings, I will examine Mattogno's arguments on the "criminal traces" from the files of the central construction office Auschwitz (Mattogno, Auschwitz - The Case for Sanity [ATCFS], p. 25 - 219). This series will be a kind of guide through concentrating on the most relevant points. 

Mattogno begins his discussion of Pressac's "criminal traces" with an argument that can only be described as epic fail (when reading the following block quote, keep in mind that there are almost no German documents left, which are on activities in the basements of the crematoria - or that may be on activities in the basements if the mass extermination did occur - other than those from the files of the central construction office Auschwitz) :

As early as 1994 I had noticed oddities in the assembly of “traces” presented by Pressac, which no historian has since looked at more closely. By this I mean the fact that all the “criminal traces” are concentrated in the construction phase of the crematoria. If we arrange them by their dates, the items can be grouped chronologically as listed in Table 1 for the four crematoria. It is conspicuous that no suspicious reference to crematorium II is dated later than the hand-over of the building from ZBL to the camp administration (March 31, 1943). [...] This means that this alleged gas chamber would have operated for more than 20 months and caused the death of some 500,000 persons without generating even a scrap of a “criminal trace” during its operation! For crematorium III no trace is dated later than the hand-over date of this installation either (June 24, 1943). According to Pressac, 350,000
persons were gassed and cremated here (p. 183). The latest trace for crematoria IV and V is dated only a couple of weeks after the hand-over of the last installation (April 4, 1943). Pressac tells us that 21,000 persons met their death and were cremated in these two crematoria (p. 236). Hence, 771,000 persons are said to have been gassed in these four
crematoria over a period of more than 20 months without leaving anything like a “criminal trace” in the archive of ZBL (see chapter 15.5), whereas there is a multitude of documents attesting to the frequent breakdowns occurring in the cremation devices (see chapter 8.8.1.).

 (Mattogno, ATCFS, p. 42)

Yep, Mattogno is just saying that it is supposed to be "odd" and "conspicuous" that in the construction documents there are no criminal traces for the crematoria after their construction. Guess Mattogno, why they are called construction documents, because they document their construction and not their operation, then they would be called operation documents. There is nothing odd with a sudden drop of "criminal traces" in the construction documents after the crematoria were constructed. In fact, it is exactly what one would expect. It is a priori likely and plausible that the construction office did not perform work at the gas chambers after their construction. And it's no wonder "no historian has since looked at more closely" since there is not much to see here.

But also in case the construction office performed some extension or maintenance work at the gas chambers after they were put into operation (say replace or add a gas tight door or divide a gas chamber with another wall), the reason this work did not generate criminal traces would be most likely that the buildings were now under the responsibility of the camp administration and political department, and that new construction activities at the gas chambers might have been subjected to more rigorous protocols of secrecy (note that the order and installation of gas tight doors for crematoria 4 and 5 in April 1943, after they were handed over to the camp administration, can be still considered as old construction activity that was just not completed yet for the handover).

Mattogno points out that "there is a multitude of documents attesting to the frequent breakdowns occurring in the cremation devices" (ATCFS, p. 43) during the operation of the crematoria. But the breakdown of cremation devices (whose documentation is incomplete anyway and according to citations provided by Mattogno rather superficial especially for the most relevant year 1944) did not necessarily had to generate "criminal traces", which were typically related to the treatment of living people rather than corpses (speaking about it, already the fact of frequent breakdowns of the massive number cremation facilities in Auschwitz-Birkenau is itself suspicious and supporting that excessive body disposal of killed prisoners was carried out).

"To this we must also add the fact that there is not the slightest 'criminal trace' for the early alleged homicidal gassings – not only for the first alleged gassing in the basement of block 11 and for the experimental ones in crematorium 1 of the main camp (Stammlager), but also for the mass gassings in the so-called 'bunkers' of Birkenau which, supposedly and according to van Pelt, went on for some 15 months and led to the annihilation of 'over 200,000 Jews' (p. 455)."

(Mattogno, ATCFS, p. 43)

The first homicidal gassings in Block 11 in the Auschwitz main camp did not require any activity of the  central construction office Auschwitz. Surely the Schutzhaftlagerführung was able to hung out prison doors and cover windows themselves.

The crematorium 1 in the main camp was made ready for homicidal gassing by drilling some holes in its roof, cover them and replace the doors of the gas chamber tract. This is so little construction activity that it did not necessarily had to show up in the incomplete records of the construction office, leaving aside that it was possibly done by the Schutzhaftlagerführung bypassing the construction office.

The same is true for the installation of the Bunker 1 and 2 gas chambers into the corresponding farmhouses. In fact, I'm informed by N. Terry that testimonial evidence from the 1972 Dejaco trial in Vienna shows that the conversion of the Bunker buildings was actually done by the Schutzhaftlagerführung with improvising work details, and not by the central construction office. As this evidence has not been published yet, for the moment, it is sufficient to point out that it is entirely possible that the Bunker adaptions were carried out by the SS personnel in charge of the extermination without ordering the construction office. Aside, the claim that there is not the slightest "criminal trace" for the Bunker sites is false anyway ("bathing installations for special actions", "3 horse stable barracks at the swerve bunkers", Mattogno, STIA, p. 138).

The fact that there are little or only indirectly related "criminal traces" before the construction of the crematoria in the files of the construction office results from that it was simply the first time this authority was also directly involved in the implementation of the gas chambers. Previously, the direct and leading involvement of the construction office seems to have been limited to auxiliary constructions such as the horse stable barracks for undressing or the electricity supply for the Bunker extermination sites. 

______________________
 Changelog:

2 March 2015:  extended first Mattogno block quote. 
4 March 2015: added the following (as the Lesser Bunny didn't get the point in the comments section): "when reading the following block quote, keep in mind that there are almost no German documents left, which are on activities in the basements of the crematoria - or that may be on activities in the basements if the mass extermination did occur - other than those from the files of the central construction office Auschwitz"