Mattogno’s Cremation Encyclopedia (Part 2, Section 1)

Introduction and Part 1, Section 1
Part 1, Section 2a
Part 1, Section 2b
Part 2, Section 1
Part 2, Section 2
Part 2, Section 3
Part 2, Section 4
Part 2, Section 5
Part 3, Section 1
Part 3, Section 2
Part 4


Fuel requirements (1)

Part 2 of this series addresses fuel requirements for cremating the murdered deportees at the Aktion Reinhard(t) camps and at Chełmno.



Based on figures about the Jewish population in the Łódź Ghetto on June 30, 1942, whereby out of a total of 96,874 inhabitants 25,947, or 26.8 %, were children under the age of 16, MGK had on p. 131 of their Sobibór book^[81] postulated that ca. 27 % of deportees from Polish and Soviet territories to Sobibór extermination camp had been children under the age of 16. On pp. 457-58 of the critique I had contested the appropriateness of this percentage on grounds that children – especially younger ones – were among the first to be deported due to their uselessness for physical labor, and that in transports of people unable to work, children, especially such of younger ages, were more strongly represented than in the general population. Mattogno blusters (p. 1361) that "Poor Muehlenkamp does not know what he is writing", then refers to a statistic about deportees from the Łódź Ghetto between 1 January and 30 June 1942, whereby "deportees born in 1926 (16 years of age) or later correspond to 14,819 out of a total of 54,990, hence 26.9%, which is almost identical to the percentage given above (26.8) ". This is supposed to show that "minors were not deported to a higher proportion than adults".

Actually all the mentioned statistic shows is that between 1 January and 30 June 1942, Jews from the Łódź ghetto were taken to Chełmno extermination camp without differentiating between adults and minors, and that, contrary to what was stated in the Łódź State Police’s office report dated 9 June 1942, the 54,990 Jews "evacuated from the ghetto and handed over to the special detachment" (what for, Mr. Mattogno?) according to that report did not only include such that were "not able to work"^[82], but also able-bodied ones whose labor was not needed. It doesn’t show that this was always the case, including without limitation the examples I provided in the critique: in the Warsaw ghetto 99 % of all children had been removed by November 1942 according to a ghetto statistic^[83]. 9,000 Jews were "evacuated" from the Lentschütz district, 1,000 being left behind because they were urgently required for carrying out Wehrmacht tasks. Of the about 6,000 Jews in the Löwenstadt Ghetto, around 3,000 were "evacuated" as not able to work, while the remainder, which consisted of skilled workers, was taken to the Łódź Ghetto. A report from the Łódź State Police dated October 3, 1942, reported the "evacuation" in September of about 15,700 Jews sick and unable to work from the Łódź Ghetto^[84]. In an earlier blog^[85] I demonstrated that among deportees from the Galicia district children aged 14 and under must have made up a much higher proportion (42.1 %) than they did among the general population.

For the above reasons, the proportions of children aged 14 or under among the deportees that I considered in the critique (one third) can be considered adequate, even conservative.

On pp. 458 to 461 I had calculated the amount of human body mass that needed to be cremated at Bełżec, Sobibór, Treblinka and Chełmno, culminating in Table 8.3 on page 461 whereby 1,551,000 corpses of people murdered at the three camps weighed a total of 55,114,000 kg, considering an average weight of 34 kg for deportees to each of Bełżec, Treblinka and Chełmno and 48 kg for deportees to Sobibór. In my response to chapter 11 of MGK’s magnum opus^[86], I revised the average weight of the former to 38 kg. This is the average weight of a hypothetical group consisting of two adults and one child aged 14 or under, in which the adults weigh 48 kg each and the child weighs 18 kg. Taking these values I revise Table 8.2 on page 461 of the critique, in which I calculated the average weight of deportees to Sobibór extermination camp^[87], as follows:

Table 2.1 – Revision of Table 8.2 (critique, p. 461)

The total weights of deportees to all four camps are revised as follows:

Table 2.2 – Revision of Table 8.3 (critique, p. 461

How much wood was required to burn this mass of human bones and tissue?

Mattogno begins his response to my answer to this question by quoting (p. 1362) a long slab of text from MGK’s Sobibór book (pp. 133f), which describes three systems developed in India for the cremation of human bodies in the open. One is the Teri apparatus, "a true cremation oven" according to Mattogno, which cremated bodies with a fuel consumption of 110 to 145 kg per body during trial runs, corresponding to a ratio of about 1.8 kg of wood per kg of body weight assuming that the latter is 70 kg. The second is the Mokshda Green Cremation System, of which Mattogno provides the following images on p. 1365:

Image 2.1 – Mokshda Green Cremation facility

Image 2.2 – Mokshda Green Cremation facility in operation

Mattogno informs that the fuel consumption of this device is 150 kg of wood per cremation, which corresponds to 2.14 kg per kg of body weight under the above assumption. The third is the "Fuel Efficient Crematorium", which MGK describes as "consisting of three connected brick walls, similar to a barbecue grill, about 1.5 m high, holding a metal cremation grate at a level of about 50 centimeters". The fuel consumption of this device is 200 to 300 kg of wood per cremation. Taking the average of these values and again assuming a corpse weight of 70 kg, MGK had calculated a ratio of 3.9 kg of wood per kg of body, which he now corrects to 3.6 kg. This is supposed to have been the ratio that would have applied on the cremation pyres of the Aktion Reinhard(t) camps and at Chełmno.

Why the "Fuel Efficient Crematorium" and not the Mokshda Green Cremation System, was one of the questions I asked in the critique, further referring to an earlier version of this device, a "raised human size brazier", that used only 100 kg per cremation (ratio assuming a 70 kg corpse: 1.43:1) but had to be abandoned because it failed to gain acceptance among tradition- minded Hindus, and to an estimate by the device’s inventor, Vinod Kumar Agarwal, whereby it should take only 22 kg of wood to cremate an average human body^[88].

In this context I pointed out that MGK didn’t explain the reason (other than convenience) for their choice and that, according to MGK’s source about the Mokshda Green Cremation System, the "Fuel Efficient Crematorium" had failed to achieve the desired fuel efficiency due to "unscientific design" and "poor quality of material of construction"^[89] In response Mattogno (p. 1366) limits himself to quoting the paragraph mentioning these shortcomings and arguing that the "Fuel Efficient Crematorium" was inefficient only in comparison with the Mokshda facility but more fuel-efficient than the traditional Hindu funeral pyre.

In the Mokshda facility, according to Mattogno, "the principle of air flow around the corpses is ensured by the special structure of the grid and by the presence of a single corpse, with the possibility to regulate the combustion with the help of a movable chimney" (p. 1366). These features are supposed to mean that, despite being also based on a raised grate that allowed air to circulate and feed the fire, the pyres at the Aktion Reinhard(t) camps cannot be compared with the Mokshda cremation facility. Mattogno argues that the documented cremation system most resembling these pyres, the one used to cremate corpses of air raid victims at Dresden after the Allied bombing attacks on 13/14 February 1945, mainly differs from the Mokshda facility in that "the air flow only took place around the pile as a whole and affected only the external parts of the corpses".

It may be that not every single corpse on one of the Dresden pyres was exposed to the air flow like a single corpse is on a grid structure like the Mokshda facility, but the mass of corpses as a whole was exposed to the air flow in very much the same manner, so there are reasons to doubt Mattogno’s conclusion that only the external parts of the corpses were "affected" and that the purpose of the pyres was "not incineration, but the partial carbonization of the bodies for hygienic reasons". The best way to resolve this issue is to look at what the evidence says about the degree to which the corpses were meant to be combusted on the Dresden pyres, what degree of combustion was achieved, and how the latter compares to the degree of combustion on the pyres at the Aktion Reinhard(t) camps.

This takes us to the following questions:

1. What was the purpose of the Dresden cremation pyres, i.e. what was the expected result of the cremation?
2. To what extent was that purpose achieved?
3. How does the result of cremation on the Dresden pyres compare to the result of cremation on the Aktion Reinhard(t) pyres?
4. What fuel was used to burn the corpses on the Dresden pyres?
5. How much fuel was spent on burning the corpses in the Dresden pyres?

The first of these questions is answered by the Schlußmeldung über die vier Luftangriffe auf den LS-Ort Dresden am 13., 14. und 15. Februar 1945^[90], which includes the following information:

Mit Rücksicht auf die schnell fortschreitende Verwesung und bestehende außerordentliche Schwierigkeiten bei der Bergung, sowie Mangel an geeigneten Fahrzeugen zur Überführung auf Friedhöfe mit Zustimmung des Gauleiters und der Stadtverwaltung auf dem Altmarkt insgesamt 6865 Gefallene eingeäschert. Die Asche der Gefallenen wurde auf einen Friedhof überführt.

Considering the quickly progressing decomposition and existing extraordinary difficulties in the recovery [of the corpses], as well as the lack of suitable vehicles for transportation to the cemeteries, a total of 6,865 fallen were cremated^[91]on the Altmarkt. The ash of the fallen was taken to a cemetery.

(Emphases added.) We see that the purpose of the pyres was to cremate the corpses, to reduce them to something that could be called "ash" or "ashes". As there was a lack of suitable vehicles for transportation of corpses to the cemeteries, the corpses had to be at least reduced to remains so small that they could be transported to the cemeteries with the reduced number of transportation vehicles available.

As to the second question, the extent to which the aforementioned purpose was achieved follows from the last above-quoted sentence of the Schlußmeldung and from the document StAD, Marstall- und Bestattungsamt, Nachtrag I - Schreiben, 4.3.1945, quoted by Dresden historian Matthias Neutzner^[92]:

Zwei Wochen lang wurde der alte Marktplatz im Zentrum der Stadt zu einem Krematorium. Am 5. März waren die in den Strassen gesammelten Leichen geborgen, die Scheiterhaufen erloschen. »Auf dem Altmarkt lagen nach meiner Schätzung 8 – 10 cbm Asche«, wurde der Stadtverwaltung am Tage vorher gemeldet. »Der Brigadeführer hat gewünscht, dass diese Asche in Gefässe geladen (Kisten oder Säcke) und nach dem Heidefriedhof transportiert werde, wo sie an der auf dem Plan in Blei eingezeichneten Stelle in die Erde versenkt werden soll. Es ist nicht notwendig, die Kisten oder Säcke in der Erde mit zu belassen. Sie schütten also die Asche aus den Transportgefässen in das Grab aus, so dass die Transportgefässe mehrfach verwendet werden können. Der Transport soll Dienstag beginnen.«

For two weeks the old market place in the city center became a crematorium. On 5 March the corpses collected in the streets had been retrieved, the pyres gone out. »By my estimate, 8 - 10 cubic meters of ash lay on the Altmarkt«, was reported to the city administration the day before. »The Brigadeführer wished that this ash be loaded into recipients (boxes or sacks) and transported to the Heidefriedhof, where it is to be sunk into the earth at the place marked in lead on the map. It is not necessary to leave the boxes or sacks in the soil. You shall thus pour the ash from the transport recipients into the soil, so that the recipients can be reused several times. Transport should start on Tuesday.«

(Emphasis added)

What was it that these documents referred to as "ash"? How large or how small were the cremation remains described by this term?

That expression would hardly be used for carbonized corpses such as those shown in the picture below of people burned to death in the US firebombing of Tokyo on 9-10 March 1945. ^[93]

Image 2.3 – Victims of Tokyo firebombing

A closer match (though not quite the same) would be this carbonized rat, reduced to 13 % of its original mass^[94]:

Image 2.4 – Carbonized rat

Or this carbonized rabbit, reduced to 16.97% of its original mass^[95]:

Image 2.5 – Carbonized rabbit

Or the carbonized human remains shown in the photo below^[96]:

Image 2.6 – Carbonized human remains

The human remains on the last of these pictures, while not "ash" in a strict sense of the term, would be small enough to be packed into boxes or sacks, taken to the Dresden Heidefriedhof with the reduced transportation means available (mentioned in the Schlußmeldung) and poured from their recipients into the soil as mentioned in the document StAD, Marstall- und Bestattungsamt, Nachtrag I - Schreiben, 4.3.1945. They would thus have met the objective pursued when deciding to burn corpses on the Dresden Altmarkt. However, there is at least one photo of a Dresden pyre suggesting that the leftovers of these pyres were even smaller^[97], namely that they looked like the piled up bone fragments visible in the foreground of the photo below.

Image 2.7 – Dresden Altmarkt pyre burning, with cremation remains in the foreground

Such remains would more appropriately be called "ash" than the carbonized remains shown in the previous pictures, though they would still not be "ash" in a strict sense of the term.

Now to the question how the result of cremation on the Dresden pyres compares to result of cremation on the Aktion Reinhard(t) pyres. The following evidence suggests that the corpses were at best reduced to the same extent as the corpses on the Dresden pyres, but probably to a lesser extent:

a) Leleko’s testimony^[98], whereby "The parts of the body that had burned but had preserved their natural shape were put into a special mortar and pounded into flour."
b) Chil Rajchman’s memoirs quoted in Part 1 of this series^[99]:

The body parts of the corpses that had been incinerated in the ovens often kept their shape. It was not uncommon to take out whole charred heads, feet, bones etc. The workers of the ash commando then had to break up these body parts with special wooden mallets, which recalled the iron mallets used to pound gravel on motorways. Other instruments also resembled the tools used when working with sand and stone. […] The carriers were not allowed to bring bones from the grills that had not been completely incinerated. They remained lying next to the furnaces and were thrown on top of the next layer of corpses that were brought in. […]

c) Larger incompletely burned or unburned human remains found on the site of Bełżec extermination camp, such as mentioned in the report of 13.10.1945 by coroner Dr. Mieczyslaw Pietraszkiewicz, quoted on pp. 383f. of the critique. In the cremation remains unearthed during excavations ordered by Judge Godzieszewski, the coroner found "hands and arms, women’s hair, as well as human bones not totally burnt", "human hair, part of a human body, … and remnants of incompletely burnt bones", "a human skull with remnants of skin and hair, as well as two shinbones and a rib", "human bones, such as jawbones and shinbones", "skulls, parts of skulls, vertebrae, ribs, collarbones, shoulder blades, arm bones, lower legs, wrists, fingers, pelvic bones, thigh bones, lower legs, and foot bones", "two forearms and a lumbar portion of the backbone with some soft tissue and traces of carbonization", various bones allowing to "conclude that they belong to persons of different age groups, from two-year-olds up to very old people, as borne out by toothless jaws and numerous dentures", one partially burnt jawbone "containing milk teeth as well as incipient permanent teeth, which indicates that it belongs to a person 7 to 8 years of age", "shapeless portions of soft tissue from human bodies", "two lower legs belonging to a two-year-old child", "partly decomposed, partly mummified", "small soft tissue parts of human bodies that are in the ash and not completely carbonized". A description of the site quoted on p. 385 of the critique, obviously by Judge Godzieszewski, mentions "huge amounts of scattered human bones, skulls, vertebrae, ribs, shinbones, jawbones, tooth implants made of rubber, hair (mainly female and often braided), furthermore pieces of decomposed human flesh like hands and lower limbs of little children". Some postwar photos of the Bełżec site available online show human bones and skulls^[100].
d) Larger incompletely burned or unburned human remains found on the site of Treblinka extermination camp as described in Judge Łukaszkiewicz' reports dated 13 November and 29 December 1945, quoted on pp. 394f. of the critique. The former report mentions that excavations in a bomb crater taken to a depth of 7.5 meters found numerous "human remains … partially still in a state of decomposition". The latter mentions that, in an area of ca. 2 hectares covered by "a mixture of ashes and sand", there were found "countless human bones, often still covered with tissue remains, which are in a condition of decomposition", as well as "human skulls". Such remains can be viewed on photos of the Treblinka site available online^[101].
e) My own finds upon the soil of Sobibór in October 2008, which besides small "ashes" mixed with soil included partially burned bone fragments as well as unburned bone fragments^[102].

Based on this evidence of rather incomplete cremation of the corpses, one can conclude that the Aktion Reinhard(t) pyres are comparable to those on the Dresden Altmarkt not only as concerns their construction, but also as concerns the cremation results achieved. This, in turn, means that the types and amounts of fuel expended on the Dresden Altmarkt pyres can be considered an accurate indicator of the types and amounts of fuel required to burn the corpses of murdered deportees on the pyres of the Aktion Reinhard(t) camps.

The fuel used to burn the corpses on the Dresden Altmarkt included wood placed below the grates, which can be seen on photos like the ones below, taken from page 1367 of MGK’s magnum opus:

Image 2.8 – Dresden pyre

Image 2.9 – Dresden pyre

David Irving, quoted on p. 486f of the critique, mentioned "bundles of wood and straw" poked under the steel girders, as well as "more straw between each layer" of corpses.

Finally and most importantly, there was gasoline poured on the corpses. The primary source for the use of this fuel seems to be Theodor Ellgering, who in his capacity as Geschäftsführer Interministerieller Luftkriegsschädenausschuβ (Manager of the Inter-ministerial Air War Damage Committee) was in charge or directing relief measures after the bombing attack on 13/14 February. In a postwar account of his activities, Ellgering wrote the following^[103]:

Wir standen trotz dieser doch gewiβ primitiven Bestattungsart vor der Notwendigkeit, das Tempo weiter zu beschleunigen, denn infolge des milden Wetters begannen die Leichen in Verwesung überzugehen. Dadurch verbreitete sich über der völlig zerstörten Innenstadt ein pestilenzartiger Gestank. Es war deshalb aus gesundheitspolizeilichen Gründen dringend notwendig, die Leichenbergung zu beschleunigen. Der von vielen Seiten gemachte Vorschlag, die Toten in den städtischen Grünanlagen – also an Ort und Stelle – zu beerdigen, war aber nach Ansicht der Hygieniker wegen Gefährdung der Trinkwasserversorgung nicht durchführbar. Um den Ausbruch von Seuchen zu vermeiden, wurde die Altstadt zum Sperrgebiet erklärt. Es blieb keine Wahl mehr, als die … Genehmigung zur Verbrennung der Leichen zu geben, die auf dem Altmarkt stattfand, wo aus Eisenträgern riesige Roste gebaut wurden, auf denen jeweils 500 Leichen zu Scheiterhaufen aufgeschichtet, mit Benzin getränkt und verbrannt wurden.

Despite this certainly primitive kind of burial we stood before the necessity to further accelerate the pace, for due to the mild weather the corpses began to decompose. Due to this a pestilential stench spread over the completely destroyed inner city. It was urgently necessary, for public health reasons, to accelerate the recovery of the corpses. However, the suggestion made from many sides to bury the dead in the municipal green areas – i.e. on the spot – was not executable according to the hygienists’ opinion as it would imperil the drinking water supply. In order to prevent the outbreak of epidemics, the old town was declared a restricted area. There was no choice but to … grant permission for the burning of the corpses, which took place on the Altmarkt, where they made giant grates with iron girders, on each of which 500 corpses were piled up in pyres, drenched with gasoline and burned.

This takes us to the last of the five questions, the question what amounts of each fuel were used.

About the amount of straw placed between the layers of bodies, according to Irving, there is no information. Judging by what can be seen on the above pictures, it must have been negligible.

There is also no information about the amount of wood (and, according to Irving, straw) that was placed underneath the girders. What can be done is to calculate the maximum amount of wood that could be placed below the girders, based on the area of the pyre and the space between the bottom of the girders and the soil. That space, judging by the lower of the above pictures, cannot have been more than half a meter. The area of the grate was estimated on p. 492 of the critique as being one-fifth to one-fourth of the area of a Treblinka grate. Taking Mattogno’s high-end estimate of such grate’s area (90 m²)^[104] and the larger proportion, the area of a Dresden grate would have been (90 ÷ 4 =) 22.5 m². So the maximum volume of wood and straw that could have been placed underneath these grates was (22.5 x 0.5 =) 11.25 cubic meters.

As the proportion of wood and straw is not known and only wood can be seen on the above photographs, I’ll consider for the purpose of the following calculations that only wood was placed under the grates. What mass of wood corresponds to 11.25 cubic meters depends on the type of wood. In their Sobibór book (p. 138), MGK considered wood with a heating value of 3,800 kcal/kg, which corresponds to wood with a water content of 20 %. According to an online list of green and dry wood weights^[105], the heaviest type of wood with such water content weighs 4,552 lb/cord. 1 lb = 0.45359237 kg and 1 cord = 3.624556416 cubic meters, so 4,552 lb/cord equals 569.66 kg/cubic meter. This means that, under the assumption regarding specific wood weight that is most unfavorable to my argument, a maximum of (11.25 x 569.66 =) 6,408.64 kg of dry wood could have been placed underneath a grate on the Dresden Altmarkt. Assuming that the 6,865 corpses were burned at a rate of only about 400 per pyre^[106], at least 17 pyres would have been required. I’ll add one for good measure and make it 18 pyres. The maximum amount of dry wood placed underneath the grates would thus be (18 x 6,408.64 =) 115,355.52 kg.

Now to the gasoline. Just like regarding the wood, there is no information available about the amount. According to my calculations mentioned on p. 489 of the critique^[107], the burning of 6,865 corpses weighing 49 kg on average would have required 68,004 liters of gasoline, corresponding to 357,914 kg of fresh wood or 188,376 kg of dry wood.

Mattogno approach to this estimate is quite amusing. First he claims (p. 1410) that I don’t "state how much gasoline was needed". Five pages later (p. 1415) he quotes my estimate of ca. 68,000 liters and argues, believe it or not, that the amount I estimated is too high:

Another inane (mis)demonstration. The source Muehlenkamp quotes from, Irving, speaks also of the utilization of “wood and straw” (“Under the steel grinders and bars were poked bundles of wood and straw. On top of the grill were heaped the corpses, four or five hundred at a time, with more straw between each layer”), which, together with the clothing, reduced the demand for gasoline, which therefore could not have been 68,000 liters. Hence this comparison is useless.

So I can with Mattogno’s blessing consider the 68,004 liters I calculated to have been the absolute maximum amount of gasoline used on the Dresden pyres. What is more, according to Mattogno I should apparently convert the 115,356 kg of dry wood under the grates that I calculated above into gasoline equivalent and deduct it from the 68,004 liters (according to MGK’s factors for converting dry wood into fresh wood and fresh wood into gasoline, the deduction would be about 41,643 liters). I won’t do that, however, as I want to establish the amount of wood or wood equivalent that was required to burn corpses to "ash" on the Dresden pyres under the assumptions most unfavorable to my argument. The dry wood equivalent amount of wood and gasoline used to burn 6,865 corpses^[108] weighing a total of (6,865 x 49 =) 336,385 kg would thus be the following:

Dry wood placed under the grates: 115,356 kg
Dry wood equivalent of gasoline: 188,376 kg
Sum total: 303,732 kg.

The wood weight to corpse weight ratio would thus be 303,732:336,385, or 0.9:1.

If this ratio, which according to Mattogno is too high for the Dresden pyres, was possible on these pyres, it was also possible (with results that were at best the same, but probably worse) on the pyres of Bełżec, Sobibór and Treblinka.

This, in turn, means that Mattogno has, based on his own arguments and largely on sources he provided himself, already lost his case as concerns fuel requirements at the Aktion Reinhard(t) camps.

But let’s see what else he’s got to say on this subject.

Notes

[81] Carlo Mattogno, Jürgen Graf, Thomas Kues, Sobibór: Holocaust Propaganda and Reality, 2010 The Barnes Review, Washington D.C. Online: [link].
[82]The mentioned report is quoted in the Landgericht Bonn’s judgment dated 30 March 1963, see translated excerpt in the HC reference library’s thread "Number of Victims of Chelmno Extermination Camp" ([link].
[83]Mentioned in "The Hell of Polish Jewry", an article about the Ringelblum Archive in the online English edition of Spiegel magazine ([link]): "According to a statistic in the archive, 99 percent of all children had already been deported by November 1942. There were still 60,000 people living in the residential area, most of them men who worked in the workshops."
[84]These deportations are mentioned in the Bonn judgment dated 30 March 1963, see note 82.
[85]"Belzec Mass Graves and Archaeology: My Response to Carlo Mattogno (4,1)". ([link]).
[86]See the blog ""Alleged" Mass Graves and other Mattogno Fantasies (Part 4, Section 1)" ([link]).
[87]In this camp, unlike in the other three extermination camps, a majority of the deportees (101,979 out of 170,165) had been deported directly from places other than ghettos in the territories of Poland and the USSR occupied by Nazi Germany. These deportees, not having gone through the rigors of ghetto life, still had a normal mass and weight. I assumed an average weight of 62 kg for the adults and 31 kg for the children and the proportion of children claimed by MGK in their Sobibór book, as explained on page 460 of the critique.
[88]Both the "raised human size brazier" and its consumption and Agarwal’s estimate are mentioned in Jeremy Elton Jacquot, "More Eco-Friendly Funeral Pyres Introduced in India", 6.12.2007 ([link]).
[89]"Global Environment Facility", CEO’s notification to GEF Council Members dd. March 13, 2008 ([link]), p. 6.
[90] Transcribed online under [link].
[91]The infinitive form of eingeäschert, einäschern, can also be translated as "to burn to ashes", according to the Leo online dictionary ([link].
[92]Matthias Neutzner, Martha Heinrich Acht, pp. 93 and 221.
[93]Image shown on Wikipedia under [link].
[94]"Rattus carbonized. A rat experiment" ([link]).
[95]"Pyrolyzed test-rabbit" ([link]).
[96]"In Libyen kommen weitere Grausamkeiten ans Licht", Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 29.8.2011 ([link]).
[97]The picture is featured on David Irving’s website under [link].
[98]The Interrogation of Pavel Vladimirovich Leleko ([link]).
[99]The Last Jew of Treblinka, p. 77. See the blog "Mattogno’s Cremation Encyclopedia (Introduction and Part 1, Section 1)" ([link]).
[100] Yad Vashem Photo Archive, search results for "Belzec" ([link]).
[101]See the blog "Photographic documentation of Nazi crimes" ([link]), photos 1.1.84, 1.1.85, 1.3.2 – 1.3.7, 2.7.1 and 2.7.2; Yad Vashem Photo Archive, search results for "Treblinka" ([link]).
[102]See the blog "Mass Graves at Sobibor – 10th Update" ([link]), the HC reference library thread "My Trip to Sobibór" ([link]) and the YouTube video "Mass Graves at Sobibór" ([link]).
[103]Quoted after Götz Bergander, Dresden im Luftkrieg, Verlagshaus Würzburg – Flechsig, 1998, p. 180.
[104]Carlo Mattogno and Jürgen Graf, Treblinka – Extermination Camp or Transit Camp, Theses & Dissertation Press, Chicago 2003 (online: [link]), p. 148.
[105] "Wood Species - Weight at various Moisture Content" ([link]).
[106]Ellgering, as quoted above, mentions 500 per pyre, but Irving, as quoted on p. 486 of the critique, mentions "four or five hundred" corpses burned at a time. I’m using the figure most unfavorable to my argument.
[107]Details in the blog "Mattogno on Chełmno Cremation (Part 2)" ([link]).
[108] Mattogno’s co-author Jürgen Graf doesn’t make Mattogno’s life easier in the fuel requirements question, for he counterfactually insists on a much higher number of Dresden victims, and accordingly a much higher number of corpses cremated on the Altmarkt, than becomes apparent from the available evidence and has been established beyond a reasonable doubt by the meticulous work of a commission of historians. Clinging to a manipulated version of a contemporary document, Jürgen Graf rants as follows, in footnote 2420 on p. 1069 of the magnum opus: "Not content with such a patently ridiculous statement, Myers makes the outrageous assertion that only 25,000 people died in the fire-bombing of Dresden. With respect to this worst single atrocity of World War II, he writes: “Several witness statements suggested the death toll lay significantly above 100,000 victims, even though the actual death toll has recently been revised to around 25,000” (ibid.). As a matter of fact, a report of the Ordnungspolizei of Dresden stated: “Until the evening of 20 March 202,040 dead bodies, predominantly women and children, were recovered. The number of victims is expected to rise to 250,000.” www.cpgg.info/doc/tagesbefehl_47htm. Incidentally, the National Socialist government tried to conceal the dimension of the slaughter in order to avoid outbreaks of panic among the German population. Cf. Wolfgang Hackert, Bombenlügen. Richtigstellung zum Terrorangriff auf Dresden, Kopp Verlag, Rottenburg 2011.". The original Tagesbefehl 47, whose manipulation by adding a zero at the end of each number was addressed i.a. at the Irving-Lipstadt trial (see under [link], [link] and [link]) mentioned 20,204 confirmed dead, 25,000 expected dead and 6,865 corpses burned on the Altmarkt. According to the manipulated version that Graf claims to be authentic, 68,650 corpses would have been burned on the Altmarkt.