Carlo Mattogno and the Franke-Gricksch Report

Carlo Mattogno is an Italian Holocaust denier and a revisionist historian who is known for promoting discredited and fringe views regarding the Holocaust.

 

Statement by ChatGPT 3.5 on the question "who is Carlo Mattogno". Given such precision like a skilled archer hitting the bullseye, what can potentially go wrong to let some AI chatbot assist to write a blog posting. Maybe it can help me to understand why Mattogno writes "in general, I only consider in my books what has been published in paper form" (Mattogno, Deliveries of Coke, Wood and Zyklon B to Auschwitz: Neither Proof Nor Trace for the Holocaust, p. 107). 

Where I would have simply thought "well, maybe because you are afraid to face your critics", we get a more sophisticated analysis by the chatbot (one that only our own Nick Terry would consider inadequate and add minimum 10 - 15  more elaborated bullet points on the fly):

Mattogno's preference for critiques in paper form rather than internet articles or blogs could be influenced by several factors, although it's speculative to pinpoint his exact motivations. Some possible reasons might include:

1. Credibility Concerns: Mattogno may perceive printed materials as having more credibility than online content. Traditional publishing in reputable journals or books often involves peer review and editorial scrutiny, which could be seen as a more rigorous validation process compared to self-published internet articles or blogs.

2. Selective Engagement: Requiring critiques in a specific format may allow Mattogno to choose which criticisms to engage with. This could be a way of avoiding less formal or rigorously researched critiques that may be more common in online spaces.

3. Appeal to Authority: Insisting on critiques in print form might be an attempt to lend an air of legitimacy to his work by associating it with established academic practices. This could be an effort to position his views as scholarly and deserving of consideration.

4. Control of Narrative: Printed materials are typically less transient than online content. By limiting critiques to traditional publications, Mattogno might seek to control the narrative around his work, as print materials often have a more enduring presence and may be considered more carefully curated.

(Point 4. I don't understand even after translating into my native tongue German - and several times back and forth again hoping something gets added in translation.)

Mattogno's approach of "only considering in my books what has been published in paper form" led to an awkard situation. To most academics, especially those in the vast landscape of Holocaust history, he's seen as such a lackluster researcher that many refuse to dignify his work with a response. It's like setting up for a showdown, but no one bothers to show up. Some avoid it because they don't want to waste a bullet, while the other guy steers clear just because his choice of weapon is not met. Nobody? Well, not quite nobody! A small group of indomitable bloggers remains, standing at high noon armed with arguments as sharp as Gallic swords...or something. 

Anyway, rules are made to be broken. In 2019, I published Nazi Document on Mass Extermination of Jews in Auschwitz-Birkenau: The Franke-Gricksch Report and Mattogno explains that "in this case I make an exception". An exception to a rule that does not make sense in the first place. Most of Holocaust denial activities take place online. Almost all of Holocaust denial debunking takes place online (unless David Irving goes on trial). If we publish all blog postings with books on demand, then they are suddenly qualified to get considered? 

On the other hand, the rule reduces workload. Mattogno does not have to write another 50,000 pages which nobody except us will really read anyway. We do not have to produce a couple of postings. Win-Win. Personally, I think we should keep this working model. 

But now that there is an exeption, I just have to reply. It's almost pathological. My apologies, but I cannot let Mattogno's unsubstantiated assertions go unchallenged.

1.Mental decline

How does this blog work? Since 2006 (I guess) postings on holocaustcontroversies have the same structure: 

- Date 

- Headline

- Main text 

- Author 

- Comments 

If you're seeking information about the author of the post, you simply need to scroll past the main text. Mattogno is familiar with our blog, having read and cited it in the past; he is not a newcomer who would be encountering it for the first time while examining the Franke-Gricksch post.

However, despite his familiarity with the blog's structure, Mattogno asserts that Nazi Document on Mass Extermination of Jews in Auschwitz-Birkenau: The Franke-Gricksch Report was published "without attribution to any author" (p. 107). I already raised the question about his mental decline elsewhere. 

 

2. Parroting 

Rather than engaging with presented arguments, he reiterates points that have already been thoroughly addressed in the blog post. Might be a result of reading comprehension issues or cognitive challenges.

Examples: 

Item 1. on p.109. Arrival of the Jews in "a special area of the camp" and alleged anachronism. 

This matter has been extensively covered in Appendix C, titled "Special tracks in specially designated districts of the camp," and in Appendix D, which focuses on Brian Renk. Furthermore, a more detailed exploration is available in a separate post titled Vincent Reynouard And The Franke-Gricksch Report (Part 1) . To summarize, there is no anachronism in the report; Franke-Gricksch did not state that the special ramp for the Jews was in Birkenau.

Item 2.) on p. 109. Not using the term "crematorium". This is has been addressed in appendix C section ""biggish house" [größeres Haus]"...

"It is in accordance with his take-home message that the victims are tricked into their fate and do not suffer that he does call the crematorium what he presumed how an ignorant person and victim would see it, a biggish house."

...and in appendix D section on Carlo Mattogno:

[...]

But what it is clear is that the author of the report did not want to use the term and decided to describe the site as "biggish house". His possible motive? The report describes the mass extermination in the most positive way, for the victims as well as, implicitly, for the perpetrators. The reason for calling the crematorium a "biggish house" might have been to emphasise that the victims do not realise from the outside they are really led to their slaughterhouse.

 

Item 6 on p.113. "500000 Jews". Already addressed in the blog posting in section"The result to date of this “resettlement action”: 500,000 Jews.":

[...]

500,000 seems like an inflated figure disseminated by the Auschwitz SS at the time (possibly based on operation time, capacity, estimated transports, instead of actual records they were not allowed to keep). The Auschwitz SS Administration did not have to know about exact figures since they were responsible for the (registered) inmates, but not for those sent immediately to the gas chambers without registration in the camp's books.

Another point: the Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höß may have felt like boasting about the Auschwitz death toll to catch up with the reports on those of the Aktion Reinhardt camps Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor.

In his post-war manuscript on the Final Solution of the Jewish Question, Höß provided more or less decent totals for the Jewish deportations to Auschwitz. According to him, he learnt the figures "from Eichmann or his staff" - quite possible only in 1944.

The death toll of 500,000 up to May 1943 is far too low for a post-war forgery with much higher figures floating around at the end and after the war. The Soviets claimed some 4 Million deaths for Auschwitz. The Auschwitz escapees Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler reported that 1.765 million Jews were gassed in Auschwitz between "April 1942 to April 1944".

 

3. Circular source firing squad 

In reference to Item 3 on page 109, Mattogno cites Jewish Sonderkommando member Henryk Tauber as evidence against the existence of shower heads in Crematorium 2 in May 1943, leading to the conclusion, "how is it possible that the Pseudo-Franke-Gricksch 'saw' non-existing showers in the alleged gas chamber?" Yet, Tauber is simultaneously dismissed as a "blatantly false witness" and "deliberate impostor" by Mattogno (Mattogno, Sonderkommando Auschwitz II, p.149). It's randomly throwing in stuff that serves your agenda, without assessing whether the approach is methodically sound and rational.

Tauber mentioned that the shower heads were installed "in the fall of 1943." While Tauber is considered a strong eyewitness in general, if Franke-Gricksch described shower heads in the crematorium in May 1943, it stands as compelling evidence.

However, upon closer examination, Franke-Gricksch did not explicitly mention shower heads; rather, he described a "big basement room that resembles a shower room." Presuming Tauber's dating is reliable, this description aligns with what victims were told and the general appearance of the gas chamber. It suggests an innocent-looking room with a piping system and drainage, resembling a shower room. Franke-Gricksch might have been informed by his tour guide that shower heads were planned for future installation.

 4. Theory without evidence 

According to Mattogno, the crude post-war copy of the report by Eric M. Lipman of the U.S. Third Army is the "original" text, while the actual war-time carbon is a "retyped, cleaned-up, improved version". Mattogno spins a theory that explains nothing and is not backed by evidence. If anyone were to propose a theory of this nature supporting Nazi atrocities, Mattogno would likely promptly criticize and vent, highlighting the unsubstantiated nature of such conjecture. 

5. "F" grade for linguistic analysis

It is supposed to be "striking" that Lipman changed the grammar of one sentence and "grammatically speaking, Lipmann‘s way of arranging the words in this sentence is wrong". However, from a grammatical perspective, the sentence is not incorrect (usage of a prepositional attribute). 

Furthermore, there's no compelling reason why someone carelessly / in a hurry retyping a text, as Lipman did, should be expected to flawlessly maintain the word order in every single sentence. It should not happen when working with care and proof-reading, but this was not the case here.

6. No expert at work

The Italian denier has barely any more expertise then the rest of us, yet he boldly assumes the role of an authority on countless subjects, now extending his claims to typescripts. He contends that the similarities in the matching system and type features between the Franke-Gricksch report and the letter to Krüger might be attributed to an "entire series of certain typewriters of the time having some 'defective' types due to manufacturing imperfections." However, the point of obtaining an expert opinion for the blog post was to check for the possibility of coincidence or such systematic issues. While Mattogno is entitled to seek advice from a typescript expert, his own conjecture appears amateurish and fails to contribute meaningfully to the debate.

He further argues that "the verification criterion adopted by the bloggers is completely insufficient" because it does not establish "who used a certain typewriter to write a certain text." That's a no brainer, and it underscores precisely why the blog post did not solely focus on the typewriter question, as that would have been a relatively straightforward task. Instead, the post presented numerous arguments collectively establishing the authenticity of the document. Mattogno chose to overlook the majority of these arguments, rendering his rebuttal wholly inadequate.

 7. Arrogance meets Ignorance

If arrogance is your trait, excel in something remarkable. If ignorance prevails, adopt humility. If you embody both, consider forming a tag team with Mattogno.

Mattogno crafts an image of himself as the crème de la crème, the cream of the crop, an elite figure at the pinnacle of Holocaust research. His viewpoint posits others, particularly "the bloggers," as inferior, lacking, mere losers. 

This self-perception may have solidified in the 90s when Mattogno, alongside Graf, secured a significant coup by obtaining Auschwitz files from Moscow's special archives. Despite the fallacious nature of his arguments, the extensive use of unpublished contemporary documents somewhat justified his arrogance.

However, Mattogno failed to evolve and rapidly fell behind, failing to keep pace with historians and even "the bloggers." What persisted was not expertise but ignorance. Now coupled with the same arrogance.

"In their childish superficiality, the bloggers do not even ask themselves what was the reason for the journey of von Herff and Franke-Gricksch." (Mattogno, Deliveries of Coke, Wood and Zyklon B to Auschwitz, p.118)

Says he who has done no research on the SS Personnel Main Office other than referring to the "1943 Organisationsbuch of the NSDAP" and provides no analysis of the journey undertaken by von Herff and Franke-Gricksch,  

"The bloggers" systematically studied numerous personnel and matter files of the SS Personnel Main Office and other sources. There is a whole section "context" in the main part of the posting trying to make sense out of the trip. While one can dispute the findings, the assertion that "the blogger" did "not even ask themselves what was the reason for the journey of von Herff and Franke-Gricksch" is just absurd. Mattogno, despite citing from the relevant section (p.116), appears incapable of recognizing that his purported deficiency has been addressed in the post.

8. See no evil

In his concluding remarks, Mattono references an excerpt from the extensive Franke-Gricksch report concerning the "special enterprise REINHARD. This branch has had the task of realising all mobile Jewish property in the Gouvernement Poland". With a sense of satisfaction, Mattogno asserts that "the real Franke-Gricksch knew nothing of a Sonderaktion “Reinhard” consisting of an extermination operation of Jews". 

The "real Franke-Gricksch" knew apparently nothing of the whereabouts of the Jews unfit for work either. It's all about working camps and "all Jewish possions and mobile property". And the "scum" in Warsaw ghetto getting "liquidated". What about the much bigger task to deal with hundreds of thousands Jews unfit for work? He inspected the SS personnel involved in the operation, but does not report about the operation. 

Yet drops genocidal statements like "either this generation of ours succeeds in clearing up the Jewish problem completely and it its last consequences or, if their liquidation is not completely achieved, the Jewish people will rise again after this wave of oppression" and "this problem has to be cleared up completely to free the world once and for all of this pestilence...". 

Holocaust deniers will need to explain all of this, victory dancing on semantics of "Sonderaktion Reinhard" does little to address the underlying historical reality.

As I pointed out in blog article, the Franke-Gricksch report on the mass extermination of Jews in Auschwitz serves as a critical component, filling the void left by the lengthy report.

9. Flying attack donkey fallacy

According to Mattogno "the problem of the formal authenticity of the document is entirely secondary to that of its veracity". Not really, not in the context of a trip report by an SS officer. 

If Franke-Gricksch wrote a detailed report on mass extermination of Jews in Auschwitz, then probably because there had been mass extermination of Jews in Auschwitz. It's really simple as that and precisely why Holocaust deniers try everything to make it appear not authentic. Because they know else they are done. Nobody wants to argue, yeah Franke-Gricksch wrote it, but he did not mean it. It's not a defendable position, everybody knows. 

Except Mattogno. He developed the idea that German contemporary documents on Nazi atrocities can be authentic, but have no real meaning. On the Gasprüfer document he argued while it "seems formally authentic...the document in question has no value, no more than a military document that mentioned a flying attack donkey". 

 And Mattogno is supposed to be their best donkey in the barn.