The Wehrmacht researcher Sergey Vershinin is currently publishing excerpts from the diary of Johannes Gutschmidt. Gutschmidt (1876-1961) was the commandant of various POW camps. Specifically the topic under the discussion was his time in Smolensk where he was the commandant of the Dulag-231.
In his diary Gutschmidt twice mentions a visit to the building of the Smolensk NKVD, or, more specifically, to the execution cellar where people used to be shot.
He attaches some valuable photos of the cellar. The second visit was on 07.04.1942:
7.4.42. Ganz früh rief mich Oberst Marschall an, ich sollte sofort das Nordlager auf Ausbaumöglichkeit erkunden. Ich fuhr mit Janusch um 8 ab und es zeigte sich, dass das Lager nicht zu gebrauchen ist. Der Oberst kam auch noch heraus und stimmte mir zu. Auf der Rückfahrt besichtigten wir die Hinrichtungszelle und die GPU Gefängniszellen, die jetzt von der Sicherungspolizei belegt sind. In jeder Zelle sassen 4 bis 6 Personen. Bei uns [handgeschrieben: i. e. bei der geheimen Feldpolizei] werden die Leute ebenfalls durch Pistolenschüsse ins Genick erschossen oder sie werden mit einem Gasauto heraus geschafft. Das hält vor der Stadt und schaltet die Auspuffgase so um, dass sie in das Innere des Wagens gelangen. Dann fährt der Wagen noch 10 Minuten weiter und an der Hinrichtungsstelle kommen die Insassen schon tot an und werden sofort in die Gruben geworfen. Nachmittags machte ich in der Hinrichtungszelle einige Aufnahmen mit Böhms Sonne.
7.4.42. Very early, Colonel Marschall called me; I was to immediately scout the North Camp for expansion possibilities. I left with Janusch at 8, and it turned out that the camp is of no use. The Colonel also came out later and agreed with me. On the return trip, we inspected the execution cell and the GPU prison cells, which are now occupied by the Security Police. In each cell 4 to 6 people used to sit. With us [handwritten: i. e. with the secret field police], people are likewise executed by pistol shots to the back of the neck, or they are transported away in a gas car (Gasauto). It stops outside the city and redirects the exhaust gases in such a way that they enter the interior of the vehicle. Then the vehicle drives on for another 10 minutes, and by the time they reach the execution site, the occupants arrive already dead and are immediately thrown into the pits. In the afternoon, I took some photos in the execution cell using a "Böhm's Sun".
The archival source provided by Vershinin is BArch MSG 2/10902, Bl. 209.
The question of the authenticity of the diary (i.e. whether the text is contemporaneous to the events it describes or whether it's a memoir in form of a diary) was analyzed by Christian Hartmann in this article. As he points out, retroactively faking 450 double-sided, detail-filled sheets for an incomprehesible purpose is simply implausible (there are also other arguments). What cannot be entirely excluded, however, is that the diary could have been retyped after 1945. The forensic testing of the materials showed them to have been available throughout the 1940s.This means that in theory some passages could have been deleted or added during the retyping.
That said, the purpose of adding a passage like this after the war eludes me. It would be incriminating, if anything. It also fits with the gas vans having arrived in Smolensk just a couple of months prior to this entry.
Have any of the big deniers like Mattogno Graf or Kues ever discussed this document?
ReplyDeleteNo, this is hot off the press from Vershinin's Telegram account. It's not realistic to expect total awareness of every new source on a rolling basis, but over time one can see how much might have been missed. Alvarez's Handbook vol 26 on the gas vans was published in September 2011, so one would be able to say how many sources before this date and after this date were ignored or unknown (answer: a lot of other diaries and contemporary reports). The same for other Mattogno-authored Handbooks.
DeleteVery Interesting! To be honest, it seems to me that the Germans could have done worse things, judging by what was happening there in the POW camps, but we wouldn't know the entire thing. Like Soschalsky (Dmitry Petrovich Konchalovsky) once wrote in his memorandum to Rosenberg and co: "Above all things, the treatment of the prisoners of war and the Red Army soldiers who, building on the promises, crossed over to the Germans in masses: beatings, hunger, cold, killing of those left behind, and mistreatment, insults—that was their fate. No one will ever prove that only the conditions of the war and the inherent difficulties in the winter of 41/42 were the reasons for the massive demise of the prisoners of war, not only in the deep hinterland of the front but also in camps in Germany. In the final result, 75% of these unfortunate and deceived people perished in hunger and cold."
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