tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-245973252024-03-17T20:28:40.375+00:00Holocaust ControversiesWhat Part Of The Word <i>Genocide</i> Do You Not Understand?Nicholas Terryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14852758011968360596noreply@blogger.comBlogger1553125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24597325.post-25241795242618684882024-03-09T16:30:00.014+00:002024-03-11T06:16:07.432+00:00Carlo Mattogno and the Franke-Gricksch Report<div style="text-align: justify;">
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Carlo Mattogno is an Italian Holocaust denier and a revisionist historian who is known for promoting discredited and fringe views regarding the Holocaust.</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">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 <span class="fontstyle0">"in general, I only consider in my books what has been published in paper form" </span>(Mattogno, Deliveries of Coke, Wood and Zyklon B to Auschwitz: Neither Proof Nor Trace for the Holocaust, p. 107). </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">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):</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><p></p>
<blockquote style="background-color: #f7f6cf; padding: 10px;"><p>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:</p><ol><li><p><b>Credibility Concerns:</b> 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.</p></li><li><p><b>Selective Engagement:</b> 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.</p></li><li><p><b>Appeal to Authority:</b> 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.</p></li><li><p><b>Control of Narrative:</b> 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.</p></li></ol></blockquote></div><p style="text-align: justify;">(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.)<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">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. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Anyway, rules are made to be broken. In 2019, I published <a href="https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2019/08/nazi-document-on-mass-extermination-of.html" target="_blank">Nazi Document on Mass Extermination of Jews in Auschwitz-Birkenau: The Franke-Gricksch Report</a> <span class="fontstyle0">and Mattogno explains that "</span><span class="fontstyle0">in this case I make an exception</span>". 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? </p><p style="text-align: justify;">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. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">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.</p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: justify;">1.Mental decline<br /></h4><p style="text-align: justify;">How does this blog work? Since 2006 (I guess) postings on holocaustcontroversies have the same structure: </p><p style="text-align: justify;">- Date </p><p style="text-align: justify;">- Headline</p><p style="text-align: justify;">- Main text </p><p style="text-align: justify;">- Author </p><p style="text-align: justify;">- Comments <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">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.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">However, despite his familiarity with the blog's structure, Mattogno asserts that <a href="https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2019/08/nazi-document-on-mass-extermination-of.html" target="_blank">Nazi Document on Mass Extermination of Jews in Auschwitz-Birkenau: The Franke-Gricksch Report</a> was published "without attribution to any author" (p. 107). I already raised the question about his mental decline <a href="https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2018/12/mattogno-his-einsatzgruppen-book-and_22.html" target="_blank">elsewhere</a>. </p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><h4 style="text-align: justify;">2. Parroting </h4><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">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.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Examples: </p><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Item 1. on p.109. Arrival of the Jews in "a special area of the camp" and
alleged anachronism. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">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 <a href="https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2019/10/vincent-reynouard-and-franke-gricksch.html" target="_blank">Vincent Reynouard And The Franke-Gricksch Report (Part 1)</a> . To summarize, there is no anachronism in the report; Franke-Gricksch did not state that the special ramp for the Jews was in Birkenau.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Item 2.) on p. 109. Not using the term "crematorium". This is has been addressed in appendix C section ""biggish house" [größeres Haus]"...</p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">"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."</p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">...and in appendix D section on Carlo Mattogno: </p><p></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">[...]</p><div style="text-align: justify;">But what it is clear is that the author of the report <b>did not want</b>
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.</div></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="text-align: justify;">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.":</p><p></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">[...]</p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;">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.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">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.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">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.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">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 <a href="https://archive.org/details/WarRefugeeBoardAuschwitzReport/page/n35">reported</a> that 1.765 million Jews were gassed in Auschwitz between "April 1942 to April 1944".</div></blockquote><p> </p><h4 style="text-align: justify;">3. Circular source firing squad </h4><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><p> </p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="min-h-[20px] text-message flex flex-col items-start gap-3 whitespace-pre-wrap break-words [.text-message+&]:mt-5 overflow-x-auto" data-message-author-role="assistant" data-message-id="3023d3c3-d3d6-4f7c-a2ed-d4383b9a2b6e"><div class="markdown prose w-full break-words dark:prose-invert light"><p style="text-align: justify;">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.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">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.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">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. <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p></div></div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p></p><h4 style="text-align: justify;"> 4. Theory without evidence </h4><p style="text-align: justify;">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. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: justify;">5. "F" grade for linguistic analysis<br /></h4><p style="text-align: justify;">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). </p><p style="text-align: justify;">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.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><h4 style="text-align: justify;">6. No expert at work <br /></h4><div class="flex flex-grow flex-col max-w-full"><div class="min-h-[20px] text-message flex flex-col items-start gap-3 whitespace-pre-wrap break-words [.text-message+&]:mt-5 overflow-x-auto" data-message-author-role="assistant" data-message-id="c4ac2cca-b8f7-4724-980d-9955801b6287"><div class="markdown prose w-full break-words dark:prose-invert light"><p style="text-align: justify;">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.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">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.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p></div></div></div><h4 style="text-align: justify;"> 7. Arrogance meets Ignorance </h4><p style="text-align: justify;">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.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">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. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">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.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">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.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">"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)</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Says he who has done no research on the <span class="fontstyle0"></span>SS Personnel Main Office other than referring to the <span class="fontstyle0">"<a href="https://archive.org/details/OrganisationsbuchDerNSDAP/page/n613/mode/2up">1943 </a></span><a href="https://archive.org/details/OrganisationsbuchDerNSDAP/page/n613/mode/2up"><span class="fontstyle2">Organisationsbuch </span></a><span class="fontstyle0"><a href="https://archive.org/details/OrganisationsbuchDerNSDAP/page/n613/mode/2up">of the NSDAP</a>" and provides no</span><span class="fontstyle0"> analysis of the journey undertaken by von Herff and Franke-Gricksch, </span> </p><p style="text-align: justify;">"The bloggers" systematically studied <span class="fontstyle0">numerous personnel and matter files of the </span>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 "<span class="fontstyle0">not even ask themselves what was the reason for the journey of von Herff and Franke-Gricksch" is just absurd. </span>Mattogno, despite citing from the relevant section (p.116), appears incapable of recognizing that his purported deficiency has been addressed in the post.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="fontstyle0"><br /></span></p><h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span class="fontstyle0">8. See no evil</span></h4><p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="fontstyle0">In his concluding remarks, Mattono references an excerpt from the extensive Franke-Gricksch report concerning the <span class="fontstyle0">"</span><span class="fontstyle0">special enterprise REINHARD. This branch has had the task of realising all mobile Jewish property in the Gouvernement Poland"</span>. With a sense of satisfaction, Mattogno asserts that </span><span class="fontstyle0">"</span><span class="fontstyle0">the real Franke-Gricksch knew nothing of a </span><span class="fontstyle2">Sonderaktion </span><span class="fontstyle0">“Reinhard” consisting of an extermination operation of Jews". </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="fontstyle0">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". </span>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. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">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...". </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Holocaust deniers will need to explain all of this, victory dancing on semantics of "Sonderaktion Reinhard" does little to address the underlying historical reality.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="fontstyle0">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.</span></p><h4 style="text-align: justify;">9. Flying attack donkey fallacy</h4><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;">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. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">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. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Except Mattogno. He developed the idea that German contemporary documents on Nazi atrocities can be authentic, but have no real meaning. On the <a href="https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2015/04/rebuttal-of-mattogno-on-auschwitz-part.html">Gasprüfer document</a> he argued while it "seems formally authentic...the document in question has no value, no more than a military document that mentioned a <a href="https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2010/7/20/1279646338420/Donkey-parasailing-in-Gol-006.jpg?width=620&dpr=1&s=none">flying attack donkey</a>". </p><p style="text-align: justify;"> And Mattogno is supposed to be their best donkey in the barn. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>Hans Metznerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07746792258730274681noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24597325.post-43552422866544360402024-03-08T19:49:00.005+00:002024-03-08T20:26:53.730+00:00Kaltenbrunner on Aktion 1005: "...to avoid that another group of persons gains insight into the operation of the Sonderkommando."<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;">On February 3, 1944, Eichmann's office dispatched a letter, signed by the head of the RSHA, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. The letter requested a decision on how to handle the SS and police personnel responsible for the escape of Jewish prisoners from Sonderkommando 1005 at Fort Kauen. <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Kaltenbrunner proposed "the matter should be concluded within our jurisdiction" instead of involving the SS and police court "to avoid another group of persons gaining insight into the operation of the Sonderkommando". </p><p style="text-align: justify;">By the way, I have yet to come across any explanation from Holocaust deniers regarding the true nature of <a href="https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2016/02/once-more-with-feeling-deniers-and.html" target="_blank">Aktion 1005</a>. It remains a top-secret operation involving the clearance of mass graves containing evidence of Nazi atrocities. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">If any deniers possess information on an alternative interpretation, I invite them to share their insights in the comments along with supporting evidence.<br /></p><div style="text-align: center;">
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DOCUMENT</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgGmklOgwrpdGQsP8FfJX-03j65MGYzFS5atfOwzIaaT-aZQK4JQ8Gb8f4KpsfFiTx0OxjNrLbFT2lnvWGquMO1HA1C8UDu1iqH0rRtRtY0QLKqTaN7h8jMkj175o21pUYln9QjA5j42hP-RWY5BGpSi8uOtcuWT6hoKB0ZeM716ca7jBYUfJRCVQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1411" data-original-width="1000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgGmklOgwrpdGQsP8FfJX-03j65MGYzFS5atfOwzIaaT-aZQK4JQ8Gb8f4KpsfFiTx0OxjNrLbFT2lnvWGquMO1HA1C8UDu1iqH0rRtRtY0QLKqTaN7h8jMkj175o21pUYln9QjA5j42hP-RWY5BGpSi8uOtcuWT6hoKB0ZeM716ca7jBYUfJRCVQ" width="170" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjcWJMgZldg2qBJJovQPg04Qsuw7ThtdFpSOKB2kpwG8ru2WYaTtEjQvelTk4ADf1gU_TCGvzMSXrLA4E6lPNDuGFKfniVJQHqi70cfUBqeQtMLB6x4z1wS49Cu8B6IWYVCyn9BXi4-C-VGd-oXdL904eeQH4sn8XojTOgO0tStdIS_n34yMTpJDQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1276" data-original-width="1000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjcWJMgZldg2qBJJovQPg04Qsuw7ThtdFpSOKB2kpwG8ru2WYaTtEjQvelTk4ADf1gU_TCGvzMSXrLA4E6lPNDuGFKfniVJQHqi70cfUBqeQtMLB6x4z1wS49Cu8B6IWYVCyn9BXi4-C-VGd-oXdL904eeQH4sn8XojTOgO0tStdIS_n34yMTpJDQ" width="188" /></a></div> </div></blockquote>
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TRANSCRIPTION</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">An den <br /><br />Reichsführer-SS <br /><br />z.Z. Feldkommandostelle<br /><br />Betrifft: Flucht jüdischer Arbeitskräfte aus Kauen<br /><br />Abschließend berichte ich zu der Flucht der 64 jüdischen Arbeitskräfte aus dem Fort Kauen, daß bisher 37 Juden wieder ergriffen werden konnten. <br /><br />Der Führer des Sonderkommmandos 1005 - SS-Obersturmführer Radif - und der Führer des eingesetzten Wachkommandos - Gendarmeriemeister Apelt - wurden nach dem Ausbruch wegen fahrlässigen Verhaltens in Haft genommen. Da die Ermittlungen inzwischen abgeschlossen sind, habe ich die Haft in Hausarrest umgewandelt. <br /><br />Ich bitte um Entscheidung, ob<br /><br />1./ noch eine SS- und polizeigerichtliche Untersuchung erfolgen soll oder<br /><br />2./ die Angelegenheit in eigener Zuständigkeit abgeschlossen werden soll.<br /><br />Ich schlage vor, die Angelegenheit, nachdem Radif und Apelt seit Ende
1943 einsitzen, und um zu vermeiden, daß ein weiterer Personenkreis
Einblick in die Arbeitsweise des Sonderkommandos erhält, abzuschließen.<br /><br />Bei SS-Obersturmführer Radif handelt es sich um einen alten erprobten Nationalsozialisten, der während der Kampfzeit in der Ostmark zu 19 Monaten Kerker verurteilt war.<br /><br />Gendarmeriemeister Apelt hat bisher in anerkennswerter Weise seinen Dienst versehen und war stets bestrebt, die Arbeiten auf der Baustelle vorwärts zu treiben. <br /><br />[Kaltenbrunner]<br /><br /></div>
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TRANSLATION</div>
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<blockquote style="background-color: #f7f6cf; border: thin solid blue; padding: 10px;">To the <br /><br />Reichsführer-SS <br /><br />Currently at the Field Command Post<br /><br />Subject: Escape of Jewish laborers from Kovno<br /><br />In conclusion, I report on the escape of the 64 Jewish laborers from Fort Kovno that so far, 37 Jews have been recaptured.<br /><br />The leader of Sonderkommando 1005 - SS-Obersturmführer Radif - and the leader of the deployed guard detachment - Gendarmeriemeister Apelt - were taken into custody after the breakout for negligent behavior. <br /><br />As the investigations have been completed, I have converted the custody into house arrest.<br /><br />I request a decision on whether<br /><br />1./ there should still be an SS and police judicial investigation or<br /><br />2./ the matter should be concluded within our jurisdiction.<br /><br />I suggest closing the matter, as Radif and Apelt have been in custody since the end of 1943, and to avoid another group of persons gaining insight into the operation of the Sonderkommando.<br /><br />SS-Obersturmführer Radif is an old, proven National Socialist who was sentenced to 19 months in prison during the fighting in the Ostmark.<br /><br />Gendarmeriemeister Apelt has hitherto commendably fulfilled his duties and has always been striving to advance the work at the construction site.<br /><br />[Kaltenbrunner]<br /></blockquote>
</div><p>
(BArch R 9361-III/840355, first page of the document already posted here <a href="https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2016/02/once-more-with-feeling-deniers-and.html" target="_blank">Once More, With Feeling: Deniers And Aktion 1005, 10 Years Later </a>)</p>Hans Metznerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07746792258730274681noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24597325.post-13218311809626438502024-01-21T11:54:00.002+00:002024-01-21T18:00:53.566+00:00CODOH: Chronology of a Meltdown<p>The CODOH website, forum and all associated websites have been offline for approaching two weeks. The cause? An internal dispute between Michael Santomauro and the other four board members of the CODOH Trust, including Germar Rudolf.</p><p>Presented below without comment is a chronology of statements on websites and from email mailing lists.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">May 22, 2023</h3><div>Excerpt from Germar Rudolf, 'Talking Turkey', on his personal website</div><p></p><blockquote><p><b>Disenchantment</b></p><p>For years my wife has been telling me that the revisionist community – whatever that is – is misusing me as a slave laborer, as their shield against persecution, and as the authorities’ whipping boy. If there is any project that needed attention, it was thrown at me, and I sure picked it up and did as expected – mostly. When Bradley Smith started plans to transition CODOH to a new man at the helm, I was his man, and I felt honored – initially. When Richard Widmann bailed out of Inconvenient History, I ended up holding that baby, too – and badly so. When the decade-long Master of the CODOH Forum was looking for a successor, he zoomed in on me, but I refused, since I hate discussion fora with a passion. Apart, there was just no way to shoulder that burden as well.</p><p>With three school-age children, a household to run, a grumpy wife to assuage, I was stretching my resources to make things work somehow. No time was left anymore for any of the things I wanted to do. And I wasn’t getting much of anything out of it financially either.</p><p>Then shit hit the fan in early 2022, when Ingram threw Castle Hill Publishers out of their print, warehouse and distribution system. Who was going to organize printing, warehousing and shipping/distribution in the US and in Europe? Clearly, Germar will. Because Germar does it all, so that the remaining 8.5 billion people on this planet don’t have to lift a finger!</p><p>No. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back.</p><p>Well, actually, I tried. But then it bent, it buckled, it squeaked, and finally, it broke.</p><p>With little to no experience in publishing, printing, warehousing and distribution, Michael Santomauro has taken over the helm at both Castle Hill and CODOH. I have become a mere spectator of what has been unfolding since late 2022. Anyone complaining that things don’t run as smoothly anymore as they once did; that the option of free eBook downloads is disappearing; that all hardcover books have been discontinued; that no German print books are available anymore at all – all this is a result of the 8.5 billion lazy onlookers on this planet no longer having at their disposal a slave laborer called Germar.</p></blockquote><p></p><p><a href="http://germarrudolf.com/en/2023/05/talking-turkey/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Source</a></p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">December 20, 2023</h3><p></p><blockquote><p>Merry Christmas From Castle Hill!</p><p>Note: Castle Hill has suspended any and all operations until further notice. We are restructuring the business, and will be back soon.</p></blockquote><p></p><p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20231222035721/https://castlehill.shop/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Wayback Machine </a></p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">December 21, 2023</h3><p></p><blockquote><p>To all,</p><p>A board member should never compromise his integrity for anyone or anything.</p><p>Either Mr. Germar Rudolf moves out of the home of the man who threatened my life or Germar Rudolf needs to resign from CODOH.</p><p>And I will continue full control of CHP and use the proceeds to beef up my security system estimates from $5,000-$30,000.</p><p>If he continues to live with the man that threatened my life and the board does not dismiss him and not support my security needs for my protection, I have no recourse but to sue CODOH for damages and for harboring a fellow board member whose housemate threatened my life at the behest of Germar Rudolf.</p><p>Sincerely,</p><p>Michael Santomauro</p></blockquote><p></p><p><a href="https://twitter.com/Santomauro/status/1737731198372241889" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Source</a></p><p>An identical text was emailed to HC's contact email an hour and a half after this tweet was sent out.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">January 7, 2024</h3><p>CODOH email list</p><p></p><blockquote><p>We have risen, indeed! Like Phoenix from the Ashes</p><p>Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust</p><p>Dear friends, supporters, patrons, and customers!</p><p>As you may have noticed, things got awfully quiet at CODOH lately, and our publishing outlet's website at https://CastleHill.shop even got suspended a few days before Christmas. The site is still down, and we do not yet know whether, and if so when, it will resume activities. We hope to be able to have some news to share with you on Monday, after CODOH's Board of Trustees will have had a meeting to decide how to move forward.</p><p>Until then, there is at least a silver lining at the revisionist horizon. The British company "Academic Reseach Media Review Education Group LTD" (what a mouth full!), abbreviated as ARMREG LTD, has entered a licensing agreement with Castlehill Publishing LLC, allowing ARMREG to republish under their own imprint Castlehill's entire book program.</p><p>ARMREG is the group who published the sensational revisionist Holocaust Encyclopedia, first online in September 2023, then also in print this past December. You can find this valuable resource at www.HolocaustEncyclopedia.com, where you can also purchase various ebook and print versions of this new revisionist opus magnum. They even offer a free ebook download.</p><p>ARMREG's general online bookstore, built with the help of Castlehill's staff to accelerate the process, was switched free yesterday late night (EST time). All books once published by Castlehill are back in print, ARMREG style, and can be bought at their webstore at https://armreg.co.uk. This store offers not only all of Castlehill's books (currently only the print editions), but also ARMREG's own Encyclopedia, of course.</p><p>While CODOH and Castlehill are currently unable to offer anything for sale, ARMREG is picking up the slack to make sure Holocaust revisionism doesn't go belly up.</p><p>We wholeheartedly recommend that you visit their website, sign up for their newsletter, and support them in this moment of crisis. Supporting them also helps CODOH and Castlehill; in fact, it helps all of revisionism:</p><p>Thank you very much for your continued support and solidarity. We will get through this crisis together, and we will come out stronger!</p><p>Germar Rudolf, Trustee</p><p>Bradley Smith Charitable Trust</p><p>aka CODOH</p></blockquote><p></p><p>[street address omitted]</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">January 7, 2024</h3><p>Around the same time as the CODOH mailing list announcement of the licensing deal with ARMREG went out, all CODOH-associated websites went offline with Cloudflare errors: codoh.com, the forum, Inconvenient History, Holocaust Handbooks, Castle Hill shop, while the Holocaust Encyclopedia website's domain name was soon up for sale from GoDaddy.</p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">January 14, 2024</h3><p></p><blockquote><p>Life Sign</p><p>The Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust and related publishing companies have suffered a major attack, with all our Internet servers disconnected. As you have noticed, we are unable to maintain our valuable Revisionist Forum, our Library of articles and research material, or any of the many services CODOH provided. Castle Hill Publishing is unable to fill orders for books. (You can order their range of books, published under license, at www.armreg.co.uk, though). At this point, CODOH has been forced into the dark.</p><p>But we at CODOH will fight hard to defeat this attack, and we will recover from the damage inflicted. Truth will prevail!</p><p>We are currently scrambling to recover and preserve the CODOH archives. But we will need support and help in the next months for an expected legal battle. If you want to see how you can help, please do not hesitate to contact us using the contact data provided at the top of this website.</p><p>If you want to help CODOH, do NOT send funds to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.</p></blockquote><p></p><p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20240115185743/https://codoh.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Source via Wayback Machine</a></p><p><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">January 19, 2024</h3><p>added to the 'Life Sign' at codoh.com</p><p></p><blockquote><p>We are currently scrambling to recover and preserve the CODOH archives and forum. The website Holocaust Handbooks is being prepared for relaunch in a new format, but without any data loss. We do have a complete backup of the vho.org archives, and we managed to locate a recent backup of the CODOH Forum, as well as one of the library, although the latter may be a few years old. Getting all this backed-up data back online will take some time and considerable effort, as we may have to first create a framework for it, then extract and reformat tons of the data.</p><p>We will need support and help in the next months for this work, but also unfortunately for an expected legal battle against those trying to force us into the dark. If you want to see how you can help, please do not hesitate to contact us using the contact data provided at the top of this website.</p><p>Note that the trust is located in California. Our new postal address is:</p><p>CODOH</p><p>PO Box 2355</p><p>Healdsburg, CA 95448</p><p>USA</p><p>Please do do NOT send mail or funds to any other address, as it will most likely not reach us.</p></blockquote><p></p><p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20240119090553/https://codoh.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Source via Wayback Machine</a></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">January 20, 2024</h3><p>CODOH email mailing list</p><p></p><blockquote><p>Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust</p><p>Dear fellow revisionists, friends, patrons and supporters!</p><p>We, the trustees of the Bradley Smith Charitable Trust, aka Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH), owe you all an explanation as to what happened, what is going on right now, and what we expect from the near future regarding CODOH and its various operations.</p><p>We need to clarify that the current crisis is the result of an INTERNAL dispute. It has apparently nothing to do with outside forces. The reason that all our websites are offline is the simple fact that the servers have been turned off by the hosting company due to unpaid bills in the order of two hundred dollars ($200). Access to the hosting account where payments are managed is currently controlled by one CODOH trustee. Without consulting with CODOH's Board of Trustees, he turned this hosting account from a company account to his personal account by changing the account information to reflect only his personal contact information. He currently refuses access to anyone else. He moreover refuses to update any payment information or pay the outstanding bills himself. He has done the same thing with CODOH's domain name account. He has turned off some domain names, resulting in websites not hosted by CODOH no longer being reachable with those domain names. This trustee demands a payment of three hundred thirty thousand US dollars ($330,000) from the CODOH Trust before giving access to that account, so that the outstanding bills can be paid, and web services restored.</p><p>CODOH currently has some four thousand dollars in its bank account, and no other financial assets. Hence, paying $330,000 is impossible. No one can expect that the other trustees step up and pay $330,000. Furthermore, no donation from the personal assets of our generous supporters should be used.</p><p>The trustee in question furthermore demands that, for the next 24 years, 3% of all proceeds of the CODOH Trust are paid to him. However, CODOH is a charitable trust whose Declaration of Trust of December 2014 states clearly that "[n]o part of the net earnings of this trust shall inure or be payable to or for the benefit of any private shareholder or individual."</p><p>The trustee in question made numerous public or private statements about this ongoing conflict over the past several weeks. None of the other CODOH trustees have signed up to volunteer for this organization in order to engage in infighting and public mud-slinging. We will therefore not respond to any of this trustee's missives. We only remark that anyone willing to engage him should insist on him presenting evidence for his claims. That is what revisionism is ultimately all about: we do not accept claims at face value but demand verifiable evidence. Our private appeals to him to provide such evidence have remained unheeded.</p><p>We hope that the trustee in question becomes reasonable, thus allowing a peaceful resolution of this unnecessary conflict and preventing any litigation.</p><p>Meanwhile, we regroup and try to reestablish all web services as best and as fast as possible. If you want to be of assistance in this regard, or if you wish to learn more about this conflict, please get in touch using our NEW contact information provided below.</p><p>DO NOT USE ANY OTHER ADDRESS!</p><p>Sincerely</p><p>The other Four of the Five Trustees of the Bradley Smith Charitable Trust</p><p>(We do not reveal the names of any of the trustees here for their own protection.)</p></blockquote><p></p><p>Further statements will be updated to this post.</p>Nicholas Terryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14852758011968360596noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24597325.post-17403792465127642712023-09-04T06:19:00.001+01:002023-09-04T06:19:11.360+01:00Debunking of the video "Jews tell the truth about the Holocaust" (an excerpt from Eric Hunt's film)<p>Added <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2018/04/debunking-youtube-denial.html#truth">this</a> debunking to the YouTube section. Lots about sport in the camps, "canteens", postcards etc.</p>Sergey Romanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04063444062099331337noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24597325.post-51121680504567209932023-05-29T12:13:00.006+01:002023-05-31T13:17:19.587+01:00On the SS judge Konrad Morgen's Monowitz confusionDuring the Nuremberg trial on 08.08.1946 the former SS judge Dr. Konrad Morgen <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/08-08-46.asp">testified</a>:<div><div></div><blockquote><div>MORGEN: Yesterday I described the four camps of the Kriminalkommissar Wirth and referred to the Camp Auschwitz. By "Extermination Camp Auschwitz" I did not mean the concentration camp. It did not exist there. I meant a separate extermination camp near Auschwitz, called "Monowitz."</div><div>[...]</div><div>MORGEN: The prisoners who marched off to the concentration camp had no inkling of where the other prisoners were taken. The Extermination Camp Monowitz lay far away from the concentration camp. It was situated on an extensive industrial site and was not recognizable as such and everywhere on the horizon there were smoking chimneys. The camp itself was guarded on the outside by special troops of men from the Baltic, Estonians, Lithuanians, Latvians, and also Ukrainians. The entire technical arrangement was almost exclusively in the hands of the prisoners who were assigned for this job and they were only supervised each time by an Unterfuehrer. The actual killing was done by another Unterfuehrer who let the gas into this room. Thus the number of those who knew about these things was extremely limited. This circle had to take a special oath...</div></blockquote><div></div><div>Etc. Holocaust deniers have naturally carped on this ever since, given that the extermination camp was actually called Birkenau, so Morgen must have been coerced or was lying for another reason.</div></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>However, it follows from the 1944 <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2009/11/war-time-german-document-mentioning.html">protocol</a> of interrogation by Morgen of the Auschwitz inmate Eleonore Hodys that Morgen knew that the extermination camp was Birkenau:</div><div><blockquote>While there the civilian employee, Dr. Gobel, of the Glauberg station, gave the order that I shall have to be sent to <b>Birkenau</b> for gas.</blockquote></div><div>Moreover, Morgen corrected the record at least twice afterwards.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the interrogation of 04.09.1946 (NARA, RG 238, M1019, roll 47), he still <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20230521125240/https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/dc-metro/rg-238/M1019/M1019-047/M1019-047-0558.jpg">repeated</a> the Monowitz version:</div><div><blockquote>This extermination camp was near Monowitz <i>[bei Monowitz]</i>, therefore it was spatially separated from the actual concentration camp <i>[i. e. Auschwitz 1 - SR]</i>.</blockquote></div><div>But when confronted with this claim on 13.12.1946 (<i>ibid.</i>) he <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20230521131050/https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/dc-metro/rg-238/M1019/M1019-047/M1019-047-0688.jpg">reacted</a>:</div><div><blockquote><b>That's a mistake. It occurred to me later: it was not Monowitz, but Birkenau, camp II.</b></blockquote></div><div><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20230521134745/https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/dc-metro/rg-238/M1019/M1019-047/M1019-047-0693.jpg">Then</a>:</div><div><div></div><blockquote><div>Q.: Did you perhaps see the Monowitz camp?</div><div>A.: I cannot remember it consciously. The Auschwitz camp is so huge and I was so impressed by the Birkenau camp that I don't remember details. </div><div>Q.: Was there an I.G.Farben plant in Auschwitz?</div><div>A.: Yes. That was the so-called Bunawerk. The investigation I conducted there into the whole gassing affair, some threads went to Monowitz to these Buna plants. What that was, however, I no longer know. In any case, it had nothing to do with the [...] <i>[? "Versuchungen" - temptations, </i><i>untranslatable in this context</i><i>; possibly distorted "Versuchen" - experiments; another option is the confusion with "Verschiebungen", referring to misappropriations of property - SR]</i> in Birkenau.</div></blockquote></div><div>A bit later a following <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20230521134102/https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/dc-metro/rg-238/M1019/M1019-047/M1019-047-0695.jpg">exchange</a> took place:</div><div><blockquote><div>Q: Do you know where Monowitz was?</div><div>A: To my recollection east of the main Auschwitz camp.</div><div>Q: From your investigations in Auschwitz, do you know whether the entire population around Auschwitz and all the people who lived around Auschwitz knew that gassings were taking place in the concentration camp?</div><div>A: I don't think so. This Birkenau camp was located in such a way that one could not even think about it. It was adapted to the whole industrial landscape. These gassing houses, including the crematoria and the undressing and bathing rooms, were set one story deep into the ground, so that the building did not appear to be as large as it actually was. The chimneys were extraordinarily massive and wide, and the smoke emission was low. By the way, everywhere was a scattered industrial area. There were open fields in between, so that one had no clue at all from these facilities as an outsider, which terrible happening took place there.</div></blockquote><div></div></div><div>This shows that Morgen ascribed the industrial landscape to the whole camp, including Birkenau, which explains his description at the IMT.</div><div><br /></div><div>During the Pohl trial the following exchange took place on 22.08.1947:</div><div><div></div><blockquote><div>BY DR. SEIDL (For Defendant Oswald Pohl):</div><div><br /></div><div>Q Witness, you testified that the extermination camp at Auschwitz was the camp of Birkenau. Now, I can recall that you testified already before the International Military Tribunal that the extermination camp of Auschwitz was the camp of Monowitz. May I assume at the time when you gave your testimony before the I. M. T. it was a mistake?</div><div><br /></div><div>A <b>It was a mistake on my part. When I say Monowitz I mean Birkenau.</b></div></blockquote><div></div></div><div>During the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial Morgen <a href="https://www.auschwitz-prozess.de/zeugenaussagen/Morgen-Konrad/">testified</a> at length about his visit to Birkenau on 09.03.1964. Given the nature of the West-German investigation and trial proceedings, where no coercion has ever been established, Morgen could have easily said the truth, had he indeed been coerced during the IMT.</div><div><br /></div><div>Moreover, his testimony was <a href="https://www.auschwitz-prozess.de/zeugenaussagen/Wiebeck-Gerhard/">confirmed</a> on 01.10.1964 by Gerhard Wiebeck, who had been investigating Auschwitz together with Morgen.</div><div><br /></div><div>And further confirmation comes from Helmuth Reimers in his interrogation on 06.06.1961 (during the preparation to the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial). He served in the so-called Criminal Police (Kripo) and around Nov. 1943 he was given the task of investigating the misappropriation of the Jewish property by the SS in the camps. He remained in Auschwitz (according to him) until Jan. 1944 and was able to visit the crematoria with their ovens and gas chambers. He had to report to Morgen, and although he says that Morgen did not visit the gas chambers <i>together</i> with him, obviously him knowing in some detail about the extermination specifically in Birkenau automatically means that his boss, Morgen, also knew.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm publishing long excerpts and a translation of the testimony here (HHStAW 461/37638/52, Bl. 9129-9136).</div><div><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
TRANSCRIPTION </div>
<div id="Reimers" style="display: none;"><blockquote><div>Im November 1943 wurde ich als Kriminalkommissar der Kriminalpolizeistelle Bochum - ich hatte dort das 1. Kommissariat (Kapitalverbrechen) geleitet - zum Reichskriminalpolizeiamt Berlin durch Fernschreiben beordert. Hier hatte ich mich bei einem Kriminalrat Schulz zu melden. Von dem Kriminalrat Schulz und dem SS-Richter Dr. Morgen wurde ich in mein neues Arbeitsgebiet eingewiesen, nämlich der Bearbeitung von Fällen der Verschiebung und des Diebstahls jüdischen Vermögens in den Konzentrationslagern. Von Dr. Morgen bekam ich eine Sondervollmacht des Reichsführers SS für das KL Auschwitz und fuhr nach etwa 8 Tagen nach Auschwitz. Als Mitarbeiter wurde mir ein Kriminalsekretär des Reichskriminalpolizeiamts Berlin zugeteilt, an dessen Namen ich mich jedoch nicht mehr erinnern kann. Es ist möglich, daß er Schwarz hieß. In Auschwitz meldete ich mich bei dem Kommandanten Höss, der gerade an diesem Tag seine Dienstgeschäfte an seinen Nachfolger Liebehenschel übergab. Liebehenschel hat dann von mir nur gesagt bekommen, daß ich zur Aufklärung krimineller Delikte nach Auschwitz beordert sein. Um was es dabei im einzelnen ging, hat er nicht erfahren.</div><div><br /></div><div>Meine Ermittlungen richteten sich auftragsgemäß gegen Gestapo und SS in Auschwitz, und zwar insbesondere gegen die Politische Abteilung, die zu dieser Zeit dem Gestapoangehörigen Grabner unterstand. G. war gleichzeitig im Angleichungsdienstgrad als Kriminalsekretär SS-Untersturmführer. Bei der Politischen Abteilung waren meine Ermittlungen insbesondere auf Fälle der illegalen Tötung von Häftlingen gerichtet. In diesem Zusammenhang muß ich erwähnen, daß ich von Dr. Morgen bereits den Auftrag hatte, auch Fälle der illegalen Tötung von Häftlingen zu ermitteln. Aus diesem Grund habe ich mir zunächst die Verstorbenen-Kartei in der Politischen Abteilung angesehen. Bei der Vernehmung von einem Angehörigen der Politischen Abteilung gab dieser an, daß die Todesursachen auf den Karteikarten falsch angegeben seien, denn die meisten der verstorbenen Häftlinge seien erschossen worden. Dabei stellte sich gleichzeitig heraus, daß dies auf Veranlassung von Grabner geschehen war, der nach Erschießungen den SS-Ärzten Todesbescheinigungen vorlegte, die von diesen unterschrieben werden mußten, und auf denen bereits die jeweiligen Personalien und die "Todesursache" eingetragen waren. Daraufhin habe ich nach Rücksprache mit Dr. Morgen den Leiter der Politischen Abteilung in Auschwitz, Grabner, vorläufig festgenommen und in das Untersuchungsgefängnis Kattowitz eingeliefert. Von mir wurde Grabner nicht vernommen; lediglich eine informatorische Befragung wurde von mir durchgeführt. Die Vernehmung wurden von Dr. Morgen vorgenommen. Was sich bei dieser Vernehmung ergeben hat, kann ich nicht sagen.</div><div><br /></div><div>[...]</div><div><br /></div><div>Da ich mir in Auschwitz alles ansehen konnte und vor allem auch die Diebstähle und Schiebungen zu bearbeiten hatte, habe ich auch einen ankommenden Güterzug mit etwa 50 Waggons gesehen, der im Lager Birkenau auf der Rampe ausgeladen wurde. Nach dem Ausladen wurden sofort die Arbeitsunfähigen aussortiert und zu einem Krematorium geführt. Hier mußten sich die Menschen nackt ausziehen und gingen dann in den Vergasungsraum. Ausgezogen wurde sich in einem Raum, der vor der Gaskammer lag.</div><div><br /></div><div>Nachdem alle Menschen im Vergasungsraum waren, wurden die Eisentüren verschlossen. Daraufhin kletterte ein Assistenzarzt auf den Vergasungsraum und schüttete aus einer Büchse das Gas in zwei Schächte, die in die Gaskammer führten. Anschließend verschloss er die Schächte mit einer Klappe. Von den Menschen in der Gaskammer hörte man keinen Ton. Etwa 10 Minuten später wurde die Eisentür geöffnet und man hörte einen Ventilator laufen, der das Gas absaugte</div><div><br /></div><div>Ich konnte nun die Leichen der Vergasten liegen sehen, die völlig normal aussahen. Die Gesichter waren nicht verzerrt und die Gliedmaßen auch nicht verkrampft. Sie sahen ganz natürlich aus, genauso, als seien sie eines natürlichen Todes gestorben. Ich schätze, daß es sich dabei um mehrere hundert Menschen - Männer, Frauen und Kinder - gehandelt hat. Es waren aber nicht alle Arbeitsunfähigen dieses Transportes, die in meiner Anwesenheit vergast worden sind. Bei der Aussortierung waren es nämlich mehr Menschen, die zur Vergasung bestimmt wurden. Wo man diese hingeführt hatte, kann ich nicht sagen.</div><div><br /></div><div>Bei dieser Aussortierung habe ich auch den SS-Arzt Dr. Mengele auf der Rampe gesehen, der jedoch keine Aussortierungen vornahm. Dies wurde von 3 oder 4 jüngeren Ärzten gemacht, die allerdings keine regelrechten Untersuchungen vornahmen, sondern nur vom kurzen Ansehen entschieden.</div><div><br /></div><div>Den Dr. Mengele hatte ich im Kasino beim gemeinsamen Mittagessen kennengelernt. Ich hatte ihn bei dieser Gelegenheit auch gefragt, was er hier in Auschwitz machen würde, worauf er mir zur Antwort gab, daß er zu medizinischen Versuchen in das KL abgestellt sei. Welcher Art seine Versuche waren, ist mir nicht bekannt.</div><div><br /></div><div>[...]</div><div><br /></div><div>Frage: Handelte es sich nach ihren damaligen Richtlinien bei den Aussortierungen und Vergasungen auch um "illegale Tötungen", die in ihr Aufgabengebiet fielen?</div><div><br /></div><div>Antw.: Nein. Mit der sog. "Judenaktion" hatte ich gar nichts zu tun. Ich habe diese Vorkommisse natürlich sofort Dr. Morgen berichtet, der mir sagte, daß mich diese Sache nicht angehen würde. Mein Aufgabenbereich sei lediglich Judeneigentum, das gestohlen oder verschoben würde. Aus diesem Grund hatte ich auch beim Ausladen von Transporten auf der Rampe zu sein, um das Einsammeln der Wertsachen zu beobachten. Beim Ausladen auf der Rampe entledigten sich viele Juden ihrer mitgebrachten Wertsachen, indem sie diese einfach auf die Rampe warfen oder im Waggon liegen ließen. Diese Gegenstände wurden dann von SS-Leuten aufgesammelt und bei einem Angehörigen der Wertsachenabteilung der Kommandantur abgegeben. Vor dem Auskleideraum am Krematorium stand noch eine Kiste mit einem Schlitz im Deckel, in welche die Juden ihre Schmuckstücke und das Bargeld werfen mußten. Diese Kiste wurde dann jeweils von Angehörigen der Wertsachenabteilung abgeholt. Diese Schmucksachen wurden dann in der Wertsachenabteilung in der Kommandantur sortiert. Dabei habe ich gesehen, wie aus Geschmeide die Edelsteine herausgebrochen und besonders aussortiert wurden. In dieser Abteilung standen große Kisten mit Wertsachen und Geld, die zunächst dort aufbewahrt wurden.</div><div><br /></div><div>Besondere Devisen mußten allerdings sofort nach Berlin geschickt werden. Es handelte sich dabei hauptsächlich um amerikanische Dollars, schweizer Franken und englische Pfunde A.B.: Mir ist auch bekanntgeworden, daß den Leichen nach der Vergasung die Goldzähne ausgebrochen wurden, die man anschließend eingeschmolzen hat. Diese Scheideanstalt bzw. Schmelzerei befand sich in einer kleinen Baracke in der Nähe des Effektenlagers. Ich habe auch einmal einen SS-Mann gesehen, der die Goldzähne vom Krematorium in einem Pappkarton auf dem Fahrrad dort hin beförderte. In dieser Schmelzerei wurde das Zahngold in kleine Barren eingeschmolzen und kam anschließend zur Wertsachenabteilung.</div><div><br /></div><div>A.B.: Das Ausbrechen der Goldzähne der Vergasten habe ich selbst nicht gesehen, sondern nur davon gehört, da ich mich ja damit zu befassen hatte. Es waren nämlich irgendwo plötzlich Goldbarren aufgetaucht, die nachweislich aus Zahngold bestanden und verschoben worden waren.</div><div><br /></div><div>Einige Tage nach der Vergasung, der ich mitzugesehen hatte, habe ich mir das Krematorium bzw. eines der vier Krematorien einmal angesehen, als dieses nicht in Betrieb war. Dabei habe ich die Verbrennungsöfen gesehen, und zwar waren es nach meiner Erinnerung etwa 5-Muffelöfen. Mir wurde dieses Krematorium von einem Unterscharführer gezeigt, dessen Namen ich nicht gekannt habe. Er erklärte mir dabei, wie die Leichen aus der Gaskammer in die Öfen transportiert werden und wo man ihnen die Goldzähne ausbricht. Ich habe dabei auch eine Art zahnärztliche Zange liegen sehen. In einem Krematorium lag der Vergasungsraum tiefer als die Verbrennungsöfen, während er bei einem anderen etwa in gleicher Höhe lag. Genau kann ich das aber nicht mehr angeben. Die Krematorien habe ich nur besichtigt, um den Gang des ausgebrochenen Zahngoldes zu verfolgen.</div><div><br /></div><div>[...]</div><div><br /></div><div>Der Leiter der Untersuchungskommission, Gerichts-SS-Führer und Hauptsturmführer Dr. Morgen hat meines Wissens Vergasungen in Auschwitz in meiner Gegenwart nicht gesehen. Er war auch nicht ständig in Auschwitz, sondern kam nur von Zeit zu Zeit von Berlin und hat sich informiert. Er fuhr auch in die anderen Konzentrationslager, wo gleichgelagerte Ermittlungen geführt wurden.</div><div><br /></div><div>[...]</div><div><br /></div><div>Mein Sonderausweis für die Ermittlungen in Auschwitz hatte in etwa zum Inhalt, daß ich kriminalpolizeiliche Ermittlungen durchzuführen hätte, und daß mir alle Einrichtungen des Lagers und der Gestapo zur Einsichtnahme freigestellt werden müßten. Auf Grund dieses Ausweises konnte ich somit auch die Vergasungsanlagen und Krematorien besichtigen.</div></blockquote><div></div></div>
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<div id="ReimersEng" style="display: none;"><blockquote><div>In November 1943 I was ordered by telex to the Reich Criminal Police Office in Berlin as a detective superintendent of the Bochum Criminal Police Office, where I had headed the 1st Commissariat (capital crimes). Here I had to report to a Criminal Counselor Schulz. Criminal Counselor Schulz and SS Judge Dr. Morgen introduced me to my new field of work, namely the handling of cases of misappropriation and theft of Jewish property in the concentration camps. From Dr. Morgen I received a special warrant from the Reichsführer SS for concentration camp Auschwitz, and after about 8 days I left for Auschwitz. A criminal secretary of the Reich Criminal Police Office in Berlin was assigned to me as a co-worker, but I cannot remember his name. It is possible that his name was Schwarz. In Auschwitz, I reported to Commandant Höss, who was handing over his official duties to his successor Liebehenschel on that very day. Liebehenschel was told by me only that I had been ordered to Auschwitz to investigate criminal offenses. He did not find out what this involved in detail.</div><div><br /></div><div>My investigations were directed against the Gestapo and the SS in Auschwitz, in particular against the Political Department, which at that time was under the command of Grabner, a member of the Gestapo. At the same time, G. held the rank of Criminal Secretary and SS-Untersturmführer. In the Political Department my investigations were directed in particular at cases of the illegal killing of prisoners. In this connection I must mention that I had already been instructed by Dr. Morgen to also investigate cases of illegal killing of prisoners. For this reason, I first looked at the index of deceased persons in the Political Department. During the interrogation of a member of the Political Department, he stated that the causes of death on the index cards were wrong, because most of the deceased prisoners had been shot. At the same time it turned out that this had been done at the instigation of Grabner, who after shootings presented death certificates to the SS doctors, which had to be signed by them, and on which the respective personal data and the "cause of death" had already been entered. Thereupon, after consultation with Dr. Morgen, I provisionally arrested Grabner, the head of the Political Department in Auschwitz, and sent him to the Kattowitz remand prison. Grabner was not questioned by me; only an informative questioning was carried out by me. The interrogation was conducted by Dr. Morgen. What emerged from this interrogation I cannot say.</div><div><br /></div><div>[...]</div><div><br /></div><div><div>Since I was able to look at everything in Auschwitz and especially had to deal with the thefts and misappropriations, I also saw an arriving freight train with about 50 wagons being unloaded on the ramp in the Birkenau camp. After unloading, those unable to work were immediately sorted out and led to a crematorium. Here the people had to undress naked and then went to the gassing room. Undressing took place in a room located in front of the gas chamber.</div><div><br /></div><div>After all the people were in the gassing room, the iron doors were closed. Then an assistant doctor climbed onto the gassing room and poured gas from a can into two shafts leading into the gas chamber. He then closed the shafts with a flap. No sound was heard from the people in the gas chamber. About 10 minutes later, the iron door was opened and a fan was heard running, extracting the gas.</div><div><br /></div><div>I could now see the bodies of the gassed lying there, looking completely normal. Their faces were not distorted and their limbs were not cramped. They looked perfectly natural, just as if they had died a natural death. I estimate that there were several hundred people - men, women and children. However, not all of those who were unable to work were gassed in my presence. When they were sorted out, there were more people who were designated for gassing. I cannot say where they were taken.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>During this selection, I also saw the SS doctor Dr. Mengele on the ramp, but he did not carry out any selections. This was done by 3 or 4 younger doctors, who, however, did not carry out any regular examinations, but decided only from a brief glance.</div><div><br /></div><div>I had met Dr. Mengele in the mess hall at lunch. On this occasion I asked him what he was doing here in Auschwitz, to which he replied that he had been sent to the KL for medical experiments. I do not know what kind of experiments he was conducting.</div><div><br /></div><div>[...]</div><div><br /></div><div>Question: According to your guidelines at that time, were the selections and gassings also "illegal killings" which fell within your area of responsibility?</div><div><br /></div><div>Answer: No. I had nothing whatsoever to do with the so-called "Jewish Action". Of course, I immediately reported these incidents to Dr. Morgen, who told me that this matter did not concern me. My area of responsibility was only Jewish property that was stolen or misappropriated. For this reason I also had to be on the ramp when transports were unloaded, in order to observe the collection of valuables. When unloading on the ramp, many Jews got rid of the valuables they had brought with them by simply throwing them onto the ramp or leaving them in the wagon. These items were then collected by SS men and handed over to a member of the valuables department of the commandant's office. In front of the undressing room at the crematorium there was a box with a slit in the lid into which the Jews had to throw their jewelry and cash. This box was then collected by members of the valuables department. These jewelry items were then sorted in the valuables department in the Commandant's Office. I saw how precious stones were broken out of the jewelry and sorted out. In this department there were large boxes with valuables and money, which were initially kept there.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>However, special foreign currency had to be sent to Berlin immediately. These were mainly American dollars, Swiss francs and English pounds. </div><div><br /></div><div>[answering a question]: I also learned that after gassing, gold teeth of the corpses were broken out and then melted down. This refinery or smelter was located in a small barrack near the effects camp. I once saw an SS man who transported gold teeth from the crematorium in a cardboard box on his bicycle. In this smelter dental gold was melted down into small ingots and then came to the valuables department.</div><div><br /></div><div>[answering a question]: I did not see the breaking out of gold teeth of the gassed people myself, but only heard about it, since I had to deal with it. Gold bars had suddenly appeared somewhere, which demonstrably consisted of dental gold and had been misappropriated.</div><div><br /></div><div>A few days after the gassing, which I had witnessed, I took a look at the crematorium, or rather one of the four crematoria, when it was not in operation. There I saw the incineration ovens, and according to my recollection there were about 5 muffle ovens. I was shown this crematorium by a Unterscharführer whose name I did not know. He explained to me how corpses were transported from the gas chamber to the ovens and where their gold teeth were broken out. I also saw a kind of dental forceps lying there. In one crematorium the gassing room was lower than the incinerators, while in another it was about the same height. However, I can no longer provide exact details. I visited the crematoria only to follow the course of the broken-out dental gold.</div></div><div><br /></div></div></div><div><div>[...]</div><div><br /></div><div>The head of the investigating commission, SS-court leader and Hauptsturmführer Dr. Morgen did not, to my knowledge, see gassings in Auschwitz in my presence. He was also not constantly in Auschwitz, but only came from time to time from Berlin and informed himself. He also went to the other concentration camps, where investigations of the same nature were being conducted.</div><div><br /></div><div>[...]</div><div><br /></div><div>My special pass for the investigations in Auschwitz roughly stated that I had to carry out criminal investigations and that all camp and Gestapo facilities had to be made available to me for inspection. On the basis of this pass, I could thus also visit the gassing facilities and crematoria.</div></div></blockquote><div><div></div></div><div><br /></div></div>
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<div><br /></div><div>(A couple of brief comments: the doors he saw <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2017/05/rebutting-twitter-denial-most-popular.html#flimsydoor">could have been</a> iron-reinforced wooden doors, misremembered or misinterpreted as iron doors; on the other hand at that time the Birkenau Kremas 2 and 3 had their gas chambers <a href="https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2006/11/new-evidence-about-division-of.html">divided</a> into two parts, so the description of the usage of two shafts is correct - and we don't really know how the inner door in the dividing wall looked like, it could as well have been an iron one, after all not all doors had to have the same construction; how corpses looked like after gassings <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2017/05/rebutting-twitter-denial-most-popular.html#skincolor">differed from one time to another</a> and no visible skin discoloration was likely a short time after the gassing as described here.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Some mainstream authors put forth the hypothesis that Morgen intentionally confused things in order to defend the SS. But this explanation makes no sense whatsoever - surely Morgen knew that almost any other Auschwitz-related witness could destroy his testimony, had that been the case.</div><div><br /></div><div>The best explanation therefore is that Morgen's mention of Birkenau was a memory aberration. How did it happen? </div><div><br /></div><div>During the interrogation on 13.12.1946 (NARA, RG 238, M1019, roll 47) Morgen <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20230529111039/https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/dc-metro/rg-238/M1019/M1019-047/M1019-047-0703.jpg">said</a> concerning another matter:</div><div><blockquote>I handled 800 cases in one year and it was such a workload, I can't remember those details.</blockquote></div><div>Had Auschwitz been his only case, the confusion would have been strange. But with hundreds of cases such mistakes are no longer improbable.</div></div>Sergey Romanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04063444062099331337noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24597325.post-57181375103898958312023-05-28T16:08:00.007+01:002023-06-11T22:25:07.252+01:00Irregular Musings on the Unicellular Denial. #4. Holocaust deniers reach the new level of stupidity - now allegedly with the help of ChatGPT.<p>Some dummy named E. Michael Jones writing at the <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2018/09/ron-unz-comes-out-as-holocaust-denier.html">neo-Nazi Unz</a> website provides today's bit of really hilarious comedy in the posting "<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20230528145359/https://www.unz.com/ejones/why-its-easier-to-talk-to-a-robot-than-to-a-jew/">Why It’s Easier to Talk to a Robot Than to a Jew How Artificial Intelligence destroyed the Holocaust</a>":</p><p></p><blockquote><p>When someone asked Chatbot “How many Jews died in Auschwitz?” Chatbot responded: “It is estimated that at least 1.1 million people died at Auschwitz, the majority of who were Jews.</p><p>That answer led to the following conversation:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>“Were the murdered Jews in Auschwitz cremated?”</p><p>“Yes, the bodies of those murdered in Auschwitz were cremated.”</p><p>“How many crematorium ovens did Auschwitz have?”</p><p>“Auschwitz had a total of four crematorium ovens.”</p><p>“How long does a crematorium oven take to cremate one body?”</p><p>“A crematorium oven typically takes between two and three hours to cremate one body.”</p><p>“Is it possible to cremate 1.1 million bodies, using only four crematorium ovens in four years.”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“How many years would it take?”</p><p>“It would take more than 78 years to cremate 1.1 million bodies using only four crematorium ovens.”[11]</p></blockquote><p></p><p>Shockingly, it turns out that Chatbot is a Holocaust denier.</p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>[...]</p><p>But what happens if Chatbot claims that running the crematoria at Auschwitz nonstop for three years, 24 hours a day, every day of the week for the three years the camp was in existence could have disposed of 120,000 corpses, not 1.1 million, as the Virtual Jewish Library claims? The answer is that the Holocaust narrative collapses. </p></blockquote><p></p><p></p><p>Now, Auschwitz actually had 15 ovens which summarily had 52 muffles (6 in Auschwitz I, 46 in Auschwitz II Birkenau) with the formal capacity of 4756 corpses per day (real capacity could vary depending on many factors). </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjnT1fKpQCAqArLy9Y16avCz0P3etX1nZeAoPKMr9aChg5OAnvxHYC8swEBfJyXnBPgGAcsUOqATBVs3CM5Dv2Q3RE2VYqxTp4JnYp-VU-KJ9ka2XtApF6pl2m0Xt7Wunwdep2mhYCOLrSBMic0HJR7fkwuWXAZlhq71hU2MhVxZfyMGW0lKls" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="437" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjnT1fKpQCAqArLy9Y16avCz0P3etX1nZeAoPKMr9aChg5OAnvxHYC8swEBfJyXnBPgGAcsUOqATBVs3CM5Dv2Q3RE2VYqxTp4JnYp-VU-KJ9ka2XtApF6pl2m0Xt7Wunwdep2mhYCOLrSBMic0HJR7fkwuWXAZlhq71hU2MhVxZfyMGW0lKls" width="175" /></a></div><br />Multiple bodies were continuously burned at once in each muffle <a href="https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2017/09/short-debunking-of-steven-andersons.html#cremation">which did conserve fuel and time</a> compared to single cremations. This fact is <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2014/10/rebuttal-of-mattogno-on-auschwitz-part.html#docs">well-documented</a>. So, garbage in, garbage out. As is usual with the denial.<div><br /></div><div>And of course no mention is made whatsoever of the <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2018/10/auschwitz-birkenau-aerial-photographs.html">open-air burnings</a>, which accounted for hundreds of thousands of bodies in Auschwitz and were thus a key body disposal method.<br /><p></p><p>It could be that the whole exchange is fake, but that numerous deniers have latched upon it thinking it "destroys the Holocaust" because muh AI fully illustrates the low-IQ nature of these creatures.</p></div>Sergey Romanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04063444062099331337noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24597325.post-28210635499978126532023-05-28T14:25:00.006+01:002023-09-28T11:07:24.142+01:00Autopsies of victims gassed with carbon monoxide.<p> Here I will be gathering such reports.</p><p><b>1. Act of inspection of a mass grave, exhumation and forensic medical examination of 254 corpses of Soviet citizens killed by the Nazis in Krasnodar.</b></p><p><a href="https://victims.rusarchives.ru/index.php/fsb-1943-akt-osmotra-massovogo-zakhoroneniya-eksgumacii-i-sudebno-medicinskogo-issledovaniya">Source</a>: TsA FSB, f. K-72, op.1, por. 33, l. d. 258–261.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi5xhKnGO3mMb6bOuloIzxHJgsDTaktVSskgqFaYlDK3BYAkgeOtRnxTvN-Q3C0HgcP9gwJCrIaFX0YAi5e_G6B3xfEtAMwTBB0Ovx3kmrAjsdtkJhY0u5STQeS9Qwau-Ig18BLFS1VE_SRF2OzXv4w0NN8K1AZZCfeLEG9C7OISiB2KK3NADY" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1136" data-original-width="787" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi5xhKnGO3mMb6bOuloIzxHJgsDTaktVSskgqFaYlDK3BYAkgeOtRnxTvN-Q3C0HgcP9gwJCrIaFX0YAi5e_G6B3xfEtAMwTBB0Ovx3kmrAjsdtkJhY0u5STQeS9Qwau-Ig18BLFS1VE_SRF2OzXv4w0NN8K1AZZCfeLEG9C7OISiB2KK3NADY" width="166" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg13n_Ha7_3gKdir8ZFs_Fj7o3tAVZrtFTbFuD0NuKIN4WtjaxV8EEm2IOkjkyL-whMrKcCiQmAxlpJHZpU4tQOohdFeo3Ssal0yih9uV6GGtAEyfKPmMi0TnBW51GpL1FiWMWAmssYDoFkZo8hgchiZ0y-mqUL6ecNcD-0AcLMyS4oD1FJOKs" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1148" data-original-width="787" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg13n_Ha7_3gKdir8ZFs_Fj7o3tAVZrtFTbFuD0NuKIN4WtjaxV8EEm2IOkjkyL-whMrKcCiQmAxlpJHZpU4tQOohdFeo3Ssal0yih9uV6GGtAEyfKPmMi0TnBW51GpL1FiWMWAmssYDoFkZo8hgchiZ0y-mqUL6ecNcD-0AcLMyS4oD1FJOKs" width="165" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgH-QPI4WMTqUnE_POkpWccBvGxUZV9CE1Eh4XjqOzKam9U2CT4o8DLdxlpOfLczMcWIkgLQo1V0HV_1ravzvs5CiZMcFP1puN5lpqd0fqttFbjCvu34BPHZzr_UnyYE1jk-I4uvXk7zmi-iKs8XU12DlrRtVMG7VUvIVAiR9Xx1gCA6DqToZM" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1170" data-original-width="787" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgH-QPI4WMTqUnE_POkpWccBvGxUZV9CE1Eh4XjqOzKam9U2CT4o8DLdxlpOfLczMcWIkgLQo1V0HV_1ravzvs5CiZMcFP1puN5lpqd0fqttFbjCvu34BPHZzr_UnyYE1jk-I4uvXk7zmi-iKs8XU12DlrRtVMG7VUvIVAiR9Xx1gCA6DqToZM" width="161" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhj4Jx7J_d_t_Tze0veJVLeZvk4UCKCAkdPL12dUc3iMq4DnSVgSt5QekmIss_yxpXcqGLY6Jc_Et0qRM5RcT0xytJpQo32__X3I2Qm_i5JWJ4MzPM0EUG2NTPxGxzFgm76rmdzjPnjj01D7rX6JYZGQ9iP9F0d_IXdTiMdkQSMA-52f0nvrTQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1170" data-original-width="787" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhj4Jx7J_d_t_Tze0veJVLeZvk4UCKCAkdPL12dUc3iMq4DnSVgSt5QekmIss_yxpXcqGLY6Jc_Et0qRM5RcT0xytJpQo32__X3I2Qm_i5JWJ4MzPM0EUG2NTPxGxzFgm76rmdzjPnjj01D7rX6JYZGQ9iP9F0d_IXdTiMdkQSMA-52f0nvrTQ" width="161" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p></p><blockquote><p>AКT.-</p><p>осмотра массового захоронения, эксгумации и судебно-медицинского исследования 254 трупов советских граждан, умер[щ]вленных в гор.Краснодаре, Краснодарского края, в период временной оккупации немецко-фашистскими войсками г.Краснодара.</p><p>гор. Краснодар</p><p>17-18-19 июня 1943 года.</p><p>По предложению Военной Прокуратуры Северо-Кавказского фронта Комиссия в составе - Главного судебно-медицинского эксперта Красной Армии - Подполковника медицинской службы - доктора медицинских наук профессора АВДЕЕВА, врачей-специалистов фронтовой патолого-анатомической лаборатории Майора медслужбы Волощенко Д.Л. и военврача ЛИХАЧЕВОЙ Н.Б., в присутствии старшего лейтенанта административной службы КОВБАСА Ф. К., лейтенанта медицинской службы ОСИПОВА Г.Б. и лейтенанта медслужбы ПЕЧЕНЕЖСКОЙ Е.Н. - произвела осмотр мест захоронения, а также эксгумацию и судебно-медицинское исследование обнаруженных 254 трупов мужчин, женщин и детей.</p><p>Комиссией при этом установлено следующее:</p><p>І. Места массового захоронения трупов были обнаружены на территории первого отделения виноградного хозяйства совхоза № 1 "Крайсовхозтреста", прилегающего к северо-восточной окраине гор. Краснодара. На территории первого отделения совхоза было обнаружено три таких места захоронения /см. прилагаемый план местности/:</p><p>I/B противотанковом рве, который проходит по территории первого отделения совхоза, образуя тупой угол /A/;</p><p>2/Вблизи противотанкового рва /Б/, и </p></blockquote><blockquote><p>3/В юго-восточном углу первого отделения совхоза у дороги, ведущей в г. Краснодар /В/.</p><p>Во всех трех ямах были обнаружены трупы в количестве 254: мужчин - 145, женщин - 76, детей и подростков - 33.</p><p>Все трупы были осмотрены и подвергнуты судебно[-]медицинскому исследованию.</p><p>Из трупов, находившихся в противотанковом рве и яме /Б/ взята жидкость из плевральных полостей или кусочки ткане[й] или органов, для исследования на присутствие карбоксигемоглобина, в тех случаях, когда жидкость добыть не удалось.</p><p>II. "А" Противотанковый ров.</p><p>Противотанковый ров имеет глубину около 4-х метров. От того места, где противотанковый ров образует угол и до восточной границы первого отделения совхова, на протяжении около 100 метров уровень дна противотанкового рва на I I/2-2 метра выше, чем в других местах.</p><p>На расстоянии 15 метров от угла противотанкового рва дно рва было вскрыто и на глубине I 1/2-2 метров были обнаружены беспорядочно лежащие трупы мужчин и женщин, отдельные части одежды, головные уборы, камышевая сумка для продуктов, с яблоком и кусками хлеба.</p><p>Из противотанкового рва извлечены и подвергнуты судебно-медицинскому исследованию 12 трупов: 7 мужских и 5 женских.</p><p>Судебно-медицинское исследование 12 трупов, извлеченных из противотанкового рва</p><p>Одежда: Два женских и три мужских трупа, оказались без одежды. На остальных трупах имеется старая поношенная одежда, которая сохранилась довольно хорошо. Обуви на трупах не оказалось, за исключением одного женского трупа с рваными галошами на ногах.</p><p>Возраст: У 7 трупов мужчин возраст определен 50-60-70 лет. У одной женщины 50-60 лет, у двух 20-25 лет, и у двух 30-35 лет.</p><p>Наружный осмотр трупов.</p><p>Трупы сохранились довольно хорошо, значительных гнилостных изменений не отмечается. Кожа влажая, бледная. На задней поверхности и у некоторых трупов на лице, груди и конечностях кожа ярко-розовой и красной окраски. Верхний слой эпидермиса легко отслаивается повсюду и у некоторых трупов с кистей и стоп снимается в виде перчаток, с ногтями. Никаких механических повреждений при наружном осмотре всех 12 трупов не обнаружено.</p><p>Внутреннее исследование трупов.</p><p>Все 12 трупов были вскрыты и у всех обнаружены однотипные характерные изменения. Мягкие покровы черепа сочные, алокрасного цвета. Кости, свода и основания черепа не повреждены. Твердая оболочка алокрасного цвета. Вещество мозга кашицеобразной консистенции серорозового цвета. Скелетные мышцы /грудные, брюшные, межреберные, глубокие мышцы спины, мышцы бедер/ алокрасного цвета. Клетчатка средостения розово-красного цвета. В плевральных полостях обнаруживается небольшое количество жидкости алокрасного цвета. Полости сердца пустые, сердечная мышца светло-красного цвета.</p><p>Легкие особенно в задних отделах на разрезах алокрасного цвета. Алокрасный цвет на разрезах имеют селезенка и особенно почки. Печень кирпично-красного цвета. Кишечник раздут газами. Никаких механических повреждений внутренних органов, кровоизлияний или скопления крови в полостях черепа, груди, живота ни у одного трупа не обнаружено.</p><p>"Б" - Яма у противотанкового рва.</p><p>В 6 метрах южнее противотанкового рва обнаружена яма с 221 трупом мужчин, женщин, детей и подростков.</p><p>Из ямы извлечены 117 трупов мужчин, 71 труп женщин, 33 трупа детей и подростков.</p><p>Трупы лежали в яме в беспорядке в несколько слоев.</p><p>Все трупы из ями извлечены и подвергнуты судебно-медицинскому исследованию.</p><p>Исследование трупов из ямы "Б".</p><p>Одежда: 65 трупов мужчин и женщин оказались без одежды. На остальных трупах имеется старая поношенная одежда, преимущественно зимняя: стеганные ватные брюки, на трупах мужчин по двое-трое бумажных брюк, бумажные фуфайки, старые шерстяные носки и чулки. Некоторые трупы полураздетые без верхнего платья. Подавляющее большинство трупов оказалось без обуви. У некоторых сохранилась старая поношенная обувь или матерчатые бурки.</p><p>Наружный осмотр трупов.</p><p>Часть трупов сохранилась довольно хорошо и имеет такой же вид, как и трут извлеченные из противотанкового рва, т.е. без значительных гнилостных изменений. Другая часть трупов в большей или меньшей степени изменена гнилостными процессами, вплоть до значительных гнилостных изменений мягких тканей и внутренних органов.</p><p>На сохранившихся трупах кожа влажная, бледная, местами имеет яркую розовокрасную окраску. Верхний слой эпидермиса легко отделяется, а кое-где отсутствует. Никаких механических повреждений при наружном осмотре сохранившихся трупов не обнаружено. Не найдено также повреждений и на трупах измененных гнилостными процессами.</p><p>Внутреннее исследование трупов.</p><p>Все трупы извлеченные из ямы "Б" были вскрыты. У всех сохранившихся и не измененных гнилостными процессами трупов обнаружены однотипные характерные изменения, аналогичные тем, которые были обнаружены при вскрытии трупов, извлеченных из противотанкового рва. Мягкие покровы черепа влажные, сочные, алокрасного цвета. Кости свода и основания черепа не повреждены. Твердые оболочки алокрасного цвета влажные, ткань мозга кашицеобразная, грязного серорозового цвета. Скелетные мышцы повсюду /бедер, груди, брюшной стенки, межреберные, спинные/ алокрасного цвета. Клетчатка средостения розовокрасного цвета. В плевральных полостях небольшие количества яркокрасной жидкости. Яркую алокрасную окраску имеют на разрезах и внутренние органы: легкие, мышца сердца, печень, селезенка, и особенно почки. Желудочно-кишечный тракт раздут газами. У большинства трупов желудки пустые, у части трупов в желудках обнаружена кашицеобразная масса. Характерная красная или розовокрасная окраска отмечается в отдельных сохранившихся органах или мышцах и на трупах измененных в той или иной степени гниением.</p><p>Никаких механических повреждений мягких тканей, внутренних органов, костей скелета, ни у одного из исследованных трупов не обнаружено.</p><p>"В" - яма в юго-восточном углу п[ер]вого отделения I-го совхоза</p><p>В этой яме на глубине около трех метров обнаружен 21 мужской труп, обрывки тканей одежды и головные уборы.</p><p>Одежда на трупах старая, поношенная легко рвется. Трупы подверглись значительному трупному изменению. Мягкие ткани частично отсутствуют, местами мумифицированы, но большей частью превратились в жировоск. Внутренние органы также разрушены гнилостными процессами. На всех черепах обнаружены огнестрельные повреждения, в большинстве своем сквозные. Входные отверстия расположены преимущественно в затылочной области и на некоторых черепах в височных областях. От огнестрельных повреждений отходят многочисленные трещины в костях черепа и некоторые черепа легко распадаются на отдельные отломки.</p><p>На этом обследование трех ям с трупами умер[щ]вленных советских граждан было закончено и трупы захоронены.</p><p>ГЛАВНЫЙ СУД. МЕД. ЭКСПЕРТ КРАСНОЙ АРМИИ ПОДПОЛКОВНИК М/С- ДОКТОР МЕД. НАУК-ПРОФЕССОР /АВДЕЕВ/</p><p>ВРАЧИ СПЕЦИАЛИСТЫ ФРОНТОВОЙ ПАТОЛОГО-АНАТОМИЧЕСКОЙ ЛАБОРАТОРИИ СКФ</p><p>МАЙОР МЕДСЛУЖБЫ: /ВОЛОЩЕНКО/</p><p>ВОЕНВРАЧ /ЛИХАЧЕВА/</p><p>СТ ЛЕЙТЕНАНТ АДМ[.]СЛ. /КОВБАСА/</p><p>ЛЕЙТЕНАНТ МЕДСЛУЖБЫ /ОСИПОВ/</p><p>ЛЕЙТЕНАНТ МЕДСЛУЖБЫ /ПЕЧЕНЕЖСКАЯ/</p></blockquote><p></p><p>Translation:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>ACT</p><p>of the examination of the mass grave, exhumation and forensic medical examination of 254 corpses of Soviet citizens who were killed in the city of Krasnodar, Krasnodar region, during the temporary occupation of Krasnodar by the German fascist troops.</p><p>Krasnodar</p><p>June, 17-18-19th, 1943.</p><p>At the suggestion of the Military Prosecutor's Office of the North Caucasus Front, the Commission composed of the Chief Forensic Expert of the Red Army - Lieutenant Colonel of Medical Service - Doctor of Medicine Professor AVDEEV, doctors-specialists of the front pathology-anatomical laboratory Major of Medical Service Voloshchenko D.L. and military doctor Likhacheva N.B, in the presence of Senior Lieutenant of the administrative service F.K. KOVBAS, Lieutenant G.B. OSIPOV of the medical service, and Lieutenant E.N. PECHENEZHSKAYA of the medical service - inspected the burial sites and exhumed and conducted a forensic medical examination of the 254 corpses of men, women and children.</p><div><div>The Commission found the following:</div><div><br /></div><div>І. Places of mass burial of corpses were found on the territory of the first division of the vineyard farm "Kraisovkhoztrest" of the sovkhoz № 1, adjacent to the north-eastern outskirts of the city of Krasnodar. On the territory of the first department of the sovkhoz three such burial sites were discovered /see attached location plan/:</div><div><br /></div><div>I/In the anti-tank ditch, which runs through the territory of the first section of the sovkhoz, forming an obtuse angle /A/;</div><div><br /></div><div>2/B near the anti-tank ditch /B/, and </div><div><br /></div><div>3/In the southeast corner of the first section of the sovkhoz, near the road leading to Krasnodar /C/.</div><div><br /></div><div>In all three pits 254 corpses were found: 145 men, 76 women, and 33 children and adolescents.</div><div><br /></div><div>All the corpses were examined and subjected to forensic examination.</div><div><br /></div><div>From the bodies in the anti-tank ditch and pit /B/ the fluid from the pleural cavities or pieces of tissues or organs were taken for testing for the presence of carboxyhemoglobin, in those cases where the fluid could not be extracted.</div><div><br /></div><div>II. "A" Antitank ditch.</div><div><br /></div><div>The anti-tank ditch is about 4 meters deep. From the place where the anti-tank ditch forms a corner and to the eastern boundary of the first section of the sovkhoz, for about 100 meters the level of the anti-tank ditch bottom is I/2-2 meters higher than in other places.</div><div><br /></div><div>At a distance of 15 meters from the corner of the anti-tank ditch, the bottom of the ditch was uncovered and at a depth of I 1/2-2 meters the bodies of men and women, some parts of clothes, headwear, a reed bag for food, with an apple and pieces of bread were found lying haphazardly.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Twelve corpses, seven male and five female, were extracted from the anti-tank ditch and subjected to forensic examination.</div><div><br /></div><div>Forensic examination of 12 corpses removed from the antitank moat</div><div><br /></div><div>Clothing: Two female and three male corpses were found without clothes. Other corpses were wearing old worn clothes, which were preserved rather well. No shoes were found on the corpses, except for one female corpse with torn galoshes on the feet.</div><div><br /></div><div>Age: 7 male corpses were 50-60-70 years old. One woman was 50-60 years old, two were 20-25 years old, and two were 30-35 years old.</div><div><br /></div><div>External examination of the corpses.</div><div><br /></div><div>The corpses were preserved rather well, no significant putrefactive changes were noted. The skin is moist and pale. On the posterior surface and on some corpses on the face, chest and limbs,<b> the skin is bright pink and red</b>. The upper layer of epidermis is easily peeled off all over and in some corpses from the hands and feet as gloves, with nails. <b>No mechanical injuries were found during the external examination of all 12 corpses.</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Internal examination of the corpses.</div><div><br /></div><div>All 12 corpses were opened and all showed the same characteristic changes. The soft covers of the skull are juicy, <b>scarlet in color</b>. The bones, calvaria and base of the skull were intact. The hard membrane was <b>scarlet-red in color</b>. The substance of the brain was of mushy consistency of gray-pink color. Skeletal muscles /thoracic, abdominal, intercostal, deep back muscles, thigh muscles/ are <b>scarlet-red</b>. The mediastinal tissue is <b>pinkish-red in color</b>. A small amount of <b>scarlet-red</b> fluid is detected in the pleural cavities. Heart cavities are empty, cardiac muscle is light red in color.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Lungs especially in posterior parts are <b>scarlet-red</b> on the sections. The spleen and especially the kidneys are <b>scarlet-red</b> on the sections. The liver is brick-red in color. The intestines are swollen with gas. <b>No mechanical injuries of internal organs, hemorrhages or accumulation of blood in the cavities of the skull, chest, and abdomen were found in any of the corpses.</b></div><div><br /></div><div>"B" - Pit at the anti-tank ditch.</div><div><br /></div><div>A pit with 221 corpses of men, women, children and adolescents was found 6 meters to the south from the anti-tank ditch.</div><div><br /></div><div>From the pit 117 corpses of men, 71 corpses of women, 33 corpses of children and adolescents were found.</div><div><br /></div><div>The corpses were lying in the pit in a disorderly manner in several layers.</div><div><br /></div><div>All corpses from the pit were extracted and subjected to forensic examination.</div><div><br /></div><div>Examination of corpses from pit "B".</div><div><br /></div><div>Clothing: 65 corpses of men and women were without clothes. The rest of the corpses were wearing old worn clothes, mostly winter clothes: quilted cotton pants, male corpses had two or three cotton pants, cotton undershirts, old woolen socks and stockings. Some corpses were half undressed with no top dress. The vast majority of the corpses turned out to be without shoes. Some had old worn shoes or cloth burkas.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>External inspection of the corpses.</div><div><br /></div><div>Some of the corpses were preserved rather well and have the same appearance as the corpses extracted from the anti-tank ditch, i.e. without significant putrefactive changes. Another part of corpses is more or less changed by putrefactive processes, up to significant putrefactive changes of soft tissues and internal organs.</div><div><br /></div><div>The preserved corpses had moist, pale skin, in some places with <b>bright pink-red coloring</b>. Upper layer of epidermis was easily detached and in some places absent. <b>No mechanical injuries were found on external examination of the preserved corpses. No injuries were also found on the corpses changed by putrefactive processes.</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Internal examination of the corpses.</div><div><br /></div><div>All corpses extracted from the pit "B" were dissected. All preserved corpses, unchanged by putrefactive processes, had similar characteristic changes, similar to those found during the autopsy of the corpses extracted from the antitank ditch. The soft covers of the skull are moist, juicy, <b>scarlet-red in color</b>. The bones of the calvaria and the base of the skull were intact. The hard membranes are <b>scarlet-red in color</b> and moist, brain tissue is mushy, dirty gray-pink color. Skeletal muscles all over /thighs, chest, abdominal wall, intercostal, dorsal/ are <b>scarlet-red</b>. Mediastinal tissue is <b>pinkish-red</b> in color. Small amounts of bright red fluid in pleural cavities. The internal organs: lungs, heart muscle, liver, spleen, and especially kidneys <b>have bright scarlet coloring</b> on sections. The gastrointestinal tract is swollen with gases. The stomachs of most corpses were empty, while some corpses had mushy mass in their stomachs. <b>A characteristic red or pinkish-red coloration is noted</b> in some preserved organs or muscles also on corpses altered to some degree by putrefaction.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>No mechanical injuries of soft tissues, internal organs, or skeletal bones were found in any of the corpses examined.</b></div><div><br /></div><div>"B," a pit in the southeast corner of the first division of 1st sovkhoz.</div><div><br /></div><div>In this pit, at a depth of about three meters, 21 male corpses, scraps of cloth and headdresses were found.</div><div><br /></div><div>The clothes on the corpses are old and worn and easily torn. The corpses had undergone significant cadaveric changes. Soft tissues are partially absent, mummified in places, but mostly turned into adipocere. Internal organs were also destroyed by putrefactive processes. Gunshot wounds were found on all skulls, most of them pass-through. Entry holes are located mainly in the occipital region and on some skulls in the temporal regions. Numerous fractures in the skull bones depart from the gunshot wounds, and some skulls easily disintegrate into separate fragments.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><div>At this point the examination of the three pits with the corpses of dead Soviet citizens was completed and the corpses were buried.</div><div><br /></div><div>CHIEF FORENSIC EXPERT OF THE RED ARMY LIEUTENANT-COLONEL OF MEDICAL SERVICE - DOCTOR OF MEDICAL SCIENCES - PROFESSOR /AVDEEV/.</div><div><br /></div><div>DOCTORS SPECIALISTS OF THE FRONT PATHOLOGICAL-ANATOMICAL LABORATORY OF THE NORTH CAUCASUS FRONT</div><div><br /></div><div>MAJOR OF MEDICAL SERVICE: /VOLOSHCHENKO/</div><div><br /></div><div>MILITARY DOCTOR /LIKHACHEVA/</div><div><br /></div><div>SENIOR LIEUTENANT OF ADM. SERVICE /KOVBASA/</div><div><br /></div><div>LIEUTENANT OF MEDICAL SERVICE /OSIPOV/</div><div><br /></div><div>LIEUTENANT OF MEDICAL SERVICE /PECHENEZHSKAYA/</div></div></blockquote><div><div></div></div><div><b>2. Conclusion of forensic experts on the opening of mass graves in Krasnodar and its environs.</b></div><div><p><a href="https://victims.rusarchives.ru/fsb-26-06-1943-zaklyuchenie-sudebno-medicinskoy-ekspertizy-o-vskrytii-massovykh-zakhoroneniy-v-krasnodare">Source</a>: TsA FSB, f. K-72, op.1, por. 33, l. d. 253–257.<span></span></p><!--more--><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgxbfT4cOTjuzYQbeUN8PNKcGPG3QOtjBw2LTGDfnhkC7eSvYqK4t2KqM_mh4CVaeRaawn0i-tXTJaDFVgiIIzbC3hxvpIBZ6zOZTD8SDvMmj7-jshJCtW5s9ArvtPeOPlFZVbXFmzQBP7gsaQh4qPWSAVnvPSPG0zU1J0I3dKGcICG4w7hWqWyDQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1136" data-original-width="783" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgxbfT4cOTjuzYQbeUN8PNKcGPG3QOtjBw2LTGDfnhkC7eSvYqK4t2KqM_mh4CVaeRaawn0i-tXTJaDFVgiIIzbC3hxvpIBZ6zOZTD8SDvMmj7-jshJCtW5s9ArvtPeOPlFZVbXFmzQBP7gsaQh4qPWSAVnvPSPG0zU1J0I3dKGcICG4w7hWqWyDQ" width="165" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjBA4hYBb_u6qHulm2dMYPFzAHYifatTx79uJtIW6X-aXq-4n4qH_AnVUAPajkEs4GdM59EqiB6k07W9Yp_ELW8DIrwiSlvrdoMmtYpzsGYfcg4hOtBAJr6kbscWAbcrUDrWfIkZviO4Ze0kM36emMSt_wvlcM_WaFpLLI8fLLfYDrtTE8BYqiKxQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1170" data-original-width="783" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjBA4hYBb_u6qHulm2dMYPFzAHYifatTx79uJtIW6X-aXq-4n4qH_AnVUAPajkEs4GdM59EqiB6k07W9Yp_ELW8DIrwiSlvrdoMmtYpzsGYfcg4hOtBAJr6kbscWAbcrUDrWfIkZviO4Ze0kM36emMSt_wvlcM_WaFpLLI8fLLfYDrtTE8BYqiKxQ" width="161" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgKbAXwQsBzMUYagJDgrAMhCh36I6zf3t3jVzbH5ZRBAau7WhcBIy77Qy5Q3fPRB6TMDTpoi29Pz2z9TNGOEXYzVHnm81EZjZnpwxscaMmoeKBV9TqUZD5MAe4cIi8r2yuFjn0ExlWP8RMron1j6PSNeSxVmegeSJZ3QTXFGv0fmhCm-YOCklnrYg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1170" data-original-width="783" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgKbAXwQsBzMUYagJDgrAMhCh36I6zf3t3jVzbH5ZRBAau7WhcBIy77Qy5Q3fPRB6TMDTpoi29Pz2z9TNGOEXYzVHnm81EZjZnpwxscaMmoeKBV9TqUZD5MAe4cIi8r2yuFjn0ExlWP8RMron1j6PSNeSxVmegeSJZ3QTXFGv0fmhCm-YOCklnrYg" width="161" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjgHjgah6MdAH9ilAh1yT2yMm_XB4yd6JOYe7-xaC4Yl3rU-L5CEWKYlTMH171ISEcgstiC5HhRn20juVo49hPTh6qcsIeaGHfpDErhwlKiJjxy6KDI_VhJUxCUkH4EpAv0a8XSZEenIUxZQWLdrEvq_RmB897G8j0pd7TVclfoTsHDc0gc8aVfdg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1170" data-original-width="783" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjgHjgah6MdAH9ilAh1yT2yMm_XB4yd6JOYe7-xaC4Yl3rU-L5CEWKYlTMH171ISEcgstiC5HhRn20juVo49hPTh6qcsIeaGHfpDErhwlKiJjxy6KDI_VhJUxCUkH4EpAv0a8XSZEenIUxZQWLdrEvq_RmB897G8j0pd7TVclfoTsHDc0gc8aVfdg" width="161" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiyScS3NQ2HdKgNvq_vKSDtcc3tuNR89RLn5xqQoTjky_Gl7SWVfztriMXqQLdamDtfkmOWy7AGxad4THEKaLn2I5MIkJY4yZY5f99_sFAIIdLb1ULSmLCrzXW6bhyBN5i_qdV-B9qxlp8SgCKJmRX-HJqAVHRp8skEh3xj5wKA54Rhnf7doEgIoQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1170" data-original-width="783" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiyScS3NQ2HdKgNvq_vKSDtcc3tuNR89RLn5xqQoTjky_Gl7SWVfztriMXqQLdamDtfkmOWy7AGxad4THEKaLn2I5MIkJY4yZY5f99_sFAIIdLb1ULSmLCrzXW6bhyBN5i_qdV-B9qxlp8SgCKJmRX-HJqAVHRp8skEh3xj5wKA54Rhnf7doEgIoQ" width="161" /></a></div><br /></div></div></div></div><div><br /></div><div></div><blockquote><div>ЗАКЛЮЧЕНИЕ</div><div><br /></div><div>Судебно-медицинская экспертная комиссия, в соответствии с с поставленными вопросами, приходит к следующему заключению:</div><div><br /></div><div>1) В период с 1-го марта по 26 июня 1943 г. судебно-медицинскими экспертами и судебно-медицинскими экспертными комиссиями было произведено 13 эксгумаций трупов, а именно:</div><div><br /></div><div>1 марта 1943 г. в противотанковом рву (совхоз № 1)...... - 100 трупов</div><div><br /></div><div>10 июня 1943 г. на Краснодарском городском кладбище ......... - 10 "</div><div><br /></div><div>17, 18, 19 июня 1943г. в противотанковом рву (совхоз № 1 яма "А") - 12 "</div><div><br /></div><div>-"- вблизи противотанкового рва (яма "Б")........ - 221 "</div><div><br /></div><div>-"- в могиле у дороги в г. Краснодар (яма "В") ... - 21 "</div><div><br /></div><div>20 июня 1943 г. в могиле близь хутора Чернышевка ............ - 42 "</div><div><br /></div><div>23 июня 1943 г. в противотанковом рву (совхоз № 1 яма № 1). - 51 "</div><div><br /></div><div>24 июня 1943 г. в противотанковом рву (совхоз № 1 яма № 2) - 45 "</div><div><br /></div><div>24 июня 1943 г. в противотанковом рву (совхоз № 1 яма № 3) - 50 "</div><div><br /></div><div>26 июня 1943 г. в противотанковом рву (Березан. колон. яма № 1) - 28 "</div><div><br /></div><div>26 июня 1943 г. в противотанковом рву (Березанская кол. яма № 2) - 5 "</div><div><br /></div><div>26 июня 1943 г. в противотанковом рву (Березан. кол. яма № 3) - 1 "</div><div><br /></div><div>26 июня 1943 г. в противотанковом рву (Березан. кол. яма № 4) - 37 "</div><div><br /></div><div>Всего - 623 трупов</div><div><br /></div><div>В процессе производства эксгумаций трупов раскрытию были подвергнуты лишь отдельное могилы, или отдельные участки больших могил (ямы). Места эксгумаций трупов были сфотографированы. После осмотра трупов на месте их нахождения (в ямах) они извлекались и подвергались судебно-медицинским исследованиям, во время которых производилось из"ятие материалов (крови, жидкости и пр.) для судебно-химического и спектроскопического анализа.</div><div><br /></div><div>На основании судебно-медицинских, судебно-химических и спектроскопических исследований констатированы два вида причин насильственной смерти: от сквозных, огнестрельных пулевых ранений и от отравления окисью углерода (СО).</div><div><br /></div><div>2) В отношении возраста и пола при исследовании эксгумированных трупов установлены следующие данные:</div><div><br /></div><div><i>[Далее таблица по уже перечисленным местам захоронений.</i></div><div><i>Суммарные данные:</i></div><div><i>Дети: 85</i></div><div><i>Женщины до 50 лет: 183</i></div><div><i>Женщины свыше 50 лет: 73</i></div><div><i>Мужчины до 50 лет: 157</i></div><div><i>Мужчины свыше 50 лет: 125</i></div><div><i>Всего: 623]</i></div><div><br /></div><div>3) На основании:</div><div>а) Судебно-медицинских данных - розовой,розово-красной, и ярко-красной окраски кожных покровов, слизистой губ, скелетных мышц, наружной оболочки сердца, брюшины, наружной оболочки кишечника, слизистой оболочки желудка, поверхности разрезов почек и, в некоторая случаях, других внутренних органов (напр. легких, сердца), -</div><div>б) Судебно-химических и спектроскопических исследований крови, кровянистой жидкости и кусочков органов, из"ятых из трупов при судебно-медицинских исследованиях -</div><div><br /></div><div>- установлено,что причиной смерти в 523 случаях было отравление окисью углерода.</div><div><br /></div><div>4) Окись углерода (в чистом виде) - бесцветный газ, без вкуса, с очень слабым запахом (обычно не ощутимым), слегка напоминающим запах чеснока, образуется при неполном сгорании углеродосодержащих веществ, как в производственных, так и бытовых условиях, обычно в смеси с другими газообразными веществами.</div><div><br /></div><div>Выхлопные газы представяяют собой смесь химически газообразных веществ - окиси углерода, углекислоты, кислорода, метана, водорода, азота и др.</div><div><br /></div><div>Содержание окиси углерода в выхлопных газах колеблется в пределах от 1 до 13,72%, в среднем - 7%.</div><div><br /></div><div>5) Окись углерода обладает высокими токсическими свойствами и отнооится к группе кровяных ядов. Она вступает в соединение с гемоглобином крови, образуя карбоксигемоглобин, вследствие чего кровь становится неспособной к восприятию кислорода; при больших концентрациях окиси углерода в крови наступает отравленне и смерть от асфиксии (удушения). Поскольку в отработанных газах от дизельного мотора содержится окись углерода, то в закрытых помещениях возникают несмертельные и смертельные отравления окисыо углерода.</div><div><br /></div><div>6) Интенсивность развития отравления окисью углерода находится в прямой зависимости от ее концентрации в воздухе того помещения, где находится человек. Если источник поступления окиси углерода (в том числе и выхлопные газы) находится в закрытом помещении, то концентрация окиси углерода в воздухе этого помещения наростает чрезвычайно быстро, что может привести к наступлению смерти даже в течение нескольких минут (до 5-10). Эта обстановка смертельного действия окиси углерода, безусловно, может иметь место при поступлении отработанных газов от дизельного мотора в закрытое помещение.</div><div><br /></div><div>7) Из числа 623 эксгумированных трупов, кроме 523 случаев отравления окисью углерода, констатировано 100 случаев смерти от сквозных, огнестрельных пулевых ранений.-</div><div><br /></div><div>ГЛАВНЫЙ СУД.МЕД.ЭКСПЕРТ НАРКОМЗДРАВА СССР</div><div>ДИРЕКТОР ЦЕНТРАЛЬНОГО НАУЧНО-ИССЛЕДОВАТЕЛЬСКОГО Ин-та СУДЕБНОЙ МЕДИЦИНЫ НКЗдрава СССР - ДОКТОР (ПРОЗОРОВСКИЙ)</div><div><br /></div><div>ГЛАВНЫЙ СУД.МЕД.ЭКСПЕРТ НАРКОМЗДРАВА РСФСР - ЗАВЕДУЮЩИЙ КАФЕДРОЙ СУДЕБНОЙ МЕДИЦИНЫ - 2 МОСКОВ.МЕД.ИНСТИТУТА - ДОЦЕНТ (СМОЛЬЯНИНОВ)</div><div><br /></div><div>ГЛАВНЫЙ СУДЕБНО-МЕДИЦИНСКИЙ ЭКСПЕРТ КРАСНОЙ АРМИИ - ПОДПОЛКОВНИК МЕДСЛУЖБЫ ДОКТОР МЕДИЦИНСКИХ НАУК - ПРОФЕССОР (АВДЕЕВ)</div><div><br /></div><div>КОНСУЛЬТАНТ МОСКОВСКОЙ ГОРОДСКОЙ СУДЕБНО-МЕДИЦИНСКОЙ ЭКСПЕРТИЗЫ - ДОКТОР (СЕМЕНОВСКИЙ)</div><div><br /></div><div>СУДЕБНЫЙ ХИМИК: (СОКОЛОВ)</div></blockquote><div></div></div><div><br /></div><div>Translation:</div><div><br /></div><div><div></div><blockquote><div>CONCLUSION</div><div><br /></div><div>The forensic medical expert commission, in accordance with the questions posed, comes to the following conclusion: </div></blockquote><blockquote><div>1) In the period from March 1 to June 26, 1943, forensic medical experts and forensic medical expert commissions carried out 13 exhumations of corpses, namely:</div><div><br /></div><div>March 1, 1943 in an anti-tank ditch (state farm № 1)...... - 100 corpses</div><div><br /></div><div>June 10, 1943 in the Krasnodar city cemetery ......... - 10 "</div><div><br /></div><div>June 17, 18, 19, 1943 in the anti-tank ditch (state farm № 1 pit "A") - 12 "</div><div><br /></div><div>-" - "- near the anti-tank ditch (pit "B")........ - 221 "</div><div><br /></div><div>- "- in a grave near the road to the city of Krasnodar (pit "V") ... - 21 "</div><div><br /></div><div>June 20, 1943 in a grave near the khutor Chernyshevka ............ - 42 "</div><div><br /></div><div>June 23, 1943 in an anti-tank ditch (state farm № 1 pit № 1). - 51 "</div><div><br /></div><div>June 24, 1943 in the anti-tank ditch (state farm № 1 pit № 2) - 45 "</div><div><br /></div><div>June 24, 1943 in the anti-tank ditch (state farm № 1 pit № 3) - 50 "</div><div><br /></div><div>June 26, 1943 in the anti-tank ditch (Berezanskaya [corrective labor] colony pit № 1) - 28 "</div><div><br /></div><div>June 26, 1943 in the anti-tank ditch (Berezanskaya [corrective labor] colony pit № 2) - 5 "</div><div><br /></div><div>June 26, 1943 in the anti-tank ditch (Berezanskaya [corrective labor] colony pit № 3) - 1 "</div><div><br /></div><div>June 26, 1943 in the anti-tank ditch (Berezanskaya [corrective labor] ccolony pit № 4) - 37 "</div><div><br /></div><div>Total - 623 corpses</div><div><br /></div><div>In the process of exhumations of corpses, only individual graves or parts of large graves (pits) were uncovered. The places of exhumation of corpses were photographed. After the corpses were examined at their location (in the pits), they were removed and subjected to forensic medical examinations, during which materials (blood, liquids, etc.) were extracted for forensic chemical and spectroscopic analysis.</div><div><br /></div><div>On the basis of forensic medical, forensic chemical and spectroscopic studies, two types of causes of violent death were established: from penetrating gunshot bullet wounds and <b>from carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning.</b></div><div><br /></div><div>2) With regard to age and sex, the following data were established during the study of exhumed corpses:</div><div><br /></div><div><i>[Then follows a table with the data for the burial sites already listed.</i></div><div><i>Summarized data:</i></div><div><i>Children: 85</i></div><div><i>Women under 50: 183</i></div><div><i>Women over 50: 73</i></div><div><i>Men under 50: 157</i></div><div><i>Men over 50: 125</i></div><div><i>Total: 623]</i></div><div><br /></div><div>3) On the basis of:</div><div><b>a) Forensic data - pink, pink-red, and bright red coloration of skin, lip mucous membranes, skeletal muscles, outer membrane of the heart, peritoneum, outer membrane of the intestines, mucous membrane of the stomach, cut surfaces of kidneys and, in some cases, other internal organs (e.g. lungs, heart), -.</b></div><div><b>b) Forensic chemical and spectroscopic studies of blood, bloody fluid and pieces of organs extracted from corpses in forensic investigations -.</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>- It was established that the cause of death in 523 cases was carbon monoxide poisoning.</b></div><div><br /></div><div>4) Carbon monoxide (in its pure form) is a colorless, tasteless gas with a very faint odor (usually not perceptible), slightly resembling the smell of garlic, formed by incomplete combustion of carbon-containing substances, both in industrial and domestic conditions, usually in a mixture with other gaseous substances.</div><div><br /></div><div>Exhaust gases are a mixture of chemically gaseous substances - carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, oxygen, methane, hydrogen, nitrogen and others.</div><div><br /></div><div>The content of carbon monoxide in exhaust gases varies from 1 to 13,72%, on average - 7%.</div><div><br /></div><div>5) Carbon monoxide has strong toxic properties and belongs to the group of blood poisons. It combines with hemoglobin in the blood to form carboxyhemoglobin, as a result of which the blood becomes unable to take up oxygen; at high concentrations of carbon monoxide in the blood there is poisoning and death from asphyxia (suffocation). Since the exhaust gases from a diesel engine contain carbon monoxide, non-fatal and fatal carbon monoxide poisonings occur in enclosed spaces.</div></blockquote><p><i>[In fact, <a href="https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2015/11/rebuttal-of-alvarez-on-gas-vans-why.html">all the gas vans had gasoline engines</a>, which readily produce CO. -SR] </i></p><blockquote><div>6) The intensity of the development of carbon monoxide poisoning is directly related to its concentration in the air of the room where the person is located. If the source of carbon monoxide (including exhaust gases) is in a closed room, the concentration of carbon monoxide in the air of this room increases extremely quickly, which can lead to death even within a few minutes (up to 5-10). This environment of lethal effect of carbon monoxide can certainly occur when diesel exhaust gases enter a closed room.</div><div><br /></div><div>7) Out of 623 exhumed corpses, in addition to 523 cases of carbon monoxide poisoning, 100 cases of death from penetrating, gunshot bullet wounds were found.</div><div><br /></div><div>CHIEF FORENSIC MEDICAL EXPERT OF THE USSR PEOPLE'S COMMISSARIAT OF HEALTH</div><div>DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRAL SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH INSTITUTE OF FORENSIC MEDICINE OF THE USSR PEOPLE'S COMMISSARIAT OF HEALTH - DOCTOR (PROZOROVSKY)</div><div><br /></div><div>CHIEF FORENSIC MEDICAL EXPERT OF THE PEOPLE'S COMMISSARIAT OF HEALTH OF THE RSFSR - HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF FORENSIC MEDICINE - 2ND MOSCOW MEDICAL INSTITUTE - ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR (SMOLYANINOV)</div><div><br /></div><div>CHIEF FORENSIC MEDICAL EXPERT OF THE RED ARMY - LIEUTENANT COLONEL OF THE MEDICAL SERVICE DOCTOR OF MEDICAL SCIENCES - PROFESSOR (AVDEEV)</div><div><br /></div><div>CONSULTANT OF THE MOSCOW CITY FORENSIC MEDICAL EXAMINATION - DOCTOR (SEMENOVSKY)</div><div><br /></div><div>FORENSIC CHEMIST: (SOKOLOV)</div></blockquote><div></div></div><div><br /></div><div>To be posted as time permits:</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://victims.rusarchives.ru/index.php/fsb-16-07-1943-zaklyuchenie-sudebno-medicinskoy-ekspertnoy-komissii-v-sudebnom-zasedanii-voennogo-tribunala">Findings of the forensic expert commission at the trial of the Military Tribunal of the North Caucasus Front in Krasnodar with the results of the study of the mass graves of victims of the Nazi terror in the area of Krasnodar</a></div><div><a href="https://victims.rusarchives.ru/index.php/fsb-16-07-1943-zaklyuchenie-sudebno-medicinskoy-ekspertnoy-komissii-o-rezultatakh-sudebno-medicinskoy-ekspertizy">Findings of the Forensic Expert Commission on the results of the forensic examination of the corpses of people found at the sites of mass graves and shootings in the vicinity of Krasnodar</a></div>Sergey Romanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04063444062099331337noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24597325.post-87372198202765069672023-05-21T12:23:00.000+01:002023-05-21T12:23:28.688+01:00Source of yet another fake "fake Holocaust photo" found.<p>Rick Yair emailed us to tell about the source of one of those <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2017/05/rebutting-twitter-denial-most-popular.html#photos">photoshopped photos</a> that the Holocaust denier liars like to spread on social networks claiming they are "original" while the actual original photos are fake.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidNMrbTb0oSwxmkWeUP2dzUNs-j2VWDDi0IAttvD_I3PNlUMJ8Yrz8Nrie3mydjqv69FbX4hLqvInJJF6a9bb4GAXEkcu4xBkLBiz3Hk7fQEGvhDvEkCA2BF7pLfV7eVQ6YjnaD68uIDZRc4kmEy-jZ08sbRRg8VBgnek69dZ6G-dgXaxJrKE/s589/twimem25.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="539" data-original-width="589" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidNMrbTb0oSwxmkWeUP2dzUNs-j2VWDDi0IAttvD_I3PNlUMJ8Yrz8Nrie3mydjqv69FbX4hLqvInJJF6a9bb4GAXEkcu4xBkLBiz3Hk7fQEGvhDvEkCA2BF7pLfV7eVQ6YjnaD68uIDZRc4kmEy-jZ08sbRRg8VBgnek69dZ6G-dgXaxJrKE/s320/twimem25.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>Turned out that it came from a sort of an art project "<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20061130070006/http://www.revisionistphotos.com/index.html">Revisionist Photos. Removing the Horrors of the Third Reich From the Pages of History</a>", in which various objects and people were photoshopped out of the original Nazi and Holocaust <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20061130065854/http://www.revisionistphotos.com/directory.html">photos</a>:</p><p></p><blockquote><p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20061130202857/http://www.revisionistphotos.com/introduction.html">The Holocaust</a> was one of the most horrific events in human history.</p><p>It is also one of the best documented.</p><p>Still, there are those who deny it ever happened.</p><p>Come with me and visit a world where these revisionists have won. A world where facts too painful to be remembered are simply erased, and the sins of facism are eliminated en masse.</p><p>Experience Revisionist Photos</p></blockquote><p></p><p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070810170004/http://www.revisionistphotos.com/photos/oven.html">Here</a> is the page with the edited photo in question. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20230521111218/https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/photo/demonstrating-the-operation-of-the-dachau-crematorium-3">Here</a> is the original, which is a part of a <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/search/results/?q=reenactment+photographs+in+the+crematorium+dachau+survivors">series</a>.</p><p>While the author of the project might have had good intentions, the idea was extremely dumb, if only because it was to be expected that the dumb and/or dishonest Holocaust deniers will use exactly such images to spread their lies - and voila, they are doing exactly this.</p>Sergey Romanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04063444062099331337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24597325.post-11382605702881689462023-02-20T11:29:00.002+00:002023-05-20T09:35:53.060+01:00Once more on judicial notice and article 21 of the IMT Charter.Earlier I already <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2018/04/debunking-youtube-denial.html#provenatnuremberg">presented</a> evidence that the dogmatic Soviet interpretation of the article 21 of the Nuremberg Charter (that the official Allied evidence was irrefutable due to judicial notice) was not supported by the International Military Tribunal. Ironically, the Holocaust deniers seem to share the rejected Soviet interpretation. So it is useful to post this official IMT <a href="https://exhibits.stanford.edu/virtual-tribunals/catalog/gk247nn1558">protocol</a> that decisively refuted the claim that according to the article 21 the Allied evidence was basically irrefutable. The article 21 concerned itself with the mere technicality of how the evidence was introduced. The defense had a right to debunk such evidence and the Tribunal was free to ignore any official Allied evidence in its judgment as it saw fit and was not bound to assign any special probative value to it.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaN5Oh8cv5Epf-up4PamltFC7LuDhxj5Dr7bE-wdrMcjMF88_CBnqdetojAfU_fmbzCjUbO5cP5vfBt-mOLkwZchVPtFuxS40YZxLYroEQL5ZnvlBZMk9-4GUc2JjGNMvsvqfbaFYZAkofOEQ3te99-H9UfyXNPwA29DOLR8Z8yZSyIkfucm4/s2144/gk247nn1558_0052.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2144" data-original-width="1310" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaN5Oh8cv5Epf-up4PamltFC7LuDhxj5Dr7bE-wdrMcjMF88_CBnqdetojAfU_fmbzCjUbO5cP5vfBt-mOLkwZchVPtFuxS40YZxLYroEQL5ZnvlBZMk9-4GUc2JjGNMvsvqfbaFYZAkofOEQ3te99-H9UfyXNPwA29DOLR8Z8yZSyIkfucm4/s320/gk247nn1558_0052.jpg" width="196" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3DI3PK_OMjb7O3R4JIymleDmFrTmS9zof9BS5BOmudI2q9Qrx_gcJDZqKOxkoEqKvNxwnuhVbarmcpbA-XFsshkA7o6dus9heNQO6HuKj77vwZb7lGjgATPyLCLi0i_lwohfrCDIHGazyWC4PKDYsWKobDt5r0xc0YzsYlXon4IlSGGA6UrI/s2134/gk247nn1558_0053.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2134" data-original-width="1319" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3DI3PK_OMjb7O3R4JIymleDmFrTmS9zof9BS5BOmudI2q9Qrx_gcJDZqKOxkoEqKvNxwnuhVbarmcpbA-XFsshkA7o6dus9heNQO6HuKj77vwZb7lGjgATPyLCLi0i_lwohfrCDIHGazyWC4PKDYsWKobDt5r0xc0YzsYlXon4IlSGGA6UrI/s320/gk247nn1558_0053.jpg" width="198" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC3YYffrWKW8s7aREmJJf6X1IRosrXhcsnDxOTWwVIz_IxfbPZmdUJROoCduJcZCrtxJQRxSHfoR6Ci58vLYT9A0KqfK2bqFkeyoOpYCRyY4iDdTxC3DwAX1ygcMMr57jaQJAtsYmIMOljhxIWH35yF8ka-u-fgr-9MSVYSiVa0MIEqBa53c8/s2131/gk247nn1558_0054.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2131" data-original-width="1311" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC3YYffrWKW8s7aREmJJf6X1IRosrXhcsnDxOTWwVIz_IxfbPZmdUJROoCduJcZCrtxJQRxSHfoR6Ci58vLYT9A0KqfK2bqFkeyoOpYCRyY4iDdTxC3DwAX1ygcMMr57jaQJAtsYmIMOljhxIWH35yF8ka-u-fgr-9MSVYSiVa0MIEqBa53c8/s320/gk247nn1558_0054.jpg" width="197" /></a></div><br /><span face="sans-serif" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span><p></p>Sergey Romanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04063444062099331337noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24597325.post-36160779284071157522023-02-14T19:00:00.032+00:002023-08-05T07:30:42.458+01:00Debunking Grover Furr's Katyn screed.<div>In this posting I will analyze Grover Furr's 2018 book <i>The Mystery of the Katyn Massacre: The Evidence, the Solution</i>. A copy can be found online. I've already <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/search/label/Grover%20Furr">dealt</a> with Furr several times at this blog, demonstrating his ignorance and lack of honesty and I have already dealt with some key arguments from this book here and elsewhere. As it is still used by the deniers of history to whitewash criminals, it is useful to take a closer look at it.</div><div><br /></div><div>It is not the aim of this post to educate beginners about Katyn - in fact, following the arguments in this post can at times require some relatively advanced knowledge of the issue. The discussion is often compact (readers are supposed to have read and understood Furr's arguments on their own) and sometimes the counter-argumentation is presented in form of links to my Russian Katyn website with more details. That said, let me give a relatively short overview of the Katyn evidence.</div><div><span><a name='more'></a></span><p>Unlike originally in 1943, today the Katyn massacre is not tied only to the small Katyn forest near Smolensk. Nowadays it is an umbrella term for a whole series of massacres of the Polish POWs (from the POW camps Starobelsky, Kozelsky and Ostashkovsky, or, in English, the Starobelsk (Russian version will be used), Kozelsk and Ostashkov camps) and inmates from the prisons in the western parts of Ukraine and Belarus (annexed in 1939) in the spring (and in case of the prisoners even in the summer) of 1940, committed on Stalin's order (more specifically, the 05.03.1940 order of the Politburo). The grave sites are in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.</p></div><div><div>There were about 22000 victims in all, most were ethnic Poles, but there were numerous ethnicities otherwise represented among them, including ethnic Germans, Ukrainians, Jews. Since they were former Polish citizens, we will use the term "Poles" in the sense of nationality here, when referring to the victims.</div><div><br /></div><div>Since the victims included thousands of officers (fewer than half of the whole number), including generals, and a huge chunk of the Polish elite (reserve officers), their disappearance (lack of correspondence and any credible information about their whereabouts) was noticed immediately, and especially after the USSR failed to release them along with all the other amnestied Polish POWs in 1941. The Polish Government-in-Exile (PGiE) drafted the lists of the missing persons and unsuccessfully tried to clear up their fate by gathering information from the POWs previously held in USSR as well as by asking the NKVD officials and even Stalin directly (e. g. Sikorski and Anders tried to do it). They were met with evasive <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-katyn-antikatyn.html#location">answers</a> boiling down to „we don’t know what happened to them“. During and after the war some Polish officials (including the pro-Soviet ones) who had been contacted by the Soviet side with the aim of helping to create a Polish army in the USSR (and of course inquired about the army officers from Kozelsk and Starobelsk) would remember that the NKVD officials' replies were vague, talking about the officers' unavailability and some mistake that had happened (possibly hinting at having handed over the POWs to the Germans - something we <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/book-katyn-2.html#175doc">know</a> did not happen to this particular group).</div><div><br /></div><div>In early 1943 the Germans reported finding the bodies of some of the missing POWs in the Katyn forest near Smolensk (those turned out to be the bodies of the Kozelsk camp POWs). The worst Polish suspicions seemed to be confirmed by the findings: the bulk of the names matched the missing persons; the documents on the bodies (letters, newspapers, diaries) were dated not later than the spring of 1940; the locals confirmed that the Poles were shot by the NKVD (this happened not only through the filter of the official German reports, which alone had little credibility, but also in personal talks during the visits to the site).</div><div><br /></div><div>After the PGiE called on the Red Cross to investigate the allegations and USSR immediately broke all diplomatic relations with it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Nevertheless, the evidence was extremely problematic in the eyes of the world. It was thought to have been gathered only by the Nazis and was propagandized by the agencies of the well-known liar Goebbels (indeed, the Nazis tried to blame the massacre on Jews and even published a fake list of Jewish names of the alleged NKVD men, though this was soon "forgotten" and the names never appeared in the final German report; the list has been recently resurrected in the social networks, along with many other absurdities from the previous centuries). Little was known about the fact that the Polish Red Cross took part in the exhumations and in its internal documentation confirmed their general authenticity, while pointing out various problems. Moreover, the Western Allies knew that the whole affair was only a maneuver on the Nazis' part in order to split the Allies, and thus chose to ignore the revelations.</div><div><br /></div><div>In January of 1944 a Soviet investigative commission under Dr. Burdenko re-exhumed several hundred bodies in the Katyn forest and unsurprisingly "established" that the deed was done by the Germans (the guilt was ascribed to the Germans already in the name of the commission, so it could not have been otherwise). The reinterrogated witnesses said their previous testimonies were coerced by the Germans; several documents were allegedly found on the bodies dated long after the spring of 1940 (allegedly overlooked by the Germans). The commission's report settled the matter for many, or at the very least reduced it to a he-said-she-said, despite the fact that it did not clear up the fate of the missing officers from the other camps.</div><div><br /></div><div>During the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg the Soviet Union tried to blame Katyn on the Germans, specifically it came up in the case against Goering. Internally, the Soviet judges argued that the Trial rules meant that the Burdenko report should be accepted as evidence and cannot be disputed. But the Western judges did not let the Soviets' trick slide and pointed out that although the rules allow for the report to be accepted as evidence, its veracity can be disputed by the defense. The judges reached a compromise – each side would provide 3 witnesses, who then testified. It was arguably a wash, likely unable to change the already formed opinions or remove doubts, and Katyn was not mentioned in the verdict, thus leaving the matter legally open.</div><div><br /></div><div>During the Cold War the old political considerations did not matter anymore; in fact, Katyn could be used well against USSR. So there were several attempts to investigate it further, the most famous one being the Madden commission (The Select Committee to Conduct an Investigation and Study of the Facts, Evidence, and Circumstances of the Katyn Forest Massacre). In 1951-52 this House committee interrogated numerous witnesses (along with examining other evidence). This included the representatives of the PGiE, the former Polish POWs (incl. Prof. Stanisław Swianiewicz who testified about having seen his fellow POWs shortly before they were brought to the Katyn forest, while he himself was taken off the transport), the people who took part in exhumations, and even the former American Nuremberg prosecutor Jackson.</div><div><br /></div><div>Albeit not without flaws (e. g. the commission examined an anonymous witness whom we know to be fake today – he testified about having witnessed the shooting; they also took some of the false rumors about the Ostashkov POWs having been drowned in barges somewhere seriously), the general picture painted by the commission was credible – there was the problem of the missing POWs, the Soviet side has failed to account for it sufficiently and the only plausible answer not requiring acrobatic assumptions was that the Soviet Union did it. The Soviet Union largely ignored the event, basically reissuing the Burdenko report in response (along with making some old witnesses repeat their stories).</div><div><br /></div><div>Various researchers took up the topic from time to time, but there was not much new to add to the results of the Madden commission. A fake document, the so-called Tartakov report, seemingly confirming the shooting by the NKVD (most probably <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/pamyatnykh-tartakov-report.html">forged</a> by the Polish émigré Mieczysław Gorączko), surfaced in the 1950s and was even used by some researchers (like Louis FitzGibbon), but that was that.</div><div><br /></div><div>The real breakthrough came in the late 1980s, when the Soviet historians Lebedeva, Parsadanova et al. found and analyzed the archive of the Main Administration for Affairs of Prisoners of War and Internees in the Special Archive in Moscow. They noted that the traces of the POWs abruptly end in the spring of 1940 with their transfers, e. g. in case of Kozelsk they were mostly sent to the train station Gnezdovo (near Smolensk and Katyn forest). The sequence of the layers in the Katyn graves was alleged to apparently somewhat correlate with the transfer lists (since no thorough study of this claim has been published, I bring it up only for completeness' sake, since it was <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/sealed-envelope-aprf-text.html#falin">mentioned</a> as an argument). The Burdenko report was re-examined and its inconsistencies pointed out (e. g. <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ntv-goebbels-apt-pupils.html#docs">no</a> POW camps with designations „ON“ <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-vyazemlag.html">existed</a>). It became clear that the POWs really disappeared from the internal Soviet records after the spring of 1940, which was extremely telling. The "missing Poles" issue, relevant already during the war, has now been confirmed by the Soviet documents. Albeit the evidence was indirect, but it was still obviously damning and had only one plausible explanation.</div><div><br /></div><div>In 1990 Gorbachev, based on the historians' findings, officially admitted the Soviet guilt. However, Gorbachev also <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/boldin-memoir.html">knew</a> about the documents in the so-called sealed envelope in the Kremlin archive and chose not to reveal them.</div><div><br /></div><div>Meanwhile the Soviet Prosecutors‘ Office started an official investigation into the Katyn-related crimes. It turned out that the Katyn forest was just one of several mass grave sites related to the crime. Several old ex-members of the NKVD <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content_docs.html#soprunenko">confirmed</a> having taken part in the massacre in various roles, the head of the Kalinin UNKVD Tokarev <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/tokarev-transcript.html">described</a> the massacre in the Kalinin prison (Ostashkov POWs) in detail. Mass graves in <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/pamyatnykh-mednoje-photos.html">Mednoye</a> (at Kalinin, now Tver) and Pyatikhatki (Kharkiv) were partially investigated (remains of several hundred people were exhumed), the results were telling – the Polish POWs from Ostahskov and Starobelsk were indeed found, the documents found on the bodies were dated not later than the spring of 1940.</div><div><br /></div><div>All this had already amply confirmed the Soviet guilt, but then came a new revelation, already after the fall of the USSR, under the Russian President Yeltsin. He was given the <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/sealed-envelope-color.html">sealed envelope</a> no.1 by Gorbachev and some time later allowed to make it public. Among other things it contained Beria’s March 1940 proposal to shoot the Poles, with positive resolutions by Stalin and other Politburo members; the official protocol of the Politburo decision; and the head of KGB Shelepin’s 1957 note proposing to destroy about 22,000 case files of the Poles shot on Stalin’s order. The documents were revealed in 1992 and published in the same year in Warsaw (complete versions) and, in January of 1993 in Russia (text versions with some facsimile fragments).</div><div><br /></div><div>This brought new information to light: the victims were not only about 15,000 POWs but also about 7000 prison inmates, about which heretofore not much had been known. (Their existence was suggested by the numeration gaps in the troika protocols, and the new documents helped to explain the gaps).</div><div><br /></div><div>Meanwhile, the Polish prosecutorial and archeological teams conducted their own <i>partial</i> exhumations in Katyn, Mednoye, Pyatikhatki, Bykivnia (further confirming the Soviet guilt; in Mednoye and Pyatikhatki alone the remains of no fewer than 4260 persons were found, the graves were decisively dated to the spring of 1940). And some time later the former Ukrainian KGB files in Kyiv about Pyatikhatki were opened and revealed some further information about the inmates of prisons who were shot (the <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/gdasbu-1.html">correspondence</a> about the so-called Ukrainian list), and about the KGB plans in 1969 to destroy the graves in Pyatikhatki (these <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/gdasbu-2.html">internal KGB documents</a> once again openly acknowledge the Soviet guilt).</div><div><br /></div><div>Such is basically the state of knowledge today, very shortly. Still not clear are the location of the graves of the inmates from UkrSSR and BSSR (except for the Bykivnia graves) and the names of the victims from BSSR (the Belorussian list is still missing).</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Some of this evidence is addressed by Furr, some is ignored, as we will see. While reading this critique, keep in mind, that Furr openly posits "a worldwide anticommunist conspiracy to ignore the truth about Katyn, as about many other alleged "crimes of Stalin" (p. 100). </div><div><br /></div><div>And let me preempt a couple of usual responses, which, as I know from experience, may be coming.</div><div><br /></div><div>1. "He uses invective against Furr, therefore there is no need to answer his arguments".</div><div><br /></div><div>I don't think Furr is an opponent worthy of respect, that's true. I demonstrate his dishonesty and brazenness with which he makes claims based on his ignorance and ideological blindness, often without the simplest factchecking. My arguments still stand, whether I use invective or not.</div><div><br /></div><div>(Presumably, Furr would agree with that last sentence, since he recommends Mukhin, who is known for his use of invective against his opponents. And while Furr mostly tries to use academic language (if not academic practices), his numerous and baseless claims of researchers lying, not being real historians etc. are basically invective.)</div><div><br /></div><div>2. "He simply proposes hypotheses, not facts, so he proved nothing!" </div><div><br /></div><div>In order to debunk an argument <i>based on the lack of plausible alternatives</i> it is sufficient to propose one.</div><div><br /></div><div>There are several types of counter-arguments. Some debunk Furr's arguments directly with evidence, and I provide plenty of those. However, some of Furr's arguments basically boil down to an implicit claim, that no equally (or more) plausible alternative explanation for this or that state of facts exists. It then suffices to present just such an explanation, even if hypothetical, to destroy the argument's structure, since it was based on the alleged lack of such alternatives in the first place.</div><div><br /></div><div>And now let the fisking begin.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="#preface">"Preface"</a></div><div><a href="#ch1">"Chapter 1. The Evidence That Can't Be Impugned"</a></div><div><div><a href="#ch2">"Chapter 2. The German Report - Amtliches Material (AM)"</a></div><div><a href="#ch3">"Chapter 3. The Burdenko Report."</a></div><div><a href="#ch4">"Chapter 4, Closed Packet No. 1"</a></div><div><a href="#ch5">"Chapter 5. The Excavations at Volodymyr-Volyns'kiy"</a></div><div><a href="#ch6">"Chapter 6. What the Unimpeachable Evidence Shows"</a></div><div><a href="#ch7">"Chapter 7. The German Report"</a></div><div><a href="#ch8">"Chapter 8. The German Report, continued. Sakharov's Article "Secrets of Katyn"</a></div><div><a href="#ch9">"Chapter 9. The German Report, continued: Sakharov's Article 'German Documents'"</a></div><div><a href="#ch10">"Chapter 10. The Burdenko Commission Report"</a></div><div><a href="#ch11">"Chapter 11. Nuremberg, the Madden Commission"</a></div><div><a href="#ch12">"Chapter 12. The Excavations at Volodymyr Volyns'kiy"</a></div><div><a href="#ch13">"Chapter 13. The 'Ukrainian Trail of Katyn'"</a></div><div><a href="#ch14">"Chapter 14. Conclusion - The Katyn Forest Mystery Solved", appendix 1 and the 2020 article.</a></div><div><br /></div><div><b><a name="preface"></a>"Preface."</b></div></div><div><p>In it Furr summarizes quite a lot of his book, so most of the points will be addressed when he comes to them in later chapters. A couple of observations:</p><p></p><blockquote>P. 9: "Mr. Romanov also made a significant error in historical method."</blockquote><p></p><p>Furr doesn't prove any such error and quite soon it will become obvious, that it is he who is completely clueless about the historical method.</p><p></p><blockquote>P. 11: "Holmes' words - that is, Conan Doyle's - precisely express my deeper motive in researching and writing this book. For there is "neither money nor credit in it." On the contrary, I can be assured that I will be attacked and slandered by those who are horrified to look the truth in the face and discover that it is not at all what they want it to be, Yet "one would wish to tidy it up" - to solve the mystery."</blockquote><p></p><p>His motive could not be clearer: he is a Stalinist fanatic, who claims not to have found a single crime committed by Stalin (p. 12).</p><p></p><blockquote>P. 12: "A bigger problem is that very few of the persons involved in studying Katyn are objective. They have decided that the "official" version is correct; that the Soviets killed the Polish POWs and that there is no doubt remaining about this. Moreover, they have decided that it is perverse to even raise the question. That simply to approach Katyn as a mystery implies that the solution has not been definitively determined for all time, and is therefore a dishonest thing to do, since it implies the possibility that the Soviets might not have done it. This attitude has discouraged objective study of Katyn."</blockquote><p></p><p>This begs the very question, simply <i>assuming</i> that the Katyn mystery has not been solved, and thus these researchers have not simply accepted the objective truth that it was a Soviet deed.</p><div><div></div><blockquote><div>P. 14: "Upon even closer scrutiny I realized that there is even less evidence than that in fact only few bits of evidence - that (for all practical purposes) cannot possibly have been fabricated or falsified in order to bias case in favor of one or the other version. </div><div><br /></div><div>Consequently, in this study I concentrate on these few bits of what I call "unimpeachable evidence" - meaning, evidence that it is impossible to discredit as evidence (the interpretation is something else again). You, the reader, will make up your own mind whether this evidence is as clear and unambiguous, and my interpretation of it as correct, as I believe it to be."</div></blockquote><div></div></div><div>And later on p. 25 he claims that primary evidence is scarce and "most of the evidence that does exist could have been fabricated in order to support one version or the other". On p. 29 we similarly see: "Our first task must be to decide whether, in all of the materials [...] there exists any primary source evidence that cannot possibly have been fabricated, forged, or faked."</div><div><br /></div><div>This immediately puts him into the crank camp and shows he has zero understanding of the historical method. While it is true that the competing core claims in question necessitate that at least some of the evidence is forged, in does not follow that for every piece of evidence we must establish that it <i>could not have been forged</i>. No historian works using this wild assumption and indeed, writing the history of the Nazi crimes themselves would be impossible to a large extent, if those were the rules of the game. And indeed, Furr fails to demonstrate that history as a discipline would be able to function in this case.</div><div><br /></div><div>Instead of chasing the invisible pink unicorn of trying to disprove the mere (practical) possibility of forgery, historians actually need <i>sufficient evidence</i> to either dismiss available pieces of evidence or to lower their "credibility rank". Hand-waving in the form of "there is a theoretical possibility that it could have been forged, therefore we won't use it" does not pass any rational muster.</div><div></div><blockquote><div>P. 22: "The "official" Soviets-did-it version relies on the assumption that the Polish prisoners were executed by the NKVD at the three towns named and then buried at the three burial places named. These shipments of prisoners are routinely stated to be "death transports."</div><div><br /></div><div>[...]</div><div><br /></div><div>Cienciala, who did the writing in this volume, added all the language about execution."</div></blockquote><div></div><div>Or: there are no more "versions" as far as the guilty party is concerned and that the Soviets did it is simply a fact, and then the situation is reversed - the lists do become the death lists because we know (by other means) that the people in them were intended to be executed, and most were. Furr has to show that the consensus claim is not proven <i>before</i> making a claim like this. Otherwise it's like a Holocaust denier whining about the Holocaust deportation lists being called "death lists" or such, after all nothing in the lists says "most of them will be executed", we know that from other evidence...</div><div><div><blockquote>P. 24: "With very few exceptions, all the bodies identified 一 or supposedly identified at Katyn' (Koz'i Gory) by both the Germans and the Soviets were identified by documents said to have been found on the corpses. <b>No bodies identifiable as those of Katyn victims have been found at Mednoe</b> or Piatykhatky."</blockquote></div></div><div><div>In fact, <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-katyn-antikatyn.html#mednoegraves">in Mednoye alone</a> based on the results of the partial exhumation in 1991 of the remains, belonging to at least 243 individuals, 16 of them were identified with the documents found on the bodies (and in various documents 242 surnames were found, of which 227 were in the transport lists from the Ostashkov camp to the Kalinin UNKVD). During the Polish exhumations in 1995, the remains of no fewer than 2115 persons were exhumed, 28 of them were reliably identified (all of them were in the Ostashkov-Kalinin transport lists). While the rate of identification was much lower, the circumstances were also very different (for one, the exhumations took place about 5 decades after the Katyn exhumation).</div></div><div><div><blockquote>P. 24: "The "official" version assumes that the corpses exhumed at Katyn were all from the Kozel'sk camp, having been sent there from Smolensk. If any bodies at Katyn are those of POWs who, according to the Soviet transit lists, were sent to Kalinin or Kharkiv, the "official" version would be undermined or disproven. Likewise, any bodies of POWs from any of these three camps found at other places would also undermine the "official" version."</blockquote></div></div><div>Or: the sum of the evidence indicates that exclusively Kozelsk POWs were and thus it is not a mere assumption but rather a conclusion. As I wrote <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ntv-goebbels-apt-pupils.html#docs">elsewhere</a>:</div><div><div></div><blockquote><div>"First, it is worth noting that the documents "found" by the commission seem to try to prove that not only prisoners of the Kozelsk camp were buried in the forest, but also prisoners of the Starobelsk (Arashkevich) and Ostashkov (Lewandowski) camps. However, the German findings refute this thesis: the Germans did not identify a single POW from these camps. At this point, deniers usually get excited: it is obvious that the Nazis were deliberately trying to exclude prisoners of war from other camps, they wanted everyone to think that the Poles from Kozelsk were buried there! Do you believe the Nazis or what?</div><div><br /></div><div>And this, of course, is complete nonsense. On the contrary: the Goebbels propaganda announced to the whole world that it estimates the number of corpses in the graves at 12000. Apparently, the Germans thought that they had found all or most of the prisoners of war from the three camps that the Poles had lost. They were in for a very unpleasant surprise: they could find about 4200 corpses and there was no hope of finding more big graves (the Poles confirmed that), although in the anonymous introduction to their official book they put a good spin on a bad game, still estimating the total number of the dead as 10-12000. Would they have missed an opportunity to trumpet to the whole world that there were also Poles from Ostashkov and Starobelsk in the Katyn graves, if there had been at least appropriate objects or documents matching the dates on their bodies (which would have been true if the findings of the Soviet commission had been genuine)? All the more wild is the assertion that the Germans would have deliberately hidden all such finds."</div></blockquote><div></div><div><div><b><a name="ch1"></a></b><b>"Chapter 1. The Evidence That Can't Be Impugned"</b></div></div></div><div><blockquote>P. 26: "In 1995 Iurii Mukhin, a Russian metallurgist..."</blockquote></div><div>Gotta love that when Furr introduces the Memorial society, he hastens to label it as "a strongly anticommunist organization" (p. 52), but when it comes to the Katyn, Moon landing and Holocaust denier as well as the Lysenkoist antisemite Mukhin, who loves to use the word "zhid" ("Yid", "k-ke") in his books, he's just a humble metallurgist... </div><div><br /></div><div>P. 26, from Furr's summary:</div><div><blockquote><div>"* Despite the vast amount of documentation there is in fact a very limited amount of primary source evidence."</div></blockquote><p>"Very limited" is subjective and undefined. Just as well I can say that there are plenty of primary sources, which are also sufficient.</p><blockquote><div>P. 26: "* The evidence is contradictory. Some of it indicates the guilt of the</div><div>Soviets, while other evidence supports the guilt of the Germans."</div></blockquote><div></div></div><div>A vague and misleading pronouncement which could be applied to most significant events in history, if we mean the evidence "unweighted" according to credibility, which is neither here, nor there.</div><div><blockquote>Pp. 26, 27: "All the evidence relevant to establishing the guilty party is in one of the following four collections of documents:</blockquote></div><div><blockquote><div>A. The German Report [...] and related documents.</div><div>B. The Soviet Burdenko Commission Report [...] and related documents.</div><div>C. "Closed Packet No. 1" (CP), the existence of which was announced in 1992.</div><div>D. The archeological report on excavations at the mass murder site in Volodymyr-Volyns'kiy, Ukraine (VV) of November 2011 and related documents of 2010 - 2013."</div></blockquote><div></div></div><div>It's hard to avoid calling this claim a bald-faced lie, but let's try. In fact, <b>all</b> the relevant evidence is <b>not</b> limited to these 4 document complexes, much less "one" of them (and D is completely, utterly irrelevant, as we will soon see). </div><div><br /></div><div>Here are several other evidence complexes that are relevant to establishing the guilty party:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The GUPVI archive in RGVA, which positively <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-vyazemlag.html">establishes</a> that, contrary to the Soviet claims, the Polish POWs in question were <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ntv-goebbels-apt-pupils.html#docs">not</a> in the POW camp system from May 1940 to July 1941 (i.e. the Burdenko commission's report and related documents contain a huge lie, most likely simply fed to the Commission by the NKVD/NKGB). Joined by the GULAG archive in GARF, which closes a loophole, proposed by some deniers, that the POWs lost their POW status in May 1940 and were transferred to Vyazemlag as "normal" prisoners, thus disappearing from the GUPVI stats (this hypothesis necessitates that the Burdenko commision's report is falsified on this point, BTW).</li><li>The Ukrainian KGB <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/gdasbu-2.html">files</a> proving that the Pyatikhatki graves were a Soviet deed.</li><li>The Soviet/Russian and Polish exhumations at Mednoye and Pyatikhatki in the 1990s, proving those were the 1940 graves of the Polish POWs from the Ostashkov and Starobelsk camps.</li><li>The Bundesarchiv <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ahrens-burdenko.html">personal files</a> of Friedrich Ahrens (accused by the Soviets to have been the organizer of the massacre) and his HNR 537 predecessor Albert Bedenk, which purely chronologically preclude the Soviet claim about Ahrens' leading participation in the massacre, proving that the Burdenko commission published a key lie in the case.</li></ul></div><div>This is not an exhaustive list (there is more documentary and testimonial evidence, the latter is even mentioned by Furr and we will get to it), but it is sufficient to show Furr's mendacity, as he surely knows about the first three points (and tries to discredit one of them in his book, we'll also get to that).</div><div><div><blockquote>P. 27: "The vast majority of studies of Katyn assume the validity of AM <i>[the German report - SR]</i> and CP <i>[the sealed envelope with Stalin's shooting order and other related documents - SR]</i>, thereby also assuming that the Soviets were the guilty party at Katyn."</blockquote></div></div><div>Or: they <i>conclude</i>, rather than assume, from the sum of the available evidence (which includes the observations and documents by the Poles who took part in the exhumations) that the core of the AM list is correct (of course, taking into account the publication's propaganda purpose) and the evidence value of the sealed envelope is sufficient. Once again, Furr simply begs the question.</div><div><div><blockquote>P. 27: "In this version BU is assumed to be a fabrication and receives no serious consideration."</blockquote></div></div><div>Or: the Burdenko commission's <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/burdenko-report-pravda.html">report</a> actually gets <a href="http://www.katyn-books.ru/library/katinskaya-drama19.html">analyzed</a> and its <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-vyazemlag.html">unreliability</a> is a conclusion based on <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ahrens-burdenko.html">evidence</a> and/or reasoning. Some of the analysis can be partially faulty or mistaken, but that's completely beside the point. Since Furr in a later chapter deals with one such analysis, he knows full well that rejection of the Burdenko report is a conclusion, rather than an a priori assumption (that Furr rejects this conclusion is, again, immaterial to my point).</div><div><br /></div><div><div>Furr begins to "analyze" various document complexes for the allegedly unimpeachable evidence.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>P. 30, the German report (AM):</div><blockquote><div><div>"* The spent shells found at Katyn were German." </div></div></blockquote><p>In this form this doesn't prove anything even <i>prima facie</i> (not that mere <i>prima facie</i> evidence would play any role in a case like this in the first place). One has to establish the relative improbability of the NKVD using German ammo under these particular circumstances first.</p><blockquote><div><div>"* A badge from the Ostashkov POW camp was discovered at Katyn." </div></div><div></div></blockquote><div>Since some Ostashkov POWs <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/book-katyn-1.html#doc112">were transferred to Kozelsk</a>, the explanation is trivial.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>P. 31, the Burdenko commission's report and related documents:</div><div><blockquote>"One document found among the bodies is from a prisoner who was shipped from the Ostashkov POW camp to Kalinin. The Soviet investigators were unable to identify him because the first part of his last name is illegible. Therefore they did not realize that he had been in Ostashkov. They did not recognize that his presence at Katyn undermines the German report and supports the Sovîet case. So they made no use of this information. Therefore they would not have fabricated it."</blockquote></div></div><div>Long story short: no evidence he was in Ostashkov. Handled <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-katyn-antikatyn.html#germanexhumation">here</a>. We'll return to this point in the relevant chapter.</div><div><blockquote>P. 32: "CP <i>[sealed envelope no. 1 -SR]</i>. This collection of documents contains one document that has been faked in a clumsy manner but for some reason not discarded. There is no plausible alternative explanation for it except that it was part of a broader forgery job. </blockquote></div><div><a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-katyn-antikatyn.html#excerpts">No it doesn't.</a></div><div><br /></div><div><div>P. 32, in reference to the archeological excavations in Volodymyr-Volynskiy:</div></div><blockquote><div><div>"* Badges of two Polish POWs were found in a mass grave in this town in Western Ukraine. These two men were from the Ostashkov POW camp. According to the "official" version they were shipped to Kalinin (now Tver'), Russia, where they were executed and buried at Mednoe. Their names are on memorial plaques in the Polish cemetery there."</div></div><div></div></blockquote><div>The police number tags (not badges) were not found on the bodies, they were found outside of the grave space, for one of the aforementioned POWs there idocumentary evidence that he was in VV in 1939. So the best explanation is that these policemen's badges were taken away from the policemen by the Soviets in the temporary holding in VV, not returned to them, disposed of by the Nazis when they overran this territory. From the sum of the evidence we know that the policemen are buried in Mednoye. Explained in more detail <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-v-v.html">here</a>. </div><blockquote><div>Pp. 32, 33: "* Between 96% and 98% of the shell casings found at this mass</div><div>execution site are of German make and are dated "1941." </div><div><br /></div><div>* The execution method at VV was shown by the Polish archeologist to be characteristic of the Eínsatzkommando, or German mass murder team, led by SS Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln, the so-called "Sardinenpackung."</div><div><br /></div><div>* Independent research by another scholar has confirmed that German troops, aided by Ukrainian nationalist auxiliaries, shot many Soviet citizens and Jews at this place soon after the invasion in June 1941. </div><div><br /></div><div>* Soon after the publication of the Polish archeologist's report of the findings at VV Polish and Ukrainian scholars recognized that the discoveries of these two badges endanger the "official" "the Soviets-did-it" version of Katyn,</div><div><br /></div><div>After the report on the discoveries at VV was published it was withdrawn. The excavation was closed and the mass murders are now attributed, without any evidence, to the NKVD."</div></blockquote><div></div><div>The last point is egregiously false: some of the graves are classified as the German ones and some as the Soviet ones (it's hardly a wonder that the Germans would use a Soviet execution site for their own executions), all, obviously, with evidence based on the difference between the content of the graves. Nothing has been withdrawn, and if anything, the researchers have moved from the "NKVD-only" to the "NKVD+Germans" explanation, so Furr has it exactly backwards. The rest is irrelevant, as no Katyn victim was buried at the site, as already explained.</div><div></div><blockquote><div>P. 33: "Conclusion: The Germans Murdered the Poles </div></blockquote><blockquote><div>All the evidence that is of undoubted authenticity, that cannot have been faked, supports the conclusion that the Germans, not the Soviets, are guilty of the mass murder of Polish POWs that are known as the Katyn massacre."</div></blockquote><p></p><blockquote>P. 34: "The evidence is unequivocal. None of the evidence that could not have been faked supports the hypothesis that the Soviets shot the Poles. All of it supports the contrary hypothesis."</blockquote> As we have just seen, this conclusion is not supported by <i>any</i> credible evidence.<div><br /></div><div><b><a name="ch2"></a></b><b>"Chapter 2. The German Report - Amtliches Material (AM)"</b><br /><p></p><div>P. 35, a discussion of the German report (AM):</div><div><div><blockquote>"According to AM none <i>[of the documents found on the bodies -SR]</i> were dated after sometime in April 1940. Both the German and Polish teams falsely concluded that this meant the prisoners had been executed around this time. Of course, the Germans would not have reported, or allowed the Poles to see, any documents dated later than April or, at latest, early May 1940. The Germans, not the Polish observers, controlled this process."</blockquote></div></div><div>False. The Poles directly <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Kp8fAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA413">participated</a> in the exhumation of the corpses. As reported by the general secretary of the Polish Red Cross K. Skarżyński:</div><div><blockquote>"They reported that during the whole work - the main instruction I gave them and we gave them - during the whole work they never found a document or newspaper with a date anterior to April 1940. [...] After - after April or May 1940."</blockquote></div><div>What Furr could have in mind is that the Polish team working directly with the bodies (conducting the searches) theoretically had no right to read and sort through the found documents (because it simply was not their task, another joint German-Polish team was responsible for that, and trying to extract the sometimes fragile documents from e. g. wallets, trying to clean them from adipocere in order to read them in field conditions, etc., would have not only been a waste of time but also might have damaged the documents and led to confusion), but some of the documents did not have to be extracted from wallets etc., were readily legible and nothing could stop the workers from looking at them. The documents that the first team put into envelopes were then jointly examined by Germans and Poles.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then:</div><div></div><blockquote><div>Pp. 35, 36: "And the German-Polish conclusion was false anyway. The latest date is only the <i>terminus post quem</i>, evidence that the victim in question was killed sometime after that date, perhaps long afterwards. Some, at least, of the Germans and Poles must have understood this elementary fact. Therefore, dishonesty was surely present from the beginning in the compiling of the report."</div><div></div></blockquote><div>So obviously false that it's weird to comment on that, but yes, obviously, when enough ephemera (such as newspapers) and/or "growing" documents (such as diaries) are present on the bodies, then we can conclude that, on the assumption that the people were still living in some status analogous to the POW or some other prisoner status, the date of death cannot be much removed from the latest date of the ephemera (etc.), certainly not by 1+ year.</div><div><blockquote>P. 36: "We might surmise that the Germans would not have had recourse to falsification if the Soviets really had killed the Polish POWs and all the Germans had to do was to tell the truth. But this reasoning, however suggestive, is not evidence."</blockquote></div><div>True, in this specific case it would not be evidence of the German guilt, since the Germans also had propaganda purposes in mind, so although their official report did contain some relatively minor intentionally false parts (e. g. regarding the number of the corpses), this can be explained simply with a reference to their propaganda needs rather them being the guilty party (and here we must also differentiate between the people who conducted the actual investigations and the publishers who then edited their material for public consumption and could have introduced various distortions, like what happened with one of Voss' reports). If all we had was the German report without any context (such as some of the primary documents of the German investigations, in which we actually see the details later changed by the publishers; the Polish exhumation protocols and documents; and so on), then, knowing about the German propagandists' tampering could have thrown doubt also onto the core claims of the report, but we do have this context and much more, and the provable German falsehoods were arguably marginal.</div><div><br /></div><div>On the other hand, the provable Soviet falsehoods - such as the lies about the whereabouts of the POWs (<a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-vyazemlag.html">the non-existent ON camps</a>) or about the persons responsible for the massacre (some of whom <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ahrens-burdenko.html">were not there</a> during the massacre according the Soviet claim) are at the heart of the whole issue, so that they are not really explainable except through an almost wholesale falsification.</div><div></div><blockquote><div>P. 39: "The Germans claimed that only German "Geco" cartridge shells were found at Katyn. They found no other shells there. The Germans would never have freely inventecl this fact. Had any Soviet cartridge shells been found among the corpses, the Germans would surely have reported this. Therefore we can be confident that only German shells were found at Katyn, though not necessarìly only the kind of shells identified in AM.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>The Germans claimed that German cartridges were exported to the USSR in the 1920s and early 1930s. The Soviets did not deny this. But, absent countervailing evidence, German shells suggest German guilt."</div></div></blockquote><div>Non sequitur. Without the evidence of improbability of the use of the German cartridges in this particular case (when all the evidence is taken into account, of course) the shells don't suggest German guilt. There is no such evidence. The foreign 7,65 guns (Belgian, German or otherwise) <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-7-65.html">were popular in the NKVD</a>, their characteristics made them fit for streamlined mass executions (the likes of which were rare even in the NKVD), more so than the "standard" NKVD guns Nagant and TT, so the use of such guns fits with the rest of the evidence. And while they did not <i>have to</i> use German ammo, there is nothing to exclude its presence in the NKVD ammo storages. So, barring actual evidence of improbability, the ammo that was found speaks neither for NKVD's nor for the Germans' guilt.</div><div><blockquote>P. 40: "Neither the Soviets nor the pro-Soviet researchers have remarked on the following two curious facts about the German report of these shell casings. First, the Germans claimed that <i>all</i> the shell casings bore exactly the same "headstamp" "Geco 7.65 D" or "Geco 7.65 DD." No matter who did the shooting it would be unusual for a team of at least a half-dozen shooters, shooting several thousand individuals during a period of about 6 weeks, to all use exactly the same shells, with the identical markings, and all at least nine years old."</blockquote></div><div>An unwarranted assumption. Unusual by what measure? How many analogous investigated massive 6-weeks-long NKVD shooting operations concentrated in one place are there for a comparison in the first place? Unusual relative to the circumstances of this particular case? But there are so many unknowns as to the concrete details, such as the supply chain, that such a verdict cannot be passed reliably and there are possible scenarios which help to explain various aspects such as the use of the ammo: e. g. if the operation was centrally organized (which makes sense and some evidence for this exists too), and if someone from Blokhin's Moscow team, which organized the operation, brought the ammo and guns fit for an exceptionally massive and fast operation (the particular parameters are explained <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-7-65.html">here</a>) from one of the central NKVD storages in Moscow, then that ammo is what the local executioners were <i>mostly likely</i> to use.</div><div><br /></div><div>It is OK to assume that the absolute majority of victims were murdered with the Geco bullets, but even that is not <i>entirely</i> a given, albeit it's a plausible assumption. Let's not forget that in the end only relatively few shell casings were found in the forest. The German report mentions only a few cases. The Polish team, using a metal detector in 1994-1995, found 241 7.65×17 mm SR Browning cartridge shells, of them 157 identifiable as Geco and 5 as DWM (M. Dutkiewicz, "Elementy umundurowania i amunicja: podsumowanie wyników badań w Lesie Katyńskim", in: M. Głosek (red.), <i>Katyń w świetle badań terenowych 1994-1995</i>, 2003, S. 266). (So we already have 2 manufacturers here, but let's move on.) Can we extrapolate it to at least 4200 Geco cartridges used there?</div><div><br /></div><div>We only have the shells that somehow were left outside, in the graves. Were those mostly the result of open-air executions? If so, is there anything to suggest that most, rather than some, executions were open-air, rather than performed in some of the NKVD dacha rooms, like the garage or some other? No. Was the part of the shooting team that performed the possibly small-scale open-air executions the same part that performed the closed-room executions, with the same <i>modus operandi</i>? It's not a given. Different groups inside one team could have different ways of doing things. If this were a different group, did it use the same ammo batch as the group that mostly shot inside? We don't know. There are too many unknowns for a firm conclusion. But as I wrote in the beginning, it is OK to assume, for the time being, that most were shot with the Geco bullets, since it's the most parsimonious explanation not involving various hypothetical groups inside the shooting team - but such possibilities should be kept in mind nevertheless.</div><div><br /></div><div>That said, re-read what I wrote above: even if 99% of the cartridges were Geco, this is easily explainable through the central supply by the organizer.</div><div></div><blockquote><div>Pp. 40, 41: "Second, none of the photographs of the shell casings in AM are of the headstamps. The headstamps are the only way the shells can be identified. AM contains side photographs only, useless for identifying the shells. </div><div><br /></div><div>Only photographs of the headstamps could provide evidence that it was precisely these shells that the Germans found in the Katyn burial pits. The Germans could have sent photographs of any shell casings they wanted and just claimed that they had been found at Katyn. But they did not. Instead the Germans took side views of the shells. They could easily have photographed the headstamps but they failed to do so. </div><div><br /></div><div>The Germans were asking their readers to "believe" them. But then why bother with reproducing side views and views of bullets at all? It seems this can only be explained as an attempt to deceive the readers of the report. </div><div><br /></div><div>[...]</div><div><br /></div><div><div>All accounts of Katyn accept the German claim that only these undated Geco shells were found at Katyn. This means that they accept the German AM as truthful … they believe the German report. This is an error, incompatible with a search for the truth, just as it would to "believe" the Soviet Burdenko Report (BU). </div></div></blockquote><div><div></div></div><div>Nonsense on so many levels. Deceive? For what purpose? They had already admitted the exclusively German cartridges. An attempt at deception would have most probably included a presentation of some Soviet cartridge shells. And if they were so deceptive, one could ask the same question: why didn't they include the headstamp that they claimed to have found (would have been no problem)? And what was the purpose of the internal correspondence with the criminalistics institute?</div><div><br /></div><div>Finally, as we have seen, the Polish experts actually scanned the terrain (and found a few other shells as well), instead of simply "believing" the German report. Furr simply shows his ignorance and mendacity again. </div><div><blockquote>P. 42: "Goebbels was correct. The use of German ammunition and only German ammunition at Katyn is prima facie evidence of German guilt. It is not evidence of Soviet guilt at all."</blockquote></div><div>More deceptiveness on Furr's part. Goebbels did not in any way concede that the German ammo was <i>prima facie</i> evidence of German guilt - it was counterproductive to his propaganda campaign (due to the general public's possible <i>perceptions</i>, which has little to do with the actual evidential value), but that's that. In fact, Goebbels consistently attributed Katyn to the Soviets in his internal writings.</div><div><br /></div><div>And I have yet to see the claim that the German ammo is evidence of Soviet guilt in the mainstream literature...</div><div><br /></div><div>P. 43, about an Ostashkov inventory tag at Katyn:</div><div><div></div><blockquote><div>"The finding of this badge caused some confusion in the German report. The report concludes that Czernuszewícz was brought from the Ostashkov POW camp to Kozel'sk by the Soviets for some purpose and then shot.</div><div>However, no one named "Czernuszewicz," "Czarnuszewicz", "Czernyszewicz", etc. is on the list of more than 4000 bodies in AM."</div><div></div></blockquote><div>Sure, the list has some omissions for various reasons. Czarnuszewicz was from the last grave excavated in May, presumably this could be the reason why he is not on the list (due to organizational chaos or something similar). His body was one of those from the 8th grave that received special attention from Dr. Butz, which might have been the reason that it was not numbered upon having been taken out (a "special order", so to say).</div><div></div><blockquote><div>P. 43: "* A "Wladyslaw Czarnuszewicz" - [..] is on list 54/3 transported from the Kozel'sk POW camp on May 5, 1940 (Tucholski p. 716 #44).""</div><div>*A "Wladyslaw Czernyszewicz" [..] is on the list at the Starobel'sk POW camp (Tucholski p. 980 #3668).</div><div><br /></div><div>The volume <i>Ubíty v Katyni</i>, a recent attempt to shore up the official "Soviets-did-it" version, tries to solve this problem by claiming, ín brackets, that "Czarnuszewicz" was first held at Ostashkov and then transferred to Kozel'sk in November 1939. (811) The brackets indicate that there is no evidence for this."</div><div></div></blockquote><div>A falsification on Furr's part. He claims that both the claim that he was held at Ostashkov, and the claim that he was transferred to Kozelsk, are in brackets. Obviously, this is <a href="https://www.memo.ru/media/uploads/2022/01/21/killed_in_katyn.pdf">not the case</a> (<i>UvK</i>, p. 811):</div><div><div><blockquote>"Czarnuszewicz Władysław of Julian and Antonina. Born in 1898 in the village of Plawskie, Slonim district, Nowogródek voivodeship. Military settler, office clerk at the district administration (starostat) of the Slonim district, resident in the town of Slonim. Reserve officer cadet. <b>Was held in the Ostashkov prisoner-of-war camp, [from where he arrived in November 1939 to the Kozelsk camp]</b>; as of 22.04.1940, was held in the Kozelsk camp..."</blockquote></div><div>So only the transfer to Kozelsk is in the brackets. Which does not mean that there is no evidence for this either, it only means that there is no transfer list with concrete names. But if a person was first in Ostashkov and then ended up in Kozelsk, of course they were transferred at one point. This same comment in brackets can be seen in other entries too. I will add, however, that no document about Czarnuszewicz's stay in Ostashkov is known, the entry is an extrapolation from the fact that he had the inventory tag (information from A. Guryanov, 05.02.2023).</div></div><div></div><blockquote><div>P. 43: "Ubity" assumes that the Russian "Charnushevich" [...] was really "Chernushevich" (Czernuszewicz)."</div><div></div></blockquote><div>LOLWUT? Once again Furr tries to deceive the reader by claiming a mere assumption where there is a conclusion. Guryanov does not simply assume, he cites his source: "DM". The meaning of DM is explained in the book, so Furr and the readers are welcome to look it up, and I will simply post a couple of pictures from this source.</div><div><br /></div><div>A translation of Czarnuszewicz's ID:</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjoXvseE89Uy75d8e0zsv6niPp8YCDcM-NJHKo9MKw8p2stv034IWIYTRg9VFb0qwyG3I_o1txLMDEtNzUfmYfzd2q3kzlNvqYGZk-YWiIg9EtxfSA-y7uCtYyec1haJLGemLpu7hs16D7wqvnFpruuTfu7PZPht2gKOH-s_fAn7Lp_xTZH31s" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="652" data-original-width="930" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjoXvseE89Uy75d8e0zsv6niPp8YCDcM-NJHKo9MKw8p2stv034IWIYTRg9VFb0qwyG3I_o1txLMDEtNzUfmYfzd2q3kzlNvqYGZk-YWiIg9EtxfSA-y7uCtYyec1haJLGemLpu7hs16D7wqvnFpruuTfu7PZPht2gKOH-s_fAn7Lp_xTZH31s" width="320" /></a></div><br />Note the spelling not only of the surname, but also of the name (Wlad<b>i</b>slaw instead of Wlad<b>y</b>slaw). The person who did the translation/transcription obviously did not care much about the correctness of the spelling and thus, having the false spelling with "e" in their head simply used it further.</div><div><br /></div><div>This and other translation were Butz's sources, hence the "e" in his report.</div><div><br /></div><div>A translation of the Ostashkov tag found on the body:</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjZd9RxGhoIgtLeVtLubi8etFRTvVctcsafGnBtmXZBzr4E_JYF0KoYJkgwcb4tzdqjdj296gwikizxnchhhz5GdWrncI3FXs9qFJIbrKUNHfqySwGSTdsGXqc0fS78zCsrTaUvoyyD-bhGnuQWkAHVLyhpp36qysJNqvfcosedvoybWkUIIKw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="242" data-original-width="838" height="92" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjZd9RxGhoIgtLeVtLubi8etFRTvVctcsafGnBtmXZBzr4E_JYF0KoYJkgwcb4tzdqjdj296gwikizxnchhhz5GdWrncI3FXs9qFJIbrKUNHfqySwGSTdsGXqc0fS78zCsrTaUvoyyD-bhGnuQWkAHVLyhpp36qysJNqvfcosedvoybWkUIIKw" width="320" /></a></div>A translation of an envelope found on the body:</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgShp8Z-Zohl6x0aUkSV9rxrSLmc48lu4Fw6oDo9MKW1lyW8fknLA1PTcLQiR8dzhU3v-p954eNuR95bFHaqfF0T5PZR4t4ulo7GMMTYlHvsMQNHXQfdmzrH0lUNt5QlpW2eYw1emZtmrzQK4hIZ66_mW8nX9kKB-6bsB0cSURq8rQGLMrwYwc" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="877" data-original-width="1179" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgShp8Z-Zohl6x0aUkSV9rxrSLmc48lu4Fw6oDo9MKW1lyW8fknLA1PTcLQiR8dzhU3v-p954eNuR95bFHaqfF0T5PZR4t4ulo7GMMTYlHvsMQNHXQfdmzrH0lUNt5QlpW2eYw1emZtmrzQK4hIZ66_mW8nX9kKB-6bsB0cSURq8rQGLMrwYwc" width="320" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgSkWS9-fQTkXxcXxv-_DSUhiDHwU1Wwx3DaZHC_i-Cogf3sDhL4WsmM40omeB7_-8SEruf-eCd-6hWi7NtgYciqRzx9iLdA8oCuG1VhbvTY2HR7_teRTKOUwYshbJXAz6Nh3RmZ_i5gCHkeo8Grd4Ci_4jVyRtir2YM1NdMllDVpqQ-xfTGRw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="843" data-original-width="1125" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgSkWS9-fQTkXxcXxv-_DSUhiDHwU1Wwx3DaZHC_i-Cogf3sDhL4WsmM40omeB7_-8SEruf-eCd-6hWi7NtgYciqRzx9iLdA8oCuG1VhbvTY2HR7_teRTKOUwYshbJXAz6Nh3RmZ_i5gCHkeo8Grd4Ci_4jVyRtir2YM1NdMllDVpqQ-xfTGRw" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div></div>Note that the spelling is now with "a". Another translator/transcriber? Anyway, you can see "a" on the envelope too, in Russian. Also note that Czarnuszewicz resided in Kozelsk at the time he sent the letter, i. e. on 22.04.1940:</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh9N2fszRidlmqrcMIcxOyqR7oLudpUWgyUcU6beUY3F8W3aQLjK-JTB4Ar93zDsKtIw0VlpHhQx2v_gOctXeymHAove8-O1F6ohzmXz_rR-3CgfvbTUu35nWFhhFZoKCxQGZmZYQqWbAreuhJOlZgpEogZuzkNxsaH3QbESS2dj4PA1MLjLyk" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="577" data-original-width="465" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh9N2fszRidlmqrcMIcxOyqR7oLudpUWgyUcU6beUY3F8W3aQLjK-JTB4Ar93zDsKtIw0VlpHhQx2v_gOctXeymHAove8-O1F6ohzmXz_rR-3CgfvbTUu35nWFhhFZoKCxQGZmZYQqWbAreuhJOlZgpEogZuzkNxsaH3QbESS2dj4PA1MLjLyk" width="193" /></a></div><br /></div><div>This was <a href="https://archive.org/details/amk_20200218_202002/page/n45/mode/1up">mentioned</a> in the German report and Furr simply ignored this key point. Wherever this person, on whose body this letter and this tag were found, had been earlier (e. g. Ostashkov), he came to the Katyn forest from Kozelsk, so Furr's argument had died before even having been born. And, to repeat myself, since some Ostashkov POWs <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/book-katyn-1.html#doc112">were transferred to Kozelsk</a>, the explanation is trivial.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now, we know that "Czernuszewicz"/"Tscharnyschewitsch" in the German sources was born on 21.10.1898 and lived in Slonim, we even know his exact address (as well as further details).</div><div><br /></div><div>We also know that the Kozelsk Charnyshevich from the Soviet sources was a son of Julian and was born in 1898:</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjQCUioehMQG9oe8xA0nvR5AZF42-A1kWLoI6MEP1rXm7X5rXET5y86fPzNYvOpLwVX4FuL0kvLTgchIMHKI1pzR09s0pSeVGkCpBKqQNjy-amlPDc9j4kB_qV70alK0djRZdl_IuyWAlDKGfJ8ubWqYy-gKE790FwH4m5IImRoTFM3Fqq_V1Q" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="65" data-original-width="869" height="24" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjQCUioehMQG9oe8xA0nvR5AZF42-A1kWLoI6MEP1rXm7X5rXET5y86fPzNYvOpLwVX4FuL0kvLTgchIMHKI1pzR09s0pSeVGkCpBKqQNjy-amlPDc9j4kB_qV70alK0djRZdl_IuyWAlDKGfJ8ubWqYy-gKE790FwH4m5IImRoTFM3Fqq_V1Q" width="320" /></a></div><br />It is simple to check whether they are one and the same person by simply doing some biographical research in Poland, and the fact that Guryanov even specifies his place of birth and mother's name (not available from the German or the Soviet sources) means that such research has been done and it is indeed the same person. It should also be noted that one of Guryanov's sources is from Karta's database of surveys of relatives of the Katyn victims, i. e. another real life link.</div></div><blockquote><div>P. 44: "Here is an individual named in the text of AM but not in the AM lists and about whom Tucholski and Gur'ianov (author of Ubity are also confused). Any honest and objective researcher should simply recognize this contradiction. But typical of dishonest scholarship those who support the "official" version, rather than seeking the truth, want that version to be "seamless," without contradictions.</div><div>In reality, no historical or criminal investigations are "seamless," without contradictions and nb unexplained details. Honest investigtors recognize this fact. Falsifiers often strive to make their falsifications appear to be "perfect."</div></blockquote><div></div><div>What mealy-mouthed nonsense is this? Does anyone understand what Furr is on about here? The only "contradictions" are trivial spelling mistakes, exceptionally common when it comes to various lists. Of course, a non-historian like Furr cannot be expected to know this, having not done actual historical research, but then maybe he should not be writing books on topics he doesn't have the intellectual tools to handle?</div><div><blockquote>P. 44: "This is a problem for the "official," "Soviets-did-it" version. A badge at Katyn from Ostashkov suggests that Polish POWs were shipped out of Ostashkov to Kalinin not to execution but for some other purpose. For if they were to be executed, why not execute them at Kalinin where, according to the "official" version, the Ostashkov POWs were murdered?"</blockquote></div><div>How on earth does an Ostashkov inventory tag found on a Kozelsk prisoner (esp. given the transfer between Ostashkov and Kozelsk) tell us anything about the fate of those shipped from Ostashkov to Kalinin? What on Earth?.. What "problem"?</div><div><blockquote>P. 44: "Rather than acknowledge this difficulty "Ubity" glosses over it without resolving it."</blockquote></div><div>But there is no difficulty to resolve in the first place.</div><div><blockquote>P. 44: "It appears to be a clumsy contradiction, unresolved because impossible to resolve, in order to get rid of the embarrassing presence of that badge from Ostashkov."</blockquote></div><div>Translation: "I'm an ignorant clown who doesn't know the basics, laugh at me".</div><div><br /></div><div>Having failed with Czarnuszewicz, Furr then tries to establish that other POWs transported from Ostashkov and Starobelsk in the spring of 1940 ended up in Katyn. He begins with the Szkuta/Sekuła case, which was <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/pamyatnykh-szkuta-sekula.html">chewed out years ago</a>. There is no mystery here: the German no. 02398, identified as Stanisław Szkuta in AM and the Polish lists (absent in Kozelsk but present in Starobelsk), was actually Stanisław Sekuła (present in Kozelsk), the misreading having arisen due to the Polish character "ł" bearing a resemblance to "t" when handwritten (and the handwritten "e" must have been misread). This is proven by the original German exhumation protocols, where "Stanislaw Sekula" indeed appears. And further buttressed by the Polish Red Cross exhumation protocols, which have Szkuta, but <b>specifically mention that a vaccination certificate from Kozelsk is present on the body (so it was not a Szkuta from Starobelsk in any case</b>).</div><div><blockquote>P. 48: "Accordingly Pamiatnykh attempts to show that Szkuta was actually someone else - Sekula - whose name was spelled incorrectly by the Germans. His hypothesis is that the Soviets misread the Polish barred "ł" [...]"</blockquote></div><div>Not the Soviets, dummy. The people who interpreted the documents in 1943, whether Poles or Germans.</div><div><br /></div><div>P. 49, citing Tucholski:</div><blockquote><div></div><blockquote><div>"65. pal, od 7.9.1939 w III dyonie 21.</div><div>pal. PCK (AM) Nr 01398, (Tucholski p, 226 col. 2)</div></blockquote><div>Here Tucholski identifies this man as number 1398 in the AM list.</div><div>But no such number exists in AM! The AM list skips directly from</div><div>1397 to 1399:</div><div></div><blockquote><div>1397, Uniformierter.</div><div>1399. Leutnant.</div><div>Verschiedene Zettel, Impfschein 2869</div></blockquote><div></div><div>Tucholski does not explain why he states that "Szkuta" is number</div><div>01398 in the AM list when there is no such number in that list."</div></blockquote><div>Here Furr once again demonstrates his lack of basic common sense necessary not only for analyzing historical matters but also for everyday life. We are dealing with the number (0)2398, under which "Szkuta" appears in the AM list and in the PRC (PCK) <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20220809111247/https://lublin.ap.gov.pl/wp-content/uploads/listykatynskie/katyn08-4.pdf">list</a>:</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhO_a8WBCQh-PAeIbib87x5btTyIh3uj4QHB1AR-YkM4wNnKz2Zo40UX8oeRe-ANV-Ss8MpjDaT-4EBsiOiIo2SXKdFf5XpIKdcPvSJ3PduItBHG4nrr7aKrhbQHIeTbDgEBrfToqkaaGfwFL1R6gd2GbJ4Sqk2IoobaHlqGcNgpF3f4fJkgtA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="117" data-original-width="1303" height="29" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhO_a8WBCQh-PAeIbib87x5btTyIh3uj4QHB1AR-YkM4wNnKz2Zo40UX8oeRe-ANV-Ss8MpjDaT-4EBsiOiIo2SXKdFf5XpIKdcPvSJ3PduItBHG4nrr7aKrhbQHIeTbDgEBrfToqkaaGfwFL1R6gd2GbJ4Sqk2IoobaHlqGcNgpF3f4fJkgtA" width="320" /></a></div><br />An adequate person would reason as follows: since we are talking about the number 02398, clearly Tucholski's "01398" is a run-of-the-mill typo. How an inadequate pseudoresearcher would reason we have already seen above.</div><div><blockquote>P. 49: "Pamiatnykh, writing in 2011, could not account for the fact that the draft German list read "Sekula" (with no barred "1") but the print version reads "Szkuta." Perhaps we can do so today."</blockquote></div><div>He didn't have to spell out the obvious (though in retrospect it probably always helps...): the name was read both ways at different times and only one version "won". At this point in time the Polish and the German lists were created more or less in parallel, it was the Poles who were usually interpreting the names on the documents for the Germans. From the PRC list we see that the Poles first read it as Szkuta, which was an easy mistake to make. They also must have given the reading to the Germans, which was then saved in some version of the list (not available to us) that became the direct basis for the list in AM. At some point (on the same day) the mistake was found one way or another and in the final protocol that we have we see the correct name (with the exception of the usual simplification of the non-German letter). The conclusion is that the AM list does not perfectly correlate with the exhumation protocols that we have and is based on some parallel version (possibly created in order to immediately send out to newspapers in occupied Poland, which were regularly publishing the exhumation lists).</div><div><blockquote>P. 49: "In a later chapter we will see that the Germans captured the Soviet transit lists of POWs shipped from Kozel'sk to Smolensk, near Katyn."</blockquote></div><div>Unsurprisingly, we will see no such thing.</div><blockquote><div>P. 50: "Szkuta" was transferred from Starobel'sk to Khar'kov. But he was not shot there. Instead he was transferred further to Smolensk, where he was eventually shot and buried."</div><div></div></blockquote><div>Given that Furr not only knows about the debunking of this claim but in fact cites it (and doesn't in any way rebut it), this claim is hard to characterize as anything other than a lie. There was no "Szkuta" in the Katyn forest, only Sekuła. (And had it even been "Szkuta", he would have been specifically from Kozelsk, as the PRC list shows; this would have created a small mystery, but not of the sort that would help deniers like Furr).</div><div><blockquote>P. 50: "This article lists 231 "outsiders" or unidentified names in the German AM that are not on the Soviet Koz'elsk lists."</blockquote></div><div>False, several names are not from AM but from Wykaz ofiar (WO), a Polish list.</div><blockquote><div>P. 50: "I also identified four more POWs named in the AM list who are on the Soviet Starobel'sk lists and one who is on the Soviet Ostashkov lists."</div><div></div></blockquote><div>OK, let's go through his list.</div><div><br /></div><div>1. AM 0741. Not identified, but had a visit card that bears the name Stanislaw Lapinski, who was a singing teacher.</div><div><br /></div><div>Does not prove anything, since a visit card does not necessarily identify the person carrying it. Note Furr's deception - he claimed that he "identified four more POWs named in the AM list", and Lapinski is <b>not</b> a proven POW in the AM list.</div><div><br /></div><div>Even worse, it's not even a proven Lapinski, since in the Polish <a href="http://www.koszalin.ap.gov.pl/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/KATYN_6.pdf">list</a> from 03.05.1943 we read:</div><div><blockquote>"0741. kapitan, bilecik na nazwisko Lipiński <i>vel Lapiński</i> Sanisław (wizytówka Lipiński albo Lapiński/ fotografia"</blockquote></div><div>So it could have been Lipinski.</div><div><br /></div><div>2. Janusz Makowski from WO, not AM. A mention useless without further details. Note that, as Furr mentions, Tarczyński's list is not of those whom the Germans claimed to identify, but of any unidentified names, including mentions on ephemera like visit cards (see La/ipinski above). A mere name coincidence with the Starobelsk list is not of any probative value at this point.</div><div><br /></div><div>Once again, Furr's claim that this is a POW in the AM list is false, if only because the person is not in the AM list (and Furr does not show that he is claimed to be a POW in WO).</div><div><br /></div><div>3. Jan Michalski, AM 01536. In the Polish <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20210327010727/http://lublin.ap.gov.pl/wp-content/uploads/listykatynskie/katyn06-8.pdf">list</a> it is mentioned that he had with him a letter he wrote in Kozelsk. This makes Guryanov's hypothesis that this is Jan Michałowski from Kozelsk more plausible than Furr's hypothesis that it's Jan Michalski from Starobelsk. And once again, a coincidence of a relatively common name and a relatively common surname doesn't prove anything.</div><div><br /></div><div>4. This all the more applies to the next entry, M. Wróbel, AM 0161. We only have the surname and the initial, so the identity with Marian Wróbel from Starobelsk is absolutely unprovable just from this. On the other hand, Guryanov's hypothesis that this could be Z. M. Wróbel can be true - the first initial (or even the whole name) could have been completely unreadable. So, this example doesn't prove anything either way.</div><div><br /></div><div>5. And in the last case we have someone identified as Wojnowski, AM 01948. There indeed was no Wojnowski in Kozelsk and he is, as Furr points out, on Guryanov's list of 41 unidentified names (which we will discuss shortly). Of course, a mere surname coincidence doesn't even begin to indicate that this is the Wojnowski from Starobelsk.</div><div><br /></div><div>6. Dudek, AM 0778. Furr sees Guryanov noting that in some version of AM he is listed as Karol Budek and claims that this must be Karol Labudek (remember how just a few pages ago the difference between "e" and "a" seemed almost a bridge too far for him?) from Ostashkov.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, Furr provides no evidence that "Karol Budek" is the correct version (all the other lists have just Dudek) and he does not even attempt to otherwise rebut Guryanov's tentative explanation that this is Mieczysław Dudek from Kozelsk. Moreover, in the Polish <a href="http://www.koszalin.ap.gov.pl/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/KATYN_6.pdf">list</a> nr. 12880 we see:</div><div><blockquote>"0778. Dudek ? - wojskowy, świad. szczep. w Kozielsku, karteczka z nazwiskiem wymienionego"</blockquote></div><div>So this was Dudek from Kozelsk, not Labudek from Ostashkov.</div><div><br /></div><div>7. Jakowicz, AM 02857. He is on the list of 41 names. The surname is uncertain, as in the Polish <a href="http://www.koszalin.ap.gov.pl/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/KATYN_6.pdf">list</a> nr. 12925 a question mark is placed before it. Furr claims, without any evidence whatsoever, that this "must" be Mikołaj Diakowicz from Ostashkov.</div><div><br /></div><div>As for the 41 names, it is instructive to read Guryanov's <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20220301072534/https://www.memo.ru/media/uploads/2022/01/21/killed_in_katyn.pdf">commentary</a> (<i>UvK</i>, pp. 74-77), but the bulk of the explanation boils to mistakes during the identification phase due to poor interpretation of the sometimes barely legible documents, confusing names/second names and surnames (e. g. when the surname is not legible, but the first and the second names are), using wrong documents for identification purposes (e. g. sometimes visit cards or notebooks <a href="https://niepoprawni.pl/blog/197/raport-pck-1943-katyn">were used</a>, despite the fact that assuming the identity of the author and of the bearer is dangerous) and so on. I would add to that, that the document retrieval and salvaging <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ntv-goebbels-apt-pupils.html#doubles">procedure</a> was not without its problems, which led to certain confusion and additional mistakes (like name duplication).</div><div><br /></div><div>A few mistakes were unavoidable and thus expected. Guryanov's explanation is plausible, Furr's is baseless and cannot disprove the mainstream historiography.</div><div><br /></div><div>Carping on a few names out of around 2700 - that's the very same flat-earther "looking for lighthouses" methodology I have already <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2020/01/looking-for-katyn-lighthouses.html">described</a> previously.</div><div><br /></div><div>This whole exercise has been an outright deception attempt on Furr's part. Here is why. Had he merely claimed that he found suitable <i>candidates</i> which may explain the real or alleged discrepancies in the AM list, that could have been an honest, if misguided, attempt at a scholarly reasoning.</div><div><br /></div><div>But Furr went much farther than that, he explicitly claimed that he found not merely candidates with the same or similar names, but the concrete POWs from Ostashkov and Starobelsk who had to be in Katyn: "I also identified four more POWs named in the AM list who are on the Soviet Starobel'sk lists and one who is on the Soviet Ostashkov lists", "I have studied all these names and have identified three POWs from the Ostashkov camp", "The other two Ostashkov prisoners exhumed by the Germans at Katyn are", "This must be the following person", "This must be"...</div><div><br /></div><div>It's a lie. Under the best of circumstances Furr identified some candidates, without actually proving their identity with the people from the Ostashkov and Starobelsk lists. In reality, out of 7 names, for 2 people Furr could not prove that they were claimed to have been POWs (1, 2), 2 were certainly or most probably from Kozelsk according to the documents found on them (3, 6), and for the rest he simply failed to prove his case (4, 5, 7). His method is simply matching the names (which is nonsensical, unless the names are very rare), yet in 3 cases the names either don't match or cannot be clearly established in the first place (1, 6, 7), in 4 cases we only have a surname or a surname and an initial (4, 5, 6, 7).</div><div><br /></div><div>Furr sums up this chapter (p. 55):</div><div><div></div><blockquote><div>"The unìmpeachable evidence from the German AM is:</div><div>* the Gernan shell casings;</div><div>* the badge from Ostashkov;</div><div>* the presence of corpses of Ostashkov and Starobel'sk prìsoners found at Katyn.</div><div><br /></div><div>All thìs evidence poìnts towards German, not Soviet, guilt."</div></blockquote><div></div></div><div>As we have seen, none of this, in Furr's presentation, constitutes <i>any</i> evidence for the German guilt, much less <i>unimpeachable evidence</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><a name="ch3"></a></b><b>"Chapter 3. The Burdenko Report."</b></div><div></div><blockquote><div>P. 58: "This means that Zigoń was arrested in the Ukraine - the list doesn't give us any more information than that. Logically, therefore, he would have been imprisoned in Starobel'sk camp. But he is not listed on the Soviet lists as one of those transferred out of Starobel'sk in April - May 1940."</div><div></div></blockquote><div>Imagine my head going all 'splodey when I read that. This [...] did not take any time to actually understand the basics of what he is writing about! Obviously, as a rule someone arrested goes to jail and then maybe prison, not to a POW camp! There is no indication of Zygoń ever having been a POW. </div><div><br /></div><div>(Ironically, after the first POW camp was liquidated in May 1940, there appeared in Starobelsk a transfer point for prisoners heading to the Northern labor camps. Which, of course, does not help Furr, since he is referring specifically to the POW camp and there is no evidence Zygoń would have ever have to set his foot in Starobelsk.)</div><div></div><blockquote><div>P. 58: "Body #92 searched by the Burdenko Commission must be Zigoń's because there is too much personal material on it to be anybody else."</div><div></div></blockquote><div>Imagine previously going to such lengths to explain your crank methodology about "unimpeachable" evidence, only to abandon it in one fell swoop and <i>simply accept</i> that whatever the Burdenko Commission claimed to have found on the bodies had been there originally! Don't misunderstand, in principle he can accept whatever he wants, but I expect consistency.</div><div><blockquote>P. 59: "Since this letter was found on Zigoń's body, he must have received it. By this time he must have been in another camp. Eventually he ended up in a camp near Smolensk, probably in one of the three camps 1-ON, 2-ON, or 3-ON. As we shall see, the existence of these three camps is documented in other materials found by Burdenko Commission investigators on other bodies."</blockquote></div><div>Since, as explained <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-vyazemlag.html">here</a> and <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ntv-goebbels-apt-pupils.html#docs">here</a>, we know that these camps never existed, this is more patent nonsense.</div><div><blockquote>P. 59: "So Zigoń was alive sometime after September 28, 1940, the latest date in Moscow. His body, along with many others, was exhumed at Katyn. This means that these men were also alive at that time, or Zygoń could not have been buried among them. Therefore they were not shot by the Soviets in Apríl-May 1940. That means that they were shot by the Germans and their Ukrainian Nationalist allies. This fact dismantles the "official" version of Katyn."</blockquote></div><div>I'm quoting it to emphasize once again that at this point Furr has abandoned his "unimpeachable evidence" scam (which involved using claims that the side making the claims would not be interested in faking) and now simply accepts the Soviet side's claims made <i>in their own interest</i> at face value.</div><div><br /></div><div>And you gotta love his mental tic: suddenly "Ukrainian Nationalist allies" appear, who had nothing to do with the Katyn forest, where the Soviets claimed to have found Zygoń. Freud would have enjoyed this.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now, let me repeat what I have already explained above: it was not in the Germans' general interest to hide the bodies of Starobelsk or Ostashkov POWs or of any outside prisoners. The exception - their suppressing the finding of Lewandowska's corpse (there was a perception of females being unexpected among POWs and thus it would not be good for propaganda) - proves the rule. On the contrary, since they made grandiose claims about 12000 bodies, implying those were the missing POWs from the three camps the Poles had been fervently searching for, they had every interest of finding every executed Polish male. In fact, they were pretty desperately searching for new graves. So the fact that they could not find more corpses or establish any corpses from other camps among the ones the had found logically tells us that those were indeed the Kozelsk prisoners. Hiding the outsiders would have been against the German interest.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Soviet finds of "outsiders" among the much fewer corpses (1380) that they exhumed, most of which had been already examined by the Germans (in fact there is strong, albeit not yet conclusive, <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ntv-goebbels-apt-pupils.html#grave8">evidence</a> that none of the documents in the Burdenko report came from an "untouched" corpse), are thus automatically suspicious, more so, because they were made in the Soviet interest. And if they are to serve as evidence of anything, it's against the credibility of the Soviet report, not for it.</div><div><br /></div><div>On the subsequent pages Furr simply repeats the same spiel - taking the Burdenko commission's finds that were in their own interest (not against it) at face value, so I will not repeat myself, except to note, that when it comes to the documents which mention <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-vyazemlag.html">non</a>-<a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ntv-goebbels-apt-pupils.html#docs">existent</a> "ON" camps, this is evidence of fakery by the Soviet side and this alone discredits the whole Burdenko report. Remember what I wrote about sufficient evidence necessary to dismiss pieces of evidence? This is it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then Furr comes to a novel argument, already quickly addressed above, which will be addressed now in more detail. He is talking about an internal Burdenko commission <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/pamyatnykh-burdenko-materials.html#gal-12">inventory</a> in which exhumed things, including documents, were described. He points to a certain document found on a body but not used by the commission publicly (thus, it would allegedly fit his criteria of unimpeachable evidence).</div><div></div><blockquote><div>Pp. 62, 63: "1. Body #2.</div><div><div>a) Receipt of camp "1" of November 19 1939 for a silver cigar case and "Montblanc" ballpoint pen from PRIAPUL'SKOGO (PRUTSUL'CKOGO) Pshemyslava Boleslavovicha (ПРЯПУЛЬСКОГО (ПРУЦУЛЬСКОГО) Пшемислава Болеславовича)"</div></div></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>[...]</p><p>No Katyn POW from any of the camps has a surname that ends in "-pulski." There is only one POW whose surname ends in "-ulski" (Russian: -УЛЬСКИЙ) and whose name is Przemyslaw and whose father was named Bolesław. He is in Ostashkov list 050/3 of sometime in April 1940 (Tucholski p. 886 #36):</p><p>36. КОЗЕТУЛЬСКОГО Пшемислава Болеславовича</p><p>In fact, no other Katyn POW in any of the POW camps had the Christian name Przemyslaw and a father named Boleslaw. This is the only one. So this has to be the man."</p></blockquote><p> I have previously addressed this nonsense <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-katyn-antikatyn.html#germanexhumation">here</a>:</p><div><blockquote>"The aforementioned G. Furr suggests that the Burdenko commission found a receipt from P. Kozietulski of Ostashkov in Katyn, despite the fact that the commission minutes indicate only variants of the name "Pr??ulski" with two obscure letters. One could believe that there was a problem with deciphering of these two letters; but it is doubtful that anyone would have read "Koziet" as "Pryab", "Pruts", etc."</blockquote></div><div>It doesn't play any role in the slightest for his claim that he could find someone with the matching first name and patronymic. The surname simply does not match. And if one were to assert that the transcriber could have gotten the surname so horribly wrong, then the first name and the patronymic are also in question.</div><div><br /></div><div>Moreover, his whole logic is wrong. That the people, who tried to decipher the document, could not do it, does not prove that it hadn't been planted. It only shows that it was highly unlikely to have been planted by the people who couldn't decipher it. And the document being indecipherable after it was found does not mean that, <i>if</i> it had been planted, it wasn't decipherable at the moment of the planting. In practical terms it would mean something like this (this is just one scenario, others are possible): if an NKGB/NKVD team planted documents on the bodies in the autumn of 1943 (when they were <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ntv-goebbels-apt-pupils.html#grave8">tampering</a> with the graves) and some of them got spoiled for obvious reasons, this would be completely compatible with the Burdenko team finding them (without most of the members knowing about the hoax) and not being able to decipher some of them. (And yes, there is no evidence that most of the Burdenko commission knew what was going on.)</div><div><br /></div><div>To this I will add, that Furr's translation of the document is misleading. In Russian there is a slight ambiguity about what the text says, but the primary version is this:</div><div><blockquote>"Receipt №1 of camp of November 19 1939..."</blockquote></div><div>Yes, it sounds stilted, but so does the version that makes "№1" into a stand-in for "first", no one writes or talks like this either. Furr doesn't make a claim that this document proves the existence of the camp 1-ON (indeed, no one has made a claim that these camps existed so early and the document doesn't mention "ON"), but an unaware reader may misunderstand the meaning of the document. My hypothesis is that a particular camp was mentioned but its name was not readable, and this fact was not properly shown in the inventory's description by using the ellipsis.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now, there is the obvious question as to who this document belonged to (if it wasn't anyone from Kozelsk) and why it is in the grave. We simply don't have enough information to answer this, and the document could be real (and so some POW might have had simply it from someone else for an unknown reason), or it could have been planted. Even if we were to accept Furr's proposal that it belonged to Kozietulski, then the reason for the planting would have been to prove that <i>not</i> only the Kozelsk POWs are in the Katyn forest (so that the Poles don't ask too many questions about the whereabout of the missing POWs from Starobelsk and Ostashkov).</div><div><br /></div><div>Furr's summary of the chapter, p. 66:</div><div><blockquote><div>"* We have a good deal of solid evidence that at least some prisoners lived after May 1940, the terminus ante quem that the "official" version states they must have been killed. </div><div>* We also have unimpeachable evidence that prisoners from Ostashkov and Starobel'sk camps were transferred in April and May 1940 to execution in Kalinin and Khar'kov but not to execution and burial at Mednoe and Piatykhatky. Instead, they were transferred onward to Smolensk."</div></blockquote><div></div></div><div>Needless to say, if Furr had any evidence for these claims, he would have cited it, but he hasn't, so they remain his fantasies.</div><div><br /></div><div>In fact, the documents in the Burdenko report mentioning the "ON" camps are by necessity fake, since there were no such camps, and of course other aspects of the report can be shown to be faked too, like the report's claims about <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ahrens-burdenko.html">Ahrens</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><a name="ch4"></a></b><b>"Chapter 4, Closed Packet No. 1"</b></div><div><blockquote>P. 67: "Since 1995 there have been challenges to the authenticity of these documents. These challenges are either ignored or dismissed with derision by proponents of the "official" version."</blockquote></div><div>Or debunked with facts and arguments, as I have done <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content_katyndenial.html">here</a> and <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-katyn-antikatyn.html#katyndocs">here</a>. At the time Furr was writing this, the first link had already been known to him (you can check out the article creation dates to see which ones had already been available then).</div><div><br /></div><div>Then he goes on about one of the excerpts from the Politburo decision:</div><div><blockquote>P. 70: "No one has come up with a satisfactory explanation for this document."</blockquote></div><div>Actually I <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-katyn-antikatyn.html#excerpts">have</a>, although I published my research results already after this book. But all of what I wrote had to be clear to an actual specialist already back when Furr was writing his screed. It's not rocket science, just research, logic and common sense.</div><div><div><blockquote>P. 71: "Document number 4 of "Closed Packet No. 1" contains a proposal from Shelepin that all the files relating to Katyn be destroyed.</blockquote></div><div>Poppycock. He <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/sealed-envelope-aprf-text.html#shelep">proposed</a> destroying the POW and prisoner files, not Politburo decision etc. (and he even explicitly mentioned some documents that could remain if there was a wish). Is this a lie or is Furr just a complete ignoramus unable to read simple texts? You decide.</div><div></div><blockquote>P. 71: "At any rate it appears that this destruction, actual or only contemplated, had something to do with the stamp "Do not burn" on the Shelepin version of Document 2."</blockquote><div></div><div>It does, in fact, <i>not </i>appear so. It's just Furr's brainfart. OTOH, destroying duplicate excerpts after a while was a common practice, so the stamp made sense in this context. There is yet another alternative - the excerpts that were sent out to individuals were then destroyed as a rule, and the stamp could have been there so that the excerpt is not destroyed when it comes back from Shelepin.</div></div><div><blockquote>P. 71: "It is hard to imagine archivists giving permission to alter archival documents in the way that the Shelepin version of Document 2 has been altered."</blockquote></div><div>Hard to imagine based on deep archival research, or based on a ignorant Stalinist fanatic's hunch?</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, I address this:</div><div><blockquote>An alternative to this formally correct procedure would have been the creation of a strange new excerpt with Stalin's decision about the execution on the current letterhead of the CPSU. It is likely that the excerpt to be sent to A. N. Shelepin because of the particular importance of the document was prepared by T. K. Silina herself (it was her notes on sending the archive copy to A. N. Shelepin and on returning it are on the back of the informational excerpt), the head of the Politburo archives since 1933, for whom documents of this kind had not a sacral-historical status, but rather a business status, as evidenced by the destruction by her (or with her knowledge) of extra copies of the excerpt in 1956.</blockquote></div><div><blockquote>P. 71: "But whatever the motive, the "Shelepin" document has been falsified."</blockquote></div><div>Wait, what? I rechecked and it's true: up until the point of this pronouncement Furr has not actually provided a single argument for his forgery claim (he listed some points he personally finds strange, but this does not amount to an actual <i>argument</i> for forgery). Yet here he is, making it.</div><div><blockquote>P. 71: "The addition of Stalin's name at the bottom also suggests an attempt at forgery."</blockquote></div><div>Also? What else does (with arguments please)? And, uh, it obviously doesn't. Excerpts that were sent out (as opposed to the archival/informational versions) had to have the name of a TsK secretary in some form. Sometimes it was a <a href="http://docs.historyrussia.org/ru/nodes/34261-akademiya-nauk-v-resheniyah-politbyuro-tsk-rkp-b-vkp-b-kpss-1922-1991-t-1-1922-1952#mode/inspect/page/299/zoom/4">facsimile</a> signature, sometimes a handwritten name, but some name had to be there <i>pro forma</i>.</div><div><blockquote>P. 71: "A genuine document of 1940 signed "Secretary of the C.C." would not need to carry Stalin's name."</blockquote></div><div>Dude, who said it was added in 1940? Of course it was added right before sending it to Shelepin, because up to that point the excerpt had been purely informational (and thus needed no TsK sec name) and had to be formally prepared for the sending, which accounts for all the changes and additions. And yes, in 1940 an excerpt prepared for sending would, indeed, have to carry a TsK secretary's name (not always Stalin's).</div><div><br /></div><div>Furr concludes (p. 71):</div><div><blockquote><div>"* The Shelepin version of Document 2 was certainly created during Khrushchev's time.</div><div>* The manipulation of the "Beria version" of Document 2 suggests that it may have been created at the same time and so may also be a forgery."</div></blockquote><div></div></div><div>Of course, Furr cited no evidence that the excerpt was even <i>probably</i> created during Khrushchev's time, much less "certainly". He has cited no evidence at all! And calling the bureaucratic procedure of preparing an excerpt to be sent to someone "manipulation" takes nerve!</div><div></div><blockquote><div>P. 72: "* The "do not burn" stamp on the Shelepin version suggests that there was a plan to burn at least some documents.</div><div>* The addition of Stalin's name suggests that this was an aborted attempt to produce false evidence in order to accuse Stalin of guilt in the Katyn massacre."</div></blockquote><div></div><div>It doesn't and it doesn't, explained above.</div><div><blockquote>P. 72: "Kharazov's testimony, and remarks made by an aged Shelepin to investigators in the early 1990s, are good evidence that some kind of Katyn forgery was contemplated during Khrushchev's day."</blockquote></div><div>Just another of Furr's deceptions, turning the testimony supporting the documents' authenticity into a forgery claim.</div><div><blockquote>P. 72: "If Khrushchev decided to blame Stalin for the Katyn massacre he would have also implicated himself."</blockquote></div><div>Absolutely. The first good point in the book. Obviously, no "Katyn forgeries" can be blamed on Khrushchev.</div><div><blockquote>P. 72: "There is a lot of other evidence that these documents are forgeries."</blockquote></div><div>There is, in fact, none, but do go on.</div><div><blockquote>P. 73: "And - it is important to recognize this also it is likewise impossible to prove from internal evidence that the documents in "Closed Packet No. 1" are genuine. They are of questionable validity. As such they are useless as evidence."</blockquote></div><div>Not sure what he means by internal evidence, but I have provided, at the links above, plenty of evidence of authenticity. There is nothing questionable about the validity of these documents, Furr has not shown that his claim is true, and so, of course, these documents are a sufficient evidence of the Soviet guilt.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><a name="ch5"></a></b><b>"Chapter 5. The Excavations at Volodymyr-Volyns'kiy"</b></div><div><br /></div><div>I've dealt with the core claim of this chapter just recently, Furr's claims are debunked <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2022/08/grover-furrs-lie-about-my-claim-about.html">here</a> and <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-v-v.html">here</a> in detail (and earlier <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2020/01/looking-for-katyn-lighthouses.html">here</a>). Long story short, the badges of two policemen who were shot in Kalinin were found in VV (the presence in which in 1939 is documented for one of the two policemen and cannot be ruled out for the other), but not on bodies. Hence there is no evidence that the two policemen were buried anywhere but at Mednoye. That's it, basically. But let me also point out that according to the current understanding the graves at VV are a mix of NKVD and Nazi graves (Siemińska D., "Archaeological studies on World War II totalitarianism in the yard of a mediaeval hill fort in Volodymyr-Volynskyi, Ukraine" // <i>Materiality of Troubled Pasts. Archaeologies of Conflicts and War</i> / edited by A. Zalewska et al. Warsaw, Szczecin, 2017). No wonder - the same VV prison was used by the NKVD and Gestapo. The conclusion is based on the difference between the graves' structure and content.</div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjVMUDwil6YZ2rGhU31ekfaj2PMd7PBDZhQPTMvfmFmKKv2riknzwgfwyn_HUFKPgPlkwABQV_i3KUQi026aX0nR2zj2jlZiFcebx2Il80QsdR9OmoQsS2fXU538NM21pxf2pUB5c44dad_VT9ZW8CsjosTbirRQqOG9jTSdioZKI-vt214iA0" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="783" data-original-width="587" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjVMUDwil6YZ2rGhU31ekfaj2PMd7PBDZhQPTMvfmFmKKv2riknzwgfwyn_HUFKPgPlkwABQV_i3KUQi026aX0nR2zj2jlZiFcebx2Il80QsdR9OmoQsS2fXU538NM21pxf2pUB5c44dad_VT9ZW8CsjosTbirRQqOG9jTSdioZKI-vt214iA0" width="180" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A grave of the Nazi victims in VV which includes mothers hugging their children. <br />Sieminska, p. 105.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh9kfdkEWxmF-qlelvvQH55e4hRVPubIv_NAgsuM5jpaPAnlbyj5YE_bUH5af2u1rPwWHga2WCY1QiEdVMzn7LTC7_c7mjXAhawxg2g5vDynSF-SiAbPmMB8lLonPC1PmcK1UholEOdvfOeH2TYWqpp9KZzdU7q7r5hO6Q3phOZnSHYpDLashg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="733" data-original-width="741" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh9kfdkEWxmF-qlelvvQH55e4hRVPubIv_NAgsuM5jpaPAnlbyj5YE_bUH5af2u1rPwWHga2WCY1QiEdVMzn7LTC7_c7mjXAhawxg2g5vDynSF-SiAbPmMB8lLonPC1PmcK1UholEOdvfOeH2TYWqpp9KZzdU7q7r5hO6Q3phOZnSHYpDLashg" width="243" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another such grave, ibid., p. 106.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj_zuta3oEcPNoZRhRSOWbkUURDEzLmr4DlPa5_WdX5u1wKwYZKxqSgap9vLk2wOIIX0rDfMEtsMLPWUFlQDTVnAFo8BH2bdMTgxG7AmSOCBN6_wfyi7bz65WNV8a4TOUWBt0NQXr-tn3RHsX4Up5aycXCnPuPk5r67LutbRglY-kzw4PiJV7Q" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="626" data-original-width="1028" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj_zuta3oEcPNoZRhRSOWbkUURDEzLmr4DlPa5_WdX5u1wKwYZKxqSgap9vLk2wOIIX0rDfMEtsMLPWUFlQDTVnAFo8BH2bdMTgxG7AmSOCBN6_wfyi7bz65WNV8a4TOUWBt0NQXr-tn3RHsX4Up5aycXCnPuPk5r67LutbRglY-kzw4PiJV7Q" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A VV grave with NKVD victims, ibid., p. 110.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />This helps to explain why certain incorrect conclusions were made about the whole site at some point in time, before further excavations and analysis established the current consensus.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><a name="ch6"></a></b><b>"Chapter 6. What the Unimpeachable Evidence Shows"</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Here Furr reiterates the already debunked points and whines about Guryanov based on them. Since his premises have already been proven to be based on lies, fakes and ignorance, his conclusions can also be ignored.</div><div><br /></div><div>He then whines about a "worldwide antícommunist conspiracy to ignore the truth about Katyn, as about many other alleged "crimes of Stalin." (p. 100) and wonders why kooky cranks like him are ignored by the actual historians. Of course, his argument is no different from that of a Holocaust denier - they might also complain that their "research" is "ignored".</div><div><br /></div><div><b><a name="ch7"></a></b><b>"Chapter 7. The German Report"</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Furr wants to establish that there are lies and contradictions in the German report. An attentive reader will notice, that I have already conceded that this is the case. The question is whether any of those expose a falsification of any <i>core</i> Katyn claims by the Germans, like they do with the Soviet falsifications in the Burdenko report.</div><div><br /></div><div>I will also point out that the German report itself doesn't play a great role today, albeit it still contains some useful pieces of information not contained elsewhere. It's the exhumations themselves that are still important, but today we have sources that are closer to the exhumations themselves (like the German and Polish exhumation protocols and related documents), as well as various testimonies of the participants, that are arguably more valuable than most of what the report has to say, especially as some of this information got distorted in the report for propaganda purposes.</div><div><br /></div><div>The important forensic conclusions of the report largely don't hold up too. Orsos' pseudocallus method, that so impressed the other experts, later failed to be confirmed scientifically. Various smaller observations could be interpreted in different ways. Also, forensic science simply could not, based on the post-mortem transformation of the corpses in mass graves, tell whether they were buried in 1940 or 1941. (The key element was actually the documents, found in the graves, coupled with the corpses having been glued to each other due to the adipocere transformation, which also conserved the documents, but this was simply an observation, for which no forensic expertise was necessary.)</div><div><br /></div><div>While it is understandable, that some earlier researchers still relied on these forensic conclusions in some part, nowadays most of them aren't of much use in any case, as different, much more powerful sorts of evidence have become known.</div><div><br /></div><div>That said, let's take a look at Furr's claims.</div><div><br /></div><div>P. 107: in one place the report says there were numerous clerics among the victims, then admits only 1 was found. If it were a contradiction, it would have been an inconsequential one - the claim appears on p. 9, in the short introduction obviously written by an anonymous propagandist. Several witnesses are quoted later in the report who claimed to have seen several clerics, and this was probably the source for the intro. In fact, several capelans were killed in the Katyn forest (see <i>UvK</i>), and not all of them would have necessarily been identifiable as such in the graves, depending on what they wore or the state of their corpses.</div><div><br /></div><div>The intro also contains the laughable claim that in all there may be 10-12000 bodies in the graves, including the undiscovered ones (at that point was internally clear to all participants that this was not the case). This is a more important issue, but, of course, Furr ignores it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Pp. 108, 109: several witnesses state the NKVD house was fenced off in 1931 but Silvestrov allegedly contradicts this by implying that only during the transports the usual mushroom gathering was forbidden in the vicinity of the house. However, Silvestrov's formulation is too vague for Furr's argument to work. What exactly is the vicinity that he means? Right beside the house? This would be just an assumption (based on a translation, at that). It could have extended significantly beyond the fence. And it would in any case make sense if people were forbidden to gather mushrooms also right outside the fence, which would still in the vicinity of the house. Or when he said "the rest house of the collectives", this might have easily included the terrain around it, i. e. the whole complex. When we say "dom otdykha" in Russian, we usually understand, that it can include several separate buildings and the territory. <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160611045818/http://do-pokrovskoe.ru/o-nas/shema-territorii/">Here</a> is, for example, the "rest house Pokrovskoye":</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhTgoVYbCTlEFki6Xr5sr3dSG97XGJhvWJ9ttl6kksbGm8-aUOF3puBAjrQA0cFRF9LwqDPU209LQRrmQOCya9ZRCUOMc7ucmAzI-h4rJu5PJoHJb0T44W5cwNSla8YqFRVs9oZ77RMV91z4XeiL7ICZTBN-MY_bgh_RuidkJz8siRCIs7jOhY" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="969" data-original-width="1370" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhTgoVYbCTlEFki6Xr5sr3dSG97XGJhvWJ9ttl6kksbGm8-aUOF3puBAjrQA0cFRF9LwqDPU209LQRrmQOCya9ZRCUOMc7ucmAzI-h4rJu5PJoHJb0T44W5cwNSla8YqFRVs9oZ77RMV91z4XeiL7ICZTBN-MY_bgh_RuidkJz8siRCIs7jOhY" width="320" /></a></div>From the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160611045808/http://do-pokrovskoe.ru/o-nas/ob-otele/">description</a>:</div><div><blockquote><div>The boarding house Pokrovskoye has a rich accommodation reserve, namely, several buildings and a large number of cottages and villas. All in all, the room reserve of the rest house Pokrovskoye can offer more than 1000 places of accommodation with different levels of comfort, from economy class to VIP. At present Pokrovskoye is one of the best boarding houses of the Moscow region, and more than once competitions gave it the title of the Best rest house of the Moscow region.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>In the rest house Pokrovskoye</b> you will find absolutely everything for a good rest: several restaurants with different cuisines, baths, saunas, a wonderful nature complex, <b>a lake and a thick mixed forest</b>, well-groomed paths and areas for rest, equipped sites for barbecue, rental of different sports equipment, entertainment programs, lots of services for your children and much, much more.</div></blockquote><div>Not much, much more needs to be said.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>P. 110: Kiselev repeated the exaggerated German figure of victims. And? Where is a lie or a contradiction? Witnesses adopting various official figures and incorporating them into testimonies is common. Think about the testimonies about 4 million victims in Auschwitz.</div><div><blockquote>P. 110: "Former Polish officer Glaeser told the Germans that the Kozel'sk transits began on March 20, 1940, and ended May 9, 1940. (AM 31) This is false. According to Tucholski's book, which prints all the Soviet transit lists, there is no list earlier than April 1."</blockquote></div><div>And? Chronological misstatements of such nature are common in witness testimonies. This doesn't really need an explanation beyond this (but it is at least a hypothetical possibility that the witnesses' memory was influenced by the fact of the transfer on 09.03.1940 of 15 POWs out of Kozelsk, see <i>UvK</i>, pp. 85, 97).</div><div><br /></div><div>P. 111: the German report claims that some POWs were transferred from Starobelsk to Kozelsk and then to Katyn. Actually this claim occurs in the policeman Voss' final report that is printed in the German report. Furr points out that "There is no evidence for any "small number" having been transported from Starobel'sk to Kozel'sk before April-May 1940." This is, however, incorrect, as there were some direct transfers from Starobielsk to Kozelsk, with the POWs having been in Starobelsk only for a few days in 1939 (it was basically a transit point for them); but also indirect transfers fit Voss' description - several Starobelsk prisoners were first transferred elsewhere (e. g. to Moscow) and then to Kozelsk, to end up at Katyn (<i>UvK</i>, pp. 140 (Aleksandrowicz Antoni), 147 (Babuchowski Marian), 168 (Brzezicki Mikołaj), 177 (Bołdok Tadeusz), 208 (Wdówka Henryk Marian), 307 (Domagała Tadeusz Edward), 312 (Drabczyński Ignacy), 356 (Ilków Mikołaj) and others).</div><div><br /></div><div>P. 111. Objections against Voss' claim that at one time 2402 officers were transferred from Kozelsk. Well, it's just a spurious piece of information. Also a pretty common thing in such reports. No source is stated directly, presumably this comes from the aforementioned Glaeser, so could be simple hearsay and/or misunderstanding. Whatever. Completely inconsequential.</div><div><br /></div><div>Pp. 111-114: the German report contradicts itself on whether there were insects on the corpses. Palmieri wrote numerous larvae were found on a corpse he autopsied. Furr quotes Markov at the Nuremberg trial, who noted:</div><div></div><blockquote><div>"As to the insects and their larvae, the assertion of the general report that none were discovered is in flagrant contradiction to the conclusions of Professor Palmieri..."</div><div></div></blockquote><div>I agree that there is a contradiction, but not necessarily due to an intent to deceive.</div><div><br /></div><div>By the general report Markov <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/07-02-46.asp">meant</a> the small report signed by the members of the international commission. What did it say? Furr himself provides a translation:</div><div><div><blockquote>"Insects and insect remains on the corpses that could have come from the time of burial are entirely lacking."</blockquote></div></div><div>Note that contrary to Markov this formulation does not, strictly speaking, deny finds of insects or insect remains absolutely, only of such "that could have come from the time of burial".</div><div><br /></div><div>Imagine the hot late summer days of 1941, when the massacre began according to the Soviets. The experts probably reasoned that it would have been almost unavoidable that numerous insects - not only flies, but also ants, mites etc. - would get attracted to the fresh corpses (and would also leave noticeable damage by consuming some parts of them (Insektenfraß)). I hypothesize that the thrust of the statement is that thousands and thousands of such insects would have been accidentally buried together with the corpses (hence coming "from the time of burial"), yet none such were found (according to the report, at least). In this sense the found larvae could be seen as not having come "from the time of burial" but having developed some time later, the focus was not on them, but on the "snapshot" of a particular point in time.</div><div><br /></div><div>If this reading is true, there is, of course, still a formal contradiction. At some point of time flies had to lay the eggs. Was it much later than the burial, perhaps in some partially exposed parts of the top layer, when the weather got warmer (thus formally not contradicting the clause "from the time of burial")? Then it should have been shown that they could <i>not</i> have come earlier, at the time of burial, because it doesn't follow from anything that they could not have (yet the report excludes such a possibility). It would have been circular reasoning to argue that it could not have been due to cold weather. If, on the other hand, the flies are assumed to have arrived around the time of burial (with the larvae thus appearing only afterwards), then it was not, at least in an absolute sense, an insect-free period (as the report claims). By the way, flies can lay their eggs also at relatively low temperatures, so the notion of an <i>absolute</i> insect-free period in April and May does not really hold up anyway, at least not without a really detailed forensic-entomological analysis proving the case. </div><div><br /></div><div>I think that the experts probably wanted to express the point that the insects that got caught up in the burial, were not found, but did not think their words through and formulated their thesis poorly (or did not catch a poor formulation by one person), thus creating a formal contradiction. So I'll agree that this is a defect and that it also lessens the forensic value of the report. But then, as I wrote earlier, the forensic part of the report in weak evidence anyway (same applies to the Soviet one, which is even weaker).</div><div><br /></div><div>Furr then whines (pp. 114, 115) about "terminus post quem", but this nonsensical argument of his has already been debunked above.</div><div><br /></div><div>On p. 115 Furr quotes a part of a political statement of the Polish govt-in-exile, printed in the German report, rejecting any possibility of "a meeting or an understanding with Hitler", then points to the Polish Red Cross working at Katyn. Even if there were a contradiction here (and it's not a given, as it is a matter of subjective interpretation - as far as I'm concerned, the PRC's work in the Katyn forest was not in any form "a meeting or an understanding with Hitler", and the PRC members actually <a href="https://archive.org/details/katynforestmassa03unit/page/398/mode/2up">refused</a> to collaborate in the German propaganda), what does a purely political statement of a Polish government not being fully correct have to do with the exhumations?</div><div><br /></div><div>In this chapter Furr has failed to show that the German report was a part of a grandiose hoax, albeit he was able to point out at least one defect - which was a gimme anyway, due to the limited evidential value of the German report nowadays.</div><div><br /></div><div>Since Furr continues the analysis in the next chapter, no conclusions follow for now.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><a name="ch8"></a></b><b>"Chapter 8. The German Report, continued. Sakharov's Article "Secrets of Katyn"</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Valentin Sakharov, on whose writings Furr relies in this chapter, is another Stalinist crank, who is extremely, woefully ignorant, as has been shown <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ria-liars.html#sakharov">here</a>, <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ntv-goebbels-apt-pupils.html#sakharov">here</a> and <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-review-germans-in-katyn.html">here</a>.</div><div><blockquote>P. 118: "It <i>[Lviv - SR]</i> was renamed "Lemberg" by the Germans after they captured it in June 1941 during the invasion of the Soviet Union. According to the "officìal" version and the German Report (AM) the Polish POWs were murdered by the Soviet NKVD more than a year earlier, in April and May 1940. Therefore there should not have been any documents found in the mass graves with the name "Lemberg" on them. But according to AM such documents were found."</blockquote></div><div>False, if only because "Lemberg" could appear in private documents of the Polish POWs who were ethnic Germans (some such were indeed buried in the Katyn forest).</div><div><blockquote><div>P. 118: "Here we will examine some examples of these documents‘ The</div><div>number represents the number assigned in AM to the corpse exhumed by the Germans in April-June 1943.</div><div></div><blockquote><div>892. Uniformierter.</div><div>1 Foto mit Anschrift: Hanina Gajowska, Lemberg,</div><div>Zyzyinska 24. (?) 1 Medaillon. (AM 189)</div></blockquote><div></div><div>"Anschrift" - "inscription" - means that these were the actual words on the photo. If genuine, this proves that the body and document were from after June, 1941, and therefore that the victim was murdered by the Germans."</div></blockquote><div></div></div><div>It means no such thing at all, since it makes an unwarranted assumption that the German translators never would have translated the Polish placenames into German.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the Polish <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20220809111222/https://lublin.ap.gov.pl/wp-content/uploads/listykatynskie/katyn06-7.pdf">list</a> we see for this number:</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj6e1q-KRs69gN8O03PzNAJcxKFYHMTVgtQh7B33up3LjQ8TxyLRn85A5ZF6rmzVXwJ9cMK3OsojB0n5QhyO78tZRgGmVxoxhcjsSLufgm5PNzwJ-rjuwRhB8MgsKkVS0wmNy6epYIXulsdq1eqfUTpVzMuno4ApmY7oWEZlwhQya_7uwPGj0o" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="121" data-original-width="1798" height="22" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj6e1q-KRs69gN8O03PzNAJcxKFYHMTVgtQh7B33up3LjQ8TxyLRn85A5ZF6rmzVXwJ9cMK3OsojB0n5QhyO78tZRgGmVxoxhcjsSLufgm5PNzwJ-rjuwRhB8MgsKkVS0wmNy6epYIXulsdq1eqfUTpVzMuno4ApmY7oWEZlwhQya_7uwPGj0o" width="320" /></a></div><br />Therefore there is exactly nothing to suggest that "Lwów" was not also in the original text.</div><div><br /></div><div>On pp. 118-119 Furr tries to preempt this obvious explanation:</div><div><blockquote>"If the inscription really read "Lwów" and some German, in an excess of patriotism or political correctness, changed the name
"Lemberg," the name in use at the time of the exhumations in 1943, then that would mean that the Germans were altering the documents they found. And that would compromise the <i>bona fides</i> of the German AM."</blockquote></div><div>Not at all! It was not altering the documents, but translating them. Now, Furr may not like this particular translation mode (and we can agree that it was not scholarly), but that's neither here, nor there, since the lists were not created for academic scholarly purposes. Moreover, even if "bona fides" of the AM were somehow damaged (though not in any sense proving deception), we still have the parallel Polish lists, which we still can check.</div><div><blockquote>P. 119: "If this one mention of "Lwow" was an oversight and the Germans were changing "Lwow" to "Lemberg" wherever they found it that would mean that the Germans were altering the documents whenever they saw fit to do. If that were the case it would mean that we cannot trust any of these documents in AM, because the Germans might have altered or even invented them."</blockquote></div><div>Nope. It only means we cannot expect to see a 100% true transcription in a scholarly sense (i. e. we must be wary of how various names are presented). Nothing else, certainly not any invention, follows.</div></div></div><div><blockquote>P. 119: "2 Fliegerabzeichen, 2 Briefe a. Namen: Irena Schmidt,
Lemberg, ul. Bulwarska 1, adressiert an: Eward [pre
sumably this should be "Edward"] Schmidt, Kozielsk
(AM 215)"</blockquote></div><div>Polish <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20211201164419/http://lublin.ap.gov.pl/wp-content/uploads/listykatynskie/katyn08-4.pdf">list</a>:</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgmrB9BsPY_bgyOE6-PeC0qpsEdoUkRzhBlGi0QLMcVt5Dewu2Hj7eZ3MZZ2ic_B6bdR0Jpg52A4bJEi_oEHybzEvoyGHXIbXXm0yXZ_PfH0iJkgzG7a4v8gi-nZzWHRA9Y4jqZJKfI0022-hq6QQijXhuq9_JwDI2jd18ccl1MGZ1GV4rdBQU" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="211" data-original-width="1300" height="52" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgmrB9BsPY_bgyOE6-PeC0qpsEdoUkRzhBlGi0QLMcVt5Dewu2Hj7eZ3MZZ2ic_B6bdR0Jpg52A4bJEi_oEHybzEvoyGHXIbXXm0yXZ_PfH0iJkgzG7a4v8gi-nZzWHRA9Y4jqZJKfI0022-hq6QQijXhuq9_JwDI2jd18ccl1MGZ1GV4rdBQU" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div><blockquote><div>P. 120: "781. K......, Boleslaw, Sohn des Zygmunt. 1 Foto mit Anschrift: Deine sich sehnende Frau, Lemberg, den 13. 2. 1940, Impfschein, Brief, Briefumschlag. (AM 186)"</div><div></div></blockquote><div>Polish <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20220809111238/https://lublin.ap.gov.pl/wp-content/uploads/listykatynskie/katyn07-3.pdf">list</a>: </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiX16Gemh6s_poBAJZ7Q4J8bsL6J8EHMwFBd8FQmSgi_EC1SGwPX0DpRsWTr3YJJk9Bciow7onw7BY5ZgNeNy2oDI-tmD_-I_sDDoQIhEj1L7XmGdXni_iNLFav_hYK9Zw_zNC2g4mcZpSUT0Hg2Xy7HQ9fojYapwf-CGuw3OuZP61nPYb8fOw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="115" data-original-width="1298" height="28" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiX16Gemh6s_poBAJZ7Q4J8bsL6J8EHMwFBd8FQmSgi_EC1SGwPX0DpRsWTr3YJJk9Bciow7onw7BY5ZgNeNy2oDI-tmD_-I_sDDoQIhEj1L7XmGdXni_iNLFav_hYK9Zw_zNC2g4mcZpSUT0Hg2Xy7HQ9fojYapwf-CGuw3OuZP61nPYb8fOw" width="320" /></a></div><br /><blockquote>P. 121: "Why would a Polish captain be carrying a certificate of military service written in the German language? According to the "Katyn Cemetery Book" (page 509) Pufahl had fought in the First World War. But he would have fought in the Russian army, since Poland was part of Tsarist Russia at that time."</blockquote></div><div>Ah, the great researcher Furr strikes again! Just a bit of <a href="https://pw.ipn.gov.pl/pwi/form/r44909613605,PUFAHL-Roman.html">googling</a> would have told him that in the WWI Pufahl fought in the Prussian army and even had an Iron Cross, 2nd class. And yes, during the 1939 war any such service, however long ago, could at any time become politically relevant, so it makes sense that he was also carrying that document with him. BTW, ain't it sweet that Furr has never heard of the Province of Posen and really thought that all the August 1939 Poland had been in the Russian empire in 1914? LOL.</div><div><div></div><blockquote><div>P. 121: "4120. 一一 Josef Hptm., Liebenau, Schloßstraße 6.</div><div>1 Lebenslauf in deutscher Sprache, 3 Briefe (AM 272)</div><div><br /></div><div>There were a number of towns named Liebenau. None were in prewar Poland. One of them is in Lower Silesia, which between 1919 and 1945 was in Germany, not Poland. Why would a Polish captain, a resident of Germany, have a "curriculum vitae" in German on his person while fighting against Germany in the Polish army? Such documentation would leave him vulnerable to being charged with treason against Germany, where his residence was."</div></blockquote><div></div></div><div>Wrong! (Of course. ROTFL.)</div><div><br /></div><div>There was at least the village <a href="http://gov.genealogy.net/item/show/LIENA1JO83VL">Liebenau</a> (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gostycyn">Gostycyn</a> in gmina Gostycyn, <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gmina_Gostycyn">in Poland</a> since 1919) in the former West Prussia. Why someone living there might have a German CV does not need <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westpreu%C3%9Fen#Bev%C3%B6lkerungsentwicklung">explaining</a> to someone who has not been living under a rock, historically speaking.</div><div><blockquote>P. 122: "Krzesiński": Another Piece of Evidence That Cannot Be Impugned"</blockquote></div><div>This whole joke of an argument has been debunked <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ntv-goebbels-apt-pupils.html#krzesinski">here</a>: </div><div><div><blockquote>"However, there is no information identifying this man as Krzesinski in either German or Polish primary sources, i.e. we are talking about a mistake. The reason is simple: Tucholski clearly relied on a secondary, postwar list of Adam Moszyński, which lists a certain Lieutenant-Colonel <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Kp8fAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA501-IA56">Krzesiński</a>, who allegedly corresponds to the number 0439 and who allegedly lived at "Warszawa ul. Bracka 14, m. 2". But this address is found in the German list under the number 0438 (Wacław Pachnikiewicz), which is the address of some H. and. Z. Krzesiński ("H. u. Z. Krzesinscy"), who sent four cards to Pachnikiewicz. That is, there was a classic mistake "the creator of the list looked in the wrong place", and as a result Lieutenant <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieutenant_Kij%C3%A9">Kizhe</a> appeared. There was no "lieutenant Krzesiński from Warsaw" in the graves and who was number 0439 - we do not know. It could have been one of the aforementioned ethnic Germans among the Polish prisoners of war from the Silesian or Poznan voivodeships, so he could very well have had, for example, a draft letter to the commandant in German (unless there was some other mix-up in compiling the original list, which is also quite possible)."</blockquote></div><div>Another of Furr's unimpeachable arguments bites the dust.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>P. 124, Schreer/Litzmannstadt: debunked <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ria-liars.html#sakharov">here</a>. The original documents, <b>which we still have</b>, say "Łodz" and "Lodsch". For Krochmalski Furr uses the same perverse logic as above, not taking account the translation methods and not using the Polish <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20211201152620/http://lublin.ap.gov.pl/wp-content/uploads/listykatynskie/katyn09-3.pdf">list</a>:</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjj-Tf-1qfeEqnL57NCNVQYYBOESXUBP1RG0qnydcuHxgqyF2O1LXW_fD2rMvRL3BNfOoR3EUBdAumTNOhRq_IDVdCUdNwNNjoezzU0UH3i1JkV3Q2hWy29TIqBbQxd5NkrdCS5gsZBw64TFxfceyiDxE59tkJ1jrwMaHv5G8tMR4-I09hOEcU" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="100" data-original-width="1273" height="25" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjj-Tf-1qfeEqnL57NCNVQYYBOESXUBP1RG0qnydcuHxgqyF2O1LXW_fD2rMvRL3BNfOoR3EUBdAumTNOhRq_IDVdCUdNwNNjoezzU0UH3i1JkV3Q2hWy29TIqBbQxd5NkrdCS5gsZBw64TFxfceyiDxE59tkJ1jrwMaHv5G8tMR4-I09hOEcU" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /></div><div>P. 125, about Frelkiewicz:</div><div><blockquote>"This soldier's name was spell ed with - kie-. But the entry on AM 201 has "-ke." This could not have been on any postcard ("Karte") to him. No Pole would make this error."</blockquote></div><div>This is the height of kookery - basing a conspiracy theory on one letter without even considering a much more mundane, and therefore plausible, explanation - a typo (which any Pole could have made too, but all the more - a German!). Though that matter is more interesting than that, as we see in the Polish <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20220809111231/https://lublin.ap.gov.pl/wp-content/uploads/listykatynskie/katyn06-8.pdf">list</a>:</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhippycjaVBD79JFPWiSlOOZAMazI96jRWMrtEWdjuMj9rZaAlTwFy8dtPl7ZReleHShKrpXdhNrJ3nxvPy_WZo694DEGNoDJA9GIMXtwHHhTRrfT_74jSzecRA6zzBOTQciAXRBBNnHq-WTtrcMtrWAp4HZCtPAYqViukQJagIcKhh7kEBHu8" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="138" data-original-width="1514" height="29" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhippycjaVBD79JFPWiSlOOZAMazI96jRWMrtEWdjuMj9rZaAlTwFy8dtPl7ZReleHShKrpXdhNrJ3nxvPy_WZo694DEGNoDJA9GIMXtwHHhTRrfT_74jSzecRA6zzBOTQciAXRBBNnHq-WTtrcMtrWAp4HZCtPAYqViukQJagIcKhh7kEBHu8" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div><div>Here you see both his apparently incomplete surname with "ke" as well as the full and correctly spelled name of the sender. Whatever the reason for the distorted "short" version (partial legibility of a name + typo, with an omitted indication of incompleteness; or, more probably, "Frelke" used as a nickname in one of the letters ("Dear Frelke...") - with his surname in the address of Anne's postcard not necessarily visible - after all, in the camp he was also nicknamed, albeit not Frelke, but "<a href="https://katyn.ipn.gov.pl/kat/przedmioty-i-relikwie/pamietniki-z-katynia/12423,Wajda-Wlodzimierz.html">Frela</a>", but different people could have used different derivations of his surname), the full name is correct. The AM's derivation of an alternative spelling from the Soviet lists in German hands, as well as these lists themselves, are nothing but Furr's and Sakharov's fantasies.</div><div><blockquote>P. 127: "We have studied Sakharov's article, looked a little more carefully into his results, and identified nine entries in the AM list that are can demonstrate were either partially falsified or entirely faked: AM numbers 892, 1776, 781, 4120, 439, 3294, 678, 1300, 2870."</blockquote></div><div>We have studied Furr's arguments and established that he has provided no credible evidence for his falsification thesis.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><a name="ch9"></a></b><b>"Chapter 9. The German Report, continued: Sakharov's Article 'German Documents'"</b></div><div><blockquote>P. 129; "Reports of Soviet partisans giving details about German falsifications at the Katyn exhumation site"</blockquote></div><div>Debunked <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-partisan-disinfo.html">here</a> and <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-katyn-antikatyn.html#sovietwitnesses">here</a>. Long story short, these reports simply contradict the Burdenko version due to claiming that the whole burial site was completely falsified by using non-Polish corpses (no shootings are mentioned at all). Yet Furr considers this patent nonsense "unimpeachable evidence" (p. 132).</div><div><blockquote>P. 132, 133: "The partisans could not have known that the Soviet leadership would take the German allegations seriously enough to mount a full scale Soviet investigation commission."</blockquote></div><div>Given the <i>Pravda</i> response, the break-up with the Polish government-in-exile, the scale of the continuing and, in fact, progressing (international commission, numerous tours) German propaganda campaign, all of which the Smolensk partisans knew about, because the local German propaganda was no less relentless than the international one, they could hardly have <b>not</b> assumed that their "service" would come in handy. That such reports only appeared after the Germans made their discovery public is very telling. Where are the partisan reports making such claims before that point? Now <i>that</i> would be evidence!</div><div><blockquote>P. 134: "The documents published by Sakharov confirm that all the witnesses signed statements in German, which none of them could read."</blockquote></div><div>And? Soviet interrogation protocols signed by a German (etc.) criminal suspect written in German (etc.), rather than Russian, are rare exceptions. So this was a standard procedure and the point is redundant: if Furr claims German coercion, then it doesn't matter in what language the signed protocol was, it would have been coerced also if it were in Russian. And vice versa.</div><div><blockquote>P. 134: "Sakharov also notes that none of the witnesses in the German Report who testified that the Soviets had shot the Poles in April - May 1940 remarked on the smell. Sakharov logically suggests that there would have been a considerable odor of decaying flesh, as the graves would have been left open for many days."</blockquote></div><div>This would depend in large part on the air temperature (especially in the graves, where the temperature presumably would have been lower after the extremely cold winter of 1940), so let's see the detailed evidence that the bodies would decay at a sufficient rate to emit the smell that the witnesses would have been able to detect. Don't forget that the <a href="https://bonesdontlie.wordpress.com/2013/08/08/new-morbid-terminology-quicklime/">quicklime</a> was used during the burial, and there was also some evidence of chlorinated lime use, both of which would have slowed down putrefaction to some extent.</div><div><br /></div><div>P. 136, Sakharov's argument about the transport schedules characterizes this professor completely. Namely: he had no idea whatsoever, that the Polish POWs were transported by the <a href="http://www.katyn-books.ru/library/katynskiy-labirint3.html">special convoys</a> (for the "especially dangerous state criminals", including those sentenced to death), so the information about them cannot be expected to appear in the stats which <i>only</i> included three regular convoy categories. He got caught red-handed when he tried to pull this trick during a live debate with Guryanov (see <a href="https://youtu.be/4NYtft-Jvic?t=1234">20:34</a>):</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4NYtft-Jvic?t=1234" width="320" youtube-src-id="4NYtft-Jvic?t=1234"></iframe></div><br /><div><blockquote>P. 136-138: "The statement of the German tree expert that he did not collect the treelings sent to him by the Germans at Katyn, but only reported on what had been sent to him.</blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>[...]</p><p>Sakharov located a transcription of von Herffs report ìn which he states that he did not collect the six treeling samples himself but received them from Dr. Birkle and Dr. Buhtz."</p></blockquote><p></p></div><div>Even if so, frankly, who cares? See my comments above on the low value of most forensic evidence in the report. That said, von Herff <a href="https://kprf.ru/images/79589-28.jpg">reported</a> specifically that he received the samples not from Birkle and Butz, as Furr writes, but from a "delegation of foreign forensic medics". Birkle and Butz collected the samples according to von Herff. It does not mean that they did it without any control of the rest of the commission. Indeed, in a later <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Katyn_Forest_Massacre/PWJFAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA1493">testimony</a> von Herff confirmed, that the commission was present during his analysis, not only Birkle and Butz. And I mean, had von Herff claimed that he collected the samples personally, Furr would have simply said that he was lying for his country or some such thing.</div><div><blockquote>P. 139: "In his July 1945 talk to the Czech Medical Society Frantisek Hájek, one of the medical team that the Germans had brought to Katyn to certify their claims that the bodies had been buried for about three years and thus had been killed by the Sovìets, testified that the German forester had told him, Hájek, that the treelings might not have been transplanted at all."</blockquote></div><div>I wrote about Hajek <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-review-germans-in-katyn.html">here</a>:</div><div><div><blockquote>"Document No. 16 is a brochure by the Czech member of the international commission of experts, František Hájek, in which he retracted his 1943 conclusions and blamed the Germans. Despite the fact that Czechoslovakia had not yet been formally a communist state before 1948, the real atmosphere was such that on May 23, 1945 Hajek was arrested on suspicion of collaborationism, and in his own words, he was asked questions about Katyn. He was released some time later and soon read a report retracting his original conclusions and the following year formalized it as a brochure. It is clear that there is no free will to be seriously talked about here. Hajek's "scientific" arguments are discussed in the <a href="https://www.academia.edu/49287325">article</a> "Some remarks concerning one unscrupulous publication about the Katyn crime". The experts who were outside the zone of Soviet influence did not change their positions; it was changed by the Bulgarian expert Marko Markov, who was tried in Bulgaria for collaborationism but acquitted when he stated that his participation in the commission was forced; and the Slovak expert Frantisek Šubik, who eventually had to flee to the West and <a href="https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A001000670008-9.pdf">described</a> the pressure on him to change his position."</blockquote><p>About the Germans allegedly possessing the Kozelsk lists: </p></div><div></div></div><blockquote><div><div>P. 141: "However, Sakharov's article has made this line of inquiry moot. He discovered documents that prove that the Germans had the lists of POWs sent from Kozel'sk to the Smolensk NKVD. These are the same lists that are reproduced in Tucholski's book. We have confirmed this by obtaining from the Russian State Military Archive the documents cited by Sakharov here and from which he quotes some passages in Russian translation. The original documents are, of course, in German. Facsimiles of these documents may be found on the "<a href="https://tinyurl.com/furr-katyn-images">Images</a>" web page of this volume. They are: </div></div><div><div><br /></div><div><i>[archival references - SR]</i>"</div></div></blockquote><div><div></div></div><div>It will be no surprise for the readers that the documents Furr refers to do not support his claim in any possible way. I've dealt with this incompetent claim <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-katyn-antikatyn.html#germanexhumation">here</a>, among other places:</div><div><blockquote><div>"V. A. Sakharov, on the basis of German correspondence, tried to show that the Germans captured lists of "Katyn" Poles from the Kozelsk camp during the Katyn excavations. However, as A. E. Guryanov [1], an expert on the Katyn case, showed in a discussion with him, it was a list of Poles from the so-called "Kozelsk-2," interned in Lithuania and Latvia until the summer of 1940 (this very irrelevant list of internees fell into German hands, as evidenced by its translation into German in the Burdenko Commission files [2]).</div><div><br /></div><div>[1] Public conversation of N. K. Svanidze with A. E. Guryanov and V. A. Sakharov. Project "Historical Moment". 09.02.2016, Documentary Film Center. URL: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NYtft-Jvic&t=2181">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NYtft-Jvic&t=2181</a> (accessed 10.10.2020). [...] </div><div>[2] GARF. F. R-7021. Op. 114. Д. 33."</div></blockquote><div></div></div><div>To this I will add, that if you simply take a look at the dates of the documents Furr provides to see that the lists were forwarded to the German Red Cross <b>after</b> the exhumations had been stopped and both the German and the Polish exhumation protocols had been created, and yet it was at that time that the Germans first began to investigate the lists, asking the German Red Cross to compare them with the lists of Katyn victims. Also, had those been the lists of Kozelsk POWs sent to the Smolensk UNKVD that the Germans allegedly based their victims list on, it would have made zero sense to a) send them to the German Red Cross at all, with a request to compare with the victim list, b) and do it at this particular point of time.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh9chI50tSOKR0mAH4fKuIHbOfMmwtXUEbg_hoK9145Gpk3oqofAexL594o_8dbS7GXnARPD03RH2M8PQLeeCSyBXLu7wUDS8bKfjxMCNeFCsFrxnqqeN9iZ8TFAStpZpP1tSxaLHn7pCDf56RIGB3iSSY4z239k4v9Yu7ABjbz3x6dyGsG9tA" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="884" data-original-width="862" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh9chI50tSOKR0mAH4fKuIHbOfMmwtXUEbg_hoK9145Gpk3oqofAexL594o_8dbS7GXnARPD03RH2M8PQLeeCSyBXLu7wUDS8bKfjxMCNeFCsFrxnqqeN9iZ8TFAStpZpP1tSxaLHn7pCDf56RIGB3iSSY4z239k4v9Yu7ABjbz3x6dyGsG9tA" width="234" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Russian Kozelsk-2 lists, currently mixed into a file which begins with the Yukhnov POWs, but in the second half the Kozelsk-2 POWs appear. GARF f. 7021, op. 114, d. 32, l. 167.</td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgZqGDBrsIHFR0G51khKExI7DjFsn9JsJHyx2We7VA-z04c1zgfbSiZGmLjg97i7re2fyZLh1Z1mdFwsVhPFk8mEzfaXJYGRvr5p_P2zxpa6lNyzSUlIIVDbtzBkumScSHqhY2mYoOoH2KB6jClvD60esw3dRQoRxlg5F1VNTAsOSHvc9w5KiI" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="877" data-original-width="912" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgZqGDBrsIHFR0G51khKExI7DjFsn9JsJHyx2We7VA-z04c1zgfbSiZGmLjg97i7re2fyZLh1Z1mdFwsVhPFk8mEzfaXJYGRvr5p_P2zxpa6lNyzSUlIIVDbtzBkumScSHqhY2mYoOoH2KB6jClvD60esw3dRQoRxlg5F1VNTAsOSHvc9w5KiI" width="250" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The translation of the list made by the Germans. GARF f. 7021, op. 114, d. 33.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Moreover, the correspondence Furr refers to clearly refers to the <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/book-katyn-2.html#104doc">interned</a> Poles, not to POWs. The lists were not a secret and were even publicly mentioned in <i>Völkischer Beobachter</i> on 10.06.1943. They were correctly called "the name lists of these internees" which "were found in the GPU files". The article referred specifically to the subsequent internees of Kozelsk, correctly differentiating them from the earlier POWs.</div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiKwR87tyfy0whdGzDZLaKrTfDRxPTItwMBWulow-ZhlL34EG5xA2PZrmSTRQeaWT5N4XmISVBoMcuLWGe0FyOoM8MwZDDRK1spwwNj6Mo46hYgF1B9ljYSkBiTsj5n7PDbx9OH2NWEsRLC4bOJRNf8cFZu_vy5tnFXWxQ6BBcMlXP_FCDqM88" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="842" data-original-width="659" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiKwR87tyfy0whdGzDZLaKrTfDRxPTItwMBWulow-ZhlL34EG5xA2PZrmSTRQeaWT5N4XmISVBoMcuLWGe0FyOoM8MwZDDRK1spwwNj6Mo46hYgF1B9ljYSkBiTsj5n7PDbx9OH2NWEsRLC4bOJRNf8cFZu_vy5tnFXWxQ6BBcMlXP_FCDqM88" width="188" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">GARF f. 7021, op. 114, d. 30, l. 32.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div></div><blockquote><div>Pp. 141, 142: "There is at least one more entry in AM that shows that the Germans were using the Soviet list rather than documents from the graves: </div><div><div><br /></div><div>3733. Liachowski, Boleslaw, (Vater Antoni), Uniformierter.</div><div>Impfzettel, 1 Brief mit Stempel, New York, Brooklyn, 1 Zettel mit Notizen.</div><div><br /></div><div>[...]</div><div><br /></div><div>The Soviet list uses transliterates the name ЛЯ - "L + ya". But the name in Polish begins with "La", not "Lia." The Germans could not have obtained this name from any letter or other document on this body, or found in a grave or anywhere else. Therefore the Germans transliterated this name from the Russian-language Soviet list."</div></div></blockquote><div><div></div><div>The hoaxer Furr knows very well - from Alexey Pamyatnykh's <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/pamyatnykh-szkuta-sekula.html">article</a> which he quotes in his book - that the vaccination certificates (Impfzettel) bore both the Polish and the Russian transcriptions of the POWs' names (though the one or the other, or both, could be unreadable sometimes). Somebody explain to me how this is not a lie on Furr's part?</div><div><blockquote>P. 142: "So we have the documentary evidence that the Germans had the Russian list of Kozel'sk prisoners. But if we did not have it, the examples of Frelkiewicz and Lachowski would be sufficient proof of it."</blockquote></div><div>And we have seen, that the cases of Frelkiewicz and Lachowski don't prove the existence of any such list in the German hands, for which there is also no documentary evidence.</div><div></div><blockquote><div>Pp. 142, 143: "Sakharov quotes from a meeting in Kraków of June 10, 1943 in which the main directorate of propaganda of the German Generalgouvernement (the Government of German occupied Poland during the war) stated that the identifications of bodies at Katyn that had been published in Polish newspapers were unreliable since they were accurate in only a few instances." [...]</div><div><blockquote>"For example, at a meeting that took place on July 10 1943 in Krakow it was affirmed by the main directorate of propaganda of the government of the Generalgouvernement: "The lists of bodies identified at Katyn that have been presented up to this point and published in the Polish press are unreliable, since they correspond to reality in only a few cases."</blockquote></div></blockquote></div><div>Note how Furr never bothers to verify Sakharov's translation, he simply quotes it. And yet, as I showed <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ntv-goebbels-apt-pupils.html#sakharov">here</a>, Sakharov simply falsified it!</div><div></div><blockquote><div></div></blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><div>"1.) Die bisher ausgegebenen und in der polnischen Presse veröffentlichten Listen uber die in Katyn festgestellten Leichen sind unzulänglich, weil nur in wenigen Fällen die Angaben zur Identifizierung ausreichen. Das Polnische Rote Kreuz entschuldigte sich damit, dass bei der Kürze der verfügbaren Zeit genauere Angaben nicht möglich gewesen wären und man sich darauf verlassen gehabt hätte, die Dokumente in Warschau durcharbeiten zu können.</div><div><br /></div><div>1) The lists of corpses discovered in Katyn, which have been issued and published in the Polish press so far, are inadequate, because only in a few cases the information is sufficient for identification. The Polish Red Cross excused itself with the fact that with the shortness of the available time more exact particulars would not have been possible and one had relied on being able to work through the documents in Warsaw.</div></blockquote><div>Indeed, only a small portion of the German and Polish lists contain data unambiguously identifying a person, especially if one does not know that he was held in the Kozelsk camp (something that at the time was not yet known for certain), such as names of relatives or addresses. Sakharov completely changed the meaning of what had been written. It was not about the unreliability of the information in this sentence at all, but only about its insufficiency (in the published form) for the relatives for finding their family members. Accordingly, in paragraph 4, the PRC promises to provide lists with more complete information as soon as possible. The second document quoted by Sakharov, by the way, just explains the first."</div><div></div></blockquote><div>So we have a hoaxer quoting a hoaxer. The second document Furr then cites is also the second document mentioned in my last sentence in the quote above, which actually explains the situation. I refer the reader to the text.</div><div><blockquote>P. 144: "In a letter of July 27, 1943 to the German Red Cross the Propaganda Section of the German General Gouvernement admitted that the documents from different bodies were often mixed up and the documents of a single person were scattered among 12 different envelopes"</blockquote></div><div>Absolutely, and this explains some <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ntv-goebbels-apt-pupils.html#doubles">anomalies</a> in the German-Polish document complex. Same applies to the few other documents Furr cites afterwards.</div><div><blockquote>P. 146: "But AM is the central evidentiary document that sustains the "official" version of Katyn, that the Soviet killed the Poles."</blockquote></div><div>While it's a historically important document in general, it is neither central to, nor sustaining the history of the Katyn massacre in the 21st century.</div><blockquote><div>Pp. 146, 147: "Sakharov draws the following conclusion:</div><div><blockquote>[...]</blockquote></div><div><blockquote>"On the basis of the aforementioned evidence we can affirm that some documents, papers, and even objects in the hands of the German police were utilized in place of bodies that in reality did not exist and for the "identification" of bodies which had originally been classed as "unidentified."</blockquote></div><div>This implies that some of the documents found on bodies may have really belonged to that person but we have no idea which do and which do not."</div></blockquote><div></div><div>Furr actually skips the detailed reasoning by which Sakharov arrives at this conclusion, so I will just point out that in his argument Sakharov commits another egregious falsification, which I expose <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ntv-goebbels-apt-pupils.html#sakharov">here</a>.</div><div><blockquote>Pp. 147, 148: "Sakharov's research, the contradictions internal to AM, and the identification of many of the corpses found at Katyn (Koz'i Gory) as POWs who were shipped to Kalinin or Khar'kov but clearly not shot there - all these results deal a fatal blow to the <i>bona fides</i> of the German Report (AM) as an objective body of evidence. These results also mean that, because it relies heavily upon the German Report (AM), the "official" version of Katyn loses its evidentiary foundation."</blockquote></div><div>Not at all: Sakharov's falsifications and incompetence only characterize Katyn denial, no corpses were identified in the Katyn forest of the POWs who had been shipped to Kalinin or Kharkiv, AM is not the evidentiary foundation of the Katyn historiography in the 21st century, and albeit it has numerous faults, it continues to be historically useful.</div><div><br /></div><div><div><b><a name="ch10"></a></b><b>"Chapter 10. The Burdenko Commission Report"</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Here I will be skipping a lot of meta commentary - what other researchers allegedly proposed and whether their hypotheses hold up or not may interest some but does not directly affect the topic at hand. I will mostly deal with the key issues.</div><div><blockquote>P. 156: "Nor does Ciencala have any evidence that the BU witnesses were lying."</blockquote></div><div>There is, of course, plenty such evidence. Furr can start with the three women who <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ahrens-burdenko.html">lied</a> that Ahrens was the direct organizer of the massacre in August and September of 1941, even though he had not arrived in Smolensk until November</div><div><br /></div><div>Then we can proceed to the others.</div><div><blockquote>Pp. 157, 158:</blockquote><blockquote><blockquote>"They proved that
operatives arriving from Moscow produced counterfeit documents with later dates, put them in the
remains of the graves, and prepared false witnesses. [...]</blockquote></blockquote><blockquote>Furthermore, we know that this statement is false - a deliberate lie. Pamiatnykh has published the notes of the Burdenko investigators about the documents they found on the corpses. As we have seen one of them - that of Kozetulski - is so fragmentary that the investigators read it incorrectly, failed to recognize its importance for the Soviet case and so never used it. It is one of the pieces of our "unimpeachable evidence." It cannot have been "planted" by the Soviets."</blockquote></div><div>Furr lies: had he even found a document known to belong to "Kozietulski", and as we have seen above, he hasn't, that document he means was from 1939 and thus was not one of the documents <i>with later dates</i> planted by the Soviets. (The "couldn't have been planted" argument has been dealt with above.)</div><div><blockquote>P. 158: "There was such a decree naturally enough. Collaboration with the enemy was illegal in every country. But Cienciala is dishonest here as well. There is no evidence that any of the Burdenko Commission witnesses were threatened with prosecution."</blockquote></div><div>Wait, so why were they not prosecuted for collaboration with the Germans?</div><div><blockquote>P. 159: "Cienciala has no evidence that the witnesses' testimony was faked or the result of threats."</blockquote></div><div>Furr has no evidence that Cienciala has no evidence. In fact, we do have direct evidence that the witnesses' statements were prepared in a forced way. To quote from <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ntv-goebbels-apt-pupils.html#witnesses">here</a>:</div><blockquote><div>"How were the Soviet "witnesses" prepared? Let M.G. Krivozertsev, mentioned twice in the Soviet report, tell us about this:</div><div><blockquote>"That, what we said, there is nothing of ours there. [...] [The investigator] wrote it himself, and then read it out. Correct? - Correct. Is everything all right? - Sign here. [...] We had no right to say anything and to correct the investigator, saying, "You have to write so and so". Nineteen people - this is not simple. And every single one, just as one started to speak, so did the last, nineteenth, in the same way said his own speech."</blockquote></div><div>Excerpt from the documentary film "The Katyn Affair" ("Geheimsache Katyn: der Massenmord und die Propagandalüge", 1993) by Barbara Dyrschka, Marek Grzona and Ingo Bethke:</div><div></div><blockquote><div>"- First of all I was immediately, well, so received, indeed, as if a member of the party. He himself introduced himself to me, "I'm a member of the party, trust me, everything that I write, everything will be exactly so." So what am I supposed to say, that no, no, not so?</div><div>- He didn't even read to you what he wrote down?</div><div>- No.</div><div>- Just asked to sign.</div><div>- Just told me to sign. [...] He said: "Don't worry, I'll do everything as it should be done, the Germans did it and it's OK, sign, don't be afraid, it's OK"."</div></blockquote><div>We are talking here about the NKGB interrogations of 1943, when they were preparing "witnesses" for the first time. These are the protocols of Krivozertsev's interrogations, which, according to him, were written by the investigator himself (GARF, f 7021, op. 114, d. 10, p. 141-148):<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>[...]<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></div><div><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></div><div>The fact that Krivozertsev was interrogated twice helps explain the seemingly contradictory detail in his interview about whether the investigator read him the contents of the protocols - perhaps he recalled different details of two separate "interrogations" in different interviews. Krivozertsev was also interrogated by the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office, just as other witnesses: </div></blockquote><blockquote><div></div><blockquote><div>"CMPO prosecutors also interrogated other witnesses whose testimony was used to support the Soviet version. For example, in 1943-1944. M.G. Krivozertsev testified to the NKGB that the Katyn Forest was a favorite place for local residents to hang out and gather mushrooms. In August 1941 he allegedly saw how German trucks loaded with people moved into the Katyn Forest, and there drove columns of Polish prisoners of war, after which single gunshots rang out. The forester Tsurikov showed him the burial place, and he decided that the Poles were buried there. In April 1943, the Germans dug the place up and discovered the graves, which were very well preserved. There he also found three 7.65 Geco shell casings, which he handed over to NKGB officers.</div><div>During the CMPO investigation, Krivozertsev confirmed that before the war he lived in Gnezdovo, and testified that in the summer of 1940, at the station, on the reserve tracks, he saw 3-4 "Stolypin wagons" with prisoners, 60 people in each. Buses were driven right up to the carriage doors, and the prisoners were moved into them. After a while a rumor spread in the village that they were Poles, of whom they wanted to organize a collective farm, but they refused and were shot. During the occupation he saw open pits in the Katyn forest, in one of which he counted about 300 corpses of men, which lay in 13 layers. After the liberation of Smolensk, a commission came to the Katyn Forest and he was summoned for interrogation, where, without asking anything, he was immediately offered to sign a protocol. Which he did, as he was afraid for the lives of his family members.</div><div>Krivozertsev said the same to A.P. Yakushev, special correspondent of the Smolensk Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting, who was interrogated as a witness. In a conversation with him, Krivozertsev retracted his testimony given to the NKGB in late 1943. He formulated his motive for giving false testimony as follows: if he had not signed what was offered to him, he would have been destroyed."</div></blockquote></blockquote><div>Then Furr deals with the Olshansky story and I want to emphasize that his story about Burdenko is indeed a lie, analyzed <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/petrov-olshanskij.html">here</a>. Interestingly, Furr did not bother to link to this refutation, which supports his point.</div><div><blockquote>P. 163: "In reality we do not know that "nothing was heard from any of the Polish POWs after they were transferred out of the three PO camps." This is the position of the Polish Government In Exile (GIE). Did they check? If so, how? Where is the documentation of their checkup?"</blockquote></div><div>We do, of course, know that and the PGiE did check as far as they could, gathering information from numerous returning Poles (see, for example, Czapski's 1942 <a href="https://www.szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl/skan/-/skan/4a94b2799b4f316d034b8a93170d55bfc4b55b6383d19817ea687257224efa8c">memorandum</a> for Raikhman, <a href="https://www.szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl/skan/-/skan/b7e2aacc469a7a0165d43c90143f047d3b8b92ff22b61c8a6863d8120ccdf31f">various</a> other pre-Katyn <a href="https://www.szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl/skan/-/skan/0d84f5201247cdcb3fef0b3660fba33cbfc3421c65e7a381f5e901d377d96f2c">notes</a>, the PGiE's <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=v8e_xwEACAAJ&pg=PA1623">report</a>, detailing the search, as well as other documents in the archives of PGiE and its various members, which show the extent of the information they had before the Katyn affair - Furr is welcome to search through them and find any evidence contradicting this), and were also fervently <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-katyn-antikatyn.html#location">asking</a> the Soviet side questions about the whereabouts of the specific Polish officers - indeed, Stalin was asked directly at least twice, with a concrete list of names, and could not give any concrete answer. The second time he was asked, he was reduced to saying: "It is unknown [...] You would know better".</div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgkh1USlRD5wSMt__aJG1jbFr6LD5f6Jn5aB5oZLzRkNPtJW6NGDFSP7zDWIf2bK7kDAWx4Gcm14R6MGODds9tyMdTO8Yl64u2anX58sszHwHRZivAsBxdwL8P38Jrj58EK1vfGJj5c-KTJWE0ryqS7wxFbPKUTDgV-TtTEvUVtuv8UeRSWfJ0" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="648" data-original-width="1001" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgkh1USlRD5wSMt__aJG1jbFr6LD5f6Jn5aB5oZLzRkNPtJW6NGDFSP7zDWIf2bK7kDAWx4Gcm14R6MGODds9tyMdTO8Yl64u2anX58sszHwHRZivAsBxdwL8P38Jrj58EK1vfGJj5c-KTJWE0ryqS7wxFbPKUTDgV-TtTEvUVtuv8UeRSWfJ0" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">An example of an index card from the voluminous Anders archive listing the report numbers pertaining to just one narrow topic (POW labor in Soviet captivity, point b: labor in mines and stone quarries). There are more than 18000 reports, depositions and statements by Poles who left the USSR in the archive. </span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><blockquote>P. 166: "That means the Polish POWs had been provided with winter clothing by the Polish Army when captured in September 1939. They would also have had it whether they were shot in April - May 1940, as the Germans claimed, or in September - December 1941, as the Soviets concluded. </blockquote><blockquote>No one captured in Russia - or, for that matter, Western Ukraine or Western 8elorussia would ever abandon winter clothing, no matter what time of year it was."</blockquote></div><div>Several manipulations at once. They would not have "abandoned" it, but they were extremely unlikely to <i>wear</i> it, at least en masse, at the end of August and in September, when they were allegedly shot according to the Soviet witnesses.</div><div><br /></div><div>As for Furr giving the time period of "September - December" rather than the end of August - September, this is a repetition of the Soviet manipulation. The witnesses are <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ahrens-burdenko.html">extremely clear</a> that the executions were over by the end of September. December only appears in the forensic expertise <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/burdenko-report-pravda.html">act</a>, but its mention follows neither from any premise in the act itself, nor from the main text of the report (which directly contradicts such dating). It was almost certainly an attempt at explaining the winter clothing after foreign visitors pointed out this curious fact.</div><div><br /></div><div>P. 167: </div><blockquote><div><blockquote>"In the graves at Katyn were personal documents which made it possible to identify 2730 ofthe remains out of a total of 4151. The Soviet Special commission, when it carried out a second exhumation, did not find any other personal documents."</blockquote></div><div>That this statement is false is obvious to us today since we now have a list of documents found by Burdenko Commission investigators and published by Pamiatnykh. But it was recognizably false in 1989 too! The final section of BU is titled "Documents Found on the Bodies." This section refers to letters, postcards, a Catholic prayer book, and receipts found. These are "personal documents."</div></blockquote><div></div><div>This is an open attempt at deception from Furr, because he knows full well that the 1988 Polish report acknowledges this and <a href="http://www.katyn-books.ru/library/katinskaya-drama19.html">explains</a> what it means later:</div><div></div><blockquote><div>"The <i>[Soviet -SR]</i> Report cites 9 pieces of physical evidence to prove the guilt of the Germans, with the caveat, rather vague, that these are only some of those found by the experts. The rest have never been published. These 9 documents were found on six bodies out of 925 newly exhumed corpses. They were recovered from the clothing of the first hundred re-exhumed (the last refers to corpse No. 101). There were no personal documents among them; there was one icon. Of the remaining documents, five were receipts issued by the camp, two were postcards (one received, one unsent), and a letter from Warsaw sent to a Soviet institution."</div><div></div></blockquote><div>Furr may not agree with the report's definition of personal documents, but he has no right to distort what the report means.</div><div><br /></div><div>(I will point out, that the 1988 Polish report is mistaken, since the German identification was not based solely on personal documents (by its definition), which did not occur that often in the first place.)</div><div><blockquote>P. 169: "The shells mentioned in AM were the 1928-1931 type shown in the middle drawing. Genschow said that the larger exports to the USSR were before 1928, when the word "Geco" did not appear on the shells, and were small after that, when the "Geco DD 7.65" shells were made."</blockquote></div><div>Yet another falsehood. According to the Genschow <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/pamyatnykh-genschow.html">letter</a> the "*D*" cartridges were used until 1922, then came the "DD" cartridges that were used until 1932. In his testimony Genschow only said, from memory and thus with understandable imprecision, that the "DD" trademark was in use until 1933-34. He never claimed that the word "Geco" did not appear before 1928! He only <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=v8e_xwEACAAJ&pg=PA1578">said</a> that "at that time the stamp on the bottom of the cartridge was different from the one I stated before, and after 1928 the quantities which were exported <i>[to the USSR -SR]</i> were small". The headstamp that he had mentioned <i>before</i> was the one used since 1933 ("Geco" with "7,65" underneath). It was indeed different than that "before 1928", but it was also different that that "before 1929", "before 1930" etc. - in no way did Genschow imply any change of the headstamp in 1928. The professor of literature cannot interpret the simplest texts!</div><blockquote><div>Pp. 169, 170: "A Major Vetoshnìkov testified to the Burdenko Commìssìon about the unsuccessful evacuatìon of Comp 1-ON ìn July 1941. "Drama" repeatedly suggests that there was no one named Vetoshnikov: [...]</div><div><br /></div><div>Writing years later, Lebedeva also claims that Vetoshnikov never existed: [...]"</div></blockquote><div></div><div><a href="http://www.katyn-books.ru/library/katinskiy-sindrom16.html">And he indeed didn't</a>:</div><div><blockquote>"As it follows from the certificates of the MB RF <i>[later FSB RF -SR]</i>, such camps did not exist in 1940 and subsequent years. The so-called Major Vetoshnikov did not serve in the state security system and is a fictitious figure (Vol. PO, pp. 23, 72)."</blockquote></div><div>It is of course completely impossible for someone bearing the high rank of a major of state security to simply "fall through the cracks" and not appear in any documents unrelated to the Katyn case.</div><div><br /></div><div>Furr knows full well about this information.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.katyn-books.ru/library/katinskiy-sindrom13.html">Moreover</a>:</div><div><blockquote>"In order to dispel possible doubts about the existence of the false witness Vetoshnikov, who was allegedly the commander of the NKVD Camp № 1-ON, the NKGB officials prepared a false report on his behalf, allegedly written in August 1941 in the name of State Security Major Soprunenko. As can be seen from Soprunenko's personal file, he was not promoted to this rank until March 1942, i.e. Vetoshnikov's "report" was written retroactively, after March 1942."</blockquote></div><div>Indeed, here is the report (courtesy of A. Guryanov; copy of the original and of a transcript):</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhEALLOUukpgmwYnGfte4Q0Qy-3XTX2F5YFbkvyj7g3kMEbM9SUpqpcmfwTjRoRxHPvlz1zIZ1eT9mCMGlGlKrcxL7Z5G6KnQc-Sppu4drLpQh_C7YUY5PCD3y1zE0Y7OsNVrFDgFvjSQUfKa4l7C8BAGe9K14VNw4y0oRA_cOjU5bi3mvzyqU" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="939" data-original-width="604" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhEALLOUukpgmwYnGfte4Q0Qy-3XTX2F5YFbkvyj7g3kMEbM9SUpqpcmfwTjRoRxHPvlz1zIZ1eT9mCMGlGlKrcxL7Z5G6KnQc-Sppu4drLpQh_C7YUY5PCD3y1zE0Y7OsNVrFDgFvjSQUfKa4l7C8BAGe9K14VNw4y0oRA_cOjU5bi3mvzyqU" width="154" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEieRBjZL2vlS6JACA1wyHthsrJMMCxiB51lEXmUdAi3_WnZ9y07eUGT8YExqb_pQMHAVOg-wwpl19sfYpShgjXw6SYqVvacVOjpAl8imQBS-1-hjJs2uf0M2GFowXOB4s4z7J0nULLHbNBsXWKzzUZXwh5mWewYd975rSHNq6UVRRHegCFAmic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="921" data-original-width="580" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEieRBjZL2vlS6JACA1wyHthsrJMMCxiB51lEXmUdAi3_WnZ9y07eUGT8YExqb_pQMHAVOg-wwpl19sfYpShgjXw6SYqVvacVOjpAl8imQBS-1-hjJs2uf0M2GFowXOB4s4z7J0nULLHbNBsXWKzzUZXwh5mWewYd975rSHNq6UVRRHegCFAmic" width="151" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlyRQkU9zyKrA-luBJhj4LMEJF_hZR5Lqj13GPr67E_RrFoExHv5odJH8t_4LTJ_Ksm7AxHJVH7fk6WPXt-SlzAaWIYNpLP3igedc88VxkUyu1fF6l0qCAAbDEjj49p54iX8ObGCL8qN-X6_ztRs63gkTe1ZPRogIM3zfNVyizm_rN9psk2H4" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="901" data-original-width="574" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlyRQkU9zyKrA-luBJhj4LMEJF_hZR5Lqj13GPr67E_RrFoExHv5odJH8t_4LTJ_Ksm7AxHJVH7fk6WPXt-SlzAaWIYNpLP3igedc88VxkUyu1fF6l0qCAAbDEjj49p54iX8ObGCL8qN-X6_ztRs63gkTe1ZPRogIM3zfNVyizm_rN9psk2H4" width="153" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhuHnaIEt9LUuIZUpprYI_mwiVfN6-nFs4UmlB9GVQzOC7I8fReeE7JRLz9axnx-OUuB1oFPCP-VutUli7TGNg0fxmUQe2nMU-VVhpMeUamlcLqUnLwG3HvgproDf8yTq0ORtPIH5q9loowHag2_wuIzH8AoGcfbiuobMQaqKiB3QVoGQML100" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="910" data-original-width="574" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhuHnaIEt9LUuIZUpprYI_mwiVfN6-nFs4UmlB9GVQzOC7I8fReeE7JRLz9axnx-OUuB1oFPCP-VutUli7TGNg0fxmUQe2nMU-VVhpMeUamlcLqUnLwG3HvgproDf8yTq0ORtPIH5q9loowHag2_wuIzH8AoGcfbiuobMQaqKiB3QVoGQML100" width="151" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgbYlZyGL-zdxGOhQRGxvTxIFeO_baQBkPQvuiUyMuI1PK1c5vN1xBK4UJxlzTUU0gJEId8f1pvoZgbNxMXW5xe7X6VgvQOZqf8Ay4bIX4iBvfgacqkhLODTqLJy7jKukFvsbujPpOyOirPlnYOlIlagP_NyY2_HnWlSllONBt7sH3kagprs4w" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="910" data-original-width="556" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgbYlZyGL-zdxGOhQRGxvTxIFeO_baQBkPQvuiUyMuI1PK1c5vN1xBK4UJxlzTUU0gJEId8f1pvoZgbNxMXW5xe7X6VgvQOZqf8Ay4bIX4iBvfgacqkhLODTqLJy7jKukFvsbujPpOyOirPlnYOlIlagP_NyY2_HnWlSllONBt7sH3kagprs4w" width="147" /></a><br /><br /></div></div><div>Addressed to the major of state security Soprunenko on 12.08.1941. Soprunenko <a href="http://old.memo.ru/history/nkvd/kto/biogr/gb459.htm">became</a> major of state security on 17.02.1942.<br /><br /></div><div>The non-existent Vetoshnikov is one of the many falsifications in the Burdenko report that Furr won't be able to explain.</div><div><br /></div><div>(All of the above does not mean that the Commission made up Vetoshnikov. Obviously, somebody simply testified under that name.)</div><div><blockquote>P. 172: "It is only necessary to assume that Vetoshnikov did not exist if one has previously also assumed that no camps 1-, 2-, and 3-ON existed."</blockquote></div><div>Wrong! As one can see, this is not one of the reasons I give above for his non-existence.</div><div><blockquote>P. 172: "The Polish "official" version does make this assumption. but the existence of these camps is documented in the list of documents found on the corpses by the Burdenko Commission investigators and published on the Internet by Aleksei Pamiatnykh, a fervent advocate of the "official" Soviets-did-it version:"</blockquote></div><div>But since these camps are <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ntv-goebbels-apt-pupils.html#docs">documented</a> not to have <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-vyazemlag.html">existed</a>, this of necessity proves that the documents allegedly found on the bodies, that Furr relies on, are fakes. This further discredits the Burdenko report and Furr won't be able to explain why the Soviet side concocted these fakes if it was not guilty.</div><div><blockquote>P. 174: "But it speaks to the authenticity of this note by Men'shagin. If the Soviets had faked a note by Men'shagin, would they have made it so short and so laconic that it did not directly implicate the Germans? Why would the Soviets have fabricated a lengthy account of shooting of Jews by the Germans and left the question of who shot the Polish POWs to a very brief and ambiguous mention at the end?"</blockquote></div><div>But that's obvious illogic again. Who said that the whole document was forged? One of the best ways to forge something is to take a mostly authentic document and add necessary things (while keeping the verisimilitude).</div><div><br /></div><div>In RGASPI I located what is probably the first mention of the Menshagin notebook (RGASPI f. 17, op. 125, d. 174, ll. 144-146).</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgmuvAy8cexu3WNWfxtCUdTgvTCZmKpKI5uVpO4wou5A97wZLovSPQGfrScv0YgxqfTwno0iQmeg2OE4QZDTMdh5eUn_79WTGfWkXODDP6ME0FtESrvFDGkQ9Emf3a_CTEv7DkyytYFfD0nCqO_Mdy_vSJE-_A6NrM5ZEqRLV2EY_f-CFc3BaA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="802" data-original-width="973" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgmuvAy8cexu3WNWfxtCUdTgvTCZmKpKI5uVpO4wou5A97wZLovSPQGfrScv0YgxqfTwno0iQmeg2OE4QZDTMdh5eUn_79WTGfWkXODDP6ME0FtESrvFDGkQ9Emf3a_CTEv7DkyytYFfD0nCqO_Mdy_vSJE-_A6NrM5ZEqRLV2EY_f-CFc3BaA" width="291" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjLPAoiI3e_n-RfJ1IIfhv1Ny8dABYJaDzIJngR8immofSGHCqSJsEZmLj1R9hoyF71Zb4qt5NllyV498qioC0cjidMXldUYruazEI1yThfbTjTQXcawBIWn44kjaiFI5IskVwYJuLNUGcWqScPijDZgLWri4sCACv5MVyKwI-bP_17hN7ifAc" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1059" data-original-width="689" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjLPAoiI3e_n-RfJ1IIfhv1Ny8dABYJaDzIJngR8immofSGHCqSJsEZmLj1R9hoyF71Zb4qt5NllyV498qioC0cjidMXldUYruazEI1yThfbTjTQXcawBIWn44kjaiFI5IskVwYJuLNUGcWqScPijDZgLWri4sCACv5MVyKwI-bP_17hN7ifAc" width="156" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEggn1PYT6lMA49RuSvKqLqJemIsyBGJ-EgcIb3VKnolbGuLJB5Ny4ZrJmhANUzyRMgy4mS8Tnt2_Kty48z0IaflhUb9p-Ish2jn7lArIQbR9poFUwYwqNB8TwW3Vm0XUein6Wvd-xdSfbbz6Udm8On1-p-KtFNZMWLYK3Rq3HDhkyGQRR2SvBY" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="709" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEggn1PYT6lMA49RuSvKqLqJemIsyBGJ-EgcIb3VKnolbGuLJB5Ny4ZrJmhANUzyRMgy4mS8Tnt2_Kty48z0IaflhUb9p-Ish2jn7lArIQbR9poFUwYwqNB8TwW3Vm0XUein6Wvd-xdSfbbz6Udm8On1-p-KtFNZMWLYK3Rq3HDhkyGQRR2SvBY" width="166" /></a></div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div>On 16.10.1943 Kobulov sent a top secret message to the top propagandist Shcherbakov with "an excerpt from a work notebook of the <i>burgomistr</i> of Smolensk Min'shagin relating to August-November 1941". The excerpt contains various pieces of information, beginning with repressions against Jews and ending with mundane stuff like organizing a publishing of a newspaper and mentioning what specialists (electricians etc.) are necessary.</div><div><br /></div><div>Yet, despite the huge interest of the Soviet side in the Katyn issue and a propaganda coup that the mentions of the Poles in the notebook would have constituted, these key sentences, that would later become "evidence" in the Burdenko report, <b>are completely absent in the excerpt</b>, because the part where they allegedly occurred is not included at all.</div><div><br /></div><div>The best explanation is that they simply did not exist at the time and were added later to Menshagin's authentic notebook.</div><div><br /></div></div><div>P. 179, after quoting a criticism from the Polish report:</div><div><blockquote>"This is another deliberate deception. For indeed there is another Stanislaw Kuczyński listed as killed in the Katyn murders. He was a prisoner at Ostashkov. In his Ostashkov list Tucholski records the following (314 co1. 1) [...]"</blockquote></div><div>Yet immediately thereafter he concedes:</div><div></div><blockquote><div>P. 179: "Maciszewski's book is early; perhaps he did not know this."</div><div></div></blockquote><div>Yet he has already accused the Polish experts of "another deliberate deception"! This Freudian slip tells us everything about Furr we need to know. (And no, "this" refers to the preceding paragraph, not to Cienciala, whom whom he goes on to accuse of deception too.)</div><div><br /></div><div>The problem for Furr is that he got the completely wrong Kuczyński. I explained that <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2020/01/looking-for-katyn-lighthouses.html">here</a>:</div><div><blockquote>"With Kuczyński Furr deceptively ignores that Stanisław Kuczyński who wrote the postcard was actually Stanisław Kuczyński-Iskander Bej (and not the other Kuczyński from Ostashkov, as Furr claims) who, according to <a href="http://www.katyn-books.ru/library/katinskiy-sindrom13.html#footnote45">ch. 5</a>. of <i>Katynskij sindrom</i> was not shot but rather transferred to Moscow. Now, it is true that one can find his name in the modern lists of those shot in Kharkov. But it's a mistake: the <a href="http://dlibra.karta.org.pl/dlibra/publication?id=38197&tab=3">Starobielsk list</a> is not a transportation list per se but simply <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/gdasbu-1.html">contains the people who left the camp</a>, whether for the execution or for some other reason. The list includes e. g. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zygmunt_Berling">Zygmunt Berling</a> (no. 177), who obviously was not shot. So it also includes Kuczyński-Iskander Bej (under no. 1414) as someone who left the camp. Since Kuczyński was not on the list of those transferred to Yukhnov, it was incorrectly assumed that he was shot in Kharkov, given that the document found by the Russian investigators were not known at the time when the lists were made. So Kuczyński could as well have been alive in 1943 and 1944 and could have written anything on NKVD/NKGB's request."</blockquote></div><div>Apparently this is the same person the 1988 Polish report means, albeit they then get the date of the transfer wrong (he was transferred in February 1940), but that's a minor detail, as they did not have access to the documents.</div><div><blockquote>P. 180: "For the sake of space we will not examine the case of Remigiusz Bierzanek. Everyone agrees that he was put on the list of Katyn victims when in fact he was alive and well in Poland."</blockquote></div><div>Those interested in his case can read <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-bierzanek.html">this</a> analysis.</div><div><br /></div><div>Pp. 180-182: Furr goes on and on and Jan Załuska, who was killed in the Katyn forest, but who was mistakenly claimed in the 1988 Polish report to have been killed elsewhere (without a source; unlike Bierzanek, Załuska was in Kozelsk and his identification in the grave correlates with this fact) - this should prove that the scholars who rely on the report but don't deal with Załuska have something to hide and are dishonest. Of course, in the report itself Załuska is dismissed as a non-issue, and just because Furr thinks otherwise obviously does not mean that others have to accept his weird obsessions.</div><div><div><blockquote>P. 183: "De Montfort made the same false accusation. As we have already shown, BU does not at all imply that the Germans "falsified documents of thousands of victims," rather, BU implies that the Germans took from the corpses all the documents they could find that were dated after April-May 1940."</blockquote></div><div>So how does Furr square this with his acceptance of the ridiculous partisan reports that claimed that the whole burial was faked?</div><div><br /></div><div>Moreover, Furr mistranslated the 1988 report's claim, which was "as that could be inferred from the Report of the Special commission", not "can be" - the subjunctive means it is not a positive claim but a possibility.</div><div><blockquote>P. 184: "This is confirmed by four archival documents cited by Valentin Sakharov from Soviet partisan groups attesting to reports by escaped Red Army POWs that the Germans had dug up bodies from a Smolensk cemetery, including bodies of Red Army soldiers killed in the defense of Smolensk in 1941, and trucked them to Katyn."</blockquote></div><div>Except, as already pointed out, according to these reports the Katyn graves were fully faked, and the Burdenko commission has never reported on any irregularities in the Smolensk cemetery - which would have been extremely easy to establish and would serve as actual forensic evidence.</div><div><blockquote>P. 184: "No objective student would conclude that the partisan reports are a fabrication, concocted by the Soviets in a far sighted attempt to provide documentation for a future attempt to counter the German AM"</blockquote></div><div>Actually, no objective researcher will deny that it was exactly such an attempt, with the exception of "far-sightedness", which was not necessary at all.</div><blockquote><div>P. 185: "Yet if one does not take the position - unsupported by any evidence - that the partisan reports are fabrications, the genuineness of the German AM is destroyed."</div><div></div></blockquote><div>As well as that of the Burdenko report's.</div><div><blockquote>P. 185: "At the same time, the partisan reports are confirmatory evidence in favor of the credibility of BU."</blockquote></div><div>That the Soviet side was making up stories about Katyn this early, which contradicted its later stories, does not in any way support the credibility of the Burdenko report.</div><div><br /></div><div>Pp. 186-188: the Harriman argument (she wrote that a late document was found "while I was watching").</div><div><br /></div><div>I've dealt with it <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ntv-goebbels-apt-pupils.html#harriman">here</a>:</div><blockquote><div><div>"Given the Soviet violation of the integrity of the graves in the fall of 1943 <i>[proven earlier in the article - SR]</i>, it cannot even be stated with certainty that the planting could not have been done on the corpses in the graves back in the fall; but even that was not necessary - it was enough to have a few agents among the diggers and/or experts during the exhumation. We are only talking about a few pages, for the planting of which even in the "field conditions" you don't even have to be a magician. [...]</div><div><br /></div><div>Even without further context, which we will now consider, the fact that Harriman wrote that the letter was found "while I was watching" does not mean that she observed in detail the extraction of the letter from some unopened pocket, etc. - in the context of the entire paragraph in which she describes visiting the tents to examine the corpses, it could simply mean her presence in the tent and observing the general process of the autopsy. Had the letter described in detail the process of close observation from beginning to end (e.g: "the corpse was taken out of the grave in my presence and carried on a stretcher to the tent for the autopsy, I followed him; in my presence the expert cut open his overcoat pocket and extracted a postcard..."), then one could draw some conclusions.</div><div><br /></div><div>What is this extracted letter that Harriman wrote about? Among the 9 documents listed in the Soviet report, only one dated the summer of 1941 - the above-mentioned postcard by Kuchinsky, and it was it which was found on 22 January (GARF, f. 7021, op. 114, d. 8, p. 224). In her official report Harriman <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=PWJFAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA2138">described</a> the documents as follows:</div><blockquote>"Despite the thoroughness of the pocket ripping by the Germans, out of the
seven hundred corpses the Commission have so far investigated. 146 items have
been found. The earliest date was found on a postcard — March 1940 — and the
latest — an unmailed postcard dated June 20, 1941. We were shown all these
documents and trinkets and the most important and significant ones were translated for us."</blockquote></div><div><div>There is no mention of personally observing the retrieval of any of the documents. But even more important is how Harriman <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=PWJFAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA2133">described</a> what she thought was the most convincing evidence:</div><div><div><div></div><blockquote><div>"The party was shown the graves in the Katyn Rorest and witnessed post mortems of the corpses. As no member was in a position to evaluate the scientific evidence given, it had to be accepted at its face value. </div><div><br /></div><div>The testimonial evidence provided by the Commission and witnesses was minute in detail and by American standards petty. We were expected to accept the statements of the high ranking Soviet officials as true, because they said it was true. </div><div><br /></div><div>Despite this it is my opinion that the Poles were murdered by the Germans. <b>The most convincing evidence to uphold this was the methodical manner in which the job was done, something the Commission thought not sufficiently important to stress.</b> They were more interested in the medical evidence as conclusive proof and the minute circumstantial evidence surrounding the crime."</div></blockquote></div></div><div>And <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=PWJFAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA2145">here</a> is her testimony eight years later, before the Madden committee:</div><div><div></div><blockquote><div>"Mr. Machrowicz. Mr. Cassidy also testified that the exhibits which you refer to as having been taken from the bodies of the deceased actually were not taken from the bodies in the presence of the committee, but were under a glass case. </div><div><br /></div><div>Mrs. Mortimer. They were in a relic museum, in glass cases. </div><div><br /></div><div>Mr. Machrowicz. Actually, then, no member of the group saw these exhibits taken from the bodies of the deceased, but they were already in a museum, in a separate building? </div><div><br /></div><div>Mrs. Mortimer. No. I witnessed the post mortems that were going on in the tents by the graves. </div><div><br /></div><div>Mr. Machrowicz. You witnessed the post mortems but, as you stated in your report, as no member was in position to evaluate the scientific evidence, you had to accept it at its face value; is that right ? </div><div><br /></div><div>Mrs. Mortimer. That is right. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Mr. Machrowicz. But these exhibits that you referred to as having been found on the corpses, were not taken from the corpses in your presence, they were in a museum at the time ? </b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Mrs. Mortimer. That is right — in Smolensk, which was some distance away. </b></div><div><br /></div><div>Mr. Machrowicz. "Whether or not they were fabricated or taken from some other place you do not know; you just had to take the word of the Russians for it ? </div><div><br /></div><div>Mrs. Mortimer. I can state that, due to the odor in the room, that there would be no question in my mind that these documents had been taken from bodies that had been buried a considerable length of time. </div><div><br /></div><div>Mr. Machrowicz. There could have been some documents added to those that had been taken, could there not ? </div><div><br /></div><div>Mrs. Mortimer. I would think so. I would be in no position to judge that."</div></blockquote></div><div>Could it be that in eight years Harriman-Mortimer has forgotten such an important point? Or maybe she simply embellished or carelessly articulated the details in her 1944 letter that denialists quote and "while I was watching" should be understood to mean her presence in the autopsy tents in general, regardless of whether she was personally present when the postcard was found (then she would have learned about "today's" find when she visited the evidence show or at the press conference where it was mentioned)?</div><div><br /></div><div>And here is another eloquent <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=PWJFAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA2143">statement</a> by Harriman:</div><div><div></div><blockquote><div>"Mr. Machrowicz. You do not have that same opinion today as you had in February 1944, do you ? </div><div><br /></div><div>Mrs. Mortimer. I can say that before coming down here I read your interim report. </div><div><br /></div><div>You had access to every side of the picture, which I did not have available to me, and I would say, having read your report, that my opinion is that the Russians did kill the Poles. </div><div><br /></div><div>Mr. Machrowicz. In fairness to you, it must be stated that you did not have access to the information which we have today; did you? </div><div><br /></div><div>Mrs. Mortimer. That is right. I merely was a witness of the show that the Russians put on for the benefit of the foreign correspondents in Moscow."</div></blockquote><div></div></div><div></div></div></blockquote><div><div>Furr of course tries to weaken Mortimer-Harriman's abandonment of her previous opinion:</div><div><blockquote>P. 188: "Rather, there is every reason to suppose that at the Madden Committee she bent her testimony to the winds of the Cold War, which were blowing hard in 1952. Her father does not mention his daughter's Madden Commission testimony in his memoir account."</blockquote></div><div>This however does not explain Harriman's omission of her allegedly personal observation of the document retrieval in her 1944 report. Of course, for some reason Furr does not take into account any "winds blowing hard" when discussing the International Commission's members who publicly changed their Katyn stance after confronted with the danger of prison and other repressions...</div><div><br /></div><div>To sum up: when we take all the context into account, it is not even certain that Harriman meant that she personally observed the retrieval of the document, but even if she indeed observed it, it doesn't prove that the document had not been planted in the first place, which is what Furr tries to establish.</div></div><div><blockquote>P. 189: "We have demonstrated that the Kozietulski documents could not have been planted..."</blockquote></div><div>If earlier it was one document, now it's "documents". Furr's evidence grows with time! LOL. (See above for the debunking, no proven "Kozietulski document" was found).</div></div><div><br /></div><div>With this Furr funnily ends his discussion of the reliability of the <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/burdenko-report-pravda.html">Burdenko commission report</a>. Any attentive reader will notice that he did not attempt to be critical about it at all.</div><div><br /></div><div>Otherwise he could have asked several questions or raised several issues.</div><div><br /></div><div>1. The name of the commission was "Special Commission to Establish and Investigate the Circumstances of the Execution of Prisoners of War Polish Officers by the Nazis in the Katyn Forest". So the commission wasn't supposed to find the guilty party, for the commission it was already known.</div><div><br /></div><div>2. The report claimed that "The total number of corpses, as estimated by forensic experts, reaches 11,000", which was patent nonsense, given that the commission only exhumed <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/pamyatnykh-burdenko-materials.html#gal-2">1380</a> (only 925 of which were taken into account in the report), and those exclusively from the graves known to the Germans, which accounted for only a little bit more than 4200 bodies. Whereas the commission's main goal, had its number been correct, was to find the graves not excavated by the Germans at all, the graves that would allegedly contain a little bit fewer than 7000 "new" bodies! So on what basis did they make their claim and why did not they make it their goal to find the other graves?</div><div><br /></div><div>3. The claim that the access to the place of the execution was open until the German occupation is nonsense, since even the Katyn-denying chief of the Smolensk UKGB Shiverskikh <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-vyazemlag.html#_edn2">confirmed</a>, that in that place there was a "special object" of NKVD for burying the corpses of the executed, which is confirmed by the <a href="https://историк.рф/posts/2020/10/30/katyn.html">modern</a> <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/andreenkova-katyn-graves.html">excavations</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>4. <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ntv-goebbels-apt-pupils.html#docs">No</a> POW camps named "ON" <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-vyazemlag.html">existed</a>. So the Poles could not have resided in them.</div><div><br /></div><div>5. Neither did the key "witness" Vetoshnikov exist, as explained above.</div><div><br /></div><div>6. Friedrich Ahrens, accused by the report of organizing the massacre, supposedly did this at the end of August and in September 1941, whereas he only <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ahrens-burdenko.html">arrived</a> in Smolensk in mid-November.</div><div><br /></div><div>7. The Poles were supposedly wearing winter clothes en masse at the end of August and in September.</div><div><br /></div><div>8. When Kobulov first reported an excerpt from Menshagin's notebook to the top propagandist, he did not include any lines about the Poles, which the report uses as evidence.</div><div><br /></div><div>9. The commission quotes fake documents mentioning the non-existent "ON" camps.</div><div><br /></div><div>None of Furr's attempted explanations have addressed any of these points <i>successfully</i> so far.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><a name="ch11"></a></b><b>"Chapter 11. Nuremberg, the Madden Commission"</b></div><div><br /></div><div><div>P. 190, 191:</div><div></div><blockquote><div></div><blockquote><div>"Cienciala:</div><div><br /></div><div>[...] Anton Marko Markov, who had testified in support of Soviet guilt in 1943 [...]"</div></blockquote><div></div><div>The statement in boldface above is false. Markov did not "testify in support of Soviet guilt in 1943." Here is everything that Markov stated in the German Report (AM): [...]</div><div><blockquote>From the witness testimony and the correspondence, diaries, newspapers, etc. found on the corpses, it follows that the shootings took place in the months of March and April 1940. </blockquote></div></blockquote><blockquote><div>This is not testimony of any kind, let alone scientific testimony based on examination of any of the corpses."</div><div></div></blockquote><div>Actually, as anyone with eyes can see, it is, indeed, testifying (in written form) in support of Soviet guilt, and Markov signed it. (Whether it has any value is beside the point completely.) The Bulgarian Prosecutors' office that indicted Markov for this obviously agreed, since Markov did not otherwise participate in the German Katyn campaign and thus his signature could be his only fault. Markov could escape a sentence only by thoroughly renouncing the whole results of the commission's work - otherwise he wouldn't have been able to escape prison or save his way of life.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Obviously, his Nuremberg testimony could not contradict what he confessed to before the Bulgarian court so it's of not much use examining it seriously. </div><div><blockquote>P. 196: "Neither Cienciala, nor Sanford - nor, to my knowledge any of the other works that set forth the "official" Soviets-did-it version of Katyn even mention Orsos' Nazi collaboration. To do so would compromise the supposed "objectivity" of the conclusions of the medical commission, headed by Orsos, which was called by the Nazis to Katyn."</blockquote></div><div>The commission's act is weak evidence by itself in the first place, so whether or not its objectivity is compromised by its head being a Nazi is frankly neither here, nor there. Only further evidence (including the sum of the testimonies of the commission's members) can deliver useful information, and then the personality of a single person like Orsos (whose pseudocallus theory was bunk) is hardly relevant.</div><div><br /></div><div>If Orsos' collaborationism is relevant, then so is, for example, Tramsen's antifascism and taking part in the resistance. But Furr never mentions it. To do so would be to compromise his neat little thesis that the signatures on the report were coerced.</div><div><blockquote>P. 200: "There is no evidence that Markov was "forced" to testify at Nuremberg. If he had wanted to do so he could have claimed political asylum while he was in West Germany."</blockquote></div><div>And how does Furr propose he would have been able to return home then? Oh, wait, this option was not even Furr's mind when he was writing this nonsense, was it?</div><div><blockquote>P. 200: "Yet Hájek, a member of the German Commission, published a book with his criticisms of the German Report..."</blockquote></div><div>Hajek already addressed above in detail in response to ch. 9.</div><div><blockquote>P. 201: "Hájek's criticism of the German AM could accurately be described as "devastating."</blockquote></div><div>Actually the forensic part of his book when he is talking about the post-mortem transformation of corpses is so completely primitive (and false), as I show <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ntv-goebbels-apt-pupils.html#corpsetrans">here</a>, that it is hard to escape the impression from that alone that he was forced to write what he wrote.</div><div><blockquote>P. 201: "Some sources claim that Hájek was arrested by Soviet authorities and forced to write the book in which he refutes the German report. I can find no evidence that this happened."</blockquote></div><div>Umm, the arrest part (not by the Soviet authorities) is <a href="http://www.katyn-books.ru/library/katynskie-dokazatelstva3.html">mentioned</a> in the very book Furr mentions:</div><div><div></div><blockquote><div>"In conclusion, I emphasize that I published this work on my own initiative, that no one called me to it and that I received no orders to do it from anyone, i.e. neither from Czech nor from Russian institutions. I had read about this work in abbreviated form at the meeting of the Czech Medical Association on July 9, 1945. I wanted to do this as soon as the Czech Medical Association would begin its regular meetings in the liberated country, but my arrest prevented me from doing so.</div><div><br /></div><div>During the interrogation I was asked mainly the following 3 questions:</div><div><br /></div><div>1.Why did I go to Katyn?</div><div>2.What public statements did I make?</div><div>3.Why did I sign the Katyn Protocol?</div><div><br /></div><div>I answered the first question in my introduction.</div><div><br /></div><div>Regarding the second question I will say the following: my public statements were not made of my own free will."</div></blockquote><div></div></div><div>So he was specifically arrested because of Katyn. So of course, had he not renounced his previous statements, he would not have left jail.</div><div><br /></div><div>Any other retractions have to be seen in the light of the persecution of Markov and Hajek for Katyn, to name just two (of course, it was not just two).</div><div><br /></div><div>And as the last point, let's remember about the case of Ljudevit Jurak, a Croatian member of an analogous International Commission - for the Vinnytsia mass graves. He was sentenced and shot for having participated in the Commission and published about it, or, in the parlance of that time he was accused of "cultural collaboration with the enemy" and "found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to death by shooting, permanent loss of citizen's honors, and confiscation of property". The documents can be read <a href="https://www.katyn.org.au/jurak.html">here</a>.</div><div><blockquote>P. 212: "Neither Cienciala nor Sanford mention Phillimore's note of July 6, 1946. This omission is probably due to the fact that Phillimore concluded that the Soviet case set forth at Nuremberg was a convincing one..."</blockquote></div><div>And this opinion matters how?</div><div><blockquote>P. 214: "* Gustav Genschow, whose armaments firm manufactured the Geco 7.65 00 ammunition found at Katyn, testified that only small amounts of this ammunition were exported to the USSR - "only two to three thousand rounds" after 1928, a truly insignificant quantity."</blockquote></div><div>True, but the more significant parties <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/pamyatnykh-genschow.html">went</a> to the Baltics, some of which could have been resold to Poland after Genschow stopped their shipments there, and as the Soviets were robbing Poland, they could have easily gotten their mittens on this ammo (we <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-7-65.html">know</a> that the "trophy" guns from Poland were distributed among the NKVD and Party people).</div><div><br /></div><div>Purely chronologically, there were two other options: an unknown number (possibly, but not necessarily) smaller than to the Baltics was exported to Poland before 1930 (inclusive) and there were also significant exports to USSR until 1928 (whereas the cartridges with the headstamps used in the Katyn forest began to be sold in 1922). However, this needs to be judged in the context of Butz's <a href="https://archive.org/details/amk_20200218_202002/page/n78/mode/1up">claim</a> to have established that the cartridges used in the Katyn forest were of the Sinoxid type, produced since 1930, and thus the cartridges used for the shooting must have been produced in 1930 or 1931.</div><div><br /></div><div>This claim is not beyond the reasonable doubt. His methodology was as follows: first he analyzed the gunshot primer residue in the contact ring on the coat collars of the corpses no. 3754 and 3869 and found lead using dithizone (up to 60 μg in a sample in 3754 and up to 68 μg in a sample in 3869).</div><div><div><br /></div><div>He also <a href="https://archive.org/details/amk_20200218_202002/page/n81/mode/1up">examined</a> 10 skin samples from 5 corpses (3730, 3732, 3839, 3861, 3862), each time near the wound and 2-4 cm from the wound. From his table it follows that extremely small quantities of lead might have been found in 3 samples - 1,2 and 4 μg at corpse 3861 and 6,5 μg at 3862. It's not even clear, however, that his table is correctly presented, since on p. 82 he states that "an indication of the presence of close shots can at most be taken from the findings determined for sample 3862", yet on p. 79: "the skin samples brought for examination were analyzed with negative results, except for case No. 3861, in which minor lead deposits could still be detected". In each case he writes only of one sample, and each time of different one. Butz points out, that lead might have been reduced in a natural way due to the corpses having been in the graves for several years. To which one might add, that on some of those corpses it might not have been there in the first place.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>The method that he uses is a modified version of the one described in <i>Handwörterbuch der Gerichtlichen Medizin und Naturwissenschaftlichen Kriminalistik</i>, 1940, where we read on p. 665:</div><div><blockquote>"Since lead is ubiquitous, red lead dithizonate will regularly settle even when unshot tissue is examined. [...] The specified solutions are adjusted in such a way that 1-4 positive partitionings are obtained for unshot tissue, the so-called blind value, and at least 3 partitionings more are obtained for tissue containing powder residue."</blockquote></div></div><div>I. e. the samples for 3861 (with its 1 and 4 partitionings) would be within the margin of error if the original method were used, albeit I don't know how the modification affects this (allegedly it reduces the number of partitionings). In any case, this particular result is not convincing beyond the reasonable doubt.</div><div><br /></div><div>Finally, he extracted the primer from the one original cartridge found in the grave no. 2 (or 3, cf. GARF f. 7021, op. 114, d. 2, l. 24) and it also had lead, leading Butz to conclude that the primer was Sinoxid, which began to be used in manufacturing the Geco cartridges only in 1930 (or so Butz claimed based on the information from the firm).</div><div><br /></div><div>Butz's mistake was to extrapolate his limited findings on all the cartridges. He had 3 undoubted positive results, 1 or 2 doubtful ones and 3 negative ones. The serial numbers of the corpses that he analyzed were quite near to each others, so the results are hardly representative, albeit the random cartridge does bolster them somewhat. Yet it cannot be claimed on this basis that <i>all</i> or even most of the Geco cartridges used in the Katyn forest used Sinoxid and thus had to be produced between 1930 and 1931 - at most one could claim that a significant part was.</div><div><br /></div><div>This leaves us with the following options:</div><div><br /></div><div>- since it cannot be excluded that a significant number of cartridges did not use Sinoxid, they could have been exported to the USSR before 1928 in larger quantities (the Genschow letter), and after 1928 in smaller quantities (up to 3000, Genschow's testimony);</div><div><br /></div><div>- the Sinoxid cartridges could have been exported to Poland in 1930, possibly in small numbers (the Genschow letter, in which "until 1930"/"bis 1930" is inclusive); </div><div><br /></div><div>- the Sinoxid cartridges were exported in 1930 and 1931 to the Baltics (the Genschow letter; quantity unknown for these specific years; the overall quantities - about 50000 for each state, Genschow's testimony; this may refer to the period after 1928); since the exports to Poland were stopped at some point, it makes sense, that Poland would try to obtain the cartridges in a roundabout way, e. g. through the Baltic countries.</div><div><br /></div><div>And many of the Polish reserves also became available to the Soviets in 1939.</div><div><br /></div><div>A great unknown, that should be mentioned in addition to this list, is the fact <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/pamyatnykh-genschow.html">according</a> to the firm Genschow "in the years in question we delivered our pistol cartridges to practically all European countries, and among them in any case the caliber 7,65". Were there deliveries to, say, Finland?</div><div><br /></div><div>Note that basically we are talking about finding, roughly, 2-3 boxes of cartridges with several thousand in each box (say, 2-3000). It's a really small amount. The notion that their availability somewhere on the territories accessible to the USSR one way or another was improbable is what needs proving.</div><div><br /></div><div>Since all the cartridges in Katyn probably were brought from the central NKVD storage in Moscow (as argued <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-7-65.html">here</a>), it could easily be a mix, since in the storage the cartridges would have been likely sorted according to the caliber and the firm, regardless of the import source.<br /></div></div><div><blockquote>P. 215: "It is notable that in her testimony to the Madden Commission she did not deny this. She was not directly asked about it because this detail was not in her 1944 report from Katyn. Nor did she volunteer it. She did insist that she had been present at post-mortems, and that the documents she saw at a museum in Smolensk "had been taken from bodies that had been buried a considerable length of time." (Madden VII, 2145) This partially corroborates what she wrote to her sister."</blockquote></div><div>You can read some excerpts from her testimony above and judge for yourself how objective Furr's description is.</div><div><br /></div><div>Furr then goes on about what the experts confirmed during the Madden hearings or not, but I'll just say this: no forensic method was (or really is) known that could determine the age of the corpses based on their transformation (mummification, formation of adipocere) specifically in mass graves (where special conditions are present), so the opinions of those experts based on these or other (pseudocallus) criteria would have to be rejected in any case (same goes for Hajek and various random observers). What is important is what these witnesses say about how the Germans handled them, whether there were any falsifications etc.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><a name="ch12"></a></b><b>"Chapter 12. The Excavations at Volodymyr Volyns'kiy"</b></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj6fXk9TSV-oj5ZqZeNY2UihJ4lkMrcoDFdlFkZsbaNinUdyi3V3oq1TuLQXbGIxThs_VusNAo-sR7oKuAbK4ZeaIQyVY_BGQatMapxUtrylMzN7PnE8XpxWhrVupAG9ZSzaPcmHunk7bJZkxlvYbDgV_lueDbTkfYWrlQ3Rv4lEFEu-RhHQRs" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="552" data-original-width="997" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj6fXk9TSV-oj5ZqZeNY2UihJ4lkMrcoDFdlFkZsbaNinUdyi3V3oq1TuLQXbGIxThs_VusNAo-sR7oKuAbK4ZeaIQyVY_BGQatMapxUtrylMzN7PnE8XpxWhrVupAG9ZSzaPcmHunk7bJZkxlvYbDgV_lueDbTkfYWrlQ3Rv4lEFEu-RhHQRs" width="320" /></a></div><blockquote>P. 219: "* The Polish report by Dr. Sieminska has been taken off the Internet. The Report was originally online here:"</blockquote></div><div>And? This is the internet. Things disappear all the time.</div><div><br /></div><div>The rest is an incoherent mess ignoring the experts' consensus that some of the graves were created by NKVD and some by Gestapo. Such as this obvious falsehood:</div><div><blockquote>P. 223: "The Polish archeologists' report, written and signed by Dr. Dominika Sieminska herself in November 2011 is simply not mentioned. That report concluded that the mass murders at Volodymyr-Volyns'kiy were committed by the Germans, not by the Soviets."</blockquote></div><div>However, Sieminska's <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20131219001802/http://www.kresykedzierzynkozle.home.pl/attachments/File/Rap.pdf">report</a> concerned not all mass murders in VV but only those related to only two graves (1 and 2), which are still acknowledged today to be those of the Nazi victims.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then Furr mostly rehashes his claims from the previous VV chapter, which have already been debunked.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><a name="ch13"></a></b><b>"Chapter 13. The 'Ukrainian Trail of Katyn'"</b></div><div><blockquote><div>Pp. 233, 234: "Cienciala states: "The lists of victims shot in Ukraine have been found." This is false. There is no indication in the book in question, Zuzanna Gajowniczek, ed., Ukraiński ślad Katynia, that the prison ers on these lists were shot. These are simply lists of names, many of them recognizably Ukrainian.</div><div><br /></div><div>The only thing that suggests any relation to what we know as Katyn" is the fact that the NKVD list numbers are in the same sequence as the NKVD file numbers of the Polish POWs shipped out of Kozel'sk, Starobel'sk, and Ostashkov. But we know that the prisoners shipped to the Smolensk, Khar'kov, and Kalinin NKVD were not shot there, because many of the Starobel'sk and Ostashkov prisoners turned up dead at Katyn, and at least two Ostashkov POWs turned up dead in Volodymyr-Volyns'kiy."</div></blockquote><div>To understand whether or not the Ukrainian list has to do with Katyn one has first to understand what the list ... lists. The so-called Ukrainian list was attached to the 25.11.1940 letter by the head of the 1st special section of the NKVD UkrSSR Tsvetukhin to the head of the 1st special section of the NKVD SSSR Bashtakov (1st special section/1st spetsotdel was always dealing with bureaucratic and archival matters). Tsvetukhin wrote:</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiUjbfzPRAc6Z9lL9DxWcCO3WboBxYdTvvKanoZDiGaZOBNuimFNE46iSoP8e6OMtP11AAgVfHc9MmWSYEO6Rg_8pe3yvXT4yydt9hJ071Sccz1BFTOSiXavBw2Y-nyoZWbVifEo-IyVNg7AYRnTaH7_oxRLS5a9JiWVAYntOijn2IKUO-5H4U" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="962" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiUjbfzPRAc6Z9lL9DxWcCO3WboBxYdTvvKanoZDiGaZOBNuimFNE46iSoP8e6OMtP11AAgVfHc9MmWSYEO6Rg_8pe3yvXT4yydt9hJ071Sccz1BFTOSiXavBw2Y-nyoZWbVifEo-IyVNg7AYRnTaH7_oxRLS5a9JiWVAYntOijn2IKUO-5H4U" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div></div><blockquote><div>"I'm sending the personal prison files, as in the list, of the arrestees in your directives 041, 042, 043 and others.</div><div><br /></div><div>Attachment: 3435 files in 5 bags."</div></blockquote><div></div></div><div>So it is a list of so-called prison files (not to be confused with other kinds of files, like the investigative or control-observation files) of persons who were mentioned in "directives" numbered 041, 042, 043 etc. The list is mostly alphabetical, it is sequentially numbered from 1 to 3459, but due to the clerical errors mentioned in the document itself (on the last page) it only contains 3435 persons.</div><div><br /></div><div>The information for each person consists of their name, their father's name, year of birth and the special number consisting of a list number based on a specific protocol (e. g. 41/1, being list 1 based on the protocol/directive 041) and the number of the person in this protocol (e. g. 24).</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhfmnrNSW6afig8r0fZIAAeMKQVXrK3Kuefqwk_J4okoh5vsBacGOhaeEAbT60S22Qadyy9458Pxo5d0bbkdmtyyjKPsB6JSn3jsZcBUhWYE9MgjBEwsIlYBmSlRcXO_dvk0Lg0Sg59ndA-L16AMhwhp5kCJcOwPp92G3uxgknP-CrJ5JmApE8" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="184" data-original-width="824" height="71" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhfmnrNSW6afig8r0fZIAAeMKQVXrK3Kuefqwk_J4okoh5vsBacGOhaeEAbT60S22Qadyy9458Pxo5d0bbkdmtyyjKPsB6JSn3jsZcBUhWYE9MgjBEwsIlYBmSlRcXO_dvk0Lg0Sg59ndA-L16AMhwhp5kCJcOwPp92G3uxgknP-CrJ5JmApE8" width="320" /></a></div><br /> This is all we can gather <i>from the document itself</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div>The interpretation of the Ukrainian list thus <i>fully</i> depends on the context of the 1940 Polish operation (i. e. <i>by itself</i> it cannot provide evidence of an execution).</div><div><br /></div><div>The protocol numbering system is identical to the Katyn crime complex POW transfer list numbering. The transfer list numbers for the POWs from the three camps were based on the protocols numbered 05-06, 011-040, 044-046, 050-054, 058, 059 and 062 (the very first lists did not use such numbering, so the protocols 01-04 cannot be seen in these lists). You can see the obvious gaps. The Ukrainian list of arrestees (not POWs) fills the protocol number gaps 041-043, 055-057, 064-067, 071-072. A Belorussian list, if it were ever to be found, would have the numbers 047-049, 060, 061, 063 and 068-070.</div><div><br /></div><div>Therefore the people on the Ukrainian list were a part of the very same operation that involved the POWs from the Kozelsk, Starobelsk and Ostashkov camps. Whatever happened during this operation to most of those POWs also happened to most of these particular prisoners. The issue is thus reduced to finding out what happened to the POWs. Furr denies that they were shot as a part of this operation, and therefore for him the Ukrainian list is not evidence of any execution of the Ukrainian arrestees. On the other hand, proving that the bulk of the POWs were shot also shows that the bulk of the Ukrainian arrestees were shot. The existence of the Ukrainian list confirms the information in the sealed envelope no. 1 that along the POWs, thousands of prison inmates were also executed - something which had not been known before 1992 (or it could be said that the Ukrainian list and the sealed envelope documents mutually confirm and reinforce each other). Historians know this and therefore for them the list contains the information about executions. With an important caveat.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm saying "most of prisoners" (etc.), because the Ukrainian list is a list of <i>files</i> that were left after the operation, with the sequential numbers attached. This brings some marginal uncertainty into the issue, since this is not a direct list of the executed people. Following points need to be taken into consideration.</div><div><br /></div><div>1. We cannot guarantee that this is a <i>complete</i> list of all the Ukrainian prisoners shot during the 1940 operation. It is a set of files that were left in a Ukrainian NKVD archive at some point in time. </div><div><br /></div><div>a) If for some reason some of the files resided elsewhere on 25.11.1940 (e. g. some other NKVD department), or simply were missing, or had already been transferred to Moscow, they would not be on the list. While Tsvetukhin does not remark on any missing files, it is not a guarantee that some were not missing.</div><div><br /></div><div>b) Possible clerical errors might have led to an omission of some files from the list. It is a real concern, since a comment on the last page of the list points out certain clerical errors, including names mistakenly added and then erased. While this comment also means that some sort of verification took place on the same day, we cannot guarantee that all the mistakes were caught.</div><div><br /></div><div>2. While we know from the historical context that the bulk of the listed prisoners were shot, as a general principle, for each given name there is a kind of a minor uncertainty about whether or not this particular person was shot. This is a usual situation with such lists which is not limited to the Katyn issue. For most deportation lists to Treblinka II we know for certain that most of the people were gassed on arrival, but for almost every person there is a minor doubt whether they <i>individually</i> survived the first hours for some reason (like being selected for work in the camp).</div><div><br /></div><div>a) Clerical errors, as above. We know that clerical errors abounded during the preparation of the transfer lists for the POWs - we know about that from the internal NKVD correspondence regarding such mistakes. Other lists are no different.</div><div><br /></div><div>b) Inclusion of people first slated to be shot, the decisions regarding whom were then reversed.</div><div><br /></div><div>We know of the last-minute change of plan concerning the Polish officer Swianiewicz in Katyn (he was on the Kozelsk transfer list that was de facto a shooting list, but was spared at the last moment by a telegram directly from Moscow). And indeed, the list itself says that the nr. 2989 on the list, Boleslaw Turowski, was sentenced to 5 years of correctional camp labor and was then amnestied. So this is the one arrestee who was first sentenced to death but escaped it for some reason. </div><div><br /></div><div>There is some internal Ukrainian MGB <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/gdasbu-1.html#gal-22">correspondence</a>, from which we see that the MGB bureaucrats checked the protocols nr. 041-043, 055-057, 064-067, 071-072 (i. e. exactly those corresponding to the Ukrainian list) and the only two numbers where irregularities occurred were 41/96 (Turowski) and 71/172 (Haninczak). Haninczak was not on the Ukrainian list and we will get to his case shortly. This internal verification coupled with the Turowski comment on the list raises the probability of the list's integrity, but still does not exclude possible cases in which additional irregularities might have been found and solved in the years prior but about which we have no correspondence.</div><div><br /></div><div>My conclusion from the aforementioned points is that it is fair to assume with a high probability for each given name on the list, for which we do not have contrary information, that this person was executed. But it would not be completely unexpected if for some small number of the names this conclusion could be reversed based on new information. This would not affect the rest of the list (unless the number became significant) and the burden of proof lies directly on those who would claim that this or that person escaped death.</div><div><br /></div><div>Knowledge is probabilistic and even more or less direct documentary evidence of an execution <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/fm-ivanov-incompetent.html#errare">sometimes</a> turns out to be wrong, but we still use this evidence to declare people dead (until proven otherwise), and this case is no exception.</div><div><blockquote>P. 235: "So the so-called "Ukrainian list" contains names of persons who were not even Poles. There is also no evidence that they were shot. Only investigations and interrogations about their Trotskyist activities are mentioned. Clearly, none of these men had anything to do with Katyn. This invalidates the whole idea of a "Ukrainian list."</blockquote></div><div>Note Furr's clumsy attempt at deception. They were not ethnic Poles, but they were (former) Polish citizens. The shooting order <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content_docs.html">applied</a> to the following arrestees:</div><div><blockquote>"(b) together with the cases of 11,000 members of various counter-revolutionary organizations of spies and saboteurs, former land owners, factory owners, former Polish officers, government officials, and escapees who have been arrested and are being held in the western provinces of the Ukraine and Belarus and apply to them the supreme penalty: shooting."</blockquote></div><div>These accusations against these former Polish citizens fit this description. So obviously the Ukrainian list had everything to do with the Katyn crime complex. Furr's conclusion is based literally on nothing.</div><div><br /></div><div>Note that while Beria's order's main focus is on ethnic Poles, it is explicitly <i>not</i> only about them (he lists 18632 inmates of all ethnicities, of them 10685 ethnic Poles, yet wants to shoot 11000, thus necessarily taking out hundreds of non-Poles with them).</div><div><blockquote>P. 236: "The archival document (p. 18) states that on May 5 and 7, 1940, the six accused Trotskyists were transferred from the Ukrainian NKVD to the NKVD of the USSR. Thereafter, whatever happened to them happened outside the Ukraine."</blockquote></div><div>Another falsification. Nothing at all is written about them being brought outside of the Ukraine. They were a) formally handed over by the NKVD UkrSSR to the NKVD SSSR (the shooting order was issued specifically to it) and b) they were transferred to their places of executions (in Ukraine), so they were literally a) transferred b) to NKVD SSSR, but not outside of Ukraine.</div><blockquote><div>P. 236: "Page 78 of the archival list concerns Vladimir Filaretovich Perventsev who, along with his case file, was transferred to the NKVD of the USSR - again, outside the Ukraine."</div><div></div></blockquote><div>Another falsification, nothing is said about him having been transferred outside Ukraine.</div><div><blockquote>P. 237: "Romanov says that Perventsev was "shot as a Polish citizen," This is a lie. There is no evidence that he was shot, or of what became of him. Whatever happened to him most likely happened because he had been a leading organizer of an anti-Soviet group of Russian émigrés, not "as a Polish citizen."</blockquote></div><div>Furr lies about me lying, of course. That Perventsev was shot follows from him being on the Ukrainian list and not being one of the known exceptions (see above). And I never wrote that he was shot because he was a Polish citizen, as Furr implies. Him having been a Polish citizen was a <i>necessary</i> condition for his execution, not a <i>sufficient</i> one. Had he been a Soviet citizen, he would not have been shot <i>according to the Politburo decision</i> of 05.03.1940. Yet he was not an ethnic Pole and he was in fact a leader of Russian nationalists, which is why I was emphasizing this paradox.</div><div><blockquote>P. 238: "So, according to the "official" version Haninczak was murdered at Khar'kov and buried at Piatykhatky. The Polish Wikipedia article on him also claims that he was killed "in the Spring of 1940" [...] This is another example of how dishonest the whole "official" version of Katyn is."</blockquote></div><div>How so? This is merely a mistake, which is no different from Yad Vashem <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-rothstein-canard.html">getting</a> things <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2020/05/holocaust-deniers-and-yad-vashem.html">wrong</a> about some of the Holocaust victims. The case of Starobelsk is different from those of Kozelsk and Ostashkov - for the latter two we have the numbers of the POWs from the transfer list, thus we know who was transferred from the NKVD POW office to the local UNKVDs. Whereas for Starobelsk we have a general list of more than 4000 names of all POWs who had been in Starobelsk, including the people who lived, so more guesswork than usual was involved in finding out who was shot and who was not. Same happened in the case of Stanisław Kuczyński-Iskander Bej, discussed above.</div><div><blockquote>P. 238: "There is no evidence that Haninczak was executed at all! Quite the contrary: page 100 of the archival document states that there was an investigative file on Haninczak dated February 24, 1941, which has been destroyed. This suggests that Haninczak was still alive as of about that date. We know that Turowski, who is discussed on the same page, was not shot at all." </blockquote></div><div>It is true that currently, after we learned more from the Ukrainian documents, there is no evidence of Haninczak having been shot. Here is what I wrote about his case:</div><div></div><blockquote><div>"In the accompanying note Podobedov asked to solve two issues.[...] The second question is about the number 172 of the protocol 71 of 26.07.1940, because the case was returned for additional investigation and again sent to the NKVD of the USSR on 24.02.1941 and the former decision about it was cancelled by the protocol 74 of 14.12.1940. </div></blockquote><blockquote><div>This is new information - it turns out that there were some protocols after number 72, and after the summer of 1940! And they were not only about the shootings. Probably the Merkulov-Kobulov-Bashtakov Commission dealt with some other residual prisoner-related issues after the main action.</div><div>[...]</div><div>Let us return to Krotov. On the second question of Podobedov, Krotov reported that the case of Vladimir Goninchak - the same number 172 of protocol 71 - was returned for additional investigation on December 17, 1940 and was sent to the NKVD of the USSR. It is impossible to check the re-entry of the case to the NKVD of USSR because on 24.02.1941 all materials on the record of incoming documents were destroyed.</div><div><br /></div><div>The case of Goninchak is interesting because he is not listed in the Ukrainian list, although his serial number is named in the protocol. However, "Ganinchak Vladimir Jozefowicz" (more correct - Włodzimierz Haninczak) born in 1883, former head of the district court of Lviv, is listed as prisoner of war from Starobelsk number 929, year of birth and patronymic coincide. In the Karta database, at the time of writing, he is listed as having been shot in Kharkov. However, as we know, in exceptional cases, even people already listed for sending to places of execution were not executed at the last moment, the most famous is, perhaps, the case of Stanisław Swianiewicz. And the Starobelsk list simply lists all those who left in the spring of 1940, including such Poles who were not executed as General Zygmunt Berling (177 on the list) and Lieutenant Colonel Leon Bukojemski (number 79). Taking into account that the decision about Haninchak's case was reversed on December 14th 1940, and the case was sent in for additional investigation on December 17th 1940, we can conclude that Haninchak was not shot together with the other Polish citizens. His further fate is still unknown.</div><div><br /></div><div>The question arises: why is a prisoner of war from Starobelsk mentioned in the protocols of the examination of the cases of the prisoners in the Western Ukraine prisons? The following hypothesis could be put forward. As we have already seen from the data on the protocol No. 74, the protocols of the commission were not focused exclusively on the shootings, but were devoted to the consideration of cases of prisoners of war, most of whom, of course, were shot, but a few survived, and their fates were also the subject of the consideration by the commission. When Haninczak was not shot together with the other prisoners of Starobelsk, his case was apparently transferred back to the commission, at a time when it was examining the cases of prisoners. That is why he is listed in Protocol 71, but not in the Ukrainian list."</div></blockquote><div></div><div><blockquote>P. 238: "Moreover, there is no evidence that any of the persons on this list were executed! This is simply "assumed" by defenders of the official" version."</blockquote></div><div>Nope. It is concluded from the sum of the available evidence.</div><div><blockquote>P. 238: "At least 9 prisoners on this archival list, and on the "Ukrainian list," were arrested in late 1940 or in 1941. They are: ..."</blockquote></div><div>This will be one of the greatest examples of Furr's absolute ignorance and dishonesty.</div><div><br /></div><div>Furr presents a pool of 9 cases with dates allegedly much later than the action occurred: 18.09.1940, 26.09.1940, 10.10.1940, 20.10.1940, 15.11.1940, 30.11.1940, 21.12.1940, 03.12.1940, 21.04.1941.</div><div><br /></div><div>First of all, we will exclude 30.11.1940, Mieczysław Kulanda, due to him not being on the Ukrainian list in the first place. He was <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20220829163313/https://archives.gov.ua/um.php?p=12&a=43&id=1156">sentenced</a> to 8 years in 1941. I will also note that he was arrested on 19.12.1939, not in 1940, so we have our first clerical error case.</div><div><br /></div><div>His presence on the KGB inventory list may have been due to a misfiling of the case, whether intentional ("getting rid" of a case), or not (clerical error) or for other, heretofore unknown reasons, e. g. maybe his case was sent to NKVD SSSR but no decision was taken there, or there was a decision to send him to the Special Council of the NKVD. Whatever it was, to repeat, he is not on the Ukrainian list. So there are 8 cases left.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>a) Direct evidence against Furr's claim from his own sources: the KGB inventory.</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Furr's list of names comes from the archival inventory lists which were created when the control-observation files in Ukraine were being destroyed due to an oral order from Moscow. Some of these lists contain more information than the others about the dates (so Furr presenting them as one list is misleading), so we will continue our examination of Furr's list of allegedly exceptional cases with the list which contains most information, that is with the <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/gdasbu-1.html#gal-121">list</a> of 259 destroyed files:</div><div><div><blockquote>P. 238: "* Uk. List #2329 (LK 74 US 191) - Edward Podgórski, this list p. 205 #6. Arrested October 10 1940 as a (civilian) Polish policeman."</blockquote></div><div>The actual <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/gdasbu-1.html#gal-89">entry</a> states that the case was opened on "10.x.1940" (not that he was arrested then, it could have happened earlier), but it also says that his investigation file was sent to NKVD SSSR on "28.V.1940 with nr. 541/sp". "541/sp" was the number of the letter with which numerous files were sent as attachments on the same day, repeated in many entries, so we know that this date is correct and the first date is necessarily a mistake. <b>Furr knew about this.</b></div><div><blockquote>P. 239: "* Uk. List #2441 (LK 78 US 198) Stanisław Ratajczak, this list p. 223 #149. Arrested September 18 1940 as a (civilian) Polish policeman."</blockquote></div><div>The actual <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/gdasbu-1.html#gal-107">entry</a> states that the case was opened on "18.ix.1940" (not that he was arrested then, it could have happened earlier), but it also says that his investigation file was sent to NKVD SSSR on "28.V.1940 with nr. 541/sp", so we know that this date is correct and the first date is necessarily a mistake. <b>Furr knew about this.</b></div><div><blockquote>P. 239: "* Uk. List #2502 (LK 78 US 52) - Kazimierz Rodziewicz, this list p. 232 #224. Arrested September 26 1940 as "an agent of the Polish police."</blockquote></div><div><div>The actual <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/gdasbu-1.html#gal-116">entry</a> states that the case was opened on "26.ix.1940" (not that he was arrested then, it could have happened earlier), but it also says that his investigation file was sent to NKVD SSSR on "7.V.1940 with nr. 540/sp", "540/sp" was the number of the letter with which numerous files were sent as attachments on the same day, repeated in many entries, so we know that this date is correct and the first date is necessarily a mistake. <b>Furr knew about this.</b></div></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>Furr's remaining pool of cases is reduced to 5: 20.10.1940, 15.11.1940, 21.12.1940, 03.12.1940, 21.04.1941.</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>Now we know for certain that there were clerical errors in the lists. Therefore for the rest of Furr's examples there is no reason at all not to apply the same principle: those were simply clerical errors (some of them probably because of simply writing the wrong year, some of them because of looking at a wrong entry).</div><div><br /></div><div>In addition, the documents in the collection that discuss the <i>history</i> of various files, including the control-observation files, specifically mention that the people to whom the files belonged were arrested in 1939-1940 - not 1941! This is the additional reason for why this entry - </div><blockquote>P. 239: "* Uk. List #930 (LK 18 US 187) Josef Dołbniak, this list p. 144 #37. Arrested April 21 1941 as a Polish policeman."</blockquote><div>is more likely to contain a clerical error than the true date.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>b) Direct evidence against Furr's claim: the Tsvetukhin letter.</b></div><div><br /></div><div>What's much worse for Furr is that he ignored the most obvious limit on the dates - Tsvetukhin's letter to which the Ukrainian list is attached. It is dated 25.11.1940. All the remaining dates after that are of necessity clerical errors.</div><div><br /></div><div>Furr's remaining pool of cases is thus reduced to 2: 20.10.1940 and 15.11.1940. Out of 9 original cases.</div><div><br /></div><div>Obviously, probability is not on Furr's side.</div><div><br /></div><div>Even if Furr disagrees that these 2 remaining cases must/should be seen as clerical errors, he cannot prove that they are not - and that they are is made probable by the 7 examples above (<b>about 3 of which Furr knew about, since he had read the entries in question in original - but still included them in his list - and another 3 he should have excluded himself due to the Tsvetukhin letter; plus Kulanda</b>).</div></div><div><p><b>c) Evidence against Furr's claim from the chronology of the protocols.</b></p><p>We know the numbers of the protocols/directives relating to the prisoners on the Ukrainian list, so we can set certain upper time limits on when the prisoners could have been arrested (obviously, not later than the protocol dates).</p><p>We directly <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/gdasbu-1.html#gal-21">know</a> dates of 2 protocols having to do with the Ukrainian list - 041 is from 20.04.1940 and 071 is from 26.07.1940. For the rest of the numbers, we know they fill the gaps in the unified numbering system used during the 1940 operation.</p><p>We also know the dates of the specific protocol-based lists for the POW camps (the tables for Kozelsk and Ostashkov can be found in <i>Ubity v Katyni</i>, p. 110, and <i>Ubity v Kalinine...</i>, vol. 1, p. 86, the data for Starobelsk is from the 18.05.1940 <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/book-katyn-2.html#81doc">letter</a> of Berezhkov).</p><p>Let's sum up the known chronological information. Unless stated otherwise, for Kozelsk the date of the arrival of the lists in the camp is given, for Ostashkov and Starobelsk - the dates of the lists themselves.</p><p></p><blockquote><i>05</i> 05.04.1940 Ostashkov<br /><i>06</i> 03.04.1940 Starobelsk<br /><i>011</i> 04.04.1940 Starobelsk<br /><i>012</i> [??].04.1940 Ostashkov<br /><i>016</i> [05].04.1940 Ostashkov<br /><i>014, 015, 017</i> 06.04.1940 Kozelsk<br /><i>018</i> 07.04.1940 Starobelsk<br /><i>019</i> 07.04.1940 Ostashkov<br /><i>020</i> 09.04.1940 Ostashkov<br /><i>021</i> 09.04.1940 Starobelsk<br /><i>022, 025</i> 10.04.1940 Kozelsk<br /><i>023</i> 10.04.1940 Ostashkov<br /><i>024</i> 10.04.1940 Starobelsk<br /><i>026, 027</i> 13.04.1940 Ostashkov<br /><i>028</i> 13.04.1940 Starobelsk<br /><i>029, 032</i> 15.04.1940 Kozelsk<br /><i>030</i> 14.04.1940 Ostashkov<br /><i>031</i> 14.04.1940 Starobelsk<br /><i>033</i> 16.04.1940 Ostashkov<br /><i>034</i> 16.04.1940 Starobelsk<br /><i>035, 036</i> 18.04.1940 Kozelsk<br /><i>037, 038</i> 20.04.1940 Ostashkov<br /><i>039</i> 20.04.1940 Starobelsk<br /><i>040</i> 21.04.1940 Kozelsk<br /><b><i>041</i> 20.04.1940; Ukrainian list nr. 285 (41/3-61; date alleged by Furr: 20.10.1940), nr. 3292 (41/3-99; date alleged by Furr: 03.12.1940)<br /></b><b><i>042</i> Ukrainian list nr. 286 (42-96; date alleged by Furr: 21.12.1940), nr. 3089 (42-400; date alleged by Furr: 15.11.1940)<br /><i>043</i> Ukrainian list nr. 2502 (43/1-7; date alleged by Furr: 26.09.1940)<br /></b><i>044, 045</i> 22.04.1940 Ostashkov<br /><i>046</i> 22.04.1940 Starobelsk<br /><i>050</i> 27.04.1940 Ostashkov (the date when the lists were sent)<br /><i>051</i> 27.04.1940 Ostashkov<br /><i>052</i> 28.04.1940 Kozelsk<br /><i>053</i> 27.04.1940 Starobelsk<br /><i>054</i> 05.05.1940 Ostashkov (the lists 054/1 and /2)<br /><i>054</i> 07.05.1940 Kozelsk (the list 054/3)<br /><i>054</i> 05.05.1940 Starobelsk (the list 054/4)<br /><i>058</i> [??].05.1940 Ostashkov<br /><i>059</i> 10.05.1940 Kozelsk (the list 059/1)<br /><i>059</i> 09.05.1940 Starobelsk (the list 059/2)<br /><i>062</i> 19.05.1940 Ostashkov<br /><b><i>066</i> Ukrainian list nr. 2329 (66/2-98; date alleged by Furr: 10.10.1940), 930 (66/2-20; date alleged by Furr: 21.04.1940)<br /></b><b><i>067</i> Ukrainian list nr. 2441 (67/1-50; date alleged by Furr: 18.09.1940)<br /></b><b><i>071</i> 26.07.1940 Ukrainian list</b></blockquote><b></b><p></p><p>Well, we are done here. All of Furr's 8 cases are clerical errors.</p><p>But wait, there is still more.</p><p><b>d) Evidence against Furr's claim from other sources.</b></p><p>Furr himself complains that this or that claim by a secondary source is ignored by the historians allegedly due to such claims' inconvenience. Let's see how Furr himself fares on this score.</p><p>Furr uses Zuzanna Gajowniczek's 1995 book <i>Ukraiński ślad Katynia</i>. What he hides from his readers is the fact that several entries in her book directly contradict Furr's thesis about late arrests.</p><p>On p. 50 she writes about Wiktor Chajes that he was arrested in October 1939 and held in Zamarstynów. Indeed, it makes sense that Chajes, as Lviv's vice-president, would be arrested shortly after the Soviets overran the city, rather than a year later (all the former presidents were arrested in the beginning; Chajes' early arrest is confirmed <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Courage_and_Fear/8zm6DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PT237&printsec=frontcover">elsewhere</a>). Interestingly, she provides yet further information about Chajes, namely, that previously he was alleged to have been held in Starobelsk until 04.10.1940 and then to have been transferred to Kotlas. Curiously, Furr does not seize upon this information. Did he even read his own source?</p><p>Here we will make an aside to discuss Chajes' case in more detail.</p><p>I managed to find the source of the allegation that Gajowniczek cites: it was a September 1941 <a href="https://jbc.bj.uj.edu.pl/Content/330477/PDF/NDIGCZAS012400_1941_043.pdf">item</a> in <i>Gazeta Lwowska</i> with a list of several Starobelsk inmates that the engineer Jan Hoszowski created from memory after leaving the camp in June of 1941. Wiktor Chajes is on the list with a 10 year sentence. The introduction to the list indeed mentions, that all former officers left the camp on 04.10.1940 and were sent in the direction of Kotlas, but nothing is said or implied that this refers to all the people on the list in the same news item. Rather, this referred to all the officers (whether on the list or not) residing in the camp on 04.10.1940 and nothing in the subsequent list indicates that it reflects the state of affairs on that date - these are just people Hoszowski claimed to have met in the camp in general. So there is no evidence in this source that Chajes still resided in the camp in October and did not leave earlier. Someone misinterpreted what the introduction said.</p><p>Now, to clarify, after the first group of Starobelsk POWs was sent to the Kharkiv UNKVD (in April-May) and to Pavlishchev Bor (on May 12) the camp <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Hearings/KH2AVWdBfNgC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA2072&printsec=frontcover">became</a>, among other things, a transit point for prisoners, slated for work in the Northern labor camps (they were residing there for weeks or months waiting for the convoys to be formed).</p><p>Does Hoszowski's information mean that we have a proven case of a person on the Ukrainian list who both escaped the execution and was not marked as an exception on the list itself? No. Assuming the veracity of the news item, Chajes' sentence cannot simply be assumed to be his "final" one, rather than an earlier sentence that could have then been overridden by the Politburo decision.</p><p>Let's not forget that many, if not all, of the people on the Ukrainian list were being accused of violating specific articles of the Soviet-Ukrainian criminal code (e. g. article <a href="https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%82%D1%8F_54_%D0%9A%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BC%D1%96%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE_%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81%D1%83_%D0%A3%D0%A0%D0%A1%D0%A0_(1927_%D1%96_1934)">54-13</a>), i. e. at first a "normal" procedure was being applied (as opposed to being shot without an actual sentence). It is absolutely possible that when the Politburo decision was taken or the protocols were being prepared, some of the prisoners had already been sentenced in a "normal" way. </p><p>A similar case happened with Ostashkov POWs. Cases were being <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/book-katyn-1.html#doc175">prepared</a> against them to be sent to the Special Council of the NKVD (which was an extrajudicial body, but whose sentences were nevertheless considered "normal" procedure in Stalin's years, as opposed to the so-called "special procedure", <i>osobyi poryadok</i>, according to which the Polish victims were later shot). About 6000 cases were sent to Moscow and the Special Council even <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/book-katyn-1.html#doc215">managed</a> to issue 600 sentences (3-5-8 years in Kamchatka) when suddenly the process was stopped by Beria, who knew about the coming decision, which indeed arrived and simply overrode the previous sentences, and the new individual decisions were issued by the <i>troika</i> according to the "special procedure".</p><p>So, a following scenario is <i>possible</i>: Chajes was sentenced to 10 or so years of labor camps (maybe some time in March, but various options are possible); he was being transferred to his destination (it's not a speedy process and may involve many stops and some waiting time) when the directive list with his name arrived to the Ukrainian NKVD some time in April (after the 20th). There would have been a likely time lag between the arrival of the directive and any actions towards the prisoner in any case (cf. the Ukrainian list number 2502 above, whose name is on the April list, but whose case was transferred to the NKVD SSSR - apparently with the prisoner himself, as the other KGB documents indicate - only on 07.05.1940). Possibly because the prisoners had to be located first and the convoys had to be formed. While the bureaucratic wheels were turning, Chajes might have arrived at the transit camp at Starobelsk in the second half of May or in June, where he met Hoszowski. Soon the Polish operation caught up with him there and he was transferred elsewhere in order to meet his fate.</p><p>Obviously, more research is needed to see whether something like this happened or whether Chajes would turn out to be a rare exception on the Ukrainian list, which would not however affect the interpretation of the rest of the list (as I have already discussed above).</p><p>Whatever the case, the date of his arrest is a clerical error, as he was arrested in 1939.</p><p>On p. 191 Gajowniczek provides information about Edward Podgórski who was arrested on 12/13.04.1940 and was held in Dubno. There is a striking confirmation of Podgórski's early arrest in a letter that E. Koziej sent from the UK to Podgórski's wife in 1946 (Janina Wołczuk, <i>Listy sybiraków: 1939-1955</i>, 1994, p. 20):</p><p></p><blockquote>"I was with him in one room in the Dubno prison, along with others; it was a very short time, only 10 days, from 15 V 1940 to 25 V 1940. On the critical day he was taken with the others, where - I do not know. I have nothing to hide or to add..., (I write) as it was. I, in turn, still remained there until 9 IV 1941."</blockquote><p></p><p>The time frame coincides with the information in the KGB inventory that Podgórski's case was transferred to the NKVD SSSR on 28.05.1940.</p><p>On p. 52 Gajowniczek provides information about Kazimierz Rodziewicz, who was arrested on 23.09.1939 in Adamówka and was held in Dubno until March 1940.</p><p>So we see that Furr never mentioned these contradictions between his thesis and a source that he used to his readers.</p><blockquote>P. 243: "This so called "Ukrainian List of Katyn" list is a fraud."</blockquote></div><div>As we have seen, the only fraud is Furr.</div><div><blockquote>P. 243: "It has nothing to do with Katyn."</blockquote></div><div>A brazen lie, given the Katyn crime complex numeration used in this list.</div><div><blockquote>P. 243: "It is not comprised only of Poles. There are many non Poles Ukrainians and Jews on it, including anti Polish persons (OUN members) and anti-Semites."</blockquote></div><div>All of whom, as individuals, fit the description in the 05.03.1940 shooting decision, which was mostly designed for ethnic Poles, but not only for them. BTW, hundreds of Jews <a href="https://www.jhi.pl/en/articles/katyn-massacre-polish-jewish-victims,591">were murdered </a>by the Soviets during the 1940 shooting action in Kalinin, Katyn forest and Kharkiv.</div><div><blockquote>P. 244: "However, during exhumations in the 1990s at the special cemetery of the UNKVD at Piatykhatky Polish archeologists did not find any traces of caustic soda. Moreover, they remarked on the "amazingly good" preservation of the remains of uniforms and of paper documents found in the graves."</blockquote></div><div>Misleading at the very least. In the places not touched by the boreholes the remains and the documents were often greatly preserved. In the places where the KGB drilled right through the graves, the remains could not have been untouched, and indeed, many bodies were irretrievably damages by the drills.</div><div><br /></div><div>As for caustic soda, we know for a fact that this was the plan, because the <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/gdasbu-2.html">documents</a> say so. Was the plan actually implemented?</div><div><br /></div><div>Let's start with the boreholes. A. Kola, <i>Archeologia zbrodni. Oficerowie polscy na cmentarzu ofiar NKWD w Charkowie</i>, 2005, pp. 317, 318:</div><div><div></div><blockquote><div>"More extensive damage to the graves than that from robbery was caused by holes from mechanical drilling carried out in this cemetery probably in the late 1970s/early 1980s, so relatively recently. These were traces of drills with diameters of 60, 70, 80 and 90 cm, reaching most often to the bottom of the grave (and sometimes even deeper - such as in the Soviet grave no. 25/95) probably with the purpose of destroying grave structures. The intention of these activities is not entirely clear. Perhaps they were intended to prevent the identification of those buried or to speed up the process of decomposition of the corpses. [...]</div><div><br /></div><div>In total, more than 130 such boreholes were found within the research excavations carried out by the Polish expedition in 1995-1996. The outlines of most of them (112 boreholes) were visible already at a depth of 35-60 cm; the rest could be inferred from the damage in the deeper parts of the graves. Drillings were carried out in both Polish and Soviet graves. Most of the drills accurately hit the graves, which could indicate the knowledge of the location of the graves by those doing the work, even though on the ground surface the grave sites were completely unrecognizable at the time. In one only partially (about 50%) exhumed Polish grave no. 7/94 there were traces of as many as 15 boreholes with a uniform diameter of 70 cm, quite evenly covering the entire range of the exhumed part of the grave. It can be assumed that a similar number of holes were also located in the rest of the grave.</div><div><br /></div><div>A similar picture of drilling pattern is also found in other Polish graves. Within the partially explored (about 20%) large grave no. 17/95, two distinct drill traces with diameters of 60 cm appeared already at a depth of about 35 cm. Further exploration revealed 3 boreholes and robbery pits in the grave cavity. The result was damage to the top layer of skeletons, resulting in loose human bones, often severely crushed."</div></blockquote><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg1vd5qzv0l2bPuMWtDAk5CE5HOuSjPU59FCdl_xEc2c56oP8K-O2xzi6JTOsp4LeaOePNgySsvT6pIuhUHCS9y1uTD_nUNGsrzYHi9mnulibBqYsdlv4lb8ZY5nL6iPXfsOIpoutCTiRtJ0PzYbONl7GR-18ITRe8TEN_v_ebY9VyavVxPzjY" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="709" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg1vd5qzv0l2bPuMWtDAk5CE5HOuSjPU59FCdl_xEc2c56oP8K-O2xzi6JTOsp4LeaOePNgySsvT6pIuhUHCS9y1uTD_nUNGsrzYHi9mnulibBqYsdlv4lb8ZY5nL6iPXfsOIpoutCTiRtJ0PzYbONl7GR-18ITRe8TEN_v_ebY9VyavVxPzjY" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A grave with drill traces, Ø60cm. Kola, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 148.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg3DsnBcBlM7dB8Jb0IuIrRinrgZGXxlD3QKyW0djkpr7-2liDm1Eroef7r0qsdc8s-REIqdRtOua46LkZ3z9hlIjFYMlS1aDqwVi5BqHKSQjn5y8yYgh0a_xtW2IXI8dw16oDJoy_SBF-YbQeaDgb2u4NPZszzqbwuUEtsRM6CLPBc4dxK20M" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="469" data-original-width="704" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg3DsnBcBlM7dB8Jb0IuIrRinrgZGXxlD3QKyW0djkpr7-2liDm1Eroef7r0qsdc8s-REIqdRtOua46LkZ3z9hlIjFYMlS1aDqwVi5BqHKSQjn5y8yYgh0a_xtW2IXI8dw16oDJoy_SBF-YbQeaDgb2u4NPZszzqbwuUEtsRM6CLPBc4dxK20M" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A section of a borehole, Ø60cm. <i>Ibid.</i></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><br /></div>These results, achieved before the documents became known, confirm a massive attempt at destroying the graves at the very least through the use of huge drills. So the prerequisite to using caustic soda was there. Was it used though? We have only one indication of this in the <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/gdasbu-3.html">report</a> of the head of the Kharkiv UKGB Gibadulov from 29.12.1989:</div><div><blockquote>"In 1969 and 1973, the 10th Department of the KGB, jointly with the UKGB, carried out special activities to eliminate signs that could indicate burial sites. To this end, boreholes were drilled and caustic soda was poured."</blockquote></div><div>There are two options here: a) this is direct knowledge from documents or colleagues; b) this is an extrapolation based on this existence of the plan. We don't know which one.</div><div><br /></div><div>If this is direct knowledge, then I should note that the magnitude of the use of caustic soda is not specified. We cannot gather from this short description that caustic soda was used for all or even most boreholes.</div><div><br /></div><div>Assuming that liquid caustic soda was used, Furr has made no case that traces of it would be visible after 20+ years and that it would not eventually just seep away. We also don't know what concentrations would have been used, how efficient such a procedure would have been (the efficient methods of dissolving bodies this way <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkaline_hydrolysis_(body_disposal)">seem</a> to involve at least <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170814192433/http://www.center-bereg.ru/f814.html">heat</a>, but better also pressure) and whether it was not abandoned due to inefficiency, the action having been reduced to a mechanical destruction. Additionally, the graves were only explored partially, as can be see even from Kola's quote above.</div><div><br /></div><div>Given so many unknows, Furr's trivial gotchas are useless.</div><div><blockquote>Pp. 244, 245: "Nevertheless, supporters of the "official" version judged these letters to be evidence of traces of the Katyn killings in Ukraine. Evidently none of them noticed that in the left corner of Feshchenko's letter there is the following handwritten resolution of Nikitchenko's: "reported to Comrade Shelest P.E." and dated, in the same handwriting, 2008!</blockquote><blockquote><p>[...] The date (enlargement, at right) reads "2008 gd" - "the year
2008"."</p></blockquote></div><div>Unlike Furr's nonsense, this is, of course, unimpeachable evidence and Furr shows himself to be a hoaxer clown once more. Obviously, there is not even a trace of the year "2008" on the <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/gdasbu-2.html#gal-17">letter</a>, dated 19.06.1969, merely a date quickly written without the periods: "20[.]06[.]69" (indicating that the letter was received on the next day; which is why "06" is preferrable to the "08" as a reading, with both being theoretically possible at first). How utterly dumb one has to be in order not to get it? But is it really dumbness? After all, Furr simply made up a non-existent word or abbreviation ("gd"; it's either "god" or "g."; and nobody dates their remarks with only a year; and of course, the alleged "d" in the date does not match the "d" in "dolozheno" at all) in order to explain the rest of the line. This indicates pure mendacity rather than simple dumbness.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhmk1drfWQg3gYB83edTo8QgWbodq5vd0pxqFnLVEmaXeuo0Hxs8ldcLI3pA_6M5JOWNe6k4sdm8FBdPU4x7cKuTRNv2BHkdcEkXsRr10PPYXYLPrLxYdGgPhp66Rp-2xNVuv1slsVSZtcAZGP29CmNPxc7uqepYSfITn9c7YV6e82FTpNPTCA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="653" data-original-width="824" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhmk1drfWQg3gYB83edTo8QgWbodq5vd0pxqFnLVEmaXeuo0Hxs8ldcLI3pA_6M5JOWNe6k4sdm8FBdPU4x7cKuTRNv2BHkdcEkXsRr10PPYXYLPrLxYdGgPhp66Rp-2xNVuv1slsVSZtcAZGP29CmNPxc7uqepYSfITn9c7YV6e82FTpNPTCA" width="303" /></a></div><br /><br /></div></div><div><b><a name="ch14"></a></b><b>"Chapter 14. Conclusion - The Katyn Forest Mystery Solved", appendix 1 and the 2020 article.</b></div><blockquote><div>P. 246: "And only then will you know that I have not omitted any evidence that supports the "official " Soviets-did version."</div><div></div></blockquote><div>Narrator's voiceover: he did, in fact, omit the evidence.</div><div><br /></div><div>As has been shown above. </div><div><blockquote>P. 247: "The first prerequisite for any investigator of this or any other mystery is <i>objectivity.</i>"</blockquote></div><div>IOW, Mr. "I haven't found a single Stalin's crime" cannot be an investigator of Katyn, based on this principle.</div><div><blockquote>P. 247: "Then she has to adopt an attitude of constant mindfulness, She has to employ a strategy of compensating for her bias by giving an especially generous readíng to any evidence that seems to go counter to what she already believes about the case..."</blockquote></div><div>Something Furr has demonstrably failed to do most of the time.</div><div><blockquote>P. 247: "Both the Germans and the Polish Government-In-Exile were interested only in a conclusion that indicted the Soviets."</blockquote></div><div>There is no evidence whatsoever that the PGiE would have been using its missing POWs, for whom they had been fervently searching and received only nonsense replies from Stalin and NKVD (without a single hint that they had been captured by the Germans after the invasion) as a fake ace in a propaganda game.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the appendix 1 Furr discusses the NKVD men's testimonies, claiming they are not available in Russian. Soprunenko and Tokarev's interrogations are now <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content_docs.html#soprunenko">available</a> as video; Tokarev's earlier interrogation was also <a href="https://www.memo.ru/ru-ru/projects/kniga-pamyati-ubity-v-kalinine-zahoroneny-v-mednom">published</a> by Guryanov; an excerpt from <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/interrogation_of_syromyatnikov.html">Syromyatnikov's</a> has been long available in Russian.</div><div><blockquote>P. 253: "All three men were threatened repeatedly with criminal prosecution if they failed to "tell the truth".</blockquote></div><div>A mendacious manipulation. This was and is a <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20200718140339/http://index.org.ru/archives/upk.html">standard procedure</a> in USSR and Russia to be informed that telling lies in an official interrogations can lead to legal consequences:</div><div><blockquote>"Article 158. The procedure for questioning a witness</blockquote><blockquote>[...] </blockquote><blockquote>Before the interrogation, the investigator shall ascertain the identity of the witness, explain his or her duties and warn of the responsibility for refusal or evasion of testimony and for giving knowingly false testimony, which shall be noted in the record, which shall be certified by the witness's signature."</blockquote></div><div>E. g. Tokarev during his longest and most informative <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/tokarev-transcript.html">interrogation</a> has been so informed exactly once, in the beginning, as it should have been.</div><div><blockquote>P. 253: "ln addition, they were told that Soviet guilt had already been established, ln reality, this was a lie , ln 1990 - 1991 there was no evidence other than the German AM Report alleging Soviet guilt."</blockquote></div><div>As we have already seen, this is not the case, so it's another falsehood by Furr.</div><div><blockquote>P. 253: "It is therefore possible that out of fear of prosecution the former NKVD men gave answers they believed their interrogators wanted, So it does appear that the confessions of these three old men were not entirely voluntary."</blockquote></div><div>Yet Furr fails to provide any evidence of this actually being probable.</div><div><br /></div><div>When it comes to Soprunenko, Furr only knows about one early short interrogation, in which Soprunenko still had been in the denial phase. A somewhat more forthcoming testimony during his 29.04.1991 interrogation is now available, though you can still see him being mostly in denial (e. g. when he refuses to acknowledge his signatures on relatively mundane documents). </div><div><br /></div><div><div>Nevertheless, he first acknowledged that he was <a href="https://youtu.be/7wduYGUyg4s?t=953">informed</a> about the execution of the POWs from the three camps (he claimed that he learned about it from his deputy Khokhlov). And then he <a href="https://youtu.be/7wduYGUyg4s?t=1279">admitted</a> that he was, in fact, at a meeting with Kobulov where the shooting decision was discussed. Here I'm giving the core excerpts, reformulating the investigators' questions compactly and omitting various "so to say"'s (translating a longer meandering conversation exactly can be tricky, so this is a compromise, which represents the main thrust of this conversation).</div><div><blockquote>"So, what I rememeber is [...] when announced [...] Kobulov about this [...] I got sick. I'm remembering now. [...] Got sick. [...] A letter was given, so to say. I stood up and felt unwell. [...] Kobulov gave it. [...] [we] were taking turns reading it. [...] A Central Committee letter. <i>[And what was in that letter that shocked him so mich?]</i> Well, "shoot!", the main thing. This was first such time [...] in the practice [...] <i>[And which camps were mentioned, the POWs from which had to be shot?]</i> Officers were concentrated in Kozelsky and Starobelsky. Policemen there. That is all. <i>[So which ones were to shoot?]</i> Three. <i>[Only in these three?]</i> No, there's nothing... I don't remember in which camps [...] I know that this case only touched the three. [...] <i>[How many POWs had to be shot?]</i> [...] About 14000. <i>[Whose signature was on the letter?]</i> [...] Stalin's."</blockquote></div><div>Note that this "letter" was, of course, an excerpt from the Politburo decision. According to the usual practice of the time, it would most probably have contained a <a href="http://docs.historyrussia.org/ru/nodes/34261-akademiya-nauk-v-resheniyah-politbyuro-tsk-rkp-b-vkp-b-kpss-1922-1991-t-1-1922-1952#mode/inspect/page/299/zoom/4">facsimile signature</a> of Stalin and then it would have been destroyed upon return.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Now Syromiatnikov:</div><div><blockquote>P. 255: "The prokuror and interrogations imply the charge of a criminal offense, an investigation, and an attempt to make sure that the in dividual being executed was the person against whom a sentence had been passed."</blockquote></div><div>Just from this description, the "interrogations" in question were most likely simply the questions about the personal data, such as name and date of birth. Tokarev describes this procedure for Kalinin. No other "interrogations" could have been conducted right before the execution. And indeed, that's exactly how Syromiatnikov <a href="http://www.polska1918-89.pl/pdf/zeznania-syromiatnikowa-w-sprawie-wymordowania-jencow-polskich,6799.pdf">described</a> the procedure:</div><div><blockquote>"At the desk sat the prosecutor and on his side was the commandant. Then it was asked: "Surname, name, father's name, date of birth" and then said "You can go"."</blockquote></div><div><blockquote>P. 255: "When two of the Russian interrogators, Snezhko and Tretetskii, insisted that 4000 Poles were killed at Khar'kov Syromiatnikov said that he did not know how many Poles were involved in all but thought that neither the Khar'kov NKVO prison nor, more to the point, the burial site at Piatykhatky could hold 4000."</blockquote></div><div>The burial ground could hold even more, as we know from the exhumations, but this shows how independent the answers were. (Also, Furr not knowing that Stefan Śnieżko was a Polish prosecutor is funny.) </div><div><blockquote>P. 256: "Syromiatnikov's testimony is consistent with the idea that some Poles were tried and executed for some anti-Soviet crimes or other. He claimed to know about executions of only 200-300 Poles. In short, Syromiatnikov's testimony does not confirm the official" version of the Katyn massacre."</blockquote></div><div>It certainly does, even if less amply than e. g. Tokarev's statement due to Syromiatnikov's allegedly limited knowledge. It confirms that mass executions were taking place specifically of the Polish POWs delivered in the relevant time frame, he confirms that they were buried in Pyatikhatki and even if he couldn't confirm the whole number, this is taken care of by the subsequent partial exhumations, which revealed the remains of no less 2312 person in the Polish graves.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now Tokarev.</div><div><blockquote>P. 256: "Tokarev October 25, 1990"</blockquote><p>Actually Tokarev's longest <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/tokarev-transcript.html">interrogation</a> took place on 20.03.1991. His first, short interrogation took place on 14.03.1991, it has now been <a href="https://www.memo.ru/ru-ru/projects/kniga-pamyati-ubity-v-kalinine-zahoroneny-v-mednom">published</a> by Guryanov.</p></div><div><blockquote>P. 256: "There's no reason to believe that Tokarev is lying here, especially since the Russian interrogators agree with him. This means that somebody knew about the Politbiuro decree long before Gorbachev or his right-hand man Iakovlev supposedly knew about it. It appears that someone knew that the Politbiuro decree would be forthcoming."</blockquote></div><div>Such an operation could only have been conducted after a Politburo decision and a historically knowledgeable investigator would have known this. Whether he then introduced the idea to Tokarev as a certainty or as a highly probable guess we will never know.</div><div><blockquote>P. 257: "* Tokarev claimed that he did know that 14,000 Polish POWs were to be shot. First he said that Bogdan Kobulov told him this (435) A few pages later he claimed that Soprunenko told him (447) But Soprunenko claimed that he did not know anything about any shootings."</blockquote></div><div>Tokarev is talking about the same event - the meeting in Kobulov's office. There is no contradiction - both Kobulov and Soprunenko could have repeated the same information during the meeting. And even if Tokarev is merely confused about details after 50 years, well, that's hardly worth noting. Just as Soprunenko trying to cover his ass.</div><div><div><blockquote>P. 257: "* Tokarev stated twice that he knew that 6000 Polish policemen were shot at Kalinin. (462, 471) He even argues with Iablokov, one of the Soviet interrogators. Iablokov claimed that 6287 Poles were shot at Kalinin but Tokarev said that he remembered the number 6295."</blockquote></div><div>Interestingly enough, Guryanov's research shows 8 POWs who had not figured in on the transport lists of 6287 POWs but were sent to Kalinin nevertheless, and for 6 of them Guryanov claims a high probability that they were shot in the framework of the same operation, and for two of them the probability is not so high, but their execution cannot be excluded (<i>Ubity v Kalinine...</i>, vol. 1, p. 98). So, in fact, Tokarev's number was probably closer to the truth (and there is even a <i>possibility</i> that it was exact!). Furr then repeats his falsehood that he proved that some of the Kalinin deportees turned up at Katyn and Volodymyr-Volynskyi, and on the basis of this falsehood he wants to prove that Tokarev lied (LOL).</div></div><div><blockquote>P. 257: "Why would Tokarev lie? Probably because he was warned of serious consequences - criminal prosecution - if he did not tell the truth [...]"</blockquote></div><div>Breathtaking logic - he lied, because he had been warned to tell the truth - as every freaking person ever properly interrogated in the USSR was warned about! Note the obvious hypocrisy of him bloviating about this and ignoring the legal persecution of Hajek and Markov, when they actually had no good choice to escape prison but to testify in favor of the Soviets.</div><div><blockquote>P. 258: "In short, there was no reason for an NKVD man to use Walthers at all, much less many of them..."</blockquote></div><div>Of course there was a reason to use the 7,65 mm caliber guns (not necessarily Walthers; Tokarev: "Maybe there were others too"); in fact, several possible reasons can be listed, including TT being too powerful, thus the risk of a ricochet in a closed room, and Nagant being suboptimal for streamlined mass shootings due to its reloading procedure. I discuss this in detail <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-7-65.html">here</a>.</div><div><blockquote>P. 259: "Is it possible that Iablokov, a military procurator and lieutenant colonel of Justice, did not know that in 1940 the "Osoboe Soveshchanie" could not sentence defendants to more than eight years of confinement?"</blockquote></div><div>Obviously. The point being?</div><div><blockquote>P. 259: "Tokarev said that he saw no bodies of anyone who was shot. (458) This would be hard to believe if 6300 men had in fact been shot at his facility"</blockquote></div><div>But it would not be hard to believe that people, in order to distance themselves from the crime, would claim something like that.</div><div><blockquote>P. 259: "He said that no officers were shot (448)"</blockquote></div><div>44 army officers were shot out of more than 6200 victims, so this is inconsequential (and he probably did not count police officers, which were still a minority among the victims).</div><div><blockquote>P. 259: "and that hardly any of the Poles were in uniform"</blockquote></div><div><div>According to Tokarev's testimony, he was present at only 2-3 interrogations for a few minutes each, and 50 years later he could not even remember if the one boy he interrogated personally was wearing a uniform. That is, he did not see most of the POWs in person either, but saw at most a couple of dozen.</div><div><br /></div><div>Considering that Tokarev forgot many details about the few POWs he saw after 50 years, no other explanation for the "contradiction" is necessary for the people with at least some understanding of how memory works. But it is quite possible that some of the few whom Tokarev did see - perhaps even a significant portion - might not have been wearing their uniforms at the time of the interrogations, which might have caught Tokarev's eye and surfaced many years later.</div><div><br /></div></div><div>The ground in the Mednoye graves <a href="https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2019/04/24/80344-sinyaya-zemlya">was</a>, in fact, blue from the uniforms.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjRaKxZL-hV9uQ-P0IdFkfDBC2c3A4679O8jssx1IkjcOe5YbcS-F8yHVk0VfSrivgWCGBKSl5iq3JKhgpdabBVIMf8aFq4lHMvYEsfizSEQcKBjbaPPUwzPu5XgeiFG--Cnzk8bIkf43iuelEcRdHxYrT0ev4uPfcSxVnfP8xsED7AdPPWYEE" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="707" data-original-width="1060" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjRaKxZL-hV9uQ-P0IdFkfDBC2c3A4679O8jssx1IkjcOe5YbcS-F8yHVk0VfSrivgWCGBKSl5iq3JKhgpdabBVIMf8aFq4lHMvYEsfizSEQcKBjbaPPUwzPu5XgeiFG--Cnzk8bIkf43iuelEcRdHxYrT0ev4uPfcSxVnfP8xsED7AdPPWYEE" width="320" /></a></div><blockquote>Pp. 259, 260: " These case files might be important, since they indicate an individualized approach to the Polish POWs that contradicts the notion that all of them were sentences to death. The Mystery of the Katyn Massacre with either minimal or no investigation at all. But none of these criminal case files have been published"</blockquote></div><div>Hogwash. There was a collective decision for certain categories (not for all Polish POWs) and there were individual decisions in yet other cases. There is no contradiction at all.</div><div><blockquote>P. 260: "None of these interrogation confessions can withstand careful scrutiny."</blockquote></div><div>They can, obviously. But Furr's method is identical to that of the Holocaust deniers', who seize on minor contradictions, memory mistakes or self-serving lies in various Nazi testimonies (also adding their invented "mistakes") to dismiss them as products of coercion, even though history simply does not work like that.</div><div></div><blockquote><div>P. 260: "The witnesses had been threatened"</div><div></div></blockquote><div>It's a lie, Furr has not produced a shred of evidence for any such threats.</div><blockquote><div>P. 260: "Certainly the "official" version of Katyn cannot be based on them alone."</div><div></div></blockquote><div>Certainly it isn't.</div><div><br /></div><div>Since we are done with the witnesses, I will also point out, that the lack of coercion of Tokarev is confirmed (not that it needed to be) by the <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/kalinin-interrogations.html">testimony</a> of his son, whom he told the story back in the 1950s or 1960s, and by the journalist Yury Sharkov, who <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/sharkov-tokarev.html">spoke</a> to him informally.</div><div><br /></div><div>I will also briefly deal with Furr's <a href="https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/clogic/article/view/193976">article</a> "The Katyn Massacre A Re-examination in the Light of Recent Evidence", in which he brings additional ridiculous points.</div><div><blockquote>P. 40: "Hájek confirmed this account at Nuremberg, from where he could easily have defected to the West, but did not."</blockquote></div><div>Actually Hájek never testified at Nuremberg. Markov did. Oh, Grover, Grover.</div><div><blockquote>P. 40: "2010, October: Duma member Viktor Iliukhin announces that documents purporting to be draft forgeries of the documents in “Closed Packet No. 1,” together with official stamps and stationery blanks, had been given to him by one of the alleged forgers. These materials inevitably cast doubt on the genuieness of the “Closed Packet No. 1” documents."</blockquote></div><div>This whole hoax, involving the dead deniers Ilyukhin and Strygin, was exposed <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-katyn-antikatyn.html#fakes">here</a> in detail. Long story short, the "documents", presented by Ilyukhin, are "meta-fakes" - fakes, created in order to discredit authentic documents. But the fakers were not careful and got caught lying about some key points and thus got exposed. So, you see, the Katyn deniers are simply spreading obvious fakes in order to buttress their empty claims.</div><div><blockquote>P. 45: "By January-February 2015 Dr. Siemińska is blaming the NKVD alone."</blockquote><p>The reference does lead to an article that creates such an appearance, but it's an article not by Siemińska but about her talk by some journalist. Since Siemińska is on record before and after that several graves were of Nazi victims, it is a clear case of a journalist's misunderstanding.</p></div><div><blockquote>P. 45: "...Soviet transit lists (not “proscription” lists, as Gur’ianov claims)..."</blockquote></div><div>Another lie. The lists are called <i>predpisaniya</i> (directives, proscriptions) in the original <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/book-katyn-2.html#84doc">documents</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Thus ends our debunking of Grover Furr's dishonest and ignorant screed.</div><div><br /></div><div>As for the mystery, it was solved long ago. When exactly is a matter of a debate. One could see the "solved/not solved" not as a binary, but as a spectrum, a probabilistic function of the quality of evidence, with the probability evolving over time. Arguably, back in the mid-1940s the matter was still largely unsolved (neither the German, nor the Soviet reports were really sufficient, neither forensically, nor in other respects), but the probability of the Soviet guilt, based on the evidence available then, was somewhat higher due to the Soviet side's shady behavior regarding the issue of the missing Polish POWs before the German revelations, among other things. The Nuremberg trial Katyn episode was largely a wash.</div><div><br /></div><div>After the Madden hearings the probability of the Soviet guilt shot up, because the people who took part in the investigation, including Poles and the members of the International Commission, could freely testify about the lack of fakery and coercion alleged by the Soviet side. They also could have testified otherwise, and for some of them it would have even been in their interest, because in their home countries they were sometimes seen as Nazi collaborators, e.g. due to their participation in the International Commission (some of them were indeed Nazi supporters, like Orsos others were antifascist resistance fighters, like <a href="https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helge_Tramsen">Tramsen</a>). The confirmation, that the bodies were indeed glued together due to the adipocere transformation, also made the Soviet claim of the special POW teams digging up the bodies and searching them for documents, dated later than the May of 1940, extremely unlikely - from this credible evidence it followed that the bodies were untouched. The picture of the Soviet pre-1943 stalling on the issue of the missing POWs from the three camps also became more clear. And there still was the fact of the rest of the missing POWs, those from Starobelsk and Ostashkov, not found in the Katyn forest. Arguably, the mystery of the guilty side was mostly solved then, based on practical probabilities. Whether it was beyond the reasonable doubt or not, but the burden of proof now lay squarely on those who accepted the German guilt.</div><div><br /></div><div>But whether or not the Soviet guilt was beyond the reasonable doubt before the finds in the Soviet archives during the Perestroika, it certainly was afterwards - the GUPVI files showed that the POW camps "ON", relied on by the Soviet commission, simply did not exist. The missing POWs in question also simply disappear from the current GUPVI stats after having been handed over to the UNKVDs. So the whole Burdenko report scenario was a falsification and the Poles were nowhere to be found in the Soviet bureaucratic system. This alone speaks much louder than any shooting order.</div><div><br /></div><div>The declassification of the top secret documents in 1992, including the shooting order and the later confirmation of the execution, Soviet and Polish exhumations in Mednoye and Pyatikhatki, which established that the Polish POWs from Ostashkov and Starobelsk were buried there in the spring of 1940, testimonies of the NKVD people involved in the operation, various other finds in Russian and Ukrainian archives (including a KGB confirmation of the Kharkiv shootings in 1969) are but a cherry on the top.</div><div><br /></div><div>The mystery is solved beyond the reasonable doubt: Stalin, Politburo, Beria, NKVD were to blame.</div><div><br /></div><div>The conclusion is clear. Furr is not an honest researcher. What he is writing is not history but "propaganda with footnotes". He has completely failed to undermine the mainstream views about the Katyn massacre.</div><div><br /></div><div>And as is usual in such cases, I will emphasize that he could neither <i>credibly</i> explain where most of the Polish POWs from three POW camps, transported to three UNKVDs in April-May 1940, resided from May 1940 to July 1941, nor <i>credibly</i> identify any German unit that would have allegedly committed the massacre in the Katyn forest. Without this any "revisionist" project automatically fails. Ta ta!</div><div><br /></div><div><i>[A minor update on 28.05.2023]</i></div>Sergey Romanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04063444062099331337noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24597325.post-2625340942041455842023-02-03T12:29:00.003+00:002023-02-03T12:37:46.967+00:00Czech Communists sentenced for Katyn denial<p>From a Communist <a href="https://www.marx21.it/en/no-to-the-criminalisation-of-historical-research-in-the-eu-solidarity-with-josef-skala-and-the-prague-scholars-indicted-for-raising-doubts-about-those-responsible-for-the-katyn-massacre/">website</a>:</p><p></p><blockquote>On 31 October 2022, Tomáš Hübner, single judge of the Prague 7 District Court, sentenced Josef Skála, a well-known Marxist intellectual and former vice-president of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM), together with Vladimír Kapal, and Juraj Václavík, all three indicted, to eight months’ imprisonment, under Article 405 of the Criminal Code of the Czech Republic, for having challenged the version attributing the Katyn massacre [...] to the Soviet leadership.</blockquote><p>The first round of the appeal hearings started on Feb. 1. From a news <a href="https://www.novinky.cz/clanek/krimi-komunista-skala-pred-soudem-odmitl-vinu-z-popirani-katynskeho-masakru-40421741">item</a>:</p><p dir="ltr"><span style="font-size: 1em;"></span></p><p></p><blockquote><p></p><p dir="ltr"><span style="font-size: 1em;">Judge Tomáš Hübner stopped Václavík after several tens of minutes. "We're not going to prove history here, because it's absolutely clear that the Soviet Union and its units did it," he said, adding that the same arguments as Václavík were repeatedly used by staunch Stalinists before Soviet politician Nikita Khrushchev revealed how the massacre really happened.</span></p><p></p><p>
</p><p dir="ltr">"If you want to explain to me for several hours that Katyn was committed by the Germans, you can, but I won't believe you," the judge added to the disapproving roar of the public in the courtroom.</p></blockquote><p dir="ltr">(Nota bene: obviously, Khrushchev never revealed anything about the Katyn massacre.)</p><p></p><p><a href="http://melaproject.org/sites/default/files/2019-07/Czech%20Criminal%20Code%20-%20Article%20405.pdf">Here's</a> the relevant article of the Czech Criminal code:</p><p></p><blockquote>Section 405 - Denial, Impugnation, Approval and Justification of Genocide Whoever publicly denies, impugns, approves, or attempts to justify Nazi, Communist or any other genocide, or other crimes of the Nazis and Communists against humanity, shall be sentenced to imprisonment for six months to three years.</blockquote><p>Several points:</p><p>1. Obviously, I'm against such laws.</p><p>2. These Commies are, naturally, falsifiers of history (just like their <a href="https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2022/08/grover-furrs-lie-about-my-claim-about.html">lying comrade Grover Furr</a>). <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-katyn-antikatyn.html">There's no historical doubt that the Soviet Union was responsible for the Katyn massacre</a>. Denial of this fact is intellectually equal to Holocaust denial. The Katyn deniers have been unable to muster any credible evidence for their claims and have been unable to account for the two key issues: if the Germans did it, where did the Polish POWs in question remain from May 1940 to July 1941 (we <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-vyazemlag.html">know</a> they were neither in the POW camps, contrary to the official Soviet claims, nor in the GULAG) and which German units exactly committed the crime (we <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ahrens-burdenko.html">know</a> it wasn't the unit that the Soviets officially blamed)?</p><p>3. The shouts from the Communist websites are hypocritical when the decades-long Communist suppression of the truth about Katyn using the criminal codes as a cudgel (numerous people were imprisoned for disputing the Soviet claims) is not acknowledged by the same websites.</p><p>4. The Western Holocaust deniers usually accept the Soviet guilt for the Katyn massacre (thus showing their intellectual inconsistency, since Holocaust and Katyn denial methods are identical) and try to use it to discredit the Allied evidence of the Nazi crimes (of course, without success). They also love to claim that if some historical claim needs to be protected by law, then it's at least suspicious, if not outright false. This case puts them in a bind.</p><p></p><p></p>Sergey Romanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04063444062099331337noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24597325.post-85636800357619585942022-11-29T14:05:00.000+00:002022-11-29T14:05:21.838+00:00Michael Tracey's Pearl Harbor Gambit<p>Michael Tracey, gadfly of the commentariat, <a href="https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1466084294171009028">friend of Glenn Greenwald</a>, and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/06/04/did-rep-maxine-waters-shove-a-reporter-you-decide/">survivor</a> of "unwarranted physical contact" from U.S. Representative Maxine Waters, <a href="https://mtracey.substack.com/p/a-fairy-tale-version-of-world-war?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2">recently published</a> a lengthy essay on World War II on his Substack. It's not anything new or revelatory and so I'm not going to address most of it. Any readers of this blog familiar with Tracey's work generally won't be surprised. I do, however, want to discuss his allegation that "<b>US entry into World War II did not prevent the Holocaust, and there is substantial reason to believe it was a factor in accelerating the most lethal phase of the Holocaust</b>."</p><p>This is a combination of one quite obvious statement and one quite wrong one. Of course U.S. entry into the war did not prevent the Holocaust because both things happened and the former event (U.S. entry) demonstrably did not prevent the latter event (the Holocaust -- for the most part [see below]). Perhaps Tracey meant to say "U.S. entry into the war was not intended to prevent the Holocaust," in which case it's also not a very debatable point. Few historians believe this was the American intention.</p><p>The latter point though is a real howler, so it's worth refuting it here because, for whatever reason, Tracey has a large number of readers.</p><p>We'd have to start with "the most lethal phase of the Holocaust." Luckily, the data we have on Jewish fatalities during the war are granular enough that we can identify 1942 as the year during which the most Jews died. According to Hilberg, more than half of all the Jews who were killed during the war were killed in 1942; during that year, therefore, there went from being more Jews alive than dead in Europe in January to there being fewer alive than dead in December. Moreover, <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aau7292">a scientific article published in 2019</a> not only correctly identified Aktion Reinhard -- the campaign to murder Poland's Jews -- as the largest "campaign" of the Holocaust but also showed that a single 100-day period (covering August to October) accounted for approximately 1.5 million of the 1.7 million deaths from Aktion Reinhard.</p><p>So that's the most lethal phase, clearly. Tracey in fact acknowledges this point -- even links to the <i>Science Advances</i> article linked to in the previous paragraph.</p><p>So what role did the United States' entry into the war have on Aktion Reinhard? This is, in fact, not a question that Tracey seeks to answer. Rather, he begins with a discussion of <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/235167?casa_token=2Ml0KsLaCCMAAAAA:4DUqANFFM2T1-0dt2bh7bWw2tRR7-TcfI_zTki-w_Tn1pZl0cDvE6GhwJXZZpoxoKstDqHMKE1Pp">Christian Gerlach's landmark 1998 essay on the Wannsee Conference</a>. To be fair to Tracey, he cites several sources in his article and he doesn't rely on pikers; Gerlach is a rather big gun. But Tracey does <i>not</i> portray Gerlach's position accurately. Central to Gerlach's essay is the matter of when it was decided to exterminate very specific groups of Jews: German Jews; and Jews from outside the Soviet Union and Poland. Tracey does not acknowledge or perhaps understand this distinction. Therefore, when he quotes Gerlach's line about "systematic planning for the destruction of the Jews throughout Europe," he does not realize Gerlach's intent underlying the phrase "Jews throughout Europe" as <i>not including Soviet or Polish Jews</i>, whose fate had already been decided.</p><p>Again, to be fair to Tracey, he acknowledges that mass murder of Jews had already been taking place before Pearl Harbor. But he doesn't say where (the Soviet Union) or by what means (mass shootings performed by the Einsatzgruppen and police units) -- indeed the term <i>Einsatzgruppen</i> doesn't appear in the article at all.</p><p>Nor does the phrase "Aktion Reinhard," which is highly significant because this after all is the "most lethal phase" to which Tracey refers, whether he is aware of it or not. And most importantly, the planning of Aktion Reinhard was already under way when Pearl Harbor happened: construction on Belzec had begun more than a month earlier. Is there any evidence to suggest that construction of Belzec was accelerated by Pearl Harbor or even that the establishment of camps at Sobibor and Treblinka was thus affected? There is not, nor does any source used by Tracey make that claim. Gerlach claims only that German Jews being deported from the Reich would eventually be sent to death camps because of a decision contingent on Pearl Harbor. But the vast majority of the Jews killed in the Reinhard camps were Polish Jews, not German.</p><p>Tracey continues to compound this very basic error. He quotes from Brendan Simms's <i>Hitler's American Gamble </i>that "a primary motivation and context for Hitler's war of annihilation against <i>western and central European Jewry </i>was his relationship with the United States" (emphasis mine), again failing to see the significance of the geographical limitation of this decision and that it did not include Soviet or Polish Jews, whose fates had already been sealed by Pearl Harbor. Tracey continues the same error with his excerpt from Klaus Schmider's <i>Hitler's Fatal Miscalculation. </i>His first quote from Friedlaender's <i>Years of Extermination</i> fails to acknowledge that the specific context, again, of the killing of <i>German</i> Jews (Friedlaender discusses Aktion Reinhard some fifty pages earlier); his quotes from Rafecas are about the very pages from Friedlaender dealing with German Jews being deported.</p><p>Tracey's use of Richard Evans's <i>Third Reich at War</i> is odd in that the excerpt he uses doesn't discuss a change in extermination policy at all relative to Aktion Reinhard -- only an escalation in propaganda accompanying Barbarossa and its effect on radicalization in the Einsatzgruppen's activities. Nor does his citation from the work of Adam Tooze. In the end, it is really only Tobias Jersak, among the authors cited by Tracey, who supports his viewpoint -- to an extent. But Tracey's citation here is not wholly representative of Jersak's view. Jersak writes a few pages before the quotation Tracey provides, "It is clear from developments in the autumn of 1941 that the ‘final solution’ as we understand it in retrospect, i.e. the systematic murder of the European Jews, did not originate in a single decision or a single order" (p. 324).</p><p>(Note: I have not addressed Tracey's use of the work of Laurence Rees and John Toland. Rees's work is not academic history. Toland's work is far too old to be considered here given its publication before the opening of Soviet archives, which have given us a much clearer picture of the evolution of Nazi policy vis-a-vis Jews.)</p><p>So what does that leave us with? Tracey reiterates his chief point regarding the Holocaust: "There is a robust body of evidence that suggests escalation of US involvement in the war, followed by official US entry, may well have been factors in the acceleration of the most lethal phase of the Holocaust." But is there a "robust body of evidence"? None of the authors Tracey writes draws a straight line between Pearl Harbor (or Lend Lease or the Atlantic Charter) and Aktion Reinhard. They all, in fact, acknowledge its separate existence before the events of the summer or fall of 1941. Therefore, Tracey has in fact failed to prove his chief point made in his essay about the Final Solution.</p><p>Does Tracey want to argue that U.S. entry into the war sealed the fate of German Jews or of Jews from central and western Europe? Even though there would still be historians who disagreed, he'd be on much more solid grant if he made that argument. But he doesn't. In his desire to paint the worst possible picture of the effects of U.S. involvement in World War II, he pushes too far and fails.</p>Andrew E. Mathishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13057529769573506419noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24597325.post-74400735177840112412022-08-19T21:59:00.011+01:002023-03-14T06:47:18.755+00:00Grover Furr’s lie about my claim about the Polish policemen’s tags found at Volodymyr-Volynskyi<p>Grover Furr is a neo-Stalinist falsifier of history well-known for his stunning <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2007/03/and-now-for-something-not-completely.html">incompetence</a>, ideological <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2020/01/looking-for-katyn-lighthouses.html">myopia</a> and fanaticism ("<a href="https://youtu.be/hRPTZF5zSLQ?t=139">I have yet to find one crime that Stalin committed</a>"). </p><p>On 15.08.2022 he published an <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20220819155653/https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/romanov_lies_vv_badges.html">article</a> accusing me of a "lie" on the issue of the police identification tags (he calls them badges, which is OK, but since we're not talking about the badges worn on the uniform, I will call them tags) found at Volodymyr-Volynskyi (a detailed explanation of the issue is <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2020/01/looking-for-katyn-lighthouses.html">here</a>) in my 15.12.2021 article (about a Katyn denial propaganda film on the Russian NTV channel) in the Nobel-prize-winning <i>Novaya gazeta</i> (<a href="https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2021/12/15/taina-podlosti-na-ntv">here</a> in Russian; I will refer to it as "the NG article").</p><p>Ironically, Furr focuses only on this one claim, even though the bulk of the argumentation in his pseudoscholarly Katyn denial book <i>The Mystery of the Katyn Massacre: The Evidence, the Solution</i> has been debunked by me <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-katyn-antikatyn.html">here</a>, <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ria-liars.html">here</a> and <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ntv-goebbels-apt-pupils.html">here</a> (as well as all over the Katyn Files website; though mostly as arguments of other people; there's precious little original content in Furr's propaganda pamphlet). [Update: a <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2023/02/debunking-grover-furrs-katyn-screed.html">full debunking</a> of his book.]</p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p>Here's the claim he objects to:</p><p></p><blockquote>No: The badges were not found on the bodies. One was found a few meters from the grave ditch, the other in a layer of household garbage above it.</blockquote><p></p><p>His first point:</p><p></p><blockquote>It appears that Romanov has taken this claim from Gur’ianov’s book Ubity v Kalinine, Pokhoroneny v Mednom.</blockquote><p></p><p>He then attempts to find some fault or other with Guryanov's claims. The problem for Furr is that no, my claim about the location of the finds in my NG article was <i>not</i> based on Guryanov (unlike my earlier blog post). And Furr had to know this for two reasons.</p><p>First of all, I mentioned the exact sources for my claim in my big "<a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-katyn-antikatyn.html">Katyn and anti-Katyn...</a>" article published on my Katyn website on 10.03.2021. My website is well-known to Furr and he relies on some materials from it in his book. The site is also mentioned in the NG article. The "Katyn and anti-Katyn..." article was the first published (in a real book, yes) systematic debunking of Katyn denial, also mentioning Furr, so how credible it is that it escaped Furr's attention?</p><p>Second, the NG article announced a full-scale rebuttal of the NTV propaganda film:</p><p></p><blockquote>One propagandist can ask so many rhetorical questions that the answers would not fit on a newspaper page, so a detailed breakdown with all the references will be published on the "Katyn Files" website, here we will consider the main points.</blockquote><p></p><p>And indeed, it <a href="http://katynfiles.com/content/romanov-ntv-goebbels-apt-pupils.html">appeared</a> on the website on 18.01.2022. And once again, this rebuttal provides a full quote from the aforementioned "Katyn and anti-Katyn..." article on the matter of the tags, including the full sources I used. Time to quote it in full:</p><blockquote><p>The publications of the deniers, however, omit a key fact: the tags were not found on the bodies. Kuligowski's tag was found a few meters from the grave ditch [1], Małowiejski's tag was found in an heaped layer above the grave ditch, among the household rubbish [2]. Thus, from the finding of the tags in Volodymyr-Volynskyi it did not follow at all that Kuligowski and Małowiejski were buried there too. Given the sum of all the facts, the simplest explanation is the following: probably Małowiejski and Kuligowski, after having been captured in 1939, were initially held in a prison in Volodymyr-Volynsky, where their police tags (not to be confused with the "nieśmiertelniki" tokens to identify the dead) were taken away and for some reason not returned later, these tags were later found in the prison by the Germans and thrown together with other things near the grave ditch as they were not needed. This hypothesis was confirmed by the historian A. E. Guryanov, who discovered Małowiejski's card in the prisoner-of-war files of the RGVA. It says that he was taken prisoner of war on 19.09.1939 in Volodymyr-Volynskiy, from where he was sent to the NKVD reception center for prisoners of war in Shepetivka only 25 days later [3]. Although Kuligowski's card has not yet been found, there is no reason to believe that the fate of his tag was different, given that it was not found on the body.</p><p>Thus, there is no reason to believe that Kuligowski and Małowiejski are not buried in Mednoye. This example clearly shows how the conclusions of the deniers do not correspond to the information they actually have.</p><p>1 Zlatogorsky O., Panishko S. Investigations on the Volodymyr-Volynsk hill fort in 2010-2012: Sources and Materials. Lutsk, 2013. P. 41 (a tag was found in the square A-10 of the excavation zone I), p. 47 (the square is outside the grave ditch). The Ukrainian authors mistakenly suggested that the tag belonged to one of the buried, but unlike the archaeological facts we should not accept their wrong guess.</p><p>2 Siemińska D. Archaeological studies on World War II totalitarianism in the yard of a mediaeval hill fort in Volodymyr-Volynskyi, Ukraine // Materiality of Troubled Pasts. Archaeologies of Conflicts and War / edited by A. Zalewska et al. Warsaw, Szczecin, 2017. P. 104.</p><p>3 Guryanov A. The memorial book: tasks and sources // Killed in Kalinin, buried in Mednoye / Ed. by A. Guryanov. М., 2019. Vol. 1. P. 78-81.</p></blockquote><p></p><p>There you go. None of the tags was found on a body. And Furr had to know what my sources for my claim were.</p><p>He accuses Guryanov (and, by extension, me — though it doesn't really work like that, and Furr knows it) of lying by citing two Polish texts. For Kuligowski he cites a <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20130203224105/http://www.kresykedzierzynkozle.home.pl/attachments/File/Rap.pdf">report</a> by Dr. Siemińska et al., which, however, doesn't support his contention in the slightest.</p><p>For Kuligowski's tag to have been found during the exploration of an excavation area that included the burial pit doesn't mean it was found in the pit itself, because the exploration of the excavation site naturally also included exploring the areas right next to the pit. And indeed, in the detailed article by the Ukrainian team we see that this was exactly the case: the tag was found outside the grave.</p><p>Here's an excerpt from the page 41 from the Ukrainian report:</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgXA8UQjQ81xjifZiHGTxXQgBZQiKmI5EPkK0Yo5NKBGAqcmD2Bp-uIIRK8YCQbIOb1GQxATYLEyuH7l_XRHIzU_FpH6twrxy4yvPhCcQ2l8HestRgeLwjzUgLqOrKlLUsoAusZbJG_WKTePC2nV04h0gBenFcWzVEDT1DNGmBQeMFsMfTxNDA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="522" data-original-width="1522" height="110" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgXA8UQjQ81xjifZiHGTxXQgBZQiKmI5EPkK0Yo5NKBGAqcmD2Bp-uIIRK8YCQbIOb1GQxATYLEyuH7l_XRHIzU_FpH6twrxy4yvPhCcQ2l8HestRgeLwjzUgLqOrKlLUsoAusZbJG_WKTePC2nV04h0gBenFcWzVEDT1DNGmBQeMFsMfTxNDA" width="320" /></a></div><br />Item 97 is the tag no. 1441. It was found in the square A-10 of the 1st excavation area.<p></p><p>Here's an excerpt from the page 47:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgFgo30HfcuxrSGhY52isK8orc_eyOQapx2xzt0ggMNJvfAroXbgBv_8HUtfku0nf64XiT_Lruk9LR-YY7EVgkc7VdkdH9mEgMnrFYM0YxL8l7MX_Q3O4LPRJcHvYYm3CybG3deo-ZEuNNre-anhWHiosTqtYjrHZHqN1LUNFBpbgOeIi0Bpa8" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="841" data-original-width="1485" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgFgo30HfcuxrSGhY52isK8orc_eyOQapx2xzt0ggMNJvfAroXbgBv_8HUtfku0nf64XiT_Lruk9LR-YY7EVgkc7VdkdH9mEgMnrFYM0YxL8l7MX_Q3O4LPRJcHvYYm3CybG3deo-ZEuNNre-anhWHiosTqtYjrHZHqN1LUNFBpbgOeIi0Bpa8" width="320" /></a></div><br />The irregularly rectangular pit in the middle is the grave. Each square is 2 m in length and height. The square A-10 where the tag was found is thus at least 5 m away from the edge of the grave and the tag itself was anywhere from 5 to 7 m away. And you can clearly see that the excavation area was much larger than the mere burial pit itself.<p></p><p>For Małowiejski Furr stoops to cite not any academic study, but a <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20111016084252/http://www.itvl.pl/news/kolejny-policjant-z-listy-katynskiej-odnaleziony-we-wlodzimierzu-wolynskim">short media report</a>, in which a clueless journalist simply conflated a) recovery of some remains coupled with b) identification of a policeman as c) recovery of this policeman's corpse. Such conflations are only to be expected in the media. </p><p>Obviously, an academic description beats an offhand news item. And this description comes from the very Dr. Siemińska on whom Furr relies for Kuligowski!</p><p>In the source I cited we read:</p><p></p><blockquote>Graves no. 1 and no. 2, exhumed in 2011–2012, were both 3 m wide trenches located side by side. Grave no. 1 was 21.5 m long and Grave no. 2 was 10 m, both situated in Trench I. Grave no. 1 was covered with <b>rubbish, in which the researchers found</b>, among other things, a screw top and an <b>identification tag</b> of Polish State Police no. 1099, which belonged to senior constable Ludwik Małowiejski.</blockquote><p></p><p>That's it. Case closed once again. Both tags were not found on bodies.</p><p>So, as we see, the deceptive ideological hack Grover Furr has failed once again. His methodology is no different than that of the Holocaust deniers.</p>Sergey Romanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04063444062099331337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24597325.post-86993534985974975252022-08-14T05:43:00.004+01:002022-08-14T12:58:02.160+01:00The Infiltration of Kulmhof / Chelmno Extermination Camp <p style="text-align: justify;">During the post-war polish investigations into <a href="https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2017/06/sonderkommando-kulmhof-in-german10.html" target="_blank">Chelmno extermination camp</a>, a <span class="VIiyi" lang="en"><span class="JLqJ4b ChMk0b" data-language-for-alternatives="en" data-language-to-translate-into="de" data-number-of-phrases="1" data-phrase-index="0"><span class="Q4iAWc">recurring theme was that in summer 1942 a fake Gestapo commission, supposedly British intelligence, entered the grounds of the camp (see Montague, Chełmno and the Holocaust, <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Che%C5%82mno_and_the_Holocaust/WvBRA0iGUjgC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA89&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank">p. 89</a>)</span></span></span> <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">On its Facebook account, the <a href="https://chelmno-muzeum.eu" target="_blank">Chelmno Museum</a> recently published an interesting German document confirming the infiltration of the extermination camp (thanks to Patrick Montague for calling this to my attention): <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAhfnP0BzvhPdGJ7M1i5dUeZeYHmlCJ4RffHM6wrWyZGC5uFyAWggiEkDrsdjqyeTYicTRI-6jFdgwabX2ubnb2FH9eHrBTyLogw8tbtiWemOdxbqC8_aDZgACm0u6UWpCcQpx5ND60A3aMXdCEn_YuL-WmPBhFXExtx24JlXm8ed2fk5sZU8/s1756/293297310_558759165899563_2459647754610982510_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1268" data-original-width="1756" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAhfnP0BzvhPdGJ7M1i5dUeZeYHmlCJ4RffHM6wrWyZGC5uFyAWggiEkDrsdjqyeTYicTRI-6jFdgwabX2ubnb2FH9eHrBTyLogw8tbtiWemOdxbqC8_aDZgACm0u6UWpCcQpx5ND60A3aMXdCEn_YuL-WmPBhFXExtx24JlXm8ed2fk5sZU8/s320/293297310_558759165899563_2459647754610982510_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Translation:</b><br />
</p><blockquote style="background-color: #f7f6cf; border: thin solid blue; padding: 10px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><p>Gendarmerie outpost Adelnau, 12 July 1942<br /></p><p>Message: To all units and outposts according to the alarm plan<br /></p><p><span class="VIiyi" lang="en"><span class="JLqJ4b ChMk0b" data-language-for-alternatives="en" data-language-to-translate-into="de" data-number-of-phrases="3" data-phrase-index="0"><span class="Q4iAWc">At the Sonderkommando set up by the detail of the Schupo in Kulmhof Eichstätt</span></span> <span class="JLqJ4b ChMk0b" data-language-for-alternatives="en" data-language-to-translate-into="de" data-number-of-phrases="3" data-phrase-index="1"><span class="Q4iAWc">3 - 4 unknown perpetrators / Poles / broke in last night and escaped unknown.</span></span> <span class="JLqJ4b ChMk0b" data-language-for-alternatives="en" data-language-to-translate-into="de" data-number-of-phrases="3" data-phrase-index="2"><span class="Q4iAWc">Oberscharführer
Barthmann [sic!], head of the Sonderkommando, cannot provide any further
details....The matter is to be treated secretly.</span></span></span></p></blockquote></div></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="text-align: justify;">This message on the hunt suggests that the men broke into at night.
On the other side, according to the post-war testimonies, fake Gestapo
men entered at least the kitchen of the Sonderkommando, made contact
with the commandant's deputy Albert Plate and even refuelled their car. It is unclear how deep they
penetrated into the camp facilities. <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">In any case, the day of the action was well choosen. It happened during the Summer break of the extermination camp; on a Saturday, with likely many members of the Sonderkommando off and away. Security of the camp was low. The camp commandant Hans Bothmann was apparently not on-site either. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;">So far there is also no indication that any information obtained by the infiltrators was used by the Polish resistance or foreign intelligence. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p><span class="VIiyi" lang="en"><span class="JLqJ4b ChMk0b" data-language-for-alternatives="en" data-language-to-translate-into="de" data-number-of-phrases="3" data-phrase-index="2"><span class="Q4iAWc"></span></span></span></p>Hans Metznerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07746792258730274681noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24597325.post-15924479415873747842022-07-12T00:18:00.001+01:002022-07-13T19:34:04.476+01:00Neema Parvini and the Pitfalls of Literary Scholars Doing History<p>There's a British Shakespeare scholar named <a href="https://www.richmond.ac.uk/school-of-liberal-arts/dr-neema-parvini/">Neema Parvini</a> who has made a second career out of far right commentary on a YouTube channel called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyawG3aTE7RmNQcFQskDWcw">Academic Agent</a>. He Tweets under the handle <a href="https://twitter.com/OGRolandRat">OGRolandRat</a>.</p><p>As I've written here before, I share something in common with Robert Faurisson and Grover Furr -- and it turns out with Parvini as well. That is, all four of us took our advanced degrees in literary studies. (In the case of Furr, we both wrote our dissertations on certain aspects of medieval literature.) I mention this fact because a recent interaction I had with Parvini on Twitter called to mind why history is perhaps something best left to people with actual historical training.</p><p>The issue at hand was the issue of the shrunken heads presented as evidence at Nuremberg. Our own Sergey Romanov put in <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2017/11/nazi-shrunken-heads-human-skin.html">his typical yeoman's work</a> discussing this incident, so I'd refer the interested reader there. When I was tagged into the Twitter discussion by a follower, Parvini was vehemently insisting that the shrunken heads were fake. His objection seemed to come down to the following issues: 1) the shrunken heads were presented as evidence alongside purported lampshades made from human skin, the latter of which were later demonstrated by DNA testing to be fake; 2) both the heads and lampshades were presented at Nuremberg, which Parvini considers to be an entirely tainted proceeding; and 3) according to Parvini, the Nazis would not have made shrunken heads in any circumstance.</p><p>The problems with these three issues are the following, in order.</p><p>1) Just because one piece of evidence turns out to be bogus is no reason to dismiss all of the other evidence, although there is certainly good reason to be suspicious. In the case of the shrunken heads, since 1946, additional evidence has come to light suggesting that the shrunken heads were indeed real. Thus, whereas the human skin lampshades have been conclusively proven to be false, the shrunken heads cannot be similarly discarded. Rather, what the shrunken heads have that the lampshades lack is <b>corroboration<i>. </i></b>In particular, there is corroboration in the form of documentary evidence. When I made this point to Parvini ("Yeah, that's kinda how history works. We use documents."), he dismissed the document I provided as "just a court record," despite the document not coming to light until decades later.</p><p>2) The issue of Nuremberg as a bogus proceeding is more complicated and would require too much time and effort to go into here. The underlying assumption is one of dishonesty, and certainly we can point to instances like the Soviets' inclusion of the Katyn Forest Massacre as a crime committed by Germany (when it was they who were the actual culprits) as reason to believe that all was not above board at Nuremberg -- certainly it was not. However, there is simply no reason to believe that the American prosecutors who presented the shrunken heads and lampshades were deliberately presenting false evidence. In fact, given the verified provenance of the shrunken heads, there is every reason to believe that the lampshades were believed to be just as real as the shrunken heads turned out to be. Presented together, they tell a particular story about man's inhumanity to man as practiced under Nazi occupation. That story is no less true if one of the pieces of evidence is ultimately disqualified. There's enough evidence remaining to make the case.<br /></p><p>3) The point of whether the Nazis would make shrunken heads is the one over which Parvini lost his temper. As I stated in a thread, why <i>wouldn't</i> the Nazis have made shrunken heads from dead Poles? Does Parvini hold the Nazis to some elevated standard? Is this more of the old "Germans wouldn't have done it this way" garbage that deniers routinely spout, not understanding even for a moment how ad hoc much of what the Nazis did was or how often individuals on the ground acted without the prior approval of those above them? It really is a simple question. If the Nazis would engage in human experimentation of all grotesque sorts, what would stop them from shrinking a couple of heads? After all, it's not like other parties in the war didn't engage in trophy hunting in combat, notably Americans with the Japanese. American GIs routinely sent Japanese ears and skulls back to friends and family stateside. But we are to assume that a handful of Nazis experimenting with making shrunken heads is simply beyond the pale?</p><p>Much of what I argue here has been said at this blog multiple times before (often by me over more than a decade). In this particular case, I do think Parvini is blinded by his lack of historical training and his inability to understand how pieces of historical evidence are weighed and assessed. His arguments were loaded with logical fallacies -- primarily a flat-out appeal to incredulity -- that showed no real familiarity with the larger context of what he was trying to argue. One had to wonder why he was even bothering.</p><p>The other part of the story here is that, in Parvini, we have yet another case of a semi-prominent person on the far right dipping his foot into denial but not taking the big plunge. We've seen this pattern already with <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2018/05/paul-craig-roberts-crosses-line.html">Paul Craig Roberts</a> and <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2018/09/ron-unz-comes-out-as-holocaust-denier.html">Ron Unz</a> (the latter of whom eventually <i>did</i> take the plunge). Parvini is a bit more clever, but he does have a bit of a record that precedes him.<br /></p><p>For his own part, Parvini denies being a Holocaust denier and has threatened yours truly with a lawsuit should I even dare blog about him. I'm not prepared to say he's a Holocaust denier, to be clear. I <i>am </i>prepared to say that he's out of his depth debating this material and, further, that he's likely a deeply unpleasant person given the below tweets. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUXPktmnxLUPV7p6ixUnJ9xi7jXRM5AnVLVr7acjLGBEkNOm5JPHlE3wwPRaup5iYZHG993AoxvSjExfmfSQgttcMz1aLQYVuuAgzBM-R7oylLv7i54qRaWZIkGwXjKteam4kNv7yr8cZ7xcbTzqB6dVsLRzarQIiVPZdcfzGo6jk4lQeeig/s827/image1.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="795" data-original-width="827" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUXPktmnxLUPV7p6ixUnJ9xi7jXRM5AnVLVr7acjLGBEkNOm5JPHlE3wwPRaup5iYZHG993AoxvSjExfmfSQgttcMz1aLQYVuuAgzBM-R7oylLv7i54qRaWZIkGwXjKteam4kNv7yr8cZ7xcbTzqB6dVsLRzarQIiVPZdcfzGo6jk4lQeeig/s320/image1.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj84UCdvrSKkYU-ot6aZOM8gaim94biqSu6rAYpDIQrPxNUCAn8AZAapqqYsdLG7EmwZbALpj-0bbAbVOifBGM6TH_l2dFLZBdQNNTe3uRe5ihQOsCRLhT9oX90GoSST3LjH8f1CaoiHjAfmoEtPZV_bkV2E6u-NqUc8l8HXNE8FyXxJUVy_Q/s897/1.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="590" data-original-width="897" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj84UCdvrSKkYU-ot6aZOM8gaim94biqSu6rAYpDIQrPxNUCAn8AZAapqqYsdLG7EmwZbALpj-0bbAbVOifBGM6TH_l2dFLZBdQNNTe3uRe5ihQOsCRLhT9oX90GoSST3LjH8f1CaoiHjAfmoEtPZV_bkV2E6u-NqUc8l8HXNE8FyXxJUVy_Q/s320/1.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmNAPcslmJR6K9rYKCw_EffK_TbU1E9xDilrvgpYoZ8yC4LV6SuxfQdKq5uxlVOioYbOvclFAzSPjp2ROKbzemj8i7XwcTRYDWwMf-SEoWWIN1e_0ag8jEHxobrWQExx_bCdlgalRAfzBc0dOAC0ZRVNkx8MjgIfpFqX1_Hx0VDpIHtuhJIA/s863/2.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="863" data-original-width="685" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmNAPcslmJR6K9rYKCw_EffK_TbU1E9xDilrvgpYoZ8yC4LV6SuxfQdKq5uxlVOioYbOvclFAzSPjp2ROKbzemj8i7XwcTRYDWwMf-SEoWWIN1e_0ag8jEHxobrWQExx_bCdlgalRAfzBc0dOAC0ZRVNkx8MjgIfpFqX1_Hx0VDpIHtuhJIA/s320/2.png" width="254" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3W3t_C4psbur7F0iCakbyixzG4nFGFZEFWjSOpmnR1gddsw0goe5QwE53TRralPrErVXj2zJkyDmsEZnpND5m8jvU9KT9EECQyTF59Z4RfpWToPpRdt2KG7e3aTBXRSYX3w9lDuYBwP86i9t31_KHnU9dvNZ7vNqQ3S-s7Rour8mImdgv8w/s2048/FXBtNOrX0AIIrw0.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="922" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3W3t_C4psbur7F0iCakbyixzG4nFGFZEFWjSOpmnR1gddsw0goe5QwE53TRralPrErVXj2zJkyDmsEZnpND5m8jvU9KT9EECQyTF59Z4RfpWToPpRdt2KG7e3aTBXRSYX3w9lDuYBwP86i9t31_KHnU9dvNZ7vNqQ3S-s7Rour8mImdgv8w/s320/FXBtNOrX0AIIrw0.jpg" width="144" /></a></div><br /><p>Whether he's aware of it or not, Parvini is using techniques of <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2017/02/on-semi-deniers-discussion-thread.html">soft denial</a> that most of us here can smell a mile off. He may not be a Holocaust denier, but absent his protestations, he sure as hell <i>sounds</i> like one.</p>Andrew E. Mathishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13057529769573506419noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24597325.post-5382121343260539632022-06-13T19:09:00.000+01:002022-06-13T19:09:27.068+01:00Brief Update: Ryan Faulk's Second Guesses<p> Having written <a href="https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2022/06/ryan-faulk-is-not-slave-to-your.html?sc=1655138399406#c5143669374537308511">just a few days ago</a> about Ryan Faulk's problematic foray into Jewish population analysis 1939-1945, I checked his Bitchute video again to see whether anyone had posted the link from here to the comments section.</p><p><a href="https://archive.ph/7QN98">Turns out someone did</a>.</p><p>I also happened to visit the Cesspit, knowing that Faulk had registered there a few months ago. And what do you know? Turns out Faulk <a href="https://archive.ph/SWOV4">began a new thread</a> since I made last week's blog post, consulting the brain trust over at CODOH to assure him that he's right and I'm wrong. Someone also apparently pointed out the Korherr Report to Faulk, and so he's second guessing himself in that regard as well.</p><p>"Basically, does anyone know how the Nazis were counting Jews? Did they have guys running around with clipboards?" asks our young hero.</p><p>Call me crazy, but maybe you should look into more sources than just the <i>American Jewish Yearbook</i> before you present yourself as an expert on the topic?</p>Andrew E. Mathishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13057529769573506419noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24597325.post-54369822982601844742022-06-10T18:57:00.005+01:002022-06-10T18:59:55.564+01:00Ryan Faulk Is Not a Slave to Your Funhouses<div>Ryan Faulk is a guy who likes to depict himself, according to his Youtube channel "The Alternative Hypothesis, as "Anti-racist, anti-Nazi, anti-totalitarian." That said, his race-IQ obsession would seem to undermine the first claim. And now, his foray into Holocaust denial would seem to belie the second.</div><div><br /></div><div>In a video posted to Bitchute on June 7 entitled "Then Where Did the Jews Go?", Faulk dips his toe into these troubled waters. You can find the video if you want; he also posted <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IdNZ72sVRR4H98zpFnYcgBfC1-qbkV5C/view">the text transcript</a>, which you can find here.</div><div><br /></div><div>You'll notice, on page 7 of the transccript, that Ryan's analysis begins with the <i>American Jewish Yearbook</i> figures. He also relies fairly heavenly on Walter Sanning's <i>Dissolution of European Jewry</i>. We've addressed both texts quite extensively at this website: <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2007/08/crazy-world-of-walter-sanning-part-1.html">here's a representative sample</a>. In short, Faulk's video is just old sardines in a new tin. So why bother with it?</div><div><br /></div><div>I decided to respond to some of Faulk's arguments in a comment on his Bitchute channel. Rather than going point by point, I decided to address the figures on page 25 of his transcript (roughly 40 minutes into the video). Faulk's assertion here was simple -- six million Jews could have not been murdered because there were slightly fewer than three million Jews within reach of the Nazis or their allies in August 1940.</div><div><br /></div><div>The question I posed in response was simple: Why should we trust his figures when the Nazis' own population figures, presented at Wannsee in January 1942, indicate quite different numbers? Faulk claims there were only 720,402 Jews in Poland (here, he is referring is referring only to those areas of Poland under German control in August 1940); however, the Wannsee Protocol puts that number (Generalgouvernement + Ostgebiete) at 2.684 million. The number for Hungary that Faulk presents (431,731) is more than 300,000 less than the Wannsee figure (742,800). A quick Ctrl-F search will tell you Faulk doesn't mention the Wannsee data at all in his presentation.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then, I went after his claims about the movements of Jewish populations within Poland between September 1939 and June 1941. Faulk makes the following claim, being charitable (he claims) in presenting the lowest possible estimates: "This means we assume 750,000 Polish Jews fled from Nazi Poland to Soviet Poland, and 100% of them survived that trip, and 100% of them wanted to return to Nazi Poland, and were thus sent off to Siberia."</div><div><br /></div><div>It so happens that I wrote <a href="https://inevitablehistoricity.blogspot.com/2018/01/jewish-refugees-in-kresy-soviet-loyalty.html">a term paper on this topic</a> not that long ago, so I was pretty sure he was way off here. As I noted in my Bitchute comment, the USHMM put the number of Jews fleeing into the Soviet zone of occupation following the Nazi invasion at 300,000. Moreover, of these Jewish refugees, not only did 100% of them not desire return to Nazi-occupied Poland (for what should be obvious reasons), but also not all of the Jewish refugees in the Soviet zone undergo deportation. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=_BbvQbiaqAEC&oi=fnd&pg=PA9&dq=Grzegorz+Hryciuk,+%E2%80%9CVictims+1939-1941:+The+Soviet+Repressions+in+Eastern+Poland,%E2%80%9D+in+Shared+History+%E2%80%93+Divided+Memory:+Jews+and+Others+in+Soviet-Occupied+Poland,+1939-1941,+edited+by+Elazar+Barkan,+Elizabeth+A.+Cole,+and+Kai+Struve,+Leipziger+Beitr%C3%A4ge&ots=tLstZ7qLfh&sig=dgsbTb6IvOChJIUeGuJkK678iis#v=onepage&q=Hryciuk&f=false">Grzegorz Hryciuk's study</a> of the topic found two major deportations of Jewish refugees: the first, which was forced impressment to Ukraine to work in mines, deported 60,000 people, but Ukrainians and Poles were both deported along with Jews. Even if we assume that all of the deportees between October 1939 and August 1940 were Jews, that's still far smaller than Faulk's number of 750,000. Further, Hryciuk's study identifies only one further deportation of Jewish refugees from the Soviet zone -- this one in June 1940 -- subjected more than 75,000 Jews to either deportation or arrest. Even if we add these two figures together, it only yields a total of 135,000 Jews, compared to Faulk's 750,000.</div><div><br /></div><div>Why, I asked, should we consider Faulk's figures at all reliable?</div><div><br /></div><div>Not only did Faulk not respond to my topic, but he deleted it and subsequently blocked me from posting further on his channel. When I asked him on Gab (his Twitter account has been suspended) why he had not responded to my comment and blocked me, he responded cryptically, "I'm not a slave to your funhouses."</div><div><br /></div><div>So much for the confidence of the young new generation of deniers in their assertions.</div>Andrew E. Mathishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13057529769573506419noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24597325.post-66385318102925883952021-08-17T09:54:00.032+01:002021-09-08T23:49:05.602+01:00The Great Mortality in Königsberg The title of this article is derived from <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120216075334/http://old.nationalreview.com/interrogatory/kelly200509140843.asp">The Great Mortality</a>, by John Kelly, a bestselling book about the Black Death. However, the article is not about a natural but about a relatively unknown man-made disaster.
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About half the victims of crimes committed by Nazi Germany and its European allies succumbed not to direct hard violence, like shooting and gassing, but to more or less deliberately caused massive die-offs from hunger and related diseases.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a></sup> Most of the about 3 million Soviet prisoners of war who perished in German captivity died from these causes.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">[2]</a></sup> Up to 1 million civilians in Leningrad died, overwhelmingly from starvation and cold, as the Nazis tried (and fortunately failed) to get rid of the city’s population in order to avoid having to feed it and in line with the General Plan East, according to which the city was to be replaced by a sparsely populated rural area called "Ingermanland".<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3">[3]</a></sup> Famines in Greece and the Netherlands were largely the consequence of Axis occupation policies.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4">[4]</a></sup> Famine and disease killed a large part of the population of Jewish ghettos in Nazi-occupied Poland, and would have killed an even larger part had not most of the population been deported to extermination.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5">[5]</a></sup>
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The fate of the Polish ghetto Jews, or what would have been their fate if they had not mostly been exterminated otherwise, may have a parallel in what happened to the German population of Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) under Soviet rule.
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The capital of former East Prussia had a population of about 372,000 in 1937, including about 3,500 Jews. The Jewish population was reduced to less than half by emigration until 1939. The remainder were mostly deported, starting 24 June 1942 when 465 were taken to the Maly Trostenets extermination center. British air attacks in August 1944 destroyed much of the city and rendered about 200,000 people homeless.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6">[6]</a></sup> In April 1945 the city was conquered by the Red Army after a battle that devastated most of the city.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7">[7]</a></sup> The battle, especially the final assault starting on 6 April and ending with the capitulation on 9 April 1945, caused heavy losses among the civilian population. The battle and its aftermath were marked by rape on a large scale and other atrocities committed by Red Army soldiers.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8">[8]</a></sup>
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Information about what happened to Königsberg’s German population under Soviet rule comes from documents that became available to historians after the demise of the Soviet Union<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9">[9]</a></sup> and from several eyewitness accounts, most notably those of <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Schubert_(Mediziner)">Johann Schubert</a> (writing under the pseudonym Hans Deichelmann)<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10">[10]</a></sup>, <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_von_Lehndorff">Hans Graf von Lehndorff</a><sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11">[11]</a></sup>,<a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Starlinger">Wilhelm Starlinger</a><sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12">[12]</a></sup> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Wieck">Michael Wieck</a><sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13">[13]</a></sup>. Schubert/Deichelmann was a physician working at the Königsberg central hospital, which the Soviets had transferred to the facilities of the <i>Krankenhaus der Barmherzigkeit</i>, until he was allowed to leave and transported from what by then had become Kaliningrad in March 1948. Graf von Lehndorff was a surgeon who treated wounded and sick soldiers and civilians during the siege and battle for the city, and after the battle and his return from a Soviet internment camp worked at the central hospital until October 1945. Starlinger, also a physician, worked as head of two hospitals for epidemic diseases, Yorckstraβe and St. Elisabeth, until he was arrested by the Soviets and sentenced to 10 years in the Gulag, from where he returned to West Germany in 1954. Wieck was born in 1928 to a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish father with no ascertainable Jewish ancestry. Raised in the Jewish faith, he was not deported to extermination, as happened to most Königsberg Jews who had not emigrated in time, on account of his partly "Aryan" descent. During Soviet rule he and his parents managed to survive in the ruined city thanks to his and his mother’s resourcefulness, until they were allowed to leave in 1949.
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These accounts are valuable evidence of what happened in Königsberg under Soviet rule – Starlinger’s terse account due to the largely medical data contained therein, the other three due to their level of detail, all four due to their comparative objectivity and lack of animosity towards the Soviets. The accounts of Deichelmann, Graf von Lehndorff and Starlinger have the added value of immediacy, as they were written, respectively, in 1948, 1947 and 1955, whereas Wieck’s account was first published in 1989, its particular value lying in that it was written from another vantage point than those of the three physicians. The accounts are essentially corroborative of each other, however Graf von Lehndorff’s is the only one that can be considered independent of all others, as it was the first to be written. Starlinger was familiar with Deichelmann’s account when he wrote his own<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14">[14]</a></sup>, and Wieck was familiar with Starlinger’s account, from which he extensively quoted.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn15" name="_ftnref15">[15]</a></sup>
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Most of the city’s inhabitants had fled or otherwise left the city by the time the final Soviet attack began on 6 April 1945. About the number that remained there are various estimates in the range of 90,000 to 130,000.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn16" name="_ftnref16">[16]</a></sup> The most detailed of these estimates was made by Starlinger, whose reasoning was as follows<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn17" name="_ftnref17">[17]</a></sup>:
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When the city was encircled by enemy forces on 23 January 1945 and was at first also cut off from the Samland District ports of Peyse and Pillau (which refugees tried to reach to be evacuated from there by sea), the commissioner for the city’s defense stated that the number of civilian inhabitants was around 150,000, according to a communication to Starlinger by the government and military director of the East Prussian province, Dr. Dembowski. A few days before the final assault the city defense commissioner’s public health officer Dr. Sett mentioned the same number to Starlinger. The city mayor’s department in charge of feeding the population, however, issued only 90,000 ration cards at the same time. Starlinger thought the number of ration cards was lower than that of inhabitants because a large part of refugees from rural areas in the city were self-sufficient as concerns food and didn’t apply for ration cards, also in order to avoid the public authorities. After connection to the ports was reopened following a German counterattack, however, a large number of inhabitants, which under the circumstances was not and could not be counted, left the city for the ports and mostly also managed to be evacuated by sea. On the other hand, there had been a considerable influx from neighboring communities already filled with refugees at the beginning of the siege, when the encirclement was still less tight. Besides, as long as the way to and from the ports was open a considerable number of refugees returned from there to Königsberg to escape the misery of the overcrowded port cities. There could be no doubt, however, that population movement was larger outbound than inbound. Assuming that of the difference between 150,000 and 90,000 about two-thirds left the city permanently while one third came back and deducting the balance of 40,000 from 150,000 yields about 110,000 city inhabitants before the fall of the city. According to a Soviet census at the end of June 1945, whose order of magnitude Starlinger considered realistic, there were about 73,000 people in the city at that time.
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Wieck wrote that, according to his estimate, of the "allegedly" ("angeblich") 130,000 inhabitants at the time of the city’s fall at most half were still alive by the time he returned to his family from a Soviet camp he called the Rothenstein concentration camp.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn18" name="_ftnref18">[18]</a></sup> Deichelmann wrote in his diary entry for 20 April 1945 that according to Russian data 30,000 civilians had died in the battle, and he assumed that 50,000 were in the city at the time while the larger part of the population was still in camps.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn19" name="_ftnref19">[19]</a></sup> When in June-July returnees from rural areas and the Reich had again swelled the population, he calculated from the numbers on registration carts that there were about 70,000 Germans in the city at that time. He now attributed 30,000 deaths not only to the battle but also to subsequent forced marches out of the city and back he called "propaganda marches".<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn20" name="_ftnref20">[20]</a></sup>
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The number of civilians killed in the four days of the final battle for the city, between 6 and 9 April, and in the violence that followed the city’s surrender, was certainly enormous. Returning to Königsberg after a forced march of the kind described by Deichelmann, Wieck and other civilians were tasked with burying dead civilians, after the military dead of both sides had already been buried. His description of what he called the Königsberg "cemetery"<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn21" name="_ftnref21">[21]</a></sup> is impressive. Unburied bodies were everywhere, in houses and cellars, yards and gardens. The first corpse his work team removed was that of a naked young woman lying in a half-burned house, with dried blood on her vagina and mouth. She was thrown into a bomb crater, then a man who had been shot was thrown on top of her. Later the Russians gave them ropes with a noose at one end, so that it took only one person to drag a body to the next bomb crater. Wieck remembered all the murdered women and men he saw, not only their faces but also the objects surrounding them. Young and old, mostly shot, some stabbed to death or strangled. There were also a number of suicides, who had taken poison or hanged themselves in the stairways. In the Auf den Hufen district there was a road with a particularly large bomb crater, into which he dragged people whose bodies had shrunk from the heat of buildings burning above them after, so he claimed, they had been deliberately locked in the cellars. These corpses were thrown into the pit together with the carcass of a horse, after which the pit was closed with a sort of snow plough, a tracked vehicle adapted for this purpose, and by civilians with shovels. Similar scenes were described by Deichelmann in his entry for 20 April 1945.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn22" name="_ftnref22">[22]</a></sup> In the <i>Barmherzigkeit</i> hospital a Professor Unterberg was performing a difficult forceps delivery when Russian soldiers burst in and took away his instruments, so that he barely managed to deliver the child. Thereupon they dragged the woman from the operating chair and raped her. Prof. Unterberger committed suicide. Hospital buildings were set on fire, civilian patients forced to move out even if walking on crutches, wounded German officers and soldiers then cruelly massacred. Most of the population was marched out of the city and walked across the countryside for no discernible purpose. They spent the night in barns, where men were called out for interrogatories and women for rape. Many died of exhaustion along the way or committed suicide. In the hospital’s new anatomy building a number of massacred German officers and soldiers was found on the autopsy tables, together with some women whose throats had been cut and bellies slit open. The Pregel river was full of dead bodies. So were the cellars. And so on. Von Lehndorff mentioned ditches by a railway embankment where several hundred corpses from the days of Soviet conquest had been buried in layers.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn23" name="_ftnref23">[23]</a></sup>
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Notwithstanding these descriptions of mayhem, a civilian death toll in the order of 30,000 seems too high considering the mortality in the much larger city of Berlin due to the battle and to massive rape and associated deaths<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn24" name="_ftnref24">[24]</a></sup>, which claimed the lives of about 22,000 – 100,000 out of about 3 million inhabitants.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn25" name="_ftnref25">[25]</a></sup> In Berlin a maximum of about 3.33% of the population perished during the battle for the city and its immediate aftermath. In Königsberg, assuming the lower end of population estimates for the eve of the final battle (ca. 90,000), about one-third of the population would have perished, a death rate ten times higher than in Berlin.
<br />
<br />
The city’s Soviet administration following its capture was in the hands of a "Military Headquarters of the Königsberg City and Fortress". The Headquarters’ administrative organization was the "Military Headquarters Administration". It was subdivided on 10 May 1945 into departments for passport matters, commerce, industry, communal matters, living conditions and public health. Analogous departments were set up in each city district. The Passports Department was tasked with the registration and employment of the local population. It was simultaneously a registration authority and labor administration. The Commerce Department included an "Agricultural Task Group" whose task it was to create a food supply basis for feeding the city’s local population, more precisely to plan the local population’s needs and meet them with food supplies and to conduct agricultural work. The German population was subdivided into sections led by a section elder (<i>starosta</i>) presiding over elders in charge of every street. The German population was expelled from its dwellings and concentrated in segregated districts, like Kohlhof, Charlottenburg and Rothenstein.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn26" name="_ftnref26">[26]</a></sup>
<br />
<br />
The first Soviet report about the number of Germans in the city was issued by the Passports Department on 26 April 1945. Until that day 23,247 Germans had been registered there. As the number was considered much too low, the local headquarters, together with the military counterespionage organization <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMERSH">SMERSH</a>, conducted inquests in the dwellings occupied by Germans that led to an estimate of about 40,000 nonregistered persons, and thus the Passport Department assumed that 63,247 German were living in the city in late April 1945. Its report pointed out that an increasing number of people from other parts of East Prussia, namely from Pillau, were entering the city. The available documentation shows subsequent estimates throughout the year 1945, which are rendered in the table below from Fisch and Klemeševa’s article.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn27" name="_ftnref27">[27]</a></sup>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvnB89kzo0Dk1cIt5oB2FO0MmKsclsoabi_d9pjQ8slceaid70s5Yf_9OKxw2GGYnTWkVFjsgPRDoW5W2Q6Xeer2v488-25l026IiqMu2Vk6WPKoOXAiIP7J1razp6Zqu9qBYNww/s2704/FK+Table+1.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="600" data-original-height="1163" data-original-width="2704" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvnB89kzo0Dk1cIt5oB2FO0MmKsclsoabi_d9pjQ8slceaid70s5Yf_9OKxw2GGYnTWkVFjsgPRDoW5W2Q6Xeer2v488-25l026IiqMu2Vk6WPKoOXAiIP7J1razp6Zqu9qBYNww/s600/FK+Table+1.jpg"/></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Terms:<br />
"Paβabteilung" = Passport Department<br />
"Landwirtschaftsgruppe" = Agricultural Task Group<br />
"real versorgt" = actually fed<br />
"geschätzter Bedarf" = estimated requirement<br />
"Quelle" = source.
<br /><br />
The Passport Department (hereinafter "PD") counted or estimated 63,247 in April 1945, "about" 60,000 in June, 68,014 in September and 60,642 in November. The Agricultural Task Group (hereinafter "ATG") estimated 82,000 inhabitants to feed in June and 80,000 in July, vs. 51,000 inhabitants actually fed in June, "over" 65,000 in July and 59,120 in October.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn28" name="_ftnref28">[28]</a></sup><br /><br />
The differences between the numbers actually fed according to the ATG and the numbers given by the PD are not so large, but the differences between the numbers to feed and actually fed according to the ATG are, as are the differences between the numbers to feed according to the ATG and the PD’s numbers: 82,000 to feed (ATG) vs. 51,000 actually fed (ATG) and 60,000 (PD) in June, which would mean that 22,000 – 31,000 inhabitants did not receive any food. In July the difference between inhabitants to feed (80,000) and inhabitants actually fed (65,000) was 15,000 according to the ATG. While the available documentation provides insight into how the PD arrived at its figures, the same does not apply to the ATG’s figures for inhabitants to feed. Fisch and Klemeševa assumed that these figures were related to Soviet planning methods and can therefore be ignored.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn29" name="_ftnref29">[29]</a></sup> A report by the PD from November 1945 shows the following figures reproduced by Fisch and Klemeševa, regarding the status and migration movements of the German population:
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Yx5Phi8s4FK86z-M0GI650Ouvrche5ju3e8B38XB76gHCf4PaPHI8rKSdW5kNdd0pfW3iPone5prBGShKab4EUrCvCnRgnTKJovMq2D_ZVCWmvJ-aiL6TgctyHo51WT17Hh_0w/s3519/FK+Table+2.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="600" data-original-height="894" data-original-width="3519" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Yx5Phi8s4FK86z-M0GI650Ouvrche5ju3e8B38XB76gHCf4PaPHI8rKSdW5kNdd0pfW3iPone5prBGShKab4EUrCvCnRgnTKJovMq2D_ZVCWmvJ-aiL6TgctyHo51WT17Hh_0w/s600/FK+Table+2.jpg"/></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Terms:<br />
"Bestand" = Population status<br />
"Zugug" = In-migration<br />
"Wegzug" = Out-migration<br />
"Wegzug ohne Registrierung" = Out-migration without registration
<br />
<br />
The figures are not connected to each other in that the status figure for one month plus in-migration minus out-migration does not yield the status figure for the next month.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn30" name="_ftnref30">[30]</a></sup> The orders of magnitude for June/July and 20 October are also not consistent with the above-mentioned figures in other PD documents. There is an almost exact match, however, between the figures for September in the above table and the figure for the same month (68,014) in another PD document. The order of magnitude of the June/July, August and September figures also coincides with the above-mentioned estimate of about 70,000 by Deichelmann, and is not much lower than the census figure for the end of June 1945 mentioned by Starlinger (73,000). For the whole of northern East Prussia (the part of East Prussia that later became part of the Soviet Union), Fisch and Klemeševa calculated a number of 140,114 German inhabitants based on other PD figures, thereof 68,014 in Königsberg and 72,100 in other communities of the region.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn31" name="_ftnref31">[31]</a></sup> Higher figures are stated in an official Soviet document apparently issued by an authority other than the Königsberg PD on 1 September 1945: 174,125 in the whole region, thereof 84,651 in Königsberg<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn32" name="_ftnref32">[32]</a></sup>, 16,637 more than according to the PD. What would explain the difference? Maybe (this is my conjecture) the higher figures drew from Soviet planning sources like the ATG’s figures for inhabitants to feed? Or did the figures also include Soviet civilians living in the city?<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn33" name="_ftnref33">[33]</a></sup> Or were the PD’s figures too low?
<br />
<br />
Whatever their number was, the life of Königsberg’s German inhabitants was beyond bleak. The misery vividly narrated by Deichelmann, von Lehndorff and Wieck was tersely described by Starlinger.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn34" name="_ftnref34">[34]</a></sup> The physical and mental burden, he wrote, fell especially on women and children, as the men, where they had survived the final battle, had been moved out of the city soon after its fall. The first irregular and insufficient food supply got going only in May 1945 and benefited only the working population. The bread, 400 g with much water in it, was until the summer of 1946 the only food handed out by the Soviet authorities. Most people lived from rye grain collected in fields outside the city. Much meat of dug out decomposed animal carcasses was eaten. In the 1945/46 winter there were ascertained cases of cannibalism.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn35" name="_ftnref35">[35]</a></sup> People were crowded into tiny spaces, and in the winter they had barely enough water to cook. In the 1946/47 winter whole families died on some nights from cold and exhaustion. At the height of the typhoid fever<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn36" name="_ftnref36">[36]</a></sup> epidemic in the autumn of 1945 Königsberg’s inhabitants got water only out of mostly contaminated wells and bomb craters, they washed in the water of bomb craters as the way to the Pregel river was too long and dangerous<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn37" name="_ftnref37">[37]</a></sup>, and they could rarely change clothes. The sewer system had broken down, latrines were insufficient and badly maintained, yards and cellars accordingly soiled. Electric light became available in some districts only in 1946, and then only few could use it. In the summer of 1945 flies became so numerous that every receptacle, every piece of bread, every sick person and all fresh excrement was instantly covered by them. The rat population reached such numbers that rats sometimes attacked people sleeping. The population received no disinfectants and rarely had even soap. The city’s cleanup was limited to opening the traffic alleys. Even corpse disposal was weeks delayed.
<br />
<br />
Regarding his own medical specialty, epidemic diseases, Starlinger wrote that these hit a population concentrated in a small area that had not been immunized by previous vaccination or epidemic experience, could not be protected by sanitary-hygienic measures other than often belated isolation, and suffered from such an excess of physical and psychological stress that any individual susceptibility was bound to result in an infection. It seemed to him that fate and nature meant to test what human beings can endure while protecting themselves against rampant epidemics.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn38" name="_ftnref38">[38]</a></sup>
<br />
<br />
The stage seemed set for epidemics of historical proportions, and according to Soviet records this was what happened. Soviet authorities recorded a death wave between September 1945 and May 1946, with 1,799 deaths outside and 881 deaths in hospitals on 20 September, respectively 2,933 and 901 deaths on 20 October and 21,111 deaths in the whole 9-month period. The two epidemics of typhoid fever that visited the city in this period were stated as the main cause for this enormous mortality, and these epidemics were in turn solely attributed to the crowded conditions in which the Germans lived, oblivious of Soviet records showing that in October 1945 the city’s 42,000 inhabitants counted as non-workers (children, invalids and other people unable to work) received a mere 200 g of bread per day if they <i>paid</i> for it, and that malnutrition was thus the obvious main cause of mortality.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn39" name="_ftnref39">[39]</a></sup>
<br />
<br />
An epidemic taking the lives of about 31 % of the at-risk population<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn40" name="_ftnref40">[40]</a></sup> would have a place among the deadliest epidemics in history.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn41" name="_ftnref41">[41]</a></sup> However, according to Starlinger’s detailed figures mortality from typhoid fever and other epidemic diseases was not that high. In the hospitals for epidemic diseases under his direction about 2,700 out of 13,200 patients died. The case fatality rate was 24 % for typhoid fever (1,850 out of 7,700, with 6,150 cases occurring from May 1945 to June 1946 and 1,300 from April to October 1946) and 25 % for typhus (300 out of 1,200). Depressing though these figures were, the typhoid and typhus case fatality rates didn’t look so bad, considering the lack of immunity and vaccination, the difficult environment and the reduced means of medical attendance, if compared with case fatality rates from these diseases elsewhere and at other times (23 % for typhoid according to statistics of the Vienna General Hospital for 1846-61, 40 % in a World War I frontline hospital, 23.4 % for typhus in the Moabit district of Berlin in 1876-79, among other examples).<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn42" name="_ftnref42">[42]</a></sup> According to Starlinger’s calculations, mortality in the hospitals for epidemic diseases accounted for less than 4 % of total mortality among the German population in 1945-47. Violence, hunger, cold and exhaustion were far more prolific killers than all epidemics together.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn43" name="_ftnref43">[43]</a></sup>
<br />
<br />
This comparative success was not just the merit of Starlinger and his medical and nursing staff, according to Starlinger. An important factor, already in the first and by far the larger typhoid epidemic, was that that the "extirpation through death" (<i>Todesausmerze</i>) from non-epidemic causes robbed typhoid of its prey by removing the less resistant specimens before they had a chance to get typhoid, and leaving the more resistant ones to contract the disease, which these also had a better chance to survive due to their resistance. Another factor frequently observed was that the reduction of vital functions from pre-existing dystrophy surprisingly put a brake on the development of infectious disease. Typhoid in turn contributed to an "extirpation through death" that helped to keep typhus mortality comparatively low.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn44" name="_ftnref44">[44]</a></sup>
<br />
<br />
Starlinger’s assessment of the relative importance of epidemics vs. other causes of death (starvation, exhaustion, cold and injuries) is borne out by the accounts of von Lehndorff and Deichelmann, written before Starlinger’s account. The below translated excerpts from some of their entries show what people mainly died from. They also show that the Soviets were reluctant to call the cause of most deaths by its proper name, starvation.
<br />
<br />
<b>Graf von Lehndorff’s diary</b>
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>About fifteen hundred people are staying in this house. A thousand patients and at least five hundred nursing personnel, female and male. Many of them have never had anything to do with nurse work, but they try as they can to remain linked to the hospital as they thus have more protection and possibilities to live. Outside they are exposed to any arbitrary acts. For the same reason it is also hardly possible to release any of the patients. As they no longer have a home, death from starvation is what usually will come to them soon. We thus try to somehow include them in the hospital’s routine. The need to do so seldom occurs, however, for just about all who are received as patients die sooner or later without having seen any improvement. Every day there are thirty to forty dead, who in the morning are carried down wrapped in blackout paper and piled up by the rear gate. From there they are taken in batches with a two-wheeled wooden cart to the area by the destroyed Altroßgärter Church, where under the supervision of Father Leitner they are buried in mass graves.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn45" name="_ftnref45">[45]</a></sup></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote>The people they bring us are almost all in the same state. Above they are skeletons, below heavy sacks of water. On shapeless swollen legs they come, sometimes still walking, and settle in front of the door, where there are already lots of similar figures lying on improvised stretchers or on the floor. When it is their turn, they often mention some minor ailment, like an infected finger, as the reason for their coming, because the main problem, their legs, they don’t even feel anymore. We notice this when we lie them on the table and slit open their greasy glassy skin, without them reacting in any way. We then often ask ourselves if it still makes sense to amputate the legs, or whether one should rather let the people die as they are. Mostly we opt for the latter.<br />
Death from hunger is a strange death. No revolt. The people give the impression that they already left death proper behind. They still walk upright, one can still talk to them, they grab a cigarette butt – rather than a piece of bread which they no longer have any use for – an then they suddenly collapse, like a table bearing a maximum of weight until the additional weight of a fly causes it to break down.<br />
Besides these legs we mainly treat heavy and heaviest phlegmons, including many neck carbuncles that sometimes go from one ear to another. If they are filled with maggots, we consider this a good sign because then there’s still a chance of healing.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn46" name="_ftnref46">[46]</a></sup></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote>Besides we get to see things that otherwise hardly exist anymore, for instance Noma disease, in which a section of the face with jaw bones, teeth, lips and cheeks falls out within days, leaving an enormous hole.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn47" name="_ftnref47">[47]</a></sup></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote>Only in winter – but no, we don’t want to and cannot go through that here. It simply cannot be. The people are all dying already as it is. And then the cold, and many months when nothing grows, not even weeds – one simply cannot think of that.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn48" name="_ftnref48">[48]</a></sup></blockquote>
<br />
<br />
<b>Deichelmann’s diary</b>
<br />
<br />
10 May 1945<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn49" name="_ftnref49">[49]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>For about 200 patients requiring surgery there is only one fully qualified surgeon, who must operate from early in the morning until late at night. Every day new wounded are brought in, mostly women with heavy gunshot wounds in chest and belly. They often lie for days in cellars until someone finds them. Usually they die in the hospital, if not earlier, and are buried somewhere in empty air-raid pits and combat dugouts.</blockquote>
<br />
15 July 1945<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn50" name="_ftnref50">[50]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>Mortality is immense. The grave digger detachment has its hands full. The number of purulent wound infections is enormous. Due to lack of proper nourishment the patients’ resistance diminishes in an unexpected manner. If they then get diarrhea on top of that, they die within a few days.<br />
The situation of the children is appalling. The children’s ward with 120 patients including infants gets 3.5 liters of milk per day. Mortality among the latter already runs at 90 to 95 percent. Only those survive for the time being whose mothers’ breasts can provide nourishment. The children are lying two in each bed. It is impossible to prepare special meals for the children’s ward. They receive the same food as the whole house – rotten <i>Fleck</i> in thin groats soup.<br />[…]
In the children’s ward lie the first cases of hunger oedema. Two, three children 8 to 12 years old. Face and limbs deformed by swelling, the body puffed up and full of water. The sight is shattering. As the disease according to previous experience is caused by lack of protein, the children receive the rest of protein preparations; small strips of meat are fished out of the buckets in which the meals for the whole ward are brought and fed to the oedema patients. One tries to save, even if one must open one gap to fill another.[…]<br />
Some have already eaten dogs and cats, other brag that they have.[…]<br />
Assault victims with heavy gunshot wounds still come in almost daily. From the various camps prisoners of war and internees, men and women, are brought in incredibly disheveled, always accompanied by a Russian guard, sometimes also male and female officers are present. The prisoners are mostly exhausted to the point of dropping down, covered by scabies, eaten by lice, abscesses and furuncles everywhere. Many fall victim to these infections, and not rarely to the dysentery-like diarrhea they bring along. Psychologically they are numb, without will, just finished. The hospital for infectious diseases is also filling up. In the city typhoid and paratyphoid fever rage on such a scale as has probably not been seen in a German city since the Thirty Years War.</blockquote>
<br />
30 July 1945<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn51" name="_ftnref51">[51]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>The horror around us increases. The morgue’s occupancy still grows every day. Among the about 400 occupants there are 30 typhoid patients.[…]<br />
The number of typhoid victims in the city continues growing. In the York(epidemics) hospital there may be already 1,400 patients. They are now lying two each in the small air raid beds. There are almost no medications anymore, especially heart medications that might save many a life are completely lacking. </blockquote>
<br />
15 August 1945<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn52" name="_ftnref52">[52]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>Still more typhoid, still more diarrhea. Now there are reportedly about 1,600 typhoid patients lying in the York hospital. Also among our personnel the number of cases constantly grows.</blockquote>
<br />
2 September 1945<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn53" name="_ftnref53">[53]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>Every day two, three bundles wrapped in packing paper lie at the children’s ward. Thus, the mothers can take the mortal remains home more easily. People with oedema dying of starvation are no longer a rarity.</blockquote>
<br />
5 September 1945<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn54" name="_ftnref54">[54]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>Physicians are no longer allowed to mention hunger disease. The Russians want it to be called "dystrophy", which literally means "nutritional disturbance". It is discussed in detail in medical conferences, studied, autopsies show the self-consumption of the inner organs and the muscles. Everyone would know what could be done to help, no one knows how to help. Besides there are other nutritional disturbances, especially scurvy. Here there are better possibilities to show or give the patients help. There are lots of green vegetables around. Now malaria is also showing up throughout the city, only individual cases for the time being. But it is only August. Every day in the city’s garbage heaps and ruins there are enormous clouds of the dangerous mosquitoes that transmit the disease. East Prussia had been free from malaria for 50, nay 80 years, now yet another scourge visits the land.<br />
The general mortality in the hospital may be 40 percent. The dead are brought to the morgue barely clothed. Care for the living comes first, the hospital needs every piece of clothing.</blockquote>
<br />
5 November 1945<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn55" name="_ftnref55">[55]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>Now one still finds potatoes along the way, and one can sleep outside if need be, but winter is approaching and hunger is here already. Typhoid has barely diminished. In the York hospital the number of patients has sunk to 1,600, but now typhus is coming around. It is already showing its teeth here and there in the city.</blockquote>
<br />
Entry of 19 December 1945<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn56" name="_ftnref56">[56]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>Yes, it takes strong muscles to dig mass graves day after day in the heavy, wet soil. It still works, and so far we only had strong frost for short times and the frost layer quickly melted into the soil due to the current very rainy weather. With strong frost bomb craters must serve as mass graves.</blockquote>
<br />
Entry of 31 December 1945<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn57" name="_ftnref57">[57]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>However, all memories come back on this day, wounds that have barely scarred reopen. Thus, this Christmas is a Christmas of suicides. Quite a few quietly disappear in the ruins.[…] In our hospital alone two young people try to put an end to their lives. A young nurse succeeds, another is brought back to life by timely help. When he regains consciousness he is angry at the doctors for having saved him.[…]<br />
The year’s statistic of our grave diggers is shattering in its simplicity. Since the resuscitation of our hospital at the end of June they buried 3,989 dead in the small cemetery behind the Frischbier School. Our hospital’s occupancy is between 1,300 and 1,400 patients. So this year every bed supplied three dead.</blockquote>
<br />
Entry of 8 January 1946<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn58" name="_ftnref58">[58]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>Outside there is strong cold and the thick snow screeches hard under the soles. The frost bites the feet of anyone whose shoes are worn out. Many a half-starved person has died from this. The water-swollen feet burst and get infected, and once an infection gets hold it often overruns the water-swollen body. All medications at our disposal can no longer help then. Some tie rags of sacks around their feet or walk in crude wooden clogs. Yet I saw no one as poor as two ragged, barefoot Russian kids who searched some rubbish in the ruins.</blockquote>
<br />
Entry of 10 January 1946<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn59" name="_ftnref59">[59]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>Hunger and cold have become beasts of prey. Every day the corpse carriages rumbles twice through the gates. Our dead number 40 per day.</blockquote>
<br />
Entry of 6 February 1946<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn60" name="_ftnref60">[60]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>Typhus is already making the rounds among us. Two doctors, on medical assistant and two women got it already. Nobody has died of it yet.</blockquote>
<br />
Entry of 16 February 1946<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn61" name="_ftnref61">[61]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>The doctor in charge of the transferred tuberculosis ward informs the Antifa-Club of its balance. Since taking over the ward he has had about 240 patients. Of these about 150 have died. 60 were turned over to the St. Catherine’s Hospital, of which 10 at most will survive, and 30 were released as cured to ambulatory treatment. So in about half a year there were 200 deaths or death candidates out of 240 patients. 83.5 %. Commentary superfluous.</blockquote>
<br />
Entry of 28 February 1946<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn62" name="_ftnref62">[62]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>Between us and our homeland the Iron Curtain has descended. We are prisoners of war, except that our barbed wire enclosure is a little wider. On the other hand, the prisoners of war have their food, if little. Here anyone can starve to death, even those who work.</blockquote>
<br />
Entry of 13 April 1946<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn63" name="_ftnref63">[63]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>Concern about a repetition of the previous year’s typhoid tragedy causes the hospital’s management to vaccinate the personnel.</blockquote>
<br />
Entry of 07 May 1946<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn64" name="_ftnref64">[64]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>Much more important is the fight against the rats, which have become a plague that no one thought possible. Everywhere, day and night, one sees giant specimens of these grey long-tailed creatures. Every nightguard counts thirty, forty within half an hour. The steal the bread from the table, gnaw through beds and walls, devour the corpses in the morgue and spread their fleas everywhere. Of course this pest is most numerous around the trash sites. And there are hardly any cats left.</blockquote>
<br />
Entry of 18 May 1946<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn65" name="_ftnref65">[65]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>Hunger oedema continue in the foreground of all diseases. The doctors are unanimous in that this disease is caused by lack of protein in the first place. In the scientific conversations all means and possibilities to make good for this deficit are considered and discussed. But where to take it from? Professor Böttner suggests to regularly take blood from the hospital’s only two cows, which are as good as dry anyway, in order to help at least the neediest among the oedema patients. The problem with this suggestion, among others, is that the Russians would see it as sabotage against their cows.[…] What is left is one doctor’s suggestion to recover proteins from the liquid obtained through punctures in the breast and belly, add it to the meals properly prepared and feed it back to the patients.</blockquote>
<br />
Entry of 08 June 1946<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn66" name="_ftnref66">[66]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>A generation that can inspire horror is growing up here. The hard struggle for survival, far from any education, has probably nipped in the bud the more noble sides of humanity already. Despite this, or better inevitably, these wild children have also remained far behind in their physical development. Our pediatrists have already seen, especially in children, the gruesome, almost invariably fatal Noma, the ulcerous hunger disease whose aspect could be seen only in medical treatises since decades ago in Germany.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn67" name="_ftnref67">[67]</a></sup><br />
Hungry children roam the hospital and the Frischbier School. In front of each door the same monotonous chant, the tone of which I won’t forget as long as I live. "Uncle, please give me a piece of bread." You give gladly to the first, reluctantly to the second, the third already goes empty-handed. After all you want to live yourself, you have to live.</blockquote>
<br />
Entry of 15 June 1946<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn68" name="_ftnref68">[68]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>Starvation is a strange matter. Even if oedema is very advanced already and there is heavy diarrhea, it is sometimes possible to save the patient by improving nutrition. But few of our patients are that lucky, for where would the hospital get the additional food? To be sure, the hospital’s food has improved now that the personnel itself gets ration cards and may no longer share the patients’ food, but the rations are still barely sufficient to maintain a bedridden person’s weight, let alone to restore the weight of one dying of starvation. Only if by chance an acquaintance takes care of the patient it may be possible to save him. Yet there is a moment after which no however good nutrition can save such oedema patients; the entire digestive system is so damaged that it can no longer dissolve and transform the nourishment offered. Unstoppably these patients fade into death without help having any effect. […]<br />
Also in other respects the doctors gain new, surprising knowledge. The tendency to develop purulent wound infections increases. Every splinter in a finger, every scratch on the skin flaming red with scabies, and especially every sting of a louse may become a furuncle. It this becomes a phlegmon, the patient, especially if sick with oedema, is inevitably lost. Now however extensive drainage, no however high amputation, no however intensive inner and outer application of modern chemotherapeutic agents may arrest the deadly outcome. The skin of the affected body part becomes so worn that even slight prodding with a finger or a pincer penetrates it. Withing four, five days a whole leg is affected by a needle-sized infection spot. If the conditions for scientific processing of these findings are already lacking, the treatment possibilities are quite desolate. Even bandaging material, gauze bandages are hardly available despite greatest parsimony; in the operation room sheets are used as bandages.</blockquote>
<br />
Entry of 15 December 1946<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn69" name="_ftnref69">[69]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>Within about half a year the Russians have managed to reduce our hospital occupancy by about 600 patients, where we Germans thought an increase by double or triple necessary.<br />
Hunger is growing in the city. Cold on top of it has a horrible effect.</blockquote>
<br />
Entry of 23 December 1946<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn70" name="_ftnref70">[70]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>Our pathologist is complaining about constant overwork. It is terrible what hideousness is brought to him. Murder, murder, murder – mainly in the Junkerstraβe. The relation between Germans beaten dead and murdered Russians is at least 6:1. To be sure, the Germans are more defenseless, without strength, undernourished; unarmed as they are they make easy prey. But who can at the same time expect to find much booty with them? Is it robbery or sheer bloody murder that is happening here?</blockquote>
<br />
Entry of 31 December 1946<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn71" name="_ftnref71">[71]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>So now on new year’s ever we have a total of 859 patients. 200 of these are Russians. The health department has achieved its goal. Since summer we have lost 850 sickbeds for Germans. Our cemetery, according to our burial book, holds about 7,000 mute sleepers …<br /></blockquote>
<br />
Entry of 15 January 1947<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn72" name="_ftnref72">[72]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>People are freezing to death on the street, in apartments and beds. Who seeks acquaintances finds dead in every cellar, starved or frozen to death. Who walks to work in the morning through the dark streets occasionally stumbles upon dead covered with a merciful blanket by the night snow. Almost every morning dead are found on the stairs of the Raiffeisen House in the former General-Litzmann-Straβe, now called Sovestskij-Prospekt. Mayors and command headquarters don’t keep up with burials. The soil is frozen solid, and no German is so well fed as to endure the hard work. Thus corpses pile up in many places.<br />
"Simple dystrophies may no longer be taken in." In practice this means barring hospital access to Germans in general. Mercilessly the emaciated, exhausted, ragged figures are chased out into the street. With fading senses, trembling knees and titillating pulse the rejected ones stumble on to their desolate end. […] The next day the hospital no longer denies them access.<br />
Sometimes they collapse right next to the hospital. If they then lie unconscious, rattling on the cold snow, maybe medical assistants are sent out with a stretcher to take them into the hospital for their last hours. But those are the only two exceptions for "simple dystrophies", dying or dead.</blockquote>
<br />
Entry of 23 January 1947<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn73" name="_ftnref73">[73]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>I’m horrified every time I enter the morgue. There they lie in their dozens, in the positions in which death surprised them, stiff from the cold and rigor mortis, in their miserable rags, face and hands eaten by rats who still find plenty of food on the streets and in the morgue. The causes of death are almost always the same: murder, hunger, cold. Hardly ever a suicide among the Germans.</blockquote>
<br />
Entry of 21 February 1947<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn74" name="_ftnref74">[74]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>In the autopsy room a Russian is now working as a pathologist and forensic doctor, a small, elder man who speaks German quite well. The German doctor he kept as assistant.[…]<br />
Only in exceptional cases the term dystrophy shows up in the pathologist’s vocabulary. […] One the street people beaten to death are found, the skull smashed into shapelessness with heavy iron bars. Every day there are 5 to 6 autopsies on average.</blockquote>
<br />
Entry of 25 February 1947<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn75" name="_ftnref75">[75]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>The misery keeps growing. We only receive murder cases and unknowns (starved, frozen) for autopsy. Everyone who dies in the hospital is supposed to also be autopsied, but we simply cannot manage.</blockquote>
<br />
Entry of 27 February 1947<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn76" name="_ftnref76">[76]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>They say that in Ponarth corpses are sprayed with gasoline and burned as one can no longer get rid of them otherwise. In other parts of the city they are simply thrown onto the old cemeteries.[…]<br />
It is an infernal martyrium. Hunger burrows into the entrails. Cold eats up the limbs.</blockquote>
<br />
Entry of 28 February 1947<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn77" name="_ftnref77">[77]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>Hunger drives people mad. A man I knew well, about 36 years old, beat his twelve-year-old daughter to death in a bout of hunger insanity.[…]<br />
Our pathologist has gradually given up resisting the dystrophy diagnosis. He now states this cause as often as the German doctor would if he were to decide. After all it makes no sense to deny starvation if people start eating each other. The Russians watch the starvation of the Germans with curious indifference.</blockquote>
<br />
Entry of 18 March 1947<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn78" name="_ftnref78">[78]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>Actually the number of dead at our hospital is low now, compared with the previous year. But this reduction, which is surely reported as a success to Moscow, is merely due to reducing our number of beds and barring access to the starving.</blockquote>
<br />
Entry of 05 April 1947<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn79" name="_ftnref79">[79]</a></sup>
<br />
<blockquote>A locksmith I was acquainted with, who during the winter had worked in Schichau, collapsed at the vice, dragged himself halfway home and collapsed with exhaustion in a ditch by the road. After some hours his wife and grown-up daughter finally found him, unconscious, frozen in the snow which was still deep at that time.<br />
They had to leave him lying, had to first go back home to borrow a handcart somewhere, as even the poor emaciated body of the dying man was too heavy for their faded strength. In the dark of the night that had meanwhile come down they barely found the starved man. It was a tremendous effort for them to lift him onto the cart, even more to keep him there. It was a relief for the women that the man finally died when dropping from the unsteady cart. But transporting the corpse was still difficult enough.<br />
It is horrible to hear the women say how relieved they felt by this death. But who has seen people in the last stages of hunger can understand that.
</blockquote>
<br />
The primacy of literal starvation over epidemic disease as a cause of death makes the Königsberg famine into what Irish economist and famine expert Cormac O’Grada would call a "modern" famine.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn80" name="_ftnref80">[80]</a></sup> Where mortality from infectious diseases is high even in non-crisis times (as was the case throughout the world before the 20th century and is still the case in some poor countries, especially in Africa), famine will cause a massive die-off from such diseases before actual starvation takes hold, so most of those who die will not actually starve to death. Where such diseases have been brought under control in non-crisis times through advances in medicine and public health, where people live in relative prosperity and measures that prevent the spread of diseases have become part of their daily routine, a famine will primarily kill by literal starvation. The Bengal famine of 1943 was still one of the "traditional" category, as were 1918-1922 famines in the Soviet Union. The Soviet famine of 1931-33 may have marked the beginning of a transition from "traditional" to "modern" famine as concerns the main causes of death: while there was a big rise in recorded cases of typhus and typhoid fever, the proportion of all deaths due to infectious diseases was lower in 1933 than in the immediate wake of the crisis in 1934.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn81" name="_ftnref81">[81]</a></sup> The Leningrad blockade famine of 1941-43, also thanks to the cold weather and the city administration’s public health efforts (like ordering the population to clean up all breeding grounds where infectious disease might start) was a "modern" famine as well. While about a third of the city’s population perished, few of the 0.8 million or so victims died of contagious diseases. In fact, the numbers succumbing to typhoid fever, typhus and dysentery – the "classic" famine diseases in temperate climates according to O’Grada – were actually <i>fewer</i> in December 1941 than in December 1940. A clear primacy of starvation over disease was also observed in western Holland during the "hunger winter" of 1944, in Axis-occupied Greece, and – perhaps most remarkably – in the Warsaw Ghetto, where the death rate rose four-fold between 1940 and 1941-42, but the proportion attributed to literal starvation shot up from 1 to 25 percent.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn82" name="_ftnref82">[82]</a></sup> So the experience of Königsberg was not unique.
<br />
<br />
Why did the Soviet authorities in Königsberg, which as of 04.06.1946 was named Kaliningrad, let the German inhabitants die like flies, mostly from starvation?
<br />
<br />
Lack of means is part of the explanation. The Königsberg famine happened at a time when the Soviet Union could barely feed its own population. At the time the Soviets entered Berlin, famine in Central Asia had reduced families there to cannibalism.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn83" name="_ftnref83">[83]</a></sup> In 1946/47 famine killed about 1 million people throughout the Soviet Union.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn84" name="_ftnref84">[84]</a></sup> Many German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union recognized that the Soviet civilian population had it just as bad or worse than them.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn85" name="_ftnref85">[85]</a></sup>
<br />
<br />
Wieck acknowledged that the Russians in Königsberg were themselves supplied very poorly and had nothing to give away, and that the Russian administration barely managed to feed even the Russian population arriving in the city.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn86" name="_ftnref86">[86]</a></sup> Deichelmann noted the misery of the Russian settlers who came to Kaliningrad from all parts of the Soviet Union, often sent there against their will or tricked by promises. He mentioned a 14-year-old Russian boy who had come from Sakhalin, traversing the whole continent, arrived sick in Insterburg in the winter, and was sent onwards after eight days in the hospital. The boy arrived in Kaliningrad feverish and full of lice, with a heavy pleurisy.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn87" name="_ftnref87">[87]</a></sup> The arrivals were living in utmost poverty, the kind of people, according to Deichelmann, who would call a piece of bread and a handful of salt an excellent meal.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn88" name="_ftnref88">[88]</a></sup> Child mortality among them must have been very high, for Deichelmann mentioned "countless" autopsies of Russian children.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn89" name="_ftnref89">[89]</a></sup> A young Russian female worker earned 360 Rubel per month, of which she spent 240 on milk for her baby and 60 on bread. Russians also starved to death on occasion.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn90" name="_ftnref90">[90]</a></sup> Deichelmann recalled having talked to people from all parts of the Soviet Union, who unanimously told him that nowhere it was as bad as in Kaliningrad.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn91" name="_ftnref91">[91]</a></sup>
<br />
<br />
Corruption and incompetence of Soviet authorities were also to blame. Deichelmann reckoned that the Soviet rulers of Königsberg/Kaliningrad were hardly a Soviet elite, perhaps even a negative selection – people who were of no use where they came from and who hoped to get rich quickly.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn92" name="_ftnref92">[92]</a></sup> The hospital’s Russian director is supposed to have bought himself a house from what he skimmed off.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn93" name="_ftnref93">[93]</a></sup>The director of an old-age home at Tilsit-Neukirch, where some of the Kaliningrad central hospital’s elderly German patients had been shipped, was reportedly a brutal young Russian whose large family was the main recipient of the food meant for the home’s occupants.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn94" name="_ftnref94">[94]</a></sup>
<br />
<br />
However, lack of means, corruption and incompetence cannot have been the only reasons for the great mortality in Königsberg/Kaliningrad. If they had been, a mass dying on this scale might also have happened in other parts of Germany conquered by the Soviets, but that wasn’t the case.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn95" name="_ftnref95">[95]</a></sup> In the Soviet Occupation Zone rations were incomparably better. Among the urban population of Brandenburg, as of 01.11.1945, the lowest-ranking consumer group officially received not only 200 g of bread like non-workers in Königsberg/Kaliningrad, but also 300 g of potatoes, 15 g of sugar, 30 g of marmalade and 10 g of other nutrients per day. Children received that plus 15 g of meat and 10 g of fat per day.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn96" name="_ftnref96">[96]</a></sup> In Königsberg/Kaliningrad, where in practice the large majority of the German population got just about nothing, the Soviet authorities seem to have acted with a malignant indifference to the Germans that was not present elsewhere. At least that was how it looked like from the receiving end perspective. Wieck had the impression that the Russians wanted all Germans to starve and to this effect tried to hinder their efforts to survive by work, black-market trading or otherwise.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn97" name="_ftnref97">[97]</a></sup> Deichelmann considered some official measures – reducing the number of hospital beds at a time when they should have been increased, barring people with "simple" dystrophy from hospital treatment, chasing away begging children – to be nothing short of sadistic.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn98" name="_ftnref98">[98]</a></sup> He left it open whether this sadism was a matter of the local administration only or the Soviet central state was also behind it. A commission from Moscow is supposed to have been horrified about the living conditions of the German population.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn99" name="_ftnref99">[99]</a></sup>
<br />
<br />
How many Germans died under these conditions?
<br />
<br />
Again, the most detailed estimate comes from Starlinger, who reasoned as follows<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn100" name="_ftnref100">[100]</a></sup>:
<br />
<br />
Assuming about 110,000 inhabitants before the fall of the city and about 73,000 according to the Soviet census at the end of June 1945, the city’s population diminished by about 35,000 between the two dates. Of the loss about 10-15,000 were mostly adult males deported to camps in East Prussia or further east, while 20-25,000 were deaths. Assuming about 12,000 deaths in each of April and May, the number of inhabitants at the end of May 1945 would have been about 85,000 to 90,000. In October 1945 the population was between 60,000 and 55,000, in March 1946 it was between 45,000 and 40,000, in October 1946 between 40,000 and 35,000 and in March 1947 it was 25,000 at maximum. As there was no reduction by migration, this would mean that out of about 100,000 inhabitants (110,000 minus 10,000 deportees) about 75,000 died, a death rate of 75 %. Of these about 50,000 out of 75,000 died after the Soviet census at the end of June 1945, that is about 65 %.
<br />
<br />
Deichelmann estimated that about 30,000 had died in the battle and the subsequent marches across the countryside and back to the city, and that in June/July 1945, after some replenishment by returnees from the countryside, there were about 70,000 Germans in the city. Of these 50,000 died until the end of 1947 (edit, 23.08.2021: replaced "1945" by "1947"), for a total of about 80,000 dead, and 17,000 to 20,000 survived to be deported.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn101" name="_ftnref101">[101]</a></sup> Of the dead about 9,000 died in the central hospital according to Deichelmann and 2,700 died in the hospitals for infectious diseases under Starlinger’s direction.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn102" name="_ftnref102">[102]</a></sup> Most deaths occurred outside the hospitals, which is also what becomes apparent from the above-mentioned records of the Soviet administration.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn103" name="_ftnref103">[103]</a></sup>
<br />
<br />
The highest death toll estimate comes from Wieck, according to whom there were about 130,000 Germans in the city at the time of its fall and of these at most 20,000 survived to be deported.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn104" name="_ftnref104">[104]</a></sup> This would mean a death rate of about 85 %.
<br />
<br />
Soviet sources vary as concerns the German population. According to the already mentioned document regarding the population of the Soviet parts of East Prussia as of 1 September 1945, Königsberg had 84,651 and the whole region 174,125 inhabitants.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn105" name="_ftnref105">[105]</a></sup> Following the integration of northern East Prussia into the Soviet Union as the "Kenigsbergskaja oblast" on 7 April 1946, an improvised census counted 45,120 Germans in the East Prussian capital and 114,070 in the whole oblast as of 1 May 1946, besides 41,029 Soviet citizens including forced laborers from NS-times. Kossert considers the number of Germans too low as many were not registered.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn106" name="_ftnref106">[106]</a></sup> 45,120 out of 84,651 would mean 39,531 losses in the interim, and as the number of the oblast inhabitants also diminished these 39,531 could be all considered deaths. As mentioned above, Soviet city authorities recorded 21,111 German deaths in the city between September 1945 and May 1946. The misattribution of this mortality to typhoid rather than starvation seems quite obvious in the light of the German witnesses’ accounts, but would the Soviets city authorities have failed to record 18,420 deaths, almost half the total?
<br />
<br />
Starlinger’s figures regarding the death toll from the city’s fall to the end of June 1945 are at odds with the aforementioned estimate from the Soviet passport department in Königsberg, whereby there were about 63,247 German inhabitants in the city at the end of April 1945. It seems improbable, even considering the intensity of the battle and the subsequent mayhem and forced marches, that 47,000 out of 110,000 inhabitants, thereof 32,000 deaths assuming 10,000 – 15,000 deportees as per Starlinger, should have been lost in the interim. The ca. 63,000 can however be reconciled with Deichelmann’s ca. 70,000 for June/July 1945 following some in-migration from the countryside. They can also be reconciled with the end of June census figure of about 73,000 mentioned by Starlinger, the 69,055 inhabitants in June/July and the 68,014 German inhabitants counted/estimated for September 1945 by the Soviet PD, assuming in each case that people returned to the city after the April 1945 Soviet count/estimate. They can furthermore be reconciled with Deichelmann’s claim of about 30,000 losses in the battle and the subsequent forced marches (which according to Deichelmann were all deaths), assuming the minimum figure of 90,000 German inhabitants on the eve of the final Soviet assault on 6 – 9 April 1945, mentioned by Lasch, which coincided with the number of ration cards mentioned by Starlinger.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn107" name="_ftnref107">[107]</a></sup> The difference to the ca. 63,000 counted/estimated by the PD for the end of April 1945 would be 27,000. Assuming 10,000 to 15,000 deportees as per Starlinger’s estimate, this would leave about 12,000 to 17,000 civilian deaths in the battle and subsequent mayhem, about 13.33 – 18.89 % of the population. As mentioned above, a maximum of about 3.33% of Berlin’s population perished during the battle for Berlin and its immediate aftermath, so the losses of Königsberg’s population would be at least 4 to 6 times higher in proportion than those of Berlin’s population.
<br />
<br />
Contrary to what Starlinger assumed, population changes in the city after June/July 1945 were not wholly deaths, if one is to give credence to the PD’s aforementioned report of November 1945 whereby 4,390 people entered and 13,480 left the city in July, August, September and October 1945. One can speculate, though not prove, that the outbound figure consists wholly or mostly of deaths rather than out-migrants. As mentioned before only the September population status figure of 68,019 in Fisch and Klemeševa’s Table 2 matches other PD figures whereby in September 1945 there were 140,114 Germans in the region, thereof 68,014 in Königsberg and the remainder in other communities. How many people migrated into and out of the city and how many died between April and September 1945 cannot be established on hand of the available numbers. In the following I will assume for good measure that the difference between the April 1945 PD figure in Fisch and Klemeševa’s Table 1 (63,247) and the June 1945 figure of "about" 60,000 in the same table were deaths, that in the months June to September there was a positive migration balance into the city in the order of 13,000, yielding the end of June census figure of 73,000, and that of these 68,014 were still alive at the beginning of September 1945. This would mean 8,233 deaths between the end of April and the beginning of September 1945, a figure consistent with the hospital horrors described by von Lehndorff and Deichelmann if one assumes that, as Soviet records suggest, most deaths occurred outside the hospitals. Adding this to the above 12,000 – 17,000 deaths from the battle and subsequent violence in April 1945 would yield about 20,233 -25,233 deaths between early April and early September 1945.
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The next PD figure in Fisch and Klemeševa’s Table 1, 60,642 in November 1945, is a little higher than Starlinger’s figures (60,000 to 55,000) for October 1945. Assuming that the difference between the PD’s September figure of 68,014 and the November figure of 60,642 is accounted for by deaths alone, there would be an additional 7,372 deaths, for a total of 27,605 to 32,605 deaths so far since early April 1945.
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As mentioned above the city’s German population was 45,120 according to a Soviet census as of 1 May 1946. Klemeševa calculated a lower figure (43,617) for the spring of 1946.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn108" name="_ftnref108">[108]</a></sup> Assuming this lower figure and no out-migration, this would mean 17,025 deaths since November 1945, for a total of 44,630 to 49,630 deaths so far. The total of deaths between September 1945 and May 1946 would be 68,014 minus 43,617 = 24,397 deaths, 3,286 more than the 21,111 recorded by the Soviet city administration for the period between 1 September 1945 and 1 May 1946. The difference is in accordance with Fisch and Klemeševa’s reckoning that many deaths were not reported<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn109" name="_ftnref109">[109]</a></sup>, and while high it seems more realistic than assuming that almost half of all deaths were not recorded.
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<br />
About the number of German inhabitants in the city of Kaliningrad when the deportations to the Soviet Occupied Zone began there are no Soviet figures. What becomes apparent from the available documentation is that a total of 102,407 Germans were deported from the Kaliningrad oblast in 6 stages between April-June 1947 and May 1951.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn110" name="_ftnref110">[110]</a></sup> The difference of 37,707 can be safely assumed to have died since September 1945. If, as Starlinger estimated, no more than 25,000 of Königsberg’s inhabitants were left to deport, this would mean 77,407 deportees from other towns and villages in the region – more than the 72,100 that had been estimated by the Soviet Passport Department as of September 1945. This in turn would mean a negative migration balance of the city’s population in favor of the countryside, even under the unrealistic assumption that the rural population had no demographically significant losses from hunger, disease, cold and violence. A more realistic assumption might be that the rural population lost about 10 % of its stock, which is quite conservative.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn111" name="_ftnref111">[111]</a></sup> This would mean that 64,890 of the 102,407 deportees were from rural areas and 37,517 were from Kaliningrad, and that out of 68,014 German inhabitants of the city in September 1945 a total of 30,497, about 44.84%, had perished.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn112" name="_ftnref112">[112]</a></sup> Adding 8,233 deaths between the end of April and the beginning of September 1945 and 12,000 to 17,000 deaths from the battle and subsequent violence in April 1945 yields a total of 50,730 to 55,730 deaths, about 56.37% to 61.92% of the assumed population of 90,000 before the final Soviet attack on the city. Deaths among the deportees in Soviet camps in East Prussia or elsewhere would have to be added. These camps were highly lethal. According to Starlinger the death rate there was in the order of 60 %<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn113" name="_ftnref113">[113]</a></sup>, but Starlinger assumed the same for the Gulag camps in the first postwar years, which is far too high.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn114" name="_ftnref114">[114]</a></sup> According to the German Federal Archives’ 1974 report about expulsion and expulsion crimes from 1945 to 1948, the death rate in Soviet camps in northern East Prussia was between 20% and 50%, and in the prison at Preuβisch-Eylau about half of the about 12,000 – 14,000 inmates died of typhoid fever and other hunger-related diseases.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn115" name="_ftnref115">[115]</a></sup> Assuming that about half of the 10,000 to 15,000 deportees (5,000 to 7,500) died in Soviet camps, the total death toll of Königsberg’s population would be 58,230 to 60,730 out of a baseline population of 90,000, that is 64.70% to 67.48% of the total.
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This death rate is beyond what the Stalinist regime inflicted on any other civilian population under its rule. The deadliest year in the Gulag camps was 1942, when 248,877 out of 1,415,596 prisoners died<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn116" name="_ftnref116">[116]</a></sup>, a death rate of about 17.58%. The average annual death rate in 1945-1947 was much lower, about 4.30 %.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn117" name="_ftnref117">[117]</a></sup> Under these circumstances a sentence to Gulag imprisonment, like the one handed to Starlinger, might have been a life-saving stroke of good luck for Germans perishing in Königsberg/Kaliningrad. Even the most unfortunate of the Soviet Union’s repressed ethnicities, the Kalmyks, suffered a lower mortality rate than these Germans.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn118" name="_ftnref118">[118]</a></sup>
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What is more, the mortality rate among Königsberg’s German population also exceeds any mortality rate that Nazi Germany inflicted on civilian populations outside the context of deliberate mass extermination. Even the famine in besieged Leningrad was less deadly in proportional terms, though that was so not because of any restraint on the German side but because the Wehrmacht didn’t manage to wholly cut off the city as intended.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn119" name="_ftnref119">[119]</a></sup> My above mortality rate estimates for Königsberg place this demographic catastrophe about half-way between the siege of Leningrad and the Nazis’ mobile killing operations (one of which took place in neighboring Lithuania in 1941<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn120" name="_ftnref120">[120]</a></sup>) and extermination camps. Assuming the higher mortality rates estimated by Deichelmann, Starlinger and Wieck it would be closer to the latter two than to Leningrad. Michael Wieck, the half-Jewish survivor of both Hitler’s and Stalin’s regimes, mentioned it alongside the Holocaust.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftn121" name="_ftnref121">[121]</a></sup> In its effects on the affected population, if not necessarily in its intent, the great mortality in Königsberg was as close as Stalin’s USSR got to the worst crimes of Hitler’s Germany.
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<b>Update, 25.08.2021</b>: It was brought to my attention that <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verlag_Bublies">Verlag Bublies</a>, the publisher of the edition of Deichelmann's diary I used for this article, is associated to the German extreme right. While I don't think they went to the lengths of falsifying what Deichelmann wrote, I don't want to promote a right-wing publisher. Therefore, I would encourage readers interested in Deichelmann's diary to not order it from Amazon as I did, but obtain it (if available) from the source referred to in Andreas Kossert, <i>Ostpreußen. Geschichte und Mythos</i> (München, Siedler Verlag, 2008), p. 440, which is the journal <i>Altpreußische Geschlechterkunde</i>, Vol. 25 (1995). Deichelmann's diary is reproduced there on pp. 180-346.
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<b>Update, 02.09.2021</b>: The total number of deaths according to my estimate would have to be referred not to the city's assumed population as of 06.04.1945 (ca. 90,000), as I did in the article's original version, but to that population plus the assumed 13,000 refugees returning to the city, i.e. to a total of 103,000 German inhabitants. The proportion of deaths would thus be in the order of ca. 56-59% instead of ca. 65-67%. Assuming a population of 90,000 on 06.04.1945 and 63,247 at the end of April 1945 as per the Soviet passport department's estimate, the loss would be 26,753 inhabitants in April 1945, of which 10-15,000 would be deportees and the remaining 11,753 to -16,753 would be deaths. The city's population would thus have evolved as follows until the spring of 1947:
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAM8CM-aLdHxVak1iNIH_5JZDOUgNDfiRfX0x16R4MvC02WzfeXQMmgDzjsv1dTpcLcsQqCqX4GyHV7eVest9iXoUPZTRtP0vB_KretXXJJ77uwzvAWQH9wxkxjpOvQnKvP2n6Vw/s2048/FK+Table+6.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="600" data-original-height="1771" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAM8CM-aLdHxVak1iNIH_5JZDOUgNDfiRfX0x16R4MvC02WzfeXQMmgDzjsv1dTpcLcsQqCqX4GyHV7eVest9iXoUPZTRtP0vB_KretXXJJ77uwzvAWQH9wxkxjpOvQnKvP2n6Vw/s600/FK+Table+6.jpg"/></a></div>
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Set against a population of 90,000 + 13,000 = 103,000, the number of deaths (57,983 to 60,483, the difference to the previous figures being because a round figure of 27,000 instead of 26,753 losses in April 1945 was used in the previous calculation) would be about 56.29% - 58.72%.
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<b>Update, 03.09.2021</b>: I got a copy of the volume, mentioned in the 25.08.2021 update, of <i>Altpreuβische Geschlechterkunde</i>, a genealogy journal where Deichelmann's diary is reproduced on pp. 180-346. References to the Verlag Bublies edition of the diary were replaced by references to <i>Altpreuβische Geschlechterkunde</i>, Neue Folge, 43. Jahrgang, Band 25 (1995). I also corrected some dates that were incorrectly rendered in the Verlag Bublies edition, for instance the text that appears there under 1 March 1947 is under 28 February 1947 in the AGK publication, which I presume is the most accurate as it was reprinted from the diary’s original publication.
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Notes
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<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> See my article <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2015/07/nazi-killing-methods.html">Nazi killing methods</a>.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2">[2]</a> See my article <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2011/05/scrapbookpages-on-subhuman-cannibalism.html">Scrapbookpages on Subhuman Cannibalism</a> and the reference thread <a href="https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/holocaustcontroversies/the-fate-of-soviet-prisoners-of-war-t1896.html">The Fate of Soviet Prisoners of War</a>.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3">[3]</a> Jörg Ganzenmüller, <a href="https://www.zeit.de/2004/04/A-Belagerung_L/komplettansicht">"Ein stiller Völkermord"</a>, <i>Die Zeit</i> 15 January 2004. Translation in the reference thread <a href="https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/holocaustcontroversies/the-siege-of-leningrad-t1909.html#p28527">The Siege of Leningrad</a>.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4">[4]</a> Regarding Greece see Mark Mazower, <i>Inside Hitler's Greece. The Experience of Occupation, 1941-44</i> (Yale University Press, 1993), pp. 23-53. The Dutch Famine of 1944/45 is addressed in, among other publications, William I. Hitchcock, <i>The Bitter Road to Freedom: A New History of the Liberation of Europe</i> (New York: Free Press, 2008), Part I Chapter 3.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5">[5]</a> In the Łódź ghetto alone, 45,000 out of 200,000 inhabitants died throughout its existence. In the Warsaw ghetto the number was 83,000 out of 470,000 inhabitants between the end of 1940 and September 1942 (Raul Hilberg, <i>The Destruction of the European Jews, Revised and Definitive Edition</i>, 1985 by Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc. New York, page 269). On August 24, 1942, after having decided that of the 1.5 Jews still alive all but 300,000 working for the Germans would no longer be fed, Hans Frank noted by the way that 1.2 million Jews had been sentenced to die of hunger and that should the Jews not starve to death he hoped for a speeding up of anti-Jewish measures (Christian Gerlach, <i>Krieg, Ernährung, Völkermord</i>, p. 220). The months August, September and October 1942 were the most intensive killing period of the <i>Aktion Reinhard</i> camps (see my article <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2014/07/a-nightmare-with-no-way-out.html">A nightmare with no way out</a>).<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6">[6]</a> <a href="https://ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/orte/koenigsberg-kaliningrad#c157256">"Königsberg/Kaliningrad"</a>, article of the <a href="https://ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/">Online-Lexikon zur Kultur und Geschichte der Deutschen im östlichen Europa</a>. HC articles related to the mentioned extermination center are collected under the label <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/search/label/Maly%20Trostenets">Maly Trostenets</a>.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7">[7]</a> For a narrative of the Battle for Königsberg see Pritt Buttar, <i>Battleground Prussia. The Assault on Germany’s Eastern Front 1944-45</i> (2010 Osprey Publishing, Oxford), pages 293 to 308.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8">[8]</a> The best-known of many such atrocities occurred in the Königsberg suburb of Metgethen and were discovered after a German counterattack temporarily reconquered the area. The most gruesome description of these atrocities is that of a former captain in the Fortress Königsberg command staff, Hermann Sommer, whose account is partially transcribed in English translation in Alfted-Maurice de Zayas, <i>A Terrible Revenge. The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans, 1944-1950</i> (1986 St. Martin’s Press, New York), pp. 40-41. Sommer claimed that, after the discovery by German troops of "several mounds of corpses situated quite close to one another", the fortress commander General Lasch had ordered a commission to investigate these discoveries. The commission, according to Sommer, reported that "many similar piles of bodies were strewn throughout the area; but in two cases there were virtual mountains of bodies made up of ca. 3,000 women, girls, children and only a few men". Sommer claimed that a special commission of doctors, forensic investigators and foreign journalists was formed to establish identities and the circumstances of the deaths, that many of the dead were photographed, and that the pictures "graphically showed the often savage circumstances under which these people had been murdered". A large number of bodies, according to Sommer, "had the breasts cut off, the genitals stabbed through and were disemboweled". Sommer claimed that the testimonies of surviving witnesses along with the photographs were on file in his department. He also claimed that on February 27, 1945 he had himself witnessed the carnage, which he described in some detail. Fortress Commander General Otto Lasch, upon returning from Soviet captivity, wrote a decidedly anti-Soviet account of the battle, in which he highlighted the bravery and prowess of the city’s defenders and described his own role in favorable terms. Lasch didn’t mention having ordered an investigation or that huge mounds or "mountains" of bodies had been found, just horrible finds of atrocities including one in which 32 civilians had been blown up with an electrically detonated mine in a tennis court (General Otto Lasch, <i>So fiel Königsberg</i>, 4. Lizenzausgabe 1991 des Motorbuch Verlags Stuttgart, p. 74). He also quoted an unnamed commander of a grenadier regiment, who recalled having seen Germans killed in masses in the retaken villages, some women still having ropes around their necks they had been dragged to death with, and others with their heads in the mud or in fertilizer pits and traces of bestial mistreatment on their bodies. The US Library of Congress possesses an album with the title <a href="https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2005675708/">"Bildbericht über von den Bolschewisten ermordete und geschändete Deutsche in Metgethen"</a> ("Photo Report about Germans defiled and murdered at Metgethen"), which consists of 13 pages with two captioned photographs on each (the images are <b><i>very graphic</i></b> and should not be viewed by sensitive readers). 12 of these pictures show single corpses, 9 show more than one corpse (two women and three children, a woman and two boys, a woman, an amputated soldier and a little girl, a couple, a female and a male corpse). Some corpses were photographed several times, from different angles or distances. 5 pictures show bodies and body parts of people killed by an explosion, which must be the one mentioned by Lasch as 31 male and female corpses were counted around the explosion crater according to one caption. One picture, captioned as having been taken inside a house where two women and three children were found shot, shows "two dead Bolsheviks killed by German soldiers as atonement for their foul deeds" ("zwei tote Bolschevisten, die von deutschen Soldaten als Vergeltung für ihre Schandtaten erschossen wurden").<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9">[9]</a> Bernhard Fisch and Marina Klemeševa, <a href="https://www.zfo-online.de/portal/index.php/zfo/article/view/5979">"Zum Schicksal der Deutschen in Königsberg 1945-1948 (im Spiegel bislang unbekannter russischer Quellen)"</a>, <i>Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung</i> Bd. 44 Nr. 3 (1995) (hereinafter "ZOMEF 44-3"), pp. 391-400; Andreas Kossert, <i>Ostpreußen. Geschichte und Mythos</i> (München, Siedler Verlag, 2008), p. 345.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10">[10]</a> Hans Deichelmann, <i>Ich sah Königsberg sterben. Aus dem Tagebuch eines Arztes von April 1945 bis März 1948</i>. <b>Update, 03.09.2021</b>: The diary was first published in 1948/49 in the periodical <i>Aachener Nachrichten</i>. The copy used for this article is an authorized reprint published in the genealogy journal <i>Altpreuβische Geschlechterkunde</i>, Neue Folge, 43. Jahrgang, Band 25 (1995), pp. 180 to 346. The journal will in the following be referred to as "AGK 25/95"<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11">[11]</a> Hans Graf von Lehndorff, <i>Ostpreussisches Tagebuch. Aufzeichnungen eines Arztes aus den Jahren 1945 – 1947</i>. The copy used for this article is the 6th edition published in 1961 by Biederstein Verlag, Munich. Lehndorff’s diary was published in English translation as <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/106591296501800332">Token of a Covenant: Diary of an East Prussian Surgeon 1945-47</a>.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12">[12]</a> Wilhelm Starlinger, <i>Grenzen der Sowjetmacht im Spiegel einer West-Ostbegegnung hinter Palisaden von 1945-1954. Mit einem Bericht der Deutschen Seuchenkrankenhäuser Yorck und St. Elisabeth über das Leben und Sterben in Königsberg 1945-1947; zugleich ein Beitrag zur Kenntnis des Ablaufes gekoppelter Groβseuchen unter elementaren Bedingungen.</i> Edited in 1955 by Holzner-Verlag Würzburg.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13">[13]</a> Michael Wieck, <i>Zeugnis vom Untergang Königsbergs. Ein "Geltungsjude" berichtet. Mit einem Vorwort von Siegfried Lenz.</i> The copy used for this article is a 2nd edition published in 2009 by C.H. Beck oHG Munich. The book was translated into English and published as <a href="https://books.google.es/books/about/A_Childhood_Under_Hitler_and_Stalin.html?id=uxLviLXAiBkC&redir_esc=y">A Childhood Under Hitler and Stalin: Memoirs of a "certified" Jew</a>, University of Wisconsin Press, 2003.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14">[14]</a> <i>Grenzen der Sowjetmacht</i>, p. 18.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15">[15]</a> <i>Zeugnis</i>, pp. 294-296.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16">[16]</a> Lasch, p. 116.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref17" name="_ftn17">[17]</a> <i>Grenzen der Sowjetmacht</i>, pp. 36-37.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref18" name="_ftn18">[18]</a> <i>Zeugnis</i>, p. 264. The Rothenstein camp was described as a lethal hellhole by both Wieck (<i>Zeugnis</i>, pp. 243-255) and von Lehndorff, who was detained there between the end of April and mid-June 1945 (<i>Tagebuch</i>, pp. 109-144).<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref19" name="_ftn19">[19]</a> <i>Königsberg</i>, AGK 25/95, p. 199.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref20" name="_ftn20">[20]</a> As above, pp. 333-334.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref21" name="_ftn21">[21]</a> <i>Zeugnis</i>, pp. 238-240.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref22" name="_ftn22">[22]</a> <i>Königsberg</i>, AGK 25/95, pp. 192-201.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref23" name="_ftn23">[23]</a> <i>Tagebuch</i>, p. 148.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref24" name="_ftn24">[24]</a> About 95,000 to 130,000 Berlin women were raped during or after the battle. One doctor deduced that out of approximately 100,000 women raped in Berlin, some 10,000 died as a result, mostly from suicide (Antony Beevor, <i>The Fall of Berlin 1945</i>, Viking-Penguin Books, 2002, p. 414). The city’s population was "anything between 3 and 3.5 million people" (as before, p. 177). Some women were killed because they resisted or out of sheer sadism. German journalist Margret Boveri recorded in her diary entry on 03.05.1945 a particularly horrible case that occurred in the Dahlem district towards the end of the battle. A woman and her four child daughters, who she personally knew, and another woman with her daughter were found hanging in a cellar. They had been raped and badly mangled before their deaths. A snoring Russian was lying beside them. Boveri assumed that this had been a case of lust murder (Margret Boveri, <i>Tage des Überlebens</i>, Munich 1985, p. 106).<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref25" name="_ftn25">[25]</a> Peter Antill and Peter Dennis, <i>Berlin 1945. End of the Thousand Year Reich</i> (Osprey Publishing Limited, 2005), p. 85. A higher figure was given by Cornelius Ryan (<i>The Last Battle</i>, 1966 Simon and Schuster, New York, p. 337): "Even twenty years later no one knows with any certainty what the civilian losses were during the battle of Berlin. Even yet, bodies are being unearthed from ruins, in gardens, in parks where they were hurriedly interred during the battle, and from mass graves. However, based on statistical studies, probably close to 100,000 civilians died as a result of the battle. At least 20,000 succumbed to heart attacks, some 6,000 committed suicide, the remainder were either killed outright from shelling of street fighting or died later from wounds." However, Ryan’s 100,000 estimate referred to the entire area of the battle of Berlin and not to the city alone. About 10,000 civilians may have died in the Halbe encirlement outside the city (Beevor, <i>Berlin</i>, p. 337). According to Alexandra Richie (<i>Faust’s Metropolis – A History of Berlin</i>, London 1998, p. 756), when the Western Allies entered the city many of the "100,000 civilians who died in the Battle for Berlin" still lay unburied, US General Clay described Berlin as a "city of the dead", and US Colonel Sheen wrote that the stench of unburied dead was almost overpowering.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref26" name="_ftn26">[26]</a> Fisch and Klemeševa, ZOMEF 44-3, pp. 392-393.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref27" name="_ftn27">[27]</a> As above, p. 394.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref28" name="_ftn28">[28]</a> As above. The number 51,000 appears in the column of inhabitants to feed in the article but logically belongs in the column of inhabitants actually fed, as 82,000 inhabitants to feed are mentioned for June and 80,000 for July.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref29" name="_ftn29">[29]</a> As above, p. 395.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref30" name="_ftn30">[30]</a> The results of this calculation would be 68,431 instead of 68,686 in August, 67,223 instead of 68,019 in September and 64,103 instead of 65,810 on 20 October 1945.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref31" name="_ftn31">[31]</a> As above. The figures for the other communities are: Labiau 8,184; Pillkallen 4,254; Insterburg 1,317; Heiligenbeil 5,915; Friedland 2,544; Kranzburg 2,395; Gumbinnen 2,024; Tilsit 4,651; Heinrichswalde 3,988; Königsberg Land 7,754; Samland 20,893; Stallupönen 947; Wehlau 3,985; Darkehmen 1,146; Gerdauen 2,103. The PD mistakenly added up the figures for these communities and the 68,014 for Königsberg to 139,614, a difference of 500 in relation to the mathematically correct sum of 140,114.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref32" name="_ftn32">[32]</a> Kossert, as above. The title of the document is translated as "Bevölkerung in den Kreisen Ostpreußens, die an die UdSSR fielen (ohne Memelgebiet), am 1. September 1945" ("Population in the Districts of East Prussia that fell to the USSR (without Memel region), on 1 September 1945"). Kossert’s source is Eckhard Matthes (Hg.): <i>Als Russe in Ostpreußen. Sowjetische Umsiedler über ihren Neubeginn in Königsberg/Kaliningrad nach 1945</i>. Ostfildern 1999, p. 312.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref33" name="_ftn33">[33]</a> The first such civilians were returnees from forced labor under the Nazis who chose to stay in Königsberg. On 24 May 1945 the City Commandant ordered the city’s district commandants to provide the numbers of repatriated Soviet citizens, local inhabitants who could be used for qualified work, locals who could be used for other work and non-working people and children in families without food supply. Patients in local hospitals were not to be counted as they received food from other sources. (ZOMEF 44-3, p. 394)<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref34" name="_ftn34">[34]</a> <i>Grenzen der Sowjetmacht</i>, pp. 24-26.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref35" name="_ftn35">[35]</a> According to Wieck (<i>Zeugnis</i>, p. 301) Klopse (traditional Königsberg meatballs) sold on the black market in the winter of 1945/46 turned out to be made of human flesh, and the Russians found a literal human slaughterhouse in the ruins, where people were tricked to go and then killed for consumption. Von Lehndorff wrote that in October 1945 eating human flesh had been going on for some time here and there. He recalled the horror he had felt during the war when learning about cannibalism among Soviet PoWs, thinking that only "Asians" were capable of such things. Now the Soviets were concerned about cannibalism among the Germans, and one Dr. Rauch was called upon again and again to take part in autopsies, exhumations and examinations of meat chunks to determine if they were of human origin. (<i>Tagebuch</i>, p. 168). Under 19 March 1946 Deichelmann (<i>Königsberg</i>, AGK 25/95 p. 244) noted that a colleague of his appeared in the company of a Soviet "MVD" officer with a covered bucket containing meat that a German "bandit" (in Soviet parlance) had been selling. The buyer had become suspicious and alarmed the MVD. The physician opened the bucket, examined he chunks and found what was unmistakably a human knee. Cannibalism among the German population was also mentioned in official Soviet reports. One such report is cited in the <i>Spiegel</i> article "Zum Schluβ Schokolade", 27.06.1993.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref36" name="_ftn36">[36]</a> The German term "<a href="https://www.netdoktor.de/krankheiten/typhus/">Typhus</a>" designates a disease caused by salmonella bacteria that is usually contracted by consuming contaminated water or food but can also be transmitted from person to person. It is known in English as <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/typhoid-fever/">typhoid fever</a>. The English term <a href="https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/what-is-typhus">typhus</a>, on the other hand, designates a disease that is mostly transmitted by body lice. The German term for this disease is "<a href="https://www.netdoktor.de/krankheiten/fleckfieber/">Fleckfieber</a>", spotted fever.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref37" name="_ftn37">[37]</a> The danger was violence from Russian soldiers or criminal gangs. Von Lehndorff mentioned a gang of Russian adolescents that attacked women and on account of which people used to walk only in groups. He himself always had a crowbar in hand and made sure that everyone could see it. (<i>Tagebuch</i>, pp. 166-167). In charge of autopsies in the central hospital’s morgue, Deichelmann noted in his diary entry for 18 June 1947 that New York had 365 murders per year and Königsberg had seen that many within half a year (<i>Königsberg</i>, AGK 25/95 p. 305).<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref38" name="_ftn38">[38]</a> <i>Grenzen der Sowjetmacht</i>, pp. 23-24.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref39" name="_ftn39">[39]</a> ZOMEF 44-3, pp. 396-398. Besides the non-workers there were 1,100 skilled workers on the city’s infrastructures who received 600 g per day and 15,900 unskilled workers who received 400 g per day.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref40" name="_ftn40">[40]</a> Assuming 68,014 German inhabitants as per the Passport Department figures. If the number was 84,651, the mortality rate would still be almost 25 %.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref41" name="_ftn41">[41]</a> For comparison, the Great Plague of 1709 to 1711 killed about 200,000 to 245,000 people in East Prussia, ca. 30-40% of the region’s population of 600,000 at the time (Kossert, as above p. 99). The Great Plague of Marseille is estimated to have killed about 30 % the city’s population (Christian A.Devaux, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1567134812003681">"Small oversights that led to the Great Plague of Marseille (1720–1723): Lessons from the past"</a>, in: <i>Infection, Genetics and Evolution</i> Volume 14, March 2013, Pages 169-185). The Great Plague of London killed up to 20 % of the city’s inhabitants (Anne Roberts, <a href="https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/plague-england">"The Plague in England"</a>, <i>History Today</i> Volume 30 Issue 4 April 1980). The medieval Black Death killed about 30-50% of the population of the affected areas (Mark Cartwright, <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Black_Death/">"Black Death"</a>, <i>World History Encyclopedia</i>, 28 March 2020).<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref42" name="_ftn42">[42]</a> <i>Grenzen der Sowjetmacht</i>, pp. 33-35, 44, 54.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref43" name="_ftn43">[43]</a> As above, p. 41.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref44" name="_ftn44">[44]</a> As above, pp. 47-48.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref45" name="_ftn45">[45]</a> <i>Tagebuch</i>, pp. 150-151.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref46" name="_ftn46">[46]</a> As above, pp. 152-153.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref47" name="_ftn47">[47]</a> As above, p. 153.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref48" name="_ftn48">[48]</a> As above, p. 166.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref49" name="_ftn49">[49]</a> <i>Königsberg</i>, AGK 25/95, p. 202.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref50" name="_ftn50">[50]</a> As above, p. 210. "Fleck" is the inner part of a bovine stomach cut in slices, an East Prussian delicacy when properly prepared. The hospital received these by the barrel, insufficiently salted and stinking so badly in the warm weather that the whole kitchen was polluted. The patients nevertheless ate them for lack of alternative, and so did the staff. Sometimes the staff held the nose shut with the one hand and ate with the other (as above, p. 209).<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref51" name="_ftn51">[51]</a> As above, p. 211.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref52" name="_ftn52">[52]</a> As above, p. 212. <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref53" name="_ftn53">[53]</a> As above, p. 214. <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref54" name="_ftn54">[54]</a> As above. <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref55" name="_ftn55">[55]</a>As above, p. 225. <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref56" name="_ftn56">[56]</a> As above, p. 232. <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref57" name="_ftn57">[57]</a> As above, pp. 235-236.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref58" name="_ftn58">[58]</a> As above, p. 236. <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref59" name="_ftn59">[59]</a> As above, p. 239. <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref60" name="_ftn60">[60]</a> As above, p. 242. <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref61" name="_ftn61">[61]</a> As above. <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref62" name="_ftn62">[62]</a>As above, p. 247 <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref63" name="_ftn63">[63]</a> As above, p. 250. <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref64" name="_ftn64">[64]</a> As above, p. 254. <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref65" name="_ftn65">[65]</a> As above, pp. 254. <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref66" name="_ftn66">[66]</a> As above, p. 258. <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref67" name="_ftn67">[67]</a> Presumably unknown to Deichelmann, Noma (a cancerous growth, usually fatal, which appears mostly on the face, as the result of starvation and physical debility) was also observed in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Rudolf Höss described it in his autobiography (<i>Commandant of Auschwitz. The Autobiography of Rudolf Hoess</i>. Translated by Constantine FitzGibbon. Phoenix Press, London, 2000. Page 126): "ln July 1942. the Reichsführer SS visited the camp. I took him all over the gypsy camp. He made a most thorough inspection of everything, noting the overcrowded barrack-huts, the unhygienic conditions, the crammed hospital building. He saw those who were sick with infectious diseases, and the children suffering from Noma, which always made me shudder, since it reminded me of leprosy and of the lepers I had seen in Palestine-their little bodies wasted away, with gaping holes in their cheeks big enough for a man to see through, a slow putrefaction of the living body."<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref68" name="_ftn68">[68]</a> <i>Königsberg</i>, AGK 25/95, pp. 259-260. <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref69" name="_ftn69">[69]</a> As above, p. 278. <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref70" name="_ftn70">[70]</a> As above, pp. 279-280. <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref71" name="_ftn71">[71]</a> As above, p. 281.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref72" name="_ftn72">[72]</a> As above, p. 282.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref73" name="_ftn73">[73]</a> As above, pp. 282-283. <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref74" name="_ftn74">[74]</a> As above, p. 285. <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref75" name="_ftn75">[75]</a> As above, p. 286.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref76" name="_ftn76">[76]</a> As above, p. 287.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref77" name="_ftn77">[77]</a> As above.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref78" name="_ftn78">[78]</a> As above, pp. 288-289.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref79" name="_ftn79">[79]</a> As above, p. 290.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref80" name="_ftn80">[80]</a> Cormac O’Grada, <i>Famine. A Short History</i> (2009 Princeton University Press), Chapter IV section "What do People die of during Famines" (pp. 108-211).<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref81" name="_ftn81">[81]</a> As above, pp. 110-112 and 114.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref82" name="_ftn82">[82]</a> As above, pp. 112-113.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref83" name="_ftn83">[83]</a> Beevor, <i>Berlin</i>, p. 392.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref84" name="_ftn84">[84]</a> Timothy Snyder, <i>Bloodlands : Europe between Hitler and Stalin</i> (New York, Basic Books, 2010), p. 336.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref85" name="_ftn85">[85]</a> Christian Streit, "Deutsche und sowjetische Kriegsgefangene", in: Wolfram Wette/Gerd R. Ueberschär, Kriegsverbrechen im 20. Jahrhundert (2001 Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft Darmstadt) pp. 178 to 192; Günter Böddeker/Paul Carell, <i>Die Gefangenen. Leben und Überleben deutscher Soldaten hinter Stacheldraht</i> (Ullstein, Frankfurt/Main 1996), pp. 370-371.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref86" name="_ftn86">[86]</a> <i>Zeugnis</i>, pp. 265, 272.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref87" name="_ftn87">[87]</a> <i>Königsberg</i>, entry of 31 August 1947, AGK 25/95 p. 318.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref88" name="_ftn88">[88]</a> Entry of 5 September 1947, as above p. 318.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref89" name="_ftn89">[89]</a> Entry of 30 April 1947, as above p. 296.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref90" name="_ftn90">[90]</a> Entry of 31 December 1947, as above p. 336.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref91" name="_ftn91">[91]</a> Entry of 31 August 1947, as above pp. 318.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref92" name="_ftn92">[92]</a> Entry of 31 December 1947, as above pp. 336-337.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref93" name="_ftn93">[93]</a> Entry of 31 August 1947, as above p. 318.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref94" name="_ftn94">[94]</a> Entry of 31 December 1946, as above p. 281.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref95" name="_ftn95">[95]</a> For example, the first Soviet city commandant of Berlin, General Berzarin, who went out and chatted with Germans queuing at Red Army field kitchens, became almost as much of a hero to Berliners as he was to his own men. His death in a drunken motorcycle accident on 16 June 1945 provoked widespread sadness and rumors among the Germans that he had been murdered by the NKVD (Beevor, <i>Berlin</i>, p. 409). In conquered Dresden the Soviets "showed some genuine concern" for the welfare of the German population. On May 16, 1945, the Red Army released thirty thousand tons of potatoes, ninety-five hundred tons of wheat, and eleven hundred tons of meat and other provisions to cover the Dresdeners’ emergency needs. By May 20, hundreds of food stores and bakeries had reopened for business, and a rationing system was initiated to avoid outright starvation. (Frederick Taylor, <i>Dresden Tuesday, 13 February 1945</i>, HarperCollins e-books, p. 385).<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref96" name="_ftn96">[96]</a> ZOMEF 44-3, p. 398.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref97" name="_ftn97">[97]</a> <i>Zeugnis</i>, pp. 268-269, 301.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref98" name="_ftn98">[98]</a> <i>Königsberg</i>, entry of 31 December 1947, AGK 25/95 p. 335.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref99" name="_ftn99">[99]</a> Entry of 1 July 1947, as above p. 306. <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref100" name="_ftn100">[100]</a> <i>Grenzen der Sowjetmacht</i>, pp. 36-40.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref101" name="_ftn101">[101]</a> <i>Königsberg</i>, entry of 31 December 1947, AGK 25/95 pp. 333-334.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref102" name="_ftn102">[102]</a> <i>Grenzen der Sowjetmacht</i>, p. 33.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref103" name="_ftn103">[103]</a> 1,799 deaths outside and 881 deaths in hospitals on 20 September, respectively 2,933 and 901 deaths on 20 October (ZOMEF 44-3, p. 396).<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref104" name="_ftn104">[104]</a> <i>Zeugnis</i>, pp. 264-265.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref105" name="_ftn105">[105]</a> Kossert, as above.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref106" name="_ftn106">[106]</a> As above pp. 347-348.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref107" name="_ftn107">[107]</a> Lasch, as above.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref108" name="_ftn108">[108]</a> ZOMEF 44-3, p. 399.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref109" name="_ftn109">[109]</a> As above, p. 400.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref110" name="_ftn110">[110]</a> As above, p. 399.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref111" name="_ftn111">[111]</a> According to German Federal Statistics Office (Dr. Werner Nellner, "Die Vertreibungsverluste der Bevölkerung in den Ostgebieten des Deutschen Reiches", <a href="https://www.statistischebibliothek.de/mir/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/DEAusgabe_derivate_00000950/Wirtschaft_und_Statistik-1956-10.pdf"><i>Wirtschaft und Statistik</i>, Heft 10, Oktober 1956</a>, pp. 496 to 498), East Prussia had a population of about 2.43 million when the war began and gained 170,000 inhabitants due to excess births over deaths from then until 1950, for a total of 2.6 million. Of these about 290,000, that is more than 11 %, were considered probable deaths during flight and expulsion. Adding about 210,000 wartime deaths among German troops from East Prussia yields half a million, which would mean that nearly 20 % of East Prussia’s population lost their lives during and after the war. 1.94 million were assumed by Nellner to have found refuge on East and West German territory as of 13 September 1950, and about 140,000 were assumed to still be on East Prussian territory under "foreign rule" by Poland and the Soviet Union.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref112" name="_ftn112">[112]</a> Of these, according to the previous calculations, 24,397 would have died from September 1945 to May 1946 and 6,100 from then until April 1947.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref113" name="_ftn113">[113]</a> <i>Grenzen der Sowjetmacht</i>, p. 62. Starlinger highlighted how much conditions had improved by the time of his incarceration.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref114" name="_ftn114">[114]</a>Based on the figures in Richard Overy, <i>The Dictators. Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia</i>, Allen Lane, p. 613, it can be calculated that from 1945 to 1947 the average annual population of the Gulag camps was 757,072. The total number of recorded deaths in these years was 97,670 (from Overy, p. 615), that is 32,557 per year on average, a mortality rate of 4.30% p.a.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref115" name="_ftn115">[115]</a><i>Vertreibungsverbrechen 1945—1948. Bericht des Bundesarchivs vom 28. Mai 7974. Archivalien und ausgewählte Eriebnisberichte.</i> Kulturstiftung der deutschen Vertriebenen, Bonn, 1989. The figures are on pp. 40-41.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref116" name="_ftn116">[116]</a> Overy, as above pp. 613, 615.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref117" name="_ftn117">[117]</a> Calculated from Overy, as above.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref118" name="_ftn118">[118]</a> According to Pavel Polian (<i>Against their Will. The History and Geography of Forced Migrations in the USSR</i>, p. 194) there were 134,400 Kalmyks in the USSR in 1939, of whom 44,125 had died by 1 August 1948 – ca. 32.83%.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref119" name="_ftn119">[119]</a> Estimates of the number of Leningrad civilian siege victims go up to 1 million or more, but probably the most realistic estimate is that about 800,000 out of an immediate pre-siege population of about 2.5 million perished. This order of magnitude is mentioned in Harrison E. Salisbury, <a href="https://erenow.net/ww/the-900-days-the-siege-of-leningrad/">The 900 Days. The Siege of Leningrad.</a> (Avon Books, New York, 1970), pp. 590ff.; Anna Reid, <i>Leningrad. The Epic Siege of World War II, 1941-1944</i> (2011 Bloomsbury, London), Appendix I (pp. 417-418); various sources cited in <i>Blockade Leningrads 1941-1944. Dossiers</i> (a publication of the Museum Berlin Karlshorst in German and Russian), pp. 110-113. For a history of military operations in the Leningrad region see David M. Glantz, <i>The Siege of Leningrad 1941-1944. 900 Days of Terror</i>, Spellmont, UK, 2001.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref120" name="_ftn120">[120]</a> See my series <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2018/08/mattogno-takes-on-jager-report-well-he_18.html">Mattogno takes on the Jäger Report (well, he tries)</a><br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html#_ftnref121" name="_ftn121">[121]</a> <i>Zeugnis</i>, p. 303, my translation: "The faster one died, the better. In the end, according to my estimate, it was 100,000 out of originally 120,000 to 130,000 civilians who did the Russians this favor. Hitler wanted Europe ‘clean of Jews’, Stalin East Prussia ‘clean of Germans’. Nevertheless, the one can never be compared with the other."<br />Roberto Muehlenkamphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03608133715777146924noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24597325.post-67340740205609103602021-07-18T09:51:00.007+01:002023-01-17T13:53:40.254+00:00Crimes and Mercies, by James Bacque This article is not about Holocaust denial. Or maybe a different sort of denial, which consists in blowing up (or simply inventing) crimes committed by Nazi Germany’s opponents in order to play down those of Nazi Germany. <br />
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The late Canadian writer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bacque">James Bacque</a>, who became (in)famous as the author of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Losses">Other Losses</a>, wrote a follow-up book with the title <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1774913.Crimes_and_Mercies">Crimes and Mercies</a>.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a></sup> The "crimes" part is summarized in the Goodreads advertisement as follows:<br />
<blockquote>More than 9 million Germans died as a result of deliberate Allied starvation and expulsion policies after World War II—one quarter of the country was annexed, and about 15 million people expelled in the largest act of ethnic cleansing the world has ever known. Over 2 million of these alone, including countless children, died on the road or in concentration camps in Poland and elsewhere. That these deaths occurred at all is still being denied by Western governments.</blockquote><br />
The 9 million is actually Bacque’s minimum figure. He suggested that it might be much higher:<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">[2]</a></sup>
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Though Bacque didn’t expressly state this, the idea he tried to convey is clear: the Allies committed at least one, perhaps even two crimes on the scale of the Nazi genocide of Europe’s Jews. They were no better than the Nazis. Arguably even worse.
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How did Bacque arrive at these sensational figures?
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The 9.3 million "minimum" has 3 components: 1.5 million German prisoners of war, 2.1 million German expellees and 5.7 million German indigenous inhabitants of the four Allied occupation zones, which later became East Germany (the extinct "German Democratic Republic") and West Germany (the German Federal Republic). Bacque’s claims regarding these three groups will be examined in turn.
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<b>Prisoners of War</b>
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Bacque repeated his <i>Other Losses</i> contentions whereby "undoubtedly" over 800,000, "almost certainly" over 900,000 and "quite likely" over a million German PoWs died in US or French captivity beginning in April 1945.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3">[3]</a></sup> Baqcue claimed that his figures were vindicated by records of the former Soviet Union whereby 450,600 German PoWs died in Soviet captivity.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4">[4]</a></sup> This is supposed to mean that the majority of PoW deaths were attributable to the Americans and French.
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The total number of deaths in the German armed forces (including Austrians and ethnic Germans from outside the German Reich in its prewar borders) in active service or captivity during or after WWII was in the order of 4.3 million, of which 1.2 million were still reported as missing as of 2005, that is, their places of burial had not yet been found.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5">[5]</a></sup> In 2005 Manfred Stiel, head of the grave locations section of the German War Graves Commission (<i>Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V.</i>), stated that the number of dead and missing servicemen in the East was estimated at about 3 million, and most of the missing (at least 650,000) were held to have died in Soviet captivity.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6">[6]</a></sup> I think the figure for the East must be somewhat higher than 3 million, as 3 million on the Eastern Front would imply 1.3 million elsewhere, which, based on what is known from other sources about German losses in other theaters, I consider much too high. These sources include the most complete (though still very much incomplete) wartime tabulation of losses suffered by the German armed forces, the Wehrmacht High Command’s monthly casualty reports of January 1945, showing <i>Tote durch Feindeinwirkung</i> - deaths from enemy action, including killed in action (KIA), and died of wounds (DOW), <i>Verwundete und Erkrankte durch Feindeinwirkung</i> (wounded in action and sick - hereinafter WIA) and <i>Vermisste</i> (missing in action - hereinafter MIA).<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7">[7]</a></sup> Figures are given for the following branches of service and theaters of operations:
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<i>Heer</i> (field army, including Waffen-SS units): <i>Osten</i> (Eastern Europe), <i>AOK 20 (WB Norwegen)</i> (the Northern Theater of Operations, including Norway and Finland), <i>OB Südwest</i> (Southwestern Europe), <i>OB Südost</i> (Southeastern Europe), <i>OB West</i> (Western Europe), <i>Ersatzheer</i> (replacement army). The table on the dead further includes a number (295,659) of DOW (<i>An Verwundung Verstorbene</i>), which is not broken down by theaters.<br />
<i>Kriegsmarine</i> (Navy): <i>Atlantik und sonstige Meere</i> (Atlantic and Other Seas), <i>Osten</i> (East) and <i>Mittelmeer</i> (Mediterranean).<br />
<i>Luftwaffe</i> (Air Force): <i>Westen + Erweitertes Reichsgebiet</i> (West + Expanded Reich Territory), <i>Süden</i> (South), <i>Osten</i> (East) and <i>Betriebsverluste</i> (Operational Losses, i.e. losses through accidents or in training). The Luftwaffe figures include airborne troops.<br />
The table below shows the Wehrmacht High Command’s figures, which refer to the period from 1.9.1939 to 31.1.1945 and add up to 1,793,010 dead (thereof 1,497,351 KIA, broken down by theaters, and 295,659 DOW, not broken down), 4,401,049 WIA and 1,901,940 MIA, for a total of 8,095,999 casualties (7,800,340 without DOW). The MIA figure obviously includes, in unknown relative proportions, servicemen killed in action and prisoners of war. The sum of KIA and MIA is 3,399,291, the sum of KIA and DoW is 5,898,400.
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Table 0
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Adding up the figures of the three branches of services for <i>Osten</i> yields 1,164,755 KIA (77.79% of the total of 1,497,351), 3,621,568 WIA (82.29% of the total of 4,401,049) and 1,071,415 MIA (56.33% of the total of 1,901,940), the sum of the three categories being 5,857,738 (75.10% of the total of 7,800,340). Of the 3,399,291 KIA+MIA, 2,236,170 (65.78%) correspond to the East, whereas of the 5,898,400 KIA+WIA 4,786,323 (81.15%) occurred in the East.
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These figures, as already mentioned, are everything other than complete, first because they only go until 31.1.1945 and second because there must have been a considerable backlog in reporting. However, they show a clear predominance of the East as concerns KIA (77.79%), WIA (82.29%), KIA+WIA (81.15%) and KIA+WIA+MIA (75.10%).
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Though there are no comparable figures for the remaining period of the war, there’s no reason to assume that the proportions were higher in other theaters than in the East during that period. To be sure, there were far more prisoners of war in northwestern Europe (especially in the last two months, when German troops surrendered in masses to the Western Allies without putting up much of a fight if any at all), but the proportion of KIA and WIA in the East was, if anything, higher than in the period up to 31 January 1945. According to the <i>Heeresarzt</i> (Army Medical Officer) Reports for the field army in the period from 1 February to 20 April 1945<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8">[8]</a></sup> (when recording ended), 108,181 out of 129,816 killed (83.33%) and 494,003 out of 564,440 wounded (87.52%) occurred on the Eastern Front. For the period 1–10.4.1945, the <i>Heeresarzt</i> recorded 12,510 killed in the East vs. 100 killed in the West.
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Estimates of the number of deaths in captivity vary, especially as concerns Eastern Europe. There are older estimates, published in a study by a commission under <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Maschke#Post-1945">Erich Maschke</a>, whereby 1,219,187 German PoWs died in captivity, thereof 1,094,250 in Soviet captivity.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9">[9]</a></sup> More recent estimates put the death toll in Soviet captivity at about 650,000<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10">[10]</a></sup> or 700,000.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11">[11]</a></sup>
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If out of ca. 4,300,000 German military dead from WWII 1,219,187 perished in captivity, the remaining 3,080,813 died in active service. Applying the above proportion of KIA East vs. KIA in other theaters according to the January 1945 Wehrmacht Report (77.79%) to the total number who died in active service yields 2,396,494 deaths in active service for the Eastern Front. The total of German servicemen who perished on the Eastern Front or in Soviet captivity would thus be (2,396,494 + 1,094,250 =) 3,490,744, that is, 81.18% of German military deaths in World War II.
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If the number of deaths in Soviet captivity was not 1,094,250 but in the order of the 650,000 mentioned by Stiel, the number of German military deaths in captivity (assuming that Maschke’s other figures are correct) would be 774,937 (USSR 650,000, Eastern and Southeastern Europe 93,028, France 24,178, USA 5,802, Great Britain 1,254, others 675), leaving 3,525,063 deaths in active service. 77.79 % of these would be 2,742,066 on the Eastern Front. The total of German servicemen who perished on the Eastern Front or in Soviet captivity would thus be (2,742,066 + 650,000 =) 3,392,066, that is 78.89% of German military deaths in World War II. This scenario I consider the more probable. If deaths in US captivity were higher than 5,802, the number of deaths in captivity increases and the number of deaths in active service decreases accordingly.<br /><br />
The German War Grave’s Commission’s 2005 estimate of 650,000 deaths in Soviet captivity exceeds the official Soviet figure by 199,400. Soviet figures on PoW deaths may be incomplete as concerns PoWs killed right after capture or in transit to PoW camps. For instance, only 9,147 out of about 60-70,000 German PoWs captured by the Soviets until the end of 1941 reached the camps in the rear.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12">[12]</a></sup> It is also possible that the number who died in Soviet captivity was lower and the number who died in active service was correspondingly higher than my estimates. Indicative of this possibility is the fact that large numbers of German war dead continue being found on battlefields throughout Eastern Europe.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13">[13]</a></sup> Either possibility is more plausible than Bacque’s fantasies. I still haven’t given up hope that the remains of my uncle, <a href="http://www.geocities.ws/orion47.geo/WEHRMACHT/HEER/Muhlenkamp.html ">Obergefreiter Ernst August Schmidt</a>, will one day be found somewhere in the Czech Republic and given a decent burial.<br /><br />
The actual number of deaths in US captivity in the <a href="http://rheinwiesen-lager.de/rheinwiesenlager/">Rheinwiesenlager</a> was up to 40,000.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14">[14]</a></sup>
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<b>German refugees/expellees</b>
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Bacque’s "minimum" figure for expellees is in an order of magnitude that has been around since the 1950s. It includes not only postwar expellees but also refugees who perished during the war, and it was defended in 2006 by Christoph Bergner, then Secretary of State in the German Federal Republic’s Ministry of the Interior, against recent studies whereby the number of refugees and expellees who perished is much lower.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn15" name="_ftnref15">[15]</a></sup> However, Bacque suggested that there might be 2.5 million <i>on top</i> of those 2.1 million and the total might be as high as 6 million, a figure claimed by German chancellor Konrad Adenauer at a speech in Bern on 23.03.1949<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn16" name="_ftnref16">[16]</a></sup>, which is reproduced in Adenauer’s memoirs.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn17" name="_ftnref17">[17]</a></sup> So I’ll have a look at these figures.<br /><br />
An essential source for understanding the evolution of Germany’s population in the postwar period is a collection of four articles published under the overall heading "Deutsche Bevölkerungsbilanz des 2. Weltkrieges" in the October 1956 edition of <i>Wirtschaft und Statistik</i>, a publication of the <i>Statistisches Bundesamt</i>, the German Statistics Office.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn18" name="_ftnref18">[18]</a></sup> I would encourage anyone who reads German to read it. The articles that are of interest for this discussion are "Einführung und Zusammenfassung" by Dr. Kurt Horstmann, "Gesamtüberblick der Bevölkerungsentwicklung 1939 - 1946 – 1955" by Dr. Karl Schwarz and "Die Vertreibungsverluste der Bevölkerung in den Ostgebieten des Deutschen Reiches" by Dr. Werner Nellner. The fourth article, "Die Luftkriegsverluste während des zweiten Weltkrieges in Deutschland" by Dr. Hans Sperling, is an analysis of wartime civilian losses due to bombing attacks and thus not relevant for this discussion.<br /><br />
Although Bacque referred to various publications of the German Statistics Office, he ignored the "Deutsche Bevölkerungsbilanz des 2. Weltkrieges". If the reason was that he considered it unreliable, he should at least have mentioned it. Anyway, this source renders moot his conjectures about losses among German refugees and the indigenous population of the four occupation zones that eventually became the two German states.<br /><br />
The article by Dr. Karl Schwarz includes a table "Bevölkerungsbilanz des Deutschen Reiches 1939-1946 und 1939-1955". This table shows population figures for the 1939-1946 period based on a census conducted at the behest of the occupying powers on 29.10.1946<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn19" name="_ftnref19">[19]</a></sup> and projected figures for the 1939-1955 period. Not shown in the table are the results of censuses in 1950 conducted separately in the German Federal Republic (West Germany including West Berlin) and the "German Democratic Republic" (aka East Germany), but some figures in the articles of Schwarz and Nellner are given based on the 13 September 1950 census in the German Federal Republic and estimates for East Berlin, the "Soviet occupation zone" (although the "German Democratic Republic" had been created from the Soviet occupation zone in 1949, it was not yet recognized in 1956 as a state by the German Federal Republic) and the Saarland. The Saarland’s population was included in the 1946 census figures, as it was part of the French occupation zone, but not in the 1950 figures for the German Federal Republic as the Saarland was not yet part of it but under French administration as a protectorate. The projection for 1955, however, included the population of the Saarland, presumably because it was expected that it would soon join the German Federal Republic pursuant to one of the pacts signed between West Germany and France (it actually joined later). Below is a copy of Table 1 in Schwarz’s article containing the aforementioned figures, followed by a table I made with these figures and a translation of the designations in Table 1.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn20" name="_ftnref20">[20]</a></sup>
<br /><br />
Table 1
<br /><br />
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<br /><br />
Table 1a
<br /><br />
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<br /><br />
Note the designations "expellees from abroad" and "eastern territories of the German Reich now under foreign administration". The expression "now under foreign administration" is due to the fact that, while the relevant territories were now part of Poland or the Soviet Union, the German Federal Republic had not yet acknowledged this as a final situation (that only happened with the pacts signed by German chancellor Willi Brandt in the early 1970s). The population of these territories, which had been living in the German Reich in its borders as of 31.12.1937 on 17.05.1939, was not listed separately except as concerns those who were still living under "foreign administration" (1,750,000 in 1946, 1,040,000 in 1955) and the expulsion losses and deportees (1,260,000), because its original stock had been part of the German population in 1939. The "expellees from abroad", on the other hand, were ethnic Germans who had been living outside Germany on the territory of various foreign states (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia) as of 17.05.1939. They were thus not part of the prewar German population but had only been added to that population after the war. Therefore, unlike the refugees from the eastern territories of the former German Reich who had only moved from one part thereof to another, they were listed separately in the table.<br /><br />
The population figures according to the separate censuses in both Germanys, 18,388,172 in East Germany and 49,842,624 in West Germany<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn21" name="_ftnref21">[21]</a></sup>, add up to 68,230,796, a figure also used by Bacque. As mentioned above, this figure does not include the Saarland, so in order to compare it with the 1946 figure of 65,310,000, which includes the Saarland, the Saarland’s population has to be added. According to Schwarz’s article<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn22" name="_ftnref22">[22]</a></sup> the Saarland’s population at the end of 1955 was in the order of 1 million. The population in 1950 cannot have been much lower, according to an online source it was 955,000.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn23" name="_ftnref23">[23]</a></sup> The 1950 comparator of the 1946 figure of 65,310,000 would thus be 68,230,796 + 955,000 = <b>69,185,796</b>.<br /><br />
As concerns the refugees/expellees, Dr. Nellner’s afore mentioned article includes two tables, which are reproduced below.
<br /><br />
Table 2
<br /><br />
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<br /><br />
Table 3
<br /><br />
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<br /><br />
Table 2 is about the population of eastern territories of the German Reich under "foreign administration", Table 3 about the ethnic German population abroad except for the Soviet Union (that is, ethnic Germans who before the war had been living on territory of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary and Yugoslavia). In the overview below I put the figures from both tables together. As some of Nellner’s figures were apparently not rounded to two decimals when adding them up, there are some differences in the sums, but these are minimal (the difference to the Table 2 total of 7.09 million is 0.02 million, the difference to the Table 3 total of 4.51 million is none). To match the breakdown with the totals of 7.09 million + 4.51 million = 11.60 million, I arbitrarily changed some figures by give or take 10,000. Some subtotals are thus slightly different in my overview than in the above tables. The figures from the above tables are rendered in brackets in the text following my overview.
<br /><br />
Table 4
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<br /><br />
One can see that the total prewar German population of the territories considered was estimated at about 16,940,000, thereof about 9,530,000 in the eastern territories of the German Reich in its 1937 borders and 7,410,000 ethnic Germans outside Germany in its 1937 borders. Of these about 1,030,000 (1,020,000), thereof 650,000 (640,000) from the eastern territories and 380,000 ethnic Germans from abroad, were assumed to have died as members of the German armed forces, and 2,460,000 (2,470,000), thereof 1,030,000 (1,040,000) from the eastern territories of the Reich and 1,430,000 ethnic Germans from abroad, were assumed to be still living in September 1950 on the territories where they had lived before the war. 450,000 were now living in western countries, 100,000 were still living as prisoners of war or deportees, and 11,600,000 (7,090,000 from the eastern territories, 4,510,000 ethnic Germans from abroad)<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn24" name="_ftnref24">[24]</a></sup> were living on territory of East Germany or West Germany as of 13 September 1950. There were an estimated about 2,290,000 (2,280,000), thereof 1,270,000 (1,260,000) from the eastern territories and 1,020,000 from abroad, whose fate had not been clarified and who were presumed to have perished during flight and expulsion.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn25" name="_ftnref25">[25]</a></sup> Of the 7,090,000 now living on territory of the two Germanys, according to Nellner<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn26" name="_ftnref26">[26]</a></sup>, about <b>5,760,000</b> had been living in the four occupation zones at the time of the 1946 census. Additionally, about <b>4,080,000</b> ethnic German refugees/expellees from outside the 1937 German borders were living in the four occupation zones and included in the 1946 census figure. So, a total of about <b>9,840,000</b> refugees/expellees were living on territory of what later became the two Germanys as of 29.10.1946<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn27" name="_ftnref27">[27]</a></sup>, and another <b>1,760,000</b> (1,330,000 from the eastern territories, 430,000 ethnic Germans from outside the 1937 German borders) arrived there between that census date and 13 September 1950, the date of the census in the German Federal Republic.<br /><br />
I highlight these figures because of their importance for the later analysis of Bacque’s claims regarding losses among the indigenous German population of the four occupation zones/two Germanys. But first let’s have a look at the Germans who remained behind where they had been living before the war, as Bacque suggested that they also died.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn28" name="_ftnref28">[28]</a></sup> Who were these people? As concerns the eastern territories, Nellner explained as follows<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn29" name="_ftnref29">[29]</a></sup> (my translation):<br />
<blockquote>A larger group of Germans was deported both by the Poles and the Soviets or retained in their home territories because they were needed as specialized labor. Besides that, especially Poland was eager to "polonize" [quote marks added] the eastern German territories handed over to it as fast as possible and also show that they held a large indigenous Polish population. For this reason, they recurred to the term "autoctonous", by which they designate the local population they could not simply declare as Polish without wanting to admit that they were Germans. It is noteworthy, however, that this group of persons was first subject to a so-called verification procedure. This procedure offered no true choice, as those affected had no say in whether or not they wanted to be included in the program. This applied to a very few who spoke Polish and a larger group who usually communicated in the Upper Silesian, Masuria and Kashubian local languages and besides these also spoke German. The largest group included in the program, however, were Upper Silesians who only spoke German. It can thus be proven that almost exclusively such persons were stated to be autoctonous who until the end of the war had affirmed their German identity. In Silesia alone these are 800,000 persons, but on the whole one must assume about 1.04 million Germans who stayed behind in the eastern territories of the German Reich.</blockquote><br />
So, unlike what Bacque obviously assumed, the Poles (who had taken over the former eastern territories of the German Reich except for East Prussia, which became part of the Soviet Union) by no means wanted to get rid of all the German population, at least not so fast. They needed a sizable part thereof as specialized labor or merely to populate the territories with a supposedly indigenous Polish population. Thus, they made many ethnic Germans look like Poles (something that Nellner seems to have been indignant about), at least for some time as the number of stay-behinds decreased from 1.75 million in 1946 to 1.04 million in 1955.<br /><br />
Regarding ethnic Germans who had lived outside the 1937 German borders, Nellner wrote the following<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn30" name="_ftnref30">[30]</a></sup> (my translation):<br />
<blockquote>Among the 4.92 million Germans known in 1950 to have been expelled from abroad about 3 million had before the war lived in Czechoslovakia, 0.70 million in Poland, 0.30 million in Yugoslavia and 0.28 million in Danzig. Deduction of births and deaths from the time of expulsion until the end of 1950, which have been calculated as 140,000, yields 4.78 million Germans from abroad who after expulsion from their homeland were received in Germany (Federal Republic, Berlin, Soviet occupation zone and Saarland); that is 65 % of the population of these territories at the end of the war. For the remaining 2.51 million information about their whereabouts had to be obtained. For some territories, especially for the states of southeastern Europe, various data about the Germans still living there have been published in the last years. These numbers must however be examined in detail, as they are not always free from tendentiousness. For Poland, the Baltic States and other territories, however, extensive inquiries had to be made. The result was a total of 1.43 million persons, thereof 410,000 in Romania, 400,000 in Poland, 290,000 in Hungary and 250,000 in Czechoslovakia. It is furthermore estimated that about 60,000 to 70,000 ethnic Germans are still alive as prisoners of war, missing and deportees and others that cannot be established. This leaves a remainder of about 1 million unclarified cases, the larger part of which must be considered expulsion losses.</blockquote><br />
So, it seems that entities of the German Federal Republic looked as deeply as circumstances permitted into the matter of what had happened to German inhabitants of the former eastern territories of the German Reich and ethnic German minorities outside the 1937 borders. Bacque apparently didn’t bother to inform himself about this research, or then he dismissed it without further ado because he thought it could not be "believed"<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn31" name="_ftnref31">[31]</a></sup>.<br /><br />
What about Adenauer? Indeed, the German chancellor stated the following, in his already mentioned speech in Bern on 23 March 1949<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn32" name="_ftnref32">[32]</a></sup> (my translation):<br />
<blockquote>From the eastern parts of Germany, from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary etc., as established by the Americans, a total of 13.3 million Germans were expelled. Of these 7.3 million arrived in the Eastern Zone and mainly in the three Western Zones. 6 million Germans disappeared from the face of the earth. They died and rotted away.</blockquote><br />
7.3 million is a little more than the number of expellees from the eastern territories of the German Reich alone who lived on German territory as of 13 September 1950, in addition to 4.5 million ethnic Germans from outside the 1937 borders. So, Adenauer obviously based his calculation on faulty information. Adenauer may not have been aware of the actual 1950 figures, but he made this statement three years after the 1946 census, whose figures included a higher total number of refugees or expellees (<b>9.84</b> million, as mentioned above) who were on territory of the four occupation zones at that time. This means that he or whoever gave him the figures was either careless or in bad faith. Whichever it was, the mistake is so obvious that no serious researcher of history would give Adenauer’s figure a chance of being realistic. Bacque, however, seems to have been guided by the principle that whatever served the ideas he was trying to convey might be useful, however far-fetched.<br /><br />
So much for the refugees/expellees, now for the whopper among Bacque’s figures.
<br /><br />
<b>Indigenous population of the four occupation zones</b>
<br /><br />
Bacque claimed that there were about <b>5.7 million unrecorded deaths</b> among German civilians other than refugees in the 1946-1950 period, more precisely between the census dates 29.10.1946 and 13.09.1950.<br /><br />
Nothing like this order of magnitude has been proposed by any historian. To grasp just how extraordinary it is, one must put it in relation to figures on German civilian war losses estimated by historians and search services. According to the latter, the total number of German civilian losses during the war and in the immediate postwar period is in the order of about 3.1 million, including civilians killed by bombing or ground fighting, deaths during flight and expulsion and victims of Nazi persecution and mass murder.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn33" name="_ftnref33">[33]</a></sup> Adding Bacque’s 5.7 million to these 3.1 million yields 8.8 million, almost three times what is already a comparatively high estimate of German civilian casualties.<br /><br />
How did Bacque arrive at this figure? He explained it on pp. 121-122 of Crimes and Mercies:
<br />
<blockquote>The population of all occupied Germany in October 1946 was 65,000,000, according to the census prepared under the ACC.29 The returning prisoners who were added to the population in the period October 1946-September 1950 numbered 2,600,000 (rounded), according to records in the archives of the four principal Allies. Births according to the official German statistical agency, Statistisches Bundesamt, added another 4,176,430 newcomers to Germany.30 The expellees arriving totalled 6,000,000. Thus the total population in 1950 before losses would have been 77,776,430, according to the Allies themselves. Deaths officially recorded in the period 1946-50 were 3,235,539, according to the UN Yearbook and the German government.31 Emigration was about 600,000, according to the German government.32 Thus the population found should have been 73,940,891. But the census of 1950 done by the German government under Allied supervision found only 68,230,796.33 There was a shortage of 5,710,095 people, according to the official Allied figures (rounded to 5,700,000).*</blockquote>
<br />
So, this was Bacque’s calculation:
<br /><br />
Table 5
<br /><br />
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<br /><br />
What’s wrong with this calculation?
<br /><br />
First of all, as mentioned above, the 1946 census figure included the Saarland, whereas the 1950 censuses did not. So, in order to compare 1946 with 1950 figures the population of the Saarland (which I assumed to be 955,000 million) has to be added to the latter, yielding 69,185,796. There goes the first of Bacque’s 5.7 million.<br /><br />
The 2.6 million returned prisoners of war were calculated by Bacque and must be taken with a big grain of salt on that account already, considering Bacque’s past performance. Moreover, Bacque’s figure is much higher than the one given by Schwarz, whose Table 1 shows 1,750,000 surviving prisoners of war outside Germany in 1946, of which 1,740,000 had returned by 1955.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn34" name="_ftnref34">[34]</a></sup> However, Bacque’s trump card was the 6 million expellees who supposedly arrived between 1946 and 1950. Where did he get this figure from? Bacque rendered his source and reasoning as follows<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn35" name="_ftnref35">[35]</a></sup> (emphases added):<br />
<blockquote>The source for this is the Murphy Papers, including the Council of Foreign Ministers papers at Stanford. Many authorities in Germany and elsewhere have written about the expellees, but there is no record at the HIA of any scholar having published these figures of Murphy's before. This lack of a publication record may mean little, because a scholar may in fact have used some of these figures without notifying Hoover. Courtesy of Ron Bulatoff, HIA, October 1994- These papers were declassified in several bunches, beginning in 1988. Others were declassified in 1991 by the State Department.<br />
These papers include documents prepared for and presented at the Council of Foreign Ministers meetings in Moscow and elsewhere, from 1947 to 1949. They are based on statistics gathered by the ruling interzonal agency operating in Germany at the time, the Allied Control Council, under the aegis of the several Military Governments. <b>Murphy states in April 1947 (CFM Papers, 9 April 1947, Statement by US Delegate, Box 61, Murphy Papers, HIA) that 5-6 million refugees had arrived. Since all other population figures in these papers are based on the census of October 1946, we can be sure that this figure is also for that date.</b> The French delegate in the Moscow meeting said on 17 March 1947 that only 4-5 million had arrived. Murphy's assistant Brad Patterson stated on 18 May 1949 that 12 million had arrived (Murphy Papers, Box 67, file 67-6). <b>The figure usually accepted by all authorities for the total arrivals in 1950 is 12 million. (The effect on the death estimates in this book of accepting the 12 million figure for May 1949 as valid for the final total of deaths in 1950 is nil.) This means that according to the Americans, between 6 and 7 million expellees arrived between October 1946 and May 1949.</b></blockquote><br />
As mentioned before the 1946 figure included <b>5.76 million</b> arrivals from the eastern territories of the former German Reich, so this is obviously what Murphy (whose figures, as Bacque emphasized, are based on the census of October 1946) was referring to. But the total number of deportees who had arrived by that time, either from the former eastern territories or from abroad, was <b>5.76 million (eastern territories) + 4.08 million (abroad) = 9.84 million</b>, as I have shown above. The number that arrived between 1946 and 1950 was thus not 6 to 7 million as Bacque would have it, but 11.60 – 9.84 = <b>1.76 million</b>. Let’s see what this does to Bacque’s figures, assuming that his 2.6 million returning PoWs are realistic:
<br /><br />
Table 6
<br /><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtLl6nnj9frD6EaO7Iq2XBmgB9O3GSgHA-zqLA2QcBTIh7YIAJPqPN025Bj5gDsKnQFHIkvWOWYUebgRJRnJUgHCl1M8VRPmYz6rp9B4GZL0vNuZPabGJ6fBbVKFE2K7e3ry3RBA/s2048/German+Civilians+Table+6.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="600" data-original-height="1550" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtLl6nnj9frD6EaO7Iq2XBmgB9O3GSgHA-zqLA2QcBTIh7YIAJPqPN025Bj5gDsKnQFHIkvWOWYUebgRJRnJUgHCl1M8VRPmYz6rp9B4GZL0vNuZPabGJ6fBbVKFE2K7e3ry3RBA/s600/German+Civilians+Table+6.jpg"/></a></div>
<br /><br />
According to the above all but 515,095 of Bacque’s 5,710,095 go up in smoke.<br /><br />
Bacque calculated from 65 million in 1946, whereas the German Statistics Office’s figure for 1946 based on census data was 65,310,000. Assuming this higher figure, and the 500,000 emigrees mentioned by the German Statistics Office instead of the 600,000 assumed by Bacque, yields the following comparison:
<br /><br />
Table 7
<br /><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWGUkiI6TdKZY0qr9kTGPMhUJfMRJ3aore7Qwi2VaAlWdrfkWhoyiLjLvy8EO4EuCB_oG-SKhXsIEGMHwLA3-7Kf5qaiRLNnSaWeaah-e8KrF1smtSWPQXnXNVt9rcIkoSlM5Oqw/s2662/German+Civilians+Table+7.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="600" data-original-height="1181" data-original-width="2662" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWGUkiI6TdKZY0qr9kTGPMhUJfMRJ3aore7Qwi2VaAlWdrfkWhoyiLjLvy8EO4EuCB_oG-SKhXsIEGMHwLA3-7Kf5qaiRLNnSaWeaah-e8KrF1smtSWPQXnXNVt9rcIkoSlM5Oqw/s600/German+Civilians+Table+7.jpg"/></a></div>
<br /><br />
By the above calculation Bacque overestimated unrecorded civilian deaths by 4,785,000, or by a factor of 6.
<br /><br />
Now, assuming that Bacque’s figure of 2.6 million prisoners of war returning from abroad in the postwar period is correct and the German Statistics Office’s figure is too low, what would this mean? Assuming 10,000 prisoners remaining in captivity in 1955, which is a well-known figure as Konrad Adenauer obtained their release by the Soviet Union in his famous 1955 trip to Moscow<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn36" name="_ftnref36">[36]</a></sup>, it would mean that on 29 October 1946, the date of the census, 2,610,000 prisoners of war (and not 1,750,000 as per the German Statistics Office) were still in prison camps outside Germany. This, in turn, would mean that the number of losses in the 1939-1946 population balance (Tables 1 and 1a in this article) would have to be increased by (2,610,000 – 1,750,000 =) 860,000 prisoners, and that the 1946 census figure from the German Statistics Office (1939 population plus gains minus losses) would have to be reduced by 860,000, from 65,310,000 to 64,450,000, in order to compare it with the 1950 census + Saarland figure of 69,185,796. The effect of thus reducing the 1946 census figure while maintaining Bacque’s 2,600,000 would be the following:
<br /><br />
Table 8a
<br /><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyv-RdqoWBg0aAv33jiQ61kf0XeO6LKveBlyGwakrR3qVYLf9edFRE2CA3ihXGk_fvilxVNsGVSg7FlrFpf5_YVmSS116DIDyBLwRhDvYLADBM9pkyPPgnTlcLAmxHGjaw7zOcfQ/s2663/German+Civilians+Table+8%2528a%2529.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="600" data-original-height="1181" data-original-width="2663" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyv-RdqoWBg0aAv33jiQ61kf0XeO6LKveBlyGwakrR3qVYLf9edFRE2CA3ihXGk_fvilxVNsGVSg7FlrFpf5_YVmSS116DIDyBLwRhDvYLADBM9pkyPPgnTlcLAmxHGjaw7zOcfQ/s600/German+Civilians+Table+8%2528a%2529.jpg"/></a></div>
<br /><br />
The same effect is obtained by maintaining the 1946 census figure of 65,310,000 and using the German Statistics Office’s figure for returning PoWs in the 1946-1950 period, i.e. 1,740,000, instead of Bacque’s 2,600,000.
<br /><br />
Table 8b
<br /><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7yud2HrrKdDIiqQhVf6PZekP3a6oJXW7__brYR6KI4uvOn3ZPDOjKSkJ_pTGNxixl_uvYj6FTz9r7YPBN8ChORou6dSRPvkIeNC7IxbAlS9orThSYF9UHtZ2yAOLDa8AnT_DmjQ/s2048/German+Civilians+Table+8%2528b%2529.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="600" data-original-height="1207" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7yud2HrrKdDIiqQhVf6PZekP3a6oJXW7__brYR6KI4uvOn3ZPDOjKSkJ_pTGNxixl_uvYj6FTz9r7YPBN8ChORou6dSRPvkIeNC7IxbAlS9orThSYF9UHtZ2yAOLDa8AnT_DmjQ/s600/German+Civilians+Table+8%2528b%2529.jpg"/></a></div>
<br /><br />
So, the difference between actual deaths and the number of recorded deaths given by Bacque (3,235,539) would be a mere <b>65,095</b>. This means that Bacque exaggerated the number of unrecorded deaths by <b>5,645,000</b>, or by a factor of <b>88</b>. In other words, Bacque’s spectacular "revelation" that the Allies caused 5.7 million civilian deaths in excess of recorded mortality in the four occupation zones/two Germanys between October 1946 and September 1950 is just hot air. The above comparison suggests that the number of recorded plus unrecorded deaths in the four occupation zones, later the two Germanys, was 3,235,539 + 65,095 = 3,300,634, and not 3,235,539 + 5,710,095 = 8,945,634 as Bacque would have it.<br /><br />
This is of course assuming that the German Statistics Office’s other figures are correct. There is at least one that seems far too low, which is that of 20,000 civilians on territory of the four occupation zones who were killed in ground fighting. As many as 22,000 may have been killed in the battle inside Berlin between 23 April and 2 May 1945 alone<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn37" name="_ftnref37">[37]</a></sup>, and another 10,000 may have perished in the Battle of Halbe between 24 April and 1 May 1945.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn38" name="_ftnref38">[38]</a></sup> Civilian deaths in the entire area of the Red Army’s Berlin offensive have been estimated at about 100,000.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn39" name="_ftnref39">[39]</a></sup> The total number of collateral civilian deaths from ground fighting throughout Germany was thus probably much higher than the number assumed by the German Statistics Office. This in turn would reduce the number of unrecorded deaths even further. One might even make a case that there were no unrecorded deaths at all and the 1950 census figures were higher than the actual population.<br /><br />
Before I move on, these are the differences in migration balance between Bacque and reality (WiSt = <i>Wirtschaft und Statistik</i>), which are the main reason for Bacque’s 5.7 million phantoms.
<br /><br />
Table 9
<br /><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcn-R5evfkVtljmlmOE-pB0PKT7HsZsvdVCESV7AezKBA-7YKdYKjGkelFbHEetoAGD-EINKVDvxNaEc9rjmnr_rCUSlfjPcqrvTeY8e_jt87J0ckUnETV5tCWoRSw1lZ3Jrv1Iw/s2777/German+Civilians+Table+9.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="600" data-original-height="953" data-original-width="2777" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcn-R5evfkVtljmlmOE-pB0PKT7HsZsvdVCESV7AezKBA-7YKdYKjGkelFbHEetoAGD-EINKVDvxNaEc9rjmnr_rCUSlfjPcqrvTeY8e_jt87J0ckUnETV5tCWoRSw1lZ3Jrv1Iw/s600/German+Civilians+Table+9.jpg"/></a></div>
<br /><br />
Besides the blatant fallacies in Bacque’s calculation, the above tables also illustrate the absurdity of suggesting that of all deaths in Germany between 1946-1950 the large majority (5,710,095 out of 8,945,634, <b>almost 64 %</b>) were not officially recorded. Are the Allied and local authorities supposed to have left most deaths unrecorded or suppressed most records? Thousands of Allied and German officials would have to be involved in such gigantic cover-up conspiracy, with not a single whistle-blower to this day. Extremely unlikely, to say the least. Or are the Allied and local authorities supposed to have been overwhelmed by mortality on such a scale that their keeping of death records (even independently of cause) couldn’t keep up with it?<br /><br />
And where would they have buried all those 5,710,095 unrecorded dead without anybody noticing? Well, maybe each time a recorded dead was buried, they reopened the grave once the grieving relatives were gone, took two unrecorded bodies out of the refrigerator and put them on top of the recorded one. Maybe my maternal grandfather, who died of cancer in 1949, is sharing his grave with two other people.<br /><br />
US Ambassador Murphy, Bacque’s key source for his census calculations, is also referred to in several parts of Bacque’s book as having written something in 1947 about expecting a shrinkage of the population by two million in the next two or three years "owing to the present high death rate in Germany"<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn40" name="_ftnref40">[40]</a></sup>, or that "the death rate in Germany was so high that, in effect, it must exceed the birth rate by two million people in the few years during which the expellees and prisoners were to return"<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn41" name="_ftnref41">[41]</a></sup>, or that "after the influx, which he expected to number two million prisoners and four million expellees, the population would rise by only four million"<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn42" name="_ftnref42">[42]</a></sup>, or that he expected "two million deaths to come soon after 1947 based on his knowledge ‘of the present death rate in Germany’"<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn43" name="_ftnref43">[43]</a></sup>. What Murphy actually stated is unclear because, for all his reliance on this source and several partial quotes of Murphy’s predictions, Bacque never provided a comprehensive quote of Murphy’s statement. Instead, he calculated that the death rate that Murphy must have been referring to was something like 24 %o p.a.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn44" name="_ftnref44">[44]</a></sup> based on the reading that Murphy expected deaths to exceed births by two million over a period of one, two or three years. This is Bacque’s calculation, in which he assumed an annual birth rate of 14.47 %o:
<br /><br />
Table 10
<br /><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFfeNJXnaKEjf-FBUd4B8y80USTKlnFysnHboFHUAscEono3DIiJutYJt8TkyTt9xTvLKxmpsBviuk-z6Z6UUoaQjSQ6Qo00QJUdQcEqWChxgKID1kon4wEEMVwiEJI5D2dTOk-g/s4371/German+Civilians+Table+10.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="600" data-original-height="609" data-original-width="4371" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFfeNJXnaKEjf-FBUd4B8y80USTKlnFysnHboFHUAscEono3DIiJutYJt8TkyTt9xTvLKxmpsBviuk-z6Z6UUoaQjSQ6Qo00QJUdQcEqWChxgKID1kon4wEEMVwiEJI5D2dTOk-g/s600/German+Civilians+Table+10.jpg"/></a></div>
<br /><br />
This calculation leads to interesting results if continued – after 10 years the population will be 73,460,000 and the death rate will be about 16%o. And it would get better and better the further you go down.<br /><br />
Actually the 3-year scenario, assuming a birth rate of 14.47 %o p.a., would be more like this:
<br /><br />
Table 11
<br /><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbmABmKtobKlb_IeFNJ_AE0mLM5rfPUo1N47FZTh0qd2tLINJ4qiejF2N4wDHCCQ0lqRXnVFspHTF2bYUgZkybkB1YjgNSggZYGOVtWUgOLDfQTrjvekrRcqNtBVJl7NbQ4Ki6Qg/s2960/German+Civilians+Table+11.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="600" data-original-height="1062" data-original-width="2960" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbmABmKtobKlb_IeFNJ_AE0mLM5rfPUo1N47FZTh0qd2tLINJ4qiejF2N4wDHCCQ0lqRXnVFspHTF2bYUgZkybkB1YjgNSggZYGOVtWUgOLDfQTrjvekrRcqNtBVJl7NbQ4Ki6Qg/s600/German+Civilians+Table+11.jpg"/></a></div>
<br /><br />
The death rate per 1,000 is calculated as number of deaths ÷ (population at beginning of year + births during year).<br /><br />
In this scenario, assuming that births and deaths evened each other out in 1950, the positive migration balance would have to be <b>6,185,796</b> for the Census 1950 + Saarland figure of 69,185,796 to be reached. Or then this figure would include 6,185,796 people who weren’t there.<br /><br />
The actual migration balance between 29 October 1946 and 13 September 1950 was 3,000,000, as mentioned above (1,740,000 returning PoWs plus 1,760,000 expellees minus 500,000 emigrants). So, in order to reach the 1950 figure of 69,230,796, and replacing Bacque’s starting population of 65 million with the actual population count of 65,310,000, there would have to be an excess of births vs. deaths of 875,796 as shown below.
<br /><br />
Table 12
<br /><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKVL15O5Pmapa5nnYBcghzxZxjhmKEfUVO_4pT1IB-GLIwJbcjS42YZcD9kFb4UtKrvwpwRadKolN03dRCku8kwQ-SodCF_IinU-C8bDEFsRu0mJ0daJnqnTQdyjgaEjtRP10wKg/s2764/German+Civilians+Table+12.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="600" data-original-height="1138" data-original-width="2764" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKVL15O5Pmapa5nnYBcghzxZxjhmKEfUVO_4pT1IB-GLIwJbcjS42YZcD9kFb4UtKrvwpwRadKolN03dRCku8kwQ-SodCF_IinU-C8bDEFsRu0mJ0daJnqnTQdyjgaEjtRP10wKg/s600/German+Civilians+Table+12.jpg"/></a></div>
<br /><br />
If the birth rate was 14.47%o p.a. as estimated by Bacque, the average death rate over the 1947 to 1950 period would have been 10.96%o to 10.99%o p.a., and the total number of deaths over the same period couldn’t have been higher than 2,923,356. <br /><br />
Bacque mentioned 4,176,430 births between the 1946 and 1950 censuses, which would mean a birth rate of ca. 15.91%o. This in turn would mean that the population could take more deaths and still maintain the birth excess of 875,796 required to match the census data, as shown below. With a birth rate of 15.90%o, the death rate would be 12.36%o to 12.39%o.
<br /><br />
Table 13
<br /><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBGXyFxePQHRcpcZFFSlLXIQiM2GpYB3HspYppPfZ0WoouOtd2_kP2YhRJ_WIsVu_z7dHLwTQmUDNU3Xisp0_1iQMumyjUGPJKP9EvGh5DSgq2hZyvJ76KZlf7BXd5QWoRXT-8gw/s2781/German+Civilians+Table+13.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="600" data-original-height="1131" data-original-width="2781" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBGXyFxePQHRcpcZFFSlLXIQiM2GpYB3HspYppPfZ0WoouOtd2_kP2YhRJ_WIsVu_z7dHLwTQmUDNU3Xisp0_1iQMumyjUGPJKP9EvGh5DSgq2hZyvJ76KZlf7BXd5QWoRXT-8gw/s600/German+Civilians+Table+13.jpg"/></a></div>
<br /><br />
A birth rate of 15.91%o would be close to the 1946 birth rate of 16.1 %o given for the territory of the later German Federal Republic by the German Statistics Office.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn45" name="_ftnref45">[45]</a></sup>
<br /><br />
Bacque assumed a 16.1 %o birth rate for West Germany but a much lower birth rate (10.4%o) for East Germany. But why should the birth rate in East Germany have been so much lower than in West Germany? If it was, and if the death rate was accordingly lower than the 12.36%o to 12.39%o shown above, this would mean that the death rate in West Germany was accordingly above 12.36%o to 12.39%o and may have been in the order of 13 %o as per the German Statistics Office for 1946.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn46" name="_ftnref46">[46]</a></sup><br /><br />
Anyway, the numbers of births and deaths in the above calculation match the respective numbers in the above census comparisons (4,176,430 births, 3,300,634 deaths), which suggests that this calculation, with an average birth rate of 15.91%o and a death rate of 12.36%o to 12.39%o, is the most realistic one for both Germanys together. <br /><br />
It may be that mortality reached higher levels during certain periods and in certain regions, especially where there was a huge refugee population. But Bacque’s mortality scenario, where 8,945,634 civilian inhabitants of the four occupation zones (3,235,539 recorded plus 5,710,095 unrecorded) died between October 1946 and September 1950, would require a mortality rate of 34.8%o % or 3.48 % <b>throughout all of Germany and the entire period of about 4 years</b>, if one assumes a birth rate of 14.47 %o or 1.447 % as Bacque does.
<br /><br />
Table 14
<br /><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZkUQahutUKlC_AmvhIYmFO0OwSEmFQHqdCUXPpC5BHL2FzLDV2Y2FvCv_efHqyTyc3k0voEDbfgXmSui3UKeauEBp2SzATaMMgNbXHI85eHKtgEOWsgSk8lBua56Ud2m7EjrK1Q/s2048/German+Civilians+Table+14.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="600" data-original-height="1037" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZkUQahutUKlC_AmvhIYmFO0OwSEmFQHqdCUXPpC5BHL2FzLDV2Y2FvCv_efHqyTyc3k0voEDbfgXmSui3UKeauEBp2SzATaMMgNbXHI85eHKtgEOWsgSk8lBua56Ud2m7EjrK1Q/s600/German+Civilians+Table+14.jpg"/></a></div>
<br /><br />
The 1950 census + Saarland figure would in such case not be lower than the expected population, as Bacque claims, but would <i>exceed</i> the expected population by <b>6,157,950</b>. In other words, either the 1950 census + Saarland figure would include <b>6,157,950</b> people who were not actually there, or then the positive migration balance was <b>9,157,950</b> instead of 3,000,000.
<br /><br />
Table 15
<br /><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7Q7ifARt5BwBCTINmYn3LDIIAy4v5ujMrvbDWd9aCyc-mAz0XekDdtX_ATopNxecHZPLIJ6QSkeIQT9AIRtxjGh979YB8Q1vORhEhEBkK6NyJIlzhwIFd-MDke1lvyESDftErPg/s2048/German+Civilians+Table+15.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="600" data-original-height="1043" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7Q7ifARt5BwBCTINmYn3LDIIAy4v5ujMrvbDWd9aCyc-mAz0XekDdtX_ATopNxecHZPLIJ6QSkeIQT9AIRtxjGh979YB8Q1vORhEhEBkK6NyJIlzhwIFd-MDke1lvyESDftErPg/s600/German+Civilians+Table+15.jpg"/></a></div>
<br /><br />
With influx of expellees the only variable, <b>7,917,950</b> would have had to enter the four occupation zones, later the two Germanys, between October 1946 and September 1950. Added to the 9,840,000 who were already there in October 1946, this would mean that a total of <b>17,757,950</b> ended up in West or East Germany. Which is just <b>172,050</b> less than the sum of the prewar population of 1937 Germany’s eastern territories and ethnic minorities outside the 1937 borders and excess births among these populations during and after the war until 1950 (16,940,000 + 990,000 = <b>17,930,000</b>). This would mean that just 172,050 of this population, less than 1 %, died in military service during the war or stayed in their prewar home territory or died during flight and expulsion, etc. Which is as unrealistic a proposition as can be in this context.
<br /><br />
That said, there are also sources more serious than Bacque suggesting a very high excess mortality among the German population in the postwar year, especially in 1945 and 1946.
<br />
<blockquote>In an October 1945 letter to the Assistant Secretary of War, U.S. Deputy Military Governor Lucius Clay reported that "undoubtedly a large number of refugees have already died of starvation, exposure and disease.... The death rate in many places has increased several fold, and infant mortality is approaching 65 percent in many places. By the spring of 1946, German observers expect that epidemics and malnutrition will claim 2.5 to 3 million victims between the Oder and Elbe." […] At a Cabinet meeting in London in early October, the participants acknowledged that the overall death rate among German civilians had already climbed to four times the prewar normal, while the mortality rate for children had risen tenfold.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn47" name="_ftnref47">[47]</a></sup></blockquote>
<br />
The prewar overall mortality on the territory of the German Reich had been 11.6 %o (1.16 %) p.a. in 1938 according to the German Statistics Office<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn48" name="_ftnref48">[48]</a></sup>, and the infant mortality had been 68 %o (6.8 %) p.a. in 1935<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn49" name="_ftnref49">[49]</a></sup>. The Cabinet meeting would thus have been contemplating an infant mortality rate of 68 % and an overall mortality rate of 4.64%.
<br /><br />
To put this into perspective, in Kharkov (Kharkiv), a city with a population of about 450,000 while under German occupation, there was a famine starting in the winter of 1941/42 that lasted until the end of September 1942. The local administration recorded 19,284 deaths between the second half of December 1941 and the second half of September 1942, thereof 11,918 (59.6 %) from hunger.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn50" name="_ftnref50">[50]</a></sup> The Foreign Office representative at Army High Command 6 noted on 25.03.1942 that according to reports reaching municipal authorities at least 50 people were dying of hunger every day, and that the true number might be much higher as in many cases the cause of death was stated as "unknown" and besides many deaths were not reported.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn51" name="_ftnref51">[51]</a></sup> The reported cases would signify an overall mortality rate of 4.29 % over a period of 10 months, equivalent to 5.71% p.a.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn52" name="_ftnref52">[52]</a></sup> . Another comparison: in the first half of the 14th century (before the Black Death), famine regularly caused mortality rates to jump from a favorable 2.7 % p.a. in the last half of the 13th century to 5 % p.a. throughout Britain, 10 % in towns.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn53" name="_ftnref53">[53]</a></sup>
<br /><br />
Was it all that bad for the indigenous population of the four Allied occupation zones of Germany in October 1945? Were the Cabinet members referring to mortality among refugees from the German Reich’s former eastern territories and from ethnic German populations of Eastern Europe, like the previously quoted Clay obviously did? Or was their mortality scenario just overly pessimistic?
<br /><br />
Whichever applies, an estimate for 1946, when famine was still widespread in Europe and elsewhere, is that the death rate in Germany was double the prewar figure<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn54" name="_ftnref54">[54]</a></sup>, which assuming a prewar mortality rate of 1.16% would be 2.32%. Conditions tended to be best in the U.S. zone and worst in the French and Soviet zones, despite the fact that the latter was traditionally a food surplus region. Urban centers tended to be hardest hit as well, with inhabitants of Berlin and the Ruhr suffering most of all. Small children, university students, and older people were hardest hit by the malnutrition.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn55" name="_ftnref55">[55]</a></sup> Though deaths resulting directly from starvation remained rare even during the worst phases of the postwar occupation, there was an increase in the rate of deaths from suicides and diseases like tuberculosis, typhus, diphtheria, and influenza in which malnutrition likely played at least some contributing role.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn56" name="_ftnref56">[56]</a></sup>
<br /><br />
In the German Statistics Office’s 1939 to 1946 population balance shown above (Tables 1 and 1a) excess deaths from malnutrition and disease would be counted among the 7,130,000 "natural" deaths between 17.05.1939 and 29.10.1946. Applied to the 1939 population of 69,310,000 this would be 1.38% p.a., which suggests that excess mortality in 1945/46 may have been lower than 2.32%. According to the German Statistics Office, as mentioned above, the 1946 mortality rate in what later became the German Federal Republic was 13%o (1.3%).<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn57" name="_ftnref57">[57]</a></sup> According to a study about the postwar hunger years in Rheinland-Pfalz, in the French occupation zone, the mortality rate rose from 11.3 %o in 1938 to 13.1 %o in 1946, then dropped to 12.9 %o in 1947, 11.7 %o in 1948 and 11.1 %o in 1949.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn58" name="_ftnref58">[58]</a></sup> There seems to have been some seasonal variation, as according to the same study the mortality rate jumped from 11.4 %o in November 1946 to 17.4 %o in February 1947, during the dreadful winter known as the "hunger winter" or the "white death", for which the number of excess deaths from hunger and cold has been estimated by historians at several hundred thousand, based on extrapolations from partial data.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn59" name="_ftnref59">[59]</a></sup>
<br /><br />
In the four occupation zones mortality in 1945/46 seems to have been worst in Berlin<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn60" name="_ftnref60">[60]</a></sup>, largely due to the battle, which may have killed about 22,000 of the city’s inhabitants between 24 April and 2 May 1945<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn61" name="_ftnref61">[61]</a></sup>, and to massive rape and associated deaths after the battle.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn62" name="_ftnref62">[62]</a></sup> Additionally there were epidemics. By mid-July 1945 a hundred Berliners a day were said to be dying of typhoid fever and dysentery.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn63" name="_ftnref63">[63]</a></sup> In a sermon in Dahlem on 23 July 1945, bishop Dibelius claimed that there were more than 1,000 deaths in the city per day, up from 250 during and 200 prior to the war.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn64" name="_ftnref64">[64]</a></sup> Where did he get these figures from? It there were records showing so large an increase in mortality, more would probably be known about it. How long this situation lasted can only be guessed from the available information.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn65" name="_ftnref65">[65]</a></sup> Anyway, the baseline figures are unrealistically high.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn66" name="_ftnref66">[66]</a></sup><br /><br />
During the winter of 1945/46, which was not abnormally cold but made worse by a terrible lack of coal and food, about 60,000 Berliners are supposed to have died.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn67" name="_ftnref67">[67]</a></sup> The following winter, which according to a White House official was the "rock bottom" of the food supply situation<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn68" name="_ftnref68">[68]</a></sup>, "killed off an estimated 12,000 more when temperatures hovered around thirty degrees below".<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn69" name="_ftnref69">[69]</a></sup> It seems counterintuitive that the 1945/46 winter should have been much deadlier in Berlin than the far more severe 1946/47 winter, which figures much more prominently than that of 1945/46 in Ruth Friedrich’s diary, where she mentioned horrors like people dying of cold in their beds<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn70" name="_ftnref70">[70]</a></sup> and a refugee train arriving from Poland with 53 frozen to death, 182 with severe frostbite and 25 having to be amputated<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn71" name="_ftnref71">[71]</a></sup>, which became the talk of the town<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn72" name="_ftnref72">[72]</a></sup>. Even assuming that the 12,000 mentioned for the 1946/47 winter are excess deaths only whereas the 60,000 for the previous winter are total deaths including 51,990 excess deaths<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn73" name="_ftnref73">[73]</a></sup>, the difference would still be 39,990. How can this be?
<br /><br />
Part of the explanation may be the infant mortality rate, which according to Ruth Friedrich was reportedly 80-90 % in the autumn of 1945.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn74" name="_ftnref74">[74]</a></sup> According to a recent PhD thesis, infant mortality was around 76 % in the Kaiserin-Auguste-Victoria Haus (KAVH), one of the most important clinics for children in Berlin. The causes were destruction of medical facilities by artillery fire or their unavailability as the Soviets confiscated them for their own wounded, shortage of fresh milk and epidemic diseases like diphtheria, which unusually affected even newborns.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn75" name="_ftnref75">[75]</a></sup> In the summer of 1945 a doctor in the Reinickendorf borough stated that if no proper nourishment was provided all newborns would die until the coming spring, and that in some of the city’s districts there were no newborns anymore. As late as the spring of 1946 infant mortality in Berlin, varying among districts, was up to 80 %.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn76" name="_ftnref76">[76]</a></sup> Of all children treated at the KAVH, about 30 % died in 1945.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn77" name="_ftnref77">[77]</a></sup> Much of the mortality seems to have been related to the presence of many refugees from the east, whose children were considerably worse off than those of the city’s indigenous population, infant mortality among those who reached Berlin – pediatricians assumed that most newborns had not even come that far – being about 20 % higher.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn78" name="_ftnref78">[78]</a></sup> The situation gradually improved over the next years, with a temporary reversal during the Berlin Blockade in 1948/49.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn79" name="_ftnref79">[79]</a></sup> In the crisis years 1945 and 1946 child mortality was higher in the summer than in the winter months, with up to 72 % in July of each year. In 1947, however, infant mortality was reduced to just 12 %.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn80" name="_ftnref80">[80]</a></sup> These figures may refer to the entire Soviet occupation zones and not only to Berlin.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn81" name="_ftnref81">[81]</a></sup>
<br /><br />
Assuming a 12 % infant mortality rate in 1947 vs. a rate of 90 % in 1945/46, the respective census populations for 1945 and 1946 and an equal birthrate in both years of 16%o or 1.6 %<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn82" name="_ftnref82">[82]</a></sup>, the difference would be as follows:
<br /><br />
Table 16
<br /><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-L9gs8qX0GEEgiYNZZeljcLNbhM_DcxuXncdjoQNjCY0Es7QdBtvfQ1yafT5Lu9mjij91hWYn5wRAzAoozE7guirBpfXZiib3IxQ1RqASA9fEjacmlQ9OpTq1Yp1r_7Bo98QpVw/s3933/German+Civilians+Table+16.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="600" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="3933" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-L9gs8qX0GEEgiYNZZeljcLNbhM_DcxuXncdjoQNjCY0Es7QdBtvfQ1yafT5Lu9mjij91hWYn5wRAzAoozE7guirBpfXZiib3IxQ1RqASA9fEjacmlQ9OpTq1Yp1r_7Bo98QpVw/s600/German+Civilians+Table+16.jpg"/></a></div>
<br /><br />
However, 8,561 excess infant deaths less would still leave a difference of 31,429 unexplained. It is therefore likely that the claimed 60,000 number of Berlin deaths in the 1945/46 winter (which would amount to about 2.14% of the August 1945 population of 2,807,405, the per annum equivalent being ca. 8.67%) is much too high. Assuming non-infant excess deaths in the 1946/47 winter (12,000 – 654 = 11,346) and that the non-infant excess mortality in 1945/46 was equal, then adding excess infant deaths in the 1945/46 winter (9,215), yields 20,561 excess deaths that winter, still making it worse than the 1946/47 winter.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn83" name="_ftnref83">[83]</a></sup> Adding an assumed 8,010 deaths that would have occurred under prewar circumstances would yield a total of 28,571 deaths in the 1945/46 winter – about 1.02% of the population in this period, equivalent to an annual mortality rate of 4.13%. Bar the summer famine, with a mortality rate of 5.79 – 6.96 % p.a. in July 1945<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn84" name="_ftnref84">[84]</a></sup> and the days of the battle, this would have been the deadliest period in Berlin’s history since the Thirty Years War.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn85" name="_ftnref85">[85]</a></sup>
<br /><br />
As to the 1946/47 winter, assuming 101 "normal" deaths per day<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn86" name="_ftnref86">[86]</a></sup> over 90 days (the winter period from 21/12/1946 to 21/03/1947) and ca. 133 excess deaths per day over the same period<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn87" name="_ftnref87">[87]</a></sup> for a total of 234 daily deaths yields 9 090 + 11,970<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn88" name="_ftnref88">[88]</a></sup> = 21,060 deaths, corresponding to a mortality rate of 0.66% in the period and an annual mortality rate of 2.68%. This is lower than the death rate for all of 1947 (29 %o or 2.9 %) claimed by Adenauer in his above-mentioned speech on 23.03.1946, in which he also claimed a birth rate of just 10 %o (1 %) in 1947 and a child mortality rate (<i>Kindersterblichkeit</i>) of 135 %o (13.5 %) in the second quarter of 1946. The term for child mortality covers deaths before five years of age and is thus not identical with <i>Säuglingssterblichkeit</i> (infant mortality), which was down to 12 % by 1947.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn89" name="_ftnref89">[89]</a></sup> How can an assumed infant mortality of 12 % be matched with an overall mortality rate of 2.9 %?
<br /><br />
A birth rate of 10 % and an infant mortality rate of 12 % would mean 31,871 births and 3,824 infant deaths in 1947 as shown below, thereof 1,657 in excess of an assumed baseline mortality of 6.8 %.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn90" name="_ftnref90">[90]</a></sup>
<br /><br />
Table 17
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2TMdihgEvb8us9JlPMofW6Dao7cgLxIdKXrzGrqrFestpQZIR39-B9ahrza_e_EHcSMw5e5rkEHT6S5dkCw-qHUCk3PT1GriOQf5LuQzpSaeFLNNdoKCZ4mLsuYmoVVNj26i_HA/s4838/German+Civilians+Table+17.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="600" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="4838" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2TMdihgEvb8us9JlPMofW6Dao7cgLxIdKXrzGrqrFestpQZIR39-B9ahrza_e_EHcSMw5e5rkEHT6S5dkCw-qHUCk3PT1GriOQf5LuQzpSaeFLNNdoKCZ4mLsuYmoVVNj26i_HA/s600/German+Civilians+Table+17.jpg"/></a></div>
<br /><br />
A death rate of 2.9 % in 1947 among 3,187,114 inhabitants would mean 92,426 deaths, that is 55,455 more than the 36,971 that would correspond to the above-mentioned 1938 baseline of 1.16 %. Only 1,657 of these 55,455 excess deaths would be accounted for by infant mortality exceeding the assumed 6.8 % baseline, leaving 53,798 other deaths. Most 1947 excess deaths would probably have occurred during the 1947 portion of the murderous 1946/47 winter. Assuming 133 per day as per the above calculations, there would have been 10,640 such deaths in the 80 days from 01/01/1947 to 21/03/1947. This in turn would imply 55,455 minus 10,640 = 44,815 excess deaths in the friendlier periods of the year, 157 per day vs. 133 per day in the hunger winter. What would have caused these?
<br /><br />
Unless and until a plausible answer to this question is found, Adenauer’s claim (or the statistics supporting it) should be regarded with suspicion, especially as Adenauer produced these figures in the same speech in which he also claimed a very exaggerated number of expellee and refugee deaths as mentioned before (6 million, an exaggeration by a factor of about 3).
<br /><br />
That’s how bad things got, or may have got, for the inhabitants of Berlin.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn91" name="_ftnref91">[91]</a></sup> What about other places in the four occupation zones?<br /><br />
I have already mentioned Rheinland-Pfalz, where the mortality rate was 13.1 %o (1.31 %) in 1946 and peaked at 17.4 %o (1.74 %) p.a. in February 1947, up from 11.4 %o (1.14 %) in November 1946, and the average rate for 1947 and 1948 was respectively 12.9 %o (1.29 %) and 11.7 %o (1.17%).<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn92" name="_ftnref92">[92]</a></sup><br /><br />
Bavaria, according to Schenck<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn93" name="_ftnref93">[93]</a></sup>, had its mortality peak in April 1945, 37.9 %o (3.79 %), almost as high as in November 1918 when it had been 40.2 %o (4.02 %). The annual average for 1945 was 19.6 %o (1.96 %). In 1947 it was down to 11.9 %o (1.19 %) due to "mortality anticipation" (<i>Vorwegnahme der Sterblichkeit</i>). I presume this means that periods of high mortality are followed by periods in which mortality is much lower as the population would have a higher proportion of more resistant specimens. In the years 1940 to 1945, according to Schenck, a quarter of a million people more had died in Bavaria than would have died under normal circumstances.<br /><br />
For other regions in the four occupation zones no overall mortality rates are provided by Schenck unless I missed something. However, Bacque himself referred to a British Army report whereby the death rate in North Rhine province in 1946 was about 12%o p.a. (1.2 %) and fell during the year until it hit only 8%o p.a. (0.8 %) in September. The death rate in Hamburg in 1946, according to official British Army reports, was 14.9%o (1.49 %) p.a. on average. Having started near 20%o p.a. in January, it had declined to only 12.63%o (1.263 %) p.a. by the end of the year.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn94" name="_ftnref94">[94]</a></sup> Considering the figures for Rheinland-Pfalz and Bavaria mentioned above, this seems quite realistic.<br /><br />
As concerns the Ruhr region, there was a study whereby in Wuppertal there was no actual famine, and the weight loss of the inhabitants between 17 and 23 %.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn95" name="_ftnref95">[95]</a></sup> Wuppertal is close to Essen, where both my parents come from and where in I interviewed my mother’s elder sister and some of her friends on video in 2008, about their experiences during and after WWII. Their accounts are rendered in my answer to a question on Quora, <a href="https://www.quora.com/Did-you-know-any-World-War-II-survivors-What-was-their-story/answer/Roberto-Muehlenkamp">Did you know any World War II survivors? What was their story?</a>. They told me about bombing attacks during the war and about hunger in the postwar years, but none of them told me anything about having seen or heard about or known someone who succumbed to starvation or to malnutrition-related diseases like tuberculosis, typhus or typhoid fever. No one told me anything about cemeteries being enlarged to cope with increased mortality, about having seen vehicles loaded with corpses taken away for burial, about having witnessed or heard about mass burials. Privation in the postwar years increased mortality, but not to the extent required to make everyday death as visible to the common citizen as would correspond to a die-off on the scale claimed by Bacque. The only member of my family who died between 1946 and 1950 was my maternal grandfather. He died in 1949 at age 62, of throat cancer. Malnutrition may have hastened his death, but the likeliest reason why he got cancer in the first place was that he was a trumpeter and a heavy smoker. My aunt’s arms and legs puffed up from malnutrition, but she was never hospitalized let alone in risk of dying. Her condition soon improved after she got a better diet. My mother, like many German children at the time, benefited from the <a href="https://www.quakersintheworld.org/quakers-in-action/302">quaker feeding</a>, a charity initiated by Herbert Hoover, the hero of the "mercies" part of Bacque’s book.<br /><br />
None of these accounts looks to me like the narrators had been living under conditions as bad as those in Berlin, let alone in a country where there was anything like 5.7 million unrecorded deaths in excess of "normal" mortality from 29 October 1946 to 13 September 1950. My afore mentioned relatives were not of a privileged class, they were ordinary people who lived in a city that had been heavily destroyed by bombs. Hunger there was, yes, but nothing they told me suggests mass dying due to hunger and/or related diseases. <br /><br />
In the first years of my study in Konstanz am Bodensee, which had been in the French zone of occupation, I talked about the war and postwar years with my first landlady and an older woman for whom I mowed the lawn to earn some extra money. Again, privation yes (my landlady had a bone problem in her lower jaw, presumably a consequence of malnutrition in her youth), anything to suggest mass death from privation, no.<br /><br />
How about the Soviet occupation zone? My maternal grandfather’s family was from Bad Dürrenberg in Saxonia, and my aunt spent some time there at the end of the war and thereafter. Again, no accounts that would suggest people dying at a much higher rate than during the war. None of my mother’s relatives died from malnutrition related causes.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn96" name="_ftnref96">[96]</a></sup><br /><br />
The postwar period in West Germany was also described in what was known as "Trümmerliteratur", which literally means rubble literature of literature in the rubble.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn97" name="_ftnref97">[97]</a></sup> I have read the works of Heinrich Böll and Wolfgang Borchert related to the war and postwar period. Böll mentioned nothing in his short stories or novels that would suggest a situation as dramatic as to cause the gigantic leap in mortality that Bacque’s figures suggest.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn98" name="_ftnref98">[98]</a></sup><br /><br />
Borchert died in 1947 in Basel, Switzerland, from complications of an infection he had contracted during the war as a soldier on the Eastern Front. His most famous work is the drama <i>Drauβen vor der Tür</i>, about a homecoming soldier who finds that his wife, his home and hopes are gone.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn99" name="_ftnref99">[99]</a></sup> Borchert also wrote a number of short stories including <i>Das Brot</i> (The Bread)<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn100" name="_ftnref100">[100]</a></sup>. An older woman wakes up in the dark of the night and catches her husband who is eating an extra slice of their rationed bread. They don't talk about what happened and a perplexed conversation takes place. They end up with the fact that there was nothing and they both woke up because of the wind outside and the sound of the rain gutter. They go back to bed. While they are trying to sleep, she hears her husband secretly eating more bread. The next evening, she prepares dinner and gives him an extra slice of her ration of bread under the pretext that in the evening she can't take the bread all that well. They avoid eye contact, after a while she sits down at the table.<br /><br />
That’s the postwar hunger years in a nutshell, according to Böll<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn101" name="_ftnref101">[101]</a></sup>, a story that says more about the subject than any erudite commentary, in which the entire misery and the entire greatness of a human being is incorporated. It is set in a dire situation of food rationing. But not in a situation that would cause millions of unrecorded excess deaths within a few years.<br /><br />
A German docudrama available on YouTube shows how bad it was in Germany in the winter of 1946/47.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn102" name="_ftnref102">[102]</a></sup> But again, none of the witnesses recalled anything that would suggest the kind of catastrophe that Bacque’s figures would imply. Nothing comparable to the situation in Berlin, where according to Margret Boveri’s diary people fainted from hunger in the metro or while queuing for food in July 1945.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn103" name="_ftnref103">[103]</a></sup><br /><br />
Maybe some of the witnesses quoted by Bacque recall apocalyptic scenarios of people dying like flies? Not from among the refugees, whose situation was much worse than that of the indigenous population, but from among the indigenous population or someone who observed first-hand how these people were living and dying. What does Bacque’s book offer by way of such evidence? Not someone’s morbidity or mortality estimates, not doomsday predictions of what would happen or might happen if …<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn104" name="_ftnref104">[104]</a></sup>, but descriptions of how people lived and died before the eyes of the observer. Unless I missed something, Bacque offers only two such direct eyewitnesses regarding the four occupation zones, Probst <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Gr%C3%BCber">Heinrich Grüber</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Gollancz">Victor Gollancz</a>.<br /><br />
Grüber is supposed to have described an end-of-the-world scene in the forest around Berlin where mothers buried their children by the wayside and "countless" corpses, presumably suicides, were hanging from trees. I say "supposed to" because, although his reference to Grüber ("wrote that") suggests otherwise, Bacque did not quote from any writing of Grüber’s, but from someone who quoted Grüber, American Senator Wherry in a speech at Congress.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn105" name="_ftnref105">[105]</a></sup> Assuming that Wherry was quoting Grüber correctly, what Grüber would have been describing is irrelevant as evidence regarding the occupation zones’ indigenous population. High suicide and child mortality rates in Berlin cannot be gainsaid, but unless Berliners went to the forests outside the city to bury their kids and then hang themselves instead of doing that in loco, what Grüber described was the plight of refugees or expellees, not that of indigenous inhabitants.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn106" name="_ftnref106">[106]</a></sup> Besides, as shown above, Berlin was much worse off than other parts of the occupation zones.<br /><br />
That leaves Gollancz, who Bacque quoted for a harrowing account from a tour of dwelling places in the ruins of Düsseldorf and other information collected in Germany.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn107" name="_ftnref107">[107]</a></sup> The integrity of this witness is beyond question. Gollancz's campaign for the humane treatment of German civilians involved efforts to persuade the British government to end the ban on sending provisions to Germany and ask that it pursue a policy of reconciliation, as well as organizing an airlift to provide Germany and other war-torn European countries with provisions and books. He wrote regular critical articles for, and letters to, British newspapers, and after a visit to the British Zone of Occupation in October and November 1946, he published these in his book <i>In Darkest Germany</i> in January 1947.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn108" name="_ftnref108">[108]</a></sup><br /><br />
Gollancz visited hospitals in the British Zone of Occupation where he saw and photographed severely malnourished patients including children and interviewed doctors about subjects like the alarming increase of tuberculosis and other diseases related to malnutrition and other misery. Gollancz also visited and described in graphic detail the squalid conditions in which many bombed-out Germans lived in destroyed cities in the British Zone. Except on one occasion when he got carried away into writing that there must be hundreds of thousands of dead beneath the ruins of Hamburg<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn109" name="_ftnref109">[109]</a></sup>, I consider Gollancz’s descriptions to be accurate. He is the best eyewitness that Bacque had as concerns conditions in the four occupation zones, so why didn’t Bacque use more of his testimony? Maybe because Gollancz’s comparatively sober observations don’t fit into the apocalyptic predictions that Bacque was fond of quoting. Take for instance hunger oedema. Bacque made it look as if 100,000 people in Hamburg suffering from hunger oedema were "in the last stages of starvation", about to die.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn110" name="_ftnref110">[110]</a></sup> Gollancz mentioned (and defended) the same figure, saw and photographed severe cases of hunger oedema in hospitals. But he wrote nothing about all these people being on the verge of death. In fact, he mentioned only one patient dying of starvation, unless I missed something. Here’s some of what he wrote:<br /><br />
<blockquote>Though, say, 80 per cent, of the town population in our zone of Germany supplements the official ration by a few hundred calories—through the black market, which is keeping people alive, or from other sources—the condition of millions is indescribably wretched. One expert whose job it is to make an assessment of such things estimates that in the city of Hamburg some 100,000 people are suffering from hunger oedema or the equivalent; and according to figures given to me by the German public health authorities 13,000 people in Regierungsbezirk Düsseldorf were being treated for this illness in hospitals or by private practitioners during the month of September. I saw at a hospital in Hamburg a starving man who had been brought in a few hours before: his death-rattle was beginning. I had a photograph of him taken—with me by his side, to save myself from the charge of exaggeration. I saw another man in the same hospital whose swollen scrotum reached a third of the way to the floor. I have a photograph of him also.*<br />
[….]<br />
* I have decided at the last minute, after a great deal of hesitation, to suppress the photographs of these two cases, except that of the second man’s face (Plate 4). I have similarly suppressed all other photographs of really bad cases of oedema where the water is still present, as I cannot bear to perpetuate a visible record of these horrors. (In hunger oedema the body swells, sometimes abominably, with water.) I have retained a photograph of a less terrible case of emaciation, and one or two of oedema where the water has gone.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn111" name="_ftnref111">[111]</a></sup></blockquote><br />
<blockquote>It is not a question of old ladies with varicose veins. I have personally seen only two women with hunger oedema, though I have seen many who are painfully emaciated. Some indication of the true position is provided by a survey recently made (under British auspices) of the nutritional state of about 1,000 employees of the Reichspost Direktion, Hamburg. In males of all ages the incidence of hunger oedema was found to be no less than 17 per cent., and in females of all ages 9 per cent. These are horrifying figures. “This is a clinical assessment,” says the report, “in which there was always a higher incidence among persons examined in the afternoons, and this regardless of whether or not theirs was a sedentary job. The incidence of this cardinal sign of malnutrition must therefore be even higher in fact. Further, it should be borne in mind that among large numbers of persons in the same general state of under-nourishment necessitating hospitalization little more than half do manifest this sign.” It was to the latter fact that I referred when I wrote “hunger oedema or its equivalent”. No less than 52 per cent, of the males and 34 per cent, of the females in the same group showed “marked loss of flesh”, and 24 per cent, of the males and 22 per cent, of the females “looked positively ill”.<br />
Finally, your correspondents question the figure of 13,000 officially given by German public health authorities as the number of people in Regierungsbezirk Dusseldorf being treated for hunger oedema in hospitals or privately during September. This scepticism is not shared, apparently, by responsible British officials on the spot. “Recent surveys by Public Health in the Regierungsbezirk Dusseldorf,” reported the Colonel commanding R.B. Dusseldorf to the Deputy Regional Commissioner in June, “showed that the number of hospitalized cases of people suffering from hunger oedema was comparatively low, the reason being shortage of beds. The number of nonhospitalized cases is high—-in the region of 25,000.”<br />
Allow me to add a word in conclusion. The most horrible of my experiences has been a visit to the camp at Belsen, where I saw the tattoo marks on the arms of the Jewish survivors. I am never likely to forget the unspeakable wickedness of which the Nazis were guilty. But when I see the swollen bodies and living skeletons in hospitals here and elsewhere; when I look at the miserable “shoes” of boys and girls in the schools, and find that they have come to their lessons without even a dry piece of bread for breakfast; when I go down into a one-roomed cellar where a mother is struggling, and struggling very bravely, to do her best for a husband and four or five children—then I think, not of Germans, but of men and women. I am sure I should have the same feelings if I were in Greece or Poland. But I happen to be in Germany, and write of what I see here.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn112" name="_ftnref112">[112]</a></sup></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote>Within a few days of my arrival I had a remarkable interview with a British medical officer of fair importance. He started by advising me always to see English doctors; he was so emphatic on the point that I realized at once how important it was for me to see German doctors as well. He agreed that “there wasn’t enough penicillin”, but his own explanation— “the Germans can’t pay for it” appeared, in his view, to dispose of the matter once and for all. I was to remember what he said when I saw a man a few days later at the University Hospital of Hamburg, in agony because there was no penicillin for him—you can see his face for yourselves on plate 5. This doctor also suggested that the German authorities had falsified the V.D. figures—penicillin at that time being permitted only for cases of gonorrhoea—“to get more penicillin”. As to insulin, hospitals, he said, had 100 per cent, of their requirements—“and bad cases presumably go to hospital”. I was to remember this too, when I was told by a German doctor whom I learned to trust that people forced their way into hospitals when the coma was about to come on in order to compel admittance. I next learned that all the people suffering from oedema, for instance in the Hamburg hospitals, were oldish—and so they might really be suffering from other kinds of oedema, such as cardiac or renal. So indeed this one or that one might; but the general impression that the remark might have conveyed to the unwary would have been wholly false, as I shall presently show. I ended the interview by asking whether any drugs etc. were in seriously short supply, and if so what, and in what order of priority. I got a satisfactorily categorical answer—penicillin, insulin, fiver extract, cod-liver oil and malt, vitamins A and D.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn113" name="_ftnref113">[113]</a></sup></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote>As to hunger oedema in Hamburg, there is little to add to what I have written in The Times. I am satisfied that the estimate of 100,000 is a reasonable one; and it must be remembered that the survey of post-office workers was carried out under expert British auspices, and that but for it the existence of the majority of such cases would probably never have been known. The survey makes nonsense, of course, of the “old people with renal and cardiac oedema” argument. When the reader looks at the photographs of cases of oedema and emaciation which I took in various hospitals,* he must bear in mind that doctors are sometimes in error, and that this case or that may in fact be due, for instance, to kidney trouble or cancer. But the point is that this is what bad cases of oedema and emaciation look like, and that a very high percentage of them are unquestionably caused by starvation. I will give further proof of this later on.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn114" name="_ftnref114">[114]</a></sup></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote>Back in Düsseldorf, I spent a morning (November 5th) at the Town Hospital. I saw a few very badly underweight children there—the trouble was, the doctor said, that they had to be sent home without proper shoes and clothes, and so got ill again. I also saw a child of ten with heavy TB—the kind of TB, I was told, that you find normally only in babies. The disease was spread over the whole body, and bandages could be changed only under morphia. Such cases, it appeared, were today much commoner in older children. Previously there had not been enough to fill the building; now another building, as well as this, was full. Photograph on plate 18.<br />
One of the patients at this hospital was its own lady doctor. She lived alone, was too busy to get food from the Black Market, and couldn’t queue up; so she had had no bread for weeks. She was now recovering slowly from hunger oedema.<br />
At the baby clinic attached to this hospital I was told that only one in three mothers could feed her baby properly; the breasts of the others were dry within a week.<br />
Later in the day I had a talk with Dr. Arnold, the Burgomaster of Düsseldorf and one of the half dozen best Germans I met. During the last few weeks, he said, he had been visiting factories and workshops, and had personally examined people in Stadtkreis and Landkreis Düsseldorf, as well as in Essen, Bochum and the Ruhr generally. The condition of the men was so bad that their working capacity was on the verge of collapse. He had noticed that when miners and metal workers were bathing at a distance of 8 yards he could count their ribs. He had been told by factory doctors that within a period of three months there had been losses of 15 to 20 lbs.<br />
Dr. Amelunxen, the Minister-President of North Rhine- Westphalia, spoke in a similar sense. He was convinced that during the next few years two or three million would die as a direct result of present conditions—old people, the tuberculous, and a very large number of young children who would fail to overcome the normal childish diseases. Many senior British officials are equally alarmed. “There is a general deterioration in the health of the population” wrote the Colonel commanding Regierungsbezirk Düsseldorf to the Deputy Regional Commissioner on June 25th, and in their ability to resist disease, which is having an adverse effect on their morale. There is a considerable increase in the number of cases of hunger oedema in the larger towns in the R.B., notably among women and old people and business men who are at work all day. Stillbirths are on the increase. . . . Simple ailments, such as colds, boils, carbuncles etc., which would normally be treated at home, have now to be treated in hospital, and complications often follow. People have been seen collapsing while waiting in queues, and for the Dusseldorf ferry. He proceeds to give some particulars from Essen, Wuppertal, Oberhausen, Solingen, Dusseldorf, Mulheim and Remscheid. “In Dusseldorf on 19th May there were 145 cases of hunger oedema in one hospital (Grafenberg). Of 934 persons reported to one of the Stadtkreis Medical Officers, 206 were found to be suffering from hunger oedema, and only 70 were in normal health.” “In Mulheim average loss of weight in hospital 20%. Increase in number of hospital patients in one year 18% to 20%.” “In Remscheid definitely undernourished in April 6,648, in May 7,259. Suffering from lack of albumen April 1,732, May 1,792.” Then follows the estimate of 25,000 as the number of persons in the R.B. suffering from hunger oedema, which I quoted in my letter to The Times.<br />
I thought I would round off the whole investigation by having a talk with a world-famous British expert on nutrition, who was doing special work in the neighbourhood on hunger oedema. He was as cautious as a scientist no doubt should be, and he had a poor opinion of the veracity of Germans in general and of German scientists in particular. Nevertheless, the upshot was substantially to confirm my own conclusions. He could not say whether the prevalence of spots and sores was due in some degree to malnutrition. He agreed that the majority of adults you saw about looked yellow (as well as thin); but the reason, he said, was not clear to him. If I understood him aright, he thought that the yellow, parchmenty appearance might be caused by a failure of the blood to flush the skin. “A sort of defence mechanism” suggested one of his assistants. But when I put a direct question, the answer was a frank “Of course, it’s connected in some way with malnutrition”. As to oedema, he explained, as so many others had explained already, that only some of it was hunger oedema, and that this type could easily be identified by its quick response to extra food. Later on in the conversation, when I was asking another question about oedema, “You’d be surprised” I was told “how many of the cases that pass through my hands improve very rapidly when quite a small amount of additional food is given.” These cases, then, must have been hunger oedema.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn115" name="_ftnref115">[115]</a></sup></blockquote><br />
As I mentioned before, my aunt’s condition improved as soon as her food intake got better. She therefore had hunger oedema. But she wasn’t hospitalized let alone in risk of dying, and she didn’t tell me about having known anyone who died or almost died of malnutrition. Gollancz’s accounts go in the same direction. Much hunger, much misery, but Gollancz rarely mentioned having witnessed deaths from malnutrition or related disease, and where he did it was individual cases he saw.<br /><br />
Regarding infant mortality in the areas he visited, Gollancz wrote the following<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn116" name="_ftnref116">[116]</a></sup>:<br />
<blockquote>Infant mortality in Schleswig-Holstein for the first six months of 1946 was at the rate of 116.1 per 1,000 live births, against the 1 936 figure (for the Reich as a whole) of 66. But in the zone generally infant mortality is at the moment declining: it was 136 per 1,000 live births in January 1946 against 61 in January 1938, but only 75 (provisional figure) in August 1946 against 57 in August 1938. It is to be hoped that the winter will not see another rapid increase.<br />
[…]<br />
There was an improvement in the infant mortality rate for Hamburg similar to that for Schleswig-Holstein. It was (approximately) 50 per 1,000 live births in 1938, 145 in 1945, 125 in January 1946, 77 in March 1946, 114 in April 1946, 82 in June 1946, and 84 in July 1946. Miscarriages, on the other hand, which according to statistics of the Hamburg Health Authority were 12.2 per cent of reported pregnancies in 1940 and increased about cent, a year till the end of 1945, when they reached 17.7 per cent, jumped during the first six months of 1946 to 20.1 per cent.</blockquote><br />
The mentioned rates were outrageous for a developed country like Germany, but a far cry from the 1945/46 rates in Berlin.<br /><br />
Gollancz did not describe anything like seeing hospital patients, let alone persons outside hospitals, being taken for burial much of the time. He even expressly pointed out the following<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn117" name="_ftnref117">[117]</a></sup>:
<br />
<blockquote>All this doesn’t mean, as I said at the beginning, that people are dropping dead in the streets. The crude mortality rate has been improving and in August was normal. The point is that a very great number of people feel wretchedly weak and ill, and that the health of the population as a whole is being undermined with such startling rapidity that, unless radical measures are taken to effect an improvement, the toll in one, two or three years’ time will be appalling. It must be remembered that mortality from tuberculosis did not reach its climax until five years after the last war.</blockquote>
<br />
People were not dropping dead in the streets<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn118" name="_ftnref118">[118]</a></sup>, a crude mortality rate improving up to normal, appalling mortality (whatever Gollancz meant by that) within "one, two or three years’ time" if nothing radical was done about it but not happening at the time to which this writing refers (October 1946) – none of this goes down well with Bacque’s monumental mortality claims. Neither does the optimism occasionally displayed by Gollancz, for instance on his visit to the devastated town of Jülich<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn119" name="_ftnref119">[119]</a></sup>:<br />
<blockquote>All this was the dreadful side Jülich: and it wasn’t exceptional, as you’ll appreciate when you remember that seven thousand people are living there, and hardly a house even partially standing. But there was a happy side too. I had been getting friendly with my Stadtdirektor, who turned out to be a Social Democrat, and to have been “on the run” continuously from 1933 right up to what he still called, in spite of everything, the liberation. He was a gentle little man, and when he found me sympathetic asked if he might come in my car as far as Düren (on the way to Aachen) so as to be able to talk a little longer. As we were leaving the rubble for the green fields, I noticed a longish bungalow of wood that seemed somehow to gleam and glisten in that awful desolation: and over the door the words, in bold lettering, “Hotel-Restaurant Kaiserhof”. I looked at my comrade with a gesture of enquiry, and he replied with a smile, half proud and half deprecating, <i>Es beginnt</i> (“Something’s beginning”). I got out to have a look. Two or three men were drinking a glass of beer in the vestibule-restaurant, and we sat and talked with them for a moment or so. Then we went down the corridor. The rooms that opened out of it on both sides were small, overcrowded, and furnished with the minimum of necessities; but they were bright and clean, and the people seemed contented. In one room there was a mother with the three most beautiful children I have ever seen. (Plate 54.)</blockquote><br />
Certainly not the kind of descriptions that Bacque would want his readers to read.<br /><br />
With even this key witness not supporting his contentions and figures as concerns the indigenous population, what did Bacque have to show in support of these by way of first-hand testimonies describing what things looked like on the ground? I didn’t find anything. Bacque referred to Canadian Army General Maurice Pope, Head of Mission in Berlin, who in April 1947 wrote that "the death rate is high, and the suicide returns do not show much improvement", and a few weeks later reported five "authenticated" deaths from starvation in Hamburg.<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn120" name="_ftnref120">[120]</a></sup> Horrible, but those five starvation deaths seem to have been outstanding enough to merit special mention of the cause, and apparently Pope did not report starvation deaths on more occasions (if he had Bacque would probably have let his readers know).<sup><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftn121" name="_ftnref121">[121]</a></sup><br /><br />
Bottom line, no contemporary witness I know recalled anything that would suggest an apocalyptic scenario of unrecorded mass mortality. Neither did Pope, and neither did Gollancz in his accounts from "darkest Germany". Like all the above figures in this section, these accounts show that Bacque’s claim of 5.7 million unrecorded deaths among the indigenous inhabitants of the four occupation zones between 29 October 1946 and 13 September 1945 is just phantastic nonsense. <br /><br />
Again, I’m referring to the situation of the indigenous population of the four occupation zones, not to the refugees from the eastern territories of the former German Reich and from outside the 1937 German borders. These were often in situations like the ones that become apparent from Grüber’s account, from other accounts that Bacque reproduced with apparent relish, from Ruth Friedrich’s diary and other sources. But if you want to know what things looked like on the ground for the worst-off among the indigenous population of the four occupation zones other than in Berlin, forget about Bacque. Read Gollancz’s <i>In Darkest Germany</i>, which I highly recommend. And if you know any people who lived in the four occupation zones in the 1946-1950 period, try to collect their accounts about what life was like in Germany at that time. Soon these valuable contemporary witnesses will all be gone.
<br /><br />
<b>Update, 17.01.2023</b>
<br /><br />
Due to a formatting error the text of Table 1a in the last line before "Total Losses", which reads "Others: Germans emigrated until 1946 (without Jews), prisoners of war who voluntarily stayed in the countries of custody, German concentration camp victims (without Jews), etc.", did not show completely. While this is without relevance to my argument, below is the rightly formatted Table 1a for the sake of correctness.
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGJvJBntG7xCBA4Sr4lat5bTq-HeIhH_QvyF-dny71GPhkocuxg6irDGuhaKZcG54pblYUzwD7_H7p87b-liNANTxUdT0Gi_B1rhM7bZHgl8yyR7Bvly_OaMA-SfNzkdqbkS15ZiXRhiAoym3PaRC0EC7qyaXHnMkQSjFTpaoBniw0Y3RLLmc/s1440/German%20Civilians%20Table%201a%20complete.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="747" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGJvJBntG7xCBA4Sr4lat5bTq-HeIhH_QvyF-dny71GPhkocuxg6irDGuhaKZcG54pblYUzwD7_H7p87b-liNANTxUdT0Gi_B1rhM7bZHgl8yyR7Bvly_OaMA-SfNzkdqbkS15ZiXRhiAoym3PaRC0EC7qyaXHnMkQSjFTpaoBniw0Y3RLLmc/s320/German%20Civilians%20Table%201a%20complete.png"/></a></div>
<br /><br />
<b>Notes</b>
<br /><br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> James Bacque, <i>Crimes and Mercies. The Fate of German Civilians Under Allied Occupation 1944-1950</i>, Little Brown and Company (Canada) Limited, 1997. <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2">[2]</a> <i>Crimes and Mercies</i> (hereafter "C&M"), p. 131.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3">[3]</a> James Bacque, <i>Other Losses</i> 1991 edition, Prima Publishing, page 2. Bacque’s claims of mortality in German and French captivity have been amply refuted. I added some considerations of my own in my answer to the Quora question <a href="https://www.quora.com/What-were-the-Eisenhower-death-camps-and-how-did-he-get-away-with-them-politically/answer/Roberto-Muehlenkamp">What were the Eisenhower death camps and how did he get away with them, politically?</a><br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4">[4]</a> C&M, pp. 76 ff. The Soviet figures (450,600 out of 2,389,600 prisoners taken) are mentioned in G.F. Krivosheev, <i>Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century</i>, 1997 Greenhill Books, p. 278.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5">[5]</a> Higher figures are given by Rüdiger Overmans in <i>Deutsche Militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg</i>. However, Overmans‘ estimates don’t stand up to a <a href="https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=226986">cross check</a> against other evidence (including claims by Nazi Germany’s opponents) regarding German casualties, especially but not only as concerns the year 1945. So, there is no reason to assume an order of magnitude above ca. 4.3 million.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6">[6]</a><i>Narben bleiben. Die Arbeit der Suchdienste - 60 Jahre nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg</i> (a publication of the Search Service of the German Red Cross about the work of the various search services), p. 216.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7">[7]</a> Copies of these records are available on the website <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130422060949/http://ww2stats.com/index.html">Human Losses in World War II</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130422053844/http://ww2stats.com/cas_ger_okw45.html">Wehrmacht Monthly Casualty Reports, 1945</a> The records are kept in the German Federal Archives/Military Archives (Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv), the archival reference being BA/MA RM 7/810.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8">[8]</a> BA/MA RH 2/1355, 2/2623, RW 6/557, 6/559, figures copied under <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130422054258/http://ww2stats.com/cas_ger_okh_tow45.html">Heeresarzt 10-Day Casualty Reports per Theater of War, 1945</a>.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9">[9]</a> Giles MacDonogh, <i>After the Reich. The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation</i>, 2007 Basic Books , p. 421, citing Erich Maschke, ed., <i>Zur Geschichte des Deutschen Kriegsgefangenen des Zweiten Weltkrieges</i>, vol. XV: <i>Die deutschen Kriegsgefangenen des Zweiten Weltkrieges – Eine Zusammenfassung</i>, Munich 1967; Wikipedia page <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsgefangene_des_Zweiten_Weltkrieges#Soldaten_der_Achsenm%C3%A4chte">Kriegsgefangene des Zweiten Weltkriegs</a>, citing Rüdiger Overmans, "Die Rheinwiesenlager 1945". In: Hans-Erich Volkmann (Hrsg.): <i>Ende des Dritten Reiches – Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges. Eine perspektivische Rückschau</i>. Herausgegeben im Auftrag des Militärgeschichtlichen Forschungsamtes, München 1995, S. 278. Other figures are about 1.1 million PoW deaths in "eastern" and 0.3 million in "western" captivity (E.G. Schenck, <i>Das menschliche Elend im XX Jahrhundert</i>, 1965 Nikolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung Herford, p. 94). According to Schenck, whose book was published before the before the Maschke <i>Zusammenfassung</i>, about 1 million died in Soviet, 80,000 in Yugoslavian, 15,000 in Polish and 5,000 in Czechoslovakian captivity. The death toll for French captivity was 19,118 according to the French government, but unofficial sources mentioned about 115,000. PoWs in Great Britain had low mortality except for one abnormal case in which 3,000 died in one camp in the first postwar winter. PoW mortality in the US was also low. About camps on German, Belgian, Dutch, Norwegian and Danish territory no figures had been published, but at least in Germany and Belgium the death toll was assumed to be high. The camps on the Rhine Meadows until the summer of 1945 and some others in Northwest, Central and Southern Germany and in Belgium could, according to Schenck, be compared with concentration camps and with camps in Eastern Germany, Poland and the USSR as concerns living conditions, diseases and extraordinarily high mortality. There’s no information, however, about how deaths at these camps would add up to at least 185,000 (assuming 115,000 deaths in French captivity) of the 300,000 deaths in "western" captivity claimed by Schenck. <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10">[10]</a> <i>Narben bleiben</i>, p. 216.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11">[11]</a> Christian Streit, "Deutsche und Sowjetische Kriegsgefangene", in: Wolfram Wette/Gerd R. Ueberschär, <i>Kriegsverbrechen im 20. Jahrhundert</i>, 2001 Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft Darmstadt, pp. 178-192 (p. 178).<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12">[12]</a> Christian Hartmann, <a href="https://www.buecher.de/shop/wehrmacht/wehrmacht-im-ostkrieg/hartmann-christian/products_products/detail/prod_id/30499498/">Wehrmacht im Ostkrieg
Front und militärisches Hinterland 1941/42</a>, p. 544, quoted in my article <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2011/05/scrapbookpages-on-subhuman-cannibalism.html">Scrapbookpages on Subhuman Cannibalism</a>.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13">[13]</a> David Crossland, <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-tracing-its-war-dead-from-world-war-ii-a-832063.html">"Germany Still Locates 40,000 War Casualties a Year"</a>, SPIEGEL International 08.05.2012; Crossland, <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/germany-to-open-last-wwii-war-cemetery-in-russia-a-914093.html">Germany Still Burying Eastern Front Dead</a>, SPIEGEL International 31.07.2013; Zita Ballinger Fletcher, <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2020/01/14/burying-germanys-war-dead-dignity-delicate-work-mercy">Burying Germany’s war dead with dignity is a delicate work of mercy</a>, America Magazine January 14, 2020; Fletcher, <a href="https://www.historynet.com/germans-and-russians-work-together-to-discover-fates-of-war-dead.htm"> "Germans and Russians Work Together to Discover Fates of War Dead"</a>, Historynet July 11,2020; <a href="https://www.dw.com/de/vermisste-des-zweiten-weltkriegs-verloren-und-wiedergefunden/a-53302518">Vermisste des Zweiten Weltkriegs: Verloren und wiedergefunden</a>, <i>Deutsche Welle</i>, 06.05.2020.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14">[14]</a> Arthur L. Smith, Die "vermiβte Million", <i>Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte</i>, Band 65, p. 86.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15">[15]</a> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20080210034644/http:/www.dradio.de/dlf/sendungen/kulturheute/569560/">Keine deutsche Opferarithmetik</a>, interview by <i>Deutschlandfunk</i> published on 29.11.2006. Regarding lower figures see Rüdiger Overmans, <a href="https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/zahl-der-vertreibungsopfer-ist-neu-zu-erforschen.691.de.html?dram%3Aarticle_id=50207">Zahl der Vertreibungsopfer ist neu zu erforschen</a>, <i>Deutschlandfunk</i> 06.12.2006, <a href="https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/historiker-vertriebenen-verband-nennt-falsche-opferzahlen.691.de.html?dram:article_id=50147">Historiker: Vertriebenen-Verband nennt falsche Opferzahlen</a> (interview with Ingo Haar, <i>Deutschlandfunk</i> 14.11.2006) and the page <a href="https://www.dhm.de/lemo/kapitel/zweiter-weltkrieg/kriegsverlauf/massenflucht">Die Flucht der deutschen Bevölkerung 1944/45</a> on the <a href="https://www.dhm.de/lemo/">Lebendiges Museum Online</a> website of the <i>Deutsches Historisches Museum</i>. German historian Ingo Haar’s contention that the number of refugee and expellee deaths was in the order of about 600,000 rather than two millon, and that the latter had been an exaggeration for political reasons, brough bitter recrimination from Erika Steinbach, head of the German Expellees‘ Association (<i>Bund der Vertriebenen</i>), which she expressed i.a. in her memento <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110717201553/http://www.bund-der-vertriebenen.de/files/pm-18_haar-_straeubend.pdf">„Haar“-sträubende Zahlenklitterung des Historikers Ingo Haar</a> (<i>"Hair"-raising numbers quivering by historian Ingo Haar</i>, a word-play on Haar’s name). Haar’s argumentation heavily relies on Overmans‘ <a href="https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=226986">problematic</a> study about German military casualties (Ingo Haar, "Die deutschen ›Vertreibungsverluste‹ – Forschungsstand, Kontexte und Probleme", in: Rainer Mackensen, Jürgen Reulecke, Josef Ehmer (editors), <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-531-91514-2?page=1#toc">Ursprünge, Arten und Folgen des Konstrukts „Bevölkerung“ vor, im und nach dem „Dritten Reich“. Zur Geschichte der deutschen Bevölkerungswissenschaft</a>, pp. 363-380 (p. 371)).<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16">[16]</a> <a href="https://www.konrad-adenauer.de/quellen/reden/1949-03-23-rede-bern">23. März 1949: Rede vor der Interparlamentarischen Union in Bern</a><br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref17" name="_ftn17">[17]</a> C&M, pp. xv, 109, 119; Konrad Adenauer, <i>Erinnerungen 1945-1953</i>, Deutsche Verlagsanstalt Stuttgart 4. Auflage 1980, pp. 182-192 (p. 186).<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref18" name="_ftn18">[18]</a> <a href="https://www.statistischebibliothek.de/mir/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/DEAusgabe_derivate_00000950/Wirtschaft_und_Statistik-1956-10.pdf"><i>Wirtschaft und Statistik</i>, Heft 10, Oktober 1956</a>, hereinafter "WiSt 1956/10".<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref19" name="_ftn19">[19]</a> The population count of the census on 29 October 1946 was about 65,911,000 (Office of Population Research, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2730571?origin=crossref&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">"The Demography of War"</a>, <i>Population Index</i> Vol. 14, No. 4 (Oct., 1948), pp. 291-308 (p. 299)). Prisoners of war, displaced persons and interned civilians on occupation territory were counted by the occupation authorities while all other inhabitants were counted by the local German authorities (p. 297). It is not clear whether the total also included non-Germans, though the article refers to "65.9 million Germans enumerated in October, 1946" on p. 300. On the same page it is pointed out that "The possibility of incompleteness and inaccuracy in enumeration is high, for conditions were disorganized in many areas. There is also the strong likelihood that illegal migrants from one zone to another were not reached by census enumerators". The German Statistics Office’s figure of 65,310,000 was arrived at by deducting non-Germans (which suggests that these were included in the census figure of 65.9 million) as well as births and deaths among refugees/expellees from abroad after arrival on territory of the four occupation zones (WiSt 1956/10, p. 494). A 1985 publication of the German Statistics Office, <a href="https://www.statistischebibliothek.de/mir/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/DEMonografie_derivate_00001627/Bevoelkerung_gestern,_heute_und_morgen.pdf;jsessionid=FD4323CE3B705BE1AA5AC08651BB64AF">Bevölkerung gestern, heute und morgen</a>, states a population figure of about 64,457,000 for the occupation zones in 1946 (p. 12).<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref20" name="_ftn20">[20]</a> Note 1 in the text below Table 1 reads "Wehrmachtstote einschlieβlich Kriegsgefangene ohne nach 1946 in der Gefangenschaft Verstorbene" ("Wehrmacht dead including prisoners of war without deaths in captivity after 1946"), which is confusing. However, in the text of the article (WiSt 1956/10, p. 495) it is clearly stated that deaths in captivity after 1946 are included in the number of Wehrmacht dead (3,760,000) and not in the number still in captivity abroad in 1946 (1,750,000).<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref21" name="_ftn21">[21]</a> Figures in the Wikipedia article <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Volksz%C3%A4hlungen_in_Deutschland">Liste der Volkszählungen in Deutschland</a>.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref22" name="_ftn22">[22]</a> WiSt 1956/10, p. 494.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref23" name="_ftn23">[23]</a> <a href="https://www.zum.de/whkmla/region/germany/saardemography.html#as">Demographic History of the Saarland</a><br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref24" name="_ftn24">[24]</a> A slightly higher total, 11,730,000, is mentioned in Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, <i>A Terrible Revenge. The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans, 1944-1950</i> (1993 St. Martin’s Press, New York), p. 152, citing the German Federal Ministry for Expellees, 1967. Of these 6,944,000 are stated to be from the eastern territories of the German Reich, 2,921,000 from Czechoslovakia and 1,865,000 from other countries.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref25" name="_ftn25">[25]</a> De Zayas, citing the German Federal Ministry of Expellees, 1967, mentions 2,111,000, thereof 1,225,000 from the eastern territories of the German Reich, 267,000 from Czechoslovakia and 619,000 from other countries (<i>A Terrible Revenge</i>, p. 152).<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref26" name="_ftn26">[26]</a> WiSt 1956/10, p. 496.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref27" name="_ftn27">[27]</a> This number corresponds to the order of magnitude expected by US occupation authorities a year before the 1946 census. On 18 October 1945, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a telegram to Washington, stated that the total number potentially involved in westward movement to the Russian zone of Germany and Czechoslovakia was in the range of 10 million (quoted in de Zayas, <i>A Terrible Revenge</i>, p. 113).<br /> By July 1, 1947, more than 9.5 million German refugees were reported in "rump Germany".<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref28" name="_ftn28">[28]</a> The total number of stay-behinds according to WiSt 1956/10 is 2,460,000, thereof 1,030,000 from the eastern territories of the German Reich and 1,430,000 from outside the Reich’s 1937 borders. De Zayas, citing the German Federal Ministry for Expellees, 1967, mentions 2,645,000, thereof 1,101,000 in the former eastern territories of the Reich, 250,000 in Czechoslovakia and 1,294,000 in other countries (<i>A Terrible Revenge</i>, p. 152).<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref29" name="_ftn29">[29]</a> WiSt 1956/10, pp. 496-497.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref30" name="_ftn30">[30]</a> WiSt 1956/10, pp. 497-498.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref31" name="_ftn31">[31]</a> C&M, pp. 109, 129.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref32" name="_ftn32">[32]</a> <a href="https://www.konrad-adenauer.de/quellen/reden/1949-03-23-rede-bern">23. März 1949: Rede vor der Interparlamentarischen Union in Bern</a><br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref33" name="_ftn33">[33]</a> <i>Narben bleiben</i>, p. 12.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref34" name="_ftn34">[34]</a> WiSt 1956/10, p. 494.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref35" name="_ftn35">[35]</a> C&M, note 26 on page 250.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref36" name="_ftn36">[36]</a> <a href="https://ghdi.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=4562">"The Last Soldiers of the Great War": Article from Die Zeit (October 13, 1955)</a><br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref37" name="_ftn37">[37]</a> Peter Antill and Peter Dennis, <i>Berlin 1945. End of the Thousand Year Reich</i> (Osprey Publishing Limited, 2005), p. 85.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref38" name="_ftn38">[38]</a> Antony Beevor, <i>The Fall of Berlin 1945</i> (Viking-Penguin Books, 2002), p. 337.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref39" name="_ftn39">[39]</a> Cornelius Ryan, <i>The Last Battle</i>, 1966 Simon and Schuster, New York, p. 337: "Even twenty years later no one knows with any certainty what the civilian losses were during the battle of Berlin. Even yet, bodies are being unearthed from ruins, in gardens, in parks where they were hurriedly interred during the battle, and from mass graves. However, based on statistical studies, probably close to 100,000 civilians died as a result of the battle. At least 20,000 succumbed to heart attacks, some 6,000 committed suicide, the remainder were either killed outright from shelling of street fighting or died later from wounds."<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref40" name="_ftn40">[40]</a> C&M, pp. XVII<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref41" name="_ftn41">[41]</a> C&M, p. 115<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref42" name="_ftn42">[42]</a> C&M, p. 128<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref43" name="_ftn43">[43]</a> C&M, p. 202<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref44" name="_ftn44">[44]</a> C&M p. 200<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref45" name="_ftn45">[45]</a> <i>Bevölkerung gestern, heute und morgen</i>, p. 15.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref46" name="_ftn46">[46]</a> As above, p. 21.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref47" name="_ftn47">[47]</a> Richard Dominic Wiggers, "The United States and the Refusal to Feed German Civilians after World War II", in: Vardy, Steven Bela; Tooley, T. Hunt (eds.), <i>Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe</i>, pp. 274 – 288 (p. 280).<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref48" name="_ftn48">[48]</a> <i>Bevölkerung gestern, heute und morgen</i>, p.21.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref49" name="_ftn49">[49]</a> As above, p. 29.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref50" name="_ftn50">[50]</a> Document USHMM, RG-31.010M, R.7, 2982/4/390a, transcribed in <i>Verbrechen der Wehrmacht. Dimensionen des Vernichtungskriegs</i>, Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung, p. 346.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref51" name="_ftn51">[51]</a> Document PAAA, R60763, transcribed in <i>Verbrechen der Wehrmacht</i>, p. 345.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref52" name="_ftn52">[52]</a> According to Soviet estimates, about 70-80,000 people died of starvation in Kharkov during the Nazi occupation, a figure that British journalist Alexander Werth thought was "slightly, but not greatly, exaggerated" (Alexander Werth, <i>Russia at War 1941-1945</i>, 2000 Carroll & Graf Publishers New York, pages 607/608). 70,000 famine deaths would be 15.56% of the population.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref53" name="_ftn53">[53]</a> William Rosen, <a href="https://books.google.de/books?id=hlM8AgAAQBAJ&pg=PT139&lpg=PT139&dq=crude%20death%20rates%2014th%20century&source=bl&ots=DgslUaVwTp&sig=eoRWB-ZldWooAR5CZH-a6aW8p9I&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjd9IyEqqLMAhUDFCwKHWcdAa8Q6AEIQTAJ#v=onepage&q=crude%20death%20rates%2014th%20century&f=false">The Third Horseman: Climate Change and the Great Famine of the 14th Century</a>. <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref54" name="_ftn54">[54]</a> Wiggers, as above p. 287.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref55" name="_ftn55">[55]</a> The infant mortality rate nevertheless declined throughout 1946 (Wiggers, as above p. 284).<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref56" name="_ftn56">[56]</a> As above.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref57" name="_ftn57">[57]</a> <i>Bevölkerung gestern, heute und morgen</i>, p.21. According to Wiggers (as above p. 287) the mortality rate by 1948 (the second full year of the massive die-off claimed by Bacque) was 30 % higher than the prewar level, which assuming a prewar mortality rate of 11.6 %o (1.16%) would mean 15.1 %o (1.51 %). It was also 35 % higher than in the US, where according to US government statistics it was 10.1 %o (1.01 %) in 1947 and 9.9 %o (0.99 %) in 1948 (Federal Security Agency and Public Health Service Surgeon General, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsus/VSUS_1948_1.pdf">Vital Statistics of the United States 1948 Part I</a>, Table II – Crude Death Rate per Place of Occurrence, page 5). The rates refer to the estimated mid-year population. 35 % above these rates would be 13.6 %o (1.36%) for 1947 and 13.4 %o (1.34%) for 1948. It is possible that Wiggers assumed a lower prewar mortality rate in Germany than the 11.6 %o (1.16 %) in 1938 according to the German Federal Statistics Office.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref58" name="_ftn58">[58]</a> Karl-Heinz Rothenberger, <a href="https://www.regionalgeschichte.net/bibliothek/aufsaetze/rothenberger-hungerjahre-zweiter-weltkrieg-rheinland-pfalz.html">"Die Hungerjahre nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg am Beispiel von Rheinland-Pfalz"</a>, in <a href="http://www.igl.uni-mainz.de/publikationen/landeskunde/band-41-60/band-46.html">Geschichtliche Landeskunde - Band 46</a><br /> Note that the mortality rate in 1947, 1948 and 1949, the three complete years of the massive die-off period claimed by Bacque, the mortality rate was respectively 12.9 %o, 11.7 %o and 11.1 %o.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref59" name="_ftn59">[59]</a> <a href="https://www.ndr.de/geschichte/chronologie/Hungerwinter-194647,hungerwinter166.html">Der "weiße Tod" im Hungerwinter 1946/47</a>, <i>Norddeutscher Rundfunk</i>, 07.05.2020.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref60" name="_ftn60">[60]</a> It was worse in the eastern territories of the former German Reich that became part of Poland or the Soviet Union, especially in <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-mortality-in-konigsberg.html">Königsberg</a> (now Kaliningrad), but deaths there are included in the numbers of refugee/expellee deaths.<b>[Reference to HC article about Königsberg added on 05.09.2021]</b><br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref61" name="_ftn61">[61]</a> Antill and Dennis, <i>Berlin 1945</i>, p. 85. Cornelius Ryan’s figure in <i>The Last Battle</i> (about 100,000, thereof 20,000 due to heart attacks and 6,000 suicides) refers to the whole area of the Battle of Berlin, not the city alone.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref62" name="_ftn62">[62]</a> About 95,000 to 130,000 Berlin women were raped during or after the battle. One doctor deduced that out of approximately 100,000 women raped in Berlin, some 10,000 died as a result, mostly from suicide (Beevor, <i>Berlin</i>, p. 414). Some women were killed because they resisted or out of sheer sadism. German journalist Margret Boveri recorded in her diary entry on 03.05.1945 a particularly horrible case that occurred in the Dahlem district towards the end of the battle. A woman and her four child daughters, who she personally knew, and another woman with her daughter were found hanging in a cellar. They had been raped and badly mangled before their deaths. A snoring Russian was lying beside them. Boveri assumed that this had been a case of lust murder (Margret Boveri, <i>Tage des Überlebens</i>, Munich 1985, p. 106). <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref63" name="_ftn63">[63]</a> Boveri, as above p. 195. Boveri assumed that about half the city’s population suffered from dysentery and diarrhea, which sometimes took horrible forms. She came down with it herself for four days. The German term "<a href="https://www.netdoktor.de/krankheiten/typhus/">Typhus</a>" designates a disease caused by salmonella bacteria that is usually contracted by consuming contaminated water or food but can also be transmitted from person to person. It is known in English as <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/typhoid-fever/">typhoid fever</a>. The English term <a href="https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/what-is-typhus">typhus</a>, on the other hand, designates a disease that is mostly transmitted by body lice. The German term for this disease is "<a href="https://www.netdoktor.de/krankheiten/fleckfieber/">Fleckfieber</a>", spotted fever. As Boveri mentioned "Typhus" along with dysentery, I assume she was referring to the term in German usage, i.e. to typhoid fever.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref64" name="_ftn64">[64]</a> As above, p. 251. Boveri wondered how many of these deaths were from hunger and disease and how many were suicides. How to commit suicide was a frequent conversation topic among Berliners and one of Boveri’s own preoccupations (as above pp. 136-137). Boveri mentioned suicides, not necessarily related to rapes, on a number of occasions, like when an actor named Paul Bildt poisoned himself together with 20 others including his daughter and survived while all others died (p. 239). Suicides are also addressed in the diary of <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Andreas-Friedrich">Ruth Andreas Friedrich</a>, a journalist and member of the German resistance during the war, which was published as <i>Schauplatz Berlin. Tagebuchaufzeichnungen 1945 bis 1948</i> (Suhrkamp, Berlin 1985). Suicides are also a subject in the celebrated anonymous diary <i>A Woman in Berlin</i>, written by a woman who suffered repeated rapes until she managed to obtain the protection of Soviet officers (first a 1st lieutenant, then a major) by becoming their mistress. Berlin was the only city in the four occupation zones that saw a marked increase in the suicide rates, from 50-100 to 250 per 100,000 inhabitants in 1945 (Schenck, as above p. 66).<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref65" name="_ftn65">[65]</a> While deaths from the battle and suicides are repeatedly mentioned in the diaries of Ruth Friedrich and the anonymous diarist, there is little there that would suggest a high excess mortality from malnutrition and disease in the 1945/46 period. Margret Boveri’s diary contains more information in this respect. The most critical month seems to have been July 1945, when food rations were shortened due to differences among the occupying powers about how food supply in the various occupation sectors of the city was to be handled. That month Boveri only managed to buy, besides bread, 2 kohlrabi, 1 small lettuce, half a pound of cranberries, 600 g of sugar and 300 g of meat. Potatoes, fat, salt and vinegar were not to be had. Even for bread Berliners now had to queue up (p. 244). A friend of hers was getting thinner every day and somehow managed to feed a husband with a stomach ailment (p. 245). Instead of 24 pounds of potatoes that she was entitled to in July, Boveri got only 8 pounds and 400 g of potato wedges. She still considered herself comparatively fortunate as she was occasionally given vegetables. The less fortunate fainted in the metro or while queuing for food or died at home. Men looked worse than women even though all women known to her went hungry so their men would have more to eat. Shoulder blades and bones could be seen through clothing (p. 253, entry for 29 July 1945). In posterior annotations to her diary Boveri cited a correspondent of the <i>Times</i> mentioning a woman who had not eaten potatoes or any form of fat for a month and expressing the conviction that many would die of hunger. On 30 July Soviet general Gorbatov gave an interview to the British and American press addressing the dire food situation. He stated that the cause was Nazi sabotage but admitted that, except for bread, ration values were not being complied with. Bread could be provided in relatively large quantities due to Soviet flour shipments (pp. 253-254).<br />
It should be mentioned in this context that the Soviet occupiers had to feed the Berlin population under their control at a time when famine in Central Asia had reduced families there to cannibalism (Beevor, <i>Berlin</i>, p. 392). The first Soviet city commandant, General Berzarin, who went out and chatted with Germans queuing at Red Army field kitchens, soon became almost as much of a hero to Berliners as he was to his own men. His death in a drunken motorcycle accident on 16 June 1945 provoked widespread sadness and rumors among the Germans that he had been murdered by the NKVD (as above, p. 409). Berzarin is commemorated in Berlin by a street bridge named <a href="https://www.tracesofwar.com/sights/82364/Nikolai-E-Bersarin-Br%C3%BCcke-Berlin.htm">Nikolai-E.-Bersarin-Brücke</a> in 2006. There is also a <a href="https://berlingeschichte.de/strassen/bez05h/b409.htm">Bersarinstraβe</a> in the city’s Friedrichshain district. Berzarin was made an honorary citizen of Berlin in 2003, after some controversy due to accusations that he had participated in deportations from the Baltics and done nothing to curb excesses by his troops in Berlin. A <a href="https://www.berlin.de/ba-lichtenberg/aktuelles/pressemitteilungen/2020/pressemitteilung.942811.php">monument</a> honoring Berzarin was inaugurated on 16 June 2020. Berzarin’s popularity among Berliners is also mentioned in Boveri’s diary (p. 211). <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref66" name="_ftn66">[66]</a> Berlin is believed to have had 4,338,756 inhabitants in 1939, 2,807,405 inhabitants on 12.08.1945 (registered population "present in the city"), 3,187,114 inhabitants on 29.10.1946 (census data) and 3,336,026 on 13.09.1950 (census data), see <a href="https://berlingeschichte.de/stadtentwicklung/texte/4_13_bvoelent.htm">Bevölkerungsentwicklung in Berlin</a>. In April 1945 the population was "anything between 3 and 3.5 million people, including around 120,000 infants" (Beevor, <i>Berlin</i>, p. 177). 200 deaths per day in "normal" times would mean 73,000 deaths per year, which applied to a 1939 population of 4,338,756 would mean a mortality rate of 16.8 %o or 1.68 %. Such mortality would be higher than the mortality rate in Germany in 1910 (16.2 %o or 1.62 %, according to <i>Bevölkerung gestern, heute und morgen</i>, p. 21) and is thus implausible. Assuming the 1938 mortality rate of 11.6 %o, the last figure for "normal" times available for the German Reich, the "normal" equivalent for the lower August 1945 census population of Berlin (2,807,405) would be 89, and the quintuple thereof (assuming that the death rate quintupled as claimed by Dibelius) would be 445 (thereof 19 suicides assuming the rate of 250 per 100,000 according to Schenck, as above). This would correspond to an annual mortality rate of 57.9 %o or 5.79% (that is, 57.9 %o or 5.79 % of the population would have died if this mortality situation had lasted one year). Schenck (as above p. 68) mentioned a study by physician F. Raedeker whereby mortality in Berlin in July 1945 was about 6 times higher than before the war, which assuming a prewar mortality rate of 11.6 %o would mean a mortality rate of 69.6 %o (6.96 %). In her diary entry of 1 August 1945 (as above p. 267) Margret Boveri wrote that, if a famine was predicted for the winter, she wondered what the current situation would be called.<br />
By May 1946 the mortality rate was down to 3 times the prewar level (Schenck, as above), which would be 34.80 %o (3.48 %). This roughly corresponds to the mortality rate in early modern European cities in non-crisis years (see my article <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2015/04/friedrich-jansson-responded.html">Friedrich Jansson responded …</a>, reference to Vanessa Harding, <a href="https://books.google.de/books?id=JCPXfSUlUV8C&pg=PA25&dq=&hl=en&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">The Dead and the Living in Paris and London, 1500-1670</a>, p. 17).<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref67" name="_ftn67">[67]</a> MacDonogh, as above, p. 497. The source given is Cyril Buffet, <i>Berlin</i>, Paris 1993, p. 359.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref68" name="_ftn68">[68]</a> Wiggers, as above p. 284.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref69" name="_ftn69">[69]</a> MacDonogh, as above. The source given is Alexandra Richie, <i>Faust’s Metropolis – A History of Berlin</i>, London 1998, p. 638.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref70" name="_ftn70">[70]</a> General mention in the entry of 30 December 1946, specific named cases published by the press in the entry of 31 January 1947.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref71" name="_ftn71">[71]</a> Entry of 24 December 1946.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref72" name="_ftn72">[72]</a> Entry of 2 January 1947.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref73" name="_ftn73">[73]</a> The other 8,010 would be deaths that would also have occurred under "normal" circumstances (89 per day, see note 66, for 90 days from 21/12/1945 to 21/03/1946, the winter period).<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref74" name="_ftn74">[74]</a> Entry of 3 October 1945.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref75" name="_ftn75">[75]</a> Dissertation "Kinder-und Heilkunde in Berlin. Zwischen Fürsorge und Forschung (1945-1965)". Zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades Doctor medicinae (Dr. med.) vorgelegt der Medizinischen Fakultät Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin von Lea Münch, 18.09.2020. Pages 27-29. Münch cites one of the clinic’s physicians at the time, Gerhard Joppe.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref76" name="_ftn76">[76]</a> As above, pages 30-31.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref77" name="_ftn77">[77]</a> As above, page 34.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref78" name="_ftn78">[78]</a> As above, pages 37-39.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref79" name="_ftn79">[79]</a> As above, page 41.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref80" name="_ftn80">[80]</a> As above, p. 62.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref81" name="_ftn81">[81]</a> The source given is the publication <i>Das Deutsche Gesundheitswesen</i>, issued by the <i>Deutsche Zentralverwaltung für das Gesundheitswesen in der Sowjetischen Besatzungszone</i>.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref82" name="_ftn82">[82]</a> This is the last known birth rate for the German Reich (1943) according to <i>Bevölkerung gestern, heute und morgen</i>, p. 15.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref83" name="_ftn83">[83]</a> According to MacDonogh (as above, p. 535), the 1948/49 winter of the Berlin Blockade, in which up to 2,000 Berliners died of cold and hunger, was "second only to the winter of 1946-7." <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref84" name="_ftn84">[84]</a> See note 66.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref85" name="_ftn85">[85]</a> Berlin disasters from the 1576/77 plague (believed to have killed half the city’s population) via the Thirty Years War (about one third of the population) to the Battle of Berlin (64,000 deaths in the city itself, including 22,000 civilians) are mentioned in Simone Donovan et al, <a href="https://www.exberliner.com/features/zeitgeist/berlins-apocalyptic-past/">Berlin’s apocalyptic past</a>, EXBERLINER December 18, 2012.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref86" name="_ftn86">[86]</a> Based on the 1938 mortality rate of 11,6 % (1.16 %) and the 1946 census population of 3,187,114. <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref87" name="_ftn87">[87]</a> Based on 12,000 excess deaths in the period, rounded figure. <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref88" name="_ftn88">[88]</a> The difference of 30 towards 12,000 is due to rounding of the daily figure for excess deaths.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref89" name="_ftn89">[89]</a> Münch, as above, p. 62.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref90" name="_ftn90">[90]</a> Figure for 1935 in <i>Bevölkerung gestern, heute und morgen</i>, p. 29. This is the last figure available for the German Reich. For the territory of the later German Federal Republic there is a 1938 figure of 60 %o or 6.0 %. <br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref91" name="_ftn91">[91]</a> Death rate estimates, especially for the 1945/46 period, may also include refugees from the East. Although they were not supposed to enter the city, many so did and "thousands" died in the streets (Richie, <i>Faust’s Metropolis</i> p. 636, citing British Captain Marples).<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref92" name="_ftn92">[92]</a> Rothenberger, as above.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref93" name="_ftn93">[93]</a> As above p. 65.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref94" name="_ftn94">[94]</a> C&M, p. 214.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref95" name="_ftn95">[95]</a> Schenck, as above p. 71. It’s worth mentioning in this context that, except in situations of famine and epidemics, mortality in periods of dearth need not be much higher and may even be lower than in periods of prosperity. The reason is that prosperity brings its own health problems. More cars on the street means more air pollution. Alcohol, cigarettes, fatty foods and sweets may be consumed in larger quantities because they are more available and affordable, leading to a higher incidence of cardiovascular diseases, cancers, diabetes and obesity. People may also become more sedentary when they can sit at home watching TV instead of having to go out in search of food or wood for heating, which at least implies some exercise. There are <a href="https://www.history.com/news/great-depression-economy-life-expectancy">studies</a> according to which life expectancy in the US <i>increased</i> during the Great Depression. Then there is the problem of aging populations that plagues some European countries. Poor countries with a younger population may have much lower crude death rates than prosperous countries where the population is older on average. For example, the death rate in Venezuela, a country known to be in dire straits, was 6.953%o in the 2015 – 2020 period whereas in Germany it was 11.158%o in the same period, according to the United Nation’s database <a href="http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?d=PopDiv&f=variableID:65">Crude death rate (deaths per 1,000 population)</a> (consulted on 17.07.2021).<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref96" name="_ftn96">[96]</a> In conquered Dresden the Soviets "showed some genuine concern" for the welfare of the German population. On May 16, 1945, the Red Army released thirty thousand tons of potatoes, ninety-five hundred tons of wheat, and eleven hundred tons of meat and other provisions to cover the Dresdeners’ emergency needs. By May 20, hundreds of food stores and bakeries had reopened for business, and a rationing system was initiated to avoid outright starvation. (Frederick Taylor, <i>Dresden Tuesday, 13 February 1945</i>, HarperCollins e-books, p. 385).<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref97" name="_ftn97">[97]</a> Characteristics of this literature are explained in the article <a href="https://abi.unicum.de/abitur/abitur-lernen/truemmerliteratur">Trümmerliteratur (1945–1950): Das sind die typischen Merkmale</a>. For an explanation in English see <a href="https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/988/what-are-the-charactaristics-of-german-tr%C3%BCmmerliteratur">What are the characteristics of German Trümmerliteratur</a>.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref98" name="_ftn98">[98]</a> Some of Böll’s works have been translated into English, e.g. <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-07-19-bk-4748-story.html">The Casualty</a> (the reviewer unfairly chides Böll for his focus on what Germans suffered rather than what Germans did), <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/heinrich-boll-10/a-soldiers-legacy/">A Soldier’s Legacy</a>, <a href="https://www.mhpbooks.com/books/the-train-was-on-time/">The Train was on Time</a>, <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/and-where-were-you-adam-wo-warst-du-adam">And Where Were You, Adam?</a>.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref99" name="_ftn99">[99]</a> The play was translated into English as <a href="https://books.google.es/books/about/The_Man_Outside.html?id=J_IspS4jMPAC&redir_esc=y">The Man Outside</a><br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref100" name="_ftn100">[100]</a>The short story can be read online <a href="https://www.kjz-hgw.de/schule-greifswald/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/04/Vorbereitung-auf-die-Berufsreife-II_Kurzgeschichten_digital.pdf">in German</a>. Probably the shortest short story ever written, it is also one of the most powerful.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref101" name="_ftn101">[101]</a> Afterword of <a href="https://www.zvab.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30586753358&cm_sp=collections-_-6QVS4GbnVV1LAP7uUb75Uj_item_1_57-_-bdp">draußen vor der tür und ausgewählte erzählungen</a>, a collection including <i>Drauβen vor der Tür</i> and selected short stories.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref102" name="_ftn102">[102]</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfgsLa64mFU">Hungerwinter 1946/47</a>.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref103" name="_ftn103">[103]</a> As above, p. 253. Another comparison to put Bacque’s claim into perspective would be a hypothetical scenario of the current pandemic in which 5,700,000 ÷ 4 = 1,425,000 people per year died of Covid-19 in Germany alone. As of 13.07.2021, according to <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/">Worldometers</a>, the reported death toll from the pandemic in all of Europe was 1,115,017, and Germany had reported 91,799 deaths from Covid-19. Imagine what Germany would be like if (at least) 1,425,000 had died there from Covid-19 so far.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref104" name="_ftn104">[104]</a> Invoking someone’s predictions of mass dying as evidence that such mass dying must have happened is about as fallacious as invoking predictions about the possible death toll of a pandemic as evidence that such death toll occurred, or invoking the Nazis’ apocalyptic scenarios whereby 30 million inhabitants of the Soviet Union would die as a consequence of Nazi exploitation policies (see my articles <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2010/10/bloodlands-by-timothy-snyder.html">Bloodlands, by Timothy Snyder</a> and <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2010/12/critique-of-timothy-snyders-bloodlands.html">A Critique of Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands</a>, and the reference thread <a href="https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/holocaustcontroversies/the-nazi-hunger-plan-for-occupied-soviet-territori-t1904.html">The Nazi Hunger Plan for Occupied Soviet Territories</a>) as evidence that this many actually died. There was no mass dying of Soviet civilians under Nazi occupation on the scale predicted by Nazi officials. Except in besieged <a href="https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/holocaustcontroversies/the-siege-of-leningrad-t1909.html">Leningrad</a>, among <a href="https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/holocaustcontroversies/the-fate-of-soviet-prisoners-of-war-t1896.html">Soviet prisoners of war</a> and to a lesser extent in some other hotspots like <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2006/08/one-might-think-that.html">Kiev and Kharkov</a>, there is no evidence of people in the occupied areas of the Soviet Union having died like flies from famine and disease, to the point where disposing of their bodies alone would have become a major problem.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref105" name="_ftn105">[105]</a> C&M p. 35 and note 43 on page 230.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref106" name="_ftn106">[106]</a> Ruth Friedrich’s diary contains harrowing accounts of encounters with refugees from the east, one with expellees from Königsberg who looked more animal than human and more dead than alive (entry of 10 September 1947), and one with a wretched procession of refugees outside the city that included a sobbing boy trying to walk on his bleeding naked feet, a woman gone mad who repeated a phrase again and again and an elder woman visibly about to die (entry of 15 June 1945). This sight led to a conversation with her companion about whether Berliners should help these people by receiving them in their homes, which they concluded would only create unbearable tension and conflict among persons crammed into a tiny space with just eight square meters per person.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref107" name="_ftn107">[107]</a> C&M, pp. 33-34.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref108" name="_ftn108">[108]</a> This book can be read <a href="https://archive.org/details/B-001-014-087">online</a> and downloaded as a PDF.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref109" name="_ftn109">[109]</a> <i>In Darkest Germany</i>, p. 93. The actual death toll from bombing was in the order of 35,000 in the July/August 1943 attacks and 45,000 throughout the war according to Hans Brunswig, <i>Feuersturm über Hamburg</i> (Motorbuch Verlag Stuttgart, 1992) p. 402.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref110" name="_ftn110">[110]</a> C&M, p. 32.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref111" name="_ftn111">[111]</a> <i>In Darkest Germany</i>, pp. 25-26.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref112" name="_ftn112">[112]</a> As above, pp. 28–30.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref113" name="_ftn113">[113]</a> As above, pp. 39–40.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref114" name="_ftn114">[114]</a> As above, p. 47.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref115" name="_ftn115">[115]</a> As above pp. 51–53.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref116" name="_ftn116">[116]</a> As above pp. 42 and 45/46.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref117" name="_ftn117">[117]</a> As above p. 53.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref118" name="_ftn118">[118]</a> In June 1946 a relief worker testifying before the US Senate stated the following (Wiggers, as above p. 283): "Starvation is not the dramatic thing one so often reads and imagines... of people in mobs crying for food and falling over in the streets. The starving... those who are dying never say anything and one rarely sees them. They first become listless and weak, they react quickly to cold and chills, they sit staring in their rooms or lie listlessly in their beds... one day they just die. The doctor usually diagnoses malnutrition and complications resulting therefrom. Old women and kids usually die first because they are weak and are unable to get out and scrounge for the extra food it takes to live." However, even if starvation was not a public spectacle, relatives, acquaintances and neighbors of the deceased person would know about it, and the relief worker obviously assumed that each death diagnosed as being due to "malnutrition and complications resulting therefrom" was recorded by a doctor.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref119" name="_ftn119">[119]</a> As above p. 110-111.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref120" name="_ftn120">[120]</a> C&M, p. 215.<br />
<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2021/07/crimes-and-mercies-by-james-bacque.html#_ftnref121" name="_ftn121">[121]</a> Schenck (p. 70) mentioned that according to one study 6,325 cases of hunger oedema were reported in Hamburg from mid-May 1946 to Mid-January 1947, of which 275 = 4.3 % died. The author of the study, H.W. Bansi (apparently a physician at a hospital), counted 944 patients suffering from malnutrition in his section between the start of 1946 and July 1947, of which 58 = 6.1 % died. Only 25 of these were actual starvation deaths. Other studies mention 36 deaths of people with hunger oedema in 2,300 autopsies, thereof 13 starvation deaths, 82 starvation deaths including many elderly people in 1,310 autopsies, and 3 starvation deaths among 93 autopsies of severely malnourished persons.<br /> Roberto Muehlenkamphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03608133715777146924noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24597325.post-62661138811129773482021-07-09T16:20:00.026+01:002021-08-11T01:23:14.925+01:00Review of Holocaust Handbooks Volume 26 – Santiago Alvarez, The Gas Vans<div style="text-align: justify;">
From December 1941, the Nazis deployed homicidal gas vans using gasoline engine exhaust for the extermination of the European Jews, the liquidation of mental asylums and clearing of prisons in the occupied Soviet Union. The mass killing technique was supposed to provide mental relief for the shooting squads and enable more discreet mass killing. The vans came with two types of chassis: 3 tons trucks of various makes as first series, and 5 tons trucks of the make Saurer as the second series. The Security Police distributed <a href="https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2019/02/mattogno-his-einsatzgruppen-book-and.html" target="_blank">around 20 vehicles</a> for use in occupied Eastern territories (Serbia, Poland and Soviet Union). Another gas van on a Ford chassis was <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2016/06/update-on-rebuttal-of-alvarez-on-gas.html" target="_blank">operated</a> by the Secret Field Police. About a quarter of Million people fell victim of these mobile gas chambers (according to Alfred Kokh and Pavel Polian (ed.), Denial of the Denial, or the Battle of Auschwitz, p. 142).</div>
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Their historical reality is established by <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2015/10/contemporary-german-documents-on.html" target="_blank">numerous contemporary Nazi documents</a>, contemporary accounts and reports of other origins, and several 100s of post-war testimonies, thereof mostly by former members of the Nazi paramilitary and military forces towards German criminal investigators (many examples cited in the blog series <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2015/11/rebuttal-of-alvarez-on-gas-vans-why.html">Rebuttal of Alvarez on Gas Vans</a>).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span><a name='more'></a></span>
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A tough nut to crack it is for denial. With its shortage in talents, the allergy towards archives among most of their folks and its zero confidence to survive with the methods of history, a virtually impossible challenge for "Revisionism". Therefore, they had to stick to the next best plan: take the first available guy, e.g. the content manager of a website (Santiago Alvarez)*. Add a dusted, little appealing pamphlet by a French denier (Pierre Marais, Les Camions à gaz en question). Adjust format and style, clean passages not yet in maximum denial mode and let him flavour it with some new epic fails. With that, <a href="http://holocausthandbooks.com/dl/26-tgv.pdf" target="_blank">Holocaust Handbooks volume 26</a> was born.</div>
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To make the predictable story of the book short, Santiago Alvarez maintains that there is no evidence for gas vans. He also knows "there never were any stationary 'gas chambers'" either (cause some other deniers wrote "Holocaust Handbooks" about it). Since November 2015, the Holocaust Controversies blog has published <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2015/11/rebuttal-of-alvarez-on-gas-vans-why.html" target="_blank">detailed rebuttals</a> of the book. More than five years later, there is still no reply to the arguments. Time to remind Alvarez of his own words (originally towards the <a href="https://www.ifz-muenchen.de/heftarchiv/1987_3_4_beer.pdf" target="_blank">gas van researcher</a> Matthias Beer, who just did not want to play silly games with deniers): "Any decent researcher would have taken such critical inquiry as a reason to look into his own research again" (p.16). With this standard set, how to explain his utter silence over the years? <br /></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">His critique of sources on the construction and operation of the Nazi homicidal gas vans consists of random assertions without solid technical background and historical context. For example, Alvarez claims that all Saurer trucks were running with Diesel. He raised this to a smoking gun against the authenticity of Nazi documents and eyewitness accounts. T<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">he fall is exceptionally high here, i</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">t is fake news. </span>There was never any proof that all trucks on Saurer chassis were running with Diesel fuel. The chassis with gasoline engines were <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.de/2015/11/rebuttal-of-alvarez-on-gas-vans-why.html" target="_blank">obtained</a> from the Saurer factory in Suresnes near Paris.</span> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">He argues that the combined oil-pressure brake mentioned for the Saurer in a highly incriminating <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2015/10/contemporary-german-documents-on.html#_doc9" target="_blank">letter</a> of 16 May 1942 "makes no sense, technically
speaking...nor is there a precedent for such a combination to my
knowledge" (p.50). A glimpse into relevant literature <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2015/12/rebuttal-of-alvarez-on-gas-vans-becker.html" target="_blank">shows</a> that the brake system described by Becker was introduced in the 1930s in Germany, including for Saurer trucks. Can only be missed if one does not want to know. <br /></div>
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At least there is consistency in his failure. He is not only ignorant on technical details; he does not know much about Nazi bureaucracy and witness statements either. A document in the RSHA files states that "the special vans manufactured by us are at this time in operation...use steel bottles with carbon monoxide". Alvarez is sure that "formally seen, almost everything about this letter is wrong" (p.297). As can be readily <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2016/01/rebuttal-of-alvarez-on-gas-vans-rauff.html" target="_blank">proven</a>, everything about <b>his</b> analysis is wrong and, formally seen, everything about this carbon of the letter is correct. <br />
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Alvarez mentions (let aside addresses) only a tiny fraction of witnesses on homicidal gas vans. His main original contribution to the book are some comments on published judgements of post-war German trials (see also <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2016/11/rebuttal-of-alvarez-of-gas-vans-west.html" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2017/01/rebuttal-of-alvarez-on-gas-vans.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2015/12/rebuttal-of-alvarez-on-gas-vans-why.html" target="_blank">here</a>). In a short moment of self-reflection, he admits that his work "is still far from complete" and that "any of this study’s conclusions must necessarily be considered provisional in character, and the discussion will remain open" (p.12). </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">But if so, why did he not act with the appropriate profound humility and caution? On the contrary, he even scried that once a "critical researcher" looks through the archival testimonial evidence, he is "convinced that the discrepancies turn out to be even more glaring" (p. 253). Apart from that this would have been precisely his own job when publishing a monograph on the gas vans, it is always intriguing to learn about the preconvictions of those "critical researchers".<br />
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His explanation for not examining the bulk of the evidence (p. 12: "currently difficult, if not impossible, to access by critical researchers") is a far-fetched excuse. The West-German investigation records related to homicidal gas vans are readily accessible. He had simply no intention and motivation to examine the archival files. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> <br />
Alvarez ignores the linkage between the stationary Euthanasia
gassings, the <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2017/05/sonderkommando-lange-in-german.html" target="_blank">mobile Euthanasia gassings</a>
with carbon monoxide bottles in the Warthegau and the mobile gassings with engine exhaust developed for Soviet Union. In his discussion of the killing experiments in Mogilev, he mocks the well-established explosive experiment in Minsk (p. 216-217) and is not even aware of the <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2016/06/german-footage-of-homicidal-gassing.html" target="_blank">film footage</a> of the crucial experimental gassing in Mogilev leading to the implementation of gas vans with engine exhaust. <br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">The author's double standard in favour of the Nazis is blatant obvious when Alvarez writes about "the revelation about Soviet gas vans" (p.109) citing by far much poorer evidence compared to what is available for the Nazi gas vans. <br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
In conclusion, Alvarez did not to do his homework and refrained from looking into the available evidence with some technical and historical knowledge, genuine curiosity and an open mind. The work only highlights the lack of common sense and research of the author rather than problems with the Nazi homicidal gas vans. This book does not advance the subject in any way. <br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><span><!--more--></span><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> * In Bradly Smith's "Smith's Report No. 195", February 2013, Alvarez
describes himself as "Contents Manager", "Manager of the mutual CODOH
& VHO/CHP web project", and "CODOH Webmaster".<br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
<b>Further Reading:</b><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b>Rebuttal of Alvarez on Gas Vans</b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Part I: <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.de/2015/11/rebuttal-of-alvarez-on-gas-vans-why.html">Why the Diesel Issue is Still Irrelevant</a> (update <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.de/2016/03/update-on-rebuttal-of-alvarez-on-gas.html">1</a>, <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.de/2016/09/2nd-update-on-rebuttal-of-alvarez-on.html">2</a>)<br />
Part II: <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.de/2015/11/rebuttal-of-alvarez-on-gas-vans.html">Producer Gas</a> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Part III: <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.de/2015/12/rebuttal-of-alvarez-on-gas-vans-why.html">The Ford Gas Wagon</a> (<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.de/2016/06/update-on-rebuttal-of-alvarez-on-gas.html">update</a>)<br />
Part IV: <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.de/2015/12/rebuttal-of-alvarez-on-gas-vans-becker.html">The Becker Letter</a> (<a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2016/11/update-of-rebuttal-of-alvarez-on-gas.html">update</a>)<br />
Part V: <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.de/2016/01/rebuttal-of-alvarez-on-gas-vans-rauff.html">The Rauff Letter to the Criminal Technical Institute</a> (update <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.de/2016/05/update-on-rebuttal-of-alvarez-on-gas_29.html">1</a>, <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.de/2016/06/update-2-on-rebuttal-of-alvarez-on-gas.html">2</a>, <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.de/2016/10/3rd-update-on-rebuttal-of-alvarez-on.html">3</a>, cf. on <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.de/2016/10/mattognos-falsehoods-on-rauff-letter-to.html">Mattogno</a> & <a href="https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2018/11/mattognos-major-problem-on-gas-van.html" target="_blank">here</a>)</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Part VI: <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.de/2016/04/rebuttal-of-alvarez-on-gas-vans-turner.html">The Turner Letter</a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Part VII: <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.de/2016/08/rebuttal-of-alvarez-on-gas-vans-schafer.html">The Schäfer, Trühe & Rauff Telexes</a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Part VIII: <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.de/2016/09/rebuttal-of-alvarez-on-gas-vans.html">The Einsatzgruppe B Activity & Situation Report</a> (cf. on <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.de/2016/09/mattogno-and-activity-situation-report.html">Mattogno</a>)</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Part IX: <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.de/2016/10/rebuttal-of-alvarez-on-gas-vans-just.html">The Just Memo</a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Part X: <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.de/2016/11/rebuttal-of-alvarez-of-gas-vans-west.html">The West-German Trials Against Members of Einsatzkommando 8</a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Part XI: <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.de/2017/01/rebuttal-of-alvarez-on-gas-vans.html">Einsatzgruppe D in Simferopol</a><br />
Part XII: <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2020/05/rebuttal-of-alvarez-on-gas-vans.html" target="_blank">Material Evidence</a></div><b>Mattogno, his Einsatzgruppen book and the Gas Vans</b> </div>Part I: <a href="https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2018/12/mattogno-his-einsatzgruppen-book-and.html">A Dilettante at Work</a><span></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left;">Part II: <a href="https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2018/12/mattogno-his-einsatzgruppen-book-and_22.html">Mental Degeneration or Dishonesty, Your Choice!</a></div><div style="text-align: left;">Part III: <a href="https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2018/12/mattogno-his-einsatzgruppen-book-and28.html">Genesis and Pictures That Say it All</a></div><div style="text-align: left;">Part IV: <a href="https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2019/01/mattogno-his-einsatzgruppen-book-and_18.html">The "Enormous Contradiction" That Is None</a></div><div style="text-align: left;">Part V: <a href="https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2019/01/mattogno-his-einsatzgruppen-book-and19.html">Nazi Foreign Office Documents vs. Holocaust Denia</a>l</div><div style="text-align: left;">Part VI: <a href="https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2019/02/mattogno-his-einsatzgruppen-book-and.html">Gas Van Arithmetic</a></div><div style="text-align: left;">Part VII: <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2019/03/mattogno-his-einsatzgruppen-book-and.html">Semantics</a> <div style="text-align: left;">Part VIII: <a href="https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2019/04/mattogno-his-einsatzgruppen-book-and.html" target="_blank">Little More Than Hot Gas</a>
</div>
</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/contemporary-german-documents-on.html">Contemporary German Documents on Homicidal Gas Vans</a> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2018/11/mattognos-major-problem-on-gas-van.html" target="_blank">Mattogno's Major Problem with a Gas Van Document</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2016/11/sketches-of-german-homicidal-gas-vans.html" target="_blank">Sketches of German Homicidal Gas Vans</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sonderkommando Kulmhof in German Documents: Part II: <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.de/2017/07/sonderkommando-kulmhof-in-german.html">The Extermination of 100,000 Jews</a> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sonderkommando Lange in German Documents: <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.de/2017/05/sonderkommando-lange-in-german.html">Euthanasia 1940/41</a> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2016/10/contemporary-german-documents-on-carbon.html" target="_blank">Contemporary German Documents on Carbon Monoxide Gas and Bottles Employed for the Nazi Euthanasia</a><a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2017/04/german-document-on-chelmno-gas-van.html" target="_blank">German Document on Chelmno Gas Van Driver Filling up Gasoline in Lodz</a> <br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2016/05/german-footage-of-homicidal-gassing.html">German Footage of a Homicidal Gassing with Engine Exhaust</a><br /></div><br />Hans Metznerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07746792258730274681noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24597325.post-20896374737323627032021-06-28T16:45:00.000+01:002021-06-28T16:45:15.166+01:00Michael Hoffman's Twisted Road<p>Since we began this blog 15 years ago, we've been fully aware that Holocaust deniers have individual motives. Certainly among these motives is antisemitism -- it's perhaps the one trait that the overwhelming majority of deniers share -- but there are also motives like ego and grift.</p><p>With the rapid graying and dying of the American denier community, Michael A. Hoffman II, at 64 years old, is now among the elder statesmen of American deniers. One thing I've also found in my interactions with individual deniers is that he's also among the most unpopular figures in that small circle. One confided in me that Hoffman was an acid casualty from the 1970s who emerged in the radical right-wing "movement" in the 1980s with an obvious mental illness (a point I've never been able to independently verify, let it be said). More recently, David Cole told me that Hoffman was known among deniers in particular for his openly genocidal rhetoric against Jews and non-whites generally. This was a problem for the denier movement then since the prevailing strategy was to present denial as a quasi-academic alternative to the "orthodox" history of the Holocaust.</p><p>What has marked Hoffman's "career" most prominently, however, is his chameleon-like nature. The man has undergone a frequent process of reinvention over the course of the last 30 years or so. When I first encountered him in Usenet in the mid-1990s, he presented as a wannabe public intellectual, flaunting his "expertise" on Jewish legal texts. This, we now know, was his second act, since the first act relates to the materials we are presenting below. Hoffman's third (and final?) act has been that of dissident Catholic, taking issue with post-Vatican II Catholicism and particularly its embrace of usury (he claims). He oddly calls Jews "Judaics," but he now claims to be a critic of the Third Reich. Among his more recent books is <i>Adolf Hitler: Enemy of the German People. </i>A couple of months ago, in a <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20210407170254/https://revisionistreview.blogspot.com/2021/04/adls-defamatory-fantasies-about-michael.html">blog post of his own</a>, he responded to an ADL press release that called him a Holocaust denier using his Hitler book as a sort of defense. </p><p>It is possible that Hoffman has undergone a genuine transformation. Perhaps his Hitler book is a sort of mea culpa. One thing is clear, however: Hoffman has never publicly renounced his earlier fascist stance. Lest it be thought that the word "fascist" is being thrown around here willy-nilly, we present two important pieces of evidence.</p><p>The first is Hoffman's novel <i>A Candidate for the Order</i>, which he self-published in 1988. If you were looking for a <i>Turner Diaries</i> with a slightly elevated vocabulary, this is probably right up your alley. </p><p>You can view a copy at the Internet Archive here: <a href="https://tinyurl.com/mah2novel1">https://tinyurl.com/mah2novel1</a><br />I've also archived that link here: <a href="https://archive.is/Ldsot">https://archive.is/Ldsot</a><br />Finally, you can download a PDF version directly here: <a href="https://tinyurl.com/mah2novelpdf">https://tinyurl.com/mah2novelpdf</a></p><p>The following year, Hoffman participated with neo-Nazi Harold Covington and several major KKK figures, most notably Louis Beam -- head of the Texas KKK and author of "Leaderless Resistance" -- in a rally against the Martin Luther King holiday in Pulaski, Tennessee, where the Klan was originally founded. You can view Hoffman's 13-minute speech here:</p><p><a href="https://tinyurl.com/mah2vid1989">https://tinyurl.com/mah2vid1989</a></p><p>The "Hail Victory" that Hoffman yells out at the end is a nice touch.</p><p>A final note: I reached out directly to Hoffman before writing and publishing this post. I asked him whether he had ever renounced his previous positions. He did not respond.</p>Andrew E. Mathishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13057529769573506419noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24597325.post-62593122742850420682021-05-30T16:40:00.003+01:002021-05-30T16:40:46.606+01:00Thanks but No Thanks<p>Today, I updated the list of <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2020/10/citations-of-holocaust-controversies-in.html">Citations of Holocaust Controversies in the Literature</a>, adding two sources: a book on the Kurdish and Armenian genocides published back in 2007 by Desmond Fernandes, who was a senior lecturer in geography at <a href="https://www.dmu.ac.uk/home.aspx">De Montfort University</a> in the U.K.; and a book on anti-imperialism from 2018 by <a href="https://newpol.org/authors/hensman-rohini/">Rohini Hensman</a>. There was a third citation of our work that I found, but I won't be adding it to our list. Here's why.</p><p>The book that I won't be including that cites our blog is Grover Furr's <i>Khrushchev Lied: The Evidence That Every Revelation of Stalin's (and Beria's) Crimes in Nikita Khrushchev's Infamous Secret Speech to the 20th Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of February 25, 1956, Is Provably False. </i>(As Max Amann famously said before deleting the subtitle <i>Viereinhalb Jahre (des Kampfes) gegen Lüge, Dummheit und Feigheit </i>from <i>Mein Kampf</i>, "Everyone needs an editor.") If you're not aware who Grover Furr is, my blogmate and comrade Sergey Romanov <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/search/label/Grover%20Furr">has written fairly extensively</a> about his work at this very blog. Several words come to mind to describe Furr, but "kook" is perhaps the one that comes most readily.</p><p>Look, I get it. I too have a Ph.D. in English and ended up doing most of my writing in the field of history. It happens. It happened to me. I just ended up on the "other side" of Furr. And lest it be said that we both see the Soviets as the "good guys" in World War II, the similarity pretty much ends there. (OK, I also wrote a doctoral dissertation that addressed the topic of medieval European literature, and we share an interest in Arthurian literature, but it really does end after that. Honest.)</p><p>The funny thing about Furr's citation of us is what he cites from us and why. Specifically, on page 520 (footnote 26) of <i>Khrushchev Lied: He Really, REALLY Did!</i>, Furr cites <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2006/04/correction-corner-1-every-jew-is.html">this blog post</a> by Sergey, as a way of marshalling evidence against Tim Snyder, the historian of modern European history at Yale and author of <i>Bloodlands</i>, among other studies, for having "lied" about a source on the antisemitism of Joseph Stalin. Notably, Sergey, while providing the correct translation and source of the quotation, does not exculpate Stalin of antisemitism -- he merely notes that Stalin was likely more tactful. Indeed, Sergey writes, "This is not to say that he [Stalin] wasn't an antisemite." And indeed, the context for the dispute is the Doctors' Plot -- one of Stalin's final repressions, which specially targeted Soviet Jews.</p><p>Furr writes, "Snyder is either deliberately lying or never bothered to check the
source of this quotation. Whatever is the case, it does him no credit
as a historian." While it's not my intention to venture into this particular thicket of weeds, I do want to point out that this discovery is not exactly the "gotcha" Furr seems to think it is. Not only was Stalin demonstrably antisemitic, particularly in the last chapter of his life (although other examples exist), but also Stalin in the correct quotation is clearly not referring to Zionists when referring to "Jewish nationalists." When he said, "Jewish nationalists think that their nation was saved by the USA (there you can become rich, bourgeois, etc.)," the "nation" Stalin was referring to was not Israel -- it was the Jewish nation, i.e., the Jewish people.</p><p>Funnier is that Furr cites our blog as a way to attack Snyder without (apparently) checking to see whether we'd ever commented on his own work here. It's a bit ironic that Furr didn't fully check his source in this case (HC blog) while accusing Snyder of doing the same. As a famous Jew once said, "Physician, heal thyself!"</p>Andrew E. Mathishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13057529769573506419noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24597325.post-61657599182117257572021-05-01T08:22:00.004+01:002021-05-01T08:40:09.683+01:00What the Soviets knew about Auschwitz - and when. Part V: the destruction of the Hungarian Jews.On 15.07.1944 the director of 1st Directorate of NKGB, the Soviet intelligence, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Fitin">Pavel Fitin</a> wrote to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Shcherbakov_%28politician%29">Aleksandr Shcherbakov</a>, a Central Committee secretary and the head of the Political Directorate of the Red Army and the Soviet Information Bureau:
<blockquote>ЦК ВКП(б)<br />
товарищу Щербакову
<br /><br />
Нами из Варшавы от нашего корреспондента получена информация следующего содержания:
<br /><br />
"В лагере Освенцим немцы отравляют газами венгерских евреев по 10-15 тысяч в день и жгут их на кострах. Проверено точно, реагируйте."
<br /><br />
Начальник I Управления НКГБ<br />
Союза ССР<br />
(ФИТИН)</blockquote>
<blockquote>CC AUCP(b)<br />
to comrade Shcherbakov
<br /><br />
We received the following information from our correspondent in Warsaw:
<br /><br />
"In the camp Auschwitz the Germans are poisoning 10-15 thousand Hungarian Jews a day with gas and burning them on pyres. Definitely verified, react."
<br /><br />
Head of the 1st Directorate of NKGB<br />
USSR<br />
(FITIN)</blockquote>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvygJspRD742HnV1ABnxyd7HJszqvUp759j9gIk_vBtz4iDSJxDsclkbXz4qaTWg2svlcLF8Q3HwoNt1O3rMv9G9zdP_dNc9cROgZ3cgyfAVewOwEuBINwOZRcthAeXE_oAlgPoA/s1009/fitin.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="733" data-original-width="1009" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvygJspRD742HnV1ABnxyd7HJszqvUp759j9gIk_vBtz4iDSJxDsclkbXz4qaTWg2svlcLF8Q3HwoNt1O3rMv9G9zdP_dNc9cROgZ3cgyfAVewOwEuBINwOZRcthAeXE_oAlgPoA/s400/fitin.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Source: RGASPI, f. 17, op. 125, d. 250, l. 89.<div><br /></div><div>Thus the Soviet intelligence learned about the mass destruction of the Hungarian Jews in Auschwitz either while it was still going on (depending on when exactly Fitin got this information) or shortly thereafter.<div><br /></div><div>Up to 09.07.1944 about 434,000 Jews were deported from Hungary, most of them to Auschwitz, <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2009/12/number-of-hungarian-jews-gassed-in.html">where about 320,000 of them were found unfit for work and gassed on arrival</a>, and the rest were either registered in the camp or left in the area for the transit Jews (who resided in the camp but were not registered there, awaiting transfer to labor camps). Most of the latter Jews were transferred for work in other camps, but many eventually perished (incl. through gassings) in Auschwitz.</div><div><br /></div><div>So far I have been unable to find anything in the central press, like <i>Pravda</i> or <i>Izvestiya</i>, about this destruction. Whether this was due to scarcity of information, low importance assigned to it or A. Shcherbakov's reputed antisemitism is hard to say.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Previous <<</b> <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2006/08/what-soviets-knew-about-auschwitz-and.html">Part IV: deniers and Boris Polevoi's article.</a></div>Sergey Romanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04063444062099331337noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24597325.post-65748707530090980232021-01-22T02:40:00.014+00:002021-01-22T02:44:30.553+00:00Jewish Burial Law and Exhumation of Mass Graves<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Over at the cesspit, our old friend Hannover tends to repeat himself a fair bit. One of his "greatest hits" is the claim that the idea that Jewish law generally forbids the exhumation of mass graves is a ruse designed to hide the "fact" that there are, in reality, no mass graves. Most recently, the Sage of CODOH wrote, "That [the idea that that Jewish law forbides exhumation] is a lie and has always been a way to dodge the fact that there are NO excavations which show the alleged millions upon millions of Jew human remains claimed to be located in know [<i>sic</i>] locations."<br /></span><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">Putting aside for the moment that <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2010/10/mass-graves-and-dead-bodies.html">mass</a> <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2016/02/alleged-mass-graves-and-other-mattogno_29.html">graves</a> <a href="https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/holocaustcontroversies/mass-grave-s-at-marijampole-t2032.html">have</a> <a href="https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/holocaustcontroversies/archaeological-investigation-of-belzec-mass-graves-t1174.html">been</a> <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2017/11/mattogno-on-mass-graves-at-ponary-part-1_25.html">demonstrated</a> <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2011/08/human-remains-inside-mass-graves-at.html">time</a> <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2010/05/mass-graves-at-nazi-extermination-camps.html">and</a> <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2011/02/mass-graves-and-majdanek.html">again</a>, it's worth considering what Jewish law actually has to say about these things. It's been nearly a decade since <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2011/04/jewish-laws-on-mass-graves.html">we've discussed the matter</a>, and maybe it's time to get a little more specific.<br /></span><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;">There are two Talmudic texts of the topic. These quotations are taken from the <i>William Davidson Talmud</i>, which is provided online at <a href="http://sefaria.org">sefaria.org</a>.<br /></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-weight: 700;">Bava Batra 154a<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Rabbi Yoḥanan raised an objection to Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish from a </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">baraita</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">: There was an incident in Bnei Brak involving one who sold some of his father’s property that he had inherited, and he died, and the members of his family came and contested the sale, saying: He was a minor at the time of his death, and therefore the sale was not valid. And they came and asked Rabbi Akiva: What is the </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">halakha</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">? Is it permitted to exhume the corpse in order to examine it and ascertain whether or not the heir was a minor at the time of his death? </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; text-decoration-line: underline;">Rabbi Akiva said to them: It is not permitted for you to disgrace him for the sake of a monetary claim. And furthermore, signs indicating puberty are likely to change after death, and therefore nothing can be proved by exhuming the body.</span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-weight: 700;">Yevamot 63b<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Apropos the Ḥabbarim, the Gemara cites the following statement of the Sages: The Ḥabbarim were able to issue decrees against the Jewish people with regard to three matters, due to three transgressions on the part of the Jewish people. They decreed against meat, i.e., they banned ritual slaughter, due to the failure of the Jewish people to give the priests the gifts of the foreleg, the jaw, and the maw. They decreed against Jews bathing in bathhouses, due to their neglect of ritual immersion. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; text-decoration-line: underline;">Third, they exhumed the dead from their graves because the Jews rejoice on the holidays of the gentiles, as it is stated: “Then shall the hand of the Lord be against you and against your fathers” (I Samuel 12:15). Rabba bar Shmuel said: This verse is referring to exhuming the dead, which upsets both the living and the dead, as the Master said: Due to the iniquity of the living, the dead are exhumed.</span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">More authoritative is the Shulchan Aruch (also available at sefaria.org), the 17th century compendium of Jewish law considered authoritative for eastern European Jewry.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><b>Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah, 363<br /></b></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: times;">One should not remove a corpse and bones[1]</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: times; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: times;">from a dignified grave to [another] dignified grave, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: times; text-decoration-line: underline;">nor from an undignified grave to [another] undignified grave, nor from an undignified one to a dignified one</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: times;">, and needless to say [that it is forbidden] from a dignified one to an undignified one. <br /></span><span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: times;">[1] </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: times;">Two reasons are advanced for this prohibition: a) The disturbance of removal is hard on the dead — TaZ, ShaK. Cf. I Sam. XXVIII, 15; Job III, 13; <u>b) Removal is considered a disrespectful treatment of the dead — RIDBaZ to Yad, Ebel XIV, 15.</u> One who was buried in a non-Jewish cemetery may be removed to a Jewish one — P.Tesh., G.Mah. <br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: times;">Two possibilities emerge here. The first is that international Jewry, cognizant of the grand hoax to be perpetrated some 1,500 years in the future, conspired to draft pages of Talmud to which Rabbi Yosef Karo could refer some 1,100 years later when compiling an index of Jewish law for the masses of Ashkenazim.<br /></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: times;">The second possibility is that Jewish law actually does have something to say about the topic.<br /></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: times;">Let's be clear: We are under no illusions here that the folks over at CODOH will stop lying just because this blog post has appeared. However, with any luck, people curious to know whether their claims have any merit will find this post. That, after all, is sort of the point of what we're doing here.</span></div>Andrew E. Mathishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13057529769573506419noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24597325.post-87824458806759974232020-12-11T23:37:00.008+00:002020-12-12T08:33:18.874+00:00No, Germans were not accused of, sentenced or executed for the Katyn massacre in the Leningrad trial.<p> On David Irving's site we <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20020705150710/http://www.fpp.co.uk/History/General/Katyn/KatynHanged.html">find</a> the following message:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>Innocent executed</p><p>Doing my reading on the history of German war crimes, German war criminals and their adjudication by the victors after World War II, I came across a most interesting passage. In November 1945, seven officers of the German Wehrmacht (and I think it is reasonable to mention their names -- K.H. Strueffling, H. Remlinger, E. Böhom, E. Sommerfeld, H. Jannike, E. Skotki and E. Geherer) were tried by a court of the victorious allies, the Americans, the English, the French and the Russians. They were condemned to death for war crimes and subsequently hanged.</p><p>Three more were tried on the same charges (E.P. Vogel, F. Wiese, A. Diere), received sentences of 20 years of hard labor, were turned over to the Russians and never heard of again.</p><p>Most interesting about this particular war trial is the charge. The officers were charged and hanged for having shot thousands of Polish officers in the forest of Katyn after the defeat of Poland in 1939.</p><p>Now, with glasnost and all, it has been officially established and admitted by the Russians themselves that the murder of thousands of the gallant Polish officer corps in the forest near Katyn was committed by the bolsheviks of Stalin, not by the murderous Nazis, years before the German army invaded. The poor above-mentioned soldiers never got near the scene of the crime.</p><p>What evidence was used to hang these innocent soldiers? Who fabricated the "facts" that convinced the court that these men were guilty? Murderers? What do the judges, if they are still alive, have to say for themselves? What of the prosecutors? What were these people hanged for?</p><p>H. Famira</p><p>Professor of German</p><p>Concordia University</p><p>Montreal</p></blockquote><p></p><p>This claim is moderately popular among the Holocaust deniers. One finds it in places "high" and "low". There are <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20201211221532/https://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?p=759&sid=222ea923ece082be4598ae4ec40b6cb3#p759">messages</a> at the CODOH forum <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20201211221527/https://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?p=40491&sid=5c26e879741a650c9407ba2e6cfb76ca#p40491">making</a> the claim. </p><p>It is repeated by the denier Georges M. Theil in his <i>Heresy in Twenty-First Century France</i>, 2006, pp. 65-66:</p><p></p><blockquote>Although the Allied intelligence services (notably the British) had known from the start that it was the Soviets who had put thousands of captive Polish officers to death in Katyn forest in 1940, they subsequently let the rumour spread that the Germans were the authors of that massacre. Afterwards, the Soviets were to hang seven German officers and men for the crime: Ernst Böhm, Ernst Geherer, Herbard Janicke, Heinrich Remmlinger, Erwin Skotki, Eduard Sonnenfeld and Karl Strüffling. They sentenced another three innocent Germans to twenty years’ hard labour: Arno Diere, Erich Paul Vogel and Franz Weiss.</blockquote><p></p><p>By Joachim Nolywaika in <i>Die Sieger im Schatten ihrer Schuld</i>, 1994, p. 246:</p><p></p><blockquote>Im Winter 1945/46 wurde in Leningrad mehreren deutschen Offizieren als angeblich für die Katyn-Morde Verantwortlichen der Prozeß gemacht, worüber die sowjetische Agentur „Tass" am 30. Dezember 1945 berichtete. Zum Tode durch den Strang wurden verurteilt Karl Hermann Strüffling, Heinrich Remmlinger, Ernst Böhm, Eduard Sonnenfeld, Herberd Janike. Erwin Skotki und Ernst Geherer. Zwanzig beziehungsweise fünfzehn Jahre Zwangsarbeit erhielten Erich Paul Vogel, Franz Wiese und Arno Diere.</blockquote><p></p><p>The claim also appears in the neo-Nazi "encyclopedia" <i>Der Grosse Wendig </i>and in the neo-Nazi wiki <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20110310112319/http://de.metapedia.org/wiki/B%C3%B6hm,_Ernst">Metapedia</a> and the Holocaust denying <a href="https://phdn.org/archives/holocaust-history.org/denial/nym.shtml">fraudster</a> Germar Rudolf simply swallows and then regurgitates the latter's claim in his <i>Garrison and Headquarters Orders of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp</i>, 2020, p. 2:</p><p></p><blockquote>Ernst Böhm (born 1911 in Oschersleben, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, died on 5 January 1946) was one of the seven German officers of the Wehrmacht who were convicted and executed/murdered in the Soviet Union after a show trial. They had been wrongly accused of having participated in the Katyn massacre. For me, the choice of this name as a pseudonym is a declaration of solidarity for those innocently persecuted. Metapedia writes in the entry about Ernst Böhm (accessed on March 27, 2020): ...</blockquote><p></p><p>One of the <a href="http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2017/06/a-short-debunking-of-mark-webers.html#lueftl">dishonest</a> denier gurus, Walter Lüftl, also <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20051027153407/http://globalfire.tv/nj/05en/history/katynlie.htm">repeated</a> the claim.</p><p>Predictably, most of the claim is false. But first let's address the core of truth (I. S. Yazhborovskaja, A. Yu. Yablokov, V. S. Parsadanova, <i>Katynskij sindrom v sovetsko-pol'skikh i rossijsko-pol'skikh otnoshenijakh</i>, Moscow, 2001, pp. 336, 337):</p><p></p><blockquote>Two people were prepared as "German witnesses who were participants in the Katyn provocation" - Professor Butz's assistant Ludwig Schneider and soldier Arno Düre. Military prosecutors <i>[investigating the Katyn crime]</i> found the archive criminal case of general of the German army H. Remlinger, who carried out punitive actions on the territory of Leningrad region. As it turned out, from December 28, 1945 to January 4, 1946, the criminal case against Remlinger, Düre and five other German soldiers was considered by the military tribunal of the Leningrad military district in the presence of a large number of Soviet and foreign correspondents. A. Düre, who had shot people with a machine gun in several villages, escaped the death penalty because, answering the prosecutor's leading questions, he confirmed that he had allegedly participated in the burial of 15-20 thousand Polish prisoners of war in Katyn. For this, the security organs let the "witness" live (he received 15 years of hard labor), but still did not dare to use him as a witness at Nuremberg: he was not able to play the role assigned to him properly. Düre gave absurd answers to many questions of the prosecutor and the court, which unambiguously exposed the false plot. For example, allowing his fantasy to run wild, he claimed that the Katyn Forest was in Poland, that the depth of the ditch in which the Poles had been buried was 15-20 m, that they had strengthened the walls of the ditch with tree branches, etc. Later, in a statement of November 29, 1954, Düre recanted his testimony about his participation in the burial of the Poles in Katyn, and declared that he had been forced to say so during the investigation.</blockquote><p></p><p>Now let's turn to the <a href="http://victims.rusarchives.ru/obvinitelnoe-zaklyuchenie-voennoy-prokuratury-leningradskogo-voennogo-okruga-po-delu-o-zlodeyaniyakh">indictment</a> of the trial from 25.12.1945 (TsA FSB, f. K-72, op. 1, por. 28, l. 247–258). We see that nobody was accused of anything to do with Katyn and specifically Düre was accused as follows (p. 18 of the indictment):</p><p></p><blockquote>The accused DÜRE, while a soldier of the 2nd company of the 2nd battalion for "special purposes" on 20.07.1944, while retreating with the battalion, took part in the burning of a village near the town of Ostrov and at that time shot 25 peaceful Soviet citizens.</blockquote><p></p><p>That's all.</p><p>Now let's look at the <a href="http://victims.rusarchives.ru/prigovor-voennogo-tribunala-leningradskogo-voennogo-okruga-po-delu-o-zlodeyaniyakh">verdict</a> (ibid., l. 221-246). Katyn is not mentioned at all. Nobody was convicted for participating in the Katyn massacre. About Düre the verdict has only the following to say (p. 6 of the verdict):</p><p></p><blockquote>Wiese, while the commander of the 1st company of the 2nd battalion for special purposes, and Düre and Vogel being soldiers of this same battalion in July of 1944 in the vicinity of the town of Ostrov took part in the burning of villages, incl. the village of Yudino, and in shooting and robbery of peaceful citizens.</blockquote><p></p><p>Düre's sentencing (p. 6v of the verdict):</p><p></p><blockquote>... exile for hard labor for the duration of 15 years.</blockquote><p>Vogel and Wiese were sentenced to 20 years of hard labor, the rest were sentenced to death. There's no evidence whatsoever any of them were innocent.</p><p></p><p>So let's sum up. While Düre was a false witness about Katyn and probably provided his testimony during the trial in exchange for a more lenient sentence, contrary to the deniers the trial wasn't about Katyn, nobody was accused of participating in the Katyn massacre or sentenced for it. (And, I should add, Düre recanting his false testimony was pretty typical and makes a mockery of the deniers' claims that the Nazis who confessed in a much more free environment of West Germany would have upheld their allegedly false testimonies until their deaths).</p><p>So much for the "revisionist" "research".</p>Sergey Romanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04063444062099331337noreply@blogger.com3