New Website holocausthistory.site Launched

I'm thrilled to announce the launch of a new website aimed at serving as a platform to display evidence of Nazi atrocities. While still under construction, visitors can catch a glimpse of its future direction. 

One of the advantages, albeit requiring additional time and effort, is its complete configurability and extensibility to accommodate any conceivable functionality that may emerge in the future. 

There is is no strict topic limitation, however, the start will be made on Kulmhof / Chelmno extermination camp and gas vans in general, as I have some high quality material on these topics that will give the site some outstanding content.

This website serves as a complementary resource to HolocaustControversies, focusing on documenting historical evidence without engaging in discussions regarding Holocaust denial.

Feel free to have a look at https://holocausthistory.site/.

Carlo Mattogno and the Franke-Gricksch Report

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kaltenbrunner on Aktion 1005: "...to avoid that another group of persons gains insight into the operation of the Sonderkommando."

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.

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". 

By the way, I have yet to come across any explanation from Holocaust deniers regarding the true nature of Aktion 1005. It remains a top-secret operation involving the clearance of mass graves containing evidence of Nazi atrocities. 

If any deniers possess information on an alternative interpretation, I invite them to share their insights in the comments along with supporting evidence.

DOCUMENT

 

RSHA report of October 1944: "...the Polish people...fear that, like the Jewish people, their ethnic substance will be destroyed"

The following reproduces a memo of 18 October 1944 by Herbert Strickner, RSHA department III B, on the "reorganization of Poland policy". The written draft makes the revealing side note that "the Polish people feel expelled from the European community of nations and fear that, like the Jewish people, their ethnic substance will be destroyed" (see also The Hagen Letter: "...to deal with 1/3 of the Poles - old people and children under the age of 10 - as with the Jews, that is to kill them.").

"Here They Go Again for Gassing" - Nazi Euthanasia in German Documents

On 16 May 1941, the Higher Regional Court President of Frankfurt, Arthur Ungewitter, reported to the Reichs Minister of Justice on what the population in the area talked about the "extermination of unworthy life":

The children are said to shout "here they go again for gassing" when they spot "the vehicles with which the sick are taken...to the liquidation institutes". It is also told that the victims are brought to a "gas room, where they would be liquidated with hydrogen cyanide and a numbing gas". Note that the actual killing agent was carbon monoxide gas, although hydrogen cyanide was another candidate considered for the Nazi Euthanasia and possibly tested earlier, in 1939, in Fort VII in Posen (see also Sonderkommando Lange in German Documents: Euthanasia 1940/41).

DOCUMENT

"Liquidation Institutes" for the "Extermination of Unworthy Life" - Nazi Euthanasia in German Documents

DOCUMENT

Update of Posting Contemporary German Documents on Homicidal Gas Vans

We've updated the reference posting Contemporary German Documents on Homicidal Gas Vans with the following items:

• image of radio telegram of Arthur Nebe to Einsatzgruppe B of 13 December 1941 on "special vehicles"
 

• colored images of all other documents from the German Bundesarchiv (including the letter from Walther Rauff to the Criminal Technical Institute at the Reich Criminal Police Office of 26 March 1942, the letter from Harald Turner to Karl Wolff of 11 April 1942 and the memo of Willy Just of 5 June 1942)
 

• addition of document 16.) letter from the Gaubschat company to the RSHA of 24 September 1942 on "Coachwork f. delivered 10 Saurer Chassis".

Holocaust Denial and Himmler's Report to Hitler on "Jews executed: 363,211" (Part III)

Now that Carlo Mattogno is out of the game (see Part I & Part II), let's hear the rest of the denier's band on Himmler's report to Hitler.

Holocaust Denial & Himmler's Report to Hitler on "Jews executed: 363,211" (Part II)

Holocaust Denial & Himmler's Report to Hitler on "Jews executed: 363,211" (Part I, II, III)

The previous part of this series examined Mattogno's bizarre arithmetic and his nearly illiterate understanding of secondary literature in his Einsatzgruppen book on Himmler's report to Hitler on 363,211 executed Jews.

Now, if Mattogno had taken his own credo seriously that only Nazi documents have a historical value (as opposed to non-German documents and testimonies), his confused 9-pages on Himmler's report to Hitler could have been boiled down to a concise two-pager. Several contemporary German sources answer the key points:

How many Jews had been in the Generalbezirk Wolhynien before summer 1942?

Ironically, Mattogno did quote, but not use the most relevant and clear German source on the Jewish population in the Generalbezirk Wolhynien before their systematic extermination was carried out:

"Today, the total population of the General District of Volhynia and Podolia is about 4,630,000, of which approx. 465,000 are Poles and 326,000 are Jews. In the cities, Jews and Poles make up the majority. For example, the cities of Rovno, Dubno, Vladimir-Volhynsk, Lutsk, Kovel, Kostopol, Stolbunov, Brest-Litovsk, Pinsk and Kobrin have a total of 2,438,000 inhabitants, of which 71,300 (around 35%) are Poles and 103,200 are Jews."

(Meldungen aus den besetzten Ostgebieten (MbO) no. 5 dated 29 May 1942, Angrick et al. Deutsche Berichte aus dem Osten 1942-1943, p. 351 f.)

Here you've got it black on white: by May 1942, the Nazis estimated that there had been 326,000 Jews in the Generalbezirk Wolhynien.

Report to Hitler: "Jews executed: 363,211"

      

1st and last page of the report (B&W scan)

On 29 December 1942, the Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler reported to Adolf Hitler that "Jews executed: 363,211" between August to November 1942 in the area of the Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) Russia-South, Ukraine, and North-East. The report is one of the most explicit known individual high-level documents on the extent and intensity of the extermination of the European Jews (see also Nazi Document on Mass Extermination of Jews in Auschwitz-Birkenau: The Franke-Gricksch Report).

We publish here for the first time colored photographs of the original, a copy for the files and the report of the HSSPF providing the data to Himmer's staff (see below).

German Document Reveals Kulmhof (Chelmno) As a Nazi Extermination Camp

In this series of postings, the Nazi extermination camp Kulmhof (Chelmno) was presented in the light of contemporary German sources. The documents show, among other things, that Kulmhof was run by a killing commando that gassed about 100,000 Jews from December 1941 to Summer 1942.

Here is another previously unpublished Nazi document, which reveals that the purpose of Sonderkommando Kulmhof was the  "immediate fight against and annihilation of state enemies", which was of "crucial importance for the solution of one of the most important ethnic problems" and required "in particular a manly and strong mental attitude" (see transcription and translation of the document below).

DOCUMENT

The Hagen Letter: "...to deal with 1/3 of the Poles - old people and children under the age of 10 - as with the Jews, that is to kill them."

On 17 February 1943, the Higher SS and Police Leader East Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger forwarded to the Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler correspondence of German officials in the General Gouvernement (BArch NS 19/1210).

The cause was a letter written by Wilhelm Hagen, the medical officer of Warsaw, to Adolf Hitler. In his letter of 7 December 1942, Hagen explained that Lothar Weirauch, head of the Department of Population and Welfare, had revealed that "it is intended or considered, in the course of the resettlement of 200,000 Poles in the east of the General Government...to deal with a third of the Poles - with 70,000 old people and children under the age of 10 - as with the Jews, that is, to kill them" (see document below). He requested Hitler for his intervention and decision on the issue.

Blobel, Eichmann's Office and a Denier's Ignorance

We have already observed the pattern that whenever the denier Carlo Mattogno claims on the Holocaust that something or someone is not known, had nothing to do with something else or did not exist, then there is a good chance that the exact opposite is true.

Examples:

• Josef "quite unknown" Spacil (SS-Standartenführer, BdS Niederlande, SS economist at the HSSPF Süd-Russland, head of RSHA II)


• Johann "completely unknown" Ernst (SS-Untersturmführer and Technischer Obersekretär, head of SiPo repair garages)


• Guido "completely unknown" Huhn (SS-Obersturmführer, SS-Sondereinheit at concentration camp Auschwitz)


• Friedrich "not a Major in any way" Pradel (SS-Sturmbannführer and Major der Schutzpolizei, RSHA II D 3 a)


• on Sonderkommando 1005 German documents that "there are none" and that the designation "was invented by the Soviets".


• on the Minsk gas-chamber dossier that the "signature of the note in question is by a different hand and is a rather clumsy attempted imitation" and that "there is no trace of any record of the presumed visit to Minsk itself by any Italian fascist delegation".


• on homicidal gas vans that "the word 'Gaswagen,' in the sense of 'mobile homicidal gas chamber' was coined only after the Second World War by the victorious powers".


• on homicidal gas vans that "the term 'Gaskammer' can only refer to a stationary 'gas chamber'".


• on Saurer gasoline driven gas vans that "all Saurer trucks had diesel engines"


• on intercepted decodes on the mass killing unit Sonderkommando Lange that "there is no mention of Sonderkommando Lange, or gas vans, or Novgorod, or mental patients to be killed!".


• on a gas van document that "[c]ontrary to normal practise, the typed name of the author of the letter is missing, as are his name [sic!] and rank and  that steel bottles with carbon oxide "does not appear in any document".


• on the testimony of von dem Bach-Zelewski that "the Jewish editors of Aufbau falsified the original document, shamelessly interpolating and adding entire paragraphs".


• on the Auschwitz Jewish Sonderkommando that "not a single one had anything whatsoever to do with the crematoria" 

Mattogno never gets tired to deliver explosive ammunition that would have destroyed his reputation as a researcher - if he ever had one. In this posting, we take a look at another case in point from his recent "Holocaust Handbooks": Mattogno argues that the Aktion 1005 leader Paul Blobel "had nothing to do" with Eichmann's office - which is straight away refuted by numerous contemporary German documents.

Mattogno, his Einsatzgruppen book and the Gas Vans. Part VII: Semantics

 Mattogno, his Einsatzgruppen book and the Gas Vans

Part I: A Dilettante at Work

Part II:  Mental Degeneration or Dishonesty, Your Choice!

Part III: Genesis and Pictures That Say it All

Part IV: The "Enormous Contradiction" That Is None

 Part V: Nazi Foreign Office Documents vs. Holocaust Denial

Part VI: Gas Van Arithmetic

Part VII: Semantics

 Part VIII: Little More Than Hot Gas

If we search through the books published before the Second World War, the word Gaswagen has been used with three meanings: a) short for Holzgaswagen (producer gas vehicle), short for Gastransportwagen (vehicle for transporting gas), c) any vehicle with an internal combustion engine (for sources see Mattogno and the Activity & Situation Report of Einsatzgruppe B on its Gas Vans). 

Between 1941 and 1944, the Nazis deployed homicidal gas vans with engine exhaust. The vehicles consisted of a closed cargo box mounted on a light to medium truck chassis and can be described as Kastenwagen (box wagon/van). Vergasungen (gassings) were carried out inside the closed box, so the vehicle would be something like a Vergasungskastenwagen. The bulky term can be shortened to Gaswagen (as in Gaskammer/gas-chamber, the prefix Vergasung- can be simplified to Gas-). It is semantically plausible that the Nazis would have called their homicidal gas vans as Gaswagen.

Mattogno, his Einsatzgruppen book and the Gas Vans. Part IV: The "Enormous Contradiction" That Is None

 Mattogno, his Einsatzgruppen book and the Gas Vans

Part I: A Dilettante at Work

Part II:  Mental Degeneration or Dishonesty, Your Choice!

Part III: Genesis and Pictures That Say it All

Part IV: The "Enormous Contradiction" That Is None

 Part V: Nazi Foreign Office Documents vs. Holocaust Denial

Part VI: Gas Van Arithmetic

Part VII: Semantics

 Part VIII: Little More Than Hot Gas

Before I roll out the heavy artillery, here's a quick appetiser to illustrate Mattogno's cheating or ignorance (your choice again) on German documents on the gas vans. Even after having read 250 documents on the Einsatzgruppen and some 200 individual pieces of correspondence from or to the Einsatzgruppen, he argues like a beginner on the subject and even considers his lack of understanding as something especially clever no one else has noticed:

What's There to Hide? Camouflage and Secrecy of Nazi Extermination Sites

Contemporary German documents referring to the fate of Jews considered unfit for forced labour often do so in a conspicuously vague way. Instead of spelling out actual destinations or camps, general phrases like "eastwards" and "Russian East" were employed.

Elsewhere I've pointed out how the killing of Poles and mentally ill people in 1940 in East-Prussia was disguised by the Nazis. For "camouflaging" the "liquidation" of members of the Polish intelligentsia in the camp of Soldau, "the Poles in question had to sign a declaration of the content that they agreed with their deportation to the Generalgouvernement". The "mentally ill prisoners...liquidated by a special commando" were "evacuated" and "placed somewhere else" in SS correspondence.

The concept to camouflage murder with none or vague destinations was later also implemented for disguising the extermination of the Jews. The deception could work as it had a true core. The Jews had to gather in the towns and villages and were brought away. For the population and authorities parts of the operation could have appeared more or less like a real resettlement. Except that they never heard anything of those "resettled" again, as the "resettlers" were executed, buried and incinerated at the next extermination site.

Dirlewanger to an SS Investigator on Poisoning of Jews

In 1942, the SS Main Office "investigated" charges launched by the SD and the SS and Police court Cracow against Oskar Dirlewanger, the commander of the infamous SS penal unit Sonderkommando Dirlewanger, which included racial defilement, abuse of his own men, extortion, illegal hunting, illegal confiscations, illegal arrests and illegal killings in the Generalgouverment. 

During his interrogation of 1 September 1942, Dirlewanger explained to the SS court martial officer (Gerichtsoffizier) that the SD could not cope with the killing of the Jews caught violating Nazi regulations and that therefore in November 1941, the SS and Police Leader of the Lublin district Odilo Globocnik ordered they are to be handed over to Dirlewanger for execution. Initially, the Jews were just shot, but later they had to undress in a cellar under the pretense vaccination against typhus and were killed by injection of the poison strychnine. Their gold teeth were broken out to be used for the SS dental station and the clothes were provided to Russian POWs.

It is noteworthy that Dirlewanger tried within his sphere of influence and on a small scale what were to be basic elements of large scale Nazi mass extermination sites: disguise, poison and robbing of dead people.

Sonderkommando Kulmhof in German Documents - Farewell (1943)

Mass Killing Unit of Warthegau

Sonderkommando Lange in German Documents:

 Euthanasia 1940/41

Sonderkommando Kulmhof in German Documents:

Part I: Origin and Foundation

Part II: The Extermination of 100,000 Jews

Part III: Body Disposal (Appendix)

Part IV: Pabianice Sorting Camp

Part V: Funding

Part VI: The Polish Working Detail

Part VII: Motor Pool and Fuel (Appendix)

Part VIII: Drinks and Tobacco (With Excursus on the Extermination of the Sinti and Roma)

Part IX: Farewell (1943)

Until 31 December 1942, the Sonderkommando Kulmhof had systematically murdered about 4,400 Sinti and Roma and 145,301 Jews  (Document 234). The Jews of the Warthegau had been wiped out except for the "labour ghetto" in Litzmannstadt and Jews loaned to outside work-sites. Since life as a Sonderkommando member was comparable pleasant and beneficial - with bonus payments, free tabacco and alcohol, no front duty, absence of military discipline, access to cheap goods from the rich warehouses of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto Administration - and facing the prospect of front-line service, the Kulmhof commandant Hans Bothmann seemed to have stretched the dismantling and closing of the camp over the whole Winter 1942/43. ^[1]

Sonderkommando Kulmhof in German Documents - Drinks and Tobacco (With Excursus on the Extermination of the Sinti and Roma)

Mass Killing Unit of Warthegau

Sonderkommando Lange in German Documents:

 Euthanasia 1940/41

Sonderkommando Kulmhof in German Documents:

Part I: Origin and Foundation

Part II: The Extermination of 100,000 Jews

Part III: Body Disposal (Appendix)

Part IV: Pabianice Sorting Camp

Part V: Funding

Part VI: The Polish Working Detail

Part VII: Motor Pool and Fuel (Appendix)

Part VIII: Drinks and Tobacco (With Excursus on the Extermination of the Sinti and Roma)

Part IX: Farewell (1943)

The fate of the about 5,000 Sinti and Roma deported from the Reichsgaue Niederdonau (Lower Danube) and Steiermark in annexed Austria to the Litzmannstadt Ghetto in early November 1941 and forced to vegetate in the most inadequate conditions was sealed when a typhus epidemic broke out in early December 1941 ^[1] and, incidentally, an extermination camp was established 70 km North-West of Litzmannstadt: Kulmhof. The liquidation of the Sinti and Roma from the Ghetto by the Sonderkommando in December 1941/January 1942 was going beyond its initially assigned task to exterminate 100,000 Warthegau Jews and marked another escalation of the type of victims targeted after mental patients and unfit Jews.

Sonderkommando Kulmhof in German Documents - Motor Pool and Fuel (Appendix)

Mass Killing Unit of Warthegau

Sonderkommando Lange in German Documents:

 Euthanasia 1940/41

Sonderkommando Kulmhof in German Documents:

Part I: Origin and Foundation

Part II: The Extermination of 100,000 Jews

Part III: Body Disposal (Appendix)

Part IV: Pabianice Sorting Camp

Part V: Funding

Part VI: The Polish Working Detail

Part VII: Motor Pool and Fuel (Appendix)

Part VIII: Drinks and Tobacco (With Excursus on the Extermination of the Sinti and Roma)

Part IX: Farewell (1943)

Documents-Appendix to Motor Pool and Fuel