Nazi Document on Mass Extermination of Jews in Auschwitz-Birkenau: The Franke-Gricksch Report

The so-called Franke-Gricksch report on the "resettlement action" in Auschwitz is the most detailed and explicit contemporary Nazi document on the mass murder of Jews in an extermination camp. The document describes the process of mass killing in Auschwitz-Birkenau, including how "the unfit [Jews] go to the basement of a biggish house" and  "are put to sleep" by "certain substances" introduced "by lowering containers into pillars from above" before "the corpses are incinerated". Previously, only a crude post-war copy of the report has been made public. We have located and now publish for the first time a war-time carbon copy made by the staff of the SS Personnel Main Office.

The Document

(BArch R 187/539, p. 24-25)

Mattogno, his Einsatzgruppen book and the Gas Vans. Part VIII: Little More Than Hot Gas

 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

In his Einsatzgruppen book, Mattogno explains away the Einsatzgruppe B report of 1 March 1942 on "Gaswagen" (gas van) as referring to producer gas vehicles. The term "Gaswagen" can describe a producer gas vehicle, but it can also describe a vehicle for transporting gas, a vehicle driven by liquefied petroleum gas, a delousing van - or as demonstrable in this context a homicidal gas van.

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 VI: Gas Van Arithmetic

 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

The number and distribution of the RSHA gas vans is yet another topic that exposes Mattogno's deficiency in his Einsatzgruppen book. He does not properly read/understand the literature he wants to attack, he omits relevant German documents on the subject, his knowledge on the Nazis' Security Police and Security Service in the East - precisely the topic of the whole book - is beneath contempt, and his representation is ridden by confusion.

Mattogno, his Einsatzgruppen book and the Gas Vans. Part V: Nazi Foreign Office Documents vs. Holocaust Denial

 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

In mid-May 1943, the German Foreign office was troubled by a story that the Generalkommissar for Weissruthenien, Wilhelm Kube, showed an Italian delegation of fascists "a gas chamber in which the killing of the Jews was allegedly carried out" in Minsk. It was a mobile "gas chamber", since only gas vans are known to have operated in Minsk (see also here).

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:

Georg Leibbrandt and the Killing of Jews in the USSR: A Case Study of Mattogno's Methods

Georg Leibbrandt was one of two members of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (RMfdbO) who attended the Wannsee conference. Mattogno has discussed him on numerous occasions, most recently in the Italian edition of volume 1 of his forthcoming Einsatzgruppen Handbook where Mattogno cites him seven times, six of which are duplicated from his response of 2013 to our White Paper. The one new reference in the Italian edition is the false claim, as shown below, that Leibbrandt regarded Soviet Jews as only a political and partisan enemy rather than a race that had to be eliminated on biological grounds. The six recycled references entail a misrepresentation of Leibbrandt's correspondence with Hinrich Lohse of the Reichskommissariat Ostland in the Autumn of 1941 as supporting resettlement of Jews eastwards. An analysis of Leibbrandt's involvement in anti-Jewish policy can therefore form a useful case study of how Mattogno manipulates sources on German perpetrators.

Sonderkommando Kulmhof in German Documents - The Extermination of 100,000 Jews

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)

Figure 1: Google Earth view on the final train stations (Kolo/Warthbrücken & Powierce), the ruins of Kulmhof Extermination Camp and its Body Disposal Site in Rzuchow Forest

Sonderkommando Lange in German Documents: Euthanasia 1940/41

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)

Herbert Lange (source)

Herbert Lange, born 29 September 1909 in Menzlin in the Province of Pomerania, worked as criminal investigator at the Gestapo in Aachen before the war and took part in the Polish Campaign as member of Einsatzgruppe VI, which settled as Security Police headquarters in Poznan ^[1] (click or hover over footnotes to see references). For a short period of time until 16 October 1939, he was commandant of the Übergangslager (transition camp) Fort VII in Poznan ^[2]. Lange became the leader of a special detail (Sonderkommando) founded by and named after him, which specialized in the killing of mentally ill people with poison gas. In late 1941, he moved on to establish Chelmno (Kulmhof) extermination camp to wipe out the Jews of the Warthegau as well. He was replaced in Spring 1942 as commandant of the extermination camp by Hans Bothmann and employed as investigator in the RSHA. He supposedly died during the battle of Berlin at the end of the war.

Fort VII

Fort VII in Poznan; ref. 2, p. 13

The first Nazi gassings of people took place in Fort VII in Poznan in late 1939. Some experiments with the two most promising killing agents hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide may have been tried in casemates of the camp as early as October 1939. What seems like an experimental gassing with hydrogen cyanide soaked pellets (Degesch's "Zyklon") was mentioned en passant by the RSHA driver Wilhelm F. ^[3] :

"Right after the Polish Campaign I was sent with a group of officers to a town in Poland, I do not remember its name. There was a red haired Untersturmführer, who was called Becker as I now recall. This Becker made experiments with poison gas. A number of people were locked in a casemate and gas was introduced into the casemate through venting pipes. I remember exactly how Becker dropped something into the pipes."

"I have seen that Becker fetched a box with cans. He threw them [into the air shafts]."

From November 1939, mentally ill people were systematically killed with carbon monoxide gas in Fort VII ^[4]. Under the command of Lange the inmates of the asylums near Poznan were driven to the camp, locked in casemates and suffocated with carbon monoxide from pressurized steel bottles. The corpses were buried in mass graves in a forest near Oborniki, 30 km North of Poznan. The handling of the corpses was done by Polish prisoners of Fort VII assigned to Sonderkommando Lange, among those Henryk Mania and Henryk Maliczak, who testified on the killings after the war.

German Document on Chelmno Gas Van Driver Filling up Gasoline in Lodz

APL 221/30183, p. 11

A document from the Ghetto Lodz administration shows that on 2 September 1944 "Laabs" from the "SS police" refuelled his truck with the licence number "71449" two times with "45 liters" of gasoline at the tank station of the Ghetto Lodz administration. The driver "Laabs" of the "SS police" can be matched to the well known permanent gas van driver of the SS and police Sonderkommando Kulmhof Gustav Laabs (see testimonies in the appendix below). That this vehicle was indeed a homicidal gas van is supported by the fact that its license number of 71449 is close to those of other known gas vans 71457, 71462 and 71463 (see also How the convergence of evidence works: the gas van of Auschwitz, Mattogno and the Activity & Situation Report of Einsatzgruppe B on its Gas Vans and Rebuttal of Alvarez on Gas Vans: The Schäfer, Trühe & Rauff Telexes).

German Document on Gas Van Blown up by Einsatzgruppe D

The available German records from the Third Reich contain a number of references to the infamous homicidal gas vans, which were used by the German paramilitary forces like the Einsatzgruppen to kill people, mostly Jews, without attracting attention and sparing the nerves of the executioners. The vehicles were disguised as special van or s-van in some of the correspondence. However, in the daily usage in the commandos, they were simply known as gas vans or g-vans (as common in this context, the term van is used to translate the more general German Wagen = wagon).

This quite open language was also maintained in a report of Einsatzgruppe B on its motor pool, e.g. "both smaller gas vans will be sent to SK 7a and SK 7b after completing the operation at EK 8", which was already featured in the posting Mattogno and the Activity & Situation Report of Einsatzgruppe B on its Gas Vans.

Another case is a radio message from the head of Einsatzgruppe D to the RSHA, which reports a "g-van" in its motor pool and that another "g-van has been blown up and burned" upon the retreat of the group from Stavropol in the North Caucasus region to Rostov in early 1943. The destruction of the gas van was confirmed by several former members of Einsatzgruppe D in 1962 - 1970 in West-Germany, many years before the document became available to researchers and investigators after the German reunification. The independent corroboration is strong evidence on the existence of the German homicidal gas vans.

Attached below are extracts of the document and supplementary sources.

Sketches of German Homicidal Gas Vans

So far, there are eight witnesses known to have produced drawings of homicidal German gas vans or parts therof. A sketch of a gas van operating in Minsk made by the Wehrmacht soldier Erich W. on 18 September 1962 for West-German investigators can be examined only in the Niedersächsische Hauptstaatsarchiv, NDS. 721 Hannover Acc. 97/99 Nr.10/28, p. 191. The remaining seven drawings are reproduced in this posting. 

Update of Rebuttal of Alvarez on Gas Vans: The Becker Letter

Rebuttal of Alvarez on Gas Vans

Part I: Why the Diesel Issue is Still Irrelevant (update 1, 2)
Part II: Producer Gas

 Part III: The Ford Gas Wagon (update)
Part IV: The Becker Letter (update)
Part V: The Rauff Letter to the Criminal Technical Institute (update 1, 2, 3, cf. on Mattogno & here)

Part VI: The Turner Letter

Part VII: The Schäfer, Trühe & Rauff Telexes

Part VIII: The Einsatzgruppe B Activity & Situation Report (cf. on Mattogno)

Part IX: The Just Memo

Part X: The West-German Trials Against Members of Einsatzkommando 8

Part XI: Einsatzgruppe D in Simferopol

This supplementary post to Rebuttal of Alvarez on Gas Vans Part IV compiles more sources supporting the reliability of the content of the Becker letter.

Rebuttal of Alvarez on Gas Vans: The Just Memo

Rebuttal of Alvarez on Gas Vans

Part I: Why the Diesel Issue is Still Irrelevant (update 1, 2)
Part II: Producer Gas

 Part III: The Ford Gas Wagon (update)
Part IV: The Becker Letter (update)
Part V: The Rauff Letter to the Criminal Technical Institute (update 1, 2, 3, cf. on Mattogno & here)

Part VI: The Turner Letter

Part VII: The Schäfer, Trühe & Rauff Telexes

Part VIII: The Einsatzgruppe B Activity & Situation Report (cf. on Mattogno)

Part IX: The Just Memo

Part X: The West-German Trials Against Members of Einsatzkommando 8

Part XI: Einsatzgruppe D in Simferopol

The Document

On 5 June 1942, the member of the Security Police motor pool Willy Just set up a memo for Walther Rauff, the head of RSHA department II D on Technical Matters, to "decide" on "technical modifications on the special vehicles in operation and under construction". The memo does not explicitly name the purpose of these "special vehicles", but the description is clear enough that it is talking about homicidal gas vans. It explains that about "97,000 have been processed with three vehicles in use" at one place, about "a rapid distribution of carbon monoxide" and that "the load pushes hard against the door" inside the vehicles. The memo also mentions that such vehicle was involved in an "explosion in Chelmno".

Mattogno's Falsehoods on the Rauff Letter to the Criminal Technical Institute

As shown in Rebuttal of Alvarez on Gas Vans Part V: The Rauff Letter to the Criminal Technical Institute (update) (2nd update) (3rd update), Alvarez has performed the fail to claim that "formally seen, almost everything about this letter is wrong" on a formally authentic document corroborating German homicidal gas vans. In his book Inside the Gas Chambers, Carlo Mattogno has hailed Alvarez' display of his complete ignorance and misunderstanding of RSHA documents as "critical analysis". He further did not want to miss the opportunity to contribute some of his own ignorance of the argument, so here we go.

Contemporary German Documents on Carbon Monoxide Gas and Bottles Employed for the Nazi Euthanasia

The following is a compilation of German documents on the existence, use, filling and delivery of carbon monoxide gas bottles in the context of the Nazi Euthanasia.

1.) Film script for an Euthanasia documentary of 29 October 1942 by Hermann Schwenninger on "[i]n a hermetically sealed room the patient is exposed to the effects of carbon monoxide gas".

2.) Letter from the IG Farbenindustrie to the Criminal Technical Institute of the Security Police of 17 December 1943 on returning "carbon monoxide steel bottles".

3.) Letter from the IG Farbenindustrie to the Criminal Technical Institute of the Security Police of 18 January 1944 on returning "carbon monoxide bottles".

4.) Letter from Albert Widmann of the Criminal Technical Institute of the Security Police to Werner Blankenburg of Hitler's Chancellery of 5 February 1944 on sending superfluous "steel bottles" to the IG Farbenindustrie.

5.) Letter from Albert Widmann of the Criminal Technical Institute to Werner Blankenburg of Hitler's Chancellery of 9 February 1944 on "bottles" from the IG Farbenindustrie.

6.) Letter from Friedrich Lorent to Albert Widmann of 19 April 1944 on "15 fillings of bottles with CO".

7.) Letter from Friedrich Lorent to Richard von Hegener of 19 April 1944 on "60 once-used seamless empty steel bottles for carbon monoxide".

8.) Letter from the IG Farbenindustrie to the Criminal Technical Institute of the Security Police of 26 April 1944 on shipping "60 carbon monoxide bottles (used once)".

9.) Telex from Albert Widmann to the Criminal Police Linz of 2? April 1944 informing Friedrich Lorent on "filling of 15 steel bottles in Ludwigshafen". 

10.) Letter from Helmut Kallmeyer of the Criminal Technical Institute to the IG Farbenindustrie of 2 May 1944 on "filling of 15 bottles with carbon monoxide".

11.) Letter from the IG Farbenindustrie to the Criminal Technical Institute of the Security Police of 20 May 1944 on "60 seamless steel bottles 40 liters content...for carbon monoxide".

12) Letter from Albert Widmann to Friedrich Lorent of 26 May 1944 on a letter from the IG Farbenindustrie on "60 used carbon monoxide steel bottles".

13.) Letter from Friedrich Lorent to Albert Widmann of 9 December 1944 on "51 steel bottles for CO".

14.) Letter from Friedrich Lorent to Albert Widmann of 11 December 1944 on "53 seamless steel bottles...for carbon monoxide".

15.) Letter from Albert Widmann to the IG Farbenindustrie of 18 December 1944 on "53 seamless steel bottles...for carbon monoxide".

16.) Letter from Albert Widmann to Friedrich Lorent of 3 January 1945 on "51 steel bottles for CO announced".

3rd Update on Rebuttal of Alvarez on Gas Vans: The Rauff Letter to the Criminal Technical Institute

Rebuttal of Alvarez on Gas Vans

Part I: Why the Diesel Issue is Still Irrelevant (update 1, 2)
Part II: Producer Gas

 Part III: The Ford Gas Wagon (update)
Part IV: The Becker Letter (update)
Part V: The Rauff Letter to the Criminal Technical Institute (update 1, 2, 3, cf. on Mattogno & here)

Part VI: The Turner Letter

Part VII: The Schäfer, Trühe & Rauff Telexes

Part VIII: The Einsatzgruppe B Activity & Situation Report (cf. on Mattogno)

Part IX: The Just Memo

Part X: The West-German Trials Against Members of Einsatzkommando 8

Part XI: Einsatzgruppe D in Simferopol

It may appear like beating a dead horse when I'm still updating this post with further material refuting the already discredited Revisionist forgery hypothesis on the Rauff letter to the Criminal Technical Institute, but this one is too good not to share it.

Rebuttal of Alvarez on Gas Vans: The Einsatzgruppe B Activity & Situation Report

Rebuttal of Alvarez on Gas Vans

Part I: Why the Diesel Issue is Still Irrelevant (update 1, 2)
Part II: Producer Gas

 Part III: The Ford Gas Wagon (update)
Part IV: The Becker Letter (update)
Part V: The Rauff Letter to the Criminal Technical Institute (update 1, 2, 3, cf. on Mattogno & here)

Part VI: The Turner Letter

Part VII: The Schäfer, Trühe & Rauff Telexes

Part VIII: The Einsatzgruppe B Activity & Situation Report (cf. on Mattogno)

Part IX: The Just Memo

Part X: The West-German Trials Against Members of Einsatzkommando 8

Part XI: Einsatzgruppe D in Simferopol

The Einsatzgruppe B report of 1 March 1942 on its gas vans has been already discussed elsewhere, including a rebuttal of denier Mattogno on this source. The following post will look at what his fellow denier Alvarez has written on the subject.

Mattogno and the Activity & Situation Report of Einsatzgruppe B on its Gas Vans

The operation and situation report of Einsatzgruppe B of 1 March 1942 explicitly mentions four "Gaswagen" (gas vans) in the group's motor pool. The report, which was published in the 90s, corroborates earlier evidence such as the testimony of the gas vans' drivers, and vice versa. This independent, mutual corroboration results in more powerful evidence on the reality of Germans homicidal gas vans.

As a starter and to provide some context, the activities of the group, which demanded the use of gas vans, and the contribution of the group to the development of gas vans will be outlined. The central part looks at what the Einsatzgruppe B report stated on its gas vans and relates this to other sources. The final section addresses why the "Revisionist" Carlo Mattogno failed once again with his denial of German homicidal gas vans.

German Footage of a Homicidal Gassing with Engine Exhaust. Part 6: Forgery Allegation

German Footage of a Homicidal Gassing with Engine Exhaust

Part 1: Provenance

Part 2: Location

Part 3: Responsibility (I)

Part 4: Responsibility (II)

Part 5: Responsibility (III)

Part 6: Forgery Allegation

The Mogilev homicidal gassing footage discussed in the previous parts has been subjected to doubts about its authenticity. Interestingly, these were not limited to the usual suspects, but included a German public prosecutor investigating Nazi atrocities and Holocaust Museum staff. In any case, the suspicion that the footage was faked by the Allies is unsubstantiated in the light of the available evidence.