Cyanide Chemistry at Auschwitz

[Hannover]

Nathan says this of the tortured Hoess:

Hoess’ presence at Nuremberg was so impressive that it convinced (and dumbfounded) some of the biggest Nazi bosses.

Hoess "impressive"?
Indeed. He managed to embed so much nonsense into his torture induced 'confessions' that the 'holocaust' Industry has been hoisted by their own petard.

Perhaps Nathan should read and comment here:

'getting the desired 'confession'....via torture'
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=1121

'Mark Turley on the Hoess 'confession' & legal precedent'
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=4860

'Do we have evidence of torture to extract confessions?'
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=974

Death Dealer : the memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz / by Rudolf Höss ; edited by Steven Paskuly.
That work has been demolished here:
http://www.vho.org/GB/c/RW/revddeal.html

'Auschwitz Commandant Hoess 'confessions' debunked in review'
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=2429

'The Hoess "Confessions" and Legalities'
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=783

'D. Cole: 46 UNANSWERED QUESTIONS REGARDING 'GAS CHAMBERS''
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=599

- Hannover

[Hannover]

nathan tells us:

Hoess’ presence at Nuremberg was so impressive that it convinced (and dumbfounded) some of the biggest Nazi bosses.

Yes yes, very impressive. And what real court of law would accept this? From Hoess himself:

"During the first interrogation they beat me to obtain evidence. I do not know what was in the transcript, or what I said, even though I signed it, because they gave me liquor and beat me with a whip. It was too much even for me to bear. The whip was my own. By chance it had found its way into my wife's luggage. My horse had hardly ever been touched by it, much less the prisoners. Somehow one of the interrogators probably thought that I had used it to constantly whip the prisoners."(11)
- 11.R. Hoess, p. 179.

An account by Rupert Butler on the capture and interrogation of Rudolf Hoess, includes the following episode:

"The prisoner was torn from the top bunk, the pyjamas ripped from his body. He was then dragged naked to one of the slaughter tables, where it seemed to [Bernard] Clarke he blows and screams were endless. Eventually, the Medical Officer urged the Captain: 'Call them off, unless you want to take back a corpse.'"(12)
- 12.R. Butler, Legions of Death, Hamlyn, (London, 1983), p.237. Also:
R. Faurisson, "How the British Obtained the Confessions of Rudolf Hoess." The Journal of Historical Review (JHR) 7(4) (1986) pp.389-403.

The admission of Bernard Clarke was corroborated by Mr. Ken Jones in 'The Wrexham Leader', October 17, 1986.
Mr. Jones was then a private with the Fifth Royal Horse Artillery stationed at Heid in Schleswig-Holstein.

"They brought him to us when he refused to cooperate over questioning about his activites during the war. He came in the winter of 1945/6 and was put in a small jail cell in the barracks," recalls Mr. Jones. Two other soldiers were detailed with Mr. Jones to join Hoess in his cell to help break him down for interrogation."

"We sat in the cell with him, night and day, armed with axe handles. Our job was to prod him every time he fell asleep to help break down his resistance," said Mr. Jones.

When Hoess was taken out for exercise, he was made to wear only jeans and a thin cotton shirt in the bitter cold. After three days and nights without sleep, Hoess finally broke down and made a full confession to the authorities.

And this is courtesy of Freeman.

- Hannover

The following article may clarify some of the issues with regard to Rudolf Hoess that came up in a separate thread. Due to its length, I decided to post it separately here. This is a single chapter from Samuel Crowell's "The Gas Chamber of Sherlock Holmes: An Attempt at a Literary Analysis of the Holocaust Gassing Claim." It may be found in its entirety on-line at:http://www.codoh.com/incon/inconshr123.html

8. The Confessions of Rudolf Höss

HÖSS WAS SEIZED on March 13, 1946, on a farm in the British Zone where he had spent the past several months as a common laborer. His affidavits deserve particular attention: for many years historians have been content to merely quote extracts from Höss' affidavits, usually the one from April 5, 1946, as proof of the mass gassings. The popularity of this affidavit, also known as PS-3868, is directly related to the fact that it is the only thorough narrative concerning Auschwitz made by Höss that was entered into the trial record at the IMT. In later writings, Höss would claim that he had been severely beaten in the early period of his confinement, and later revelations, largely developed by Robert Faurisson, indicate that he was systematically tortured, largely by sleep deprivation.

These factors probably explain the incoherence of his very first affidavit of March 16, 1946, which betrays a British influence in its many references to Belsen. The most interesting of these concerns a legend concerning 1,800 Belsen inmates who were sent to Auschwitz, a particularly venerable Holocaust story.

The April 5, 1946 affidavit is the one most frequently quoted and the one which makes the various gas extermination claims with some semblance of order. The claims may be summarized:

1. Mass gassings began in the summer of 1941 and continued until fall 1944.
2. 2,500,000 were gassed, another 500,000 died from other means for a total of 3 million.
3. Höss left Auschwitz in December of 1943, but he kept informed.
4. The "Final Solution" meant the complete extermination of Jews in Europe.
5. Höss was ordered to establish extermination facilities in Auschwitz in June, of 1941, on direct orders from Himmler.
6. Höss visited Belzec, Treblinka, and Wolzek, where carbon monoxide was used.
7. Höss decided to use Zyklon B.
8. "We knew when the people were dead because their screaming stopped."
9. Gas chambers could hold 2,000 people at a time.
10. Children were invariably exterminated and mothers tried to hide their children.
11. The exterminations were secret, but
12. The stench from the burnings informed everyone for miles around that exterminations were going on.

Offhand, the affidavit seems impressive and authoritative. But on closer analysis it is clear that the document contributes absolutely nothing to what was already known as a "fact of common knowledge" at the time. Indeed, it seems remarkable that nearly all prior commentators on Höss fail to recognize the significance of the fact that by the time of his capture the gassing narrative had achieved almost finished form at the bar of the International Military Tribunal.

In detail: that the exterminations were directly ordered by Himmler simply repeats the unsubstantiated assertion found the Höttl affidavit of 1945. The idea that the exterminations went back to 1941, and that the Final Solution was a code word for the extermination of the Jews, goes back to the Nuremberg testimony of Dieter Wisliceny, Bach dem Zelewski, and Ohlendorf given in January, 1946. The emphasis on the fate of the children reflects the testimonies of Shmaglevskaya and Vaillant-Couturier in January and February. The reference to the stench of the burnings is, as we shall see, a hoary exaggeration that goes back to rumors of the euthanasia campaign in 1941. The claimed number of victims for Höss' tenure -- 2.5 million gassed and 0.5 million dead by other means -- is traceable to the confession of Grabner the previous September. Both reflect the calculations of the Soviet Special Commission on Auschwitz, which claimed 4 million for the entire period of the camp's operation, which, if it came to 3 million by the end of 1943, implied approximately 1 million in 1944. It is also interesting to note that the range of victims -- 2.5 to 3 million -- as well as other details, coincides with the testimony of Pery Broad at the Tesch and Stabenow trial in Hamburg just weeks before. On the other hand, there was no "Wolzek" camp, and none of the three camps Höss claimed to have inspected existed in 1941.

The April 5, 1946 Höss affidavit is simply a confirmation of what was already known. What it contributed was not new, and where it was new it was clearly wrong. It provides no elaboration or explanation for any of the claims which it repeats, in fact, most of Höss' testimony at Nuremberg, ten days later, consisted of making statements that failed to confirm the contents of the affidavit. After his testimony on behalf of Kaltenbrunner, his cross-examination by the prosecution consisted merely of nodding or answering "yes" as his affidavit was read into the record. The affidavit is ultimately an extension and confirmation of the Canonical Holocaust as represented by the Soviet Special Commission on Auschwitz. As such it is practically valueless from a historiographical point of view.

Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that Höss' statements speak with great authority to most historians due to his role at the commandant of Auschwitz. Therefore the peculiarities of this affidavit require further study. The best way to do this is by reviewing the previous record of interrogations and affidavits. It soon becomes evident that the affidavit of April 5, 1946 drew not only on the antecedent interrogations but also on the affidavit of March 16. It is therefore necessary to take a closer look that affidavit.

We recall first of all that according to a number of sources, Höss was beaten and deprived of sleep for perhaps three days while the March 16 affidavit was being prepared. This is important to note because it suggests that pressure was being applied to Höss during these initial interrogations. One can easily imagine, for example, that a prominent Nazi might have been beaten upon entering custody. Yet sleep deprivation is something else, it is not a punishment one would inflict on someone in anger or in a rage. Hence there exists a strong suspicion that Höss was deprived of sleep in the course of his interrogation, in order to manipulate his responses.

The affidavit of March 16, 1946, also known as NO-1210, exists only in an English version (although it references an original). After going over details of his early life and prior career as a Nazi, Höss discusses Auschwitz:

I was given the order, by a higher authority the then inspectorate of concentration camps, to transform the former Polish Artillery Barracks near AUSCHWITZ into a quarantine camp for prisoners coming from Poland. After HIMMLER inspected the camp in 1941, I received the order to enlarge the camp and to employ the prisoners in the to be developed agricultural district and to drain the swamps and inundation area of the Weichsel. Furthermore he ordered to put 8-10000 prisoners at the disposal of the building of the new Buna Works of the I.G. Farben. At the same time he ordered the erection of a POW camp for 100 000 Russian prisoners, near BIRKENAU.

The number of prisoners grew daily in spite of my repeated interventions that billets were not sufficient, and further intakes were sent to me. Epidemic diseases were unavoidable because medical provisions were inadequate. The death rate rose accordingly. As prisoners were not buried, crematoriums had to be installed.

In 1941 the first intakes of Jews came from Slovakia and Upper Silesia. People unfit to work were gassed in a room at the crematorium in accordance with an order which HIMMLER gave to me personally.
I was ordered to see HIMMLER in BERLIN in June 1941 and he told me, approximately, the following:- The Fuehrer ordered the solution of the Jewish Question in Europe. A few so-called Vernichtungslager are existing in the General Government (BELZEK near RAVA RUSKA East Poland Tublinka near MALINA on the river Bug, and WOLZEK near Lublin).
The first thing we notice upon reviewing this excerpt is that Höss is providing two different narratives. According to the first two paragraphs, in 1941 Himmler visited Auschwitz in order to direct the expansion of the camp (which would have meant Birkenau) with a view to establishing a quarantine camp. The establishment of a quarantine camp in turn implies a function similar to the disinfection center established at Auschwitz twenty years earlier by the Americans, while the quarantine itself implies the later transfer of prisoners into Germany for labor purposes. The increased transports and the increasing epidemics (which presumably would have meant 1942) accords with all sources, and provides a ready explanation for the construction of the crematoria which were planned in the summer of 1942 and were completed in the spring of 1943.

On the other hand, the very next two paragraphs tell a completely different story, albeit one more or less consistent with the affidavit of April 5. According to this one, Höss was called to Berlin in June 1941 for a meeting with Himmler, and was told to arrange for the extermination of the Jews. For this reason, he conducted a tour of the other extermination camps in 1942, yet still back in this 1941 meeting I had to make the preparations at once. He [Himmler] wanted the exact construction plans in accordance with this instruction in four weeks. In other words, from June, 1941, Höss was now to be constructing crematoria with gas chambers for the purpose of exterminating the Jewish people.

Before proceeding with a comparison of these two narratives there are three points of detail to establish. The first is the date of Höss' tour of the other extermination camps. This came up in the interrogation of April 3, 1946 in the morning session (page 7):

Q. To come back to the facts about your trip to Treblinka. If I understand you correctly, you told me the other day that you visited Treblinka in 1941.
A. Yes.
Q. And in another statement by you, made at another place, you said you visited Treblinka in 1942. Which year is correct?
A. 1941 is correct. If I said 1942, it was incorrect.
The second point of detail concerns the timing of the order Höss claimed to receive from Himmler. This was addressed during the first interrogation of April 1, 1946 (page 18-19):
Q. But you said you received the order from the Reichsfuehrer SS in person.
A. Yes.
Q. About July, 1941? Where did you see him?
A. I was ordered to him in Berlin.
Q. Are you sure it was after the Russian campaign had started.
A. No, it was before the Russian campaign had started.
Q. Then it couldn't have been in July.
A. I cannot remember the exact month, but I know it was before the date that the Russian campaign was launched.
The third and final point of detail concerns the mysterious "Wolzek" camp, described as "near Lublin" on March 16 and therefore clearly a garbling of "Majdanek" which was actually the name of the suburb of Lublin where the camp was situated. This came up in the interrogation of April 4, 1946 in the afternoon session (page 5), during the following exchange:
Q. Did the camps in the East come under the Inspectorate of the Concentration Camps?
A. Only those that I mentioned in the Baltic countries, as those labor camps belonging to the Riga territory, and Lublin, Warsaw, and Krakow, which I mentioned before.
Q. How about Treblinka, Wolzek, and Belzek?
A. They came under the commander of the Security Police and Higher SS and Police Leader of Krakow.

Therefore, with respect to the second narrative of the March 16, 1946 affidavit we can say that there is no doubt that Höss claimed his meeting with Himmler took place in June, 1941, that he inspected the other extermination camps at that time, and that he prepared plans for gas chambers and crematoria within a few weeks of that meeting. The reference to "Wolzek" is of importance mainly because its mention by the American interrogator establishes that the March 16, 1946 affidavit was used as the basis for these interrogations as well as for the drafting of the April 5, 1946 affidavit.

At this point we have to exercise some judgment, and attempt to reconstruct the sequence of events. In the first two paragraphs of his March 16 description of events at Auschwitz, Höss sets forth a narrative that corresponds with all currently known facts about the camp. In other words, the account is objectively true, the only questionable aspect concerns the rationale behind the crematoria construction. On the other hand, in the second two paragraphs Höss provides a narrative that cannot possibly be true, but which accords with conventional wisdom in a general sense in terms of crematoria construction and Jewish exterminations. It is doubtful if Höss, unbidden, would have told two completely different stories one right after the other. We surmise therefore that Höss was pressured, probably by sleep deprivation, at some point between the two narratives.

Now the question concerns the order of the stories. We can imagine a situation where Höss might have been pressured after the first narrative in order to produce the second one, but it is not believable that Höss would have been pressured to produce the first one after freely offering the second. The reason should be obvious: the first narrative provides an innocuous rationale both for the construction of Birkenau as well the crematoria, and furthermore contradicts the second narrative. It follows therefore that the first narrative was the original narrative that Höss offered.

But was that initial narrative true? We know that, objectively speaking, it does not contradict our current knowledge about the camp, except, again, with regard to a possibly self-serving explanation for constructing the crematoria. But the real point is not the objective truth of the initial narrative as much as the fact that the apparent pressure subsequently applied tells us that his interrogators did not believe it. They were, however, apparently satisfied with the second narrative, including other details which Höss offered farther on, including such statements as
I imagine about 3,000,000 people were put to death, about 2,500,000 were put through the gas-chambers. Those numbers are officially put down and personal experiences also by Obersturmbannfuehrer EICHMANN in a report to the specialist on Jews in the RSHA to be passed on to HIMMLER. Those people were mostly Jews. I personally remember during my time as Camp Commandant at Auschwitz the order from the Gestapo to gas 70,000 Russian Prisoners of war which I did. The highest number of prisoners put through the gas-chambers at AUSCHWITZ was 10,000 in one day. The limit of what the installations could do. I also remember the big transports which arrived: 90,000 from Slovakia, 85,000 from Greece, 110,000 from France, 20,000 from Belgium, 90,000 from Holland, 400,000 from Hungary, 250,000 from Poland and Upper Silesia and 100,000 from Germany and Theresienstadt.

Here we have another implicit contradiction: first, the claim that three million were put to death, of which 2.5 million were gassed, and that they were "mostly Jews" but that at the same time only slightly over one million Jews "arrived" at the camp. As already noted, the 2.5-3 million range is false, and was never supported by any written document. But the distribution of the Jewish transports is remarkably consistent with numbers Höss would come back to again and again, and with the exception of the Hungarian and Polish numbers, accords more or less with universally accepted calculations. At this point, we will simply note that Höss references the "arrival" of these Jews but not their deaths.

The final question we have to deal with here is the state of mind of his interrogators. If the first narrative is correct, and the second narrative false, why would his interrogators allow him to make what in retrospect are such obvious errors? The simplest explanation is that his interrogators did not recognize the errors as such, which indicates that they were acting more or less in good faith, but under a cloud of ignorance. Interrogating the commandant of Auschwitz, with a general sense of what had happened, based on such documents as the WRB Report, the Soviet Special Commission on Auschwitz, and the ongoing International Military Tribunal, the interrogators simply led the interrogation -- and the sleep deprivation -- in order to get him to provide a version of events that would correspond not so much with what they knew, but what they felt would be the truth.

The erroneous details of the March 16, 1946 affidavit loom larger when we realize that all of the interrogations leading up to the preparation of the April 5 affidavit are based on it, in an almost literal page by page sequence. We also find, in reviewing those early April interrogations, that Höss coolly repeats again and again the same false statements from the prior affidavit -- sometimes, admittedly, with some confusion, which usually led to some prompting by the Americans as to where he should be going with his answers.

But the interrelationship of the materials is very important. Reading the interrogations of April 1-4, 1946 in isolation, one is generally impressed with the manner in which Höss frankly describes the development of an extermination program. He must be telling the truth. On the other hand, the researcher is likely to be crestfallen as Höss repeats other statements that couldn't possibly be true. He must, for some reason, be lying. It is only after comparing the various statements that one begins to understand that by April, 1946 Höss was mechanically repeating the story elicited from him in March, and that narrative structure, including the 1941 extermination order, and the visits to non-existent camps, would be a feature of all subsequent affidavits.

Within a few weeks, Höss was transferred to Poland, where he was extensively interrogated prior to hearings in Krakow in December, 1946. A number of affidavits were prepared in November, and these, stitched together with the memoirs he penciled in early 1947, have frequently been issued as his "Autobiography." A feature of one of these affidavits, "The Final Solution of the Jewish Question" contains elements that differ from the previous affidavits but retains most of the same errors. The main feature of this affidavit is that Höss distanced himself from the figure of 2.5-3 million victims, which he blamed on Eichmann and British torture, while repeating the distribution by nationality of about one million Jewish arrivals.

It is frequently stated that the "Autobiography" was composed in its entirety after Höss was sentenced to death, so that he would have had no reason to lie or shade the truth. This does not appear to be accurate. Whatever the determination of the Krakow hearings, Höss was not put on trial until March 11 of 1947, the trial lasting for almost three weeks. At his trial, Höss admitted to all charges and directed all of his questions to witnesses with a view to bringing down the total number of victims, cited in the indictment as "about 300,000 camp registered inmates", "about 4,000,000 people mainly Jews brought to the camp from different European countries to be killed upon their arrival" and twelve thousand Soviet POW's. On the other hand, Höss did contradict his November, 1946 affidavit in court by claiming that the total killed was 2.5 million. It appears that Höss' questioning had some effect: in its verdict, the court determined that "an undetermined number of people, at least 2,500,000, mainly Jews" were murdered.

Höss was sentenced to death on April 2, 1947, by the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland, just two weeks before he was hanged, and two months after his memoirs had been completed. The memoirs themselves are a model of incoherence and contradiction, containing a number of demonstrable untruths, as for example the reference to the secret files recording the "several millions" of Germans who were killed in the Anglo-American bombing campaign. Nevertheless the memoirs, or more precisely the November affidavit on the "Final Solution" attached to them to form the "Autobiography", remain the most frequently cited source for the reality of the gassing claim, although what actually happens is that the mere existence of these writings is used to give retroactive authority to the problematic April 5, 1946 affidavit, which, as we have seen, leads back to the March 16, 1946 affidavit, which contained numerous false statements extracted under torture.

[Moderator3]

Nathan:
You continue to place value in Hoess without addressing the various points made about what is attributed to him. Address the points.
Thank you.

[nathan]

Please tell me what point I am supposed to address. Was Hoess tortured? Undoubtedly. I was asked to comment on “Freeman”. I think that this like the rest of his work is very good; it contains one profound (anti-revisionist) error, but it has nothing to do with cyanide. Ditto for Mark Turley. I shall be corresponding with them privately if I am not permitted debate with them here.

As evidence Hoess' testimonies have no “value” at all, being products of coercion. Coercion in itself does not prove that any particular claim of his was scientifically implausible. Is that unclear? Would you like me to explain? Coercion also does not mean that testimonies cannot be ranked for plausibility. Is that not obvious? I will expand if required.

[Hannover]

nathan:

The claim, in 'confessions' by Hoess and stories by others, is that 2000 Jews were gassed at Auschwitz / Birkenau in just minutes. Then the alleged 2000 corpses were supposedly removed to the crematory ovens above via one 9ft. X 4ft. hand drawn elevator while the next batch of 2000 Jews supposedly waited outside.

How much time would that take as the cyanide is still being released from the Zyklon-B and is constantly being absorbed by the walls, ceiling, and floors of the alleged 'gas chambers'? Why then is there no representative cyanide residue?

see:
'claim: 2000 'gassed Jews' per batch / but only one Elevator'
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=2378

And then tell us how the still active Zyklon-B was disposed of.

What happened when the alleged gas chamber's doors were opened? ... with all that cyanide supposedly wafting about ... especially with the next batch of 2000 Jews supposedly waiting immediately outside the alleged 'gas chambers'. Weren't they supposedly being duped into believing they were about to take showers? How did all that work?

Tell us about those alleged wire mesh devices which supposedly held the Zyklon-B. How did they work?

It seems to me that you need to go back and actually read this entire thread.

- Hannover

[nathan]

I cannot answer Hannover’s questions. Some of us have to take one question at time. The narrow question I was taking at the time was whether enough cyanide would have been evaporated from the gypsum to kill everybody within x minutes. It invites a related question which I have never seen posed: whether complete evaporation would have been quick enough to allow instant ventilation at the end of half an hour, which is what Hoess alleged in his Nuremberg interrogations. He was unequivocal that the Sonderkommandos did not need their gas masks when the doors opened.

My own extrapolation from the Irmscher graphs (linked above ) is that the gypsum would still have plenty of cyanide yet to release even assuming a floor temperature of 20C and completely dry pellets. But that is just my quite uneducated guess and the question may well be too narrow to interest anyone but me. I shall drop the matter before I lose the will to live.

[Hannover]

I cannot answer Hannover’s questions. Some of us have to take one question at time. The narrow question I was taking at the time was whether enough cyanide would have been evaporated from the gypsum to kill everybody within x minutes. It invites a related question which I have never seen posed: whether complete evaporation would have been quick enough to allow instant ventilation at the end of half an hour, which is what Hoess alleged in his Nuremberg interrogations. He was unequivocal that the Sonderkommandos did not need their gas masks when the doors opened.

My own extrapolation from the Irmscher graphs (linked above ) is that the gypsum would still have plenty of cyanide yet to release even assuming a floor temperature of 20C and completely dry pellets. But that is just my quite uneducated guess and the question may well be too narrow to interest anyone but me. I shall drop the matter before I lose the will to live.

No it could not have released enough cyanide to kill everyone in mere minutes as alleged. This has been covered in this thread.

No, complete evaporation would have been simply impossible, it would have taken hours. Zyklon-B was so designed to release slowly for use in buildings, etc. This too has been covered in this thread.

Yes, ventilation could have occurred, but it would have killed the alleged SS executioners, killed and / or alerted the Jews allegedly waiting outside, and endangered the entire camp. This too has been covered in this thread.

This further proves that Hoess was speaking nonsense in his so called 'confessions', which were mostly and obviously an imposed script. Torture and threats do wonders.

Please, do not lose your will to live. An education is taking place. You'll be the better man because of it.

Regards.

- Hannover

[nathan]

The 1990 findings of the Institute of Forensic Research Cracow were too scant to be published. After they were leaked, the IFRC felt obliged go back again and do better.

The IHR translation is at:

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v11/v11p207_Staff.html

Be not misled, as I was, by the summary given in “The Chemistry of Auschwitz”, Richard Green’s philippic against Germar Rudolf:

“.......in 1990 in a preliminary study of 10 samples and 2
control samples. They [THE IFRC]were able to confirm the presence of cyanide in Krema II but nowhere else in this preliminary investigation!”


But according to the leaked report, the IFRC took not ten but twenty experimental samples in addition to the two controls. They found easily detectable traces in seven of the ten delousing room samples taken from Block 3 of the main camp. In the ten “homicidal” samples from Birkenau ruins they found only what they called one “almost undetectably small” trace in the central pillar of the morgue in Krema II.

In 1994, summarising these earlier findings the IFRC wrote:
“As far as the ruins are concerned, the presence of cyanide was demonstrated only in the sample from the ruins of Crematorium Chamber No 2 at Birkenau”

In the retelling “almost undetectably small” has become ‘’the presence of cyanide’. Retelling this retelling, Green has lost the qualification ”as far as the ruins are concerned” and thus the essential contrast with delousing chambers is lost.

I judge the 1990 report to be fairly honest, precisely because it was not intended for publication. One can see why the IHR were happy to publish it and why Richard Green’s memory was happy to distort it.

It does leave the revisionists with something to explain, namely that almost undetectably small trace in sample number 15. It is given as “6 micrograms per 100 grams of material”. A microgram is a millionth of a gram. Normalising as milligrams per kilogram I would have taken this to equate with 0.06 mg per kg. But in the table on page 46 of the (easily googled) book “The Auschwitz Lie” Germar Rudolf gives the figure 0.024. Can anyone tell me how he got that figure? Are there two Polish texts? Perhaps this translation has not been well edited: his caption to the table of eight positive samples has the opposite sense of the IHR translation where it is simply stated that no other positives were found.

The eight 1990 positives were also subjected by IFRC to infra-red analysis which, if I have understood, revealed in five of these samples the invisible presence of Prussian blue. “This kind of deposit... may result from the interaction of iron-bound compounds with cyanide’ says the first IFRC report. I deduce from this that the basic technique which yielded the eight numerical results resembled the technique used in the IFRC second investigation in that it explicitly discriminated against ferro-ferric cyanide, the compound most likely to have weathered the years. (Of course, the only justification for this discrimination would be if it were proven beyond doubt that Prussian blue could NOT result from the said interaction.)

It is indeed the presence of iron blue which accounts for the astronomical differences between the Birkenau sites. But in their later report IFRC say that the revisionists “concentrated” on this compound. Is this precise? In my understanding the analysis applied to Leuchter’s and Rudolf’s samples would have measured TOTAL cyanide residues, which would include the cyanide molecules from other compounds as well as iron cyanide.

[BelzeBob]

Ventilation -

Question:

It is a matter-of-course that very powerful ventilation systems would have been needed in order to remove the excess gas (after each gassing) from the chambers. ...have such ventilation systems, or parts of them, ever been found?

I imagine, that as these alleged chambers were situated very close to the other buildings in the camps, that either

1. Very long pipes leading to outside of the camps would be needed?

2. Or pipes leading to some kind of container(s) where the gas would be neutralized by some chemical compound?

Is there any evidence (/"evidence") for such pipe-systems ever having been found?

I think we can discard the possibility of the excess gas simply dissipating into open air. Given the allegedly enormous amount of gas being used / frequency of gassings - everybody in the camps would eventually get seriously ill....?

(Pardon me if this question really belongs in another thread. It's a very big forum. If I find a more suitable thread I'll move/copy my question to there.)

[Turpitz]

It is a matter-of-course that very powerful ventilation systems would have been needed in order to remove the excess gas (after each gassing) from the chambers. ...have such ventilation systems, or parts of them, ever been found?

They would not dare try and unearth those post-war walls.

[Haldan]

It would be interesting to have your comments and thoughts with the posted bit of text of Jean-Claude Pressac, BelzeBob.

-haldan

[BelzeBob]

It would be interesting to have your comments and thoughts with the posted bit of text of Jean-Claude Pressac, BelzeBob.

-haldan

Sure. I'll give it a go. I'm no engineer or gas chamber specialist though, but I'll at least be able to raise a few questions I think. I'll repost the article here with my comments in bold font:

Page 355 AUSCHWITZ:
Technique and Operation
of the Gas Chambers ©

PART TWO

CHAPTER 6

THE VENTILATION SYSTEMS OF KREMATORIEN II AND III

Account of the research undertaken by the author in
order to explain the ventilation systems of
Krematorien II and III.

In this Chapter I shall not use the method adopted for the others, i.e. production of documents on a subject, then comments and conclusion. The problem, for there is a problem, of the ventilation systems of Krematorien II and III will be presented in the form of an account including what was known and thought in 1979, my doubts, my fairly lengthy researches, my findings and finally the discovery in 1982 in the BW 30/41 file of the “ARBEITSZEITBESCHEINIGUNGEN” (timesheets) of the Topf & Sons fitter, Messing, who stayed at Auschwitz and installed all the ventilation systems of Krematorien II and III at Birkenau between 5th January and 9th June 1943,

Really? Has anyone else any info about this Mr. Messing?

He was one of the rare “outside” civilians to be able to directly observe the consequences of the first gassing of 1500 Cracow Jews in Krematorium II on l4th March. In his timesheets, there are seven “slips” that reveal the “abnormal” use of the Leichenkeller (morgues, or literally “corpse cellars”), which enable two other isolated references to be explained. The documents relevant to this account will be produced as it proceeds.

For 40 years, the question of the ventilation in Krematorien of type II/III was thought to be obvious and well known. It was concerned with the fresh air supply and air extraction systems for the underground gas chambers. The Bauleitung drawings of the projected Krematorium II show that the rooms designated “Leichenkeller l” or “L Keller 1” were ventilated. Since the testimonies of former members of the Sonderkommando assert that Leichenkeller I of Krematorien II and III had been used as homicidal gas chambers and since two letters from SS sources indicated that one of the cellars designated a “Vergasungskeller” had been fitted with a gas tight door,

Has anyone heard of this door before? And, could it have been the door of an air-raid shelter/bunker?

the fact that this ventilation system appeared an the Bauleitung drawings became clear premeditation.

What drawings are they?

The extreme importance attached to this point is particularly evident in the book by Georges Wellers, “Les chambres à gaz ont existé”, the cover of which [Document 1] is part of drawing 1174 [Document 4] which includes a cross section of Leichenkeller 1 of the future Krematorium II, showing the upper and lower ventilation ducts. This is an indication of the value of this evidence in the eyes of Georges Wellers. His photo 8 [Document 2] reproduces the cover illustration with mention of the “ventilation ducts”. His photo 9 [Document 3] shows cross-sections of Leichenkeller 1 and 2 (taken from drawing 934 [Document 5]) with the observation that L Keller 1 is ventilated, unlike 2. Lastly, Wellers concludes (page 90), that:

(Sorry, I don't know where these photos are....)

“It can be seen that cellar 1 is not so long as cellar 2 and, above all [my underlining]. That it is provided with a ventilation and air extraction system perfectly visible and named on the cross section, while “corpse cellar 2” has no such installation [my underlining]”.

This argument was put forward by the Auschwitz Museum and was used by the advocates appearing for the LICRA during the “Faurisson trial”. They are blameless, since they are not historians and were simply repeating an interpretation provided by the Museum and confirmed by Georges Wellers.

The truth is that this demonstration is quite erroneous, and hence any attempt to prove “premeditation” of the criminal use of Leichenkeller 1 as gas chambers on the basis of the ventilation systems is quite unfounded.

I worked for a long time on establishing THE PATHS TAKEN BY ME DIFFERENT VENTILATION DUCTS in Krematorien II and III. It took me about two years to arrive at a logical explanation on the basis of the scattered evidence then available to me, whereas if I had known about the existence of PMO file BW 30/41, simply the quarter of an hour it took to read it would have saved me a great deal of groping in the dark. However, this file fully confirmed the findings of my work.

At the end of 1979, after consulting drawing 932 in the Museum Archives, a drawing representing the basement of a projected Krematorium which was to become Krematorium II, I expressed my doubts as to the technical feasibility of installing a gas chamber in Leichenkeller 1, because its entrance was fitted with a double door and the passage between Leichenkeller 2 (undressing room) and Leichenkeller 1 (gas chamber) was partly obstructed by a concrete corpse chute leading almost as far as the double door of Leichenkeller 1. The archivist pointed out on drawings 933, 934 and 1174, where cross sections of the two Leichenkeller appeared, that there was a MAJOR DIFFERENCE as regards ventilation — presence in L KeIler 1 and absence in 2 — a difference which according to him PROVED irrefutably that Leichenkeller 1 was a gas chamber and that it had been PLANNED as such. His demonstration appeared valid at the time and I believed it.

However, when I had completed my study of ALL THE DRAWINGS connected with the Birkenau Krematorien, his categorical statement no longer fitted with my interpretation of some of them, and even less with several items in file BW 30/34 (microfilm 1060). A note of 3rd February 1943 from a certain Messing mentioned an air extractor fan [“Abluftgeblase / used air blower"] for Leichenkeller 2 [Document 6]. A letter of 11th February 1943 signed by Bischoff, head of the Bauleitung, spoke of a 7.5 HP motor for the extractor fan of Leichenkeller 2 [Document 7]. A letter from Topf & Sons of 12th February 1943 [Document 7a] used the same terms as Bischoff on the subject of an extractor fan for Leichenkeller 2.

On drawing 980 of the roof frame of the future Krematorium II [Document 8], the locations of TWO ventilation chimneys are shown. The one on the left, quite separate, is the fresh air intake for Leichenkeller 1. The other, to the right, through which the noxious air of this same Leichenkeller I is to he expelled, has FOUR outlets. While one outlet was for this function, the purpose of the three others remained unexplained. However, the argument of the Museum archivist was still acceptable despite the documents of BW 30/34, for the mention of a motor for an extractor fan for Leichenkeller 2 was no proof that it was actually installed…

Five minutes of a television program seen quite by chance led me to a meeting, accompanied by a former Monowitz prisoner, with Mr. David Olère, a professional artist and ex member of the Sonderkommando who, in his canvases, evokes the universe of Birkenau. I took with me the drawings of the Krematorien so that I could question him about them, but he refused to look at them. He had his reasons for this. By their very precision, they disturbed his personal, residual vision of the infernal environment in which he had lived from 1943 to 1945. His reflex was more than understandable. On the other hand, he was willing to tell his own story. To support what he had to say, he produced his drawings and in particular those of his “Memento”, produced in 1945-46, shortly after his return from deportation, The Memento was not able to show me very much however, being virtually emptied of its 60 to 70 original sketches. The greater part of them — 90 per cent — had been lent for an exhibition in Israel organized by Mrs. Myriam Novitch, who never returned them to their author and owner.

Despite my difficulty in believing certain episodes related by David Olère, a drawing of the fronts of the five three muffle furnaces of Krematorium II or III intrigued me. On the right hand side of each furnace them was drawn a part representing a pulsed air installation, identical to that fitted on the third furnace of the Old Krematorium in the main camp. I had not yet any confirmation of this little known detail of the equipment of the Krematorien II and II furnaces, but I later found mention of it in the book by Dr. Nyiszli, “Auschwitz: a doctor’s eyewitness account” [Chapter VII, page 45], this being reinforced by the method of operating a three-muffle furnace with its pulsed air blower being reproduced at the end of the book. In Volume 11 of the Höss trial there is an identical document, but supplied for the new (third) two-muffle furnace of the old Krematorium. David Olère, while lamenting the "loss" of his drawings produced a journal of the LICA (former name of the LICRA) where three of his works were reproduced: a plan of Krematorium III, a group of prisoners returning to the camp, and a view of one of the undressing rooms in Krematorium II or III [in fact Leichenkeller 2 of Krematorium III). Along the top left of the room there was a big black tube from which two smaller tubes with grids over their ends protruded downwards [Document l3]. The discovery of these unknown details, that other sources had led me to suspect, proved to me first of all that I was not dealing with a story teller, even though some of his declarations were at the limit of the credible, and secondly that on the evidence of the photos that I knew, his drawings were authentic at this early date and were very faithful in their detail and, finally, that an air extraction system (a detail pointed out by David Olère) had existed in Leichenkeller 2 of both Krematorien II and III.

http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschw ... 0355.shtml

Yep, I read through the whole thing. Oh no. There are 3 big problems here:

1. No photos
2. No drawings
3. No explanation of how exactly these ventilation systems worked. i.e how did they manage to get the gas away from the camps (and so not hurt those who were not intended to be gassed)...

I invite anybody to pursue this matter further. If no-one else does it, then I'll try to dig up those missing photos and drawings (and technical explanations) myself. I might be biting off more than I can chew here. Seems a big task...


This taught me a lesson really; not post anything before I've read through it carefully myself. This article I posted is quite a bit of work.

[BelzeBob]

http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschw ... 0355.shtml

I've browsed through the entire thing now. (Many, many pages when you click the "forward" button).

Yes, it's lovely. Lots of nice drawings and even some photos like this one:

http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschw ... 363.01.jpe

Just one small problem:

There are many references to crematoria and something called "Leichenkeller" (delousing-chamber?), but....no references whatsoever to any gas chambers. Nothing detailed anyway.

Peculiar, as the title for the whole thing is

AUSCHWITZ:
Technique and Operation
of the Gas Chambers ©

Whoopsie! Here's one interesting picture finally:

http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschw ... 369.02.jpe

http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschw ... 0369.shtml

My French isn't that good, but I understand that the excess Zyklon B gas would be released into the air from a small, ordinary chimney. Not far from the kitchen and other not-extermination rooms....

Aha, and the gas chamber and crematorium are next door to each other. Wouldn't that be kinda risky?

Zyklon B gas is highly flammable. And in crematoria there tends to be some fire...

Anyone else see anything "weird" about this "explained photograph"?

Dang! These pics don't show up. You'll have to click on the links...

[Reinhard]

[...]
Yes, it's lovely. Lots of nice drawings and even some photos like this one:

http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschw ... 363.01.jpe

Reminds me of these cartoons:



(»And what about this? Isn't this evidence enough???«]



[»That can't be a hoax!«]

[Lamprecht]

Has anyone seen this:

Code: Select all

http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/chemistry/blue/

Conditions in the Homicidal Gas chambers at Auschwitz Birkenau.

In other words, Prussian blue only forms with very high concentrations of CN-. The concentrations in the gas chambers were such that ambient water, given time to reach equilibrium, might theoretically have approached concentrations of 0.2 or 0.3 M - but more likely on the order of 0.1 M or below - as shown in Appendix I.

That such an equilibrium concentration could have been reached during the time span of an actual gassing is doubtful. This concentration is the equilibrium value. Absorption of HCN by water would undoubtedly be kinetically limited, i.e., the concentration would be limited by how fast the absorption process can occur. The equilibrium concentration assumes that the water has been exposed to HCN long enough that the rate of HCN leaving solution into the gas phase is equal to the rate at which HCN from the gas phase is being absorbed by the water.

Most importantly one must recall that the gas chambers were hosed down with water after gassings to clean up blood and excrement.15 Considering that the ambient water would have been quite small, providing 100 times dilution would have been trivial. This effect may actually be the explanation for the presence of Prussian blue in the delousing chambers yet its absence in the homicidal chambers. Some further research will be necessary to support this supposition conclusively.

AND

The experimental evidence that Prussian blue formation is not a necessity with the presence of HCN and construction materials is strong. Markiewicz et al. 17 were not able to produce such pigments in experiments with HCN and building materials. Additionally, Rudolf did an experiment in which he exposed a brick to HCN and yet found no detectable level of cyanides within the sensitivity of his analytical method. 18 These failures to produce Prussian blue are sufficient to demonstrate that its formation at detectable levels is not a necessary result of exposure to HCN.

So, really, he says that there is a reason why there is no cyanide residue - and that Rudolf is incorrect to claim that it's because there's no gassing.

the reply by Rudolf:
http://vho.org/GB/c/GR/Green.html
[The deconstruction of Green was already covered in this thread. So next time read the thread you post to. Thanks, Moderator]