SS confessions, why so useless?

[Kingfisher]

Indeed you must have overlooked that for instance for Auschwitz there was no pile of ash in the first place since according to multiple testimonies the ash was usually transported away and thrown into rivers

I have read a lot of testimonies and confessions, but I can't recall this fact of ashes being dumped into rivers. I hope they are not the same old Wiesel/Vrba/Muller, etc. I'm sincerely interested in reading these testimonies. Are they available online? Can you direct me, please?

How were the legitimate, and undisputed, ashes from the crematoria disposed of?

[Balsamo]

while reading these posts on SS witnesses, i was wondering how is it that we have so few, if any, retractions, even post-mortem, like in a brief note to family while in jail, in testament, of whatever, stating :
"all i said was under torture, nothing of what i have said before any courts is true" or things like this...In our today's "internet time" it could have been devastating...
But, no, nada, nothing! Strange isn't it?

[fountainhead]

while reading these posts on SS witnesses, i was wondering how is it that we have so few, if any, retractions, even post-mortem, like in a brief note to family while in jail, in testament, of whatever, stating :
"all i said was under torture, nothing of what i have said before any courts is true" or things like this...In our today's "internet time" it could have been devastating...
But, no, nada, nothing! Strange isn't it?

Only reasons I can think of is perhaps they don't want their families to be bothered for releasing such a note or that they've long since given up caring, resigned to the belief that it's a pointless battle at this stage in their lives. Still, the lack of retractions does make a strong case for Exterminationists. You'd think that there would be at least ONE of the SS men willing to speak up.

[Cloud]

Still, the lack of retractions does make a strong case for Exterminationists.

A "strong case" would be enormous piles of dead jews with cyanide filled lungs.

[stefanob]

Balsamo, I admit that I would have hoped for some late retractions.
However retractions didn't even come from those who confessed runing gas chambers in western camps, where no one claims any gas chamber ever existed. That is strange too.
After all, confessing SS men are said to be "a lot", but in the end they were a few tens. If you remove from the count those who were immediately executed (more than half), chances are that no retraction is released.

As fountainhead points out, they had strong motivations to let it be the way it is. Did you see? Demjanjuk was dragged to a court at age 89. Here in Italy, Erich Priebke was detained at home until 2007. Then he was allowed out to work. But the Jews were outraged, so his permit was revoked... Since 2009, he is still detained st home at home, but allowed to go out "for the basic needs of life". No need to say, Jews are still angry about it... Priebke is now 98 years old.

[Hannover]

while reading these posts on SS witnesses, i was wondering how is it that we have so few, if any, retractions, even post-mortem, like in a brief note to family while in jail, in testament, of whatever, stating :
"all i said was under torture, nothing of what i have said before any courts is true" or things like this...In our today's "internet time" it could have been devastating...
But, no, nada, nothing! Strange isn't it?

Why would those not already 'executed' risk their necks after having played along when confronted with the 'judical notice' tactic. The courts accepted the gassing claims as fact, 'judicial notice' was given in spite of the lack of proof. Well, there was the 'steam chamber's forensic report given by the Soviets.

- Hannover

[Balsamo]

Hannover,

I was not thinking of big declarations at press conferences...just hints given to family, written testaments to be published after death - a period in which you're not affraid to lose your neck - or sent to some american association or even to yourself, whatever...or some "post-mortem memoirs" like "How they forced me to confess the Holocaust"...I guess there are enough associations or organisations who would have published it, in countries where it is not forbidden...

Funny thing, during the first 40 years after the war, it was permitted (even if not considerated) to be a denier...
Léon Degrelle wrote memoirs, Skorzeny, Speer, and a whole bunch of generals...

All i ask is a anonymous memoir published in south america or in other part of the world (Spain, Portugal, USA...) from a relative of one of the thousands convicted or released low ranked SS witness that says "My father, uncle, friend was forced to admit..." They had 61 years to do so...

As far as i know, Degrelle declared that "only" o couple of hundred thousands of Jews had been killed.
Skorzeny did not believe it and was behind you in considering the Nurenberg procedures was behind what he called the "dark legend", without any testimonies from sentenced friends however.
Speer recognized that the SS treated their slaves in a non producing fashion, but basically shut the fuck up...

So even those "brave writer" could not come up with anything like "this fellow SS told me how he was forced to explain something that never took place"...

[Kageki]

Would that really make a difference?

Here is Oswald on camera right after the assassination claiming he is a patsy or in other words framed and thus innocent:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZYAIiErTNg

This alone hasn't changed people's mind about JFK.

Say Konrad Morgen said he made it all up. What would have happened?

[mdmguyon]

Lt. Col. Ellis and Lt Perl of the Prosectution pleaded that it was difficult to obtain competant evidence. Perl told the court, "We had a tough case to crack and we had to use persuasive methods."

He admitted to the court that the persuasive methods included various "expedients, including some violence and mock trials." He further told the court that the cases rested on statements obtained by such methods.

The statements which were admitted as evidence were obtained from men who had first been kept in solitary confinement for three, four, and, five months. They were confined between four walls, with no windows, and no opportunity of exercise. Two meals a day were shoved in to them through a slot in the door. They were not allowed to talk to anyone. They had no communication with their families or any minister or priest during that time.

This solitary confinement proved sufficient in itself in some cases to persuade the Germans to sign prepared statements. These statements not only involved the signer, but often would involve other defendants.

Our investigators would put a black hood over the accused's head and then punch him in the face with brass knuckles, kick him, and beat him with rubber hose. Many of the German defendants had teeth knocked out. Some had their jaws broken. All but two of the Germans, in the 139 cases we investigated, had been kicked in the testicles beyond repair. This was Standard Operating Procedure with American investigators. Perl admitted use of mock trials and persuasive methods including violence and said the court was free to decide the weight to be attached to evidence thus received.

One 18 year old defendant, after a series of beatings. was writing a statement being dictated to him. When they reached the 16th page, the boy was locked up for the night. In the early morning, Germans in nearby cells heard him muttering. "I will not utter another lie." When the jailer came in later to get him to finish his false statement, he found the German hanging from a cell bar, dead. However the statement that the German had hanged himself to escape signing was offered and received in evidence in the trial of the others.

Sometimes a prisoner who refused to sign was led into a dimly lit room, where a group of civilian investigators, wearing U. S. Army uniforms. were seated around a black table with a crucifix in the center and two candles burning, one on each aide. "You will now have your American trial," the defendant was told. The sham court passed a sham sentence of death. Then the accused was told, "You will hang in a few days, as soon as the general approves this sentence: but in the meantime sign this confession and we can get you acquitted." Some still wouldn't sign. We were shocked by the crucifix being used so mockingly.

In another case, a bogus Catholic priest (actually an investigator) entered the cell of one of the defendants, heard his confession, gave him absolution, and then gave him a little friendly tip:
Sign whatever the investigators ask you to sign. It will get you your freedom. Even though it's false, I can give you absolution now in advance for the lie you'd tell.

- E. L. Van Roden, "American Atrocities in Germany", The Progressive. February 1949, p. 21f.

Although, in the Malmedy hearings, van Roden affirmed much of this ghostwritten article, he claimed not to have understood that his name would be attached to it and he regarded much of it as exaggerated, particularly the part about the destruction of testicles.

[SevenUp]

To fully understand how truly worthless confessions can be see the Frontline program Confessions ... start to finish ....

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/the-confessions/

It explores in some detail the case of 4 Norfolk Navy personnel who confessed to the rape and murder of woman who was a neighbor of one of the men. They provided graphic and damning details of the crime. The implicated each other. And yet, none had absolutely anything to do with the crime. Eventually the true perpetrator was discovered when he confessed while imprisoned for another crime, and yet the prosecution and conviction of the four proceeded. One of the Navy guys came to 'believe' that he was guilty of the crime. It is completely unbelievable, but true.

[Kingfisher]

Excellent point SevenUp. That programme has been quoted before on these boards, pehaps by you, but it can't be repeated often enough. The case is well-known in the psychology literature.I came across it in that very good book The Invisible Gorilla.

[Hannover]

mdmguyon said:

Although, in the Malmedy hearings, van Roden affirmed much of this ghostwritten article, he claimed not to have understood that his name would be attached to it and he regarded much of it as exaggerated, particularly the part about the destruction of testicles.

And he would probably have suffered the consequences if he had said anything else.

And you ignored the confirming information I posted.


- Hannover

[mdmguyon]

mdmguyon said:

Although, in the Malmedy hearings, van Roden affirmed much of this ghostwritten article, he claimed not to have understood that his name would be attached to it and he regarded much of it as exaggerated, particularly the part about the destruction of testicles.

And he would probably have suffered the consequences if he had said anything else.

Particularly since van Roden went much further than Simpson did in expressing belief that prisoners had been abused, I'm skeptical that he had anything to fear if he had expressed it even more, but regardless, since the debate about the Holocaust is essentially whether it has been exaggerated or not, those who are arguing that it has been should be particularly careful not to.

[borjastick]

It may well be that the jailed former SS officers felt that enough was enough and that they wanted to get on with their lives. After all, as far as I am aware, those jailed at the IMT for mass murder or complicity in it, were all released by 1955. My guess is that the authorities already knew the claims of gas chambers and millions of deaths were untrue, that they knew it was a show trial. So they told the convicted to shut the f**k up for a few years and then be released.

After their release alot of them went on to be successful in civvie street, one was even a very senior banker in Germany.

The shortness of these sentences is a massive statement by the allies without saying much...

[Hektor]

...
We can classify the accounts of former SS personell into four groups,
(1) those does who denied that any mass killing took place,
(2) those who said there didn't know about the mass killings,
(3) those who acknowledge that mass killings took place and
(4) those who describe mass killings or mass killing sites in detail.

If we only focus on those who could have been in the position to know something, then I estimate from my reading that the distribution looks like this, the majority of testimonies fall in group (3), then (4) and (2) and the smallest is (1).

The group (3) consists of two sub-categories, (a) those who really didn't much details, and (b) those who know much details but avoided to reveal. In my previous post I provided explanation for the existence of group (3b). Note that my explanation consists of four points and not of one as you suggest.

Group (4) witnesses are for instance people like Höss, Broad, Morgan, Gerstein, Fuchs, Böck, Erber.

Now the interesting thing with this distribution is that you it is pretty much what you would expect if the mass killings were true, and pretty much the exact opposite of what we would expect if there were not true.

If there were no mass killings, we would expect most testimonies in group (1) rejecting that any mass killing did took place, then group (2), then with large distant group (3) and finally very small or even empty group (4). ....

No you don't. If mass gassings took place you'd expect a close to complete wall of silence from the core people with circumstantial witnesses en mass, if you take the setting of the camp as generally expected. Actually you'd expect some completely different setting and not the dilettantishly silly one given to us by the Holocaust promotion scene. You also fail to mention that these testimonies are just a selection from any possible ones. These are the once selected for mentioning and publishing. In fact the biggest group of people is those that only hear later about this.

If the mass gassing Holocaust claim is a hoax created and driven by political interest groups and war propagandist, you'd expect a situation exactly as the given one. Lot's of people that didn't know anything which would be your group (2) and the vast majority of those connected to the camp at any time. Given the circumstances of threat of illegal arrest, assassination and having lost the war, you'd expect only a few outright disputes being made. In fact those that do not dispute, seem to be bullied over by the big lie technique that has been employed to push the hoax. Of course one would have to expect some figures in (3) and (4) as well. What group (4) utters is even so patently silly riddled with hogwash it is even amazing for a constructed hoax. You'd also expect group (4) to be pressured and tortured to give their testimony. When different people utter the same nonsense over and over again, that's not a sign of converging evidence, but indicates that people have been coached in some way.