Mattogno is familiar with the work of a German researcher by the name of Jens Hoffmann, in whose book about Aktion 1005 the use of meteorological code words is mentioned on several occasions[12]. Even if he were not, a little googling would have been sufficient to overcome his ignorance. A search on
http://www.google.de with the terms "Aktion 1005" and "Wolken" (German for clouds) turns up as first result a link to an article in Germany’s main weekly magazine[13] discussing trials against several former members of the SS or police who had been involved in Aktion 1005 and been charged with the murder of forced laborers involved in the cremation of the corpses: Max Krahner, Otto Goldapp, Otto Drews, Hans Sohns, Fritz Zietlow, Walter Ernst Helfsgott, Fritz Kirstein. Regarding Sohns, the article contains the following information:
Mit Pickeln und Schaufeln, aber auch mit Baggern ließ Sohns die Massengräber öffnen. ermittelte die Staatsanwaltschaft. Er selber kontrollierte gelegentlich den Fortgang der Arbeit an Ort und Stelle, er selber gab Befehl, die herbeigezwungenen Totengräber durch Genickschuß zu töten. Nur geschossen hat er selber nicht: jemals seine Versetzung oder Abberufung beantragt auch nicht.
Er war immer bei der Sache, meldete jeweils Vollzug unter Stichwort "Wolkenhöhe" aus den Niederungen der Menschenvernichtung.
Sohns had the mass graves opened with pickaxes and shovels, but also with excavators, according to the public prosecutor’s office’s investigations. He himself occasionally controlled the progress of the work on site, and he himself gave the order to kill the forced grave diggers by shots in the neck. He only didn’t shoot himself; he also never requested a transfer or relief from his post.
He always had things under control, and on each occasion reported accomplishment under the keyword "cloud height" from the hollows of human extermination.
The trial against Sohns et al was held before the Stuttgart Court of Assizes (Landgericht Stuttgart) and ended with the court’s verdict on 13.03.1969, which is included as Verfahren Lfd.Nr.701 in the University of Amsterdam’s Justiz und NS-Verbrechen collection[14] and can be ordered from there. Regarding the use of the code word "Wolkenhöhe" ("cloud height"), the judgment contains the following findings:
Auf der gemeinsamen Grundsatzbesprechung teilte Blobel ferner mit, dass der Abteilung IV des RSHA täglich über die Zahl der beseitigten Leichen berichtet werden müsse. Er fragte die Anwesenden, ob jemand einen vernünftigen Vorschlag zur praktischen Handhabung der Berichtspflicht machen könne. Hierauf schlug Soh. vor, die täglichen Leistungsberichte als "Wettermeldung" zu tarnen. Als "Wolkenhöhe" verschlüsselt konnte die Leichenzahl über Funk oder von einer KdS-Dienststelle aus fernschriftlich unauffällig an den BdS gemeldet werden, der die bei ihm einlaufenden Berichte täglich an das RSHA weiterzuleiten hatte. In der Praxis oblag es später den Teilkommandoführem, also auch dem Angeklagten Zie., die täglichen "Wettermeldungen" abzugeben. Ob Soh. in der Praxis auch in das von ihm inspirierte Berichtswesen eingeschaltet war, ist ungeklärt. […]
Der Angeklagte hat ferner eingeräumt, schon vor Aufnahme der eigentlichen Arbeiten bei der gemeinsamen Grundsatzbesprechung auf entsprechende Frage Blobels vorgeschlagen zu haben, dass - wie das später dann in der Praxis tatsächlich weitgehend durchgeführt wurde - die vom RSHA geforderten täglichen Leistungsberichte als "Wettermeldung" verschlüsselt und die Zahl der verbrannten Leichen mit einer als "Wolkenhöhe" getarnten Zahl durchgegeben werden sollten.
At the joint principle meeting Blobel furthermore informed that Section IV of the RSHA had to be informed about the number of removed corpses on a daily basis. He asked those present if anyone could make a reasonable suggestion about the practical handling of this reporting duty. Thereupon Soh. suggested to mask the daily performance reports as "weather report". Coded as "cloud height", the number of corpses could inconspicuously be reported by radio or by a service of the Commander of Security Police and Security Service (Kommandeur der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD - KdS) per telex to the Head of the Security Police and Security Service (Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD - BdS), who had to transmit the messages received to the RSHA on a daily basis. In practice the commanders of partial detachments, including the defendant Zie., later had the task of issuing the daily "weather reports". Whether Soh. was also involved in the practice of reporting he had inspired has not been clarified. […]
The defendant furthermore admitted that already before the works proper started he had at the joint principle meeting suggested, in response to a corresponding question by Blobel, that – as was later actually done in practice to a large extent – the daily performance reports required by the RSHA should be coded as "weather reports" and the number of burned corpses should be reported by a number masked as "cloud height".
So instead of the account of "some senile "eyewitness"" derisively suggested by Mattogno we have the deposition of a key participant in Operation 1005 at a trial before a West German court, held according to the defendant-friendly procedural rules of a democratic state, in which defendants were assisted by legal counsel and entitled to deny the charges brought against them and challenge the related evidence as they saw fit.
But it gets even better, for one of the documents quoted by Sergey[15] confirms Sohns’ deposition whereby meteorological code words were used to report the progress of Operation 1005, namely the sixth one[16]:
Einsatz der SK 1005 A und B, GrS-Auftrag RFSS an SS-Staf. Blobel im Raum BdS-Schwarzes Meer nicht möglich. Erfaßte Niederschlagsgebiete nur noch im Raum KdS-Krim. Einsatz dort bei Front- und Bandenlage zZt. untunlich. Transportraum für Gesamtkommando nicht vorhanden. Gerüchteweise verlautet, daß Räumung Krim bevorsteht. Schlage Auflösung beider Kommandos bzw. Einsatz in anderem Raume vor.
Source: excerpt from a secret 28.03.1944 radiogram from SS-Stubaf. Friedrich Hegenscheidt (KdS Schwarzes Meer) to Chef der Sipo und des SD and Einsatzgruppe C Lemberg, Abw. Stab; Barch, B 162/204 ARZ 419/62, Band 1, Bl. 146 as cited in ibid., S. 127. (Note that "Niederschläge" was a code word for buried bodies of the Nazi victims, cf. B 162/3537, Bl. 115.)
(Emphases added.)
"Niederschlag" translates as "rainfall", "Niederschlagsgebiete" translates as "rainfall areas", and the highlighted part of Sergey’s quote translates as "Recorded rainfall areas left only in the area of Commander of Security Police and Security Service Crimea", which in the context of Operation 1005 meant that only in this area there remained mass graves to removed. The report goes on to state that the operation could not be carried out at the time due to the situation at the front and partisan activity, that there were rumors whereby the Crimea was about to be evacuated, and that the dissolution of both detachments (SK 1005 A and B) or their use elsewhere was thus suggested.
The above-mentioned insider witness and documentary evidence makes Mattogno’s derisive remark about the source of Desbois’ reference to the coding of Operation 1005 reports look like the impertinent blather of a charlatan incapable or unwilling to do even the most basic research in the field of his "scholarly" activity, whereas Desbois comes across as someone who did his homework of consulting the available sources of evidence or at least the judgments and/or scholarly literature wherein such sources are mentioned.
But then, who in his right mind still believes that Mattogno’s "scholarship" amounts to anything other than poppycock?
