Auschwitz cremation ovens and the "four-story continuous operation corpse incineration oven" never built

[Lamprecht]

The topic of the Topf and Soehne 4-story continuous operatioon furnace has been discussed before, but there was no dedicated thread. See: viewtopic.php?t=10617#p79804

This is the facility in question, or rather the sketch of it:



More info here (page 13): https://web.archive.org/web/20091229153 ... _ef_en.pdf
Also: http://web.archive.org/web/201209021007 ... id=120&l=1

Clearly, it was never built. But why? The common belief is that Auschwitz was some sort of highly effective extermination camp, where the Germans employed the best technology of the time to most efficiently kill as many Jews as possible. However, the reality of the situation is quite the opposite. The Auschwitz cremation devices used were cheap, poorly designed and were liable to long periods of failure. Their cremation capacity was, at best, mediocre for the technology of the time period. For a place where allegedly more than 1 million people were killed, the need for highly effective crematory ovens is obvious. So why wouldn't they have built this highly effective corpse incineration device?

Usually, the claim is that Auschwitz crematoriums were highly effective for the purpose, that they used the best technology that was available at the time. Upon closer inspection, this does not appear to be the case. The most comprehensive investigation in this regard was published just a few years ago, and contains over 1,000 pages of in-depth technical insights, documents, and photographs on the topic:



Carlo Mattogno: The Cremation Furnaces of Auschwitz—A Technical and Historical Study
https://holocausthandbooks.com/dl/24-tcfoa.pdf

At first, only one crematorium was planned for "Extermination camp" Auschwitz Birkenau, but in 1942 the camp was ordered to increase its population to 200,000 people, and the outbreak of a massive typhus epidemic caused hundreds of people to die of disease each day at one point in time. This is also what motivated the Germans to order so much Zyklon-B to the camp, which was used to delouse and fumigate clothing and bed sheets to kill the disease-carrying lice.

Actually, compared to Buchenwald and Dachau (which are not claimed to be "extermination camps") Auschwitz had fewer oven muffles when calculated as a ratio of the number of muffles per death in the camp in August 1942.



Some additional points about the Auschwitz cremation furnaces:

- Although documentation about the cremation capacity of the furnaces at Auschwitz has mostly disappeared, almost identical furnaces (to the ones at Crematoria II and III) were installed at the Gusen Camp in Austria. What we know from these documents is that cremation of one corpse took on average one hour, and it required 25-30 kg of coke per hour or corpse if continuously operated

- Compared to normal civilian furnaces, the muffles at Auschwitz were smaller because they were designed to accommodate one corpse without a coffin. The coffins actually acted as fuel to help cremate the bodies, so additional fuel was needed to make up for this.

- The Auschwitz furnaces had no recuperators, which are used to recover heat from exhaust. This also ended up necessitating additional fuel for the cremations.

- Combustion air that was fed into the Auschwitz furnaces was cold, and therefore the furnaces operated at lower temperatures and this extended cremation time.

- The Birkenau furnaces had no forced-draft blowers to increase the chimney's draft, and had a limited means of regulating air flow with ports and shutters. Therefore, they couldn't operate under "ideal" conditions for very long.

- The 10 triple-muffle furnaces of Krema II & III had a serious flaw in their design: the combustion air of the lateral muffles flowed into the center muffle, causing its combustion air to flow with twice the speed. This led burning combustion gases to rush into the flues, overheating them. They also had only one blower feeding cold air into the lateral muffles, reducing the cremation controllability.

- The fragile refractory bricks of the ovens would have been damaged severely by high temperatures, causing significant down time. The Krema II chimney was damaged in March 1943 because of overuse. Breakdowns were actually quite frequent.

---

Cremation capacity is a scientific matter. The technology can not be used cremate a larger number of corpses than the laws of physics permit, nor can they cremate them faster without additional risks. Despite this undeniable fact, orthodox Holocaust historians will often cite documents which make claims of extremely high cremation capacity of the Auschwitz furnaces, as if somehow words typed on a paper can prove that something scientifically impossible actually occurred. I will only bring up the two most common ones here:


The claims made in this document are completely absurd and it is certainly a forgery. Mattogno handles it on page 341 of his book linked above ("9.6. Discussion of the Zentralbauleitung Letter of 28 June 1943").
It is also discussed here:

Bischoff Letter Dated June 28th 1943 and Krema 4
viewtopic.php?t=12164


This document has also been floating around:

In fact it was merely a proposal that was rejected. Also, the document dates from 8 September 1942, so it was written at a time when the crematories at Birkenau did not even exist. Therefore, it cannot be considered an indicator of actual operational efficiency.

It has also been addressed here:
Prufer letter / '80,000 Cremation Capacity Per Month Not Sufficient for Auschwitz'
viewtopic.php?t=12465

---

On the topic of outdoor cremations, I recommend the following:

[Video] Holocaust Stories vs Science - How Does Open Air Cremation Work // Treblinka Cremations debunked
viewtopic.php?t=12710

[PDF] Carlo Mattogno: Auschwitz: Open-Air Incinerations
https://holocausthandbooks.com/dl/17-aoai.pdf


Also recommended:

Cremated remains, bone ash, and water-solubility // the ash ponds
viewtopic.php?t=12278

Wyatt: 'What revisionists get wrong about cremation.'
viewtopic.php?t=12721

Capacity and Role of the Auschwitz Crematoria - Arthur R. Butz
https://codoh.com/library/document/1025/

The Crematoria Ovens of Auschwitz and Birkenau - Mattogno
https://codoh.com/library/document/921/

The Crematories of Auschwitz: A Critique of Jean-Claude Pressac - By Carlo Mattogno
https://codoh.com/library/document/2556/

[Lamprecht]

Pon, from: viewtopic.php?p=94848#p94848

He didn't, he was talking about the load of bodies in the camp, it is a mistranslation that is at fault here.

The text should rather be read:
"I told Sander that I was present at a test run of the ovens in the crematorium in Auschwitz concentration camp; that I came to a conclusion that the crematoria [sic] do not cope with such an amount of corpses that were there for incineration, because the crematoria ovens were of low capacity.

With this I gave Sander an example - that in Auschwitz, in my presence, two-three corpses were being pushed into crematoria openings /muffles/ instead of one per opening, and even then the crematorium's ovens did not cope with that load, because there were too many corpses for incineration."

So he says "the crematoria ovens were of low capacity" hmmm, why would they build low capacity ovens if they intended to exterminate millions of Jews?

Notably, on 5 March 1946, the Soviet interrogator Schatanowski asked Prüfer:
"How many bodies were cremated per hour at Auschwitz?"

Prüfer responded:
"In a crematory with 5 ovens and 15 muffles, fifteen bodies were cremated."

Source: Hitler and the Final Solution. University of California Press, 1994, p. 200; Interrogation of K. Prüfer on 5 March 1946. FSBRS, N-19262, pp. 33f

You have only shot yourself in the foot here, Pon. The reality is that two or three corpses can be cremated at once, of course, if they can fit in the tiny muffles. And we know the crematoria muffles here were smaller than usual civilian-style muffles. If one 200 lb person can be cremated in a muffle, then obviously two 100 lb people can be. And at the height of the typhus epidemic (a wasting disease) two very emaciated corpses could equal one regular sized person (those who were allegedly "gassed on arrival"). See the many photos of emaciated people.

However, the question is: is it more effective to cremate multiple people in one muffle at once?

This can be measured two ways:
- Fuel consumption (not as important)
- Cremation time (most relevant to the topic)

Using two corpses per muffle would have required about twice as much fuel (not important) so about the same per person ... but more than twice as much time. Therefore, it is not more effective.
Increasing the load in a cremation muffle leads to a longer duration of the incineration and that, for muffles designed for individual cremations, this increase in time results in no practical advantage to be gained.

(I may elaborate on this point of simultaneous cremation efficiently more in another post)

There are other techniques than building new ovens. This page deals with such techniques: http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot. ... nexplained

I am not Steven Anderson nor did I reference his work, so it's irrelevant here.

The existence of ovens is not indicative of an extermination policy, and using ovens "of low capacity" (Pruefer) is indicative of the opposite, actually. And yes, you were the one that stated that Krema II was built with the intention of being used for mass extermination (this was the entire basis of your argument in the thread on aerial photos / holes), therefore it is absurd that they would have used "low capacity" ovens for this. Remember: it is claimed that 500,000 people were killed in this building.

From that page:
" The Topf engineer Fritz Sander wrote about the experiences in the concentration camps on 14.09.1942 that in the camps one tries to overcome the deficiency of the muffle system by "fully stuffing individual muffles with several corpses". He noted that "it is a hard and unpleasant work to introduce the corpses lengthwise into the muffle, namely when always several corpses must be packed simultaneously into the muffle". "

It put a strain on the furnaces, since they were not built for this purpose. Fritz Sander observed this being carried out and complained. From the document:

“The great demand for cremation furnaces for concentration camps which has lately manifested itself especially in the case of Auschwitz and which has, according to the report by Herr Prufer, led to a further order for 7 triple-muffle furnaces(***) has prompted me to look into the question of whether the concept of muffle furnaces used so far at the places mentioned is indeed the most suitable one.

In my opinion, in a muffle, the cremation does not proceed quickly enough to ensure the elimination of a great number of corpses at a desirably high rate. As a makeshift solution, one has tried to use a series of furnaces or muffles and by loading them with more corpses, but this does not solve the basic problem, i.e. the drawbacks of the muffle system. These drawbacks of the muffle furnace, which cannot be solved even by assembling more muffle furnaces (triple- or 8-muffle furnaces) and loading more corpses into an individual muffle, are in my judgment the following:

1) Discontinuous operation.
Each muffle, at regular intervals, must be loaded, cleaned, then loaded again and cleaned again, and this goes on for the [whole] duration of the operation of the furnace. Each time [a cremation is undertaken] it is necessary to open the introduction door at the front, and the corpses must be loaded into the muffle through this front door. While this goes on, cold air flows into the furnaces, cooling the muffle, which not only reduces its service life, but also causes heat losses which have to be made up by additional fuel.

2) Problems of introduction.
It is in any case hard and repulsive work [to introduce] the corpses lengthwise into the muffle, especially when several bodies have to be packed into the muffle at the same time. Damage to the nevertheless sensitive muffle masonry can not be avoided in the long term.

[...] as far as I am concerned, for the needs of a concentration camp, I consider the ideal solution to be a furnace with continuous loading and [likewise continuous] operation [...], that is to say that the corpses would be loaded at the top - without interference with the cremation process - at certain intervals; during their passage through the furnace they would catch fire, burn, be completely consumed, incinerated, and finally end up in the ash chamber under the post-combustion grate.

I realize very well that this kind of furnace must be considered a mere device of destruction and that one has to cast aside all considerations of piety, separation of the ashes, or any sentimental factor. But all this is already with us in the case of multi-muffle furnaces. In the concentration camps, we have special conditions due to the war which force [us] to adopt such a procedure. [...]

In view of the considerations set out above, one must presume that the authorities in charge will also approach other furnace manufacturers for the supply of cremation furnaces functioning quickly and well These [firms], too, will look for the best design of furnaces for the applications mentioned. [...] For this reason, I believe it to be urgent to apply for a patent for my proposal in order to protect our priority."



*** K. Prüfer’s note of 8 September 1942 shows that besides the five triple-muffle furnaces of Birkenau Crematorium II, the SS-WVHA had ordered another three 8-muffle furnaces, but still, the number of muffles was insufficient. Actually, for Crematorium III, another five triple-muffle furnaces were ordered, and another two for the crematorium at Gross-Rosen, so twelve in total.

Clearly, his request was ignored. As is the subject of this thread: the 4-story continuous operation corpse incineration plant that was never built.