SS Testimonies

[Pappy Yokum]

Pappy, you must think I am a complete idiot. Rosenberg had many opportunities
to deny the mass murder of Jews, and in each instance he chose to merely say
that he was out of the loop. The entire testimony is one long effort at self-
excusal. Read this:

MR. DODD: Now, then, let's look at it: "Combating of partisans and Action against Jews in the District General of White Ruthenia." It says:

"In all the clashes with partisans in White Ruthenia it has been proved that Jewry, in the former Polish part"-and so on-"is the main exponent of the partisan movement. In consequence, the treatment of Jewry in White Ruthenia is mainly a matter of political concern...."

Then, moving down a sentence or two:

"In exhaustive discussions with the SS Brigadefuehrer Zenner and the exceedingly capable leader of the SD, SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Dr. jur. Strauch, it was ascertained that we have liquidated in the last 10 weeks about 55,000 Jews in White Ruthenia. In the area of Minsk, Jewry has been completely eliminated, without endangering the manpower commitment. In the predominantly Polish district of Lida, 16,000 Jews; in Slonim, 8,000 Jews"-and so forth-"have been liquidated. Owing to an encroachment by the Army supply and

559

17 April 46

communications zone already reported to you, the preparations made by us for liquidation of the Jews in the Glebokie area, have been disturbed. The Army supply and communications zone, without contacting me, has liquidated 10,000 Jews, whose systematical elimination had been provided for by us in any event. In the city of Minsk approximately 10,000 Jews were liquidated on 28 and 29 July, 6,500 of them Russian Jews, predominantly aged persons, women and children; the remainder consisting of Jews unfit for commitment to labor, the greater majority of whom were deported to Minsk in November of last year from Vienna, Brunn, Bremen, and Berlin, by order of the Fuehrer.

"The area of Sluzk, too, had been relieved of several thousand Jews. The same applies to Novogrodek and Vileika. Radical measures are imminent for Baranowicze and Hanzewitschi. In Baranowicze alone, approximately 10,000 Jews are still living in the city itself; of these, 9,000 Jews will be liquidated next month."

And it goes on to say:

"In the city of Minsk 2,600 Jews from Germany are left over. In addition, all 6,000 Russian Jews and Jewesses who during the action stayed with the units to which they were assigned for work are still alive. Even in the future Minsk will still retain its character as the strongest center of the Jewish labor commitment, necessitated for the present by the concentration of the armament industries and by the rail problems. In all other areas, the number of Jews to be drafted for labor commitment will be limited by the SD and by me to 800 at the most, but if possible to 500..."

And so on. It tells of other situations with respect to Jews, all of which I do not think it is necessary to read. But I do want to call your attention to the last paragraph, the last sentence:

"I fully agree with the Commander of the SD in White Ruthenia, that we shall liquidate every shipment of Jews which is not ordered or announced by our superior offices, to prevent further disturbances in White Ruthenia."

And up above I did omit one sentence or two that I wanted to read:

"Naturally, after the termination of the economic demands of the Wehrmacht, the SD and I would like it best definitely to eliminate Jewry in the District General of White Ruthenia. For the time being, the necessary demands of the Wehrmacht, which are the main employers of Jews, are considered."

560

17 April 4G

I ought to tell you as well that this document was also found in your office in Berlin. Now, that is a letter...

ROSENBERG: That seems very improbable to me, that it has been found in my office in Berlin. If so, it can be at most only that the Reich Commissioner for the Ostland had sent all his files to Berlin, packed in boxes. It was not in my office at that time, and this letter was also never presented to me. There is stamped here, "The Reich Commissioner for the Ostland," not the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories. I stated yesterday, however, that a number of such happenings were reported to me as individual actions in the fighting, and that I received this one report from Sluzk personally, and Gauleiter Meyer was immediately charged to protest to Heydrich and to order an investigation. That presupposes that he, the Gauleiter Meyer, did not know of and did not think of such a general action on order of a central command.

MR. DODD: Well, I only want to suggest to you that it is a strange coincidence that two of your top men were in communication in this tone in 1942 without your knowledge.

Rosenberg was presented with communication (probably hoaxed) between two
of his subordinates attesting to the Einsatzgruppen murders of tens of thousands
of men, women and children.

Does he say, Pappy, that never happened? Or does he say, I never saw those
communications?

Rosenberg is trying to save his own behind and being real careful not to ruffle
Tom Dodd's feathers.

Rosenberg's response indicates he didn't believe the communication was to him. Please demonstrate that the words translated to "eliminated" and "liquidated" necessarily means killed. Eliminated can mean moved out. Liquidated can also mean moved, as in the liquidation of assets. What were the original German words? Does the document say the Jews were shot? Does it say they were gassed? Hanged? No, it doesn't. Can you tell me the date of the document read to Rosenberg here?
BTW. This is getting a bit off topic. Perhaps Rosenberg's testimony can be discussed in another thread.

[Barncat]

Pappy, you might have an argument that exterminated and liquidated meant
sending Jews to a spa in Miami. If you think that Tom Dodd didn't clearly
believe that these words meant murder, then you are beyond a smidgeon
of hope.

You also cannot possibly believe that Rosenberg didn't completely understand
what Tom Dodd's intentions and beliefs were. His goose was cooked.

You are also argueing, believe it or not, that the correspondence that Tom
Dodd references are real and concern deportations. A real revisionist
understands that these are hoaxed documents, forged to match up with
the Einsatzgruppen reports which all revisionists take to be bogus.

Just read the language, man. Tom Dodd is setting poor Rosenberg up -
unfortunately, Rosenberg never called him on it.

[Dan B]

You are also argueing, believe it or not, that the correspondence that Tom
Dodd references are real and concern deportations. A real revisionist
understands that these are hoaxed documents, forged to match up with
the Einsatzgruppen reports which all revisionists take to be bogus.

I'll start another thread on possible forged documents. In this thread, since not much seems to be happening, I'd like to change direction a little bit by asking this:

What actual alleged eyewitness descriptions of gassings (from SS men) are in existence? Höss is the foremost, of course, but who else? Does anyone have the Frankfurt trial transcripts on DVD and can sift through it to find the answers?

[Malle]

Dr Hans Münch
The dear doctor seems to have contradicted himself a few times. He claimed on several occasions to have refused to participate in the "selections". According to an interview for the Jewess who runs the CANDLES website (http://www.candlesholocaustmuseum.org/) he "went to Berlin immediately to the head of the hygiene institute and told him "I cannot do it. I will not do it, regardless of the consequences."" However, in an interview in the documentary Healing by Killing by Tel Aviv filmmaker Nitzan Aviram, he "relates how he traveled by train to Berlin to "tell Himmler in person the [he] was refusing orders to join the selection team. [Himmler] accepted [his] refusal, and [he] resumed [his] work at the Hygienic Institute without a pause"" (emphasis mine). When this interview was conducted, Dr Münch probably already suffered from Alzheimers though, and while it's clearly dishonest to use an old senile man in a documentary, it doesn't really say anything about the reliability of his testimony before the courts earlier.

Dan, I have posted Münchs statements (German) made in 1964 at the Frankfurt trial here:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=6136
Take a look at it. It's mostly hearsays at that time.

[Malle]

Added one more post about Münch in the German forum.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=6136#p43017

[chammer]

Dan

1) I think you might be interested in the previous thread here:
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.ph ... 3d3#p41575
Many,many SS in position to know rejected the gas chamber story, unlike what they said..
..
2) For the others why would they back track on their earlier, vague statements if it can lead to a second indicment on other
charges? Even before the european laws regarding freedom of speech, they knew that only their 'collaboration' could lead
to leser charges. Those who were in jail were just eager to be freed one day and it was the worst thing to do.

3) Even if they decided to do so, who would listen to them in the Western world? most journalist wouldn't publish their
claims

4)Even if a journalist decided to publish the testimony of a SS man who retract an earlier, vague statement, do you think
that the newspaper owner would consider it worthwile to publish it? Let's be serious, the last time that some offensive
comments on Jews were made against Jews in the West it was when they played Shylok for the first time a few centuries ago.

5) A handful of SS men decided to play the game and make a profit with it. Did you ever read the interview that Germar Rudolf
made with Muench? That's a pearl. Now, even if 1% of the SS men decides 30, 40 year's after to claim that they witness gassing,
not to avoid jail but to make a profit, it is no more solid than a Jewish witness when they contradict themselves heavilly (like Muench).
Some people believe the wrong way, they think that because someone was once in the SS, he has no reason to lie.
He does so; the third Reich is gone, they are no longer on Adolf hitler's payroll, so if you cannot trust a car dealer and say that
too much of them are lying by interest, why would it be impossible for at least a small fraction of the former SS men?
Do you know how lucrative it can be to give interviews when CNN unroll the red carpet for you?
I know plenty of people who will lie for political reasons when they see an opportunity, there is absolutelly no difference because
whatever were the real political convictions of someone 50 year's before has often nothing to do with what they are now, especially opportunists. But here we don't talk about all of them, only a few. The physical evidence and the consistence of the testimonies matters much more, just read the interview that Muench gave to G. Rudolf one day.

[chammer]

Dan
Regarding another statement that you did, I don't believe that you can meet a former SS who spent time in jail for the 'gasing' of Jews and who was liberated later on, it's way too late and they wouldn't want to get in trouble again even if they were still alive. People who were involved in represails maybe, but you know at 85 or 90 year's old you don't get something consistent normally. Children? If they spoke with their father when he was out of jail and free to speak in private maybe, but unlike Jewish journalists who can get the collaboration of the german authorities to selectivelly find and get what they want, you have a handicap.

[nathan]

As linked by Dan B, Mr NickTerry has written:

I came across a claim that there were at least 69 SS officers and men who testified after the war to witnessing the gas chambers and their use.....

Quick initial stab at this; i.e. some known witnesses.....

Confirmed Gas Chamber Witnesses
Rudolf Höss
Dr Fritz Klein Bergen-Belsen trial
SS guard Peter Weingartner Bergen-Belsen trial*
Franz Hössler Bergen-Belsen trial
Josef Kramer Bergen-Belsen trial
Walter Dejaco Vienna trial
Richard Bär
Hans Stark
SS Private Hoelbinger
SS Private Boeck
Johann Schwarzhuber
SS guard Oskar Groening BBC interview
Dr Karl Kahr (Standortarzt) Nbg Affidavit NO-1948
----

NickTerry’s “intial stab” could be a useful basis for compiling a shortlist of SS eyewitness who stood up in any courtroom and described a gassing operation as seen with their own eyes or as ordered by themselves. A much longer and inferior “B” list could include all those who have given such testimony in a written or recorded statement which has somewhere been counted as evidence. It should not need emphasis, though it probably does, that affidavits, being a form of hearsay, are a lowly category of evidence and are recognised as such by Anglo-Saxon legal systems. You cannot cross-examine a piece of paper. The truth of direct testimony depends on truthfulness of the person under cross-examination, not the truthfulness of some absent person.


Inadmissible in English criminal law, hearsay was made admissible in the post-war trials, and quite explicitly, because convictions would be hard to obtain without it. However the prosecutors in their interrogation cells knew that the judges on their benches would hope to hear at least one SS witness who with his own eyes had seen or ordered a gassing operation at least one time. If Orthodoxy can prove its case with an A-list, it does not need the B-list. Otherwise it has to admit that the best was not good enough.

Lance-corporal Broad does belongs on List A, but only because during the British Tesch trial he described seeing with his own eyes, on only one occasion, a sinister operation at the Old Crematorium. Otherwise Broad would barely make the B-list, and then only because at 1964 Frankfurt trial he did not unambiguously repudiate the preposterous document known as The Broad Report. Richard Baer would enter neither list, unless Dan B is withholding an answer to my question. Any statement in which an SS merely acknowledged, or failed to deny, the existence of gas chambers (“everyone knew” “Wirths told me all about it”) belongs on a D list. Groening did not testify in a courtroom under oath, and his spoken BBC interview, unless I am mistaken, does not contain any reference to gas chambers. Our source for his gas chamber testimony, unless I am still mistaken, is a book edited by the same Laurence Rees who manipulated the BBC soundtrack. Until I stand corrected I would put Groening in that branch of fiction known as holocaust memoirs. Weingartner is hearsay. Kahr is hearsay at two removes. It’s news to me that Dejaco ever provided direct testimony, but I am ready to learn. Hans Stark clearly does belong on the A-list, as do Boeck and Hoelbringer. (Hans Stark appears as Willi Stark in ARC-type lists of all SS accused which NickTerry has reproduced on his link)

Hoess of course would top any bill, being both perpetrator and observer. Josef Kramer, like Hoess and Aumeier, began with flat-out denial. After re-interrogation he recanted it, however, testifying in open court that he had hitherto felt bound by a promise not to tell. Scrupulous fellow. (Aumeier apparently recanted his recantation in open court, so he does not belong. He is a flat-out denialist )

Klein? In my opinion it would be easy to show that his testimony was coerced, but that is not why I exclude him. His courtroom testimony simply does not go the distance. He cannot bring himself to say more than that “had a look at the gas chamber” when “it was not working”. ( How many times? Just once, of course.) A machine-gun can be identified as a weapon when it is not working, but a gas chamber, when it was not working, was a crematorium or a morgue or, at most, a hut with sealed windows. How did Klein know, on that just-once occasion, that he was looking at a homicidal instrument? The court did not press the point. It took what it could get.


On the other hand Hans Muench at the IG Farben trials (NMT vol VIII) and elsewhere did admit in open court that with his own eyes he saw a gassing operation. (How many times? Just once, of course). He also affirmed that the SS guarded their secret with such fanatical discretion that they were able to fool Red Cross visitors and keep the local population in ignorance. Locals might be excused for believing SS lies about trains being loaded with transferees, Muench says, because they would actually have seen trains loaded with transferees. Why do the locals have to be excused? Because they were Polish, of course; Muench is recycling testimony made for Polish consumption. At the Farben trial, this created an awkward moment because many Farben employees were Polish civilians. Note that I am not claiming that direct testimony is necessarily good evidence. I am claiming that it is necessarily the best sort of testimony within any given legal system. I am just making a tentative list of such testimony.

Muench: May I add one more thing, please. The SS spread again and again the news that the trains that came out of Auschwitz were loaded with inmates that were being transferred to other camps, and it happened frequently that transports were transferred to other camps so that one could see this actually to be true.

Q. Mr. Witness, did you personally ever witness the gassing of human beings?

Muench. Yes, I saw one gassing at one time.

Q. And before you actually — personally — saw this gassing, is it your testimony that all your knowledge of gassings was just rumor?

Muench. No. Not my knowledge. And as far as the SS in Auschwitz is concerned, one can assume that all of them knew about details even if they didn't all of them see it themselves.

Schwarzhuber’s name should be subtracted. He did admit to seeing by accident a gassing at Ravensbruck. (How many times? Once, of course). But he only said this in a written affidavit, the most serious piece of evidence for gas chambers at the main Ravensbruck trial. But when his turn came to take the stand, Schwarzhuber pleaded a mysterious accident in his cell and asked for a postponement. Later he declined to take up his option. The tiny few who might be interested in that tangled tale will have to wait for my book. Suffice it here that Schwarzhuber did not affirm in open court. He is a B-lister. However, the wardress Ruth Neudeck/Closius, did at the third Ravensbruck trial describe a gas chamber operation - and was hanged for it. Examining her case helped to persuade me that there was no gas chamber at Ravensbruck. But her testimony is nevertheless A-list material.


Another name I would add is that of Wilhelm Bahr, the half-witted medical orderly who in open court repeated his written confession that he had poured Zyklon through a window upon about 200 Russian prisoners.

To the British, Anton Kaindl denied any knowledge of a gas chamber at Sachsenhausen. But at his Russian trial he stood up and confessed to all manner of things. We do not need anyone to point out the obvious frailties of this evidence. We need to hear from someone willing to defend it. Be bold!

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/sachsenhausen/Trials.html


I would tentatively retain Hoessler, even though he describes no crime.

Q.: "Did you later learn the real purpose of these parades?"
A.: "Yes, I heard about it and did not think that that was right. Once when Hoess arrived in his car I asked him if it was all right what was going on, and he just told me to do my duty. I received the order to go on selection parade personally and verbally from Hoess."
Q.: "Will you explain exactly what happened when transports arrived in the camp?"
A.: "The transport train arrived at the platform in the camp. It was my duty to guard the unloading of the train and to put the S.S. sentries like a chain around the transport. The next job was to divide the prisoners into two groups, the women to the left, the men to the right. Then the doctors arrived, and they selected the people. The people who had been inspected by the doctors and found to be fit for work were put on one side, the men and the women. The people who were found to be unfit for work had to go into the trucks, and they were driven off in the direction of the crematorium."

He does claim to have seen a suspicious circumstance: unfit prisoners driven in the direction of “the crematorium”. It is not much, but it is first-hand testimony uttered in a courtroom.



Moll I would exclude, unless someone can find a transcript of his Dachau trial. His interview at Nuremberg in the presence of Hoess is certainly interesting and incriminating, but it is pre-trial testimony recorded by prosecutors and made by a man under an unconfirmed death sentence.





So here is my “initial stab” at a shortlist.


SS FIRST-HAND TESTIMONY RE GAS CHAMBERS

Nuremberg or in British Trials

Rudolf Höss Nuremberg IMT,
Franz Hössler Bergen-Belsen trial 1945 British
Josef Kramer Bergen-Belsen trial 1945 British
Pery Broad Tesch Trial (British) 1946 British
Hans Muench NMT (Farben case)
Wilhelm Bahr Neuengamme trial 1946 (British)
Ruth Closius/Neudeck Third Ravensbruck Trial 1947 (British)

Other ( less Anglo-Saxon) trials

Hans Stark Frankfurt trial 1964 (West German)
SS Private Hoelbinger ditto
SS Private Boeck ditto

Erich Fuchs Sobibor trial 1963 (West Germany)
Kaindl Sachsenhausen trial 1947(Russian)
Eichmann Jerusalem trial 1961.


I added Erik Fuchs on the assumption that his frequently cited testimony (that the carbon monoxide came from a captured Russian benzene tank which he helped to install) is viva voce affirmation, not some affidavit that was put in. The trouble with the West German trials is that we know nothing about them. The pre-trial statements are not verbatim records and the Justiz und NS-Verbrechen volumes are quite useless if you want to know what was said in court. We do possess fairly full accounts of the Frankfurt trial, but only because two rather biased chroniclers happened to write it up. Apparently a complete audio-record was found in a basement a few years back, and the fuss that was made of this now forgotten discovery implies that a complete transcript of the trial was never been made public. Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be published. Fair trials beget full transcripts.

Unfair trials sometimes do as well, including the Jerusalem trial of a kidnap victim who was unable to call witnesses in his own defence. Eichmann’s courtroom testimony is very long, largely because the Prosecution wasted most of its time trying to prove that Eichmann was a bigger fish than he could ever have been. It is also rather tortuous, largely because Eichmann is usually being called upon to justify, not what he did during the war but what rather he said or corrected in pre-capture publications and pre-trial interrogations. So I cannot pretend to have yet read all the sessions of this trial. I may have missed the moment where Eichmann actually described a gassing as seen with his own eyes. Nevertheless, he seemed quite ready to do so. In court he reaffirmed that that he was sent by Heydrich in Autumn 41 to a place somewhere near Lublin to check up on Globocnik’s progress in getting the extermination programme up and running. Also Eichmann indicated readiness to stand by a pre-trial admission that he had seen a gassing at Chelmno. (As far as I have seen, the prosecution did not press him for details in either case, possibly because those details, as set out in the pre-trial statements, are ridiculous.)

No doubt other names can be suggested of SS, not prisoners, who stood up in a named trial and gave direct evidence of an industrialised extermination program. Date and trial would be welcome. IMT testimony is probably the best. I am not suggesting that any of the post-war tribunals was kosher; but some trials had a bigger streak of due process than others.

[Moderator3]

It's much better to discuss individual 'testimonies' rather than clutter a thread with many, hard to follow, especially for the new reader. If anyone wants to discuss such 'testimony' they should do so in separate threads for individual 'testimonies. This thread is locked.
Moderator3