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…You are informed with reference to the above-mentioned letter that three <font color=red>gas-tight chambers [Tuerme]</font> are to be completed in accordance with the order of 1/18/1943 for the BW 30 b and 30 c exactly similar in measurement and type, to the chambers previously supplied.…
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Plant Auschwitz O. S. [Upper Silesia].
26171/43/12/Schul.
Firm Deutsche Ausruestungswerke G.m.b.H.
Subject: Order 2261/80/17 of 1/18/1943 BW 30 b
Reference: Your letter of 3/24/1943, No. 60543
Enclosure: None.
You are informed with reference to the above-mentioned letter
that three gas-tight chambers [Tuerme] are to be completed in
accordance with the order of 1/18/1943 for the BW 30 b and 30
c exactly similar in measurement and type, to the chambers
previously supplied.
On this occasion, we would remind you of a further order of
3/6/1943 concerning supply of a gas door 100/192 for corpse
cellar I of Crematorium III, BW 30 a, which is to be
manufactured exactly according to type and measurement of the
cellar door of the opposite crematorium II with a peep hole of
double 8 mm. glass with rubber packing and steel frame. This
order is to be treated as specially urgent.
The trap door [Bodenabschlusstuer] ordered on 1/23/1943 for
BW 30 as well as 1 piece of blind frame door need not be
furnished; this order is cancelled.
The prepared 10 cubic meters of firewood will be collected at
the first opportunity.
The Chief of Central Building of the Waffen SS and Police,
[Initial] K[iefer]
SS Sturmbannfuehrer
Registry. File BW 30
Z. A. Teichmann
Construction Management Concentration Camp,
SS Ustuf. Kirschneck
[Illegible]9. Interpreting Documents and the Postwar Literature
A DISCUSSION of Höß' various confessions, and particularly those in the spring of 1946, leads naturally to the quality and context of the documentary evidence offered at the Nuremberg Trials.302 Thousands of documents were submitted; but the documents were selected and submitted with a view to convict, not to understand. This was recognized by AJP Taylor years ago.303 :
"The evidence of which there is too much is that collected for the trials of war-criminals in Nuremberg. Though these documents look imposing in their endless volumes, they are dangerous material for a historian to use. They were collected, hastily and almost at random, as a basis for lawyers's briefs. This is not how a historian would proceed. The lawyer aims to make a case; the historian wishes to understand a situation. The evidence which convinces lawyers often fails to satisfy us; our methods seem singularly imprecise to them. But even lawyers must now have qualms about the evidence at Nuremberg. The documents were chosen not to demonstrate the war-guilt of the men on trial, but to conceal that of the prosecuting Powers. [....] The verdict preceded the tribunal; and the documents were brought in to sustain a conclusion which had already been settled. Of course the documents are genuine. But they are "loaded"; and anyone who relies on them finds it almost impossible to escape from the load with which they are charged."
It is advisable therefore to pause momentarily and look at some of the documents that were presented as proof of exterminations, and particularly gas exterminations.
It is surprising to note that it appears no documents referencing gas chambers were entered into the record of the International Military Tribunal, if we exclude affidavits and testimony.304 Most of the few documents that we have were recorded by the Nuremberg Military Tribunal, an American court that ran from 1946 to 1949, and which comprised 12 cases against the Nazi leadership. The most important of these, in terms of the gassing claim, was Case #4, the "Concentration Camp Case" which occupied most of 1947. Of the seven hundred documents entered by the prosecution, only four can be interpreted as referencing gas chambers: NO-4473, the so-called "Vergasungskeller" letter, NO-4465, a letter referencing "three gas chambers" specified as "gasdichte Türme", and NO-4344 and 4345, which references the construction of "extermination chambers" specified as "Entwesungskammern" at the concentration camp of Gross-Rosen.305
Two of these documents are definite mistranslations, and the third is quite possibly so. As we have seen, "Entwesungskammern" were standard delousing and disinfestation chambers, and had nothing to do with extermination gas chambers. Similarly, "gasdichte Türme" are better translated as "gastight turrets" or "towers" but in any case cannot be associated with "gas chambers." Finally, as we have seen, "vergasen" (to gas) was widely used as a synonym for "begasen" (to fumigate) -- even in Auschwitz documents306 -- and has no necessary relationship to extermination gassing. The fact that at least two of these documents were clearly misused goes far to prove the argument that in the immediate postwar period the gassing claim was buttressed by the ignorant misuse of German documents taken completely out of context.
Probably for this reason, present day arguments in favor of the mass gassing claim rarely depend on such obvious mistakes, but rather on a second order of documentation that suggests, without directly attesting, to the existence of mass gassing.307
The typical (Nuremberg document) scenario is something like:
'a copy of a Polish translation of a copy of a Russan translation of a German copy'. The actual & real original is nowhere to be found. Not the stuff of credibility.
Hannover wrote:About your link; is the topic relevant? It seems like a non-issue to me.
Mattogno wrote:Drei gasdichte Türme
One reads in the letter of 31 March 1943 from the Zentralbauleitung to the Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke:
"Es wird auf c.a. Schreiben mitgeteilt, dass drei gasdichte Türme gemäss des Auftrages vom 18.1.43 für das Bw 30 b und c auszuführen sind, genau nach den Ausmassen und der Art der bisher angelieferten Türme." [56]
There is still in existence a carbon copy of this same document in which the first occurrence of "Türme" is corrected in ink to "Türen." [57] It is not known who made the change.
Crowell considers as "unconvincing" Pressac's explanation that Gastürme "is a misspelling for Tür and that this is a reference to 'three gastight doors' " (p.27). He asserts
"in Technique we argued that this was probably a reference to three gastight ventilation chimneys, another common object in the civil air defense literature" (p. 27)
and concludes his explanation thus:
"Document 29 presented a picture of a Luftschutz-Verschlüss, or gastight ventilation chimney, of the kind used for the known trench shelters at Auschwitz. Other documents also indicate that gastight chimneys were common at Auschwitz for gas protection. Certainly, such gastight ventilation chimneys could be described as 'gasdichte Türme', and we remain confident in our interpretation of this trace" (p. 27).
This explanation is totally inconsistent in that it is based on the absolutely arbitrary supposition that "such gastight ventilation chimneys could be described as 'gasdichte Türme'. The "proof" of this alleged terminological equivalence is just an adverb: his own "certainly"!
In order to support this arbitrary assertion Crowell has recourse to a trick: his "document 29" does not in fact present a "Luftschutz-Verschlüss," but a "Gasdichte lüftungsrohrverschlüsse" (see document 15) [58] , so that the "ventilation chimneys" that Crowell speaks of were actually called "Lüftungsröhre," certainly not "Türme." On the other hand, the ventilation chimney of Krema II and Krema III was called a "Schacht" ("Entlüftungsschacht"). So to claim that the "gastight ventilation chimneys could be described as 'gasdichte Türme' " is false and foolish.
Illustration 15
"Gasdichte Lüftungsrohrverschlüsse", not "Luftschutz-Verschlüss"
In "Technique and Operation of German Anti-Gas Shelters in World War Two" Crowell writes:
"We observe the drawings of Crematoria IV and V with their shuttered cupolas surmounting the roof, and might easily conclude that they are the same thing: however, it appears that the extermination gas chambers were at the opposite end of the building. But this end of the buildings also had chimneys, although much smaller ones. Our conclusion is that Türme are references to gas tight chimneys of some kind: the idea, offered by Pressac, that Türme was a stenographic error, even though it was repeated four times seems very strained"(p. 34).
He then makes another gross blunder, mistaking chimneys attached to two ovens for ventilation chimneys! [59] .
This being cleared up, let us see what the "gasdichte Türme" were. The following request dated 19 February 1943 appears in the Schlosserei documentation:
"19.2.43. Nr. K.G.L. BW. 30 b. Przedmiot [object]: 4 dichte Türen, mit Tür futter - lt. Angabe der Bauleitung Ausmass 100 x 205 cm i.l. Auftrag Nr. 2261/:80/17:/ vom 18.1.43 der Zentralbauleitung. Von der ehme. [= ehemaligen] Häftl. Tischlerei übernommen." [60]
The above-mentioned letter of 31 March 1943 has for object (Betrifft): "Auftrag 2261/80/17 vom 18.1.43 Bw 30 b". Therefore it was about the very same job that concerned not "Türme," but "Türen" of 100 x 205 centimeters. So on this score Pressac is perfectly right while Crowell has made another big blunder.
Carlo Mattogno, The Samuel Crowell bomb shelter thesis: a historically unfounded hypothesis.
Hannover wrote:Again, a non-issue...a tempest in a teapot.
It is good to see that Revisionists have various viewpoints. However, this may be one of the most petty issues Revisionist could possibly argue. It almost seems personal for Mattogno, heaven only knows why. Arguments of this type are so inconsequential that I wonder why people bother.
They both agree that there were no homicidal gas chambers. Next.
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