I fear I am not always capable of avoiding what may rightly be called insulting language if I am to write here with any honesty, so I shall revert to my earlier line of simply staying clear of this part of the forum.Please avoid insulting language, and let your argument make the point.
It's the mentality of, "Nope, can't have happened, didn't happen, I'm right, you're wrong and nothing you can say or show to me will ever convince me otherwise". I encountered this mentality where I got in a discussion with Fred about carbon monoxide gas chambers. Fred insists that carbon monoxide is an inefficient way to execute people and that it more often just gives people a headache rather than killing them. He told me I should research animal euthanasia and that will clearly show me that carbon monoxide gas chambers simply couldn't work. Well I did a little research on it and I found the article below which is from National Geographic. It tells the story of a dog at the St. Louis pound that actually managed to survive their carbon monoxide gas chamber. The only dog that had managed this feat in the pound's 64 year history! Turns out carbon monoxide gas chambers are plenty efficient and lethal and are used in animal shelters throughout the US. Fred's own suggestion that I research animal euthanasia to see how carbon monoxide gas chambers just couldn't work has shown him to be in error. But he won't admit it. Instead he has totally ignored what I presented him with, just like any hardcore Denier would.
It really is not difficult to work out you know.Roches wrote:After some thought about this, a simple analogy occurred to me.
The lethal injection used in executions consists of three parts: a sedative, a muscle relaxant, and potassium chloride (which stops the heart).
Exhaust gas has three dangerous components: carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and (lack of) oxygen. Talking about the the carbon monoxide in the Aktion Reinhard gas chambers is like talking about just the sedative in the lethal injection. It's there, but it doesn't really matter whether or not you give a fatal dose. The person will die because the potassium chloride will kill them.
Engine exhaust has upwards of 10% carbon dioxide (produced by burning fuel), which is enough to kill. It also contains much less oxygen than breathable air. So, even if you use a catalytic converter to remove all the CO, the exhaust gas still has too little oxygen to sustain life. And it's the lack of oxygen that kills.
By analysis, a diesel engine at idle can have as much as 10% oxygen in the exhaust, but even 10% oxygen will kill you very quickly. (Breathable air is 21% oxygen. The lungs work by having the oxygen diffuse from the air into the blood, which has a slightly lower concentration. If you breathe 10%, it literally sucks the oxygen out of your blood, causing you to die faster than you would if you didn't breathe at all.)
Common sense dictates that the source of the exhaust gas doesn't matter. It can be a diesel engine, a gas engine, too many candles -- you could even toss a burning person into the room, and everyone else will die. The room doesn't need to be sealed tight, either -- an ordinary door would work.
I think they did some experiments with rabbits and diesel exhaust back in the 50s, death took quite some time and wasn't always 100%. So sure, you could lock up people in a hermetically sealed airtight room and eventually they will all die, but it boggles the mind that anyone would purposely implement an execution program that way.Exhaust gas has three dangerous components: carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and (lack of) oxygen. Talking about the the carbon monoxide in the Aktion Reinhard gas chambers is like talking about just the sedative in the lethal injection.
little grey rabbit wrote: but it boggles the mind that anyone would purposely implement an execution program that way.
If you are going to go to all the effort to exterminate 6 million people is it too much to expect a mildly competent technological solution to have been cobbled together?
and this:Now let's move to Sobibor. Luckily, we have a testimony of the person who had personally installed a gassing engine there. It was SS-Scharfuehrer Erich Fuchs, who testified on April 8, 1963:
We unloaded the motor. It was a heavy Russian benzine engine, at least 200 horsepower. We installed the engine on a concrete foundation and set up the connection between the exhaust and the tube.
simply put, there's no good reason to conclude that the engines were diesel and not gasoline, no matter how many people repeat the error.If the people who installed/operated the engines were to testify about them being diesels and Berg's technical arguments are true, that would present a problem. But we have already seen Fuchs testifying about a petrol engine. More information comes from German historian Peter Witte:
In this case even three former Gasmeister (“Gasmasters” / Erich Bauer, Erich Fuchs, and Franz Hödl), who must have really have known the facts, since they all killed with the same motor, confirmed in court that it was definitely a petrol motor. Bauer and Fuchs, having been professional motor mechanics, simply quarrelled during the trial about whether it was a Renault motor or a heavy Russian tank motor (probably a tank motor or a tractor motor) having at least 200 PS. They also disputed whether the method of ignition was a starter or an impact magnet, which diesel motors obviously do not have, being self-igniting...
He adds:
Hödl reported that they once tried a Diesel motor for the the gas chambers, but it did not work!
