followed by other infantile utterances that I'll just let our audience enjoy uncommented.Scott Smith wrote:Roberto wrote:Hey, Smith, isn’t that an ad hominem attack signaling that you have (once again) run out of arguments?Scott Smith wrote:My, my, all the vipers have come out, a-scared-of little ol' me, rattles vibrating and teeth a' flashing!Scott Smith wrote:You mean you admit to being a viper! You? I'm shocked! Truly shocked...
Infantile utterances? Roberto, you need to say "what is the philosopher trying to tell us?"Roberto wrote: They say more about Smith's mind than I possibly could.
Okay, I'll give it a try.Angelo V wrote:Mr. Skeptical wrote:Try the former Oestgebieten or go get a couple of skulls at your local boothill, it's cheaper and kinda homish too then start counting Jews instead of sheep. You won't have nightmares, that wayScarecroppers.
That's a good one.
Where do I find the pods so I can get some sleep?
A mostly interesting exercise for the brain, I can say.Angelo V wrote:For the amusement of our Nazophiles, the Superb living statue you see, is that of the REICHSFUEHRERR-SS Heinrich Himmler.
Now, look at his traits, posture and expression and try figuring him out when entering one of those hygienic facilities even animals need, or making love to obey the order of producing more children for his Country.
I tried to, but I had to stop cold before laughters would break my screen.
Israel Gutman wrote:He used the camps of BELZEC, SOBIBOR, TREBLINKA, and MAJDANEK to carry out a fourfold task: the exploitation of the Jewish work force, the extermination of Jews, the aquisition of the real estate of the murdered Jews, and the seizure of their valuables and moveable property. More than two million Jews were killed during Aktion Reinhard, and property to the value of 178 million Reichsmarks was seized for the benefit of the Reich.
Daniel Keren wrote:One of the cruelest Nazi murderers was Christian Wirth, the inspector of the "Operation Reinhard" death camps (Treblinka, Belzec, and Sobibor).
) - Kommandant der Treblinka LagerHe had also a beautiful Saint-Bernard named Barry...Mikkel Anderson wrote:In the later trial his personal photo album from the camp, "The Kurt Franz Album" was introduced, and above the pictures of a grab used for loading corpses onto pyres, mass graves he had inscribed "Schöne Zeiten" (roughly translated into "Good times").
And, last but not least.....Someone at Nizkor wrote:He performed his job so well that he was commended in a 1944 SS report that called him "a true pioneer in this area because of his new ideas and educational methods."
1.DON'T NEED TO, I'M NOT A NAZOPHILEWhy doesn't our dear friend try his psycho test also on these guys?
I DON'T THINK IT WAS, NOT FOR ME AT LEAST!A mostly interesting exercise for the brain, I can say.
How come then, I get exactly the opposite image ? If it were a matter of opinions, one might say it is because I find mine more in line with those of Roberto's than yours, but that is not the case. Roberto usually talks through documents so that's not an opinion. Whether he likes the contents of those documents, dislikes them or is indifferent, it's not for me to say, but the point is that the great majority of his contributions are backed by the relevant papers.I don't really see how you can praise Roberto since all he does is take issue with anything I say whether he knows anything about what he is talking about or not. Then things become a ridiculous Is-Too/Is-Not affair with no views being exchanged and nobody learns anything from each other.
Just because, most of the times, they take into account "possible solutions" to actually solved questions, which, apart from unnecessary complications, don't seem grounded on reasonable causes to make them subsist. In other words "once false, always false" is too a double edged sword to be used whenever we may find it gratifyng to our views. If one published a picture where smoking chimneys were wirepoles, no reasonable scholar would draw the conclusions that all pictures showing chimneys are to be considered manipulated and as such, discarded.I fail to see why my views are not genuine. It is implied that I am not really a skeptic. With respect to many of the atrocity tales, yes I am a skeptic. That's all there is to it.
Now, take this paragraph: while it sounds genuine at the start (...whether using terms...I have no objection to that...), it is no more so genuine when you finalize it to "Roberto's "atrocity-theory of history" posts.Now, on whether using terms like torture/butcherer, crimes and so forth, I have no objection to that and I seldom even contribute to Roberto's "atrocity-theory of history" posts. War is butchery and the Allies were not virgins.
Well, nobody can forbid you to think there were conceptual flaws in the way the trials were conceived, but does that reach so far as to say the conclusions reached should be rejected ?I would prefer to talk about strategy or weapons or something like that. I'm also interested in the epistemology of what we think we know about the Third Reich. I think the Allied warcrimes process was conceptually flawed and I object to using political trials as a basis for historiography. I am not saying that there weren't some bad guys on the dock, nor that atrocities didn't happen.
I already touched the color theme so I won't be doing it now, yet on the point of slave/forced laborer, the reality, for the great majority of prisoners was that of SLAVES as people who was deprived of all their rights. That goes far beyond the risk of instrumentalization you're hinting at. No instrumentalization will ever worsen or make look worse a situation like that. So, that's the reason why I did not accept your bid. And in any case, truth should never be subject to such worries. If, on the other hand, your thesis prevailed we would run the same risk, only in the opposite form. That is what was a minor and minoritarial "better" condition would become in the eyes of all as the "standard" status of those prisoners. And this hurts both reality and the victims. It's not a good way to give any one his own share.I think the real world is colored in shades of gray. That's why I objected to the gratuitous use of the term slave-labor for what in some cases is the less polemical term forced-laborer.
Personally, I objected to the "saints" iconography of the Allies since I was 15 or 16 years old and I didn't change my idea since then.Secondly, for the Allies to paint themselves as saints we would need to confidently assert they they would have acted differently in the German's shoes, and I don't think we can say that. Not at all. We can only try to select quotations and opinions from secondary authorities to try to assert that. But this is just my opinion. As I have said, I could be wrong.
No problem, as long as the conversation is making progress...Angelo V wrote:Hi Scott.
No intention to keep you here nor being polemic, bur just giving you some answers.
It looks impressive but it isn't. At least not to me. Allied propagandists have had lots of time to catalog documents, all of which are selected, probably massaged, and usually require ideological if not theological interpretation. A circumstantial house-of-cards is not necessarily the truth.Angelo wrote:How come then, I get exactly the opposite image ? If it were a matter of opinions, one might say it is because I find mine more in line with those of Roberto's than yours, but that is not the case. Roberto usually talks through documents so that's not an opinion. Whether he likes the contents of those documents, dislikes them or is indifferent, it's not for me to say, but the point is that the great majority of his contributions are backed by the relevant papers.Scott wrote:I don't really see how you can praise Roberto since all he does is take issue with anything I say whether he knows anything about what he is talking about or not. Then things become a ridiculous Is-Too/Is-Not affair with no views being exchanged and nobody learns anything from each other.
And I demonstrated what was wrong with that flawed methodology. He did little more than copiously cut-and-paste the ideas of others and reactively defend standard atrocity-dogma. I confess that I seldom even read his posts anymore, especially when they are just an obligatory beat-up of anything that I have to say.Angelo wrote:I think about of all the historical serious issues dealt with and just as an example let me take the GAS VANS.
In that case, as usually, Roberto showed us either the document and/or the relevant link concerning what was being debated.
That vans either manufactured specifically and/or adapted accordingly for the purpose of killing people existed was documented. That people belonging to the Einsatzgruppen operated those vans looked like confirmed during trials.
There were countless testimonies to the observed machinations of the Devil during medieval trials for heresy and witchcraft. Even learned men testified--truthfully, I might add. That doesn't make it true.That a number of testimonies confirming the use of those vans as instruments of death was available to the courts in the course of the trials was confirmed too.
Confessional and testimonial are the least reliable of evidence. And where there are strong financial and cultural motives to lie we need hard corroboration on everything, not just the universal constant: Nazis were bad-guys.What happens then ? His confession, authentic and not extorted, doesn't mean anything any more ? Do all the witnesses who testified as having seen the victims being taken there in his villa by him lose their credibility and their testimonial be considered invalid ?
We don't have any corpus delicti here--not for this. Just a juxtaposition of themes. There is a claim that some bodies died of carbon monoxide poisoning, which isn't unusal in wartime. In fact, CO is a common cause of death in fires and in artillery and aerial bombardment where people hide in bunkers and cellars We have no pathology reports whatever on corpses that were gassed.Wouldn't it be reasonable to think that though he was convinced of using that given chemical, in fact he did use another one which had those lethal effects that caused the victims to die ? In other words why denying the corpses, the villa, the confession of the killer and the witnesses and not try to see if what was that actually caused the death of those people.
No conspiracy or evidence really needed to be fabricated to prove heresy or witchcraft either. All that was needed was the premise that the truth can/should be molded for the public-Good. And never be forgotten! Anyone can sincerely believe nonsense and outright lies. But the greater the dimensions of the falsehood the more readily it is believable. The more capably fables serve as object "lessons" the more amenable for Groupthink.Don't tell me this wouldn't happen in real life as I'm not here to make a case-study but simply trying to guess how can you reach the conclusions you did and expect them to be considered logical and sufficient to practically establish that we had been facing a mock trial were all was prefabricated in order to criminalize a given number of people. That is the point.
No, but if one has a rap-sheet it is standard investigative procedure to build a profile on suspects based on their past history. Once a liar, the more probable that one is again a liar. It shows at the very least that we should be skeptical of an associated pedigree of claims.Angelo wrote:Just because, most of the times, they take into account "possible solutions" to actually solved questions, which, apart from unnecessary complications, don't seem grounded on reasonable causes to make them subsist. In other words "once false, always false" is too a double edged sword to be used whenever we may find it gratifyng to our views. If one published a picture where smoking chimneys were wirepoles, no reasonable scholar would draw the conclusions that all pictures showing chimneys are to be considered manipulated and as such, discarded.Scott wrote:I fail to see why my views are not genuine. It is implied that I am not really a skeptic. With respect to many of the atrocity tales, yes I am a skeptic. That's all there is to it.
I'm at a loss how you can think that because I don't claim to have all the answers. Failing to prove a negative does not prove that something is false. Nor does believing or accepting something as true prove that it must be so.Angelo wrote:Scott, any one reading your contributions, finds it very hard to admit your usual line of thought, as your words express it is genuine. The premises, which you refer to, when stating you go for the truth as it is, many times more gray scaled than usually painted, do sound genuine but the ways you adopt to accomplish those premises, could hardly be recognized as such.
Well, sure, that Roberto slavishly follows a blind "atrocity theory-of-history" is MY paradigm of his position. It may not be true--but that is my view of the matter. And is my theory an *unjustifiable* pigeonhole? Or are these accusations any more unreasonable than his? It cannot be denied that he has made many accusations in his time with us.Angelo wrote:Now, take this paragraph: while it sounds genuine at the start (...whether using terms...I have no objection to that...), it is no more so genuine when you finalize it to "Roberto's "atrocity-theory of history" posts.Scott wrote:Now, on whether using terms like torture/butcherer, crimes and so forth, I have no objection to that and I seldom even contribute to Roberto's "atrocity-theory of history" posts. War is butchery and the Allies were not virgins.
Let's see. While you state in a simple and genuine way your indifference to using those terms, when it comes to stating you don't usually contribute to Roberto's posts dealing with atrocities, etc., you lose that genuinety and a sudden change of register takes place whereby Roberto appears as the paradigmatic contributor of the "atrocity-theory of history" which IS NOT TRUE!
Well, my point--and something that I have consistently affirmed on this board--is that there is no canonical History. There are only viewpoints; because, the same facts mean different things to different people. Sometimes facts are unhailed and sometimes they are copiously documented and usually slanted. Historians learn how to sift these viewpoints and paint pictures. How they then combine the pixels is as much art as science.I still have to find a contribution by Roberto that I could label as the manifesto of HIS OWN ATROCITY-THEORY OF HISTORY. If such a theory exists, it's NOT Roberto's but it's History's itself. This is the point.
Of course, I have opinions and biases just like everyone else. Furthermore, I am not a Holocaust historian. I don't call myself a Revisionist. I'm merely a shoeshine boy for the disagreeable Ministry of Truth who has some minor education in historical analysis and a minor technical background, unlike most journalists and lawyers, who have perhaps more of a professional stake in seeing the emperor's invisible clothes.If I should label your contributions as "Scott's GOOD-HUMORED THEORY OF HISTORY" I should demonstrate that most of your contributions contain and express such a line of thought but I should check first to make sure the History itself doesn't contain and express that line of thought, in which case your being in line with it would not entitle me to label you as the originator of such a line.
I think the notion itself of Crimes and Justice is very polemical. Trying to place this into the context of State-policy is problematical at best. It depends of whose ox is being gored. In a society where all are supposedly equal, some are "more equal than others" because Victimization carries a certain cachet."War is butchery and the Allies were not virgins." No doubt, and if you read my recent contribution on the "Nukes on Japan" you'll see I'm meaning it. More than once I strongly expressed my deep convinction that crimes either are such for all who commit them or are not. No no man's land in between.
Who's trying to? Nobody is innocent except the little angels, and even they cannot overcome human nature. To try to make justice sweepingly historical or catalog "crimes against humanity" is the pot calling the kettle black.I don't think you can ever reach a verdict of innocense for one or the other.
Human nature is what it is. To try to fashion a club out of moral philosophy is no different than wielding a truncheon of another kind. It blinds us to our own moral immaturity. In short, to crusade for such abstractions is to lose even more perspective and hope for objectivity.That is why, beyond the necessary historical approach, I do believe we should take into account the moral issue too or otherwise the monsters who generated it all will always be there ready to start over again. The two things go together, if we separate them or neglect one of them we are only doing a partial job.
Yes. It is not merely a matter of conceptual flaws but assinine to even try to draw historical and moral capital from such spectacles. It is little more than an historical and cultural curiosity, like the Soviet trials or the medieval inquisitions to find the "causers" of the Black Plague.Angelo wrote:Well, nobody can forbid you to think there were conceptual flaws in the way the trials were conceived, but does that reach so far as to say the conclusions reached should be rejected ?Scott wrote:I would prefer to talk about strategy or weapons or something like that. I'm also interested in the epistemology of what we think we know about the Third Reich. I think the Allied warcrimes process was conceptually flawed and I object to using political trials as a basis for historiography. I am not saying that there weren't some bad guys on the dock, nor that atrocities didn't happen.
It would have been less hypocritical to have simply shot the vanquished enemy leadership, as Stalin suggested, or sent them to exile like Napoleon. Then the political nature would be obvious! To try to draw historical and epistemological conclusions is more than misleading, it is fraudulent.Can you honestly cite an example where a victor gave the vanquished better chances (from a legal standpoint) than those granted to the former National Socialist leaders and members ?
In most cases the accused committed no "crimes." That is, they merely exercised State-policy at their discretion to try to win a war. The victors have the power to kill them but not to rewrite history by any kind of canonical standard; they own neither human history nor human morality.That doesn't mean we should not be criticizing aspects which objectively call for it, but does that allow us to talk about "Victor's Justice" as many sometimes do ?
I think the conceptual flaw, the moral hubris, can be found equally among totalitarians like Nazis and Soviets and among totalitarian-liberals (liberals, classically speaking, i.e., regardless whether Left or Right). This phenomenon of moral gymnastics is no different than the Inquisition of old. We err if we think that these flawed judicial excellencies were Evil men. Certainly they believed their own charades. And there was plenty of badness is the world to document.Does here the black and white style get to replace the gray shaded pattern? And in so doing aren't we contradicting ourselves ?
True, you said "conceptually flawed" which, per se, doesn't or should not mean unjust, but then your hand gets heavy on the lines when talking about "using political trials as a basis for historiography".
Now, are we talking of the Allies in general ? If so, I would reject your assumption, Are we referring to the Soviets ? Ok, I'll accept it as long as we distinguish what happened within their "walled Paradise" and what happened at Nuremberg.
Anything related to gaschambers is suspect in my humble opinion. And anything related to warmongering is the pot calling the kettle black. Yes, there were atrocities and murders, but we have to keep as much perspective as possible. Lurid facts make good propaganda, but not necessarily competent historiography.But the aching part is your final sentence! I've heard you say that a lot of times, but I still have to read a line from you stating WHO are those ones you're willing to label as "bad guys" and WHICH are the atrocities you wouldn't include among the "Gruelpropaganda" tales.
Unfortunately it is a taboo subject. It carries the dimensions of religious Faith and is criminalized in some countries. Only with considerable political maturity will it ever be possible to sift for the truth of the Holocaust the way one studies the tombs of the Pharoahs. The Truth is Out There! But for now we have to settle for Holo-ARTistic license. But this carries more cultural than historical weight as far as I'm concerned.Why not do it, Scott. This might help free the fields from a suspicion that up to now has certainly some good ground to stand on. Just make a little list, the shorter you can. It might be a good starting point.
It seems to me that many (most!) of these atrocities would not have happened without the war. Would Hitler and Himmler have embarked upon a crash program using impressed foreign enemies to build payback-weapons if it had not been for the attacks upon Germany? Not likely. Well-paid German labor would have been used. But that was not possible. We are not talking about building cathedrals or pyramids but desperate bids to fight a war. And wars should be fought--if at all--to WIN. Nobody can accuse the Nazis of trying to lose.Angelo wrote:I already touched the color theme so I won't be doing it now, yet on the point of slave/forced laborer, the reality, for the great majority of prisoners was that of SLAVES as people who was deprived of all their rights. That goes far beyond the risk of instrumentalization you're hinting at. No instrumentalization will ever worsen or make look worse a situation like that. So, that's the reason why I did not accept your bid. And in any case, truth should never be subject to such worries. If, on the other hand, your thesis prevailed we would run the same risk, only in the opposite form. That is what was a minor and minoritarial "better" condition would become in the eyes of all as the "standard" status of those prisoners. And this hurts both reality and the victims. It's not a good way to give any one his own share.Scott wrote:I think the real world is colored in shades of gray. That's why I objected to the gratuitous use of the term slave-labor for what in some cases is the less polemical term forced-laborer.
I don't doubt that.Angelo wrote:Personally, I objected to the "saints" iconography of the Allies since I was 15 or 16 years old and I didn't change my idea since then.Scott wrote:Secondly, for the Allies to paint themselves as saints we would need to confidently assert they they would have acted differently in the German's shoes, and I don't think we can say that. Not at all. We can only try to select quotations and opinions from secondary authorities to try to assert that. But this is just my opinion. As I have said, I could be wrong.
I disagree. When viewing history from a class perspective it is crass for the bourgeoisie to say that they would act differently than their counterparts from other classes. The shoes are simply not the same. Furthermore, the very values in question are seen and weighed from a bourgeois perspective. We can do the same with "Feminist history" or any other paradigm. It is not quite anthropomorphic-bias to compare the experience, values, and actions of the Nazi Germans--radicalized by war and revolution--to that of an Allied farmboy or bourgeois English shopkeeper, but it comes close. Westerners do the same moralizing when viewing the orient.The "German shoes" bit I think we have enough stuff to give a tentative answer in the negative.
I would argue that the difference is primarily one of methods and tempo. There is nothing more socially-darwinistic than Capitalism. This does not make it more humanitarian. Indeed, it is perhaps more dangerous because its Democracy credo strives to satisfy so many interests at once that it comes close to eternal life, with nearly everyone (even the oppressed) having some institutional-investment in the orgy. A more perfect strategy of oppression could scarcely be devised because most of these "crimes" are not even recognized as such--even if definable. And they span centuries, not just a few years of intense, methodical killing that we call world war.If the Allied, even right after the end of WWI wanted to apply the National Socialist views to their policies, in other words a policy of brutal occupation of territories and enslavement of people, they surely had both the manpower and the necessary technical and financial means to do it but nothing was so far from their culture and life.
But it is a teleological "fact." In other words, if one knew in advance who would commit crimes or become less than stellar citizens, including in the community of nations, one could exterminate the potential troublemakers before the time of troubles. But that is like picking the winners before the race. I understand there is a Spielberg movie out that explorers that theme from science fiction. It would seem to require omniscient perspective--and the last I knew, quacking moral philosophers were not gods. That's why I don't rend my garments when I attempt to view unpleasant history academically instead of with reverence. A skeptic is not "one who submits."What I would stress, instead, is that this didn't make them any much better than they were for their inclination to deal with those who, according to their "Credo" should have been locked out. In other words their hypocritical way to make business with both Italy and Germany, just caring about finances and closing their eyes on anything else, this is one of those staines I'll hardly let go by, and just for one reason: if they acted as they were compelled to do later as soon as it was manifest what were the plans and aims of both dictatorships, the world would have had some tenths of millions less corpses to include in that bodycount which history, and not Roberto, presents not just as a theory, no need for one, but as a fact. But that's another story.
I agree but the lessons are how to scrutinize conflict and prejudice and not WHO is to blame; it is HOW to think and not what to think. The moral ostriches are those pontiffs and charlatans who look for "Axes of Evil." It is they who should quake before the truth, for Truth has no agenda.Let's hope we all learn the lessons, it's imperative, now as dark clouds are gathering and it looks like the ostrich doesn't want to change his attitude.
) in any kind of crime (mostly of the corruption/bribery type ) arising from a "personal abuse" of the slaves for his own personal advantage at the expenses of the German State.A well-meaning piece of advice for the "agnostic": If you want to come anywhere near being taken serious on a discussion forum not dominated by fellow "Revisionist" True Believers, avoid pasting propaganda from "Revisionist" cesspools, including but not limited to Zundelsite.comrade seinfeld wrote:I am not sure if what I have done in keeping with the terms of the forum's ethical standards, but the below is an alternative explanation which I copied and pasted from the Zundelsite. I don't have the time to anything more at present as my Library time is coming to an end.
I. The Belsen Camp
Over and over, Jeff Roberts ([email protected]) has told us that the Third Reich had "no deliberate policy of starvation," "still no evidence of a deliberate policy," etc. Many other "revisionists" believe this as well.
This despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The Belsen camp, at the time of its capture, was filled with 60,000 inmates at the brink of death from starvation. Meanwhile, the Wehrmacht was hoarding hundreds of tons of food a mere two miles away. (Belsen was the first camp discovered by the Western Allies; if you've seen movies of bulldozers pushing emaciated corpses into mass graves, they were probably taken at Belsen.)
When confronted with this fact, Mr. Roberts responded that the inmates:
...did not die of starvation. Most died of disease. And that food was about one weeks supply. The question is about food. But most of the inmates died of typhus, not starvation.
(Roberts, Jeff. Usenet article "Re: Food supplies in the camps", id [email protected]. June 15, 1995)
So far, Mr. Roberts is being pretty disingenuous. It's common knowledge that poor nutrition lowers one's immune system, and starvation drastically so. Whether an inmate managed to resist disease long enough to die from sheer weakness is an issue only to those who will seize upon any excuse to defend the Nazis.
And such flawed argumentation is not unique to Mr. Roberts. More recently, another "revisionist" pooh-poohed the idea that starvation was to blame for the hideous death toll, and issued this callous challenge:
Find me one picture of an emaciated inmate with the requisite swollen belly of the starving. You won't find one. The inmates are emaciated because they were passing their bodily fluids anally to and past fatal levels. Literally, they shit themselves to death as a side effect of the epidemic raging at Belsen.
The argument, boiled down to its essense, is that typhus is an act of God. Because inmate deaths were "a side effect" of this, the Nazis -- who had imprisoned them in a filthy, overcrowded camp with little food or medicine -- are not culpable. This is an apologetic of the worst kind.
But Mr. Roberts, unlike his colleague, was at least honest enough to allow how withholding food might reduce resistance to disease:
Typhus is caused by lice. Healthy people will not catch it. But people on short rations, [the rations had been reduced from 1000 to 600 calories at this time], in overcrowded conditions, and poor sanitation, and not de-loused, will die very quickly.
This is correct. The problem was that 60,000 people were fed insufficiently, and this problem manifested itself with a variety of symptoms: from emaciation, to lowered immunity, to typhus, to death.
We must not let the varying symptoms blind us to the root causes. One of the major problems was the lack of sufficient food. Others were the overcrowding and the lack of sanitation.
All these problems were caused by the Nazis' policy of forcing innocent people, far too many people, into too-small camps, with too-little attention paid to their care. There is no denying this. This is the real crime of the Nazis; exactly how the victims died is a detail.
II. The Food Store
But specifically regarding starvation, we turn to the large supply of food found outside the Belsen camp. Even if the food was only one week's supply, the question is: why was it not given to the inmates? The Nazi soldiers found in the area were not starving. There is a famous photograph of the plump SS women who were captured at Belsen.
To be sure, food was not plentiful, but the hoard that was discovered was excess food, food that was not eaten by the German army or civilians. It was not part of the stream of food that flowed from croplands into people's mouths; it was just sitting in a huge storehouse, not being eaten.
Even if would have prolonged life for everyone at Belsen by just one week -- that week would have been enough time to save many lives.
But would it have been just a week? Perhaps Mr. Roberts thinks so. Mr. Roberts, however, has not done research into the caloric content of the various foods in that storehouse. I have.
My figures below come from Margo Feiden's The Calorie Factor, by Margo Feiden, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1989. I've done all the arithmetic to convert tons to pounds etc., and I've divided the results by 60,000, the number of people in the camp at liberation. All figures given, if they err, err conservatively -- I'm taking into account the poor quality of nutrition available in central Europe in early-mid '45.
There were 600 tons of potatoes, which would have provided 5180 calories per person.
The 120 tons of tinned meat would have provided 4140. I'm using a figure for standard-grade beef, unboned, on the theory that the tinned meat was deboned but that the tins weighed about as much as the bones would.
The 30 tons of sugar, 1680 calories per person.
The 20 tons of powdered milk, 850.
The bakery could produce 60,000 loaves daily, and a small loaf of bread is about 800 calories -- I'm unsure whether to include that, because a source of grain for the bakery was listed as being in the store, but not quantified. We know Kramer got 10,000 loaves a week, which is 150 calories per person per week. Note that the 10,000 loaves a week was nowhere near the full production of the bakery. I'm assuming that the remaining 97.6% production capacity of the bakery was not fully usable due to lack of flour. I actually do not believe this is true, since that same bakery was feeding the Wehrmacht. I suspect that more that 2.4% of the capacity could have been siphoned off to the camp, if it had been a priority.
Of course it was not a priority, because the Untermenschen in the Belsen camp could not receive food before the racially-pure German people in the Wehrmacht and in the nearby towns and villages.
I won't count the unquantified "cocoa, grain, wheat and other foodstuffs," though cocoa powder ranges from 28 to 46 calories per inmate per ton, depending on its fat content. Each twenty tons of cocoa powder would have been another day of life for 60,000 people.
That's a total of 11,850 calories per person, excluding the meager weekly bread supply.
Generally speaking, the number of calories per person per day, counting only the supplies found in the store and the known output of the bakery (which is 40 times under its capacity), are 21+11850/d where d is the number of days the food is spread out.
Mr. Roberts notes that the inmates' food supply had been reduced to 600 calories per day. It's also worth noting that Hans Frank's diary mentions that figure as the caloric allotment for the Poles which was leaving them open for disease:
Obermedizinalrat Dr. Walbaum expresses his opinion of the health condition of the Polish population. Investigations which were carried out by his department proved that the majority of Poles eat only about 600 calories, whereas the normal requirement for a human being is 2,200 calories. The Polish population was enfeebled to such an extent that it would fall an easy prey to spotted fever...
Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Vol. IV, p. 909, document 2233-PS, diary entry of September 9, 1941
The last line could be a premonition of what would happen in Belsen and other Nazi camps a few years later:
If the food rations were to be diminished again, an enormous increase off the number of illnesses could be predicted.
So using 600 calories per day – starvation rations -- we solve for d and get 20.5 days.
Three weeks' worth of food for 60,000 people was locked up two miles away from Belsen. Horrible. At least three weeks of food, because it doesn't include the cocoa, grain, wheat, or the remaining bakery production capacity.
If this is not de facto evidence for a policy of starvation, I don't know what is. The camp commandant talked about sending out five trucks to pick up food, but being denied because it was reserved for the Wehrmacht. But even without the commandant's testimony, it's obvious that only orders from above could have prevented a camp official with a heart from simply taking the trucks and delivering food to the camp. Or, if the Nazis cared about the inmates at all, they could have released a few hundred healthy prisoners under guard, and had them carry food to the rest.
III. The Policy
But if the aim is to prove Nazi intent to starve undesirables, we do not need to rely on the facts in evidence when the camps were freed. The Nazis' own documentation makes the case against them.
The case is laid out in other entries of Hans Frank's diary, as cited above. Italics appear in NCA, but boldface is my emphasis.
p. 893:
FRANK DIARY, Conference Volume,
Cabinet session in Cracow on 24 August 1942
Cabinet session in the Great Conference Room of the Government Building in Cracow
Monday, 24 August 1942
Subject: A new Plan for seizure and for food [Ernaehrung] of the General Gouvernement
The General Gouvernement was Nazi-occupied Poland.
p. 894:
A few days ago a meeting with the Reich Marshal took place in Berlin. The Reich Marshal had the reports concerning the almost catastrophic developments in the food situation in Germany. According to all confidential reports of the police, as well as of the Gauleiter, which, as he expressed himself, also confirmed by his own experiences, the situation is as follows: unless a considerable improvement in the food situation in Germany can be achieved in a short time, serious consequences to the health of the people, especially the German working people, would result. [...]
Under these circumstances you probably will not be surprised that the saying now has become true: Before the German people are to experience starvation, the occupied territories and their people shall be exposed to starvation.
p. 895:
The new demand will be fulfilled exclusively at the expense of the foreign population. It must be done cold-bloodedly and without pity; for this contribution of the General Government is still more important this year since the occupied Eastern territories -- Ukraine and Ostland -- will not yet be able to make an important contribution toward the relief of Germany's food problem. For this reason I wanted to acquaint you, Gentlemen, here in this governmental session with the decisions which I have made known today to Party member Naumann. You will essentially find an addition increase of the quota of foodstuffs to be shipped to Germany and new regulations for the feeding of the population; especially of the Jews and of the Polish population, whereby, if possible, the provisioning of the working people, especially of those working for German interests, shall be maintained.
p. 896:
The feeding of a Jewish population, estimated heretofore at 1.5 million, drops off to an estimated total of 300,000 Jews, who still work for German interests as craftsmen or otherwise. For these the Jewish rations, including certain special allotments which have proved necessary for the maintenance of working capacity, will be retained. The other Jews, a total of 1.2 million, will no longer be provided with foodstuffs.
p. 900:
In whatever difficulties you observe some place here, in the form of the sicknesses of your workers, the breakdown of your associations, etc., you must always think of the fact that it is still much better when a Pole breaks down than that a German succumb. That we sentence 1.2 million Jews to die of hunger should be noted only marginally. It is a matter, of course, that should the Jews not starve to death it would, we hope, result in a speeding up of anti-Jewish measures.
I point out incidentally that the document ends with very explicit reference to the Final Solution:
p. 902:
Not unimportant manpower has been taken from us in form of our old proven Jewish communities. It is clear that the working program is made difficult when in the middle of the program, during the war, the order for complete annihilation of the Jews is given. The responsibility for this cannot be placed upon the government of the General Government. The directive for the annihilation of the Jews comes from higher quarters.
As conclusion, I'd like to read from Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz, Collier Books, New York, 1993, p. 74. From chapter 7, "A Good Day."
But how could one imagine not being hungry? The Lager is hunger: we ourselves are hunger, living hunger.
On the other side of the road a steam-shovel is working. Its mouth, hanging from its cables, opens wide its steel jaws, balances a moment as if uncertain in its choice, then rushes upon the soft, clayey soil and snaps it up voraciously, while a satisfied snort of thick white smoke rises from its control cabin. Then it rises, turns half around, vomits backwards its mouthful and begins again.
Leaning on our shovels, we stop to watch, fascinated. At every bite of its mouth our mouths also open, our Adam's apples dance up and down, wretchedly visible under the flaccid skin. We are unable to tear ourselves away from the sight of the steam-shovel's meal.
Sigi is seventeen years old and is hungrier than everybody, although he is given a little soup every evening by his probably not disinterested protector. He had begun to speak of his home in Vienna and of his mother, but then he slipped on to the subject of food and now he talks endlessly about some marriage luncheon and remembers with genuine regret that he failed to finish his third plate of bean soup. And everyone tells him to keep quiet, but within ten minutes Bela is describing his Hungarian countryside and the fields of maize and a recipe to make meat-pies with corncobs and lard and spices and...and he is cursed, sworn at and a third one begins to describe...
How weak our flesh is! I am perfectly well aware how vain these fantasies of hunger are, but dancing before my eyes I see the spaghetti which we had just cooked, Vanda, Luciana, Franco and I, at the sorting-camp when we suddenly heard the news that we would leave for here the following day; and we were eating it (it was so good, yellow, filling), and we stopped, fools, stupid as we were -- if we had only known! And if it happened again ... Absurd. If there is one thing sure in this world it is certainly this: that it will not happen to us a second time.
Could not the same be said of Comrade McCarthy?Roberto wrote:Did Zündel never bother to look at the evidence, or is he just lying and expecting his readers to be hopeless suckers who will swallow everything he writes?
