Höss first interrogation

[nickterry]

To return to the subject at hand.

This is a misquote. Hoess states in NO-1210, p.6, that the killings of Soviet POWs were done on the order 'von den zustandigen Gestapoleitern', not Himmler.

Since we have the complete set of RSHA and IKL orders from Heydrich, Gluecks and others concerning Einsatzbefehl Nr 8 and the so called 14 f 13 category of killings of Soviet commissars, there is no reason to doubt the fact of such killings other than sheer perversity. The only question that is open is their scale.

There is very good reason to doubt this statement. I only have the English version (NO1210)

The German is available at the link given above.

"I personally remember my time as Camp Commandant the order from the Gestapo to gas 70000 Russian POWs"

He never had 70 000 Russian POWs to gas. Nor has any order emerged to gas any Russian POWs at any time.

Orders to execute Soviet POWs existed in abundance. The method was left up to the KZs and the Gestapo, also as to who did the killing. In Stutthof, the Gestapo did the killing because the camp was not yet properly part of the IKL. Elsewhere, it was the camp staff who dreamed up a wide variety of methods of dispatching "Jewish Bolshevik commissars", as they were stereotyped. These methods included the first gassing at Auschwitz in Block 11

Does Ship of Fools doubt that there was a gassing of Soviet POWs in Block 11?

Does Ship of Fools deny that anyone was gassed at Auschwitz? I think we should stop beating about the bush and hear from him where he stands.

Even if there was, what on earth would possess Hoess to volunteer such information?

Because it could not be denied that Soviet POWs and Jews alike had been murdered ay Auschwitz, one of the means being to gas them.

There is interesting quote from a Defense Attorney at the Mauthausen trial

One of the defense attorneys in the Mauthausen case, Lt. McMahon, stated the following regarding these confessions:

Regarding the statements of the accused, there is grave doubt that they were freely given and, further, that they contained any language except that desired by the interrogator. Abundant proof is given by the striking similarity of language.

After citing several examples of similar language, Lt. McMahon went on to say:

And so it goes with Drabek, Entress, Feigl, with Trauner, Niedermayer, Haeger, Miessner, Riegler, Zoller, with Blei, with Eckert, with Striegel, with Eigruber, with Eisenhoefer, with Mack and Riegler. Let the court note the unbelievable accusations that the affiants make against themselves. It is contrary to normal human conduct. People just don't talk that way about themselves. Beyond any doubt, threats and duress were used to induce the signing of the untruthful statements in evidence.

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScr ... sen06.html

It such a commonsense proposition that I struggle to find why Nick has such difficulty accepting it.

Quoting a defense lawyer? It is in the interests of every defense lawyer to cast doubt on the evidence put forth by the prosecution, up to and including lying.

[michael mills]

There were two separate groups of Soviet POWs sent to Auschwitz.

The first group, which apparently began to arrive in September 1941, consisted of POWs who had been identified by Gestapo investigation teams sent into the POW camps as belonging to one of the various categories defined by Heydrich at the beginning of Barbarossa as subject to summary execution (Sonderbehandlung).

These POWs were sent for execution to various concentration camps, including Buchenwald and Auschwitz. According to Hoess' testimony, the initial method of execution of the POWs sent to Auschwitz was by shooting in the gravel pits. Gassing with Zyklon-B was experimented with as an alternative; according to testimony given by former camp staff at the Frankfurt trial in the 1960s, the idea of using Zyklon-B homicidally was engendered by a near-fatal accident when a Sanitäter entered a fumigated building which had not been fully ventilated, and was immediately overcome by the remnants of the gas.

As an aside, I think the WVHA recording code for the Sonderbehandlung of this group of POWs was not 14f13, which referred to the "euthanasia" of prisoners too sick to be used for labour. I think the code for the execution of Soviet POWs in the concentration camps was 14f12, but I am open to correction on that point.

The second group consisted of some 10,000 POWs sent to Auschwitz specifically for the purpose of constructing the giant POW camp at Birkenau. These had not been selected for execution; nevertheless, a Gestapo investigation team from the Stapo office at Kattowitz was sent to Auschwitz in November 1941 to weed out any undesirables. Some 900 of the 10,000 were identified as belonging to two of the categories subject to summary execution (one of these was "dangerous Communists"; I do not remmeber what the other one was).

It is possible that these 900 constituted the group of 900 that Hoess referred to in his statement made during interrogation in Krakow as the first to be gassed in the converted morgue of Crematorium I. That gassing may therefore have occurred early in December 1941.

The great majority of the group of 10,000, those who were not executed after selection by the investigation team from Kattowitz, perished during the winter of 1941-42 from malnutrition, exposure, and accidents resulting from their terrible conditions of work, basically demolishing the village of Brzezinka with their bare hands.

[nickterry]

Michael,

read Klodzinski's article on the first gassing at Block 11. Then read Reinhard Otto's book on Wehrmacht, Gestapo und die sowjetische Kriegsgefangene.

These two works clear up the dating of the first gassing completely.

Auschwitz received up to 2000 prisoners of war for execution and 10,000 who were registered for labour.
Sachsenhausen received the reverse proportions: about 12,000 for execution and only 2000 registered for labour

The code for Einsatzbefehl Nr 8 in the KL records was 14 f 14.