Human Soap

[Sean_Lamb]

"The court found no proof that anyone at Buchenwald had been murdered for his tattooed skin, but it expressed no doubt that skin lampshades had been made and that human heads had been shriveled and preserved at the camp."

Strictly speaking this is not proof that human skin lampshades had been made, it is simply the court expressing "no doubt" that they were.

It is open to the individual whether he/she wishes to accept the court's faith or not. I understand that this judgement was probably based on the affadavit provided by a US army doctor saying it definitely was human skin (the Nizkor folks will have the exact details). Again, it is up to the individual to decide just how reliable such an expert witness was at that time.

I would just like to place on record it is my deepest and firmest conviction that these court determinations are absolutely accurate and believable.

In one of the triumphs of post war justice and investigation the commandant of Mauthausen, Franz Ziereis, was fatally wounded but was still persuaded to confess all before dying (moved by his guilty conscience no doubt), this included the manufacture of human lampshades:
http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/imt/nca/n ... 06-3870-ps

By order of Dr. Lohnauer, incorrigible professional criminals were
transferred to Hartheim near Linz as mentally deficient, where they
were exterminated by a special system of SS Captain Krebsbach. The
greatest number of murdered prisoners goes to the account of
Bachmeyer. Chemielskwy and Seidler in Gusen had human skin
specially tanned on which there were tattoos. From this leather
they had books bound, and they had lampshades and leather cases
made.

Having been educated in the unique historiographical approach of this forum I now know better than to make any comment on the reliability of such confessions. It is proof positive that human lampshades were also made at Mauthausen.

Hewlett Johnson also described seeing flaying human tattooed skin at the Danzig Experimental Soap Factory. So we had better chalk that place up as well.

I might also add that the art of shrinking heads is one that is practiced in the Amazon and quite a complicated process involving the removal of the skull. Doubtless the Buchenwald SS had a trained ethnologist that could instruct them in this procedure as otherwise it would take a lot of trial and error before you would be able to make a convincing shrunken head.

Just so as to be certain that there can be no doubting these historical facts, I shall take the liberty of including the photo of the heads and lampshades.


Source (http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Buchenwal ... ities.html)

You can see the human skin lampshade to the extreme right. To my mind it is utterly and totally convincing and most certainly not the result of brainless Allied wartime propaganda.

[David Thompson]

A complaint from Sean_Lamb about his deleted post now has a thread of its own at: http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=85031

[Sean_Lamb]

I will just repost the relevant gist without the complaint.

Perhaps it is time we accept that Experimental Soap Making was the norm and not the exception in Nazi camps. I have found the following cases and don't believe I have scrapped the bottom of the soap barrel yet.

1) The experimental soap factory built but never put into operation near Babi Yar (recently discussed - eyewitness evidence)
2) The manufacture of soap at Auschwitz where we have the eye-witness testimony of the (self-styled) chief chemist Philipp Auerbach. Also eyewitness.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jso ... rbach.html

In Asuchwitz, Auerbach served as the chief chemist preparing medicines and pesticides. He attested to having been coerced into making soap from human remains. After liberation he served the first chairman of the State Federation of North Rhine and Westphalia and later as the chairman of the Association of Jewish Communities in Bavaria. In 1946 he was appointed state commissioner of the Bavarian provincial government for religious, political and racial victims of the Nazis, thereby becoming one of the first Jews to play a role in postwar German political life. He was among the first to work for the financial compensation of victims of Nazism.

3) At Buchenwald, where visitors at least until a few years ago have been told that soap was made in the basement of a canteen. I presume that this is not a casual invention of museum staff, but based on accounts and eyewitness affadavits (ASSUMPTION! Maybe the Museum has just made it up)
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Buchenwal ... ities.html

4) The IPN with claims at Stutthof and Danzig


Either we have to construct a paradigm that says the Allies, a few Jewish survivors and post war German authorities actively engaged in deliberately deceitful black propaganda or we accept that the Germans rather commonly engaged in "experimental" soap manufacture during this period.[/url]

[David Thompson]

Erich Hartmann -- H&WC section rules do not permit proof in the form of citations to articles which are unsourced, as was the article you posted by Mark Weber.

Undocumented claims undercut the research purposes of this section of the forum. Consequently, it is required that proof be posted along with a claim. The main reason is that proof, evidence, facts, etc. improve the quality of discussions and information. A second reason is that inflammatory, groundless threads attack, and do not promote, the scholarly purpose of this section of the forum.

This requirement applies to each specific claim. In the past, some posters have attempted to evade the proof requirement by resort to the following tactics, none of which are acceptable here:

A general reference to a website, or a book without page references; citations or links to racist websites; generalized citations to book reviews; and citations to unsourced articles.

Noncomplying posts are subject to deletion after warning.

H&WC Section Rules
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=53962

Consider this your warning.

[Erich Hartmann]

Ummm....since this article shares the same opinion with the aforementioned from the jewish library....what did I do wrong?

[David Thompson]

Erich: You asked:

Ummm....since this article shares the same opinion with the aforementioned from the jewish library....what did I do wrong?

Please reread the portion of my post at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 264#760264 quoting the section rules. The pertinent portions are highlighted in bold italic type.

[David Thompson]

Sean -- You said:

I would just like to place on record it is my deepest and firmest conviction that these court determinations are absolutely accurate and believable.

and

You can see the human skin lampshade to the extreme right. To my mind it is utterly and totally convincing and most certainly not the result of brainless Allied wartime propaganda.

My experience has been that the H&WC readers appreciate honesty, when they see it.

[Dan]

What's the point here? No one familiar with the lamp shade or soap story stands up for them. People lied. Poles, Russians, Englishmen, Jews. Tons of people lied. Just like now in Iraq. Lots of lies. What is the point here? So some Jews and Slavs and others lied. So what? Come out with clear objections and points, and we can discuss them. But don't assume you are on to a great conspiracy. Even Lipstadt, who is held in contempt by serious researchers says people should drop the subject. Really.

And what did the moderator mean by Lamb posting his real address? I don't know anything about him except that he isn't as careful as he could be with his facts. But let's have some transparency.

[David Thompson]

Dan -- You said:

Come out with clear objections and points, and we can discuss them. But don't assume you are on to a great conspiracy. Even Lipstadt, who is held in contempt by serious researchers says people should drop the subject. Really.

I agree. In the absence of any evidence that soap manufacture or human lampshades was a policy of the German government in WWII, or that it was authjorized or ratified, there's really not a lot of point in discussing it. Every nation has criminals. If they're not setting national policy, so what?

[Pieter Kuiper]

The proposition "If Nazis created lampshades from human skin (Buchenwald)" is more accurately put, "Some criminals made lampshades from human skin." There is no evidence of any NSDAP or German government policy authorizing such behavior.

There is a document where the Buchenwald pathology-department is ordered to stop making souvenirs:

Weimar/Buchenwald, den 7. Mai 1942

An den Leiter der Pathologie
K.L. Buchenwald

Es wird darauf aufmerksam gemacht, dass mit
sofortiger Wirkung die Anfertigung sogenannter Geschenk-
artikel (Schrumpfköpfe u.s.w.) einzustellen ist.

But it seems that such souvenirs were received by rather high-ranking nazi's.

The same is true of the human soap experiments of Dr. Spanner. There is evidence that such things may have happened, as isolated incidents. There is no evidence of any policy, or official authorization or ratification of the practice.

When is the IPN report expected? I saw a reference to September news articles on their website, but no press release or anything like that. http://www.ipn.gov.pl/wp_przeglad_020905.html

[Marcus]

Erich Hartmann,

When quoting, please use the quote feature.

/Marcus

[Fritz the Rat]

People lied. Poles, Russians, Englishmen, Jews.

Dan, you forgot to mention that a lot of German WW2 perpetrators lied also.

Fritz

[David Thompson]

Let's get back on topic. I think all of the readers are aware that liars can be found anywhere and everywhere.

[tloB]

Interesting piece:

Tests show that Nazis used human remains to make soap

The Nazis used human fat to make soap during World War II in a Nazi German medical academy located in what is now the Polish Baltic sea port city of Gdansk, Polish war crimes prosecutors confirmed on Friday, pointing to new laboratory tests.

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?ar ... onal_news/

[tomjax]

I remember somewhere of a story that soap was in fact made there, but it was a normal process and made by the inmates, but not from human fat.

I understand it was in a wrapper that had "JEW" in some form on it leading to the human fat story.

I can ask my uncle more about it and get back. He was the assistant commandant at landsberg and assisted in the executions there.

I do know that he brought home one of the bars and his wife did not realize what it was and opened it and washed dishes with it. She said it was very poor soap for washing dishes. SHe was horrified when she learned the story and believed it was in fact from human fat.

He wrote a book, Captor Captive, that I have scanned and can send to anyone interested in his accounts of the executions at Landsberg.
He is still living at 85 y/o in Dec 2006.


tomjax at yahoo. com