Fun with DIESEL GAS-VANS at Krasnodar and Kharkov...

[Scott Smith]

The following is taken from:

THE PEOPLE’S VERDICT: A Full Report on the Proceedings of the Krasnodar and Kharkov German Atrocity Trials.
Hutchinson and Co., Ltd.; London, New York: 1944.

“THE TRIAL

“In the case of the Fascist Invaders and their Accomplices in KRASNODAR and Krasnodar Territory

“July 14 to 17, 1943

“On 14 July, 1943, in the city of Krasnodar, in the North Caucasus, the trial was opened before a military Tribunal presided over by Justiciary Colonel N. Y. Mayorov, President of the Military Tribunal of the North Caucasian Front, of the case of the atrocities perpetrated by the German fascist invaders and their accomplices in the area of the city of Krasnodar and the Krasnodar Territory during the period of their temporary occupation. Justiciary Major General L. I. Yachenin acted as State Prosecutor.

“The defendants in the case were: I. Kladov, I. Kotomtsev, M. Lastovina, G. Misan, Y. Naptsok, V. Pavlov, I. Paramonov, N. Pushkarev, I. Rechkalov, V. Tischenko and G. Tuchkov. They were charged with committing crimes covered by Articles 58-1a and 51-1b of the Criminal Code of the R. S. F. S. R., i.e., treason to the country.

“The accused were defended by Advocates A. I Nazarevsky, V. I. Yakunenko and S. K. Kaznacheyev as appointed by the court.

“The morning session on the 14th was taken up with the preliminary formalities. At the afternoon session the indictment was read and before the court there was unfolded a frightful picture of the wholesale murder of innocent Soviet citizens who were killed in thousands by the German fascist invaders during their temporary occupation of Krasnodar Territory.

“The preliminary investigation, the indictment stated, had revealed that all these acts of murder, outrage, violence and plunder were committed by the punitive units of the German 17th Army, commanded by Colonel General Rueff.

“The immediate supervision and execution of all these acts of brutality were vested in the Krasnodar Gestapo, headed by the German Chief of the Gestapo, Colonel Christmann.

“The Gestapo had under its command a special punitive unit of the Secret Police called the Sonderkommando SS-10-a, which was immediately responsible for the perpetration of all atrocities.

“The investigation revealed that persons under arrest were tortured and that prisoners confined in the cellar of the Krasnodar Gestapo were burnt to death: that patients in the Krasnodar Municipal Hospital, at the Berezansk Medical Colony and also in the Territory Children’s Hospital at Tretya Rechka Kochety Farm, in the Ust-Labinskaya District, were killed wholesale.

“Lastly, the investigation revealed that many thousands of Soviet citizens were put to death by asphyxiation by means of carbon monoxide in motor vehicles specially equipped for this purpose, known as ‘murder vans.’

“The Sonderkommando SS-10-a was a punitive unit of the Gestapo, numbering about 200 men. The head of this Sonderkommando was Colonel Christmann, a German, Chief of the Gestapo. His immediate assistants in the work of exterminating Soviet citizens were the German officers: Rabbe, Boss, Sargo, Salge, Hahn, Erich Meier, Paschen, Winz and Hans Münster, the German Army Surgeons in the prison and the Gestapo, Herz and Schuster and also officials of the Gestapo, the interpreters Jakob Eicks and Scherterlan.

“Furthermore, the following traitors, now before the court as defendants in the case, were recruited by the Gestapo and participated in the perpetration of all the aforementioned atrocities: V. Tischenko, G. Tuchkov, I. Rechkalov, M. Lastovina, N. Pushkarev, G. Misan, J. Naptsok, I. Paramonov, I. Kotomtsev, V. Pavlov and I. Kladov.

“The investigation revealed the following definite cases of atrocities perpetrated by the German fascist invaders in the Krasnodar Territory:

“Soon after the occupation of Krasnodar, the cellar of the Krasnodar Gestapo was crammed with prisoners as a result of systematic raids upon and the wholesale arrest of the peaceful inhabitants. No investigation whatever was made into the cases of the hundreds and thousands of innocent people thus arrested. The latter were subjected to the most brutal violence and torture. Their fate was decided arbitrarily by Colonel Christmann, Chief of the Gestapo, who personally issued the orders for their physical extermination.

“In the autumn of 1942, the Germans began to utilize specially equipped motor vehicles, which the population called ‘murder vans,’ for the purpose of doing away with Soviet citizens.

“These ‘murder vans’ were covered five-ton or seven-ton grey-painted motor trucks, driven by Diesel engines. The interior of these vans was lined with zinc-plated sheet iron. At the back they had double doors which closed hermetically. The floor consisted of a grating, beneath which their was a pipe that was connected with the exhaust pipe of the engine. The exhaust gas from the Diesel engine, which contained a high concentration of carbon monoxide, penetrated the interior of the van, causing the rapid poisoning and death from asphyxiation of the prisoners confined in it.

“Several times a week, and in January, before the Germans retreated from Krasnodar, two and three times a day, the ‘murder vans’ were filled with people confined in the cellar of the Gestapo, which was situated in 61 Orjonikidze Street. The loading of the vans was usually supervised by Captain Rabbe, Deputy Chief of the Gestapo and Governor of the Gestapo prison. Before being dragged from the cellar the prisoners were stripped of their clothing; then they were bundled into the ‘murder van’ 60 to 80 at a time. The doors of the van were then hermetically closed and the engine started. After standing with the engine running for several minutes, the van would drive to an anti-tank trench which had been dug outside the Measuring Instruments Factory on the outskirts of Krasnodar. As a rule, the murder vans were escorted by a convoy of police from the Sonderkommando SS-10-a. By the time the vans reached the anti-tank trench the people were asphyxiated by the gas. The bodies were flung into the trench and buried. Men, women and children were bundled into the van without discrimination.

“In the course of time, in spite of the efforts the Germans made to keep this fiendish method of exterminating Soviet citizens a secret, the inhabitants living in the neighbourhood of the Gestapo premises, and through them, the entire population, learned of the use to which these vans were being put.

“The prisoners in the cellar of the Gestapo also learned of the purpose of the ‘murder vans,’ and on being loaded into them they offered resistance. At the time of loading the courtyard of the Gestapo premises echoed with their shrieks and wailing. Owing to this they were seized and dragged into the van by force. Soon after the engine was started the shrieks of these unfortunate people gradually subsided as they succumbed to the gases….”

(Op Cit, pp. 7-9, Emphasis Added.)

Of course, diesel engines NEVER produce "a high-concentration of carbon monoxide," EXCEPT in the very fertile imaginations of Greuelpropagandists.

[MaPen]

The Sonderkommando SS-10-a was a punitive unit of the Gestapo, numbering about 200 men.

Not quite punitive unit, since Sonderkommando 10a was part of Einsatzgruppe D.

Regards,

MaPen

[Scott Smith]

The Sonderkommando SS-10-a was a punitive unit of the Gestapo, numbering about 200 men.

Not quite punitive unit, since Sonderkommando 10a was part of Einsatzgruppe D.

Regards,

MaPen

Yes, quite an admission from the Soviets. Of course, the Einsatzgruppen story had not yet had time to mature in 1943.

[Angelo]

Scott, though I'm not an expert in chemistry and more specifically in CO poisoning, I can only base my understanding of things related to such a matter on scientific contributions and the usual common sense.

I have been reading the long and articulated discussions that you and Roberto had on that question and I guess I learned more about CO in that context than in any other I ever happened to run across, including the days when I was given some hints about it while studying and practicing to get my driver's licence.

I would, if asked, make mine, the final comments from Roberto that the question on whether it was more or less economically justifiable the adoption of such a method of killing is, in that context, irrelevant, given the fact that we have testimonies coming from the perpetrators themselves confirming that a great number of Jews had been eliminated by means of the gas vans. In other words, those Jews were not spared by the eventual uneconomical aspect of their being killed within the four walls of a truck instead of, let's say, being shot in their heads on the edge of one or more mass graves.

In this case, what got me particularly interested in a comment on your post is your final statement:

Of course, diesel engines NEVER produce "a high-concentration of carbon monoxide," EXCEPT in the very fertile imaginations of Greuelpropagandists.

Well, Scott, such a statement is only partially true according to all sources I've been checking (admittedly, a few ones as I wanted to post this now), as far as the wording "high concentration" is concerned, if taken "per se", that is without considering that such a concentration could have more serious effects, including death, if combined with other structural and situational elements such as the presence of other toxic elements, the relational figure between killing room size and number of people being inside it, smaller or lesser cylinder volume of the diesel engine used as dispenser, etc.

In evaluating those aspects I think the following document may give a positive answer, given a number of conditions are met:

All three of the Reinhard camps used carbon monoxide, pumped into sealed rooms, to do their killing.


Carbon monoxide worked slower than Zyklon B, but it worked well enough for Himmler to proceed. While he was ... in Lublin, he sent a written order to Krüger: the "resettlement" of the entire Jewish population of the Government General was to be completed by December 31, 1942. With the exception of a few collection camps for Jews in some major cities, no Jews were to remain in Poland. All Jewish laborers had to complete their jobs or be transferred to one of the collection camps. These measures were prerequisites for the Nazi "new order" in Europe, since any remaining Jews would stimulate resistance and provide a source of moral and physical pestilence. (Himmler to Krüger, 19 July 1942, NA RG 238, NO-5574, quoted by Arad, Belzec, 47)(Breitman, 238)

Those who deny the Holocaust have claimed that fumes from a diesel engine are not toxic enough to kill people. (This claim is made with regard to the death camp of Treblinka - see Section 4.1.3 for the rulings from the German Treblinka trials. In other death camps, gasoline engines were used. The method of killing was simple - people were crammed into the gas chambers, and the exhaust of powerful engines was pumped into them).

In a closed chamber, of course diesel fumes will kill. There was actually a study on this in the British Journal of Industrial Medicine (Prattle, 47-55). The researchers ran a few experiments in which various animals were exposed to diesel fumes, and studied the results.

In the experiments, the exhaust of a small diesel engine (568 cc, 6 BHP) was connected to a chamber 10 cubic meters (340 cubic feet) in volume, and the animals were put inside it. In all cases, the animals died. Death was swifter when the intake of air to the engine was restricted, as this causes a large increase in the amount of carbon monoxide (CO) that is emitted. (See, for instance, Diesel Engine Reference Book, by Lilly, 1985, p. 18/8, where it is stated that at a high air/fuel ratio the concentration of CO is only a few parts per million but for lower ratios (25:1) the concentration of CO can rise up to 3,000 ppm. It is very easy to restrict the air intake - the British researchers did so by partially covering the air intake opening with a piece of metal.)

Even in cases where the CO output was low, the animals still died from other toxic components - mainly, irritants and nitrogen dioxide.

Now, the diesel engines used in Treblinka were much larger - they belonged to captured Soviet T-34 tanks. These tanks weighed 26-31 tons (depending on the model) and had a 500 BHP engine (compared to a mere 6 BHP in the British experiments). The volume of the extermination chambers in Treblinka is, of course, a factor. But the chambers' volume is about 60 cubic meters (2040 cubic feet); this is 6 times more than those in the British experiments, but the difference in the size of the engines is much larger than a factor of 6.

It should be remembered that what matters in CO poisoning is not the concentration of CO, but the ratio of CO to oxygen. In a small, gas-tight room, crammed full of people, oxygen levels drop quickly, thus making death by CO poisoning faster. As noted, other toxic components in the fumes further accelerate mortality.

The SS was aware of the fact that cramming as many people as possible into the gas chamber, thus leaving no empty spaces, would accelerate mortality. This is evident, for instance, from a letter regarding "gassing vans" (used in the Chelmno extermination camp and other locations) sent to SS-Obersturmbannführer Walter Rauff, 5 June 1942. (Rauff was in charge of the Technical Department of the Reich Security Main Office, and was responsible for developing the mobile gas vans used by the Einsatzgruppen) The letter is quite long, but here is the relevant part:


2) The vans are normally loaded with 9-10 people per square meter. With the large Saurer special vans this is not possible because although they do not become overloaded their maneuverability is much impaired. A reduction in the load area appears desirable. It can be achieved by reducing the size of the van by c. 1 meter. The difficulty referred to cannot be overcome by reducing the size of the load. For a reduction in the numbers will necessitate a longer period of operation because the free spaces will have to be filled with CO. By contrast, a smaller load area which is completely full requires a much shorter period of operation since there are no free spaces. (Just. Get pub/people/r/rauff.walter/rauff.letter.060542)

On July 22 ...deportations began from the Warsaw ghetto to ... [ Treblinka]. The same day, Globocnik wrote to Karl Wolff: "The Reich Führer SS ... has given us so much new work that with it now all our most secret wishes are to be fulfilled. I am so very thankful to him for this, and he can be sure of one thing, that these things he wishes will be fulfilled in the shortest time." (On the start of deportations to Treblinka, Arad, Belzec, 60-61, 392. Quote from Globocnik to Wolff, 22 July 1942, Globocnik SS file, Berlin Document Center.) (Breitman, 238)

Source: http://www.nizkor.org/faqs/reinhard/rei ... aq-07.html

Ok, though this has not to do directly with your subject contribution, it clarifies that death could be administered through the use of diesel engines.
Scott, it's really hard for me to accept your point as logical and in line with what a document like the one from Nizkor clearly shows about the usage of gas vans.

Now, whether that use had been made in connection with the trials you dealt with in your post, I have, at the moment, no sufficient knowledge to say it did or did not happen. I was only referring to the possibility of killing people by means of diesel engines. (I guess I remember you already objected to the document in question, so there's no need, as far as I'm concerned, to start it over again. My reference to it was just a way to show that your objections did not prove convincing, in my opinion.)


Angelo

[Timo]

Fun? Truth or fiction, you're sick if you consider this to be fun.

[Ovidius]

Mr. Angelo had posted a quote in which is said, black-on-white, not only that the engine used for gassing in Treblinka was a Diesel, but also that those engine came from a captured T-34.

I've asked(almost begged) Scott Smith, Roberto Muehlenkamp and anyone else to post a quote from a credible testimony in which to be said that the engine came from a T-34. They couldn't do it.

All they could do was to post a quote in which someone spoke about an "engine from a Russian tank", which is absolutely irrelevant, considering that the one and only Diesel tank model produced in large series in Russia was the T-34, while all other types had gasoline engines. And it was obvious that most captured tanks were older types, like the BT series tanks. Nobody can draw the clear conclusion that "Russian tank engine" meant "T-34 engine".

Therefore, we can only draw the conclusion that the people from Nizkor base the data on their site merely on what is in line with their thesis, regardless of the fact that in this case is a fragment of testimony with no details, from a man about whom we don't know if he could tell a gas engine from a Diesel.

I've tested, as I promised, the V-2 Diesel engine, and I'll post soon the data.

~Regards,

Ovidius

[Scott Smith]

Ovidius,

The KV-1 heavy tanks also had diesel engines. In any case, here the court has stated that the engines WERE diesels.

[Scott Smith]

In a closed chamber, of course diesel fumes will kill. There was actually a study on this in the British Journal of Industrial Medicine (Prattle, 47-55). The researchers ran a few experiments in which various animals were exposed to diesel fumes, and studied the results.

Angelo,

I have a copy of the report in question and what Nizkor has left out is that it took many HOURS to kill the animals with strong diesel exhaust, whereas the "murder vans" killed in from 8-10 MINUTES, according to the Soviet Krasnodar Trials.

[Scott Smith]

Fun? Truth or fiction, you're sick if you consider this to be fun.

Timo,

That's really not an argument. Either the claims are bogus or they are not; either the trials were kangaroo courts or they were not. Simple as that.

[michael mills]

Angelo wrote:

.........a great number of Jews had been eliminated by means of the gas vans

This raises an important point. Angelo, I think, has jumped to the conclusion that the persons killed in the gas-vans or "dushegubki" in Krasnodar province, as alleged by the prosecution in the Krasnodar Trial, were Jews. But in fact the report of the trial quoted by Scott Smith nowhere identifies them as such.

It is equally as likely that the persons killed in the gas-vans were actually patients in mental or other hospitals. That appears to have been one of the major uses to which those vehicles were put in the occupied Soviet Union, and also seems to be the reason for the development of this particular killing technology. Gas-vans using bottled CO rather than their own exhaust appear to have been used early in 1940 for the clearing of mental hospitals in the territories annexed from Poland; however, there is no documentary proof for that. Gas-vans using their own exhaust as the killing agent, which are documented, may have been a further development from the earlier type used in Poland. Their development is definitely linked to experiments with the quick elimination of inmates of Soviet mental hospitals, using methods such as explosives.

It needs to be remembered that the Krasnodar Region, situated in the Northern Caucasus, was well outside the main area of Jewish settlement, and there were very few Jews there. By the time German forces reached the area, in the Summer of 1942, whatever Jews lived there had had plenty of time to escape.

[Scott Smith]

SOVIET War Documents

June, 1941—November, 1943
Addresses, notes, orders of the day, statements

Information Bulletin,
Embassy of the USSR, Washington, D.C.
Publication August 14, 1943,
pp. 171-172.

Statement of

EXTRAORDINARY STATE COMMITTEE

For the Ascertaining and Investigation of Crimes Committed by the German Fascist Invaders and Their Associates and Damage Caused by Them to Citizens, Collective Farms, Public Bodies, State Enterprises and institutions of the USSR

On the crimes of the German-fascist occupationists in the Stavropol area:

“…It has been established that the Germans engaged in mass extermination of the peaceful Soviet population by poisoning them with carbon monoxide in the specially adapted ‘murderess’ [sic] vans.

“War prisoner Fenichel stated: ‘Working as an auto mechanic I had chance to learn in detail the construction of the vans specially adapted for suffocating and exterminating people with exhaust gas. In the town of Stavropol the Gestapo had several such vans. They were constructed as follows:

“The body was approximately five meters long and two and one half meters wide. The height of the body was also approximately two and a half meters. The body was shaped like a railroad car without windows and lined inside with galvanized sheet-iron; on the floor, also covered with sheet-iron, lay a wooden grating. The door of the car was lined with rubber and tightly closed with an automatic lock. On the floor of the van under the grating were two metal pipes about one and a half inches in diameter and two and a half meters long. These pipes were connected with a transverse pipe of equal diameter (in the shape of a capital H). In these pipes were numerous holes one-half centimeter in width; from the transverse pipe down through a hole in the galvanized iron floor ran a rubber hose with a hexagonal nut at the end threaded to fit the thread on the end of the engine exhaust pipe. This hose was screwed to an exhaust pipe and when the engine is running all exhaust gas goes into the body of this hermetically sealed van. As a result of this concentration of gas a person inside dies within a short space of time. Seventy to eighty persons could be put into the body of the van. The van had a ‘Sauer’ engine; the body was constructed in Berlin, and on the left-hand side near the engine was a metal plate with the inscription: ‘Auto-Body Building Works of Joint Stock Company in Berlin.’”

[Angelo]

Michael Mills wrote:

This raises an important point. Angelo, I think, has jumped to the conclusion that the persons killed in the gas-vans or "dushegubki" in Krasnodar province, as alleged by the prosecution in the Krasnodar Trial, were Jews. But in fact the report of the trial quoted by Scott Smith nowhere identifies them as such.

While it is true, Michael, that Scott's quoted report doesn't mention Jews as being the victims of the gas vans methodology in the Krasnodar territory, I jumped to the conclusion that among those victims there must have been Jews according to a number of references I'm just quoting hereunder:

http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/text/x13/xr1351.html(specifically devoted to the Krasnodar massacre of the local Jews

http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/indictment1.htm (As this is a huge document devoted to the indictment of the IMT in Nuremberg, you are kindly requested to scroll down to Comma "b" of Paragraph 2 of Chapter VIII (Statement of the Offense) of Section Count Three-Warcrimes)

http://www.yadvashem.org.il/about_holoc ... UPPEN.html


http://www.therecord.com/news/special/o ... 13395.html (this is a nice one: it also shows a picture allegedly showing a few members of Einsatzkommando 10/a possibly taken while recovering from their "glorious" but "fatiguing" job. Who can blame them ? )

http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/res ... ideogl.htm (This is about the 55 min. video covering the Krasnodar Trial of 1943 - So, please look for that title while scrolling down on the right side of the page- In the presentation of such a work it is clearly said that

During this six month period thirteen thousand Soviets were murdered by the Nazis, beginning with and including every member of the Jewish community

http://www.pgonline.com/electriczen/documents/mcc.html (Titled "The Einsatzgruppen - Murder from the Crimea to the Caucasus", it refers, among others to the 1972 Trials and the 1980 Kurt Christmann Trial were he was finally convicted.) - It's a well referenced site, in my opinion.

Just as a correlative subject, you might want to check the Oberlander case, in relation to the Einsatzgruppe 10/a which operated in the Southern sector of the Soviet Union and in the Krasnodar city and territory. If so, go to:

http://www.therecord.com/news/special/o ... 14149.html

So, though not mentioned on that report, the Jews were among the bunch of those who had the tragic privilege to taste the "hatefree", purely "self-defensive" policies of the "lovely", though, maybe, a little authoritarian approach to making Europe a united associations of slave territories under the wise, socially motivated and ultraprotective generous supervision of dear good ole uncle Adolf, regenerator of Germany, savior of her virginal Aryan purity, and, most of all, creator of that long dreamed and yearned for German Empire which her people tried to establish since the pre-Roman times without ever achieving that goal.

Irony apart (which was not in any way addressed to you ), I think we have a reasonable right to state that thousands of Jews were massacred there as in any other East Front area that fell under the German jurisdiction.

Michael wrote:

It needs to be remembered that the Krasnodar Region, situated in the Northern Caucasus, was well outside the main area of Jewish settlement, and there were very few Jews there. By the time German forces reached the area, in the Summer of 1942, whatever Jews lived there had had plenty of time to escape.

While it is true that the Jews (and not they only) were compelled to learn the tecniques of the marathon in their tragic odissey, we should not forget that for a given number that made it to some other place there was at least an equal number that made it to the place they were running away from, so that, in the end, the human carousel did not vary too much in quantity. Besides the fact that they would have had great problems with their own Soviet authorities who weren't inclined to allow their citizens, whether Jew or not, to evacuate their cities, towns and villages. That is amply demonstrated throughout that piece of history.

True that, on a merely quantitative level, the Krasnodar area massacres don't match the much bigger figures we encounter in more western districts of the USSR and, of course, in Poland. But we don't value crimes by sheer numbers, do we ?

Angelo

[Roberto]

<<Of course, diesel engines NEVER produce "a high-concentration of carbon monoxide," EXCEPT in the very fertile imaginations of Greuelpropagandists.>>

Depends on the fuel-air ratio, which in turn depends on how much fuel is put into the engine and how much air it is allowed to take in, as often explained. Smith’s “NEVER” is just a quaint piece of make-believe. See my posts # 1755 (3/6/02 3:19:12 pm), # 1758 (3/6/02 4:50:11 pm), # 1760 (3/6/02 5:09:42 pm), # 1772 (3/7/02 12:32:38 pm) and 1788(3/8/02 2:50:58 pm) on the thread

GAS CHAMBERS?
http://pub3.ezboard.com/fskalmanforumfr ... 1&stop=480

of the old forum.

But even if Smith were correct about diesel engines, what would that mean? That for some reason the Soviet court in question got it wrong and that the engines in question were gasoline engines rather than diesel engines. A mistake about an irrelevant minor detail that the Soviet court didn’t make a big deal of; they accorded it no more than a perfunctory notice, after all. It takes the fertile imagination of paranoid True Believers like Smith to see any “Greuelpropaganda” here, unless of course Smith can explain what reasons a “Greuelpropagandist” should have had to make a gas van with a gasoline engine into a gas van with a diesel engine, or to invent gas vans at all – as if the shooting, hanging or burning alive of many hundreds of thousands of people by the invaders in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union and the starvation of millions of prisoners of war and civilians were not more than enough to condemn the enemy in the eyes of the Soviet population and world public opinion, as if bizarre inventions had been required to make the enemy look monstrous.

We have been through all of this many times before, haven’t we? The “DIESEL GAS-VANS at Krasnodar and Kharkov...” have become part of the staple diet of “Revisionist” propaganda that Smith likes to dish up. But there are a number of questions regarding the gas vans that the fun-loving Reverend has never been able to answer. One of them was asked in my post # 1799 (3/8/02 7:10:10 pm) on the thread

GAS CHAMBERS?
http://pub3.ezboard.com/fskalmanforumfr ... 1&stop=500

of the old forum. As Smith conveniently avoided it back then, here it is again:

Here's a passage from another interesting document, a letter written by SS-Major General Dr. Harald Turner, privy-councilor and chief of the German Administration in Serbia, to Karl Wolff, chief of Himmler's personal staff, on April 11, 1942:

Darf ich diese Gelegenheit benutzen, um Ihnen anliegend die Abschrift eines Briefes von mir an den Reichsführer vom 15.Januar 1942 zu übersenden, auf den ich bis heute ohne Antwort geblieben bin. Ich möchte nicht erinnern, weil solche Dinge wie ich weiss Zeit brauchen und ich mich nicht für berechtigt halte, den Reichsführer an die Erledigung einer Sache zu erinnern. Immerhin weiss ich,dass Sie für diese Dinge Interesse haben und warum ich Sie jetzt darauf aufmerksam mache, hat einfach seinen Grund darin, dass demnächst diese Frage mehr als akut wird . Schon vor Monaten habe ich alles an Juden im hiesigen Lande griefbare erschiessen und sämtliche Judenfrauen und -Kinder in einem Lager konzentrieren lassen und zugleich mit Hilfe des SD einen "Entlausungswagen" angeschafft, der nun in etwa 14 Tagen bis 4 Wochen auch die Räumung des Lagers endgültig durchgeführt haben wird, was allerdings seit Eintreffen von Meyssner und Uebergabe dieser Lagerdinge an ihn, von ihm weitergefuehrt worden ist. Dann ist der Augenblick gekommen, in dem die unter der Genfer Konvention im Kriegsgefangenenlager befordlichen jüdischen Offiziere nolens volens hinter die nicht mehr vorhandenen Angehörigen kommen und das dürfte immerhin leicht zu Komplikationen führen.

Translation:

May I use this occasion to send you as an attachment a copy of a letter from me to the Reichsführer of January 15, 1942 to which I have yet to receive an answer. I am not complaining because as I know, such things take time and I don't feel it is right for me to press the Reichsführer for the settlement of an affair. I know that for such matters you have an interest and the reason I now draw your attention to it is only because this question is now more than critical. Already some months ago, I shot dead all the Jews I could get my hands on in this area, concentrated all the Jewish women and children in a camp and with the help of the SD got my hands on a "delousing van," that in about 14 days to 4 weeks will have brought about the definitive clearing out of the camp, which in any event since the arrival of Meyssner and the turning over of this camp to him, was continued by him. Then the time is come in which the Jewish officers to be found in prisoner of war camps under the Geneva Convention find out against our will about their no longer existing kinfolk and that could easily lead to complications.

Source of quote:

http://www.holocaust-history.org/19420411-turner-wolff/

What was Turner talking about, Mr. Smith?

I would especially be interested in what you think happened to the mentioned Jewish women and children in the "delousing van".

Or would you rather yell "forgery" right away?

[michael mills]

Angelo

I have looked through the various links you posted. The actual material relating to Krasnodar bears out precisely the point that I made, namely that the gas-vans were used primarily to clear the hospitals and institutes housing retarded children, and that the victims were not primarily Jews but rather mental patients.

The Wiesenthal link: This states that of the seven thousand people killed at Krasnodar, most were Jews, but it gives no basis for that claim. At least some were, as one is mentioned by name, but we do not know how many. In any case, the claim conflicts with the evidence from the 1980 Christmann Trial, in which it is clear that the victims were hospital patients and retarded children, not Jews per se.


Oberlander link (The Record): This describes the gassing of the children at the asylum at Yeissk, near Krasnodar, and also the gassing of prisoners from the Krasnodar prison, under the command of Christmann. Again, no indication that these people are Jews. Judging by the names mentioned, they are ethnic Russians.

The video about the Krasnodar Trial: This is a brief description of the material in the video, and there is no way of judging the validity of the statement quoted by you. Why single out the Jews in particular, when the details given in the other links point to hopital patients as the victims? It is a clear example of judeocentrism.

The Electriczen link: I agree that this site is particularly well documented. But again, the material quoted about the use of gas vans at Krasnodar and Yeissk indicates that the victims were hospital patients (Municipal Hospital No. 3) or inmates of an asylum, not Jews. This bears out my original point, that you have wrongly identified the Krasnodar victims as Jews.

You further wrote:

While it is true that the Jews (and not they only) were compelled to learn the tecniques of the marathon in their tragic odissey, we should not forget that for a given number that made it to some other place there was at least an equal number that made it to the place they were running away from, so that, in the end, the human carousel did not vary too much in quantity. Besides the fact that they would have had great problems with their own Soviet authorities who weren't inclined to allow their citizens, whether Jew or not, to evacuate their cities, towns and villages. That is amply demonstrated throughout that piece of history.

The above is totally contrary to the facts. The Soviet authorities tried to evacuate as many citizens as possible, so as to deny their labour power to the invading Germans. In particular, city-dwellers were evacuated en masse, and since the Jews were primarily an urban population the overwhelming majority of them were evacuated into the interior of the Soviet Union. That was particularly the case with the more easterly cities, where there was more time for evacuation; the further east the Germans got, the lower the proportion of the remaining population, and the smaller the number of Jews they found.

Far from hindering evacuation, the Soviet authorities ordered the population to leave and head east; anyone who tried to resist evacuation was considered a traitor and a deserter who wanted to wait for the Germans so as to go over to them.

I suggest you check your facts before writing such judeocentric fiction.

But we don't value crimes by sheer numbers, do we ?

I was not making any judgement about the relative criminality of the killings carried out by the German forces during their occupation of Krasnodar. What I was addressing was your judeocentrism, presumably ideologically based, which led you to ignore the mass of the victims, hospital patients and retarded children of Russian nationality, in favour of presenting the massacre purely in terms of the small number of victims who may have been Jewish.

[Roberto]

The following sources regarding the use of gas vans by Einsatzgruppe D in the Crimea and the areas of Krasnodar and Stavropol are quoted on pages 97 to 107 of Kogon/Langbein/Rückerl et al, Nationalsozialistische Massentötungen durch Giftgas:

- Judgment of the Munich County Court, 17 September 1975, against Max Drexler and Walter Kehrer. Site of killings: Simferopol. Victims: Jews.

- Judgment of the Munich County Court, 19.12.1980, against Dr. Kurt Christmann and others. Site of killings: Not specified in quoted passage. Victims: Not specified in quoted passage.

- Deposition of witness Kotov at the Soviet Krasnodar trial on 16 July 1943. Site of killings: Krasnodar. Victims: Not specified, apparently patients of a city hospital.

- Judgment of the Munich County Court, 14 July 1972, against Trimborn et al. Site of killings: Jeissk. Victims: inmates of an institution for handicapped children.

- Judgment of the Munich County Court, 23 March 1972, against Finger and others. Site of killings: Kerch. Victims: Jews.

- Deposition of Paul Zapp, ZSL:213 AR 1900/66, Volume I, page 83 and following. Site of killings: Sevastopol. Victims: Jews.

- Deposition of Johannes Schlupper, StA München I AZ: 115 Ks 6/71
Site of killings: Tcherkessk. Victims: Jews.

- Deposition of Eugenia Ostrovec, filed in the Soviet collection "Dokumenti Obwinjajut". Site of killings: Pjatigorsk. Victims: Russian civilians.

At the end of the chapter, the deposition of German prisoner of war Fenichel filed in the same collection is mentioned. Fenichel testified about the killing of 660 mental patients between 5 and 10 August 1942 at Stavropol and about the killing of 54 severly ill little children at Spa-Teberda.