Gas trail????

[Larso]

I've had a peak through other threads using 'search' but haven't come accross an answer to this particular question.

Are there records that show significant shipments of gas (Zylon B or whatever) to the death camps? I note that some was apparently used to fumigate areas of vermin but I imagine that the volumns needed for the Holocaust can't have been 'hidden in the detail'. Anyway your help on this and indeed any reference sites would be appreciated.

[David Thompson]

Larso -- I've seen photostats of orders for Zyklon B to be sent to various concentration camps reproduced in Pressac's book on Auschwitz and other texts. Since Zyklon B has both non-lethal and lethal uses, and the invoices don't specify for what purpose the SS intended to use the product, it's difficult to say what a "significant amount" might be and what the amount would signify.

I've never seen nor heard of any documents that specify the amounts of Zyklon B diverted for lethal use from any concentration camp supply room. I've gotten the distinct impression that the amounts involved in the ordinary non-lethal uses of Zyklon B would be much greater than the amount needed to kill people in small airtight rooms, and the camp administrations re-ordered the product as needed.

[Kal_El]

Hey

There was a trial against some off the people in the company, that produced zyclon B. A transcript can be found at http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/WCC/zyklonb.htm . Besides I seem to rember, but cant find, a thread where one moderator inhere posted scans from a book about this trial.

a quote from that site:

Karl Ruehmling, who had been a bookkeeper and assistant gassing master with the firm, said that Zyklon B was sent by the concern to the concentration camps at Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen and Neuengamme, but Auschwitz was sent the largest consignments.

Alfred Zaun, who was in charge of the firm’s bookkeeping, said that, in his opinion, Auschwitz of all the concentration camps had received the most Zyklon B during the war.

I seem to recall that the scanned pages from the thread I cant find (HELP!) 8) gave a bit more information. As it has more off the testimonials in it.

But as David says and as far as i rember there is no mention off how much went to the gaschambers and not.

I seem to rember again from that darn threat, something about that the amounts used in the gaschambres wasnt that big. Compared to the other use off it.
I could be wrong in my rembering.

Regards

Morten

[Dan]

Auschwitz got about 10 percent of the Zyklon produced during the war, and it is generally believed that about 3 percent of this was siphoned off quitely by the SS for homicidal purposes.

[michael mills]

There were two routes by which the Waffen-SS obtained supplies of the pesticide Zyklon-B, a legal route and an "under-the-table" route.

The legal route was as follows:

The patent for Zyklon-B, and the right to produce and distribute it, was held by the firm of DEGESCH (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung = German Society for Combatting Vermin), of which Dr gerhard Peters, the inventor of the product, was the major shareholder.

The right to produce Zyklon-B was assigned by DEGESCH to two chemical manufacturers, one at Kolin near Prague and one at Dessau, near Berlin.

The right to distribute the product was assigned to two firms, one to distribute it in the West and one in the East. The firm with the disribution monopoly in the East was Tesch and Stabenow, whose director was Bruno Tesch.

The method of distribution by Tesch and Stabenow was as follows. The firm would sell to a buyer the right to a certain amount of Zyklon-B. The buyer would then order amounts of the product as needed direct from the manufacturers at Dessau or Kolin, thereby gradually drawing down on the amount that it had purchased.

Tesch and Stabenow sold a bulk amount to the Wehrmacht Sanitary Service, which divided that amount up among its various agencies, one of them being the Waffen-SS. Thus, the Waffen-SS had the right to draw on an allocation of Zyklon-B, which was part of the Wehrmacht's overall allocation.

In turn, the Waffen-SS divided its allocation of Zyklon-B among its various agencies, one of them being the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps, situated at Oranienburg.

Whenever a particular concentration camp wanted to acquire supplies of Zyklon-B, it made an application to the Inspectorate at Oranienburg, which then gave that camp an authority to draw down on its allocation from one of the manufacturers.

The documents referred to by David Thompson consist of applications from the Auschwitz camp administration to the Concentration Camp Inspectorate for supplies of Zyklon-B, authorisations from the Inspectorate to collect the requested supplies from the manufacturers at Dessau, and orders from the camp administration to its sanitation service to send trucks to Dessau to pick up the authorised amount.

Thus, there is no reason for the firm of Tesh and Stabenow to possess records of how much Zyklon-B was going to each individual camp. All it would need to have would be a record of the progressive draw-down by its customer, the Wehrmacht Sanitary Service, on its purchased allocation. The firm might conceivably have known how much of the Wehrmacht's allocation was assigned to the Waffen-SS, and how much of the Waffen-SS's share was allocated to the Concentration Camp Inspectorate, but that is not certain.

Accordingly, claims by employees of Tesch and Stabenow that they knew how much Zyklon-B was going to Auschwitz are not credible, given the way the distribution system worked. The suspicion remains that their testimony was suborned in some way.

There was also an "under-the-table" way in which the Waffen-SS obtained supplies of Zyklon-B. According to post-war testimony by Dr Gerhard Peters, the owner of DEGESCH, he was approached in 1943 by the head of the Waffen-SS Sanitation Service, Kurt Gerstein, with a request to supply Zyklon-B direct to the concentration camps, circumventing the legal route via Tesch and Stabenow.

According to Peters, Gerstein had told him that the product was required for the purpose of executing criminals. Gerstein had specifically asked for supplies of the variant of Zyklon-B without the warning agent, since that agent, an irritant similar to tear gas, caused unnecessary suffering to the persons being executed. The variant without the warning agent was already produced for the purpose of fumigating materials that would be damaged by it; cans containing that variant bore a special warning sign, since its use was more hazardous to the handlers.

According to Peters' post-war testimony, he and Gerstein agreed that equal amounts of Zyklon-B obtained by this illegal method (illegal because it infringed the monopoly held by Tesch and Stabenow) were to be sent to Auschwitz and to Oranienburg. According to Peters, the amount sent to Oranienburg was intended to be a cover for the amount sent to Auschwitz; what the authorities at Oranienburg did with all this extra Zyklon-B was never made clear.

The degree to which Peters' post-war testimony is to be trusted is not clear. At his trial, the judges found that all the Zyklon-B sent direct from DEGESCH to Auschwitz must have been used for an illegal purpose, ie for homicide, since that would be the only reason for circumventing the normal supply channel via Tesch and Stabenow.

Peters underwent a series of trials for being an accessory to murder, but was eventually acquitted.

[David Thompson]

Peters, Gerhard -- German poison gas manufacturer {arrested and put on trial by a West German court at Frankfurt-am-Main; convicted and sentenced to 5 years imprisonment 28 Mar 1949 (NYT 29 Mar 1949:16:4); put on trial by a West German at Frankfurt-am-Main on charges of aiding in the murders of 300,000 persons by supplying poison gas to concentration camp (Konzentrationslager - KL) Auschwitz; acquitted 27 May 1955 (NYT 28 May 1955:4:7); probably identifiable with "P., Gerhard" -- executive of the German Insecticide Corporation (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung - Degesch) {arrested and put on trial in a series of prosecutions at Frankfurt-am-Main and Wiesbaden between 1949 and 1955 on charges of abetting in the murder of German, French, Greek, Dutch, Austrian, Polish, Romanian, Soviet, Czech and Hungarian Jews, gypsies, prisoners unfit for slave labor and POWs by providing the SS with Zyklon B poison gas between 1941 and 1944 (Mitwirkung an der Vergasung von Juden aus allen Teilen Europas, von Zigeunern, Kriegsgefangenen und arbeitsunfähigen Häftlingen im KL Auschwitz in den Jahren 1941 - 1944 durch fortgesetzte Lieferung des Giftgases Zyklon B); ultimately acquitted 27 May 1955 (JuNSV Verfahren Lfd.Nr.415; LG Frankfurt/M. 550527; LG Frankfurt/M. 490328; OLG Frankfurt/M. 491019; LG Frankfurt/M. 500429; OLG Frankfurt/M. 500920; LG Wiesbaden 511123; BGH 521204; LG Wiesbaden 530810; Veröffentlicht in Justiz und NS-Verbrechen Band XIII).}

[michael mills]

Here is a link to a record of the trial of Dr Gerhard Peters.

http://www1.jur.uva.nl/junsv/Excerpts/415inhalt.htm

[Dan]

Thanks again, Michael, for an almost exhaustive explaination of the subject.

[michael mills]

Further to my last message:

The trial of Gerhard Peters took place some time after Kurt Gerstein made various versions of his confession just before the end of the war in 1945. Those confessions were admitted in evidence at the trial. In addition, receipts for deliveries of Zyklon-B, given by him to his British and US interrogators, were used at the trial.

In his confessions, Gerstein claimed that he had directly procured Zyklon-B for the purpose of homicidal gassing, but had frustrated the homicidal plan by ensuring that all the Zyklon-B obtained by him was used only for fumigation purposes.

Peters used that claim by Gerstein in his defence. He proposed that Gerstein's confession showed that the Zyklon-B obtained from him (Peters) had not been used for homicidal purposes, and that therefore he was not guilty of aiding and abetting the crime of mass murder by providing the means by which it was carried out.

Amazingly, the judges at the West German court refused to accept that particular part of Gerstein's confession. They took the view that, despite Gerstein's claim that all the Zyklon-B obtained by him from Peters had been used for fumigation and not for homicidal purposes, some part of it must have been used for homicidal purposes, and that therefore Peters was guilty of aiding and abetting mass murder.

Just goes to show that judges will accept those parts of an eyewitness statement/ confession that suit their purposes, and reject those that do not.

[walterkaschner]

Michael Mills wrote:

The method of distribution by Tesch and Stabenow was as follows. The firm would sell to a buyer the right to a certain amount of Zyklon-B. The buyer would then order amounts of the product as needed direct from the manufacturers at Dessau or Kolin, thereby gradually drawing down on the amount that it had purchased.

Tesch and Stabenow sold a bulk amount to the Wehrmacht Sanitary Service, which divided that amount up among its various agencies, one of them being the Waffen-SS. Thus, the Waffen-SS had the right to draw on an allocation of Zyklon-B, which was part of the Wehrmacht's overall allocation.

In turn, the Waffen-SS divided its allocation of Zyklon-B among its various agencies, one of them being the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps, situated at Oranienburg.

Whenever a particular concentration camp wanted to acquire supplies of Zyklon-B, it made an application to the Inspectorate at Oranienburg, which then gave that camp an authority to draw down on its allocation from one of the manufacturers.

The documents referred to by David Thompson consist of applications from the Auschwitz camp administration to the Concentration Camp Inspectorate for supplies of Zyklon-B, authorisations from the Inspectorate to collect the requested supplies from the manufacturers at Dessau, and orders from the camp administration to its sanitation service to send trucks to Dessau to pick up the authorised amount.

Thus, there is no reason for the firm of Tesh and Stabenow to possess records of how much Zyklon-B was going to each individual camp. All it would need to have would be a record of the progressive draw-down by its customer, the Wehrmacht Sanitary Service, on its purchased allocation. The firm might conceivably have known how much of the Wehrmacht's allocation was assigned to the Waffen-SS, and how much of the Waffen-SS's share was allocated to the Concentration Camp Inspectorate, but that is not certain.

Accordingly, claims by employees of Tesch and Stabenow that they knew how much Zyklon-B was going to Auschwitz are not credible, given the way the distribution system worked. The suspicion remains that their testimony was suborned in some way.

I have heretofore understood that the distribution system described above by Mr. Mills was only placed into effect AFTER 1943, and that prior to that time the records of Tesch and Stabenow indicated separately the amount of Zyklon B going to Auschwitz.

The testimony of Alfred Zaun, the head bookkeeper at Tesch und Stabenow, established the quantites of Zyklon B ordered through them for various users (Tables I-III). Figures were available for 1942 and 1943, because, as has been noted, after 1943 all German government users drew their supplies of Zyklon B from the Wehrmacht Hauptsanitaetspark in Berlin.

This is from an extensive article by William D. Lindsey in the Journal for Historical Research, clearly a highly biased revisionist article, but one which apparently has command of the basic facts, which can be found at the following site:

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v04/v04p261_Lindsey.html

Accordingly, I had heretofor thought that there was no reason to doubt the credibility of head bookkeeper Zaun on this point.

If Mr. Mills has specific information to the contrary I would hope he would share it with us.

That, however, being said, I nonetheless believe, as a lawyer of longstanding , but of coures without the benefit of observing the demeanor and judging the credibility of the witnesses, that the conviction and death sentence awarded to Dr. Tesch - and more particularly to his deputy, Karl Weinbacher - were a gross travesty and miscarriage of justice. IMHO the evidence as reported against them (totally apart from the knowledge of the quantities of Zyklon-B shipped to Auschwitz) was simply too flimsy and suspicious to justify the verdict and sentence. I personally think the trial was an example of an overweening lust, generated in the heat of the moment and perhaps for political reasons, for punishing anyone however remotely connected with the horrors of Auschwitz.

Fortunately feelings had abated somewhat in the case of Gerhard Peters, who although originally sentenced by a German Court to 5 years in prison (IMHO on the basis of a much stronger case than Tesch and Weinbacher), was ultimately acquitted on appeal.

Regards, Kaschner

[Dan]

My understanding was that Tesch und Stabenow wasn't a part of the DEGESCH until that date, but a seperate company. I understand that they were forced into union with the DEGESCH as part of the war effort.

[Ross P.]

[REMOVED]

[Marcus]

Ross,

That kind of "jokes" are not tolerated here and any further such nonsense will get you kicked out.

/Marcus

[michael mills]

Walter Kaschner wrote:

If Mr. Mills has specific information to the contrary I would hope he would share it with us.

I suggest consulting the material at the following site:

http://www1.jur.uva.nl/junsv/Excerpts/415b004.htm

It is the court's summation of the system by which Zyklon-B was delivered to the various users.

According to it, the order to concentrate all deliveries to the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS through the Hauptsanitätspark occurred at the end of 1942.

Note also the documented use of the word "Vergasung" to indicate the fumigation of barracks.

[walterkaschner]

Walter Kaschner wrote:

If Mr. Mills has specific information to the contrary I would hope he would share it with us.

I suggest consulting the material at the following site:

http://www1.jur.uva.nl/junsv/Excerpts/415b004.htm

It is the court's summation of the system by which Zyklon-B was delivered to the various users.

According to it, the order to concentrate all deliveries to the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS through the Hauptsanitätspark occurred at the end of 1942.

Note also the documented use of the word "Vergasung" to indicate the fumigation of barracks.

Well, I had alredy read the material (at least in part and skimmed the balance) in the site recommended by Mr. Mills (for which he has my sincere thanks), which consists of excerpts from the judgement of a Frankfurt Court issued in March 1949 in a criminal proceeding against Dr. Gustav Peters, the head of Degesh during most of the period in question, and others. On the timing of the change in arrangements for handling orders of Zyklon B by the SS and the Wehrmacht that site has this to say:

Zu den wichtigsten Zyklon-Bedarfsträgern im Kriege gehörten Wehrmacht und Waffen-SS. Nach einem Erlass vom 22.7.1943 wurde der Bedarf dieser beiden Bedarfsträger durch den Hauptsanitätspark Berlin-Lichtenberg zentral beschafft. Dies ergibt sich aus einem Schreiben der Testa an die Degesch vom 13.April 1944 (Document No. NI-9096). Aus dem bereits erwähnten streng vertraulichen Bericht des Arbeitsausschusses vom 29.12.1942 ergibt sich weiter, dass solche Anordnungen schon gegen Ende 1942 ergangen sind. Auf Blatt 11 des Berichtes heisst es:

"Nach neueren Anordnungen wird der gesamte Bedarf der Wehrmacht an Entwesungsmitteln über den Hauptsanitätspark Berlin-Lichtenberg geleitet ...."

My rough translation:

Of those requiring Zyklon B during the war, the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS were among the most important. In accordance with a decree of August 22, 1943, the requirements of these two users were centrally supplied by the Head Sanitary Service in Berlin-Lichterfeld. This appears from a correspondence from Testa [Tesch and Stabenow] to Degesh of April 13, 1944 (Document No. NI-9096). From the heretofore mentioned highly confidential Report of the Work Committee of December 29, 1942, it further appears that such arrangements had already been announced toward the end of 1942. On page 11 of the report it says:

"Under new regulations the entire needs of the Wehrmacht for extermination materials will be transferred to the Head Sanitary Service in Berlin.

The Work Committee (Arbeitausschuss) referred to was a committee established by Degesh to coordinate the sales activities of Degesh and its two distribution agents, in both of which Degesh held a controlling interest until mid-1942, at which point Degesh transferred its interest in Tesch and Stabenow to Dr. Tesch.

I find it difficult to accept Mr. Mills' view that the Frankfurt Court found as a matter of fact that the orders from the SS for Auschwitz were directly handled by Head Sanitary Service in Berlin at the end of 1942, and that the testimony of witnesses in the Tesch trial figures for deliveries to Auschwitz in 1942 and 1943 were not credible and may have been suborned in some way. The statement by the Arbeitsausschuss (not an official governmental body) is couched in the future tense, and indicates to me that the action had not yet been taken.

Moreover, the Frankfurt Court later referred approvingly and at some length to the testimony of a witness (presumably Alfred Zaun) in the Tesch proceeding (apparently the witness the testimony of whom Mr. Mills finds not credible), and pointed out that his figures for delivery to Auschwitz were based not only on company records, but on separate and private records kept personnally by Dr. Tesch and periodically reconciled with Company records. There is no hint of any suspicion in the Frankfurt Court's mind that the testimony of this witness was incredible or might have been suborned.

Further, the Frankfurt Court quoted extensively from an affidavit given under oath by the defendant Dr. Peters as follows, which IMHO clearly indicates that responsibility for arranging deliveries to Auschwitz had not been shifted from Tesch and Stabenow until the end of 1943:

"..... Zu einer bestimmten Zeit im Jahre 1944 besuchte ein Mitglied der SS von dem Konzentrationslager Auschwitz Degesch in Friedberg und bat uns, etwas Zyklon B direkt nach Auschwitz zu liefern, da man einen Transport von 250000 ungarischen Juden erwartete, und Desinfektionsmittel waren erforderlich, um der Gefahr eines Ausbruchs vom Fleckfieber entgegentreten zu können. Diese Bitte wurde abgelehnt, da bereits eine Verständigung erzielt worden war, dass mit Wirkung von Ende 1943 oder Anfang des Jahres 1944 an alle Lieferungen für die Wehrmacht einschliesslich der SS durch HSP Berlin gemacht werden sollten.
Die zweite Gelegenheit war im Jahre 1943, als ich einen geheimen Befehl erhielt, auf Antrag von Dr. Mrugowski reines Blausäuregas an die persönliche Adresse, nämlich Berlin, Oranienburg, Knesebeckstrasse, einem Mann, der Gerstein hiess, zu liefern. Der erste Auftrag war über 200 kg und ich glaube, dass die ganze Lieferung 600-800 kg betrug. Man gab mir keine Gründe, aber es war für Versuche für die SS und für das OKH. Mir war nicht erlaubt, irgendetwas davon zu sagen, und würde dies auch nicht getan haben, da Berlin im Gebiet des Herrn Dr. Tesch war ...."

My rough translation:

At a certain time in 1944 a representative from the SS from the Auschwitz Concentration Camp visited Degesh in Friedberg and requested us to deliver some Zyklon B directly to Auschwitz, where a transport of 250,000 Hungarian Jews were awaited, and disinfection material was necessary in order to prevent the danger of an outbreak of typhus. This request was refused, as previously an arrangement had been reached that effective at the end of 1943 or the beginning of 1944 all deliveries to the Wehrmacht, including the SS, should be made through the HSP Berlin.

The second occasion was in the year 1943, when I received a secret order, on the proposal of Dr. Mrugowski, to deliver pure Prussic Acid to the personal address, namely Berlin, Oranienburg, Knesebeckstrasse, of a man named Gerstein. The first order was for over 200 kilos, and I believe the entire order involved 600-800 kilograms. I was given no reason except that it was for experiments by the SS and the Army. I was not to be allowed to say anything at all about it, and also would have done nothing about it, as Berlin was in Dr. Tesch's [distribution] area.....

I recognize this is a quibble, as Mr. Mills and I both seem to agree (albeit on somewhat different grounds) that the verdict against Dr. Tesch and Herr Weinbacher was a miscarriage of justice, but I still think it important to get the details straight (wherein the devil lies).



Dan wrote:

My understanding was that Tesch und Stabenow wasn't a part of the DEGESCH until that date, but a seperate company. I understand that they were forced into union with the DEGESCH as part of the war effort.

According to the judgement of the 1949 Frankfurt court, set forth in the site indicated by Mr. Mills above, Degesh held a 55 % interest in Tesch and Stabenow until June of 1942, at which point it transferred its interest to Dr. Tesch, apparently in settlement of a comercial dispute of some king. Tesch had previously bought out Stabenow's interest, and then became the sole owner of the firm. I have a suspicion that the transfer of Degesh ownership may have had something to do with the transfer of direct distribution responsibilities for deliveries to the Wehrmacht and the SS, for which Tesch and Stabenow had previously received a 10% - later reduced to 2 1/2% - commission, but after the transfer to the Head Sanitary Service in Berlin, received nothing.

Regards, Kaschner