Gas Chambers at KL Natzweiler

[Lord Gort]

Natzweiler was the only death camp built on French soil. It was the only camp to leave its gas chambers fully intact, as the guards fled before the allied advance.


regards,

[Lucius Felix Silla]

Dear Lord Gort,

Natzweiler gas chambers? So at Natzweiler were homicidal gas chambers?
How many? How many people have been killed? When these gas chambers have been in function? What species of gas have been employed?

Best Regards

LFS

[WalterS]

Here we go again......

[RACPISA]

Well, if this will help anyone, here's something I found about Natzweiler on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum website:

NATZWEILER-STRUTHOF

The Germans established the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp near the town of Natzweiler, about 31 miles southwest of Strasbourg, the capital of the province of Alsace (in eastern France). It was one of the smaller concentration camps built by the Germans. Until construction was completed in May 1941, prisoners slept in the nearby former Hotel Struthof, hence the name Natzweiler-Struthof. The camp held about 1,500 prisoners. Prisoners worked in nearby granite quarries, in construction projects, and in the maintenance of the camp.

Beginning in the summer of 1943, the Germans detained many "Night and Fog" prisoners in Natzweiler-Struthof. The "Night and Fog" (Nacht und Nebel) operation represented a German attempt to subdue growing anti-German resistance in western Europe. Suspected resistance fighters were arrested and their families were not notified; the prisoners simply disappeared into the "Night and Fog." Many prisoners in the Natzweiler-Struthof camp were members of the French resistance.

In August 1943, a gas chamber was constructed in Natzweiler-Struthof in one of the buildings that had formed part of the hotel compound. The bodies of more than 80 Jewish prisoners gassed at Natzweiler-Struthof were sent to the Strasbourg University Institute of Anatomy. There, anatomist Dr. August Hirt amassed a large collection of Jewish skeletons in order to establish Jewish "racial inferiority" by means of anthropological study. The gas chamber was also used in pseudoscientific medical experiments involving poison gas. The victims of these experiments were primarily Roma (Gypsies) who had been transferred from Auschwitz. Prisoners were also subjected to experiments involving treatment for typhus and yellow fever.

In 1944, concentration camp prisoners became increasingly important in German armaments production. The Germans used prisoners throughout the Natzweiler-Struthof camp system as forced laborers to produce arms and to construct underground manufacturing facilities. (Allied air raids on industrial complexes necessitated the construction of such facilities.)

There were about 50 subcamps in the Natzweiler-Struthof camp system, located in Alsace and Lorraine as well as in the adjacent German provinces of Baden and Wuerttemberg. By the fall of 1944, there were about 7,000 prisoners in the main camp and more than 20,000 in subcamps.

THE LIBERATION OF NATZWEILER-STRUTHOF

With the approach of Allied forces in September 1944, the main camp at Natzweiler-Struthof was evacuated and the prisoners distributed among the subcamps. In March 1945, the Germans disbanded the subcamps and sent most of the prisoners on death marches--forced marches over long distances and under brutal conditions--toward the Dachau concentration camp in southern Germany. From May 1941 to March 1945, more than 17,000 people died in the Natzweiler-Struthof camp system.

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?la ... d=10005337

And here's something else:

Natzweiler (by Struthof, Elsass): From August 1943 to August 1944 a gas chamber existed here in which between 120 and 200 people were killed through Zyklon B in order to be able to dissect their skeletons for the Anatomica Institute of University of Strassburg. Back then this institute was managed by a chief company commander of SS Prof. Dr. August Hirt.

http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holocaust/gascamp.html

[Lucius Felix Silla]

Well, if this will help anyone, here's something I found about Natzweiler on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum website:

NATZWEILER-STRUTHOF

The Germans established the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp near the town of Natzweiler, about 31 miles southwest of Strasbourg, the capital of the province of Alsace (in eastern France). It was one of the smaller concentration camps built by the Germans. Until construction was completed in May 1941, prisoners slept in the nearby former Hotel Struthof, hence the name Natzweiler-Struthof. The camp held about 1,500 prisoners. Prisoners worked in nearby granite quarries, in construction projects, and in the maintenance of the camp.

Beginning in the summer of 1943, the Germans detained many "Night and Fog" prisoners in Natzweiler-Struthof. The "Night and Fog" (Nacht und Nebel) operation represented a German attempt to subdue growing anti-German resistance in western Europe. Suspected resistance fighters were arrested and their families were not notified; the prisoners simply disappeared into the "Night and Fog." Many prisoners in the Natzweiler-Struthof camp were members of the French resistance.

In August 1943, a gas chamber was constructed in Natzweiler-Struthof in one of the buildings that had formed part of the hotel compound. The bodies of more than 80 Jewish prisoners gassed at Natzweiler-Struthof were sent to the Strasbourg University Institute of Anatomy. There, anatomist Dr. August Hirt amassed a large collection of Jewish skeletons in order to establish Jewish "racial inferiority" by means of anthropological study. The gas chamber was also used in pseudoscientific medical experiments involving poison gas. The victims of these experiments were primarily Roma (Gypsies) who had been transferred from Auschwitz. Prisoners were also subjected to experiments involving treatment for typhus and yellow fever.

In 1944, concentration camp prisoners became increasingly important in German armaments production. The Germans used prisoners throughout the Natzweiler-Struthof camp system as forced laborers to produce arms and to construct underground manufacturing facilities. (Allied air raids on industrial complexes necessitated the construction of such facilities.)

There were about 50 subcamps in the Natzweiler-Struthof camp system, located in Alsace and Lorraine as well as in the adjacent German provinces of Baden and Wuerttemberg. By the fall of 1944, there were about 7,000 prisoners in the main camp and more than 20,000 in subcamps.

THE LIBERATION OF NATZWEILER-STRUTHOF

With the approach of Allied forces in September 1944, the main camp at Natzweiler-Struthof was evacuated and the prisoners distributed among the subcamps. In March 1945, the Germans disbanded the subcamps and sent most of the prisoners on death marches--forced marches over long distances and under brutal conditions--toward the Dachau concentration camp in southern Germany. From May 1941 to March 1945, more than 17,000 people died in the Natzweiler-Struthof camp system.

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?la ... d=10005337

And here's something else:

Natzweiler (by Struthof, Elsass): From August 1943 to August 1944 a gas chamber existed here in which between 120 and 200 people were killed through Zyklon B in order to be able to dissect their skeletons for the Anatomica Institute of University of Strassburg. Back then this institute was managed by a chief company commander of SS Prof. Dr. August Hirt.

http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holocaust/gascamp.html

I must note that from supposed gas chamberS (Lord Gort It was the only camp to leave its gas chambers fully intact, as the guards fled before the allied advance. ) now we have only one gas chamber.

In other words: improvised gas chamber and casual gassings.

Pure fantasy. The presumed gas chamber of Struthof-Natzweiler in Alsace, a french regional departement, was only a refrigerator room situated in a hotel compound. Later was employed as chamber to test the resistance and reliability of militay gas masks esxclusively on german personnel (see the trial interrogations of german soldiers Adolf Becker, Herbert Dillmann, Robert Nitsch, Wolfgang Seuss under class. 244, 2311,12, 2318).

Dr. August Hirt, wasn't an anatomist but an expert on the employement of gas in war and his effects.

The history of the skeletons is purest mithology, as human soap, human tatto's and other rumors of war.

The french expert René Fabre in 1945, charged by allied military justice to analyze the chimical rests of HCN in the presumed gas chamber or on corpses of the people allegedly gassed, have found nothing and have excluded that the room was ever employed as gas chamber.

The "Nacht und Nabel" decret is another postwar invention. Please post the proof of the existence of this "Nacht und Nabel" decret.

Best Regards

LFS

[alf]

The french expert René Fabre in 1945, charged by allied military justice to analyze the chimical rests of HCN in the presumed gas chamber or on corpses of the people allegedly gassed, have found nothing and have excluded that the room was ever employed as gas chamber

Post Your proof, verifiable sources preferably internet based (as this site is internet based) or full name and title of book, authors ( with ISBN code) . I trust they wont be IHR, CODOH, RODOH.

Later was employed as chamber to test the resistance and reliability of militay gas masks esxclusively on german personnel (see the trial interrogations of german soldiers Adolf Becker, Herbert Dillmann, Robert Nitsch, Wolfgang Seuss under class. 244, 2311,12, 2318).

Again, what exact sources please, what trials, when, who convened, , etc,
Why were german troops testing gasmasks in France? Gas was never used by either side in Western Europe and specifically why were they testing for HCN? The only use of HCN was by Germany.
Please show the German Order for such testing.

Your confident dismal can only mean you have concrete proof to show us all.

many thanks

alf

[Lucius Felix Silla]

The french expert René Fabre in 1945, charged by allied military justice to analyze the chimical rests of HCN in the presumed gas chamber or on corpses of the people allegedly gassed, have found nothing and have excluded that the room was ever employed as gas chamber

Post Your proof, verifiable sources preferably internet based (as this site is internet based) or full name and title of book, authors ( with ISBN code) . I trust they wont be IHR, CODOH, RODOH.

Later was employed as chamber to test the resistance and reliability of militay gas masks esxclusively on german personnel (see the trial interrogations of german soldiers Adolf Becker, Herbert Dillmann, Robert Nitsch, Wolfgang Seuss under class. 244, 2311,12, 2318).

Again, what exact sources please, what trials, when, who convened, , etc,
Why were german troops testing gasmasks in France? Gas was never used by either side in Western Europe and specifically why were they testing for HCN? The only use of HCN was by Germany.
Please show the German Order for such testing.

Your confident dismal can only mean you have concrete proof to show us all.

many thanks

alf

Dear Mr. alf,

Np.

No secondary revisionist source, but primary sources:
-For Fabre research see: Tribunal Militaire permanent de la 10e région militaire, Strasbourg, procès de Struthof, Dossier nr.3
In this file from the French military court there was an expert report by Dr. Rene Fabre, Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacology in Paris. We know that Dr. Fabre had been charged with determining whether the bodies found at the Anatomy Institute in Strasbourg (and allegedly gassed by order of Dr. and thought to have been the bodies of people gassed" at Struthof bore any traces of poison. The conclusion of that expert report had been negative. There was no trace of hydrocyanic acid either in the bodies or in the scrapings from the alleged homocidal gas chamber, nor in thew debris from it (jars W and X).

For desposition of various german soldiers, see this same source dossier 4, liasse 12, pièce à covinction nr. 244, 2311, 2277, 2318.

I never speak of tests for HCN: it's Your invention.

For test was charged Prof. Bickenbach.
Professor Bickenbach had taken advantage of the existence of that gas chamber to make some tests there of the antidote to phosgene gas. As a matter of fact, the Germans had learned that the Allies, by the end of 1942, were stockpiling large quantities of phosgene gas in North Africa and they feared a bombing of German cities with it. The professor had tested an antidote (urotropine) first on himself and then on some detainees from the camp who, we are told, came forward voluntarily in exchange for rewards in the form of food or cigarettes. As a result there were two or three accidental deaths of persons after they had been hospitalized-

Now, at my own turn i ask you:

Besides the declarations of US Holocaust memorial Museum, which in my country exactly as in Your- i suppose - isn't a proof, You can show me a proof of the existence of one homicidal gas chamber at Struthof-Natzweiler?

Many thanks

LFS

[David Thompson]

LFS -- You said:

Dr. August Hirt, wasn't an anatomist but an expert on the employement of gas in war and his effects.

The history of the skeletons is purest mithology, as human soap, human tatto's and other rumors of war.

and

The "Nacht und Nabel" decret is another postwar invention. Please post the proof of the existence of this "Nacht und Nabel" decret.

Although there are occasionally exceptions, the forum management tries to keep a thread on a single topic. This makes it easier for readers to follow, and for researchers to subsequently locate, the discussions. If you would like to see further discussion of these questions, please raise them in separate threads.

[Lucius Felix Silla]

OK, but i have only answer to a back message-

LFS

[alf]

Dr. August Hirt, wasn't an anatomist but an expert on the employement of gas in war and his effects.

I will address some points to, there are primary source documents available showing the above to be wrong

http://www.mazal.org/NO-series/NO-0086-000.htm
The letter clearly shows Dr August Hirt liased with Himmler to obtain 150 jewish skeletons for his "research".

This source document fits in exactly with what is known about the gas chamber at Concentration Camp.

In August 1943, a gas chamber was constructed in Natzweiler-Struthof in one of the buildings that had formed part of the hotel compound. The bodies of more than 80 Jewish prisoners gassed at Natzweiler-Struthof were sent to the Strasbourg University Institute of Anatomy. There, anatomist Dr. August Hirt amassed a large collection of Jewish skeletons in order to establish Jewish "racial inferiority" by means of anthropological study. The gas chamber was also used in pseudoscientific medical experiments involving poison gas. The victims of these experiments were primarily Roma (Gypsies) who had been transferred from Auschwitz. Prisoners were also subjected to experiments involving treatment for typhus and yellow fever

.

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?la ... d=10005337

As to war trials I see that the British conducted the War Crimes trial in April 1946

Between April 9 and May 5 of 1946, the British held a war crimes trial at Wuppertal, Germany for those in charge of Natzweiler-Struthof. The commandant and five others were tried and all of the accused were found guilty of which three were sentenced to death. SOE agent Brian Stonehouse and PAT Line operator Albert Guerisse testified that while being held prisoner there, they had seen the four female SOE agents who were executed.

The sentence of commandant Fritz Hartjenstein was eventually commutted to life imprisonment while two were hanged on October 11, 1946. Those tried were:

Franz Berg : Death sentence (Executed)
Kurt Geigling : 10 Years Imprisonment
Fritz Hartjenstein (commandant) : Death sentence (Commutted)
Josef Muth : 15 Years Imprisonment
Peter Straub : Death sentence (Executed)
Magnus Wochner : 10 Years Imprisonment

http://www.campusprogram.com/reference/ ... uthof.html

Back to the original post by Lord Gort, there is primary source evidence that a gas chamber was used at the Camp from 1943, its primary function was to murder prisoners for "research".

It is not disputed the camp was not a death camp, its primary function was always an SS labour camp, but over 12,000 of the 40,000 prisoners died there.

[Dan]

The course of wisdom for those who believe in 2-3 million Jews gassed to death is to forget this particular gas chamber, and focus on the Polish camps. Defending this one just make the case harder. Some Commandant ordered some stuff from the local drug store and it's illegal to do forensic research on the site, or indeed to question it at all in France.

[Lord Gort]

I hadnt realised that this had turned into a thread and so I apologise for a lack of response to the thread.

I cant remember where I read it, and so hold my hands up to being wrong, but I do remember reading that at Natzweiler the chambers were kept intact.

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?la ... d=10005337

In August 1943, a gas chamber was constructed in Natzweiler-Struthof in one of the buildings that had formed part of the hotel compound. The bodies of more than 80 Jewish prisoners gassed at Natzweiler-Struthof were sent to the Strasbourg University Institute of Anatomy. There, anatomist Dr. August Hirt amassed a large collection of Jewish skeletons in order to establish Jewish "racial inferiority" by means of anthropological study. The gas chamber was also used in pseudoscientific medical experiments involving poison gas. The victims of these experiments were primarily Roma (Gypsies) who had been transferred from Auschwitz. Prisoners were also subjected to experiments involving treatment for typhus and yellow fever.


As to whether they were captured intact, I will look further into it.

Friendly regards,

[Lucius Felix Silla]

Dr. August Hirt, wasn't an anatomist but an expert on the employement of gas in war and his effects.

I will address some points to, there are primary source documents available showing the above to be wrong

http://www.mazal.org/NO-series/NO-0086-000.htm
The letter clearly shows Dr August Hirt liased with Himmler to obtain 150 jewish skeletons for his "research".

This source document fits in exactly with what is known about the gas chamber at Concentration Camp.

In August 1943, a gas chamber was constructed in Natzweiler-Struthof in one of the buildings that had formed part of the hotel compound. The bodies of more than 80 Jewish prisoners gassed at Natzweiler-Struthof were sent to the Strasbourg University Institute of Anatomy. There, anatomist Dr. August Hirt amassed a large collection of Jewish skeletons in order to establish Jewish "racial inferiority" by means of anthropological study. The gas chamber was also used in pseudoscientific medical experiments involving poison gas. The victims of these experiments were primarily Roma (Gypsies) who had been transferred from Auschwitz. Prisoners were also subjected to experiments involving treatment for typhus and yellow fever

.

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?la ... d=10005337

As to war trials I see that the British conducted the War Crimes trial in April 1946

Between April 9 and May 5 of 1946, the British held a war crimes trial at Wuppertal, Germany for those in charge of Natzweiler-Struthof. The commandant and five others were tried and all of the accused were found guilty of which three were sentenced to death. SOE agent Brian Stonehouse and PAT Line operator Albert Guerisse testified that while being held prisoner there, they had seen the four female SOE agents who were executed.

The sentence of commandant Fritz Hartjenstein was eventually commutted to life imprisonment while two were hanged on October 11, 1946. Those tried were:

Franz Berg : Death sentence (Executed)
Kurt Geigling : 10 Years Imprisonment
Fritz Hartjenstein (commandant) : Death sentence (Commutted)
Josef Muth : 15 Years Imprisonment
Peter Straub : Death sentence (Executed)
Magnus Wochner : 10 Years Imprisonment

http://www.campusprogram.com/reference/ ... uthof.html

Back to the original post by Lord Gort, there is primary source evidence that a gas chamber was used at the Camp from 1943, its primary function was to murder prisoners for "research".

It is not disputed the camp was not a death camp, its primary function was always an SS labour camp, but over 12,000 of the 40,000 prisoners died there.

Dear Mr. alf,

1) What letter? At Your link don't exist any letter, but only a resumé provided by an Allied officer.
Also if this letter exists, i don't see none reference to any gas chamber.

2) Your reference is to another process, because allied proesecutors have conducted more of one prrocess against various commander of the camp, the most famous being the trial against Josef Kramer, which i have indicated.

Best Regards

LFS

[xcalibur]

Dr. August Hirt wasn't an anatomist but an expert in the employment of gas and his (sic) effects

Then why was he the Chairman of the Anatomy Department at Strasbourg University? What's next, Himmler wasn't Reichsfuhrer-SS but he was a chicken farmer".

The history of the skeletons is the purest mithology (sic)....

Here I refer you to the testimony (and attendant documents) of Dr. Wolfram Sievers given at Nuremberg 8 August 1946.

You can look that up as I'm not willing to take the time to post something that you will deny the veracity of anyway.

[Lucius Felix Silla]

Dear Mr. (Dr.) xcalibur,

OK, i was wrong about Dr. August Hirt. No problem to concede this. I'm not perfect. Also my english isn't perfect, exactly as, i suspect, Your latin french, german, italianor spanish. Surely Your knownledge of german crematoria is really poor. Nobody is perfect. But the problem of the gas chamber of Natzweiler is still intact. I don't have yet see any single proof.
And You're wrong when You say that i will deny all evidence. When You or others will provide to my good material i can acknowledged my errors or change my mind. On some aspects (as Einsatzgruppen activity on eastern front) i don't have ever denied the historical truth of these horrible massacres. On other aspects of the Holocaust, i'm skeptic. It's a crime?

Best Regards

LFS