Zyklon B and the German Delousing Chambers
TODAY AT THE FORMER German concentration camp at Dachau,
it is no longer claimed that Jews or anyone else were ever killed in
the gas chamber there. In the room that is supposedly a gas chamber,
one can clearly read a sign written by the museum authorities in five
languages which says, "THE GAS CHAMBER disguised as a 'shower room'-never
used as a gas chamber." [1] Although the room was completed in 1942, it
was never used for its intended purpose-presumably, it was used for
other purposes; perhaps it was used as a shower room after all.
At the western end of the crematorium building which
houses the so-called gas chamber "disguised as a shower room," one can
today see and walk through four delousing chambers which were used to
fumigate clothing. [2] The only explanation
regarding these chambers is a sign above them, also in five languages,
which simply says "Fumigation cubicles" in English and Desinfektionskammern
in German. There is no mention anywhere within the camp of the important
fact that these chambers used Zyklon-B to fumigate clothing as well
as other articles placed within the chambers.
The "shower room" is not a gas chamber at all, but the
so-called "fumigation cubicles" are gas chambers. Moreover, the "fumigation
cubicles " are extremely well-designed gas chambers which represented,
and may still represent, the state of the art in gas chamber design.
They were the product of more than 20 years of research and development
into the application of hydrocyanic acid (often referred to simply as
cyanide) for the extermination of vermin. This is clearly shown by the
extensive German technical literature from the end of World War I through
World War II on this subject. [3]
The delousing chambers at Dachau were far superior in
design to the gas chambers which are still used in this country for
the execution of criminals. As a consequence of their design, the operating
procedures for the delousing chambers at Dachau were quite simple; for
example, although gas masks had to be available, the operators were
only required to use them in emergencies or in special situations. By
contrast, the American gas chambers for executions still require the
use of gas masks during the normal post-execution procedures. Compared
to the American gas chambers, the German delousing chambers at Dachau
were also safer to operate and far less expensive to construct. [4]
At the end of this article I have added a translation
of one of the many articles that can be found in the German wartime
technical and medical literature discussing the proper use of Zyklon-B
for the control of typhus through the extermination of its principal
carrier, the body louse. (See appendix.) The article by Emil Wustinger
is especially important because of the numbers it gives to show the
extent to which the Zyklon-B delousing technology was actually used
by the Germans to save people from the ravages of typhus. According
to Wustinger, 25 million people had already had their clothing and personal
belongings fumigated from the start of the war until the beginning of
1944. This number is, interestingly enough, the same as the one which
appears in the Gerstein statement as the number of people who had been
"killed" in gas chambers.
The delousing chamber represented by the drawing in
Wustinger's article is the standard ten-cubic-meter model which seems
to have been used most often. It is essentially identical to the four
chambers - "fumigation cubicles" - that one can still see today in the
Dachau crematorium building. Even the interior dimensions are the same:
The interior length is four meters, the interior height is 1.9 meters
and the interior width is 1.35 meters, which gives a total interior
volume of about ten cubic meters. The only significant difference between
the delousing chamber portrayed in the drawing and the four chambers
that one can still see in Dachau is that the cutouts in the walls containing
some of the circulatory system apparatus are in the upper left corners
of the chambers instead of in the lower left corners. The blowers above
each chamber, a separate blower for each chamber, are no longer present
although most of the piping, including the vent piping, remains.
The blowers, in effect, drove the entire fumigation
process. Initially, each blower would accelerate the evaporation of
hydrocyanic acid out of the porous Zyklon-B granules placed inside the
chamber by forcing warm air through the granules and then circulating
the resulting air and hydrocyanic acid gas mixture throughout all of
the clothing and articles within the chamber. Finally, each blower forcevented
the lethal gas mixture out of the chamber up a vent pipe through the
roof to atmosphere and replaced the lethal gas with fresh air so that
the chamber doors could be opened without endangering the operator.
Each chamber was designed so that it would normally
be operated without the operator having to wear a gas mask except in
an emergency. According to Dr. Gerhard Peters, writing in 1940 about
the recently perfected gas chamber design:
Last but not least, it is an essential requirement that the operating
personnel not come into direct contact with the hydrocyanic acid
and also not be hindered unnecessarily with gas masks. The new design
therefore provides that the entire process and even the venting
occur behind closed doors; the equipment can be controlled from
outside without anti-gas protection (ohne Gasschutz) since the hydrocyanic
acid container is opened automatically only within the chamber.
(Gas masks need only be available for special situations.) [emphasis
as in the original]' The most significant feature of these designs
is that a chamber so equipped for generating the gas and for controlling
circulation can be operated without anti-gas protection. Thanks
to the special arrangement of the equipment, one can ventilate with
the doors closed which can be regarded as an especially great advantage
. . . [emphasis as in the original] Without doubt this design has
had the greatest significance on the mass application of hydrocyanic
acid fumigation facilities for mass delousing since it is only with
such installations that dependable results can be achieved in unusually
short periods (1 hour treatment). [6]
An accurate explanation of the role of the delousing
chambers with their blowers would, no doubt, have caused many visitors
to wonder why the Germans never used these devices for mass-murder.
Each of the four delousing chambers had an interior floor space of 5.4
square meters and certainly could have been used to kill several dozen
people at a time. And yet such an application for these chambers has
never been alleged. One problem would have been that some of the circulatory
system apparatus-including the four-way valve, the can-opener and the
heater-is exposed to the interior and could have been damaged quite
easily by anyone trapped inside. This apparatus could, however, have
been shielded by some kind of metal grill-but there is no evidence that
any such shielding was ever present.
The four delousing chambers could have been adapted
for mass-extermination in another way which would have been obvious
to many visitors. Instead of blowing the hydrocyanic acid vapors to
atmosphere through the vent pipe at the end of a typical fumigation
cycle, the same gas could have been blown through another pipe into
the "shower room" located approximately in the middle of the same building
about 60 feet away. As soon as a sufficiently lethal concentration of
cyanide vapors had been attained inside the 44shower room, " the blowers
could have been shut down for as long as needed, several minutes would
probably have been enough, to allow the gas to kill its victims. Afterwards,
the blowers could have been restarted to ventilate the shower room by
blowing fresh air into the room. Such a method would have worked, although
for reasons which will be given later on, the arrangement would have
been far more effective if it included some piping or ductwork to circulate
the air-gas mixture. Ideally, some vent piping should have also been
provided for the shower room so as to cause the potentially lethal gas
to be discharged above the roof of the building instead of into the
surroundings near ground level.
Wustinger's article also discusses the advantages of
hydrocyanic acid gas chambers over delousing chambers which used hot
air. The hot air method and a steam method (not discussed in the article)
both relied on high temperature to kill lice and other vermin. Both
methods were somewhat safer since they did not involve the use of a
poisonous substance. However, both of these alternatives had other problems.
If a high enough temperature was not maintained long enough, particularly
in the center of the chamber, which would have been insulated somewhat
by the presence of a load of clothing, the delousing procedure would
not have been effective. In addition, maintaining a high temperature
within a chamber meant that the chamber had to be far better insulated
and for this reason required a heavier, more expensive structure. A
great deal of precious fuel also had to be consumed in order to generate
the necessary heat. High temperatures tended to damage leather goods,
foods, and some types of equipment which required fumigation from time
to time.
The high temperature approach, whether it involved steam
or hot air, was used more often in Eastern regions occupied by the Germans.
This was because of the shortage of the trained specialists which were
needed whenever one worked with Zyklon-B. The Zyklon method was generally
employed within the Reich itself.
Zyklon B
Until the introduction of DDT by the Americans and by the Germans
in 1944, the delousing of not only clothing but also living quarters,
especially barracks, and~railroad trains in order to kill body lice
was the only effective means of controlling the spread of typhus. Until
the arrival of DDT, the most effective pesticide for killing body lice,
i.e., for delousing, was Zyklon-B.
When Exterminationists claim, as Raul Hilberg did in
The Destruction of the European Jews (1961 edition, pp. 565-67) that
Zyklon-B was simply the commercial name for prussic acid (hydrocyanic
acid is the chemical term generally used for prussic acid), or that
it was hydrogen cyanide solidified in pellets which passed "immediately"
into the gaseous state upon being dropped into a gas chamber, they merely
show that they have no idea as to what their great murder weapon really
was.
Zyklon-B was, and still is, essentially a porous material
with liquid hydrocyanic acid absorbed into it with a small amount of
chemical stabilizer and warning ingredient added. [
7]
The absorbent material was generally diatomaceous earth but paper discs
were also used, especially in the United States. After the hydrocyanic
acid had completely evaporated, the porous material-now completely harmless-could
be returned to a Zyklon dealer and refilled.
The speed with which hydrocyanic acid evaporates out
of the Zyklon granules or paper discs is not instantaneous. Although
the hydrocyanic acid does immediately begin to leave the porous material
as soon as a can of Zyklon-B is opened, that does not mean it leaves
all at once. On the contrary, it still takes about half an hour for
most of the cyanide to leave under normal conditions and under normal
room temperature, about 68 F. Even more time is needed for all the cyanide
to leave the granules.
According to Dr. Gerhard Peters, who was the managing
director of DEGESCH and who from the early 1930's through World War
II was probably the most prolific advocate of Zyklon-B: [
8]
. . . As a general rule, the material is spread out in a layer which
is 1/2 to 1 cm thick, after which most of the hydrocyanic acid has
already evolved after half an hour. [
9]
Although the process begins immediately, it is nonetheless
a gradual process. It can be speeded up by dispersing the granules in
thinner layers or by using smaller granules to begin with or-what is
most important in order to understand how the standard delousing chambers
worked-by forcing air through the granules and/or by the addition of
heat.
The importance of heat not only to prevent condensation
during the venting of a cyanide gas chamber but also during the gassing
phase itself is evident from the very title of a German patent which
was granted to DEGESCH in 1940. The title of patent no. 700469 which
took effect retroactively on July 26, 1934 reads:
Method for generating the necessary heat for the vaporization of
poisonous substances for gases used for pest control [emphasis added]
The text of the patent explains at some length the
need for heating in order to accelerate the release of fumigating gases
such as hydrocyanic acid. The patent includes a schematic drawing showing
the same circulatory equipment arrangement which was probably used in
all of the standard DEGESCH gas chambers.
The importance of heat to the venting process is spelled
out in the following text from Peters and Wustinrer.
. . . As a consequence of the extensive preheating of the fresh
air entering at D, the venting of the chamber is completed in 10
to 15 minutes. The carts can then be driven out and the articles
of clothing can be immediately returned to their owners who in the
meantime have had their bodies deloused. [
10]
The Fumigation Cycle in the German Delousing Chambers
The fumigation cycle consisted of two phases: (1) a circulation (Kreislauf)
phase, known in non-technical jargon simply as the "gassing" phase,
and (2) a venting (Lotting) phase. " Switching from one phase to the
other was accomplished by simply turning a crank handle 180 degrees
on the outside of the chamber. The crank handle was linked to a special
four-way valve located on the inside of the chamber (see figure 1 in
the translation of the article by Emil Wustinger).
The circulation phase lasted about an hour and the ventilation
phase lasted at least fifteen minutes. In practice, however, it seems
to have taken longer. There is, for example, a well-known photograph
of an American soldier in Dachau looking at one of the delousing chamber
doors upon which there is a notice in German which says that the fumigation
time (Gaszeit) was from 7:30 until at least 10. [
12]
To start the delousing process, a can of Zyklon-B inside
the chamber was opened from outside the chamber by means of the specially
designed can-opener with the chamber doors shut. Once the can was opened,
the next step was to turn the crank handle on the outside of the chamber
180 degrees to the "Kreislauf" (circulation) position which in turn
caused the Zyklon-B can inside the chamber to be turned upside down,
thereby dumping the Zyklon-B granules through a chute into a wire-mesh
basket. Meanwhile, air was circulated by the blower through a closed
loop which consisted of the chamber itself as well as the four-way valve,
the basket and a heater. The air was heated before it passed through
the granules in the basket. The heated air drove the hydrocyanic acid
out of the granules so that the circulating air became mixed with an
increasingly lethal dosage of cyanide. The resulting lethal gas mixture
was circulated throughout the chamber-hence the name: "circulatory gas
chamber"-to insure thorough penetration into all possible hiding places
within the clothing and articles being fumigated.
After at least an hour, the operator could begin the
venting phase by turning the crank handle 180 degrees to the "Luftung"
(venting) position. The blower continued to operate as before. The four-way
valve would now allow fresh air to be drawn into the chamber from the
opening surrounding the crank handle stem in the outside wall of the
chamber. As the fresh air passed through the valve and then the heater,
it was heated above the boiling point of hydrocyanic acid, which is
78.6 F. [
13]
The warm air then continued
on through the Zyklon-B granules in the basket and drove any remaining
traces of hydrocyanic acid out of the granules. The air then entered
the chamber as a whole and eventually left the chamber from an opening
at the extreme end of the opposite side of the chamber, returned to
the blower, and then went down into the four-way valve once again, but
this time instead of going around again in a closed loop, the gas mixture
was directed up the vent pipe by the four-way valve and discharged into
the atmosphere. The gas mixture was discharged high enough so that the
otherwise lethal gas was so diluted by fresh air that people in the
vicinity were not affected. In the process, the temperature of the entire
chamber, including the chamber walls, was raised above the boiling point
of hydrocyanic acid in order to prevent any subsequent condensation
of the cyanide vapors either in the clothing, in any other articles,
or on the walls. The walls, floor and ceiling were specially coated
to minimize absorption of cyanide into the structure itself.
One final step which was sometimes stressed in the German
technical literature was that the articles that had been fumigated still
should be aired in the open for at least five minutes before they were
returned to their owners
The Circulation Principle (Kreislautprinzip)
The importance of good circulation to the proper operation of the
German delousing chambers cannot be overemphasized. In the German literature,
especially the material from the DEGESCH company itself, circulation
of the air-cyanide mixture was always and still is emphasized as a major
feature of all of the standardized gas chambers and of good gas chamber
design in general.
As recently as 1979, the DEGESCH company was still promoting
its own design of fumigation chambers for Zyklon-B with the following
information in English:
Whether the fumigation chamber is a permanent installation or mobile,
a DEGESCH circulatory device makes it possible to operate safely
and quickly, and ensures success. [emphasis added] Mobile fumigation
chambers are of great advantage: As they can be attached to any
tractor or lorry, their possibilities for use are almost unlimited.
They are economical in price and running. The standard sizes are
2 ml, and 20 m3, other sizes can be constructed according to special
requirements. Stationary chambers are made from steel, bricks or
concrete. If constructed from bricks or concrete they must be sealed
by applying a suitable coating. Neither service personnel nor unauthorized
persons come into contact with the gas; one person alone can operate
the fumigation chamber; a gas-mask need not be worn. The gas-air-mixture
is circulated, thus accelerating penetration and reducing exposure
time. [emphasis added] After treatment, the gas can be cleared quickly
and safely. [14]
The terminology "DEGESCH circulatory device" was used
to identify the mechanical equipment such as the four-way valve, heater,
can-opener and blower which DEGESCH sold." The structure-walls, floor
and ceiling-without the mechanical equipment seems to have generally
been built by the customer himself or by an independent contractor.
Zyklon-B and cyanide do not have magic properties. The
cyanide does not hunt down living creatures "like radar" as has been
advertised for at least one currently popular insecticide. On the contrary,
cyanide must obey the same laws of nature that steam or hot air have
to obey in a similar situation. The advantage cyanide has as far as
its distribution is concerned is due primarily to its low boiling point
and its small molecular size. Although cyanide does indeed have great
penetrating power, the penetrating rate is severely reduced by obstructions
such as clothing unless those obstructions are overcome by some means
such as forced circulation through a well-designed chamber with good
flow patterns for the gas.
Figure 2 shows just how essential good circulation is to the design
of an effective gas chamber. It was apparently based upon careful
tests in which cyanide concentrations in various parts of a standard
gas chamber were measured over at least two separate, three hour
periods. One group of tests was made with the blower operating and
with the four-way valve in the "circulation" position. The second
group of tests was made with the blower idle.
The test results in Figure 2 are not at all surprising.
They are generally just about what common sense would tell us to expect.
It is a pleasant surprise, however, to be able to see the importance
of proper circulation illustrated so clearly. The test results were
obviously published first by DEGESCH and then by others in order to
re-emphasize the importance of circulation as clearly as possible.
With circulation, the cyanide levels are relatively
high and uniform throughout the chamber within about one hour. Without
circulation, the cyanide levels are relatively high after one hour in
only one corner, presumably the corner nearest to the basket with the
Zyklon-B granules. Without circulation, comparable cyanide levels are
achieved in the center of the filled chamber only after three hours;
after only one hour, the gas hardly penetrated at all to the center
of the chamber.
The emphasis upon circulation or Kreislauf, not only
in the DEGESCH literature but also in countless articles in the German
wartime literature on Zyklon-B and delousing, is apparent even in the
terminology: Kreislaufkammer, Kreislaufanordnung, Kreislaufap paratur,
Kreislaufleitung, Kreislauggerdte, Kreislaufanlagen, Kreislaufprinzip,
etc. But even more than that, the front of each DEGESCH circulatory
chamber was usually marked with the word Kreislauf to identify one of
the two positions of the four-way valve. The operating phase during
which cyanide was applied during the two-phase fumigation cycle was
known as the Kreislauf phase. The point is that it would have been impossible
to have any expertise at all in the use of cyanide and/or Zyklon-B without
being well aware of the advantages of proper circulation for any application
of this technology. How then could any would-be mass murderers have
possibly been unaware of the need for circulation in their cyanide gas
chambers for mass-murder? How could they have been oblivious to the
significance of Kreislauf ? And yet, they must have been oblivious-that
is precisely what must have happened if one is to take the "Holocaust"
literature at all seriously.
In any event, the would-be mass murderers even if they
had been totally illiterate amateurs, wholly ignorant of the importance
of circulation-would have seen that something was seriously wrong with
their method after one or more botched attempts at exterminating people
with cyanide in chambers without circulation.
Hydrocyanic Acid Gas Chambers for Mass-Murder?
Although the murder weapon is the focus of a great deal of investigation
and analysis in any ordinary murder case, alas, when one is dealing
with the "Holocaust" story one finds nothing comparable regarding what
were supposedly the greatest murder weapons in history.
In the main camp of the Auschwitz concentration camp
complex, a gas chamber was supposedly used until the end of 1942 to
murder about 76,000 people. That room can be visited today in its "reconstructed
state." In design and appearance it is nothing more than a dreary cellar,
just like most cellars, except for some holes in the ceiling." Zyklon-B
granules were supposedly dumped through these holes into the chamber
where they would have fallen upon the heads and among the feet of the
intended victims. The room is separated only by a door from another
room containing crematorium ovens and has no ventilating equipment at
all. For these reasons as well as for others which are beyond the scope
of this article, many of which have however been given in the past by
Dr. Robert Faurisson and Ditlieb Felderer, the claim that this room
was a gas chamber for mass murder is pure rubbish.
Probably the most plausible description of a gas chamber
using cyanide for mass murder is the following description from Filip
Muller of the cellar in Krematorium 2 in Auschwitz-Birkenau in which
3,000 people were supposedly killed at a time:
We left the mortuary and came to a huge iron-mounted wooden door;
it was not locked. We entered a place which was in total darkness.
As we switched on the light, the room was lit by bulbs enclosed
in a protective wire cage. We were standing in a large oblong room
measuring about 250 square meters. Its unusually low ceiling and
walls were white-washed. Down the length of the room concrete pillars
supported the ceiling. However, not all the pillars served this
purpose: for there were others, too. The Zyclon B gas crystals [sic]
were inserted through openings into hollow pillars made of sheet
metal. They were perforated at regular intervals and inside them
a spiral ran from top to bottom in order to ensure as even a distribution
of the granular crystals as possi ble. Mounted on the ceiling was
a large number of dummy showers made of metal. These were intended
to delude the suspicious on entering the gas chamber into believing
that they were in a shower-room. A ventilating plant was installed
in the wall; this was switched on immediately after each gassing
to disperse the gas and expedite the removal of corpses. [
18]
Although a "ventilation plant" is mentioned by Muller,
that does not mean there was anything even remotely comparable to the
kind of ventilation and circulation which would have been needed.
According to Muller, the "Zyclon B gas crystals" [
19]
were dropped, presumably from the outside of the chamber, into hollow
perforated pillars with spirals. The Zyklon granules (not crystals at
all) would have slid down the spirals to the bottom of the pillars.
The ventilation plant was supposedly "switched on immediately
after each gassing." [emphasis added] In other words, during the gassing
itself, the ventilation plant must have been off; there could have been
no circulation of the air-gas mixture through the gas chamber during
the gassing itself.
Although cyanide vapors would have gradually left the
granules, their path would have been obstructed first by the "perforated"
sheet metal pillars and then by those intended victims who were crammed
into the spaces around the pillars. If one takes at all seriously the
accounts of three thousand victims being killed at a time, the perforated
pillars would have been surrounded rather tightly by the intended victims.
Those who were in the immediate vicinity of the pillars would have probably
been affected by the cyanide in just a few minutes but-on the basis
of figure 2-many, if not most, of the others would have been unaffected
by the cyanide until hours later.
But let us give the benefit of doubt to the Exterminationists
for the sake of this analysis. Perhaps Muller was somewhat mistaken
and perhaps the "ventilation plant" had been switched on during the
actual gassing. What then?
Even if the ventilation plant had been switched on during
the gassing phase, there is no evidence that the necessary piping or
ductwork was present to permit proper circulation. On the contrary,
the bottom of each "perforated" pillar would have been, in effect, a
cul-de-sac through which there could not possibly have been the kind
of air or gas flow which circulated through the wire-mesh baskets in
the standard delousing chambers even if there had been some provision
for returning the ventilation plant discharge back to the gas chamber
through some kind of closed loop arrangement. Any conceivable closed
loop could not possibly have included the Zyklon granules themselves
since they would have been isolated at the bottoms of the perforated
pillars. The evaporation of the cyanide out of the Zyklon-B granules
would have taken hours rather than minutes. And yet, according to the
so-called confession of Rudolf H�ss, the former camp commandant of Auschwitz,
the gassing process was so short that after only half an hour the gas
chamber doors were opened, the ventilating machinery was turned on,
and workers without gas masks immediately began to remove the bodies.
Obviously, the Muller account and the Höss "confession"
are nothing more than badly contrived horror stories. The mechanics,
reminiscent of Rube Goldberg inventions, may seem plausible at first
glance but simply do not stand up to critical examination.
The Railroad Delousing Tunnels
The abundance of Zyklon-B delousing chambers, even within concentration
camps, is in itself a major problem for the accepted "Holocaust" story
because here were well-designed pilot plants for committing mass-murder
on a relatively small scale before attempting to kill on a massive scale;
here were the ideal models to follow in order to construct scaled-up
versions for mass-murder. Here was the proper technology for mass-murder
with cyanide-but this technology, the delousing chamber technology,
was supposedly never used for such a purpose.
More surprising is the fact that large, scaled-up versions
of the small delousing chambers actually did exist in locations which
were far more accessible than any of the so-called extermination camps.
Those chambers employed the same circulatory principle and used Zyklon-B
to fumigate railroad trains-but, those chambers were never used for
mass-murder either.
Larger chambers for fumigating entire railroad trains
existed throughout German-occupied Europe in about a dozen different
locations including Cologne, Poznan (Posen), Potsdam, and Budapest. [
20]
They had become a standard feature of the railroad network in order
to prevent the spread of typhus, particularly from Eastern Europe, where
typhus had always been endemic.
The would-be murderers could have simply brought railroad
cars filled with Jews into these large chambers, one or two cars at
a time, killed the intended victims and then ventilated the cars within
just a few hours. Each gassing, including venting of one or two railroad
cars, would have still taken at least one-and-a-half hours-far longer
than the half-hour which is all that was supposedly needed at Auschwitz
according to Höss and others.'
By using the railroad delousing tunnels, which ranged
in size from about 400 cubic meters to as much as 1700 cubic meters,
the mass-murderers would not have had to transport their intended victims
halfway across Europe in the midst of a war in which Germany was desperately
trying to conserve meager resources such as railroads and fuel.
Typhus
Throughout World War II severe outbreaks of typhus occurred in the
German-occupied East. Especially in the last year of the war, with disaster
falling upon Europe and with millions of people fleeing to the West
from parts of Europe where typhus had always been endemic, Zyklon-B
became the great life-saver. Although DDT and some other substances
such as the IG Farben product "Lauseto" had become available, the quantities
were severely limited by the bombing of German chemical and pharmaceutical
plants. Without Zyklon-B carrying on in the role it had established
for itself in the early years of the war, the horrible scenes in isolated
places such as Bergen-Belsen in the spring of 1945 would have certainly
been repeated on a far more spectacular scale. What actually happened
was bad enough.
There could have been a repeat of what had happened
during and after World War I in Eastern Europe. The situation in Russia
during that period had been described by the eminent American medical
historian Hans Zinsser as follows:
. . . Will historians of this period remember that, throughout the
struggles which led to the establishment of the Soviet Republic,
Russia suffered-in addition to war and armed revolution-from two
cholera epidemics, from a famine unequaled since the Thirty Years
War, from typhus, malaria, typhoid, dysentery, tuberculosis, and
syphilis to an ex tent unimaginable except to those who were helpless
spectators? Tarassewitch estimated (statistics of accuracy were
impossible) that between 1917 and 1923 there were 30,000,000 cases
of typhus with 3.000.000 deaths in European Russia alone. [
23]
The losses in the Ukraine, the Balkans and Poland were
probably comparable to those suffered in Russia but the historians have
forgotten.
During World War II, the losses in Eastern Europe may
have been even worse than those indicated by Zinsser and Tarassewitch
for the earlier period. However, the true statistics would not serve
the interests of the Soviet Union and for this reason they will probably
never be available.
In the West the true statistics are also kept quiet
but for a different reason: they would diminish the sense that Jews
had been the victims of an extermination policy. The proof of this statement
is in the speeches of President Reagan and Chancellor Helmut Kohl and
in the news coverage in 1985 regarding Reagan's visit to Bitburg and
Bergen-Belsen. At that time, the truth as to what had happened in Bergen-Belsen
at the end of the war should have been made public as part of the media
coverage which began several months before the visit-but it was not.
Although it _as long been conceded that the true horrors of Bergen-Belsen
had nothing whatever to do with an extermination policy, the President,
the media and even the chancellor of West Germany did their best to
portray Bergen-Belsen to the general public as proof of an extermination
program against the Jews.
There is a substantial body of statistical evidence
which shows that during the first two years of the war more than three-fourths
of all cases of typhus in Poland occurred among Jews and that the remaining
cases arose in large part from contact with Jews. [
24]
It was on the basis of this evidence that special regulations were introduced
to restrict the movement of Jews. The wall around the Jewish Warsaw
ghetto was one such measure. A thorough discussion of this subject is,
however, beyond the scope of this article. In any event, Jews in concentration
camps after 1941 certainly benefited from the presence of the delousing
chambers in the camps.
Rather than having been the victims of Zyklon-B in murderous
gas chambers, the Jews were probably the principal beneficiaries of
Zyklon-B and its proper, life-saving application in well-designed German
delousing chambers such as the ones which can still be seen in [nachall]
The German Delousing Chambers [87]
Conclusions
We have been blinded by our tears of sympathy for the supposed victims.
We have been blinded by our tears of shame for deeds which people just
like ourselves might have committed. But if we dare to wipe those tears
away and look at the "Holocaust" evidence critically with sober heads,
we find that there are no grounds for any such tears at all.
The mass-murder technology that was supposedly used
to kill millions of people would not have worked. However, a mass-murder
technology based upon the hydrocyanic acid delousing chambers would
have worked quite well indeed. The SS certainly had an abundance of
expertise in this technology since they were employing it themselves,
daily, with their own specially trained personnel-and even had their
own school for pesticide specialists. [
25]
Surely Adolf Eichmann and some of the people around
him must have had considerable expertise in railroad transportation.
How could they have been unaware of the existence of the railroad delousing
tunnels and their potential for mass-murder?
The purpose of the delousing chambers was to save lives-and
that is not denied except by the most passionate Exterminationist. No
doubt, many hundreds of thousands of people, possibly millions, including
countless Jews, owe their lives to these chambers and the German technology
based upon Zyklon-B.
How could the same Germans-particularly, the SS and
the people from DEGESCH-who used a highly developed technology to kill
lice in order to save countless human lives have simultaneously tried
to use a pathetically primitive technology, which could not have even
worked in the manner alleged, to destroy millions of human lives? How
could they have used well-designed gas chambers with circulation to
try to save millions of people from typhus while at the same time trying
to use badly designed chambers without circulation to kill millions
of people? How could they have been using an advanced technology to
save people who were in many cases the very same people, namely Jews,
that they were simultaneously trying to kill but with the most primitive
variations of the same technology?
There are no answers to these reasonable questions even
after forty years nor are there ever likely to be any answers consistent
with an extermination thesis. In the absence of any proof based upon
forensic evidence of even one case of death by gassing with cyanide
at the hands of the Germans or of any other reliable evidence-the "evidence,"
such as it is, consists almost exclusively of "confessions" and fantastic
anecdotes of "survivors"-one should reject the "Holocaust" claims as
self-serving propaganda. What is clear from any careful technical analysis
of the supposed gas chambers for mass extermination is that the "Holocaust"
story is absurd.
Appendix
Increased Use of Hydrocyanic Acid Delousing Chambers
Paper given at the Hydrocyanic Acid Conference of the Labor Committee
for Room Disinfestation and Contagious Disease Prevention of January
27/28, 1944.
by Emil Wustinger, engineer Frankfurt am Main, Cesundheits-lngenieur,
Vol. 67 (1944) on. 179-80.
In delousing chambers, for reasons which are easily
understood because of their special function, one expects maximum performance
with minimum gas concentration and penetration time. A penetration period
of only one hour should have the same effect as a 16-, 20-, or 24-hour
period during a room disinfestation. This is demanded because of the
pressing need to process massive quantities.
Such requirements can only be met successfully, even
with the highly effective hydrocyanic acid, when all of the conditions
for fumigation are ideal, in other words when the following conditions
exist: quickest possible release and distribution of the gas, sufficient
airtightness of the room, good room temperature and proper arrangement
of the articles to be fumigated within the chamber. On the basis of
its collected experiences with its own fumigation chambers, the German
Company for Pest Control, G.m.b.H. [DEGESCH] had already developed years
ago special vaporizers (Vergasergerate) and circulatory systems (Kreislaufanordnungen)
which take into consideration all the requisites: fastest gas generation,
best gas penetration and sufficient heating with simultaneous improvement
in the ventilation piping.
After the first year of the war, during which a string
of hydrocyanic acid facilities had been built in several regions and
equipped with DEGESCH circulatory systems for Zyklon hydrocyanic acid
[Zyklon-Blausaure or, as it is generally abbreviated, Zyklon-Bl26, some
of which have already been used to delouse hundreds of thousands of
pieces of clothing, there arose a significant increase in demand as
even government bodies and industrial factories began to take stringent
measures to control lice.
The motivation for the increased use of hydrocyanic
acid delousing chambers arose primarily from an official government
requirement that the large numbers of foreign workers who were being
used had to be deloused periodically at prescribed intervals and, therefore,
the factories which employed the largest numbers of foreign workers
had to build their own delousing facilities.
This requirement was expanded by the official camp regulation
from the Reich Minister of Labor which came into effect in the summer
of 1943 regarding camp accommodations for workers for the duration of
the war. Article 9 stipulates: "All rooms must be cleaned daily. The
rooms and their inhabitants must be regularly examined for instances
of vermin. Proper installations for the extermination of vermin must
be available. " [emphasis added]
Recently there have even been an increasing number of
instances where hot air chambers were rebuilt in order to be adapted
with hydrocyanic acid circulatory systems. Many other large disinfestation
facilities in which only hot air has been used until now are being expanded
with hydrocyanic acid chambers in order to fumigate equipment and clothing
which could easily be damaged in hot-air chambers-for example, fur and
leather goods.
One result of these measures and the favorable judgments
about hydrocyanic acid chamber delousing is that there is a steady increase
in demand for hydrocyanic acid installations so that in just the last
year alone as many installations went into operation as in the first
three years of the war put together.
For the entire war until now, at 226 different sites,
a total of 552 chambers with hydrocyanic acid circulatory fumigation
systems and an additional 100 or so chambers without such equipment,
but using hydrocyanic acid nonetheless, are either completed or under
construction almost exclusively for the purpose of delousing. 300 of
these chambers at 131 different facilities have been completed or are
still under construction just since January of the past year alone.
Almost one-fourth of these, i.e., 131 chambers, are distributed among
government and administrative district labor offices, especially in
the Alpine and Danube countries, as well as among city administrations
and health departments. 249 hydrocyanic acid delousing chambers are
either completed or under construction for the armaments industry.
And so, it becomes ever more apparent that the generally
incorrect reservations which had been previously held against the use
of highly toxic gases in delousing chambers have been thoroughly dispelled.
This is illustrated by the fact that in just the last year alone as
much hydrocyanic acid has been expended exclusively for the disinfestation
of articles in delousing chambers as had been used in all of Germany
for large area disinfestations in 1939. During the war the clothing
and equipment of approximately 25 million people have already been fumigated
with hydrocyanic acid. [emphasis added] Fortunately, there have been
no reported accidents of a serious nature while working with Zyklon
hydrocyanic acid [Zyklon-B] in the chambers equipped with circulatory
systems.
Facilities employing circulatory systems are now being
built so that they are suitable not just for the use of hydrocyanic
acid but primarily for other evaporable liquids as well. Fortunately,
these changes can be achieved without extensive modifications in the
apparatus so that there is no increase in the already difficult procurement
problems; although the DEGESCH circulatory systems could be delivered
with relative ease during the first years of the war and, most important
of all, could be delivered on short notice, increasing demands have
also led to more and more procurement problems because of the fact that
the increasing demands have to be surmounted by an ever decreasing number
of workers. One should note at this point that hydrocyanic acid delousing
chambers have the advantage over hot air chambers of reduced construction
costs and, most important of all, require less iron and metal. Consequently,
far fewer man-hours are needed for fabrication and so it should not
be too surprising that the hydrocyanic acid chamber equipment which
has already been installed has been built despite great difficulties
by only a few companies with only a small number of workers. Of the
manufacturers, one is specialized in the delivery of the blowers, air
heaters, and piping and even installs the equipment. The other supplier
manufactures the special appliance, the so-called four-way valve with
a built-in can opener, which is the centerpiece of the entire system.
This second factory usually had only two or three skilled workers available
for these tasks who were not at all times capable of working because
of physical disabilities.
Thanks to the many delousing facilities which are already
in operation and to the other stringent preventive measures, it has
been possible, fortunately, to reduce dramatically the number of cases
of typhus and the mortality in stark contrast to the earlier years.
Nonetheless, a great many new facilities with fumigation chambers will
be necessary just for delousing because the use of foreign workers and
the crowding of these workers into common barracks is still increasing
and, especially in the East, the number of hydrocyanic acid delousing
chambers that are available is still far from sufficient.
The increasingly widespread, harmless application of
hydrocyanic acid, in itself highly toxic, in delousing chambers equipped
with DEGESCH circulatory systems is a good indication of the dependability
of this method, which is generally regarded as one of the most effective
delousing methods. This is also spelled out in a decree from the Reich
Minister of the Interior
Notes
[1]
A useful source of information about Dachau as it exists today
and some of its post-war history is: Andrew Mollo, "Dachau,"
After
the Battle (London: Battle of Britain Prints Ltd., 1980), Number
27, pp. 1-29.
[2]
Although the four delousing chambers are in the crematorium
building and share a common roof and foundation, they are separated
from the rest of the building by an open breezeway, i.e., a passageway
extending from one side of the building through to the opposite
side without any doors. The breezeway is a logical safety feature.
If doors had been installed, an accidental accumulation of cyanide
gas could have developed in the passageway since it was also adjacent
to the hydrocyanic acid delousing chambers and could have eventually
penetrated into other parts of the building injuring anyone present.
This well thought-out arrangement contrasts sharply with the arrangement
of the supposed gas chambers for mass-murder in Auschwitz which
were far larger than the four delousing chambers at Dachau but,
amazingly enough, had no comparable protection for the occupants
of the buildings housing those chambers.
[3]
One excellent official source on the development of hydrocyanic
acid, with many technical design details about the gas chambers
themselves, is: Puntigam, Breymesser, and Bernfus, Blausauregaskammern
zur Fleckf eberabwehr [Hydrocyanic Acid Gas Chambers for the Prevention
of Typhus] (Berlin: Sonderveroffentlichung des Reichsarbeitsblattes,
1943). There is nothing even remotely comparable in the English
language to this classic work or to many other German works on this
subject, many of which are listed in the extensive bibliography.
That almost certainly applies to all other languages as well.
[4]
Thanks to the research of Dr. Robert Faurisson, a great deal
of information about the chambers used in this country for the execution
of criminals with cyanide and the detailed and complex procedures
for such executions is available-some of which will be published
shortly by this journal. The gas chambers for executing criminals
in the USA still used, long after World War II, the so-called "pot"
or "barrel" method to generate cyanide gas by dropping cyanide salt
tablets into a pot of sulfuric acid. This method had generally been
abandoned for industrial uses throughout most of the world, including
the U.S.A., as soon as Zyklon-B became available in the early 1920's.
A major drawback of the "pot" method, aside from the problem of
disposing of a pot of sulfuric acid containing cyanide, is that
a significant amount of cyanide gas is absorbed by the liquid in
the pot itself and then released, but only gradually, even after
the rest of the chamber has been thoroughly vented. This is probably
one of the main reasons why gas masks have to be worn in the gas
chamber as part of the complex procedure for removing the body of
an executed prisoner.
[5]
Dr. Gerhard Peters and Emil Wustinger, "Sach-Entlausung in Blausaure-Kammern,"
Zeitschrift fur hygienische Zoologie (Berlin: Duncker & Humboldt,
1940) Heft 10/11, p. 194.
[6]
Dr. Gerhard Peters, "Die hochwirksamen Gase und Dampfe in der
Schadlingsbekampfung The Highly Effective Gases and Vapors in the
Field of Pest Control]," Sammlung chemischer end chemisch-technischer
Vorträdge (Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke Verlag, 1942), Neue Folge: Heft
47a, p. 40.
[7]
By 1944 Zyklon was being supplied to Auschwitz without the warning
ingredient but the reason for this exceptional practice was a supply
shortage rather than any desire, as alleged by Exterminationists,
to deceive potential murder victims. One cause of considerable concern
to some of the German technicians at the time was that since the
warning ingredient also contributed to the chemical stability of
the Zyklon-B, its removal could present a serious hazard to the
end-user. One result of the removal of the warning ingredient seems
to have been the shortening of the shelf-life of even properly sealed
cans of Zyklon-B.
[8]
Peters was put on trial in 1949 for complicity in the extermination
of the Jews but was given only a five-year jail sentence. After
a second retrial he was found not guilty in 1955. His colleague
Dr. Bruno Tesch, who had shared the distribution rights for Zyklon-B,
was put on trial earlier and executed by the British. Throughout
the 1930's and until the end of the war, Peters probably wrote more
articles than anyone else on the effectiveness of Zyklon-B for the
prevention of disease, especially typhus.
[9] Dr. Gerhard Peters, "Blaiusaure zur Schadlingsbekampfung [Hydrocyanic
Acid for Pest Control], " Sammlung chemischer and chemisch-technischer
Vorträge (Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke Verlag, 1933), Neue Folge-Heft
20, p. 64. Although this work contains no discussion of the delousing
chambers-patents for the standard versions were granted in Germany
only after 1938-the article does contain an artist's rendering of
a railroad fumigation tunnel for hydrocyanic acid on page 41.
[10]
Peters and Wustinger, "Sach-Entlausung in Blausaure-Kammern,"
p. 196. The term "D" refers to the fresh-air inlet just as in the
diagram referred to by Wustinger in "Increased Use of Hydrocyanic
Acid."
[11]
Peters, "Die hochwirksamen Gase," pp. 36-41.
[12]
A.R. Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century (Torrance: Institute
for Historical Review, 1976) p. 191 or Andrew Mollo, p. 17.
[13]
It was sometimes recommended that the air-gas mixture be heated
to at least ten degrees above the boiling point of hydrocyanic acid
in order to compensate for the cooling through evaporation of the
liquid hydrocyanic acid. Heating was especially critical for the
venting phase when large amounts of cold air were drawn into the
chambers. In hot summer months this heating process was not always
essential but of course during the rest of the year, especially
during a Polish or German winter, when typhus was generally most
prevalent, it was essential. The absence of any provision for heating
of the air-gas mixture in the alleged gas chambers for mass-murder
is further evidence that the claim is a lie.
[14]
Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Schadlingsbekampfung m.b.H., Zyklon
for Pest Control (Frankfurt a. M.: DEGESCH, undated), p. 21.
[15]
From the context, it is quite clear that the expression "circulatory
device" is a translation of Kreislaufanordnung which I prefer to
translate as "circulatory system" just as it was translated for
Wustinger's article.
[16]
Puntigam, Breymesser & Bernfus, p. 33.
[17]
According to the present-day Auschwitz authorities, this gas
chamber had supposedly been disguised as a mortuary (Leichenkeller)
until late 1942 but was rebuilt subsequently to serve as a bomb
shelter by subdividing the room with interior walls. After the war,
the room was "restored" by removing the interior walls except for
a portion needed to retain an anteroom next to a door to the outside.
In a similar manner, the supposed gas chambers in Krematoria 2 and
3 at Birkenau were supposedly disguised as mortuaries when they
were built in 1943. Although they were intended originally to serve
as mortuaries, they seem to have been modified to serve as bomb
shelters also. This is consistent with a surprising passage in Dr.
Miklos Nyiszli, Auschwitz (Greenwich, Conn: Fawcett, 1960), p. 97
in which the author describes a brief stay, probably during August
or September of 1944, in the "gas chamber" when it was serving,
at least temporarily, as a bomb shelter during an Allied bombing
raid. In other words, at least one of the four gas chambers at Birkenau
supposedly did double-duty; on the one hand, it served as a gas
chamber to kill 3,000 people every day while at the same time being
available as a bomb shelter-fantastico !
[18]
Filip Muller, Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers
(New York: Stein & Day, 1979), pp. 60-1.
[19]
This remark about "gas crystals" already shows that Muller has
no idea as to what he is writing about even though he supposedly
worked in the gas chambers for three years. He seems to be confusing
Zyklon-B granules with mothballs which do sublimate to a gas directly
from the solid state. Zyklon is quite different.
[20]
Dr. Ludwig Gassner, "Verkehrshygiene und Schadlingsbekarnpfung
[Transportation Hygiene and Disinfestation]," Gesundheits-lngenieur,
Vol. 66 (1943) Heft 15, pp. 174-76.
[21]
To those readers who believe it would have been far more difficult
to ventilate a freight car filled with dead bodies as compared with
a passenger car containing upholstery and intricate paneling and
cabinet work, I suggest that anyone using the railroad delousing
tunnels for mass-murder would have been able to provide additional
ventilation time simply by pulling out any railroad car filled with
dead bodies and parking it somewhere on a railroad siding. Furthermore,
the movement of such a railroad car, perhaps to a site some distance
away for the disposal of the corpses, would in itself have provided
additional ventilation in fresh air before anyone would have had
to come into direct contact with corpses containing potentially
hazardous amounts of cyanide.
[22]
Peters, "Die hochwirksamen Gase und Dampfe in der Schadlings-bekampfung,"
p. 52. One can also see on pp. 514 photographs of some of the other
large fumigation chambers, also known as "tunnels," for disinfesting
railroad trains which also used the circulatory (Kreislauf) principal
with powerful blowers and heaters. In Romania there was at least
one railroad disinfesting chamber with an internal volume of 1500
cubic meters-see p. 54.
[23]Hans Zinsser, Rats, Lice and History (Boston: Little, Brown
and Company, 1963), p. 213.
[24]
Only one of many articles from the German literature is: Dr.
Joseph Ruppert, "Gesundheitsverhaltnisse und Seuchenbekampfung im
Generalgouvernement [Sanitary Conditions and Contagious Disease
Control in the Generalgouvernementl," Der praktische Desinfektor,
Vol. 33 (Berlin: Hygiene Verlag Erich Deleiter, July 1941) Heft
7, pp. 72-3.
[25]
R. Queisner, "Erfahrungen mit Blausaure bei Grossraumentwesungen
[Experiences with Hydrocyanic Acid in the Fumigation of Large Areasl,"
Zeitschrift fur hygienische Zoologie and Schddlingsbekdmpfung, Vol.
36 (Berlin: Duncker & Humboldt, 1944), pp. 130-37. The title of
the article is preceded by the note that the article was taken from
the exterminator school (Desinfektorenschule) of the Waffen-SS in
Oranienburg, near Berlin, with the name of the director: SS-Hauptsturmfuehrer
Dr. H. Grundlach. Grundlach is identified in the Gerstein statement
as the man who made murderous experiments on women in Ravensbrueck.
[26]
Some readers may object to the claim that Zyklon-B was an abbreviation
for Zyklon-Blausaure. Although the "B" may have originally been
intended merely to reflect a sequential numbering of another "Zyklon"
product since there had been a Zyklon-A until about 1920 and even
a Zyklon-C for a brief period, by at least the beginning of World
War II the German literature used the terms "Zyklon," "Zyklon-B"
and "Zyklon-Blausaure" interchangeably. The longest form was used
least often and generally only at the beginning of a piece of text
in order to identify clearly the principle ingredient. The fact
that Zyklon-B and Zyklon-Blausaure are synonymous is also shown
by the fact that in German both terms are almost always hyphenated.
This article was originally entitled, "The German Delousing
Chambers." It is reprinted by permission of The Journal of Historical Review,
P.O. Box 2739, Newport Beach, California 92659, United States of
America. Subscription rate: $40 per year.
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