What was known about “The Holocaust” – and when?
By Wilfried Heink-
There are several issues re. The Third Reich – “The Holocaust” in particular – historians, and I am being kind, continually struggle with. One is the phenomena, at least we are to believe that it was that, of why the majority of ordinary Germans continued to support Hitler right to the bitter end. Ian Kershaw tried to explain it in his latest work The End: Hitler's Germany, 1944-45. I found two reviews, the first by Roger Moorhouse, here's an excerpt:
“Kershaw adopts a largely narrative approach, which – with various digressions – spans the period between the failed attempt on Hitler's life of 20 July 1944 and the German capitulation 10 months later. In this period, horrors at the front – such as the first Red Army incursion into German territory at Nemmersdorf in East Prussia – would increasingly be matched by horrors at home, as the murderous SS condemned to death all those who dared to resist or showed insufficient martial spirit.”
Then this, by Ben Shephard:
“The real difficulty with The End is that its premise is false. It simply isn't true that no one has dealt adequately with the question of why Germany kept fighting. On the contrary, historians have discussed this issue ad nauseam; Kershaw himself gave an excellent account in his monumental biography of Hitler. What is needed now is not yet another staging of Götterdämmerung, but a new production altogether. In 2009, in his Germany 1945, the historian Richard Bessel showed the way. While conveying the scale of destruction in the last year of the war, Bessel used those events to underpin a wider argument: that the typhoon that swept through Germany in 1945 changed the course of its history, blasting away for ever the strains of nationalism, philosophical idealism and geopolitical ambition that had produced the two world wars. If only Kershaw's book had some of that originality.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/21/the-end-ian-kershaw-review
Both of the above, as well as Kershaw, miss the mark. They can not admit – because of the continued demonizing of Hitler – that Germans, the workers and middle class, appreciated what Hitler had done for Germany and therefore backed him. Unless of course one is stupid enough to adopt Goldhagen's thesis of Hitler's willing helpers. Shepard babbles about “..nationalism, philosophical idealism and geopolitical ambition that had produced the two world wars”. Dummkopf. But the so called intelligentsia, as well as much of the officer core, did not support Hitler and plotted his overthrow in the background, they were however afraid of the backlash by ordinary Germans. Hans Rothfels writes:
“…Could one risk having the stab-in-the-back legend turn like a boomerang against the officer core? As long as the road to victory still seemed open, how could one convince the people and the army that Hitler was leading them to disaster?”( The German Opposition to Hitler, Henry Regnery Company Hinsdale, Illinois 1948, p.74)
Gee, why not tell the people and the army about “The Holocaust”? And that brings us to the next issue, the question: How much was know about the alleged mass murder in the camps and when? Here too the story flips back and forth. Rothfels in the above writes, p.18:
“Of course, all this changed (he writes about stories told about the camps but not believed) in the spring of 1945. The unbelievable horror which were then discovered in the liberated camps as well as the unearthing of evidence of the crimes committed in Poland and Russia, shook the western world”.
In the Industries newest effort, we also read:
“Even when – following the war – it became know what had occurred in the concentration- and extermination camps, many did not accept it, others denied it happened” (Neue Studien Zu Nationalsozialistischen Massentötungen Durch Giftgas, Metropol Verlag Belin, 2001, p.XI)
And following the war, we had “Death Camps” everywhere in Germany, Dachau, Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen. Then, after the lies told about those camps were exposed, the ‘extermination camps’ were moved east, into Poland. But the Soviets refused to allow access to the sites, or so we are told, allowing no ‘investigations’ by westerners. Still, if mass murder would have been committed by the Germans on Polish soil details about it would have been known from day one. Some of the camps, Treblinka for instance, the site where 880,000 Jews had been murdered, according to Yad Vashem, were in the open, ‘shielded’ by a barbed wire fence.
We do have reports of rumors circulating, the Jesuit church historian Pierre Blet S.J. (Society of Jesus) mentions some of them (Pius XII and the Second World War. According to the Archives of the Vatican, Paulist Press new York, N.Y, Mahwah, N.J., 1997). But nothing of substance is offered. There are of course efforts made by “historians” to try and convince us that details were known about it before the war ended, a feeble effort – because nothing of substance is provided.
But, if what is alleged did happen, the ‘industrialized killings’, “The Holocaust” a reality, reports about it would have been leaked and details about the killings broadcast worldwide. Germany was riddled with spies and traitors, right up in to the highest ranks. Former Minister Dr. Ohnesorge told his friend Dr. Goldmann after the war that no plenary session of the parliament had taken place since 1936, because anything discussed was broadcast by the BBC in the evening news (H. Härtle, Deutsche und Juden, Druffel-Verlag Leoni am Starnberger See, 1977, p.294). We also know that the Abwehr, the intelligence service, was lead by traitors. Erwin von Lahousen, for instance, testified at the IMT:
“We were currently informed of all happenings by our officials at the front or in the camps. Offices of the Abwehr Division III were active in these camps, and in this way, that is, through the normal service channels, we were informed by reports and oral presentation of all these measures and of their effects.” (http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/11-30-45.asp, p. 458.
There are a few more details provided here http://www.revblog.codoh.com/2011/12/german-guilt/ ). Why did these people not provide details about “The Holocaust” to their contacts abroad? The answer is rather simple: There was no Holocaust.
We do however have some official information about the concentration camps. The Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, Evolution and Dissemination Section, G-2 (Counter Intelligence Sub-Division) in May 1944 published the Basic Handbook KL’s (Konzentrationslager) Axis Concentration Camps and detention centres reported as such in Europe, Compiled by MIRS (London Branch), from material at Washington and London. The handbook available here http://www.milspecmanuals.com/ap_allied_europe_expeditionary_force_headquarters_supreme.html
As stated, this was compiled by the counter intelligence service. Allan Dulles, intelligence operative and later head of the CIA, had set up shop in Switzerland and the Abwehr (intelligence) officer Bernd Gisevius, for one, met with him (Allan Welsh Dulles, Germany’s Underground. The Anti-Nazi resistance, Da Capo Press, 2000, pp.25; 126, etc.). So, with the German intelligence service “informed of all happenings…in the camps” (Lahousen above), one would expect details about the alleged mass killings to be provided in the ‘handbook’.
Starting with p.1, under the heading: The German Concentration Camps, we read:
“1. General
This publication represents an attempt to compile the names, locations and pertinent data of confirmed, reported, or alleged detention centres in Axis Europe which come within the elastic definition of the term “Concentration Camps”. “Elastic” because of the many types of detention
camps used by the Germans in addition to the official Konzentrationslager (Concentration Camps), .Among these are:
Arbeitslager (Work Camps)
Zwangslager (Forcible Detention Camps);
Zwangsarbeitslager (Penal Servitute Camps)
Zvilgefangenenlager (Detention Camps for Civilians)
Straflager (Punitive Camps) .
Recent political and military developments in Europe are said to have established new trends in German concentration camp policy, but these reports have not been adequately confirmed.
Greater leniency towards inmates of concentration camps has been reported. A former inmate of ORANIENBURG said that the beating of inmates there has been forbidden and in
SACHSENHAUSEN the guards are said to have been informed that the inmates should be treated as “property of the Führer”.
Hitler is stated to have intervened on behalf of the inmates at DACHAU. As a result, a brothel (?) is said to have been opened for the inmates, and permission was granted for the clearing of a soccer field.
Other factors which might cause a change in policy include the deterioration of the guard system and the transfer of inmates to war time activities…”
Strangely, nothing about ‘extermination camps’, but the above confirms that the allies were well informed about the concentration camps. We learn that inmates were transferred “to war time activities”. Meaning, that some were moved to the front, their fate unknown. The report continues by talking about preparations made by camp officials “in case of an Allied invasion of Germany proper”, with guards hiding civilian clothes under their beds, as well as more detailed information. To p.2:
“2. Definition of Concentration Camps
According to German law, a Konzentrationslager (officially abbreviated to KL, but popularly referred to as KZ) provides Schutzhaft (Protective Custody) for persons who have not been legally sentenced to prison by a court of law, and/or for those who, having served a legal sentence, have been ordered further detention by the Gestapo (Secret State Police),
Sicherheitsdienst (SD or Security Service) or the Geheime Feldpolizei (Secret Field Police) .
Because of the scarcity of documentary material, which is only slowly becoming available, the indefinite nature of details obtained from former inmates and the similarity in administration and treatment of charges at these various detention centres, many camps have been incorrectly reported as Konzentrationslager although they are actually different types of establishment.“
In spite of the “scarcity of documentary material”, they are close to being bang on as definition goes, but still nothing about Jews, which are now front and center. We read that:
“Movements of inmates from one camp to another, especially from camps in occupied territory to those in the Reich have been reported rather frequently during the last two years.”
That because of the severe labor shortage, but we are to believe that this was ignored in regards to Jews, they allegedly were killed by the millions. Now to p.3:
“3. Number of Camps and Inmates
[T]he number of KL’s in greater Germany has been estimated at various times during 1941,1942, and 1943 to total from about thirty to seventy-five, although a total of more than a hundred camp sites has been reported. The capacity of KL's in Germany is probably about 500,000.
A report, dated October, 1943, concerning the camps in Poland spoke of the existence of 109 camps in that country, divided into the following types:
Nine Transit Camps
Twenty- four KL's
Three large forced labour camps
Sixty smaller forced labour camps
Three camps for priests
Nine camps for Jews
One camp “for the improvement of the Nordic race”.
Very detailed and finally we have “Nine Camps for Jews”, in Poland. We also have this referral to transit camps, nine of them. The report then states that “…the number of Germans who have been inmates at various periods during the years 1933 to 1944 to be between 750,000 and 1,300,000”, and that:
“The most conservative estimate of the number of persons in “protective custody” in Germany proper in July, 1944 was from 170,000 to 370,000.
The number of KL inmates in Germany proper at present is generally estimated to total between 300,000 and 500,000. Of this number a high percentage is believed to consist of “pure” Germans, as defined by Nazi law.”
Very detailed again, showing that the allies were well informed. Also of note is the fact that a high percentage of inmates were “pure” Germans, something forgotten with Jews now in the foreground. The paragraph ends with:
“The number of inmates of these detention centres in Europe has probably been reduced as a result of Germany's man power shortage and many former inmates may already have been absorbed by the Organisation TODT and other labour and auxiliary organisations. Even the Wehrmacht has accounted for some – the 999th Division for example.”
This would suggest that Jews were also used as slave labour, many in harms way. Much more information is provided about “Commitment and Release”, “Administration”, “Camp Organisation”, the guard system, etc., etc., 13 categories in all taking up 16 pages. It has to be stressed that this is detailed information, right down to names and numbers. We then get to p.17, it starts out with:
“A N N E X E A
(List of Identified Concentration. Camps)
Key:
1. Annexe A gives all locations reported by various sources as sites of KL’s at one time or another; such a list cannot of course be regarded as either complete or entirely reliable.
Of the 708 entries, 93 are cross-references.
708 camps are listed”
The camps are then listed, first by country, then in alphabetical order. And as mentioned, the list is not considered to be complete. Still, in the alphabetical list details are provided for each camp, more evidence that the allies had good information. A given, with Germany riddled with spies and traitors, as well as millions of foreign workers, no secret could be kept. To list all the camps of interest would make this too long, so, just the main camps in Poland, considered by the Industry to be, horror, ‘extermination camps”, even though not one shred of substantial evidence to back this claim has ever been submitted. Here we go then, starting with Auschwitz:
“AUSCHWITZ (OSWIECIM)
(Oberschlesien, formerly Poland) 3O Km. SSE Kattowitz.
Type
Definitely KL: mentioned frequently since 1939. One report claims MAJDANEC to be part of Doppellager AUSCHWITZ.
BIRKENAU camp is definitely connected, as AUSCHWITZ makes use of BIRKENAU’s gas
chambers, though it is said to have 10 crematoria and 4 lethal gas chambers itself.
Capacity
In 1940: 40,000
A recent report claims 62,000 Jews and foreign workers to be employed in the synthetic rubber plant and other enterprises around this town.
Inmates
One report gives the following figures as an outline of the camp's history:
1939/40 – Over 5,000 inmates
July 1941 – 8,000 inmates , all Poles
Mortality rate 20% for each 6 month period.
Late 1941 – 600 Russians and 200 Poles gassed.
September 1942 – More then 120,000 persons had passed through the camp.
Mortality has risen as over 80,000 are said to have died or been shot.
May 1943 – “At least 2 trains of 20 car loads each arrived daily” .
1944 – Another report states that 150,000 names were listed as having passed through
this camp…
Remarks.
Many typhus epidemics are said to have raged here throughout its existence.
In the neighborhood, reported to be at DWORY, is an I.G. Farben plant for synthetic rubber and “benzene” whose workers also live in nearby camps; slackers (those who take more than 2 days
off per month) are confined to an Arbeits-erziehungslager (Workers ' educational camp) connected with the KL.
BUMA-WERKE (Synthetic Rubber Plant ) draws labour from the KL.
SS Units in the Vicinity
Hauptwirtschaftslager der Waffen SS.”
The rest is about staff stationed at Auschwitz. What is of interest here is that Jews are not mentioned as being gassed en masse, also no details are provided re. the, horror, gas chambers. We read that “AUSCHWITZ makes use of BIRKENAU’s gas chambers, though it is said to have 10 crematoria and 4 lethal gas chambers itself”. So according to this, Auschwitz I, as it is now referred to – but no mention of this description then – had 10 crematoria and 4 lethal gas chambers. Solid evidence that nothing was known about the alleged industrialized mass murder of Jews in gas chambers, all that was peddled were rumors. This is confirmed by the phrase “though it is said”, meaning it is rumored.
This is strange, for we have Bruno Baum telling us about the well organized resistance inside Auschwitz, that resistance sending reports of the (alleged) killings to the outside by courier, at one time even by short wave (Widerstand in Auschwitz, Kongress Verlag Berlin, 1961, pp.84ff). That is confirmed in the “Report by Captain Witold Pilecki”, who also provides details about the resistance.
Then we have: “Late 1941 – 600 Russians and 200 Poles gassed”. This rumor, shown to be a lie by Signor Mattogno (http://vho.org/aaargh/fran/livres9/atfg.pdf ), made it into the report, but very little else. We have 120,000 “persons” passing through in September 1942 and another 150,000 in 1944, the latter Hungarian Jews? There is mention of the “typhus epidemics” and the high mortality rate because of them, something ignored by “historians”. Then the referral to “slackers”, workers taking off more than two days a month and send to an educational camp. Why not just gas them? The resistance was aware of the (alleged) gassings of Jews, Baum writes about it, why no details in this handbook?
Now to Birkenau:
“BIRKENAU (BRZEZINKI) (SW Poland)
Type:
Special KL and annihilation camp for women reported here.
Inmates:
Reported to be mostly Hungarian Jews.
Remarks:
Most likely controlled by AUSCHWITZ , where Jews are sent to keep the 4 crematoria, busy.”
And that’s it. Up to the demise of the Soviet Union we were told that 4 million people, most of them Jews, were killed at Auschwitz/Birkenau, with Birkenau the main killing site. And all we have here is “Special KL and annihilation camp for women reported here”. ‘Reported here’ meaning that rumors were spread. Also, just for woman? And that with resistance groups operating in the camp, sending information out by various means. Workers from towns nearby entered the camp, prisoners escaped, partisans picked up information(Baum, p.73), etc., etc.
For Majdanek, the Auschwitz “Doppellager”, we have this:
“MAJDANEK (Poland) Near LUBLIN,
Reported in 1942 and 1943.
Mentioned variously as KL “Dulag”, part of Doppellager AUSCHWITZ, and also as extermination camp
One report mentions three camps located there.
MAJDANEK, special concentration camp with enclosures for women.
MAJDANEK I, transit camp.
MAJDANEK II, KL and annihilation camp. (These are the camps referred to in the newspapers as “the LUBLIN extermination camps”).
Inmates: Unconfirmed estimates of number of inmates range from 25,000 to 50,000.”
‘Mentioned’ as Dulag (Durchgangslager, transit camp) and extermination camp? How about some details? It is also of note that German terms are used throughout, evidence that the information was provided by either German traitors or German Jews, but all they had was rumors. A given, since no mass murder took place in any of the alleged ‘extermination camps”.
Now to the Reinhardt camps, erroneously spelled Reinhard:
“BELZEC (Poland) Location: 80 Km. NW of LEMBERG,
Type:
KL. Extermination camp for Jews.
Capacity:
10,000 Jewish inmates reported there.
SOBIBOR (E. Poland) 65 Km. ENE of LUBLIN
Reported in September 1942 as KL and extermination camp for Jews.
TREBLINKA (Poland) Location 80 Km. NE of WARSCHAU
Type:
September 1941 : reported as consisting of 3 camps:
I punitive camp for forced labour.
II KL
III Extermination camp for Jews”
A few lines about three sites where some 1.5 million Jews had allegedly been killed. Astonishing! In Treblinka alone, 880,000(Yad Vashem) Jews perished, allegedly, 700,000 of them buried first in huge mass graves, then exhumed and burned on open pyres, along with the rest. And all of it at a site clearly visible from most sites, with a village, Wolka Okraglik, near by. People also visited the camp, to do business:
“The Polish peasants “came with the aim of doing business;”(4) they brought the prisoners all kinds of food, which they exchanged for gold:(5)
“And so it came to pass that baskets filled with rolls, roasted chickens, cheese, butter, cream, and so forth began to arrive each day at Treblinka.”
4 Eyewitness statement by Samuel Willenberg, in Alexander Donat (ed.), The Death Camp
Treblinka, Holocaust Library, New York 1979, p. 192.
5 Eyewitness statement by Abraham Krzepicki, in A. Donat, ibid., p. 125. (Carlo Mattogno, Jürgen Graf, Treblinka. Extermination Camp or Transit Camp?, Theses & Dissertations Press
PO Box 257768, Chicago, Illinois 60625, January 2004, p.11)
And in spite of all the activity allegedly going on, the digging of graves, the mass killings, the burning of hundreds of thousands of corpses, with people around the camp witnessing this alleged commotion, all we have in the handbook is the laconic remark “Extermination camp for Jews”, in Treblinka III, a camp that didn’t even exist.
This report, issued in May 1944, when the alleged killings neared completion, confirms that nothing was known about “The Holocaust”. Sure, extermination is mentioned, as ‘reported’, i.e., rumored, but without detailed descriptions – and they would have been available if mass killings would have taken place – they are just that, rumors.
There never was a “Holocaust”.
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