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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and Operation
of
the Gas Chambers © | |
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Page 244 |
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On 24th June 1943 (sometimes given as 25th June [see Document
65, line beginning “53”]) the deed of transfer [Document 64] by
which the Bauleitung handed over Krematorium III to the camp
administration was signed. Despite the difficulties with Vedag, who
had refused to guarantee the damp proofing of certain basement areas
for two years, the Bauleitung nevertheless gave such an undertaking.
The firms who worked on Krematorium III and their areas of
responsibility were stated: foundations and walls by Huta; assisted
by prisoner labor, roof by Industriebau AG; furnaces and machinery
by Topf & Sons; the chimney by Koehler. Other subcontractors.
whose contribution was minimal, were not named.
One of the
inventories accompanying the deed of transfer, that for the basement
[Document 66] contains a “CRIMINAL TRACE”, INDIRECTLY
PROVING THE EXISTENCE OF A HOMICIDAL GAS CHAMBER IN LEICHENKELLER 1
OF KREMATORIUM III [The argument concerning this
proof is to be found in Part II, Chapter 8]. The inventory for the
ground floor [Document 67] includes, unlike that for Krematorium II,
the dissecting table, the 5 3 muffle furnaces, the 5 furnace blower
motors, the waste incinerator and 5 complete sets of furnace irons
[5 kompl. Schürgeräte]. The explanatory report on the construction
contract gives the date for the start of work as July 1942, which is
too early and should probably be LATE AUGUST OR EARLY SEPTEMBER. The
price of the building amounted to 554,500 Reichsmark.
On 28th June, following the handover of Krematorium
III, the last one to be completed, Jährling calculated the overall
throughout for the five Krematorien as 4,756 people in 24 hours, and
sent this information to SS General Kammler in Berlin [Document
68]. This “official” figure, coolly doubled when explaining
operations to high ranking visitors (cf. SS Major Franke Gricksch’s
report above, giving a figure of 10,000 in 24 hours), had no basis
in practice, and probably has to be divided by two or three to
arrive at the true figure. The different visitors, SS, political
leaders or others, were obviously unable to check the figures given
by the camp SS, but accepted them as true and went away praising the
Auschwitz SS for having found such a splendid solution to the
“Jewish question”. |
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[The throughput of Krematorium I, estimated at 340 per
day, is a valid figure based on relatively long practice, but the
figures for Krematorien II, III, IV and V are purely theoretical,
especially those for IV and V which were calculated by
extrapolation from the planned figures for Krematorien II and III.
The fact is that Krematorium II (and hence also III) was planned
as early as 30th October 1941 to incinerate 60 corpses per hour.
Obviously the SS had to stick to this figure that they had
announced: |
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| 60 per hour x 24 hours 1,440 corpses per
day |
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Any lower throughput would be bad for their promotion
prospects or could even be regarded as sabotage. As Kr II had 15
muffles and Kr IV and V each had 8 muffles, the throughput for
each of these last was calculated as: |
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| (1440 x 8)/15 = 768 corpses per day. |
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a purely hypothetical figure based on no practice of
any sort.
The real throughput of a type II/III Krematorium
was from 1,000 to 1,100 corpses per 24 hours and the maximum for a
type IV/V was about 500 a day. The total capacity for the four
Krematorien was therefore about 3,000 a day, but in practice the
real capacity at Birkenau was even less than it appears at that
time (and Krematorium I at the main camp was closed down shortly
afterwards): Kr IV was soon permanently shut down: V worked only
intermittently, II was working again after repairs to its chimney,
and III had just begun operations. These last two could incinerate
2,000 to 2,200 corpses a day, and this was the true incineration
capacity at Birkenau from the beginning of July 1943 until
April/May 1944. This much lower than advertised throughput is
confirmed by the low coke consumption figures for the four
Krematorien recorded until the end of November 1943, which was
only enough to keep one Krematorium of type II/III in full
operation.] |
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| Not directly connected with the construction of Krematorien II
and III, but still of some relevance is a Topf letter of 7th July
1943, replying to one of 2nd written by Jährling, justifying the
price asked for the two 8 muffle furnaces for Krematorien IV and V.
The Bauleitung was probably balking at having to pay for these
unusable furnaces covered by a TWO MONTH guarantee that had already
expired (Topf letter of 10th April 1943 [see Part II, Chapter 7
“Krematorien IV and V”]). This letter mentioned the taking
from the “Mogilew contract” of two twin 4 muffle furnaces, designed
by Prüfer for Krematorien IV and V, which were in fact designed
around these furnaces. |
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[In the author’s opinion, the defects in Krematorien
IV and V cannot be directly attributed to Prüfer. His technical
solutions for the 4-muffle furnace, in which certain metal parts
(rationed) were replaced by firebrick constructions (unrationed),
were rather clever. The 8-muffle furnaces (obtained by twinning
two 4 muffle furnaces) roared so well during their adjustment by
Topf foreman Willi Kock that the ground around the Krematorien
trembled (according to Filip Müller). Prüfer was let down by the
poor quality of the refractory materials available in this fourth
year of a war that was bleeding Germany white. Hoess admitted this
indirectly: |
“Owing to the wartime shortage of materials, the
builders were compelled to economize during the construction
of crematoria III and IV [IV and V] and they were therefore
built above ground and were of less solid construction. It
soon became apparent, however, that that the flimsy
construction of these two [twinned] four-retort ovens did not
meet to the
requirements.” |
These furnaces, whose design was technically sound
(for example, the engineer Martin Klettner of Topf applied in 1951
to the Patent Office of the Federal Republic of Germany for a
patent for a single muffle cremation furnace using the guillotine
door designed by Prüfer) and which were carefully constructed,
were unable to justify the hopes placed in them simply because
they were built with second-rate materials.] |
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On 17th July, Kirschneck informed Topf that the repair of the
Krematorium II chimney lining was completed (and had been since
11th). By comparing the very first Topf drawing of the chimney with
later ones, the Bauleitung SS been able to see that initially the
Erfurt firm had not taken account of the different thermal
expansions produced or the very high temperatures reached. The
Bauleitung therefore raised the question of liability for these
defects. They also notified Topf that the underfloor flues from the
furnaces to the chimney were deteriorating and, under the terms of
the guarantee should be rapidly repaired or replaced. [PMO file
BW 30/34, page 17].
On 21st July 1943, Huta sent
back to the Bauleitung the original drawings for Krematorium II
(which were also used for Kr III) that they had received on 2nd
August 1942. The drawings concerned were 932, 933, 934, 935, 936,
937, 980, 1173 1174, 1300, 1301, 1311, 1341 and 1541 (drawings 935.
937, 1300 and 1541 having reached them later). Huta also enclosed
their own drawings with those of the Bauleitung, i.e. sheets 2, 3,
4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 of project 7015/IV. This coming and
going of drawings is in itself proof that the original drawings of
Krematorium II were in no way secret. By contrast, drawing 2003 and
the different versions of 2197, where the criminal arrangements were
clearly visible, were not communicated to Huta, or at least not
officially [see these documents, in annex].
On 4th August,
Topf informed the Bauleitung that the permanent corpse lifts for
Krematorien II and III (which were using provisional goods hoists)
were still not ready. Topf ’s subcontractor could not complete them
because official authorization had again been refused. Topf
requested the Bauleitung SS to inform their superiors in Berlin so
that they could intervene to resolve the situation. Topf explained
that the subcontractor had already built a substantial part of the
lifts, but feared that if authorization was refused the order would
be immediately suspended [PMO file BW 30/34, page
19].
On 6th August, Topf replied to the Bauleitung letter
17th July, expressing doubt that the underfloor flues should be
failing in their turn, after the problems with the chimney lining.
[It would appear that, despite the evidence of damage to the flues,
there was some justification for Topf’s surprise. The author would
like to point out that, during a conversation with David Olère, the
later had declared that the problems with the underfloor flues were
caused by members of the Sonderkommando trying to immobilize
Krematorium II through sabotage But this “induced” damage did not
suffice to stop operations, while the spontaneous damage to the
chimney had closed the Krematorium down for a month and a half. It
is difficult to assess the impact of these “manipulations”, which
consisted of discreetly introducing cold water into the underfloor
channels, knowing that the excessively high rates of incineration
were bound to cause damage].
On 9th September, Bischoff told
Kirschneck to send the Topf letter of 4th August concerning the
permanent lifts for Krematorien II and III to the SS WVHA in Berlin,
asking them to rapidly solve this problem [PMO file BW 30/34,
page 18].
On Friday 10th September, Prüfer arrived in
Auschwitz to confer with the Bauleitung on the settlement of the
expenses incurred in the relining of Krematorium II chimney. From
the beginning of the talks, the Bauleitung position was clear: Topf
and their representative Prüfer were directly responsible for the
defects in the chimney. The fact is that after the first, round
chimney of Krematorium I, planned and built by the Bauleitung, was
taken out of service Topf had supplied the drawings for a second, of
square section. These drawings had served as model for SS Second
Lieutenant Dejaco Drawing Office producing the drawings of the
“Project for a Krematorium” (such as 932, 933, 934 and 980), a
building that was in the end to be constructed in two mirror image
versions at Birkenau. The SS, while admitting their own lack of
competence in that area, insofar as they slavishly copied the Topf
drawings for the chimneys of Krematorien II and III, nevertheless
considered that the Erfurt firm had given them incorrect data, which
was the probable cause of the damage to the chimney After this first
meeting, some members of the Bauleitung went with Prüfer to inspect
the Birkenau Krematorien. The Topf chief engineer was forced to
admit that the complaints about the underfloor flues in the letter
of 17th July were justified: “whole sections of the roof [of the
flues] were caving in and … the connections between the hot flues
and the chimney were in very bad condition”. The SS also pointed out
to Prüfer that the draught control dampers in the chimney, which had
melted due to faulty construction (implied to be Topf’s fault) had
been repaired entirely satisfactorily by the Bauleitung themselves.
As Prüfer’s situation was becoming difficult, he threw the blame for
the defects in the chimney onto Messrs Koehler, the firm who had
built it, claiming that that they had used lime mortar instead of
refractory mortar. The SS therefore decided to convoke the engineer
Robert Koehler, the head of this firm, for the next day.
On
Saturday 12th September. Koehler swept away Prüfer’s accusations,
saying the work had been carried out correctly and using the
prescribed materials. The discussion then became somewhat heated.
The SS mentioned the other arguments previously put forward by
Prüfer to explain the collapse of the chimney lining. But Prüfer was
a good talker and his “scientific” demonstrations carried the day.
The SS nevertheless pointed out that at each visit Prüfer put
forward a new reason for the problems with the chimney. As for
Robert Koehler, who lived in Myslowitz, about twenty kilometers from
Auschwitz and was thus well informed about what went on there, in
his opinion the real cause of the poor state of the chimney before
its repair by his firm was simply the excessive rate of cremation.
However, the SS were reluctant to have Prüfer lose face completely —
he had compromised himself too much with them — and so they accepted
his “technical” reasons, while knowing that Koehler was right.
Finally, in order that nobody should feel too upset and in order to
maintain good relations, the cost of repairing the chimney,
estimated at 5,000 RM, was split three ways: 1/3 for Topf, 1/3 for
Koehler (who really was not at fault!) and 1/3 for the Bauleitung.
And this was the end of the affair. |
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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and operation
of the gas chambers
Jean-Claude Pressac
© 1989, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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