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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and Operation
of
the Gas Chambers © | |
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| The drawings produced by the civilian firm
HUTA |
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As from October 1941, two civilian firms based in Upper Silesia
were engaged in building the KGL [KriegsGefangenLage/ POW camp]
Birkenau: HUTA (Hoch- und Tiefbau Aktiengesellschaft, 19
Friedrichstraße. Kattowitz) and LENZ (Schlesische Industriebau Lenz
& Co AG, 23 Grundmannstraße. Kattowitz).
As soon as the
SS authorities had decided to go ahead with the building at Birkenau
of the projected new Krematorium (which was to become Krematorium
II). designed by the Bauleitung, the latter offered the contract to
the two main firms already working in the camp and thus familiar
with it.
Lenz refused because of shortage of labor, while
Huta accepted and was asked to start work on the project
immediately. With a covering letter of 2nd August 1942 [Document
1], Huta was sent ten Bauleitung drawings of the building. All
of these have survived, except for drawing 1341 of the doors and
dormer windows This letter, signed by the head of the Bauleitung,
Bischoff, and signed on receipt on 4th August by a Huta person (left
hand signature). is material proof that, contrary to what was
thought after the war, there was nothing secret about the
drawings of Krematorium II, for they were sent to a civilian
firm with no particular instructions.
Huta allocated a
number to the new project, and another to the technical studies
required for the building [Document 2]. These studies were
complementary to those of the Bauleitung, for they concerned
specific construction details. Thus Huta allocated the worksite
number 7015/IV [Document 1 bis] to Krematorium II (and also III) and
produced sixteen drawings for it, numbered 109/I to -/16. The only
ones surviving today are drawings 10, 11, 13a, 14a, 15 and 16a (the
significance of the suffix “a” is not known), or six out of sixteen.
The Huta number 7015/IV was inscribed on two Bauleitung
drawings: 936 (Elevations) [Document 3] and 980 (Roof frame).
This irrefutably confirms that Huta's civilian employees, who were
perfectly free to talk of their work outside, were fully conversant
with the drawings of Krematorium II, and studied them carefully, as
proved by the static studies carried out, In the face of such
evidence, it is difficult to go on talking about “secrecy”.
Huta drawings 109/1 to 109/11 were working drawings (mainly
concerned with the reinforcing bars of the concrete ceilings),
produced as and when required by progress on the site. On the other
hand, drawings 109/12 to 109/16 were recapitulatory drawings
produced in September and October 1943, long after Krematorien II
and III had been completed.
On 19th December 1944, all the
original Huta drawings (except for two which were copies) concerning
Krematorien II and III were given by the Huta representative who had
received the initial Krematorium II drawings in August 1942 into the
hands of SS Lieutenant Werner Jothann, then head of the Bauleitung
[Document 4]. At this late date it is obvious that the
handing over of the Huta drawings to Jothann had nothing to do with
tying up the loose ends of the business and completing the
Krematorium files [for posterity and before the end of the war!].
The real reason was the SS wanted to retrieve everything connected
with the extermination, which had finally been denounced in the
world press, and to destroy all the evidence before the final
collapse of the Third Reich. In addition, together with the order to
stop the gassings, the order was |
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Static calculations for
Krematorium II
[PMO file BW 30/40, [page
1] |
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First page of the second set
of static calculations made on 22d October 1942 by Dziubany, an
engineer employed by Huta at Kattowitz. There were 21 pages in all
(the last page is now missing), referring to items 1 to 38 of the
original estimate. It was received by the Bauleitung on 26th October
and entered in the correspondence register under the reference
16975/42. | |
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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and operation
of the gas chambers
Jean-Claude Pressac
© 1989, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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