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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and Operation
of
the Gas Chambers © | |
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Germanic rural population [note of 17th August 1942 from the SS
Head Office, G Berger, to Himmler (Ba NS 19 / new 1704)]. The
importance of European communications had already been stressed in
article in the review “Signal” [No. 20, 2nd issue of
October 1941, pages 41 to 45] describing “International traffic in a
Europe without frontiers”.
Elsewhere, a former Waffen-SS
general, the Belgian Léon Degrelle, head of the Rex, in "Hitler pour
1000 ans" [Hitler for 1000 years] (Editions de la Table Ronde, Paris
1969) enthusiastically describes the East as Hitler saw it (pages
212 and 213): |
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“Giant canals would unite all the great rivers of
Europe, open to the boats of all, from the Seine to the Volga,
from the Vistula to the Danube. Double decker trains - goods below
passengers above - running on raised tracks of 4 meter gauge,
would easily cover the huge territories of the East, where the
former soldiers [the Waffen-SS] would have built the worlds most
modem farms and industries.” |
| But who would not ask: “And what would be the attitude of the
Germans towards the Slavs?” Degrelle has the answer [pages 217 and
218]: |
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“Nazi theoreticians professed violently anti-slavic
theories. They would not have resisted ten years of Russo-Germanic
interpenetration. Russians of both sexes would very quickly have
learned German. They often knew it already. [During the Russian
campaign of 1941-42] we found German textbooks in all the schools.
The language link would have been established more quickly in
Russia than anywhere else in Europe.
“The German has
admirable qualities as a technician and organizer. But the
Russian, a dreamer, is more imaginative and has a quicker mind.
The one would have complemented the other. And blood ties would
have done the rest. The young Germans, naturally enough and
whatever their propaganda machine may have done to oppose it,
would have married Russian girls in their hundreds of thousands.
They liked them, and the creation of the Europe of the East would
have been completed in the most pleasant fashion. The
German-Russian union would have been a great success.
“Yes, the problem was enormous: to unite live hundred
million Europeans.” |
On the basis of Speer’s “forecasts” or Degrelle’s “vision”,
everyone is free, according to his personal philosophy, to
appreciate or otherwise the proposed developments and the price to
be paid.
Paradoxically, Degrelle’s dreams seem more tangible
than Speer’s sinister calculations. This is was due to their
different personalities. Speer, while being an unrivalled bureaucrat
and a remarkable organizer whose work extended the armed resistance
of the Reich for at least a year, did not have the stuff of a
“leader of the people” like Degrelle. Already before the war, the
Belgian dealt with Hitler as man to man, for both were of the same
stamp, visionaries imposing their view of the future on crowds that
they were able to subjugate, control and manipulate by their oratory
alone. They had such powers of persuasion that they could annihilate
individualities, a kind of power that makes this type of man, though
captivating and able to command unshakeable devotion, dangerous
for democracies, In a triumphant Germany, in total control of
Europe, Degrelle would have had a good chance of succeeding Hitler —
who had designated him his spiritual son in 1941 — at the head of a
totalitarian SS empire stretching front the Atlantic seaboard to the
Urals. He would have continued his predecessor's work in the East.
Although ill-adapted to contemporary civilization, for example not
even being able to drive a car, Degrelle, not concerned by this type
of petty detail, conceived his role as being both the driving force
controlling the will of millions of Europeans and as a guide leading
them in the direction he saw for the future. He was not concerned
with the organization of the work, the material and human resources
that had to be harnessed, the programs to be drawn up. That was the
job of others, of high-level technicians just like Speer. But
Degrelle, a convinced Catholic, would not have allowed nor been able
to accept the colonization of the Eastern regions at a cost of 29
million victims, an exorbitant cost and a procedure contrary to his
religious convictions. The millions of Jews exterminated during the
Second World War raised such a furore that 29 million more deaths
would not have been ignored and would have raised an even greater
storm of protest. Speer’s estimates, even though they are based on
genuine SS documents, are unrealistic. A Degrelle would have found.
or have had others find, some other way, though still no doubt
involving compulsion, to implement his “civilizing mission” in the
East.
The fate of arms decided otherwise. |
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Document 14:
[PMO neg. no. 200586] |
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Zum Bebauungsplan für
die Stadt Auschwitz Gestaltung des Parteiforums in der Neustadt-Ost
/
For the Auschwitz urban developmont plan Configuration of the
Party forum in the new town, eastern district.
Scale 1:5000
Drawn in December 1942 |
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Translation of
inscriptions: |
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Südseite / South
elevation |
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Nordseite / North
elevation |
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Ostseite / East
elevation |
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Westseite / West
elevation |
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Blatt Nr VI F / Sheet
No VI F
Breslau/Auschwitz December 1942 / Breslau-Auschwitz,
December 1942
The Architect (unknown signature)
Sonderbeauftragter für den Bebauungsplan der Stadt Auschwitz /
Specially commissioned for the Auschwitz urban development plan
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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and operation
of the gas chambers
Jean-Claude Pressac
© 1989, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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