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My Response to Carlo Mattogno: Notes

  1. John C. Zimmerman, Body Disposal at Auschwitz: The End of Holocaust Denial (http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/body-disposal)
    Page numbers refer to the approximate printer page.

  2. Carlo Mattogno, John C. Zimmerman and "Body Disposal at Auschwitz": Preliminary Observations (http://www.codoh.com/granata/jcz.html) Page numbers refer to the approximate printer page.

  3. Carlo Mattogno, My Banned Holocaust Interview (Palos Verdes: 1996), 7, 17 .

  4. Carlo Mattogno, "The Crematories of Auschwitz: A Critique of Jean Claude Pressac," 14 Journal of Historical Review No 6 (November/December, 1994), 38.

  5. Report in AA, File 502-1-327

  6. Carlo Mattogno, Reply to Samuel Crowell's "Comments" About My Critique of the Bomb Shelter Thesis" (http://www.codoh.com/granata/reply.html), 8

  7. Tadeusz Paczula, "Office Procedures in K L Auschwitz", in Auschwitz State Museum Death Books From Auschwitz (London: 1995) Vol. 1, p.33. See also Aleksander Lasik, "Structure and Character of the Camp SS Administration," in Franciszek Piper and Theresa Swiebocka, Auschwitz: Nazi Death Camp (Oswiecim: 1996), 47. The Crematoria Administration [Krematorium Verwaltung] is also referred to in a series of camp documents. See APMO, Dpr.-Hd/11a, Nr.1600 and Nr.1617, pp. 93-96 of the Hoess trial.

  8. Carlo Mattogno, The Gasprufer of Auschwitz (http://www.codoh.com/gcgv/gcgvpruf.html), 23

  9. Carlo Mattogno, The Auschwitz Central Construction Headquarters Letter Dated 28 June 1943: An Alternative Interpretation, (http://www.codoh.com/granata/lalett.html), 8

  10. Transcripts in Gerald Fleming, Hitler and the Final Solution (2nd edition, 1994), 200,202

  11. Text of USSR 008, Report to the International Military Tribunal, Trials of Major War Criminals (Washington, D.C. 1947) Vol. 39, p.261 on the Soviet view of the alleged burning capacity of the ovens.

  12. Ibid., 260-261

  13. Carlo Mattogno and Franco Deana, The Crematoria Ovens of Auschwitz and Birkenau (http://www.codoh.com/found/fndcrema.html), 32, 33.

  14. Carlo Mattogno, Auschwitz: The End of a Legend (Newport Beach: 1994), 32

  15. Carlo Mattogno, The Gassed People of Auschwitz: Pressac's New Revisions (http://www.codoh.com/gcgv/gcnewrev.html), 11

  16. Mattogno, My Banned Holocaust Interview, 43

  17. Danuta Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle (NY: 1990), 677

  18. See Mattogno's table in Auschwitz: The End of a Legend, 24.

  19. Aktenvermerk: ABetr: Besprechung anlasslich des Besuches... , June 20, 1944 in AA file, 502-1-21, p.2, reel 19.

  20. Rudolph Hoess, Death Dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Commandant at Auschwitz (NY: 1992), 37

  21. APMO, Dpr.-Hd/11a, Nr.1600 and Nr.1617, p.96 of the Hoess trial. The firehook reference in the document refers to the 30 ovens of Kremas IV and V. In fact this was an error in the document because Kremas II and III had a total of 30 ovens while IV and V had a total of 16. So the reference had to be to Kremas II and III, not IV and V.

  22. Mattogno, My Banned Holocaust Interview, 41

  23. Filip Muller, Eyewitness Auschwitz (NY: 1979),130,133

  24. Mattogno, The Gassed People of Auschwitz, 11

  25. See note 14 herein.

  26. Miklos Nyiszli, Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account (NY: 1993), 87-88

  27. Mattogno, My Banned Holocaust Interview, 18

  28. Eugen Kogon et.al. Nazi Mass Murder (Yale: 1993), 170.

  29. I identify this individual who Mattogno refers to as a "guard" as one of the 13 or 14 Sonderkommandos.

  30. The photo is reproduced in Theresa Swiebocka, Auschwitz: A History in Photographs (Bloomington: 1993), 174-175.

  31. Mattogno, My Banned Holocaust Interview, 43

  32. Mattogno and Deana, 32-33.

  33. Ibid., 29

  34. Mattogno, Auschwitz: The End of a Legend, 72.

  35. Mattogno and Deana, 33

  36. Rudolph Jakobskotter, ADie Entwicklung der Einascherung bis zu dem neuen elektrisch beheizten Heiblufteinascherungsofen in Erfurt, 64 Gesundheits-Ingenieur, Hefte 43 (October 25, 1941), 583,587.

  37. Ibid, 582

  38. Mattogno, Auschwitz: The End of a Legend, 30; Mattogno and Deana, 26; Mattogno, "The Crematories of Auschwitz," 40 cited in note 4 herein.

  39. My thanks to Harry Mazal of The Holocaust History Project for providing me with this information.

  40. Topf letter of April 4,1943 to the Bauleitung in APMO, BW 30/34 p.43. Photocopy of the letter also in Reinhard Kühnl, Der deutsche Faschismus in Quellen und Dokumenten (Verlag: 1975), 395.

  41. BA doc. 94, February 14, 1941. In File NS 4 Ma/54

  42. BA docs. 106 and 148, March 13 and June 25, 1941. The repair material was monolithe.

  43. On the delivery of the materials see BA docs. 260,261,262, 266-268 and BA doc. 271on the cancellation of the building projects.

  44. BA docs. 278-280.

  45. Monthly figures up until the end of 1944 in Hans Marsalek, Die Gesichichte des Konzentrationlagers Mauthausen (Wien: 1974)128-129. Figures for 1945 in Hans Marsalek, Konzentrationslager Gusen: Ein Nebenlager des KZ Mauthausen (Wien: 1987), 39. It might be worth noting that the paper trail on the Gusen ovens shows that they functioned for a minimum period of 22 months - November 1941 to August 1943 - without being overhauled. The first of the 46 Birkenau ovens became operational in March 1943. Auschwitz was evacuated in January 1945 - 22 months after the first of these ovens became operational

  46. Marsalek, Die Geschichte des Konzentrationslagers Mauthausen, 128-129.

  47. Ibid. , 160.

  48. Mattogno and Deana, 26

  49. This is the correct number. In the body disposal study I used the numbers which appear in the total columns, for 11852. However, the total column for 1890 overstated the supporting data by 1000, listing 3388 cremated when the three columns show, 121, 1188 and 1079 for a total of 2388.

  50. The Urn, June 1893, 4

  51. The item that Mattogno was claiming would be needed to achieve a 40 minute per body burning time is a saugzuganlage, (exhaust installation). An examination of the cost sheet for the double muffle furnace installed in Gusen in October 1941 lists all items that are a part of the oven. There is no listing of a saugzuganlage. This means that the efficiencies achieved by the Gusen ovens of 25 minutes per body from October 31 to November 12, 1941 were done without this feature. In other words, to date Mattogno has not produced any evidence that there were any differences between the Auschwitz and Gusen ovens. Cost sheet and accompanying letter for October 31, 1941 in BA docs 200-204.

  52. Mattogno, Auschwitz: The End of a Legend, 24.

  53. ibid., 10

  54. Letter of November 1, 1940, BA doc. 11

  55. Jean Claude Pressac's "The Machinery of Mass Murder at Auschwitz" in Yisrael Gutman and Michael Berenbaum, eds., The Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp (Bloomington: 1994), 189

  56. AM, File B/12/31

  57. The reference is to Pressac's essay "The Machinery of Mass Murder at Auschwitz" ibid.

  58. Mattogno and Deana, 19

  59. In the body disposal study I believed that Mattogno's error resulted from his placing the cremations as beginning at 1 A.M. on November 8 and ending at 1:30 A.M. on November 9. While it is possible that he misread the timesheet in this manner, I now believe it more likely that he knew the correct starting time but not when the operation ended.

  60. BA doc. 213

  61. Mattogno's only footnote for this statement states: " The quantity of coke burned in one hour on the furnace grate." (Reply, 22, note 28) No other explanation is given.

  62. Paul Berben, Dachau, 1933-1945 (London: 1975), 7

  63. Danuta Czech, "Origins of the Camp, Its Construction and Expansion", in Franciszek Piper and Teresa Swiebocka, Auschwitz: Nazi Death Camp (Oswiecim: 1996), 34. She emphasizes the point that in July the Bauleitung "had already begun negotiating with several firms over the construction of four - not two - large crematoria and gas chambers."

  64. Danuta Czech, Auschitz Chronicle (NY: 1990), 190

  65. Jean - Claude Pressac, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers (NY: 1989), 204

  66. Photocopy of the document in ibid., 200

  67. Jean-Claude Pressac, "The Machinery of Mass Murder at Auschwitz," In Yisrael Gutman and Michael Berenbaum, Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp (Bomington: 1994), 218, 219; Deborah Dwork and Robert - Jan van Pelt, Auschwitz: 1270 to the Present, (NY: 1996), 321

  68. Czech,Auschwitz Chronicle, 218.

  69. Pressac, "Machinery of Mass Murder," 215.

  70. Jean-Claude Pressac, Les Crematories d' Auschwitz: La Machinerie Du Meurtre De Masse (Paris: 1993), 48, and document 20 in the back of the book.

  71. Dwork and van Pelt, Auschwitz: 1270 to the Present, 316

  72. Czech, "Origins of the Camp...", 32,33

  73. Figures in Marsalek, Konzentrationslager Gusen: Ein Nebenlager des KZ Mauthausen 37,42. In 1945 slightly less than 9000 prisoners died in Gusen. p.39

  74. David Hackett, The Buchenwald Report (Boulder: 1995), 114-115 gives a monthly breakdown of the camp population growth from1937 to 1945.

  75. Prisoner figures in Marsalek, Die Geschichte des Konzentrationslager Mauthausen, 106-107. Higher figures for Mauthausen in 1944 are in Evelyn Le Chene, Mauthausen: History of a Concentration Camp (London: 1971), 184-189 who lists more than 70,000 entering the camp in 1944 and a total population of 90,000. Le Chene's figures can be calculated to show a 15% death rate. I have subtracted prisoners transferred out of the camp to reach this figure. Marsalek's lower figure of 7300 deaths on a lower population comes to about 15%. Marsalek's deaths for Mauthausen on p.129 of Die Geschichte. I am now using Marsalek's lower numbers for Mauthausen. In the body disposal study I used Le Chene's higher figures. However, I now believe that Marsalek's lower numbers are more authoritative.

  76. Berben, Dachau, 1933-1945, 107,110 on typhus, 228-229 on prisoner figures. On the number of ovens in Dachau see Pressac, Les Crematoires d' Auschwitz, 97.

  77. Arthur Butz, The Hoax of the 20th Century (Los Angeles: 1977), 125

  78. See the table in Pressac, Les Crematoires d'Auschwitz, 144-145

  79. Danuta Czech, "Origins of the Camp, Its Construction and Expansion,"in Franciszek Piper and Teresa Swiebocka, eds., Auschwitz: Nazi Death Camp (Oswiecim:1996), 31-32 for information up to January 31,1942; Pressac, Les Crematoires d' Auschwitz , 144-145 for deaths of registered prisoners from February to June 30, 1942. I have prorated these numbers since the death books go from January 3 to July 7, 1942. The 12,500 number I used includes 455 Soviet prisoners not in the death books. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 139. Check this note for garbling.

  80. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 190

  81. ibid.,121 which states that the prisoners "are brought to Auschwitz."

  82. Pressac, Auschwitz, 204

  83. Text in ibid., 198

  84. For a complete discussion of Kremer's diary entries and the denier claims represented by Robert Faurisson see my Holocaust Denial: Demographics, Testimonies and Ideologies (Forthcoming in the year 2000), 56-60

  85. Pressac, Les Crematories d' Auschwitz, 63

  86. Text in Pressac, Auschwitz, 210

  87. Text of the July 23, 1942 in APMO, D-Aul, Garrison Order19/42. I obtained a photocopy from the Auschwitz State Museum. A summary of the order is in Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 202.

  88. Jadwiga Bezwinska and Danuta Czech, eds., KL Auschwitz Seen by the SS (NY: 1984), 214

  89. Hausverfugung Nr.108, May 5, 1943, AA, File 502-1-17, reel 19

  90. Yitzhak Arad, Yisrael Gutman, and Abraham Margliot, Documents on the Holocaust (Jerusalem: 1981), 274.

  91. Dwork and van Pelt, Auschwitz: 1270 to the Present , Plates 16, 17 and 18. Dejaco designed the doors for the entrance to Corpse Cellars I in Kremas II and III. The design for the entrance doors to Corpse Cellars I show that the doors swing outward. Normally, entrance doors swing inward. It would have been necessary for the doors to the gas chambers to swing outward because there would have been too many bodies crammed together for the doors to swing inward. The design for these doors was examined by Professor Robert Jan Van Pelt, a historian of architecture, from the files of the Auschwitz State Museum, APMO BW (B) 30/12 and cited in the report he filed for the defense in the civil lawsuit by David Irving against Professor Deborah Lipstadt in England. The Pelt Report, 297.

  92. Pressac, Les Crematoires d' Auschwitz, 107

  93. Aktenvermerk: ABetr: Besprechung anlasslich des Besuches..., June 20, 1944 in AA file, 502-1-21, p.2, reel 19

  94. Communication dated May 14, 2000

  95. See pages 291, 299 and 300 of the work cited in note 84 herein.

  96. Carlo Mattogno, Deborah Lipstadt: A Review of Denying the Holocaust (http://www.codoh.com/review/revdeblip.html), 10.

  97. AA File 502-1-328.

  98. Mattogno, My Banned Holocaust Interview, 13
   

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