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THE STRUTHOF
ALBUM STUDY OF THE
GASSING AT NATZWEILER-STRUTHOF
by Jean-Claude Pressac
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Later on he comes back on his words and
confesses to the following in a second deposition:
The first time I ever saw a gas chamber as
such was Auschwitz. The whole building (Krematorium III), containing a
crematorium and a gas chamber, was located at (the end of) camp number 2
(Bauabschnitt II at Birkenau), of which I was the commandant. I visited
the building on my first inspection of the camp, when I had been there for
three days, but it was not in operation for the first eight days.”
The explanation of this double talk is quite simple. At the beginning
of his imprisonment, Kramer still considered himself under oath with respect to
his superiors, such as SS-Obürgruppenführer Oswald Pohl, and
constrained not to reveal anything of what he knew. This also explains why, at
the Struthof trial, he initially admitted to Major Jadin to a false gassing
procedure. He did this quite deliberately, thinking perhaps that the gassing
technique and the substance involved were really “secrets” of the
Third Reich's medical “science”. But then, given the behaviour,
sometimes to the extent of suicide, of his previous superiors in the docks of
Allied tribunals, Kramer, considering himself released from his SS oath,
“laid his cards on the table” and started giving reasonably
straightforward answers. Such are the origins of the “second”
versions.
It is rather astonishing that French Military Justice paid
little or no attention to the second deposition of the 6 December 1945,
although it must be praised for having at least recorded this statement. In the
collection of photographs put together by Major Jadin, only the first
deposition is mentioned. Even though it contains a flagrant physical
impossibility, the first one has been consistently reproduced and disseminated
mainly because Kramer ends it, referring to the gassing operations he carried
out, as follows:
“I FELT NO EMOTION WHILE ACCOMPLISHING THESE
TASKS, BECAUSE I HAD RECEIVED AN ORDER TO EXECUTE THE 80 INTERNEES IN THE
MANNER THAT I HAVE DESCRIBED TO YOU. THAT IS SIMPLY HOW I WAS BROUGHT
UP”.
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