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The Holocaust and the Neo-Nazi Mythomania
© 1978, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
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4) as well as the procedure of the "selection" of
Jewish victims upon arrival of the convoys, the memorable extermination of the
Gypsies in the gas chambers and the revolt of the "Sonderkommando" in 1944 (6, pp. 86 91).
The other essential SS
witness is of the highest rank.
On March 11, 1946 (ten months after
Broad), Rudolf Hoess was arrested in Schleswig-Holstein, in the British zone of
occupation, where he had been employed under a false name as an agricultural
worker. Hoess, SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant-Colonel), was the
founder of the camp of Auschwitz and its first Commandant (May 20, 1940 to
November 11, 1943), the inventor in 1941 of the utilization of the insecticide
"Zyklon B" as a means of mass extermination, builder of all the gas chambers,
temporary or permanent, at Auschwitz I and at Auschwitz II (Birkenau). After
his arrest, he was brought to Minden, near Hanover, still in the British zone,
where he made a sworn statement on March 14, 1946 (32, p. 152). Then he was transferred to Nuremberg, where the
International Tribunal judging Goering and his associates was in session, and
he there made a second sworn statement on April 5, 1946 (32, p. 159). While drafting them, Hoess was completely
ignorant of the memoir and the declarations of his ex-subordinate Broad which
had been written several months earlier. The International Tribunal was equally
unaware of them and, in addition, cited the testimony of Hoess in its verdict.
It is therefore evident that the two witnesses were independent from each
other. However, with regard to the gas chambers at Auschwitz, their testimonies
coincide.
Throughout his two statements of 1946, Hoess indeed related
the genesis of the camp of Auschwitz and his visit to Treblinka, where the
killing was done in gas chambers filled with the exhaust fumes from a Diesel
engine. Hoess did not find the latter adequate to the task, which is why he
decided to use "Zyklon B." He considered that it had important advantages and
enumerated them. This said, he mentioned the temporary premises for gassing at
Auschwitz I, the two farms at Birkenau transformed into "Bunkers," then the
construction of four big "modern" plants, also at Birkenau, which each
consisted of an undressing room, a gas chamber and a crematorium. He gave the
description of the functioning of these plants after the "selection" of victims
upon arrival of the convoys. In short, his declarations contain all of the
elements that the account of Broad dedicated to the operation of the gas
chambers: their number, their topographical position, their characteristics,
their functioning.
From Nuremberg, Hoess was transferred to Poland at
the disposal of the Supreme Tribunal sitting in Warsaw. He was judged between
March 11 and April 2, 1947, and condemned to death. He was executed on April 16
on the very territory of the former camp of Auschwitz I. During the proceedings
of his trial in Poland, he wrote a copious autobiography. The French
translation contains nearly 250 pages (24).
This long account consists of a great quantity
of personal information, considerations of all kinds, opinions on a wide
variety of subjects and,
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The Holocaust and the Neo-Nazi Mythomania
© 1978, The
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