I learned from a comment made on my blog yesterday that a tour guide at Dachau is telling gullible tourists that the gas chambers were used to kill prisoners. This quote is from the comment:
However when I asked why historians now think that a gas chamber at Dachau was used, he claims that witness statements claim it was which were never given proper weight in the past (apparently Gordon Hogan, historian extrodinairre, is the first person in history to realise this), and that’s good enough for him. He also claims that traces of Zyklon B have been tested for and found(!!). This all sounded a little “make it up as you go along” so I researched some more on the internet, and realise there is no evidence that any people were gassed at Dachau.
All of the claims in the above comment are true. There is NO EVIDENCE that any people were gassed at Dachau. However, it is also true that “witness statements claim that it was.” Four of the Dachau gas chambers were used to disinfect the clothing of the prisoners with Zyklon-B gas, so if these four chambers were tested for Zyklon-B, there would have been traces of it found.
You can see photos of the Dachau gas chamber and read a description of the shower room, that was allegedly used as a gas chamber here. You can see photos of openings in the interior of the shower room here.
What “witness statements” claim that the gas chambers (plural) were used?
After Dachau was liberated on April 29, 1945, the official report of the U.S. Seventh Army was printed as a book entitled Dachau Liberated: The Official Report by The U.S. Seventh Army, Released Within Days of the Camp’s Liberation by Elements of the 42nd and 45th Divisions.
The Official Report was based on two days of interviewing 20 political prisoners at Dachau; the prisoners told the Americans that both the shower room and the four disinfection chambers were used as homicidal gas chambers. Did these POLITICAL PRISONERS have a motive to lie? Did the American liberators have a motive to lie? Did General Dwight D. Eisenhower have a motive to show the German people as monsters? Yes, to all three questions!
Dachau was the first Nazi concentration camp to be found by American troops, while prisoners were still incarcerated there. Prior to this, Americans had come across the abandoned Natzweiler camp in France and the abandoned Ohrdruf sub-camp of Buchenwald. At Dachau, this was the first chance that Americans had to talk with the prisoners of a concentration camp and get their first-hand account of what happened.
Some of the political prisoners in the camp had organized the International Committee of Dachau. Members of the Committee met the Americans at the Arbeit Macht Frei gate and escorted them to the gas chambers. There are claims that the sight of the gas chambers caused the Americans to violate the Geneva Convention by killing the German soldiers who had surrendered; this is known as the Dachau Massacre.
The International Committee of Dachau is still in existence and it still controls what is told at the Dachau Memorial Site. That is why tourists today are told that the gas chambers were used, even though there is no evidence that it was even possible that the shower room could have been used to gas the prisoners.
The following quote is from The Official Report by The U.S. Seventh Army:
“When the American troops arrived on 29 April 1945, there were approximately 32,500 estimated internees of all nationalities, the Poles predominating. During this period, the camp was notorious for its cruelty, but within the last six or eight months, some ‘token’ improvement was noted in the treatment of the internees. However, the new crematorium was completed in May 1944, and the gas chambers, a total of five, were used for the executions and the disposals of the bodies.”
The Baracke X building and the five gas chambers were actually completed in May 1943. At that time, most of the Jews were in camps in Poland, so who was being gassed at Dachau?
The Report of the Atrocities Committed at Dachau Concentration Camp, signed by Col. David Chavez, Jr., JAGD, 7 May 1945 is quoted below:
“The new building had a gas chamber for executions… the gas chamber was labeled “shower room” over the entrance and was a large room with airtight doors and double glassed lights, sealed and gas proof. The ceiling was studded with dummy shower heads. A small observation peephole, double glassed and hermetically sealed was used to observe the conditions of the victims. There were grates in the floor. Hydrogen cyanide was mixed in the room below, and rose into the gas chamber and out the top vents.”
Based on the WITNESS STATEMENTS, the tour guides should tell tourists that hydrogen cyanide was put into the gas chamber through the GRATES IN THE FLOOR. Tourists are told that the grates in the floor, which are now closed up, are fake grates, but I don’t think that the tour guides tell people that the gas came up into the shower room through these grates.
Note that the Official Army Report says nothing about the two little windows on the east wall of the gas chamber. Those windows weren’t there when the camp was liberated. Or perhaps, they were there and no one noticed them. I have a page on my website in which I have collected eye witness statements and none of these statements mention the little windows. In spite of this, tour guides at Dachau tell visitors that gas pellets were thrown into the shower room through these openings.
I don’t know if all of the Dachau tour guides tell visitors that the gas chamber was used, but I have read many blog posts written by students who took a tour of Dachau.
This quote is from this blog:
Dachau was never used as a mass-extermination facility, meaning a large number of prisoners did not endure a gas chamber death. However, there is a gas chamber at Dachau and it was used to kill only “small numbers” of prisoners. The tour guide explained that because of Dachau’s location in Germany, it was easier to ship prisoners to concentration camps outside of the country in order to easily “dispose” of them.
The German people have no control over their history. If someone on the staff of the Dachau Memorial Site would have the nerve to speak up, and say that the shower room was not used as a gas chamber, that person would be reported to the Thought Police and would wind up serving 5 years in a German prison. If you live in Germany or Austria, do not mention anything that you have read here, or you could be put on trial for Holocaust denial.
Americans who still have free speech should speak up when they take a tour of Dachau and confront the tour guides with their lies.
Hello, I wish to clear up some things stated in this article. I am a former freelance tour guide and was certified by the Dachau Memorial Site to give tours on their grounds. First I want to talk about the process of getting certified and what it actually means. It it important for your readers to understand that anyone can give a tour on the grounds of the Memorial Site. They are trying to put measures in place at the current time that would restrict who can and cannot give tours at the site. Eventually the goal would be to only have people who were certified, like myself, the ability to give tours on the grounds.
As it stands now however you can book a tour through an outside company. This is Bad for a couple reasons. First, the outside companies will charge you an arm and a leg for a tour that may or may not be any good. Second, there is no control on the tour guides from outside companies. Many do there own research or follow a tried and true script laid out by their company. So any conspiracy that can be drawn regarding to the guides being told what to say couldn’t be further from the truth.
As far as the certification, you meet a couple times per month at the Memorial Site for a class. Each class last a couple hours and there is a lot of discussion. the gas chambers are questioned, the death tolls are questioned, there is actually a lot of questioning from the soon to be tour guides. The format is a lecture type setting but there is a lot of discussion over various aspects of the camp. I may also add that not all of the students or teachers agree on every point. There were a lot of tough questions put towards the teachers by the students and they tried to the best of their ability to answer with documentation. If they didn’t know a particular answer they would simply tell you that they didn’t know. At the end of each class they give readings that are to be completed by the next class. The texts range from eye witness testimony to a variety of books on the former camp itself. At the end on the 3.5 months (if I remember correctly) you are tested in the form of a test tour to be given to staff members of the Memorial Site.
Once you pass you are free to do with the tour what you want. I had full range in deciding which exhibits to stop at and which ones to pass up. There was no set model I was to follow and if I didn’t want to even show the tourists the crematorium, there was no rule stating that I had to. I came up with all of my material based on my own personal research and never once said anything at the camp that I could not back up with resources.
In your post you said:
”The International Committee of Dachau is still in existence and it still controls what is told at the Dachau Memorial Site”. The ICD is still in existence, however I never met or came across a member and they certainly didn’t control what I said.
You also stated:
”That is why tourists today are told that the gas chambers were used, even though there is no evidence that it was even possible that the shower room could have been used to gas the prisoners”.
I can tell you from personal experience that I never told anyone anything of the sort. Myself and every other tour guide I knew back then always stated that it was never used for executions, there is even a sign up stating that it was never used. So I simply don’t see where you are coming from with this statement.
So perhaps the problem is that you or your readers are getting less informed tour guides from outside companies… Whether that is the case or not I cannot be sure. As I have stated every tour guide has the freedom to make there own tour, I would suggest to you and your readers to take a tour through the memorial site with an official guide. Or even better do your own research and examine the camp by yourself and draw your own conclusion.
Comment by Paul — December 13, 2012 @ 5:28 am
You wrote: “Myself and every other tour guide I knew back then always stated that it was never used for executions, there is even a sign up stating that it was never used.”
The first time that I visited Dachau in 1997, there was a sign in the “gas chamber” which said in 5 languages that it had never been used. In 2003, the sign was gone, and there were new signs on the undressing room wall.
This quote is from the undressing room wall:
“Gas chamber – This was the center of the potential mass murder. The room was disguised as ‘showers’ and equipped with fake shower spouts to mislead the victims and prevent them from refusing to enter the room. During a period of 15 to 20 minutes up to 150 people at a time could be suffocated to death through prussic acid poison gas (Zyklon B).”
The text of the display on the undressing room wall describes the undressing room as follows: “Disrobing – This is were (sic) the victims were to leave their clothes before entering the gas chamber disguised as ‘showers.’
Has this display on the undressing room wall been replaced or changed since 2008, the last time I was there? If so, what does the new display say?
The wording on the display in the undressing room is very clever. It gives the impression that the gas chamber was used to kill people, although it does not state this in clear terms. On my website, I have a section about the gas chamber which starts at http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/GasChamber/UndressingRoom.html
Can you tell me if there have been any changes since 2008?
Comment by furtherglory — December 13, 2012 @ 6:34 am
I know for a fact that there is a sign right out side of the entrance of the fumigation chambers that states that the gas chamber was never used for mass executions. As far as the plaque on the wall in your link, I have to say that it has been a while since I have been there so I don’t want to give you a false answer on that. I will however talk to some friends whom still give tours there or go there myself and take some pictures. Do you have an email address I could send the pictures to?
Comment by Paul — December 13, 2012 @ 12:24 pm
I wrote a blog post http://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/sign-at-dachau-memorial-site-tells-visitors-that-the-gas-chamber-there-was-used/ on which I included a photo of a sign which is outside the Dachau crematorium. This sign states that the gas chamber was not used for mass execution. The sign says: “Survivors have testified that the SS did, however, murder individual prisoners and small groups here using poison gas.”
My e-mail address is mail@scrapbookpages.com
Comment by furtherglory — December 13, 2012 @ 2:31 pm
So I asked a friend to email me what the sign said exactly outside of the crematorium. It reads: ”The large crematorium was erected between May 1942 and April 1943. It was to serve both as a killing facility and to remove the dead. But the gas chamber was not used for mass murder. Survivors have testified that the SS did, however, murder individual prisoners and small groups here using poison gas.”
I think this clearly states the view of the memorial site in saying that it was not used for mass murder.
”But the gas chamber was not used for mass murder”
It said that survivors testified that it was used on small groups, this is true, survivors did testify that it was used on small groups. I think the memorial site has made this plainly clear that it survivors stated this and they are not saying one way or another if there statement has validity.
But to get back to the original topic as to why Dachau Tour Guides tell visitors that the gas chamber was used, they simply don’t it is well known that the Dachau gas chamber was not used for mass executions. I think the tour guides and the memorial site have both done an adequate job in telling visitors that it was not used for mass murder.
Comment by Paul — December 16, 2012 @ 11:50 am
Do Americans have free speech in the Israeli colony of Germany?
Showing any form of scepticism about witness statements at Dachau, is as advisable as making a speech denouncing the Qur’an, on a Friday afternoon in Riyadh.
Comment by The Black Rabbit of Inlé — October 16, 2012 @ 2:33 pm
Americans have a certain protected status in the bundes republik; after all the BRD is a US protectorate. However overstepping the line will get you on the next plane out with a paragraph in the New York Times informing the American public of the expulsion of an American neo Nazi from Germany.
Comment by Pete — October 16, 2012 @ 2:39 pm
I was in Berlin for 5 days in June, and did notice that there were a lot of young Americans about the place, not tourists, perhaps students.. All seemed to speak (and sing) very good German (Euro 2012 was on).
Comment by The Black Rabbit of Inlé — October 16, 2012 @ 2:58 pm
They could have been the children of American soldiers who were stationed in Germany. Germany has been occupied since 1945. They could also have been young Germans. Some of the Germans speak English with an American accent because they learned English from an American soldier. Of course, they also speak very good German, which they learned from their German mother.
Comment by furtherglory — October 17, 2012 @ 9:42 am
Indeed lots of Germans learn to speak very good English with a strong US accent because they are often sent to English language schools in the Summer months in the US. The teenagers sound like they have escaped from a US soap opera.
There are indeed also 50,000 US troops in the BRD + dependents looking after the protectorate. They do live in their own ghettos and most of their needs are supplied by the US .
Comment by Pete — October 19, 2012 @ 8:35 am
When I used to travel to Germany, I was often mistaken for a German citizen, and I was told many times, by American tourists, that I spoke good English.
Comment by furtherglory — October 19, 2012 @ 10:04 am
American tourists provide endless amusement when overseas. On my one and only trip to Israel/Palestine I was told by a US tourist that my English was excellent and after he praised me asked me where I had learnt it. I replied ” England “.
Comment by Pete — October 19, 2012 @ 1:55 pm
I can always spot an American in Europe — by their body language. You can always tell who is an American citizen in Europe by the way Americans walk and by the sloppy way they dress. Among African-Germans, there is a big difference in body language, compared to African-Americans.
Comment by furtherglory — October 19, 2012 @ 3:48 pm
“During the whole of my stay at Dachau I never saw any prisoners being killed or ill-treated. [...] Conditions such as I saw in films and read about in the newspapers after the collapse of Germany, regarding ill-treatment in the German Concentration Camps never took place in my presence.”
- Herbert Wilschewske, inmate of Dachau from Feb 3, 1943 until “liberation”, Nuremberg trial affidavit (unused by the prosecution)
http://winstonsmithministryoftruth.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/affidavit-from-dachau-inmate-praising.html
I bet Gordon Hogan doesn’t use this witness statement either.
Comment by The Black Rabbit of Inlé — October 16, 2012 @ 2:28 pm
Here is another wochenschau with all the requirements for the fable . To prevent typhus all soldiers had their hair cut and had to be take showers whilst their clothes were steamed.
I am sure this procedure would have been terrifying for an eastern Jew who wouldn’t have seen a shower in their life. 8.37 in,
Comment by Pete — October 16, 2012 @ 9:52 am
Oh no! Surely, you are not saying that the Jews weren’t clean and that they spread disease by their lack of cleanliness?
Comment by furtherglory — October 16, 2012 @ 10:11 am
“Oh no! Surely, you are not saying that the Jews weren’t clean and that they spread disease by their lack of cleanliness?”
The Patton Papers:
On camps for Displaced Persons (mainly Jews) Patton wrote : “these people do not understand toilets and refuse to use them except as repositories for tin cans, garbage, and refuse . . . They decline, where practicable, to use latrines, preferring to relieve themselves on the floor.”
After attending a Jewish religious service at Eisenhower’s insistence, Patton wrote : “This happened to be the feast of Yom Kippur, so they were all collected in a large, wooden building, which they called a synagogue. It behooved General Eisenhower to make a speech to them. We entered the synagogue, which was packed with the greatest stinking bunch of humanity I have ever seen. When we got about halfway up, the head rabbi, who was dressed in a fur hat similar to that worn by Henry VIII of England and in a surplice heavily embroidered and very filthy, came down and met the General . . . The smell was so terrible that I almost fainted and actually about three hours later lost my lunch as the result of remembering it.” (diary entry for September 17, 1945)
Comment by hermod — October 21, 2012 @ 10:43 am
General Patton must have had an extraordinary sense of smell, something which I have myself. Patton could not go into the shed at Ohrdruf to view the 20 or 30 bodies there because it would have made him throw up. Some accounts say that Patton did lose his lunch at Ohrdruf.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler also mentioned that he met a Jew on the street in Vienna, when he was a young man, and he could not stand the smell of him. Before this, he had only known the Jew who was his mother’s doctor.
I’m not saying that Jews smell bad, just that some people are more sensitive to odors than others.
Comment by furtherglory — October 21, 2012 @ 10:51 am