Listen to what a gas chamber expert had to say about the Holocaust gas chambers

May 26, 2013

Listen to what a gas chamber expert had to say about the Holocaust gas chambers

Filed under: Holocaust — Tags: floor drain in Auschwitz gas chamber, Fred Leuchter, Holocaust gas chambers — furtherglory @ 10:14 am

Several years ago, there was a YouTube video which showed Fred Leuchter, Jr. speaking about the gas chambers at Auschwitz. Since then, the video has been taken down. However, you can read what Leuchter wrote about the Holocaust gas chambers here.

Leuchter’s life was ruined after he testified in the trial of a Holocaust denier in Canada a few years ago, after which, he apparently went into hiding, in fear of his life.

This quote is from the website, cited above:

…. a very believing engineer sat at his desk working one snowy January afternoon in 1988, when the telephone rang. This very believing engineer [Fred Leuchter] was about to receive a very shocking history lesson, one which would cause him to question that 50-year-old Holocaust lie and the application of that lie to generations of children. “Hello, this is Robert Faurisson” — and that very believing engineer would believe no more. […]

4. Construction
Construction of these facilities shows that they were never used as gas chambers. None of these facilities were sealed or gasketed. No provision was ever made to prevent condensation of gas on the walls, floor or ceiling. No provision ever existed to exhaust the air-gas mixture from these buildings. No provision ever existed to introduce or distribute the gas throughout the chamber. No explosion-proof lighting existed and no attempt was ever made to prevent gas from entering the crematories, even though the gas is highly explosive. No attempt was made to protect operating personnel from exposure to the gas or to protect other non-participating persons from exposure. Specifically, at Auschwitz, a floor drain in the alleged gas chamber was connected directly to the camp’s storm drain system. At Majdanek a depressed walkway around the alleged gas chambers would have collected gas seepage and resulted in a death trap for camp personnel. No exhaust stacks ever existed. Hydrogen cyanide gas is an extremely dangerous and lethal gas, and nowhere were there any provisions to effect any amount of safe handling. The chambers were too small to accommodate more than a small fraction of the alleged numbers. Plain and simple, these facilities could not have operated as execution gas chambers.

Note that virtually everything that Fred wrote is what I have been trying to communicate through my blog for over two years.

Except for one tiny detail: “the floor drain in the alleged [Auschwitz] gas chamber” is included in the reconstructed gas chamber that is shown to tourists, but this drain was originally inside a washroom in the gas chamber building in the main camp.

I previously blogged about the Auschwitz gas chamber floor drain here. I also blogged about the 6 floor drains in the Dachau gas chamber here. According to Fred, a gas chamber absolutely cannot have even one floor drain, much less 6 drains.

Comments (27)

27 Comments

Good article, thanks. Wow, hot comments. To me, the weakest part of the Holohoax is the crematoriums. Anyone can Google how long it takes to cremate a body today. So, just doing the math, makes liars out of all the so called survivor stories. Bodies are not made out of tissue paper, you can’t cremate thousands of bodies daily with just a few furnances.

Comment by Dennis Gannon — March 13, 2018 @ 7:59 am
keep up the good work

Comment by grey wolf — November 18, 2017 @ 3:44 pm
Wow! You deniers ARE still using Fred Leuchter as a source!!!!

I find this a surprise…For a group of people who will try and find any slight inconsistency in the memory of a soldier or witness as proof the Holocaust is a hoax, I am surprised that you would dismiss Messr. Leuchter’s little (Ok “little” that’s sarcasm) credibility problem. HERE IS THE BIG PROBLEM LEUCHTER REPRESENTED HIMSELF TO BE AN ENGINEER, WHEN HE WAS ONLY A HISTORY STUDENT. LET ME blunt here.any person who would represent them self to belong to a profession they are indeed not, is a fraud. Mr. Leucther, who runs quite a shakedown with his execution business (in his glory days he would threaten to represent in court on behalf of a condemned person that the existing execution apparatus could malfunction, if the state didn’t purchase his services. While I could sort of commend the man for creating his niche business, I love the entrepreneur…I stop short of such praise because he was a sleaze who exploited the courts (e.g. government) to peddle his product (no wonder Holocaust Denial was so attractive to him)…. it doesn’t change the fact that he is a fraud…. By the way, if you read the transcripts, when questioned about his lack of an engineering degree at Boston University, his response was that didn’t offer Engineering when he went there (oops they did, three degrees – by the way when you are on the stand that’s called perjury).

Leuchter, in the late 80’s decided to branch out his business to provide services in Holocaust denial. He testified in court (to the tune of this Youtube Video). Mr. Leuchter, should have known that expert witnesses are required to provide accurate information about their backgrounds….you know things like….I don’t know your degree. Look I know it was Canada, but Canada does follow the British model, and thus the rules of evidence are similar to ours. Now I’m sure all of you out living in Joseph Goebbelsland lie about your degrees every day, to employers, courts, etc… I bet one of you is going to apply to be head brain surgeon tomorrow at the Fred Leuchter Judenfrei Medical Center. Wonder how many of you/your relatives/firends are/will be treated by a Jewish Doctor in your life time.

Look this wasn’t just a nit pick (which makes up about 80% of what comes out of this cite) , it was a pretty big one…. See the problem is that when you testify you need to be qualified as an expert, you need at least a degree. I am surprised Mr. Zundel’s, (a big time Joseph Goebbelsland Executive himself, who was dealing with his own holocaust denial problems) attorney, didn’t vet this guy out….perhaps that’s part of another Jewish conspiracy. Anyway beside getting destroyed on his background and scientific methods, etc… When The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, specifically their engineers, read about Leuchter (who made himself a target when he appeared in such a high profile case), they were not thrilled to see someone representing themselves as one without taking the exams (By the way this is the same for most professions in almost every state and nation)…. Mr. Leuchter was quite lucky (and probably advised (I wonder if he hired a Jewish attorney : ) to sign acknowledgement of this (we live in a very forgiving country).

***For the record I vehemently oppose criminalization of holocaust deniers; instead I support ridicule…That being said if you are to attach your name to the science I fully support a Government and Private Employer’s right to not hire you based on the fact its not a good business decision!

Anyway, if you are interested you can read about the man who you cite in whole and part throughout your fantasy excursion into Goebbelsland you can cut and paste into your browser.

http://www.holocaust-history.org/leuchter-consent-agreement/ (You can see the actual consent agreement here…this is proof).
http://www.nizkor.org/faqs/leuchter/leuchter-faq-22.html (You can read the cross examination as well as the unwinding of Mr. Leuchter racket here)..
http://www.nizkor.org/faqs/leuchter/ (Messr. Leuchter’s science is numerously flawed, for those of you (and probably there aren’t many) who come here can read a pretty well kept log of refuting of Mr. Leuchter here)

So I imagine most of you who visit this site are of the same mindset (willfully blind, old fashioned Jew hatred, and not highly compensated), but for those of you who wish to depart the confines of your blind-hatred, those who want to take responsibility for their won failings rather than blame them on some massive conspiracy, for those who wish to free themselves, I would suggest you read this, and then without “group think” analyze Mr. Leuchter rationally….

Or try this thought experiment (Jew-Albert Einstein liked thought experiments), if proof of the Holocaust was solely based upon a witness with EXACTLY THE SAME CREDENTIALS AS MESSR. LEUCHTER, how would you react? Let me assure you it would be a frenzy, or should I say Jihad (for the Islamists of your group).

Comment by NeverAGAIN! — May 28, 2013 @ 9:06 am
- I know all about how Fred Leuchter was discredited and ridiculed to negate his findings. That is old news. Your comment reveals that you are way behind in your knowledge of Holocaust denial. Fred Leuchter has dropped out of sight, in fear of his life.
  
  Try reading the personal website of Germar Rudolf at http://germarrudolf.com/a-rebel/ Try reading some of Germar Rudolf’s books. Germar climbed down into the Krema II gas chamber, the same as Fred Leuchter, and wrote about his findings. He paid for this by spending years in prison in Germany, but he is out now.
  
  Most of my readers are very up-to-date on the Holocaust. Your comments stand out because you are commenting like a Holocaust believer from the dark ages. Holocaust denial is main stream now.
  
  Comment by furtherglory — May 28, 2013 @ 9:37 am
  - I’m not the one who put a link to Leuchter. You did. SO BY ADMISSION YOU KNOWINGLY ARE ADMITTING YOU POSTED A FRAUD. By the way Mr. Leuchter discredited HIMSELF, The Jews didn’t represent him to be an Engineer, he did. Problem was he got caught, and yes he probably got caught by a Jew, but that’s to bad, shouldn’t have offered expert witness testimony without a degree! Care to comment on that. No you cant because he is a fraud just like you. Do you by chance work for the Obama administration or IRS? By the way I’m not a Holocaust believer stuck in the dark age, (for the record the dark ages were 1,000 years before the Holocaust_ My grandmother was a HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR! THERE IS NOTHING TO BELIEVE HERE. IT HAPPENED. Let me suggest you read the testimony of the Nazis who admitted to gassing Jews (and were proud of it!) Of course those in your fantasy world were tortured, even in 1960’s! Of course you could try math, you know calculating the amount of Jews in 1938 (you know the 15.7 million you did in an earlier posting), then using a birth rate, compute how many Jews would be alive today. Then you can do the same think except subtract 6 milllion, and amazing you get to the number of Jews living today. I know Revisionists have to take revisionist math courses. You still have not answered that challenge because you cant! But let me help you out. Take 15 million in 1947, assume a population growth rate of 1% (which is about average, ok lets shrink it to 0.9% Probably more realistic as more educated people tend to have less kids (which by the way is a shame), by 2012, you have 28.6 million (thats how many Jews would be alive today if your Hero Nazi Stooges that “never existed”) never really existing. Now lets take that same 15 million number in 1947 and subtract 6 million. That leaves 9 million Well growing the population at 0.9%to the 65th power (e.g. 1.009)^65 = 16.1 Million. Based on population estimates today (and you can look them up) there are about16 million Jews in the world today. In valuations world we call this type of math a sanity check, it gets you in the ball park. So unless you can prove somehow that the 15-16 million Jews in the world in 1937 estimates were vastly overstated, you have to reinvent math, I realize that using exponential formulas may be beyond your math abilities, but on this planet and in this world the laws of mathematics do not mesh with your claims! Oh and if you can challenge that number, let me suggest you delete your post on how the World Almanac including the Jewish publication citing there were still 15 million Jews after the war be deleted because you would be arguing out of both sides of your math. As for Herr Rudolf, at least after all these years you found a guy who has a degree (or at least was close to getting one), but his report, similar to Leuchter is also flawed, this has been rebuked by other Chemists in detail; Some points: Herr Rudolf, whose initial foray into the matter was to say Chemistry is an exact science, he has himself started to backtrack on that a bit (funny what happens when other real scientists get involved). “Furthermore, I am convinced that chemistry is not the science which can prove or refute any allegations about the Holocaust “rigorously” Wow there Herr Rudolf appears we have just undermined our thesis have we not? **Anyway a more complete scientific response to Mr. Rudolf is listed below. Apparently your new hero is no more credible than the old…. http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/chemistry/not-the-science/ (Charts did not copy so I left you the link) A Road Map Along the way to agreeing with the central points of the articles he criticizes, Rudolf offers some arguments that bear examining. There are three major components to Rudolf’s criticism, each of which we will address in turn. The first element is his discussion of rhetorical issues not directly related to the science of the matter. These rhetorical issues are worth discussing because they expose Rudolf’s misrepresentations as well as some rather poor logic. The second is a discussion of a topic on the periphery of these papers, the air photo evidence. Here we merely aim to show that Rudolf has not addressed the points made. Later this year, The Holocaust History Project will publish works which examine the aerial photographs in some detail. It is the third element of Rudolf’s criticism which actually addresses the central points of these papers: the issues related to chemistry. We examine the rate of evaporation of cyanide from Zyklon and consider its toxicity, and find that these physical properties are consistent with the testimony concerning the use of Zyklon B. We address the question of ventilation of the poison gas, and show how Rudolf’s estimates are wrong and deliberately misleading. We then examine the five-step formation of Prussian blue and show where his model is faulty, namely we show that the probability of the formation of Prussian blue in the gas chambers was exceedingly small, and suggest that this low probability may explain the discrepancy in blue staining between the homicidal chambers and the delousing chambers. Finally, we examine the findings of the Institute for Forensic Research in Cracow and discuss Rudolf’s dismissal of them. Introduction Rigorous Proof and Exact Science A New Approach A Road Map Rhetoric Five Points Other Rhetorical Issues Air Photos Chemistry Evaporation and Cyanide Toxicity Ventilation Prussian Blue in Five Steps The Institute for Forensic Research, Cracow Conclusion About the Authors Acknowledgments Rhetoric Five Points Rudolf begins his criticism with five rhetorical points, the first four of which contain substantive misrepresentations of argument. His first point: [Green] is merely repeating the arguments of Deborah Lipstadt, for example the stupid, unscientific claim that there should be no debate with, as they call us, Holocaust deniers. The careful reader will note that the text in question makes an argument that is quite a bit subtler than Rudolf represents it. The argument in the “The Chemistry of Auschwitz” is that one ought to respond to the arguments of the deniers with accurate information. Whereas the argument agrees with Lipstadt, [6] in principle, that there cannot be a real debate between those who seek to understand history and those who seek to obfuscate it, it states that accurate information must be presented so that the gullible will not be taken in by those who wish to whitewash the Nazi regime. Rudolf twists this argument on its head and tries to make it into an argument for not addressing the scientific claims that he and others have put forward. The best that can be said for such an approach is that it is faulty reasoning. Rudolf seems to indicate that he does not like being called a Holocaust denier, but the careful reader will note that in his response Rudolf explicitly denies the Holocaust by echoing Faurisson’s “no holes, no ‘Holocaust.\'” Rudolf is one who denies the Holocaust, thus he is correctly referred to as a Holocaust denier. His second point: [Green] argues that Leuchter didn’t have the qualifications he claimed to have, which is not completely true and, by the way, is no scientific argument. Interestingly, Rudolf essentially acknowledges that the argument is true. Leuchter admitted in court that he was not an engineer and nevertheless represented himself as such. [7] The argument in question can be found in “The Chemistry of Auschwitz” in the section discussing the history of the forensic reports. An exposé of the chemistry of the deniers is in a separate section of the article. The argument in question was not presented as a scientific argument. If Rudolf’s concern is scientific argument why does Rudolf argue the point rather than defending Leuchter’s work? Rudolf is careful not to defend the arguments of Leuchter because he knows that most of them are ludicrous. No doubt he is even more embarrassed by Lüftl’s report. His third point: [Green] cannot understand why I am using several pen names, even though he admits that I am unacceptably persecuted because of my views. Here again Rudolf misrepresents arguments. The point is that Rudolf quotes his own pen names as authorities to bolster his own argument. Certainly, no one should criticize Ann Landers for the use of a pen name, but Ann Landers uses that pen name in an honest fashion. Certainly, if Rudolf felt safe enough to pen arguments under his own name, he could have identified that the source he used to support his argument was Germar Rudolf. In fact, Rudolf continues the practice in this very article. Note 14 reads: 14. About this mechanism cf. Ernst Gauss, Vorlesungen über Zeitgeschichte, Grabert, Tübingen 1993, pp. 163ff., 290-294… Why does he not explicitly state that Ernst Gauss is none other than himself? If Rudolf’s use of pen names is merely for self-protection, why has he falsely used the pen name of Anton Maegerle on his VHO website? He altered the name slightly, to “Anton Mägerle.” Maegerle is the pen name of a German reporter who writes exposés of the extreme right. The material on Rudolf’s website that uses his name was not written by him. [8] Such appropriation of pen names is clearly dishonest. Just as dishonest is the use of pen names with invented credentials. Rudolf has also gone by “Dr. Werner Kretschmer,” “Dr. Christian Konrad,” and even “Dr. Dr. Rainer Scholz.” [9] Perhaps he can explain why being persecuted entitles him to a fistful of phony doctorates. His fourth point: Green imputes that the freedom of expression as granted by the First Amendment of the United States would be lost if [quotation]: “people like Rudolf and his hero Remer ever to come to power here”. I cannot speak for General Remer here, who died in October last year, but regarding my person this is not only wrong, it is a libel. And furthermore: Gen. Remer is not my hero. He was a defendant who had a right for [sic] unrestricted defense as [sic] every defendant. By describing Remer as my hero, Green obviously intends to link me to Remers [sic] political convictions. Rudolf here implies that such linkage is unjustified. It is worth examining whether Rudolf’s motives are as apolitical as he implies. The original Anton Maegerle has exposed Rudolf’s financial connections with Hans-Joachim Dill, a backer of Remer. [10] Dill testified in court that he first met Rudolf with (self-described National Socialist) Ernst Zundel, and that he provided financial support for the Rudolf Report. Rudolf indeed has contacts with the inner circle of Remer supporters. For example, Karl Philipp (aka Ernst Strack aka Rüdiger Kammerer aka Paul Gross) was Remer’s secretary and press officer, and also the co-author of the “Rudolf Report.” [11] In fact, it was stated by the court that the relationship between Rudolf and Philipp is “almost a symbiotic one”. [12] Sarah Rembiszewski points out in a footnote: [13] According to Antifaschistische Informationen, Winter 1993/4, p. 76, Germar Rudolf served as editor of the principal publication of the German New Right, Junge Freiheit. Margret Chatwin has confirmed: [14] Germar Rudolf appeared indeed in two editions as an editor of that journal [Junge Freiheit]. That was in edition Sept/Oct and Nov/Dec 1989. Additionally, Rudolf was associated with “Burschenschaften” and Landsmannschaft Schlesien (“Schlesische Jugend”), and an author in the far right journals Staatsbriefe, Sleipnir, Deutschland in Geschichte und Gegenwart. [15] Rudolf’s credentials as a non-dogmatic and objective seeker of truth must be called into question. His fifth and last rhetorical point: Finally, Green labels my arguments “deceptions”. But even if I made mistakes – nobody is perfect – that does not mean that I intended to deceive anybody. This insinuation of bad intentions, unfortunately to be found on either sides of this debate, has as a prerequisite the strong believe of the insinuator that he holds the one and absolute truth, and on the other side has as a consequence that the opposite side is being restricted in their rights, namely by not being granted of having scientific valid arguments [sic], by denying them to participate [sic] in discussions and debates, and as a final step by denying them their human rights of freedom of expression and freedom of science, as we can see in many European countries already today. And indeed, Green strongly insists that his views of historical events are “historical fact”, that what the Revisionists [sic] are doing is “pseudoscience” or “pseudoscientific”, spreading “distasteful and false propaganda”, and even if it “ought to be permitted to spread untruth does not make untruth into truth”. He imputes that we are happy to “spread a bit of confusion to obfuscate the truth”; that we are telling a “lie” which he intends to “expose” as one. Here Rudolf stamps his feet at the fact that reputable scholars do not take him and his associates seriously. The right of freedom of speech is not a right to have one’s point of view taken seriously. One has to earn such a right by demonstrating that one’s point of view is worthy of serious discussion. As to whether Rudolf has been deceptive in his arguments, the reader may judge. Other Rhetorical Issues Some of Rudolf’s reasoning is so tortured as to be downright bizarre. Two examples are his accusation of hate speech and his comments regarding “exact science.” Rudolf accuses one of the present authors (Dr. Green) of hate speech. He writes: This is real hate speech, and unfortunately it is politically correct and thus supported by nearly everybody. And by the way: Even if it were true that some of us would like to rehabilitate National Socialism – I trust that this is only a minority -, this is not an argument against the validity of our arguments. And what exactly is “real hate speech?” It seems it is hate speech to label someone’s speech “hate speech.” If that is the case, he engages in hate speech by his own definition. If labeling speech “hate speech” is the equivalent of censorship, then Rudolf is a censor. And if that absurdity is not enough, Rudolf next obfuscates, most likely intentionally, the argument to which he is replying. He writes: Here you have it: Hate speech. Imputing that someone wants to rehabilitate the incarnation of evil on earth – and that is what National Socialism is in the eyes of the vast majority of all humans -, and that he is using evil techniques for this purpose or, alternatively, that he is mentally ill or feeble-minded. On a long run, that sort of arguing drives us directly into mental asylums, prisons or onto pyres, a situation which unfortunaltely [sic] is no longer unlikely in Germany today. The argument to which Rudolf refers explicitly states that hate speech ought to be protected speech. It is in “The Chemistry of Auschwitz” and reads as follows: It is much easier to tell a lie than to expose one. Perhaps, that is one of the unspoken reasons that motivates people to advocate censoring hate-speech. Whereas I am opposed to censorship and hate speech laws, I am not embarrassed to call Holocaust-denial hate speech. That is what it is. People who are smart enough to obfuscate using pseudoscientific arguments are also smart enough to know what they are doing: propagating a lie. Although some people may be attracted to Holocaust denial because of gullibility and/or mental illness, these people are not the same people who write these clever but mendacious pseudoscientific reports. The people who write these reports are motivated by a desire to rehabilitate Nazism, an ideology of hate. Hate-speech is what it is, and in calling it that I am merely exercising my right of free speech. The arguments made by the deniers are, of course, repulsive, but they can only have an effect if the public is not educated enough to see the poor scholarship disguised with footnotes. It is because of this restriction on the possibility of the deniers to have an effect that I believe that accurate information is the best possible response. Rudolf’s invocation of mental asylums, prisons, and pyres is unwarranted melodrama. The present authors desire nothing more than Rudolf’s freedom to disseminate his shameful lies and half-truths without government interference. There are, in fact, people (among whom Rudolf does not number) who deny the Final Solution out of mental illness. Intense emotional issues have an attraction to some people who are a bit on the edge. They could have latched onto any issue and picked the Final Solution by chance. We have nothing but compassion for such people, but that does not mean they deserve to have their viewpoint taken seriously. One must earn the right to be taken seriously. One must demonstrate seriousness in the way that one treats evidence and the context of that evidence. When encountering apparent inconsistencies in documentary evidence or testimonies, honest researchers look for the most consistent explanation. Deniers on the other hand are content to find an occasional apparent inconsistency and assert that such shows that the Final Solution never happened. Legitimate researchers go the extra step to see how the inconsistency fits into the big picture. On occasion they find that pieces of the big picture need to be revised and such revision is the normal progress of legitimate history. To conclude on the basis of an individual testimony’s inconsistency or an inexpert interpretation of an air photo that there were no gas chambers in Auschwitz-Birkenau is not a kind of reasoning that deserves respect. Again: we agree that Rudolf deserves the right to engage in his hate speech unencumbered by law, but he does not deserve the respect that he appears to desire. Rudolf quotes out of context the following remark from the The Chemistry of Auschwitz: Answer number one is, of course, untenable. We know that homicidal gassings occurred from historical evidence independently of the chemistry involved. Rudolf replies: First of all, you cannot refute chemical or other findings of the exact sciences with eyewitness accounts, and there is no other evidence apart from eyewitness accounts, the only other extisting [sic] “evidence”, as far as I know. Green does not even try to give us a clue what “other historical evidence” he is referring to. Again, chemistry is an inexact science, approximate at best. Before showing how Rudolf contradicts himself, we restore the context that Rudolf removed: Answer number one is, of course, untenable. We know that homicidal gassings occurred from historical evidence independently of the chemistry involved. Nevertheless, I will suspend my disbelief for a moment. If the lack of Prussian blue is supposed to prove that no gassing took place, possibilities 2 and 3 must be disproven [sic]. If it is not possible to do so, then the impossibility of gassings at the Kremas has not been shown. The argument quoted by Rudolf is a disclaimer prior to addressing the chemical arguments that a lack of Prussian blue in the gas chambers somehow shows that homicidal gassings did not take place there. Bad science cannot trump good history (and for a miniscule amount of the vast array of historical evidence that shows that gassing took place, the reader may peruse some of the documents elsewhere on this website). The argument that Rudolf seems to dispute is the argument that chemistry has not refuted the historians. It is a curious claim in light of Rudolf’s later admission: Furthermore, I am convinced that chemistry is not the science which can prove or refute any allegations about the Holocaust “rigorously”. Here he is correct, and refutes his own argument. Air Photos Rudolf is now arguing that it is the air photos that should undermine the arguments of historians. It is worth noting that Rudolf can claim no expertise in the realm of photo interpretation. Like the present authors he is at best an amateur on the topic. How the mighty have fallen: the chief chemist of the Holocaust deniers has reduced his “expert opinion” to the air photo claims of other deniers. Only a few paragraphs of “The Chemistry of Auschwitz” were devoted to the air photos as incidental to the central points of that work. In the future, The Holocaust History Project will publish analyses of John Ball’s arguments and aerial photographic evidence, and Rudolf is welcome to submit his comments at that time. In the meantime, we note a few facts regarding his claims. We note emphatically that the photos that Rudolf reproduces are not the enhancements reproduced in Shermer’s book. [16] Dr. Bryant who did the analysis is a photo expert. Rudolf completely ignores the issue of the John Ball Challenge. [17] We wonder why that is? Does Rudolf deny that John Ball is a fraud? Why does he not state a position publicly? One of the present authors (Mr. McCarthy) has addressed John Ball’s lack of expertise in a separate essay, “John Ball: Air Photo Expert?”. Chemistry Evaporation and Cyanide Toxicity Rudolf discusses the issue of evaporation in the context of guesswork trying to demonstrate that the wrong gas phase concentrations were assumed in the demonstration that Prussian blue formation was unlikely under the conditions used in the gas chambers. The point of the discussion of evaporation in “The Chemistry of Auschwitz” is that several deniers have claimed that Zyklon-B was either not deadly enough to kill the victims in a short period of time or, alternatively, that it was so deadly that the SS could not have used it safely. Rudolf does not state clearly whether he currently believes that either of these approaches is valid. Nevertheless it is worth reviewing this topic both to examine Rudolf’s claims and the claims of less sophisticated deniers. 300 ppmv [18] of HCN is rapidly lethal to humans (see the discussion on toxicity below), whereas Degesch recommends a concentration of 8-16 g/m3 (7240-14,480 ppmv) for delousing. [19] 300 ppmv is 0.33 g/m3. Some denier critics have assumed that this difference means that much less cyanide was used in the homicidal gas chambers as compared to the delousing chambers. For example, Mark Singer writes in The New Yorker: The most concise explanation to counter Leuchter’s conclusion is that a higher concentration of Zyklon B is required to kill lice than to kill human beings…. [20] The assumption that much less Zyklon B was used in the gas chambers than the delousing chambers is most likely erroneous and was not made in “Leuchter, Rudolf, and the Iron Blues”. It should be noted, however, that delousing in the standard delousing chambers took far longer than homicidal gassing did. This longer period of time may be of considerable importance in terms of the ability of water to absorb HCN as well as in its effect on the ability of any alkaline materials to dissolve in ambient water (issues that we discuss later in this paper). There is not a clear consensus on how much Zyklon B was actually used in the gas chambers, but most sources seem to put that number in the same order of magnitude as was used for delousing. For example, Mark Van Alstine estimates based upon information in Pressac that concentrations were on the order of 3-4 g/m3. [21] Pressac himself suggests a concentration of 12-20 g/m3. [22] Note that here, for convenience, we are naming the concentration that would result from a full outgassing of the Zyklon used. These figures would be achieved in a delousing operation but almost certainly not during a homicidal gassing. As we shall see, the actual concentration reached is significantly lower. In this article, we assume that enough Zyklon was used so that if all of the HCN were released at once, it would produce a gas phase concentration between 5 and 20 g/m3. This assumption is consistent with the treatment in “Leuchter, Rudolf, and the Iron Blues.” These numbers are reasonable based on the properties of Zyklon B, as, again, the concentrations recommended by Degesch for delousing range from 8-16 g/m3. [23] Deniers less sophisticated than Rudolf have argued that hydrogen cyanide cannot kill at temperatures below its boiling point. [24] They have not understood that liquids have vapor pressure. There is an equilibrium between gas and liquid at a given temperature. This fact can be illustrated by considering humidity. It is not necessary for the temperature to be 100°C in order for there to be a significant amount of water vapor in the air. This amount of vapor can be conveniently expressed as a partial pressure, and at equilibrium this pressure is called the vapor pressure of the substance. Hydrogen cyanide is a liquid at room temperature with an exceedingly high vapor pressure. In fact, its vapor pressure is more than high enough to kill. Some deniers have suggested at temperatures cold enough to freeze HCN that there would be no vapor or very little; they are wrong. The vapor pressure of HCN was measured for the first time in 1926 by Perry and Porter. [25] Their results are in close agreement with the accepted values as reported by DuPont. [26] They measured the vapor pressure of the liquid and the solid as a function of temperature. A plot of their results converted to ppmv is displayed below. Note that even at the lowest temperatures HCN has a vapor pressure far in excess of the rapidly lethal 300-ppmv level. On this scale, 300 ppmv is far too small to show: its height above the zero line would be one-fifth the width of a human hair. This plot shows thermodynamically that HCN can kill, but it does not address the issue of kinetics. How fast can Zyklon B kill? Is it deadly enough to kill the victims in the time periods cited by witnesses (see Rudolf’s note 29)? These questions boil down to two questions: 1) what is the lethal concentration of HCN, and 2) how quickly can such a concentration be reached? Since 300 ppmv is rapidly fatal, the first question is already answered, but let us examine this question in more depth. Rudolf implies that 300 ppmv is a limit imposed for safety reasons. Rudolf is correct that limits imposed for safety reasons are much lower than lethal concentrations. We examine here what the safe exposure limit is. DuPont’s literature on the topic is enlightening: Specific HCN air quality standards for the OSHA Short Term Exposure Limit (STEL) are 4.7 ppm, 5 mg/m3. The ACGIH Threshold Limit Value (TLV) is 10 ppm, 11 mg/m3, Time Weighted Average (TWA). This is also a ceiling value. The Du Pont Acceptable Exposure Limit (AEL) is 10 ppm-8-hour TWA, 5 ppm-12-hour TWA. [27] OSHA is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which sets workplace safety guidelines for the U.S. Department of Labor. DuPont lists furthermore the following safety thresholds: 2-5 ppm Odor threshold 4-7 ppm OSHA exposure limit, 15 minute time weighted average 20-40 ppm Slight symptoms after several hours 45-54 ppm Tolerated for 1/2 to 1 hour without significant immediate or delayed effects 100-200 ppm Fatal within 1/2 to 1 hour 300 ppm Rapidly fatal (if no treatment) One does not provide treatment to someone that one intends to kill, so for our purposes 300 ppmv is “rapidly fatal.” Rudolf’s implication is incorrect. Additionally, we estimate conservatively below that the victims were exposed to 450-1810 ppmv within 5 to 15 minutes. In all probability the exposure was greater than that (see below). Rudolf is correct that these values are estimates. Du Pont makes this point explicitly: These numbers should be considered reasonable estimates, not exact, since effects vary for different people, and data are not exact. Also, heavy breathing from physical work will increase cyanide intake and reduce the time for symptoms to show. The “rapidly fatal” exposure level of 300 ppm assumes no first aid or medical treatment. Either is very effective if used quickly. (Emphasis Du Pont’s.) How quickly is quickly? Seconds count, and treatment should be provided within about 200 seconds (3-4 minutes). We note that conditions (e.g., temperature, quantity of Zyklon, etc.) undoubtedly varied from gassing to gassing so it is not surprising if there is some variation in the amount of time that witnesses report for a gassing to occur. Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss described such variation in his memoirs. [28] Rudolf claims that Dr. Green is unaware of the fact that toxicological data cannot be applied to the strongest people in a group. Rudolf’s mind-reading abilities are not very good – of course toxicological data is based on averages – but Rudolf’s analysis misses an obvious point. In a given gassing the strongest undoubtedly survived longer than the weakest. This problem could be dealt with by the simple expedient of waiting until all victims are apparently dead. This time might vary from gassing to gassing. If one gassing took 10 minutes and another 15, a witness to both who reported that it took about 10 minutes would not be lying. Rudolf states further that Even if a person has inhaled a lethal amount of cyanide, it might still take up to an hour until he is dead. He leaves it as an exercise for the reader to determine what his source is or what concentration he considers lethal. Du Pont’s MSDS, however, disagrees with his claim: [29] Don’t overreact. While prompt treatment is essential where poisoning has occurred, treatment of a lucid, conscious patient would rarely be necessary. The effects of cyanide poisoning are immediate, not delayed, and a conscious person that can communicate does not have significant cyanide poisoning. (Emphasis ours.) Du Pont is, of course, discussing a situation in which one wishes to give medical attention to the person. We cannot on this basis rule out the possibility that a person might receive an “insignificant” amount of poisoning by this standard and still die later without medical attention. Nevertheless, to solve such a possible problem, it is sufficient to adjust the dose to make sure that such does not occur routinely. A survivor of a gassing who was unconscious could be cremated along with the dead. In the extremely unlikely case that the murderers opened the doors before all were unconscious, there is no reason a bullet would not have sufficed. [30] How fast could a lethal concentration be reached? We first review some relevant literature on the topic. The Holocaust History Project has three technical papers that address this question. All three were written in the context of the use of Zyklon B for delousing. The first work is a 70 page monograph by Gerhard Peters of the Degesch company that was published in 1933. [31] This document has not yet been transcribed or translated. The second work is a 1941 paper by Peters and Rasch. [32] This document has been transcribed and translated. The third paper is a 1942 paper by Irmscher that has also been transcribed and translated. [33] The Chemistry of Auschwitz quotes portions of Peters’ first paper that were translated by Dr. Ulrich Roessler. These portions indicate that the poison began to evaporate “with great vehemence” as soon as the tins were poured out, and that “the greatest part, nearly all” of the Zyklon B evaporated within 30 minutes. In the second paper Rasch and Peters investigated the speed of evaporation of Zyklon at colder temperatures as well as its efficacy on insects at colder temperatures. The latter topic concerns us only in that it is worthwhile to note that delousing took much longer than homicide. Rasch and Peters found that: The experiments, carried out in both directions yielded the unequivocal corroboration of the opinion grounded in practical observation over many years, that the efficiency of prussic acid and the suitability of the Zyklon procedure encompasses a temperature range that with certainty reaches at least 10° below zero. They found furthermore that: 1. In all cases, the essential part of the disengagement of the gas is complete after one or at most two hours. (A control of the residues at the applicable times confirmed their complete degassing.) The evaporation of the prussic acid was therefore not significantly delayed by the low temperature. An inspection of their data shows that concentrations begin to drop after 2 hours, which confirms their claim. In the 1942 paper Irmscher continued the study of evaporation rate as a function of temperature. Irmscher specifies which solid supports were used for his studies (cardboard and Erco, a gypsum product) and provides a higher time resolution on the evaporation process. Irmscher studied evaporation at temperatures ranging from -18°C or -19°C up to 15°C. Excluding the lowest temperature results, Irmscher’s results are in the same ballpark as those of Rasch and Peters for the most part. At -6°C, 0°C, and +15°C, Irmscher finds that within two hours 84.1%, 90.7%, 96.8% of the HCN, respectively, evaporates for the Erco support. The corresponding values for the cardboard support are 73.0%, 85.7%, 96.4% respectively. [34] The small discrepancies between these latter two papers most likely owe to differences in the support material and/or differences in humidity. Irmscher’s results for -18°C show that evaporation slows substantially at this temperature. We now examine the question of how fast a lethal concentration can be built up. In the discussion above we cited sources that put the amount of Zyklon used in the gas chambers at between 5 and 20 g/m3. These values correspond to 4500 and 18,100 ppmv respectively. Inspection of illustration 1 of the Irmscher paper shows that about 10% of the Zyklon evaporates within a period of about 5 to 15 minutes even at the coldest temperatures he studied. Irmscher did his studies at temperatures ranging from -18°C and 15°C. The gas chambers are likely to have been much warmer than the warmest temperature he studied. Human body temperature, for example, is 37°C. Even at the cold temperatures studied by Irmscher, lethal concentrations would have been reached in a few minutes (450-1810 ppmv)! Besides showing that it is not unreasonable to expect Zyklon B to kill quickly, these results also demonstrate the assumptions made about concentration in the article “Leuchter, Rudolf, and the Iron Blues” were adequate. (See Appendix 1 of that article.) It is worth mentioning at this point an argument made by Holocaust denier Wolfgang Fröhlich. According to eyewitness reports, the victims died very quickly. The witnesses mention time frames of ‘instantaneous’ to ’15 minutes.’ To be able to kill the gas chamber prisoners in such a short time, the Germans would have had to use large amounts of Zyklon- I estimate from 40 to 50 kilograms for each gassing. This would have made any work in the gas chamber fundamentally impossible. The special detachment [Sonderkommando] people, whom the witnesses say were assigned the task of clearing out [dead bodies] from them [the gas chambers], would have collapsed immediately upon entering the rooms, even if they were wearing gas masks. Enormous amounts of hydrocyanic acid would have streamed out into the open and would have poisoned the entire camp. [35] Rudolf is far too clever to make such a ludicrous argument, but it is worth examining the type of denier argument advanced by those who claim that they have trumped the historians with “exact science.” What stands out in Fröhlich’s argument is the large “estimate” of Zyklon necessary to kill in a short period of time. Our examination of numbers between 5 and 20 g/m3 shows that from 2.5 to 10 kg would suffice. [36] But even Fröhlich is more accurate than the denier Carlos Whitlock Porter. After echoing the notion of poisoning the entire camp, [37] Porter outdoes Fröhlich by a factor of twenty. The estimated 40-50 kg has become “a ton of pure cyanide.” [38] These arguments are clearly ludicrous, but here we may segue into the discussion of whether the conditions employed were safe for the Sonderkommando. Ventilation The Sonderkommando were slave laborers: to their SS slavemasters they were expendable. The SS certainly did not have to obey OSHA regulations. They would not be averse to exposing the Sonderkommando to concentrations of approximately 40 ppmv (“slight symptoms after several hours”). Even if the full concentration of 4500 to 18,100 ppmv had released from the Zyklon into the gas chambers, it would only be necessary to reduce that concentration by a factor of 100-500 times to reach this tolerable level. It is not the case that the full concentration of Zyklon was present. At the largest Auschwitz crematoria (II and III), the Zyklon was removed after a lethal quantity of gas was given off, using the same devices which inserted it. At these buildings, where the large majority of gassings took place, essentially any absolute rate of outgassing could be achieved, at any temperature and humidity, by pouring in sufficient Zyklon. Once the victims were dead, the remaining carrier material could be lifted out by SS men wearing gas masks, to continue outgassing harmlessly into the open air until spent. Inspection of Irmscher’s paper shows (assuming the Erco carrier) that the concentration that would be present after 30 minutes, for example, would have been 20 to 40% of the total, i.e., 900-7200 ppmv. So it was only necessary to reduce the concentration in the gas chambers by a factor of 20-200 times in order for the Sonderkommando to enter even without gas masks. The remainder of the Zyklon could outgas safely in the outside atmosphere – without, needless to say, “poisoning the entire camp.” The gas chambers were 30 m long by 7 m wide: 210 sq m. They were 2.4 m high, for a volume of 504 cu m. [39] Those same chambers had a ventilation system with both intake and exhaust fans, capable of cycling 8000 cu m through the room each hour. [40] This is commonly referred to as 8000 ÷ 504 = 15.8 “air exchanges per hour.” Note that the Holocaust-denier Carlo Mattogno has misrepresented these figures in his essay, “Auschwitz: The End of a Legend.” [41] It is impossible, of course, to get an exact figure for how long it actually took to clear the air in the gas chamber. But we can obtain approximations through mathematical modeling. The equation used is a simple one: the concentration in the gas chamber is cut to 1/e, or about 37%, for each room replacement of air. Where C(t) is the concentration of HCN at time t in hours, C(t) = C(0) (1/e)15.8t This equation supposes that the fresh air mixes with the air in the chamber immediately and completely. In reality it does not do so. Ventilation systems are designed to have an air flow such that the expelled air has a higher concentration of poison, so this equation might seem conservative. In addition, the victims’ corpses take up space which has not been figured into any of the below calculations; this would reduce the volume and increase the replacement rate, again indicating that this figure is conservative. But blockages caused by the same corpses, and the possibility of laminar airflow, might work in the other direction. All in all, this estimate will suffice. Using this equation, if C(0) = 900 ppmv, the concentration is less than 20 ppmv after just 15 minutes. The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists produces an Industrial Hygiene Calculator program for the Windows operating system. [42] When the size and ventilation rates of the gas chamber are converted to cubic feet and minutes, it returns identical results to the above equation. It should also be pointed out that, halfway through their period of use, the size of these gas chambers was cut in half: [43] Leichenkeller I proved in the end to be too large for a gas chamber. At the end of 1943, in order to “regularize” the operation of crematoria II and III, the camp administration divided their gas chambers in two, allowing no more than 100 sq m for the killing of 1,000 new arrivals (unfit for work) in 24 hours. If one makes the logical assumption that the intake and exhaust vents were also blocked off in the unused portion of the gas chambers, this modification doubled the ventilation rate of the remaining portion. However, we will continue to use the figures from 1943; if a gassing from 1944 is referenced, ventilation times would be cut in half. We return to the question of how long it would take to ventilate the gas chamber from the level used in killing to a level which the Sonderkommando could safely tolerate without a gas mask. We have seen that this took place in less than 15 minutes from an initial concentration of 900 ppmv. If the initial concentration were more than seven times higher (7200 ppmv), owing to the nature of exponential math, the same concentration of under 20 ppmv would be reached in less than 23 minutes. Even if the residual Zyklon had not been removed and the chambers had the full concentration of 18,100 ppmv, the concentration would be less than 20 ppmv in 26 minutes. In fact, since OSHA guidelines (above) give specifications not for maximum exposure but for mean exposure over fifteen minutes, we can use these values to understand what the Sonderkommando would experience. In the graph below, an initial concentration of 900 ppmv is assumed for the solid lines. The concentration is plotted in red. In blue is plotted the mean exposure over fifteen minutes for someone entering the gas chamber at the specified time. The dashed lines show the same information assuming an initial concentration of 7,200 ppmv: [44] Graph of ventilation with mean After ten minutes, in the former case, the ambient concentration was about 65 ppmv, and someone who entered the room at that point would receive a mean exposure to HCN, from t=10 minutes to t=25 minutes, of about 17 ppmv. Recall that 20 ppmv is the low end of Du Pont’s symptom category: “slight symptoms after several hours.” It is thus safe to say that, with these assumptions, the Sonderkommando could enter the gas chamber ten minutes after ventilation began, wearing no gas masks, and experience no significant effects from the HCN. If we instead assume the highest estimated initial concentration of 7,200 ppmv, the dashed lines would apply. Thus, the Sonderkommando could enter after eighteen minutes with no serious effects. This conservative estimate fits with Pressac’s conclusion that the doors were typically opened after twenty minutes of ventilation. [45] Rudolf, however, has come to the opposite conclusion, albeit without any calculations or evidence. In his essay “The ‘Gas Chambers’ of Auschwitz and Majdanek,” section 4.2.2.2, he cites a figure of 6 to 8 air exchanges per hour. This figure is based partially on an erroneously interpreted document from Pressac. Compounding the error are his other references: an unpublished denier source, and an unreferenced denier source both apparently claiming the ventilator would not work efficiently – no details are given. He then writes: Due to the poor system configuration (inlet right above outlet) and the overcrowding of the room with bodies, half an hour would never have sufficed to achieve harmless levels of hydrocyanic acid following a gassing, even if there had been no Zyklon B still releasing gas for hours on end. His next sentence reveals the purpose of this line of argumentation: to try to prove that the eyewitness testimony is contradictory. The eyewitness testimony claiming adequate ventilation after 20 to 30 minutes in Mortuaries I of crematoria II and III are thus not credible. He gives no citation for his claim that the inlets are “right above” the outlets. If we understand his English, this is not exactly true: fresh air entered at ceiling level, toxic air exited at floor level. [46] Perhaps he means to consider the placement of the outside vents. If so, he would need to show that they were separated by less than 1.8 m and that such placement was quantitatively incompatible with reported ventilation times. It should be noted that a separation of only 1.8 m would suffice to prevent cross contamination. [47] Rudolf points out that the bodies must be taken into account. His point about bodies crowding the room is not obviously wrong, but without quantification it is a meaningless argument. In fact, such crowding might produce mixing through turbulence, making the ventilation efficiency tend toward the limits that we have calculated. He claims (for crematory I) the difference will be “a factor of 10 or more” yielding a ventilation time minimum of “2 hours” – but provides no basis for these numbers. He appears to have pulled them out of thin air. We show above that testimonies “claiming adequate ventilation after 20 to 30 minutes” are extremely credible – using a mathematical model known to be conservative, that is, to have room for error. Rudolf, on the other hand, produces only unsupported assertions that take no account of how large a reduction in the HCN concentration is necessary. We should not let drop the subject of Rudolf’s analysis without mentioning a turn of phrase which is suspiciously misleading. Rudolf gives a probabilistic explanation of the same mathematical model we are using to estimate dilution. In his description, balls take the place of air molecules: Imagine, if you will, that someone is given a bucket containing 100 blue balls. Each time he reaches into the bucket, he puts in one red ball, briefly mixes the contents and, without looking, takes out one randomly selected ball. How often will he have to do this until only 50 blue balls are left in the bucket and all the others are red? […] In the case described above, it takes an average of 70 exchanges before half the blue balls have been replaced by red ones. This model is the same as have described in our formula above. In Rudolf’s example a single room exchange of air would be equivalent to 100 “exchanges.” Rudolf’s next sentence seems designed to seriously misinform the reader: Calculations have shown that the ventilation facilities in the alleged gas chambers of Crematoria II and III in Birkenau – facilities designed only for ventilation of ordinary mortuaries – could have performed at most 6 to 8 air exchanges per hour. By using the same word “exchange” in two contexts he can give the impression that ventilation occurs very slowly. What he calls an “air exchange” in the second paragraph corresponds to 100 of his “exchanges” from the first, though he nowhere makes this clear. It seems the reader is expected to believe that it would take ten hours before the level of poison was cut in half; certainly Rudolf does nothing to dispel this notion. Rudolf is not unintelligent nor sloppy: his dual use of the word “exchange” is surely not a mistake. We presume it is an intentional deception. The math is easy to do. Why does Rudolf not demonstrate it for his reader? We suspect, first, because even at his inaccurate figure of only 6-8 exchanges per hour the results do not support his conclusion. Below, we replot the data assuming 8 exchanges per hour: Graph of ventilation with mean, Rudolf’s incorrect figure The time before it was safe for the Sonderkommando to enter the gas chamber without a mask and with no ill effects ranges from 20 to 40 minutes, again within a range that does not contradict testimony. But Rudolf is not done. Because even the incorrect figure of 6 to 8 exchanges per hour would produce times within a reasonable range, he must reduce that figure further. In the Rudolf Report, there are two deliberate and mendacious distortions which accomplish this goal. Firstly, Rudolf cites Pressac in support of the figure of four air exchanges per hour. In section 3.4.2.4 of his Report, he writes: [48] Given the facts presented in section 1.3.1 regarding the installations for aeration of Leichenkeller 1 (the “gas chamber”), a single change of air in crematoria II and III should have lasted some 15 minutes (see also 3.4.1 and footnotes 60 and 256). Unter den Gegebenheiten der im Abschnitt 1.3.1. vorgestellten Anlagen zur Entlüftung der Leichenkeller I (‘Gaskammer’) der Krematorien II und III soll ein einmaliger Luftwechsel etwa 15 min. gedauert haben (siehe auch 3.4.1., und [60,256]). Nowhere in section 1.3.1 does Rudolf provide the source for this figure of 15 minutes. Section 3.4.1 is equally unhelpful, being a look at eyewitness testimony. Footnote 60 refers to a chapter of Pressac’s book Technique and Operation. Only in footnote 256 do we finally get the source of this all-important number: Pressac’s page 16 is cited. On that page, Pressac tells us: …Force-draught ventilation would be relatively efficient in these circumstances. After 15 minutes of ventilation the air in the room would be completely renewed. A homicidal gassing (using 5 to 7 kg of Zyklon B for 1 000 to 2 000 persons) would last about 20 minutes: 5 minutes for the action of the HCN bringing swift death (the quantity introduced being 40 times the lethal dose) and 15 minutes of ventilation BEFORE BEING ABLE TO OPEN THE GAS-TIGHT DOOR…. (Emphasis in original.) Pressac gave 15 minutes as the duration before the air was renewed so thoroughly that the doors could be opened. As we have seen above, this fits with our calculations, because almost four air exchanges would have taken place after that duration. Rudolf has fraudulently taken this to be the time period for one air exchange. Secondly, Rudolf then further slows the ventilation process, arbitrarily, until he arrives at a number he likes. He writes in fractured German: An exchange predominantly of new gas (outlet near inlet), old gas range partially not understood: ventilation time a multiple of that described above. This would have certainly resulted in our example of the gas in the space between the bodies, since here a mixture of the gas hardly takes place. In addition, because of the unfavorably near grouping of the air inlets to the air outlets, there is a partial exchange of new gas (air short circuit). Through this the ventilation time is raised by a factor of 2 to 4 or more. Austausch überwiegend von Neugas (Auslaß nahe Einlaß), Altgasbereiche z.T. nicht erfaßt: Lüftungszeit ein Vielfaches der oben beschriebenen. Dies wäre in unserem Fall mit Sicherheit für den Gaszwischenraum der Leichen gegeben, da hier eine Vermischung der Gase kaum stattfindet. Zusätzlich ergibt sich durch die ungünstig nahe Anordnung der Lufteinlässe zu den Luftauslässen ein teilweiser Austausch von Neugas (Luftkurzschluß). Dadurch erhöht sich die Lüftungszeit um den Faktor 2 bis 4 oder mehr. The number “2 to 4,” which in his Table 10 becomes simply “4,” has been pulled out of a hat. Since his already-fraudulent figures do not support his claims, he calls them “ideal,” and simply multiplies the numbers by four to get the “real.” Thus it is that, by following one dishonest maneuver with another, Rudolf converts a respectable air-exchange rate of 15.8 per hour into precisely one per hour. This multiplies the supposed ventilation times by the same amount, so that a reasonable calculation of 15 to 20 minutes turns into: It would only be after 4 to 5 hours that one could step safely into the chamber. Danach wäre erst nach 4 bis 5 Stunden ein sicheres Betreten der Kammern möglich. To discover the real values, one must simply divide Rudolf’s durations by 15.8. Finally – this question of ventilation is purely academic anyway. The Sonderkommando had gas masks available and wore them at least some of the time, as numerous witnesses have attested. The duration of ventilation before the doors were opened is only of interest to those Sonderkommando who wished to remove their gas masks after, say, fifteen minutes instead of twenty. The prisoner Dr. Nyiszli describes the scene: [49] An SS officer and a SDG (Sanitätsdienstgefreiter: Deputy Health Service Officer) stepped out of the car. The Deputy Health Officer held four green sheet-iron canisters. He advanced across the grass, where every thirty yards, short concrete pipes jutted up from the ground. Having donned his gas mask, he lifted the lid of the pipe, which was also made of concrete. He opened one of the cans and poured the contents – a mauve granulated material – into the opening. The granulated substance fell in a lump to the bottom. The gas it produced escaped through the perforations, and within a few seconds filled the room in which the deportees were stacked. Within five minutes everybody was dead. […] In order to be certain of their business the two gas-butchers waited another five minutes. Then they lighted cigarettes and drove off in their car. […] The ventilators, patented “Exhator” system, quickly evacuated the gas from the room, but in the crannies between the dead and the cracks of the doors small pockets of it always remained. Even two hours later it caused a suffocating cough. For that reason the Sonderkommando group which first moved into the room was equipped with gas masks. Once again the room was powerfully lighted, revealing a horrible spectacle. (The cough was surely caused by the Zyklon warning indicator, a lachrymatory irritant. For safety reasons, the warning was designed to be noticeable even at low levels of cyanide. Eyewitnesses untrained in handling of Zyklon would probably not know this. Although there were some shipments of Zyklon without the warning agent, the use of such Zyklon was not universal.) Gas masks are also referenced by Szlama Dragon at a gas chamber which lacked ventilation: [50] I myself and eleven others were detailed, as we learnt later, to remove the bodies from this cottage. We were given gas masks, and led to the cottage. When Moll had opened the door, we saw that the cottage was full of naked corpses of both sexes and of all ages. So why is ventilation time a concern at all? Deniers usually reference Höss’ memoirs, which mention that the Sonderkommando ate or smoked while they worked (thus, without gas masks). [51] But Höss did not specify that this took place inside near the gas chamber, nor that this took place shortly after ventilation began, so there is no contradiction. Although gassing and ventilation together lasted somewhat under an hour, it is the act of burning the corpses which took the most time. One thousand people could be killed in five to fifteen minutes. To cremate their bodies, the Sonderkommando would work the better part of a day. Höss was probably referring to activity he saw well after the gassing operation was complete and the chamber thoroughly ventilated, when gas masks were no longer necessary. Rudolf has researched the characteristics of gas masks. [52] Assuming for the sake of argument that he is not misrepresenting his sources, they indicate that the German HCN-type removable filter would provide protection for 25 minutes at 50,000 ppmv. Rudolf tries to find reasons to reduce that time period, but as we have shown, even a full outgassing (in, for example, the unventilated gas chambers) needed only release 4500 to 18,100 ppmv. And if the filter ran out after 25 minutes, the Sonderkommando could step outside and change it (Rudolf fails to mention this obvious possibility). Another point he raises is that of poisoning through the skin. It seems this would not have been a serious danger for the Sonderkommando. Until Rudolf is able to show any quantification for this, it can be ignored. [53] To summarize, these are the worst-case ventilation assumptions for the main Auschwitz gas chambers, in crematoria II and III: the largest amount of Zyklon used (sufficient for 20 g/m3 at full outgassing); a thorough outgassing period of 30 minutes (probably longer than was typically used); a fast outgassing (40% during that time); a conservative estimation of ventilation efficiency; and a date in 1943, when the gas chamber was twice as large as 1944. Using those assumptions, the Sonderkommando could remove their gas masks after just 18 minutes and suffer no significant effects (beyond a cough caused by the nontoxic Zyklon irritant). If they were to wait just 24 minutes, their workplace would conform even to OSHA regulations. But OSHA, of course, does not publish regulations that apply to slave labor incineration of hundreds of freshly murdered corpses. If Rudolf wishes to show some sort of logical impossibility, he will first have to find some testimony, considered reliable by historians, dated in 1943 before the halving of the gas chamber’s size, which states that gas masks were removed in the gas chamber after only a short time. To our knowledge, there is no testimony which addresses how long the Sonderkommando waited before taking off their gas masks to work in the still-ventilating gas chamber. Next, if Rudolf wishes to contest the mathematical model, he will have to present some hard evidence for his reasoning regarding ventilation efficiency, and he will have to work out the numbers. Rudolf will have to meet all these conditions before he can show a contradiction. But he has met none of them. Without evidence indicating why the model is flawed, without having worked out the numbers, and without a single eyewitness giving different numbers regarding the duration before gas-mask removal, his “expert opinion” remains of no value. We have not seen even the ghost of a contradiction. Prussian Blue in Five Steps Perhaps the central issue in understanding the significance of the various attempts to measure cyanide traces in the remnants of the gas chambers is the issue of the formation of Prussian blue. Yet many deniers completely ignore this issue in their defense of the Leuchter Report. For example, CODOH has just published a document that ignores the mechanism by which Prussian blue forms, at http://www.codoh.com/newrevoices/nddd/ndddstern.html. Leuchter and Rudolf claim to have detected far more cyanides in the delousing chambers than in the homicidal gas chambers. This finding, according to some, should trump all historical evidence and show that the Final Solution is a made-up tale. The bulk of the cyanides detected by Leuchter and Rudolf were in the form of Prussian blue and/or related compounds. That there is a discrepancy between the amount of Prussian blue between some of the delousing facilities and some of the homicidal facilities is clear from inspection of the prominent blue staining on some of the delousing chambers (and the chemical work of Leuchter and Rudolf, even if honestly conducted, shows no more than is evident from inspection). The important question is whether such staining is an accurate marker for exposure to HCN. Must it always be present in buildings exposed to HCN? The essay “Leuchter, Rudolf and the Iron Blues” shows that such compounds in the gas chambers were exceedingly unlikely to form. Factors such as the shorter exposure time and the greatly reduced concentration of aqueous cyanide ions (in part, because of the washing of the chambers with water) distinguish the gas chambers from the delousing chambers. Here we extend these results, make them more quantitative and address Rudolf’s criticisms. Rudolf agrees with Dr. Green on the most plausible way to answer this question. Rudolf quotes “The Chemistry of Auschwitz”: The Prussian-Blue staining indeed owes its presence to exposure to HCN, but the conditions under which it formed were not universally present in all facilities exposed to HCN. The rate of Prussian-Blue formation may be very different under the conditions used in homicidal chamber [sic] versus the conditions in delousing chambers. Rudolf agrees: And again, I agree with Green that this is the correct approach to this problem. The disagreement is perhaps centered on understanding what the probability is for Prussian blue formation in the gas chambers. Rudolf wrote his criticism in August 1998, so he could not have been aware of the revised version of “Leuchter, Rudolf, and the Iron Blues,” in which it is argued based upon the findings of Alich et al. that such formation by Rudolf’s proposed mechanism is extremely sensitive to conditions, especially pH, moisture, and concentration of Fe(CN)63-, and that significant amounts of Prussian blue were unlikely to form under the conditions of the homicidal gas chambers. Rudolf proposes five steps in the development of the blue staining. Absorption by the walls of HCN. Dissociation of HCN to H3O+ and CN- (HCN is a weak acid). Formation of Hexacyanoferrate (Fe(CN)63-. Reduction of Fe (III) in the form of Fe(CN)63- to Fe (II) in the form of Fe(CN)64- by the cyanide ion, i.e., CN-. Formation of the so-called soluble Prussian blue. (The terms soluble and insoluble when applied to Prussian blue describe the ability to form colloidal suspensions and not the actual solubility.) [54] We examine each step in turn. Step one. The first step relies on the ability of water to absorb HCN. Appendix 1 of “Leuchter, Rudolf, and the Iron Blues” addresses this issue. Rudolf asserts that the gas phase concentrations assumed are likely to be wrong but presents no evidence. Most likely he was not familiar with Appendix 1 when making that claim. At any rate, we show above that those concentrations are indeed reasonable. Even assuming a gas phase concentration as high as 16 g/m3 the maximum amount of HCN that could be absorbed by water would be less than 0.3 M at 10°C and 0.4 M at 0°C. More reasonable assumptions lead to a maximum concentration of about 0.1 or 0.2 M, and that is assuming that all of the Zyklon was allowed to evaporate inside the chamber. Above, we point out that only 20-40% of the HCN would have evaporated within the chamber. Additionally, these are equilibrium values! They assume that the HCN in the gas phase had time to equilibrate with the HCN in the liquid phase. This assumption is in fact unlikely and the maximum liquid phase concentrations are likely to be much lower (delousing on the other hand took much longer than a homicidal gassing and it is thus likely that the liquid phase concentrations would be higher). After the gassing the chambers were washed down with water drastically reducing this concentration. (See footnote 15 in “Leuchter, Rudolf and the Iron Blues”). Step one is one of the crucial points in attempting to understand the differences between the gas chambers and the delousing chambers. The delousing chambers were exposed to HCN for longer; the Zyklon evaporated completely, the possibility of reaching equilibrium with HCN in solution was much higher. Additionally, the gas chambers were washed with water after a gassing. Step two is the dissociation of HCN into H+(aq) and CN-(aq). HCN is a weak acid, which means that in aqueous solutions it dissociates somewhat but not completely. In other words the concentration of cyanide ions in solution is even less than the concentration of HCN. The strength of an acid is measured by a quantity known as the pKa. The lower the pKa the stronger the acid. The pKa is defined as -log(Ka) where: Ka=[H+][CN-]/[HCN] (1) In equation (1) the square brackets represent the molar concentration (M) of the given species in aqueous solution. [H+] is related to the pH by the simple expression [H+] = 10-pH. The pKa of HCN is 9.31. [55] At neutral pH the cyanide ion concentration is only 1 percent of the HCN concentration. To calculate this value at other pH’s we define the initial concentration of HCN as [HCN]0, and using the identity [HCN]=[HCN]0-[CN-] rewrite equation (1) as: [CN-]/[HCN]0 = (Ka/[H+])/(1 + Ka) (2) The following figure expresses the percent dissociation of HCN as a function of pH. Rudolf would like to claim a pH of around 10 (a claim that we shall examine in further detail). Note that if Rudolf were correct that the concentration of cyanide ions would be about 80% of the initial HCN concentration. If the pH is 6-7 as measured by Markiewicz et al., it is about 1% of the initial hydrogen cyanide concentration. Appendix 1 of “Leuchter, Rudolf, and the Iron Blues” shows that the concentration of aqueous HCN before washing with water is on the order of 0.1 M: 1% of this concentration is on the order of 10-3 M. Alich et al. found that concentrations of cyanide ions that were less than about 3.3 x 10-4 M did not form Prussian blue even though an excess of CN- was still present (dilution with 13% water by volume). [56] Considering that the gas chambers were washed with water, it is no wonder that very little if any Prussian blue formed there. Even if Rud
    Comment by NeverAGAIN! — May 29, 2013 @ 11:42 am
    - You need to join a forum where Holocaust believers and Holocaust deniers discuss all the minute points of the Holocaust. Two forums: http://www.rodoh.us/
      
      http://holocaustcontroversies.yuku.com/
      
      You are commenting on a BLOG, but you have written a small book, suitable for a discussion forum. I don’t have the time to go over all of your minute details and refute them, point by point.
      
      You might try writing your own Blog, so you can present your point of view and let others comment. No one has the time to read your excessively long comments.
      
      If you start your own blog, you should tell your grandmother’s story of how she escaped the gas chamber and go on from there.
      
      Comment by furtherglory — May 29, 2013 @ 12:50 pm
  - The why do you claim, “Note that virtually everything that Fred wrote is what I have been trying to communicate through my blog for over two years” when you admit he was discredited. You were called out on it and only then do you come clean. “Holocaust denial is mainstream now”? On what planet?
    
    Nothing like seeing someone use the internet to publicly humiliate themselves.
    
    Comment by Rich — January 8, 2017 @ 6:57 pm
- Testifying in court. Hhmmm…oh dear, if all the holocaust ‘survivors’ testified in court with all their ridiculous lies and contradictory evidence, that would be interesting, wouldn’t it?
  
  Comment by DB — May 28, 2013 @ 11:23 am
- I wrote about Fred Leuchter because he was NOT a revisionist before he climbed down into what he thought was a gas chamber. He accepted the job of examining the “gas chamber” because he was the one and only gas chamber consultant in the WORLD. He didn’t need a degree in gas chamber engineering to determine if a gas chamber was authentic. Any ordinary person, with half a brain, could have done the job of gathering the evidence that the lawyers wanted for the defense in a trial in Canada.
  
  If Fred had found that the morgue room in Krema II was really a gas chamber, he would have testified to that in the trial. He knew nothing about the Holocaust, and didn’t care about it one way or the other, when he went into the underground morgue and examined it.
  
  The prosecution in the trial in Canada could have sent their own gas chamber expert into the underground morgue room in Krema II and proved that it was a gas chamber, not a morgue. Why didn’t they?
  
  Comment by furtherglory — May 28, 2013 @ 3:21 pm
- Leuchter was unregistered at “The Board of Registration of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors” of Massachusetts…like 95% of the engineers working in Massachusetts at that time (In 1988 there were 55,000 engineers working in Massachusetts and only 5,000 of them were ‘registered engineers’.). What a great finding you’ve just made, NeverAgain!
  
  That trick is very funny when it comes from people who base their entire faith on the works of a political scientist as Raul Hilberg. 😉
  
  Leuchter’s qualifications as a technical expert and inventor are actually quite impressive. He has a bachelor’s degree in history, which he earned at Boston University in 1964. He did post-graduate study in celestial navigation mechanics at the Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1965, he has worked as an engineer on projects having to do with electrical, optical, mechanical, navigational and surveying problems. From 1965 through 1970 he was the technical director for a firm in Boston, where he specialized in airborne, opto-electronic, and photographic surveillance equipment. He designed the first low-level, color, stereo-mapping system for use in a helicopter, which has become an airborne standard. In 1970, he formed an independent consulting firm. During his period with this firm, he designed and built the first electronic sextant and developed a unique, light-weight, compact and inexpensive optical drum sector encoder for use with surveying and measuring instruments. He also built the first electronic sextant for the US Navy. He has worked on and designed astro trackers utilized in the on-board guidance systems of ICBM missiles. He designed a computerized transit for surveying use, and several years ago he developed the first low-cost personal telephone monitor.
  
  During the past 14 years, Leuchter has been a consultant to several state governments on equipment used to execute convicted criminals, including hardware for execution by lethal injection, electrocution, gassing and hanging. In the course of this work, he designed a new gas chamber for the state of Missouri, and he designed and constructed the first lethal injection machine for New Jersey. Leuchter has also been a consultant on execution procedures. He has held a research medical license from both state and federal governments, and has supplied the necessary drugs for use in execution support programs. At that time, Leuchter was recognized as the foremost American expert on the design and fabrication of gas chambers and other hardware used to execute criminals in the United States. He has worked on and designed facilities used to kill condemned criminals with hydrogen cyanide gas, the same gas supposedly used to kill many hundreds of thousands of Jews at Auschwitz.
  
  William Armontrout, warden of the Missouri State Penitentiary, testified on this matter during the 1988 “Holocaust Trial” of Ernst Zündel. As warden, Armontrout supervised the state’s execution gas chamber. He testified under oath that he had consulted with Leuchter on the design, maintenance and operation of the Missouri gas chamber, and confirmed that, to the best of his knowledge, “Leuchter is the only such consultant in the United States.”
  
  In 1987, he formed Fred A. Leuchter Associates, a consulting engineering firm specializing in general consulting and the design and construction of prototype hardware. He has been a forensic engineer consultant, and has testified as an expert in courts in the United States and Canada.
  
  http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v12/v12p429_Leuchter.html
  
  http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v12/v12p421_Weber.html
  
  In other words Leuchter is/was a hundred times more legitimate than Hilberg and Pressac were as far as gas chambers are concerned. 😉
  
  Comment by hermie — May 29, 2013 @ 3:40 am
  - In 1998, I went on a 1/2 day guided tour of the Auschwitz main camp. This was an official tour, which I purchased through a tour company in New York City. I paid for a private tour for one person. At the end of my half day tour of the main camp, I told my guide that I wanted to see the Birkenau camp. She told me that the New York tour company did not offer a tour of Birkenau because “there is nothing to see there.”
    
    When I told the tour guide that I wanted to see Birkenau in spite of there being “nothing to see there,” she told me that Raul Hilberg had only taken a 1/2 day tour of the main Auschwitz camp before he wrote his book, The Destruction of the European Jews. She added that it was dangerous to walk around the Birkenau camp because it was full of snakes and bees.
    
    But she did hook me up with a Jewish guide who would be willing to escort me to Birkenau. This new guide could not drive, so I had to pay for a driver in addition to paying extra for a tour of Birkenau.
    
    Fred Leuchter braved the snakes and bees at Birkenau, and climbed down into the gas chamber, not knowing if it were full of snakes. He took his life in his hands, literally and figuratively, to check out the gas chamber.
    
    I tried to check my guide’s claim that Hilberg had not seen Birkenau before he wrote his book. I could not find verification of this claim, but I did find this on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Destruction_of_the_European_Jews
    
    Begin Quote:
    Hilberg began his study of the Holocaust leading to The Destruction while stationed in Munich in 1948 for the U.S. Army’s War Documentation Project. He proposed the idea for the work as a PhD. dissertation and was supported in this by his doctoral advisor, Columbia University professor Franz Neumann.
    End Quote
    
    Comment by furtherglory — May 29, 2013 @ 8:07 am
    - FG wrote: “I tried to check my guide’s claim that Hilberg had not seen Birkenau before he wrote his book. I could not find verification of this claim, but I did find this on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Destruction_of_the_European_Jews”
      
      In 1985 (1st Zündel trial) Hilberg admitted that he had seen Auschwitz-Birkenau only once in his entire life and that it was just for a memorial ceremony. In other words Hilberg wrote a book on something he had never studied himself. That’s what exterminationist ‘research’ is most of the time…
      
      Comment by hermie — May 31, 2013 @ 9:25 am
      - So you’re saying that the famous Holocaust expert, Raul Hilberg, didn’t wade through the tall grass at Birkenau, taking a chance on being stung by bees or bitten by snakes, and he didn’t climb down into the alleged gas chambers before he wrote about the Jews being gassed at Birkenau? That makes him a REAL Holocaust expert, not an “evil denier” who deserves to be in prison for 5 years.
        
        Comment by furtherglory — May 31, 2013 @ 12:20 pm
        
        That’s exactly what I was saying, deliciously sarcastic friend. 😉
        
        Comment by hermie — June 1, 2013 @ 7:33 pm
  - You wrote: “William Armontrout, warden of the Missouri State Penitentiary, testified on this matter during the 1988 “Holocaust Trial” of Ernst Zündel. As warden, Armontrout supervised the state’s execution gas chamber. He testified under oath that he had consulted with Leuchter on the design, maintenance and operation of the Missouri gas chamber, and confirmed that, to the best of his knowledge, “Leuchter is the only such consultant in the United States.”
    
    Very few states in the United States used gas chambers at that time. AFIK, there were no gas chambers used in Europe. So Leucter was the only gas chamber consultant in the WORLD. His life and his business were destroyed by the Jews after his testimony at the trial.
    
    Comment by furtherglory — May 29, 2013 @ 8:20 am
    - FG wrote: “So Leucter was the only gas chamber consultant in the WORLD.”
      
      He would still be if he had concluded that the Auschwitz ‘gas chambers’ had been homicidal gas chambers. He had warned Zündel before leaving for Poland that he would say those rooms were gas chambers if he thought they were. But when he saw those ‘gas chambers’, an expert like him quickly understood those rooms had never been used for homicidal mass gassings and that’s what he told during the 2nd Zündel trial. From that point his brilliant career was over and he wasn’t an expert anymore but an ‘evil denier’ crook.
      
      Comment by hermie — May 31, 2013 @ 9:33 am
- “So I imagine most of you who visit this site are of the same mindset (willfully blind, old fashioned Jew hatred, and not highly compensated)”
  Ahem, well no actually,
  I am a daughter of a Waffen SS soldier and witnessed his flashbacks…so no I cannot deny the Holocaust. Having said that, I also do not buy into the version of the Holocaust that is woven throughout our Western culture. Because I come at this story personally it has enabled me to see through the constructs of the story but I do crave facts and a point of view that is not overly influenced by western ‘guilty bystander’ culture.
  I find the seeking of facts in this site refreshing and a relief. I am also impressed with the research in many of the comments, although I do not sympathise with many conclusions and how those facts seem to be used to justify hatred on both ‘sides’.
  This website also seems to encourage conversation about the material form both ‘sides’. To me that is about truth seeking…and unlike work, hopefully a bit more truth might set us free.
  
  Comment by Rose Nooteboom — June 8, 2013 @ 7:30 pm
  - If your father was a Waffen SS soldier, he probably never saw a concentration camp. His “flashbacks” were probably images of what he saw on the battlefield and images of the German people who were treated badly by the Allies.
    
    Go to this page of my website: http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/DachauTrials/MalmedyMassacre02A.html where you can see a photo of the half-eaten body of a German soldier who was mutilated by Russian cannibals.
    
    Read about the rape of German women in any of the many books about it: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/may/01/news.features11
    
    Read about the Nemmersdorf Massacre on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemmersdorf_massacre
    
    Begin Quote:
    Karl Potrek of Königsberg, leader of a Volkssturm company present on the retaking of the village, testified in a 1953 report:
    
    “In the farmyard stood a cart, to which more naked women were nailed through their hands in a cruciform position…Near a large inn, the ‘Roter Krug’, stood a barn and to each of its two doors a naked woman was nailed through the hands, in a crucified posture….In the dwellings we found a total of 72 women, including children, and one old man, 74, all dead….Some babies had their heads bashed in.”[3]
    End Quote
    
    I mentioned the Nemmersdorf Massacre on my blog at https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/the-nemmersdorf-massacre/
    
    Comment by furtherglory — June 9, 2013 @ 6:29 am
- Unlike Exterminationists, Revisionist dealt with the technical flaws of the work and improved on it. Holocoasters preferred to make the whole thing an ad-hominem smear campaign.
  
  Comment by Andreas Meyer — February 16, 2017 @ 6:29 am
David Irving, David Cole, Mark Weber and Christian Lindtner are famous “Holocaust deniers” who have, for various reasons, amended or recanted their original positions without really offering any revelatory new evidence for disappearance of European Jewry. They’ve apparently accepted the “Holocaust by bullets” narrative being put forward now by people like the Catholic priest Father Patrick Desbois and the legitimacy of documents indicating millions were starved, worked to death, shot and gassed by the Nazis. I hate to be a party pooper, but Holocaust revisionism as an intellectual “movement” is essentially moribund despite the fact there are more blogs and You Tube videos than there ever were during the heyday of the Zundel trials and the IHR.

Comment by who dares wings — May 26, 2013 @ 2:05 pm
- “David Irving, David Cole, Mark Weber and Christian Lindtner are famous “Holocaust deniers” who have, for various reasons, amended or recanted their original positions”
  
  Interesting article written by Robert Faurisson about Mark Weber and why the IHR is dying: https://furtherglory.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/dachaue019.jpg
  
  David Irving has never been a “Holocaust denier”. After reading the Leuchter report in the 1980’s, he stopped to believe in the Auschwitz gas chambers. But he never stopped to believe in the Holocaust by gas at the Reinhardt camps and the Holocaust by bullets in Far Eastern Europe. Irving once said he has never really been interested in the Holocaust. He’s a Third Reich historian, not a Holocaust historian (and even less a “Holocaust denier”). But the media and some exterminationist historians like Deborah Lipstadt labelled him a “Holocaust denier” in spite of that.
  
  Interesting article written by Jürgen Graf about Irving and the Reinhardt camps: http://juergen-graf.vho.org/articles/david-irving-and-the-aktion-reinhardt-camps.html
  
  Comment by hermie — May 26, 2013 @ 7:38 pm
  - Edit:
    
    Here is the article written by Faurisson on Mark Weber: http://robertfaurisson.blogspot.be/2009/04/mark-weber-must-resign-from-institute.html?m=1
    
    Comment by hermie — May 26, 2013 @ 7:40 pm
    - I met Mark Weber in person once and I was not impressed. He was not exactly a warm and friendly person, but just the opposite. I heard him give a speech; someone in the audience asked him if he were Jewish. He answered that his sister is Jewish but he is not. So, in other words, he was born of a Jewish mother, but he is not a Jew. I was concerned about his motive for being a revisionist. I was suspicious that he might be infiltrating the revisionist community to do some harm.
      
      Comment by furtherglory — May 27, 2013 @ 6:20 am
  - I met David Irving in person once and I was very impressed with him. He is a bit conceited but he has a right to be conceited. You are correct that he is a great historian, but not a Holocaust historian. He gave a speech in which he said that he believes that Jews were killed at Treblinka. He certainly didn’t say anything like that during the trial after Lipstadt accused him of being a “Holocaust denier.” I think he just said that because he wants to hang onto his reputation as a historian and sell his books on World War II.
    
    Comment by furtherglory — May 27, 2013 @ 6:32 am
    - If Weber was born of a jewish mother, he’s a jew himself. Maybe he meant he’s an atheist, but he’s a jew by blood anyway. I didn’t know that. His jewishness could explain a lot of things…
      
      David Irving is a great historian but he should stay away from the Holocaust. Nothing forces him to be interested in the Holocaust. So he should write and talk about the matters he’s an expert in and leave the Holocaust stuff to the real experts in that matter. Irving is way more interesting to read and to listen to when he tells the epic stories of the 3rd Reich than when he tries to credit the holofable in order to regain his lost credibility. When Irving talks about the Holocaust and play the Zionists’ game he harm his own career because the Zionist lobby will label him “a Holocaust denier” anyway. For his own sake he should stop giving water to the Zionist mill and only do what he ‘s excellent in.
      
      Comment by hermie — May 27, 2013 @ 2:53 pm
      - I googled “mark weber jewish sister” and found this:
        
        http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/7721/the-denial-twist-part-iv
        
        Apparently his sister converted. Weber was raised Catholic.
        
        Comment by blake121666 — May 28, 2013 @ 8:26 pm
I only hope you are aware of just how worthy the work you’re doing is – this coming from a former hardline believer like myself.

Comment by s.c — May 26, 2013 @ 10:58 am