Diesel Gas Chambers: Ideal for Torture – Absurd for Murder FRIEDRICHPAULBERG 1. Diesel Exhaust and Zyklon B Most National Socialist homicidal gassings were supposedly committed with Diesel exhaust rather than cyanide or Zyklon B. Although this is contrary to popular perceptions about the Holo- caust story, Diesel exhaust has been dominant, at least in terms of numbers of victims, in the claims of holocaust scholars since the 1960’s. The Diesel allegations did, however, gain some public noto- riety with the prosecution of American citizen John Demjanjuk. Demjanjuk was accused of having murdered at least 875,000 Jews with Diesel exhaust at the alleged extermination camp at Treblinka in 1942/43.1 An nationally syndicated essay from one of America’s best-known newspaper colum- nists Patrick Buchanan raised the subject of Diesel gassing to a fever pitch in the American press. Buchanan, a former assistant to President Ronald Reagan, claimed that Diesel engines could not kill at all.2 His sweeping statement, which was far too broad, brought him massive criticism but not for any valid technical reasons.3 In 1992, a working draft paper authored by Walter Lüftl, President of the Austrian Federal Cham- ber of Engineers, described mass murder with Diesel exhaust as a “sheer impossibility.”4 Shortly thereafter, he substantiated his view as to the relative harmlessness of Diesel exhaust in an essay,5 which was publicly attacked as well.6 For readers familiar with auto emission issues, much of what follows represents a kind of ‘over- kill’ and rightly so. But in order to put the Holocaust monster to its final, well-deserved rest – at least its Diesel portion – one must be rigorous and even exhaustive. Since Diesel gassings are not technically impossible, we must actually show how it could have been done hypothetically, and then, just how thoroughly unreasonable it is to believe the National Socialists would have ever used the necessary technology. In any event, according to my conviction, National Socialist homicidal gassings never happened! This chapter is an expanded and revised edition of F. P. Berg’s article “The Diesel Gas Chambers – Myth Within a Myth”,The Journal of Historical Review (JHR) 5(1) (1984), pp. 15-46 (online: ihr.org/jhr/v05/v05p-15_Berg.html). Al- though this author gladly takes credit for this work, the editor Germar Rudolf deserves credit also for having made many substantive additions to the arguments and for many important reference citations. 1 The history of, and public reactions to, this travesty of justice are described in the following chapter by A. Neu- maier. 2 New York Post, March 17, 1990; The Washington Times, March 19, 1990; repeated on “This Week with David Brinkley”,ABC television, Sunday, Dec. 8, 1991. 3 The New Republic, Oct. 22, 1990; G. F. Will, Newsweek, March 4, 1996. See especially: Friedrich Paul Berg, Frie- drich Paul”, “Pat Buchanan and the Diesel Exhaust Controversy,” www.codoh.com/gcgvwill.html 4 Cf. the chapter by W. Rademacher, this volume, as well as afp, “Österreicher bestreitet Holocaust”,Süddeutsche Zeitung, March 13, 1992, p. 10; Neue Kronenzeitung, April 20, 1993; “Ein rauhes Lüftl”,Bau 5/1995, p. 8; “Rechte Gutachten”,Profil, June 20, 1994; E. Kosmath, letter to the editor, Bau 11/1994; ARA, “Lüftl wieder in Kammer, ‘Schwieriges Problem’”, Standard (Vienna), Sept. 19, 1994. 5 W. Lüftl, “Sollen Lügen künftig Pflicht sein?”,Deutschland in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 41(1) (1993), pp. 13f. (online: vho.org/D/DGG/Lueftl41_1.html). 6 J. Bailer, in Brigitte Bailer-Galanda, Wolfgang Benz, Wolfgang Neugebauer (eds.), Wahrheit und Auschwitzlüge, Deuticke, Vienna 1995, pp. 99-118, here 100-107; cf. G. Rudolf, “Zur Kritik an ‘Wahrheit und Auschwitzlüge’”, in Vrij Historisch Onderzoek (ed.), Kardinalfragen zur Zeitgeschichte, Vrij Historisch Onderzoek, Berchem 1996, pp. 91-108, here 98-102 (online: vho.org/D/Kardinal/Wahrheit.html; English: vho.org/GB/Books/cq/critique.html). 435 GERMARRUDOLF (ED.) · DISSECTING THE HOLOCAUST 2. Introduction In any trial of even the most ordinary murder, one can expect an abundance of information about the murder weapon. One would expect the Allied and German post-war trials about murder as novel and as bestially spectacular as the mass murder of millions of Jews in gas chambers to provide the most extensive and precise documentation possible. Although there is a vast literature based primarilyon those trials, as far as the actual mechanics of the extermination process are concerned, all one really finds is an occasional short and vague description. Nearly sixty years have elapsed since the end of World War Two. The Holocaust specialists have had more than enough time to examine documents and alleged mass murder sites as well as testimony from the most extensive trials in the entire history of the world. Throughout this period they have been extremely active – but aside from a few bits and pieces of so-called ‘confessions’ and ‘eyewitness tes- timony,’ they have found next to nothing. The vast information gaps about the actual mechanics of the alleged extermination process should arouse the gravest suspicion. Although the information gaps are bad for the exterminationist position; what is even worse is that the few bits and pieces of information are simply incredible. To characterize the alleged mass murder methodology as ‘hare-brained,’ ‘crackpot,’ or ‘weird’ is to understate the situation. If one looks at the claims critically, sooner or later it becomes obvious that the people who repeat the Holocaust story in one form or another simply have no idea as to what they are talking about. The testimony of so-called ‘eyewitnesses’ is especially weird. The statement by Kurt Gerstein, which for a long time was the evi- dence most often used by Holocaust specialists, is the best example qualitatively. The other ‘state- ments’ or ‘confessions’ are even worse. The absurdities of the various alleged extermination methods do not in and of themselves prove that the Holocaust did not happen, but they should at least persuade reasonable people to ask for some strong corroborating evidence. There are, for example, no autopsy reports of gassing victims. The ‘gas chambers’ of Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor were all allegedly destroyed before the war ended. Those in Auschwitz and Majdanek as well as those in the camps in the Reich proper are ordinary rooms (mortuaries, shower rooms, delousing chambers) that have been mislabeled ‘gas chambers’ in spite of their obvious design and function – often to keep people alive.7 To concoct horrible but conveniently vague ‘eyewitness’ accounts of mass murder is easy. To have such tales accepted about a defeated enemy nation after a brutal war, during which the vast media re- sources of the victors had already succeeded in portraying the enemy as thoroughly depraved and wicked, is also easy. On the other hand, it is not at all easy to explain how one could possibly commit mass murder with Diesel exhaust. The exterminationists have never provided the necessary explana- tion, not even in the great Israeli show trial of Ivan Demjanjuk, where precisely such an explanation of the Diesel-murder-method should have been demanded – at least by the defense. 3. The Exterminationist Position Table 1 is from The Destruction of the European Jews by Raul Hilberg and was published in 1961. The table summarizes the views of practically all generally accepted ‘consensus’ writers on the Holo- caust story over the last 40 years. The camps listed are the only ones still regarded as ‘extermination’ camps. The fourth column from the left shows that in almost all of the camps, the killing operation suppos- edly used carbon monoxide (CO). In Auschwitz the killing operation supposedly used only hydrogen cyanide (HCN). Of the five camps where carbon monoxide was supposedly used, the vast majority of victims are said to have been killed in just three camps: Treblinka, Belzec, and Sobibor. The carbon monoxide was supposedly generated by Diesel engines. The number of Jews supposedly killed in Kulmhof (Chelmno) or Lublin (Majdanek) are small compared to the numbers for Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor. The gas vans supposedly employed in Russia also used Diesels. 7 Cf. the articles by G. Rudolf, Carlo Mattogno, and Jürgen Graf in this volume. 436 FRIEDRICH PAUL BERG· DIESELGASCHAMBERS: IDEAL FOR TORTURE – ABSURD FOR MURDER Table 1: Characteristics of the Death Camps According to Raul Hilberg8 Camp Location Jurisdiction Type of Killing Operation Number of Victims* Kulmhof Wartheland Higher SS and Police gas vans (CO) 150,000 (Chelmno) Leader (Koppe) SS and Police Leader Belzec Lublin district gas chambers (CO) 600,000 (Globocnik) Sobibor Lublin district SS and Police Leader gas chambers (CO) 200,000–250,0009 (Globocnik) Lublin Lublin district WVHA (SS Economic- gas chamber (CO, HCN) 50,000-200,0009 (Majdanek) Administrative Main Office) shooting Warsaw 750,000 Treblinka district SS and Police Leader gas chambers (CO) 700,0009–1,200,00010 Auschwitz Upper Silesia WVHA gas chambers (HCN) one million11 *Updated figures were added here; cf. the appropriate notes. On the basis of generally accepted numbers of victims, nearly two-thirds of all the alleged Jewish victims of German gas chambers were supposedly gassed with Diesel exhaust. For at least several months in 1939 and 1940, Diesel engines had supposedly been used in Ger- many’s euthanasia program to kill Germans who were feebleminded or incurably ill. The experience gained from this early use of Diesels was allegedly applied later by some of the same people, such as Reichsamtleiter Viktor Brack and Kriminalkommissar Christian Wirth, to kill Jews in Treblinka, Bel- zec, and Sobibor in eastern Poland. According to Hilberg, it was Wirth who constructed the “carbon monoxide gas chambers” for the euthanasia program on the orders of Brack who was “actually in charge of the [euthanasia] operation.” Then in the spring of 1942, Brack ordered Wirth to Lublin where “Wirth and his crew immediately and under primitive conditions began to construct chambers into which they piped carbon monoxide from Diesel motors.”12 In 1978 and 1979, major American television network NBC broadcast a four-day television miniser- ies entitled “Holocaust,” which was essentially a dramatization of the generally accepted Holocaust story. There were several references to the use of Diesel engines for mass murder. In one scene, Dr. Bruno Tesch, who in real life had actually been a highly qualified chemist and was hanged after the war by the Allies,13 explains to Eric Dorf, a totally fictional SS officer administering the extermina- tion program, that one of the advantages of Zyklon B over carbon monoxide is that Zyklon B “won’t clog machinery – and there’s no apparatus to break down, as in carbon monoxide.” In another scene, Rudolf Höß, the commandant of Auschwitz, is about to start a Diesel engine when Eric Dorf explains to him that he will not need the Diesel any longer because he has ordered another substance, Zyk- lon B. Reality is rather different from what was suggested in the NBC miniseries and in some of the lit- erature. The Zyklon B used in Auschwitz consisted of granules made of gypsum and starch, which certainly would have instantly clogged machinery and/or shower piping, although the cyanide gas released from Zyklon-B granules would not clog anything. Diesel exhaust does not clog machinery easily at all – unless the engine is making smoke under an extremely heavy. This smoke contains some solid matter which can, indeed, clog machinery (foul the cylinders), if there is more smoke than can be blown out with the exhaust. Otherwise, no clogging of cylinders occurs. 8 R. Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, Quadrangle Books, Chicago 1961, p. 572; German ed.: Die Ver- nichtung der europäischen Juden, Olle & Wolter, Berlin 1982, p. 604. 9 Updated with information from the official German Institut für Zeitgeschichte (Institute for contemporary History). 10 Maximum figure given by F. Golczewski in W. Benz, Dimension des Völkermords, Oldenbourg, Munich 1991, p. 495. 11 From 9 million to 500,000, depending on the source. At the moment, 1 million is the officially espoused figure; cf. the chapter on statistics by G. Rudolf, this volume. 12 R. Hilberg, op. cit. (note 8), Eng. ed. p. 562. 13 William B. Lindsey, “Zyklon B, Auschwitz, and the Trial of Dr. Bruno Tesch”,JHR 4(3) (1983), pp. 261-303 (online: vho.org/GB/Journals/JHR/4/3/Lindsey261-303.html). 437 GERMARRUDOLF (ED.) · DISSECTING THE HOLOCAUST 4. Kurt Gerstein The statement of Kurt Gerstein remains a major cornerstone of the Holocaust legend. Gerstein was anObersturmführer (First Lieutenant) in the SS and a mine surveyor by profession with a graduate degree in engineering. When he surrendered to the French, he supposedly gave them a prepared statement dated April 26, 1945. He had been elevated to the status of “righteous gentile” by the Is- raelis and various Jewish writers for having at least tried to alert the world to the National Socialist ex- termination program. As H. Roques pointed out,14 six different versions of the Gerstein Statement have been found to date and published by various researchers often in grossly distorted and mutilated form.15 Many parts of Gerstein’s statements range from the fantastically incredible to the downright impossible. He allegedly committed suicide in a French prison after having offered himself in vain as an informer to the French. The trend in recent years has been to dissociate from him as ‘witness for the prosecution’. Nonetheless, his ‘statements’ are the only ones which give at least a few technical details about the alleged Diesel gassings. Raul Hilberg, for example, referred to his ‘statement’ many times without actually quoting from it.16 The following text is an excerpt from the Gerstein Statement as given in Harvest of Hate by Léon Poliakov. Aside from a rather brazen ‘error’ on the part of Poliakov – namely the claim that 700 to 800 bodies were crowded into 93 square meters (1,000 sqf), instead of only 25 square meters (269 sqf), which is the way the original document actually reads – it is probably no worse than any of the other translations which can be found:15 “SS men pushed the men into the chambers. ‘Fill it up’, Wirth ordered; 700-800 people in 93 [sic; original claims 25] square meters. The doors closed. […] Then I understood the reason for the ‘Heckenholt’ sign. Heckenholt was the driver of the Diesel, whose exhaust was to kill these poor unfortunates.[17] SS Unterscharführer Heckenholt tried to start the motor. It wouldn’t start! Captain Wirth came up. You could see he was afraid because I was there to see the disaster. Yes, I saw everything and waited. My stopwatch clocked it all: 50 minutes, 70 minutes, and the Diesel still would not start! The men were waiting in the gas chambers. You could hear them weeping ‘as though in a synagogue’, said Professor Pfannenstiel, his eyes glued to the window in the wooden door.[18] Captain Wirth, furious, struck with his whip the Ukrainian who helped Heckenholt. The Diesel started up after 2 hours and 49 minutes, by my stopwatch. Twenty-five minutes passed. You could see through the window that many were already dead, for an electric light illuminated the interior of the room. All were dead after thirty-two minutes! Jewish workers on the other side opened the wooden doors. They had been promised their lives in re- turn for doing this horrible work, plus a small percentage of the money and valuables collected. The men were still standing, like columns of stone, with no room to fall or lean. Even in death you could tell 14 H. Roques, Faut-il fusiller Henri Roques?, Ogmios Diffusion, Paris 1986 (cf. online: abbc.com/aaargh/fran/ ACHR/ACHR.a.html); cf. also André Chelain, La Thèse de Nantes et l’affaire Roques, Ogmios Diffusion, Paris 1989 ; abbrev. German ed.: H. Roques, Die “Geständnisse” des Kurt Gerstein, Druffel, Leoni 1986 (online: abbc.com/aaargh/deut/HRgerstein1.html); cf. D. Felderer, JHR 1(1) (1980), pp. 69-80; D. Felderer, JHR 1(2) (1980), pp. 169-172 (online: vho.org/GB/Journals/1/1/Felderer69-80.html & …/2/Felderer169-172.html); C. Mattogno, Il rapporto Gerstein – Anatomia di un falso, Sentinella d’Italia, Monfalcone 1985; cf. Raul Hilberg, “Expert’s admis- sion: Some gas death ‘facts’ nonsense”, Toronto Sun, Jan. 17, 1985. 15 An example of gross distortions is L. Poliakov, Harvest of Hate, Schocken Books (Holocaust Library), New York 1979, p. 195 (French ed.: Bréviaire de la Haine, Calman-Levy, Paris 1951, pp. 220ff.). 16 R. Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, Holmes and Meier, New York 1985, pp. 890, 892, 963, 964, 975f. 17 According to Y. Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps, University Press, Bloom- ington 1987, p. 123, the real name of this Heckenholt was Lorenz Hackenholt. Besides Hackenholt, Arad claims that Ivan Demjanjuk was responsible for operating the Diesel gas chambers in Treblinka, ibid., p. 86. In light of the dis- astrous outcome of the Demjanjuk affair for the Israelis, it should now be obvious that most of the eyewitness ac- counts used by Arad are worthless. It appears that Arad’s book, published when the Demjanjuk case was not yet set- tled, is nothing more than propaganda for influencing the trial’s outcome. 18 This sentence is missing from the version given by H. Rothfels (ed.), “Augenzeugenberichte zu den Massenverga- sungen,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 1 (1953), pp. 177-194. Instead, Rothfels remarked: “A strictly personal observation then follows.” 438 FRIEDRICH PAUL BERG· DIESELGASCHAMBERS: IDEAL FOR TORTURE – ABSURD FOR MURDER the families, all holding hands. It was difficult to separate them while emptying the room for the next batch. The bodies were tossed out, blue,[19] wet with sweat and urine, the legs smeared with excrement and menstrual blood.” It is physically impossible to crowd 700 to 800 people into a space of only 25 square meters, i.e., 28 to 32 people per square meter.20 According to Gerstein, it was not a peephole through which Professor Pfannenstiel supposedly looked into the gas chamber – it was a window in a wooden door, and not a gas-tight, panic-proof steel door as one might expect. Supposedly, there were wooden doors on two sides of at least one of the gas chambers. We are told that the intended victims were still alive after almost three hours in the gas chambers before the Diesel even started, so there must have been many air leaks into the chambers or else the Jews would have been asphyxiated without the aid of any Die- sel. There is no mention anywhere of the intended victims trying to break out. Wooden doors with glass windows would hardly have withstood a determined group effort to break through. Surely, Prof. Pfan- nenstiel, with “his eyes glued to the window,” would have noticed if some people had been trying to smash the glass. But no, we are told instead that the victims were calm enough and reflective enough to form groups of family members, and hold hands, and even weep. More than likely, Dr. W. Pfannenstiel, Professor of Medicine at Marburg, had been sent to Belzec and other camps as medical adviser to improve hygiene and health care in the camps. After the war, he was repeatedly interrogated regarding his visit to Belzec with Gerstein. He was charged in two cases but never convicted. In the court-room statements, which are available to us, he never directly disputed Gerstein’s account, but in a private letter he described the Gerstein Statement as “highly du- bious rubbish in which ‘fantasy’ far outweighs fact.”21 He also wrote that due to the persecution and slander to which he was exposed, he did not wish to comment further on the matter publicly. In other words, Pfannenstiel had clearly tried to avoid further trouble for himself. The ‘whole truth’ would have been too much for his prosecutors to bear. According to the last sentence of the Gerstein text quoted above, the bodies of the victims were “blue.” Here we have a major flaw as far as the death-from-carbon-monoxide theory is concerned be- cause victims of carbon monoxide poisoning are not blue at all. On the contrary, victims of carbon monoxide poisoning are a distinctive ‘cherry red’ or ‘pink’.22 This is clearly spelled out in most toxi- cology handbooks and is probably well known to every doctor and to most, if not all, emergency medical personnel. Carbon monoxide poisoning is actually very common because of the automobile and accounts for more poison gas injuries than all other gases combined. The Gerstein statement, to its credit, does not claim that carbon monoxide was the lethal ingredient in the Diesel exhaust. It is the post-war exterminationists who insist that death was due to the carbon monoxide in the Diesel exhaust. The recurrence of references to “bluish” corpses in several other ex- amples of so-called ‘eyewitness testimony’ from West German trials merely demonstrates the ‘copy- cat’ nature of much of that testimony. That such testimony has been accepted by West German courts specializing in Holocaust-related cases and by the Holocaust scholars, apparently without any serious challenge, merely demonstrates the shoddiness of those trials and the pseudo-scholarship which per- vades the subject in general. 19 Version T2, H. Roques, op. cit. (note 14), German ed., p. 57. 20 Even closely crowded, 10 people per square meter are the maximum; cf. E. Neufert, Bauentwurfslehre, Vieweg, Wiesbaden 1992, p. 27; cf. U. Walendy, Historische Tatsachen no. 29, Verlag für Volkstum und Zeitgeschichtsfor- schung, Vlotho 1985, p. 12: 46 persons will fit onto the 4.44 m2 load area of a heavy-goods vehicle, according to Quick, April 25, 1985. 21 Letter from Pfannenstiel to P. Rassinier, dated Aug. 3, 1963, published in W. Stäglich, U. Walendy, “NS- Bewältigung”,Historische Tatsachen no. 5, Historical Review Press, Southam (GB) 1979, p. 20. 22 Regarding the toxicology of carbon monoxide, cf. e.g.: W. Forth, D. Henschler, W. Rummel, K. Starke, Allgemeine und spezielle Pharmakologie und Toxikologie, 6th ed., Wissenschaftsverlag, Mannheim 1992, pp. 756ff.; S. Kaye, Handbook of Emergency Toxicology, C. C. Thomas, Springfield 1980, pp. 187f.; C. J. Polson, R. N. Tattersall, Cli- nical Toxicology, Lippincott, Philadelphia 1969, pp. 604-621. 439 GERMARRUDOLF (ED.) · DISSECTING THE HOLOCAUST If the corpses had indeed appeared “blue,” death certainly would not have been due to carbon monoxide poisoning. A bluish appearance could, however, have been an indication of death from as- phyxiation,i.e., from lack of oxygen.. According to Léon Poliakov, a French-Jewish historian who has written at length in support of the Holocaust story, “[…] there is little to add to this description [the Gerstein Statement], which holds good for Treblinka and Sobibor as well as for the Belzec camp. The latter installations were constructed in almost the same way and also used the exhaust carbon monoxide gases from Diesel motors as death agents.” According to Poliakov, more than a million and a half people were killed with Diesel exhaust.23 5. Toxic Effects of Carbon Monoxide To investigate the Diesel gas chamber claim, the two most important questions are: (cid:120)(cid:3)How much carbon monoxide is actually needed to kill a human being in half an hour? (cid:120)(cid:3)Does Diesel exhaust ever contain that much carbon monoxide? Carbon monoxide poisoning has been thoroughly studied since about 1920 when it was carefully examined to determine the ventilation requirements of tunnels for motor vehicles, particularly for the Holland Tunnel in New York City. Since the early 1940s, it has been widely accepted on the basis of the research of Yandell Henderson and J. S. Haldane that given a normal oxygen content of the air, an average carbon monoxide concentration of “0.4% and above,” as shown on the last line of Table 2, is needed to kill people in “less” than one hour of continuous exposure.24 Concentrations of 0.15%/vol. to 0.20%/vol. are “dangerous,” which means they might kill some people in one hour, especially if those people have, for example, weak hearts. But, to commit mass murder in a gas chamber one would need a concentration sufficient to kill not merely a portion of any given group of people but rather, sufficient to kill all. The prospect of ‘survivors’ of a gassing being ‘regassed’ later on or dis- posed of in some other way is too ridiculous. The vagueness introduced by Henderson’s use of the term “less” is unfortunate. It arises from the fact that although Henderson and others could test for non-lethal effects in a laboratory with a high degree of accuracy, the lethal effects could not be tested in the same way. The lethal effects and the corresponding CO levels were determined by careful extrapolation of carboxy-hemoglobin levels over time from non-lethal tests on humans as well as from some lethal tests on animals. Although the con- centrations given for lethal effects are not as precise as one might wish, they are still sufficiently accu- rate to support some important conclusions about Diesel gas chambers. According to the exterminationists, the gassing was always done in about half an hour or less.25 To determine the carbon monoxide concentration needed to kill in only half an hour instead of a full hour, one can use a widely accepted rule of thumb known as “Henderson’s Rule,” which is: 23 L. Poliakov, Harvest of Hate,op. cit. (note 15), p. 196. Further typical and fundamental sources that speak of the use of Diesel engines include: W. Grossmann, Die Hölle von Treblinka, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow 1947: death occurred within 10-20 minutes due to tank engine exhaust, sometimes also due to vacuum and steam; Eliahu Rosenberg, Tatsachenbericht, Jewish Historical Documentation, Dec. 24, 1947, p. 4: mass murder with Die- sel engine exhaust within 20-35 minutes (published in H. P. Rullmann, Der Fall Demjanjuk, Verlag für ganzheitliche Forschung und Kultur, Struckum 1987, pp. 133-144); World Jewish Congress et al. (eds.), The Black Book: The Nazi Crime Against the Jewish People, New York 1946; reprint by Nexus Press, New York 1981: no fewer than 3 million victims in Treblinka due to carbon monoxide from tank engines, sometimes also due to vacuum and steam. 24 W. Braker, A. L. Mossman, Effects of Exposure to Toxic Gases, Matheson Gas Products, East Rutherford 1970, p. 12; 2nd ed., D. Siegel, Lynhurst, N.J., 1977. 25 According to the eyewitness statements in E. Kogon, H. Langbein, A. Rückerl et al. (eds.), Nationalsozialistische Massentötungen durch Giftgas, Fischer, Frankfurt/Main 1986, p. 159 (E. Fuchs, 10 mins.), p. 167 (K.A. Schluch, 5-7 mins.), p. 174 (K. Gerstein, 18 mins.), p. 181 (A. Goldfarb, 20-25 mins.), the gassing procedure allegedly some- times took much less time; in accordance with Gerstein: Matthes, in H. P. Rullmann, op. cit. (note 23), p. 167: 30 min. 440 FRIEDRICH PAUL BERG· DIESELGASCHAMBERS: IDEAL FOR TORTURE – ABSURD FOR MURDER %/vol. CO × exposure time = Constant for any given toxic effect. In other words, for any given toxic effect, the poisonous concentration must be inversely propor- tional to the time of exposure. This means that to kill in half an hour, one needs twice the concentra- tion that one would need to kill in a full hour. Applying this rule to the ‘0.4% and above’ needed to kill in “less than 1 hour,” we get 0.8%/vol. as the minimum concentration needed to kill in less than half an hour.26 Applying the same rule to the 0.15 to 0.20%/vol. range, which is “dangerous” for one hour of expo- sure, we get 0.3%/vol. to 0.4%/vol. as the range of CO concentration, which is dangerous for half an hour of exposure. What all this means is that to have any kind of practical gas chamber using carbon monoxide as the lethal agent, one needs an average concentration of at least 0.4%/vol. carbon monoxide – but, possibly as much as 0.8%/vol. We should keep ‘0.4% to 0.8%’ in mind as benchmark numbers to which we will refer shortly. Please note that these data hold true only in the presence of a normal oxygen content of the air! If one were to reduce the oxygen content by half for example – from the normal 21%/vol. to only 10.5%/vol. – any given concentration of CO will be twice as toxic. Even a CO concentration of only 0.2%/vol. would then suffice to kill in one hour. So, in order to determine the actual effectiveness of a given concentration of CO, it is necessary to see it in relation to the actual oxygen concentration pre- sent. To properly use the values shown in our tables and graphs, one must determine the CO content that would have the same effect with a normal oxygen level as the actual CO content with reduced oxygen. This concentration, which we shall call the “effective CO-concentration,” or c(CO ), is de- eff termined by multiplying the actual CO-concentration, or (c(CO)), by the ratio of the normal oxygen content (21%) to the actual oxygen content (x%): x% c(CO ) = c(CO) × eff 21% Another important consideration is always the average concentration over the entire time of expo- sure, and not some quantity of poison measured in pounds or cubic feet. In our current discussion, this is a problem, since to determine the concentration one would like to know the volume of the gas chamber which is not really possible here due to the general lack of information. Neither is it possible to solve this problem by determining an absolute quantity of poison instead of a concentration value. The few data regarding gas chamber size, which we do have for example from the Gerstein Statement, are so unbelievable that there is no point in trying to work from them. But we do know that the aver- age CO concentration will always be less than the CO concentration measured directly on the exhaust side of the Diesel engine. Table 2: Toxic Effects of Carbon Monoxide27 Parts of carbon monoxide Carbon monoxide Physiological effects per million parts of air in %/vol. 100 (0.01) Allowable concentration for an exposure of several hours 400 to 500 (0.04 – 0.05) Inhalation for up to 1 hour without appreciable effect 600 to 700 (0.06 – 0.07) Appreciable effect after exposure of 1 hour 1,000 to 1,200 (0.10 – 0.12) Indisposition but no dangerous effects after exposure of 1 hour 1,500 to 2,000 (0.15 – 0.2) Dangerous concentrations for exposure of 1 hour 4,000 and above (0.4 and above) Fatal in exposure of less than 1 hour 26 F. E. Camps, Medical and Scientific Investigations in the Christie Case, Medical Publications Ltd., London 1953, p. 170. 27 Y. Henderson, H. W. Haggard, Noxious Gases, Reinhold Publishing, New York 1943, p. 168. 441 GERMARRUDOLF (ED.) · DISSECTING THE HOLOCAUST Graph 1: Toxic effect of small amounts of carbon monoxide.28 Top: original chart; left: additional values extrapolated by the author. Table 3 shows the Hb(cid:152)CO levels of carbon monoxide victims from the 1950s. In the literature of toxicology, 60% Hb(cid:152)CO is generally cited as the fatal level (cf. Graph 1). According to Table 3, more than ¼ of all people would be dead at this concentration. Almost another 50% die at levels up to 70% Hb(cid:152)CO, and the last quarter would die only when the concentration had increased to 80% Hb(cid:152)CO (see also the scattergram Graph 2). So, to build an effective CO execution gas chamber which, in keeping with eyewitness testimony, kills everyone within half an hour – even young, healthy people with good nerves – the chamber would have to reliably induce a level of 80% Hb(cid:152)CO. An average CO content of 0.4% by volume in the gas chamber air would be the absolute minimum required (cf. Graph 1). Graph 1 gives the symptoms from various low-level carbon monoxide exposures as a function of duration of exposure. The highest CO concentration discussed is 600 ppm (parts per million). 600 ppm is another way of saying 0.06%/vol. The chart shows that after one hour of exposure to an aver- age concentration of 600 ppm of CO, one would experience a headache, but not a throbbing one. Even after 100 hours of exposure, the worst that one would experience would be unconsciousness, but not death. However, after only half an hour of exposure to 600 ppm, no symptoms are indicated at all – not even a mild headache. We should keep ‘0.06%’ in mind as another benchmark number to which we will refer later in this chapter. To obtain more reliable data about the effects of a higher CO content in exhaust than those extrapo- lated here, one can consult accident and suicide statistics. Accident or suicide victims who died from Table 3: Hemoglobin-Carbon Monoxide Level of CO-Victims29 Age of Victims [years] Hb(cid:152)CO [%] 18-30 30-40 40-50 50-60 60-70 70-80 80-90 Sum 40-50 – – – – – 7 4 11 50-60 2 – 1 3 1 5 5 17 60-70 7 2 6 12 10 8 – 45 70-80 5 2 5 7 8 – – 27 Total: 14 4 12 22 19 20 9 100 28 P. S. Myers, “Automobile Emissions – A Study in Environmental Benefits versus Technological Costs”,Society of Automotive Engineers Transactions 79 (1970), section 1, paper 700182, p. 662. 29 Keith Simpson (ed.), Taylor’s Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence, J. & A. Churchill, London 1965, pp. 366f.; Graph 2 originally appeared in K. Simpson, R.A. Furbank, Journal for Medicine, 2 (1995), p. 5. 442 FRIEDRICH PAUL BERG· DIESELGASCHAMBERS: IDEAL FOR TORTURE – ABSURD FOR MURDER carbon monoxide are frequently tested for the carboxy-hemoglobin (Hb(cid:152)CO)30 concentration in their blood. What any would-be National Socialist mass murderers needed to achieve with their gas chambers is called by toxi- cologists the “LD ” the lethal dose for 100, killing 100% of the victims. The con- crete implications of this can be seen from the statistical analysis of a study of 100 deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning. 6. The Diesel Engine 6.1. Introduction Although information as to engine type and size might be considered es- sential in the investigation of any ordi- nary murder, such details are just too much to expect when one is dealing with the Holocaust hoax. Without more specific information, we must investi- gate the broader and far more difficult Graph 2: 100 cases of CO poisoning, HbCO versus age. question of whether or not any Diesel ever built could possibly have done the abominable deed. The most frequent claim, however, is that the engines were Diesels from Soviet tanks.31 If Gerstein had claimed that the carbon monoxide was generated by gasoline engines, his story would be more credible. Gasoline engines can indeed kill rather easily and with little or no warning because their exhaust is almost odorless. Although Diesel engines look like gasoline engines, at least to most people, they are actually quite different. Any mining engineer or mine surveyor, such as Ger- stein was, should certainly have been able to easily distinguish between the two types of engines. For one thing, the sound of Diesels is so distinctive that almost anyone can with a little experience recog- nize them with his eyes closed. When Diesels are running, they actually warn us of their presence: their exhaust smells terrible. In other words, every Diesel engine comes with its own built-in ‘warning ingredient.’ The intensity of the smell or stench has, no doubt, given rise to the thoroughly false impression that Diesel exhaust must, therefore, be very harmful. The simple-minded but false logic which guides Holocaust believers is that, since gasoline engine exhaust can certainly kill, even though it has little odor, Diesel exhaust, 30 Hb(cid:152)CO – hemoglobin-carbon monoxide compound, the compound formed by CO and blood hemoglobin, whereby the oxygen (Hb(cid:152)O2, oxyhemoglobin) becomes displaced. 31 The Soviets used gasoline engines in some of their tanks (models BT, T 28, T 35). Soviet Diesel engines first ap- peared in 1939 in the T-34 Stalin tank and surprised everyone outside the Soviet Union at the beginning of the Ger- man-Soviet war (The heavy tanks KW Ia and KW II had Diesel engines, too). The heavy Diesel engine of the T 34, model “W2”, was a V12 cylinder Diesel (undivided chamber) with 550 hp, 38.86 l cubic capacity and a maximum 1900 rpm; cf. Augustin, Motortechnische Zeitschrift 5(4/5) (1943), pp. 130-139; ibid., 5(6/7) (1943), pp. 207-213; ibid., 6(1/2) (1944), p. 40; and H. Scheibert, Der russische Kampfwagen T-34 und seine Abarten, Podzun-Pallas Verlag, Friedberg 1988. Diesel engines from submarines are also mentioned: Jochen von Lang, Eichmann Interro- gated, Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, New York 1983, p. 75 (German ed.: Das Eichmann-Protokoll, Severin und Siedler, Berlin 1982, p. 72), mentions a Russian submarine; see also Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, Reclam- Verlag, Leipzig 1990, p. 181, who quotes a statement Eichmann made during the trial. Alleging the use of a large submarine engine in the heart of Poland is ridiculous. Marine engines are invariably far, far heavier than comparable horsepower automotive engines to achieve reliable, continuous, long-term service. 443 GERMARRUDOLF (ED.) · DISSECTING THE HOLOCAUST which has an intense odor, must be extremely deadly. The fact is, however, that there is absolutely no relationship between smell and toxicity since the most lethal in- gredient by far is CO which is to- tally odorless. Although Diesel exhaust is not totally harmless, it is one of the least harmful pollut- ants anywhere except for some possible long-term carcinogenic effects, which are totally irrele- vant for any gas chamber for mass murder. Diesel emissions have until re- cently been well within the air emission standards of the U.S. Graph 3: Comparison of carbon monoxide emissions from Diesel Environmental Protection Agency and internal combustion engines.33 without any modifications or ac- cessories.32 However, concerns over cancer from Diesel exhaust have made the issue quite compli- cated in recent years, but those concerns are only for long-term effects. In any event, Diesels have al- ways produced far less than 1%/vol. carbon monoxide, which is still the CO standard for all internal combustion engines. Gasoline engines have only met the same standard after many years of intensive research and the addition of many engine modifications and complex accessories including catalytic converters. Graph 3 compares carbon monoxide emissions from Diesel and gasoline engines. The latter are also called spark ignition engines because they use spark plugs. Clearly the logical choice between the two types of engines as a source of carbon monoxide would always have been the gasoline engine. From spark ignition or gasoline engines, one can easily get 7%/vol. carbon monoxide – and with malad- justment of the carburetor, as much as 12%/vol carbon monoxide – but from Diesel engines one can never get so much as 1/ %/vol. with liquid fuels, except during overloading. 2 Carbon monoxide emissions from internal combustion engines are commonly plotted as functions of air/fuel ratio or fuel/air ratio. Fuel/air ratio is merely the reciprocal of air/fuel ratio.34 It has generally been accepted by the automotive experts that the CO level of Diesel exhaust is related chiefly to these ratios and not to other factors, such as rpm. An air/fuel ratio of 100:1, for example, means that for every pound of fuel burned, 100 pounds of air are drawn into the engine. However, only about 15 pounds of air can ever react in any way chemically with each pound of fuel regardless of the air/fuel ratio or even the type of engine. This means that at an air/fuel ratio of 100:1, there are always about 85 pounds of air which do not react. These 85 pounds of excess air are blown out of the engine without undergoing any chemical change at all. As far as the excess air is concerned, the Diesel engine is nothing more than an unusual kind of blower or compres- 32 In Germany as well, the emission levels from Diesel engines have always been below the threshold values set by the Federal Emissions Regulation. This is why Diesels were the only kind of engine to be exempt from the mandatory use of catalytic converters until 1994. 33 David F. Merrion, “Effect of Design Revisions on Two Stroke Cycle Diesel Engine Exhaust”,Society of Automotive Engineers Transactions 77 (1968), paper 680422, p. 1535. 34 M. A. Elliott, R. F. Davis, “Composition of Diesel Exhaust Gas”,Society of Automotive Engineers Quarterly Trans- actions 4(3) (1950), p. 345. Unfortunately, some of the following graphs use air/fuel, some fuel/air ratios, so we are forced to use them both here. An air/fuel ration of 18:1 equals a fuel/air ration of 0.055 (20:1 = 0.05, 25:1 = 0.04, 33.3:1 = 0.03 …) 444