The Chelmno Trials

[Archie]

The tidbit at the end however was as unnecessary as it would be for me to tell you to piss up a rope.

Makes for a spicy exchange, but, it doesn't do much for constructive dialogue.

Honestly, spending 2 weeks travelling to Ludwigsburg, Chelmno, Warsaw — combined with sightseeing — is not exactly unbearable burden for anyone who genuinely wants to study this extermination camp in depth.

And this reply demonstrates why those who DID do deep-dive investigations, who visted the sites, who DID comb through the archives and then wrote and published their research-findings, don’t waste their time arguing about the facts on internet discussion forums with obfuscators and deludes.

We have people like Hans, N.Terry, Bombsaway, Spink, ConfusedJew, etc., who appear not to be in discussion to seek clarity and truth. They appear to be here to conceal and confuse.

Like Hans here, they rely on the fact that extremely few people have the time, resources or money to “spend 2 weeks travelling to Ludwigsburg, Chelmno, Warsaw — combined with sightseeing — [to] genuinely study this extermination camp in depth”.
The preposterous implication here is that if you haven’t done that then you aren’t “genuinely” studying the hopelessly flawed mass-gassing narrative.
Which is piss-poor reasoning.
Plus transparently ingenuine.

If you think about it, what Hans is saying contradicts the mainstream position rather dramatically. Would the mainstream tell you that you need to make a special trip to visit archives in Poland to prove the Holocaust? Absolutely not. They think there's "overwhelming evidence" for it, that it has been proved many times over, and that this proof has been readily available for many decades. It would be news to them that the decisive evidence for the Holocaust remains unpublished even now in 2025!

[Stubble]

If I'm being honest Archie, I don't think these trial minutes are going to prove a holocaust at chelmno. People don't get a couple years in prison for murdering over a hundred thousand people.

There has to be some, stuff, in those minutes. I want to hear the defense, something I rarely get to do.

I hear a lot from prosecutors, both in the IMT and from the court of historians. You don't really hear much from the Germans and what you do hear from them is after they have lost, had their families threatened and been beaten.

/shrug

[Wahrheitssucher]

Honestly, spending 2 weeks travelling to Ludwigsburg, Chelmno, Warsaw — combined with sightseeing — is not exactly unbearable burden for anyone who genuinely wants to study this extermination camp in depth.

And this reply demonstrates why those who DID do deep-dive investigations, who visted the sites, who DID comb through the archives and then wrote and published their research-findings, don’t waste their time arguing about the facts on internet discussion forums with obfuscators and deludes.

I would largely agree — with exceptions. Take me, for example: I have done deep-dive investigations. I’ve visited all the sites mentioned, combed through the archives, published some of my research findings.

Thanks for replying.
I personally am impressed that you have taken the time to do that. I assume that shows someone who isn’t prepared to just obediently accept without checking for themselves. If that WAS your motivation then you have my respect.

I have two questions for you. Both have two parts. Here’s the first question:
After all that ‘deep-dive investigation’:
Q1a.) what advantage has that given you in the quest to be certain about WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED in the Aktion Reinhard camps and in the Birkenau and Auschwitz1 camp?
Q1b.) What specific and relevant facts do you now know, that someone who hasn’t visited the sites can not know?

And yet, I still "waste" my time debating facts with obfuscators and deluded types on internet forums. Just calling it a "waste" is too harsh, maybe it's a bad habit, but one that does not do much harm.

I’m genuinely interested to know whether you really and sincerely think that well-informed revisionists and researchers like Zündel, Faurisson, Fritz Berg, Scott Smith, Kennady (Samuel Crowell), Dalton, and people here such as Archie, Callafangers, Stubble, Hans Hill, Wetzeltrad, myself, etc., are deliberately “obfuscating”?
Q2a.) I understand that if you yourself truly believe the mass-gassing narrative is accurate, will consider these persons ‘deluded’. But do you genuinely believe all these persons named have an agenda to ‘obfuscate’?
Q2b.) Either way, WHAT IS YOUR MOTIVE for debating deludes or deceitful obfuscators?

Like Hans here, they rely on the fact that extremely few people have the time, resources or money to “spend 2 weeks travelling to Ludwigsburg, Chelmno, Warsaw — combined with sightseeing — [to] genuinely study this extermination camp in depth”.
The preposterous implication here is that if you haven’t done that then you aren’t “genuinely” studying the hopelessly flawed mass-gassing narrative.

If your goal is to radically overturn an established consensus on any major, then yes, you'd better master the topic. I guess that's also precisely the intention of the OP.

You’ve moved the goalposts, Hans. As my avatar name signifies, I participate in online discussion to ascertain what is true. I’m open to being corrected and welcome reasoned, honest discussion that attempts to help me correct false understandings. I’m not here to “radically overturn an established consensus”. I’m here to see if there is any one who can give a credible, verifiable defence of the flaws I see in it.

Historical sources, many preserved in archives, are the major ingredient to modern history. It’s one thing to complain that not all archives over the world have yet fully digitized and made their collections freely available online. That's a fair discussion. But it’s something entirely different to deny that understanding the primary sources is a prerequisite for drawing radically different conclusions from the historical consensus.

I agree with you that “understanding the primary sources is a prerequisite”.
I’d add that this applies regardless if your motivation is to defend or critically analyse a genuine historiography.

When I first became astonished and disturbed by what I regarded as the deceits, exaggerations and illogicality of the currently consensus view, I went as much as possible to the primary sources for confirmation.
Interestingly Nick Terry implied that doing so was a ‘wrong’ research methodology, so he demanded to know which books I’d read by kosher holocaust historians before he’d engage in conversation with me.
As I see it, your two views combined, are arguing that there is no way anyone can know with certainty and that THEREFORE unless we just believe the consensus view, we are people who are being both ‘extremely naughty’ and ‘wrong’.
Please feel free to correct that view if you disagree with it.

[Archie]

When I first became astonished and disturbed by what I regarded as the deceits, exaggerations and illogicality of the currently consensus view, I went as much as possible to the primary sources for confirmation.
Interestingly Nick Terry implied that doing so was a ‘wrong’ research methodology, so he demanded to know which books I’d read by kosher holocaust historians before he’d engage in conversation with me.
As I see it, your two views combined, are arguing that there is no way anyone can know with certainty and that THEREFORE unless we just believe the consensus view, we are people who are being both ‘extremely naughty’ and ‘wrong’.
Please feel free to correct that view if you disagree with it.

They were doing that with me as well. This was Statistical Mechanic's favorite tactic, and it turned me off immediately. I would have been willing to hear them out, but that sort of stuff convinced me 100% that they were just full of crap.

"The decisive evidence is over here in this mountain of books (or over in this archive in Poland), I swear!"


When I first started interacting with those types, I had only been looking into the topic "seriously" for probably not even a year, but I had actually purchased a pretty big stack of books and had read a decent amount from them. I found it odd then when they immediately began attacking me for supposedly not reading (this was their assumption) and demanded a listing of all the books I read (a bibliographic dick-measuring contest if you will). This is essentially a gish gallop (flooding people with sources) but with an added layer of intellectual bullying. In my experience, if people have a good case, they are usually eager to share it with you. They aren't going to send you on a wild goose chase. They aren't going to call you an idiot for not having read as many books on the topic as full-time professional academics. When you see people doing this, they are just giving you the run-around.

All their wankery over book lists is pretty amusing when you consider the anti-revisionists we see posting here. ConfusedJew refuses to read books because he thinks AI is better. Nessie doesn't read books. Bombsaway rejects secondary sources entirely.

[Hans]

I have never considered Chelmno much of a priority, but I do have one point that I am curious about which you may know the answer to if you have reviewed this material. There is a well-known war-time report called the Szlamek report

yeah, heard about it:

https://holocausthistory.site/1942-02-0 ... tion-camp/

that describes the gas vans as having some unspecified type of gas stored in a separate container in the driver's cabin. In contrast, it seems all (?) of the postwar testimonies either say that the gas van used exhaust as the gas or they are vague/ambiguous and don't really explain the exact mechanism. Are you aware of any postwar testimonies that describe the same gassing procedure as what is found in the Szlamek report? I have yet to find one.

At the time Winer was imprisoned in Chelmno, the Sonderkommando Kulmhof operated two gas vans using gasoline engine exhaust directed into the cargo box. Winer did not personally witness the gassings - he explicitly states that the details were passed on to him by other Jewish prisoners involved in unloading the bodies. Given the conditions -SS and police guards present, Jewish prisoners had no access to the cabin - it's entirely plausible that the prisoners could not see the full mechanism. This is crucial, as a witness's description can only be as accurate and detailed as the observer point allows.

What they could observe was that the pipes delivering the gas came from the direction of the driver's cabin and that the driver controlled the process from there. From this, they apparently inferred that a "special apparatus" was located in the cabin. They didn’t realize that the pipes were connected to the engine’s exhaust system.

This is not evidence of a false testimony - it's a case of limited perspective. In fact, what the prisoners could observe when working inside the cargo box is largely consistent with other sources:

"The interior was lined with metal. There were no seats. On the floor were wooden slats like in a bathhouse, with a straw mat laid over them. Between the cargo area and the driver’s seat were two windows through which an electric lamp was used to look inside to check whether the victims were already dead. Under the wooden slats were two pipes, about two […] centimeters thick, coming from the driver’s cabin."

Most secondary sources say that the Chelmno vans were exhaust-based. But Montague, seemingly in an attempt to salvage the Szlamek report, theorizes that the testimony accurately describes a van with a bottled CO mechanism but this design was supplanted with the exhaust design. He claims they had both designs at Chelmno in Jan 1942. But I think the problem with this is 1) Szlamek knows nothing at all about exhaust gassings. Not only this, he describes two vans and says they were the same, contradicting Montague's speculation that there was one CO van along side the exhaust vans. 2) There seem to be zero postwar witnesses who know anything about a CO van at Chelmno. They say the vans used exhaust. This discrepancy suggests to me an evolving story, not legit witnesses describing real events. Note also that the Soviets began pushing exhaust-based gas vans quite heavily in 1943 which would explain the transition in the story.

Well, it's like this:

1. Sonderkommando Lange used gas vans operating with carbon monoxide from steel cylinders during 1940–1941.

2. This commando brought at least the well-known Magirus gas van to Chelmno.

3. Henryk Mania testified in 1962 that in Chelmno, "they gassed them with gas from the cylinder, and at a later period of time directly with gas from automobile engine".

4. Sonderkommando Lange received two engine exhaust gas vans on 8 December 1941 - the very first day of mass killing operations at Chelmno.

So what do we make of these facts?

By the time Winer was at Chelmno in January 1942, two gas vans on engine exhaust were in operation - consistent to his number of two gas vans. Given their limited view point, the Jewish prisoners may not have been able to identify the exact gassing mechanism and apparently inferred that a "special apparatus" was located in the driver’s cabin, which might be plausible for outside observers. It's also possible that rumors of earlier CO-based vans influenced how prisoners perceived what they saw in January 1942.

As for Patrick Montague, he isn’t attempting to "salvage" the Winer report but rather genuinely to understand why Winer referred to "apparatus". Montague is extremly carefully in his analysis of the gas vans, with a fair and cautious assessment. The real issue with Montague’s thoughtful analysis is that, at the time, he lacked access to the full range of sources, such as West German investigative files and previously inaccessible documents from East Germany.

I discovered a key source at the Bundesarchiv and published it here: https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot ... elmno.html

(without the blacked out names here)

The document shows the drivers of the gas vans with engine exhaust - and thus the gas vans - were on-site on the very first day of the killing operations on 8 December 1941.

By the way, recently contemporary photographs of the type of homicidal gas van also employed in Chelmno were published (taken in April 1942 by Einsatzgruppe B's Sonderkommando 7a):

https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot ... -nazi.html

[Hans]

If I'm being honest Archie, I don't think these trial minutes are going to prove a holocaust at chelmno. People don't get a couple years in prison for murdering over a hundred thousand people.

You should not put your own perspective - or today’s standards - on the West German judicial system of the 1960s. Simply being present at the scene was not enough to bring someone to trial. Proving beyond a reasonable doubt that a specific individual committed a specific killing was often difficult. And even when someone was convicted of murder or complicity in murder, there were numerous factors that could lead to a reduced sentence. Consider, for example, the judgment in the West German Chelmno trial in Bonn:

"As a mitigating factor, it must be considered that the defendants—none of whom were assigned to Chelmno of their own volition—did not act on their own initiative but on orders, and that they attributed an exaggerated importance to these orders, in a manner that was not uncommon in the mindset of that time. In doing so, they fell into a — albeit not excusable — error of prohibition. All of them held more or less subordinate ranks and, due to their military or police training, were accustomed to receiving and executing orders, regardless of their content.

Since the National Socialist seizure of power in 1933, they were also subjected to the influence of incessant, massive propaganda which proclaimed the will of the “Führer” as the highest law and demanded absolute obedience in the execution of even unpleasant and difficult tasks. This was especially true during wartime, for the demands of war have always required of subordinates many things that would be scarcely imaginable in peacetime.

Under these circumstances, it would have required considerable effort on the part of the defendants to critically assess the orders they received, especially given that their ability to think critically about the goals of the National Socialist rulers was already limited due to their generally only moderate intelligence. This was further impaired by the fact that the sense of right and wrong had, under the powerful influence of propaganda, largely been lost in society as a whole.

Upon being assigned to Chelmno, they suddenly found themselves caught in a situation that could easily have led them to the mistaken belief that all orders were binding and had to be carried out. This belief was especially reinforced by the conduct of their superiors, who—despite having had more opportunity to find a way out—also complied with the instructions from higher authorities and did nothing to release their subordinates from the criminal duties assigned to them. On the contrary, they essentially abandoned them.

The visit to the Chelmno camp by high-ranking party and police officials, notably Frick, Greiser, and Koppe, as well as by the then commander of the Schutzpolizei in Łódź, the witness Keu., and his deputy, the witness Roe., also had a reinforcing effect on the defendants in the same direction.

Moreover, the National Socialist racial ideology—though the defendants (with the exception of Möbius) did not identify with it—had long exerted its influence on them and contributed to their being more easily misused for their pernicious activity. Over time, they became more or less accustomed to the criminal nature of that activity and began to question it less and less critically.

Finally, it speaks in the defendants' favor that they led law-abiding lives both before and after their involvement in Chelmno and now all live in orderly circumstances. They show clearly genuine remorse and distress and have been atoning for their misconduct for years through a heavy emotional burden.

In weighing all these circumstances for and against the defendants, the purpose of the punishment to be imposed must also be considered. In doing so, it becomes clear that, due to the long period of time between the offense and the conviction, and in view of the prolonged internal suffering endured by the defendants, the need for retribution has been diminished. Moreover, now that the pernicious ideology of the National Socialist dictatorship has been overcome, considerations of deterrence and rehabilitation no longer carry as much weight."

Also, I don't know who you mean with "couple years in prison for murdering over a hundred thousand people". The Chelmno gas van driver Laabs was initially sentenced to 15 years for participating in the murder of 45,000 people. He lied about his assignement date to Chelmno on trial, claimed May 1942 in order to reduce his body count. As we have seen, he was on site from the very beginning in December 1941.

[Stubble]

Hans, I just want to read the minutes. Currently, I don't think they shake out to support mass murder being proven in that court room. I grant you, that is an opinion, I'd need to read the minutes to know for sure.

[Wahrheitssucher]

By the way, recently contemporary photographs of the type of homicidal gas van also employed in Chelmno were published (taken in April 1942 by Einsatzgruppe B's Sonderkommando 7a):

https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot ... -nazi.html

But this is just say so.
Without purchasing the book — only printed a month ago — there is no way ANYONE can verify ANY of the claims.

PLUS, this video [below] by the author on youtube isn’t very convincing.
• He talks with emotional hyperbole of “the horrific deaths of the victims”.
• He admits the book has been produced to combat two books on the previously rumoured-but-unproven, alleged gas-vans. So it is an admitted attempt to refute the research published by people whom he dismisses with ad hominem smear-tactics and ‘poisoning-the-well’ fallacious logic as “deniers”. This publication is thus admitted to not be the result of open-ended, impartial, objective research.
• The presentation on the website and on the video is clearly aimed at uncritical, faithful believers to shore up their faith.
• It is a publication advertised by (so presumably sponsored by) a transparently unobjective, biased and anti-German ‘Jewish Memorial’ indoctrination foundation:

“On June 25, 1999 after many years of debating the German Bundestag passed a majoritarian and cross-party resolution to build the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. For the implementation of the resolution, the planning and realisation of the Field of Stelae and the Information Centre, the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a foundation under public law, was established with effect from April 6, 2000.
Between April 2003 and May 2005 the Foundation was in charge of the building project for the Memorial and is now responsible for the running of the Memorial as a place of remembrance, information and encounter. According to the Foundation Act, it is also obligated to »ensure that all victims of National Socialism are remembered and honoured appropriately« as well as to point out the »authentic sites of remembrance«



https://www.stiftung-denkmal.de/en/foun ... oundation/

And then this quote below — visible on the page shown in a photograph of the book on the website — demonstrates it appears to be the same weak and discredited combination of i.) confirmation-biased conjecture and assumption plus ii.) eye-witness/lie-witness testimony.

QUOTE:

“Unfortunately; the fifteen photographs of the RSHA Series I gas van do not show a perspective of the inside floor of the RSHA-built gas van, nor the left-hand driver's side of the gas van, where the mechanism for feeding the gas from the exhaust pipe into the interior of the gas van was located. To visualise these features and for general case of understanding of the technical features of the RSHA-built gas van, I have prepared three drawings of the RSHA Series gas van with Diamond-T chassis) assigned to SK VIIa.
The drawings, which are included in this book, depict the left-hand driver's side of the gas van, the inside floor of the gas van and the mechanism for directing the exhaust gas into the gas van. They are drawn to an approximate scale based on: the fifteen photographs of the RSHA Series 1 gas van assigned to SK VIIa, and witness testimonies and surviving documentation relating to the RSHA-built gas vans.
They are not technical drawings and should be viewed in conjunction with reading the main text card, most importantly, the relevant endnotes to understand the assumptions underpinning them.

This appears to be relying on the same old, evidence-weak but emotively-strong approach to evidence assessment.

Compare with the approach of Holocaust Handbooks which provides ALL their research for open scrutiny via free e-books.

Have you read this book Hans?
If not I think you should be ashamed to be peddling this stuff as if it is definitive proof.

As for the reference to trials in Dortmund (where I used to live as a teenager), we should all know the post-war trials were hopelessly flawed parodies of justice. So just because these photos of vans may have been used in post-war trial, proves NOTHING.
Without presenting verifiable court transcripts, that may well be similar to arguing that employees of the Hamburg distributorship Tesch & Stabenow (TESTA), who were convicted in military courts in Hamburg in March 1946, prove homicidal gas chambers.
The owner of the firm Bruno Tesch, and his coworker Karl Weinbacher were charged with having knowingly supplied Zyklon B to murder jews in camps.
But there is actually ZERO evidence that Weinbacher and Tesch knowingly supplying Zyklon B to murder human beings.
And yet they were convicted of that, condemned to death and hung in the Hameln penitentiary on May 16, 1946.

I am open to being proved wrong, but on the surface — and with the woefully little EVIDENCE thus far provided — this looks at first glance like the equivalent of posting photos of tins of ZyklonB and giving an emotive speech outside the pesticide factory and claiming this is proof of Bruno Tesch and Karl Weinbacher’s guilt in participating in genocide.

[Wetzelrad]

By the way, recently contemporary photographs of the type of homicidal gas van also employed in Chelmno were published (taken in April 1942 by Einsatzgruppe B's Sonderkommando 7a):

https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot ... -nazi.html

Thanks for sharing. It's remarkable to hear the author say, in the youtube link shared by Wahrheitssucher, "There are two books by the deniers, and no book by a reputable historian." Obviously this is meant to be denigratory toward revisionists, but it takes some integrity to admit that this area has not been properly addressed by the believers. It's much more honest than the usual treatment. I look forward to hearing more.

[Hans]

Have you read this book Hans?
If not I think you should be ashamed to be peddling this stuff as if it is definitive proof.

Yes, I have read the book and I agree with Munro's assessment that the photographs picture a homicidal gas van at Sonderkommando 7a. I'm also trying to obtain the images myself, so I can share them without copyright infringement.

But it's typical that there's ranting about "definitive proof" from you. This projects your own expectations onto other people. For me, the photographs are further corroborative evidence for the gas vans and secondly, an exact contemporary visual representation of something previously known only through the lenses of written descriptions or sketches. It's definitely great to understand better what the gas vans looked like and how they were set up.

[Hans]

By the way, recently contemporary photographs of the type of homicidal gas van also employed in Chelmno were published (taken in April 1942 by Einsatzgruppe B's Sonderkommando 7a):

https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot ... -nazi.html

Thanks for sharing. It's remarkable to hear the author say, in the youtube link shared by Wahrheitssucher, "There are two books by the deniers, and no book by a reputable historian." Obviously this is meant to be denigratory toward revisionists, but it takes some integrity to admit that this area has not been properly addressed by the believers. It's much more honest than the usual treatment. I look forward to hearing more.

Well, there is no gas van monograph, but there are of course numerous discussion of the gas vans within a specific context in books and articles. For historians, the gas vans are one element within a topic on Nazi policy, in studies on Einsatzgruppen operations, Chełmno, Aktion 1005, Euthanasia...

But yeah, it will be valuable to have a comprehensive, consolidated study covering all aspects of these vehicles. Writing something like "Technique and Operation of the Nazi Gas Vans" was always a long-term goal of mine, but between work and family commitments, I’ve never had the time to push for it seriously. It's good that Munro will take away that burden

[Wahrheitssucher]

Have you read this book Hans?
If not I think you should be ashamed to be peddling this stuff as if it is definitive proof.

Yes, I have read the book and I agree with Munro's assessment that the photographs picture a homicidal gas van at Sonderkommando 7a.

Assessment?
Hmmm? Sounds then like its just photos of a van that are open to interpretation.

I'm also trying to obtain the images myself, so I can share them without copyright infringement.

Allegedly groundbreaking ‘historical research’ that has a copyright protection. How fascinating.

But it's typical that there's ranting about "definitive proof" from you. This projects your own expectations onto other people.

My “expectation” is that the ‘evidence’ should match the hyperbolic rhetoric in the video.
But you criticise me for wanting proof. Hmmmm? That’s perhaps rather revealing.

For me, the photographs are further corroborative evidence for the gas vans and secondly, an exact contemporary visual representation of something previously known only through the lenses of written descriptions or sketches. It's definitely great to understand better what the gas vans looked like and how they were set up.

So… ANYWAY… If the book’s contents aren’t ‘definitive proof’, what exactly is it?

Do you think this book’s contents could be interpreted by skeptics as yet another example of subliminal, confirmation bias that is inflating supposition, conjecture, assumption and dubious ‘eye-witness/lie-witness’ testimony to arrive at conclusions that skeptics will easily reject?

Asking for a friend.