Why the huge difference in the German camps and the so called 'death camps' at the war's end?

[borjastick]

So what has come out of general answers to the topic about the SS killing jews at the war's end is that it became obvious that there are questions to be asked about the huge disparity between the state of the camps in Germany such as Belsen and Buchenwald, and the camps where it is claimed millions were deliberately murdered such as Majdanek and of course Auschwitz.

We all know about the disgusting state of the camps as found by the allied troops in Germany with mass deaths, starvation, disease ridden inmates, piles of bodies and general desperation and pitiful scenes. But by contrast Auschwitz for example was not like that at all. It would appear the camp operated properly and efficiently until the end or close to before the Red army invaded. Yes in western europe the war had ravaged train lines, supply systems, availability of food etc but why in remote Poland was a camp many times the size of Belsen etc able to keep going and not succumb to the deprivations of the other camps mentioned? Did Auschwitz have an enormous factory farm producing food and a procurement office able to buy in all the necessary requirements?

I can't quite square this circle and ask for input please. Why was Auschwitz not gripped with deprivation, bodies piled high and walking disease ridden inmates when those pesky Russkies found it? Of course the other so called death camps such as Sobibor, Chelmno, Treblinka mysteriously disappeared into thin air so not much could be shown or found out about them.

[Eye of Zyclone]

Why was Auschwitz not gripped with deprivation, bodies piled high and walking disease ridden inmates when those pesky Russkies found it?

[Fred Ziffel]

A little something from my files

[Wetzelrad]

I disagree somewhat with the premise. Here is a quick breakdown in chronological order, sourced mainly from Wikipedia, numbers as reported.

Majdanek
1,000 prisoners evacuated in July 1944. Presumably 10x more unreported.
Thousands of prisoners liberated on July 24, 1944.
The Soviets' video submission to Nuremberg, reel 5, from timestamp 03:30, includes footage of the remains they found, including the excavation of naked bodies, a collection of skulls they (the Soviets) were building, bodies in the forest, the burned-out crematorium, and a pile of ashes.

Klooga
Partial evacuation in September 1944.
Only 85 survivors liberated on September 22, 1944.
2,000 bodies or partially cremated bodies were found, some of which appear in the same IMT video, reel 4.
Also see this Klooga atrocity poster capitalizing on the same material.

Auschwitz
58,000 prisoners evacuated to other camps on January 17, 1945.
Remaining <9,000 prisoners liberated on January 27, 1945.
>600 unburied corpses found. Only a small number of bodies appear in the Auschwitz liberation footage (reel 1, reel 2).

Ohrdruf
>6,000 prisoners evacuated April 1, 1945.
Remaining prisoners liberated April 4, 1945.
40 bodies found in a shed, more found in an incomplete pyre and on the road and in the forest, with supposedly 3-6,000 more recently buried or cremated by prisoners.

Buchenwald
~7,000 evacuated April 6-11, 1945.
>21,000 prisoners liberated April 11, 1945.
Piles of bodies found outside crematorium.

Bergen-Belsen
Receiving site for many evacuees.
60,000 survivors liberated April 15, 1945.
13,000 unburied bodies found.

Dachau
>10,000 evacuated April 26, 1945.
>30,000 liberated April 28, 1945.
Numerous bodies found piled up in crematorium, which was rendered inoperable by lack of fuel, plus more in a train car.

In my opinion, the west and east camps were similar and were portrayed similarly at war's end. Not hugely different. Where they do differ, it results from three things: the date of liberation, the state the camps were in, and how the Allies chose to portray them.

That is, the eastern camps were liberated earlier by several months, which meant they avoided some of the carnage caused by starvation and disease. They also had simply fewer prisoners left by the time liberators arrived. Most of their prisoner population had in fact been evacuated west, especially to Belsen. When the western camps were liberated, they had several times the population of the eastern camps, so it shouldn't be surprising if they had several times as many deaths.

Lastly, the western camps were part of a deliberate propaganda effort, which Eisenhower admitted to, as shown here. Ohrdruf was a small camp of no particular importance, but it was seized on by Eisenhower and his underlings because it was their first opportunity to photograph and film corpses. Chiefly for propaganda reasons. The other western camps followed, but at that point it was mere repetition. And it's important to point out that the eastern camps, in their worst parts, were also used for propaganda, it's just that the Soviet propaganda is less familiar to us in the Anglosphere.

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Still, none of this gets to the essential question: why do the supposed extermination sites not look the part? This will remain unanswered.

[Stubble]

I was under the impression the state of the camps when they were conquered in the east was explained by the order to halt operations attested to at the IMT. That wasn't the 'out' for this question?

Does the mainstream not say they didn't look the part because the masterful Germans, knowing they could be found out, halted operations and cleaned up?

[Eye of Zyclone]

I disagree somewhat with the premise. Here is a quick breakdown in chronological order, sourced mainly from Wikipedia, numbers as reported.

In my opinion, the west and east camps were similar and were portrayed similarly at war's end. Not hugely different. Where they do differ, it results from three things: the date of liberation, the state the camps were in, and how the Allies chose to portray them.

That is, the eastern camps were liberated earlier by several months, which meant they avoided some of the carnage caused by starvation and disease. They also had simply fewer prisoners left by the time liberators arrived. Most of their prisoner population had in fact been evacuated west, especially to Belsen. When the western camps were liberated, they had several times the population of the eastern camps, so it shouldn't be surprising if they had several times as many deaths.

Nobody claimed that there was no typhus epidemic in the eastern camps (typhus was mostly an Eastern European disease at that time after all) and that the Soviets didn't use typhus victims to make atrocity propaganda. But the enormity of the health disaster filmed and photographed in the western camps by the Anglo-American Allies in April and May 1945 convinced almost everyone (including the defendants themselves at the Nuremberg parody of justice!) that the "Holocaust" was true and it still does to this day. Atrocity stories have a small, short-lived impact on the minds that have not been preconditioned by shocking images such as the miscaptioned pics of the huge health disaster that devastated the last operational concentration camps of the collapsing Third Reich (i.e. the western camps, located at Dachau, Buchenwald and Belsen). And many people still remembered in 1945 that they had heard the same atrocity stories 30 years ealier and that it had been admitted later that these were propaganda lies. Impossible to sell them the Holocaust story without the Belsen-Buchenwald-Dachau Grand Guignol staged by the All-Lies in the spring of 1945.

Grand Guignol


Promotional poster for a Grand Guignol performance called "The Man Who Killed Death"

The Théâtre du Grand-Guignol was a theater in the Pigalle district of Paris (7, cité Chaptal). From its opening in 1897 until its closing in 1962, it specialized in horror shows. Its name is often used as a general term for graphic, amoral horror entertainment, a genre popular from Elizabethan and Jacobean theater to today's splatter films.

In a typical Grand Guignol performance patrons would see five or six short plays, all in a style that attempted to be brutally true to the theater's naturalistic ideals. The most popular and best-known were the horror plays, which featured a distinctly bleak worldview and gory special effects, particularly in their climaxes. The horrors depicted at Grand Guignol were generally not supernatural; rather these plays often explored altered states like insanity, hypnosis, or panic.

A former chapel, the theatre's previous life was evident in the boxes — which looked like confessionals — and in the angels over the orchestra. Although the architecture created frustrating obstacles, the design that was initially a predicament ultimately became beneficial to the marketing of the theatre. The opaque furniture and gothic structures placed sporadically on the walls of the building exude a feeling of eeriness from the moment of entrance. People came to this theatre for an experience, not only to see a show. The audience at Grand Guignol endured the terror of the shows because they wanted to be filled with strong "feelings" of something. Many attended the shows to get a feeling of sexual arousal.


A 1937 scene from Grand Guignol

Audiences had strong reactions to the new disturbing themes the horror plays presented. One of the most prevalent themes staged at the Grand-Guignol was the demoralization and corruption of science. The "evil doctor" was a recurring trope in the horror shows performed. During the time, curiosity and skepticism ravaged science and medicine. The depiction of scientists at the Grand-Guignol reflected the public attitude of fear and disdain. Medical science held a reputation of "terror and peculiar infamy".

Audiences waned in the years following World War II, and the Grand Guignol closed its doors in 1962. Management attributed the closure in part to the fact that the theater's faux horrors had been eclipsed by the actual events of the Holocaust two decades earlier. "We could never equal Buchenwald," said its final director, Charles Nonon. "Before the war, everyone felt that what was happening onstage was impossible. Now we know that these things, and worse, are possible in reality."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Guignol